Wake up!” But even such a lie wouldn’t open his eyes. Although Alexander began to weep, I was too numb to cry. Perhaps the Ptolemies had angered the gods. Perhaps Juba was correct, and we would all die by Fortune’s whims.
I smoothed my little brother’s hair from his brow, then opened his fingers so they could finally relax. “My little prince,” I whispered.
But my brother stood up from Ptolemy’s bed in a rage. “What have we done? Why are the gods punishing our family like this?”
“Shh!” I said sharply. “Give him some peace! He heard enough anger in life.”
Alexander sank to the bed and put his face in his hands. “Why?”
I didn’t have an answer.
When the news was sent to Octavian, the Macedonian slave returned to collect Ptolemy’s body for a burial at sea. But Alexander stood guard in front of the bed.
“Only murderers are buried at sea!” he cried.
“I’m sorry, Domine, but these are orders from Caesar himself.”
“Then tell him no!” my brother shouted.
Agrippa appeared, and the Macedonian shook his head. “They want to keep the body.”
Agrippa stared at my brother. “We have many days left at sea, and no embalming materials to keep his body fresh. Let your brother rest with Neptune, Alexander.”
While the Macedonian wrapped Ptolemy in the sheets of his bed, I strained to see his golden head one last time, and the little lips that had so often trembled in fear. He’d been a timid child, and my mother’s favorite after Caesarion. I should have looked after him better, I thought. He was too young to survive so much upheaval.
We followed the slave into the crisp morning air, then through the royal courtyard to the side of the ship. All the important members of Caesar’s retinue were gathered. A priest of Apollo said several words in prayer, and each face was solemn, even Octavian’s. I held on to Alexander’s arm to keep myself from collapsing on the deck. And when the Macedonian dropped the tiny body into the sea, my brother dashed to the railing. “Ptolemy!” he cried desperately. “Ptolemy!” Agrippa held him back.
“Take him to the courtyard,” he instructed. “Find him some food and good Chian wine.” Several men escorted my brother away, but I remained on the deck, letting my hair whip in the wind, too tired to push it away.
He hadn’t even been given a decent burial. The blood of Alexander the Great and Marc Antony had run through his veins, and he’d been tossed into the sea like a criminal. But what better fate lay ahead for Alexander and me? Octavian had said he would keep us alive, but if he’d lied to the Queen of Egypt about leaving for Rome in three days instead of eleven months, what would stop him from lying to us? He was never going to parade my mother through Rome. I knew now that Caesar had tried it with Arsinoë, and instead of cheering, the people had revolted. They were shocked by such treatment of a woman, and the sister of the Queen of Egypt, no less. My mother had never faced any future but imminent death, and if Octavian hadn’t fooled her into taking her own life, he would have found someone to kill her. And once his Triumph in Rome was finished, why should our future be any different?
I thought of the many terrible ways there were to die, and wondered if Ptolemy had escaped worse pain. I put my hand on the polished rail. With one jump, there would be no more tears, no more loneliness.
“I wouldn’t think it, Princess.”
My back tensed. I had thought everyone had left, but I spun around to face Juba. In his vermilion toga, he looked more regal than Octavian in his homemade tunics and broad-brimmed hats.
“Have you ever seen the body of a drowned man?” he asked. “It swells five, even six times its size, then turns black until the skin peels away.”
My knuckles grew white as I gripped the rail.
“Do you want to end up as a bloated corpse abandoned at sea?”
“Better than a corpse abandoned in Caesar’s prison!” But I turned from the railing and Juba got what he wished for. Alexander and I would be alive for Octavian’s Triumph.
CHAPTER FOUR
ROME
AS THE ship approached a harbor for the first time in weeks, Alexander and I rushed to the prow.
“Is this Rome?” I asked. There was no Museion gleaming in the afternoon light, and the villas that hugged the vast stretches of shore were plain,