Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght (23 page)

Antony stood paralyzed for a moment. She was his wife. His wife who had married him of her own free will. And she was asking him to take her.

His eyes roamed hungrily over her naked body, the damask rose flush of her cheeks and breasts, probably from shame but still becoming, her long supple legs, the promise of her secret untouched flesh open and exposed to him.

Antony unwound the elaborate wedding toga from his wide shoulders, flinging it impatiently to the ground. He sat on the bed next to Octavia and traced the curve of her slim hips up along her torso to her high little breasts. He cupped her flesh in his hands, groaning with desire at the softness of her white skin.

Her breath caught, but she was looking away and he couldn’t tell if her response was excitement or fear. But she did not try to stop him.

He lay down next to her, pulling her waist against his throbbing body and buried his head in her neck, into her soft lavender scented hair. He let his hand travel down between her legs and for the first time touched the virgin flesh no man had ever known before. He couldn’t believe how aroused the feel of her damp tender skin beneath his fingers made him.

“Open your legs wider,” he whispered his command.

Still not looking at him, Octavia obeyed and he slid his fingers inside her, feeling the tightness of her.

“Please, my lord, please take me,” whispered Octavia.

He didn’t need her to ask. He was already pushing up onto his elbows, his hard body forced against her white thighs.

“Look at me, Octavia.”

But she kept her face averted, eyes pressed tightly closed.

“Octavia, I want to look into your eyes when we truly become husband and wife. Look at me,” he ordered.

She bit her lip and jerked her head up to look at him.

Fear, shame and determination all flashed in her eyes just as his body thrust forward, tearing through the virgin barrier of her tender flesh.

Tiny drops of blood spattered across the white sheets as he feverishly took her. His tension was mounting too quickly. He tried to hold back, but before he could stop himself, he exploded inside her in an agonizing rush of horror.

Staggering as a thunderclap, the spell that had bewitched him smashed like the shattered glass of a mirror as the truth suddenly roared into his consciousness. The dreamlike quality replaced now with piercing reality.

The face of his true love, his only love, rose up before him.

Cleopatra
.

He gasped, turning away from the young woman who still lay beneath his spent body. “What have I done? Dear Gods, forgive me!” he whispered hoarsely into the empty air of his chamber.

Apparently relaxed, now that it was all over, Octavia tentatively put her arms around Antony. “My lord, there is nothing to forgive. You have only done your duty,” she whispered from the darkness and shyly kissed his cheek.

***

As the last sliver of the waning moon climbed across the heavens over Antony's silent villa, Octavia rose from their bed and went in search of her husband. He had slipped from their chamber soon after the consummation and never returned. She walked through the foreign shadows of the sleeping house, her new home, searching tentatively through the rooms, until she turned into the atrium. A faint sound came from the darkness that sent shivers through her.

She froze in the gloomy atrium, not daring to breathe as the sound, that she could not quite make out, rose and fell from the kitchens in the back of the house. At first it sounded like laughter. But as she took courage and drew closer, Octavia realized it was something else entirely.

With her heart fluttering in her chest, she turned the corner and peered into the kitchen. Antony sat hunched over by the hearth, a jug of wine sloppily spilling down his tunic as he sobbed into his hands.

She stood paralyzed in the doorway. Heavy drinking had never been permitted on the Palatine Hill, and extreme displays of emotion were looked down upon, but the sincerity of Antony’s misery wrung her heart.

Gathering her courage, Octavia moved from behind the shadowed doorway and came to kneel by his side.

Antony looked up, his wild eyes swollen and bloodshot. “What’s the secret name of God?” He raked at his knees with claw-like fingers until livid welts rose up under his nails. “I can’t remember!”

Confused, she opened her mouth to speak. But there was such dreadful longing, such misery in her husband’s eyes she could not think of how to answer.

Antony stared at her for a moment, his gaze blurred and unfocussed. But then recognition sparked and he seemed to realize who he was speaking to. “Forgive me, Octavia. I’m a fool. I’ve ruined you.” He tore at his hair, tugging it back from his face as sobs wracked his large frame.

“No, no you are…you have simply had too much wine!” Octavia rushed to reassure him. “Many men do, I imagine, on such occasions. Please don’t be unhappy. I’m your proud wife. I’m not ruined but honored by you.”

He clutched at her hands as the words poured out of him. A feverish sheen of desperation, like a trapped animal seeking release, kindled in his bloodshot eyes. “Octavia, you’re so good, so beautiful. Many men would be willing to marry you still. We can say the marriage was never consummated, blame everything on me! Say I was unkind or was not man enough to perform my marital duty––anything you want. I’ll give you my villa and riches and servants. You shouldn’t be bound by my foolish mistake.”

Octavia shook her head, her eyes wide with disbelief as she searched his face for clues to his madness. “But, my lord, we are married. Would…would you dishonor me so?” She could not keep the quiver out of her voice. “Am I so unpleasing to you?”

“No, no,” he gripped her hands tighter, almost crushing them. “Don’t you understand? It’s not you who’s unworthy, but me! I don’t want to drag you into my misery!”

She bit her lip as tears started in her eyes. “I don’t understand, but I beg you, don’t disgrace me by leaving me the day after our wedding…please. I will be a good wife to you, I swear it.”

He looked up at her with such despair she instinctively pulled her trembling hands from his grasp, but then remembering her vow to Artemis, with quiet resolve she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her wet cheek to his heart.

After a moment he patted her shoulder and murmured. “I won’t disgrace you Octavia, if that’s your wish. The Gods know, I’ve done enough to hurt you already. You’re innocent of all blame…I am bound by your wishes.”

He rose unsteadily to his feet and pressed a filial kiss on her brow.

“Good night. I’ll do my best for you,” he promised solemnly before gathering his wine jug into his fist and staggering back through the darkness towards their chamber.

Octavia sat staring stupidly at the doorway for a long time.

All of this was her fault. She had not pleased him.

Rising mechanically, she walked outside to the kitchen garden and found the well. She must do better. She
would
do better and Antony would be happy, she vowed to herself as she pumped cold water from the well, splashing it on her face and wiping it clean.

The light of a chilling early winter morning began to brighten the sky, and a few crystal gray snowflakes floated in the air around her. Still dressed in only her thin tunic, she shivered in the cold. It was time she went inside to dress and prepare for her first day as mistress of her new home.

The
pronuba
arrived with her childhood toys, as was the custom the morning after the wedding. Distracted, Octavia looked through the beloved objects of her girlhood. A soft cloth doll with flaxen hair like her own, a spinning terracotta top with its paint faded and chipped from years of use.

The
pronuba
cocked her head giving Octavia a knowing smile. “Now that you are a woman, soon you will be having children of your own?”

Octavia tried to politely return the smile. “Yes, I have every hope of it.”

The older woman patted her cheek. “Good girl. You bring glory and hope to all of Rome.”

Octavia quickly bent over her box of old toys to hide the tears threatening to brim over.

***

Octavian was also astir as the gray light of dawn lit up the streets of Rome. He had risen early, as was his custom, to prepare for his day in the Senate. A strict morality law, punishing adultery most severely, was to be passed by the senators today and he wanted to have his speech prepared. After all, it was his duty to protect his sister’s interests, now that she was a wedded matron of Rome.

Iris sprang awake. The sea outside her window was smooth as glass in the dim light of the moon's last glow. She shivered as she pulled a mantle around her shoulders and lit a lamp resting on the small altar near her bedside. She did not relish rising so early, when the world was still bleak and cold, but in an hour the other courtiers would rise, making their pilgrimages to the temple to chant the morning prayers. Her day would be filled with lessons or serving her mistress. She needed this time alone and undisturbed to perform her divinations.

Ever since Antony's ship set sail anxiety had gnawed at her. She saw now, all too clearly, the folly of her hasty magic. Every time Cleopatra laid eyes on her, Iris’s heart skipped a beat. She knew better than most, the Queen of Heaven could read souls as clearly as the scholars in the great library read hieroglyphics. Iris could never hope to hide what was in her heart for long. It was only because Cleopatra was so preoccupied with her son she had not been discovered already.

But now that Caesarion was well…

The dread clenched her stomach into a tight knot. She must escape. But the idea of leaving court suddenly seemed unfathomable.

When she first conceived of her plan, Iris thought only that Antony would greet her in Rome and shelter her. Now that she had time to considered it, the idea seemed no more than a ridiculous dream––magic or no magic.

Besides, something had gone horribly wrong. She could feel it.

Iris raised a hand to her cheek where the mad raven had clawed her. The faint

tracks of raised skin beneath her fingertips still sent a shudder through her.

Apollodorus had warned her, time after time, not to dabble in enchantments.

Why hadn’t she listened?

If only she knew what took place in Rome. What Antony was doing. It was too soon to expect news, even from the swiftest couriers, but there were other ways to divine the knowledge she sought.

Iris unveiled a polished bronze mirror. Like all of her lovely possessions, it had been a gift from Cleopatra.

The inhabitants of Lochias were still asleep and the only sound was the faint murmur of the ocean outside the palace walls. She crept to the window with her mirror in hand and laid it on the floor. The last beams of moonlight fell on its reflective surface. She extinguished her lamp and the room fell into darkness around the mirror.

There were magical herbs she might take to bring on the visions she desired. But if she swallowed them now, she would not be herself at the temple this morning and the last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself. She would have to see how well she could do without their help.

Pulling a small silk bag from her chest, she knelt before the mirror. Nothing but the darkness of the room and the moonlight were reflected in it. She untied the sack and let the finest grains of sand, gathered from the sacred mound of Abydos where the God Osiris was buried, fall upon the mirror.

“Nephthys, Lady of Darkness, Thou who sees things beyond mortal sight, I pray Thee, show me Antony.”

A slight breeze sprang up from the predawn quiet outside her window and swept the sand into circular patterns around her mirror like ghostly fingers. Everything around her went deathly quiet as she waited in the vacuum of time.

Fearing the spell would break too soon, she forced her mind to grow as calm and still as the air around her, and with her eyes half shut, gazed upon the swirls of sand in the dark mirror.

At first she saw only the designs of the sand, but as her mind settled more deeply, and her vision began to blur and contort, she found herself staring into the midst of a Roman palace. It was the same vision as before. A young golden-haired woman waited under the shadow of Venus. She was dressed in the scarlet veil of a Roman bride. Beside her stood the imposing figure of Antony in his formal toga, his hand clasped in the young woman’s.

She focused more intensely. Had her spell truly worked? Was this her own wedding, yet to come?

But as Antony drew away the veil to reveal the girl's face, Iris realized, though it resembled hers very much, this face belonged to another.

She began to tremble from her core as comprehension suddenly flashed through her brain. She had never put her own name on the
shabti
doll used for the love spell. Any young woman who resembled the doll could serve to complete the enchantment.

Clutching her convulsing stomach, Iris pushed the mirror away and began to wretch as hot bile filled her throat.