by Jo Graham
Iras got Gnaeus Pompeius’ reply for his father before it left, and made a clever copy so that we all might see.
Most esteemed father, I hear and reverence your words. I have come upon an opportunity too wonderful to pass by—it seems that Ptolemy Auletes is ailing, and his eldest daughter is much taken with me. Would it be possible, do you think, for you to procure a divorce for me from Appia? If so, I could promise you always the riches of Egypt at your disposal?. . . .
Before a reply could come from Rome, the worst happened. Ptolemy Auletes died.
His death was hardly unexpected. We were prepared. He had been ill for months, and his last sickness went on for weeks before he drew his final breath. By that time we could only hope he would go soon, and suffer no more. At least that is what I hoped. I loved him, I suppose, for all that he only regarded me a little. He had done well by me. I had not lacked for anything it was in his power to give. Those things that were not within his power, I did not begrudge him.
I walked in the funeral cortege, far in the rear, with the other women of Cleopatra’s household, my hair covered with a white veil. About me, Iras and the others set up ritual wails.
Now I should never know, I thought. I should never know what he had felt, who he had been. Was my mother as little to him as Lucan was to me? Who was he, and what might he have said, if things had been different? Of all his children, Asetnefer said I was the one most like him, the one who might have understood.
If I had been born a boy, I should even now stand as a contender to the throne. Auletes himself had been a son of the harem. He would not have hesitated to raise me to the throne beside Cleopatra, a much more compatible consort to her than Theo, now known as Young Ptolemy. If I were a boy, would it be I who even now walked beside his bier, beside my sister in mourning? Would it be I who stood as Horus, the son of Serapis, the promised Falcon of Egypt?
Something in me whispered that I could do it. If I were a boy, I should be her consort, the prop to her throne, her general. I should exchange fashion for a sword, and the meticulous dance of court events for the swirl of the battlefield. Instead of provisioning funeral feasts, I should provision armies. And I should do it well.
I inclined my head. Through the trumpets and drums of the funeral procession, I heard Isis’ voice speaking softly behind me. That is not the task I have set before you.
Auletes lay in a crypt in the royal parkland, long prepared for him, in a sarcophagus of Carian marble, his mummy wrapped in fine linen and encased in gold.
“It’s only gold leaf,” Cleopatra whispered to me after. “Over cartonnage. We can’t possibly afford gold.”
“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” I said, thinking how it was like Auletes, to look fine beneath something that was essentially no more than paper, the kind of coffin used by ordinary people. Even in death, he still owed money to Pompeius Magnus. Unfortunately, that debt still hung around our necks.
“How are you going to find the money?” I asked Cleopatra. There would be Theo’s counselors to deal with as well as the men who had served Auletes. His tutor was a man called Theocritus, whom I didn’t like, and his household was run by a eunuch named Pothinus, who had come to us from Tyre. They would have a great deal to say, I imagined.
“I don’t know yet,” she said, and shook her head.
In a few days, I saw how at least she meant to delay.
“You must stay with me,” Cleopatra said. She reclined beside Gnaeus Pompeius on the dining couch, lifting a morsel of meat to her mouth. “Now that I am bereft of my father, what shall I do?”
Gnaeus Pompeius raised his wine cup. “I’m sure my father will make certain that Rome supports the terms of the will. And supports your claim to the throne. I suppose you must marry your brother, as your father intended.”
“But Theo is only twelve,” she said, gazing at him adoringly. “And there are factions and factions here at court.”
“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “I will see you crowned. And then perhaps I will see if I can find you a better husband than your little brother.”
“That would please me greatly,” she said, dipping her head and smiling at him.
“She cannot think to marry him,” Iras fumed in native Egyptian. “He is nothing, nothing except the spoiled son of a rich man who does his father’s bidding badly. She is the daughter of kings, of the noblest line in the world.”
“I do not think she means to marry him,” I said. “But she certainly means to be crowned. And I doubt that the Queen’s faction would wish it.”
Though the Queen was gone, her faction among the nobles was alive and well. And Theo had a full sister, Arsinoe, who could be his queen as well as Cleopatra. I wondered if she should have Arsinoe killed, but dared not say anything about it to her. I was sure she would not do it. Not until something happened to make Arsinoe less innocent. She would not be Berenice. That I knew.
Of the coronation, I cannot say as much as I should. Mostly, I remember the tremendous amount of work. A coronation is a complicated affair, and the priests of the Temple of Serapis and Isis were very firm on what must go into it, that it should conform to the formulae of previous coronations. There were huge crowds lining the streets from the gates of the Palace Quarter to the Serapeum, cheering and shouting, throwing flowers. For although this was their fourth ruler in five years, the people of Alexandria loved a festival.
Meanwhile, Gnaeus Pompeius had some bad news of his own. Not only was his father pressing for a loan payment, but it seemed that Pompeius Magnus himself was in great need of money. His feud with this Caesar, which had at first seemed some sort of falling out between men closely allied by marriage, had gone further. Caesar was in arms against Pompeius, or against Rome itself, depending on whose letters were most reliable. In any event, Pompeius was raising an army, which is never a cheap endeavor. Toward that end, he was sending Gnaeus some very probing letters, pushing for funds immediately.
After as great a delay as possible, Cleopatra sent as little as she could. Still, it was talents and talents of gold, money we might have better spent in Egypt. And not enough to more than put off Pompeius Magnus for a short time.
On top of this, the harvest in the north was poor. Cleopatra directed, in the name of the joint rulers, the Twin Gods Ptolemy and Cleopatra Philopater, that the grain surplus from Upper Egypt should be sent to Alexandria immediately. If the price of grain in the city went too high, we risked the kind of riots that had originally cost Auletes his throne.
_______
IRAS PASSED her twentieth birthday, and then Cleopatra did, in the winter when the fields of the Black Land greened. And as the year turned, the days measured by the Horologers getting almost imperceptibly longer, Gnaeus Pompeius received yet another letter from his father.
While Gnaeus was out hunting, Iras and Apollodorus worked on the letter, carefully steaming loose Pompeius Magnus’ seal without damaging it. Cleopatra paced around the room.
“Not more money,” Cleopatra said, stopping by the windows, her himation hanging over one arm instead of about her shoulders. “Not more money now. It’s not possible. We’re bleeding money right now on grain.”
“We have to,” I said from where I sat in a chair by the table. “It will be months yet before the new harvest, and the city has to have grain. If you don’t keep the price down, it will be a disaster.”
“I’ll have to think of something to keep Gnaeus busy,” Cleopatra said. She was silhouetted against the light from the windows, and I couldn’t see her face. “His father is pressing him hard.”
“I have it,” Apollodorus said, and carefully he and Iras unrolled the letter.
“Is it money he wants?” I asked.
Iras shook her head, bending over the letter, her brows knitted. “No. Troops. He wants Gnaeus to take all of the men he brought with him and come to Greece immediately. It seems that Caesar has driven him from Italy, and Pompeius intends to make a stand in Greece. He directs Gnaeus to set out without de
lay, as any delay may be critical.” Iras looked up. “That’s a mixed bag.”
“We get rid of Gnaeus, anyway,” I said, glancing toward Cleopatra.
“And his troops,” she replied. Cleopatra turned, leaning on the window ledge. “Which leaves us with nothing but the mercenaries Auletes hired, and no actual Royal Army except for them. And their loyalty is for sale to the highest bidder.”
“Reconstituting the army would take money,” I pointed out. “Especially since the mercenaries have to be paid.”
Cleopatra stretched back on her arms. “Sometimes I hate Auletes,” she said. “He managed to mortgage the kingdom and destroy the army at the same time!”
Iras laid the scroll carefully on the table. “What else could he have done?”
“Nothing!” Cleopatra began pacing again. “It’s as well to be rid of Gnaeus, and that’s a pause at least in the relentless demands for money, but his troops . . .”
“Are what secured your throne,” Apollodorus said. “Gracious Queen, if I were you I would be very careful.”
“I mean to be,” she said.
THREE WEEKS AFTER Gnaeus Pompeius sailed for Greece, we were all placed under arrest by order of Pharaoh Ptolemy Theodorus.
The Mirror of Isis
I looked into the mirror, and the Queen of Egypt looked back. Beneath the heavy black wig with its hanging plaits, eyes rimmed in kohl gleamed under shadowed brows, the green malachite paint on my eyelids drawn out to the very corners. My lips were red, my skin pale, more a mask than a face in the formal paint.
“Try this,” she said, and I felt the weight as the uraeus settled upon my brow. The gilded cobra seemed almost to move in the dim light.
“You’ll do,” Iras said. Her sharp dark eyes met mine in the mirror as it tilted, her face beside mine. “You’ll do if no one sees your eyes in the light.”
Cleopatra bent, tilting the mirror again. “No one should see her that closely,” she said. “It will be dark, and she will have her head inclined a good part of the time.”
Iras grimaced. We had played The Game for amusement, but now it was deadly earnest. If Cleopatra stayed in the palace, it was only a matter of time before some assassin succeeded. It might be that she was only kept alive until after the holy days, because if she were not able to do the Queen’s part in the ceremonies there would be talk. On the other hand, the ceremonies themselves might be the focus of an assassination attempt. An attack by a seeming madman, cut down by Pharaoh’s guards in the full view of the city, would deflect suspicion from him.
When I had taken a knife for her in the past I had only a moment to think on it. Now I should deliberately and coolly provoke it.
The rites of Isis, like those of the other Egyptian gods, required the ancient dress of the Black Land. The gown was sheer linen, almost translucent, pleated into dozens of folds that almost concealed the opening at the front from hem to waist. It would not swing open unless I ran or moved carelessly. It belted tight beneath my breasts, and a long semicircular, pleated linen collar fastened around my neck, falling to the waist front and back. On that was placed a great jeweled collar set with malachite and turquoise, faience, and bits of ruby glass. It weighed tremendously. If I did not stand very straight it threatened to pull me over on my face, even with the counterweight attached at the back.
Iras fussed at every pleat, as she did for the Queen. I stood still.
Cleopatra circled me, her brows furrowed. When she saw my expression she smiled suddenly. “You do look very like me,” she said. “The stamp of the Ptolemies is fairly unmistakable.”
THE CEREMONIAL PROCESSION wound its way out of the Palace Quarter, between parks and guesthouses, beneath wide arches and porticos, beneath the broad gate itself. On ordinary days, the Queen should be borne this way in a litter, but today we were all postulants of Isis. I walked shod in gilded sandals, surrounded by four of the most junior attendants on the Queen, who were in turn surrounded by Pharaoh’s guards. Always surrounded by guards. Ostensibly, they were to show his sister honor. Yet no matter how respectful their salutes, how gilded their ornament, I was under no illusion I was not a prisoner.
My steps were proud and slow, dignified as befitted the Queen of Egypt. Let them watch. Let all eyes be on me. Eyes that are upon me are not seeking elsewhere. If everyone knows where the Queen is, in the full view of all Alexandria, no one will wonder at the movements of two servants, slave girls who might go to the markets or about their mistress’ business on any day. No one would notice Iras and Cleopatra, leaving even now, their himations over their heads as they went to make their devotions at some smaller temple this feast day.
We passed through the shadow of the great gate. Its shade fell over me, cool and pleasant. Above, the first Ptolemy looked out from the wall, his carved face seeming somehow amused. Do you see what I do? I thought. Do you watch this game among your descendants? Do you dwell in paradise in the deathless western lands of Amenti, or are you born again, walking the streets of this city you built?
The procession turned into the Canopic Way. Wide enough for four carts to pass abreast, lined with fine buildings, the Canopic Way stretched straight as an arrow through the heart of the city, from the eastward gate almost to the city wall at the Inner Harbor. Past the Museum and the great Library, the Street of the Soma gave southward, to the Temples of Serapis and Isis, and the tomb of Alexander.
The glare was almost blinding. Those buildings that were not faced with white marble in the Greek style were built of light-colored stone in the Egyptian, some faced with gypsum to seem grander. The street was clad in pale sandstone, washed clean before dawn of the previous day’s filth. Each building along the processional way had been prepared as well, votive statues given a good scrubbing, and I noted with some amusement that the massive statue of Ptolemy Philadelphos that stood halfway along lacked his usual crown of lackadaisical seagulls. Normally, they kept a raucous commentary on the events in the streets below, swooping down to snatch up anything dropped that bore the slightest resemblance to food.
My eyes watered against the light, even shadowed as they were by kohl. The wig weighed a thousand talents. On my brow, the uraeus warmed in the sun.
Past the great sweeping colonnades at the front of the Library, the procession began its turn into the Street of the Soma. Ahead, between the steel-tipped spears of the escort, I could see the high dome that marked where Alexander lay in his sarcophagus of glass.
And then we passed into blessed shade, into the portico of the temple. Girls came forward with basins of clear water, holding them that we might bathe our hands before we stepped into the temple itself. One of the maidens assisted me, unfastening jeweled sandals and washing the dust of the city from my hennaed feet.
The inner courtyard was crowded, and likewise the temple itself, dark after the street outside. Resinous smoke billowed up from two great braziers before the altar, myrrh and frankincense and kephri, dark and fragrant as the night of Her search, touched with lotus and something more sweet beneath the scent of funerals.
One of the guards stumbled, momentarily blinded by the sudden darkness.
The Queen’s place was at the front, and the crowds parted as they should, our party passing through, stopping just before the right-hand brazier, the guards coming to rest with their gilded spear butts against the stone floor.
High up on the walls, the shadows shifted with the faint movements of flame in the braziers, old gods seeming to walk along the walls. Thoth inclined His head to the throne, where Isis sat beside Her husband. Ma’at suspended a feather and a heart. The Lord of the Dead stretched forth His hand. Silence filled the temple.
I inclined my head. I could hear my own heart pounding in my chest. The braids swung forward, half-hiding my bent face. Perhaps it looked like piety. Perhaps no one else was really paying attention. I closed my eyes and rested in the perfumed darkness. Even the faint sounds of the people about me faded away.
Mother Isis, I thought, the most impious
of thoughts, let me get away with it!
Then in the darkness there was a voice, whether the voice of woman or boy I could not tell, high and pure as heaven’s arch. “If I do not bring you solace, then at least I bring you light. Hope is more precious than the brightest gold. If I do not bring you solace, then at least I bring you love. Hope is more precious than the brightest gold.”
The story was older than time, old as memory, and I had learned it as a child like everyone does, celebrated it each year. In that long ago night, the Widow wandered, Her husband slain and His body dismembered. Lost and alone, She wandered in the swamps of the Delta. Only the stars shone down on Her with pity.
“If I do not bring you solace, then at least I bring you light. Nothing is more precious than hope.” The voice soared, filling the temple with its bright solo, clear and strong as starlight. In the depths of the swamp, in the depths of despair, Isis sought the parts of Her husband’s body and quickened it, lay with Him for one night only. “Nothing is more precious than hope.”
And now the sistrums began, on the same note as the children’s choir, their voices pure and light. “If I do not bring you solace, then at least I bring you light!” I opened my eyes and I saw them singing as they’d been taught, their mouths opening and closing with the exaggeration of children who have been told to enunciate. “Hope is more precious than the brightest gold!”
In the darkness of Her despair, She gave birth to a son, infant Horus who would restore the world, whose bright eyes opened like the rising sun.
Through some marvel of engineering, fire ran down the long channels at the front of the temple, pouring like liquid into the vast bronze cressets, the entire front of the temple blazing forth suddenly with the brilliance of leaping flame.
“If I do not bring you peace, then at least I bring you love.” The men’s choir came in, their strong voices ringing, and behind them the deep drums like a heartbeat, old and fine.