Cleopatra's Moon

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

  Ptolly shook his head. “Who is Jonah?”

  As his father distracted Ptolly, the younger rabbi turned to us. “Is there someone at the Palatine whom you can trust?”

  “Octavia,” I said.

  “Juba,” Alexandros said almost in the same moment. My brother turned to me. “Octavia is probably sitting beside her brother at the celebration feast,” he pointed out. “Juba is the better choice to get us out of the Subura right now.”

  “Good,” the rabbi said. “Now, how would I get word to him?”

  “Wait,” I cried, remembering what the soldier had said in the Tullianum. “Maybe we shouldn’t go back. The soldier said that Livia gave the orders for our execution.”

  “No, he did not!” Alexandros said with a shocked expression. “The executioner insisted he had never gotten the orders and that he would not have done it anyway. It was a mistake. That is all.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but the young rabbi interrupted me, looking directly at Alexandros. “How do we reach this Juba?”

  Alexandros and the rabbi continued talking. I looked down, confused. I knew the soldier said it was at “Caesar’s lady’s” command. What other “lady” would want us dead but the wife of the man who hated us? And if it had worked, it would’ve been brilliant, as all of Rome would have witnessed that Octavianus was in the Triumph and Livia in the grandstands, neither one personally responsible. Our deaths would have been excused as an unfortunate misunderstanding.

  Ben Harabim left to locate Juba. I looked over at Ptolly. He had crumpled against the old rabbi, fast asleep. The old man put his crooked, spotted hand gently on Ptolly’s head and recited a Hebrew blessing. I remembered how Mother had prayed over Ptolly the night before she died, and the longing for her touch sank so deep, my bones ached with it.

  “Come,” the younger rabbi said, lifting Ptolly from his father’s lap. “You all must rest.”

  I turned to the elder rabbi. “Thank you,” I said to the old man, feeling my throat tighten again. “Euphronius would have been very grateful for your kindness to us.”

  “Pssstah,” the old rabbi said again with a smile. “It is I who am grateful to Euphronius. Hashem works in mysterious ways, for it must have been His will that brought you here to us this day.”

  I remembered, then, how he had tried to explain the Hebrew concept of “free will” to me so long ago. I understood it no better now, for how could something be both “God’s will” and our own “free will” at the same time? And if his was the kind of god that “willed” us to be paraded in humiliation and then almost executed, I could confidently say that I wanted no part of him. Isis would help me. I just needed to be patient.

  We were left alone to wait in one of the side rooms of the bet ha-midrash. “We should run away now, while we can, before we’re taken back to the compound,” I whispered to Alexandros. “I swear to you, it was Livia who ordered our deaths. We would be fools to go back.”

  Alexandros flicked his eyes at Ptolly, who was twitching in his sleep on a musty, stained rush mat on the floor. We squatted like slaves next to him. “And do what? How long do you think we would survive out there?” Alexandros asked, gesturing to the Subura. “I’d rather be held in the bosom of my enemy and know what to expect than be murdered or attacked by some filthy, drunken Roman. Worse, slave traders could snatch us and … and separate us, selling us to gods-know-where. No. We cannot risk it.”

  He was right. It was common knowledge that unaccompanied children in Rome — especially in the Subura — were often kidnapped and sold to slave traders. The Romans called the child-stealers retiarii, after the gladiators who fought with nets, because they were so skilled at sweeping the streets of unwanted children.

  I shuddered at the thought of being separated from my brothers, let alone being sold. Yet I also felt the frustration of our coddled upbringing. We had no talent for surviving the streets of Rome. Alexandros was right. With Octavia and Juba standing between us and Livia and Octavianus, our best chance of survival was amidst our enemy.

  Because of the chaos of the revelry all over the city, Juba didn’t come for us until nearly sunrise the next day. He was outraged at the “misunderstanding” of our almost-execution and swept us home in a litter surrounded by guards.

  Zosima nearly wept with relief when she saw us. An exhausted-looking Octavia looked dazed beside her. Zosima threw her arms around me, and I couldn’t help but gasp at the pain in my shoulder.

  “What happened, child? Are you injured?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but all the air left my lungs when I spied someone watching us from inside the atrium. Gods, Livia! How furious she must be that her plan for getting rid of us had failed! What would she do to us now?

  “Cleopatra Selene?” Zosima asked.

  “I fell,” I mumbled.

  “The mean man tackled her!” Ptolly cried. “And I kicked him in the head!”

  “What?” Zosima and Juba said at the same time. “Who …”

  “The man that was going to make her not a virgin so they could execute her!” he said. “But I stopped him!” He reenacted the kick with gusto. “I rescued us!”

  At everybody’s look of horror, I added, “That’s right, Ptolly. You and Alexandros stopped him from hurting me, and we escaped.”

  I looked toward the atrium again. Livia was gone.

  “Oh, you were so brave,” Octavia said to Ptolly, tears streaming down her face. She knelt. “The gods have spoken. They have saved you for me, my little Marcus.”

  Little Marcus? I stared openmouthed as Ptolly threw himself into her open arms. She held him tight. “My little Marcus,” she kept murmuring. “I am so sorry.”

  Ptolly snuggled into her embraces like a kitten searching for its mother’s teat. “My poor, poor darling.” Octavia sniffed. She picked him up and walked toward her rooms, murmuring honey in his ear.

  “Come,” Zosima whispered to Alexandros and me as she led us back to our quarters. “Let us get you cleaned up.”

  That night, all I could think about was Ptolly. Would he have nightmares after our horrible experience in the Triumph? Did Alexandros know how to comfort him? In the deep-dark, I rose and snuck into their cubiculum to check on him. To my dismay, I found Ptolly’s sleeping mat empty.

  I pushed Alexandros’s shoulder. “Wake up! Where is Ptolly? Where is he?”

  Alexandros was always difficult to rouse in the night. “Wha …?”

  “Ptolly! Where is he?”

  “Oh,” he mumbled. “… Octavia.”

  “What?”

  “Said he might get scared … better for ‘Li’l Marcus’ … stay with her.”

  “Little Marcus” again? Why was she suddenly calling him by Tata’s name? And why would Ptolly sleep in Octavia’s room like a baby when he said he was too big to sleep with me in my cubiculum?

  The thought that took my breath away, though, was this: She was stealing him from me. I knew that made no sense — I did not “own” my little brother — but my heart felt otherwise.

  I stood frozen in my brothers’ dark room for a long time, for when I left to return to my own, the sky was purple in the predawn light. I walked slowly across the grounds, struggling to understand my enormous sense of unease and loss. How many ways did the gods have, I wondered, for taking from me the people I loved?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  In What Would Have Been the Twenty-third Year of My Mother’s Reign

  In My Thirteenth Year (28 BCE)

  In the months that followed, it was a relief to learn that Octavianus cared to see us as little as we cared to see him. We went whole days, if not weeks, without running into the man all of Rome called its Savior. I made sure to avoid Livia as much as possible too. Perhaps if we didn’t flaunt our presence, I thought, she would not attempt to be rid of us again.

  I calmed even more when I overhead one of the slaves gossiping about Octavianus’s meetings with client rulers from the eastern provinces.

/>   “Whenever one of them complains about what is happening in their region,” the handsome young wine-pourer said, unaware that I had snuck into the kitchens to find a sweet treat for Ptolly, “Caesar reminds them of all the kindnesses he is showing the children of the Egyptian queen. He promises he will accord them the same.”

  “Do they believe him?” the kitchen slave asked.

  The wine-pourer shrugged and snickered. “They don’t have much choice now, do they?”

  So even after the Triumph, we were still politically useful. That too felt like a shield. Still, as the months wore on, I chafed at our situation. When would Amunet’s agents contact us? What was happening in Egypt? Why had I heard nothing?

  Senators’ sons and daughters often visited the compound to socialize with the children of the household. In the course of these visits, I had earned a reputation as an excellent trigon player, despite jeering and teasing from the boys. “Trigon is a boys’ game!” some of the senators’ sons would cry, but not for long.

  Like everyone else, I took my turn as pilecripi, keeping score and chasing down balls. One day, one of the senators’ sons missed a hard throw and the small leather ball rolled almost all the way to the Neptune fountain in the side garden. As I snatched it up, I heard a voice from my nightmares. I froze.

  Octavianus rounded the garden path beside a very overweight, very old man. He narrowed his eyes and showed his teeth to me. “Ah, Corbulo! Speak of the little gorgon herself.”

  Gorgon? I felt my face flush at the insult. Corbulo’s wrinkled neck jutted forward from his round, toga-clad middle. He looked like a tortoise stretching its small bald head out of an oversized shell.

  “Oh, now, don’t insult the child, Octavianus. She appears quite delicious to me,” he said with a leer. “I have been curious to know if she favors her mother. I do not see much of Antonius in her, except for maybe the long legs.”

  I pulled at my tunica, trying to cover my calves and ankles, as the old man examined me. Zosima had complained that all my Egyptian tunicas were too short, but I always ignored her when she tried to measure me for new Roman ones. Now I regretted it fiercely.

  “Oh, yes, I see the resemblance,” the old man added. “You forget, I met the fascinating lady when she visited Julius all those years ago. And this one has that certain something her mother had, doesn’t she? I can’t put my finger on it, but I can’t look away either.”

  Octavianus muttered something under his breath and both men tittered. With as much dignity as I could, I turned away and walked back toward the game.

  “Yes, she will do quite nicely,” the old man croaked loud enough for me to hear.

  I did not feel like playing after that. I tossed the ball back to the group of boys and wandered farther into the garden, confused. What did the old man mean? What was Octavianus planning?

  I came upon Julia and one of the senator’s sons sitting on a marble bench under a tree. Julia leaned forward and kissed the boy on the cheek. The boy’s face burned with what looked like delighted embarrassment before he raced off. Julia smirked at me.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to cover my irritation at not finding privacy.

  “He’s cute, isn’t he?” she asked as she watched the boy. I shrugged and began walking in the other direction. She jumped up from the bench and joined me.

  “So, which of the boys have you kissed?” she asked.

  I made a face. “None.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “Because … Because …” I looked over my shoulder at the group far on the other side of the garden. They seemed like puppies, barking, yelping, and tumbling over one another in the warm sunlight. “They are just boys.”

  She laughed. “Oh, so it is the men you are after. Which one do you dream about? All the girls love Marcellus, though he hasn’t had his manhood ceremony yet.”

  Again, I did not respond.

  “Hmmm. So if not Marcellus, then it must be Juba, yes? He wears the toga of manhood. He is twenty.”

  A spike of irritation burst up my chest. “Julia, please leave me alone.”

  “Juba is so very handsome,” she continued as if she had not heard me. “Too bad he is like a brother. But what am I saying? You are Ptolemy. You would have no problem with that, would you?”

  I stopped. “Julia, what do you want?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that I have watched you and noticed the way your eyes follow Juba. How you hang on every word he says when you two have your little scroll-fests. I think you like him.”

  “I don’t like Juba in that way,” I said, setting off again.

  She caught up to me. “Do you ever think about who you will marry?” she asked in an innocent voice. “Tata probably wants you married off soon. Imagine the favors people will owe him!”

  The idea of marrying some smug, arrogant Roman made my blood run cold. And the idea that Octavianus might be bargaining favors in exchange for me made bile rise in my throat — especially after that encounter with Corbulo.

  “I am never getting married,” I said.

  Julia laughed. “Of course you will! You are a prize, ‘sister.’ Although not getting married might be fun too. That way you can take as many lovers as you want. You know. Like your mother.”

  If I had learned anything in Rome, it was to not respond to Julia’s baiting about Mother, so I just stalked off instead. Still, her insinuations rankled. Mother had loved only two men her whole life — Julius Caesar and my tata. Yet Romans continued to spread lies about Mother’s supposed wanton nature.

  Unfortunately, though, Julia’s comments about Juba forced me to admit that she was right about my attraction to him. I had often looked for ways to “accidentally” run into him when he returned from his forays outside the compound. I read books that I thought might impress him; I watched his training sessions with Alexandros, admiring his strength, grace, and power.

  Worse, I began comparing him to other boys. I contemplated his kindness every time I witnessed casual Roman cruelty; I remembered his grace every time an awkward boy stumbled. It wasn’t long before, to my embarrassment, I began wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

  Ever-observant Julia noticed my increasing awkwardness around him — an opportunity she did not let slip past.

  “You do know,” Julia said one day as we immersed ourselves in the steaming hot water of the baths, “that Juba is the favorite of bored young wives married to decrepit old senators?”

  I sighed. Why couldn’t Marcella be in the water instead of Julia? It was much more pleasant to talk to her. But both Marcellas and both Antonias stood whispering and giggling as the bath slaves scraped them with strigils.

  “I am sure your father loves all those married women having affairs,” I replied, trying to move the focus onto her tata, with whom she had a contentious relationship. Octavianus talked incessantly of bringing back Rome’s “pious” modesty, especially for women, decrying the freedoms Roman women enjoyed. But, as always, he had to tread carefully, lest people noticed that as he took the freedoms of women away, he stripped all Romans of their liberty.

  Unfortunately, Julia continued as if I had never even spoken. “Yes, all those bored beauties. They find Juba irresistible. I have heard he’s quite shy, and that makes the women even bolder in their pursuit of him.”

  “I thought you had a crush on Tiberius,” I countered, knowing it was not true but desperate to take the focus off of Juba.

  “Tiberius?” she laughed. “He is my stepbrother!”

  “Yes, but I have seen your eyes follow him when you think no one is looking,” I lied.

  She sat up, only her outraged blue eyes visible through the thick vapor from the hypocaust. “That is not true! I hate Tiberius,” she hissed. “And, again, he is my stepbrother. We are not like you Ptolemies!”

  I shrugged and did not say anything else, satisfied that I had rattled her. I leaned back against the marble-tiled lip of the bath edge, watching as beams of sunlight poured through the high
windows and danced with the swirling smoke of rising steam.

  Despite myself, after Julia’s comments, I spent a ridiculous amount of time wondering which Roman beauties had attracted Juba’s attention and if he had fallen in love with any of them. This only served to make my discomfort around him even more acute, though that never stopped me from going to my regular spot to watch him train Alexandros.

  On one particularly beautiful spring afternoon, I took my place under the sweet citron tree as usual. Juba appeared but my brother did not. After setting out the wooden fighting equipment, Juba looked around. He caught sight of me under the tree. Gods! Did he know that I came here to watch him? My stomach tightened as he approached, and I looked to the side, trying to appear as if I were lost in thought. “Where is your brother?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” I said, “but I think I saw Julia chasing him earlier with a question.”

  “I keep telling him he must work on his speed.” Juba chuckled. “I’ll give him some time in case he escapes.”

  An awkward silence stretched. I kept my eyes focused on the scroll on my lap, but I could not read a word. I was intensely aware of his closeness and of the spicy warm scent of his skin. He wore a sleeveless tunic and had his arms around his knees. I sneaked peeks at his arms, wondering what it would feel like to have them around me.

  He leaned back on his elbows, squinting into the distance. “What are you reading?” he asked.

  I jumped. “Oh. Um. Nothing, really.” I could not bear to tell him that I had brought the love poems of Catullus. I had not been able to convince myself to read dry treatises on Egyptian politics and finance that might one day help me rule. But I did not want to reveal I was reading scandalous poems about love either.

  When Juba raised his eyebrows, smiling in curiosity, I realized I needed to fend off more questions with a better answer. “Just some writings on the … um … the Epicureans.”