and the pair of us wept together. “It was the will of Isis,” I told him, which only made him weep harder.
“But why?”
“I don’t know. Only she knows.” When our tears were spent, I looked at Lucius, and I was sure he had aged ten years in those three months. “There’s a reason you weren’t killed,” I said. “The gods are saving you for something great. You have a patron.”
“But what does it mean without Alexander?”
What did anything mean? I let him walk me out into the sunshine, and I felt angry with the world, with the sun for still daring to shine when my life was so dark.
Although everyone expected I would rejoin Octavia’s meals in the triclinium, I remained shut away in the library, sketching additions to Alexander’s mausoleum and the shrine I wished to purchase for him in the Forum.
One afternoon Julia came to the library with a letter. She could see that I was working on something for Alexander, but she interrupted me anyway and said, “You should see this.”
She offered me the scroll and I read, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” They were Plato’s words. I looked up at her.
“For you,” she said quietly.
“From whom?”
“Me.” When I was silent she continued, “We will find whoever did this, Selene.” But her words died away at my look.
“It’s been four months,” I reminded her harshly.
“I know. But my father won’t be emperor forever. And when I become empress, I swear to you, there won’t be a plebian in Rome who doesn’t remember Alexander. But you can’t go on living this way,” she pleaded, “afraid of being happy, afraid of the light.”
“It makes me happy to be in the dark,” I told her.
But Julia gave me a disbelieving look. “You go to his mausoleum every day. What do you do?”
“I plan. I work!”
“And how much more work can there be?”
“Plenty. I want to build a shrine.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “And then what?”
“Maybe a statue,” I said, giving back her scroll. “Possibly a bust.”
“And where does it end? What will you do? Spend until your treasury is gone?” She was shaking her head. “It’s too much, Selene. You have to live. When my father returns—”
“Then I’ll be forced to live. Only I won’t have to worry about being separated from Alexander, because he’s already gone!”
Her lower lip trembled, and she pushed Plato’s words toward me. “I’m sorry,” she said, though for what I wasn’t sure.
I watched her leave, then summoned two of the guards to take me to the Appian Way. As we walked down the Palatine, Juba saw me and stepped forward.
“What?” I demanded. “Are you here to kill me as well?”
“I hope you’re joking.” He glanced uneasily at my guards.
“Augustus saved my brother like a bull for the slaughter, so why shouldn’t I be next? And who better to do the job than you?”
I turned to leave, and he whispered something to the light-haired guard. The man nodded gravely, and, as we left, I didn’t bother asking him what had been said. But when we reached the mausoleum and I saw what had been done, I spun around.
“Who did this?” I gasped.
The light-haired guard replied, “Juba.”
Next to the sarcophagus, in the only light of the chamber, stood the most magnificent statue of Alexander that any sculptor could have crafted. He was sculpted in marble, with eyes painted brown and hair that clustered in perfect ringlets around his diadem. I went to the statue and touched his face, his nose, his lips, his chin. It was as though he were alive, and nothing I could ever have commissioned would have equaled what this artist had done.
I approached the light-haired guard and asked him, “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “We helped him bring it here.”
Deep humility and regret silenced me, and the dark-haired guard whispered kindly, “There are many men who will miss your brother. You are not alone.”
“Then you don’t think Juba killed him?” I whispered.
The men exchanged looks. “Princess, why would he kill a man he was helping to support?”
When I didn’t understand, the dark one explained. “Who do you think has been putting all that gold in your treasury since you’ve been here?”
“Octavia.”
Both guards made a face, and the light-haired one said, “Maybe she gave you a couch and food, but it was Juba’s denarii in the Temple of Saturn. We should know. We counted the coins.”