Cleopatra’s Daughter

times.”

She handed me a small jar of toothpaste, and I paused to look at her. “But how can a woman love so many men?”

“Your mother loved many men,” she pointed out.

“My mother had two men,” I said sternly. “Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. That was it.”

When Gallia looked disbelieving, my brother added, “It’s true. Whatever the gossip may be here in Rome, she had only two men, and she was loyal to our father until his death.”

“Like a univira,” Gallia said reverently.

I frowned.

“A one-husband woman,” she explained. “Well, you will not find many of those in Rome. A woman may be married for fifteen years, but if her father decides on a better match….” She snapped her fingers and I understood that to mean the marriage would be over. “It is also expected that a woman will remarry if her husband dies, even if she is fifty years old.”

“And who expects this?” I asked with distaste. I began to scrub my teeth.

Gallia held up her palms. “Romans. Men. It is the fathers and brothers who arrange these things. Domina Octavia is very fortunate not to have to remarry. Caesar has granted her special dispensation, and now she may keep her own house by herself.”

She led us back into our chamber, and while Alexander and I put on freshly washed clothes, I thought of Juba’s angry accusation that I would never have to dirty my fingers in Rome. Perhaps not, but I would be expected to marry and then remarry at Caesar’s whim. And Alexander. … If Octavian kept Alexander alive once he turned fifteen, who knew what would happen to him? We would be a pair of dice, thrown anywhere across the board so long as it pleased him, then picked up and thrown again and again.

Gallia tied the belt of my tunic, and I asked her quietly, “Are women of so little value in Rome?”

“When a girl is born,” Gallia replied, “a period of mourning is begun. She is invisa, unwanted, valueless. She has no rights but what her father gives her.”

“Was it that way in Gaul?”

“No. But now we are worse than invisae. Worse even than thieves. My father was a king, but Caesar defeated him and brought so many of our people to Rome that slaves are worth only five hundred denarii now. Even a baker can afford to keep a girl to pleasure him.” I winced, and Gallia spoke solemnly. “Become useful to Caesar. Do not let him hear you wish to run away, because there is nowhere you can go,” she warned. “Find a skill.” She turned to my brother, whose toga was immaculate. If not for the white diadem in his hair, he might have been a Roman. “Let him see that you are both worth something to Rome.”

“Why?” I asked bitterly. “So that I can be married off to a senator, and Alexander can be married to some fifty-year-old matron?”

“No. So that you can return to Egypt,” she said firmly, and her voice became a whisper. “Why do you think that Dominus Juba keeps company with Caesar? He hopes to be made prefect of his father’s old kingdom.”

“And Caesar would do that?” Alexander broke in.

“I do not know. Not even Dominus Juba knows. There is nothing left of my kingdom.” Her eyes grew distant, and I knew she was seeing some faraway horror. “But yours remains, and if you are obedient—”

There was a sharp knock on our door, then Marcellus bounded in. “Are we ready?” He smiled.

Gallia put her hands on her hips. “What is the purpose of knocking, Domine, if you are not going to even wait for an answer?”

Marcellus looked from my brother to me. “But I heard voices,” he said guiltily. “And how long could it take to put on a tunic?” His eyes swept over the pretty blue silk one that Octavia must have found for me, and he added, “A very pretty tunic.” My cheeks grew warm, and he offered me his arm. “To the Forum,” he said. “Of course, I don’t know what Magister Verrius thinks we’ll do today. The streets will be filled with so much noise he’ll have to shout over it just to be heard. But my mother insists.”

“Doesn’t she want you to be a part of the celebrations?” my brother asked.

“And miss school?” Marcellus asked sarcastically. “No. Besides, my uncle thinks one day of celebration is more than enough. He doesn’t want us to get used to so much excitement.”

We followed Gallia through the villa, and as we crossed the atrium, I saw that Octavia’s clients filled every available bench.

“Will her salutatio last all day?” I asked.

Marcellus shook his head. “Just another few hours. Then she’ll do her charity work in the Subura. She would feed all of Rome if she had enough grain.”

“Will we be doing charity work with her?”

Marcellus laughed at Alexander’s question. “Gods, no. After school, we’ll be in the Circus Maximus. I brought a few denarii so we can all place bets.”

Julia and Tiberius appeared on the portico, and at once I withdrew my hand from Marcellus’s arm.

Tiberius saw the gesture and laughed. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Julia has already seen you together and is working herself into a jealous frenzy as we speak.”

Julia smiled sweetly at Marcellus. “Don’t pay any attention to him. Selene and I are going to be great friends.” She made a show of taking my arm.

“Will your father be sending soldiers to escort us?” I asked.

“Who needs soldiers?” she replied. “Gallia was a warrior in her tribe.”

I looked at Gallia. With her wheat-colored hair and proud Gallic chin, she was the image of a queen, but as the sun filtered through her tunic I saw the outline of a leather sheath on her thigh. It was a companion to the knife she wore openly at her waist, and I blinked in surprise. “You fought?”

“When the men are all gone, or have been killed, it is up to the women. But I cannot fight off a mob if their intent is evil. That is what they are for.” She gestured behind her to a group of men. If not for the short swords at their sides and chain mail beneath their togas, they might have been senators or wealthy patricians.

“Have they been following us all along?” I asked.

Julia sighed loudly. “Every day. From the moment we leave our villas.”

Gallia led us down the Palatine, and as the silence grew heavier between me and Julia, I said quietly, “You know, there is nothing to be jealous of. Marcellus has been treating me like a sister.”

She stared ahead at the figure of Marcellus, who was leaning on Alexander’s shoulder and laughing. I guessed the pair of them were talking about gambling. Tiberius, meanwhile, lagged several steps behind, his long nose buried in a scroll. “That may be,” Julia began, “but you aren’t his sister, are you? And it’s hard to resist such a pretty smile.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You don’t think about him?” she demanded.

“I think about Egypt, and returning to the land of my birth.”

Her grip on my arm relaxed, and for the first time, her smile was genuine. “You know, I’m engaged to be married to him.”

“At eleven?”

“I was engaged when I was two,” she said crossly. “So why not now, when I’m nearly twelve? And when we marry, everyone in Rome will see who my father’s heir is intended to be. Then Tiberius can finally disappear into the army, and we can all stop pretending he’s of any importance.”

“Is that what he wants to do?”

“Who knows what Tiberius wants to do?” she asked nastily, glancing back at him. “And I doubt if anyone cares but his mother.” Her voice grew low. “You know, she has two thousand slaves on the Palatine.” When I gasped, she nodded, and a curl escaped from the golden band nestled in her dark hair. “They live on the western end of the hill.”

“But I haven’t seen them.”

“Of course not. That’s because there are underground passages. We don’t want them crowding up our roads. But you would think she did all of the work herself, with the way she complains about needing more slaves. And she sells any girl who falls pregnant.”

“Because she can’t get pregnant with Octavian’s heir?”