Kleopatra

by Karen Essex

  “What is the news of the day, Prime Minister, who is now War Minister?” the queen inquired.

  “Or perhaps Minister of Foreign Affairs is more appropriate?”

  “You are my Cabinet,” she answered, smiling at him.

  “The news is the same, Your Majesty. The war between Caesar and Pompey makes raising an army impossible. I am afraid that every inquiry we have sent comes back with the same answer, a cordial but solemn response of regret from our neighbors that their armies have already been demanded by Pompey. His plan, of course, is to call upon the armies of the eastern territories he once conquered in the name of Rome. I believe the supply is inexhaustible.”

  They had hoped that Pompey’s demand for soldiers would eventually work to their advantage; that he would call upon a large number of her brother’s troops. Then, they would use the opportunity to strike. At that moment, Kleopatra possessed five thousand foot soldiers, three hundred archers, and five hundred cavalry—comparable to the size of a Roman legion, she thought with pleasure. But she did not have the money to keep such an army for long. If the gods were with her, Pompey would soon call away half of her brother’s army, and she would challenge the remaining troops. If the gods were against her, she would eventually have to strike against the full force of Achillas’s men—some fifteen thousand in all, with seven thousand at Pelusium alone—or reconcile herself to losing the kingdom. But the best possible solution, the one for which she most stridently prayed, was for Caesar to defeat Pompey and then to punish her brother and his regents for coming to Pompey’s aid.

  A servant interrupted her thoughts, allowing an unannounced party into the room. Kleopatra was about to reprimand him, but found herself staring at a face wrapped in white gauze, wondering if a creature living or dead resided within. He—she assumed it was a he—was bound tightly from head to toe, and walked toward her like a moving, breathing mummy, stiff slow, and cautious. She expected to see the golden amulet of the vulture around his neck, meant to carry the protection of Mother Isis with the body into the next world. Despite the creature’s laborious movements, alert brown eyes peered from the swaddled face and darted around the room.

  “Identify yourself man of the desert. You are standing before the queen,” she said, annoyed that this person had gained entrance into the room that she and Hephaestion had converted into a war room. Maps lined the walls, correspondence from friends and allies was strewn about the desk.

  The man continued to look about the room, but remained silent. Perhaps he spoke the Arabic dialect she had perfected lately to speak with the officials of Askalon and with the Nabataean kings from whom she hoped to receive more soldiers. She said to him in that tongue, “Tell me your name and your business or you shall be evicted from my presence and tortured by my men until you talk.” Receiving no response, she repeated the same words in Greek.

  “Have you no warmer greeting than that for an old friend?” asked the white figure in a voice muffled by the gauze around his mouth.

  “You try my patience,” replied the queen. “Reveal yourself or I will have my guard strip you naked.”

  The figure pulled the bandages away from his mouth and head. “It is not so easy or so safe for an ally of the dread Kleopatra to travel through Egypt, my dear,” said Archimedes. “Precautions must be taken.”

  “Cousin!” Kleopatra threw her arms around her old friend, the loyal agent and Kinsman of her father. She felt his stiff, heavily bandaged hands on her back, holding her as if he were an animal with paws and not the man with the long supple fingers that she remembered. She wondered if his embrace was tense because of the wrapping or because she was no longer a girl but a queen.

  “Undo these terrible bindings so that I may see you.”

  “Help me, Cousin,” he said. He gave the queen one end of the cloth and spun himself around until his face, neck, and shoulders were revealed. His lengthy brown hair was matted against his scalp and hung in strings about his sweaty face. His neck was long and slender, but muscular. His shoulders were square and strong, and his body lithe and graceful. She had forgotten the extent of his charms, both his physical attractiveness and his nonchalant charisma. She had not seen him in years, not since before Auletes had died. Not since she was but a child. She moved to touch him again, but he withdrew from her.

  “I wish to embrace you again, my queen, but as you can see, I am awesomely perspired beneath my costume. Forgive me for keeping distant from you. It is not for lack of happiness at seeing you,” he said, smiling. “I could not forgive myself if I inadvertently bathed a queen in my sweat.”

  Kleopatra was relieved that the familiarity between them was not obstructed by her position. By his comment, he both acknowledged her role and dismissed that it should come between their closeness.

  “Have you come alone, Cousin?” she asked him.

  “No, I am part of a rather interesting travel party.”

  “Must you be coy with me, old friend? Who are your companions, and when do I meet them?”

  “You shall meet them, my queen, for they are already in your service. They are not exactly fit for the presence of a royal. But I have enlisted them in our cause and I promise you that their services shall prove invaluable.”

  “Cousin, confess your associations before I have my men beat the information out of you,” said the queen.

  “You have not changed, Kleopatra,” said Archimedes, removing the remainder of his gauze, revealing himself to be dressed in a short white chiton that showed his long and handsome legs. “You look like a woman now. That much is quite different. But you are still an impatient girl.”

  “And you are a very impertinent man,” she said, not liking the haughty tone that slipped into her voice. She had welcomed his familiarity, but realized that she was not accustomed to it.

  “I apologize,” he said, bowing to her. “Please forgive me for taking advantage of the fact that in your childhood, I was given the liberty of being your familiar. May we speak alone?”

  Kleopatra dismissed the guards. She did not sit beside Archimedes on the divan, but opposite him, on a stiff, square chair. She folded her hands in her lap.

  “Kleopatra, I know you are aware that there are men who live in the shadow world outside the laws and structures of other men.”

  “Yes, criminals, outlaws, and the like. What are you getting at?”

  “Outlaws are not necessarily bad men; they are simply their own men, and one can make excellent use of them. Your father, may the gods rest the soul of my benefactor and king, made much use of such men in his lifetime.”

  “I take no issue with my father’s unconventional methods. His associations with the underworld saved his neck more than once,” she said. “Remember dear Clodius?”

  “Yes, an interesting man. A dead man, of course, but he did serve Auletes well. That is why I knew you would not object to doing business with my associates.”

  “Romans?”

  “Not exactly. I have negotiated with a group of men who intercept merchant ships traveling from Roman shores to the eastern port of Tyre,” said Archimedes.

  “We are to do business with pirates?” She threw her head back and laughed.

  “You seem so delighted, Kleopatra,” said her cousin, teasing her. “Obviously you still have your romantic sense of adventure.”

  “Obviously,” she replied. “What could be more romantic than an exiled queen, but an exiled queen who employs pirates?”

  He had spent a long while thinking out the details of the plan. The men he hired were good men, men who began life as honest farmers and small merchants. But the Roman conquest and plunder of their lands left them poor and bitter. Being resourceful—and being unwilling to starve—they acquired ships and began to pursue commerce in their own way. Because he knew the famine was making it difficult for Kleopatra to feed her troops, he commissioned the pirates to provide them with supplies to sustain the army.

  “I approve of your plan, Cousin, but who will pay for all
of this?”

  “When your father died, Hammonius and I were still in possession of a small fortune that he had left with us to carry out his business in Rome. I bring you the remains of that money. Hammonius sends his love.”

  What words might she say to thank him for this selfless gesture? “You and Hammonius might have kept the money and left me on my own. What made you come to my aid?” Kleopatra felt warm tears cloud her eyes.

  “In my case, Cousin, it was memories of affection for the living and for the dead. In the case of Hammonius, he said, ‘Tell Kleopatra it would not be possible for me to be much richer. Perhaps she needs this money more than I do.’”

  “It is so rare to witness loyalty overcome greed and self-interest.”

  “Your father was good to me. I am an illegitimate, distant relative whom he elevated to Kinsman and Friend.”

  “Then why did you leave our service when my father and I returned from exile? Why did we not see you at court these many years?” she asked, trying very hard not to sound annoyed, remembering how hurt she was when her cousin had simply disappeared from their lives, never returning to visit. When she had asked her father why Archimedes was no longer with them, he had muttered, “He is a man and must make his way in the world. He needs an education. He cannot be your little playmate any longer.”

  “Do you really not know?” Archimedes asked.

  “I do not. I was told that you had become a man and no longer needed us.”

  He said nothing, but assessed her with his eyes.

  “Will you speak? Or are you dumbstruck from your long journey?

  Archimedes asked Hephaestion if he might have a private audience with the queen. He took the chair next to Kleopatra that the eunuch had vacated so that he might speak in a low voice. “Do you think I would have left on my own?”

  “I do not know what you do on your own, Cousin.” Kleopatra lowered her eyes. She did not like the way his gaze sent a quiver through the deepest part of her. She was a queen, and she did not have time for distractions.

  “Forgive me what I am about to say, but it is the truth, and as a Brother in the Order of the First Kinsmen, I am sworn to the truth. Your father did not approve of our familiarity. He sent me away to school in Athens to study military strategy. When I finished my studies, he still would not let me come home and take a command with the army, but apprenticed me to Hammonius in Rome.”

  “He said this to you?”

  “No, but Hammonius enlightened me. Auletes told him that you were the last hope of the Ptolemies, and you were not to be ruined by the likes of me.”

  “I see.”

  “I never would have left you, Kleopatra,” he said. She believed that he wanted to take her hand, but he refrained, and she did not proffer it.

  “But you have brought us company,” she said, making her voice cold and formal and breaking the spell of his watery brown eyes. “Call for them. I wish to know them. The crown has had enough surprises for one day.”

  At first glance, Apollodorus the pirate was a disappointment. He was short, with an enormous square frame, more like the bottom part of a dead tree trunk than the body of a man. Yet his demeanor was gracious, and he seemed not a common thief but rather a gentleman disguised as a pirate for a costume party. He bowed low to the queen like a practiced courtier and waited for her to command him to rise. He had the wicked, dashing black eyes Kleopatra associated with men of Tyre, which he said was the place of his birth, though he also called himself a Sicilian.

  He explained that he was an Italian by blood but without citizenship. His mother had fallen in love with a Roman soldier who promised, among many things, that he would take her back to Rome. Needless to say, he left with his regiment, never to return. “I am an international man. I belong nowhere but fit in everywhere.”

  “Apollodorus is a first-class gatherer of information,” said Archimedes. “He knows every piece of gossip, from the birthplace of one of his parents to the birthplace of the other. I give the floor to him to tell the story of the war between the Roman generals.”

  “Your Majesty, I have traveled across many seas and a scorching hot desert to deliver to you this news: Pompey has overwhelmingly defeated Caesar at the Macedonian town of Dyrrhachium.”

  Like any good storyteller, he paused for effect, letting the queen absorb the information. “For a long time it appeared that the gods were with Caesar. He and his men had survived an impossible winter in Greece, cut off from food supplies and everything familiar, while Pompey and his men lived like kings in their exile. Caesar kept trying to engage Pompey in battle, but he would not be coaxed into the war. He was too comfortable taking food from the eastern territories, the lands of my people that he subdued and now extorts for every resource. Finally, Caesar engaged Pompey outside Dyrrhachium, but two Gallic deserters from Caesar’s army sold information to Pompey, who was able to counter Caesar’s attack and defeat him.”

  Kleopatra focused all her mental powers on concentrating on the details of Apollodorus’s story but could not stop asking herself what this unexpected turn of events meant for her own condition. She looked to Archimedes, but her cousin was seemingly enraptured with the story and did not acknowledge her.

  Apollodorus continued. “Caesar fled to Thessaly, where he met up with two more of his legions, but Pompey’s army still outnumbers Caesar’s two men to one. They say that Pompey’s army is so large that even the gods, from their position of omniscience, would have trouble viewing the entire force at once. Now Pompey has set out for Thessaly, where he will surely finish Caesar off”

  Kleopatra thought of the many times in her childhood she had thrilled to accounts of war, which always sounded so glamorous, but which had never concerned her in such a direct way.

  “What does this mean for us?” she asked Archimedes.

  “My friend, will you give us leave to discuss internal affairs?” he asked Apollodorus.

  Apollodorus’s absence was followed by a protracted silence, one that lingered for too long. Finally, Kleopatra said nervously, “My brother’s guardian has defeated Caesar and will now rule the world. What does this mean for me, Cousin?”

  “You know what it means, Kleopatra,” said Archimedes gravely. “It means that we must strike. Your plan of counting on Caesar to win and to punish your brother for coming to the aid of Pompey has been foiled. We must quickly regroup, take count of the men in our army, and stage an attack on Pelusium.”

  “But now? I need more time. I need more troops.”

  “If you wait, you may very well find yourself at war with both your brother and Pompey. If you attack now and are successful, you can be in Alexandria before Pompey is back in Rome.”

  “But what then?”

  “If your brother is defeated, Pompey will have no choice but to support you. What does he care who sits on the Egyptian throne, so long as the monarch has very deep pockets?”

  “But Caesar is not yet entirely defeated,” Kleopatra said. How could she have been so wrong? Who would have believed that the chronically inert Pompey would have bested one as vigorous and ambitious and favored by the gods as Julius Caesar?

  “By all accounts, Caesar is finished. Must we wait for the body to be cold before we take action? It is not like you to dally, Kleopatra. You must either strike or go far away and retire to private life, and let your brother rule Egypt.”

  “Cousin, I am prepared to strike,” she said, trying to summon up her courage. “But at this moment, and I hope this moment passes quickly, I am afraid.”

  Archimedes took her by the hands and raised her to her feet. He looked into her eyes and then took her in his arms, holding her tight, this time with unbound fingers that kneaded her back tenderly as he held her. The strength in his body and the calm beat of his heart steadied her nerves. He let her sink into his chest—for how long, she did not know—until she felt balanced. He whispered softly in her ear, “We must ready ourselves for victory.”

  Four miles from the fortress of Pelu
sium, the queen and her army encamped in the shadow of Mount Casius. She had marched from Askalon that very day with her troops, aiming to be settled by nightfall, where they could refresh themselves with sleep, and storm the fort at dawn. They had worked on the plan for two days and made the long march in one.

  They were outnumbered. Kleopatra was almost two thousand men short against Achillas’s troops, but Archimedes and her advisers did not seem to worry about the disparity in their numbers.

  “Your brother’s men are mostly lazy Egyptians who despise their Greek king,” said Archimedes. “Your troops are either men who have pledged you their loyalty or men who are well paid.” She did not know whom to believe, so she decided to believe only her intuition, which dictated that she make war and defeat her brother as quickly as possible.

  At sunset they made the proper sacrifices, and she and the officers dined on the kill under a moon that was almost full, casting a cold, stark light upon their banquet. She made short speeches to her army in the various tongues they spoke and then retired. She intended to put herself into the hands of the gods and go to sleep. But after the dinner, she realized she was exhausted and exhilarated all at once. She was prepared for victory, but she was also prepared to die.