Cleopatra flicked her fingers at him. “Blood is life,” she replied. “It’s the sacrifice the gods demand, poured out on their altars from a bull, is it not? It’s a little piece of your life. Given in payment to a spirit. Or a way of finding the rest of you. A man’s seed? Even more potent in a way. The essence of life itself, given in a moment of emotion and vulnerability. It resonates. An example, out of the tales of Egypt’s gods? Once, Set, lord of storms and death, and Horus the hawk, his nephew, god of light and rebirth, contended with one another. They wrestled, and in an effort to establish dominion over Horus, Set tried to seduce his nephew. Kissed him as they grappled, and tried to fuck him.” The crude word came from Cleopatra’s lips without a flicker of her expression. Caesarion blinked, and Eurydice flinched. “But Horus caught Set’s member with a hand between his thighs, and prevented Set’s seed from entering his body. He then threw Set’s seed into the Nile, lest it be said that he had been conquered by Set.”
Antony muttered into his cup, “Cutting off Set’s balls wasn’t an option? It’s what I’d have done.”
Cleopatra gave her new husband an arch glance. “You’ll like the retaliation. Horus then expressed his own seed—”
“Did he now? By hand?”
Caesarion choked on a badly-timed sip of wine. So did Alexander and Antyllus. Eurydice’s head tipped to the side, so he had a feeling that—praise the gods—she hadn’t understood that one.
“The legend does not state,” Cleopatra replied with resigned patience. “Then he took his own seed and spread it on a crop of lettuce, which Set then ate, not knowing what was upon the leaves.”
“I think that I would notice that the sauce on my salad was salty,” Antony pointed out, into his cup.
“Father!” Antyllus managed to gasp out, between laughs. “There are ladies present!”
“I’m fairly certain that my loving wife knows what it tastes like, my son.”
Caesarion put one hand over his eyes and tried very hard not to think about that. As he did so, Cleopatra smacked her new husband on the arm, a rap with two fingers. “As I was saying,” she continued, her face impassive, “the gods gathered to judge which of them should rule over all Egypt; Set had always ruled Upper Egypt and the deserts; Horus, Osiris, and Isis ruled in Lower Egypt, nearer to the sea. Geb, the judge, heard the claims of Set and Horus. Set claimed to have dominated Horus, conquered him. But his seed did not resonate inside of Horus—it was in the Nile, instead. And when Geb called for Horus’ seed, there it was. Inside Set’s belly. He was forced to give up all claim to the fertile lands of Egypt, and became solely the lord of deserts and death.” She took a sip of her wine. “A spirit can find that a most adequate payment . . . or a lure, like that dragged for a scent-hound. It’s said that the Magi use sex to disguise themselves from spirits. A man’s seed inside a woman’s body can disguise and hide her for days.” Her expression tightened. “And of course, in Egypt, as in many other places, many magical rituals are sexual in nature,” she added, off-handedly. “The compact between the pharaohs and the gods is one of sexual magic, and it has ensured the fertility of the Nile lands for millennia. Without that compact being renewed, generation after generation, the wheat fields of Egypt will fail. The population would starve. The old protective spells—the ones that have helped us keep the Numidians and other invaders from conquering us—had already started to falter before my father’s incompetent rule.” She played with one of the rings on her fingers—the one, Caesarion knew, that held the snake spirit whose bite was instant death.
Antony’s head snapped towards her, an expression of shock and comprehension crossing his face. “That’s why—it wasn’t just for an heir!”
His mother’s face turned chalk-white under her cosmetics, and she regarded her new husband silently for a moment, before nodding. “Of course, it didn’t work,” she told him softly. “He had no more magic than any other potency.”
Caesarion had no idea what they were talking about. “You have to tell them,” Antony said, jerking his head at the others in the room. “If Egypt’s crops fail, Rome starves.”
“I’ll tell them,” Cleopatra replied wearily. “I’ll explain it all. And then they can decide if they wish to see an old empire fall into dust and dissolution, thousands of years of history effaced by a Roman boot . . . or if they dare to stand up against the tide of Rome that would sweep over the whole world, and remake everything it touches in its own image.” A little quirk of a smile. “Heavy topics for our wedding night, dear Marcus. Won’t you take me to bed now?”
Antony didn’t need a second invitation, standing and scooping her up in his arms before heading for the stairs. “Fair evening to you all!” he bellowed in tones that could have been heard across a parade ground. “Duty calls, as I’m sure you all understand! Feel free to remain and eat and drink until dawn, or until sleep claims you, but Venus demands her price tonight, and so does my queen!”
That made Eurydice choke and cover her face. And Caesarion, exhausted now in body, and his mind in a roil of confusion, was the first in the room to stand after their mother left, and offered his sister a hand up. “I’m for home and bed,” he told Alexander and Tiberius wearily. “You two come along when you’re ready.”
“I am,” Alexander said, standing and picking up a set of wax tablets from the table, which had been dropped off by a servant at some point. “Ti?”
“I’ve had my fill of merriment, yes.” Tiberius dragged himself upright. “Let’s go.”
Caesarion was too tired and filled with mixed emotions to really think about his mother and Antony’s words, but he found he couldn’t sleep that night. His bedding was damp with his own sweat, and his reed-filled pillow felt more like a rock. The few scant snatches of sleep that he’d found had been riddled with dreams—all frustratingly, tantalizingly erotic. Every one of which had ended with a shock of wakefulness, usually around the moment when he’d found himself hilt-deep in his beloved, and brushed back long, dark hair to see the face there—and every time, before he could see it, he’d snapped awake with a last vision of feathers and wings uncurling across his mind’s eye. And cursed himself and Morpheus and dreams themselves. Why can’t I see her face? Why can’t I just finish in my dreams, instead of waking in aching need? Perhaps the lares aren’t keeping evil spirits at bay tonight. Or perhaps they are waking me, to keep me from feeding some night-demon with my seed. The image of some creature summoned by a Magus crossed his mind, and he tried to tamp down on the superstitious dread.
The sultry air barely moved, even though he went to the shutters and flung them open for the light of the waning moon. No torches in the atrium tonight to light its fountains. And, at this hour of night, Rome itself was dark. A few brothels and tavernas might still be open, but their customers shuffled to and from their doors by the light of torches or lamps, likely carried by servants, casting a glow that extended no more than ten feet in any direction.
The villa also seemed unnaturally quiet; usually, by this hour of morning, the cooks would be awake and baking bread. Stablehands would be mucking out stalls. But Cleopatra had ‘borrowed’ most of the villa’s servants for the wedding, though most would return by tomorrow at latest. Still, some sound of carts rumbling past in the street outside, as fruits and vegetables and olive oil rolled in from the countryside should have been present. All the things that kept Rome alive. And that brought his thoughts, inevitably, back to his mother and Antony’s words. Egypt’s grain has allowed Rome to grow, he thought, staring out into the moon-drenched streets, where the pale silver light reflected from the water of a nearby fountain. The bread lines, the wheat rations would vanish if Egypt’s crops failed. But they don’t; the spring floods of the Nile bring rich soil down from Upper Egypt to the fields of Lower Egypt, and the grain grows. What did she say? Sexual magic, and a compact between the pharaohs and the gods. He snorted under his breath. Well, I am technically a pharaoh, but I’m unlikely to have sex with a goddess any time soon. It probably ha
s something to do with the temples, anyway. Mother has mentioned that she’s a priestess of Isis, after all. So, in the end, really nothing for me to do about it, besides allow the temples to continue doing what they’ve done for thousands of years, right?
A thought tickled the back of his mind then. Something important, about how he’d discontinued the worship of the pharaoh as a god. Because Romans didn’t worship people, and he knew that he wasn’t a god. God-born, yes. Given power from many gods. But in the end, he was just a man.
Caesarion put his head on the windowsill, trying to let the cool of the stone there seep into his body. Definitely just a man, he thought grimly. Eurydice’s perfume lingered on his own skin now, he realized, teasing his senses. Gods, earlier tonight . . . I think I’d have fucked any available female, if I hadn’t been in public. That’s probably the source of the damned dreams. Some Stoic I am. Self-disgust, self-contempt. I should visit that brothel Father took me to on occasion. Get my humors back in balance. He was quick to tell me that there’s no shame in it. And I don’t appear to catch diseases, so nothing to worry about there.
But the thought left a bad taste in his mouth, somehow. Which was bewildering. He wasn’t married. He wasn’t even betrothed, as Tiberius and Alexander were to Vipsania and Octavia, respectively. And even if he were either of those things, purchasing the services of a whore or making use of a household slave wasn’t even considered adultery by a Roman husband. Yet the feeling remained.
His mother had, over the years, collected mostly middle-aged servants and slaves, all Egyptian; he had yet to replace his staff short-fall, which meant that there were no options at home, even if that bewildering sensation of wrongness hadn’t pervaded him. Though he personally felt distaste for screwing slaves. The Stoic philosophers he’d read over the years had convinced him that in spite of being born into service, sold into it, or captured in war, they still had human dignity and rights, even though such things weren’t encoded under Roman law.
Closing his shutter gently, so as to avoid waking anyone else nearby who might actually have found Morpheus’ embrace, Caesarion fumbled in the dark for a sleeveless tunic, pulled it on, and found his way to the door by touch and memory. Out in the hall, which was open to the air and the atrium, a single forlorn lamp burned on a marble-topped table. But downstairs, he could see lamplight flickering from behind the wooden screen that shielded his study from the atrium. Caesarion stared at this for a long moment. Either I have a spy, or an overzealous servant.
He picked up the bronze lamp by its handle, balancing it carefully to ensure that the hot oil inside didn’t spill from the lit mouth, and headed downstairs, the cool of the tile welcome against his bare feet. Heart thumping, and rehearsing mentally how many steps he’d need before taking an intruder by surprise, his hand landed on the handle of the panel of the screen that served as a door, and he stepped in—making Alexander, seated at one of the tables, and Eurydice, across the table from him, jump, startled.
“Ah. So I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep,” Caesarion said in mild disgust, entering. Alexander wore a sleeveless tunic, as Caesarion did, himself, and Eurydice had pulled on a thin robe. Caesarion looked away from her quickly, but not quickly enough—he’d been able to see the darker shadow of her nipples through the fine cloth. Without breaking stride, he found a blanket to drape over her before taking the chair behind his desk.
“I’m not cold,” Eurydice protested, letting it slide from her shoulders.
“It’s hotter than Vulcan’s furnace in here,” Alexander agreed. “But it’s better than my room. Wanted to get this all out of my head before I forgot details,” he added, pointing at the parchment in front of him, already half-covered with the tight loops of his Hellene lettering. “Realized about an hour ago that my room was too hot and sticky to concentrate properly on this.”
“What are you writing down?” Caesarion asked, rubbing at his eyes.
“Every conversation I heard tonight. Who the attendees were. Who greeted Mother and Antony together—might not be relevant, but shows possible alliances. Livia came in with Agrippa, for instance, but Rullus came separately from them, with his wife.” Alexander rubbed at his own eyes now. “Antony gave me a full guest list—Eurydice has it at the moment.” He gestured, and their sister lifted the two wax-covered wooden tablets in her hands.
“And why are you not peacefully in your bed?” Caesarion asked her. The irritation in his voice, he put down to disapproval, though an image of her soft hair spilling over a moon-stained pillow crossed his mind.
Eurydice didn’t flinch at his grumpy tones for once. “Had the same dream again,” she reported tiredly. “I didn’t feel like sitting in my room crying, so I thought I’d come down here and study. Alexander had beaten me here.”
“The same dream?” Alexander asked, not looking up from his scribbling.
“I’ve had it once a month for two and a half years. It never really changes.”
Alexander’s head rose slightly. “Have you consulted an oneiromancer?”
“Mother and I both told her not to,” Caesarion put in sharply.
“If it’s the same every time, for two years, it might be significant—”
“It probably is, but it’s apt to cause too much speculation and talk if other people hear of it,” Caesarion replied, looking for something on his desk that looked soporific. Ah. The import-export balances out of Ostia and other ports. Splendid. I’ll be asleep in no time. “You may tell Alexander about it if you like,” he added to Eurydice. “Maybe he’ll have an interpretation that I haven’t had myself. And one I’ll like hearing more,” he added.
Eurydice shifted her shoulders as Alexander looked up with lively curiosity in his eyes. “Actually,” she said uncomfortably, “an interpretation is what I’m searching for in this list of names from the wedding party.”
That got Caesarion’s attention, too. “Oh?” he asked warily. Gods. Maybe there is another way to look at it.
Eurydice nodded quickly, her eyes lost in the shadows cast by the two lamps in the room. “You see, Alexander,” she said, “every month, around the full moon or just after, I dream of a red-eyed eagle. That’s easy to understand. That has to be Caesarion. The eagle is the symbol of Rome, he has red eyes, and, well, there’s the nickname that the legionnaires have given him.”
“Aquilus,” Alexander said, nodding. “Yes, that makes sense. Go on.”
Eurydice rattled off the details of the dream, leaning forward, her expression worried. Caesarion watched out of the periphery of his vision as Alexander’s eyes went wide midway through the description. Saw the glance his brother shot him, filled with concerned speculation.
And then Eurydice ended with tentative hope and a certain amount of sorrow in her voice, “And it struck me that Lepidus’ list of possible wives for Caesarion was probably somewhere here in the study, but that Antony’s guest list was probably a more comprehensive accounting of Rome’s gentry. By family name and cognomens alike.” She gestured at the list in front of her. “Unfortunately, I don’t see a single person here whose family name is Accipter.” The word for hawk hung uneasily in the air for a moment. “Nor are there any men on the list who have that as a cognomen that their daughters might have picked up to distinguish them from all the other Julias in their family.” She grimaced. “Thank the gods Mother gave us all names from the Ptolemaic line. Otherwise I’d be Julia Major and Selene would be Julia Minor, and we’d both come running when our mutual name was shouted. Just like all three Antonias in our new step-father’s house.”
Caesarion stared at his import-export scroll, pretending to find it deeply engrossing. It’s not a bad idea, he admitted to himself. “How about ravens, vultures, and wrens?” he asked heavily. “Let’s see if we can ascertain ahead of time exactly who the women whose lives I’m going to ruin are. Maybe then, I can just avoid marrying any of them.”
“Is that what’s behind this stubbornness about Lepidus and his damned list?” Alexan
der said, sounding surprised. “You see yourself ruining the lives of every woman you meet, or some such?”
Caesarion shifted his own shoulders uncomfortably. “Not all. Just apparently all the ones I might marry.” His tone remained sour as he added, “We were fortunate to be born to two parents who loved each other. We have an elder half-sister from our father’s first marriage who can scarcely say the same. It may sound feeble and poetic, but I don’t want to pick a name from a list for political purposes and say to that woman, ‘where I am Gaius, you are Gaia.’ It seems foolish to say we are two and yet the same, of one mind, one purpose, one soul, and not be able to mean it.”
The door swung open, and Caesarion looked up to see Tiberius entering. “Is the entire household awake?” the young man asked tiredly as he took a chair beside Alexander. “I could hear voices from the second floor.”
“Sorry,” Alexander apologized immediately. “I thought I’d be down here quietly taking notes for the next three hours.” He smiled merrily in Caesarion’s direction. “My brother has just revealed that under the stern façade of the stoic soldier, he actually has a romantic soul.”
“I do not,” Caesarion replied in a repressive tone. “I simply can’t reconcile an arranged marriage to someone I don’t know with the words of the wedding ceremony. Mother certainly seemed to mean them today. I’d like . . . to mean them, too.” So late at night, it seemed a good time for confessions. If nothing else, I might sleep better if my head stops spinning.
Tiberius gave Caesarion a look that hovered between grimness and amusement. “It’s so odd to hear that from someone who’s the head of a family. The father of the whole clan, and, indeed, the father of Rome itself,” he admitted. “Octavian went on at some length over dinner, many times, about how everyone in a family—even non-adopted sons like Drusus and myself—owed their unswerving duty to the family, and their unstinting loyalty to the paterfamilias. How we were to follow his orders, even in marriage, for the good of that family. How the family is the soul of Rome. And how that family is enshrined in the law.” Tiberius’ faint smile had vanished, replaced by a tight grimace. “He’d even trot out how slaves are our extended family. Particularly the vernae.”
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