Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray Read Free Book Online Page B

balanced unnaturally on the farthest edge of his couch with the garment clutched in my lap, my fingers tracing the golden embroidered edge. Augustus didn’t glance up at me until he’d finished chewing. “This purple cloak is ostentatious, isn’t it? It suits your tastes, Selene. Like your mother, you have a fondness for Eastern decadence.”
    I didn’t hear a note of displeasure in his voice, but I was always wary when he mentioned my mother. The pipers and laughter guarded our conversation from eavesdroppers. Still, I lowered my voice. “Augustus, I’m sorry if I offended you with my bridal costume yesterday.”
    He examined the cloak more closely, or pretended to. “As long as you remain loyal to me, I can forgive you such extravagances.” His gray eyes met mine, thin lips twitching in the semblance of a smile, and I could see that my performance at the wedding had flattered his vanity and lifted his spirits. Was it only my imagination that his eyes roamed over me in a way that was anything but fatherly? I wished the wicked notion away, trying to convince myself it was born only of the vicious suggestion Juba had made the night before. “Don’t you care for your breakfast, Selene? I haven’t seen you eat.”
    I pulled my shawl over my shoulders in sudden awareness of Juba’s frosty scowl from across the room. What would he have me do? Refuse to sit by Augustus when summoned? “I’m not hungry, Caesar.”
    “Why not? What could trouble you? Haven’t I given you everything a girl could ever ask for?”
    No. He hadn’t given me Egypt, but I wasn’t so foolish as to remind him of it now. Glancing around the room at the guests, I saw some of them whisper to one another behind jeweled hands, their eyes sliding in my direction. Did those low murmurs carry rumors about the emperor’s fondness for me? How I wished Juba hadn’t filled me with doubt!
    “Let’s play a game, Selene.” Augustus had always tested the children in his household. Especially me. I was, after all, his most unlikely apprentice. “Excluding the two of us, who is the most important person here?”
    It was a difficult question to answer. With all her powerful Claudian connections, the emperor’s wife gave him the status that his mostly base blood denied him. He’d thought Livia important enough to marry while she was pregnant with another man’s child, important enough to keep as his wife, though she couldn’t bear him a child of his own. Still, I knew the emperor would never concede that a woman was more important than a man, so Livia couldn’t be the answer to his riddle . . .
    Propped up on elbows upon various couches were Roman senators, each of whom would publicly claim only to be the equal of his colleagues. They all harbored secret ambitions and it was tempting to choose one of the rich ones who’d returned recently with loot from the provinces. However, if the most important man in the room was the wealthiest, I must name Maecenas, the emperor’s shrewd political adviser. He was a balding man with a hawkish face and served as the vizier over all the emperor’s artists and propagandists. It was also rumored that Maecenas had a house in every city on the Mediterranean coastline and I didn’t doubt it. Just as I was about to name him, the emperor broke in with, “Come, Selene, not even a guess?”
    Something about his tone made me hesitate. This was my wedding breakfast. Perhaps Augustus meant to make some point about its significance. “Is it my husband, your newest client king?”
    Augustus grunted. “No. Juba is loyal. Useful. A valuable friend. But he cannot be more important than a Roman.”
    That did narrow the choices. “Marcellus, then. Your nephew, your son-in-law, the last male of the Julii .”
    “Not yet. He’ll still have to prove himself.” Plucking a spear of green asparagus from a silver platter, Augustus pierced the air between us. “You disappoint me, Selene. If you wish to wield power, true power,