Cleopatra’s Daughter: A Novel by Michelle Moran

quickly. But I knew that he wasn’t. He was smiling, and Gallia nodded at him.
    “You look very handsome, Domine.”
    I turned. “Handsome? You look like you’re wearing a bedsheet. How will you walk? It’s ridiculous.” I spoke in Parthian, but Alexander replied in Latin.
    “It’s a
toga praetexta
. And,” he added indignantly, “it’s what Marcellus is wearing.” A red stripe ran along its border, but the material wasn’t nearly as beautiful as that of my tunic. Just then he noticed my red sandals, and whistled. “A Roman princess.” I glared at him, but he ignored my anger. “So nothing for your eyes, then?”
    “We want to remind Rome that she is a girl,” Gallia repeated, “not a woman in some dirty
lupanar.”
    “That will do,” Octavia said sternly, and I imagined that a
lupanar
was a place where women sold their sexual favors.
    But Gallia only smiled. “He asked.”
    I went to Alexander and touched the golden disc at his throat. “So we really are Romans now,” I said darkly. My brother avoided my gaze. Then Marcellus appeared behind him, smiling in a way that made me forget we were prisoners masquerading as citizens. His freshly washed hair curled at the nape of his neck, and the color contrasted with the darkness of his skin.
    “You’re a goddess in emerald, Selene. This must be the work of Gallia. She could stop Apollo in his chariot, if she wanted.”
    “Very pretty, Domine.”
    Octavia looked from my brother to me. “Are they ready?”
    Gallia nodded. “They are as Roman now as Romulus himself.”
    Alexander risked a glance at me. We followed Gallia through the halls and out to the portico, where Octavia’s youngest daughters sat patiently in the shade. I couldn’t recall ever sitting patiently anywhere as a child, but these children were all sweetness and gold.
Like their mother
, I thought, and stopped myself from thinking of my own mother lying cold in her sarcophagus next to my father.
    As we followed the cobbled road to Caesar’s villa, Gallia explained, “When we reach the triclinium, a slave will ask you to take off your sandals.”
    “To wash our feet?” Alexander asked.
    “Yes. And then you’ll enter the chamber. A
nomenclator
will announce your arrival, and all of us will be taken to our assigned couches.”
    “Romans eat on couches?” I asked.
    “Don’t Egyptians?”
    “No. We eat at tables. With chairs and stools.”
    “Oh, there will be tables,” Gallia said easily. “But not stools, and chairs are only for old men.”
    “But then how do we eat?” Alexander worried.
    “While reclining.” Gallia saw our expressions and explained, “There will be a dozen tables with couches around them. Caesar’s couch is always at the back, and the place of honor is opposite the empty side of his table. Whoever sits there at Caesar’s right is his most important guest.”
    “Which tonight,” Octavia predicted, “will be the both of you.”
    “But we don’t know what to do!” I exclaimed.
    “Oh, it’s nothing,” Marcellus promised. “Just recline on your left elbow, then eat with your right hand. And if they serve the Trojan pig,” he warned mischievously, “don’t eat it.”
    “Marcellus!” Octavia said sharply.
    “It’s true! Remember Pollio’s dinner party?”
    “Pollio is a freedman without the sense to cook a chicken,” Octavia pronounced, and turned to us. “Here you may eat whatever is served.”
    Behind her, Marcellus shook his head in warning, making the gesture of throwing up with his hands. Alexander snickered, and I suppressed a smile. But when we reached the wide bronze doors of Octavian’s villa, I pressed my nails into my palms. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, scolding me to relax my hands.
    “This is it,” Alexander said nervously. I took his arm, and as we crossed the threshold into the vestibulum, I was shocked by the room’s simplicity. There were no cedar tables inlaid with gems, or lavish chambers hung with