Cleopatra's Moon (12 page)

The almost two-week journey was a blur of Ptolly’s tears, seasickness, grief, and worry. When the small brick lighthouse of Ostia, Rome’s southwestern port city, came into view, I gasped at the ugliness and chaos of the overwhelmed wharf. I had thought all harbors were as beautiful as Alexandria’s, with its swaying palms and white buildings that sparkled like crystals in the sun. But from the sea, Ostia looked like a dung pile crawling with roaches. I grasped both my brothers’ hands.

“We … we must always remember who we are, no matter what they do to us, no matter where they take us,” I whispered, remembering Mother’s last instructions to me. “We must swear never to let them part us.”

When neither Alexandros nor Ptolly responded, I squeezed their hands. “Vow it, please!” I urged them. “To be together, always!”

“I vow it,” each of my brothers said, their voices as low and miserable as the port looked.

Stepping onto the dock in Ostia, I wondered if we had somehow stumbled off Chiron’s boat and into Hades’ dark domain. It seemed a damned place, dirty and dingy and packed so tightly with sweating, stinking dock men, workers, travelers, and hawkers that Roman guards had had to threaten people with their swords to carve a path for us.

Word must have spread of our arrival, for people began crowding around us. “Is that them? The whore’s children?” they cried. “They shoulda drowned them! I spit on them!”

I kept my chin up, pretending I did not hear their insults as soldiers ushered us away. Even so, I had trouble breathing in the hot, fetid air. All wharves smelled fishy, I knew, but Ostia was on a scale altogether new. It was as if we slogged through the gelatinous belly of some enormous, rotting sea monster. When a hot gust of wind blew the stench in our faces, we gagged.

“Ah, the reek of Ostia’s
garum
vats,” one of the soldiers said from behind us. “
Now
I feel like I am home.”

“
Garum?”
I asked. “The cooking sauce?”

The Roman did not answer, but Zosima made a snorting noise beside me. “In Rome, they make it from rotting fish parts,” she said under her breath. “They leave fish intestines out in the sun for weeks until they melt.”

We walked farther up the quay toward the barge that would take us up the Tiber and into the city. The crowds thinned out as people scurried toward the back of our procession to cheer the Roman soldiers who had begun to disembark. I heard sporadic clapping and cheering for the “heroes of Rome.”

Heroes? They think they are heroes? They are nothing more than barbarians whose brawn has made them bullies of the world…
.

“Shhh,” Alexandros said. “Some of them may understand you.”

I had not realized I had been muttering out loud. I tried to cover my embarrassment with outrage. “Look at them,” I hissed. “Do you really think any one of these uneducated barbarians has learned the language of our ancestors? I bet not a one speaks Greek! There is little risk they will understand me.”

“Still,” he said. “We are in enemy territory. We must be careful. Our only weapon is silence and the appearance of acquiescence.”

Everything about the Roman countryside seemed dark and ominous. The light was not as brilliant as it was in Alexandria. Thick, dark cypresses and pointed pines loomed over us like soldiers at attention. When we reached the city itself, rough cobblestone roads snaked off in a tangle of dark and twisted alleys and byways. I thought back to Alexandria’s straight, clean, wide streets, how the Canopic Avenue stretched so wide, multiple teams of charioteers could — and sometimes did — race from end to end. I thought of our rustling palms, of fresh breezes from the sea, and sighed.

From the Tiber River, we trudged to Octavianus’s compound on the crest of the Palatine Hill. Ptolly gripped my hand as we looked upon our new home, a seemingly humble house facing the street. “Is he going to be here?” he asked for what felt like the millionth time, his face crinkled with worry.

I shook my head, repeating the reassurance. “No. Octavianus is still in Egypt.”

We stopped in the front courtyard as a mob of children raced toward us. The sight chilled me, as I was used to formal, ritualized greetings with adults. Why wasn’t Octavia meeting us first? I craned my neck, looking for the woman who had given her oath of protection to Mother. We had learned earlier that Livia, Octavianus’s wife, was traveling, thank the gods.

“Is he tata to all of them?” Ptolly whispered.

“In a way,” our escort said. “Only that pretty blond-haired girl is of his blood. But because his sister does not have a husband, he is in charge of all of her children too.”

My heart thudded with anxiety as the children reached us. I looked at their hands to see if they carried rocks or sticks they might throw at us. To my surprise, they were smiling.

“Welcome, welcome,” they chanted in Latin. “We have been waiting for you all day!”

The oldest boy, a handsome blue-eyed youth of about fifteen, smiled and said in careful Greek, “As the eldest son of Gaius Claudius Marcellus
and Octavia, sister of Caesar, we welcome you to the family. Oh, and please, call me Marcellus!”

His smile was so warm, so genuine, I couldn’t help but smile back at him. I had probably not smiled in weeks.

“No fair!” the youngest girl said in Latin. “We do not know what you said! We have not had as many Greek lessons as you!”

Marcellus turned to her. “Tonia, we have gone through this before. They do not speak our language. We must help them —”

“We speak Latin fluently,” Alexandros interrupted him. “Our father, you may recall, was the great Roman general Marcus Antonius.”

Marcellus raised his eyebrows. “Your Latin is impeccable! This will make it easier for everyone.”

“Hey!” the little girl named Tonia said. “My father is the general Marcus Antonius too!”

A pretty golden-haired girl who looked about a year or so younger than me stepped forward — the one the Roman said was Octavianus’s daughter. “We already told you they have the same father, Tonia!” she snapped in a bossy voice. She faced us, her bearing proud. “I am Julia, only child of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus of the House of the Julii.”

She gave me a challenging look, but Marcellus jumped in to present the others. Twelve-year-old Tiberius, dark-haired, somber, and with a handsome face marred by pink acne, nodded at us. His eight-year-old brother, Drusus, smiled more warmly. They were Octavianus’s stepsons by his second wife, Livia. There were two pretty girls a bit older than me, Marcellus’s sister, Marcella-the-Elder, and her younger sister, Marcella-the-Younger. They both smiled shyly. Finally, Marcellus introduced our half sisters, Octavia and Tata’s daughters, Antonia-the-Elder, nine, and Antonia-the-Younger, six.

“Wait!” Ptolly laughed. “How come all you sisters have the same name?”

“We take the name of our father,” Antonia-the-Elder explained. “All girls do.”

“You can call her Antonia and me Tonia,” the younger girl said.

I stared at them, trying to control my sense of disbelief. Did the Romans dismiss girls so absolutely they did not even bother to give them individual
names
? They had to take their father’s names — even if there was more than one daughter?

“And you are?” Julia prompted me.

I started. “My apologies,” I said. “I am Cleopatra VIII Selene, daughter of Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius. This is my twin brother, Alexandros Helios, and our younger brother, Ptolemy XVI Philadelphos. We are of the Royal House of Ptolemy.”

An awkward silence followed. I had not meant to be so formal. Ptolly broke the tension with an appeal directly to Tonia. “Call me Ptolly,” he said. “Do you want to meet my cat?” The little girl rushed over and they chattered excitedly as Ptolly guided her to the cart where Sebi and our other cats peered out of their wicker cages.

“Come,” Marcellus said. “You must be tired from your journey. Oh — here is Mother!”

A woman emerged from the courtyard. Octavia. Our enemy’s sister. Father’s Roman wife. I had heard she was beautiful, and she was. Golden hair, light eyes, smooth skin, even features. Her hair had been elegantly arranged in a complicated but graceful topknot and decorated with thin lilac ribbons. She wore a tunic under a long sleeveless gown, which the Romans called a
stola
. It seemed like an excessive amount of clothing in the heat, especially since the
stola
was made out of wool. We, like most Egyptians, preferred finely woven linen.

Ptolly and Tonia raced to her. He stopped right in front of her and beamed with Tata’s famous sideways grin, and Octavia put a hand on her chest, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping.

“Gods,” she said. “You are the very image of my Marcus.”

My
Marcus?

“Hello!” Ptolly said. “I am Ptolemy XVI Philadelphos, but I am known as Ptolly or Little Bull.”

Octavia crouched down to his level and smiled back, her eyes moist.
“Hello, Little Bull. I am Octavia, your new guardian. I was married to your father. And you are the spitting image of him!” Ptolly grinned wider.

“Mama, he has a cat! They all have cats!” Tonia said. Octavia nodded, but she seemed to have difficulty pulling her attention away from my brother.

“Mama! Cats!” Tonia repeated petulantly.

“Yes,” Octavia finally said, though she did not remove her gaze from Ptolly. “Rome’s rats will not stand a chance now, will they?” She straightened and looked at Alexandros, and her face softened again. “Yes, I see Marcus in you as well.”

Then she turned to me. Something — surprise? — flickered over her face. But when I blinked, it was gone. “Welcome,” she said, smiling, her eyes softening with kindness. I thanked Isis for how different she seemed from her evil brother, and that we were meeting our protectress before facing Octavianus’s wife — the woman who would ‘manage’ us as his property.

Octavia touched Alexandros on the shoulder. “You must be tired and thirsty. Let us get you out of the sun where we can bring you something cool to drink.”

I noticed she did not look at me again. I felt hurt and relieved all at once. On the one hand, it did not surprise me that Octavia seemed more interested in my brothers. Some women, I knew, took more to boys and men, and I was glad for Alexandros and Ptolly — especially Ptolly — for it meant they would be on the receiving end of her kindness. But I also felt anew the loss of Mother, her faith in me, her strength and certitude that I was like her and would one day rule like her. A surge of loneliness and longing for her burst so strongly in my chest, I almost stumbled.

Before we could step into the atrium, horses’ hooves thundered behind us. Alexandros and I exchanged looks. Roman soldiers? What if they had changed their minds and decided they would execute or enslave us after all?

But only a young man in a finely woven tunic, followed by two attendants, cantered into view. I breathed out in relief. The children wheeled toward him as one. Grinning, the young man dismounted as they crowded around him. He was dark-skinned, with close-cropped, tight black curls, and even from where we stood, I could see he was exceptionally handsome. He carried himself like a nobleman. But he was clearly of African birth, not Roman.

“Juba!” Octavia called as he and his swarm of followers approached. “I was so worried about you! I am glad you are finally home.”

Juba? That was the Punic word for
king
. Was he a Moor king? But of what African province? Utica? Zama? Numidia? And what would he be doing here, acting like a long-lost member of the family?

Tiberius peppered him with questions. “Juba, tell me! Did you fight? How many of the dirty Gyptos did you kill? What was Alexandria like?”

Alexandria? He had been a soldier serving with Octavianus? Had he been on the same boat with us? My mouth dropped open in surprise.

The young man looked at us and smiled uncomfortably. He did not answer Tiberius’s questions. “I see you have made it to the family in good health, thank the gods,” he said, bowing his head slightly at us.

“They call you king,” I said in Punic, the primary language of North Africa. “What kingdom do you rule?”

He stared at me blankly. Had my Punic gone rusty? Mother had required that we learn most of the languages of our neighbors. I tried the Numidian Punic, which was slightly different. “I was wondering what African kingdom you rule, since they call you king.”

“Stop,” Alexandros whispered. “He does not understand you.”

“I am sorry,” Juba said in excellent Greek, shaking his head.

After I asked my question again in Greek, he laughed, showing brilliant white teeth. “But they did not call me king. They called me by my name, Gaius Julius Caesar Juba. I was from Numidia originally, but I have lived in Rome since I was an infant. The Divine Caesar was my patron, and when he died, the kind Octavia took me in.”

Ptolly frowned. “Is everyone in Rome named Gaius Julius Caesar?” Tonia stomped her foot. “Stop speaking Greek! I cannot understand anybody!”

“Sorry,” Ptolly said in Latin. “I asked if —”

Alexandros jumped in, still in Greek. “But
juba
is the Punic word for
king
. Do they not realize they are calling you king every time they address you?”

“No, we did not!” Octavia said in a laugh, clearly fluent in Greek as well. “By all the gods of Olympus, you must
not
tell my brother about this. Romans hate the idea of monarchy. It will infuriate him!”

She embraced Juba and kissed him on the cheek. Juba flushed slightly and looked down. In a flash, I remembered where I had seen him before. He was one of the three young officers in the room the day we first met Octavianus in Mother’s chambers. The day Octavianus twisted the truth out of Ptolly so he could hunt down and murder Caesarion. I stepped back, horrified.

“You were there,” I gasped. “I recognize you now.”

Everybody froze. Juba looked at Alexandros and me. “Yes, I was there,” he said in a soft voice. “And I wish I had met the exalted House of Ptolemy under different circumstances.”