Cleopatra had loved her freedom, loved walking among her people, walking with Antony. They’d spent countless evenings that way, strolling the city, watching the swifts at play in the darkening sky, the queen uncrowned, her hair done in the style of a commoner, and Antony without his armor, his face smudged with dirt, an anonymous Roman soldier. Invisible, or so they fancied themselves. They joked and threw dice, sang in the bars, danced amid the people of Alexandria, with no guards, no gold, nothing but the two of them and the breath between them.

Antony stopped in the midst of a dance one night. His face glowed with love for her, and she drew her cloak over their shoulders and led him from the festivities, out into the street and into an alley. They made love in the half dark, her back pressed against the wall, and she cried with sheer pleasure. This man, king of all she held dear.

Nothing could take him from her, she’d thought then, feeling herself ecstatically in charge of her destiny, powerful, certain. So human, and so foolish.

Now the freedom she’d taken for granted was gone. The palace walls contained her, and worse than that, the stranger lived inside her, thirsting, all claws and teeth, all hunger. She knew she’d lost things that could not be regained.

The palace physician brought her prescriptions, ground herbs in his mortar, smeared honey on her skin. She could not tell him what was wrong. She held her breath and clenched her jaw as he came near.

“I cannot eat,” she told him.

“Drink, then,” he said, offering her pomegranate juice and muttering magic words.

She thrilled momentarily at the color, the deep red, and then laughed bitterly.

“I cannot drink,” she said, but she could cry. Tears ran from her eyes as hunger racked her body. The muscles in her back felt like blades. Her ribs grew prominent.

Outside the palace, her conqueror held a special audience, forgiving the citizens of Alexandria for crimes committed against Rome during the war. Debtors were received in grace. He’d win her people while she still lived, convince them that it was better to be ruled by a Roman than by a queen. That was his goal.

They chained her, six guards straining to keep her from breaking free, and Octavian visited her again, demanding an accounting of her treasures.

What treasures had she left?

“My children,” she said.

He sighed. “And what would you have me do with your children?” he asked. “Shall they fend for themselves?”

She had not expected him to negotiate. She stumbled, unprepared, then came upon a solution. “Send them to their brother, Caesarion. Only then will I tell you what I possess.”

She’d kill him as soon as she knew her children had left the city. He’d come for this final accounting of Alexandria’s gold, and she would lean in, close, closer.

He looked at her, his face smooth, his eyes untroubled.

“I am a family man,” he said again. “I’ll consider it.”