The Egyptian Royals Collection

by Michelle Moran

  “Will her salutatio last all day?” I asked.

  Marcellus shook his head. “Just another few hours. Then she’ll do her charity work in the Subura. She would feed all of Rome if she had enough grain.”

  “Will we be doing charity work with her?”

  Marcellus laughed at Alexander’s question. “Gods, no. After school, we’ll be in the Circus Maximus. I brought a few denarii so we can all place bets.”

  Julia and Tiberius appeared on the portico, and at once I withdrew my hand from Marcellus’s arm.

  Tiberius saw the gesture and laughed. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Julia has already seen you together and is working herself into a jealous frenzy as we speak.”

  Julia smiled sweetly at Marcellus. “Don’t pay any attention to him. Selene and I are going to be great friends.” She made a show of taking my arm.

  “Will your father be sending soldiers to escort us?” I asked.

  “Who needs soldiers?” she replied. “Gallia was a warrior in her tribe.”

  I looked at Gallia. With her wheat-colored hair and proud Gallic chin, she was the image of a queen, but as the sun filtered through her tunic I saw the outline of a leather sheath on her thigh. It was a companion to the knife she wore openly at her waist, and I blinked in surprise. “You fought?”

  “When the men are all gone, or have been killed, it is up to the women. But I cannot fight off a mob if their intent is evil. That is what they are for.” She gestured behind her to a group of men. If not for the short swords at their sides and chain mail beneath their togas, they might have been senators or wealthy patricians.

  “Have they been following us all along?” I asked.

  Julia sighed loudly. “Every day. From the moment we leave our villas.”

  Gallia led us down the Palatine, and as the silence grew heavier between me and Julia, I said quietly, “You know, there is nothing to be jealous of. Marcellus has been treating me like a sister.”

  She stared ahead at the figure of Marcellus, who was leaning on Alexander’s shoulder and laughing. I guessed the pair of them were talking about gambling. Tiberius, meanwhile, lagged several steps behind, his long nose buried in a scroll. “That may be,” Julia began, “but you aren’t his sister, are you? And it’s hard to resist such a pretty smile.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You don’t think about him?” she demanded.

  “I think about Egypt, and returning to the land of my birth.”

  Her grip on my arm relaxed, and for the first time, her smile was genuine. “You know, I’m engaged to be married to him.”

  “At eleven?”

  “I was engaged when I was two,” she said crossly. “So why not now, when I’m nearly twelve? And when we marry, everyone in Rome will see who my father’s heir is intended to be. Then Tiberius can finally disappear into the army, and we can all stop pretending he’s of any importance.”

  “Is that what he wants to do?”

  “Who knows what Tiberius wants to do?” she asked nastily, glancing back at him. “And I doubt if anyone cares but his mother.” Her voice grew low. “You know, she has two thousand slaves on the Palatine.” When I gasped, she nodded, and a curl escaped from the golden band nestled in her dark hair. “They live on the western end of the hill.”

  “But I haven’t seen them.”

  “Of course not. That’s because there are underground passages. We don’t want them crowding up our roads. But you would think she did all of the work herself, with the way she complains about needing more slaves. And she sells any girl who falls pregnant.”

  “Because she can’t get pregnant with Octavian’s heir?”

  Julia raised her brows at my astuteness. “My father said you were clever.” She studied me with her dark, intense gaze, as if trying to determine whether she liked this or not. “Yes. She punishes the girls by selling them to farms, where the labor will break them and there’s no chance of ever seeing the man who made them pregnant. And if she finds the one who did it …” Julia shook her head.

  “And your father loves her?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Oh, I doubt it. But Romans don’t marry for love. Of course,” she added brightly, “I will. And when Marcellus becomes Caesar, the laws will change.”

  “What about Agrippa?”

  “He’ll watch over the army.”

  “And he’s content with that?”

  “He’ll do whatever my father wants. If my father tells him to serve Marcellus, he’ll do that as well. They are very old friends, and my father only keeps loyal men around him.”

  We had come to the place on the Palatine where Juba had killed the man who was assaulting me. I searched for the body, but someone had taken it. I shivered anyway. “So is that why he keeps Livia as a wife?”

  Julia looked at me, and I could see that this had never occurred to her before. “Yes. It probably is. It’s certainly not for children.”

  “But she birthed Tiberius and Drusus.”

  “With her first husband,” she said coldly. “Not with my father. And no one can say it’s my father’s fault, when he had me with his first wife. Which makes it obvious, doesn’t it?”

  I frowned.

  “Their marriage is cursed! My father left my mother the day I was born to take up with Livia, who was already married and pregnant. When Livia was granted a divorce, her previous husband appeared at the wedding and gave her away. Imagine!” she said, scandalously, and I could almost believe she was talking about someone other than her own father. “Of course, it’s no surprise why he wanted her. Your father used to taunt mine in the Senate, saying he was ignobilis and the grandson of a pleb.”

  I could imagine my father saying those things, enjoying the anger it would have aroused in Octavian, and secretly I was proud.

  “My father had all the power he needed, but he lacked nobilitas. And Livia comes from a long line of Claudii. But do you know what happened the year they were married?” I shook my head. The sun bathed the Temple of Jupiter in its rosy glow, which also fell like a soft blush across Julia’s skin. I didn’t think there was a more beautiful girl in Rome. “The hut of Romulus burned down, and a statue of Virtus fell on its face. Then Livia produced a stillborn, and that’s been it. Not another child.”

  A stillborn after two healthy sons. It did seem like a curse. “And Terentilla?”

  “He will never marry her,” she said quickly. “Livia will make sure of it by weaving his togas and brewing his tonics.”

  “Doesn’t he have slaves for that?”

  She smiled. “Of course. But there’s no slave in the world he could trust the way he trusts Livia. And what is Terentilla?” she asked with brutal frankness. “Just a pretty actress who can talk about the theater.”

  We reached a wooden door inside the Forum, and Gallia led the four of us into a small chamber.

  “Is this it?” I asked nervously.

  Julia sighed. “The ludus.”

  When my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw a man in a neatly arranged toga behind a desk. I had imagined he would be much older than Gallia, but he was no more than thirty, with the same light hair as Marcellus, though darker eyes. As soon as he saw Gallia, he rose.

  “Magister Verrius.” She smiled, and when he crossed the room and took her hand in his, I noticed that his kiss lingered longer than it needed to.

  “Good morning, Gallia. And this must be the Prince and Princess of Egypt,” he said in Greek.

  “Yes. Dominus Alexander and Domina Selene.” I was shocked when Gallia replied in Greek. “They have been educated in the Museion, and Domina Octavia tells me that the princess is gifted in art.”

  Magister Verrius looked at me. “What kind?”

  “I’m interested in architecture,” I replied. “Buildings and cities.”

  “And Prince Alexander?”

  When I hesitated, Marcellus laughed. “Alexander races horses,” he offered in Greek. “He’s also exceptional at dice.”

 
; A small frown appeared between the Magister’s brows, and Julia giggled.

  “Squandering time isn’t funny,” Tiberius said sharply.

  “And neither is arrogance.” Julia smiled, and a deep flush crept from Tiberius’s neck into his pale cheeks.

  Magister Verrius ignored them both. “I assume you studied Vergil in the Museion?” he asked me.

  “And Homer, and the Athenian dramatists.”

  Magister Verrius looked immensely pleased. “Then you will be very welcome additions to this ludus.” He glanced briefly at Marcellus and Julia, and I wondered how welcome they would be if not for their positions on the Palatine. He pointed us to separate tables, each with its own wax tablet and stylus, and Gallia left.

  “Will all of our schooling be conducted in Greek?” my brother asked.

  “As Cicero said, we must apply to our fellow countrymen for virtue, but for our culture we must look to the Greeks.”

  I met Alexander’s gaze and saw the smile at the corners of his mouth. There would be almost nothing required of us if all we were expected to do was learn the language of our ancestors.

  For the rest of the morning we read Athenian plays. If the lessons weren’t difficult, at least they were interesting, and Magister Verrius held a contest to see who could answer his questions first. For every correct answer he gave out a small token, and by the end of the class, it had become a competition between Tiberius and me. Alexander had seven tokens on his desk, Julia three, and Marcellus one. But Tiberius and I had each answered eleven questions correctly. I didn’t know what we were competing for, but I was determined to win.

  At the front of the room, Magister Verrius smiled broadly. “The last question.”

  I looked at Tiberius, whose thin lips were pursed with determination.

  “Aside from Sophocles,” Magister Verrius said, “which dramatist also wrote a play called Antigone?”

  “Euripides!” I exclaimed.

  Tiberius sat back in defeat. He studied me, and I could see the warring emotions of respect and jealousy on his face. “Finally,” he said at last, “another student worthy of Magister Verrius’s teaching.”

  The Magister came to my table and presented me with a scroll. “For you. Sophocles’ Antigone.”

  I looked up. “To keep?” It would be my first real possession in Rome.

  “Of course. What else?”

  When I had thanked him and returned the tokens to his desk, he dismissed us with a wave of his hand. “To the Campus Martius for your exercise,” he said.

  Marcellus turned to me. “How do you know so much?”

  “All she does is read and draw,” Alexander commented, but I could see that he was proud.

  “Well, you’ll have your own library soon,” Julia predicted. “It’s about time someone put Tiberius in his place.”

  I glanced at Tiberius, whose jaw clenched angrily, but he didn’t say anything.

  Outside, Gallia was waiting for us, shielded from the intense summer’s heat by a leather umbraculum. “Well, Domina Selene, Domine Alexander. How was it?”

  I held out my scroll, and she grinned.

  “I knew Magister Verrius would be happy to have you! Let me guess—you snatched it from the hands of Tiberius.”

  Tiberius shrugged. “She’s a worthy opponent,” he said to Gallia. “Not a useless stone weighing down another chair. But we’ll see how much she knows when it comes to Sallust.”

  I looked from Tiberius to Gallia. “Who’s that?”

  Tiberius looked pleased with my ignorance. “Who’s Sallust?” he repeated. “Only the greatest writer of Rome’s military history. Haven’t you read his Jugurthine War? or The Conspiracy of Catiline?”

  “No one’s interested in those boring works but you,” Marcellus said.

  Gallia cleared her throat before the argument could continue. “To the Campus,” she said.

  “If we make it there,” Julia grumbled. “Look at these people. They’re everywhere.”

  It was the second day of Octavian’s Triumph, and a parade had just passed by the Forum, where thousands of spectators had come for the entertainment. Children, chased by screeching sisters and brothers, ran between the columns, while mothers scolded and fathers laughed. There was no breeze as there had been in Alexandria, so the scent of incense from the Temple of Venus Genetrix lingered in the air along with the scent of ofellae, round pieces of baked dough topped with melted cheese. Men and women from every corner of the world were crowded together, and I recognized German and Gallic men from their height and flaxen-colored hair. Dark women from the southern parts of Egypt, balancing colorful baskets on their heads, wove lithely between groups of drunken men and Assyrian shopkeepers.

  “This way,” Gallia said, pushing back the strands that had escaped from her long braid. The sun was at its highest point, baking the stones beneath our feet so that even through the leather of our sandals we could feel the rising heat.

  “So what kind of exercise do we do?” I asked Julia.

  She sniffed dismissively. “It’s the men who exercise. And while they get to practice their sword fighting and horse riding, we get to sit with Livia and weave. Gallia will stay with us, and Octavia will be there with her girls, and Vipsania.”

  “But I don’t know how to weave!”

  “At all?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But what did you do while your brother exercised?”

  “I swam with him.”

  “In the river?” she exlaimed.

  “No. In the pools. Why would anyone want to weave?”

  “They wouldn’t,” she said grimly. “But Livia thinks it will keep us modest.”

  “Perhaps I can draw,” I said feebly, and indicated the leather bag at my side with my book of sketches and Magister Verrius’s scroll.

  But Julia warned, “She will teach you to weave even if your fingers bleed.” She looked up and sighed. “Here we are.”

  As the Campus Martius came into view, Alexander looked at me in surprise. Hundreds of buildings filled the horizon, jostling for space outside the walls of Rome. Marble baths nestled against the concrete walls of theaters, and giant arches competed for attention next to bustling forums.

  “Have you ever seen so many buildings?” my brother asked.

  “Not all in one place,” I said disapprovingly. We walked past the strangest jumble of shops—built without uniformity or any attention to design. From sweaty bakeries, men tried to tempt us with sows’ udders and crab cakes, while on the polished steps of the marble baths, merchants hawked Egyptian linen and scented oils.

  “That will be the site for Agrippa’s Pantheon,” Marcellus said, indicating a field strewn with broken columns and abandoned carts.

  “That will be a temple?” I confirmed.

  He laughed. “It doesn’t look like much now, but once my mother’s architect lays his hands on it.…”

  I searched the streets for the Temple of Isis, but too many buildings were crowded together to tell them apart. “And what about the Egyptian temple?” I asked.

  “It’s just a few streets away,” Marcellus said eagerly. “Would you like to go?”

  “Absolutely not!” Gallia said sternly, giving me a dark look. “Caesar is waiting.”

  “But it’s on the way,” Marcellus protested.

  “So is the lupanar,” she said angrily. “Would you like to go there, too?”

  “I’ve never been inside the Temple of Isis,” Tiberius said suddenly, and everyone looked at him. “I think we should go.”

  “You see?” Marcellus said. “Even Tiberius thinks it’s a good idea. We’ll be quick,” he promised. “Alexander and Selene could show us what all of the strange paintings mean.”

  “And those masks,” Julia added. “Haven’t you ever wanted to go inside?”

  It was five against one. Gallia glanced at the guards.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Marcellus swore. “They won’t say anything.”

  “Rea
lly?” I asked. “How do you know?”

  He turned to me and grinned. “Trust me.”

  Gallia looked at Tiberius. I suspected that if anyone would go running to Octavian, it would be him.

  “I’d like to go,” he said simply. “No one will find out. And if they do, you can just blame it on Selene and say that she took off running. That wouldn’t be so unlikely, would it?” he asked pointedly.

  Marcellus saw my discomfort and interjected, “Come on!”

  We walked briskly down several crowded streets, and I tried not to show my excitement. Despite Gallia’s misgivings and Juba’s anger, I would be meeting with the High Priest of Isis and Serapis.

  “Do you think this is a wise idea?” my brother asked in Parthian.

  “Of course it is.”

  “If Octavian finds out, he might banish the Temple of Isis from Rome altogether.”

  “We have to meet the High Priest, Alexander. If he can’t help us return to Egypt, then perhaps he knows someone who can.”

  “What?” my brother exclaimed. “Are you mad?” Marcellus and Julia both looked in our direction. My brother lowered his voice. “It will never work. Don’t even think it. You’ve caused enough trouble.”

  “For you!”

  He flinched.

  “Don’t you want to return?”

  “Of course. I’m the rightful King of Egypt.”

  “Well, you heard Octavian as well as I did. He plans to marry me off and keep you alive only so long as it seems merciful.”

  “He … he might change his mind.”

  “And if he doesn’t? Don’t you think we should have a plan for that?” I could already smell the strong scent of kyphi, just like in Alexandria. “I would rather risk my life trying to escape,” I said firmly, “than wait for Octavian to cut you down like Antyllus or Caesarion.”

  My brother didn’t say anything, but as we approached the temple, he hesitated. On the steps, a group of soldiers had surrounded a young man and woman.

  “Domine, this is not a good idea!” Gallia exclaimed.

  “Why? What’s the harm in a few soldiers?” Marcellus asked. “They’re probably just hassling a beggar.” He pushed his way through the crowd of onlookers, while Tiberius snapped, “Stand back.”