Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [21]
The twins comforted their brother. Cleopatra Selene, the beautiful, black-haired daughter, looked back as she was led toward the doorway. Her eyes smoldered at Cleopatra.
“Who are you?” she asked, her tone sharp. “You are not our mother.”
Cleopatra was silent for a moment, though her daughter’s words felt as the sun had, searing and blistering. What did her daughter see?
“I am not well,” Cleopatra told her finally, her voice shaking. “Your mother is not well.”
“They say you betrayed our father,” Selene said.
“They lie!” Cleopatra shouted. Her sons cringed away from her, and she pushed herself back into her chair. She should not scream at this child. Her own child. “Who told you that?”
“They say that you killed a man in the mausoleum,” the daughter persisted, her eyes wide and scared but her tone harsh.
“Who says that?” Cleopatra asked again. “Tell me who.”
“Is it true?”
“You must not speak to your mother that way, Selene,” said a voice from the doorway. “It is not respectful. She is your queen.”
Cleopatra raised her head slowly.
There the monster stood, a slight blond man with unsettlingly pale gray eyes. He had not bothered to put on formal dress for the meeting.
Ptolemy ran to the conqueror, and Octavian scooped the child up into his arms. Cleopatra stood up, her muscles aching with the effort of remaining on her own side of the room. She must keep them safe. She must pretend she didn’t care.
Octavian put Ptolemy down and waved his hand at Cleopatra’s twins. They let themselves be led from the chamber, only Selene looking back.
“You betrayed us,” Selene said. “They say you betrayed our father, but you betrayed us.”
Then they were gone.
Octavian sat down disrespectfully in Cleopatra’s chair, leaving her standing. He appraised the queen, slowly looking her up and down. Discomfited, she sat on her couch. She would not be forced onto the bed.
“I thought you’d be beautiful,” he finally said, “given all the lives you’ve ruined.”
In spite of her pain, Cleopatra nearly laughed. Was this the conversation they’d have, here, now, after all that had come before? Did he think beauty mattered to her? And yet, even as she thought this, she wondered what she looked like. Was she no longer beautiful, even gilded and glittered, wrapped in diaphanous silks like a gift to the conquerors? No. She’d seen herself in the mirror. He was merely trying, in his small way, to wound her.
She was disgusted to realize he’d succeeded.
“Just as I thought you would be a man,” hissed Cleopatra. “It seems we are both disappointed.”
“You’ve dallied too long in the company of eunuchs and drunkards,” Octavian said. “It is no wonder you do not recognize a man when you see one. Your consort—”
“My husband,” Cleopatra corrected.
“My sister Octavia’s husband, Mark Antony, was a glutton. He never saw wine nor woman he didn’t sample. You were an exotic meal, nothing more. He tasted Cleopatra, and then he moved down the table, dipping his spoon in every other dish. You do not imagine your lover was faithful, do you? Not to Fulvia, not to Octavia, and certainly not to you.”
Cleopatra was not injured by this liar. Antony had had a queen at his disposal, ready to make love to him and counsel him on battle, all at once. They’d spent countless nights together, their bedchamber filled with soft silks and sea charts, Cleopatra plotting the routes of his ships even as he kissed her thighs. What need could he have had for other women when he was married to an equal? No. It was not true.
“What is it you want from me?” she asked Octavian. “I have nothing for you.”
“A friendly meeting,” the boy general said, and smiled an unfriendly smile.
In other days, she would have wooed him. Talked sweetly, extended her arms in graceful motions, sung and danced, shown him his importance. She’d done as much in the past and profited by it, with his adoptive father no less, smuggling herself into Julius Caesar’s chambers, wrapped in a carpet, then rolling