No. She would not think of Antony.

The soldier came closer still, looking at her, his face open as a child’s. He reached out a hand.

The other boy swallowed nervously.

“We’re not to converse with the prisoner,” he reminded his companion. “She’s clever, this one. She snared Mark Antony, wrapped her legs around his waist and took him to her bed. You saw what happened at Actium. She deserted him and fled with her own ships, leaving him to die. And what did he do? He left his men and followed her back here. It was no wonder he killed himself.”

Cleopatra bit her lip to keep from screaming at him. He was wrong. Everyone was wrong.

“I only want to touch her,” stammered the first soldier. “Just to see what a queen feels like.”

Cleopatra laughed her most seductive laugh, but from afar, she watched herself, horrified by her own actions. What was she trying to do? Surely not.

“Free my wrists,” she cooed. “And see if the stories you’ve heard are true.”

He bent closer, closer still. She felt her lips parting, as she inhaled the smell of his skin.

“She’s supposed to be beautiful, but she doesn’t look beautiful to me,” the other soldier complained.

Her wrists were free. She spread her hands and readied herself. The boy’s pale throat was inches from her mouth. His sweet smell was in her nostrils. She pressed her fingers against his chest and leaned toward the glorious, pulsing vein in his neck.

At that moment, the other soldier drew the curtain back, and the newborn sun came in, a blinding rise as it broke over the horizon.

“There,” he said. “Now we’ll get a look at her.”

But the queen was cringing away from the burning light, stunned by what she had almost done. She threw her body into the shadows and turned her face to the wall. Her hands trembled, and with effort, she forced her muscles to be still. She was salivating, and her tongue felt rough, like that of a cat.

“Leave me,” she said, and when they hesitated, she screamed the words again. “LEAVE ME!”

They left, disgruntled. Changeable things, women. One moment ready for love, the next for war, and men never knew which was coming. They muttered their way down the corridor, their long bodies banging against the tapestries, the smell of their histories fading.

The queen drew a breath. The danger was over.

In the window, a bird appeared, and before Cleopatra knew what she was doing, her hand had snatched it from the sunrise, its hollow bones shattering in her grasp. The softness of its feathers. The throb of its racing heart. It still lived.

She would not —

She could not —

She sobbed as she drank the swallow’s blood.

10

The tutor stood outside the entrance to the palaces, cursing himself. He could stay in Alexandria no longer. He’d miss the royal children. The girl was bright, a fiery thing. The boy, her twin, was dull in comparison, always wanting to play at battle, while his sister read in seven languages. In the employment of the queen, Nicolaus had set about training the children into scholars, though only the girl took to books. Now it was all for nothing. The city was taken, and no matter what had truly happened, he would be considered an enemy of the state.