Page 99 of Cleopatra

But we were both blind to the severity of it.

It was just after dawn and Ptolemy and I were seated in the courtyard of Caesar’s estate, enjoying a warm cup of fresh goat’s milk.

Caesar strode towards me from the stables, where his horse was saddled and ready to leave. “I’ll return after noon,” Caesar said, bending down to kiss me. Our lips touched briefly. Too briefly for it to be the last time.

Caesarion appeared bleary-eyed in the doorway behind us, Charmion in his wake. He smiled when he saw Caesar in his purple robes. He’d asked more than once to have some made for him and Caesar had promised, “One day.”

But that day would not come.

“Papa,” he said, tottering across the courtyard to his father with his arms extended.

Caesar stooped low and pressed his hand on Caesarion’s heart. “My son, I’ll return to you soon.”

As Caesar mounted his horse, Ptolemy gasped beside me. I turned to him.

“What is it?”

My brother’s eyes were glazed, his mind absent entirely.

“Ptolemy?”

When he didn’t respond, I threw my cup of milk across his face, hoping to rouse him from his stupor.

He blinked the milk away from his eyes, coming to. I had seen this expression only rarely on my brother’s face and it filled me with dread.

Beware the Ides of March.

But there was no soothsayer who prophesised Caesar’s death—only my brother. Like mine, Caesar’s myth has burgeoned over time. Though that is where the similarities end—he was the martyred hero. And I, the siren who ensnared him.

I gripped Ptolemy’s wrist. “Who?” I asked him, my heart pounding in my throat. Bah-dum, bah-dum, bah-dum. A battle drum against the Fates.

Ptolemy turned to me, the milk on his face stark against the flush that rose in his cheeks. “Caesar.”

My fear turned to anger. I hated my brother in that moment. “Why do you speak such horror?” I snapped.

“My god Anubis,” Ptolemy said miserably. “He has confirmed it.”

I shook my head, refusing to believe him. Not wanting to believe him. After all, he had been wrong before when Theos had died.

But Theos did not die that day, he merely sank, my thoughts argued back.

I turned to where I had last seen Caesar. Dust and debris were yet to settle from the cantering of his horse. I began to run.

I knew he would not hear me, but I called to him anyway. “Julius! Come back!”

He was a speck on the horizon.

What was I to say if he did turn around? Would I have been able to stop him going to the senate? I think not. But still the guilt of that day has burrowed deep and has become as much a part of me as the ventricles in my heart.

I only stopped running when I reached the gates of his estate. Caesarion, thinking it a game, came laughing from behind me.

“Mama?” His glee turned to concern. “Why are you crying?”

I picked him up, though he protested, and pressed my wet cheek to his.

“I hoped to catch up to your father.”

“Why?” The curiosity of children can never be matched.