The Egyptian Royals Collection

by Michelle Moran

  A Praetorian turned to me. “One of the gladiators has been wounded.”

  “Many have been wounded,” Gallia remarked.

  “But this man is a favorite. He has survived combat for three days, and now Charon is coming with his mallet.”

  “They will kill a favorite even if he might live?”

  “He’s been wounded, Princess. His eyes are closed. It doesn’t matter to Charon if a physician might save him.”

  Although the amphitheater seats rose in tiers, I couldn’t see anything above the heads of the people in front of me. I was too small, and there were too many of them standing on their seats. Perhaps it was better. I could hear the crowd’s sharp intake of breath as the mallet shattered the gladiator’s skull, and Antonia’s shriek pierced the sudden silence that had descended over the amphitheater. Octavia rushed to calm her, but she wouldn’t be calmed. Her shrieking continued, until Marcellus placed his hand over her mouth. “Be quiet!”

  Octavian rose. “I am done for today.”

  “I’m sorry,” Octavia said. “She’s afraid.”

  “She should be,” he said angrily. “There will be no more of Hermes and Charon! Agrippa, you will inform them.”

  “Then how will the battles end?” Marcellus asked.

  “When one gladiator is too tired or too injured to fight.” Octavian turned to Antonia and held up her chin, wiping the tears from her eyes. “No more death,” he promised, though when the bet-maker returned with various winnings, I noticed that Octavian didn’t refuse to accept his.

  Inside Octavia’s villa, Alexander handed his heavy purse to me. “For your foundlings,” he said quietly.

  I placed the purse inside the metal chest Octavia had recently given to us, and Alexander locked the chest with the key he wore next to his bulla. Marcellus and Julia stood at the door, waiting for us to join them.

  “Come,” Marcellus urged. “We can watch the races from my uncle’s platform.”

  “But won’t he be angry?” Alexander asked. “He said he was done for the day.”

  “He was only upset that he will have to pay the lanistae three hundred denarii,” Julia said wryly.

  “What is a lanista?” Alexander asked.

  “You know,” Marcellus prompted, “one of the men who own the gladiators. When a gladiator dies, the sponsor of the event has to pay the lanistam for his loss. The Ludi Romani are always sponsored by Caesar, and popular gladiators are worth more.”

  “So that means my father will have to pay three hundred denarii just for one man. By banishing Hermes and Charon, he won’t have to pay the lanistae anything.” Julia smiled. “You didn’t think he did it for poor little Antonia, did you?”

  The Ludi went on for fourteen more days, and by September nineteenth, no one wanted to return to Magister Verrius and our studies. Marcellus pleaded with Octavia to let us have one more day, but her answer was firm.

  “Your uncle’s dies natalis is in six days, and there will be two days off for celebration. I believe that is enough.” Octavia walked us onto the portico, where Juba and Gallia were already waiting. “Do you celebrate birth days in Egypt?” she asked.

  “No,” Alexander replied. “But our father sometimes brought us presents.”

  Octavia pressed her lips together, perhaps thinking of the gifts her daughters had never received because their father was with us in Alexandria.

  “They were always small presents,” I added swiftly. “Of little importance.”

  “At least he remembered,” Octavia said quietly.

  I scowled at Alexander, who understood what he had done. “He never spent much time with us anyway,” he said. “Even if it was our dies natalis.”

  Octavia smiled, but it was bitter. I could feel her watching us as we disappeared down the Palatine. When we reached the Forum, Magister Verrius greeted us at the door of the ludus.

  “Enjoy yourselves,” Juba said merrily, and I imagine that Magister Verrius understood what we were feeling, since the next few days were full of games. There was a contest to see who could memorize the longest passage of Euripides, and a game testing our knowledge of the Muses—both of which I won. But Tiberius had memorized the longest passages of both Ennius and Terence, Romans whose works I couldn’t be bothered with. By the end of September, our games were over, and Magister Verrius was determined to introduce us to rhetoric, the art of public speaking. Marcellus sighed audibly, and Julia sank lower in her seat.

  “Today, I would like you to spend time outside the Senate, listening to the lawyers debate.” When Julia groaned, Magister Verrius ignored her. “You will follow a trial until its end, and you may not choose a trial that ends today.”

  “What a waste of time,” Julia said angrily as we walked toward the Campus Martius. Juba and Gallia remained several paces behind. She turned around and glared at them. “Do you think they might lie for us and pretend that we’ve gone?”

  “What?” Marcellus asked. “And we’d make up a trial?”

  “Well, when are we supposed to watch one?” she demanded.

  “We’re going to have to forget the Circus,” he said. “At least for a week.”

  “He didn’t say how long the trial had to be. We can choose one that ends tomorrow.”

  Marcellus gave Julia a long look. “And be told to do it all over again?”

  Julia turned to me. “I don’t know how you stand it. Working with Vitruvius from the break of dawn and studying Magister Verrius’s work all day.”

  “She likes it,” Tiberius responded on my behalf. “Some people actually enjoy learning.”

  “But why? All Vitruvius teaches you is measurements.”

  “Measurements to construct a building,” I replied. “He took me to the Temple of Apollo yesterday. It’s almost finished.”

  “Really?” Marcellus took a shortcut across the Campus Martius. “What’s inside?”

  “A library with gold and ivory paneling. And a statue of the god sculpted by Scopas.”

  “Did Juba find it?” Marcellus asked.

  I shrugged. “That’s what Vitruvius says.” In the distance, I could see Livia and Octavia on the shaded portico of the stables, both weaving on their wooden looms and sitting as far apart as decorum would allow. When we reached the portico, Octavia stood.

  “Juba.” She smiled. “Gallia. Thank you both for bringing them safely. Are all of my children behaving themselves?”

  “Aside from the complaining?” Juba said. “Yes.”

  “You would complain, too, if you had to go to school while everyone else was on vacation,” Marcellus grumbled.

  “Ah, the terrible price of being heir,” Juba said.

  “He is not heir yet,” Livia snapped.

  “Forgive me. Possible heir.”

  “We all know Octavian wants Marcellus,” Tiberius retorted. “So why keep pretending?”

  Livia looked at her husband, who was swimming with Agrippa while guards kept watch on the bank. “Octavian has told me he has not decided. There’s no reason not to make you heir.”

  “No reason in the world,” Marcellus returned sarcastically. “Come on, Alexander, I want to swim.”

  Marcellus and Alexander entered the stables, and Tiberius glowered at his mother. “Why can’t you just leave it alone?” he shouted.

  Livia stood swiftly and delivered a slap to his face.

  Tiberius turned red, and when he disappeared into the stables, Octavia warned, “He will come to resent you.”

  “How do you know what he will come to do? Are you an augur?”

  Julia kept her eyes on the wooden loom in front of her, and I didn’t look up from my sketches, in case Livia turned her wrath on me.

  “Get me more loom weights!” Livia shouted at Gallia.

  “Don’t move,” Octavia said. “If she wants more weights, she can get them herself. They’re inside.”

  Gallia hesitated, caught between obeying Octavia and angering Livia further. She met Livia’s fearsome gaze without blinking, a
nd when it became clear that she wasn’t going to move, Livia stormed from her chair.

  Later, when the men returned from their swim, Julia whispered this story to Alexander and Marcellus. We were making our way back to the Forum to observe a trial when she said eagerly, “And then, Gallia simply refused to move!”

  Behind us, Gallia walked between Tiberius and Juba, the incident on the portico forgotten. But Marcellus shook his head. “My mother is creating trouble for Gallia. She shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Gallia isn’t Livia’s slave,” I said heatedly. “She shouldn’t be anyone’s slave.”

  “Well, she belongs to my mother,” Marcellus replied, “and my mother is putting her in danger. No one can afford to make an enemy of Livia.”

  “I understand why Octavia did it,” Julia said. “She’s tired of Livia thinking she owns all of Rome.”

  “She does,” Marcellus pointed out.

  “No, my father does! Livia’s just a whore with a good marriage.”

  Alexander snickered, and I covered my mouth to keep myself from laughing.

  Julia smiled naughtily at me. “Now let’s find the shortest trial and get this over with.”

  But there was only one trial happening in the Forum. A crowd was growing around the podium where a lawyer was addressing the seated judices, who would eventually return a verdict of guilt or innocence.

  “I can’t see,” Julia complained. “What’s going on?”

  “Two hundred slaves are on trial for the murder of their master, Gaius Fabius,” Juba said.

  Julia gasped. “Fabius?” She turned to me. “Don’t you remember him, Selene? He was the man you saw beating those boys at the temple!”

  “And all two hundred slaves helped murder him?” I exclaimed.

  “When one slave murders his master, all must be punished,” Juba said levelly.

  Suddenly, Julia was interested. “Do you think we can get a better view?”

  Juba raised his brows. “Certainly.” He took us behind the podium, where rows of slaves were chained together by the neck and we could watch the backs of the lawyers as they addressed both the judices and the crowds.

  “Look how young they are,” I whispered to Alexander. Some of the slaves were no more than five or six, and could never have taken part in any killing. I turned to Juba. “Will they really be put to death?”

  “Of course. If they are found guilty.”

  “How can you be so callous?” I demanded.

  “Because it’s not his problem,” Tiberius said. “What is he supposed to do about it?”

  The public lawyer for the slaves stopped talking, and was replaced at the podium by the lawyer for the dead Gaius Fabius. “You have heard,” he began in a thundering voice, “pitiful stories of slaves who could not have taken part in the killing. Women, children, old men who are nearly crippled and blind. But what did they see? What did they witness and keep silent about? Make no mistake,” the lawyer said angrily, “watching and participating are no different! We cannot know which among these dregs stood by while Gaius Fabius was strangled in his chamber, then knifed more than a dozen times.” There was a groan from the crowd, and at the front, seated on wooden benches, the judices shook their heads. “We must set an example,” he said at once. “Nearly thirty-five years ago, a similar trial ended in the death of four hundred slaves. That jury understood that a message must be sent. One that discourages any slave from killing his master for fear that everyone will be punished. We must stop this now,” he shouted, “or who will be next? You?” He pointed at an old man on the bench, whose neck was weighed down by heavy gold chains. “You?” he demanded, looking at a second young man in the toga of a judex. “Forget what you heard before this. Certainly, a few slave children will die. But are their lives more important than yours? More important than those of your wives and children?”

  He stepped down from the podium, and Julia watched with wide-eyed fascination. “What happens now?” she whispered.

  “That’s it,” Tiberius said.

  “What? No more arguing?” Marcellus asked.

  The crowd began to disperse, and Juba started walking. “No more until tomorrow.”

  “But how many days will it go on?” Julia asked.

  “As many as it takes.”

  She regarded Juba crossly. “But that could be a month. Even two months.”

  “It can’t be two months,” Tiberius retorted. “Courts shut down in November and December.”

  “So who decides when it’s over?” I asked.

  “The judices,” Gallia replied. Until then, she had been silent. Now she added quietly, “Those poor little children.”

  The next day, no one complained about going to the Forum. Even my brother and Julia were more interested in the fate of the two hundred slaves than in the races at the Circus Maximus. I could hear the people on the streets talking about Gaius Fabius’s slaves, and there seemed to be outrage, not at his murder, but at the trial. “Fifty-three children,” a woman said in the crowd. “It isn’t right.” Though we had arrived at the same time we had before, word had spread throughout Rome and more than a thousand people swelled around the podium and the judices’ seats.

  “Look how angry the people are! The judices have to set them free!” I exclaimed.

  “They don’t have to do anything,” Juba replied, leading us to the space behind the podium reserved for honored guests. This time, several senators were already there, watching the lawyers arguing. “The judices will make their decisions based on the principles of justice as they see them, not on the wishes of an angry mob.”

  “Then you agree with this?” I exclaimed.

  Juba looked at the miserable chain of slaves fettered by heavy iron shackles. Among them was a little brown-haired girl, who smiled when Juba met her gaze. “I agree with justice.”

  The lawyer for Gaius Fabius was at the podium, banging his fist against the wood. “Would you like to see the murderer?” he demanded, and the crowds cheered. “Bring him forth!”

  The guards stepped forward with a slave who was being held separately, and I whispered to Julia, “Is that one of the boys Fabius was beating at the temple?”

  “Who knows? All Gauls look the same.”

  I noticed Gallia shaking her head.

  Fabius’s lawyer pumped his fist in the air. “This is the slave responsible for the murder, and he doesn’t even deny it!” he cried. “Which of you thinks that a boy of fourteen could have done it on his own? Strangled his master, stabbed his master, then dumped his master’s body into the atrium pool?” There was a general shaking of heads, and the slave looked down at his feet. Like the kitchen boy, he knew he was lost. Then the lawyer inhaled, dramatically. “Who here believes that slaves are blind?” A few members of the crowd laughed, and I felt a familiar twisting in my stomach. “Then no one here believes that a murder could take place without anyone hearing. Without anyone suspecting. Without anyone ever seeing this filius nullius drag his master’s body away from his chamber! There are accomplices,” he promised. “And we must teach them Roman justice!” He strode away from the podium with the air of a man who knows he has won.

  The lawyer for Fabius’s slaves looked beaten before he even opened his mouth. His thin shoulders were hunched in his heavy toga, and he looked as if the heat of the day was draining him of color.

  “There is no knowing,” he began, “who saw or heard Gaius Fabius die. There is no one in this crowd who can tell me which of these slaves is an accomplice. Perhaps it was early morning, and while the elder slaves worked, it was the children who witnessed this terrible crime. I do not deny that this slave is responsible.” He flicked his wrist, and the guards took the boy away, holding him near the other slaves. I saw the boy look at an older woman, and felt certain from her tears that this was his mother.

  “But who here wishes to punish the innocent?” the lawyer went on. “The children who have never learned right from wrong?” There was an uneasy shuffling in the crowd, an
d the men who had laughed wore serious faces now. “It’s true that if you allow these slaves to be put to death, you are sending a message across Rome. But the message is that we are no different from barbarians!” I could see that he had been arguing all afternoon, and the strain was beginning to show. “Look at these faces,” he implored. “This one.” He stepped back and held up the chin of the beautiful girl who had smiled at Juba. “She can’t be more than six years old. What has she done to deserve death? She hasn’t even lived life!”

  I saw Gallia blinking back tears.

  “And this child,” the lawyer said. He touched the shoulder of a boy who was not more than ten. “What might he become if we let him live? He might serve another master well, he might buy his freedom. He might become as wealthy and powerful and useful as Caesar’s consul Agrippa!” There was an eager murmur in the crowd, and the lawyer fixed his gaze on the seven rows of judices. “Have pity,” he demanded. “Place blame on the shoulders it should rest on. Not upon the innocent!” He left the podium, and for several moments no one said anything.

  “Do you think a decision will be made tomorrow?” Marcellus asked.

  “It appears that way,” Juba said quietly, and I wondered whether he had been moved by the public lawyer’s plea.

  As we walked through the Forum, Julia said brightly, “Who would have thought a trial could be so interesting? Perhaps we should place bets.”

  For the first time, I saw Marcellus recoil in disgust.

  “What?” she said. “It’s no different from the arena.”

  “Perhaps I should not have bet there, either,” he said shortly, and Julia gave me a puzzled look.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE CROWD that came to witness the fate of Gaius Fabius’s two hundred slaves filled the Forum all the way from the courtyard of the Carcer to the steps of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. We had been allowed to skip our time on the Campus Martius to hear the judices pronounce their verdict, and even Octavian came, with Livia and Agrippa.

  “Where are your sisters?” I asked Marcellus. “And why isn’t your mother here?”