Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel Read Free Page A

Perhaps he’ll want to see Julius’s son on the throne.”
    “But where do you think Caesarion is now?”
    I knew she was picturing Caesarion, with his broad shoulders and striking smile. “In Berenice with his tutor, waiting for a ship to take him to India,” she said hopefully. After the Battle of Actium, my eldest brother had escaped, and the princess Iotapa, who had been promised in marriage to Alexander, had fled back to Media. We were like leaves being blown about by the wind. My mother saw the look on my face, and took off her necklace of pink sea pearls. “This has always brought me protection, Selene. Now I want it to protect you.” She placed it over my head, and its golden pendant with small onyx gems felt cold against my chest. Then her back stiffened against the wooden couch. “What is that?”
    I held my breath, and above the crashing waves I could hear men pounding on the door below us.
    “Is it he?” my mother cried, and I followed the silk hem of her gown to the bottom of the stairs. Alexander was in front of the door, and his face was gray.
    “No, it’s Father,” Alexander said. But he held out his hands before she could come closer. “He tried to kill himself, Mother. He’s dying!”
    “Antony!” my mother screamed, and she pressed her face against the metal grille in the door. “Antony, what have you done?” Alexander and I couldn’t hear what our father was saying. Our mother was shaking her head. “No,” she said, “I can’t…. If I open this door, any one of your soldiers could seize us for ransom.”
    “Please!”
Alexander cried. “He’s dying!”
    “But if she opens the door—” Charmion began.
    “Then use the window!” I exclaimed.
    My mother had already thought of it. She was rushing up the stairs, and the five of us followed swiftly at her heels. The mausoleum wasn’t complete—no one could have predicted it would be needed so soon. Workmen’s equipment had been left behind, and my mother shouted, “Alexander, the rope!”
    She flung open the lattice shutters of the window overlooking the Temple of Isis. Below, waves crashed against the eastern casements. I can’t say how long it took for my mother to do the unthinkable. Of course, she had Alexander and Iras to help. But as soon as our father’s bloodied litter on the ground below was fastened to the rope, she lifted him two stories and moved him onto the floor of the mausoleum.
    I stood with my back pressed against the marble wall. The happy sound of the gulls outside had faded, and there were no more waves, or soldiers, or servants. Nothing existed but my father, and the place where he had pushed his own sword between his ribs. I could hear Alexander’s ragged breathing, but I couldn’t see him. I only saw my mother’s hands, which came away bloodied from my father’s tunic.
    “Antony,” she was crying.
“Antony!”
She pressed her cheek to my father’s chest. “Do you know what Octavian promised after the Battleof Actium? That if I had you killed, he would let me keep my throne. But I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it!” She was becoming hysterical. “And now … what have you done?”
    His eyelids fluttered. I had never seen my father in pain. He was Dionysus, larger than life, bigger than any man who stood next to him, faster, stronger, with a louder laugh and a wider smile. But his tanned good looks had gone pale, and his hair was wet with perspiration. He looked unfamiliar without his Greek robes and crown of ivy, like a mortal Roman soldier struggling to speak. “They said you were dead.”
    “Because I told them to. So you would
flee
, not kill yourself. Antony, it’s not over.” But the light in his eyes was growing dim.
    “Where are my sun and moon?” he whispered.
    Alexander led me forward. I don’t think I could have crossed the chamber without his help.
    My father’s eyes fell on me. “Selene….” He took several deep breaths. “Selene, will you bring your father some