Chapter Eighteen #2
“Let me savour it a moment.” The rain was such a precious thing; even though we weren’t in Egypt, I wanted to enjoy it.
It was not long before I was drenched, my hair and garments laden with rainwater.
Caesar called to me from beneath the awning, his expression heavy with disapproval, though Antonius watched me in wonder.
“Mama!” Caesarion ran to me, laughing, and I picked him up and twirled him around in the puddles.
There was a splash next to me and I turned to find Antonius standing in a puddle of his own. He tilted his head to the storm-darkened sky, then looked at me. I raised a questioning brow to him.
“I wanted to feel what you felt,” he replied.
When the rain shower passed, Caesar came to me, wrapping his arms around me to bring me warmth.
“I will wet your clothes,” I protested.
“It is a small price to pay to be close to you,” he said, giving me one of his rare smiles.
Antonius’s love came to be like the sun: passionate and intense. Caesar’s was always like the rain, exhilarating and pure.
And as if I were a flower in bloom, both sustained me.
—
I knew the day that Caesar would die. It was not intuition, but my brother’s gift that warned me.
I had heard some of what was occurring in the senate through Caesar. To his enemies he had shown too much mercy—Brutus and Cassius had long since been pardoned for their part in the Battle of Pharsalus, and were left to sow dissent.
Their whispers had increased in volume, creating a divide between those who thought Caesar had too much power and those who believed he did not have enough.
I was used to court hearsay; I knew its melody intimately. I knew, too, how easily it could become a war song.
But we were both blind to the severity of it.
It was just after dawn and Ptolemy and I were seated in the courtyard of Caesar’s estate, enjoying a warm cup of fresh goat’s milk.
Caesar strode towards me from the stables, where his horse was saddled and ready to leave. “I’ll return after noon,” Caesar said, bending down to kiss me. Our lips touched briefly. Too briefly for it to be the last time.
Caesarion appeared bleary-eyed in the doorway behind us, Charmion in his wake. He smiled when he saw Caesar in his purple robes. He’d asked more than once to have some made for him and Caesar had promised, “One day.”
But that day would not come.
“Papa,” he said, tottering across the courtyard to his father with his arms extended.
Caesar stooped low and pressed his hand on Caesarion’s heart. “My son, I’ll return to you soon.”
As Caesar mounted his horse, Ptolemy gasped beside me. I turned to him.
“What is it?”
My brother’s eyes were glazed, his mind absent entirely.
“Ptolemy?”
When he didn’t respond, I threw my cup of milk across his face, hoping to rouse him from his stupor.
He blinked the milk away from his eyes, coming to. I had seen this expression only rarely on my brother’s face and it filled me with dread.
Beware the Ides of March.
But there was no soothsayer who prophesised Caesar’s death—only my brother. Like mine, Caesar’s myth has burgeoned over time. Though that is where the similarities end—he was the martyred hero. And I, the siren who ensnared him.
I gripped Ptolemy’s wrist. “Who?” I asked him, my heart pounding in my throat. Bah-dum, bah-dum, bah-dum. A battle drum against the Fates.
Ptolemy turned to me, the milk on his face stark against the flush that rose in his cheeks. “Caesar.”
My fear turned to anger. I hated my brother in that moment. “Why do you speak such horror?” I snapped.
“My god Anubis,” Ptolemy said miserably. “He has confirmed it.”
I shook my head, refusing to believe him. Not wanting to believe him. After all, he had been wrong before when Theos had died.
But Theos did not die that day, he merely sank, my thoughts argued back.
I turned to where I had last seen Caesar. Dust and debris were yet to settle from the cantering of his horse. I began to run.
I knew he would not hear me, but I called to him anyway. “Julius! Come back!”
He was a speck on the horizon.
What was I to say if he did turn around? Would I have been able to stop him going to the senate? I think not. But still the guilt of that day has burrowed deep and has become as much a part of me as the ventricles in my heart.
I only stopped running when I reached the gates of his estate. Caesarion, thinking it a game, came laughing from behind me.
“Mama?” His glee turned to concern. “Why are you crying?”
I picked him up, though he protested, and pressed my wet cheek to his.
“I hoped to catch up to your father.”
“Why?” The curiosity of children can never be matched.
I smoothed a curl from Caesarion’s forehead and made the decision to deny Ptolemy’s prophecy. To accept it was to despair and that would only frighten Caesarion. “I miss your father, that is all.”
And I would never stop missing him.
Skip Notes
* Fulvia’s ambition was great enough to capture Plutarch’s attention—one of the few women who did—for it was he who said of her intentions that she “wished to rule a ruler and command a commander.” Though I imagine that, like me, she simply wished to rule, and command. We have never needed men.