Alexander’s skin and armor had been layered in gold leaf. As Julius watched, clouds moved above and sunlight poured in from an opening. Only Julius’s shadow remained dark and he wondered in awe at the glory of it.

“My image is on you, Alexander,” he whispered, committing every aspect of the moment to memory. The eyes were sunken and the nose little more than a hole, but Julius could see the bones and gold flesh like stone, and guess at how the Greek must have looked in life. It was not an old face.

At first he had thought it wrong to have Alexander treated as one of the gods of Egypt. There, however, in that temple, it seemed an appropriate honor. Julius glanced around him, but the entrances were blocked by the solid backs of his soldiers. He was alone.

“I wonder what you would say to me,” he murmured in Greek. “I wonder whether you would approve of a brash Roman standing in your city.”

He thought of Alexander’s children and the fact that none of them had survived to adulthood. The Greek king’s firstborn son had been strangled at fourteen. Julius shook his head, looking into the distances of mortality. It was impossible not to contemplate his own death in such a place. Would another man stand over him three hundred years after he was dead? Better to be ashes. Without sons, everything he had achieved would slip away. His daughter could not command the respect of the Senate and, like Alexander’s, her son might never be allowed to survive. Julius frowned in irritation. He had named Octavian as his heir, but he could not be certain the younger man had the skill to navigate the treacheries of Rome. In truth, he could not believe anyone else had the gift to build on his achievement. He had come so far, but unless he lived to begin a male line, it would not be enough.

In the distance, he could hear the din of the city. In the silence of the temple, his age bore down heavily on him.

Ptolemy’s body lay in state in a room lined with gold. Images of Horus and Osiris were everywhere as he began the death path. His cold flesh had been washed and purified and then his left side had been split open and his organs removed. There was no judgment waiting for royalty. When the rituals ended, Ptolemy would take his place with the gods, as an equal.

When Julius was brought to see the boy king, he found the air heavy and hot. Curls of sweet smoke lifted lazily from the red hearts of enormous braziers. Ptolemy’s body had been packed with salt natron to dry the flesh, and the bitter tang mingled with the fumes made Julius dizzy. Alexander’s tomb had been cold in comparison, but better suited to the realities of death.