The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel

by Phyllis T. Smith

  I felt a fluttering in my chest, like a trapped bird trying to get free. And then I remembered he had opposed my father at the Battle of Actium, fought for Augustus, and helped to destroy my father and mother.

  I moved away from him. He looked gravely at me for a long moment, then made a humorous face of mock sorrow and went back to writing his book.

  Later that day, I sat spinning wool—this daily chore that Livia had me do. I saw that she did not intend it as chastisement, rather as a fitting occupation and training for a girl. I still hated it.

  Livia entered the room and watched me for a little while. “If nothing else, spinning wool will teach you patience,” she said. “Patience is an important virtue, especially for a woman.”

  I felt more at ease with her here at the villa than I had before. After all, she had taken me away from the contagion in Rome. That meant something, surely?

  My thoughts were still in turmoil after my conversation with Juba. I said carefully, “You told me that you loved your father more than anyone else when you were a girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet Augustus . . . was not his friend.”

  “Augustus was his deadly enemy,” she said.

  I wanted to ask, How could you marry him, then? I did not dare speak the words, yet the question seemed to hang between us.

  After a moment, she said, “Do you think I should have slit his throat one night when he slept?”

  “Oh, no, Aunt, I would never suggest—”

  She hushed me with a gesture. “I thought of it once or twice. But I love him, you see. And I know that both my father and my husband were caught in a net of necessity. My father, for the most virtuous reasons, allied himself with Julius Caesar’s murderers. And my husband was tied to Caesar by every bond of kinship, loyalty, and affection. Of course he became my father’s enemy. How could he not?” She gave a small shrug. “You have to adapt to life as it comes, Selene, in order to live at all. Little in this world is just as it should be. You look at the choices the gods present to you, and then you choose.”

  But how, I wondered, could you ever know if your choice was the right one?

  I began to go walking in the villa’s gardens in the afternoons with Juba.

  He would talk to me about the natural world, about the different kinds of birds we saw, the varieties of plants. I felt comfort in his presence. He had a serenity about him, and he was kind—even to animals, even to slaves. I took care to treat the slaves who served me well, because I feared their malice. Juba’s motives were different. “I was a slave once,” he said to me.

  This statement profoundly shocked me. “You’re a prince!”

  “When I was a small boy, I rode down the Sacred Way in chains, in Julius Caesar’s triumph. No one misused me after that. I was given tutors and educated. But it was Augustus who freed me and made me a Roman citizen. That happened when I was seventeen.”

  I too, of course, had been exhibited in chains in a triumphal procession. But I had been made a free Roman citizen immediately afterward. I was different from Juba because I was the acknowledged daughter of Mark Antony, who had held the highest offices in the Roman state. Never had I been called a slave, never had I thought of myself as one. It might have been understandable to put me to death, but to enslave Antony’s daughter would have been viewed as grotesque and infamous by all Romans.

  Juba was ten years older than I. And he seemed to have everything worked out, to look at the world without fear—always through his own eyes, making his own judgments. There was a sureness about him, even about the way he walked. I thought of a word for his stride, fittingly derived from one of the animals he spoke of and loved—leonine. He moved like a young lion.

  For several days, all we did was talk during our walks in the garden. We did not speak of weighty matters. Still, it was wonderful to me to have someone it felt safe to speak with. If my mind sometimes questioned my trust in him, my heart did not. One day, we stood in a shaded glade, shielded from all eyes, Juba put his arms around me. Tenderly, he drew me to him, and then he kissed me. It was so warm, so sweet, that kiss.

  I had never expected to experience such a moment. I had expected precisely nothing from life, except perhaps mere survival. Certainly to love and be loved had seemed impossible for me. That made this kiss especially precious. For I was coming to love Juba, and I believed he returned my feeling.

  After that, we would often embrace and kiss when we could be sure we were out of the sight of others. “I want more of you,” Juba said one day. His voice was husky. We stood in a little garden glen where no one could see us.

  “I am afraid. It is not that I don’t care for you. It is prudence.”

  “Prudent little moon goddess,” he said, “don’t you want me?”

  I had tossed in my bed at night, wanting him. “If we were to . . . if I became pregnant, I don’t know what they would do to me,” I stammered. “Livia and Augustus would be enraged. It would be terrible.”

  “Don’t you think I’m capable of protecting you?”

  I stared at him. “Protect me? How? If they knew you were the father, it would ruin you.”

  I whirled away from him and swiftly walked back alone to the villa.

  We continued on as we were, not acting on our desire, but walking every day in the gardens together. For a time, no one seemed to notice. Livia and Augustus were occupied with other worries. The sickness in Rome was very bad, and then one of the slaves at the villa took ill, which drove a knife of terror through all our hearts. But even though Livia’s attention seemed focused elsewhere, I tried to avoid her seeing me when I was with Juba. If I happened to be with him and heard her coming, I would walk away.

  I was not so careful about not being seen by Julia. One day when she and I were alone in the courtyard of the villa, she said, smiling, “I saw you and Juba walking out to the garden together.”

  “We weren’t together. We just happened to be there at the same time.”

  “I’m sure,” she said with a little laugh. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

  “There is nothing to tell.” I felt stung by her laughter, and frightened that she would go babbling about us, whatever she said.

  Hearing my dismay, Julia looked troubled and said in low voice, “I won’t say anything, really. I like Juba. And you’re well matched, aren’t you?”

  “How do you mean?” I asked warily.

  “Why, you’re both royalty.”

  Royalty brought to Rome in chains. “He is pleasant to talk to, but there is nothing between us.”

  “Things are so awful and frightening with people falling sick. I think it would be good if you and Juba could find some happiness at such a time. Oh, Selene, I would never try to stop you being together—in fact, I would cheer you on.”

  I said nothing. I wished the conversation over.

  But she went on talking. “If you feel for Juba what I do for Marcellus, that would give us something in common, wouldn’t it? We do have more in common with each other than with anyone else here. I’ve always felt we could be friends.”

  No, I thought, we can never be friends. Friends must understand each other, and you can’t begin to understand how it feels to be me.

  “You have always been most kind to me,” I said. “I would appreciate it if you would put any thought of Juba and me out of your mind. There is nothing between us at all.”

  “All right.” She sounded more perplexed than irked and, after a moment, just walked away.

  How could I ever be Julia’s friend? Certainly, we were both surrounded by peril at this time and in some way bound by it, like people adrift on a boat in stormy seas. Still, she was her father’s beloved daughter, the wife of his heir. She was so fortunate. She could be carelessly kind to me and never have to think twice about it. And she and Marcellus could go walking together openly anytime they wanted. Their joy in each other could only earn them approbation; indeed all of Rome looked forward to Julia conceiving and bearing Mar
cellus’s child.

  My and Juba’s situation was so different. It was all I could do to keep from hating Julia for what she had and I lacked.

  As the days passed, the world around us darkened, for the pestilence that had been largely confined to the city now spread fully into the countryside. We heard of many people dying in nearby houses. And in our villa, the days were punctuated by the wailing of slaves—for although they could not lawfully marry, they did form families, and they mourned when their family members died.

  Livia saw that all was kept clean, the floors and even the walls scrubbed. She ordered that the sick servants were separated from the others, that they have doctors to tend them. Augustus offered sacrifices to the gods, but it did no good that I could see. People kept sickening and dying. I feared for Juba; I feared for myself.

  Then illness struck the one person who seemed most invulnerable to me.

  Julia came running up to me one afternoon, when I emerged from the library after my lessons. “Oh, Selene, it must not be, it must not be. Oh, gods above, he has fallen ill. Selene, what will we do?”

  She looked like a frightened child, her face flushed, her hair in disarray.

  “Who is sick? Is it your husband?”

  “No,” she cried. “Oh, no, not him. It’s my father.” She sobbed. “My father!”

  Her hands were raised, fluttering, like butterflies trying fruitlessly to escape the net. I grasped her wrists. “Julia, it will be all right. Calm yourself.”

  I felt ages older than her at that moment. I had already suffered the loss of father and mother, had seen those I loved die, and I had gone on living. All she had known were life’s blessings.

  It did not seem odd to me when she threw her arms around me then and wept on my shoulder. I held her, feeling her body shake.

  “Augustus will recover,” I said.

  “Selene, you’re right, he must. People do recover, don’t they? One of the slaves has, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes. The blacksmith is up and well.”

  “But he’s a big, burly man, and my father isn’t. He’s sickly, really. We’re not supposed to say it, but that’s the truth. Do you think he’ll really get better?”

  “With the gods’ help.”

  Later, I saw Livia coming out of her husband’s sickroom, not glancing at me or at anybody, only conferring with the doctor, a small, sinewy Greek. The doctor tried to reassure her, and I saw by her face she did not believe his words.

  “The world will fall apart if that man dies,” Juba said to me later. “The empire will seethe with disorder.”

  “Marcellus—”

  “If he were older, maybe there would be a chance. He is twenty-one, barely. There will be civil war.”

  And what would happen to us?

  “Selene,” Juba said, “even if you hate Augustus, pray that he lives.”

  No one died quickly from this illness. Rather they went through days of torment. Their fevers would rise and fall. They would cough incessantly and suffer terrible headaches. Some developed spots on their chests and bellies. Some fell into delirium before they died. Occasionally the sickness ebbed away, leaving the sufferer exhausted but alive. But most died.

  Meanwhile the great one, the one on whom the whole world depended—in his bedchamber, out of sight of the household, Augustus lay battling for his life. Livia usually stayed in the room with him, fearless of contagion. When she briefly emerged, the look on her face showed me he was losing his fight.

  I could fall ill and die too, I thought. Or Juba might. We could both be gone in a few days. Or whoever succeeds Augustus might well decide to execute me.

  “My father is dying,” Julia said to me one morning. She was calmer now. “I know it. We all do.”

  “Then Marcellus—”

  I meant to say Marcellus will become First Citizen. But Julia interrupted me. “I’ll tell you something, Selene, but you must promise not to repeat it to anyone.”

  “I promise.”

  “Marcellus is frightened. He is not prepared to take my father’s place. One day he will be. But not yet. He lay in my arms last night and whispered the truth. He is not ready. He is so afraid he will fail us all.”

  I felt a sinking in my belly.

  We can count on nothing, I thought. There will be no safety now for any of us.

  I was sixteen, and since I was little, all my actions had been geared to survival. But that evening, as the twilight came on, I made no calculations. Juba and I walked through the gardens, hand in hand. Finally we came to a little downward cleft in the land. We were completely alone, hidden on all sides by shrubbery.

  “What do you truly ask of life?” I murmured. It is perhaps strange I would pose this question at such a moment. But I wished to fully know him, to grasp who and what he was.

  “I want to be both a scholar and a ruler. I want to be one who leaves something of value behind for those who come after.”

  I nodded. “Is there anything else you want?”

  “I want a beautiful queen. A queen descended from a line of god-kings. Who smells of jasmine. Whose mouth is like pomegranates.”

  I laughed. “Where will you ever find a queen like that?”

  “She stands here before me.”

  “Do you think they will ever let us marry?”

  “I doubt it very much,” he said soberly. “The thought of you with a royal husband would fill even brave Romans with fear. We can only count on this moment.”

  “Only now. So we must fully seize this day that may never come again.”

  He studied my face for a moment to be sure he understood me. Then he said, “You realize what you are risking?”

  “I am my mother’s daughter. I am no coward.”

  He pulled me close. It surprised me how suddenly and forcefully he did it, but I did not resist. We sank to the ground. I let him take me there, under the open sky.

  Afterward, I thought of my mother in my father’s arms. I remembered them without grief. While they lived they had each other, though the whole world might have cursed them for it.

  Juba’s face loomed above me. “Cleopatra Selene . . . you’re not sorry?”

  “Oh, no.” Not even if I die for it.

  The doctors had tried bathing him in icy-cold water brought with great effort from snowy mountain peaks. It did not cool his fever. He lay back against pillows of purple silk, propped up so he could breathe better. His eyes were blazing, his face damp with sweat. But the illness had not touched his mind. “Send everybody else out,” Tavius whispered.

  We had three doctors in attendance at this time. I ordered them to leave the bedchamber and sat down on the bed beside my husband.

  He pulled at the coverlet. “I’m burning up.”

  I turned the coverlet back so his upper body lay bare and struggled not to wince at the rose-colored marks on his chest. “Is that better, beloved?”

  He nodded slightly. “Marcellus . . . what is your opinion of him?”

  I did not reply, but took his hand, cradled it in mine, then raised it to my lips.

  His eyes bore into mine. “You know what I’m asking. Answer.” His voice, though weakened, was that of an imperator.

  He wanted me to transform myself now from wife to political advisor; I played both roles with him of course. But at this moment I was all wife. Still, I tried to meet him where he was and give him what he needed.

  “Marcellus is a good young man. He’s not you.” I reached over and stroked back a lock of golden hair from Tavius’s forehead. “He is not strong, the way you are strong. How could he be? Everything has been handed to him. You know this.”

  I saw by Tavius’s expression that not a word I said surprised him. I was just confirming what he thought himself.

  It is a fine thing, I suppose, to be favored by the gods from the moment you are born. Tavius had not been so favored. He had barely survived his first years. His whole boyhood had been a struggle to overcome physical weakness, and he had emerged from it with
resources that his nephew—whom the gods had granted every natural gift—did not have.

  “Time may well temper Marcellus,” I said. “Time and experience. He is talented and willing. In ten years . . .”

  “Ten years.” Tavius gave a terrible shuddering cough. “Ten years . . .”

  “Tavius, don’t dwell on this now. You need to rest your mind as well as your body.” He stared at the ceiling for a long time. I knew he was incapable of rest at such a moment. He was imagining all his work destroyed, Rome once more plunged into anarchy and civil war.

  Only one man had a chance of holding the empire together if Tavius died. We both knew who that man was.

  Finally Tavius said, “Send for Agrippa.”

  Dawn had painted the sky a pale pink. Marcellus and I stood in the portico outside our bedchamber. We had barely slept.

  “It will be all right,” I told him. “I have faith in you.”

  He gave me a wintry stare.

  My father lay dying, and instead of being comforted by my husband, I felt impelled to comfort him. In the night, he had whispered his fears to me. Father held the empire in his hands. The Senate, the people, the army all bowed to his will. Would they allow Marcellus to rule because my father had designated him his heir? Or when Father drew his last breath, would civil war break out?

  I knew I must swallow my own grief and fear for now, to be the wife Marcellus needed. I don’t think I could have done it for anyone else, or even for Rome. But I loved Marcellus and ached to make his load lighter. “Whatever happens, I’ll be at your side,” I said.

  “I ought to have insisted on a military appointment. I ought to have been making friends in the army, not in the Senate. What a fool I was. I didn’t think I had to. Not yet.”

  “Men will follow you,” I said. “You are my father’s choice and married to his daughter, and you are the male heir closest in blood. You will be First Citizen. It is your destiny.” I put my arms around him. “It’s all right to show doubt with me—but only with me, my darling. The gods give us the power to do what we have to do. I’ve heard Father say that again and again. Please believe me, Marcellus—you will be able to do all that you must.”