The Egyptian Royals Collection

by Michelle Moran

  “A rare treat,” Juba remarked.

  “I wonder why more aren’t done near the Senate,” she said.

  “Possibly because the Forum is a place of business, not torture,” he snapped.

  She popped a last piece of ofella into her mouth. “You’re probably right.” She turned to me. “My gods, just look at these people. All of this for a slave.”

  It didn’t occur to her that we were part of these people, watching as the accused assassin’s wrists and ankles were bound to the cross with rope, and listening to his shrieks of pain as he was hoisted into the air. When I buried my face in Alexander’s shoulder, Juba remarked, “What’s the matter? I thought you wanted to see this.”

  “I wanted to see if he was the bowman!”

  “And?”

  I nodded, unable to speak. He wouldn’t have heard me anyway. The boy’s screams were too loud, and as the cross was raised his body sank down on the sedile, a crude wooden seat that took the pressure from his wrists.

  Finally, even Julia had had enough. “We should go,” she said. “I don’t want to see this anymore.”

  Marcellus agreed. There was no sign of the Red Eagle. No indication that the kitchen boy’s death would be swift.

  “Imagine if he had tried to assassinate our father,” Alexander reminded me quietly as we left. “We would want him dead.”

  But Octavian wasn’t our father, and I couldn’t stop wondering what might have happened if I had simply held my tongue.

  There was no more talk of the Red Eagle on the Palatine, but Octavian gave a special address to the Senate and requested a force of soldiers whose sole duty would be to protect him. The Senate agreed, assembling a professional body of men that Octavian called his Praetorian Guard. But after several weeks without any new acta posted in Rome, everyone began to wonder whether the Red Eagle might have gone into hiding.

  “Why else would he be silent?” Julia asked on the way to the Ludi Romani. The streets were swollen with people carrying circus padding to the amphitheater for the start of the Games, and our litter swayed dangerously as the bearers tried to avoid a collision.

  “Perhaps he wants to distance himself from the kitchen boy,” I suggested, holding onto the wooden sides.

  There was a sudden stop, and Julia jerked forward, steadying herself with her hand. “Be careful!” she screamed, tearing open the delicate curtains and swearing at the hapless bearers. When she’d twitched the curtains shut, she turned to me. “For three years now, the Red Eagle has appeared at the Ludi.”

  I gasped. “In person?”

  “No. He goes by night and posts acta on the Circus doors. Last year,” she whispered, “he freed the gladiators who were going to fight in the arena!”

  “So you think that there should be an end to slavery?”

  Julia looked at me with alarm. “Of course not! But imagine a man daring enough to free gladiators from their cells.” She sighed. “Spartacus was courageous. But the Red Eagle,” she whispered eagerly, “could be anyone. He might not even be a slave.”

  I recalled Gallia’s meeting with Magister Verrius. Since then, I’d tried several times to speak with her about the Red Eagle, and every time, she’d dismissed me with a wave. “It would be dangerous to fall in love with a rebel,” I warned.

  Julia laughed. “Plenty of women fall in love with gladiators, and most of the gladiators are criminals.” She opened the curtain and pointed to the merchants on the side of the road. “You see what they’re selling?”

  “Ofellae?”

  “No.” She made a face. “Look closer.”

  “Are those—?” I clapped my hand over my mouth.

  Julia giggled. The shopkeepers were selling statuettes of gladiators with erect penises. “Everyone knows that women lust after them.” She let the curtain fall back into place. “Even Horatia has had one,” she confessed.

  I leaned forward. “Without her husband knowing?”

  “Pollio has taken half a dozen of her slave girls. She deserves some happiness.”

  “But what if he catches her?”

  “It was only once. And he’ll never divorce her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he told my father that he never wants anything but fourteen-year-old girls.”

  “And what does he think? She won’t ever grow old?”

  “Sure. But she will always be small. Like you.” I shuddered at the thought of a man like Pollio taking me to his couch and pressing his naked stomach against mine, just like the man on the Palatine. I will never let that happen to me again. I will follow my mother to the grave before I’m subjected to that. I suspected that Julia could read the disgust on my face, because she added, “Horatia swore that she’d open her wrists before she wed Pollio.”

  There was a shrill scream on the other side of the curtain, and Julia rushed to open it again. On the steps of a temple, an old man was thrashing two boys with a whip. They knelt on the steps of the temple and cowered, covering their heads with their arms.

  “Why don’t they run?” I cried.

  “They’re slaves.” Julia leaned forward to get a better view. “In fact, they’re Fabius’s slaves!”

  “You recognize him?”

  She threw a look over her shoulder. “He’s one of the richest men in Rome.”

  The cries of the two boys were terrible to hear. I covered my ears with my hands. “But what could they have done?”

  “To Fabius? I’ve heard it doesn’t take much more than rebuffing his advances.”

  “To boys?”

  “And girls. And widows. And matrons. Disgusting,” she said, and let the curtain fall into place.

  When we arrived, Agrippa made certain that Caesar’s box was ready, then returned to help us from our litters.

  “This is the new amphitheater,” Julia said eagerly. “I wonder what our seats will be like.”

  Members of Octavian’s Praetorian Guard escorted us through the crowd. Armed soldiers cleared away the plebs, but I noticed that Octavian still walked between Juba and Agrippa.

  “So what do you think?” a familiar voice asked, and when I turned, Vitruvius was standing with Octavia. He smiled. “Brand-new. Built by Consul Titus Statilius Taurus.”

  “It’s very handsome,” I said cautiously. The amphitheater towered above the Campus Martius, and even though it was swarming with people, its elegance was undisturbed. The ground floor was occupied by shops tucked neatly between the painted arches, and large columns had been carved like friezes into the sides.

  “But?” Vitruvius asked.

  “But I would have chosen red granite instead of limestone. The limestone will look dirty in a few years’ time.”

  Vitruvius smiled. “I would have to agree with you.”

  “Vitruvius tells me you have a strong understanding of geometry,” Octavia said, taking his arm, “and that he is exceptionally impressed by your designs for my brother’s mausoleum.”

  When I looked to Vitruvius in surprise, Octavia laughed.

  “Oh, he is sparing with his praise. But he’s shown me your work.”

  “I’d like to see it,” Marcellus said.

  “Her sketches are in the library,” Vitruvius replied.

  Julia was silent. When we reached Caesar’s box with its wine-colored awnings and wide silk couches, she purposefully sat between me and Marcellus, turning her back to me to ask him, “So who will you bet on?”

  “We can place bets on gladiators?” Alexander asked.

  “Sure,” Marcellus said. Then he amended, “Of course, there’s no method to it. Not like what you’ve shown me with the horses. You simply pick a number—fifty, thirty-three—and if that gladiator survives, you win.”

  “Are there odds?”

  “Alexander!” I said sharply. “You can’t bet on men’s lives.”

  “I bet on them in the Circus.”

  “Those are just chariots.”

  Alexander looked abashed. “Come on, Selene. If I win, I’
ll give you the winnings for your home.”

  “What home?” Julia asked.

  “Her foundling home,” Marcellus replied, but not so loudly that Octavian, on the couch next to us, could hear.

  Julia stared at me. “I didn’t know about this.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said quickly.

  “Marcellus knows about it.”

  “Because he saw the sketch. It’s just a place I imagined.”

  “For foundlings,” Marcellus explained. “She’s interested in charity, like my mother.”

  “How nice,” Julia said, but her tone implied otherwise.

  “It probably won’t come to anything,” I said.

  Julia folded her arms across her chest. “Why not?”

  “Because who would build a home for foundlings? And why would anyone listen to me?”

  “I might,” she said pointedly, and most likely for Marcellus’s benefit, “if I were Caesar’s wife.”

  I was silent.

  “You have such a very kind heart, Selene. I wish I were so good.” But I could see that she didn’t. She was content to eat ofellae during executions and step over wailing infants so long as Marcellus didn’t think she was callous. And although Marcellus would never criticize her, she couldn’t bear it when he praised me. “So are you betting?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “If Alexander wishes to bet on death, then he can.”

  “Really?” My brother leaned back on the couch so he could see around Marcellus and Julia. “You won’t be upset?”

  I refused to answer him.

  “Oh, they’re going to die anyway,” Julia said.

  “And betting on it won’t make a difference,” Alexander pointed out.

  The bet-maker appeared, and from her couch in front of us, Livia said gleefully, “Twenty denarii on the first gladiator.”

  “To live or die, Domina?”

  “Die,” she said, and next to her, Octavian passed the man a heavy purse.

  “And for you, Domina?”

  Octavia considered. “The first five gladiators.”

  “Living or dead?”

  “Living,” Octavia said pointedly, and her brother smiled.

  When the bet-maker came to Alexander, I turned my face away.

  “It’s not nice, is it?” Antonia asked. She shared a couch with her sister and Vipsania. On the other side of them, Tiberius and his younger brother, Drusus, were rolling dice. “I try not to watch whenever the men die.”

  “Are they all condemned criminals?”

  “No. Some are slaves who were purchased for fighting. Aren’t there gladiatorial events in Egypt?”

  “No. We don’t kill men for sport.”

  “Oh, there’s women, too,” she said sadly. “And animals.”

  “Here?”

  “Sure. Look.”

  The trumpets sounded, and as the gates of the arena were pulled up, a group of sword-carrying men entered from beneath the amphitheater. They wore strange sandals laced up to the knee and short tunics, and I realized with a start that some were mere boys.

  “Who are they?”

  “Telegenii,” Antonia said. “The consul who built this amphitheater found them south of Carthage and brought them here to fight.”

  There was a loud gasp from the crowd in the arena as seven leopards were set loose.

  “They’re not going to kill the cats?” I exclaimed.

  “Certainly. Or they’ll be killed themselves.”

  I sat forward. “Is this what you bet on?” I shouted at Alexander.

  “No! No one said there would be leopards.”

  “What’s the matter?” Marcellus asked.

  “Those animals”—Alexander pointed wildly—“are sacred in Egypt. We don’t kill them for meat, and certainly not for entertainment!”

  “Oh, this is just the opening act,” Julia said. “There’s only seven. Then the real fights will begin.”

  Alexander glanced at me, and I could see the fear in his eyes. If our mother had been alive, she would never have forgiven us for watching this.

  “Do you think they’ve brought this to Egypt?” I asked coldly in Parthian.

  “Yes,” he said quitely. “And when we return, we’ll forbid it.”

  The announcer narrated the fight, and whenever the crowds cheered I closed my eyes and imagined that I was back in Alexandria, where the Museion towered over the gleaming city and philosophers went to the theater for entertainment.

  “It’s not that bad,” Julia said critically. “You can open your eyes. They’re nearly all dead.”

  “The leopards or the Telegenii?”

  “The leopards. Only two Telegenii have been killed.”

  I opened my eyes, but I refused to watch. Instead I turned and looked at Gallia, who was sitting behind us among the men of the Praetorian Guard. When she caught my gaze, she beckoned to me with her hand. I left my position on the couch next to Julia, and Gallia made space for me on hers.

  “Not enjoying the Games?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Oh, but you haven’t even seen the best part,” she said dryly. “When the gladiators are done being savaged, two men will come out and get them. One will be dressed as Hermes, the other as Charon.” The messenger god and the ferryman of the dead.

  “What do they do?”

  “Collect the bodies. But first, Hermes prods the gladiator with a hot iron, and if he moves, Charon takes a mallet and crushes his skull.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand. “So even if he could survive, he’s killed?”

  “Yes.” The trumpets blared for a second time, and Hermes made his appearance with Charon, just as she said.

  “They have all placed bets on this. Even Octavia. And Julia’s enjoying it.”

  Gallia nodded. “I know. But perhaps you judge Domina Julia too harshly.”

  I glanced up in surprise. “I don’t pass any judgment on Julia at all.”

  Gallia smiled as if she didn’t believe me. “She has not had it easy.”

  “She’s the daughter of Caesar!”

  “And what of her mother?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you see the woman up there?” Gallia indicated a fine-featured matron several rows above us where the women of Rome were forced to sit apart from the men. The woman possessed a fascinating beauty, and she was watching Julia with attention that never wavered. “That is Scribonia, Domina Julia’s mother.”

  When Scribonia caught us staring at her, she smiled sadly. I turned to Gallia. “She’s beautiful. Why did Caesar divorce her?”

  “She was not obedient. Now she is only allowed to see her daughter from the upper seats of these games.”

  “Julia can’t visit her?”

  “Once a year, during Saturnalia, she may bring her mother a gift.”

  I gasped at the cruelty. It was no wonder Julia had been so interested in my mother. And now, all she had was Livia. Bitter, selfish, jealous Livia. “Do you think she ever visits Scribonia secretly?” I asked.

  Gallia gave a little smile. The men of the Praetorian Guard around us were cheering, ignoring us completely. “Of course,” she whispered. “But how can secret visits be enough for a mother? Or a daughter?”

  I looked around the amphitheater. “This place is filled with secrets.”

  “More than you know.”

  I hesitated. “Are there secrets about my father in here?”

  She gave me a long, searching look before answering. “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  She indicated a woman seated below Scribonia. Her eyes were painted with heavy shadow, and her long hair was dressed with small gems and pearls. Only actresses and lupae wore so much paint in Rome. Gallia said, “Domina Cytheris.”

  “Does she work in the theater?”

  “Not anymore. But when she did, she was your father’s mistress.” She studied my face to see my reaction, but I wasn’t surprised.

  “And who is she mistress to now?
” I asked. The pearls in her hair and expensive jewels at her throat had not come free, and Charmion used to say that women who couldn’t keep their legs closed couldn’t keep their purses shut either.

  “Dominus Gallus. The prefect that Caesar has sent to govern Egypt.” I gave a small gasp, and Gallia placed her hand on mine. “I know it is not easy.”

  “So why isn’t she there with him?” I asked bitterly.

  “She has told him she prefers to entertain in Rome.”

  I thought of the irony that my father’s former lupa, an actress who had performed nude on the stage, now had the choice of living in Egypt’s palace. My mother had been forced to take her own life, and now a woman like Cytheris could sleep in her bed and paint her eyes with her kohl. But Cytheris had turned down the opportunity. Hadn’t she seen paintings of Alexandria? Didn’t she want to know what it would feel like to lie in the palace and listen to the waves crash against the rocks while the gulls called to one another on the shore?

  I touched the pearl diadem in my hair, and Gallia said tenderly, “This is why I do not like to tell you these things.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” I lied. “What else?” I ignored the sound of metal on metal and the wild cheering of the crowd. “Is there anyone else here my father would have known?”

  Gallia indicated a young man seated below us, whose light hair and broad shoulders seemed strangely familiar. “That is your brother Dominus Jullus by your father’s third wife.”

  “He looks just like Antyllus!” Jullus and Antyllus had been brothers, but only Antyllus had made the terrible decision to follow my father to Alexandria. I watched as Jullus tilted his head back with laughter and the golden hair tumbled over his ears—just like Antyllus and Ptolemy. I felt an instant connection to him that I had never felt toward Antonia or her sister. Perhaps it was because I had never had sisters, only brothers. “I wish I could meet him.”

  “Not possible,” Gallia warned sternly. “You do not want Caesar to think the Antonii are rising again. Better to watch him from afar.”

  “Like Scribonia watches Julia?”

  Gallia nodded sadly. “Yes.”

  There was a great roar of disapproval from below, and then suddenly everyone was standing. “What’s happening?” I cried.