The Egyptian Royals Collection

by Michelle Moran

  The women studied me, and now I really felt like Gallia’s bird, being preened for a life in a cage.

  “At the waist,” Gallia decided herself. “It’s simple.” She tied the sash above my hips, then slipped a pair of leather sandals on my feet. On my neck, she fastened a golden necklace with a disc that was hidden by my mother’s pearls. She didn’t have to tell me that it was a bulla. I had seen Roman children in Alexandria wearing the same protective amulet.

  “What about her hair?” Octavia worried.

  Gallia took the metal rod from the brazier and held it in front of me by its cool end. “Do you know what this is?”

  We had them in Alexandria. “A hot iron,” I said.

  “Yes. A calamistrum. If you will remove your diadem.…”

  I followed her instructions and seated myself on one of the chairs. When Gallia was finished, Octavia said eagerly, “Now her eyes.”

  I had powdered the lids carefully with malachite, and lined them with antimony as Charmion had taught me. But Gallia wiped my eye makeup away with a cloth, and when she didn’t make any motion to replace it, I protested. “But I’ve never gone anywhere without paint.”

  Gallia passed a look to Octavia. “Domina,” she said to me, “that is not proper in Rome.”

  “But I wore it every day on the ship.”

  “That was at sea. You must not look like a lupa in front of Caesar’s guests.”

  “A what?”

  “You know”—she gestured—“one of those women.”

  “A whore,” Alexander said from behind us, and Octavia gasped. “Sorry,” he said quickly. But I knew that he wasn’t. He was smiling, and Gallia nodded at him.

  “You look very handsome, Domine.”

  I turned. “Handsome? You look like you’re wearing a bedsheet. How will you walk? It’s ridiculous.” I spoke in Parthian, but Alexander replied in Latin.

  “It’s a toga praetexta. And,” he added indignantly, “it’s what Marcellus is wearing.” A red stripe ran along its border, but the material wasn’t nearly as beautiful as that of my tunic. Just then he noticed my red sandals, and whistled. “A Roman princess.” I glared at him, but he ignored my anger. “So nothing for your eyes, then?”

  “We want to remind Rome that she is a girl,” Gallia repeated, “not a woman in some dirty lupanar.”

  “That will do,” Octavia said sternly, and I imagined that a lupanar was a place where women sold their sexual favors.

  But Gallia only smiled. “He asked.”

  I went to Alexander and touched the golden disc at his throat. “So we really are Romans now,” I said darkly. My brother avoided my gaze. Then Marcellus appeared behind him, smiling in a way that made me forget we were prisoners masquerading as citizens. His freshly washed hair curled at the nape of his neck, and the color contrasted with the darkness of his skin.

  “You’re a goddess in emerald, Selene. This must be the work of Gallia. She could stop Apollo in his chariot, if she wanted.”

  “Very pretty, Domine.”

  Octavia looked from my brother to me. “Are they ready?”

  Gallia nodded. “They are as Roman now as Romulus himself.”

  Alexander risked a glance at me. We followed Gallia through the halls and out to the portico, where Octavia’s youngest daughters sat patiently in the shade. I couldn’t recall ever sitting patiently anywhere as a child, but these children were all sweetness and gold. Like their mother, I thought, and stopped myself from thinking of my own mother lying cold in her sarcophagus next to my father.

  As we followed the cobbled road to Caesar’s villa, Gallia explained, “When we reach the triclinium, a slave will ask you to take off your sandals.”

  “To wash our feet?” Alexander asked.

  “Yes. And then you’ll enter the chamber. A nomenclator will announce your arrival, and all of us will be taken to our assigned couches.”

  “Romans eat on couches?” I asked.

  “Don’t Egyptians?”

  “No. We eat at tables. With chairs and stools.”

  “Oh, there will be tables,” Gallia said easily. “But not stools, and chairs are only for old men.”

  “But then how do we eat?” Alexander worried.

  “While reclining.” Gallia saw our expressions and explained, “There will be a dozen tables with couches around them. Caesar’s couch is always at the back, and the place of honor is opposite the empty side of his table. Whoever sits there at Caesar’s right is his most important guest.”

  “Which tonight,” Octavia predicted, “will be the both of you.”

  “But we don’t know what to do!” I exclaimed.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Marcellus promised. “Just recline on your left elbow, then eat with your right hand. And if they serve the Trojan pig,” he warned mischievously, “don’t eat it.”

  “Marcellus!” Octavia said sharply.

  “It’s true! Remember Pollio’s dinner party?”

  “Pollio is a freedman without the sense to cook a chicken,” Octavia pronounced, and turned to us. “Here you may eat whatever is served.”

  Behind her, Marcellus shook his head in warning, making the gesture of throwing up with his hands. Alexander snickered, and I suppressed a smile. But when we reached the wide bronze doors of Octavian’s villa, I pressed my nails into my palms. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, scolding me to relax my hands.

  “This is it,” Alexander said nervously. I took his arm, and as we crossed the threshold into the vestibulum, I was shocked by the room’s simplicity. There were no cedar tables inlaid with gems, or lavish chambers hung with Indian silks. A faded mosaic depicted a stage with tragedians, and on the wall an old mask from a comedy stared back at us with its sightless eyes and ghastly smile. As we passed through the atrium, there were candlelit busts of the Julii, but no great statues of Octavian or his family. Aside from the blue-veined marble of the floors, there was nothing to indicate that this was the home of a conquering hero.

  “This could be a merchant’s villa,” I whispered.

  “Or a peasant’s. Where is the furniture?” Alexander asked.

  But as we reached the triclinium and a slave hurried out to wash our feet, I peered inside and realized what Octavian had done. In every room a visitor might frequent, the crudest furniture had been used. But inside the summer dining room, where only his most intimate friends ever gathered, the tables had been set with silver egg cups and matching bowls. Maroon silk covered the dining couches, and lavender water trickled from a marble fountain. Because one side of the room opened onto a garden, long linen curtains blew in the breeze, keeping out the glare of the setting sun.

  “He wants the people to think he’s humble,” I said critically in Parthian.

  “Meanwhile, his friends are dining like kings,” my brother added.

  The nomenclator announced each person’s arrival, and when it was our turn, I noticed that every guest in the triclinium turned.

  “Alexander Helios and Kleopatra Selene, Prince and Princess of Egypt.”

  There was a murmur of surprise, then the guests turned to one another and began to chatter eagerly.

  “Just follow me,” Octavia instructed softly, and Gallia departed to take her meal with the household slaves in the atrium. As we crossed the room, I saw Julia stand up from a table in the corner. She was Octavian’s only child, but she looked nothing like him, and I assumed she had inherited her looks from her mother.

  “Marcellus!” She smiled. She was wearing a tunic of the palest blue, and her dark gaze, cool and appraising, flicked in my direction. “Come,” she told him, and led him away, putting her slender arm through his.

  When I made to follow, Alexander pulled me back. “We’re not eating with them. We’re at the next table.” He indicated the couch where Caesar was scribbling something on a scroll. We would be sitting with Livia, Juba, and Agrippa.

  “Your guests of honor,” Octavia said.

  Her brother looked up, and a fain
t smile touched his lips. “Very nice.” He meant our clothes. He rose to a sitting position and the others around the table immediately did the same. “Almost Roman.”

  “They are Roman,” Agrippa pointed out.

  “Only half. The rest of them is Greek.”

  “But a stunning combination,” Maecenas said approvingly.

  Octavian rose, and the entire triclinium fell silent. “I present to you the children of Queen Kleopatra and Marc Antony,” he announced. “Selene and Alexander have journeyed from Egypt to take part in tomorrow’s Triple Triumph, a celebration of my success in Illyricum, my victory in the Battle of Actium, and the annexation of Egypt.”

  There was tremendous applause, and I refused to let my lower lip tremble.

  “And tonight,” Octavian continued, “there will be an auction for each of these prizes.” He snapped his fingers and a group of male slaves wheeled twenty covered statues into the triclinium. Some were very large, but others were no bigger than my hand. An excited murmur passed through the room. “Bidding, as always, will be blind.” He smiled briefly. “Enjoy your meal.”

  He returned to the table, and Octavia motioned that it was time for us to recline on the couches. It was impossible to get comfortable, and Juba smiled across the table at me.

  “Just like a Roman now,” he said. “And I must say, a tunic suits you much better than a chiton. You’ve even donned the bulla.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “It belongs to Octavia.”

  “But you wear it so well.”

  Octavia smiled. “Alexander, Selene, I see you’ve met Juba. Perhaps you remember Maecenas as well.” Maecenas’s dark eyes hadn’t left my brother’s face since our arrival. “And this is Maecenas’s wife, Terentilla. A good friend of mine and a great patron of the theater.”

  When Terentilla smiled at us, a pair of dimples appeared in her cheeks. “It is a pleasure.”

  “And this is the poet Vergil, and the historian Livy.” That completed our table, and while women appeared with food in large silver bowls, Octavia whispered, “This is the gustatio.” I presumed that meant the first course. There was cabbage in vinegar, snails, endives, asparagus, clams, and large red crabs. Each person was expected to take what he or she wanted from the middle of the table, and just as in Egypt there were napkins, and spoons whose opposite end could be used as a knife. I chose several clams, and while I was wondering what to do with the empty shells, I saw Agrippa toss his to the floor. Alexander merrily followed his example, discarding his crab shells onto the tiles.

  “Alexander,” I hissed.

  “What? Everyone else is doing it,” he said guiltily.

  “But who cleans it up?”

  Alexander frowned. “The slaves.”

  Even Octavia was dropping her shells onto the floor, wiping them away with a flick of her wrist as she asked Terentilla to help describe the plays Octavian had missed while he was gone. There was talk of a play in which female actors had actually undressed on stage, and one at which the entire audience rose and walked out because the actors had been so terrible.

  When the second course came, Alexander said eagerly, “Look!” Slaves with large platters came to our table first, setting in front of us a variety of meats that would have contented even my father. There was roasted goose in white almond sauce, ostrich with Damascene prunes, and pheasants. There was even a peacock, served on a platter decorated with its own feathers. But when Alexander saw the thrushes in honeyed glaze, his eyes went wide.

  “You’d think you’d never eaten before,” I said critically.

  “I’m growing.”

  “Into what? Remember what happened to our grandfather.” He had grown to the size of a bull by the time he died.

  A slave came to fill our cups with wine, and Octavian whispered something into Terentilla’s ear. She giggled intimately, and his eyes lingered on hers. Perhaps this is why Livia has never given him a son, I thought.

  “And would you like to see what I picked up along my travels?” I heard him ask. Her dimples appeared, and when she nodded, Octavian snapped his fingers. “The chest from Egypt,” he ordered one of his slaves. “Bring it here.” Though he had eaten only a few olives and some bread, it appeared that he was finished with his meal.

  When the chest was placed on a table behind Octavian, Terentilla clapped her hands with joy. “Your treasures!” she exclaimed, and her long lashes fluttered on her cheeks.

  “A few,” Octavian admitted, and I was curious to see what he had stolen from Egypt. The slave who had brought the chest to the table produced one curiosity at a time, and Octavian named each one and then passed it around.

  “Shall I write down the names?” Livia asked eagerly. “In case you forget?”

  “Yes,” Octavian said, and Livia produced a scroll and a reed pen from a hidden drawer in the table. “This is called the Eye of Horus,” he said, and his guests made the appropriate noises of delight. It was a faience amulet, something that would have impressed a peasant farmer outside of Alexandria but would never have found its way inside the palace. I wondered where he had taken it from. “And this is a statue of the war goddess Sekhmet.” Terentilla thought it was the most beautiful image she had ever seen. When the statuette came to her, she stroked the goddess’s leonine face and drew her finger over the breasts.

  “Can you imagine worshipping a goddess with a lion’s head?” she asked Juba. “I’ve heard they have a goddess with a hippo’s head as well!”

  “Tawaret,” I said through clenched teeth. “They are old gods, and today the people worship Isis, who is no different from your Venus.”

  “I think what Selene is trying to say,” Juba interpreted, “is that the Ptolemies do not worship goddesses with animal heads anymore, but women with wings.”

  “I believe your Cupid has wings as well,” I said sharply.

  Alexander kicked my shin, but the men around the table laughed. “It’s true!” Vergil said, nodding sagely. Terentilla looked contrite, and I saw that she hadn’t meant any offense. But Octavian wasn’t interested in our banter. He had produced the sketch he’d taken from me on the ship, and Terentilla was the first to murmur her surprise.

  “What is that?”

  “An image of Alexandria by Kleopatra Selene,” Octavian replied, though when he looked at me there was no warmth in his eyes. “The princess appears to have great talent in art.”

  My drawing was passed around the table, and even Juba seemed impressed, staring at the picture for a second time. Livia made several markings on her scroll, misspelling my name with a C in place of a K. I didn’t believe there was any person left in Rome who couldn’t spell my mother’s name or mine in Greek, and I knew she did it on purpose.

  “The artist and the horseman,” Agrippa remarked. “A pair of very interesting siblings. I wonder—” His words were cut off by a commotion outside the doors of the triclinium. Guests sat upright on their couches; then the doors flew open and a soldier appeared.

  “What is this?” Octavian demanded. When he stood, Juba and Agrippa rose as well.

  “Forgive me, Caesar, but there is news I thought you might want to hear.”

  “Has our illustrious traitor been caught?” Juba demanded.

  “No, but one of the Red Eagle’s followers—”

  “Are the soldiers now glorifying him as well?” Octavian shouted.

  The soldier stepped back. “No. I—I meant to say the traitor. One of the traitor’s followers was discovered posting this on the Temple of Jupiter.” The soldier produced a scroll, and Octavian snatched it. “Another actum,” the soldier said. “And the symbol of the same red eagle at the bottom.”

  “Has the man been tortured?” Octavian asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And what has he said?”

  “That he was paid by a stranger in the Forum to nail it up.”

  “And who was this stranger?”

  The soldier shook his head. “He swears it was a farmer.”

  Octav
ian’s look was murderous. “The man who produces this cannot be a farmer. He is literate and has access to the Palatine. He is a soldier, or a guard, or a very foolish senator. The man is lying!”

  “Chop off his hand,” Livia said at once, “and nail it to the Senate door.”

  The soldier looked for confirmation from Octavian.

  “Yes. And if he still doesn’t remember who paid him to post this, then crucify the rest of him. Agrippa will make sure that it’s done.” When the soldier hesitated, Octavian said sharply, “Go!”

  An uneasy silence had settled over the triclinium. Octavian looked to the harpist. “Keep playing!” he commanded. The girl placed her trembling hands on the strings, and when Octavian resumed his seat, the room filled with nervous conversation.

  I turned and whispered to Octavia, “I don’t understand. Who is the Red Eagle?”

  Octavia glanced uneasily at her brother, but he was giving instructions to Agrippa. “A man who wants to put an end to slavery.”

  “Then he’s inspiring slaves to rebel?” I asked.

  Octavia shifted uncomfortably. “No. The attempts to do that have already failed. Slaves have no weapons or organization.”

  “So what does he want?” Alexander asked.

  “For the patricians to rebel. He wants men with money and the power in the Senate to put an end to servitude.”

  My brother made a face. “And he thinks that will happen?”

  Octavia smiled sadly. “No. The most he can hope for is a leniency of the laws.”

  “And if he thinks he will achieve even that, then he’s a fool,” Juba said darkly. “Rome will always have its slaves. Gauls, Germans—”

  “Egyptians, Mauretanians. If not for an accident of Fortune,” I said hotly, “you and I might be slaves as well!”

  Marcellus looked over from the table next to us, and I realized my voice had been louder than I intended.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “THAT WAS very brave, what you told him,” Marcellus said.

  “Or very foolish,” my brother put in angrily.

  “Why? Isn’t it the truth?” I demanded. The three of us sat on separate couches, and Marcellus looked like golden-haired Apollo in the lamplight of our chamber. His strong, tanned arms seemed capable of anything. It was no wonder Octavian preferred him over his bitter stepson Tiberius.