Ave, Caesarion

by Deborah Davitt

  Alexander snorted. “That’s the literal truth, though. Vernae are slaves born inside the villa, or out in the country, who are probably the bastard children of the men of the house. They are the sons and daughters of the house, which is why the law specifies greater care for them. They’re just not free.”

  “None of us are free,” Tiberius returned, his voice taut, and he put his face in his hands for a moment. “Not even you, Caesarion,” he added, his voice muffled. “You’ll do whatever is necessary to protect your family and Rome. I know that you will.” He lifted his face from his hands, a wry note entering his voice. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be Roman. Or a man. Just accept that marriage has nothing at all to do with love. Its only purpose is to control birth. Who has children. And by whom.”

  Caesarion grimaced. Tiberius couldn’t know the context. “I expect I will do whatever is needed for my family,” he said shortly. “I just won’t see the trap coming till it’s too late. That’s the way prophecy works. We know what we’ll do. We struggle against it. But we’ll wind up doing what we’re going to do, because it’s in our nature, and there’s nothing else we can do, while remaining true to ourselves.” He sighed, looking at Eurydice for a long moment. She’d gone entirely silent for this portion of the conversation. If her eyes hadn’t stayed dark this whole time, he’d have thought that she’d found an owl to go inhabit for a while.

  “Prophecy?” Tiberius asked, sounding confused. “I . . . must have walked in on the wrong act of this play.”

  Alexander waved a hand at his friend. “If Caesarion and Eurydice give me leave, I’ll explain it later.” A frown marred the smooth lines of his face for a moment. “But, back to the original question—did you see any names on that guest list that stood out, sister?”

  Eurydice, recalled to the conversation, shook her head. “No,” she admitted, in a tone of defeat. “Voltore would be a very inauspicious cognomen. Corvus—well, no patricians by that name for about the last three hundred years,” she said, shrugging. “The last was Marcus Valerius Corvus. And the quite-living Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus has no daughters of the correct age,” she added. “Wren? No. No Ficedula, no Merops—what a cognomen that would make. Nothing that stands out at all.” Eurydice looked tired. “I’m sorry,” she added, her tone forlorn. “I’m no closer to understanding the dream than the first time I had it.”

  Except we’re all agreed that I have to be the eagle. And, gods damn it, she doesn’t see the rest. Caesarion picked up a stylus to copy down some numbers from the import-export report in front of him onto a wax tablet of his own. Her first expression of power was taking the eyes of a hawk. She’s god-born, or close to it. Someone like me, a bird of prey, when all the others around us are scavengers or songbirds. Except I can’t—I’d never. No matter how beautiful she is, no matter that she’s the same thing that I am. But how can she not see it? Gods, she even wore a diadem tonight with the hawk of Horus on it—

  And that was when the rest of his thoughts crystallized, and the stylus snapped in his hand under his suddenly crushing grip. Damn it. The gods might as well have been speaking through Antyllus’ lips tonight. Aetes was the brother of Circe. His name means Eagle. And Circe? Say it in Hellene. Kirke. The hawk. Caesarion swallowed, convulsively. And she wore the Horus-hawk diadem of a queen of Egypt tonight. Egyptian kings and queens are usually brothers and sisters. And Mother’s said that those marriages are holy. Recapitulations of the union of Isis and Osiris. And the sexual rituals—the compact with the gods that keeps Egypt strong . . . keeps the fields fertile . . . that comes from the kings and queens. Who are inherently priests of gods of war and death, and goddesses of magic and fertility. He’d clenched his fist so tightly, that he dully wondered if, propelled by his own strength, the pieces of the stylus could actually cut through his armored skin.

  “Caesarion?” Alexander asked, in concern, suddenly standing beside him. Caesarion hadn’t even noticed his brother move. “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

  Caesarion dropped the shattered pieces of the stylus on his desk. “I’m fine,” he said, trying not to sound dazed. “I’m . . . nothing’s wrong. I think I might be ready to go to bed now. Sleep has to come sooner or later, right?” A quick, brusque nod to the three of them, and then he picked up his lamp and left them in his study.

  And while he’d never retreated in his life, Caesarion the God-Born’s steps might have been quick enough over the tile of the atrium to be considered full flight. I can’t do that. I can’t do that to her. Except—gods, Mother’s been practically throwing us together for the past year. That’s why she had Eurydice help me clean up after every battle. That’s why we so often have found ourselves alone. That’s why I . . . gods help me . . . that’s why I can never see the face of my beloved in my dreams. She’s my beloved. I’m falling in love with her. And under Roman law, I can’t do that. I can’t marry her. I can’t touch her. I can’t, in any way, have her.

  He considered that for a moment, choking down the rage he suddenly felt at the woman who’d given them birth. Eurydice can’t possibly know. And she’s so damned young and innocent, that I can’t possibly tell her this. She’d be shocked. Horrified. She’d never feel safe in this house or trust me again, and I can’t bear that thought. And, damn it all, I need her. My men are safer for her eyes watching them. My battles are won, when she’s with me. She’s my auspicious sign. My Circe. She’s my damned hawk, and I can’t let her go.

  Alone in his room once more, Caesarion sat down on the edge of his bed, his face in his hands. “Oh, Mars and Venus,” he whispered, the words coming out in confused muddle. “How you must laugh at the terrible straits we mortals get ourselves into, day after day. Are our lives a comedy for the gods of Olympus? Or are our lives a tragedy?”

  Chapter IX: The New Year

  December 1, 16 AC

  Rome hadn’t seen snow in twenty-six years. Thus, the foot of white powder that had fallen in the last week clogged the streets, and made everyone huddle inside their homes, crowding as close to hearths and braziers as they dared. Roman houses weren’t built with cold in mind, and the Julii villa was no exception. Eurydice had the servants hang layers of wool blankets over the wooden shutters to the windows of every occupied room in the villa, trying to block the cold air, but it insisted on seeping under and around doors, like chill, invasive fingers. She’d put on two tunics this morning under her long stola, and had a palla over her shoulders as well, but her sandals had open toes, and she didn’t own stockings—few people besides legionnaires who’d been posted to northern Gaul or had to trek over the Alps did. “Try to think warm thoughts,” she told Selene and Octavia in the weaving room, where the two girls bent industriously over their looms, but still shivered. She peered at Selene’s wool. The warp and weft were the finest non-silk threads Eurydice had ever seen, wool in the warp for strength, and linen in the weft. Each had been dyed similar, but subtly different shades of vermillion. “This is beautiful work,” she complimented Selene, smiling. “Actually, Mother gave me something—let me dig it out.”

  She found her own chest of threads and cloth, largely untouched for the last year, and found what she’d been looking for—a spool of thread with gold wire, almost as finely drawn as a human hair, wrapped around its length. “I don’t know why she gave it to me,” Eurydice told Selene, bringing it back over. “It’s a waste, given how poorly I weave. But if you’re careful, I think you could work this into what you have there, every fifth row, perhaps? It would make it shimmer so. And then you could make this into your first stola. After all, you’ll be a woman soon, too.”

  Selene’s eyes shone, and she caught Eurydice around the waist in a light hug. “Thank you,” she said, simply.

  Eurydice exhaled in relief. The tension between her and her sister had been high for the past year or so. Selene had been terrified when she’d seen Caesarion for the first time, not as the stringy youth that illusion had made him seem, but as a grown man, true god-born of Mars,
and new father of the house. She’d been equally terrified of Eurydice’s new powers, and, Eurydice suspected, jealous in a fashion, too. It had come to a head three weeks ago in a confrontation over Selene’s studies—or lack thereof. “Your pedagogues say that you daydream constantly,” Eurydice had told her sister. “You must apply yourself. I realize that poetry is not to everyone’s taste, but you’re stumbling through reading Homer out loud. Not to mention what they’re saying about your mathematics. If you expect to run a villa like this one in a few years, you’re going to need to be able to work out the budget for it.” Silently, she’d thanked the gods that her mother’s account ledger had been tabulated with Hellene numbers, and not Roman or Egyptian ones. Hellene numerals were easier for her to figure, for some reason.

  Selene’s face had turned mutinous, if downcast. “You’re only two years older than I am,” she’d managed to say after a moment. “Don’t—don’t talk to me that way!” A pout had formed to accompany the mulish set of her brows.

  Eurydice had struggled to control her temper, to see Selene’s point of view. But this had been going on for months, and she’d had enough. “How many years there are between us is irrelevant,” she’d said, drawing herself up to her full height, surprised at how cold her own voice had become. “I am a woman. You are a child. Mother no longer resides here, and until Caesarion marries, that makes me the lady of this house.”

  It was true, too. Every morning after breakfast, Eurydice had a meeting with the butler and the chief cook. She set the menu for the next day’s breakfast at that time, as well as the heavy midday meal and dinner—which, three to four times a week, involved setting up banquets and entertainment for political allies and even foreign dignitaries—including a Parthian ambassador and the occasional son of a Gallic king, kept here in Rome as a political hostage to ensure the good behavior of tribal chieftains hundreds of miles away. Marcus Antonius had counted one such hostage among his household for fifteen years, raised almost as a brother to his children, for instance.

  Fortunately, the staff was so experienced at such things, that they were training her in how to keep the house running, on-budget, and the food and entertainment varied, but not too extravagant. Eurydice, as the daughter of an Egyptian queen and a generous Roman patrician, had both her mother’s love for show and her father’s sense of austerity. As such, her servants had come to understand her tastes quickly. Good food, but simply prepared—let the wines be the best that could be found, and generously poured, but the roast peacock didn’t need to have its feathers pinned back on, thank you. And she’d found it more entertaining, personally, to invite poets like Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Domitius Marsus to come and read or recite some of their works at this meal or that, than to have dozens of dancers. Three of these poets were around her mother’s age, in their late thirties to early forties, but Tibullus was only a few years older than Caesarion. A member of the equestrian class with enough means to support himself happily, Tibullus had proven a pleasant addition to many a dinner party.

  Where some poets raved and cursed at their mistresses for infidelity or coldness, Tibullus just smiled sorrowfully and spoke of his own abiding loyalty in the face of tribulation. And she liked his plain, unaffected style, though sometimes the subject matter shocked her a little. His poems ranged lightly between his love for his first, unfaithful mistress, Delia, and a courtesan who’d enslaved his heart later—and a boy, too, whom he’d loved. Sometimes his verses wandered into plainly erotic fields, which made color rise in her face, and after dinner she’d retire to her room in a stew of flustered agitation and inner turmoil.

  Still, everyone enjoyed Tibullus’ company and conversation, and that was the point—and he never seemed to have ambition or an eye on pleasing Caesarion to advance himself. Which differed somewhat from Virgil, who’d started an epic about the ancestor of the Julii, Aeneas, son of Venus, who’d left burning Troy behind to come found Rome. Caesarion had given the poet a quizzical look when the man had begun reading the first canto at dinner one night. “At least it’s not another three hundred verses on the beauty of farming and tending to sheep,” Alexander had counseled dryly once the poet had departed. “Praise the gods.”

  To leaven the conversation, she also brought in philosophers, both Stoic and Epicurean, to keep the only topics at the table from being poetry, war, and politics. Natural philosophy, one of her own chief interests, therefore had a chance to be heard—and she prided herself on asking good questions on that topic. But music, she also found, was also key to a successfully convivial evening, so she employed lyre-players and singers from Hellas, Egypt, and Rome periodically as well.

  As such, Caesarion’s table had started to have the reputation as a place for thoughtful discussion and as the place for young poets and philosophers to have their works heard. There was gravitas in this household, and respectability. But attaining that required her to spend an hour of every morning creating the situation in which conversation might flow, and then at least another hour reading whatever her guests might have recently written so that she could converse coherently about it.

  The result was that her own education was expanding rapidly, and into fields that two years ago, she’d never dreamed that she’d have so much interest in. And after that, there were her own studies in magic—which remained a struggle, as the priestess of Isis seemed as puzzled as Tahut-Nefer as to how to instruct Eurydice. A riding lesson, most days. Then lunch. Then more magic, or reading dispatches on Egypt and other issues, usually in Caesarion’s study, as he conducted meetings with officials and legates and everyone else in the Empire. Most days, he stopped meetings at three hours postmeridian, and went to spar with Alexander and Tiberius and Antyllus and whoever had arrived, which meant that her time was her own for a few hours before the evening’s entertainment.

  But inevitably, as she settled back into studying magic or reading Democritus’ work on the nature of matter, and how everything that existed was made up of tiny pieces called atoms . . . there was some breakdown in the kitchen and the servants had questions for her on how to fix the situation, or Selene’s pedagogue would come to her with complaints about the young woman’s inattentiveness. And then it would be time for the evening’s entertainment, which could last until midnight, and then she’d stumble off to bed. Try to read until her eyes closed. And be chastised the next morning by Tahut or Anku for not having practiced enough the day before.

  It was getting to the point where she was looking forward to the campaign season. Which was probably irrational, but at least they wouldn’t be in Rome in this constant swirl of activity. There would just be bad roads, bad food, danger, and exhaustion from using her skills for hours every day.

  Thus, at being told by Selene that she didn’t have the right to chastise her younger sister, she’d bitten her words off harshly, watching Selene’s eyes go wide. “In just a few months, the campaigning season will begin. That means that you and Octavia and Drusus will be going to stay with Mother in Antony’s house, and I will not have her thinking that I am so poor a guardian that I have let you get behind in your studies. You will not embarrass me or shame the family with willful ignorance and laziness. Go and study. You may practice your lyre, but there will be no weaving and no trips to the baths until your pedagogues tell me that you’ve shown improvement in your attentiveness.”

  “Just because you’re Caesarion’s favorite.” Selene had muttered, turning away.

  The words had hung there in the air like a challenge, and Eurydice had felt as if she’d been slapped. Her throat had tightened, and her eyes burned, but she didn’t let it show in her face or voice as she’d stared her sister down. “Really? Alexander, he brought back from death, as you might remember.” Eurydice folded her hands in front of her, trying not to dwell on the fact that Caesarion had been distant for months now. Not angry, as she’d once thought, but simply . . . gone from behind his own eyes whenever he addressed her. All the work she did, keeping the villa in order, ensuring that
he had a wide variety of people to talk to, keeping up on the education of the younger members of the family, and her own efforts to improve her magic—none of it brought a smile to his face and eyes. He’d given over her riding lessons to Alexander, which was, in principle, fine. Of all their siblings, she and Alexander were closest in age, and had been close friends as children. But Alexander was changing, too, and Eurydice couldn’t explain why, past the plain fact that he’d been dead for a short time. He’d been beyond the Styx, and presumably seen what other mortals could not see, though he certainly never spoke of it. “You’ve been sulking for the last year because you think I’m Caesarion’s favorite?” she’d asked, incredulous. “Selene, why in the name of all the gods would you even think that?”

  “Because you get to do everything!” The words had burst from Selene like water from behind a dam. “You ride like a man. You go to the theater. You listen to poets at dinner, when I get to make my bow and go upstairs to eat in the nursery. Caesarion’s god-born. Alexander’s brilliant. You’re . . . whatever you are. And I’m nothing. Caesarion hasn’t even tried to find a husband for me yet.” The tears had started then, shaking Selene’s whole body.

  Eurydice had sighed and brought her sister to her for a tight embrace. “You’re not nothing,” she’d comforted the crying girl. “You’re intelligent and you’re beautiful. You play music like no one else in the family, and you can make beautiful things with your hands, which I certainly have no skill for. As to marriage . . . Caesarion’s been very busy. And you’re still young. I’m sure he’ll find someone for you.” She’d paused. “Is there anyone for whom you might be working Mother’s love-spell?” Eurydice had asked, in a moment of inspiration.