Egypt's Sister: A Novel of Cleopatra

by Angela Hunt

  A moment later I watched in horrified silence as a guard led a mother and her toddling child to the auction platform. The auctioneer cut the fabric ties at the woman’s shoulders, allowing her tunic to fall and expose her milk-swollen breasts. I had never felt such sympathy for a slave, but my heart twisted as I watched the poor woman struggle to hide herself and shelter her little one.

  “A fertile young woman from Gaul,” the auctioneer called. “Doesn’t speak Greek, but understands most gestures. Has been a housemaid in Rome, sent to market because the baby caused her to become slack in her duties. Potential wet nurse here. Make a good offer and I’ll throw in the child for only two hundred denarii.”

  I pressed my hands over my ears at the cacophony of voices. Was this what Nuru endured before she joined our household? She had been Father’s birthday gift when I reached thirteen years. I had never considered Nuru’s life before she came to me, but if it had been anything like this—

  The door to our cage swung open. I helped Father to his feet, then we led the two children onto the hot sand and stared at a line of guards intended to intimidate. We edged forward and moved up a series of wooden steps until we stood on a platform before a sea of expectant faces.

  I looked away, afraid I might spot someone I knew. What if one of my childhood friends was shopping for a new handmaid? What if one of the palace officials stood in the crowd? Despite my forlorn appearance, I could still be recognized, and I would rather die than have anyone realize the depths to which I’d descended.

  Then I remembered Rufio, my only hope, and lifted my head to search for him. Though he had promised to buy only me, I hoped he had found a way to purchase my father, as well. Father would be a credit to any household and might prove extremely useful as an amanuensis or scribe.

  The auctioneer grabbed Father’s sleeve, pulled him over, and consulted a card. “Great bargain here! Older male, educated, speaks Koine Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Aramaic. Reads and writes. Was a teacher of rhetoric to the royal family.”

  A murmur rippled through the crowd, and several faces lit with interest.

  “We will start the bidding at five hundred drachmas. You’ll never find a tutor for less.”

  “So much?” a man called. “He’s a breath away from the grave!”

  “He only needs a little fattening up.” The grinning auctioneer wiped sweat from his neck. “So come on—who’ll make the first bid? Do I hear five hundred?”

  I searched frantically for Rufio and finally spotted him at the edge of the crowd. He was clutching a purse and shouldering his way through the onlookers, vying for a good position.

  “Six hundred!”

  “Six-fifty!”

  I stared at Rufio. Why wasn’t he bidding?

  “Seven hundred!

  “Eight! Eight hundred drachmas.”

  “Sold! For eight hundred drachmas. To the man with the red hat.”

  I swallowed a hysterical sob as the auctioneer’s men led Father down the stairs. I searched for a man with a red hat but caught only a glimpse of him as he made his way to the government official who recorded the sales.

  I felt more alone than ever.

  I lifted my head again and saw Rufio. He now stood only a few feet from the front of the platform. Soon this nightmare would be over, and once I was free I would find my father and arrange for his manumission. After all, we still owned a house and furnishings, and property in Alexandria was valuable. . . .

  I palmed tears from my face, straightened my spine, and raised my chin. Clothing myself in the dignity Urbi and I used to imitate when we pretended to be queens, I walked to the center of the platform and narrowed my gaze against the sunlit horizon.

  “Ah,” the auctioneer called, his voice taking on an oily tone, “the best of this lot. Young female of childbearing age, educated. Can read, write, and sing. Has been trained in the courtly arts such as dancing and playing the lute. Tall and graceful. Look beneath the dirt and you’ll find a true beauty. Use her to increase your slave stock or keep her for your pleasure. Let’s start the bidding at four thousand drachmas.”

  I had hoped to maintain my aloof perspective, but a wave of anxiety swamped me at the mention of such a large sum. My eyes sought and found Rufio’s. He stood as erect as a pillar amid the surging shoppers. When our gazes crossed, his jaw clenched and he lifted his hand. “Four thousand drachmas!”

  “Ho!” the auctioneer crowed. “The commander thinks to buy himself a slave. I did not know Rome paid its men so well!”

  Did they? I closed my eyes and tried to do the math. I had heard that the average soldier earned 255 Roman denarii each year they served in the army, and a denarius was more or less equal to a Greek drachma. So if Rufio never spent a single sestertii, in twenty years he would earn—I suddenly wished I’d paid more attention to mathematics—5,100 denarii. As a commander, he might earn a bit more, but he hadn’t always been a commander, and surely he had spent some of his wages on things like meat pies—

  “Forty-five hundred!” From a tall bald man at the back of the crowd.

  “Five thousand!” Rufio called out.

  I closed my eyes and prayed for the auction to end.

  “Six thousand, and not a copper more!”

  My eyes flew open as an unfamiliar voice entered the fray. A swarthy little man stood in the center of the mob, surrounded on two sides by burly seamen. The man squinted at me and grinned, then waved a bag that sagged with the weight of coin. “I am ready to pay.”

  “Sold for six thousand drachmas!” The auctioneer brought his hand down on empty air and the deal was done.

  I glanced at Rufio, who stared into space with defeat on his features. He had kept his word, but he’d been outspent.

  “Who?” I asked one of the men who stepped forward to wrap my wrists with rope. “The man who won the auction—who is he?”

  The man grinned, exposing a gap where two front teeth should have been. “Lucky you. Your new owner is Lippio the Greek.”

  “Does he live here? In Alexandria?”

  “He’s a sailor. Buys Egyptian slaves cheap, resells ’em in Rome. Doesn’t usually buy ’spensive slaves like you, though.” The man pulled me down the steps, then pushed me toward a stand where several other bound slaves waited. “Gods go with you, girl. You’ll be headed for Rome as soon as the winds turn.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  During my carefree childhood, I spent hours with Urbi on the palace balcony, watching exotic ships sail into the harbor and imagining the treasures that filled their holds. In those days the words slave ship had flowed from my tongue as easily as merchant ship or warship, but I had no idea what a slave ship looked like beneath its scrubbed wooden decks.

  With my ankles shackled and my hands imprisoned by an unmoving iron brace, I was added to a line of slaves who shuffled over the dock and stepped onto the deck of a Greek slave ship. Sailors herded us like cattle, driving us down a ramp and into a dark hold where we were told to lie on racks made of wide planks. Flat on our backs, with another rack only five fingers away from the ends of our noses, each of us had one hand chained to a wooden support. The other hand remained free—to feed ourselves with stale bread, to scratch, or to lift our garment so we might relieve ourselves without rolling out of the rack. With great dismay I realized that we would not be allowed to move about until the ship arrived at its destination.

  After we were shackled into place, we were left alone in the dimly lit hold. Fresh air entered through narrow windows high on the wall, but only when the wind blew across the body of the ship.

  I had braced myself for confinement and primitive conditions, but I had not imagined the sounds—weeping, cursing, moaning from the sick. Women sobbed over babies they would never see again. Men cursed the slavers, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the gods.

  Then the torture of lying still.

  Movement could be painful at times, yet lying in a constricted space was more excruciating than I would have believed. Our close confinement
not only tortured our muscles, skin, and bones, but it also tormented our minds. By turning my head all the way to the right, I could see other racks along the opposite wall, though nothing of the occupants except shadowed forms and bare feet. Turning my head to the left, I saw the ship’s wooden beams.

  Forced to stare at the rack above me, I could not help but feel that we had been buried alive. I could not roll onto my side without banging my hip against the rack above. I could not turn over. I could not lift my head high enough to see my feet.

  My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

  Sleep brought the only respite from our ordeal, and in dreams I found myself running, rolling downhill, twirling outdoors, and lying facedown on grass with my nose pressed into yielding, fragrant earth. Then the painful cramp of a leg muscle would force me to wake and weep in frustrated agony. My only consolation was the knowledge that Father remained in Alexandria and Asher was safe in Jerusalem.

  We endured two days of stifling restraint before the ship even left port. From a lifetime of living in Alexandria, I knew the currents were tricky and fair winds necessary for a successful voyage, but each morning I railed against our captain for not either releasing us or sailing away. Each day at sea meant one less day on the rack, and if he refused to leave the harbor, he prolonged our ordeal indefinitely.

  When we could not sleep, we found solace in conversation, a sure antidote to the isolation that permeated the crowded hold. I learned that the woman above me was a Greek called Effie. She had been born a slave and had twice crossed the Great Sea. “It is not so bad,” she told me, a note of compassion in her voice. “With the boards close together like this, at least no man will be climbin’ on top of you in the middle of the night. And the voyage isn’t a long one. Once we start movin’, Rome is only a month away from Alexandria, and Alexandria is only two or three weeks from Rome.”

  “That . . . makes no sense.”

  She chuckled. “The winds, love. They blow faster when a ship is heading home. A captain cannot sail directly to Rome, but must head east and north to use the winds. And we have to put into port each night to pick up foodstuffs—no room for storage aboard these boats. Then, finally, we’ll pull into port at Puteoli.”

  Still, a month at sea? I couldn’t bear the thought.

  I was dozing in a heat-induced haze when I felt the timbers shiver beneath me. I opened my eyes to the groaning of rope and wood, and felt my stomach drop as waves slapped against boards only a short distance from my head. With the sensation of movement came renewed cries and curses, but finally the sounds faded and we rode the swells of the sea in a dense silence.

  I kept telling myself my situation was a mistake HaShem would soon rectify. If Father could accept both good and bad from the hand of Adonai, so could I, but the bad had gone on long enough. Soon HaShem would end this horror, return me to Alexandria, and allow me to rescue my father.

  I dreamed of revenge, although I had no idea how to take it. While I thirsted for justice, I was powerless to employ anyone in my cause.

  Our ship sailed steadily, zigzagging across the Great Sea according to the whims of the wind.

  Effie said she’d been allowed to remain with her mother until she reached the age of five years—after that, she was sold to a merchant who needed helpers for his cook. Effie learned to cook and clean in that Roman house, and would still be there had the master not died and bequeathed his possessions to a brother who already had a cook. So Effie was sold to a trader, who transported her to Alexandria, where she was purchased by a Greek magistrate who reported directly to the palace. “He was important,” she said, her voice brimming with pride. “We frequently had guests who had waited on the royal children, and who had worked for their father before that.”

  I said little as I listened to her stories. When she asked about my history, I gave her the simple truth: I was the daughter of a Jewish scholar. We ran afoul of a powerful person, so we had been arrested, forgotten, and sold as slaves. “My father is in Alexandria and my brother in Judea,” I said, the words sounding unreal even as I spoke them. “But one day I am going to find my family and avenge our losses.”

  “Ah, dear.” Effie clicked her tongue in sympathy. “If only it were that easy. But what did you do to get in such trouble?”

  I released a cynical laugh. “I refused a gift.”

  “Oh.” She laughed as well. “You should have known better than to commit such folly. As a slave, you will be offered no gifts unless your mistress is about to throw something out. You will also have no opinions worth discussing. So mind your words and learn to swallow your thoughts before they reach your lips. Your dominus and domina have no time for anyone but themselves, and sometimes their children.”

  Dominus and domina. Master and mistress.

  I thought of Nuru, who had been my slave for so many years. I passed hours in her company every day, but had I ever asked for her opinion? Had I ever asked if she wanted to go shopping? If she felt like walking along the docks? If she was tired or ill or lonely?

  Of course not. One did not converse with slaves, thank them, or mind their feelings any more than we minded the feelings of stray dogs on the city streets. And while one might converse with a stray dog, we did not expect it to answer. While we might occasionally throw a dog a bone, we did not do so every day because we did not want it to expect such rewards. . . .

  I closed my eyes against a sudden wave of dizziness.

  “Never look a master in the face,” Effie was saying when I opened my eyes. “And never contradict them.”

  “Even if they’re mistaken?”

  “They’re never mistaken, dear. They’re Romans.” She laughed. “We are always in the room, working a fan, standing guard—we slaves are everywhere. In your master’s house you might hear and see things that will make you want to run and hide, but you must see and hear them without reaction. Gossip about your master only if you are prepared to lose your tongue. Some say that a mute slave is the only kind worth having, so guard your tongue if you want to keep it.”

  “What about . . . ?” I hesitated to ask the question that had been haunting me. “What if the master uses his female slaves?”

  “I take your meaning,” Effie said, her tone low. “I heard once about a slave who was beaten every day because the master’s wife was jealous—apparently the man spent more time sleeping with the slave than with his wife. No one ever protested the beatings because it was the wife’s right to handle such matters in her household. And though I did not get a look at your face, I can tell from your voice that you are a gentle thing—probably pretty, too. So be careful. Don’t make the domina jealous, and do not make the dominus angry. They have every right to do with you as they please.”

  “What . . . what if a slave has a child?”

  “Well, yes, of course that happens. If a baby is born to a slave, she will lay it before the dominus. If he picks it up, he is acknowledging that it is his, so the child becomes his slave. If he ignores the baby, a woman can keep it and try to feed it without any help from the dominus, or she can leave it outside. She will consider it an offering to the gods—happens all the time. But better by far is to get rid of the baby before it is born.”

  “That . . . is possible?”

  “Jump,” she said. “Seven times, so your heels touch your buttocks. The baby will be unable to remain inside you. Or drink a tea of juniper berries or giant fennel. Better still, if you want to prevent a child in the first place, tie a cat liver to your left foot when your master comes to you.”

  I focused on Effie’s advice, memorizing her words and heeding her warnings. I was entering a new world, and until I met Effie, I had been completely unprepared.

  I had spent my youth in a glorious excess of freedom, and I had no idea how to function as a slave. I had lessons to learn, but this time I would be a good student. Because I fully intended to survive.

  “You’d best resign yourself to Roman ways,” Effie said. “Life there is not so ba
d. There’s always something to see and some scandal turning heads among the nobility. Everybody watches everyone else, and no two days are alike. If you get a good master, you can live a good life in Rome.”

  “And if I do not get a good master?”

  “If you get a swag-bellied barnacle, you could always kill him.” Effie hesitated, then dropped her free hand so I could see it. “Don’t do that,” she said, wagging her finger. “You would not live long afterward. So pray to your gods. If you absolutely cannot endure, you can always run away. Some slaves make it to freedom . . . but you have to know what you are doing before you start running. Better by far to be a loyal servant, earn your master’s favor, and buy your freedom, or pray that your master will include your manumission in his will. Happens more often than you might think. Might as well happen to you.”

  When the ship put into port at the end of each day, a seaman would come below the deck and toss a stale biscuit and a bit of dried fish to each of us—the only food we would receive until the next port. After we had eaten, other sailors would come down with buckets of seawater, which they tossed onto us in an effort to clear our plank beds of rat droppings, urine, and excrement. As we neared the end of our voyage, only a couple of stalwart men came below because the stench and putrid air of the hold made the chore intolerable for all but the most determined seamen.

  At night, the upper deck quieted, and the only sounds that reached my ears came from creaking timbers, scurrying rats, and moaning captives. To block out the horrific sounds coming from where I lay, I stared at the wooden planks above me and tried to focus on the occasional voices that drifted downward. Most of the seamen spoke Aramaic, and as a child I had learned the language along with Urbi.

  One night I overheard the captain speaking to one of his mates. According to rumors he had heard, Cleopatra was living in Caesar’s country villa on the west bank of the Tiber River. People said Caesar was keeping the queen out of the crowded city partly because it was rough, and partly because the populace had not been happy to hear that Caesar’s mistress would be living in the same city as Calpurnia, his wife—or ex-wife, depending on who reported the news.