Cleopatra’s Daughter

creaking of his window that he was visiting Julia instead. But he took up his old position on the third couch, and my brother asked eagerly, “Well, what’s it like to be getting married?”

Marcellus smiled. “Wonderful. Frightening.”

“How can it be frightening?” I teased.

“Well, think of the responsibility,” he said. “Now, there will be a house to maintain, and slaves to buy, and —”

“You’re not really going to buy slaves?” I exclaimed.

“Of course he is,” Lucius said. “How else is his house going to run?”

I stared at Marcellus.

“I will treat them properly,” he promised swiftly. “I would never send them away for getting pregnant.”

“Or push them into an eel pool,” I added, “or whip them for broken dishes.”

“Certainly not!”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Will you pay them?”

He hesitated. “I … well … sure. Why not? Every Saturnalia, they can all receive presents. Julia can take care of that.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I’ll be too busy planning the Games.” He grinned widely. “There’s the Ludi Plebei, the Ludi Apollinares, the Ludi Megalenses, and the Ludi Ceriales.” He looked at my brother. “And you’ll help me, won’t you?”

My brother couldn’t have been more pleased with any request. They spoke at length about horses, and floats for parades, and which animals from Augustus’s zoo would be the most likely to awe the plebs if they were used as part of the opening processions. Marcellus didn’t speak again about marriage, but before he left, he paused at the door one last time and looked back. “Lucius and the twins,” he said, his voice filled with regret, “I’ll miss our nights together.”

When he shut the door and Lucius left, I turned on my side and faced the wall. Alexander knew enough to simply blow out the oil lamp. Then he kissed my hair and whispered that it would be better in the morning.

But it wasn’t. It was the last day of Saturnalia, with all of the shops in the Forum closed, and a hundred different things still to be arranged. There was the matter of the food, and reminders had to be sent across Rome to the homes of butchers and bakers to ensure that the proper amounts would be delivered the next morning. Wine, honey, vinegar, and garum had to be available in considerable quantities, and despite the fact that it was a holiday, merchants arrived throughout the day with heavy chests and barrels. Nothing more important than this wedding would ever happen beneath Octavia’s roof, so the slaves rushed from room to room with wash-buckets and brooms, using feather dusters on the most delicate statues and ladders to reach the highest mosaics. Marcellus went to spend the day with Julia, and when Alexander asked whether I’d like to join him and Lucius at the odeum, I shook my head.

“What will you do, then? Sit out here on the portico and feel sorry for yourself? It’s cold,” he protested. “Come to the odeum. There’ll be warm beer and ofellae.”

“I’m fine. Besides, there’s work to be done in the theater.”

“Over Saturnalia? Even Vitruvius isn’t working.”

“There’s just a few things I’d like to see to,” I lied. “It’s important.”

But my brother knew me better. “Selene, you care more about that theater than Marcellus does. He’ll probably step inside it once.”

“That doesn’t matter!” I said angrily. “It’s my project. Vitruvius gave it to me, and I’ll see that it’s done right. Work doesn’t stop just because it’s a silly Roman festival.”

I convinced Octavia to let me go, and two Praetorians were sent with me to Marcellus’s theater. I took my book of sketches, although truthfully there was nothing I planned to sketch. I simply wanted a place away from the madness of preparations; a place where I could sit one last time to remember how simple life had been before engagements and weddings and bitter envy.

We crossed through the Forum Holitorium, where the vegetable stalls were shut for Saturnalia, and though the guards wanted to take the shortcut, I refused, thereby avoiding the Columna Lactaria, where Horatia’s daughter had been abandoned. This winter hadn’t brought any snow, but gray clouds curtained the sun, casting a pall over the city and darkening the streets. When we arrived, I could see that the guards were worried about rain. There was only one umbraculum between us, so they gave it to me and waited beneath the arches while I inspected the empty theater.

A great deal of work had been completed since the building’s conception: the cavea, where more than ten thousand spectators could sit; the stage, which would soon be covered in mosaic; and the three tiers of arches supported by columns in each of the Greek architectural styles, first Doric, then Ionic, and finally Corinthian. Every day for nearly a year I had come here, with either Vitruvius or the guards, and watched the men build. I had been allowed to choose the artwork and mosaics, and the workers knew better than to slight me, since Vitruvius had made it clear that I was as important to this theater as Marcellus himself.

I walked to the stage and ran my hand along its edge. The wood had been smoothed to perfection, and when I was sure that there were no splinters, I seated myself so that I looked out on the cavea. Years of hard labor would be required to complete the rest of the theater. Builders would grow from boys to men here, as I had grown from a girl to a woman in the time since it had started. I thought of my excitement when Marcellus first asked Augustus whether I could help in its creation. I’d believed it was Marcellus’s way of showing special favor to me, and it had been, only not the kind I’d imagined. He didn’t really care about this theater, and tomorrow he would take Julia as his bride. She would press her soft cheek against his chest as he carried her into their villa, and once he untied her girdle their new life would begin. I could feel the sting of tears beginning in my eyes. Then a figure appeared at the back of the theater, and I stood swiftly.

“What are you doing here?” I exclaimed.

Juba smiled as he advanced. “I saw the guards and thought there might be trouble inside. I didn’t realize you had come here to cry out your sorrows. But I suppose that every tragedy deserves a stage.”

“I’m not crying,” I said sternly.

Juba raised his brows. “My mistake.”

“I came here to make some final plans. This area,” I said unconvincingly “still needs a mosaic.” I stepped down and strode purposefully past him. And then it occurred to me. “I know why you’re here,” I gasped. “Augustus wants you to spy on me!”

Juba laughed at my foolishness. “Do you really imagine that I have so little to do with my time?”

“Then why aren’t you packing? Leaving for Mauretania on the next ship?”

Immediately, I regretted my words. He stepped back and said quietly, “Perhaps I still have business in Rome, like making sure my slaves have a place to go when I’m gone.” He moved to join the guards, and the three of them talked about the war in Cantabria, completely ignoring me. When I finally asked to be taken back to the Palatine, the four of us walked the short distance in silence.

It was a wedding that even the wealthiest merchants would be talking about for many years. Thousands of people filled the villa from the triclinium to the gardens, where charcoal braziers kept away the winter’s chill and lanterns lit the rose-trimmed paths. Between every column, swaths of the richest blue and gold silks fluttered in the breeze, and handsomely dressed slaves rushed between the senators offering them cups of the best Chian wine. When Marcellus slid a gold and emerald ring onto Julia’s finger, the thundering shouts of “Thalassa!” on the hilltop were probably heard all the way down by the Circus Maximus, and the feast that followed lasted into the third watch.

“It will be us next,” my brother said ominously as we rested in the triclinium. His hair had taken on a burnished sheen in the soft light of the oil lamps, and I saw Lucius staring at him from across the room.

“Perhaps Augustus will never return,” I said.

But my brother wasn’t so hopeful. “Then Livia will take care to arrange it from Iberia. She sends Octavia letters every week. And you know what happens in seven days.”

We would be turning fifteen. Alexander would prepare for his coming-of-age ceremony at the festival of