Free Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley

provisions aloud in the Senate, drumming up support for the war. If Antony was so loyal to Egypt that he wanted his soul laid to rest there, what would prevent him from other loyalties? What if Cleopatra desired more from him? What if she wanted Rome for her own plaything?
    Octavian had found himself in frantic pursuit, bewilderingly unable to let Antony depart into Cleopatra’s bed.
    Now, though, Octavian wondered whether his pursuit had been legitimate. Antony had died for Cleopatra. Perhaps he had wedded himself to Egypt for love, and not for ambition at all.
    Octavian coughed, inhaling dust from some corner of the palace. He wanted nothing so much as to leave this wretched country. He’d put someone else in charge of Egypt. Some lower general. There was a list in his mind already, of suitable men who were owed reward. Some reward, this mosquito-ridden hell. Octavian felt infuriated that he’d been forced into this war by arrogance, by Antony’s disobeying the rules of Rome. The man could have been discreet about his love affair. He should never have divorced Octavia. He’d provoked Octavian, and he deserved what he got.
    He stomped down the hallway, relishing the sound of his steps. Let her wail there in her chamber. Let her refuse to eat, even though it was obvious she was hungry. He did not care. She’d destroyed Antony, and now she destroyed herself, and none of it mattered to the soon-to-be emperor of Rome.
    None of it mattered in the least.

9
    T he soldiers pressed meat into Cleopatra’s mouth as though she were a fattening fowl, and then left her, still chained. She vomited again and again, her maid tending her, bathing her face and throat with cool water.
    Hours passed, and with each of them, Cleopatra’s fury grew stronger. Her wrists burned where the chain rubbed against them, her body revolting against the metal. The voice in her head now sounded like her own. No matter how she struggled with the metal, it did not give, and her skin tore and mended, seared invisibly, scalded and wounded. She howled with exhaustion and rage as dawn came, as the night birds took themselves back to their nests, as the cocks crowed and the city began to speak.
    â€œI will say I have eaten,” she growled when the soldiers returned. “I’ll swear to it. Release me from these chains. Your master will not know.”
    One soldier eyed the other and shrugged.
    â€œSome of the food must have gone in,” he said. “She swallowed it, at least.”
    Cleopatra looked into the soldier’s eyes. So slender, a boy. A virgin yet.
    â€œRelease me,” she whispered, and the soldier came toward her. She could smell him now, his sweet flesh, the nick in his skin where the blood had come to the razor’s edge. His home, a small structure made of trees his father had felled, high on a hill. The village girl he loved, a cobbler’s daughter, and the taste of her lips on his, only once, the day before he left for war. The two of them had lain in a meadow of wildflowers, watching the clouds drift across the sky, just as Cleopatra had once done, long ago, with Antony at her side—
    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.
    â€œWe’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.
    â€œI only want to touch her,” stammered the first soldier. “Just to see what a queen feels like.”
    Cleopatra laughed her most