Free Hand of Isis by Jo Graham Page A

just the votive statue under the sungate.”
    “We need some incense,” Iras said. “And an offering. I can get some incense out of the storeroom when we reset the temple after the Morning Offices. But we need something to offer.”
    One of the birds was out, I thought. To start with, every cat in the temple would come around yowling, wanting to know why they were being fed at an unexpected time.
    “Wine,” Cleopatra said. “It won’t make any noise. And we can get it in the kitchen.”
    The next evening, when everyone had gone to bed, we rose in the tenth hour of the night and slipped out of our rooms.
    The Chapel of Isis was bathed in moonlight streaming in from the sungate overhead. Through the square we could see the night sky, the stars paled by the light of the full moon. It lit a lozenge on the stones in front of the statue.
    Isis sat regally, infant Horus on Her lap, His lips against Her breast. Her face was serene, carved eight hundred years ago from black basalt. On the walls behind, Her face looked out at us over and over, from different stories. Enthroned beside Her husband Osiris, She presided over the judgment of the dead, Lady of the Halls of Amenti, with Her wise eyes. On a different panel She ruled the waves, Isis Pelagia, the Lady of the Sea, Queen of Love and Desire.
    They were all Her, I thought, the chaste Widow with Her sorrows, the Sea Lady with Her breasts like shells, untamable and unknowable, and the Mother of the World with Her child, compassionate for us all. They were different sides of Her, different faces. No one would ever know all there was of Her. No one could ever embody it all.
    There was the sudden scent of smoke and resin as Iras lit the incense on the brazier at the back of the chapel, stirring the coals to life. Cleopatra stood in the middle of the lozenge of light, the moonlight shining on her white linen gown as she waited, a cup of wine in her hands. She looked up, and the light limned her face, as though she were carved from white stone, counterpoint to the black.
    “We could sing the welcome,” Cleopatra said. We all knew the beginning of the Morning Office, and even though it was the middle of the night, it seemed like it might be a good idea. I came to stand beside her, and we began.
    Morning Star, Lady of Morning,
    Queen of the Heavens bright
    You come before the sun to show us
    Hope of the coming dawn . . .
    She stepped out of the shadows made by the moonlight through the sungate. I thought that She was young and slender, Her red sheath ornamented with gold beads and Her hair worked in dozens of braids, Her high, small breasts half-covered by the straps of the dress. “What do you seek, daughters of Ptolemy?” She asked.
    I clutched at Cleopatra’s hand, wondering if she saw Her too. From the expression of utter terror on her face, I thought that she did. Iras looked disbelieving, as though of all things she had not really expected this to work. I looked at Cleopatra and she looked at me, each of us willing the other to say something.
    Isis laughed, and Her voice was clear and soft. I thought, with some surprise, that She looked hardly older than us, a girl in the first flush of womanhood, serene and confident in Her own beauty, and exactly my height. “Are you so frightened, little sisters?”
    “Yes,” Cleopatra said, at exactly the same moment I said, “No.” Iras said nothing.
    She laughed again, and Her eyes fell on me, dark and warm and sparkling, as though I shared Her joke. “Why then do you call Me, daughters of Ptolemy?”
    Cleopatra cleared her throat. “To ask You . . . to petition You . . . to make me Queen of Egypt.”
    Her eyes grew serious then, and She put Her head to the side like a questioning cat. “No questions about lovers? No pleas for beauty or love, as young women most often do? ‘Make me Queen of Egypt’? Why should I do that?”
    “Because she’s the best heir there is,” Iras said. “Because You love the Black Land, and