risk or the disfiguration.”

Octavian clenched his jaw. “Then perhaps they need incentives.”

“Such as what?” Tiberius asked under his breath. “A Festival of Fornication?” At Octavian’s look, he immediately fell silent.

“Monetary incentives,” Agrippa said.

“For having children?” Marcellus exclaimed.

“There will be dangerous times,” Octavian warned darkly, “when there are more slaves than Romans.”

“Then we should banish the Columna Lactaria,” Tiberius suggested. “Those children all become slaves. Imagine them all rising up—”

“And tomorrow will be the real test,” Agrippa warned. He didn’t explain further, but when Gallia and Juba escorted us to the ludus the next morning, I realized what he’d meant.

Julia covered her mouth with her hand, and Gallia made a poor attempt at suppressing a smile.

“I don’t believe it,” Tiberius said.

At every temple door, at every crossroads, crowds gathered to read the latest actum. Even on the doors of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, the Red Eagle and his men had nailed their pieces of papyrus. Juba clenched his jaw, and as soon as the plebs saw him approach, one of the acta was immediately torn down. The other one he ripped away himself.

“I don’t understand,” my brother said. “Why aren’t the priests taking them down?”

“They’re afraid to anger the plebs,” Julia whispered. “And even if the acta are taken down, people are probably copying them as we speak.”

When Juba returned with the crumpled actum, Marcellus asked eagerly, “What does it say?”

“Nothing you need to know about.”

“But we’re going to read it anyway,” Tiberius argued as we crossed the Forum. “If not now, then at some other point.”

“We just want to be aware of what’s happening in Rome,” Julia pleaded. “Magister Verrius is always telling us to pay attention.”

Juba smiled. “I doubt that reading treachery was what he meant.”

“But these are all over,” Marcellus argued. “There’s dozens of them. Do you want us to be the only people in Rome who don’t know what the Red Eagle is saying?”

“My father wouldn’t care,” Julia promised as we reached the ludus. “He never keeps these things from us.” It was true. In the triclinium, there was nothing Octavian wouldn’t discuss, from banishing lupanaria from Rome to prosecuting adulteresses. “This is how we learn.”

Juba handed the scroll to her. “I’ll be interested in hearing what this teaches you.”

Everyone gathered around Julia. There was no harm in reading, only in speaking, and the five of us read in low voices. It began with a stern warning against murder.

There are a thousand other ways to get revenge. While I cannot advocate stealing from your masters, thievery comes in many different forms. Your lives have been stolen from you. Why, then, should you break your backs attempting to meet the demands of your masters? If it’s a farm you work on, be slow with the wheat. If it’s a lender you work for, make your records faulty. You cannot be punished for stealing time, or for simple accidents with the reed pen. And if you fear death at the hands of your enslavers, remember, death can come even when you are innocent. Do not forget the two hundred slaves who will die tomorrow with no blood on their hands. Women, children, infants still too young to walk.

The actum went on to list the name of every slave who would be executed at dawn.

“This is terrible,” I whispered.

“How did he find out the name of every slave?” Alexander wondered.

“Are we finished?” Juba demanded. “Or would we like to go on discussing this in the open Forum?”

Inside the ludus, Magister Verrius was waiting at his desk. He didn’t stand to greet us, and he looked as though he’d had very little sleep.

“Did you hear about the Red Eagle?” Julia asked eagerly.

“Yes,” Magister Verrius said curtly. “And I presume he is the reason we’re all late this morning?”

“But we had to read it!” Marcellus protested.

Magister Verrius held up his hand. “I don’t want to know. Just take your seats and begin your work.”

Tiberius hesitated in front of his desk. “There’s not going to be a contest today?”

Magister Verrius shook his head firmly. “No.”

That evening, Octavian’s mood was sour as well.

“What’s the matter with everyone?” Julia asked.

Although a harpist’s music filled the triclinium, Marcellus lowered his voice. “What do you think? Tomorrow, two hundred innocent slaves are to be executed.”

She broke open an oyster and dipped it in garum sauce. “So how does that affect my father?”

Octavian had invited his favorite poets to entertain him. Livy and Maecenas dined next to Horace and Vergil, but even their humor couldn’t make him laugh. I saw Terentilla reach for a glass bowl, and when her hand brushed Octavian’s, he still didn’t smile.

“He thought he had crucified the Red Eagle,” Marcellus guessed, “and now that the rebel has returned, he’s nervous about what might happen tomorrow.”

“I don’t see how he can free them,” my brother said practically. “They’re chained inside the Carcer.”

“And they’ll be taken by more than a hundred soldiers to the Esquiline Gate for crucifixion,” Julia added. “There isn’t any hope.”

But Marcellus wasn’t sure. “He’s managed it before.”

“Without his own soldiers, he’ll never manage this,” my brother said.

At the table next to us, Livia rose and addressed the diners. “Shall we hear the first poem of the night? Horace, give us something triumphant.”

A balding man stood up from his couch and took his place in the center of the chamber. “Triumphant,” he said musingly. “But which one of Caesar’s many triumphs?”

“The Battle of Actium,” Livia said. “Or Kleopatra’s death.”

Horace smiled. “An ode, then, to Queen Kleopatra.”

Marcellus looked from me to Alexander.

“We should leave,” I said immediately, but Julia put her hand on my arm.

“Livia wants my father to be upset with you. Don’t risk it,” she whispered.

“His mood is already dark,” Marcellus warned quietly. “Just stay, and try not to listen.”

But it was impossible to ignore the lies that Horace twisted into a poem.

When Horace was finished, my brother looked at me. Although the poem had begun by portraying our mother as a “drugged” queen, the last three stanzas praised her as a warrior who accepted her death unflinchingly. Horace bowed his head respectfully in our direction, and Octavian stood up from his couch to applaud.

“Magnificent.” He looked at his wife. “What did you think?”

Livia smiled weakly. “The beginning had a great deal of promise. Unfortunately, I found the end dispensable.”

Octavian looked down at Terentilla. “Inspired,” she told him.

I turned to my brother. “I’m leaving,” I whispered.

“You can’t go by yourself!”

“If you don’t want to come, Gallia’s in the atrium. She’ll take me back.”

Alexander hesitated.

“I won’t hear another poem about Egypt,” I told him.

“But Octavian will think it’s a slight.”

“Then you stay.” I stood without finishing my meal, and when I reached the atrium, I searched among the seated slaves for Gallia.

A boy rose from his stool. “Is there someone you’re looking for, Domina?”

“Gallia,” I told him.

Вы читаете Cleopatra’s Daughter
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату