Chapter 31
Bagoas lifts me from the bath, wraps my loins in white cotton, and gently carries me to the bed, where he massages my limbs with perfumed oils while servants fan me, and Roxane applies compresses to my forehead. This is quite lovely, except when I am too hot for such attentions or freezing—which is most of the time. Often, I find my voice only to hear myself shouting nonsense, which frightens the servants and sends Bagoas or Roxane hurrying into my chambers.
“There, Husband, there,” she says, holding me to her breast.
And I am a child again, back in Pella with Mother, flowing from her womb onto the Mediterranean Sea of my dreams, across the Hellespont and down the Nile, the people waving papery fronds—a kind of mirage—as I reflect their greeting.
All life is water.
I am bei
