Legacy of the Moon

By Sharon Desruisseaux

Cleopatra Selene was born to a world of plenty, where all of her wishes were granted. She was a princess of an ancient and powerful family of Egypt. Her own mother was a pharaoh, what else could a girl want more than that. Her whole life was planned out and sung to her by her own mother who cherished her in her loving embrace. Suddenly it was all ripped away, leaving Cleopatra Selene and her siblings stunned and frightened. Their mother was killed by the venomous Octavian; their father had fallen in honor on his own sword in battle, their older brothers rumored to have been killed as well. In shackles they were thrown aboard a ship headed straight to Rome into the house of their own father's other wife....His lesser, Roman wife named Octavia, who happened to also be the sister of their mother's killer! Their lives once happy and predetermined were now one huge nightmare and they were all helpless and now the property of Rome...Cleopatra Selene became one of Rome's valuable pawns in a marriage arranged by Octavian. She vowed that she was never be helpless again and fought her whole life to make sure she had some control in a world that listened only to Rome. She would learn how to be strong and how creatively to protect herself and her own children. Cleopatra Selene was only one of several children of the legendary Cleopatra VII and Mark Antonius of Rome. There was her twin brother, Alexander Helios-the sun and her younger siblings Arsinoe and Ptolemy. Ripped from each other and forced to make their own way in a land conquered by their enemy Octavian. The very same Octavian, who later became the first emperor of Rome later called Augustus, yet he was just a man and he had dreams. He had visions of Rome in stone and of a land of plenty stretching to the four corners of the known world. His sister, Octavia, he honored to care for the children of his now conquered enemy Cleopatra VII. Her duty was to prepare the conquered and terrified children and to make them a part of his Roman family to realize further his plans. Octavia’s daughters Antonia Minor and Major were not only hers but those of her marriage with her adulterous husband Marcus Antonius. Of them, Antonia Minor befriends Cleopatra Selene and together they form a bond that surpasses all of the boundaries of Rome. Then there is Juba II, a son of a conquered King of Numidia who was captured and raised in Rome since the age of three. In Rome, Juba II found a home and it suited him well. He fast became a scholar and clung to making discoveries and in chronicling it for the world to see of all he found in his journeys. He married Cleopatra Selene and together they brought Numidia to its former glory, until it was ripped away by rebels. Then, they pick up the pieces and move to Mauretania where they build again. For their children they would travel and endure anything and though they grew to love Rome, they were cautious and thus, they looked far away to the land of Gaul and the Keltoi to find a future and peace from the ever-grasping clutches of Rome that sought to swallow them whole. In this novel, the author cleverly blends the cultures of Egypt, Rome, Numidia, Mauretania, and the lands of the Celts to the north in incredible fact and fable. Incredibly well researched the author values the sources in which her history was found. She weighed it all and gleaned from it a fair and honorable depiction of Cleopatra VII and all she had done and accomplished, despite the garnishments of the men of Rome who only sought to dethrone any woman in power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brooks-Goding Publications
• Release date: Jan 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301889624

Sharon Desruisseaux

She and her daughters have moved to the rural foothills of Maine from the bustling Southeastern Massachusetts area where they were raised, in search of a better life and a refreshing new pace. She is the present owner of "Meadow Brook Farm & Studio". The artist and owner, Sharon, specializes in children's portraits and hats made in an ancient technique from her herd of Icelandic Sheep. She has many years experience as a paralegal and insurance, which has only aided her research skills. She currently has a career in Finance as well as being an historical fiction novelist. She wears many hats and even the ones she makes from the wool of her own Icelandic sheep! Check out her author site for more details on her novels and interesting facts at http://www.sharondnovels.com/ or join on as a fan at Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4447463 Check out her latest postings on Twitter as smbrooksi and then of course there is the site for her fiber farm at http://www.mymainesheep.webs.com/ or LIKE her on Facebook (very cool page in that there is also information on history as well and interesting poll questions to keep your mind active) http://www.facebook.com/Sharondnovels

Book preview

Part one

I

"I have etched in my soul the memory of her last moments with us, not the words, for they were unimportant. Her words were the promises a mother made to her children in times dire. The words were those of comfort and love, words that we had heard in a time that seemed so far away to us then, of a time of light and happiness without the constraints of captivity. What I recall dearly, was her face, which was wrapped in utter despair as she initially, walked in the door, to be suddenly washed away at the sight of our faces? She showered us with words of love and kisses to our eager faces. We truly believed that she had returned to us, the mother we had lost with our father.

She was adorned in linen wrapped about her in the draped style of the Romans, which trailed the dust of the un-swept floor of our room. The dust, which was swept up in her wake, had surrounded her in a cloud making her appear even more goddess-like. Her touch when she bent down, gave us the reality of her comfort so long denied us.

I recall the last time that she walked out of that room, with promises on her lips of her eventual return. As she backed out of the room, she paused, as if to memorize that moment. She turned and proudly walked out of the room, leaving a swirl of dust in her wake. The door closed then as she was led away at the hands of her captors. The door was closed forever to us of her love, though we did not know it then. She left us with dreams of the end of our captivity to run again in the halls of the palace with the freedom of our birthright. Not even Arsinoe cried, for she too held the thoughts of what she had last told us.

Mother told us that we had the blood of the Ptolemys in our veins, and thus, we had to be brave in our captivity. We were soldiers and we must be proud in the face of adversity. For our line will endure, she promised us, and we would all look back upon this time and remember our strength. Philadelphos was the only one who dared to break the silence when she left the room. Philadelphos was oblivious to our predicament and our father’s death. He thought we were in a play. He demanded for sweets. Would it have been that simple, I gladly would have retrieved them for him myself! Yet, the rest of us kept our promise and sat there pretending that we were strong and proud.

In those days of our captivity, before we were brought to Rome we were left in the solitude of our selves, the children of a great queen. We were kept in an old abandoned suite of our palace and locked inside. Guards stood sentinel at the door and brought us simple meals. We, in our innocence, thought it was wondrous to have such bizarre food. As the only food that graced our palates before the confinement, was that this was strenuously prepared by the most talented of chefs. We pretended that our simple fare was that of soldiers, and that we were in our barracks preparing for our final battle to return us to the throne. We made games in this solitude during the light of the day, mocking Octavian, this enemy that we never saw. Only Caesarion had laid eyes upon him, and we used his stores of memories of him in our plays.

The nights were filled with muffled tears, for we had all fought to be brave for our mother. We fought so desperately hard. "

II

"One day, there came a slight knock upon the door in the early hours of the morning. We thought it was the food to break our fast. In appeared one of our servants, a young woman covered from head to toe in the drapery of the Romans. She lowered her head to us, revealing a tear streaked face, which had been recently swept clean. The tears had made trails in the dust of her finely chiseled face that had smeared upon her wiping them away in our presence. I vividly recalled her face and her large ebony eyes. I even recall the freckles dotted across her nose. The drapery about her made her look older than her obvious years, when one looked closely upon her face.

She called us all to her presence then. Reluctantly we obeyed, finding this foreign to us that a servant should command. However, in our situation, the normality’s of our past were fading to us. We gathered by her skirts in anticipation. She bent down to us, held us deep in her gaze, and told us words we did not want to hear....

She told us that our mother left her imprisonment in chains in the company of her valued attendants, Iras and Charmian. We nodded at this, because we knew and loved them both. She continued to tell us that our mother locked herself in our family mausoleum for some reason. These two followed, since they obeyed her every wish. They followed my mother to the grotto she had built by the sea, and to the arms of the rose quartz Isis, that protected the harbor. I cannot even begin to grasp what was on her mind at that time, or even how she managed to leave her prison under the guard of the Romans. However, she did that, and found her way to the tomb. She had proceeded to lock herself and her attendants who served her too well into her newly built tomb.

We were then told that a slave had brought in to them a basket of figs for their refreshment to ease their desolate confinement. For all I knew and hoped, she was busy inside with plans and schemes. For that, we dared to hope.

Unfortunately, that basket had concealed an asp. Did Octavian place the asp inside for her defiance, or was it the wish of my mother to end her grief? For the later, was what the Romans would have us believe? Nevertheless, they had not seen the love and the hope in her eyes that last time that we shared with her.

They had not felt her warm embrace and overpowering love that she gave us. I will never know the truth, until the day I meet her in the underworld at the side of her Osiris, my father. For in that basket of figs was the very death of one so prominent a figure in life for all time. Her death she shared with her most beloved of attendants. Was this Octavian’s final ‘favor’ to Cleopatra, or was it truly her desire to be by the side of my father for eternity? I tend to tell myself over and over again that she did not know what was really inside of the basket other than the figs that she had requested in that last act of defiance. She was not the kind of person to bow down to defeat. An asp was the only thing that could be claimed as her eventual demise, for the marks upon their forms when found. The lack of the actual asp was a mystery to all. Though in its stead, Octavian had won that final bloodless battle that very evening."

III

"The rest of our last moments in Alexandria were spent in a daze of unreality; brought forth from our confinement to bear witness to the funeral of my parents. We trembled by each other for comfort and struggled to stand tall and proud. We were the heirs to the throne of Egypt on the outside, but deep inside…we were only children who desperately wanted their parents to return. To the people who observed Cleopatra’s children, we appeared to them as hollow shells of children, draped in the formality that was grilled in us from the time of our cradles. We gave them the semblance of royalty. We revealed to them the proud line of the Ptolemys to bear witness in our strength. Through our silent tears, we saw the bodies of our parents wrapped together side by side, as was the wish of my mother.

Throughout the land of Kemet and beyond, the people praise the love and the devotion of the attendants of Cleopatra, who followed their mistress to her death, making sure that she would not go there alone. Altars and small shrines were erected throughout the land to bestow honor upon their memory of their devotion. Statues were made in their image and later placed by the doorways of homes as a sign of protection. Iras and Charmian had served their mistress to the very end."

IV

"My sister and brothers and I were then walked, as was the wish of Octavian, behind his golden chariot upon his return to Rome. We arrived in the city in a daze after a forgotten journey. Normally we would have roamed on the decks of the ship at the rarity and newness of the voyage even though we had never left the borders of our homeland. However, this time, we remained below in the comfort of each other’s arms. We knew that we were all that we had, and we did not know how long even that would last.

We walked in chains behind his chariot of gold in the sweet oblivion and numbness in the face of despair. We were so very young that vivid day in history. The chains were lighter than the norm, as they were for the effect and the symbolism of the victory. Not caring our fate, only desperately yearning for the arms of our mother who was taken away from us, we stood as our tears fought to break free! We cried for her to sing us to sleep and for the sweet scent of Jasmine that was always in her presence.

I could still feel the weight of the chains that we carried through the streets of Rome. The silence of the crowd as we approached is forever painted deep in my memory. The loud cheers that had just previously torn through the streets had ceased abruptly as we walked by. The entire world seemed silent in that moment as only the sound of our tiny footsteps across the paved streets softly thudded. Oh, how that dreadfully gaudy chariot creaked out the misery of our thoughts and crushed hopes! The chains were not the only things that weighted upon our forms, for the deaths of our parents weighed even more wretched upon our souls in the added burden of our captivity!

We saw the last of each other then, for were separated a day after the end of the march. We were woken from our slumber; our bodies were all tangled together for comfort in a strange and cruel world. We had felt that we were on display as if the whole world had watched our tears. By the end of the march our heads could no longer be held up high in our forced pride, they were bent low in sorrow and the whole populace of Rome who gathered witnessed the tears that fell. Several strange hands that we had never seen before pulled us apart. All that was familiar to us had vanished. We cried, screamed, and kicked.

Caesarion boldly told them to unhand us, for we were princes and princesses… We are Ptolemys; he screamed out. That he was the heir to the throne of Egypt. They laughed at him as if he was a mere delusional child! He told him that they would pay for the way that they handled us when he attained the throne for his parents. They laughed even harder. Then he told them that if they were to see to our freedom, he would make sure that they would be rewarded richly, for we knew the location of the riches of Egypt. Our cries had hushed upon his pleas. His promises were ignored in their cruel laughter. When they regained their composure, they began again to separate us. We screamed all the louder as we were forced apart. We yelled with all of our power for our parents to hear in the underworld, so they could return to save us. Our cries were ignored.

A different adult was assigned to each one of us. We were carried out wailing and kicking with all of our might. We had promised our mother that we would always be together. The day of broken promises fell upon us all when we saw the last of each other. The very last memory I have of each one of them in that most horrible moment of my life, were their cries, as they grew farther apart from my own. Of how they seemed to mingle together as the sight vanished of them as we were led off in different directions, until they were finally muffled out by the echoes in the streets of my own tears, and they were met by no others.…"

********

"Two small children wandered aimlessly along the beach beside the vast sea before them. The two little heads bobbed this way and that in attendance with the languorous strides they took along with the pounding of the waves. The voices of the waves drowned out their giggles as they picked up the pace in a race to nowhere. Long light brown hair of the same honeyed hue, trailed out after their lithe bodies. The boy’s hair was shaved except for a long lock of dark blonde hair, as long as the girl’s was. They were twins, these two.

Playfully, they ran into each other and began to tangle into each one other’s laughter. Arms and legs all over the place, and sand flying in their wake was the view they were in…

"Selene let’s build a castle and make an army in the sand"

 "That sounds wonderful, let’s hope Caesarion does not find out, that would be bad." She sat there in the reverie of her own grand plans for the building. Her eyes wandered over the beach to a large clamshell half exposed in the sand. She walked over to the shell and began to dig.

"Hopefully this hole does not get deep enough to reach the gates of the underworld."

 "Aye, that would be bad indeed! He giggled and joined in with his hands. Together they managed to build the walls of the battlements. Laboriously the walls wound around and around, forming a labyrinth. Osiris himself could get lost in there, do you think, Selene?" Together their giggles reached new heights. She nodded and continued to dig.

Slowly the labyrinth twisted towards a pit that they started to work on. This will be the deepest pit in the world; this is where the bad people will go. Selene added with a mocking look of anger upon her tiny brow-line. The bad people will fall in and not be able to get out. Then there will be only good people on this earth! Her tone changed with a new vengeance. Helios dug on in oblivion to her last statement. He was wrapped up in the ease of inspiration.

"And this wall will make sure that no one will ever leave. He stooped over to ponder their creation. We need an army to protect the good people who live in these walls over here." His gaze trailed over to a small sand village to the side.

"Wouldn’t it be great if we could lead Octavian to this maze?" He looked up at her waiting for a response. She nodded and continued to dig, while the hole filled with even more sand.

"I wish that Octavian would get stuck in here and drown. Helios looked up at her though continued with his digging,Yea that would be great!"

The little girl stopped abruptly her digging and her plans while her thoughts begin to wander. Slowly she fell into the grip of a trance. Her thoughts raced inside her head, while she tried to gain a hold onto where her thoughts were leading her. Her eyes locked onto a water pool, losing her to its depth. In addition, she learned the prophesy of her family… that death will await them by water. It was clear to her in that moment that it was only she and her own who could protect them all. She was given the stage for her mind to learn the prophesy for when her family truly needed it."

V

Cleopatra Selene had thought to herself as she paused to receive her memory in the course of her writing. She thought of the constant visions of her mind that would overturn any reality at that moment, making her oblivious of her surroundings. She recalled the one that she had while a child on the beach, as one of her earliest daytime dreams. She pondered as to why she even had those visions that would torment her. She would store the visions to be recalled later. She received in her later years the scroll written about the first twin prophetess in her family, Cleopatra III.

Slowly she stretched out her arms before her loosening the cramps that had begun to form from the endless writing. She bent her head in sorrow at all of the memory that returned at the writing of this. She was determined to continue. Her very soul cried out for the truth about her mother to be told true. She did not want to depend on the ravings of a lunatic to spill horrible lies about the virtue of her mother. She continued to write to take her away from that part of her memory in which she was not ready to dwell.

VI

"I feel this need deep in my soul, to tell people of my mother, from the point of view of someone who knew and loved her well. Let not the poisonous words taint the truth from the ears of the future from neither the demented perspective of the obsessed Octavian or the pathetic mumblings of Virgil. They have not had chances enough to see the spark of genius that illuminated from her thoughtful gaze. Unfortunately, the warped visions and pitiful mumblings of these men are heard by many people, and are thus believed.

My mother was not wanton in any way. She loved and adored her husbands, especially my father. She devoted her life to making her dreams a reality, and for passing them down to her children. She wove the web of life around all of those who touched her. Her magical words lit up many a dull moment in laughter to her witty epitaphs. She made all of those around her worship her wit and wisdom, though we were never made to feel inferior by her. She made all around her shine, yet never dimming her light in the process.

I dread to think that she may have seen what her children have suffered subsequent to her last breath. Did she witness from the Underworld the blade of the Roman sword fall on the neck of my oldest brother- her first-born? Did she watch in dread our tears as they fell upon our blameless cheeks, as we walked in chains behind the golden chariot of our conqueror? Octavian stole the title of pharaoh for himself, as he stole the innocence at the deaths of our parents. Did he in fact take the life from my mother; does he wash her blood from his hands? He was so obsessed with their destruction; I wondered what fate had handed to them, or was it simply the wish of Octavian. He was the very same Octavian who gave himself the name of Caesar Augustus after his own victory over the blood of my parents.

When we were made to walk through the streets of Rome in chains, we were all so very young. My brother and I had just turned eleven at the time, so untried and new to life. Arsinoe was of the tender age of five, while Philadelphos only three years of age.

When my brother Caesarion was executed, he was sixteen years old and too close in age to inherit the formidable throne of Kemet. Caesarion had made his escape from our captivity in Rome and had eventually met up with his tutor Rhodon. In the depths of the evening, they made their escape. Unfortunately, they were easy prey to the clutches of the ‘mighty’ Augustus and his forces that all too soon caught up with them. He planned for their prompt execution, which was performed in silence in some dark dismal cellar deep in the Roman city.

We were children, forced in chains to walk a path, which we did nothing to create. Our parents obviously had no foresight to the future when it was in the negative. Their dreams were for the gain only; there was no place for the all too evident defeat that we alone as children had to face. We were the innocent victims of a battle which we never fought, though had only leaned of behind the skirts of our mother. Our tears, we felt were enough to overflow the mighty banks of the Nile, which had disappeared from the horizon to us. Too young were we to hear of our fate until we actually had to walk the reality of it. The sheltered bubble in which were raised had burst in a fury, a fury we had never laid our eyes upon prior to that nightmare in which we found ourselves in.

Days passed into evenings in our separation in all we had grown to know. As our shadowed remnants of our living nightmare had grown into a reality, we gradually adapted to the situation in which we found ourselves, for we had no choice.

"Now it is ten years after the event and the tears have not dried, nor has the agony escaped my soul. I know not, the fate of my brothers and sister, as I sit here and contemplate my reality all too vivid before me. They were eventually brought back to the house where Octavia kept me captive. She was the sister of Octavian and the Roman wife of my father. More of that time will be revealed later in this scroll. The past seems a remnant dream that all too stubbornly wisps away at the rise of the sun.

I have heard rumors on the fates of my siblings with which I will share to the reader of this chronicle of the truth. Alas, the fates of my siblings are only rumors. I bore witness to the demise of my oldest brother Caesarion that I reveal as fate. I last saw him in chains being led into the depths of one of the many similar building's facades in this city. Caesarion was a child to die for a station that he never requested, a station that he was unprepared to carry out. He was still, until that time, under the tutelage of my parents. Because of the fate of his line in birth, he died."

VII

"I have silent aspirations that someday, I will complete her dreams. I hope and send fervent prayer to Isis that my mother looks down upon me and is proud of how I handled this predicament.

However, she was not in captivity as long as we have been, I envision that she would have done the same were she in my very shoes. I like to think of her spirit in conjunction with mine, aiding me in my plight in rendering guidance in my life in the shadows and in my dreams. I am her firstborn daughter, and therefore must carry on her wishes, learning from any mistakes that she had made."

VIII

 "Octavian made himself first man in Rome and Imperator, thus the people call his