The Egyptian Royals Collection

by Michelle Moran

  We didn’t do much shopping. The rain was falling in heavy gray sheets, and when we reached the shop of a wealthy silk merchant, we huddled around his sandalwood brazier until the rain subsided and we could go out again. Julia purchased a few bolts of cloth in acknowledgment of his hospitality, and instructed him to send the bill to Augustus.

  That evening, in Octavia’s triclinium, Julia described what we’d seen in the Forum. As she came to the part about the judices being bought, Octavia sucked in her breath.

  “The judices of Rome are men from honorable patrician families.”

  “I’m only repeating what the lawyer said.”

  “And isn’t it suspicious that a man would wait fifteen years before claiming one of the prettiest girls in Rome as his slave?” Vitruvius asked. “Can it really be said that all patricians are honorable?”

  “Perhaps we should go tomorrow,” Agrippa suggested. He looked at his wife.

  “I wouldn’t mind the rain,” Claudia replied. “We could dress warmly. And our presence might inspire judices to act on their consciences.”

  I was surprised by the simplicity of her thinking. Assuming the judices had really been bought, no one’s presence would speak louder than gold. Agrippa might appear for one day of the trial, but how long would it hold his attention? And what would he do if the judices ruled that Tullia was Aquila’s slave? As Octavia had said, they were men from honorable families. Charging them with corruption would be a heavy thing.

  Before Alexander blew out the oil lamps in our room that night, I turned on my side to face him. “It’s a dirty system, isn’t it?”

  “No more than in Egypt. And where’s the better way?”

  “Perhaps if they forbade slavery—”

  But my brother laughed sadly. “And do you think the patricians would allow that? All of their fields, which make them rich, would have to be tended by workers they actually paid.”

  “So what? They’re all wealthy enough.”

  “It would never pass the Senate. Even if Augustus paid the senators to vote in favor of banishing slavery, they’d be risking their lives. The plebs would revolt. The patricians aren’t the only ones with slaves. And in the end, what would it accomplish? Men would simply forbid their slaves from leaving on punishment of death, and the courts could run every day from now until next Saturnalia before they found judices willing to punish slave killers.”

  I was quiet for a moment, angry that he was right. “Are you going to come tomorrow?”

  My brother hesitated. “Vergil has a reading—”

  “And you would rather be at the odeum instead of watching a trial for a girl’s life?” I sat up on my couch. “Whenever Vergil is invited to the triclinium, you and Lucius hang on his every word,” I said accusingly. “What is it about him? He’s just an old Ganymede.”

  “You shouldn’t say that,” my brother replied.

  “Why? Isn’t it true?”

  “Yes. But he writes about male love in a way that makes it beautiful. If you read some of his works, Selene, you might change your mind.”

  I stared at him. “You aren’t in love with Lucius, are you?”

  My brother blushed.

  “With a man?” I exclaimed.

  “We haven’t done anything,” he said defensively. “Just kissed.”

  I regarded my brother. His namesake, Alexander the Great, had taken men to his bed and counted the soldier Hephaestion as one of his greatest loves. But he had also taken a wife and given Macedon an heir. “So what do you think you will do when Augustus returns and wants to arrange a marriage for you?” I whispered. “Refuse?”

  “No one refuses Augustus. So why spend my last free years—maybe only months—at a trial whose outcome I can’t change, when I can be with Lucius?”

  We stared at each other from our couches, and I tried to determine what I felt about this.

  “I’m sorry, Selene. It’s nothing I can help.”

  “Have you even tried—?”

  “Of course,” he said swiftly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” My voice broke.

  “I thought you’d be disappointed.”

  He waited for me to tell him I wasn’t; that his desire for Lucius was as normal as Marcellus’s desire for Julia. But I kept my silence, forcing him to explain.

  “There are many men who aren’t attracted to women. Look at Maecenas. You don’t think it’s a coincidence that Terentilla’s never had a child? Maecenas isn’t interested, while Augustus has her drink the juice of the silphium plant to keep her from getting pregnant by him.”

  “How do you know that?” I demanded crossly.

  “I heard it from Maecenas.”

  “So men who love other men pass on their secrets to one another?”

  My brother raised his brows. “Don’t women?”

  “And what does Vitruvius think of you two?”

  “He doesn’t know. Or maybe he doesn’t want to.”

  “So this is why Lucius didn’t want to marry,” I said.

  My brother nodded. “Yes. But unless he can support himself or find a generous patron, he will have to someday. And then we’ll both be miserable, instead of just one of us. That’s why I have to encourage his readings in the odeum. There’s nothing I can do about slavery, Selene. But I can help change Lucius’s life.” He held out his hand to me, and slowly I took it.

  “This isn’t how I imagined our lives would be when I was Queen of Libya and you King of Armenia.”

  Alexander laughed sadly. “Our father had great plans, didn’t he? The kingdom of Parthia hadn’t even been conquered and he crowned me its king.” We both smiled, remembering our father’s irrepressible belief in himself. “Do you think it’s fate that we’ll lead unfulfilled lives?”

  I drew back. “Of course not. Augustus may still make you king.”

  “After he’s married me off to some widow.”

  “But you’re a man! You can do as you please—send her off to the country or keep her in Rome while you return to Egypt. Maecenas is content enough.”

  “But what about you?” His voice was so gentle and full of concern that tears sprang to my eyes.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you can forget Marcellus, perhaps you’ll find someone else.”

  “For what purpose? To have my heart broken again? This isn’t Egypt, Alexander. When Augustus returns, he’ll find me a husband that’s convenient for him, not me. It could be someone like Catullus or even Aquila. And there would be nothing I could do if he forbade me from visiting you in Alexandria.”

  “I would never return without you,” he swore.

  “Yes,” I said firmly, “you would. It’s your destiny.” I looked outside. The gardens, which shone blue and green every summer, were still dreary and soaked with rain. “I don’t think unhappiness is fated. Look at Gallia. She was forced into slavery and still found happiness.”

  “Because you freed her! But even as citizens we aren’t free. Everything we do, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear, is determined by Augustus!”

  “And you’ve always been the one telling me to be practical. But now look. You’ve lost your heart to Lucius, and it’s making you crazy.”

  My brother turned away. “It would all be different if Augustus died in Gaul, wouldn’t it? Marcellus is old enough now to be Caesar and he would let us marry whomever we wanted. Then we could return to Alexandria.”

  “Augustus’s letters to Octavia are always short,” I said eagerly. “And Julia says she heard that he spends most of his days sleeping. He isn’t strong.”

  My brother raised his eyes. “From your mouth to Isis’s ears,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BEFORE ISIS could make a decision about my brother’s prayer, she acted on one of my silent pleas. I was leaving the library, where Vitruvius was making the plans for the Pantheon’s final steps, when Octavia rushed in, too anxious to even realize I was there.

  “He’s back!
” she exclaimed. “And they’re all over Rome. We finally have proof it wasn’t Marcellus!”

  Vitruvius rose from his desk. “Another actum?”

  “On the temples of Apollo, Jupiter, Vesta, Castor and Pollux, even Venus Genetrix. It’s short, just a few lines calling people to the trial of Tullia. But Marcellus isn’t here, and there’s not a chance in Hades he could have done it!”

  I rushed back to my chamber to tell Alexander the news, and my brother remarked, “So he wasn’t lying.”

  When Lucius met us on the portico, he grinned widely at me, as if he already knew what my brother had revealed about him last night, and that I had come to accept it. “I heard from my father about the actum. Now all of Rome will be at the trial.”

  “I should think the weather will keep some people away. The old won’t want to come. And certainly not mothers with their children,” I said.

  But my prediction was wrong. Despite the dampness in the air, there wasn’t any rain, and even matrons with babies on their hips came to see what had drawn the Red Eagle out of hiding. For months he had not posted a single actum. Whenever we went to the ludus, I glanced at the doors of the temples we passed and felt a keen disappointment. The Red Eagle’s absence had only made me more certain that he was Marcellus, but the latest message removed all possibility.

  Thousands of people had gathered in the Forum. Even Octavia had been watching the trial since morning. She explained to us what was happening, and when she saw that Magister Verrius had come with us, her eyebrows rose.

  “This case has implications beyond one little girl,” he replied to her unspoken question.

  Since the night of Magister Verrius’s arrest, Augustus’s spies had been following him constantly. If they hadn’t found anything yet, there was nothing to find. And now, with Marcellus in Gaul, the two men who had seemed most likely to be the Red Eagle were suddenly innocent. Alexander and Lucius stepped back, letting me stand in front of them so I could see what was happening. If a foreigner to the city had looked out over the handsomely dressed crowd of senators and their fur-cloaked wives, he would have thought he’d happened upon a theatrical performance. But the danger to Tullia’s life was real, and I wondered whether somewhere in the crowd, the Red Eagle was listening to her lawyer as he tried to persuade the judices of her freeborn birth.

  “I have brought before you the maiden’s mother, her father, two aunts, and an uncle who all swear before Juno that she is the daughter of centurion Calpurnius Commodus,” Tullia’s lawyer was saying. “Only purchased women have sworn that she is Aquila’s slave. Whom will you believe?” he demanded. “Citizens of Rome, or slaves?”

  “Correct me if I am wrong,” Aquila’s lawyer retorted, “but I believe you produced slaves as witnesses as well.”

  “With citizens! Where are your citizens?” Tullia’s lawyer challenged. “Not a single pleb has come forward to vouch for Aquila’s lies. Why is that?” The crowd began to hiss. “Perhaps Aquila spent all his denarii,” he speculated, “paying off other people.” He looked piercingly at the judices—a warning to them that if Aquila’s gold was in their pockets, they had better beware.

  The crowd raised fists of anger, shouting threats to the seated men in togas. I saw Aquila flinch as someone hurled a lettuce from the crowd and one of the judices was hit on the head. The judex rose in a fury, turning to the spectators. “Since you cannot behave yourselves, we are done for the day. Trial will resume tomorrow!”

  There was near mutiny.

  “Can he do that?” Alexander exclaimed.

  “Any of the judices can stop the trial,” Magister Verrius said. “I suspect they will deliver a verdict in the morning.”

  “And will we come to see it?” Julia asked.

  Magister Verrius looked at Octavia. She surveyed the madness, and two small lines appeared between her brows. “Only with an escort of the Praetorian Guard. This courtyard will not be safe if the judices determine that Tullia was a slave.”

  As we returned to the Palatine, I asked Magister Verrius who he believed the Red Eagle might be. For once, Julia stopped complaining about her hunger and listened. Even Alexander and Lucius were attentive.

  “Someone wealthy, with a personal interest in slavery and the education to write eloquently about it.”

  “And someone who is willing to risk death by crucifixion if he’s caught,” Octavia added.

  “When he’s caught,” Agrippa said sternly. “And it will be only a matter of time. A priest will see him posting one of his acta and think of the five-thousand-denarii reward. Or perhaps it will be a passing slave, or a young matron with seven children to feed. There are many people in Rome whose lives could be changed by five thousand denarii.”

  “And what would he be crucified for?” I asked.

  “Inciting rebellion,” Agrippa answered swiftly. “Disturbing the lives of good citizens of Rome and provoking assassination.”

  “I thought the kitchen boy had nothing to do with the Red Eagle,” my brother said.

  “There are men who will take secrets with them to their graves, no matter the cost,” Agrippa replied. “He could have known the Red Eagle personally.”

  But I didn’t believe it. Faced with the most terrible kinds of torture, what man wouldn’t speak to save his skin?

  For the rest of the afternoon, the Red Eagle was all anyone wanted to talk about. And that evening, in Octavia’s triclinium, Julia whispered, “Perhaps he’ll slit Aquila’s throat in the night and the trial will end.”

  “But has he ever killed before?” Alexander asked.

  “Of course. Dozens of times,” Julia told him.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, how else has he posted so many acta without a single person fingering him? He must kill his witnesses.”

  “Perhaps he uses disguises,” I suggested. “Or goes in the night when everyone is sleeping.”

  Julia tilted her head at me. “Have you seen these streets at night? Julius Caesar forbade traffic from entering Rome during the day. As soon as the sun sets, there are thousands of merchants on the streets. Not to mention cutthroats and lupae.”

  “But what would they be doing at the temples?” I argued. “They’d be in the Forum, where the shops are.”

  “The Temple of Venus Genetrix is in the Forum,” Lucius pointed out. “And he’s posted there.”

  “Then perhaps he goes in the guise of a merchant,” my brother said.

  We argued about it until Octavia determined it was time for us to retire to our chambers. Then Lucius followed us into our room and reclined on the same couch where Marcellus used to lie, the couch meant for Ptolemy. “It’s better that we went to the trial today,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anyone in Rome who believes that Tullia was a slave.”

  “If the judices decide otherwise, there will be riots,” I predicted.

  “Julia should like that,” Lucius remarked.

  “She likes anything so long as there’s action,” my brother said. “It has to be lonely in her father’s house with only Drusus to talk to.”

  “And now, only the slaves,” Lucius remarked. “When do you think they’ll be coming home?”

  “Months yet,” Alexander replied. “Maybe even years.”

  “But Marcellus might return before Augustus,” I said hopefully. “He’s not a seasoned soldier. There’s no reason for Augustus to keep him there so long.”

  From my lips to Isis’s ears. In two days, my second plea was answered. First, the Red Eagle had returned to Rome. Then, before the sun even peeked through the slats of my shutters, there was a clamor in the atrium; laughter and shouts of tremendous joy.

  My brother sat up on his couch and looked at me.

  “They’ve returned!” I shouted. I threw off my covers and dressed as quickly as possible. I didn’t bother with my hair and my tunic was a mess, but when I flung open the door and saw Marcellus, I regretted not taking more time with my appearance. The eleven months he’d been away had t
urned him into a man. He was taller than I remembered, with broader shoulders and a leaner jaw. He looked well fed and rested, and he was dressed in a soldier’s scarlet cloak and nail-studded boots. Antonia and Tonia were both laughing, touching the hunting horn that hung from a strap across his chest and pointing to the double-edged sword at his side. Octavia beamed with pride, and Vitruvius could not have looked happier if Marcellus had been his own son.

  Marcellus grinned when he saw me. He crossed the atrium with open arms. “Selene.” I let him take me to his chest and inhaled the scent of rain and leather from his muscled cuirass. “Look at you,” he said, pulling away. “A woman now.”

  I’m sure I blushed, and I was thankful that the room was lit only by oil lamps. “Eleven months is a long time to be gone,” I replied. “You’ve changed as well.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course! Don’t you see it?” Antonia asked. “Your hair is longer.”

  “And your feet are bigger!” Tonia exclaimed.

  Marcellus laughed. “Well, if you think I’ve grown, you should see Tiberius.”

  “He’s come home with you?” I frowned.

  “Along with Juba. Augustus and Livia plan to remain until the rebellion in Gaul and the war in Cantabria are finished.”

  “But that could be years,” Octavia worried.

  “Or just a few months. Most of the Gallic rebellions have been crushed. It’s just a matter of Iberia now.” Marcellus saw my brother and smiled. “Alexander.” The two embraced, and Marcellus complimented my brother on his height. “How is it that you can be two years younger than me and still as tall? It must be the Roman sun. It’s not as strong in Gaul.” There was a squeal of delight from behind him, and when Marcellus turned, Julia came into view. She was dressed in a tunic of diaphanous blue silk, with turquoise at her ears and around her neck. I looked like an underfed peasant compared to her, with her perfectly plump waist and ample chest. Only my brother and I were close enough to hear Marcellus catch his breath. “Julia.”

  She ran to him, and he held her in his arms and kissed her cheek. Behind her came Juba and Tiberius, both wearing short scarlet cloaks.