Mother lifted my chin with gentle fingers, and I took in everything at once — her dark hair, loose and unbrushed though not wild like Charmion’s; her skin stretched over an almost gaunt face, showing new lines of weariness and grief between the brows and down the sides of her mouth; her eyes huge and shadowed. It was looking into them that almost undid me. Her eyes — the glittering green-gold eyes that used to burn with power and nail me to the floor as if the Eye of Horus itself inspected my soul — looked … empty.
“O my daughter, what have they done to us?” she whispered.
I tried to be strong. I really did. But I was not. I shattered into a million pieces. “Mama” was all I could say as she took me in her arms.
Her fingers smoothing my hair; her scented linen shift pressing into my cheek; her shoulders curling over me, as if to buffer me from all that had happened to us, to our family. She clung to me as hard as I clung to her. We were not queen and princess anymore. Just mother and daughter.
After a time, Mother asked why my brothers had not come. I explained about the poppy tea. “I must see them,” she said, stepping away from me.
I wanted to throw myself back into her warmth. Instead, she took my hand, and I followed her out of her chambers. I relished the feel of her palm on mine, and an odd thought came to me. Had Mother ever taken my hand like this before? As she was the queen and I was the princess, I had always walked behind her in procession.
At the sight of us, Dolabella’s eyes grew wide. “What are you doing? You cannot leave, my lady! This goes too far!”
“I thank you for all you have done, Cornelius. But I must see my sons. I will not be long.” We continued down the hall, our bare feet moving so quietly I felt as if we floated in a dream.
In our rooms, Mother brushed the sweaty curls off Ptolly’s forehead, kissed him, and murmured into his ear. She prayed over him, then wound her way to Alexandros, whispering words of comfort to him about Iotape, as if he were awake and could take them in. I heard her voice catch as she murmured, “My new king.” Then she prayed over him as well.
Finally, Mother performed the same ritual on me, placing her soft hands on the crown of my head. She closed her eyes and spoke the sacred words in the old language of the priests. When she finished, she took my face in her hands. “Do you remember your lessons about Egypt’s first ancient rulers?”
I nodded. Her hands felt warm on my cheeks, and I looked down, overwhelmed. I had not realized how much I had craved her touch. And how afraid I was of losing it.
“They buried the earliest kings in the sands of the desert, which preserved their bodies for the afterworld. It is from them that the Priests of Anubis learned their sacred art. By leaving Caesarion in the desert …” Mother paused and touched the hollow at her throat. “By leaving Caesarion in the desert, your brother’s murderers preserved his body for us, for his ka. Do you understand? We will see Caesarion — as well as your tata — again in the afterworld.”
I could see that this gave Mother comfort. I felt my heart grow lighter at the thought too.
“You must always remember that you are descended from the Great Alexander and from the kings who built the Library, the Museion, and the Lighthouse,” Mother continued. “Whatever happens, they cannot take that from you.”
I nodded, my eyes filling again. Her words made my insides squirm, though I could not say why.
“You are to live in Octavia’s house in Rome,” she continued. “I have received her sworn oath that she will protect you and keep you safe.”
Octavia was Octavianus’s sister — Father’s Roman ex-wife! I did not want to live anywhere near our enemy or his family. I wanted to stay here with her! She must have read my expression, for she shook her head to keep me from arguing. “You must live,” she said. And then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Genestho,” under her breath. It was the word she used to sign all her royal decrees — “Make it so.”
Dolabella made a noise at the door. “My lady, please,” he begged. “You must return. The risk is too great!”
Mother kissed my cheek. “You have the heart of a great and powerful queen,” she whispered.
She turned and walked out of the room. I followed her, but Katep stopped me in the dark hallway. “No noise,” he whispered, holding me fast. “We must let her go.”
I peered around him to watch Mother. She glided like a goddess — head held high, Caesarion’s cloak swaying behind her — until she disappeared, like a dream, into the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next day, my brothers and I sprinted up the first tier of the Great Lighthouse. I had forgotten how hot the airless stairwells grew in the summer. We crashed out into the open terraces, sighing as the sea breezes cooled the sweat on our faces. I put my arms out. The crackling flames above us pulsed like a heartbeat. How I had missed Pharos!
Mother’s visit the night before had, despite everything, filled me with hope. She was taking risks again! After all, she had never before attempted to see us while Octavianus’s ban was in effect. And that morning, Dolabella had returned to say that Mother had ordered we spend the day with Lady Amunet at the Temple of Isis Pharia. She was finally defying our tormentor.
Once on the island, it was not hard to convince Dolabella that Mother would not mind us climbing up the Lighthouse. It had been so long! I ran to the edge and looked out over the glittering bay, drinking in the invigorating smell of saltwater and sea life. Birds squawked and flew around our heads. Ptolly laughed and chased them.
“The birds are hungry,” said a food stall owner from behind us. “Few visit Pharos now that the Romans have come. There are no scraps for them to feed on.”
I looked up and down, noticing the mostly empty stalls. Usually, the first tier of the Lighthouse teemed with sightseers, but even the vendors hawking cheap terra-cotta lighthouses and lucky amulets were gone.
“We always had long lines for our treats. Today, you enjoy them right away, yes? Perhaps our famous emmer almond cakes?”
Ptolly’s face lit up. “I like almond cakes!”
“One obol each,” the man said.
Ptolly looked confused. I could almost read his thoughts: money?
“Do you know who we are?” Alexandros asked.
“I do not care if you are the children of the queen of Egypt. You must still pay!” the man said. He wore the plain, rough-hewn tunic of workers from the Rhakotis district.
Ptolly giggled. “But we are! We are the children of the queen of Egypt! I am Ptolemy Philadelphos, that is Alexandros Helios, and,” he said, pointing at me, “she is Cleopatra Selene!”
The man laughed. “Gah! You are silly, but charming. I tell you this. I will give you the sweet almond cakes at half price. That is a good deal, no?”
Dolabella muttered under his breath and slapped a handful of coins on the warping wood counter. “Give them what they want. Now.”
The vendor frowned.
“Do not worry,” I said in Egyptian. “He is a Roman soldier and like all Romans is very grouchy. Perhaps you can give him the sweetest treat? Oh, and we are indeed the Royal Children.”
The man smiled. “But of course, Your Majesty,” he said in Greek, a twinkle in his eyes. His playful expression reminded me so much of Tata that my stomach dropped with missing him. But like a good royal, I hid my emotion from a subject. I playfully inclined my head in return.
“Give the children their food,” Dolabella growled. He turned to me. “This has taken longer than I thought. We must go to the Temple of Isis Pharia now. The priestess awaits us.”
“But we have not finished climbing to the top of Pharos,” Alexandros said.
Dolabella grabbed the treats wrapped in steamed vine leaves and pushed them into our hands. “I promised the queen I would have you with the head priestess by the hora octava. The time approaches.”
“No!” Ptolly said, almond paste smearing his upper lip. “We want to go all the way to the top! We always go to the top!”
&n
bsp; “Maybe after … we can finish the climb if you still want to.”
We did not move.
“Now! You will do what I command now!” Dolabella shouted, sounding like Father used to when he gave his men orders on the practice fields. But we were not soldiers. We stared at him, our mouths stuffed with sweet cakes.
At that moment, strange cries floated from the interior of the island, muffled but plaintive. The gulls? But then it came again and I froze. The last time I heard that sound … an image burst behind my eyes. Tata, dying, soaked in blood. Gods!
Ptolly’s eyes widened. “Ghosts again,” he murmured. “I hate ghosts!”
Alexandros and I glanced at each other. Our nurses, who had finally made it up the winding stairs, knelt by Ptolly to reassure him. More disembodied shouts and cries drifted toward us. Dolabella rubbed his face and groaned.
“What is happening?” I whispered to him. He did not respond. Slowly, the wails and cries gathered like a wave crashing over our heads. I looked out over the island and saw the Priestesses of the Temple of Isis Pharia and the Priests of Poseidon gathering in their courtyards, some crying, some chanting the mourning dirge.
“Come,” Dolabella mumbled. “We must go to the Priestess of Isis. It was where your mother wanted you to be.”
Wanted?
I could not draw a breath. Time seemed to slow, and all sound disappeared. I saw Alexandros’s eyes grow wide with horror. Ptolly dropped his treat as he scrunched his face and covered his ears with both hands, elbows sticking out like broken wings. Dolabella mouthed the words, “I am sorry.”
And then all sound rushed back in, and I understood the cries that reverberated off the walls of the Lighthouse — the howls of a people mourning the loss of their beloved queen.
It was as if a tomb door had slammed shut in my soul.
I could not see it then, of course, but Mother had been saying good-bye the night before. Caesarion had been her last hope for our survival and escape. She would have held on for as long as she thought she could help us get to him. But his murder destroyed all that. And when Dolabella warned her that Octavianus planned to ship us to Rome within days — that he was intent on parading her through the streets in chains, then executing her as was required by Roman law — she took the only recourse left to her. The only one that, as Tata would say, preserved her honor.
Still, the shock of her suicide created such a jolt in my being that huge chunks of memory fell away, like the details of a nightmare that fade into mist, leaving only the horror intact.
Some images, though, remained: Alexandros’s glazed eyes, staring into nothing for hours. Ptolly putting his thumb in his mouth even though he had long ago stopped the habit. The wind moving through the nearly abandoned palace, echoing like soft moans of grief. Zosima later said that I did not speak for days.
Eventually, I found some comfort amidst Mother’s things, curling myself onto her scented couch, wrapping myself in her robe that glittered like sea foam, touching noses with her cat, Hekate. Visiting the little sand-colored meiu in Mother’s chambers became a sort of special refuge — Hekate’s heart still beat, her shiny coat still smelled of Mother, her purr was like an echo of Mother’s low laugh.
One day, she was nowhere to be found. I checked under couches and chairs, in small baskets and in dark corners. I called to her, but still she did not appear.
“Looking for something your mother hid from me?” Octavianus asked, sauntering into her inner room. “I would not put it past her to steal what is rightfully mine.”
I jumped at the sound of his voice. How dare he accuse Mother of stealing when he was the one taking everything that was hers? I swallowed. “No, I am looking for Hekate, Mother’s meiu. I … I cannot find her anywhere and —”
“Too many cats in this damned palace,” Octavianus interrupted, lifting a bronze sculpture of Artemis aiming her bow from a table near Mother’s reading desk. “We will have to do something about that.”
He sniffed at the statuette. He saw me watching him. “Do you know that you can determine a real Corinthian bronze by its smell? It has a scent like no other.” He closed his eyes and breathed the metal again. “Your mother had exquisite taste.”
I had another moment of unreality. The small Roman in front of me was responsible for the deaths of my brother and parents, and yet he dared to praise Mother’s taste at the same time that he stole from her? Grief and hatred roiled in my center like a slow wave building to shore. I walked toward the door, muttering, “Son of Nyx and Erebus. Daemon of death …”
“Excuse me,” he said, stepping in my path, his gray eyes glittering with malice. “Were you addressing me, Princess?”
I did not respond. I did not like being so close to him. I took a step around him, but he blocked me again.
“You see,” he said with his crocodile grin, “I could have sworn I heard you call me the son of Night and Darkness. But I must have been mistaken, because surely even you would not be so stupid as to insult me to my face. No?”
He moved closer to me and I could smell his breath, sour like vinegary wine. I forced myself not to step back.
“Because, you see,” he said, whispering now, “I am not like the God of Death at all. I am like Apollo, God of Light and Victory. I vanquished the darkness that oozed from the East.” He smiled. “Yes, I like that. I will erect statues and altars to my patron god. All will know whom the gods favor.”
His smile widened to a grin. Despite my desire to show no weakness, I stepped back. Again, he moved with me. “Yes, and you are Selene, goddess of the moon. The sun and the moon.”
He grabbed me by the hair at the nape of my neck and I gasped. He would kill me right here, right now — just as he had Caesarion. He pulled my head back farther, exposing my neck. I narrowed my eyes at him. I hate you, I thought, trying to keep from trembling. May Amut the Destroyer rise from his stinking lair and gobble your heart as it beats in your chest….
“The daughter of the great whore queen,” he said. “Yes, the possibilities are quite interesting. Too bad you are so young….”
I tried wriggling away, but his hold on my hair kept me close. He chuckled. “Just beginning to bud, I see.”
I spat in his face. His eyes widened, then turned dark with rage. “You little bitch!” he roared, shaking me like a rag doll. I screamed at the sharp pain in my scalp and kicked out blindly, connecting with something. He threw me off, cursing. I sprinted for the door, but he grabbed my wrist and spun me around. “I could have you whipped for daring to strike Caesar.”
“You are not Caesar! My brother was the only true son of Julius Caesar.” I spoke before thinking. Octavianus pushed me against the wall and pinned me there with his torso, and again I wished that I had held my tongue.
“Maybe the fun of the queen of Egypt was that she was a wildcat,” he said. “Maybe that was your mother’s magic.”
I did not understand his words, but I grasped the threat in them. He pushed his whole body into me, the nipple from his muscled bronze cuirass pressing into my cheek, the brass studs from his thick belt scratching my chest. I stopped squirming, hoping my acquiescence would signal him to step back. It didn’t.
Octavianus fumbled with his sword belt. Father once claimed that one well-aimed blow below the belt could fell even Hercules himself. I would have only one try to get Octavianus off of me. But before I could do anything, we both jumped at a man’s booming voice.
“Castor and Pollux, Caesar! What are you doing?”
Octavianus stepped back from me but still held me against the wall, his hand around my neck. I flicked my eyes toward the voice. Agrippa. He moved into the room quickly, shutting the door behind him. “You can have any girl or boy in this whole palace, but you cannot touch the Royal Children! We have talked about this!”
“This little Fury had the gall to insult me and spit on me. She should pay!”
“You must listen to me on this,” Agrippa said again. “One misstep now and we could have the w
hole Senate and all of Rome against us. We must appear to treat Antonius’s children with extraordinary … solicitude.”
With a leer, Octavianus squeezed my neck one last time, then removed his hand. I kept my eyes on his, my chin up, but heard Agrippa breathe out as if in relief.
“Tell your brothers,” Octavianus said to me, as if the last few minutes had never occurred, “you leave for Rome in three days.”
My mouth dropped. “Three days? But we cannot leave yet! We have not had the entombment ceremonies for my family….” It took more than two months — seventy days — for the Priests of Anubis to complete the sacred mummification rites. They hadn’t even finished with Father yet! We had to ensure that the rites for both of our parents were performed, or we would never see them again in the afterlife. “You cannot make us leave until we complete our rituals!”
“You Egyptians and your abominable beast gods,” Octavianus spat, turning his back to me and inspecting a black marble statue of Sekhmet. “I tire of you. Leave!”
Hot tears gathered behind my eyes and tightened my throat. He could not do this! I looked at the Sekhmet statue, wishing I could make her come roaring to life so she could devour his flesh, tear it from his bones with her fangs as he screamed in agony….
“Did you not hear me?” he asked, moving to test a silk wall hanging between his fingers. “I ordered you to leave. After all, you must start packing,” he added with a smirk.
Something changed and hardened within me then, as if my spine grew as thick and immovable as one of the giant temple columns in Dendera.
“We are not leaving Alexandria until you allow us to perform the sacred rites for our parents,” I said, my voice calm and cold.
Octavianus turned to me, hatred gleaming in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Agrippa stepped toward him, his arm out in a calming gesture.
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