The Shards of Heaven (49 page)

Selene took one last look at her mother, whose countenance was returning to the stoic dispassion with which she hoped to face eternity. Already Cleopatra was raising her arm, the bracelets falling away from her wrist and the thick veins beneath it.

Ten years old and only minutes away from being an orphan, Cleopatra Selene bowed once more to the queen of Egypt and then left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. The past was done, and she had a future to plan.

*   *   *

The story of the Shards of Heaven continues in

B
OOK
2: T
HE
T
EMPLES OF THE
A
RK
.

 

G
LOSSARY OF
C
HARACTERS

Alexander Helios
. Son of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, twin brother of Cleopatra Selene, he was likely born in the year 40
BCE
. He disappears from reliable historical records after the fall of Alexandria in 30
BCE
.

Alexander the Great
. Alexander III, born in Macedon in 356
BCE
, succeeded his father as king in 336. In his youth he led a number of Greek city-states to revolt against what had been a Macedonian-led alliance, and Alexander quickly set in motion a series of campaigns that led him as far north as the Danube and solidified his position as ruler of a united Greek state. Alexander subsequently moved his armies east against the Persian Empire, then the largest and most powerful state in the known world. He led his men to conquer Asia Minor and Syria, routing the Persian armies and defeating city after city. In 332 he entered Egypt, where he was declared to be the son of Ammon, an Egyptian deity. For reasons unknown, he faced off with the armies of the Kush but refused to fight them. Instead of continuing his campaign south into Africa, he moved north and founded the famed city of Alexandria, which subsequently became the capital of Egypt. Returning east, he captured Babylon and put an end to the Persian Empire before entering central Asia and defeating several states. Alexander then journeyed toward India, where his armies, though successful, finally balked at fighting farther from their Greek homes. Throughout his long career, he is said never to have lost a battle, and though severely wounded on several occasions, he was still reportedly vigorously strong. Nevertheless, he died under uncertain circumstances shortly after returning to Babylon in 323
BCE
. After his death, he was placed in a golden sarcophagus, which made its way to Alexandria, and his world-spanning empire soon broke into rival states. His golden sarcophagus was melted down around 81
BCE
by Pharaoh Ptolemy IX Lathyros when he was short of money (an act for which the angry citizens of Alexandria soon killed him). Alexander's miraculously preserved body was at that time transferred to a crystal sarcophagus, which remained on display in the city until its disappearance around 400
CE
.

Caesarion
. Caesarion, whose full name was Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, was born to Cleopatra VII in 47
BCE
. According to Plutarch, he was rumored to have been executed by Octavian after the fall of Alexandria in 30
BCE
, though his exact fate is strikingly unknown. While later Roman writers questioned his paternity, there is little reason to question the claim made by Cleopatra that he was the son of Julius Caesar.

Cleomedes
. Very little is known of Cleomedes, a Stoic Greek astronomer active at some point between the middle of the first century
BCE
and the fourth century
CE
. His elementary astronomy textbook
On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies
is widely regarded as poorly written and full of errors, yet it is also important for preserving the otherwise lost works of the earlier astronomers Posidonius of Rhodes and Eratosthenes.

Cleopatra Selene
. Daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, twin sister of Alexander Helios, she was likely born in the year 40
BCE
. After the fall of Alexandria in 30
BCE
she was placed under the guardianship of Octavia, the sister of Octavian, before being married to Juba II sometime between 25 and 20
BCE
.

Cleopatra VII
. The last pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt from 51
BCE
until her suicide at the age of thirty-nine after the fall of Alexandria in 30
BCE
. As pharaoh she had an affair with Julius Caesar, to whom she bore his only known son, Caesarion. After Caesar's assassination in 44
BCE
, Cleopatra took the side of Mark Antony in the civil war against Octavian and eventually bore him three children: Ptolemy Philadelphus and the twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios.

Delius
. One of Mark Antony's leading generals, he defected to the side of Octavian just prior to the Battle of Actium in 31
BCE
, reportedly bringing with him Antony's plans for the fight.

Didymus Chalcenterus
. Born around 63
BCE
, he wrote an astounding number of books in his lifetime on a wide variety of subjects, though he is now primarily known as an editor and grammarian of Homer. One of the chief librarians of the Great Library in Alexandria, his name Chalcenterus means “bronze guts,” supposedly a statement about his indefatigability as a scholar.

Galbus
. Unknown to history.

Juba I
. King of Numidia, he allied himself against Julius Caesar in the Great Roman Civil War. After being defeated by Caesar's forces at the battle of Thapsus in 46
BCE
, he fled the field with the Roman general Marcus Petreius. Trapped, they took their own lives by duel, with the survivor being aided in his suicide by a waiting slave.

Juba II
. Probably born in 48
BCE
, he was left an orphan by the suicide of his father in 46
BCE
. Adopted by Julius Caesar, the man who'd caused his father's death, Juba was raised as a Roman citizen and ultimately joined his adopted stepbrother Octavian in the war against Mark Antony and Cleopatra. He was restored to the throne of Numidia after the fall of Alexandria in 30
BCE
, and around the year 25
BCE
he was married to Cleopatra Selene. Some years later he was given the throne of Mauretania. Juba was a lifelong scholar who wrote several books before he died in 23
CE
.

Julius Caesar
. Born in 100
BCE
to a noble Roman family of comparatively little significance, Julius Caesar achieved a position of unparalleled power within the Roman state and thereby laid the stage for the end of the Republic under his adopted son Octavian. A well-regarded orator and savvy politician, Caesar rose to prominence first as a military leader in the field, whose reputation won him election, in 63
BCE
, as the religious leader of the Roman Republic. Returning to the military sphere in subsequent years, his extraordinary abilities were proved in successful campaigns in Hispania, Gaul, and Britain. His power and popular appeal eventually led to the Great Roman Civil War when he crossed the Rubicon with an armed legion in 49
BCE
. Victorious in the civil war, Caesar voyaged to Alexandria, where a civil war had broken out between Cleopatra VII and her brother-husband Ptolemy XIII. Caesar supported Cleopatra, defeating Ptolemy and making her sole pharaoh of Egypt, and she, in turn, became Caesar's lover, bearing him his only known biological son: Caesarion. Returning to Rome, Caesar took solitary control of the state as a popularly supported dictator, effectively ending the Roman Republic. From this position of authority he instituted significant reforms to the Roman calendar, the workings of its government, and the architecture of its capital. Caesar was assassinated in 44
BCE
by a group of at least sixty Roman senators, who reportedly stabbed him twenty-three times before he died. His popularity among the common people at the time of his death was so great that two years after the assassination he was officially deified. Though his murder had been intended to restore the Roman Republic to order, it served only to set off another series of civil wars. These conflicts culminated in the struggle between his adopted son Octavian, to whom Caesar had bequeathed the whole of his state and his powerful name, and his popular former general, Mark Antony, who had taken residence in Alexandria with Caesar's former lover, Cleopatra VII.

Kemse
. Unknown to history.

Khenti
. Unknown to history.

Laenas
. Unknown to history.

Lucius Vorenus
. Along with Titus Pullo, Vorenus is mentioned only once in the existing record: in Julius Caesar's
Commentary on the Gallic Wars
, where their inspiring actions in battle are reported. His birth and death dates are unknown.

Manu
. Unknown to history.

Marcus Petreius
. A Roman general, he allied himself against Julius Caesar in the Great Roman Civil War. After being defeated by Caesar's forces at the battle of Thapsus in 46
BCE
, he fled the field with Juba I, king of Numidia. Trapped, they took their own lives by duel, with the survivor being aided in his suicide by a waiting slave.

Mark Antony
. A Roman politician, he was Julius Caesar's good friend and perhaps his finest general. In the years following Caesar's assassination, Antony struggled with Octavian for control of the Roman Republic, though an uneasy peace was reached in 41
BCE
when Antony married Octavian's sister. The following year he had an affair with Cleopatra VII, resulting in the births of the twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, and soon he was making his home with her in Alexandria, where she gave birth to another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, in 36
BCE
. Open war broke out between Antony and Octavian in 32
BCE
, with their two great armies facing off at the Battle of Actium one year later. Defeated, Antony returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, where he committed suicide after the fall of the city.

Octavian
. Born in 63
BCE
, he was adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar just prior to his assassination in 44
BCE
. Though he originally joined forces with Mark Antony to rule the Republic, their ambitions would not allow the peace to last, and the war between them tore the Roman world in two. His eventual defeat of Antony made him sole ruler of Rome, giving him the power to remake the Republic into the Roman Empire. Known most popularly as Augustus Caesar, the name he adopted in 27
BCE
, he is rightly regarded along with his adopted father as one of the most influential men in history.

Ptolemy Philadelphus
. Born in 36
BCE
, he was the youngest son of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII. He disappears from the record after the fall of Alexandria in 30
BCE
, his fate unknown.

Quintus
. Unknown to history.

Syphax
. Unknown to history, though it is reasonably certain in the records that an unnamed slave aided in the suicides of Juba I and Marcus Petreius.

Titus Pullo
. Along with Lucius Vorenus, Pullo is mentioned only once in the existing record: in Julius Caesar's
Commentary on the Gallic Wars
, where their inspiring actions in battle are reported. His birth and death dates are unknown.

Varro
. Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27
BCE
) was a Roman scholar of great renown.

 

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are countless people I need to thank for making this book happen, beginning with the love and support that the Livingston family has shown me over the years: Russ, Anita, Lance, Sherry, Samuel, and Elanor, as well as the extended branches of our tree. I am truly blessed to have such wonderful people surrounding me. Saying thank-you may not be enough, but it's a start.

This book took a long time to see the light of day, and I am grateful to those friends who read it before the dawn, including Catherine Bollinger, Mary Robinette Kowal, David Goldman, and Laurel Amberdine. Thanks are due also to Luc Reid, for building Codex and thereby putting me in touch with such fine people. My colleague and friend Kelly DeVries also read the manuscript and gave me encouragement while also helping me to avoid a historical error or two. The incomparable Harriet McDougal gave me far more than I can ever return. And I would be much remiss if I didn't thank graduate school friends A. Keith Kelly and Fred Bush for telling me—years apart—that I just might be a writer.

Among those people most directly responsible for what you have in your hands, I want to thank my agent, Evan Gregory, my editors, Paul Stevens and Claire Eddy, and the many talents at Tor who have made this book—from cover to copy—better than I ever could have imagined.

Last but hardly least, I wish to thank the many teachers who have shaped whatever successes I have managed. In particular, I want to thank Miss Brockman, from Belmont Elementary School. I still remember when you asked to see the story I wrote about the government's supersecret automosubmajet. I still remember when you read it to the class, and I still remember when you smiled and said you liked it.

I hope you like this one, too.

 

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR