Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel (36 page)

If it hadn’t been the start of Lupercalia and the beginning of a week’s holiday from the ludus, I would never have woken in time to meet with Vitruvius the next morning. When I opened my eyes,
Alexander had already left the chamber, and the windows, which usually looked over a dark and richly wooded garden, were brightened by the winter’s milky sun. I listened for a moment for sounds outside my chamber, wondering what time it was and where everyone had gone. Did they know about Gallia? Would Juba be punished for killing a senator?

I dressed as quickly as I could and simply pushed back my hair with my diadem. When I looked in the mirror, only the golden
bulla
stared back at me. I had traded my mother’s last gift for Gallia’s freedom. In everything he did, Juba was swift. Surely by now some woman was placing my mother’s pearls around her neck, admiring them in a large bronze mirror without ever knowing what they had meant. I closed my eyes to keep the tears from falling, and wondered whether Octavia had accepted the denarii.

I opened my door and listened for Marcellus, but the halls that were normally filled with his laughter were silent. When I peered into the library, I saw Octavia and Vitruvius sitting together. As soon as Vitruvius saw me, he rose. “Octavia would like to speak with you,” he said quietly. I searched his eyes for some indication, but his face was a mask. When he shut the door behind us, I looked at Octavia.

She motioned for me to sit, then she folded her hands and heaved a heavy sigh. “A terrible thing happened last night.”

“Yes. Very terrible,” I said quietly.

“But you may have helped save Gallia from death.”

“I did nothing. It was Juba,” I said, just as it had been Juba who had saved Octavian from assassination.

She studied me with her soft eyes. “And it was Juba who came this morning with enough denarii to manumit Gallia.”

I lowered my gaze to my lap.

“So I freed her.”

I looked up swiftly.

“I am ashamed to say that for all my charity, I was not as generous as you were to Gallia.”

“It was my fault she went with Gaius. I should have stopped her!”

“And defy Livia’s command?” Octavia laughed mirthlessly. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

“We could have found her sooner!”

“You found her before Gaius strangled her, Selene. And if he had succeeded, there would be no one in Rome to tell the tale. Do you think his guards would have given him away? His slaves?”

“Where is she?” I whispered.

“She will live with Magister Verrius now.”

“And you aren’t angry?”

Octavia didn’t say anything. She clasped her hands, then unclasped them. “I am sad that I had to tell Gallia she was free when it wasn’t my generosity that freed her. And I am sad that I will be losing my closest friend. I have been selfish in wanting to keep her a slave. Perhaps I have been selfish in many things.”

“No. You are the spirit of Empanda,” I said earnestly, thinking of the goddess of charity. “And even Empanda must have coveted something.”

“At the expense of a life?” She stood, and I wasn’t sure whose life she meant. That of Gaius, who had died by Juba’s sword, or Gallia, whose life had been given to slavery. “It is possible that Gallia will return,” she said. “But not before she has recovered.” I rose from Vitruvius’s chair and followed her across the room. At the door, she paused. “However, if there are other slaves you wish to free, Selene, I would save your denarii. Gallia may be a friend to me,” she warned, “but I am no Red Eagle.”

I missed the Festival of Lupercalia. While Alexander and Marcellus sacrificed a goat in Romulus’s cave and watched while young men
were putting on the skins of the sacrifice, running down the Palatine, and whipping anyone in their path with strips of goatskin, I sat alone in my chamber and sketched. From my room, I could hear the shrieks of the women. They were the ones who stood in the path of the whip to ensure fertility over the coming year, and when there was no more screaming, I heard Marcellus’s voice and assumed that everyone had returned.

Alexander was the first to enter the chamber, and when I saw his face, I jumped from my couch.

“What happened?” I cried.

He laughed. “It’s not mine. It’s goat’s blood.”

“What for?”

“The Lupercalia! And if you hadn’t been sleeping, you could have come. But I felt too sorry to wake you.”

“Sorry for me, or sorry for Gallia?” I demanded, and immediately he sobered. “You think you’re going to be King of Egypt someday, acting like this? After you saw what endless feasting and drinking did to our father?”

“It isn’t endless,” he said quietly. “It’s just one morning.”

“Which happens to come after a night of bloodshed!”

“I heard what you did,” Marcellus whispered. “My mother said you bought Gallia’s freedom.” Behind him, Julia and Alexander both exclaimed, “You freed a slave?”

“And Octavia let her go?” my brother pressed.

“It appears that way.”

“Do you think Gallia will return?” Marcellus asked.

“Your mother said it was possible. If I were Gallia, I would leave Rome altogether.”

“Livia was happy this morning. But when she hears what you’ve done, she’ll be beside herself,” Julia said fearfully.

“Then no one will tell her,” Marcellus replied firmly. “Gallia doesn’t know who it was, and Livia won’t either.”

But my brother scowled at me. “You never cared about the slaves in Alexandria.”

“And in Alexandria, we had a kingdom. Here, what’s the difference between us and Gallia?”

“Citizenship,” Julia said.

“No,” my brother said. “A roll of the dice. We could just as easily have been made slaves.”

“The children of a queen?” Julia exclaimed.

“Wasn’t Gallia the child of a queen?” my brother asked.

She made a face. “The Gauls are barbarians.”

“And what if tomorrow your father decides that Egyptians are barbarians?” I asked.

Marcellus and Julia were silent.

“Please promise you won’t say anything,” I begged, but even though Julia nodded, I wondered whether she could keep such a secret.

That evening, as we walked to Octavian’s villa, Marcellus waited until my brother was ahead of us to whisper, “You have a very kind heart, Selene.”

I was glad there was only a sliver of moon. That way he couldn’t see the rush of blood to my cheeks.

“I had always hoped to set Gallia free when I became Caesar. I wasn’t sure how my mother would take it. You’ve done what I was afraid to do.”

“It was nothing.”

“I don’t think so,” he said tenderly.

Our eyes met, and I wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss me. Then Julia, in one of her new silver tunics, appeared on the portico, waving to us. Marcellus turned, and we said no more.

June, 28 BC

GALLIA RETURNED
before our summer progress to Octavian’s palace in Capri. With the entire villa in a state of upheaval, she appeared one morning at Octavia’s
salutatio
and asked whether she still had need of an
ornatrix
. Her blue silk tunic was sewn with seed pearls, and her long hair was swept back with a tortoiseshell band that gleamed in the bright light of the atrium. The bruises Gaius had left her with were long gone, and in their place shone healthy, pampered skin. As soon as Octavia saw her, she began to weep—tears of joy, and probably relief. She celebrated Gallia’s return that evening with roasted peacock from Samos and rare oysters from Tarentum.

“Does that mean you will be coming with us to Capri?” Marcellus asked. We were sitting together in the triclinium, where Gallia had never been allowed to eat with us before.

Gallia fanned herself with her hand. “You think I want to stay behind in this terrible heat?” she teased. Freedom suited Gallia: from the gilded ornaments in her hair to the expensive silk stola embroidered with gold. No one mentioned what had happened with Gaius, and Juba had not been punished for the killing.

But when Gallia and I were alone together on the morning of our departure, I asked her quietly, “Have you been well?”

She seated herself on my traveling chest, considering my question. “I have healed,” she said. “And, of course, it is good to be free. There is no one who can give me orders now,” she said firmly. “Only Caesar.”

“And does Octavia pay you?”

She smiled. “More than Magister Verrius makes at the ludus. And I no longer have to sneak away at night to see him. We are married.”

I was shocked. “Since when?”

“Since the week Octavia gave me my freedom.” But she put a finger to her lips. “It would not go well for his teaching if Livia discovered this. Caesar respects him, but Livia….” Her blue eyes narrowed into slits. “She does not approve of freedwomen marrying born citizens. I will try to keep it from her as long as possible.”

“And will Magister Verrius come to Capri?”

“Of course. Who would spend the summer here if he could escape it?”

We left the crushing heat of Rome on the first of July, and it occurred to me that only a year ago Ptolemy had been alive. I thought of his dimpled smile, and the way his cheeks used to look like little apples when he laughed. But thinking about him only brought me pain, and I tried not to remember. Instead, I focused on the journey. It would be a long ride to the shore of Naples. We were setting out at night so that a formal send-off wouldn’t be necessary. This way, Octavian could leave without drawing attention to the fact that while the plebeians were suffering in the searing heat, the wealthy were escaping to their cool villas by the sea. Agrippa and Juba rode on horses ahead
of the Praetorian Guard, and the sleeping carriages that followed behind them bumped along the cobblestones. We were the only people using the actual road. Few horses were shod, and to save the unshod horses’ hooves, most carriages traveled on the grassy shoulder of the Appian Way.

Alexander and I shared a carriage with Marcellus and Julia. I watched with rising envy whenever Marcellus’s leg brushed against hers or he arranged a pillow behind her back. They played games with their eyes when they thought that no one was looking, and Julia smiled more than she ever did in Rome.