Twins of Egypt

Chapter 20: Motherhood || Part 2

[[Selene || The next day]]

I woke at the sudden jolt of the litter and gently lifted my sleepy head off the pillow. Julia was lying across from me playing with a spool of thread, examining it consistently.

My children littered around me because I refused to be separated from them and see them put in a separate litter with other children and their nurses. Julia's daughter, Julianna, sat quietly beside her while her little sister Agrippina laid her little head on her lap. Their mother paid no attention to them, but it did not matter as Alexandria elatedly talked to Julianna. She must have been happy to meet children who were at the same level as her, instead of the Berber children who looked nothing like her and did not believe in the same faith she did.

"What was your father's name?" Alexandria asked in accented Latin.

Julianna looked at her quizzically and spoke softly, "Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. What is your's?"

"King Juba of Mauretania. If that your doll?" She points to the little toy Agrippina carried shamelessly.

Agrippina shook her head.

"That is mine," Julianna answered, "it's a doll of me when I am older. Mama had it especially made for me."

I looked at the way Alexandria did so. It looked like Julianna. A heart shaped face decorated with violet eyes and a plump little mouth. A river of black hair fell from the head of the doll. I remembered Julia had a doll like that, and so did Marcellus, and she would play with them all the time, and put them inside the small pantheon in her father's enormous villa.

I yawned and brother my two year old son to my chest. He smiled happily at me and for a moment, I longed for my second daughter, who stayed with her father at home.

"Ptolemy," I called him and he looked up at me. He babbled something incomprehensible, but I continued to speak to him, "we are going to the Poticus Octaviae. When I was younger, the woman the portico is named after, raised me, and made sure you were to become my son. I am sure she intended me to have you sooner, and would have loved to meet you were you were born. But I assure you, after our little tour, we will visit your grandmother." I smiled and kissed his red cheeks. "She will have all sorts of stories for you my son, so many. I loved listening to her when I was younger, although my mother told me directly never to like any of my father's ex-wives for she is the only true wife, but Octavia is the sweetest woman you will ever know."

Blue innocent eyes looked back at me and I looked up at Julia who's eyes were a puffy scarlet. She had been silently crying. She looked away from me once I found her. I would not allow her to sit in pain.

"Julia?" My voice was soft and cautious.

"No Selene," she murmured in pain, "no right now. Not while I am suffering."

Worriedly I continued to press, "At least assure me everything will be fine."

"I do not think I could ever do that," she sheltered herself in the pillows that roamed the litter and left me with the shifting moods of the children.

Julianna curiously watched her mother and I, scowling at me suddenly. She must think I caused her mother to act this way and I feel immense guilt. Alexandria looked at me questioningly so I acted quick.

"Alexandria," I smiled cheerfully, "would you and Julianna like to hear a story?"

"No Your M-" Julianna began.

"Yes, please mother." Alexandria demanded.

"Julianna I think you will love this story. It's about my first voyage to Rome when I was ten and your mother was the same age."