Ave, Caesarion (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  She yelped and drove an elbow into his ribs. Hard. “Selene told you?”

  “She’s not a tough nut to crack,” Alexander admitted, rubbing his ribs and laughing as her face turned scarlet. “But that’s all right. I think I know precisely whose name you say.”

  From red to chalk-white, and dread filled her eyes. “I’ve never told a living person,” Eurydice whispered.

  “You don’t have to say it in words,” Alexander told her gently. “I can read your face the way other people read scrolls. I don’t think anyone else knows. Probably not even him. Did I mention that Caesarion’s somewhat caught up in duty, honor, and loyalty?”

  “Please don’t tell him.” Her voice became muffled as she pulled the blankets up entirely over her head, effacing herself.

  Alexander snorted. “If you and I didn’t get along so well, this would be the sort of situation that would be ripe with opportunities for mutual blackmail.” He wrapped his arms around the featureless mound of blankets. “You and he really need to talk to each other,” he told her gently. “Because I think—”

  She jerked the blankets away from her face, her eyes wild now. “Alexander, you don’t understand. I’ve dreamed of the future, like a sibyl. Remember months ago, at Antony’s wedding, looking up all the names, to see if anyone had names like Accipter? I know he’s destined to fall in love with the hawk. He’ll love someone amazing and beautiful, and he’s going to have four children by her. But he’ll have to send her into exile for most of her life, and the Senate’s going to require him to marry other women, too. What’s the point of saying anything, when it’s never going to make a difference?” Her voice broke.

  Alexander stared at his sister. “You’ve had that dream since you were eleven?”

  “Yes.”

  Gods damn it. And because she dreams it so often, and it started so long ago, she just accepts that it has to be about someone else. Very slowly, as if spelling it out for a child, Alexander told his sister, “Mother explained to me some time ago that I might someday have to marry you or Selene and go rule Egypt for Caesarion. That’s definitely not in the auguries anymore. You’re the hawk, Eury. You love him. And I’d put coin on it that he loves you.” He smiled faintly at the look on her face—stunned shock and total disbelief. “Though yes. I did just get done saying that marriage has nothing at all to do with love.”

  Chapter X: The War Dance

  Martius 1, 17 AC

  Every month on the calendar held dozens of holy days and festivals. Even Caesarion’s new, revised calendar, with thirty days in every month, besides Sextilis, December, Quintilis, which had been renamed Iulius in their father’s honor, was crammed to bursting with civic and religious festivals. In the main, such doings were the responsibilities of the aediles, elected officials in charge of putting on games, festivals, and renovating public works. But many festivals involved the priests of various temples, and people in their own homes.

  Last month, for example, had been the Lupercalia. Held in honor of the she-wolf who’d suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, like all such festivals, it cost coin to put on every year. The priests of Faunus, god of wild things, who also called themselves brothers of the wolf, weren’t a standing temple, but more of a brotherhood of notable citizens of good family, somewhat similar to the collegia, or groups of colleagues, found in neighborhoods all through the city. Two major families, the Quinctiliani and the Fabiani, had sponsored the festival for centuries; just before being accorded the title of dictator for life, their father had created a third such collegia in the name of the Julii. Marcus Antonius had been the first magister of this organization, and had received that honor again this year.

  Those in charge of the sacrifices left aside their daily occupations as magistrates and elected officials, and dressed solely in goatskins—no togas or tunics on this holy day, in honor of the primitive past. Then they sacrificed male goats and a dog, and two young men of good families were presented, as if for sacrifice themselves. This year, Antyllus and a young man named Publius Ovidus Naso were the two ‘sacrifices.’

  Then, spared at the last moment, blood from the goats was rubbed on their heads, and they, like many other young men and magistrates, took up thongs cut from the bloody hide of the goats, and ran a naked race through the streets of Rome along a pre-marked path, slapping the thongs against the outstretched hands of women who lined the race route. This was supposed to ensure fertility in the coming year—a successful end to a pregnancy, or an end to barrenness.

  Eurydice had never been allowed to attend before—and she made sure that Octavia and Selene were well occupied with lessons that day, though they pouted. Drusus went to the temple to watch the sacrifices, attended by a pedagogue . . . and Eurydice, with a Praetorian bodyguard, managed to push her way through the teeming crowd of laughing women of all social strata, and looking for a spot along the race route. Because, yes, every man of good house and good health currently in Rome was out and running. Which included the Emperor, Caesarion, and half a dozen Senators. Even Mark Antony himself, gray hair and all, had stripped off toga, tunic, and loincloth to run in the Februarius chill.

  The result? Shrieks of laughter and excitement as the runners pounded down the street, through the narrow channel left by the crowd. No barricades between the women and the runners, just the press of bodies against each other as the women surged forwards, reaching out like a monster with one body and a thousand hands. Heat of the crowd. Heat of packed bodies, tight squeeze to press through, mumbling apologizes whenever she stepped on someone else’s toes. Eurydice, taller than almost every woman present, still had to crane her neck to see around all the waving arms, and, gasping a little for breath, pushed past two more well-dressed matrons. One of whom, perhaps a year older than Eurydice, looked to be about eight months gone with child. Gods, Eurydice thought wearily. She’s not that much older than I am, and already has a husband and family. I have the family. Just not the husband.

  And then, shoved from behind, she stumbled and realized that she’d reached the edge of the crowd, and had been spat out of its maw like a slick melon seed. Damnation. All I wanted was to see them—see him, she admitted silently, and tried to retreat into the crowd’s embrace once more, but the press of bodies against her back ensured that there was no going back. The crowd knew only one direction—forward.

  And so, as Caesarion and Antyllus, the latter with blood and sweat coursing down his face in equal measure, came running down the street, naked as the day they were born, matching stride for stride for first place, Eurydice heard the shrieks of the women in the crowd behind her. Laughter. Raucous comments about the size and conformation of this man’s genitalia or that.

  And then got a solid shove in the vicinity of her kidneys that just about propelled her right into the runners’ path. She stumbled, frowned, and tried to push her way back into the crowd, but a dozen outstretched arms blocked her path. And in the face of everyone behind her, annoyance and incomprehension as she tried to push back through. Why isn’t she reaching out with us? the crowd’s eyes asked. Why isn’t she one of us? Isn’t she Roman? Doesn’t she want the fertility that the runners’ touch brings? Doesn’t she want to bloom?

  Left with no other alternative, Eurydice turned back. The crowd of women lining both sides of the street had pushed in so close together now that the waving arms of the women across from her could almost touch her face, and the men had to slow and try to pass single-file through the mob. Except Antyllus and Caesarion had both clearly seen her, and, grinning, Antyllus increased his pace to a sprint, trying to catch her hand before Caesarion could. Glancing back at the crowd, Eurydice tentatively put her own hand out—which was when Caesarion overtook Antyllus from behind with a burst of speed, and, with ten feet suddenly between him and his closest competitor, slapped Eurydice’s hand with the bloody thong of goat skin. And she caught the smile on his face as he bolted past, firmly in the lead now, muscles in his legs propelling him through the crowd that threa
tened to engulf the runners . . . and, as they passed, closed in behind them like a mouth of flesh.

  The screams of laughter and triumph around her nearly deafened her as the women voiced their participation in this ritual. Hands on her shoulders and hair, little hugs that she hadn’t expected to receive, as the women of Rome reaffirmed their place as part of the community. And, dazed, she’d finally found her way back to where her Praetorian escort—not faithful old Malleolus, who was off in Hellas with Alexander and Tiberius, but another man, Lurio—waited. “Lost you in the crowd,” the centurion told her gruffly. “Shouldn’t get out of my sight like that.”

  “Once I got to a certain point, they wouldn’t stop pushing,” Eurydice admitted, out of breath. “I’ve never been in a crowd like that before. Even leaving the races at the Circus Maximus—”

  “The Circus has many stairs for exactly that reason, domina. Keeps people from trampling each other to death. I’ve seen men’s heads crushed like grapes by a stampede before,” Lurio told her gruffly. “I need to get you home, my lady. Before your brother returns.”

  Eurydice had walked back to the villa behind her Praetorian escort, rubbing at the drying, tacky blood residue on her fingers and had wondered if the ritual had held any magic. If it did, she didn’t think she felt all that different. But Caesarion’s smile had warmed her, though she knew it had been born of the thrill of competition. Claiming victory in the Lupercal race carried with it a certain distinction, though everyone who ran received a fair amount of prestige. Participation said, without words, I am healthy, vital, and virile. I am a man, and a man of Rome at that.

  Once he’d bathed and come home, however, Caesarion had found her in her room, and asked from the doorway, with a frown, “Why were you at the races, holding out your hand? It’s not considered proper for an unmarried woman to be asking the gods for fertility, you know.” His frown had deepened where he leaned against the doorframe, not stepping past the threshold, and he’d added, “I had to make sure I got there ahead of Antyllus. Otherwise, you know quite well that he’d be spending most of the next dinner he attends here teasing about how he’s ensured your fertility for the next year, so he should really take advantage of that and get that marriage arranged right now.”

  She’d flushed. “I was only there to watch,” Eurydice told him, setting aside the scroll she’d been studying to stand. Lightly rubbing at the palm that he’d slapped with the thong, though she’d washed her hands thoroughly in the kitchen on returning home. “The crowd pushed me out. And I couldn’t look less Roman than they, could I?” She stepped forward, reaching out with one hand, lightly, she touched his arm. “Thank you,” she added. “For . . . saving me that embarrassment.”

  Caesarion had pulled back from her touch. “I wouldn’t have . . . you’re welcome.” And then he’d left, slamming the door to his own room behind him, and she’d stared after him. Alexander had told her he’d lay gold on it that Caesarion felt the same way about her as she did about him. In the two and a half months their brother had been gone, Eurydice had yet to see any sign that Alexander had been right.

  ____________________

  Today, a different set of rituals had to be observed, however, and Caesarion now stood at the altar of Mars, overseeing the most important. The month of Mars had once been the first month of the year—fittingly, for he was the most dear of the gods to Roman hearts. Jupiter was powerful and distant, but Mars marched alongside his soldiers, invisible but present. And the month named for him began with the feriae Marti, a festival in honor of the god’s birth to Juno, his mother. Caesarion had never quite understood how Mars could be both born to Juno—who in other legends had no children besides Vulcan, in spite of presiding over every childbirth—and yet, Ares was the brother of Hera. But then again, Isis was sister and wife to Osiris in some legends, and mother and sister of Horus in others.

  But from Martius first until the Armilustrium on October nineteenth, when every warrior’s weapons would be ritually purified and stored for the winter, the season of war was open, and conflicts could begin again. The salii, twelve nobles chosen as priests of Mars for life, were even now marching through the city, wearing ancient armor and carrying twelve identical ancient shields. Eleven of them were replicas of the true shield of Numa, the second king of Rome, who had been known as half-divine—the son of a house-spirit.

  God-born, like Caesarion.

  The shield had fallen from the heavens, and for so long as it remained in the possession of Rome, it was said that their civilization would remain the preeminent one on Earth. Hence why it had to be hidden by all the carefully-made replicas.

  The connection between Numa and Caesarion hadn’t been lost on Caesar and Cleopatra. While the salii were usually appointed for life, they could leave their office if promoted to a higher one. And so Caesarion had been made a salii at sixteen, and had carried out his offices with the others for a year, before being recognized as the high priest of Mars. He’d learned the close-order, precision marching. And he’d learned the war-dance and the Carmen Salieri, a chant in Etruscan so old that hardly anyone today understood what it meant. To him, it sounded like an appeal to Jupiter, Ceres, and Janus for the safety of Rome’s people, now that Mars and the soldiers would be marching away from home.

  And he was quite positive that he’d carried the original shield in the processions in which he’d marched with his brother priests through Rome. Banging his sword against it with a brazen clatter, and shouting the age-old words. As he followed the procession out of the temple now, having already spoken his blessing, part of him wished he could go with them—straight and upright and all moving with perfect precisions. But for now, this wasn’t his place.

  In two hours, after having circled the city, they returned to the temple. And there the second half of the ceremony began. The war-dance. The salii were called the leaping priests of Rome for a reason, and they practiced their arts assiduously. Before a packed crowd, half of them formed a tight circle inside the temple, and then lifted their armored brothers up on their shields and threw them into the air, while the other half stood back, still banging against their shields with their swords, providing the rhythm to which every movement needed to be matched.

  Up they went, and down they came, caught on those same shields. Up again, down again. Always caught by the arms of their brothers. Their only assurance of safety was the discipline, the control of the unit, of the men around them. A beautiful syllogism for the legions themselves, as they all prepared to leave hearth and home for the field of war.

  Across town, most of the women of Rome were offering prayers to Juno in her temple for the safe return of those same sons and husbands. A confluence of rituals and needs; Juno watched Mars leave for war every year, and in honoring the mother on the day of the son’s birth, the women of Rome asked her to look after their sons, too. And, echoing the honors done to Juno, most of the men would leave the temple of Mars today, and go home to give their wives and mothers gifts. And to start the process of leave-taking that would end at the Ides, when they’d march away. Cleansed and purified in body and soul, and ready to die, if need be. Caesarion personally planned to visit Antony’s house to give his mother a small gift—a lovely new bracelet—before heading back to his own villa. Where he had other plans in mind.

  Eurydice, for her part, couldn’t technically attend the Matronalia. She had no husband. But as required today, her hair was down and loose, which felt odd, and no ties or ribbons held her tunic or stola to her body as she worked in the kitchen. For on Matronalia, as during Saturnalia, the servants and slaves had the time off, and the masters served them. She’d risen at dawn, thanking the gods that she was responsible for only one meal today, and rousted Octavia and Selene to help her. I didn’t have to do this last year. I only helped Mother. Who never cleaned so much as a dish in her life before coming to Rome, and only learned to cook precisely for this festival, she thought grimly, facing the huge open hearths on which meat usually roasted on spi
ts, and the wide, arched baking ovens. And then got back to kneading the bread dough on the table in front of her, her arms already aching from the effort. The Julii house had five grooms, twelve house servants, eight cooks, and the butler. And she needed to feed all of them, as well as her brother, sister, and houseguests. “Are you planning to pluck that goose?” she asked Octavia sharply. “We can’t gut it or roast it until the feathers are off.”

  Octavia promptly burst into tears. “The poor thing,” she mourned. “Did you have to cut its head off in front of me?”

  Yes, I did. It’s bad enough that all the servants and slaves are sitting at the tables, drinking watered wine and laughing at everything we do. Showing myself unable to feed my family because I couldn’t bear to kill a bird—when they all know I spend as much time riding a hawk’s mind as I can? That would make me look ridiculous, wouldn’t it? I’ve shared the birds’ kills before. I’ve tasted the raw flesh with them. Her abilities were beginning to expand, she’d noticed. Smell had come immediately with hounds, but not at all with birds. Taste had come long after sight. And now, sketchily, faintly, hearing, too. “We all have to eat,” Eurydice said pragmatically. “Of course, none of us will, if you don’t get a move on pulling those feathers. Selene, finish chopping those apples and help her, would you?”

  “Livia usually let me do the baking,” Octavia added faintly. “She always made some mushroom dish, too.”

  Eurydice made a face. “I hate mushrooms. They’ll never be served at any table of mine.” She started dividing the dough into round loaves, smoothing them with a little olive oil before using a long wooden paddle to slide them into the oven with its searing hot fire. Well, what can I accomplish while those are baking, and hopefully not burning?

  Seeing that Octavia and Selene had made no headway at all in their struggle with the goose—and that the servants burst into laughter as Selene’s hands slipped on the feathers, and she managed to fall, arse-first, to the ground—Eurydice’s lips thinned. A sharp gesture and a word, and the feathers exploded out from the goose, scattering through the air in a cloud. Octavia promptly shrieked. “Bring it here, and let me sear the pinfeathers off,” she told the shocked girl. “Then we’ll gut it. Cut some slices under its skin for garlic cloves, and then rub the skin with olive oil and salt. Stick an onion and some herbs in its belly. That’ll do for a start.” She looked around, unamused. “Selene, go out to the hens and fetch eggs. Don’t let them scare you. We’ll soft-cook those with pine nuts and a little garum.” She rubbed at her eyes, feeling the grittiness of flour on her hands transfer to her face. That’ll serve perhaps six people. I need more food.