Domina Victrix

Chapter 38: 26 AD, Alexandria, Antioch and Caesarea

Layla sat at her desk and pondered as she waited for another professor to wrap his lecture and classes to change out. At 35, she was a year younger than Lucius. A petite, thin woman with dark brown eyes, thick black hair, and the warm skin tones of her Egyptian heritage, she had kept her age well. She was still cycling, and had not hit menopause, so she could give Lucius a son if they married, but she already loved Epona and Lucillus, so doubted it would be necessary.

Layla was a baby when both her parents died of the frequent fevers that wracked the Nile Delta. Her grandparents and later her uncle and aunt raised her and instilled in her a love of learning and hard work. Her grandfather had been an ointment maker in Cleopatra's court, responsible for blending perfumes, creams, medicinal preparations, and the like. Her grandmother had been an enslaved maid to the royal children and knew Princess Cleopatra Selene as a baby and small child Epona's age.

Her grandparents had interacted with both Cleopatra and Antony and had described them to her many times. Cleopatra could be kind and was generous to those around her. She was also mercurial, prickly, and stood on her dignity, as her grandson Juba tended to do. She loved her children, but at a distance. She had given them all royal titles and expected them to behave as the tiny monarchs and divinities that they were, not as ordinary children.

Antony was more relatable. He could be angry and lash out. He was a man of excess in matters of intrigue, money, sex, and drink. But his Egyptian daughter was the apple of his eye. He had taught Cleopatra Selene to ride, and told her stories of Rome's greatness. He would have been amazed and pleased at the queen she later became. Layla knew Antony's influence was present in all three of his grandsons, who took pleasure in raising their children and fostered the potential of the girls as well as the boys.

Such qualities were more common in Greek and Egyptian upper class families, but not for Romans or Jews. Layla's grandparents and uncle were the exceptions, apprenticing her in their ointment business and later allowing her to study pharmacology and midwifery. The one traditional aspect they insisted on was marriage. She was twenty when a local physician and medical lecturer asked her hand. On her wedding night she found out the truth. He was years older than her, not into women, and the marriage was a cover.

She and her husband, Naphtali, soon came to an understanding. She turned a blind eye to his affairs with young male physicians and students, and did not expect a physical union. He sponsored her as a guest lecturer and later a full professor at the medical college. She had a comfortable life and things were going well. Then, a student whose affair with Naphtali had gone sour stabbed him on the way home after class. In death, his secret was out and rocked the medical college and Alexandria's proselyte community. Her uncle called in every favor to keep her chair at the university. Wealthy and with a career of her own, Layla put marriage in the back of her mind. Life returned to a decent normal.

There were pluses and minuses to an academic life. She had the time to research and write and had published several treatises on obstetrical complications and gynecology. She enjoyed teaching others. There was one quality, though, in most of her students that was lacking, and it had taken an aquaintance with Victoria to pinpoint what it was. Most of the women in Layla's classes came from wealthy backgrounds. A university education was not cheap. The college itself did not charge tuition, but professors could charge fees, as did tutors and preceptors. Also, one needed a life of leisure in order to attend classes and study. Most of the women she taught were like Hadassah. Their education was an intellectual pursuit. If they practiced at all, it would be for relatives and members of their own social class.

Victoria shattered that mold. A woman from a storied background, daughter and granddaughter of provincial governors, wife of a prince and mother of a possible future king, if anyone had a right to be snotty, it was her. And she was the opposite. Willing to work in the clinic, to go into the vicus or the castrum to tend common soldiers, working poor or even slaves, birth children and help other women care for their families, she was a breath of fresh air. Layla had once asked Bolt what motivated her.