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The war has ended. Caesar has triumphed over his rival, Antony, and that "serpent of old Nile," Cleopatra. But for Caesar's sister, Octavia, the battle is just beginning.
Fiction
Fantasy
My maidservant had extinguished the last oil lamp, and I had settled into bed when a loud crash came from the hall. A high-pitched scream followed. I threw off the coverlet and raced toward the door.
At that moment, Antonia burst into the bedchamber and flung herself into my arms. “Mama! Mama! It’s happening again.” She stared up at me, her blue eyes welling with tears. “The Aegyptian witch is using her magic. You’ve got to stop her. Please!”
She trembled, and I stroked her flaxen hair. “Don’t worry, Antonia. I won’t let her hurt you. Show me what she’s done.”
Antonia grasped my hand and led me out into the hallway. Lamplight cast long shadows from three portrait busts on stands against the wall: Great-uncle Gaius Julius, my late husband Marcus Antonius, and my brother—Caesar to the world, Gaius Octavianus to me.
“Antonia, are you sure you saw her?” In the past month, the Aegyptian had used her spells to smash nearly every family heirloom or object of value we owned, but she had never dared to show her face.
“Yes, Mama!”
With a whoosh, a marble head hurtled toward us. I pushed Antonia to the floor, shielding her body with mine. The head dropped to the floor behind us.
“Octavia!” A familiar voice rose above Antonia’s whimpers and my pounding heart. “Dearest.”
I raised my head. “Marcus?” His name tumbled from my lips even as reason warned me: This cannot be.
And yet, there he lay on a pallet, beneath Uncle Julius’s portrait and his own, his face paler than the moon, his blue eyes so bright. A dark stream oozed from his stomach and crept across the floor.
“Tata?” Antonia stirred beneath me.
I twined my fingers in her hair, blood pulsing through my veins. “Don’t look.” Juno be merciful. She mustn’t see him like this.
“Octavia...” His voice was weakening, but it drew me nonetheless. We had loved each other once, until the Aegyptian bound his heart with her magic, stole him from me, and lured him to his death. “Octavia!”
My gaze returned to him, but all that remained was a curving trail of blood. It gleamed in the light, shifting from red to gold. Then it stirred—blood no more but a writhing serpent, rearing its head, fangs bared, ready to strike.
With a scream, I leapt to my feet, scooping Antonia into my arms. My room. Had to get back to my room.
“Mama!” Antonia’s cry drowned out the hissing.
I glanced behind as I ran.
Nothing there but my brother’s portrait bust, face down on the floor near my feet, its nose chipped. The paint had flaked off one eye, and a hairline crack ran down the back of the neck. Minor damage, easily repaired. But if it had struck Antonia or me, if the serpent had been real—
A shiver ran through me. Enough. Gaius may have returned victorious from Aegypt, but the war hadn’t ended for her.
My hands clenched. Where was she now? Imprisoned in some secret place? Dead by her own hand as so many claimed?
No, not dead. Gaius wouldn’t let her die before he could parade her through the streets of Rome in her Aegyptian finery and in chains. No Triumph was complete without an enemy to spit upon. Would the crowd scream for her blood?
Curse her! Marcus’s blood was on her hands.
Antonia sobbed in my arms, while I stood there in my nightgown, my bare feet chilled against the floor. I guided Antonia back to her room and stayed with her until sleep came.
For my daughter, but not for me.
So before dawn, I summoned my maidservants to help me dress.
I would speak to my brother and make him end this.
As my escorts and I approached my brother’s home, the sun peeked over the eastern horizon. Gaius’s steward greeted me and ushered me into the study. “It is very early, Domina. I will see if he has awakened and inform him you are here.” The man slipped out the door, leaving me with little to do but admire the room.
The study was tiled ceiling to floor in a gray-white pattern. A long table of Phoenician cedar with matching chairs stood in the center. Writing materials rested on its surface: four ink pots set in a perfect line, two reed pens beside them, a stack of dried skins, wax tablets, and a single scroll.
I walked over to the table, settled in a chair, and reached for the scroll. It was rolled tight and sealed. Some letter about important state business, no doubt. Should I read it?
Why not, since Gaius saw fit to keep me waiting? Finding the seal, I cracked it and unrolled the manuscript.
Instead of letters, tiny animals, people, body parts, tools, and other figures I didn’t recognize marched across the surface in straight horizontal lines, some drawn in red, others in black.
“Eh-hem.”
I raised my head, the scroll slipping from my hands.
A woman clad in white stood by the door, her face ringed by a mass of coppery-red curls. The rest of her hair was swept up and back in Roman fashion. “Please forgive me.” Her voice was low and musical. She walked toward me, the movement causing the tassels on her sleeves to sway.
So Gaius had company. No wonder it was taking the steward so long to rouse him. I grimaced.
She moved around the table to my side. I caught a whiff of her. Not the sickly-sweet perfume I’d expected of her kind, but the thick, smoky scent of incense. She raised an eyebrow. “Is something troubling you?”
You. I swallowed back the thought. “This.” I smoothed the scroll out flat on the tabletop. “Do you know what it is?”
She leaned over and peered at the symbols. “Spells to summon that which is in the Netherworld. Have you need of such things?”
I shrugged. Did she think I would confide in someone like her? “Why would I need them?”
The woman settled into a chair next to mine and smiled. “Fire should be fought with fire. These would serve you well if someone was using magic against you.” She raised an eyebrow.
I clutched the arms of my chair, my heart throbbing with unease. Her words, so close to the truth. How could she know? “Many strange things have happened. Things have been broken, and recently my daughter and I...” Fear choked me.
“Magic can be dangerous, but it requires more than what is written here.” She tapped a finger on the scroll. “To cast a spell, the magic-worker needs something personal from the victim: a fingernail clipping, a strand of hair, a favorite piece of jewelry.”
I regarded her in silence for a long while. She knew much about magic. A mere mistress? Or had Gaius brought her here because he knew what was happening?
Of course. A trickle of relief ran through me. If Gaius was studying magic, he could stop the Aegyptian’s treachery. “You’re teaching Caesar spells?”
“Caesar?” The woman shook her head. A lock of hair came loose and brushed her cheek. Reaching up, she plucked out a hairpin, a white one with a waxy sheen. Ivory, probably. Expensive. “Caesar is more concerned with fortune.” She adjusted the pin to anchor the strand back into place. Her lips parted as if she were about to say more, but approaching footsteps interrupted us.
I turned toward the sound. The door opened, and Gaius strode into the room. “Octavia!” He stared at me with his smoke-gray eyes—“silver” he preferred to call them. He ran a hand through his thinning hair. What little remained was sunlight-fair, almost white in the morning rays. “To whom were you speaking?” His hand came to rest on his neck.
“To the—” My forehead wrinkled in confusion, and I turned to the woman. No one sat beside me; no scroll rested on the table. She had vanished without sound or trace. “She was—” I faced Gaius.
My brother’s eyes widened and blinked. The right one was tearing, and a thread-thin scratch ran along the bridge of his nose.
“I was think—thinking aloud.”
“About what?” He massaged the back of his neck with one hand and banished the teardrop with the other.
I leaned forward. “The Aegyptian. She isn’t done fighting you, Gaius. She wants to kill us all.”
My brother waved my words away. “She is where she should be and will be displayed in my Triumph. What more do you want?”
What did I want? I slammed my palms against the table. “I want you to stop her! She could kill one of us by then. Your niece is in danger. You’re in danger.” When he rolled his eyes, I told him what had taken place in my house earlier. “Your neck hurts, doesn’t it? Your eye burns, and you have a scratch on your nose. All in the exact same spots where your portrait bust was damaged.”
He winced, then shrugged. “I had a restless night, nothing more.” Coming to me, he placed his hand on my shoulder. “You and Antonia have been through much, but I assure you, that woman has no power now, magical or otherwise. Have patience. Everything will be taken care of after the Triumph tomorrow.”
I shook off his hand. “Tomorrow? Haven’t you heard anything I said?”
Gaius sighed. “I could ask you the same question, Octavia. Good day.”
Good day, indeed. I strode down the hall and out the front entrance. Perhaps it was, for everyone else. I paused on the veranda and stared up at a sky brilliant with sunlight. The sun had nearly reached its zenith. Almost noon, and I’d accomplished nothing.
To the north rose the Capitoline Hill with its great temple to Jupiter. Below it stood the Forum Julianum, built at Uncle Julius’s command. The gilded columns marking its entrance captured the light and threw it back ten times brighter. My eyes stung at the sight, and I turned away. This was what Gaius had to outshine.
But Uncle Julius had died, as had Marcus and so many other Romans. Died. Dead. Death. My skin prickled. What did death bring but ghosts? Ghosts made by wars: Gaius and Marcus against Uncle Julius’s assassins, Gaius against Marcus. I shook the thought away. A cool breeze came, ruffling my hair and my dress and banishing the noonday heat. If only it could banish memories and dreams as well.
And banish the Aegyptian!
Why was Gaius refusing to do anything about her? He had her imprisoned. Where?
Signaling to my escorts, who had waited outside for me, I went down the steps and followed the path leading into the Forum, the heart of Rome, the city of ghosts. No spirits met my eyes today. Vendors hawked their wares. Toga’d Senators congregated on the Senate House stairs. Armored soldiers clanked through the streets, and simpler-clad folk went about their business.
“Good morning, Domina.”
“Buy some grapes, Domina? Juicy and sweet! Fresh from the vine!”
“Any word on the Triumph, Domina?”
Voices came from every side. Living voices. Even the buildings—the Senate, the amphitheaters—spoke of earthly matters: politics, dramas, gladiators. Prisoners must have had their place here as well.
The voices continued, people closing in, eager for news of Gaius’s celebration of victory over Aegypt. “Will we see the queen tomorrow, Domina?”
“Will the Senate execute her?”
“Is she really the Mistress of Magic, as her people claim?”
“Move along, you fools!” A soldier stepped out of the crowd and shooed those surrounding me.
To the left rose the temple of Jupiter, its gilded facade mirroring the sun’s rays.
I paused before the temple, my eyes stinging at the sight. I raised my hand to shield them.
“Domina? May I help you find something?” The soldier remained at my side, his expression wrinkled with concern.
“You have a prisoner from the Aegyptian War. Where is she kept?”
“Not far, Domina.” He nodded at a small, unadorned building squatting in the temple’s shadow—a building surrounded by guards. A prison lay beneath a house of god, as if the heavens and Hades could meet.
Perhaps the Netherworld wasn’t only a place for ghosts.
“I need to see her.” I started toward the prison.
The soldier hastened to join me, regarding me with wide eyes. “See her, Domina? That would be most unwise. It would be unseemly for Caesar’s sister to enter—”
Stopping in mid-stride, I faced him, my hands clenched. “Yes, I am Caesar’s sister. I will see her. Now.”
With a visible swallow and a nod, he led me toward the building. The guards at the door stiffened to attention as we approached.
The soldier called out, and within moments, the doors opened and he escorted me inside. We walked down a narrow hall. Torchlight punctured the darkness, a perfect home for an enemy: Rome’s and mine. We stopped before a barred wooden door. The soldier removed the bar and ushered me in. A vinegary odor assailed my nostrils, and dry straw crunched beneath my feet. Hades indeed. I shivered at the sight, smell, and sound of it.
Torch in hand, the soldier moved forward. Whump. Something slammed into his side. He staggered for a moment, caught his balance, and whirled around, his free hand raised. Smack. Thump. Tiny whimpers rose out of the gloom, the cries of a wounded animal or—
He stepped aside so his light shone down on his attacker: no haughty Eastern queen, but a little girl, no older than my Antonia. Her hair hung around her face like smoke over dying embers, but the fire in her proved far from dead. She raised her head, panting, her eyes two blue-white flames eager to burn us down. “She’s not my mother!” She jabbed a finger at me. “Where’s my mother?”
My eyes locked with hers and couldn’t tear themselves away. “I don’t know, child.” Those eyes, so like my Antonia’s. Was this some kind of magic? An illusion? I reached out to stroke her tangled hair, but she backed away, wide-eyed and trembling.
I closed my eyes for several moments. When I opened them, the girl remained before me. I hunched down, leveling my gaze with hers. “What’s your name?”
The fire in her stare dwindled, replaced by a cool curiosity. “Selene.” She sat up, one hand bunched into a fist. There, jutting out between her thumb and forefinger, was something white and pointy.
“What is that?” I nodded at her fist. She opened her hand, revealing a slender stick the length of my palm, one end rounded, the other whittled to a point. “May I see?”
She placed it in my hand, and I ran my fingers along its sides. One was smooth, the other rough. I peered at this second side and found carving there: a long, blue oval, and inside it, more of those tiny pictures Aegyptians used for writing: a red hill, a golden lion, a black squiggle, a yellow square...
Her lips parted in a small smile. “It’s a hairpin. My mother’s.” Selene drew herself up onto her knees and crawled over to my side. “That’s a reed mat.” She pointed to the square.
Beside the mat was an open hand, painted ruddy brown, the lines of the palm etched in black. A red mouth and two other objects—one brown and one green—completed the inscription. Selene ran a finger across each one. “The brown one looks like a fish, but it’s supposed to be a loaf of bread. The green shape’s part of a bird.”
A grunt came from behind us. The soldier was peering over my shoulder, drawn as I was by the strange script. I turned to Selene. “What does it mean?” I reached out to tame her wild mass of hair, and she didn’t pull away.
“They’re letters. My mama taught me. The hill’s the Roman letter ‘C.’ The lion’s an ‘L.’” this time when she pointed to each picture, she said the equivalent Roman letters. “E—O—P—A—T—R—A.”
Cleopatra.
The name numbed me, repeating itself over and over in my mind. The garbled voices rising in the hallway, the accompanying footsteps drawing nearer became whispers beneath Cleopatra, Cleopatra, Cleopatra...
Selene lifted her chin. “They’ll carve my name like this one day, when I’m queen. Mama promised. And Tata did, too.”
I rose, her words echoing in my heartbeats. Mama promised. And Tata... Tata. Her father. Her eyes so like Antonia’s, so like...
I stumbled backwards. The soldier caught my arm, and I spun to face him. “It’s the queen I want to see, not some child. Take me to Cleopatra.”
“Satisfied, Octavia?” Gaius’s voice sliced the air. “Now you’ve met the little bastard.”
He stood in the doorway, flanked by two guards. Someone must have sent for him.
The name continued flooding my thoughts: Cleopatra. Where was she? Before I could ask, the girl sprang to her feet and charged at Gaius. Her hands balled into fists and swung out. The guards leaped forward, grabbed her, and held her fast. She struggled, her eyes sparking with anger. “I hate you! Where’s my mother? Where’s my mother?”
Gaius answered her fiery gaze with his own iron glare. “Your mother! You have her spirit, I see. Do you know who this is?” He stretched out a hand toward me, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s my sister. Your father’s wife.”
The girl stiffened, her gaze shifting to me, her lips quivering. “My Tata never—”
“Oh, but he did.” Gaius chuckled. “The fruits of Marcus’s Eastern conquests.” He waved a hand at the girl and motioned for me to join him.
I didn’t move. My pulse quickened, sending numbness through my body. No, there was no child, only rumors, magic spells, some kind of trick to win my sympathy and Rome’s. The Senate might kill a queen, but not a child. With this disguise, the Aegyptian hoped to escape death. Her magic surrounded us, closed in like a hand grasping at my throat. Every breath became an effort. The cell, Gaius, the soldier, the girl dwindled to nothing. All except the weight of the hairpin resting in my palm.
“Come, Octavia.” Gaius seized my arm, and the spell shattered.
I struggled against his grip. “Let me see her!”
“You will.” He dragged me from the cell. “At the Triumph, like everyone else.”
The girl screamed. The guards slammed the door on her and locked it.
As we made our way through the darkened hallway toward the sunlit world beyond, a voice followed us: “No! Please! Give it back, please! It was my mama’s...”
The accursed hairpin remained in my grasp. Without releasing it, I clamped my hands over my ears and ran toward the light.
Night fell, but sleep was slow in coming. Like Marcus, it had forgotten me and found companionship in other beds. I rose from mine, wrapping a coverlet around me for extra protection against the evening chill.
Beside the bed stood a large chest with the white gown and dark blue stola I would wear for the Triumph spread across it. Next to the gown lay Cleopatra’s accursed pin and my lapis necklace, a stone the size of a date on a golden chain. I picked up the necklace, its stone heavy in my hand, like the rocks Gaius and I used to gather when we were children. We would toss them into the River Tiber, count the ripples they made, and wish for luck.
Luck. Could this stone bring any? The man who gave it to me was gone, destroyed by the same magic now threatening Antonia, Gaius, and me. I went by the window and studied the stone in the moonlight, a near-perfect circle, slightly ovaled, and bluer than any sky. Nothing marred its surface, not even the tiniest scratch. Gold surrounded it, holding it in a filigreed embrace. Perfect, the way my marriage had never been, but should have been, could have been if—
“Mama? What’s happening?” A little girl’s voice reached my ears.
I turned, waiting for Antonia to burst through the doorway.
“Mama, I’m scared.”
By Juno, was she trapped in the hall? I ran to the door.
“Hush.” The voice of a woman came from behind me. “Stay out of sight.”
I spun around.
The woman stood by the window—a long, rectangular window that my bedchamber didn’t have. Long curtains rippled from the breeze. She had her back to me, moonlight illuminating her white gown; the tassels dangling from her sleeves, the golden sash at her waist; the mass of fawn-colored hair, pinned up and back.
Shivering, I drew the coverlet tighter around me and stalked over to her. “What do you want here?”
She turned, revealing a familiar face—the woman in Gaius’s study. I studied her anew, unease and suspicion filling my chest. Was it she? The Aegyptian? Why weren’t her lips twitching in a smirk? Where was the reflection of a self-satisfied smile in her eyes? Instead, the eyes meeting mine were red-rimmed, and her lips pressed into a thin, pale line.
“What do I want?” Huskiness crept into her voice. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I glared at her. “You terrify my daughter and me, steal my husband, destroy my property, cause Gaius pain. All for nothing?”
She bowed her head for a moment, then extended her hands toward me. “Nothing for myself. Please.” Something choked her off, and silence stretched between us.
Was this all she had to say?
The clink-hiss of armor and the buzz of voices filled the air. The door swung open. My brother entered, clad in armor, a crimson cloak draped over his shoulders. A dozen soldiers, maybe more, marched in behind him. “Gaius!” I leapt up and approached him, but he strode past as if I wasn’t there. His iron-hard gaze fixed on the Aegyptian, and she met his eyes without flinching.
“Woman.” Gaius’s voice turned as metallic as his stare. “Have you reconsidered your decision?”
I stared at my brother, the numbness that had struck me in the prison returning. Gaius: his blood-red cloak, the silver-gray mail matching his eyes. Great Jupiter, the harshness of him.
One of the curtains stirred. Tiny fingers curled around the edge. A tangle of hair and a pair of eyes peeked out from behind.
“Surrender your crown to the Senate and people of Rome. Your life—” Gaius must have noticed the movement. His gaze traveled beyond the woman, to the curtain. He stalked towards it and pulled it back, revealing a trembling dark-haired girl.
Selene.
He cupped her chin in his hand, and cast her mother a cold smile. “Your daughter’s life depends upon it.”
My stomach heaved, and I swallowed hard to calm it. “Gaius, leave the child out of this.”
I moved toward him, but the Aegyptian seized my shoulder. “He cannot see you, and you cannot stop him. This has already come to pass.”
“What?” I whirled to face her, to say more to this magic-wielding, ungrateful queen, but—
By Juno, how she’d changed. No wild curls ringed her face, just wilted tendrils that drooped in her eyes. The smoky scent that had surrounded her in Gaius’s study had vanished.
She released me, her fingers brushing against the bare skin of my arm, a touch as cold as river-water in winter. Her eyes bored into mine, Aegyptian eyes, green as the banks of the Nile, with flecks of desert sand and pupils shining like polished obsidian.
I drew away. “Enough games. Tell me what you want.”
She moved forward, her eyes on the chest by the bed, her hand outstretched.
The hairpin. She had come to take it back.
I rushed at the chest, reaching it before she did. As I grasped the pin, the necklace slipped from my hand.
She caught it in her own, closing her fingers around the stone. “We have something in common, you and I.” And she disappeared, leaving the hairpin behind.
To cast a spell, the magic-worker needs something personal from the victim—so she had told me in Gaius’s study. I had something of hers; now she had something of mine.
But she was Mistress of Magic, wise in the ways of spells.
I squeezed the pin in my hand. Juno, Mother Divine, help me break it!
Instead, the point bit into my flesh.
Morning came, and with it, the Triumph. Gaius’s chariot led the way. Antonia and I rode with him, wind whipping against our faces and tugging at our clothes and hair. More than once, I put my hand to my head for fear of losing the ivory pin anchored there. The wheels growled against the pavement. To our left and right, a blur of faces—thousands of them cheering, their cries mingling with trumpet blasts and cymbal clangs.
The chariot stopped by the Temple of Jupiter, where a dais, set with over a dozen chairs, had been erected. Here we would observe the parade, accompanied by Gaius’s closest associates. Guards were there, too, one offering a hand to my daughter and me as we climbed up to take our seats.
Antonia was all wriggles, often standing up and craning her neck to see what headed our way. The crowd echoed her enthusiasm, shouting and waving. Armed soldiers marched by, their helmets, swords, and cuirasses glinting in the sun. Next came thick-limbed captives from Gaius’s Germanic campaigns, manacled and bound to carts that carried their tribal weapons along with plants and animals from their native land. A fleet of model ships followed, borne by Greek slaves. Across the main sail of the first, the word Actium screamed out in red.
Actium, the scene of Gaius’s great victory over the Aegyptian fleet. Marcus’s fleet.
My fingers curled around the arms of my chair. The cut on my hand stung, and a sticky line of blood oozed across my palm.
The crowd’s cheers softened into murmurs.
Gaius, sitting to my right, leaned toward me. “Watch closely.”
Another cart came into view, this one heavy with gold. A figure rested in the center, also swathed in gold. A diadem circled its brow, and though its eyes were closed, I recognized the face—her face—ringed with curls. Her arms were folded across her breast, and around her right arm coiled a serpent, its head raised as if ready to strike.
The Aegyptian—near death, or already dead?
“See?” Gaius reached over and touched my shoulder. “You have nothing to fear.”
Nothing to fear? A high-pitched wail contradicted his words. Something stirred beside the Aegyptian’s prone form. A smaller golden-clad figure raised her head, her storm-black hair combed and braided. She stared at the dais and tried to jump from the cart. She moved a pace or two and fell back, her hands raised, silver gleaming on her wrists.
I blinked in disbelief. By Juno, she was chained. I leaped to my feet, my chair tumbling backwards with a thunk, and rushed down from the dais into the crowded street below. Cries of “Mama!”— “Octavia!”—“Domina!” followed me, but I paid them no heed.
“Stop!” I ran to the pair of soldiers escorting the cart. “Stop now!” They obeyed. I scrambled up into the vehicle, my dress threatening to trip me with each step, and made my way to Selene’s side. She held out her hands, linked together by a chain. More links ran from the middle of the first down into wood below.
The Aegyptian, her flesh as pale as alabaster, remained unmoving. As I reached out to her, glittering serpent scales warned me away. I pulled back, but the serpent didn’t stir.
More Aegyptian magic?
Reaching out a second time, I let my fingers brush the woman’s cheek. Cold and smooth: polished stone. A statue. But so life-like, if the gods had willed it, she would have breathed.
With a shiver, I faced the soldiers. “What is the meaning of this?” Gaius came toward us, his eyes as flinty as they’d been in last night’s vision. I did not turn away. “What were you thinking?”
“I could ask the same of you. You know our traditions. The enemies of Rome must be paraded through the streets in chains before the Senate decides their fate. The Aegyptian queen chose to avoid the humiliation. She died by the serpent’s bite months ago, so her daughter takes her place.” He waved a hand at the statue, but I kept my gaze on him.
Months ago? So the Aegyptian did take her own life. “She’s been dead for months, and you never told me?” I glared at Gaius. “You let me believe—”
He rolled his eyes skyward. “You believed what you needed to believe. I was trying to protect you.”
The clink of chains and a tugging on my dress tore my attention away from my brother. A pair of tearful blue eyes stared up into mine. The eyes of a girl without a mother or a father, without a home; eyes so much like Marcus’s and Antonia’s. I spun back to my brother. “Protect me how? By imprisoning a child?” My hands reached out and closed around her chains. “Would you put these on your niece?”
A low murmur arose from the crowd. My brother’s eyes narrowed.
I tightened my grip on the links. “Release her.”
He regarded me a moment longer, gave a snort, and turned away.
He dared to walk away from me? From this little girl? “Gaius!” His iron glare was on me in a heartbeat. “You owe me! I did what you asked. I married Marcus because you asked me to. ‘An alliance of noble families,’ you called it—to help you. Now you command the Senate, the army. You got your victory. But what did I get? An unfaithful husband. A daughter I have to raise alone.
“Please!” I spread out my hands. “I ask for nothing else.”
Selene sniffled. More murmurs came from the crowd. In that sea of faces, heads nodded. A voice rang out. “Mercy, Caesar!” Others followed:
“Free the girl!”
“Let her go!”
For a long while, Gaius said nothing, his gaze flicking back and forth from Selene and me to the crowd. With a sigh, he spread out his hands. “I am a citizen of Rome, a servant of the Republic, where the will of the people bends before no king or queen. Let the will of the people be done!” He waved to the guards. “Release her.”
A soldier climbed up on the cart and unlocked the chains. Selene was free. I gathered her into my arms and carried her to the dais. A cheer rose from the crowd, rolling into a thunderous chant of “Caesar” as the parade resumed.
Selene clung to me, tears streaming down her face and staining my stola. “My Tata’s dead, isn’t he?”
I nodded, my throat tightening. By his own hand, though I could never tell her so.
“And—” Her voice quivered and dropped to the barest of whispers. “Mama, too?”
“Yes.” We sat on the platform’s edge.
She leaned her head against my shoulder. “What’s going to happen to me?”
I held her close. What could I say? I couldn’t give her back her mother or—
Wait. The hairpin. I reached up and pulled it out of my hair. Her lips quivered, then curved into a smile. Brushing back her stray locks, I slipped the pin into place.
A hand touched my arm, a head rested on my other shoulder, and a second set of blue eyes gazed into mine. “Who’s she?”
“She’s your sister, Antonia. Her name is Selene.”
Selene lifted her head and raised her hands to wipe her tear-streaked face.
Antonia stared at her. “I miss Tata, too.” Sadness tinged her voice. She slid off the platform and sat beside Selene.
As the two girls studied each other silence, fingers pressed against my shoulder. “Thank you.”
I turned my head.
The Aegyptian sat beside me. “Cleopatra.” Her name finally passed my lips. I could never forgive her for taking Marcus from me. But she was a mother as was I, and if it had been my Antonia paraded through foreign streets in chains...
I reached out to the queen. She clasped my hand and squeezed. When I returned the gesture, my fingers closed on warm air that tingled, cooled, hardened into—
Stone. I opened my hand. A single eye, bluer than Antonia’s or Selene’s could ever be, stared back—a blue eye set in gold. My necklace. With my other hand, I lifted it up by the chain. The cut on my palm had vanished.
Next to me, Selene leapt up with a screech. Antonia dashed to the other end of the dais, the hairpin in her hand. Before I could intervene, Selene ran after her, caught up quickly, and grabbed her hand. The girls tugged in opposite directions and tumbled onto the steps.
“Octavia...” Gaius was speaking. I glanced back, but his head was turned toward the senator seated beside him. “She suffered much because of Antonius, but as you can see, she is a model Roman lady: a devoted mother, compassionate...”
The girls sprang up and charged down toward the street and the crowd, this time with Selene in the lead. Their shrieks gave way to a different sound. Was it laughter?
Leaving my brother to spin whatever tale he wished, I fastened the necklace around my neck and hurried after them.
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Copyright 2009, Karen L. Kobylarz. All rights reserved. Karen L. Kobylarz first encountered ancient Egypt and Rome while watching The Ten Commandments and Cleopatra at the age of eight and has been a devotee ever since.
Her previous publications include the short stories “Expecting Miracles” (Fables Webzine), “Cleopatra’s Needle” (Paradox), and “Imperishable Stars” and “The Book of Thuti.” (Leading Edge).
When she’s not exploring the mysteries of the Land of the Pharaohs, Ms. Kobylarz teaches third-grade transitional bilingual students at a local elementary school. She has B.A. in Elementary Education and an M.A. in Writing.
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