The Flight Out of Egypt
an excerpt

Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion, was hiding in a cupboard with his little sister. He was 17, she was seven. Smoke was drifting in, but he had wrapped a wool robe around and over her and they were pretending to be about to spring out on the pirates.

Under the smoke was a smell like a butcher's stall, and there were long screams and shouts and laughter in the distance, and the screeching, grinding noise of chariot wheels on the marble streets.

He put his eye to the gap between the doors and froze. A Roman soldier were marching up the corridor. A huge black man. Caesarion had seen this man talking to Cleopatra earlier in the day.

The big man was counting the cupboards along the wall, and when he came to 'seven', he stopped and looked straight into Caesarion's eyes.

He wrenched the cupboard open and Caesarion stood and prepared to sell his life dear. But first he jumped out and slammed the door to keep his sister out of sight.

The big man dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Your majesty. Your noble mother has asked for you."

It was probably a trick, he thought.

"Where's your brothers and your sister?" added the soldier.

A giggle from the cupboard, and the man opened the door and pulled out Selene.

They turned and walked off. Selene followed. Caesarion started to tell her to wait - but then thought the men could have killed them, but hadn't. So he followed too.

Cleopatra lay in a chamber with a view over the town and the harbour, drinking warmed spicy wine, her glorious red hair lying on her shoulders in damp, crimped curls.

She'd been crying for days, since Mark Antony was brought to her dying. Now she looked around with a surprised air, as if wondering how all her talents had come to this - her languages, her diplomacy, her charm, her wealth, all for nothing now.

She looked at Caesarion, and in her blurred gaze he could see the thought: at least I can save my children.