Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel (27 page)

“So you agree with their punishment?” I exclaimed.

“Of course not. But that’s what my uncle is thinking.” Marcellus passed the bet-maker his purse and said shrewdly, “The Greens. I hear they have purchased new horses.”

“That’s right. Twenty new stallions. All from Arabia.”

Alexander smiled, and I knew at once that he’d been the one to procure this information. “The Greens,” he said as well, and I gasped at the size of his purse. “I’ve been winning,” he explained. “So what are the Ludi Romani?”

“You haven’t heard about the Ludi?” Julia cried. “They’re only the biggest games on earth.”

“We had our own games,” I said tersely.

“Well, the Ludi Romani go on for fifteen days. Chariot races, gladiatorial events, theatrical performances….” She glanced uneasily at Juba. “Perhaps we won’t be going to those.”

“And you think your father will want to celebrate after an attempt to assassinate him?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s not a celebration,” Marcellus said. “It’s a tradition. Canceling the Ludi would be like canceling….” He searched for the right word.

“The month of June,” Julia said helpfully.

“Or deciding there will be no more Saturnalia. Besides, it keeps the people happy. All work is stopped on those days, and everyone comes with food and circus padding.”

Alexander wrinkled his nose. “What is that?”

Marcellus pointed to the bottom of the Circus, where men were
carrying thick mats made of rushes. “Their seats aren’t covered like ours.”

Trumpets blared, and as the announcer signaled the start of the race, the gates were raised and chariots thundered onto the tracks. Julia and Alexander yelled themselves hoarse with Marcellus, and I took out my book, opening to the sketches Vitruvius had given me of Octavian’s mausoleum. He wanted designs for inside the building, and, in all likelihood, nothing I produced would be used. But I was determined to surprise him. I would sketch such handsome designs that he would find them irresistible. Perhaps there were other architects he employed who were several decades older than I, but none of them had lived in Alexandria and seen what the Ptolemies had accomplished. None of them had studied in the Museion, or dedicated years to sketching the most beautiful marble caryatids and mosaics in the world. When I took out my ink and stylus, I noticed that Juba was watching me.

“Sketching a new Rome?” he asked.

“It’s a commission.”

“Really? So you are being paid?”

“No. I am doing it to be helpful.”

Juba smiled. “Such a charitable nature, and not even twelve. Soon you’ll be passing out bread with Octavia.”

“I noticed you thanking her this morning,” I retorted. “So you
did
appreciate the gift.”

He raised his brows. “Of course. It’s the only portrait I have of my father.”

I clenched my jaw, determined not to be goaded by him any longer, and for the rest of afternoon, I made sure he couldn’t see what I was drawing.

ON THE
seventh day without the dole, there were riots in the Subura. Although it came as no surprise to anyone but Octavia, the people began breaking into shops, stealing food from vendors in the streets, and setting fire to taverns that refused to defer charges. As we sat in the triclinium eating oysters and thrushes, listening to sweet tones played by a slave girl on the harp, the Subura tore at itself like a rabid wolf. The hungry masses devoured anything that crossed their path—chickens, dogs, even cats. On the eighth night, when a soldier interrupted our meal to announce that a pleb had given up the bowman from the theater, I caught the triumphant look in Octavian’s eyes.

“Reinstate the dole tomorrow,” he said. “Remind the people that I am paying for their grain with my own denarii, and tell them I have sold my statues to buy them food.”

The soldier smiled. “Certainly, Caesar.”

“And the criminal?” he asked, almost as though it were an afterthought.

“One of your slaves. A kitchen boy, I believe.”

Octavian grew very still. “Kitchen
boy
, or a man?”

“Sixteen.”

“And you are sure that it’s him?”

“He escaped from the Palatine three weeks ago, and the plebs seem very certain. Even if it wasn’t, he’s still a runaway.”

Agrippa rose angrily. “Well is it him, or isn’t it?”

“It is,” the soldier said with more confidence. Octavian’s decree that slaves could not purchase weapons hadn’t mattered. There would always be dealers willing to sell anything for the right price.

“Whip him through the streets,” Octavian said. “And tomorrow, crucify him next to the Forum.”

Octavia gasped, pressing her silk napkin delicately to her lips, only this time she didn’t protest.

“But how do they know the plebs aren’t lying, hoping he’ll bring back the dole?” I whispered.

Marcellus’s usually bright cheeks had grown pale. “It’s possible.”

“And if they tortured him,” Julia pointed out, “he might confess to anything.”

Octavian didn’t appear concerned. He reclined on his couch and continued making notes for his next speech in the Senate. But I couldn’t stop thinking of the kitchen boy who’d been condemned to death, and the next day, after our time on the Campus Martius, I persuaded Juba to allow us to go to the Forum.

“To see a dead man?” Julia complained as we made our way there. “What’s the purpose?”

“I want to know if it’s really him,” I said.

“And if it isn’t?”

“She just wants to know,” Marcellus said. “I’d like to know as well.”

“There will be no interfering with justice,” Juba warned darkly. He was speaking to all of us, but he looked at me when he said it.

“We understand,” Marcellus replied. “We just want to go and see.”

Julia sighed heavily, and we walked the remaining distance to the
Forum in silence, trailed by Juba and Gallia. When we arrived, there was no mistaking what was about to happen. Hundreds of Roman soldiers stood outside the Senate, shields at the ready and armed with swords. The red plumes of their helmets drooped in the sun, and I imagined how hot the men must be beneath their armor. But none of them moved. Only their eyes roamed the Forum, searching for possible rebels in the crowd.

“All of this, for an execution?” Alexander exclaimed.

“The rebel’s supporters might try to save him,” Marcellus explained. “Or at least give him an easy death.”

“Do you think that will happen?” Julia asked eagerly, glancing around the Forum.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Juba said curtly.

No one was allowed near the wooden cross, or the boy who would be bound to it. Juba led us to the steps of the Senate, where guards immediately cleared a space for distinguished witnesses. I felt a tightening in my stomach.

“Is it him?” Alexander whispered at my side.

The soldiers had whipped the kitchen boy through the streets, and his bare back was a bloodied mess. But even without shading my eyes from the sun, I could see that the slave had the same height and build as the masked bowman from the theater. “I don’t know. It might be.” I looked at Julia, who had purchased an
ofella
and was munching contentedly. “How can you bear to watch this and eat?” I demanded.

“It’s just an execution. Most are done at the Esquiline Gate. This is the only one I’ve seen in the Forum.”

“A rare treat,” Juba remarked.

“I wonder why more aren’t done near the Senate,” she said.

“Possibly because the Forum is a place of business, not torture,” he snapped.

She popped a last piece of
ofella
into her mouth. “You’re probably
right.” She turned to me. “My gods, just look at these people. All of this for a slave.”

It didn’t occur to her that we were part of
these people
, watching as the accused assassin’s wrists and ankles were bound to the cross with rope, and listening to his shrieks of pain as he was hoisted into the air. When I buried my face in Alexander’s shoulder, Juba remarked, “What’s the matter? I thought you wanted to see this.”

“I wanted to see if he was the bowman!”

“And?”

I nodded, unable to speak. He wouldn’t have heard me anyway. The boy’s screams were too loud, and as the cross was raised his body sank down on the
sedile
, a crude wooden seat that took the pressure from his wrists.

Finally, even Julia had had enough. “We should go,” she said. “I don’t want to see this anymore.”

Marcellus agreed. There was no sign of the Red Eagle. No indication that the kitchen boy’s death would be swift.

“Imagine if he had tried to assassinate our father,” Alexander reminded me quietly as we left. “We would want him dead.”

But Octavian wasn’t our father, and I couldn’t stop wondering what might have happened if I had simply held my tongue.

There was no more talk of the Red Eagle on the Palatine, but Octavian gave a special address to the Senate and requested a force of soldiers whose sole duty would be to protect him. The Senate agreed, assembling a professional body of men that Octavian called his Praetorian Guard. But after several weeks without any new acta posted in Rome, everyone began to wonder whether the Red Eagle might have gone into hiding.

“Why else would he be silent?” Julia asked on the way to the Ludi
Romani. The streets were swollen with people carrying circus padding to the amphitheater for the start of the Games, and our litter swayed dangerously as the bearers tried to avoid a collision.

“Perhaps he wants to distance himself from the kitchen boy,” I suggested, holding onto the wooden sides.

There was a sudden stop, and Julia jerked forward, steadying herself with her hand. “Be careful!” she screamed, tearing open the delicate curtains and swearing at the hapless bearers. When she’d twitched the curtains shut, she turned to me. “For three years now, the Red Eagle has appeared at the Ludi.”

I gasped. “In person?”

“No. He goes by night and posts acta on the Circus doors. Last year,” she whispered, “he freed the gladiators who were going to fight in the arena!”

“So you think that there should be an end to slavery?”

Julia looked at me with alarm. “Of course not! But imagine a man daring enough to free gladiators from their cells.” She sighed. “Spartacus was courageous. But the Red Eagle,” she whispered eagerly, “could be anyone. He might not even be a slave.”

I recalled Gallia’s meeting with Magister Verrius. Since then, I’d tried several times to speak with her about the Red Eagle, and every time, she’d dismissed me with a wave. “It would be dangerous to fall in love with a rebel,” I warned.

Julia laughed. “Plenty of women fall in love with gladiators, and most of the gladiators are criminals.” She opened the curtain and pointed to the merchants on the side of the road. “You see what they’re selling?”

“Ofellae?”

“No.” She made a face. “Look closer.”

“Are those—?” I clapped my hand over my mouth.

Julia giggled. The shopkeepers were selling statuettes of gladiators
with erect penises. “Everyone knows that women lust after them.” She let the curtain fall back into place. “Even Horatia has had one,” she confessed.