“I’m unarmed,” Juba said, holding out against hope.
Octavian’s smile only grew. “Oh, but you do have a weapon.” His arm still around his stepbrother’s shoulder, he turned him around so that he was squared up to the old man. Then the Imperator of Rome looked down at the Trident in his hands. “No need to blunt the points. Move his blood.”
Move his blood? Juba stared for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, with horror, the realization of what he was being asked to do washed over him. He knew with full certainty, just as he’d known he could knock over the cup of wine in Octavian’s office, that he could reach out, feel the flow of blood in his old friend’s body, and stop it: with the power of the Trident he could seize up the stream of life in the man’s veins and kill him. Juba could even see Quintus’ dead eyes, wide and frozen, in his mind. But he couldn’t really do it, could he? “But, brother, I—”
“Don’t tell me you’re tired. You’re rested. You said so yourself. Now. You can move wine and barrels of water. Move blood.”
Quintus suddenly looked like a caged beast, his eyes a mix of terror and confusion. His gaze at last met and locked on Juba’s, and the awareness that they each had a choice to make passed between them. Juba had to choose whether he would kill his old friend. Quintus had to choose whether he would reveal Juba’s secrets to Octavian.
The slave smiled and began to pull air into his lungs. He opened his mouth as if to speak.
Before he could change his mind, Juba closed his eyes and tried to push the face of his old friend out of his thoughts. Then—forcing himself to keep down the heaving of his stomach, to keep in the tears of his eyes—he raised the gleaming Trident, held tight to the two snakes, and felt the metal beneath his flesh grow warm.
Speed, he thought. Do it quickly. For his friendship. For his silence.
6
CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER
ALEXANDRIA, 32 BCE
Cleopatra Selene couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just that they were staying in the noisier old palace on Lochias while workers installed new statues at their home on the harbor island of Antirhodos that kept her awake. They’d moved back and forth between the royal palaces enough to make each feel as much like home as the other. No, it was the feeling that she was being left out that she didn’t like. She knew there was a big meeting in the council chambers, not far away. She’d heard her mother talking about it in the square that afternoon: a messenger, news from Rome.
Rome. Lying in bed, the eight-year-old mouthed the word into the darkness, holding the sound of it out, like a long, slow exhalation. Rome.
In her dreams it was a golden place, more opulent than even fair Alexandria. Its streets shone in the light of a kinder sun. Its people laughed in their many-colored clothes: happy, peaceful, content. For what else could the peoples of the world aspire to be than citizens of Rome? Did not her own father want more than anything to return to Rome, his home? Was that not what his fight was about? He often told her and her brothers that most Romans were loyal to his cause. Most Romans would love them. It was only a scant few—wicked men, like Octavian—who denied the true spirit of Rome, the spirit of the great Julius Caesar, which survived in her stepbrother, Caesarion.
What news had the messenger brought? Her mother had said her father feared the worst. Probably something to do with Octavian, then. Most bad news seemed to be tied to him.
War, perhaps. Selene knew all the servants expected it would come to that eventually. She overheard them talking about it when they didn’t know she was listening or didn’t care—how, they thought, could a girl understand? It was a lot like the attitudes of those the servants served, who gave little thought to the submissive men and women pouring their drinks as they discussed the fates of nations. Selene had seen it often enough to feel certain that she’d be more careful when she was queen.
The messenger must have brought news that Octavian had declared war, she decided. They were probably debating what to do about it even now. Maps were being drawn up. Plans were being made. Tempers were flaring, and faces were getting red.
Selene rolled over in her sheets. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t be there. Just because she was a girl didn’t mean she couldn’t understand things. Couldn’t they look at her mother and see that?
Not that her twin brother, Helios, would be there, either. But at least he was getting extra lessons with their teacher, Didymus, meeting for tutoring sessions after she’d gone to bed. That wasn’t fair, either.
Selene looked toward the darkness outside the window, wondering what time it was. Not too late, certainly. Perhaps Helios and Didymus were still in session.
She swung her legs out of the bed and pushed on her sandals. There was a thin haze of sand dust on the stone floor, and her feet made little shush-shush noises when she stood.
Selene cringed, listening hard to hear whether or not her movements had awoken one of the chamber servants. When she heard nothing but snoring, she stepped back out of the sandals and set her bare feet on the floor. It was cold, but it was quiet. Then, pulling a shift over her head, she started to tiptoe across the room, toward the hall and the greater palace beyond.
There were normally at least two guards that she could see from the door to her chambers, but peeking out into the lamp-lit hallway, Selene saw none. Apparently, most had been pulled away to the council chambers. The fact that even the guards—the guards!—knew more about what was happening did not do much to improve her mood, but she was glad, at least, that it would make moving through the complex easier.
Her brother’s chambers were just down the hall, so Selene didn’t have far to go. She padded between the pools of flickering light, checked for guards around the one corner she had to turn, and quickly reached her brother’s door. Leaning against the wood, she listened and heard the steady voice of Didymus.
She’d hoped she could just listen to the lesson from outside. Over the years she’d listened in on many conversations through closed palace doors, after all. But their voices were more muted than most. And there was the chance, too, that a guard would actually show up, and he’d undoubtedly send her back to bed with stern warnings and exasperated looks, and then she’d hear about it in the morning.
Selene’s little fingers pulled open the door as quietly as she could manage. It was dark inside, and she realized why it was she couldn’t hear them from out in the halclass="underline" they’d pulled thick curtains across the corner of her brother’s chambers that served as a study. Even this close, their voices were muted.
Selene shut the door, then tried to make her way closer in the black, trying to place her bare feet on quiet places. But it was too dark, and her foot hit a wooden staff that was leaning against the wall, sending it to the ground with a clatter. The curtain parted quickly, casting the light of a lit brazier across her, and the back-lit head of Didymus appeared.
“Selene,” he said. She could only see the silhouette of him, but his voice was only partly disapproving. “I think you’re supposed to be in bed, my lady.”
Selene’s twin brother pulled back on another of the curtains, peeking around their teacher. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” Selene said. She tried to look bashful and forlorn all at once. With care, she picked up the staff—it was the tutor’s walking staff, she could see now—and set it back against the wall. “I was in bed. I just … I couldn’t sleep is all.”
Didymus sighed, then he held the curtains open for her. “No sense leaving you there now,” the Greek said. “And no sense sending you back if you’re already sneaking about.”
Selene tried to contain her smile and to ignore her brother’s scowl as she stepped past their tutor and into the little study area. The brazier was in the middle of the space, and there were a few scrolls half-rolled on a table against the wall. Didymus sat back down on a chair and motioned for Selene to take another on the opposite side of the brazier. The three of them, she noticed, made a sort of triangle around the brass tripod, so each of them could see the other’s face.