by LYDIA STORM
His strong body shivered in the chill down to his bones and he felt hollow with fear. This decision would shatter the world as they knew it, and somehow, he was powerless to stop it.
***
Octavia gritted her teeth and yanked hard on a particularly stubborn patch of weeds invading the rosemary of her decorative garden. Of course she had a villa full of servants to do this work for her, but she was never one to sit idle. Especially now.
The news traveled quickly to Rome when Antony set sail for Egypt. Gossip and speculation circulated through elegant villas and bathhouses, through crowded bazaars and into the halls of the Senate. There seemed to be nowhere Octavia could go without catching the gawking attention of the citizens. It was the scandal of Rome and since she, and not Antony, lived still on the Seven Hills, it was she who endured the whispers behind her back, the low twittering that floated like malicious birdsong as she made her way through the twisted maze of the Palatine. So Octavia closed herself up in her villa with little Antonia, unwilling to face the scandalmongers outside her door.
She brushed the earth from her hands and rose stomping around the lavender and climbing jasmine, fuming.
Crescentia came into the garden bearing a tray of figs and chilled wine. “Take some refreshments, tibi. You must eat. You’ve grown too thin. What will Lord Antony think when he returns?”
Octavia waived away the figs, annoyed at Crescentia’s refusal to accept the reality that everyone else seemed to understand perfectly––Antony was not coming back.
“Is Antonia asleep?” she snapped more sharply than she meant to.
Crescentia smiled and patted Octavia’s hand. “She’s taking her rest. Don’t worry about that child. The Gods gifted her with the sunniest nature I have ever seen.”
Octavia turned back to a trellis of uncooperative honeysuckle and began to pull away the dead vines, carefully winding the tender new offshoots into place. “She has Antony’s high spirits, or at least, I am told as a youth he was like that…before he married.”
Crescentia clucked and patted her hand. “Tibi, he loves you. Look at the beautiful gifts he showers you with.”
Octavia shook her head impatiently. “We needn’t pretend. After all, it’s not his fault he doesn’t love me. I know that he would, if he could.”
The old nurse shrugged. “The Gods, not poor mortals, arrange the affairs of human hearts, but that does not mean he won’t return.”
Distracted in thought, Octavia gave up her attempts at gardening and sat by a sputtering fountain, its decorative stone cupid spitting water from puckered lips to tinkle in the pool below. She dipped her fingers in the cool water.
How had this happened to her? She disliked public notice under even the most favorable circumstances, but to be the joke of Rome was too much. The humiliation rose up and she shook the droplets of water from her hands, wiping them heedlessly on her tunic.
How had this happened?
She stared at her lovely garden with its mosaic walkways of blue and gold tiles and the ivy covered walls bathed in the glow of afternoon, insensible to its beauty. Her brow furrowed. “This marriage was my brother's idea. If only he’d known the humiliation it would cause me.”
Crescentia shifted uneasily and smoothed Octavia’s hair. “Best not to think of that. Lord Octavian, I’m sure, would never do anything to cause you harm.”
Octavia froze as her nurse’s words hung in the air. Her heart thudded with a strange irregular beat as she took in the glinting water of the fountain bubbling and splashing.
“Did he know?” Her voice sounded dead even to her own ears. She looked up, searching for the truth in the timeworn lines of her old nurse's face.
Crescentia’s eyes darted away. “There is nothing to know. Lord Antony will come home soon. You will bear him another child and all will be well.”
The wheels of Octavia’s mind spun. “My brother is so clever. The cleverest man in Rome, they say. Surely, he knew Antony’s feelings for Cleopatra. Knew Antony’s impetuous nature. It’s a miracle Antony stayed away so long.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples which had begun to throb painfully. “Why should Octavian arrange a marriage where betrayal was almost guaranteed?”
Crescentia's voice was sharp, as it used to be when Octavia was a small child and her nurse warned her not to place her tiny hand in the fire. “You mustn’t say such things. Don’t even think them.”
Hardly hearing her old duana, Octavia wracked her brains. Snippets of gossip, vicious rumors, and the way people on the street glared at her with contempt as her litter went by once the scandal broke circled through her mind.
“Without Antony, Rome would be entirely his,” she murmured. She clutched at Crescentia’s hands, as if reaching for a lifeline in a world that was suddenly unreal to her. “He wants to destroy Antony––even if it means sacrificing me!”
The old nurse knelt before Octavia hissing, “Hush, you must hush! You don’t know what you’re saying. Think of Antonia!”
“Dear Gods,” Octavia tried to hold back the rising tide of grief as she buried her face against her nurse’s shoulder. “How could he do this?”
Her eyes pressed closed as she allowed Crescentia to whisper comfortingly into her ear and stroke back her hair, until a clear, all too familiar voice made Octavia look up.
“I see that I was right to come. I was worried I would find you in this state.”
As if her emotions had called him up, Octavian strode across her garden. He wore a blue cloak setting off his pretty eyes, and a golden lock fell becomingly over his forehead which was creased with apparent concern. He looked for all the world like the fair God Apollo come down to earth for a visit.
She blinked in disbelief. “Octavian?”
“Dearest,” he said solicitously, “I’ve surprised you. I should have had your woman announce me. But when I heard the news, I knew you would need me at your side.”
And he did come to Octavia’s side and sat down next to her on the fountain.
She slipped from her nurse’s arms. “Please go check on Antonia.”
Crescentia looked at her fearfully and hung back, despite Octavia’s orders.
“Crescentia, did you not hear your lady?” asked Octavian coolly. “You may go.”
Reluctantly, Crescentia nodded, and with a warning glance to her mistress, she headed into the villa, leaving Octavia alone with her brother.
Octavian placed his hands over hers. “I know how upset you must be, but rest assured, though Antony has abandoned you, I’m still here.” He put his finger under her chin and smiled reassuringly. “In fact, I think it would be best for you to come live with me again under my protection. You mustn’t worry about anything at all, Octavia. I will take care of you always.”
The sincerity in his voice amazed her. Could he possibly mean it?
Wrenching her hands from his grasp she stood to face him. “You knew, didn't you?” Her voice was low but steady. “You knew he would return to her.”
He smiled calmly. “You’re upset. It’s a difficult thing marriage, but I’m here now and I will defend you. I swear by Apollo, Antony will pay for this.”
“Antony will pay?” A fire had been lit in the pit of her belly and it roared through her as rage broke through at last. “I will pay, Octavian! I and my daughter!”
She backed away from him in disgust as tears flowed down her flushed cheeks. “I have heard for so long the stories of your cruelty and your treachery! They fill Rome like a foul stench, but I wouldn’t believe them. I thought people were jealous, or liars, or just fools. But I was the fool! You married me to Antony, knowing he would disgrace me, so you would have an excuse to declare war. You have used me in a manner I would not expect of my worst enemy.”
“Octavia…”
She shook her head and wiping the tears from her face, looked him straight in the eye, her voice like steel. “I tell you this, I’ll aid you in your plots and schemes no more! I’ll do everything in my power to he
lp my husband. I’ll raise money and troops for him. I’ll spread propaganda. If it’s a war you want, brother, you shall have it!”
Octavian looked stunned. For once he seemed lost for words. Dumbly, he reached out to take her hand again, but she stepped back a pace.
“You must understand…” he whispered, his eyes pleading. “Come back to the Palatine with me and I swear I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. You’ll forget––”
But she raised her hand, halting him in his tracks. “Get out, Octavian. Get out of my house before I kill you!”
He gaped at her in disbelief, as if he saw a stranger glaring at him in murderous rage. He stood there stricken for a moment, before his back straightened and the coldness returned to his pale eyes.
They stared each other down, and for the first time in her life, Octavia did not drop her gaze.
“You will regret this,” he said through clenched teeth, and swiftly turned and marched out of the garden.
She watched him go, knowing at some later time she would mourn his loss bitterly, but right now the pumping anger running through her gave Octavia strength. As she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, she considered her position. She had broken ties with her brother and her husband had deserted her. She fingered the silver crescent moon of Diana which hung around her neck.
From now on she would answer to no one but herself.
Taking a deep breath, and winding her hair back on top of her head, she headed into the villa. There was much to be done.
CHAPTER THREE
Dusk was settling over the Mediterranean, turning the sea foam a pale blue as it washed against the hull of Antony’s ship. At this magical hour between night and day, the ocean seemed to pause its churning waves and the wind held its breath as the ship slid closer to the harbor. Antony took in the great lighthouse of Pharos, its flaming beacon a guiding star in the twilight.
Low crawling mist crept in from the sea, obscuring Antony's ship as it sailed into port. It seemed as if nature herself was aiding him in his plan to enter Alexandria undetected, he thought, gratefully.
He had managed to keep his identity hidden to his fellow shipmates, who would hardly have expected to see the celebrated Lord Antony traveling on a cargo vessel loaded with stinking animals. But even those who knew him might have at first passed him by in the street without recognition. The hardship of his campaign in Parthia had taken its toll. He'd grown lean, purple shadows lined his deep blue eyes and a shaggy beard covered his usually clean-shaven face. He relinquished his scarlet cloak and shining breastplate for a tunic of rough wool and a dark threadbare cloak which he purchased from one of his soldiers for ten times its worth.
As the fog rolled in with the ship, muffling the sound of the oars, the majestic city, as if floating suspended on the mists, rose up into the evening sky to greet him. He disembarked from the creaking vessel, leaving the stench of animals behind, and stood on the dock staring.
Alexandria.
At once so familiar, and yet so fantastic. As if a genie had sprung from damp vapor to conjure an enchanted city of such golden splendor, no human hand could have fashioned it.
He had forgotten.
No fading memory could capture the light of twilight illuminating the palace walls to a luminescent glow, the sweetness of flowering vines of damask roses clinging to the temple columns, the soft air enveloping him in its gentle cloud of sea salt and spices from the palace kitchens or soft lotus blossoms floating serenely in quiet reflecting pools. He inhaled greedily, breathing it all in.
How had he stayed away so long?
But it was not just the beauty of the city which affected him. This place held magic because Cleopatra lived and breathed the same air he was inhaling now. This was where she lit incense at the temple altars and invoked the spirit of the Goddess to fill her with light, her pale green eyes startling against black kohl-lined lids. Where she sat in her gown of splendid gold tissue crowned with the symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, a shining Goddess to rule over her people in the colonnaded hall of Ma’at. She ate oysters here with dainty pearl-decked fingers in her moonlight garden, redolent with the seductively perfumed flowers that unfolded velvet white petals beneath the light of the moon, their loveliness mirrored in the reflecting pools which caught the nocturnal light and shimmered in silvery ripples into infinity. This was where she lay herself down to sleep at night, the softest linen sheets against her bare skin, her gentle breathing expanding her supple belly and full breasts like the sea's waves rising and cresting, then falling once more in repose.
At the thought of his lover asleep in the bed they had shared, he felt the stirring of desire, but then an unwelcome thought came to him.
Had other men lain in that same carved bed and enjoyed the fullness of her lips, the silken honeyed skin, the melting heat as they joined with her in the night?
He cursed himself. It was his own fault. Of course she had taken lovers. The sensual Queen he knew, who could bewitch any man of her choosing with no more than a casual glance, would not have spent so many years alone.
Did she have a lover now? Would she laugh at him when he came to her, asking for her love, when she already had a strong man in her bed to inflame her nights and whisper to her in the darkness?
He marched down the dock, suddenly not caring who recognized him. He must know before he saw her, before he went to her court and supplicated himself to her, begging for her gold and her love.
He reached the high walls of the palace, as impenetrable and mysterious as Cleopatra had seemed to him so many years before they became lovers. The fog rose up to soften the curve of Lochias’s arched towers, almost hiding the marble stairway that led down to the water’s edge.
Cleopatra's palace, The Palace Of A Thousand Doors, was a maze of buildings and courtyards, flowering gardens and soaring halls, but it also contained secret corridors, hidden doors, private tunnels that only the Pharaoh, and a certain select few, had any knowledge of.
Antony was one of those few.
Under cover of night, with the damp fog making apparitions of the remaining people still finishing up their business on the docks, it would be simple to find his way into the palace.
Pulling the hood of his cloak up, his face was no more than a dark shadowy outline in the ocean mists. He made his way along the shore's edge, his footsteps sinking soundlessly into the wet sand. With tufts of billowing fog shrouding his view, it was difficult to find the entrance he sought. If his memory served him, there was a tunnel beneath the marble stairway.
At last Antony stumbled upon it, its steps slick with the briny moisture which clung to the marble. Like a blind man, he felt along the cold surface until he reached the end of the stairway and turned the corner, his vision now totally obscured by softly swirling mist. There was only the sound of the gently lapping waves, the whiteness all around him and smooth stone beneath his fingers.
Slowly, he walked along the side of the stairway, feeling his way, until his hand touched splintering wood roughened by the salty air. He reached down, found the handle and pulled the little door open. The dank smell of stagnant water and soggy moss reached his nostrils as he entered the tunnel, the only light coming from small airshafts cut into the ceiling above. He hesitated as his eyes adjusted and he could see the limestone walls with green velvet algae clinging to them. The floor was filled with several inches of seawater which sloshed around his sandals.
His nerves tingled with adrenaline as Antony made his way through the dim tunnel, until he came to a sharp turn and several subterranean corridors veered off in different directions.
He frowned, unable to remember where each of them led, but finally chose the tunnel which seemed to have the best light and was glad to feel the ground sloping upwards, until his feet found dry rock.
He paused mid-step at the sound of a women's laughter echoing through the tunnel. Snapping his head around, he squinted in the gloom, trying to see which direction the ghostly merriment ha
iled from.
Looking up, Antony noticed the thin air shaft spilling in light. He must be below one of the palace’s public rooms from the sound of the chattering voices and the look of the friendly slats of light shining through the grate.
With the aid of the faint glow coming from the room above, Antony was able to make out doors lining the tunnel at varying intervals along the wall. Tentatively, he made his way over to one and gently pulled it open, revealing a narrow stone stairway leading up to where, he couldn’t tell.
Holding his breath, he put his foot on the first step and then the next, until he was almost to the top, where a trap door blocked his way.
What was beyond that door?
If only he knew where he was on the palace grounds. But he could be anywhere, from the kitchen to the royal guard's bunker. What if he should pop up from the earth, like some unwelcome weasel, to a crowd of surprised courtiers? He would be humiliated. The great Lord Antony, whom the Alexandrians worshipped as a God, sneaking up from the sewers.
Still, if he never tried the door, he would not discover if Cleopatra slept alone tonight.
Carefully, he placed his palm against the door and pushed up, just enough to peer through the crack.
He was in luck. It was one of the palace gardens. So much better than, say, Cleopatra's luxurious banquet hall filled with feasting guests. He stood looking through the crack at the garden, listening intently. But all was silent.
Antony sprung open the door and hopped out, allowing the trap to fall softly closed behind him. Pulling his cloak tighter across his chest, he backed into a shadowy corner.
He silently thanked Neptune for the thick fog which kept Cleopatra’s courtiers out of the garden and hid his presence. His eyes darted around the small enclosure. With the mist swirling through the columns, masking any familiar markings around the doorways, he couldn’t get his bearings. Creeping to the closest entrance, he put his ear to the door.
