Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel (41 page)

“What?” I asked guilelessly.

“Your talk of laying tiles. My uncle tends to keep people around him who are useful.”

“So you’ve said. And what about you?”

Around us, flutists played, and children sang songs to Liber Pater and his consort Libera, whose blessings would make them fertile once they were married. In Alexandria, we knew Liber Pater as Bacchus, though I had never seen so many garlanded phalluses even in Bacchus’s temple. Marcellus smiled conspiratorially at me, a flash of white teeth in a handsomely tanned face. “I’m his sister’s son. The heir and the spare”—he glanced at Tiberius—“remember?”

Tiberius leaned over my shoulder and said softly, “Be careful. Your secrets are making Julia jealous.”

I saw Marcellus tense, and when I looked behind me, Julia’s eyes were hard as stone. That evening in the triclinium, she wanted to know what we’d been whispering about.

“Who your father will make his heir,” I replied.

A harpist began to play, for wealthy patricians and their young wives had come to celebrate the heir and the spare’s coming-of-age. Julia moved closer to me on our dining couch. “And do you think my father suspects Marcellus?”

“He’s giving him the denarii to build a theater. How suspicious could he be?”

She nodded slowly. “So you weren’t talking about the Red Eagle?”

I sat back. “Why wouldn’t I tell you?”

“Maybe you think I’m not trustworthy anymore.”

“If Marcellus ever said anything to me, you’d be the first to know.”

She watched me suspiciously. “My father is a very good actor,” she said. “I’ve seen him lie to Livia as if his words were pure as gold.”

“I’m not lying,” I swore. “I would tell you if I heard anything. Haven’t you asked Marcellus yourself?”

“Of course. He always denies it.”

“Well, Marcellus never confides in me,” I said glumly. “He talks to Alexander.”

This settled her a little. “Just because my father was being generous today doesn’t mean he isn’t suspicious,” she admitted, toying with her food. I had seen Julia lose her appetite only once before. “Do you know what they call understudies on the stage?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Shadows. And if my father has even the slightest suspicion that Marcellus isn’t shadowing him, that will be the end. I will marry Tiberius, whether he’s my stepbrother or not, and Marcellus will disappear.” I realized she wasn’t angry with me so much as she was angry with herself, and her eyes gleamed with tears.

“Perhaps he isn’t the Red Eagle,” I said hopefully.

But Julia simply looked toward her father and didn’t reply.

In the hour before dawn, shouting echoed in the atrium, then the sound of hobnailed boots filled the halls. For a moment, I was in Egypt again, huddled with my brothers on my mother’s bed on the day of her death.

“Alexander!” I pushed away my covers.

He jumped up. As we rushed to put on our cloaks, I could hear Marcellus’s raised voice in the hall. Alexander flung open the door. Octavia, Vitruvius, Marcellus, and his sisters were standing in a circle outside Marcellus’s chamber, watching the soldiers move in and out of the room. When Marcellus saw us, his face lost its color.

Agrippa was there. “We found him at the Circus,” he said. “In the
fornices.”

Octavia covered her mouth with her hand.

“It’s not what you think!” Marcellus protested.

“So then what were you doing?” Octavian emerged from Marcellus’s chamber, and his look was violent. “Not writing acta, I hope.”

Marcellus stepped back. “Is that what this is about? You think I’m the Red Eagle?” I could see he wanted to laugh, and might have if the accusation hadn’t been so serious. “Because I leave at night to visit a few
lupae
, you think I’m a traitor?”

Octavia shrieked, “You were visiting dirty
lupae?”

Vitruvius put a calming hand on her arm. “Every boy has been there.”

“Not the heir of Rome!” Octavian shouted.

Juba appeared from Marcellus’s chamber, wiping his hands on his tunic.

“What did you find?” Octavian demanded.

“Just a few lewd paintings.”

“I told you!” Marcellus cried. “You’ve seen my work in the ludus. Do you think I could really be responsible for the acta? I don’t have the patience!”

Octavian considered this. “Perhaps you are too secure in the belief that you will be my heir. Remember, Marcellus, I loved Fidelius as well,” he said, reminding him of the young soldier he had killed outside the walls of Rome. Then he turned to his sister. “Keep a better watch on your child.”

The halls emptied of soldiers, and when Octavian’s men were gone, Marcellus moved toward his mother.

“I don’t want to see you!” she cried, pushing him away.

“But it’s not what you think. Mother, just listen!” He leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her step back and look at him anew. “Please don’t tell Octavian,” he begged.

“Everyone back to your rooms,” Octavia ordered. “Go to sleep.”

But the vestibulum was suddenly filled with a woman’s cries for help, and everyone froze.

“It’s Gallia,” Marcellus said, recognizing her voice. “I’ll bet they’ve taken Magister Verrius!” He glared at his mother. “I guess any blond on the Palatine will do.”

Gallia burst into the hall, looking as if she had run all the way from her house at the bottom of the Palatine. In a weeping tirade, she confirmed Marcellus’s fears. “What has he done? Was it something he taught?”

“No,” Marcellus said angrily. “There’s information that the Red Eagle looks like a Gaul, but they haven’t found him yet. So now anyone with light hair is suspect.”

Gallia looked to Octavia.

“It’s true,” she said quietly. “My brother was here searching Marcellus’s chamber.”

She gasped. “His
own nephew?”

Octavia raised her chin. “No one is above suspicion.”

Gallia put her head in her hands. Even that night at Gaius’s villa she hadn’t wept. But the sobs that racked her body made everyone turn away. Her own pain hadn’t been enough to break her, but now that it was Magister Verrius….

Octavia put her arm around Gallia’s shoulders and told Vitruvius to fetch some blankets. We followed her through the hall into the library. There would be no ludus in the morning, and there was no use telling us to go to sleep. A slave arrived to light the brazier, and we sat together around the fire, drinking warm wine and huddling in our cloaks. Marcellus looked the worse for his night.

“He’s probably been taken to the Carcer,” Octavia guessed. “They’ll search his rooms, and when they don’t find anything to suggest he’s a traitor, they’ll set him free.” But she hesitated. “He isn’t a traitor, is he?”

Gallia put down her cup more loudly than she probably intended. “I have lived with him for nearly a year. I think I would know if he was the Red Eagle!”

Octavia nodded. “Then once they’re finished going through his scrolls—”

“So let them read! I hope they enjoy Simonides and Homer!”

The fire crackled in the brazier, and an uneasy silence settled over the library. Vitruvius returned with blankets and warm
ofellae
, but no one felt much like eating.

As dawn broke over the sky, doing its best to lighten the leaden clouds, little Tonia put her head in her mother’s lap. “It’s time for ludus,” she said. “Why aren’t they going?”

“Because there’s not going to be any ludus today. Antonia, take your sister back to your chamber.”

Although I would certainly have argued with my own mother, Antonia rose quietly and did as she was told. The ensuing stillness in the room felt crushing.

“Did you hear about the theater?” Octavia asked to fill the silence.

Vitruvius nodded. “Caesar has approved of Selene’s help,” he said quietly. “I look forward to seeing her ideas.”

The conversation lapsed into silence, and just as my eyes were becoming too heavy to keep open, a shadow darkened the doorway.

“Verrius!” Gallia cried. She rushed from her seat and threw her arms around his neck, searching his face for signs of torture.

“He wasn’t there long,” Juba assured her. “The soldiers searched his rooms and didn’t find anything.”

“Of course they didn’t!” Gallia said harshly. “What did they do to you?” she asked tenderly.

“Nothing. Juba arrived to get me out before they could even put me in chains.”

Tears dampened Gallia’s cheeks. “Thank you, Juba—”

“So nothing was found tonight,” Octavia cut in angrily. “Not here, not in the ludus, and not in Magister Verrius’s home.”

Juba’s gaze did not waver. “Those were my orders.”

“And what have you been
ordered
to do next?” she demanded.

“Inform you that Octavian is resigning from office.”

27—26 BC

BY THE
next day, there was no one in Rome who hadn’t heard the news. Thousands of people flocked to the Senate, where Octavian had promised to relinquish his powers and resign his office in its entirety. Soldiers kept peace in the courtyard outside, where the men looked solemn and a few hysterical women were beating their chests. We stood around the open doors of the Senate, where a space had been cleared for us, and I heard Octavia say, “Make way!”

Vitruvius appeared with a young man at his side, and for a terrible moment I wondered if he had taken a new apprentice.

“Alexander, Selene. My son Lucius,” he said.

Lucius gave me a dazzling smile. He was shorter than my brother, but, like Octavian, he had small heels on his bright golden sandals. When I extended my hand, his kiss lingered. “So you are the one who is bearing my burden,” he said gratefully. “Without you, I would be chained to ink drawings and cement.”

I laughed. “It’s a pleasant burden,” I told him.

“Well, with someone as pretty as you watching over them, the builders must be begging for more work.”

Marcellus laughed at this empty flattery, but Lucius just turned his attention to my brother. “Alexander—”

“There he is,” Marcellus interrupted, pointing through the open doors into the Senate. “He’s taken the podium!”

Octavian was dressed in a plain white toga, and nothing on his person gave any indication that he was Caesar. He was flanked by Juba and Agrippa, and behind them stood the Praetorian Guard. Although Alexander and Lucius were whispering, everyone else in the courtyard was silent.

I had asked Julia whether her father was doing this because of the Red Eagle, but she’d only laughed. “There’s nothing he does without planning it first. He’s probably considered this for months. Years.”

“Then you don’t think he plans on giving up his power?”

Julia had given me a wearied look. “No,” she’d said with practiced cynicism. “He would only be doing this if he thought it would increase it.”

I didn’t see how resigning his office would make Octavian more powerful than he already was. But as he rose to speak, the senators began to revolt. They shouted for him to remain, citing the civil wars that had ripped Rome apart before he had taken power and swearing that this would happen again if he refused. Men pumped their fists in the air, cursing like sailors from Ostia. But Octavian raised his arms and the room fell silent.