Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel Read Free

fighting—”
    “He’s fled with your father!”
    When the doors thundered shut, Iras drew the metal bolt into place. Then, suddenly, there was silence. Only the crackling of the torches filled the chamber. Ptolemy began to cry.
    “Be quiet!” my mother snapped.
    I approached the bed and took Ptolemy in my arms. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I promised. “Look,” I added gently, “we’re all here.”
    “Where’s Father?” he cried.
    I stroked his arm. “He is coming.”
    But he knew I was lying, and his cries grew into high-pitched wails of terror. “Father,” he wailed. “Father!”
    My mother crossed the chamber to the bed and slapped his little face, startling him into silence. Her hand left an imprint on his tender cheek, and Ptolemy’s lip began to tremble. Before he could begin to cry again, Charmion took him from my arms.
    “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I tried to keep him quiet.”
    My mother climbed the marble staircase to the second story, and I joined Alexander on the bottom step. He shook his head at me. “You see what happens from being kind?” he said. “You should have slapped him.”
    “He’s a
child.”
    “And our mother is fighting for her crown. How do you think she feels, hearing him crying for Father?”
    I wrapped my arms around my knees and looked at the piles of timber. “She won’t really set fire to the mausoleum. She just wants tofrighten Octavian. They say his men haven’t been paid in a year. He needs her. He needs all of this.”
    But my brother didn’t say anything. He held the pair of dice in his hands, shaking them again and again.
    “Stop it,” I said irritably.
    “You should go to her.”
    I looked up the stairs to the second story, where my mother was sitting on a carved wooden couch. Her silk dress fluttered in the warm breeze, and she was staring out at the sea. “She’ll be angry.”
    “She’s never angry at you. You’re her
little moon.”
    While Alexander Helios had been named for the sun, I had been named for the moon. Although she always said her
little moon
could never do anything wrong, I hesitated.
    “You can’t let her sit there alone, Selene. She’s afraid.”
    I mounted the steps, but my mother didn’t turn. Clusters of pearls gleamed in her braids, while above them, the vulture crown pointed its beak to the sea as if it wished it could leap away and take flight. I joined her on the couch and saw what she was watching. The wide expanse of blue was dotted with hundreds of billowing sails. All of them were pointed toward the Harbor of Happy Returns. There was no battle. No resistance. A year ago our navy had suffered a terrible defeat at Actium, and now they had surrendered.
    “He’s a
boy,”
she said without looking at me. “If he thinks he can keep Antony’s half of Rome, then he’s a fool. There was no greater man than Julius, and the Romans left him dead on the Senate floor.”
    “I thought
Father
was Rome’s greatest man.”
    My mother turned. Her eyes were such a light brown as to be almost gold. “Julius loved power more than anything else. Your father loves only chariot races and wine.”
    “And you.”
    The edges of her lips turned down. “Yes.” She gazed back at the water. The fortunes of the Ptolemies had first been shaped by the sea when Alexander the Great had died. As the empire split, his cousin Ptolemy had sailed to Egypt and later made himself king. Now, this same sea was changing our fortunes again. “I have let Octavian know I am willing to negotiate. I even sent him my scepter, but he’s given me nothing in return. There will be no rebuilding Thebes.” Sixteen years before her birth, Thebes had been destroyed by Ptolemy IX when the city had rebelled. It had been her dream to restore it. “This will be my last day on Egypt’s throne.”
    The finality in her voice was frightening. “Then what do we have left to hope for?” I asked.
    “They say Octavian was raised by Julius’s sister.