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

by Deborah Davitt

  Dinner was an oddly uncomfortable affair. Eurydice had been seated on the same couch with him hundreds of times in her role as lady of the house, and all the youngsters had seen her in this position at least as many times, making their bow before going to eat upstairs, out from under the feet of more important adult guests. And Matru, their hostage, had clearly never eaten Roman-style before, and shifted uncertainly on his dining couch, unsure of where to put his elbows or how to take food properly from the table. Octavia kept chuckling at his manners, to Caesarion’s annoyance, but Selene, seated next to the long-haired barbarian, covered as he was in tattoos, cleared her throat and tried to show him how to nibble more gracefully, and, in between courses, how to wash his hands in the bowls of scented water offered by the servants, and to dry them on the cloth mappae. Caesarion leaned over to whisper in Eurydice’s ear, “She’s terrified of me, but she’s taking a hairy barbarian under her wing? Fancy that.”

  Eurydice swallowed a chuckle, and murmured back, “I think it’s kind of her.”

  Cleopatra had been watching the proceedings with interest, and engaged Matru in conversation several times. “Caesarion’s father had several of the sons of the kings of Gaul as hostages for some time, as well as a the son of a Parthian king. You seem to be a bit more . . . colorful than your brethren of long-haired Gaul.” Gallia Comata referred to the large area of Gaul north of the Alps, not including the more southerly, and more pacified region of Gallia Narbonensis. “In my own country,” she added, chewing and swallowing an olive, “such markings are almost always reserved for women. Priestesses of Hathor and dancers.”

  Matru appeared distantly interested. “They’re symbols of affiliation,” he replied shortly. “Some for my clan. Some for the spirits. Some show that I’ve learned the thousand songs required to be a bard. Some show that I’ve been consecrated to the gods as a priest. Any of my people, looking at me, knows what and who I am. No lies, no subterfuge. No way in which someone could be an imposter.”

  Caesarion considered that for a moment. “It would make sneaking a spy into your midst fairly difficult,” he admitted. “Or extremely painful for the spy.” We could draw the symbols on their flesh in ink, but the chances of getting them all authentic and correct . . . very slim.

  Cleopatra nodded, her conversational duties done, and turned back to Caesarion. “I’m glad you two made haste back to Rome. Priestess Anku had remained here in Rome at my request; I’d decided to take my legacy from your father and refurbish the temple of Isis here in Rome. It’s in the Campus Martius, and while it’s large, it’s started to fall into disrepair, as any building over two hundred years old will do.” She smiled faintly. “Also, the priestesses of Isis here in Rome have been rather Romanized, which is why I called for Anku in the first place. She’s a mage-priestess, not some frustrated Roman girl who begged to become a priestess, rather than marry whoever her family had in mind for her. She’s woken them up a bit. Reminded them that in Egypt, women have rights.” She gave them both a steady look. “We can have your marriage celebrated in the temple here in December. Perhaps on Eurydice’s birthday.”

  Drusus choked on his watered vinegar. “It’s true?” he said, sounding shocked. “I mean, it’s . . . not just a joke? You two are really—”

  “I think Tiberius explains it all to you in his letter,” Caesarion replied gently. “But yes. My sister and I are quite married. The gods themselves gave their approval, and explained that it’s necessary. It has to do with ensuring that Egypt’s lands stay fertile. And ensuring, thereby, that Rome doesn’t starve.” That’s the easiest explanation. It’s our duty. Explaining love to someone his age? And who’s been steeped in the same patrician values as Tiberius, all his life? Difficult. He gave Eurydice a look himself now. “I have a feeling that I’m going to be explaining this for the rest of our lives.”

  “Probably,” she acknowledged, sounding tired. “Unless you explain it very well, and very loudly to the Senate to start with.”

  “They’ll require periodic re-explaining,” Cleopatra put in dryly. “So, you agree?”

  Caesarion grimaced. “We’re already married. The gods themselves put our hands together. In front of ten witnesses. I don’t see a need—”

  “It’s for the parchment reality,” Cleopatra replied. “The only reality that Romans really acknowledge. Also, so that hundreds of Rome’s finest citizens can be on hand to watch the ceremony. The official date of your marriage stays what it is. This is just the one for public show.”

  Caesarion sighed internally and surrendered on the topic. Eurydice, beside him, had gone rigid with anxiety, and he told her, quietly, but teasingly, “You faced an avalanche with more equanimity, beloved.”

  “The avalanche just happened. I didn’t have time to do anything but react to it. You’ve told me before that you dread the reports on your desk,” Eurydice commented, her expression glum. “That you’d prefer arrows and swords to all those ranks of rolled scrolls and their demands. I’d rather face those same swords than have all the eyes of Rome upon me.”

  “Get used to it,” Cleopatra snapped without sympathy. “You’re no longer a child. You’re a queen. I blame myself, I really do. I let your father turn you into a proper Roman girl. All self-effacement and modesty. Do you know how many of my ancestors were reigning queens in their own right?” She swept on without a pause for breath. “At least three, and those were just the Ptolemies. There have been dozens of queens of Egypt who either reigned in their own right—often wearing a pharaoh’s beard—or stood a regent for their sons, sometimes for decades.” Cleopatra’s scowl didn’t abate. “Egyptian women have the right to divorce of their own accord, you know. We don’t have to beg our fathers to plead with the government on our behalf, and hope to be accepted home again. When we go to the house of Marcus Antistius Labeo tomorrow, for his wife Aulia’s celebration of the Bona Dea, you must remember this all, Eurydice.” Cleopatra’s expression was unyielding.

  Eurydice stirred beside Caesarion. “The Bona Dea rites?” she said, sounding surprised. “But it’s . . . no. It’s December.” She sighed. “Are you sure that I should attend, Mother? We did only just now return—”

  “Yes!” Cleopatra sounded aggravated now. “You’ve escaped the tedium that comes with rulership for over half a year. Now you must take part in the public life of the city, and that includes banal Roman rituals that I have endured for decades.” She snorted. “By all rights, as the wife of the Emperor, who is also the high priest of Mars, and technically inherited the position of Pontifex Maximus—”

  “I keep trying to find someone to foist that title off on,” Caesarion muttered into his wine. “I have enough on my hands with being high priest of Mars, and god-born of several gods, let alone being the high priest of all Rome.”

  “Hush,” Cleopatra ordered him. “Your position as Pontifex Maximus is perhaps the only thing that will allow you to establish the legitimacy of your marriage. Though the gods know the Senate will fight you on it.” She returned her gaze to Eurydice now. “As I was saying, you should be the one holding the ceremony this year, my daughter. Since you’ve been away, Aulia has shouldered the burden, as wife of a praetor. I’ve been forced to hold that damned ceremony in this very house for eighteen years. You will not avoid this duty.”

  Eurydice sighed. “And if I point out that you just told me not to be spineless, Mother, and that I should endeavor to remember that I’m a queen, and that I really do not wish to spend tomorrow evening at this ritual, what would you say then?”

  Cleopatra’s lips quirked at the corners. “I would reply that even queens have duties to which they must submit, if they wish to remain queens.”

  Caesarion glanced between them, surprised. Matru raised a finger. “Ah, what is this ritual of which you speak?” he asked in his lightly-accented but impeccable Latin.

  Cleopatra grimaced. “It’s a women-only ceremony,” she replied. “In honor of the ‘Good Goddess,’ whose secret Name cannot be told to any
man.” Her voice became sing-song, lightly mocking Roman standards and mores. “Nor may any man enter the house of the noble women while they venerate her. It is the only day of the year on which women of Rome may drink unwatered wine, usually deemed fit only for men or for sacrifices to the gods. A blood sacrifice is also offered. That much, I can tell you,” she added, rolling her eyes, “because all that information came out when a man obsessed with my late husband’s second wife, dressed himself as a woman and tried to enter the rituals in an effort to seduce her. Why he thought that this would work, I will never know,” Cleopatra added, shaking her head. “He may have shaved his face bare and powdered over the bristles, and given himself wax breasts out to here,” a gesture with one hand, improbably far from her own bosom, which provoked a booming guffaw from the druid, “but why he thought that she would fall swooning into the arms of another, ah, ‘woman,’ has never ceased to bewilder me.” Cleopatra took a sip of her own watered wine now, her eyes glittering with amusement. “He was eventually acquitted of the charges of profaning the ritual—which should have carried the death penalty, or the very least, the removal of his eyes.” She shook her head.

  Drusus raised a hand, timidly. “You hear all sorts of rumors about the ritual,” he piped up softly.

  Matru raised his head, his brows crinkling. “Such as?”

  “It’s all wild male speculation,” Cleopatra replied tiredly. “They can’t stand that the women of Rome have one night each year in which they’re allowed to walk the streets after sundown, drink wine, and not have any men around. It absolutely destroys the Roman male’s ego to think that his women can get along without him ordering them about for even the space of one day. So they invent wild bacchanals—”

  Matru’s eyebrows rose over the unfamiliar term. “Pardon? What is this word?”

  “Drunken orgies,” Caesarion replied, making Octavia choke on her own water and vinegar at his plain speaking.

  Matru’s brows remained creased. “Ah. Yes. You don’t celebrate the solstices or equinoxes as we do. I remember now.”

  Caesarion looked across the table. “Do I want to know how you celebrate these things?”

  “The entire community comes together for a bonfire. Some of the priestesses allow various goddesses to possess them, using drugs and honey-mead to achieve this exalted state. Then they allow anyone who wishes to become one with the goddess to do so, through their bodies,” Matru replied promptly. “Others bring their lovers with them to the fires, and try to bring fertility to the land by having relations on the bare earth. Most hope for children conceived in the firelight. Still others find partners for that night only around the fires. There’s much singing. Much dancing. And much drinking of mead. I believe the Goths celebrate as we do.” Matru half-smiled, clearly watching expressions change around the table. “Perhaps you Romans would be healthier for adopting some of our customs.”

  Octavia spluttered, but Cleopatra laughed. “Caesarion, keep this one, if you can. I enjoy plain speaking every now and again, after a lifetime spent listening for subtle messages hidden behind the words actually spoken.” She sighed, and heaved herself upright. “And now, my dear ones, I must return to Antony’s house. Drusus, Octavia, Selene, you’ll stay here, as is proper. I’ll send your pedagogues over in the morning. Good night, everyone.”

  Eurydice hastily sat up. “Before you go, Mother, Caesarion and I had a few questions for you. In private, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Cleopatra looked mildly surprised, but nodded in assent. Caesarion looked up and stifled a groan as he realized what Eurydice meant to discuss with their mother. “Ah, sister? I think that you can handle the issue. You can just tell me what the answer is, yes?”

  The look she awarded him for his cowardice—half aggravation, half mild betrayal—made him laugh, and he rolled up off the couch, shaking his head. “Very well.” This is going to prove a highly uncomfortable conversation. One that will put dinner itself to shame.

  He wasn’t wrong. Tucked into his study, by a glowing brazier to shake off the chill of winter, Eurydice didn’t bother with preliminaries, but bluntly asked, her voice rising in pitch, “Mother, do you know of any better methods of contraception than crocodile dung or white lead?”

  Caesarion had never seen their mother look this surprised before. Her eyes rounded, and her eyebrows rose. And then a wicked smile crossed her face. “Well, there are a variety of methods, dear ones. Some women favor plugging themselves with cotton to absorb the seed.”

  He watched Eurydice’s expression shift further into discomfort. “But how on earth would I eventually get it all out again?” Eurydice asked dubiously, her face flushing. “Wouldn’t it, ah, get packed in?”

  Caesarion found a wall to stare at. Yes, after repeated impacts. And I don’t fancy having to go in after it with tongs, thank you. “Other options?” he asked, wishing he were somewhere else.

  Cleopatra seemed to be highly amused. “Some women swear by using the wooden dowels that they already use during their flows, again wrapped with cotton, and inserting those inside to block the entrance to the womb.”

  Caesarion winced outright at that one. It sounded more hygienic than crocodile dung, yes, but . . . “That doesn’t sound like an option,” he said tightly. “The wood would be, ah—”

  “Rammed in? Yes. I’ve never quite figured out how they manage it, unless their lovers are exceedingly poorly endowed,” Cleopatra said, taking a seat near the brazier and holding her fingers up, only a few inches apart. “If, however, you’re the type who needs every uncia he can get, it’s certainly not the best option.”

  “Mother, do you have to enjoy this?” Eurydice said sharply.

  Cleopatra turned her face towards them, quarter-profile in the dim light from the brazier. “Your brother has had extensive experience in keeping his face still, no matter the provocation, in his time with the legions, my dear,” she replied simply. “You haven’t. You blush and flush and stammer like a maiden, and that simply won’t do.”

  “Do the lessons ever end?” Eurydice sounded aggrieved.

  “Not until the day I die. Which I hope will not be soon.” Cleopatra sighed and removed a bracelet from her wrist, holding it up in the dim light. “This is my own preferred method. It’s a Magi relic, which I purchased from them decades ago. They’re the undisputed masters of imbuing items with magic, after all, and this simple object, when worn continuously, prevents conception. After one moon’s cycle, you won’t even bleed again until you take the bracelet off.”

  “That would have been a very good thing when I was with the legions!” Eurydice’s voice was startled. “Does it work from the moment you put it on?”

  “No. As I said, it takes twenty-eight days to take full effect. And it must be charged once a week. As a sorceress, you should be able to do that quite easily, Eurydice.”

  Caesarion decided that Cleopatra needed her own equanimity rattled a trifle. “I take it that you left it off when you married Antony?” he asked their mother, giving her a direct stare.

  Her expression soured. “Charging this trinket is far more difficult for me, than it will likely be for Eurydice. When your father fell into his final illness, I stopped making the effort. And, quite frankly, given my age and Antony’s, I wasn’t sure there was a need to resume a tiring habit.” She looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “He’s ever so proud in his letters, you know. You’d think he was solely responsible.” She stood, pressing the wide gold cuff into Eurydice’s fingers. “Wear it in good health, my dear.” A light, rare kiss on her daughter’s cheek, and off the queen of Egypt sailed into the twilight air of the atrium.

  Eurydice immediately slipped it over her own left hand, rotating it until she appeared to like the fit. “Twenty-eight days,” Caesarion said, counting ahead in his mind. “December twenty-ninth should be safe enough. No major festivals. A day before your birthday.” He caught her by the wrist and pulled her close. “A warning, beloved. I’m going to clear my calendar. There will
be no clerks or scribes permitted in the villa that day.”

  “Oh?” Eurydice asked, looking up, a mischievous smile crossing her face. “Whatever for, beloved?”

  “Because I am locking us inside our rooms and we won’t be leaving until sunrise the next day at the earliest. The servants can leave food and water outside, and they’ll be instructed not to bother us unless the entire city catches on fire.” He considered that for a moment. “Perhaps not even then.”

  She burst into laughter at his words, and he pulled her closer, lowering his voice to a teasing growl as he kissed her neck. “You think that I speak in jest? Not even remotely.”

  “But Mother wants us to hold another marriage ceremony at the Temple of Isis on my birthday. If you keep me penned inside our rooms the day before, however will I prepare?” A mock-helpless flutter.

  “We might be late to the wedding.” He considered that thoughtfully. “We might be substantially late to our own wedding.” He nodded soberly. “We’ll have her push it back to the first day of the new year. A solemn, portentous time as all the magistrates take new oaths anyway. What’s one more set of vows among so many others?”

  ____________________

  December 3, 17 AC

  This year was the first that Selene and Octavia would be permitted to partake of the Bona Dea rites. Both girls were giddy with the thought of newly being considered adults, though they teetered on the very cusp of womanhood. Cleopatra had enjoined Eurydice to bring both girls along, and Eurydice bowed to her mother’s judgment. She didn’t want to ruin the two girls’ excited anticipation as they changed outfits two or three times upstairs, as Eurydice herself sat in the chilly atrium, reading a scroll on the uses of herbs in medicine to pass the time while she waited for them. The afternoon sun at least warmed her back.

  “Sister! How are you not excited?” Selene demanded, racing down the stairs and into the atrium. “This is a ceremony just for us!”