Cleopatra’s Daughter

“Then you can quit feeling sorry for yourself. You’re still alive.”

Outside, thousands of people were singing and dancing to the music of flutes. Soldiers attempted to keep the plebs away from the senators, who were organizing themselves in lines for the procession, but it was a fool’s task. Juba led us through the madness to a wooden float, which had been decorated to look like an Egyptian chamber, and began to mount the steps. In front of me, my brother stopped suddenly, and I followed his gaze. At the top, a wax figure of my mother lay on a couch with a cobra coiled between her breasts.

“Don’t look,” he said angrily. “They want us to weep in front of Rome.”

I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted blood, and Juba pointed to a pair of gilded thrones, where we were supposed to sit beside the likeness of our mother. “You will not move,” he instructed. “Or even think of escape.” My eyes flashed, and though I didn’t ask Or what? he added, “There are thousands of soldiers here today, and every one of them would love to claim that he killed one of Marc Antony’s children.”

I sat obediently and forbade myself from thinking of Charmion. She had hated the noise and closeness of parades, and her heart would have broken to see us sitting there amid the signs of all the cities that Octavian had conquered. Some of the men below were dressed as personifications of rivers the Roman legions had crossed, including the Euphrates and the Rhine. But what would have saddened Charmion the most were the women who had been chained together, naked except for signs on their chests that identified their conquered tribes.

Alexander surveyed the scene below us; then suddenly he turned to me and whispered, “No one is ever kept alive after a Triumph.”

“Then why give us rooms? Why let us stay with Octavia?”

“To keep us obedient!”

I searched my brother’s face. “Then what do we do?” Alexander lifted his kilt, and when I saw the outline of a knife, I exclaimed, “How did you—?”

“Shh. I took it from Marcellus. I told him I needed to cut the ropes on our traveling chests and he never asked for it back. We may still be executed, but not without a fight.”

When the Triumph began, it became a blur of people and soldiers. I was aware of the chariot in front of us, pulled by a team of four white horses and carrying Octavian with his wife and sister. All three were wearing wreaths of laurel, but only Octavian’s face had been stained with vermilion to remind the people of Jupiter, the father of the gods and administrator of justice. I watched Octavian smile through his dark-red mask, and wondered what role he would perform once the procession reached the temple. Would he be the executioner?

We passed the Temple of Divus Julius, where a speaker’s platform had been built from the prows of ships Octavian had captured at Actium. And while crowds of people screamed below us, I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of blood rushing in my ears. From the tops of porticoes streamed long crimson banners, and in a courtyard where children were playing games, a statue of the Egyptian god of death had been erected, with a collar below its canine head and a sign that read, BARKING ANUBIS HAS BEEN TAMED. There were other signs as well, rewards for slaves who’d gone missing or had been captured. Slave catchers, who called themselves fugitivarii, clearly thought that this was the time to advertise their services, and I wondered if slaves used public days like this to escape from their households. I looked down at the chains around my wrists, thinking it might be possible for us to escape. But Juba hovered next to Octavian like a hawk, studying the crowds with his sharp black eyes, watching, waiting.

When we reached the Capitoline Hill, the floats were surrounded by the cheering, drinking mobs as they groaned their way toward the top. The senators tried to push the men back, and soldiers made threatening gestures with their shields, but no one wanted to shed Roman blood on a day of victory. The crowds chanted, “Io Triumphe!” and when I turned my head I could see that, below us, the smaller floats carried treasures from my mother’s mausoleum. Gold and silver gleamed from open chests, and the sun was reflected from the beautiful wine bowls and golden rhyta my father had used when he was alive. We rolled to a stop before Jupiter’s temple, and for the first time I could see Marcellus and Tiberius on their horses. Both of them dismounted, but it was Marcellus who came toward us. I glanced at my brother, whose hand went swiftly to his knife.

“Marcellus would never hurt us,” I said.

“He will do whatever Octavian commands.”

But as Marcellus mounted the steps of our float, he looked from my brother to me and his color rose. “What is this?” he shouted. “Somebody take off these chains!” The same old man who had appeared in the Senate approached the base of our float with a key. “Today!” Marcellus snapped impatiently. As soon as we were free, he led us down the steps and shook his head understandingly. “It’s over now.”

But Alexander hesitated. “So what will your uncle do with us?”

“When?”

“Today,” my brother replied.

“I doubt you will be the guests of honor, if that’s what you mean. He will probably ask Agrippa—”

“But are we to be executed?” I cried.

Marcellus recoiled. “Of course not.” He looked at both of us, startled by our solemn silence. “Is that what you were thinking?” When neither of us answered him, he swore, “My mother would never let that happen. You’re like her own children.”

“So was Antyllus,” Alexander reminded him, “and he was slaughtered at the feet of Caesar’s statue in Alexandria.”

Marcellus nodded gravely. He had been raised with our half brother Antyllus during the years that that Octavia was married to our father, and had known him far longer than we ever had. “This is different,” he promised. “You’re too young to threaten him.”

“And when we turn fifteen?” my brother demanded.

“He will marry you off. Until then, you’ll just have to suffer through school with the rest of us.” There was a blast of horns and Marcellus motioned quickly. “Hurry!”

Inside the Temple of Jupiter, men stepped aside when they recognized Marcellus, and as we made our way past the bodies of sweating senators, an old man held out his hand to me. “For you, Selene.”

I recognized the symbol of Isis on his belt at once. To anyone else, the knot would have been unremarkable, but I knew it was a sacred tiet. I looked around, but the temple was too crowded for anyone to see. Quickly, I took the slip of papyrus from his hand.

“A thousand blessings,” he said as I passed.

As we reached the altar I pretended to adjust the brooch at my shoulder. I unpinned it and, slipping the scrap of papyrus beneath, repinned it so that no one could see. Then my heart began to beat faster in my chest. I wondered what the message might be—rebellion, rescue, delivery from Rome—and when I looked up, I saw Juba watching me.

CHAPTER SIX

WE WERE given time to prepare ourselves before the Feast of Triumph, but I didn’t show Alexander what I had received. Instead, I slipped the secret message into my book of sketches. Then, while Gallia brushed my wig and laid out a fresh tunic, I took the book with me into the bathing room and read the note.

There is hope in the Temple of Isis. Egypt is lost only so long as the Sun and Moon are imprisoned. I wish for the Sun to come, and we shall prepare for a time when the Moon may rise again.

It was written in hieroglyphics, and even if the message was short, its meaning was clear. If I could make my way to the Temple of Isis, the High Priest would find a way to return us to Alexandria. I thought of the madness in the Temple of Jupiter, where a thousand senators had crowded together, laughing and drinking and chanting “Io Triumphe!” Those same senators would be invited to Octavian’s villa, and I was certain I could slip away unnoticed. Of course, Alexander couldn’t come. If both of us disappeared, the alarm would be raised, and there would be no time to meet with the High Priest. Besides, if I told Alexander what I was doing, he would argue against it. I closed my book of sketches, and when Gallia returned, I asked casually, “Do you know