Cleopatra knelt before the body of her brother and prayed. Julius stood watching, knowing he could not bring himself to honor an enemy who had caused the death of some of his most loyal men. The boy’s eyes were sewn shut and his skin gleamed with sticky oils. Julius wanted to gag at the sight of the four jars around him, knowing what they contained. He could not understand the process, or the reverence that Cleopatra displayed. She too had been threatened by her brother’s army, but she honored him in death with rituals that would last almost two months before he was finally interred in his tomb.

In a rhythmic chant, Cleopatra prayed aloud in the language of her people, and Julius saw her eyes were clear and calm. He had not seen her weep since the day Ptolemy died and he knew he still could not understand her. Her army had returned from Syria to take their places around the royal palace, and there had already been incidents between the Romans and the desert-hardened warriors. Julius had been forced to have three of his men whipped for starting a drunken fracas in the city, leaving two men dead in their wake. Two more awaited punishment for using loaded dice with Cleopatra’s soldiers, relieving them of their weapons as well as all the silver in their pouches.

The waiting chafed on him, as the death rites wound through to their conclusion. Julius had thought the boy would be quickly in the ground, knowing what the summer’s heat could do, even to royal flesh. Instead, the days crept by with narcotic slowness and he was growing as restless as his men.

Octavian had made his feelings clear. He wanted to return to Rome and to the rewards they had all earned. Julius too could feel the city beckoning him over sea and land. He wanted to ride under the gates and into the forum once more. He had achieved every dream he had ever had as a boy. His enemies were dust and ashes, but still he waited.

He watched as Cleopatra began a new ritual, lighting clay pots of incense from a taper. Death was too close to life, in Alexandria. The people seemed to prepare for it all their lives and lived with the certainty of another existence. It made them fatalistic, but with a confidence that was as alien in its way as anything he had seen. Julius could not share it.

Cleopatra rose and bowed her head to the shrunken figure of Ptolemy. She took two steps backwards and knelt once more before rising.

“You are a patient man, Julius. I understand your people move faster than we over such things.”

“There is a dignity to death here,” he replied, searching for the right words.