The Princess of Egypt Must Die (8 page)

They showed contempt for everything they touched. They smashed my father’s statues with glee. On the steps of the Temple of Isis, one of the soldiers even lifted the leather flaps of his military skirt to piss while his comrades cheered him on. If they dared all this within the royal enclosure, I shuddered to think what they might be doing in the city itself.

Helios and I watched, memorizing each outrage, taking a private accounting. But when Roman soldiers dragged an Isiac priestess out of the temple, tearing her clothes and passing her from man to man, I couldn’t watch anymore.

Instead, I rifled through the papyri my mother had left behind. In all these loose sheets and pots of ink, maybe there was a note for us or a magic spell I could learn. Yet my mother had been the greatest magician in all Egypt. Now she was dead and her kingdom in the hands of her enemy, so what good was magic anyway?

I’d sorted the papers into three piles when Helios grabbed a torch from the wall. I watched him cross the room to where my mother kept the model ship he’d given her as a gift. Helios had always loved ships; he’d made this one with his own hands. I remember how he’d worked the wood, paying meticulous attention to detail, learning from our father how each part worked. Helios was very proud of that ship.

Now he set it aflame.

I rushed to him in a panic. “What are you doing?”

The toy was already on fire, its papyrus sail blackening, shriveling away to nothing. “I’d rather burn it than let the Romans take it. We should burn all of it. Everything.”

When Helios started to thrust the torch toward the netting on the bed, I shrieked, grabbing his arm. “Stop it!” I started to cry again; I couldn’t help it. I’d brought my mother death in a basket, yet she’d called me the Resurrection. I wept. “It’s the Romans who burn everything. Not us.”

Helios stared at me as smoke rose between us. Whether it was my tears or my words that reached him, I couldn’t be sure, but he rubbed the ashes of his destroyed boat between his fingers before snuffing out the torch.

A few moments later, as if awakened by our argument, Philadelphus bolted upright. His eyes were wide and his auburn curls plastered to his forehead with sweat as he said, “He’s coming.”

My twin jerked his head toward our littlest brother. “Who?”

“A man from the sea,” Philadelphus said.

Helios squinted at the lighthouse-illuminated harbor as if he’d missed some special ship.

“What man from the sea?” I asked. “Philadelphus, did you have a nightmare?”

If he answered me, I didn’t hear over the crash of the door being kicked open. The carved cedar edge splintered as it smashed against the wall and the brass handle bent with the force. The bang thundered throughout my mother’s chamber and through the hall beyond.

Philadelphus skittered behind me for protection while Helios held his unlit torch like a club to ward off the barrel-chested Roman who stood in the doorway wearing a carved Roman helmet with a general’s crest. The stranger also wore the familiar armor of a Roman soldier, but the weathered lines of his face made him even more intimidating. When he spoke, it was in accented Greek. “So, you’re the bastard whelps of Antony?”

Helios gasped. “How dare you?”

With one mighty swing of his fist, the Roman struck Helios on the side of the head, knocking him to the floor and sending his torch skimming across the marble. Rough hands had never been laid upon us, and now I was more angry than frightened. “By what right do you strike my brother?” I demanded to know. “He’s King Alexander Helios of Armenia, Media, and Parthia. Have you no respect for kings?”

“Rome has little respect for kings,” the Roman answered. “And I respect them even less.”

By now, Helios had scrambled to his feet. The beaded belt of his tunic was askew and his golden vulture amulet swung wildly. Where the stranger had struck him, his face, neck and ear were red, but he schooled his fair features to a royal demeanor nonetheless. “It was my father, a triumvir of Rome, who made me a king.”

“He had no right,” the stranger replied. “Your so-called kingdom Parthia isn’t even yet conquered. We should send you there and see if you can hold it, you treacherous boy.”

Helios glared. “What treachery do you speak of, Octavian?”

“
Octavian?”
The man laughed deep from his belly. “Did you think
he
would stoop to question the children of
that woman
? I’m Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.”

I knew this name. Agrippa had defeated my father at the naval battle of Actium and was Rome’s most able fighter. Philadelphus must have recognized Agrippa’s name too, for he tightened his grip on my skirt until I thought it would tear. Meanwhile, Agrippa folded his meaty arms, stepping closer to Helios. “Besides, when you meet your new master, you’ll address him not as Octavian but as
Caesar
.”

Helios said what my mother would have. “Octavian has no right to the name Caesar. My brother, the Most Divine, King Ptolemy Caesarion, is Julius Caesar’s only son.”

“Boy,” Agrippa began, “you’re in no position to talk of rights or quibble about titles. Caesar promised your mother that he’d torture and kill you if she took her own life. It’ll only be Caesar’s clemency that saves you now, so I suggest you call him whatever he likes.”

“I’ll use his title if he uses mine,” Helios replied, his hubris owing as much to our upbringing as to the fact he was still a boy. He was rewarded for that hubris with a slap that brought blood to his mouth. Helios swung back at the giant but missed. Then Agrippa grabbed Helios by his golden hair and seemed ready to beat him in earnest.

“Please don’t hurt my brother!” Philadelphus cried.

I had to do something, but what? “Lord Agrippa!” I shouted. Though my hands trembled, I clutched the amulet my mother had given me and adopted my most adult voice. “You’ve introduced yourself. Permit me to do the same. I’m Cleopatra Selene, Queen of Cyrenaica.”

“Girl, I didn’t address you.” The Roman clenched his fist, ready to strike Helios.

I hid my shaking hands. “Nonetheless, you’re a guest in our royal palace, and I insist that you behave like one.”

Agrippa peered at me from beneath the crest of his helmet then released Helios with a shove. “How old are you?”

“Nearly eleven,” I said.

“You don’t speak like a child.”

“I speak like a queen.” Or so I hoped. “How can We help you, Lord Agrippa?”

I had used the royal
We
and the brute of a man seemed disarmed. “You can tell me how your mother managed to cheat Rome of seeing her dragged through the streets in chains. We know you were with her before she died. Who helped her?”

I did
, I thought, and my knees went weak with fear.

Several Roman guards crowded near the doorway. They didn’t enter but seemed to pay close attention to what was said behind their veneer of professional disinterest. But I didn’t answer Agrippa’s question. I
couldn’t
answer.

As if to coax me, Agrippa said, “Caesar allowed your father an honorable burial and Queen Cleopatra promised not to kill herself. She broke her bargain. So who helped her? How did she do it? Was it poison?”

My heart thumped dully in my chest but I tried not to react. Philadelphus peeked at me, but I dared not meet his eyes. Helios and I stood like statues, a conspiracy of silence between us.

Agrippa removed his polished helmet, tucking it under one arm. Its gleam reflected a distorted image of my silent green eyes back at me. “We already have Euphronius in custody. It was the old warlock that brought her poison, wasn’t it?”

I envisioned our frail old wizard chained in the jail, and I shuddered. Still, if they were questioning us about Euphronius’s guilt, they must doubt it. So we still said nothing.

A light breeze rustled the netting over my mother’s bed.

A soldier coughed in the hall.

An oil lamp flickered.

“Don’t you want to prove your worth to Caesar now?” Agrippa asked. “Your mother’s deception does her no honor.”

But the fact she’d deceived the enemy inspired me. With my eyes, I motioned toward the cosmetics on my mother’s dressing table. “My mother wouldn’t need Euphronius to bring poison to her. We keep it everywhere.”

Agrippa glanced over at the colorful glass bottles then back at us, horrified. Motioning to a soldiers behind him, he said, “Get rid of that. Dump it in the Nile and let the Egyptians drink Cleopatra’s venom.”

The soldiers collected each harmless vial as if it contained a monster that might be unleashed with the cork. Their fear and loathing of poisons, potions, and magic was evident to me even then. If only I’d known how to use it against them. “So, your mother
did
die of poison?” Agrippa pressed.

I wasn’t sure why it was important how my mother died, but the fact the Romans wanted to know meant that they shouldn’t find out. I resolved to give nothing away, but Helios said, “She died by snakebite, which made her immortal. You can’t hurt her now.”

I wanted desperately to throttle him. Throughout our childhood, my twin’s compulsive truth telling had gotten me in trouble, but now the stakes were so much higher. What would the Romans do to me if they found out that I’d delivered the snake to her concealed in a basket of figs?

Perhaps Agrippa sensed my fear. “Girl, is this true? Did Euphronius bring Cleopatra a serpent?”

“My mother always had serpents with her,” I said, and prayed my brothers wouldn’t contradict me. “Three cobras adorn her headdress. My mother made them come to life whenever she wished. She said it would bring her to my father. Euphronius is only our tutor—he knows all the tongues, even the holy ones—but he’s not a snake handler or a poisoner.”

I said the last in Latin, because it seemed very important that the Roman understand me, and Agrippa blinked in surprise. Had he expected us to be unschooled barbarians? I was the daughter of a Roman triumvir; I spoke Greek, Latin, and many other languages.

“So, your story is that Cleopatra made a snake magically appear from her headdress and used it to end her life?”

“Yes,” I said with conviction.

After all, Egypt was famed for snake magic. My mother had been a powerful magician and I’d seen her turn staves into snakes for our amusement. But when it came time to die, she’d had me bring her the serpent. If the Romans found that out, would they kill me too?

“It would have taken two cobras to kill her and her handmaidens together . . .” Agrippa’s face seemed unbearably close to my own. His Roman breath was like vinegar.

“
It was two, then,” I said, remembering the coiling motion in the basket. Perhaps there had been two. Perhaps the snakes had been lovers, or siblings or
twins
. I dared not look at mine.

Agrippa sneered at me. “When I have the old warlock crucified and he screams a different tale, do you think I won’t return to make an end to your miserable, spoiled little lives?”

I felt dizzy because I knew crucifixion was a terrible death that the Romans used to prolong suffering. “Please don’t hurt Euphronius. He is just an old man!”

“He’s a magician and a priest of Isis,” Agrippa growled. “The Isiac priesthood is nothing but a den of witches, warlocks, and whores. Curse the day a soldier like Antony fell into their clutches.” At the mention of my father, Agrippa’s features twisted with sadness and regret. It took him a moment to recover, and when he did, he changed the subject entirely. “Where is Caesarion?”

At last, Helios and I exchanged glances. This question was unexpected and we both knew what it meant. If the Romans didn’t know where Caesarion was, my oldest brother had escaped, after all. My heart soared with hope.

“The King of Egypt is in exile,” Helios said.

“In exile where?” Agrippa asked.

“
We don’t know where,” I replied. For that much was true. But wherever he was, Caesarion would raise an army to rescue us. Men would rally to him in the name of his dead father, Julius Caesar—the
real
Caesar.

Agrippa seemed to know it. “Is Caesarion still here in Alexandria? Will you tell me or will I have to burn down every house in the city to find him?”

The way Agrippa’s face was lined with rage convinced us he was willing to do just that, so I said, “We don’t know where he is. My mother wouldn’t tell us.” And I tried not to betray my smugness. Julius Caesar had been invincible in battle, falling only to the knives of treasonous assassins. Would not the gods shine on his son? Caesarion would save us!

Agrippa growled. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll see you crucified, royalty or no. Your mother’s last wish was for an honorable funeral and to be interred beside your father. For reasons that escape me, my lord has granted her request. Were it up to me, I’d dump her body in the Nile for the crocodiles and you children along with her.”