Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel (4 page)

We were hostages in our own palace. The halls that had rung with my father’s songs now echoed with the gruff commands of hurried men. And the courtyards, where evening was beginning to fall, were no longer filled with servants’ chatter. There would be no more dinners on candlelit barges, and never again would I sit on my father’s lap while he recounted the story of his triumphant march through Ephesus. I pressed closer to Alexander and Ptolemy on my mother’s bed.

“Why is he waiting?” My mother paced the room, back and forth, until it made me sick to watch her. “I want to know what’s happening outside!”

Charmion and Iras implored her to sit down. In their plain white tunics, huddled on my mother’s long blue couch, they reminded me of geese.
Geese who don’t know that they’ve been penned for slaughter
. Why else would Octavian be keeping us under guard? “He’s going to kill us,” I whispered. “I don’t think he’s ever going to set us free.”

There was a knock, and my mother froze. She crossed the room and opened the door. “What?” She looked at the faces of the three men. “Where is he?”

But Alexander scrambled from the bed. “It’s him!” He pointed at the man who was standing between Juba and Agrippa.

My mother stepped back. The blond man with gray eyes wore only a simple
toga virilis
. Although extra leather had been added to his sandals in order to increase his height, he was nothing like the man my father had been. He was thin, fragile, as unmemorable as one of the thousands of white shells that washed up daily along the shore. But what other man would be wearing the signet ring of Julius Caesar? “Then you are Octavian?” She spoke to him in Greek. It was the language she’d been born to, the language of official correspondence in Egypt.

“Don’t you know any Latin?” Juba demanded.

“Of course.” My mother smiled. “If that’s what he prefers.” But I knew what she was thinking. Alexandria possessed the largest library in the world, a library even larger than Pergamon’s, and now it would all belong to a man who didn’t even speak Greek.

“So you are Octavian?” she repeated in Latin.

The smallest of the three stepped forward. “Yes. And I presume you are Queen Kleopatra.”

“That all depends,” she said as she sat down. “Am I still the queen?”

Although Juba smiled, Octavian’s lips only thinned. “For now. Shall I sit?”

My mother held out her hand toward the blue silk couch with Iras
and Charmion. Immediately they stood and joined my brothers and me on the bed. But not once did Octavian’s gaze flicker in our direction. He had eyes only for my mother, as if he suspected she might grow wings like those on her headdress and take flight. He seated himself while the other men remained standing. “I hear you have tried to seduce my general.”

My mother threw Agrippa a venomous look, but didn’t deny it.

“I’m not surprised. It worked on my uncle. Then on Marc Antony. But Agrippa is a different kind of man.”

Everyone in the room looked to the general, and although the power of kings rested on his shoulders, he glanced away.

“There is no one more modest or loyal than Agrippa. He would never betray me,” Octavian said. “Neither would Prince Juba. I suppose you know that his father was King of Numidia once. But when he lost the battle against Julius Caesar, he gave his youngest son to Rome and then took his own life.”

My mother’s back straightened. “Is that your way of telling me I shall lose my throne?”

Octavian was silent.

“What about Caesarion?”

“I am afraid your son will not be able to take the throne either,” he said simply.

Some of the color drained from her face. “Why?”

“Because Caesarion is dead. And so is Antyllus.”

My mother gripped the arms of her chair, and I covered my mouth with my hands.

“However,” Octavian added, “I will allow them a burial with Marc Antony in the mausoleum that you have prepared.”

“Caesarion!” my mother cried, while Octavian turned his eyes away. “Not Caesarion!” Her favorite. Her beloved. There was heartbreak, and betrayal, and a mother’s deep anguish in her voice, and
that was when I knew the
evocatio
had worked. The gods had really abandoned Egypt for Rome. I wept into my hands, and my mother tore madly at her clothes.

“Stop her!” Octavian rose angrily.

Agrippa held her arms, but my mother shook her head wildly. “He was your
brother!”
she shouted. “The child of Julius Caesar. Do you understand what you’ve done? You’ve murdered your own brother!”

“And you murdered your own sister,” Octavian replied coolly.

My mother lashed out with her feet, but Octavian easily avoided her wrath.

“In three days, I will sail with you and your children to Rome, where you will take part in my Triumph.”

“I will never be paraded through the streets of Rome!”

Octavian gave Juba a sideways glance, then rose to depart. When he reached the door, my mother cried out. “Where are you going?”

“To the Tomb of Alexander, the greatest conqueror in the world. Then on to the Gymnasium, where I will address my people.” He turned, and his gray eyes settled on me. “Shall your children come?”

I ran from the bed and fell to my knees at my mother’s feet. I wrapped my arms around her legs. “Don’t send us with him. Please, Mother, please!”

She was shaking uncontrollably. But instead of looking down at me, she was watching Octavian. Something seemed to pass between them, and my mother nodded. “Yes. Take my children with you.”

“No!” I cried. “I won’t go.”

“Come,” Juba said, but I wrenched my arm from his grasp.

“Don’t make us go!” I screamed. “Please!”

Ptolemy was crying, and Alexander was pleading with her.

At last she threw up her hands and shouted,
“Go!
Iras, Charmion, get them out of here!”

I didn’t understand what was happening. Charmion pushed us toward the door, where my mother embraced Alexander. Then she came to me, touching my necklace and running her hands over my hair, my arms, my cheeks.

“Mother,” I wept.

“Shh.” She put a finger on my lips, then took Ptolemy onto her lap, burying her head in his soft curls. I was surprised that Octavian waited so patiently. “You listen to whatever Caesar says,” she told Ptolemy. “And you do as you’re told, Selene.” She turned to my twin brother. “Alexander, be careful. Watch over them.”

My mother stood, and before her face could betray her entirely, Charmion shut the door, and we children were alone with our enemies.

“Walk next to me and keep silent,” Agrippa said. “We go first to the Tomb of Alexander, then on to the Gymnasium.”

I held one of Ptolemy’s hands in mine, and Alexander held the other, but it was as if we were walking through a foreign palace. Romans occupied every room, sniffing out our riches to fill Octavian’s treasury. The carved cedar chairs, which had graced our largest chambers, had disappeared, but everything left was being taken. Silk couches, cushions, ebony vases on towering silver tripods.

I whispered to Alexander in Greek, “How does he know these men aren’t stealing things for themselves?”

“Because none of them would be so foolish,” Juba responded. His Greek was flawless. Alexander’s eyes were full of warning.

For the first time, Octavian looked at us. “The twins are handsome children, aren’t they? More of their mother than their father, I think. So you are Alexander Helios?”

My brother nodded. “Yes. But I go by Alexander, Your Highness.”

“He is not a king,” Juba remarked. “We call him Caesar.”

Alexander’s cheeks reddened, and I sickened at the thought that he was speaking to the man who had killed our brothers. “Yes, Caesar.”

“And your sister?”

“She is Kleopatra Selene. But she calls herself Selene.”

“The sun and moon,” Juba said wryly. “How clever.”

“And the boy?” Agrippa asked.

“Ptolemy,” Alexander replied.

The muscles clenched in Octavian’s jaw. “That one’s more of his father.”

I tightened my grip protectively on Ptolemy’s hand, and as we reached the courtyard in front of the palace, Agrippa turned to us.

“There will be no speaking unless spoken to, understand?” The three of us nodded. “Then prepare yourselves,” he warned as the palace doors were thrown open.

Evening had settled over the city, and thousands of torches burned in the distance. It seemed as though every last citizen of Alexandria had taken to the streets, and all of them were making their way to the Gymnasium. Soldiers saluted Octavian as we approached the gates, with right arms held forward and palms down.

“You can forget a horse and chariot,” Juba said, surveying the crowds.

Octavian stared down the Canopic Way. “Then we will go by foot.”

I could see Juba tense, and he checked the sword at his side and the dagger on his thigh. He was younger than I had first assumed him to be, not even twenty, but he was the one Octavian trusted with his life. Perhaps he would make a mistake. Perhaps one of my father’s loyal men would kill Octavian before we sailed for Rome.

We waited while a small retinue was gathered, some Egyptians and
Greeks, but mostly soldiers who spoke Latin with accents that made them hard to understand. Then we began the walk from the palace to the tomb. Every dignitary who came to Alexandria wished to see it, and now Octavian wanted to pay obeisance to our ancestor as well.

I wished I could speak with Alexander, but I kept my silence as I had been instructed, and instead of weeping over my father, or Antyllus or Caesarion, I studied the land.
Perhaps this will be the last night I will ever see the streets of Alexandria
, I thought, and I swallowed against the increasing pain in my throat. On the left was the Great Theater. I tried to remember the first time my father had taken us there, climbing with us to the royal box that was erected so high it was possible to see the island of Antirhodos. Beyond that was the Museion, where my mother had sent my father to become cultured, and professors had taught him Greek. Alexander and I had begun our studies there when we were seven, walking the marbled halls with men whose beards fell into their flowing himations. North of the Museion were the towering columns of the Library. Half a million scrolls nestled on its cedar shelves, and scholars from every kingdom in the world came to learn from the knowledge stored inside. But tonight, its pillared halls were dark, and the cheerful lamps that had always lit the porticos from within had been extinguished. The men who studied there were making their way to the Gymnasium to hear what would become of Egypt now.

I blinked back tears, and as we reached a heavy gate, a Greek scholar whom I had often seen in the palace produced a key from his robes. We were about to enter the Soma, the mausoleum of Alexander the Great, and as the gate was drawn open Agrippa whispered,
“Mea Fortuna!”

I noted with pride that even Octavian stepped back. I had
sketched the building a dozen times, and each time Alexander had wanted to know why. He wasn’t moved as I was by the luminous marble dome, or the beautiful lines of heavy columns that stretched like white soldiers into the night.

“When was this built?” Octavian asked. Instead of turning to either Alexander or me, he looked at Juba.

“Three hundred years ago,” Juba replied. “They say that his sarcophagus is made of crystal, and that he’s still wearing his golden cuirass.”

Now Octavian turned to my brother and me. “Is it true?”

When I refused to answer him, Alexander nodded. “Yes.”

“And the body?” Agrippa asked Juba. “How did it come here?”

“Stolen, by his cousin Ptolemy.”

We passed through the heavy bronze doors, and the scent of burning lavender from a tripod filled the empty antechamber. Torches blazed from iron brackets on the wall, sputtering in the rush of night air we’d let in. The priests here had not abandoned their duties, and an old man in golden robes appeared.

“This way,” he said, and it was clear we were expected.

We followed the old man’s footsteps through a maze of halls, and the soldiers who had chattered all the way there like monkeys, without ever once pausing for breath, were silent. In the dull glow of the priest’s lamp, the men regarded the painted exploits of Alexander. I had sketched these images so many times that I knew them by heart. There was the young king with his wives Roxana and Stateira. In another scene Alexander was lying with Hephaestion, the soldier he loved above all others. And in a last mosaic he was conquering Anatolia, Phoenicia, Egypt, and the sprawling kingdom of Mesopotamia. Octavian reached out and touched the painted locks of Alexander’s hair.

“Was he really blond?”

The priest frowned, and I was certain he had never heard such a question before. “He is depicted on these walls as he was in life, Caesar.”

Octavian gave a small, self-satisfied smile, and I realized why he had wanted to come. Facially, there did not appear much difference between the painting of Alexander and Octavian. Both men were fair, with small mouths, straight noses, and light eyes. Now Octavian imagined himself as Alexander’s heir, the next conqueror not just of Egypt, but of the world. Hadn’t his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, already begun the conquest for him?

We reached a flight of stairs descending into greater darkness, and I heard Ptolemy whimper. “It’s only a few steps down,” I whispered, and when I saw that he was going to protest, I put my finger to my lips.

The priest led the way, and the only noise was the whisper of our footsteps and the crackling of torches. Juba was the last to descend. When the door swung shut behind us, my brother let out a frightened cry. Immediately, Alexander put his hand to Ptolemy’s mouth.

“Not here,” he whispered angrily. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

But no one was paying attention to Ptolemy. In the dimly lit chamber, the men’s gazes were fixed on the crystal coffin of the world’s greatest king. The air smelled heavily of embalming spices: cinnamon, myrrh, and cassia.

Octavian approached the coffin with hesitant steps, and the priest pulled back the lid so that everyone could observe Alexander as he had been. There was a gasp of admiration throughout the chamber, and even Ptolemy wanted to draw closer.