She loosened the leash around her hand and turned to walk back to the House of the Vestals. At that moment, Quintus opened the doors to the Regia from within.
“Come,” he said.
Pomponia looked around nervously. Other than the preoccupied temple guards and the few sanitation workers who swept and scrubbed the streets and collected trash by the light of their torches, she and Quintus seemed to be the only souls still awake.
She climbed the steps of the Regia and stepped inside. Quintus closed the heavy doors behind her, and she strained to see by the light of the single torch that was fixed to one of the blood-red walls.
By its flickering flame, a painted image of the warrior god Mars seemed to come to life, ready to kill and eager for the excitement of battle.
Pomponia had been in this somber space many times. It held a particularly imposing and sacred shrine to Mars on account of the ancient relics—a massive shield and spear—that lay heavily across the marble altar.
It was said that these had belonged to Mars himself and that the god had thrown them down from the heavens to protect the people of Rome. Past pontiffs and priests of Mars had said that the spear trembled and rattled on the altar, as if demanding to be picked up, whenever Rome was threatened.
Perseus whimpered and then sat obediently in front of the altar. At any other time, the sight of the little dog communing with the great god of war would have made Pomponia laugh out loud. But not now. Now, her heart was hammering in her chest, and her stomach fluttered with a strange mixture of apprehension and arousal.
All at once, Quintus came toward her. His strong arms enveloped her, drew her in until her face rested against his solid chest. Her body flooded with warmth, and she felt a strange hardness pressing into her midsection.
“That is my desire for you,” he said, his voice softer than Pomponia had ever heard it. “I am not ashamed of it.” He moved his head so that his face was pressed against the nape of her neck. “You belong to Rome now,” he said into her hair. “But I swear on the Altar of Mars that you will belong to me one day.” He pulled back and clutched her face in his hands. “Mars protect you while I cannot.”
She put her hands on top of his and felt the blood on his palm drip down her cheek. He had offered his own blood to the war god. To protect her. “Vesta bring you home,” she said.
And then he was out the door, and all she could hear was his receding footfalls and the scratching of brooms on cobblestone.
Chapter XIII
Auribus Teneo Lupum
I hold a wolf by the ears.
—Terence
egypt and rome, 32 bce
One year later
Queen Cleopatra sat on the glassy blue edge of the pool in the palace courtyard and gazed thoughtfully into the turquoise water. The weet weet weet of a sandpiper echoed somewhere in the marshy waters of the expansive gardens, and she smiled languidly at the pleasant sound. She had reason to smile today.
She could imagine Octavia’s face when her brother gave her the news: Your husband Marc Antony has forsaken you. He has married the Egyptian queen.
It had been a hard-won battle for Cleopatra. Antony had not been as pliable as she had expected. Despite his boyish and boorish nature, he had proven to be a Roman through and through. Every time he read a letter from his Roman wife Octavia, his sense of Roman pride and obligation had sent him scurrying across the sands, back home to her bed. And every time he did, his alliance with Octavian was renewed and strengthened.
Those damn letters. They had always found a way into Antony’s hands, no matter how many guards Cleopatra had assigned to intercept them in the shipyards, in the desert, and in the palace itself. The queen suspected Octavian’s man Quintus was responsible. What a cheerless puritan that man was.
Cleopatra hadn’t written any letters to Antony. She had sent messengers to Rome instead. It was a much more personal and persuasive approach. She had chosen these messengers with care.
First, they were selected from among the most strikingly beautiful women in Egypt. They were then trained in the dramatic arts so their tears would appear genuine and their words sincere. They wept when they described how a heartbroken Cleopatra was only a breath away from opening her wrists and how their loving children, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, shed tears day and night for the return of their great father.
But their training went beyond their ability to act, for they all carried a very personal message to Antony, one directly from the lips of the queen. And when he was alone in his Roman bedchamber, they would kneel before him and deliver it with their own lips.
It had worked. Antony had returned to Egypt. And this time, Cleopatra was determined to make him stay for good. She had to. Her life, the life of her children, and her throne depended on it.
Her spies in Rome had told her all about Antony’s wife, Octavia, who by all accounts was the ideal Roman matron. Obedient. Docile. Subordinate to her husband. Free of vice or ambition. Virtuous and proper in every way. Apparently, she dressed the part too. When she wasn’t in a white stola, she was in a white tunica. Had she not been sullied by her husband, she could have been a Vestal Virgin.
Instead of trying to compete with Octavia’s submissive and accommodating nature, Cleopatra did precisely the opposite. Where Octavia would have bent to Antony’s wisdom, Cleopatra challenged it. Where Octavia would have soothed him, Cleopatra scolded him. Where Octavia would have quietly slipped away when he became drunk, Cleopatra poured more wine and played drinking games with him.
Instead of the dowdy Roman matron draped in layers of white fabric, Cleopatra chose vibrantly colored dresses that clung to her every curve. Her earrings grazed her bare shoulders, and her necklaces dipped down between her breasts, drawing Antony’s eyes to the places she wanted him to focus on. Her exotic perfume filled his nostrils and quickened his breath.
When he finally took her, she didn’t lie silently in virtuous submission to his desires as her spies had told her Octavia did. Rather, she cried out in shameless pleasure, struck him across the face, and climbed on top of his body. It had been a risky strategy, but it had worked like a charm.
Yet the most effective strategy she had employed was the one that worked on every man she had ever known, and doubly so on Roman men. She inflated his ego.
She told him, time and time again, how that upstart runt Octavian was no Caesar, but rather a mewling little weakling who was no match for Antony’s strength and ability. She told him, again and again, how Octavian’s child-general Agrippa was no match for Antony’s military genius.
How dare those spoiled little boys tell the great Roman general Marc Antony what to do! How dare they send to Egypt and demand that he account for grain or coin!
It had lit a fire of indignation and a growing desire for violence in Antony’s stomach.
She heard a shuffling behind her and turned her head to see Antony—completely naked but only partially drunk—strolling into the courtyard. He spotted her by the pool and hiccupped as he made his way toward her.
“Hello, my love,” she greeted. “Come rest your head in your loving wife’s lap.” He obeyed, and she stroked his hair. “You should not walk naked through the palace,” she said. “The servants may mistake you for Hercules and forget their duties.”
“You have the mouth of a snake charmer, Cleopatra.”
She scratched his scalp with her fingernails, and he moaned in pleasure. “A thought occurred to me today,” she said, “a thought about Julius Caesar’s will.”
“What of it?”
“Caesar had great affection for you. He told me so on many occasions. He relied upon your military skill and your personal devotion to him. Is it not strange that he made Octavian his sole heir?”
“It is not so strange. Caesar was not one for sentimentality.”
“That is nonsense,” she gently challenged.
“He regarded you as a son. By comparison, he barely knew the boy Octavian.”
“Your point?”
She pursed her lips and slid her soft palms over his cheeks. “I have long suspected that Caesar’s will was forged.”
“Impossible. The will was kept in the Temple of Vesta. It was sacrosanct.”
“Perhaps,” she said, and then spoke on as though the thoughts were just now occurring to her, “But then again, Octavian and his sister are both friends with the Vestal Pomponia, are they not? Perhaps those friendships go back further than you know. There is no telling what could have happened to Caesar’s will behind the closed doors of the temple, especially in the chaos that followed his assassination.”
“I’ve known that priestess for years,” said Antony. “There’s no way. The will could not have been a forgery.”
“As you say,” Cleopatra replied lightly. She shifted her eyes to Charmion, who stood silently by the pool. The slave nodded discreetly in understanding and left.
A moment later, Charmion returned with a platter of delicacies and a fresh amphora of wine. Although Antony was in no condition to notice it, the wine was still swirling from the tincture of opium that had been added to it. He sat up and drained two cups, one right after the other.
Cleopatra waited patiently. And then she tried again.
“I remember how Caesar used to speak of you,” she said, “with such fondness and acclaim. When I heard that Octavian was the heir in his will, I could not believe it. I said to myself, ‘Cleopatra, some mischief has been done here. Some ambitious and unscrupulous person has forged the will.’ The Caesar I knew and loved had planned to leave both his legacy and his fortune to his closest friend and ally, Marc Antony.”
Antony blinked slowly and then squinted at her. “It is a bit odd,” he said, “that I was left nothing at all.”
“Octavian has no scruples.”
“He has no balls either,” said Antony. “He’s just the sort of gutless weasel to get a woman to do his dirty work. And my wife . . . I mean my ex-wife . . . well, she always was his eager little handmaiden. If he asked her to get a forged will into the temple, she would’ve sucked off Jupiter to make it happen.”
“Ah. Now Rome’s great general thinks clearly.”
Antony jumped to his feet, suddenly infused with violent energy. “I hold a wolf by the ears,” he said. “I control Egypt’s riches and its army. I control the granaries. I decide whether Octavian can pay his legions and whether Rome has food on its table.” He shook his head as the thoughts ran through it. “But at some point I must let go of the wolf. And when I do, it will bite.”
Cleopatra knelt on the floor and wrapped her arms around his bare legs. “My love,” she said. “We will kill it before it can bite us. And when the wolf that is Rome is dead, Egypt shall rule the world.”
He squatted down and took her in his muscular arms. “You have it wrong,” he said. “Antony and Cleopatra shall rule the world.”
* * *
He had been gone for a year. Yet his letters faithfully arrived at least once a month, always carried by the same discreet Egyptian slave Quintus had bought in Alexandria, always addressed to the Vestalis Maxima and always secured with Caesar’s seal. Quintus’s duties in Egypt permitted him the use of Caesar’s seal, and that small piece of stamped red wax was the greatest secret-keeper Pomponia could have asked for. After all, the punishment for breaking Caesar’s seal wasn’t just death—it was death by means of the most painful, gruesome ways Rome’s executioners could dream up. And they were a very creative sort.
Pomponia sat at her desk and opened the scroll. Quintus always wrote to her on the finest Egyptian papyrus, and many of his letters were accompanied by small gifts. A pack of exotic spices. A tiny cat or doll made of reeds. Dried flowers or herbs. Small garnets, carnelians, or smoothed lapis lazuli.
Once he had even sent a dead scarab beetle. No doubt he had thought the Egyptian insect would interest her, but when the black creature had unexpectedly tumbled out of the scroll onto her lap, she had shrieked and knocked over a lit beeswax candle on her desk, nearly setting the letter on fire before she had even read it.
Now, she opened his scrolls more carefully.
My dearest love,
These Egyptians are not right in the head. Their gods are beasts on top and men on the bottom. Yet their temples are as magnificent as any in Rome, may the gods forgive me for saying so. You would be tempted to crucify their priests and priestesses, though, since I have discovered the trickery they use—a sort of temple magic—to compel devotion to their gods.
I have seen the colossal statue of Isis at the great temple. The goddess weeps real tears from her eyes, yet after a few minutes of devout prayer from the gathering, the flow of tears stop. The people are convinced that their faith has pleased the goddess. Yet soon enough, the tears start again, and the people are compelled to pray even more.
I am angered to say that at first I fell for the scam myself, but then I followed the priest into the sanctuary, where all was revealed. The statue has a hidden hole at the back of its head. The priest adds a magic substance to an amphora of water and then fills the statue’s head with it. At first, the substance does nothing, but soon it solidifies to plug the passage of water for a short time. It would be ingenious were it not such a sacrilege. Nonetheless, I have sent you some of this substance—it comes from the inside of a certain leaf—so that you can see it for yourself.
It is similar showmanship at the Temple of Horus. When a pipe plays music, the hawk-headed god’s arms open wide and a massive pair of feathered wings emerge from them. When the music stops, the wings fold back into the god’s arms. The effect is masterful and truly a sight to behold. I have heard of other temples where the statues actually throw spears, but I have not seen this with my own eyes. I cannot decide whether the gods should curse or applaud such dupery.
Earlier this month, I had reason to visit the old Egyptian city of Giza. It is an ancient place with the most unbelievable monuments imaginable. There is a sprawling necropolis upon which sit three pyramid structures that are so large the visitor must lift and move his head to take it all in. The eye cannot see it all at once. No one seems to know what these pyramids were first used for. Some say they were the tombs of ancient pharaohs. Others say they match the positioning of the stars in the firmament above and therefore are a message to the gods. I have even heard it said that when the wind blows a certain way, the pyramids make a sound that speaks to the gods.
Near these pyramids is an enormous monolith of a Sphinx, which is a monstrous creature with a human head and a lion’s body. The local population calls this creature the Father of Dread. It is said that the Sphinx and the pyramids are over two thousand years old. Even the Black Stone is not believed to be so ancient! My slave Ankhu is very talented, and I had him paint the entire scene for you on the skin of a camel (a most obnoxious beast, by the way). Alas, it will not be dry when I send him off with this letter, so I shall send it next time.
My beloved Pomponia, do not think that I enjoy such exotics. They only pass the time, and I only take them in so that I may later write of them to you. Most of my time is spent trying not to burst into flames from the Egyptian sun, wrenching the fabric of my tunica from the claws of the queen’s wretched cats, or toiling over the abysmal state of the royal treasury. Insanos deos! How strange that these Egyptians excel in astronomy, mathematics, science, and engineering and yet cannot load a trunk with coin for Rome!
I awoke this morning and for a moment I thought I caught the scent of your hair. But then I realized it was only the scent of some lotus flowers through the open window of my bedchamber. The experience gave me pause, though, for the Egyptians believe that the strong fragrance of a flower means that a goddess is close by. It is no wonder I thought of you.
I sacrifice to Mars every week for your safety. I pray to Venus for your love.<
br />
Quintus
Pomponia finished the letter. And then she read it again. And again. In person, Quintus could be as ill-natured as the Minotaur. On papyrus, however, he could be as romantic and lyrical as Cupid in love.
Once she had all but committed his letter to memory, she rolled it up and dipped the edge of the scroll into the flame of the beeswax candle on her desk. As the papyrus burned, the words flew up to the goddess. Pomponia had no secrets from her.
She dropped the scroll’s cinders into a silver bowl and then uncurled the blank papyrus Quintus had included with his letter, taking up her stylus to write.
Quintus,
How strange and wonderful the pyramids and the Sphinx must be. I doubt I shall ever stand before them, but your letters let me see them through your eyes, and that pleases me greatly. As for the temple magic practiced by the Egyptians—well, I suppose that is for the gods to judge. Although I must say that such antics smack of comedy more than piety.
You sound well, Quintus, although frustrated by the Egyptian queen. Fear not, you have good company in this regard. As I am sure Caesar has told you in his letters, Roman sentiment continues to mount against Cleopatra. The people are convinced that she has cast a spell on Antony and that is why he remains in Egypt. They have always loved the general, and even as their bellies growl, they make excuses for him, saying it is not he who blocks the grain, despite everything Caesar says to the contrary.
But to happier news. Your daughter Quintina continues to thrive at the Temple of Vesta. I often marvel that she is Vesta incarnate. Her face grows lovelier each week, and she masters any ritual or rite the first time she sees it. Her tutors are constantly amazed by the sharpness of her mind. I am happy to report that she has none of your surly or sullen nature—what a relief !—but is rather cheerful and inspiring at all times. She is a blessing to the temple and to me personally, Quintus. I have come to love her dearly, and I will take the liberty of saying that she loves me too.
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