Free Cleopatra Occult by Peter Joseph Swanson

ridiculous prices.”
    “You sound like you have a complicated plan.”
    Octavian smiled. “The best plans are. They’re far more fun that way.”
    Phaedra asked, “What do you need me for, for your plan? You don’t need me to tell you what an Egyptian chair is. Everybody knows that.”
    Octavian explained, “Yes, Egyptian chairs are obvious. I really don’t know enough of the differences between Syrian, Jordanian, Persian, Israeli and Hindu chairs. Not really. Selling to the Roman market requires the greatest sophistication.”
    “Chairs are culture?”
    He nodded. “Chairs and pots and shoes, most definitely.”
    She admitted, “My father traded in olives. And I don’t even know about those. I wasn’t ever there when he traded them.”
    “Just the same, when I land in Rome I’ll have you pretend it’s all your things and my ship was only out of gallantry. Roman law prevents the aristocracy from profiting as if it were the merchant class.” He pointed south. “I’m going to Alexandria first. I hope you’re in no hurry. I don’t approve of women on the high seas but right now we have no choice. You can’t stay here.”
    Phaedra also gazed across the sea. “You must love Alexandria.”
    He twitched. “Damn Alexandria! Damn the Greeks! They’re just there to make money for Rome. The empire is just there to nourish Rome. The empire is to dress up Rome with the world’s finest.”
    Phaedra glanced down at her faded incomplete Roman dress.
    He noticed. “We’ll buy you new things at once.”
    “But I have no money—when I first fell into the sea I took off all my gold jewelry and threw it to Poseidon as an offering. It worked. I don’t think you have any money either, it’s all tied up in chairs.”
    “Oh I always have some money. I just need more, and the cargo is all a game along the way, anyway. I never know when I need to raise an entire army in a day’s time for my own personal protection, and that takes a deep pocket full of cold hard cash. So I always have money.”
    Phaedra grinned. “I like you. You’re so smart.”
    “I know the language of illegal business and old education.”
    “That’s best, don’t you think? What could be better?”
    “What could be better?” Octavian darkened at the thought. “I’m jealous of Mark Antony. He is a poet—at least with women anyway. He’s such a natural at it he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. But otherwise he doesn’t have any class. He’s just Caesar’s most excellent puppet.”
    Phaedra frowned. “I do hope he’s still alive.”
     
    ~
     
    In Sicily, As Cleopatra walked along the great Messina seaport, Mark Antony called out to her, astonished, “Cleopatra? You’re alive!”
    She grinned with relief. “Mark Antony!”
    Mark looked her up and down in an exaggerated manner. “You’re not a mummy in the desert.”
    Cleopatra raised her eyebrows. “Why would a mummy be wayfaring?”
    “No, dead. They said you were dead.”
    She looked down at herself and pulled out on one side of her gown.
    Mark admitted, “I was expecting to bring your mummy back to Rome to put you on display.”
    “You would do that?”
    “Not that I’d want to.”
    “Another time, perhaps.”
    He looked around and laughed. “I’m supposed to be dead too. I was lost at sea but washed up. And I was with a great witch named Phaedra. I’d thought she was great. I thought she’d seduce the elements and control the wind and gently blow me to my destination in a happy song. I was wrong about that.”
    “You lost a witch to the sea? That’s abysmal. What an omen! That could be a disaster for me!”
    Mark lowered his eyebrows. “She wasn’t your witch.”
    Cleopatra stopped herself from telling him that she wondered about that.
    Mark asked, “What are you doing here? If not dead, I’d think you’d be on the run from your brother. Don’t you have a bit of an army in Syria?”
    She asked, “So I should be there, instead?”
    “They say the men