The Book of Lost Fragrances

Forty-two

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT, 32 BCE

There was a fountain in the center room of his workshop, and Iset liked to lie there after she and Thoth made love. Smell the clouds of perfume. Listen to the splashing. Sometimes she fell asleep while he went back to work. He’d let her nap until it was almost time for him to perform the evening rituals. Then she’d clean herself off and hurry home. If she was missed, if her husband sent servants looking for her, if she was found and her infidelity was discovered, her husband could have her put to death. A nobleman had that privilege.

The sound of many footsteps approaching startled her wide awake.

“Who’s here?” She looked anxiously at her lover. “Were you expecting anyone?”

Thoth shook his head. “Hurry to the storeroom. Wait there,” he whispered.

Quickly, Iset got up, wrapped her linen gown around her naked body and ran to the far end of Thoth’s laboratory. Opening the door, she slipped inside.

The assault of smells was overwhelming. This was where the royal perfumer kept all the oils and unguents he used to create the queen’s scents.

Clearing a space on the stone bench, she moved several glass containers and sat. She felt her body trembling with fear. The footsteps were closer now. So many of them.

While she waited, she lifted the covers off the jars and smelled their contents. There was cinnamon, turpentine, and the essences of iris, lilies, roses, and bitter almonds. One alabaster jar held a perfume. Rich and rounded, with no single element overpowering the others. A complex, beautiful scent.

Suddenly, Iset was overcome with sadness. A sense of her own hopeless destiny. This passion was going to lead to pain. And it would be her fault. It always was, wasn’t it? Even when she was a child, her mother used to tease her that if there was ever trouble, she knew Iset was at the heart of it.

People were entering the workshop. Thoth was greeting them. Iset couldn’t focus-she was seeing a river. Barges swiftly traveling downstream. Strong, well-oiled men, rowing away from the center of Alexandria. Men standing guard. Women crying; children clinging to their legs.

Part of her mind was lost in the escape, while at the same time she was aware she was probably reacting to the unguent. Thoth had told her he had scents that caused hallucinations.

She had to regain her equilibrium; she needed to be alert if she was going to stay hidden. So, struggling against the fog, Iset tried to replace the covers and stoppers in the jars. One fell. Cracked.

The sound! Iset held her breath. Listened. There was still so much noise outside, she wondered if anyone had heard. Her stupor was fading. Clarity was returning.

Outside, the din settled down.

“Is the fragrance I created to help lull you to sleep working?” Iset heard Thoth ask one of his visitors.

“Yes, far better than wine. I wake up without any of the headaches that the fermented grapes give me.”

Iset put her hand up to her mouth lest she make a sound. It was her queen’s voice on the other side of the door. Why had Cleopatra come to see her perfumer herself?

“Do you have need for more?”

“Probably, you’ll have to ask Charmaine.” She named her attendant, who always traveled with her. “Have you created any new perfumes?”

“Yes, two. One that has a base of roses. Here…”

The queen was considered an intelligent woman, well educated and fair, but when it came to her perfumes, she demanded much of Thoth. Her love of fragrance was almost a compulsion. To please her, Mark Antony had built her this perfume factory and planted the surrounding land with the raw materials that would yield her favorite scents. Groves of rare persimmon trees. Balsam. Fields of lush, fragrant flowers.

Cleopatra had a vast array of scents. Many to honor the gods. Others to anoint the dead; to accompany them to the next world. There were unguents for her body, her hair, her bed linens and her clothes.

She had a collection of potions said to affect people in myriad ways. To encourage amorous activity. To soothe and calm a nervous disposition. To take away sadness and encourage joy. Thoth had told Iset he used the extract of Blue Lily as a base for these more complicated scents.

“Now,” Cleopatra said. “All of you. Leave me alone with my priest.”

There was a flurry of activity as the queen’s retinue departed.

Why did Cleopatra need to be alone with Thoth?

“Tell me about your progress,” she said after a few moments.

“It’s going very slowly, my queen. I don’t have any formulas to work with. Nothing like this has ever existed-”

“But you’ll be able to create it-won’t you? You said you would be able to.”

“I am doing all that I can.”

“Thoth, there has to be a way to remember the lives we’ve lived before. Caesar believed it, and so do I.”

Iset was shocked. Everyone knew that the soul traveled to the afterlife on the swirls of smoke. Incense was a ladder to immortality. Was Cleopatra suggesting that the ladder worked both ways? That the soul could descend by the smoke as well? Egyptians didn’t believe they came back to earth again.

“I need to find out what the past was in order to understand the future. To know who I was. Whom I was with. What I can learn will help me rule…” Her voice drifted off, then resumed more softly. “And allow me some peace. If I knew that Caesar and I had been together before, that we could be again…”

Thoth had once told Iset that only Greek philosophers believed the soul could be reborn again here on earth. But then, the queen’s ancestors came from Greece, didn’t they?

“If we return… If I return and those I’ve loved return, how will we know each other if you don’t help me?”

Gossips claimed Cleopatra still mourned her Caesar. That Antony was a simpleton compared to the elder statesman. That the queen was making the best of her fate but had lost her heart to the first Roman she’d loved.

“If the gods allow it, my queen, I will devise a way to find the formula.”

“The scent of souls, Thoth. I want it.”

Iset wondered what the queen’s face looked like when she spoke so intimately. Wondered if she had put her hand on Thoth’s arm. If she wanted him, she’d take him. The queen had amorous appetites. But Thoth wouldn’t respond. Would he?

Iset felt a pang of jealousy. The queen was talking so softly now, Iset had to strain to hear. She inched to the door. Trying not to make a sound.

“I don’t want anyone to know what you are working on. This concoction could be a powerful tool. One I wouldn’t want my enemies to have. Imagine if we all could look back to who we were before we were born in this life… see the many, many people we had been. Know our karma. Understand our fate. Imagine the knowledge we would have. What do you think it would be worth?”

“Worth killing for, my queen.”

“But not if no one know of its existence.”

“No one will.”

“What about your workers? Your lover?”

Iset stopped moving. Held her breath. Had Cleopatra heard something specific? Did someone in the court know? Or was it a random assumption because most men had lovers?

“This is your factory. Your oils. Your spices. Your flowers. Your incense. Your unguents. I do not speak of what I work on with other priests. Your formulas are written on scrolls that are hidden from sight.”

“Promise me you won’t give up till you have the scent,” she said as she sat down.

Thoth’s response was a low murmur.

Iset finally reached the doorway. There was just enough room in the space around the frame to see out.

Thoth was on his knees in front of his queen, his head bowed before her. Her hand played with his hair. But she wasn’t looking down at Thoth. Staring straight ahead, she seemed to be searching for something in the distance. In the past? The future? Suddenly Cleopatra stood. Her voice returned to its strident tone. “Please keep me informed of your progress.”

Iset stood in the dark and listened as the queen’s footsteps retreated. Thoth would come and get her when all was clear. Waiting, she thought about what she’d just heard. Why hadn’t Thoth told her what he was working on? Why hadn’t he shared this important assignment? If there was a fragrance that would reveal who you had been before, she wanted to smell it. What if she had been with Thoth in another life? Who had she been? Maybe she’d done something terrible? That would explain the feeling she had so often of tragedy mixed in with her passion when they were together.

“You can come out now.” Her lover stood at the entrance to the cool room, his hands outstretched. She ran to him. He pulled her close and ran his hands down her naked arms. “Is this where we were before the interruption?”

“Is it possible?”

“What, my sweet?”

“The fragrance the queen talked of? A smell that would show you past lives?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you said you’d find it.”

“I said if there was one I’d find it. If I could.”

“I want to smell it.”

“It will belong to the queen.”

Iset pulled back. “You won’t let me smell it?”

“Let’s not worry about this now.” He was nuzzling her neck. “I like it in here. Dark. Cool. A perfect place to-”

“Who is your loyalty to?”

“Iset…” He ran both hands down her back, cupped her buttocks. Pressed into her.

For the first time since she’d been with Thoth, his touch didn’t move her. His lips on her neck didn’t burn even a little.

“Answer me first.”

“You present me with a terrible riddle. I can’t betray my queen.”

She tensed.

“But I can’t betray you.”

She breathed in her lover’s skin. His own scent. Bergamot, lemon, honey, ylang-ylang and musk. It pleased her more than any other fragrance he made.

“I will keep your secret, Thoth. Don’t I keep all of our secrets?”