Be my Cleopatra, the emperor said, and one day your mother’s Egypt may be yours.
Augustus was a grand actor in a pageant of his own creation and the only way to remain in his favor was to play my role. He wanted spectacle? Well, I would give him one. With deep resolution, I unwound the braids that Octavia had so painstakingly fastened, brushing out my dark hair so that it curled and cascaded, loose and free, over my shoulders. “I won’t be a Roman bride,” I said. “My mother was Pharaoh and I’ll let no one forget it.”
Chryssa’s mouth formed a circle of surprise when I threw open my wardrobe chest, giving no care to the fact that the slaves had carefully packed it for the journey. I rifled through it until I found a beautiful diaphanous gown that Helios had given me. Octavia had tried to make it modest with stitches and brooches. Now I refashioned it. Removing the pins, I wrapped the gown under my arms and tied it between my breasts in the knot of Isis, the tiet, a loop with trailing sides that was a variant of the ankh. My wideeyed slave girl watched me as if I’d gone mad. “You’re going to give insult. You’ll anger the emperor!”
“I know him better than you do.” Since I was a little child, I’d learned to play all the emperor’s games; this was just one more. Be my Cleopatra, the emperor had said, and I was young and foolish enough to believe I knew what that meant. “Don’t stand there gaping, Chryssa. Help me!”
Reluctantly, she went to my dressing table, searching for the proper cosmetic pots, as I told her what to do. My mother had been a Hellenistic queen, and when she dressed for the civilized Greek-speaking world, she dressed accordingly. But she’d also been Pharaoh of Egypt. It was that reminder of Egypt I wanted now, so I urged Chryssa to draw the dark lines of the wedjat—the eye of Horus—on my eyelids with black kohl. Then she used the greens and blues and reds of Egypt to color my face. When she was done, I held up the mirror and peered at myself with the green eyes of a jungle cat, exotic and wild. “You need more jewelry,” Chryssa suggested, finally warming to the idea. “Something sparkling to go with your little jade frog and betrothal ring.”
I knew just the thing. Carefully wrapped in the bloodstained dress I’d worn as a prisoner was a golden snake armlet with gemstone eyes that my mother left for me when she’d foreseen her own death. I retrieved it from under my mattress, where I’d kept the bundle hidden for years, and slipped the armlet up until it hugged my bicep, its history merging with my skin. The effect was dazzling and scandalous. “You look like your mother’s portraits,” Chryssa breathed.
But I saw in myself someone entirely new.
Two
THEY were all waiting for me. At the edges of the vast peristyle garden, guests found their seats beneath the columned porticos. In the torchlight, the emperor’s family gathered—the Julii and all their numerous friends and clients. Sitting apart was the emperor’s wife and her family; as a Claudian, Livia descended from a nearly unbroken line of power-hungry maniacs and criminals, but in Rome their pedigree made them untouchable. The smell of their old aristocracy wafted on the air, just over the scent of burning torches.
I watched from beneath an archway as senators fiddled impatiently with their purple-bordered togas and ladies delighted in the confections served by passing slaves. The emperor’s daughter arrived late, accompanied by her new husband. Julia’s recent wedding had been a hurried affair, as if to prevent Livia’s jealous interference. In fact, Julia’s wedding had been nothing like this one. Her father hadn’t even been present, but Augustus was here now, waiting for me.
My family was also waiting. The Ptolemies. Julius Caesar. My mother. My father. My butchered brothers and the only brother that still remained with me, my little Philadelphus, my mother’s youngest son. The only one missing was the one I needed most. My twin wasn’t here except insofar as he lingered in the prophecy of our shared birth. The Isis worshippers and others believed we’d bring about a Golden Age. All those hopes and dreams and expectations hovered in that courtyard. I had only to appear on the stage that the emperor had given me.
The moon that was my namesake hung in the sky like a pale ghost, its face only half revealed, like mine. I stepped out and everyone turned to see. I stretched my hands to the sides, like the paintings of my winged goddess on Egyptian tombs. They’d all expected that I’d go meekly to this wedding, shy as a slave on the block. They expected a bride in white muslin and orange veil. Some of the guests may have even supposed I’d marry in a Greek chiton with a royal purple cloak over my shoulders. None of them expected me to cast aside the respectable garments of a Roman bride in favor of a scandalous gown, a painted face, and hair flowing over my shoulders in dark ringlets.
The guests tittered. Some stood. Others sat down abruptly on couches. Two servants knelt in homage to me while a lute player missed his note. Then the musicians went quiet altogether. I knew the memories I conjured with my mother’s coiled serpent upon my bare arm, my ruby red lips and the malachite on my eyelids glittering like a pharaoh’s mask, firm breasts swaying beneath the gathered green folds of my thin gown. If my display weren’t so deadly earnest, I might have laughed at the way women clutched at their modest garments, all scandalized by Cleopatra’s daughter. My groom was scandalized too. The newly made King of Mauretania waited for me beneath the grape arbor, an angry expression upon his handsome face.
But my eyes were for Augustus, who was bedecked for this occasion in the corona civica, his oak-leaf crown. He’d been sipping at wine and chatting with his adviser, Maecenas, but stopped midconversation when the crowd opened a path between us. The emperor saw me and his eyes narrowed. Then he stilled.
In all the years since my mother’s death, I’d been raised never to address a crowd of my own accord. Never to speak unless spoken to. Never to shout or lift my immodest eyes. To remember always that I was the daughter of the whore who’d plunged Rome into civil war and that it was only by the grace of Augustus that I lived. But I knew the emperor loved a good show and I intended to give him one. With my arms still upraised, I proclaimed, “I am the eighth Cleopatra of the royal House of Ptolemy!”
The emperor handed his wine to Maecenas so abruptly that some of it sloshed out of the goblet. This brought an uncomfortable sputter from the wedding guests. Only Lady Octavia dared to speak. “Selene!” She thought I mocked her with this display. That I meant to spit upon all the modest virtues she’d taught me. She started toward me but the emperor lifted two fingers to stop her. This and the evening wind at my back emboldened me. “I am Cleopatra Selene, Queen of Cyrenaica,” I continued. It was a title without power, for Cyrenaica was governed by Romans, but at the sufferance of the emperor, it was the only royal title I retained as my own. “I am Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Isis, and therefore Thea Notera, the Younger Goddess, the Maiden Goddess.”
The emperor’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like that title, Thea Notera; and he especially didn’t like my mention of Isis, his least favorite goddess. My mother’s goddess. His praetorians tensed as if readying for battle and the lictors who accompanied him on formal occasions stiffened. Their axes were ceremonial, but I knew their blades could cut. Somehow I found the courage to press on. “I am Cleopatra Selene, Thea Philadelphoi, the Goddess Who Loves Her Brothers.”
The emperor’s nose lifted as if to scent treachery in the air. I could see the way his mind was turning, trying to divine whether or not I would declare myself the rightful Queen of Egypt and my twin Egypt’s rightful king. Augustus could have me killed with a mere signal to his henchmen. With a simple flick of his wrist. Still, he let me come. I drew closer, my eyes never leaving his. “I am Cleopatra Selene, Thea Philopatris, the Goddess Who Loves Her People.”
It had been one of my mother’s appellations and a few of the guests jeered, which shook me. This same citizenry that had come to celebrate my wedding had bayed for my blood when I’d been dragged through the city as a child, so my fears raced alongside my heartbeat. Some faces in the crowd were awed. Others were hostile and whispered of my arrogance. I pa
ssed my brother Philadelphus, on my right. After my marriage, he would remain here in Rome to secure my good behavior. Already pale from a recent illness, he went paler at my bold display. The emperor’s daughter glanced up at me and twitched, like a frightened fawn ready to bolt for the woods. My Roman half sisters, the Antonias, cloistered around her, both of them agape. And the emperor’s wife looked as if she saw in me an apparition.
At last, I found myself standing before Augustus. He knew not what I meant to do but seemed mesmerized by the possibilities. I confess I enjoyed his discomfort. If I named myself the Queen of Egypt, everyone would know it for the truth, but it would also mean my end. I was so close to him, as close to him as I’d been on the day of his triumph, when he held my chin between his thumb and forefinger and decided to spare my life. I lifted that same chin and said, “As I come to this marriage to the King of Mauretania, I remain a friend and ally of the Roman people, loving and loyal ward of Augustus, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Divi Filius, Son of his Father, Julius Caesar, the God.”
Then I lowered my head, bowing as a suppliant before him. The crowd roared its approval. They cheered, stomped their feet, and whistled. They sounded like the mobs in the stadium instead of an assemblage of wedding guests. I’d done all this to stroke the emperor’s vanity, to honor my mother’s legacy, and to speak the name of my goddess even where it was forbidden. But in so doing, I gave the emperor a gift he could have received from no one but me. I’d taken unto myself all the prestige of my lineage and laid it at his feet, giving him more power than he possessed before, letting him glimpse the glory that only I could bestow upon him.
He knew it, and avarice gleamed in his eyes. “I thank you for the tribute, Queen Selene.” Queen Selene. He’d said it, and all the guests heard. Rising from my bow, I saw that he was also shaken. He hissed, voice low, “You risk much, you impudent thing.”
“Fortune favors the bold,” I whispered back, knowing it was Caesar’s favorite motto.
The omens had already been taken from the entrails of a sacrificial ox and the day deemed provident for marriage, so the trumpeters heralded the beginning of the ceremony and officiates poured libations. If this had been a normal Roman wedding, we would have followed the priest into the emperor’s mask room. We were foreign monarchs, though, so marrying under the wax death masks of the Julian family ancestors would have been very strange indeed. Thus, with his palm at the small of my back, the emperor escorted me to the fleece-covered couch where my groom waited. Augustus liked to think of himself as the kindly paterfamilias to all the orphans he’d taken into his care, but my real father should be standing here now. Would Antony have hugged me in his muscular arms? Would he have stroked my shoulders to calm me, his eyes dancing playfully as he gave me to my bridegroom? I would never know. My father was dead, and the man who claimed his place was the very one who had put him in his tomb.
At the feel of Juba’s warm hand upon mine, I finally turned my eyes to the man I was to marry. A young Berber prince, his dark hair was curled in the style of a scholar. He was meticulously groomed, each clasp on his clothing perfectly positioned, freshly polished, and tightly fastened. He was trim, vigorous, and vibrant; more than a few women sighed with jealousy that I’d been given over to the newly made king. I was acutely aware of Juba, right down to the ridges of his fingertips on my hand, and remembered a time when I’d been fond of him. When—in my girlish infatuation—I’d welcomed his attention. He’d been my teacher and confidant. I might have been fond of him still, if I didn’t know that Juba had helped the emperor defeat my parents. If only I didn’t know that Juba, in his own small way, had been responsible for all the tragedy in my life.
The Romans had all manner of silly superstition against kings, so within the old walls of the pomerium, Juba couldn’t wear a royal diadem upon his brow. Without it, it was difficult for me to imagine him as royalty, but the copper flecks in his irises made his eyes something more than ordinary brown. I saw hints of anger there, and through clenched teeth he said the simple Roman vow of lives intertwined. “When and where you are Gaia, I then and there am Gaius.”
Where you are woman, I am man. When you are happy, I am happy.
It took a moment to find my voice. The officiant cleared his throat expectantly and I glanced up to see the emperor’s intense stare. I swallowed, a wild hope that my missing twin was somewhere here in the crowd, torch in hand, determined to set the entire courtyard aflame and spirit me away. It was only a fantasy. I would know it if Helios was near. I would sense him. He wasn’t here and I must marry Juba, so I forced myself to speak. “When and where you are Gaius, I then and there am Gaia.”
Where you are man, I am woman. Where you are the father of a family, I am mother.
As the words fell from my lips, the emperor nodded as if Juba were merely the conduit between us—and an arc of dangerous electricity sparked the air we breathed. Augustus had once looked upon me as a mere child, a hostage, a political asset. Later, he came to see my mother in me and wondered how he might manipulate me for his own glory. But he’d never looked at me the way he did now. Something was happening between us, something that hadn’t been a part of my plan, something that resonated with the darkest part of my soul. Something I was too young to understand and it made me deeply uneasy.
A piece of wedding cake was offered me and I took it, the spelt flour dry in my throat. The contracts were signed. Then it was done; as I’ve said before, Roman weddings weren’t complicated affairs. Philadelphus was the first to embrace me. The rest of the family crowded round too. My Roman half sisters, the Antonias, my Roman half brother, Iullus, and my stepsister and stepbrother, Marcella and Marcellus. They’d all been my fellow orphans and childhood companions in Rome. When Octavia began to chastise me for my garb, it was the affable Marcellus who defended me against his mother’s wrath. “Selene’s gown is quite fashionable in the East, and she did wear a bridal wreath!”
Juba stood stiffly beside me, wincing at the thump of Admiral Agrippa’s hand on his shoulder. The emperor’s most trusted lieutenant, and Rome’s finest general, was a grizzled soldier who always looked ill at ease in a toga and today was no exception. Agrippa chuckled, his smile rueful but warm. “By Jupiter, I don’t envy you the task of making this girl into a proper wife, Juba. But you’ll never be bored.”
Everyone laughed except for my new husband. Then Marcella kissed me warmly on each cheek. “I think you’ve bewitched my husband the admiral. I should be jealous.” She said it without malice, for everyone knew that Agrippa couldn’t be bewitched, not even by her. His heart belonged to his mother-in-law, the Lady Octavia, but we’d all learned long ago that Agrippa’s love was always eclipsed by his devotion to duty, as he saw it.
The emperor’s daughter threw her arms around me in heedless abandon, laughing. “Selene, you always find some way to steal all the attention for yourself, don’t you? Now who is going to remember my wedding?”
Julia was my dearest friend and I was grateful for her affection in the face of the wicked gossip that now swirled around me. Augustus has made this Princess of Egypt, this Queen of Mauretania, the richest woman in the world! How does he know she’ ll stay loyal to Rome? Somewhere else I heard snippets of hushed conversation. Is it true that she works magic? She’s a witch. They say she charms crocodiles. How eager Lady Octavia must be to get rid of her!
I’d expected some censure, but now that I was in the eye of the storm, heat flamed at my cheeks. I stumbled through the evening under the emperor’s penetrating gaze. He was always staring at me, no matter to whom he was speaking. And while he was watching me, his wife was watching him. The serene smile Livia always wore in public didn’t reach her eyes, and I had the strange sensation that I’d somehow made a terrible mistake.
HENCEFORTH, my wedding proceeded like an illusion. I didn’t taste the food, though I ate it. The songs all ran together and the faces of guests blurred before my eyes. My world became a haze. In another River of Time, perhaps it w
ould have been my twin that I took for a husband—to live and love and rule jointly over Egypt as was our people’s custom. Perhaps in some other, happier, River of Time, I had taken Helios for my husband. But in this life, he’d abandoned me to the Romans, and so it was Juba’s wife I’d become.
We dispensed with the traditional feigned struggle, where the bride was carried off and revelers cried out bawdy jests; such a performance would insult our dignity as royals. When we reached the bridal chamber that Octavia had made ready for us, I ritually adorned the door with wool and smeared it with oil. Slaves and freedmen should have carried me over the green garlanded threshold, but Juba lifted me and carried me to the large bed that dominated the center of the room. This wasn’t the typical Roman sleeping couch, but an exotic Eastern-style bed, truly fit for a king and queen, its mattress piled high with tasseled purple pillows, its festooned frame inlaid with ivory and gold. Marble statues of sternfaced Roman gods and goddesses surrounded the bed in a semicircle, as if to supervise what would happen here.
Outside, amidst the notes of the lyre and the shakes of rattles, the lingering laughter of our guests still echoed. Inside, our bridal suite was quiet enough that I could hear the erratic beat of my own heart. Alone for the first time since the ceremony began, we were as strangers. Juba folded his elegant hands in his lap and I straightened my gown over my legs. He unfastened his cloak, then rolled his shoulders as if to loosen them. I pushed myself up against the pillows, then adjusted my mother’s famous amethyst ring upon my fourth finger, where the nerve was said to run straight to the heart. He started to utter my name, then cut himself off. He wouldn’t even look at me.
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