Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght (20 page)

Octavian looked imploringly at his sister as she sat digesting his words.

“If it’s true Antony no longer loves Queen Cleopatra, perhaps we might become fond of each other…in time.”

Though she did not wish to admit it, even she had occasion in the past to feel the charm of the charismatic Roman general. His heroism and handsome face could win the heart of any woman, and she was after all human.

“I can see by your expression you grow more pleased by my idea.” Octavian smiled and the tense lines of his shoulders seemed to relax.

“It’s true that any woman would be pleased to have Lord Antony for a husband,” she replied demurely. “Only...as long as he truly does not harbor any attachment to Queen Cleopatra?”

“Have no fear,” reassured Octavian. “Her eastern magic is no proof against Roman decency.”

But an unwelcome new thought arose in her mind and her cheeks burned. How could she ever hope to please a man such as Antony, who had romped in the bed of the most exotic and erotically sophisticated woman in the world? And even if she could fulfill him, he was famous for his voracious sensual appetite.

What would he expect from her?

Still, she forced herself from constant habit to look at the bright side. She might soon be with child and then he would leave her in peace. A sweet baby to love and care for would be a great joy.

“What must I do to prepare?” she asked.

“We’ll leave almost immediately for Brundisium.” said Octavian. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the temple of Apollo and make the necessary sacrifices and the day after set sail.”

“So soon?”

Octavian glanced towards his silent legionnaire, Agrippa, and caught his eye for a moment. “If we are to avoid another civil war, time is of the essence, my dear.”

“I understand,” she replied, her head spinning.

“Very well. You may go now,” said her brother.

Her hand was on the door, when Octavian touched her elbow.

She turned to look at him. He seemed almost nervous, shifting his eyes away from hers as he spoke. “Octavia...I know you did not wish to marry. You are so pure and refined. Perhaps the life of a temple virgin would have suited you better…this marriage may have its difficult moments, but know that you are serving Rome and your act will not be forgotten.” His expression was almost pleading.

Had she just made a terrible mistake?

Octavia nodded. “Yes brother.”

She bowed her head and her skirt whispered against the floor as she passed out of the room.

After the door closed behind Octavia, and the men felt certain she was out of earshot, Agrippa, who had stood quietly by, his great tree trunk arms crossed over his leather breastplate, spoke up.

“Caesar, forgive me, but surely you realize Antony has
not
forgotten Cleopatra and perhaps never will. Once a man is poisoned with that witch, he never gets her out of his blood again. Why even Julius Caesar himself–”

“That’s enough, Agrippa.” Octavian’s pale eyes glittering dangerously. “Do you think I’m a fool?”

“No, Caesar, I only thought if this marriage takes place and then afterwards if Antony cannot get Cleopatra out of his heart, he will return to her and Octavia will be disgraced. Rome will have no choice but to declare war on Antony and the East.”

“You are an astute man. That’s why I favor you with so many titles and honors,” observed Octavian coolly.

“But, but...surely you wouldn’t use your own sister as a pawn to defame Antony?”

“She is ready to serve Rome, just as we all are,” snapped Octavian. “When one is above the rest of the world certain sacrifices must be made.” He smoothed the map with his palms, straightening the corners to make them even with the table. “I know my sister will not regret her choice to be a part of creating the glory of Rome.”

Agrippa’s cheeks had turned purple and he lunged forward into Octavian’s face. “Is it Rome's glory you seek, or your own, Octavian?”

Slowly Octavian lifted his head to look the giant of a man dead in the eye. “You will address me as
Caesar
.”

“No! Caesar would not have been capable of this!”

“Indeed?” Octavian toyed with the model warships resting on the map. “Perhaps that’s why he was never crowned Emperor. Tell me, Agrippa, would you rather be the friend of the Emperor, or his sworn enemy? The Gemonian Steps run bloody with the traitors I have crucified. Is it your desire to join them?”

The legionnaire glowered at Octavian for a moment, balling his great paws into white-knuckled fists, then looked down at his feet. “I did not mean to question your loyalty to Rome...Caesar.”

“It will serve you well to remember that. I won’t be this tolerant again. It’s only because I know you spoke out of sincere affection for my family that I choose to disregard your outburst. You are dismissed.”

Stuffing down his rage, Agrippa hastily struck his heart with his fist and marched from the room. The door closed with a loud thud behind him.

Octavian stood still for a moment, every muscle in his body tensed with pent up anger. Was there no other way to accomplish his plan? His quick brain fired, spinning one scenario after another, but no other scheme would ensnare Antony so perfectly.

He regarded the map with its territories clearly marked out. Not all of them belonged to Rome.

Yet.

His eyes fell on Alexandria. The jewel of the Mediterranean. Gateway to the endless riches of Egypt. Such a rare prize could not be passed over merely for the sake of family sentiment. But even more pressing, he could not endure Cleopatra wielding such great power. Power almost to rival that of Rome’s. A woman who dared to set herself equal to the kings of all the other lands in the world simply could no longer be tolerated in the empire he was methodically constructing. Nothing, not even Octavia, could stand in the way of destroying Cleopatra and the throne of Egypt.

He stood decisively and rang for his steward.

The servant came swiftly, his eyes cast nervously to the floor.

“See that my things are packed. We leave tomorrow for Brundisium,” ordered Octavian.

“Yes Caesar,” the old steward bowed and beat a hasty retreat.

Octavian paced restlessly towards the table where his map stood. He noticed his sister’s handkerchief which she had left behind on the wooden bench. Stooping to pick it up, he held the fine linen in his palm. It reminded him of a dove, so soft and purely white. A stab of guilt tightened his chest, but he quickly balled up the handkerchief and shoved it in the drawer of his cabinet.

She would get over it. After all, he could not keep Octavia sheltered in innocence forever. Rome would not become as great as he knew it could be if he allowed his love for her to stop him from accomplishing his plans. With a will like cold steel he shut the drawer firmly and locked it.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

***

Crisp sea air prickled Octavia’s cheeks as she and her brother disembarked on the beach which lay shadowed by low volcanic hills and the towering acropolis of Mount Cumae. Her trunks had barely been packed before they set sail for their appointment with Antony, but before journeying across the Tyrrhenian Sea, they traveled down the coast to this remote Greek colony.

She hung back, but Octavian firmly took her arm and led her forward across the beach.

“Come dear, you have nothing to fear in this place. In truth, I have a rather pleasant villa with a fine view of the sea where you can rest.”

“That sounds very nice.” She gave him a searching glance. “I was only wondering why we have stopped here on our way to Brundisium?”

Octavian’s face stretched into a thin smile. “The sooner you

have betrothed yourself to Antony the sooner you will be over your anxieties, is that it?”

She nodded.

“Well, I suppose I don’t mind telling you I have a special reason for coming here. Perhaps you do not know that Cumae is home to a most important temple of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis.” He pointed towards the towering acropolis. “You can see it from here.”

Winding stairs hewn into the rock of the mountain led up to a sharp cliff where she could just make out the pillars of a temple hanging in a veil of silvered sunlit clouds. “I can well believe the Gods would dwell in a house so near the vault of heaven.”

“Indeed,” muttered Octavian scanning the mountaintop with his pale eyes. “We will, of course, visit the temple and make the necessary sacrifices. But that temple is not my true purpose in coming here.” He dropped his voice to keep out of earshot of the legionary guards who flanked them. “At the base of the acropolis lies a grotto. The Antrum of the Sibyl. There, in the darkness, lives a priestess of Apollo. She speaks his oracles in verse when the God wills her too. There have been Sibyls here since time immemorial, divining their mysteries from within the cave, reciting the fortunes of the rise and fall of great kings and lands not yet discovered.”

“Are these the same oracles in the book of prophesies you have secured on the Palatine Hill?”

Octavian arched a brow. “Yes, they are. I’m surprised you are aware of them.”

Octavia looked down, pretending to avoid the low seaside brambles which caught at her skirts. Her brother would be even more surprised, and certainly displeased, to know the unfair rumors which circulated through Rome pertaining to the Sibylic Prophesies. It was said that Octavian had snatched away over two thousand such scrolls and burned them, claiming his belief that many of the prophesies floating around were not true Sibylic word but the forgeries of traitors. He had consolidated all the prophesies he deemed to be genuine, or to his liking, into his own book and locked it away in his fortress.

Octavia had never been privileged to read the Sibylline Oracles, but she had heard many wild tales of prophesies come true and believed, as most Romans did, in the power of these mysterious priestesses to divine the future.

She gently touched her brother’s elbow. “Octavian, do you think I might go see the priestess? It would relieve me of my silly fears about this betrothal to know what the future holds.”

Octavian’s face went still for a moment before he looked away. “Such things are not for women.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that the Sibyl herself was a woman. But instead, she swallowed her disappointment and said no more as they started up the first winding steps leading to the twin Gods’ temple in the sky.

***

Perhaps she had become lightheaded from the thin mountain air. Or maybe it was the defiant stance of the Virgin Goddess, her bow at the ready, restless hounds braying at her feet, but a rebellious idea was beginning to take hold of Octavia. She had climbed the road to heaven and accompanied her brother to the shrine of Apollo, making the necessary sacrifices to the God, then retired alone to the adjoining temple of Artemis to pray for the blessing of children in her marriage.

A flock of orphean fluttered around the vaulted ceiling as Octavia entered the airy sunlit temple. White marble bas-reliefs of fierce Amazons gleamed from the colonnade of Ionic columns as she passed by, row after row, making her way towards the Goddess.

As she knelt before the altar, something of the Virgin’s independent spirit was transmitted to her, and she became possessed by a need to see the Sibyl herself and know her own fate. She could not marry Antony unless she was certain it was the right decision. No matter how much she wanted to please Octavian.

Her heart fluttered in her breast as she removed a silver bangle from her wrist and placed it on the altar before Artemis next to a skein of woven thread and a small bouquet of lavender and rosemary bound in ribbons which had been left by previous supplicants.

Octavia turned her eyes up to the Virgin Huntress and prayed. “Goddess, lend me a bit of your courage tonight and help me discover the answers I seek.”

She sat back on her heels and let out a long breath, trying her best not to think of what Octavian would do to her if he discovered her plan.

***

As the new moon rose crisp and clear in the autumn sky, Octavia did something she had never dared before in all her seventeen years. Tripping over her words, she lied to Octavian, her servants and even her trusted duana. Her brother, luckily, had been too preoccupied with his own plans to notice, but Crescentia had stared her straight in the eye, as if she were still small and fibbing about how many honeyed dates she'd eaten, until the blood rushed to Octavia’s cheeks and she snapped an uncharacteristic order for the old nurse to leave her at once.

Wrapped in her duana’s purloined cloak, Octavia slipped out of her bedroom window. Her sandals touched ground in a dark meadow filled with the scent of wild flowers. Stuffing her mane of golden hair under the hood of her cloak, she kept her face down so that no late travelers might recognize the illustrious Octavia sneaking around in the night.

As she tripped across the meadow and found a path to the sea, she felt as giddy as a child. It was thrilling, almost intoxicating, to be out in the night alone like this with the briny scent of the ocean and the whisper of midnight winds fanning her cheeks until they tingled.