The Egyptian Royals Collection (116 page)

Though Marcellus dutifully stepped forward, Livia pushed another young man toward Octavian. The boy shrugged off her hand,
and I wondered if this was one of her sons. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

Livia’s lips grew even thinner. “Caesar has asked for someone to make the introductions.”

“And because Marcellus wants to do it, I should, too? Perhaps I should be more like Marcellus and gamble away Caesar’s allowance, as well.”

Marcellus laughed uneasily. “There’s nothing wrong with gambling.”

But Octavian glowered. “Not when it’s done in
moderation.”

Everyone heard the implied criticism, and Marcellus colored a little. Then he introduced us to those gathered on the portico, beginning with Livia’s son Tiberius, who had shaken off his mother’s hand. His nine-year-old brother was Drusus, and each of them was the very image of Livia, with sharp noses and too-thin lips. Though I knew I would never remember so many names, Marcellus went on, pointing out our half sisters Antonia and Tonia, shy girls who clung to Octavia’s stola and had none of our father’s gregariousness. There was Vipsania, Agrippa’s little girl whose mother had perished in childbirth, and a cluster of old men whose names I had heard of in the Museion, Horace and Vergil among them.

When Marcellus was finished, Livia held out her arm for her husband. “Shall we prepare for your Feast of Welcome?”

“But I haven’t asked Marcellus about his journey,” Julia complained.

“Then you may ask him tonight,” Livia said tersely.

Julia looked for reversal from her father, but he gave her none, and they left with Agrippa and Juba, trailing a dozen slaves behind them.

When they were gone, Octavia said softly, “Marcellus, show
Alexander and Selene to their chamber. When their chests have been brought, I will come myself to prepare them for Caesar’s feast.” She looked down at the small girls clinging to her legs. “Shall we pluck some roses for the dinner?” The little girls nodded eagerly, then chased each other to the end of the portico.

We followed Marcellus into a long hallway whose mosaic floor spelled out the word
SALVE
, welcoming visitors into Octavia’s home. “This is the vestibulum,” he said, leading us through it into another columned room he called the atrium. A beech-beamed opening overhead admitted sunlight, and terra-cotta gutters led into a marble pool. I asked Marcellus, “How often does it rain?”

“Well, in summer, almost never. But in winter the streets of Rome turn to mud.” He gestured toward several doors leading from the atrium. “Those are the guest rooms. And that is the tabulinum, where my mother keeps her desk.” He pointed to the far side of the room, and through the slightly open door I could see a long table of polished oak. “Over there is the lararium.”

“And what is that?”

Marcellus turned in surprise to Alexander. “Aren’t there lararia in Egypt?” he asked. “That’s where we greet the Lares every morning.” Alexander and I looked at the alcove, with its long granite altar and ancestral busts of the Julii. When Marcellus saw our expressions, he explained, “They’re the spirits of our ancestors. We give them a little wine and bread every morning.”

“And do they like it?” I asked curiously.

“Better ask the slaves.” Marcellus laughed. “They’re the ones who end up taking it.”

We crossed the atrium and reached another open-air space, the peristylum, where bronze sculptures peered from the shadows. There was a long garden in the center, and a fountain that channeled water through the mouths of marble lions. Several men reclined on
benches, shaded by trellised vines and flowering shrubs. They raised their hands in quiet greeting, and Marcellus mumbled, “My mother’s builders.”

At the end of the portico was the triclinium, where the household ate, and across the hall, next to the baths, were more chambers. “This is my room,” Marcellus said. “This is my mother’s.” He indicated a wide door painted with a garden scene. “These are for my sisters. And this is for you.” He opened a wooden door, and I heard my brother Alexander breathe in sharply.

It was a magnificent chamber. Curtained windows opened out onto a balcony, where a variety of palms grew from painted urns. The room itself was unlike anything in Egypt, with three wide couches, instead of beds, and only one painting. But the furniture was unmistakably rich: four chairs inlaid with bone and ivory; a pair of lamps fashioned into triple-headed Cerberus, whose bronze serpent’s tail could be lit; a cedar folding stool; three tables; and three heavy chests. Everything had been prepared for three children, only Ptolemy had never made it to Rome. I blinked back my tears and tried not to think about Egypt. The northern wall had been painted with images from Homer’s epics, so that whenever we fell asleep our last thoughts would be on the greatest poet Greece had ever produced. I could pick out Agamemnon, Achilles, and even Odysseus among the painted men.

“I thought we were prisoners,” my brother said.

“In my mother’s house?” Marcellus sounded offended. “You are guests.”

“Caesar killed our brothers,” I reminded him sharply. “And tomorrow, we will be taken through the streets.”

Marcellus’s face became grim. “My uncle rids himself of anyone he thinks might be an enemy now or in the future. And he surrounds himself with useful people. He has a wife who is more like a
secretary to him, and my mother advises him on matters of the Senate. He keeps Agrippa for his knowledge of war, and Juba for his knowledge of the people and for protection. Do you think he would have any interest in me if I weren’t my mother’s eldest son? I serve a practical purpose as well. But so long as you are here,” he said firmly, “you are guests.”

Several slaves appeared behind us with the ironbound chests we had taken from Egypt. But before we could look through them to see what we had been allowed to keep and what had been taken, Octavia entered the chamber.

“It’s time to prepare,” she said quickly. “Marcellus, take Alexander to your room and give him what’s been laid out on your couch. He may keep his diadem, but the chiton and the sandals must go.” As she turned to me, I noticed the strikingly beautiful woman standing behind her at the door. Her long hair was the color of honey, and Marcellus smiled winsomely as he passed.

“Salve
, Gallia.”

She inclined her head slightly, and I guessed her age to be about twenty. “I am glad to see your safe return, Domine.” She used the word for
master
, which indicated her position as a slave, yet her tunic was embroidered with gold.

“Selene,” Octavia said, “this is my
ornatrix
, Gallia. We are going to prepare you for tonight, and give you clothes that will be suitable for Rome.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Domina.” When Gallia smiled, I noticed that she had the high cheekbones that artists in Alexandria loved to capture.
She’s like a sculpture carved from marble
, I thought, and wondered if she was one of the twenty thousand women Julius Caesar had brought back as slaves from his conquest of Gaul. She spoke Latin with an accent and pronounced her words with exaggerated
care to make sure she was getting them right. “Why don’t you come with us into the bathing room?” she asked, indicating a room in the corner. Inside was a tub of heavy bronze. She turned a handle and a pipe that led from the ceiling released hot water into the bath. The mosaic floors depicted sea nymphs and mermaids, and a large mirror of polished brass hung on the wall. A small brazier was tucked away in the corner for colder nights when the chamber would need to be heated. Several stools were arranged before a long cedar table.

Octavia led me to one of these seats, then studied me carefully with her pale gray eyes. “What do you think?” she asked Gallia nervously.

“How old are you?” Gallia asked me.

“I turn twelve in January,” I replied.

Gallia stepped forward. “Almost twelve. Still, just a little bird.” No one had ever called me a “little bird,” and when I straightened indignantly, Gallia laughed. “No, it is good that you are so small.”

“We want you both to appear as young as possible tonight,” Octavia said, busying herself with Gallia’s basket. She took out vials of antimony and saffron, piling them on the long table along with hairnets and pins with ruby tips.

Not understanding, I looked at both women. “Why?”

“So that no one feels threatened by you,” Gallia said simply. She lit a fire in the brazier and plunged a metal rod into the burning charcoal.

“Do you wish to wear your diadem tonight?” she asked.

I touched the thin band of pearls in my hair, remembering the time my mother had given it to me. “Yes.”

“And your pearl necklace?”

“Of course.”

“Then they will stay. But the rest must go.”

I stood and slowly removed my chiton and loincloth. I was not yet so developed as to need a breastband. Then Gallia pointed me to the steaming bath.

“Inside. Do not wet your hair. It will never dry in time to curl it.”

“But I already have curls.”

“These will be smaller.”

I stepped into the bath as I was told, and let Gallia rub lavender oil into my back.

“Look at this, Domina!” Gallia turned to Octavia. “You can see the bones. What do they feed her in Alexandria?”

“She has been on a ship for weeks,” Octavia reminded her, “and has lost nearly every member of her family.”

“Domina will feed you well here,” she promised, motioning for me to stand. Then she started drying me with a long white linen cloth.

I didn’t reply, knowing that if I did I would only cry. From her basket, Gallia produced a silk tunic of the deepest green. I lifted my arms obediently. She slipped the tunic over my head and fastened it at the shoulders with golden pins. When Octavia passed her a belt of light olive, Gallia held it in front of her and frowned.

“Under the breasts, at the hips, or at the waist?” she considered.

The women studied me, and now I really felt like Gallia’s bird, being preened for a life in a cage.

“At the waist,” Gallia decided herself. “It’s simple.” She tied the sash above my hips, then slipped a pair of leather sandals on my feet. On my neck, she fastened a golden necklace with a disc that was hidden by my mother’s pearls. She didn’t have to tell me that it was a
bulla
. I had seen Roman children in Alexandria wearing the same protective amulet.

“What about her hair?” Octavia worried.

Gallia took the metal rod from the brazier and held it in front of me by its cool end. “Do you know what this is?”

We had them in Alexandria. “A hot iron,” I said.

“Yes. A
calamistrum
. If you will remove your diadem.…”

I followed her instructions and seated myself on one of the chairs. When Gallia was finished, Octavia said eagerly, “Now her eyes.”

I had powdered the lids carefully with malachite, and lined them with antimony as Charmion had taught me. But Gallia wiped my eye makeup away with a cloth, and when she didn’t make any motion to replace it, I protested. “But I’ve never gone anywhere without paint.”

Gallia passed a look to Octavia. “Domina,” she said to me, “that is not proper in Rome.”

“But I wore it every day on the ship.”

“That was at sea. You must not look like a
lupa
in front of Caesar’s guests.”

“A what?”

“You know”—she gestured—“one of those women.”

“A whore,” Alexander said from behind us, and Octavia gasped. “Sorry,” he said quickly. But I knew that he wasn’t. He was smiling, and Gallia nodded at him.

“You look very handsome, Domine.”

I turned. “Handsome? You look like you’re wearing a bedsheet. How will you walk? It’s ridiculous.” I spoke in Parthian, but Alexander replied in Latin.

“It’s a
toga praetexta
. And,” he added indignantly, “it’s what Marcellus is wearing.” A red stripe ran along its border, but the material wasn’t nearly as beautiful as that of my tunic. Just then he noticed my red sandals, and whistled. “A Roman princess.” I glared at him, but he ignored my anger. “So nothing for your eyes, then?”

“We want to remind Rome that she is a girl,” Gallia repeated, “not a woman in some dirty
lupanar.”

“That will do,” Octavia said sternly, and I imagined that a
lupanar
was a place where women sold their sexual favors.

But Gallia only smiled. “He asked.”

I went to Alexander and touched the golden disc at his throat. “So we really are Romans now,” I said darkly. My brother avoided my gaze. Then Marcellus appeared behind him, smiling in a way that made me forget we were prisoners masquerading as citizens. His freshly washed hair curled at the nape of his neck, and the color contrasted with the darkness of his skin.

“You’re a goddess in emerald, Selene. This must be the work of Gallia. She could stop Apollo in his chariot, if she wanted.”

“Very pretty, Domine.”

Octavia looked from my brother to me. “Are they ready?”

Gallia nodded. “They are as Roman now as Romulus himself.”

Alexander risked a glance at me. We followed Gallia through the halls and out to the portico, where Octavia’s youngest daughters sat patiently in the shade. I couldn’t recall ever sitting patiently anywhere as a child, but these children were all sweetness and gold.
Like their mother
, I thought, and stopped myself from thinking of my own mother lying cold in her sarcophagus next to my father.

As we followed the cobbled road to Caesar’s villa, Gallia explained, “When we reach the triclinium, a slave will ask you to take off your sandals.”

“To wash our feet?” Alexander asked.

“Yes. And then you’ll enter the chamber. A
nomenclator
will announce your arrival, and all of us will be taken to our assigned couches.”

“Romans eat on couches?” I asked.

“Don’t Egyptians?”

“No. We eat at tables. With chairs and stools.”

“Oh, there will be tables,” Gallia said easily. “But not stools, and chairs are only for old men.”

“But then how do we eat?” Alexander worried.

“While reclining.” Gallia saw our expressions and explained, “There will be a dozen tables with couches around them. Caesar’s couch is always at the back, and the place of honor is opposite the empty side of his table. Whoever sits there at Caesar’s right is his most important guest.”