Kleopatra

by Karen Essex

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “Listen to me,” Mohama said calmly and without fear, strengthening the chasm between them—bodyguard and charge. “After I was captured in the desert, I was taken to the Royal Brothel to apprentice as a court prostitute. I learned to speak Greek from the Madam, who took a special liking to me. She groomed me and trained me for one year in the arts of pleasing both man and woman. She said that people at court were versatile in their tastes and one must be prepared for anything.”

  “You’re a whore?” Kleopatra asked angrily.

  Mohama merely shrugged at the sling. “On my first day as a prostitute, a man tried to take me from behind and use me as if I were a boy. It hurt me so much that I asked him to stop. He would not, so I got free of him. I broke his arm, twisting his wrist and kicking his forearm with my heel as my brothers had taught me to do. Then, to leave my mark, I bit a chunk of flesh from his face.”

  Kleopatra tried not to show her admiration for Mohama’s ferocity. She squinted to stop herself smiling.

  “I was locked in a small room. For three days I lay on the floor with no food. I thought I was going to be left to die, but the next day, two Royal Macedonian Guards brought me before the Lady Charmion, who interviewed me about my skills in weaponry and fighting, and then took me to the king.”

  “Why? Why would my father call for you? You are lying to me and I know it.”

  “It seems that the man I injured was one of your father’s Kinsmen.”

  “And my father did not have you killed?”

  “Your father had been looking for a companion for you. He told me that he had a daughter whose ebullient spirit he did not wish to kill, nor did he wish to see harm come to her. He commanded me to make your trust me, and to accompany you on your forays into the city.”

  Kleopatra felt the hot sting of humiliation. She had gotten away with nothing, fooled no one. Not Charmion, who every day feigned disapproval for her adventuring spirit, but who allowed her to sneak past her watchful eye. Not her father, who pretended to be the fool with her, just as he feigned that role for others. She was neither spy nor Kinsman, but a child, pampered and humored by the grownups. Every time she thought she had escaped their hawklike watch over her, every time she thought she was free, she was observed. Like a silly girl, she played the spy while her father, through real spies, kept knowing eyes upon her.

  She looked at her companion as if for the first time. Here was a girl who had done the things she had seen Berenike do with the Bactrian girls. Who had done the things her father did with Thea, with his mistresses. Mohama was no longer her ally, but one of them.

  “Traitor,” was all she could say.

  “I know that you will be angry with me,” said Mohama in an even voice. She had dropped the veneer of kinship and assumed the voice of authority, the voice Charmion used when she had a purpose, the kind of voice a guardian would use on her charge. “There is no time now for anger or for questioning. We are in danger. Every day when we leave the palace, two bodyguards secretly follow us. Today, they are nowhere in sight.”

  “This is a plot against my father and we are being sacrificed,” said Kleopatra.

  “Perhaps. I only know that we have been left alone and that we must get safely back into the palace. Yet I do not know if that is the right thing to do since the palace is under attack.”

  The princess stared at the orange oleander flowers that shrouded the sheltering bushes, knowing them to contain a powerful poison, and wondering if she had the courage to stuff one into her mouth. Everyone had betrayed her. No one needed her. She was just a burdensome child—a nonessential, a thing to be tended to while the real business of the kingdom was conducted by others.

  At the palace wall, the mob gained ground on the Royal Macedonian Household Troops, who tried to hold the line of protesters back with the points of their spears, but were outnumbered.

  “Shields!” cried the captain. His men raised their bronze shields against those who threatened to storm the front gates with their horses. “We have reinforcements coming from the king’s army,” the captain shouted into the crowd. “You’d better go back to your homes and your families, or many of you will not live to see the sun set.”

  “Out of the way, Greek,” said the son of Melcheir to the captain. “It’s your king we want, not you. Bring us the king, the Roman lover, and we’ll leave you and your men in peace.”

  “We are the king’s men, fool,” said the captain. “We will die defending the king.”

  Kleopatra and Mohama watched this exchange from their safe spot near the thick oleander bushes. “They mean to enter the palace,” said the princess. “They are going to take my father and kill him.”

  Mohama put her arm around the princess, who out of desperation and fear allowed herself to be embraced.

  “Deliver the king,” the son of Melcheir demanded again. The mob echoed his order.

  “Not even if you deliver your sister,” the captain scoffed.

  The son of Melcheir raised his left hand in a signal. From the middle of the mob, someone shot a flaming arrow over the palace wall and into the gardens. Then another. Then another. The Royal Macedonian Troops answered with a shower of javelins at the source of the arrows. The crowd parted. Those who saw what was coming tried to save themselves by ducking aside, allowing the guard to attack to the middle. Indifferent to the targets of the lethal metal points, they thrust ahead with their spears until they reached the group in the center who controlled the fire.

  The princess saw two members of the elite Greek guard seize the fire-throwers, young men not too long at the razor, throw them to the ground, and slay them through the chest with their swords. The Egyptians tried to jump the soldiers, but, better trained than the common demonstrators, they threw the men from their backs and slashed their way through the crowd and back to their own line.

  Inflamed, the protesters held up the bodies of their dead and screamed hysterically, “Death to Auletes! Death to the Bastard!”

  Kleopatra saw a group of men put their clubs and spears into the firepot, raising their flaming weapons against the palace. “Burn him out!”

  “I want to go home,” Kleopatra insisted, trying not to let Mohama see the tears swelling in her eyes. “I want my father. If he dies, I want to die with him.”

  “Follow me. Do not let go of my hand,” she ordered in a tone that did not leave room for dispute.

  Kleopatra, shoulders cringing with each demand for the surrender of Auletes to the mob, did not look back to see the progress the dissidents were making against her father’s guard. Mohama led them to the service entrance of the royal compound on the east side, hoping to find an area safe from the throng, but the palace was entirely surrounded from the east end to the west. Only the side facing the sea was clear—and perhaps it, too, was threatened. The huge gates were open and Kleopatra could see that the masses had infiltrated and overthrown the food-cars delivering supplies to the king’s kitchen. The merchants had abandoned their carts and their goods. Lettuces, vegetables, heaps of herbs, grains, and fruits littered the grounds around the loading dock.

  Only a small guard stood between the protesters and the king’s kitchens, and they were outnumbered. They looked very frightened, eyes shifting past the mob as if hoping for help to arrive. The protesters yelled the same demands. “We want the king.’ Bring us the bastard Auletes!”

  “There is no way in,” Mohama said.

  “Yes there is,” said Kleopatra, surprising herself with the returned confidence in her voice. “We must pretend to be one of the rabble. We’ll infiltrate their ranks to get past them. When we reach the front of the protesters, we’ll tell the guards who we are and they will let us in. That Demonsthenes, he knows you. He is sweet on you. He will let us back in.”

  “No. It is too dangerous. Let us go to the Park of Pan and wait until the trouble is over.”

  “My duty is with my father. I am going in.”

  Kleopatra felt the heat
from the men’s bodies and smelled their cheap hair oil as she squeezed by them, eyes on the ground seeking a path through the fray. Finding herself in the front lines of the mob, she hoisted herself upon the loading platform where the guards stood. One of them grabbed her by the shoulders. “Get out of here, you little vermin,” he said.

  “Demonsthenes,” she said. “I am the princess Kleopatra.”

  “And I am Alexander the Great,” he said. He picked her up to throw her back to the crowd.

  “Demonsthenes!” Mohama screamed his name. He looked at her. “Please do not hurt her.” Kleopatra hoped that Mohama would not reveal her identity. The throng would smash her into shards and send the pieces to Auletes.

  “I am the cousin of Mohama,” she said to Demonsthenes. “I am sorry I lied. I am a polisher of silver in the king’s kitchen. Please do not hurt me.”

  Demonsthenes threw Kleopatra aside, letting her hit the hard planks of the dock. He leaned over to help Mohama onto the platform, but an Egyptian protester caught her from behind, pulling her back into the crowd.

  “Look what we’ve got here,” said another as the man held Mohama. “The king’s property. One of the king’s cooks. Or maybe one of his young harlots. Let’s show the king what we think of his whore!”

  Demonsthenes rushed to the edge of the platform and tried to intimidate the protesters with his sword. He squatted down to jump into the crowd to help Mohama, but another guard yanked him back by his clothing. “She’s not worth it. We need you. Let her go to her fate.”

  “No,” he said, trying to escape the grip of his fellow soldier.

  The Egyptian had Mohama’s neck locked inside his arms. Kleopatra looked into her friend’s terrified eyes, paralyzed to help her. She had never seen Mohama exhibit fear, but the desert girl who had sacrificed herself to save her brothers now looked back at her companion with the resignation of a deer caught in the hunters’ nets. Kleopatra stood up, beating the second guard in the back with her fist. “Help her, I command you,” she said.

  He knocked her back to the ground. “Shut up, little whore. I’m not losing my best man to save the hide of a common harlot.”

  Mohama pulled at the arms that gripped around her throat, cutting off her breath. She could not budge the man’s tight hold on her. He had lifted her onto her tiptoes. The harder Mohama struggled, the farther he lifted her, until her feet were practically dangling off the ground.

  “Help her,” Kleopatra yelled again. “Help her or I will have my father kill you.”

  But the guards were engaged in staving off the other demonstrators who took advantage of the moment by trying to leap onto the platform.

  Kleopatra cowered against the wall, pushing her back against the cold granite slab. Mohama stared straight ahead, her face red and strained, her mouth in the grimace of a corpse that had been tortured, and her eyes bulging. Her body seemed completely frozen, as if she was using every bit of remaining strength just to stay alive.

  Slowly, the desert girl’s right hand disappeared into the hidden breast pocket in her garment. Kleopatra thought Mohama was trying to clutch her dying heart.

  It was then that the princess saw the glint of the curved metal blade as it caught a late afternoon insinuation of sunlight. She watched Mohama move in the slow motion of a dream. With a magician’s hand, she flipped the knife, reached behind herself, and in a great, deliberate, precise stroke, slit her captor’s body from his thigh, through his pelvis, and up to his gut.

  Kleopatra looked from the implacable face of Mohama to the face of her victim in time to see him register an almost imperceptible look of surprise, a faint recognition that his fate had been decided. A dark stream of his life’s liquid gushed at once onto his white clothing. Surprised, unaware of his assailant, he let go of the girl and looked down to see what had caused the sudden agony. Using his bleeding body as a springboard, Mohama threw herself away from him into the arms of Demonsthenes, who pulled her onto the platform and into safety.

  The man fell backward, screaming. He touched his hands to his blood and then raised the red palms to the sky. The crowd, suddenly quiet, looked among their own ranks for the culprit, while Demonsthenes lifted the bolt of the double doors that led to the kitchens and hustled the two girls through.

  NINE

  Kleopatra followed Mohama up the servants’ stairs at the rear of the palace, her feet throbbing with every step. She stared at the back of Mohama’s dress, soaked in blood, clinging to her backside. The interior of the palace was remarkably calm. There was no committee representing the king proclaiming gladness at their safety, no one into whose arms she might have jumped. Kleopatra wondered if they had even been missed.

  Inside the chamber, the rigid face of Charmion greeted them. “Bathe and dress,” she said quietly. “The king will see you after he is finished meeting with his advisers.”

  “Is my father safe?” asked the princess.

  “At present, it appears so.”

  Kleopatra allowed herself to be stripped and washed by silent slaves, dressed, and brought before her father. Without saying a word, he planted a hard slap on Mohama’s brown face, leaving red streaks where his fingers made contact. Kleopatra observed her own silence and wondered why she did not speak out for her bodyguard. She heard with distant ears the even-toned explanation of Mohama, whose hands did not even touch the swelling scarlet on her face. She watched as if she were a stranger to herself and to the others as her father threw his hands up, letting remorseful tears of anxiety and relief roll down his chubby cheeks.

  She lay for two days alone in her bed, refusing the food brought to her, even when Charmion tried to spoon-feed it to her tightly closed mouth. From her bedroom window she heard more shouts coming from the streets, this time in Greek. The clash of swords, the low hum of confrontation, lasted all day long.

  “It is the Greeks this time. Our own people,” Charmion explained. “A meddlesome philosopher named Dio has organized them against your father. They are upset by the death of the king of Cyprus and the Roman annexation of that Egyptian territory. They fear Egypt is next. They are calling for your father to abdicate.”

  It was too much for the sick girl to think about. She knew a philosopher at the Mouseion named Dio, a verbose Sophist who spouted aphorisms at the lazy young boys in his tutelage. Kleopatra simply nodded and fell back into her deep slumber. What had become of Mohama she did not know and did not ask. Perhaps the king had given the girl a more important assignment.

  On the third day, Charmion brought the news that Auletes would travel to Rome to demand something in return for the six thousand talents he had paid Julius Caesar. He was going to request a show of military support from Rome or else ask that his money be returned.

  The princess sat up for the first time in days. “Is my father abdicating? Who will govern in his place?”

  “He is leaving the queen to keep the throne, with Meleager and Demetrius as her appointed Regency Council.”

  “He is leaving us here to die,” the princess said, suddenly queasy. Would her father sacrifice all of them, his wife and five children, to his ambitions?

  “Nonsense. You talk like a child. If the entire Royal Family goes to Rome, the king will have abdicated, or so it would appear to the people. Your father has arrived at the most intelligent solution to his troubles. The people will not move against the Royal Family if they know they are going to face a Roman legion.”

  Kleopatra said nothing. He has sacrificed his family like lambs to slaughter. She counted herself among her father’s victims.

  Without warning, her stomach collapsed. It was as if she had been stabbed in the gut, as if someone not present had pushed the knife. There was a word for that kind of magic, though she could not think clearly enough to remember it. Had someone put a curse on her? Motionless, she absorbed the pain in her innards. When she could move, she ran from the bed clutching her middle section, and vomited before she reached the door. Then she saw nothing but black and was not even aw
are when she crumpled like a rag doll and hit the tile floor.

  Out of the dark void came the cold, yellow stare of her sister Berenike, dressed in warrior’s clothing, holding an ancient sword above her head. Beside her, the short, combustible six-year-old Arsinoe, a breastplate over her chest and armed with a knife. Berenike ripped her own dress open, revealing only one large Amazonian breast. The other had disappeared and with it the nipple, replaced by a jagged scar. Berenike was poking her sword at Arsinoe, toying with her like she was a puppy, but Arsinoe only laughed, holding her arms out as if praising the gods. Kleopatra looked into the child’s luminous eyes. Berenike put the point of her sword into the soft spot on the girl’s throat and pushed. The child did not move. Blood poured from her neck. Still smiling, bleeding from the throat, Arsinoe looked down. At her feet, dead, lay Kleopatra.

  When Kleopatra came to, she was sobbing and Charmion was helping her back onto the bed.

  “I shall summon the doctor,” Charmion said, her chilly hand on Kleopatra’s hot forehead.

  “No. Please.” Kleopatra rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of the vision. “This is not a problem for a doctor, but a holy man or a magician or perhaps a philosopher. Or a soldier or a spy.”

  “Child, you are ill and delirious. I am taking no chances with you. Particularly in light of recent events.”

  “If you call a doctor, I shall kill myself,” Kleopatra said vehemently, sitting up and grabbing Charmion’s dress. “I do not like to quarrel with you, Charmion, because I love you, but I do not like your interfering ways.”

  “It is my duty to interfere when your judgment is bad,” she said, not backing down.

  Kleopatra did not argue, but folded her arms. “What did Socrates say about Knowledge?”

  Charmion stared at her as if afraid she had lost her mind entirely. “This is no time to make a philosophical dialogue. You are ill.”

  “Please, Charmion. I am trying to explain myself. Think back to your own lessons. What was the philosopher’s position on Knowledge?”