by Karen Essex
“These are not Egyptian vessels,” she said, noting their flags. “Some are Rhodian, some from Syria, some from Cilicia.”
“All territories from which Caesar might have called for reinforcements,” said Apollodorus.
“Warships in the harbor? What can this mean? That Alexandria is already at full-scale war with Caesar?” said Kleopatra.
“So it appears. And now we must get you through Caesar’s navy and the army of your brother’s general Achillas before you can have a conference with Caesar. I do not know if my contacts at the docks can help us in these circumstances. As Your Majesty is well aware, in wartime all policies change to meet the dire times. I’m afraid that our simple scheme of disguising you as my wife may not serve us in these hazardous conditions.”
“I agree,” she said. Her heart began the now familiar hammering in her chest, its punch taking over her body and consuming her mental strength. No, this cannot happen, she said to herself. I cannot submit to this tidal wave of emotion, of fear that threatens to wreak disaster on my Fate.
Only I and the gods may dictate my Fate, she said to herself. Not a heart, not an organ. I control my heart, my heart does not control me, she said to herself over and over until the pounding in her ears gave way to the benevolent slurping of the placid waters as they slapped haphazardly against the boat, calming her nerves. She put her head down and prayed.
Lady Isis, the Lady of Compassion, the Lady to whom I owe my fortune and my Fate. Protect me, sustain me, guide me as I make this daring move so that I may continue to honor you and continue to serve the country of my fathers.
When she looked up from her prayer, she saw that they had drifted closer to the shore. Trapped now between the Rhodian flotilla and the Syrian flotilla, she realized that she must take some kind of cover. How could she have so foolishly thought that she could just slip into the city where she was known above all women? She must do something quickly to get herself out of sight.
She shared these thoughts with Apollodorus.
“It is not too late to turn around, Your Majesty—he offered.
“No!” she interrupted him. “This is my country. My brother sits in the palace as if he were the sole ruler of Egypt. Caesar, no doubt, is in receipt of my letter and he awaits my arrival. I will not be shut out by these maritime monsters,” she said, raising her hands as if to encompass all the vessels in the sea. “The gods will not have it, and I will not have it.”
Apollodorus said nothing. Kleopatra made another silent plea to the goddess. She stared into her lap, waiting for inspiration to descend upon her. She was for a moment lost in the intricate pattern of the Persian carpet that the men had thrown aboard the boat at the last minute for the queen to sit on. An anonymous artisan had spent years of his life stitching the rows and rows of symmetrical crosses into the silk. Suddenly, she pulled her head up straight and focused on the rug, mentally measuring its dimension. Its fine silk threads would not irritate the downy skin of a young woman should she choose to lie upon it. Or to roll herself inside of it.
The sun cast its final offering of light. Her companion’s square rock of a body sat helplessly waiting for the decision of the queen as his boat sailed precariously close to the shore.
“Help me,” she said as she threw the rug on the floor of the boat and positioned herself at one end.
Apollodorus stood up and stared down at the queen, who lay with her hands over her chest like a mummy.
“But Your Majesty will suffocate,” he protested, stretching out his palms to her as if he hoped they would exercise upon her a modicum of reason. “We must leave this place.”
The sun had set, and the boxlike form that hovered above her was only a silhouette against a darkening sky.
“Help me quickly, and do not waste our time with questions,” she said. “Julius Caesar is waiting.”
When the squatty Sicilian had entered Caesar’s chamber announcing that he had a gift from the rightful queen of Egypt to lay at Great Caesar’s feet, Caesar’s soldiers drew swords. But Caesar had simply laughed and said he was anxious to see what the exiled girl might smuggle through her brother’s guards.
“This is a mistake, sir,” said the captain of his guard. “These people are ready to take advantage of your good nature.”
“Then they, too, shall learn, shan’t they?” he replied.
The pirate laid the carpet before Caesar, then used his own knife to clip the ties that bound it. As he slowly and carefully unrolled it, Caesar could see that it was a fine example of the craftsmanship that was only to be found in the eastern countries, the kind he had so envied when he was last at Pompey’s house in Rome. Suddenly, as if she were part of the geometrical pattern itself, a girl rolled out from its folds, sat up cross-legged, and looked at him. Her small face was overly painted, with too much jewelry in her thick brown hair, and a meretricious scarf tied about her tiny waist, showing off her comely body. The young queen must be a woman of great humor to have sent Caesar a pirate’s little wench. She was not precisely lovely, he thought, but handsome. She had full lips, or so he assumed under the paint. Her eyes were green and slanted upward, and they challenged him now to speak to her, as if it were Caesar who should have to introduce himself to this little tart. But it was the pirate who spoke first.
“Hail, Queen Kleopatra, daughter of Isis, Lady of the Two Lands of Egypt.”
Caesar stood—a habit, though he remained unconvinced that the girl was not a decoy. She stood, too, but quickly motioned for him to sit. Surely only a queen would have the guts to do that. He took his chair again, and she addressed him in Latin, not giving him the opportunity to interrogate her, but telling him the story of how her brother and his courtiers had placed her under house arrest and forced her to flee Alexandria and go into exile; how her brother’s regents were representative of the anti-Roman faction in Egypt; how she had always carried out her late father’s policy of friendship with Rome; and how, most importantly, once restored, she intended to repay the large loan that her father had taken from the Roman moneylender Rabirius, which she must have guessed was the real reason that Caesar had followed Pompey to Alexandria.
Before Caesar might reply to her speech, the queen said, “Shall we converse in Greek, General? It is a more precise language for negotiation, don’t you agree?”
“As you wish,” Caesar replied. From there the conversation was held in her native tongue and not his—not that it mattered. He spoke Greek as if he had been born in Athens. He admired her ploy of simultaneously demonstrating her command of his native tongue while diminishing it in comparison to the more sophisticated Greek language. There was no pride like that of the Greeks, and this girl was obviously no exception.
But she had great charm and intelligence, so Caesar pledged her restoration, in accordance with her father’s will and the nation’s tradition. He would have done so anyway, but now he could do it with pleasure. Not only would it please the young queen, it would also irritate Pothinus, the dreadful eunuch whom Caesar despised. For Kleopatra’s part, she pledged a great portion of her treasury that he might take with him back to Rome to satisfy Rabirius. A relief, he assured her, to have that clacking old duck paid and off his back. Kleopatra laughed, remembering the sight of Rabirius’s great waddling ass as he was chased out of Alexandria.
“I do hope you are enjoying our city,” Kleopatra said. “Are we occupying you as satisfactorily as you occupy us?”
Caesar felt he had no choice but to laugh. He told the girl about a lecture he had recently attended at the Mouseion, the center for scholarly learning that he’d heard about all his years. She had studied there herself, she said, and in her exile what she most had longed for was not her feathery bed nor the kitchen staff of one hundred who prepared for her the finest meals on earth, but the volumes of books at the Great Library and the visits of scholars, poets, and scientists who engaged her mind.
Now secure that she was once again at home and in charge, she called for wine, and before he
knew it, they were discussing the philosophy of domination, and he was drunk and praising Posidonius while she disputed every point.
“Posidonius has demonstrated that Rome, by embracing all the peoples of the world, secures all humanity into a commonwealth under the gods,” Caesar explained. “Through submission, harmony is realized.”
A tiny laugh, almost a giggle, escaped Kleopatra’s lips despite herself. “Does Rome embrace, General? Is suffocation not a more appropriate word?” she asked, her eyes wide and twinkling. He did not know if she was agitating him for the purpose of argument or to arouse him sexually. But with her enchanting voice which sounded almost like a musical instrument, and the way she moved her body with sensuous fluidity, she was succeeding more at the latter.
It was too much, really, but she said it so charmingly. He could afford to be generous. She was so young, one and twenty she had said, younger than his Julia would have been had she lived. “Surely the gods were drunk on the day they made an imperious Greek girl the queen of a filthy rich nation. Surely I must be intoxicated to insure the power of such a girl.”
“The Crown thanks you.”
“As you know, my child, as we have witnessed here in your own land, there must be a master. It’s as simple as that. In accordance with the laws of the gods and the laws of nature. Otherwise, it’s a muddle. “The strong do as they will while the weak suffer what they must.’ If I may quote a Greek to a Greek.”
By this time, they were entirely alone. She had long ago dismissed the pirate, and Caesar, his men. They sat facing each other on two white linen couches with a table of refreshments between them. She regarded Caesar for some time, and he allowed it, enjoying the flush of color across her high cheekbones and the way flashes of inspiration seemed to leap from her eyes. “Is it not possible for the two civilized peoples, Greek and Roman, to rule side by side, one race of men of military might in cooperation with another whose strength lies in the world of the intellect, the world of art, knowledge, and beauty?”
“Possible, but not probable. If given the opportunity, men of means will always seek power and fortune.”
“And women of means as well,” she said.
“Yes, I have not seen that women lack ambition,” he replied. “And if a woman of means has sufficient means, then perhaps many things are possible.”
“I’m relieved you think so.” She sat back, satisfied, her small hands folded in her lap, a quiet smile on her face as if she shared some lovely humor with herself alone. Caesar was sure that they had not exactly finished with this line of discussion. But he wanted, at that moment, to seize her mind in his hands as if it were another territory to be conquered in the name of Rome and of unity. Yet she was not a woman to be merely taken. Here was a woman, he thought, who if giving herself of her own volition, would give the world.
“But we have parried enough, Your Majesty,” Caesar said, rising. “You’ve vexed an old man quite enough for one day. Now come to bed. You are under my protection.”
But she did not rise with him. “General, just when I thought your command of Greek was beyond reproach, I find that you make a linguistic mistake.”
“Caesar does not make linguistic mistakes,” he replied. What now? More argument with this fetching creature? Was she determined to try his patience?
“You said, come to bed, when surely you meant go to bed.”
Again, she looked at him as if she were either laughing at him or trying to seduce him. How could he, a man of fifty-two who had had hundreds of lovers, not rapidly discern which?
“No, dear girl. You know what I meant. I always make myself perfectly clear.”
The chubby boy king burst into his sister’s chamber. Though it was early morning, he was dressed in formal robes and wearing his crown. Kleopatra barely had a moment to pull the cover over her naked breasts. Caesar sat up quickly, the dagger under his pillow already in his hand.
“What are you doing here?” the young king screamed, his bulbous lips quaking as he yelled at his sister. “How did you get here?”
Caesar’s soldiers followed the boy into the room; trailing them, Arsinoe, her panther eyes darting from Kleopatra to her lover. How old must the girl be now? Sixteen? She was the image of her treasonous, dead mother, Thea, only with marble green eyes instead of Thea’s conniving brown ones. Arsinoe smirked but said nothing. She took her brother by the arm.
“Are you some kind of fiend or apparition? The entire city is on guard against you. How did you get into the palace, you ghost?”
Kleopatra did not answer but waited for Caesar to speak. Though he had just restored her to her own throne, he was dictator of Rome and she, at his mercy. At least for the moment.
“My good King Ptolemy,” Caesar began, tossing the dagger aside, “I promised to repair relations between you and your sister and I have done so.”
Caesar’s men, ready to seize the boy, looked to their commander, but he waved them away from Ptolemy’s benign presence.
“But I don’t want to reconcile with her,” the boy answered, pointing to Kleopatra, who tried to retain as much dignity as a naked young woman in a roomful of strangers might. “She’s a monster! Has she poisoned you against us? Has she?”
“Come now, there is no need for this kind of upset,” Caesar said. “Let us set a meeting for later in the day—perhaps some reasonable hour after breakfast—and I shall enlighten you and your regents as to the terms.”
Caesar’s calm voice settling over the room evaporated the anger Ptolemy had released into the air. But the boy king did not relent. “What do you think you’re doing?” he stammered at Kleopatra.
“Is this how you welcome your sister back to Alexandria?” Kleopatra asked, trying to imitate Caesar’s mellow tone. “I have not seen you for the better part of two years, my brother. How you’ve grown.” He had not. He was no taller, as far as Kleopatra could discern, but had expanded horizontally, reminding her of the girth her late father had acquired in his last years.
Caesar leaned toward the boy. “You know the terms of your father’s will. You and Kleopatra are to rule jointly. It isn’t for you to question. You shouldn’t have run her out of the country in the first place.”
“Run her out? She sneaked away like a common thief and raised an army against me.’” he sputtered.
Laughable, Kleopatra thought. She would not put one ounce of her energy into bolstering such a fool before the Roman general, before the Alexandrian population, or even before the gods themselves.
“That’s all over now, and I insist that you make up. It’s all been decided. No need to create another dispute when harmony is so easily attained.” Caesar smiled at Arsinoe. “Is that not what the philosophers tell us, young lady? You have your brother’s ear. You must counsel him to be reasonable. You do not wish him to get himself hurt.”
“No, General. I do not.” Arsinoe folded her arms, making a bridge under her voluptuous breasts and chilling Kleopatra with her glazed stare. It seemed to her that Arsinoe had been assessing the situation and had come to some dark private conclusion. “Shall we go, Brother?”
The boy grimaced at Kleopatra, but let himself be guided away by his sister; more regal than he would ever be, she held his elbow and led him out of the room as if he were entirely blind.
Kleopatra let out a sigh and fell back on her pillow, grateful to have awakened in her own bed, no matter what the circumstances, after two years of exile. She had not slept, really slept, in months and months, and even last night she and Caesar were awake almost until dawn negotiating and making love. Fortunately, her energy for both of those activities was of the torrential sort. She had had years of practice for the former, both in her father’s government and in exile, where resources were limited. The latter, she was accustomed to with a man half Caesar’s age, so that the passions of this older man, so distant, so polite, hardly troubled her at all. She thought of Archimedes—cousin, lover, comrade—still in exile, of his eyes as deep and dark as Nile silt, of his stro
ng square shoulders, of the way he lost himself in a private frenzy after he had done with pleasing her, of the way his cries while making love seemed like prayers to some taunting goddess, and she ached with her betrayal. But what choice did she have? For here was Julius Caesar, undisputed Master of the World, who had made it safe for her to be in this room once more, where the sounds and smells of the sea rolled into her window. How many times had she wondered if she would ever set foot upon Egyptian soil again, much less sleep in her own goose down bed? She had made a cold-blooded choice, but she had made the correct one. In matters of state let your blood run cold. Her most trusted adviser, Hephaestion, whom she had left back in the Sinai with Archimedes, had drilled those words into her head for so many years now that she chanted them to herself day and night. She must have no regrets.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. One of Caesar’s men entered, not the least bit embarrassed to disturb the morning intimacy between his commander and the queen of Egypt. How often did his men come upon such a scene? she wondered.
“Sir, so sorry to disturb you, but the boy king is speaking to an assembly of malcontents at the palace gates. He’s torn off his crown and thrown it into the crowd. He is shouting all sorts of insults about the queen. He’s getting them all whipped up out there. Shall we remove him?”