Cleopatra’s Daughter

“This might be the last time we ever see the Museion,” I said. Or the palace, or the Temple of Isis and Serapis. “I’ve never sketched Alexandria from the harbor,” it occurred to me.

“We’ll be back,” my brother said sadly. He looked beyond the water to the city of marble that had been built over hundreds of years by the Ptolemies. In the brilliant sunshine, the city rose like a blinding white beacon, home to the greatest minds in the world.

“I want to stay.”

“Octavian is already on board,” my brother warned.

“And who cares what Octavian is doing?”

“You should.” Alexander, always the practical one, added bitterly, “you’ve seen how it’s been these past months. Nothing happens for us now without his say.” He took little Ptolemy’s hand in his. But I remained on the pier, and only turned away when Agrippa said that it was time. He led the three of us to our cabin, the same one Alexander and I had shared when our mother took us to Thebes every winter.

“This door is always to remain open,” Agrippa instructed. “Do not close it. Do not lock it.”

“Even when we sleep?” Alexander asked.

“Even then. If you would like food, you may ask me. If you are sick, go to the railing, but never disturb Caesar for anything.”

Our room faced onto an open courtyard where Octavian was already reclining on a couch, scribbling across a scroll with his reed pen.

“Caesar spends most of his day writing,” Agrippa explained. “There is never a time when he isn’t busy. If he wants to hear noise, he will ask for the harp.”

Alexander and I both looked to Ptolemy. How would a seven-year-old child keep silent on a two-month voyage? And we weren’t even allowed to shut the door.

I sat on one of the cedar beds and pulled Ptolemy onto my lap. “You are going to have to be very quiet on this ship. Do you understand?”

He nodded, and his curls bounced up and down. “Will Mother be coming?”

I looked at Alexander.

“No, Mother won’t be coming,” he said softly. “Don’t you remember?”

Two small lines creased Ptolemy’s brow. “She’s with Father, in Elysium?”

“That’s right.” Alexander seated himself on the second bed, and we avoided each other’s gaze. Outside, Juba and Agrippa joined Octavian in the courtyard as the ship wrenched away from the port. With the door open, we could hear their conversation.

“It’s finally over,” Juba said, reclining on a separate couch.

“It’s never over.” Octavian looked up from his scroll. “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

“Then perhaps Plato was wrong, and you’ll forge something different. Who in Rome is going to challenge you now?”

Octavian smiled. “Antony did me a favor by getting rid of Cicero. He taught the Senate a powerful lesson. Seneca and the rest of the old beards will keep their silence.”

“For now,” Agrippa warned.

“Yes,” Octavian said, after a pause. “The danger is no longer with the old men. I must restore the prestige of the Senate. I must make equestrians’ sons want to be senators again.”

“That would mean convincing them to come out of the whorehouses first,” Agrippa said dryly.

“Then I will close the whorehouses!” Octavian flushed. “They are breeding grounds for rebellion.”

“And you will have a different kind of rebellion on your hands,” Juba said. “The boys visit them because they have nothing better to do. But if you increase the Senate’s pay and power, they will think you are bringing back the Republic and they’ll leave the whorehouses on their own. That was what Caesar forgot, and what Antony never knew.”

The three of them looked into our cabin, and Octavian beckoned to Alexander with his finger.

“Me?” my brother asked.

Octavian nodded, and my brother stood.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“He wants me to go.”

While Alexander crossed the short distance between our room and where Octavian sat, Ptolemy cried sharply, “You’re hurting me.” I was holding him so tightly I was crushing his chest.

“Tell me about your father,” Octavian said.

Alexander looked back at me, wondering what kind of game Octavian was playing.

“He loved my mother,” Alexander replied.

“And horses.”

Alexander raised his chin, and the long white chiton he was wearing flapped in the warm sea breeze. “Yes. He taught me to ride as soon as I could walk.”

“They say your father held races every day of the week. Is that true?”

Alexander grinned. “Yes. There was nothing he loved more than the races.”

“Even his kingdom,” Octavian remarked, and I saw Alexander flinch. “Tell me about your sister. Did he teach her to ride as well?”

My brother’s voice was not so bright when he replied. “No. She sketches.”

Octavian frowned.

“Drawings of buildings and temples,” he explained.

“Bring one to me.”

Alexander returned to our cabin, and I shook my head angrily.

“Never!” I hissed. “Didn’t you hear him? He thinks our father squandered away his kingdom.”

“And what did our father like more than races and wine?”

I thought of my father’s last request, and sat back among the cushions.

“He asked, Selene. What if this is a test? Please. Give him the one overlooking Alexandria. The one you drew at the Temple of Serapis.”

Ptolemy looked up at me with his wide blue eyes, waiting for me to tell him to get my book.

“Selene,” Alexander whispered nervously, “they’re waiting.”

It was true. Beneath the potted palms of the courtyard, the three men were watching us, though so long as we kept our voices low they couldn’t hear what we were saying. “Pass me my leather bag.”

Ptolemy scurried across the bed for my bag. He handed it to me as if it were a rare and precious stone, and I took out the leather-bound book of sketches, with its title neatly penned by Charmion in gold ink. Her father had been a great architect in Egypt. When she was young he had taught her the beauty of building and the precise penmanship required of architects, and then she had passed these abilities on to me.

“Hurry,” Alexander implored.

I flipped through the pages and unfolded a loose sheaf. It was an image of Alexandria: her roads, her temples, the palaces that spread like the feathery wings of a heron across the Lochias Promontory. Charmion had taught me to pay attention to even the smallest details, and I had captured the sea foam as it broke against the Lighthouse, and the still faces of the marble caryatids that lined the Canopic Way.

Alexander snatched the parchment from my hand and returned with it to the sunny courtyard. Agrippa saw it first, then Juba, and by the time it made its way to Octavian, all three men had fallen silent. Octavian pushed back his wide straw hat to see it better.

“Your sister drew this?”

“When she was nine, from the Temple of Serapis.”

Octavian ran his finger over the drawing, and I didn’t need to lean over his shoulder to know what he was seeing. His eyes would be drawn first to the Lighthouse, whose four corners were crowned by bronze images of the sea god Poseidon. Then he would see the great statue of Helios, copied from the colossal masterpiece in Rhodes and straddling the Heptastadion. From there he would see the Museion, the towering obelisks taken from Aswan, the theater, the public gardens, and the dozens of temples dedicated to our gods.

“Your sister has great talent. May I keep this?”

From the cabin, I gave a little gasp. “No!”