by Karen Essex
“Our tutor is giving the history of the Macedonian queen,” she said. “Which we must learn in the unlikely event that father does not lose the throne, and I actually become a Macedonian queen. Proceed,” she commanded the eunuch.
Meleager took a breath. “We are going to begin with Olympias, the mother of Alexander.”
“Everyone feared Olympias,” interjected Berenike. “She wore wild snakes in her hair!”
“Yes, supposedly in tribute to Dionysus. In fact, she wished to frighten her husband, Philip of Macedonia, a devout polygamist who married indiscriminately for political alliance and bred bastards with every barbarian wife he took.”
Meleager explained that Olympias’s main objective was to see that her favorite son, Alexander, became king. “The Macedonian court was an unruly place, and there was a lot of competition. Philip had an older wife, Eurydice, an Illyrian warrior woman.” The eunuch pointed to Philip’s senior wife on the dynastic tree. “She and her daughter Cynane used to go into battle with Philip for the sole purpose of killing rival queens. Olympias had to become just as fierce, and quickly.”
“No wonder Alexander fell in love with an Amazon!” Berenike exclaimed. Alexander’s supposed love affair with the warrior was her favorite part of his legend.
“Alexander was quite used to fierce women. He knew that it was his mother who put him on the throne. They say she had Philip murdered to ensure it.”
“Really?” asked Kleopatra, suddenly more interested in the long-dead queen. She did not like to demonstrate interests in common with her sister, but she could never stifle her aroused curiosity.
“Oh yes. Olympias had her way. Greek queens inevitably do,” he said slowly, piercingly, aiming his words straight into Berenike’s eyes as if he might plant them there. “This is the blood of your mothers. When the king does not rule wisely, or when the proper heirs are threatened, it is up to the queen to see that tradition is carried out, that the will of the gods is done.”
“So it is up to Thea to either guide my father’s hand in policy or to dispose of him if she cannot?” Berenike asked.
“You think Thea could murder Father? Father is a king. He would kill her!” said Kleopatra, inflamed.
Berenike laughed. “He would have to catch her first.”
Meleager hoped he had not been too indiscreet. “Your Highnesses, please do not misinterpret. A queen does not lightly murder her husband. A queen employs wisdom, restraint, and the divine inspiration the gods bestow upon women of royal heritage. Only in extreme cases does a queen resort to violence against her king.”
“Is my father’s supplication to the Roman Pompey an extreme case?”
Meleager hesitated; Berenike had never asked such direct questions. There was a story he wanted to tell her, but he was saving it for the right time—a time when his liege would make the proper connections. Berenike was only two months fourteen. And he did not want to say it in front of the younger one, whose mind sometimes seemed to drift, but then later would spit out a piece of information that he thought she had neither heard nor understood. Still, she was only nine. “Princesses, do you know the story of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes?”
“Our ancestor who was called Potbelly?” Berenike asked.
Meleager nodded, pointing to the eighth Ptolemaic king. Berenike and Kleopatra leaned forward to see the likeness of the long-dead king, whose belly hung to his knees. Meleager observed that they did not look like sisters. Berenike was tall and fair of complexion like her Macedonian ancestors; Kleopatra was small, and had inherited the olive skin of her Syrian grandmother.
“You can see by the illustration of his person where he got his nickname. I wish to discuss Potbelly’s wife and sister, Kleopatra II, a brilliant woman. She would have been your great-great-grandmother.” Meleager explained that Kleopatra II first married her older brother, Philometer, and that the two became king and queen. But when Philometer died in battle, certain factions insisted that the queen obey custom and marry her other brother.
“The dreaded Potbelly!” exclaimed Kleopatra.
“Disgusting,” said Berenike.
“Nonetheless, she did her duty, and continued to administrate the government while Potbelly indulged his insatiable appetites.” The two princesses’ eyes spread wide, awaiting lurid detail, but dignity and protocol prevented the eunuch from elaborating. “Suffice it to say that he weighed four hundred pounds and sired many bastard children.”
The sisters wrinkled their noses.
“Shortly after Queen Kleopatra II married Potbelly, he decided to rid the kingdom of any vestige of his dead brother, who had banished him to Cyprus. He massacred philosophers, artists, scholars, courtiers of noble Greek birth, anyone who had sworn allegiance to the former king.”
“What a horrid man,” said Kleopatra, wishing that she could slay the nasty king, for she loved philosophers and artists, the most talkative and amusing people at court.
“That is not all. He then betrayed his wife with her own daughter, his niece, Kleopatra III. Whether the king seduced the girl or the girl seduced the king, it is not known.” Meleager looked at Berenike, who remained impassive. “Suffice it to say that while her mother was distracted, trying to save the necks of her allies, the disloyal daughter made her way into the king’s bed.”
Meleager paused to allow Berenike to draw what parallel she might. The disloyal daughter made her way to the king’s bed. The disloyal daughter made her way to the king’s bed. The eunuch chanted this in his head.
“What did the queen do? Did she not have his throat slit while he slept?” asked Berenike, rubbing her sheathed knife. “I would have had the fat bastard murdered.”
The eunuch was amused that Berenike misplaced her outrage in the annals of history, but could not find a place for it in her own circumstances. The younger one, however, cocked her pea-size head to the side. Perhaps she had stopped listening altogether. “Just when Potbelly believed he had gotten away with his scheme, Kleopatra II gathered the generals of the army about her and chased the wicked king and princess out of the country. Later, she actually reconciled with the monster. At least publicly. The queen knew that Potbelly could not last,” said Meleager. “He died shortly after his return to Egypt, and Kleopatra II ruled alone once more, dominating her irksome daughter. She ruled for fifty-seven years. A fine reward, I should say.”
“A fine reward?” The story left Berenike mortified. “She is less remembered by the people than her worthless husband. Do the people make shrines to her for her sacrifices? No. But they continue to make jokes about Potbelly, the Malefactor.”
“That is because after she died, her daughter destroyed her mother’s statues, had her name removed from official documents and histories, retracted her coinage, and put to death anyone who mentioned her.”
Kleopatra turned to her sister, who held herself off her seat with her hands as if ready to spring upon a prey. “So Kleopatra III was exactly like Thea.”
Meleager felt a chill in his chest. Berenike leapt to her feet and faced her sister. “What do you mean? Thea has put no one to death.”
“She took father away before mother was even dead. That is what everyone in the palace says.” Berenike’s eyes narrowed, and Kleopatra tensed her body, ready to be punched. Kleopatra hoped Meleager would not let Berenike hurt her. But she was tired of Berenike thinking that Thea was so wonderful, better even than their true mother.
“You are an ignorant child. All you do is eavesdrop on stupid Egyptian servants who know even less than you do,” Berenike hissed. “If Thea hadn’t married father we would have been sent away. Don’t you know what kings do when their queens die? They take new queens and have new heirs with them, and the children of the dead queen are sent away or killed. You are only here because of Thea. She married father for all of us, you stupid child.”
Kleopatra felt hot tears clouding her eyes. Berenike was the stupid one if she believed what Thea said. Still, Berenike was older. Might she know something that
Kleopatra did not? “Father loves me. He would never send me away.”
“So you think,” retorted Berenike. She put her foot on Kleopatra’s chair and pulled out her knife. Kleopatra threw her arms up to shield herself, but Berenike merely laughed. She pushed Kleopatra’s chair backward with her foot, shaking it while Kleopatra’s head reeled and her legs dangled helplessly. Then she tipped it upright with a thud, spun around, and put her knife through Potbelly’s bloated stomach.
“There,” she said, admiring her incision in the scroll. “Lessons are over for the day.”
FOUR
Whenever the Ptolemies get into trouble with the people, they have themselves deified. It’s a time-honored tradition,” Meleager explained to the Grand Marshal as he adjusted the pointy horse-ears atop the military man’s head. They were in the eunuch’s apartments dressing for the Grand Procession, the opulent parade in which Auletes would present himself as the god Dionysus. “The Egyptians might despise the Ptolemies, but they still believe that their rulers are their link to the gods, that they are the gods manifest in human bodies. The Ptolemies have used that tradition to their benefit for three centuries. It’s enabled them to get away with murder—and more.”
“It’s an exercise of the imagination to see the old flute player as a god,” laughed the General. “I’ll wager that Dionysus never exceeded two hundred pounds, even after a good feast.”
The eunuch smiled. “By the way, the robe of Silenus is stunning on you.”
“Are you sure?” The thirty-year-old Graeco-Egyptian had just been awarded the rank of general in the king’s Royal Macedonian Household Troops, a position procured for him at so young an age by Meleager. For his trouble, the eunuch extracted the price of weekly nocturnal visits, which the General did not seem to mind. Indeed, he said he liked spending evenings away from the noise and rigor of military life; liked falling asleep in the quiet palace apartment listening to the waves cuddle the king’s private harbor, the sea breezes caressing his skin as he dozed naked in the eunuchs arms.
“Am I not ridiculous in this costumery?”
“Hardly. You’re regal. King of the Satyrs, companion to Dionysus.”
“If you say so.” The General accepted a luxurious crimson cloak from the arms of the eunuch and flung it over his white robe. He stroked his beard. “I think I’ll keep the beard, though. I haven’t missed my visits to that butcher of an army barber. Miraculous that he hasn’t slit my throat by now. I’ve always envied that about your kind.” The Grand Marshal ran his fingertips over Meleager’s smooth cheeks.
“Here, let me fix your tail,” Meleager said, blushing, scurrying around him. The eunuch reached inside the red wool cloak through a slit in the back and pulled out a long mane of horsehair. He ran his fingers through it, smoothing the coarse hairs.
“This is different, is it not? You behind me for a change?”
Meleager did not respond. Off-color remarks were one thing in bed, another when not making love. The subservient role the eunuch played for the General in the bedroom did not extend outside those chambers. The General stood tall and said in a voice that sounded too formal, “I am flattered and honored, being dressed and waited upon by so noble a personage.”
The eunuch patted the General’s solid right buttock. “Here, let me sandal your feet. My, how beautiful they are. So slender, so elongated.”
“Why must soldiers truss ourselves in this manner? Would we not be more effective if we wore our uniforms? I am growing more uncomfortable, Meleager. Would you call for some wine? Why is Auletes reviving this ridiculous Procession? There hasn’t been one in a century.”
Meleager adjusted the folds of the white robe, draping them against the ripples of the General’s firm chest. “Because he’s in trouble. No one approves of the money and the troops he sent to Pompey in Judaea. The citizens are going to call for the king’s abdication. They all believe that like his ancestors, he is selling the country to the Romans to keep himself on the throne. And that is why you, a military man, are the procession’s marshal. It is quite possible that there will be violence in the streets.”
The General put his arm around Meleager’s waist and whispered in his ear. “Considering our long-range plans, perhaps we should not do too much to contain it.”
Meleager took a deep breath. It was hard to pass up a good opportunity. After all, Auletes’ aid to Pompey was a serious misstep. By helping Pompey, Auletes forever abandoned Egypt’s claim upon the Palestine. Still, the timing to rid Egypt once and for all of Auletes was not quite right. “We are simply not prepared for the king’s demise. His successor, the rightful queen, is not even fifteen. I am afraid we find ourselves in the ironic position of keeping Auletes, whom we abhor, on the throne.”
The General looked about his shoulders. “If there is trouble today, which there will be, what with all those drunks in the street, why do we not allow the king to perish? The queen would reign until Berenike is of age, and then we can get rid of her.”
“No, she is far too capricious. No one expected her to seduce Auletes. She was just a child and her mother was on her deathbed. That’s the kind of girl she is. She might take another husband, one not of our choosing. Better to wait until the elder princess is of age, do away with the queen, and let Berenike become Auletes’ co-regent. Then he can go.”
“I suppose you are right,” said the General. “Right as usual. We’ll make sure the day comes off smoothly. I know the troops are looking forward to the celebration. They’ve heard that the wine will flow into the streets as if by magic from giant drums.”
“That is no rumor, but truth.”
“I suppose a bastard king must do all he can to solidify his claims. Feeding the people and getting them drunk is as effective as anything.”
“I’m pleased that you think so, my dear. It was my idea. The king asked me what he could do to appease his rowdy subjects. I told him that we must look to history to see what worked for his more successful ancestors. The Grand Procession is an awesome display of power. It should quiet the rabble, at least for a while.”
“My friend, I’m beginning to think everything is your idea.”
“Not everything, darling. Some things merely happen. And I like to think that the gods still have a hand in our Fates.”
“But in the absence of a firm plan from the Divine, you do not seem to mind being the architect of the Fate of men,” said the General.
“The gods are whimsical. I am meticulous. Some things require careful planning.”
Kleopatra felt a cool, lemon-scented breeze pass her upturned face, filling her lungs with the life force of the god of the four winds. The day was not yet too warm and the sky was a crystalline blue, so sharp that it made everything seem more vivid and alive, or that is what the princess thought as she teetered on the chariot rings, maintaining her balance and wondering how she looked in her dress. She had chosen to wear the red robes of Isis, the goddess whom Roman women had recently begun to worship with a fervor that their husbands considered dangerous to Roman piety. Kleopatra liked the idea of being considered dangerous in Rome; she hoped that as Isis’s representative on earth, she might receive adoration in not one country but two.
So costumed, she stood next to her father on a stallion-drawn chariot of gold inlaid with jewels and ivory. Auletes had had a charioteer install a second, smaller set of rings next to his so that his little daughter could brace herself against his large frame. He allowed her to drive with him, teaching her how to keep on her feet in the chariot rings, how to lean into the sudden jerking movements to maintain her balance, how to relax her body and submit to the fierce jolts of the carriage. Holding her breath, leaning against her father, Kleopatra would force her eyes open against the winds, willing her intestines not to rise up and betray her, while all around her the landscape trembled as if an angry god had called up an earthquake. Out of the tremors she would feel a thrilling shudder rise up from the lower part of her body, slinking along her backbone like a viper, a
nd exploding in her head. “Do not resist,” her father would say to her. “Only those who resist fall.” She had yet to be thrown.
The horses danced nervously in place, shifting their weight from one hoof to the next, but Kleopatra would not stumble now, while the chariot was not even in motion, and while she and her father were observed by their most illustrious subjects. In full view of his people, Auletes stood tall in the capacious purple robes of the god that rippled in the morning breeze. The Royal Hairdresser had manufactured for the occasion a wig made of the lengthy blond curls of Greek youths, shorn as a sacrifice to Dionysus. The fair hairpiece sat upon Auletes’ head, incongruous with his woolly black eyebrows. Crowned with an ivy wreath, he held a gilded thrysus, the fennel-stalk wand that the god used as a scepter, dramatically in his hand. He stuck his eagle-beak nose into the air, allowing the curls to fall down his back like a haughty young maiden, while an artist sketched his profile for the coinage he would issue with himself presented as the god.
“I shall have them do a statue, too,” he said to his daughter. “I shall have myself preserved for all time as I am today.”
“It is time to mount the elephant, Your Majesty,” a satyr announced to the king. Kleopatra could not help but notice that his pointy ears were crooked, causing him to look slightly ridiculous. The king’s footmen rushed to assist his descent from the chariot, but for the benefit of his audience he pushed them away with his royal foot and alighted unaided with astonishing grace for such a stout man. He reached his arms out to his daughter, who leapt into them.
“Enough of that,” said Charmion, whisking her away from her father. “You would not see your next birthday if you were left to your own devices.”
“You are like a skittish cat, Charmion,” Kleopatra said as she straightened her robes. “You have no love of physical exertion. You are a mind without a body.”