Cleopatra’s Daughter

somewhere else.

“Someday,” Marcellus whispered, “if I become Caesar, we’ll return Alexander and Selene to their thrones, and in return they’ll show us Alexandria.”

Julia looked at her father. Now that winter was over, the color had returned to his cheeks, and he appeared strong. “That could be many years,” she said fearfully.

“Already wishing death on Caesar? That’s how treachery begins,” Tiberius warned.

“No one said anything about death,” Marcellus said.

But Tiberius grinned. “I know what she meant.”

“You don’t know anything,” Julia retorted angrily. “You smile and listen like a sickly cat hoping for a scrap of meat to run to my father with. You think I don’t know that you tell him everything we say?”

He snorted. “As if I cared enough to do that. Try Juba. He’s the spy.”

But Julia sat forward. “You hope that if you tell my father everything, he’ll trust you enough to send you to war alongside Agrippa. Maybe even make you a general, and you’ll never have to come back here.” She snorted. “But that’s never going to happen. My father will keep you here, dancing like his puppet until he’s gone. The heir.” She looked from Marcellus to Tiberius. “And the spare.”

There was a crash of crystal on the mosaic floor, and everyone turned.

“You stupid son of an ass!” Pollio shouted. He leapt from his chair, thundering toward the old man who cowered on the floor.

“Please, Domine, I didn’t mean—”

Pollio lashed out with his foot, kicking the slave squarely in the jaw. The old man fell back against the shattered glass, and Horatia rushed from her couch.

“Please, Pollio—”

“This is the finest crystal we own!” he shouted.

Julia and Tiberius exchanged glances; their own bickering was silenced.

“This asinus has broken one of my largest vessels. Octavia wanted to know why I have eels?” He turned to the guards at the door of the triclinium. “Take him to the pool!”

The old man clasped his hands before his bloodied face. “Please, Domine.” His voice became hysterical. “Please! Kill me here, but not the eels.”

I looked from Agrippa to Juba, desperate for one of them to do something. Then Octavian stood. He held his crystal goblet in front of him, dropping it on the floor and watching it shatter into a thousand pieces. No one spoke. No one even dared to breathe. Octavian proceeded to smash every piece of crystal on his table. The pieces scattered across the floor, and some of the children covered their ears at the terrible sound. At last, when there was nothing more to destroy, Octavian asked, “Will you be feeding me to the eels as well?”

“Of course not, Caesar,” Pollio said.

The old man had tears in his eyes.

“How many men have you killed this way?”

“Seven,” the old man whispered from the floor.

“And all of them deserved it!” Pollio challenged, his chins wagging with indignation.

“And this slave. Does he deserve it?” Octavian asked.

Pollio considered his answer before speaking. “Not with an example such as Caesar before him,” he said wisely. He was not as great a fool as he looked.

“You are generous, Domine,” the old man said. He trembled, and the sight was pitiful. Octavia turned away.

“Yes, Dominus Pollio is very generous,” Octavian said. “So generous, he will be freeing you tonight.”

Horatia gasped. But for the first time, Pollio had the sense to bow his head humbly and accept Octavian’s pronouncement.

The next morning, on every temple door in Capri, the Red Eagle posted his first actum in praise of Caesar.

It became the subject of every conversation for the next two weeks. Clearly the Red Eagle had come out of hiding now that enough time had passed since the kitchen boy’s crucifixion. But where was he residing on Capri, and how had he known what had happened in Pollio’s villa?

“Perhaps it’s one of Pollio’s clan,” Marcellus speculated, dangling his feet in the swimming pool. The four of us were drying off in the sun. Since we were no longer in Rome, Julia and I were allowed to swim, but only inside the villa where no one could see us in our breastbands and loincloths.

“Or it could be anyone who heard the news from Pollio’s villa,” my brother said. In the days after Pollio’s slave had been freed, people as far away as Pompeii came to know of what had happened. We watched as Vipsania splashed at the other end of the pool, completely naked. Both Julia and I, though, now had something to cover. I noticed Marcellus was watching us with new interest—Julia in particular, whose wet band of cloth pressed against her breasts. I had the unkind urge to get up and block his view.

“But if it’s someone who has visited Pollio,” Julia reasoned, “the person must be wealthy. Pollio doesn’t admit any other kind.”

“What about a slave in his house?” I asked. “Or one from this house who’s been there?”

But my brother frowned. “It wouldn’t be like a slave to compliment Octavian.”

The speculation continued throughout the summer, and everyone was suspect, even Juba and Agrippa. But there were no more acta on Capri, and the Praetorian guard stationed at every temple door idled their nights away rolling dice and watching owls hunt for prey. By the end of August, Octavian announced a reward of five thousand denarii to anyone with useful information on the Red Eagle.

“Who do you think it might be?” I asked Vitruvius. We sat in the library with the final plans for the Temple of Apollo. A grand staircase swept from Octavian’s home to the temple, where a vast library already housed his favorite literature. In a few days, when we returned to the oppressive heat of Rome, the last touches would be added, and the temple would be dedicated.

“If I knew,” Vitruvius said, “I would be five thousand denarii richer. Now find me the measurements for the landing.”

“Is there going to be a mosaic?” I asked eagerly.

Vitruvius smiled. “We will include the one you sketched.”

I gave a little cry of joy. After nearly a year of working with Vitruvius, this was the first design of mine he was going to use. I had sketched mosaics for Octavian’s mausoleum, and column designs for Agrippa’s Pantheon, but none of them had been included.

“Don’t grow too excited,” Vitruvius warned. “We have to finish by October. And you’re going to oversee the laying of the tiles.”

I didn’t care how much work it meant, or how many hours before the ludus I would have to rise to oversee the mosaicists’ work. When I told my brother, he stopped packing his trunk to look up at me. “And you want to do this?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because we’re about to return to the sweltering heat. How will you be able to work?”

“It will be morning. And I don’t suffer the way you do.”

“I’ll never understand it,” he said enviously, closing his trunk. “Only you and Octavian can endure it. Our mother would never have survived.”

Alexander seated himself next to me. Two years ago, our mother and father had been alive. Ptolemy had been running through the palace halls with Charmion chasing after him, threatening to pinch his ear. There had still been hope of saving Egypt then. But now it was lost, and there was no telling whether we would ever return. “What do you think will happen if Octavian determines not to send us back?”

“Exactly what we’ve thought all along. He’ll find us marriages and we’ll remain in Rome.”

“And doesn’t that frighten you?”

“Of course it does! But what can we do?”

I was quiet for a moment. “If Caesar died,” I whispered, “Marcellus would return us to Egypt.”

My brother’s gaze immediately went to the door. “Be careful, Selene. There’s no telling who’s listening in this villa. Marcellus thinks the Red Eagle is working with someone inside.”