Pharaoh

by Karen Essex

  “Shall we continue with our negotiations, General? Or would you like to hear more stories of my past, when my father’s music filled this hall and I was just a child? Or perhaps you would like to hear more of the heroics of your Master of the Horse, how he marched his men across barren desert to reinstate my father to the throne.”

  Caesar sighed, looking up at the vaulted ceiling upon which was painted a scene of the god reclining in a forest surrounded by satyrs and nymphs. He knew Kleopatra had opened the Royal Reception Room so that he might feel the splendor and wealth of her throne. Yes, it was fantastic, certainly more opulent and beautiful than any structure in Rome. The marble columns, giant mosaics of scenes from the god’s life, the golden throne, the eagle of Ptolemy that crouched above her head staring him in the face as if to defy him to harm this great woman, this descendant of the House of Alexander-all these things were stunning to the more austere Roman eye. But if she thought that Julius Caesar would be intimidated by a visual feast of wealth and power, then she underestimated him. But he admired her for using her resources.

  “I assure you, I have heard all the stories of Antony’s adventures, for he is the preferred storyteller at every event, and he does not disappoint his audience. Had he not been born a great orator and warrior, he surely would have made his fortune as an actor. And why, dear Kleopatra, would I wish to listen to you taunt me with your affection for my favorite lieutenant?”

  “You are grieving me with this topic of Marcus Antonius, a man I have met only once in my life and briefly at that. Would you care to return to our business?”

  They had been spending days together in the Great Library, where she had scholars pull off the tall shelves the scrolls Caesar most wanted to see. Yesterday he had read a conversation with Socrates, written in Xenophon’s own hand. Nights were spent feasting, celebrating their victory. They had slept very little, and Caesar knew that despite the fact that he felt as well as always, he looked drawn. This morning in the mirror the barber had shaved away his stubble, revealing deep creases that ran down the sides of his cheeks. Kleopatra, on the other hand, had color in her complexion. Perhaps it was youth, perhaps cosmetics. In any case, she made him feel alive, more so than he had in years, more so than battle, more so than victory itself.

  “Yes, I would. Tell me, in what denomination will you provide the money to pay Rabirius? I do not wish to lose any of it in the foreign exchanges, which can be so costly.”

  “Will gold do, General? I seem to recall a Roman affinity for that particular metal.”

  She took not one moment longer than he to adjust to the business at hand. She was formidable, he thought. How she would throw those old crones in the Roman senate into fits of madness with her cool negotiating skills. He wished he might bring her into those chambers to teach those old fools a lesson. “Gold will suffice.”

  “It is an extraordinary amount. Extortion, some might say.” “A small price to pay for your seat on that lovely golden throne.” “Very well. My father accepted the bloodsucker’s terms and I shall honor them. Now, about our son’s legitimacy.”

  “Kleopatra, how are you certain that the child is a son?” “The astrologers have told me so. And so has my own intuition, which is usually more accurate than all the predictions of the soothsayers.”

  “Without further arguing that point, the child will not be considered legitimate in Rome because, as you well know, I have a wife.” “Yes, but is divorce not readily procured in Rome?” “My dear, it would be an outrage for me to divorce my Roman wife in order to legitimize a foreign-born son.”

  “Has the outrage of others ever stopped you before?” He had to remember that she would never back down unless he exercised authority over her, and that would ruin everything. Besides, he could not resist the notion of a son. Why had none of the women he had married or bedded with given him a boy? Perhaps the constant rigors of military life and the inevitable diseases that followed one along the campaign trail had made him sterile for years at a time. He had heard from his men that after bad bouts of malaria, they were unable to give their wives children for two, sometimes three years. How often had he contracted that little misery? He had not been in the marsh for some time. Perhaps that, and his victory over Pompey, had made him more potent than ever.

  He wanted a son. Pompey had had two. Fine strapping men, whom Caesar would eventually have to reckon with. Even Rabirius, a man who pin-curled his hair, had produced a son. Cato, Bibulus, Gabinius, all had sons. True, many a great man had produced a male issue who, perhaps to spite the father, took up the role of rake and failure. Cicero’s young son Marcus, whom the orator had recently sent to the philosophers in Greece for instruction and correction, promised to that vein. And that sort would never have done for Caesar. Perhaps it was just as well that he had been spared that Fate. For what boy would wish to meet the challenge of comparison to Julius Caesar? There were those who charged that Brutus was really his son, and Servilia herself was not above suggesting that it was true, particularly when she wanted something from him. At times, the somber, moralizing Brutus had acted the part of the son to Caesar, but that was usually when he, like his mother, sought favor. Caesar had looked into Brutus’s face since the boy’s birth for signs of inherited traits from the Julian clan, but he saw none. Or nothing conclusive, at any rate. Why had the gods denied Caesar, their favorite? Perhaps they were saving this as a late-life reward, a son of the House of Alexander, an heir brought forth from the loins of this marvelous girl. How could Caesar not honor a gift from the gods?

  “Before we address the issue of our son, should we not clear the smaller details of our negotiations. For example, I am wondering who will pay the troops, the three legions I shall leave behind when I return to Rome.”

  “Are you protecting me, or are you protecting Rome’s interests from me?”

  “Clearly, your interests are Rome’s interests. I didn’t go through all this trouble to see you queen again so to have your lovely neck slit in the middle of the night.”

  “I might have offered to pay them, but with the enormous extraction of gold from the treasury, I am afraid that will be impossible.”

  “Then I shall have to take them with me.”

  “Then I shall have to recall my army from the Sinai and bring them into the city.”

  Was she threatening him?

  “I do not consent to that. What if you have as much control over your army as your brother had over his? No, I’m afraid that won’t do. Egyptian armies seem to have minds of their own.”

  “And what are you afraid that army will do?”

  “Besides rise up against you at the urging of the first eunuch who gives them a speech? I have told you: I intend to march back through here within the year on my way to Parthia. Those savages will continue to menace us until I go there myself. At that time, the gates must be open and the way clear. I have fought one war here. I will not fight another.”

  “Then it is clearly in your interest to keep your legions here, regardless of my desires. I suggest you find a way to pay them and to feed them. And also to discipline them. I won’t have another band of rapists and thieves on my hands the likes of which Antony and Gabinius left here.”

  “Those were mercenaries. These are the soldiers of Caesar. Do not think they would disobey me, even in my absence.”

  She looked at him like a child might who has wearied of playing a game. “Why do you not annex Egypt to the Roman empire? Surely it is not merely for the love of your mistress. Is it because of what Cato told my father? That there is not a Roman honest enough to serve as its governor?”

  How lovely it would be to tell her that he left her country independent for her sake. How magnanimous he would appear.

  “Otherwise, General, I cannot figure it.”

  But she would never believe it. “Anyone sent here would not only line their pockets with your treasury, but would also use the location to gain control of all territories to the east. Such a man would have to be feared,
and then subdued.”

  She leaned forward so that she was perfectly in line with the eagle, her face almost as feral as that of the beast. Caesar felt as if both of them were getting ready to lurch at him. “Then be that man. Do you not think it is a wise plan? Be my king, line your pockets with my treasury, and together we will subdue the eastern territories. No one could touch us.”

  He had thought of that, of course, dreamt of it, played with the idea of it over and over in his mind as he lay beside Kleopatra at night. It was an excellent notion. Unconventional, of course, never having been done. And completely out of line with Rome’s idea of government. That would not stop him, however. But how much easier it would be to execute if he first subdued the Parthians, conquered those long-haired horsemen of the bow who had troubled Rome for so many generations. Rome would never accept a king, and Caesar would never accept being a king in Rome. But Rome was not Egypt. In Parthia, Judaea, Egypt, Media, all the territories he intended to have as his own, a monarchy would be necessary.

  “And we will pass our kingdom to our son.”

  “It’s not impossible.”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “Of course it’s not impossible. Whatever is our combined wills cannot fail.”

  He thought she would come to him and sit on his lap as he liked her to do. She was looking a little fatter these days, just around the middle. Pregnancy softened the taut lines of her body, rounding her in very pleasing ways. Instead of approaching him, she said, “So you will pay them?”

  “Pay whom?”

  “Your legions. Is that not the issue at hand?”

  “Yes, yes, I shall pay them if you will feed them,” he replied, shaking off his dreamy affection. It was the first time a human being had disarmed him in so many years. “Your granaries are full these days. It’s the least you can do.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And when Caesar returns in one year with his legions, the granaries will be open to us, I trust?”

  “Agreed. But at a price. Only the gods know how many ravenous men it will take to defeat Parthia.”

  “A very low price. Less than the exporters pay.”

  “Yes. Egypt’s cost. I just don’t want to lose money. Also, I want Cyprus. Just because Arsinoe will not be here to govern it does not mean it shouldn’t be returned to the empire of my ancestors. You and Clodius conspired to steal it from my uncle just so that you might get Cato out of your hair. You caused my uncle’s death. I wish compensation for that, and for the lost revenue the island used to bring us.”

  “Now, Kleopatra, I won’t be paying any retroactive revenues.”

  “But you will send the Roman governor home?”

  “Yes, yes.” What did he care? When his plan was made manifest, it would all be his anyway. His, hers, the boy’s. The elements were moving together in Caesar’s mind like pieces of a puzzle. A few were yet missing, but the picture had begun to take shape.

  “Now the matter of the boy. The matter of the kingdom. The matter of our Fates. Yours, mine, his. What is your hesitancy?”

  “You want everything too quickly, Kleopatra. It is a disease of youth. I spent ten years subduing the tribes of Gaul. Oh, I would have preferred to have done the job in less time. But it took ten years.”

  “I cannot wait ten years to know the Fate of my son. And at your age, you may not have ten years to decide it.”

  “As long as we are being blunt, let me say that you will have the wrath of Rome against you if you push the issue. Calm yourself and trust me. Surely you see that Egyptian sentiment toward Rome is not exactly high. You do not wish to turn your people against your son.”

  “No, I do not. But this brings me to my final request. I agree to put off the matter of our son’s legitimacy in Rome for one year. But there is something you must do for me.”

  He knew that she knew what he was thinking-that there was precious little that Caesar must do for anyone. But he wished to indulge her as he would a spoiled child, as he would have done Julia and her son if only they had survived. Why should he not take this opportunity to pamper her and the unborn son? He had worked hard. There were those who said he only did as he wished for his own gratification and reward. That may have been true. And yet he asked so little of others outside the loyalty and labor of his soldiers. Why should he not grant the request of this delightful creature, particularly if it may help along the status of his heir? He knew that whatever Kleopatra asked of him henceforth was not for herself but for the seed of the man that grew inside her, for that was what happened to extraordinary women once they were with child. Never again did they think as the singular creatures they once were. Inevitably a large portion of their own ambitions were poured into their sons. Kleopatra would be no exception.

  She interrupted him with the melody of her voice. “Oh just say yes to me, my darling. I wish to give you an experience you shall never forget.”

  Caesar tossed a chunk of meat into the crocodile’s gaping snout and the animal snapped down on it with such fervor that the dictator laughed. Kleopatra watched the years seem to melt from his face as he smiled. The afternoon sun fell over the temple, turning its sandstone pillars a soft gold and changing Caesar’s craggy skin into a youth’s complexion. The High Priest himself had blessed the meat from the sacrifice to Sobek, the crocodile-god, and watched, too, as Caesar fed the six leathery beasts in the sacred pond.

  “I do believe they are divine,” Caesar said to Kleopatra. “Look at that fellow in the middle, the one who fights his mates for the food. He must be fourteen feet long. I should appoint him my captain.”

  Kleopatra translated this to the priest, who replied that the animal was indeed regarded as special. “Just as Great Caesar inspires fear in the hearts of his fellow men, so does his favorite crocodile subjugate the others of his species.”

  Kleopatra saw the dictator try to suppress his ironic smile as he accepted the solicitous offering.

  He seemed younger, lighter than he had been in the city. He was no longer at war, of course, but Kleopatra thought the change was greater than a relaxation from that anxiety. He was neither so cynical nor so all-knowing. He seemed genuinely delighted with the Egyptian countryside, with the exotic beauty of the terrain, with what must seem to him their arcane customs, and especially with the evidence of corruption. He had laughed out loud when Kleopatra explained to him the purpose of the hidden tunnels in the temple. In earlier times, the priests would speak through the walls to the worshippers, pretending to be the voice of the god. They would order specific and lavish offerings of food, which they would consume that evening for dinner.

  “I’m pleased that my country entrances one who has seen so much of the world,” Kleopatra told him.

  “That is true,” he answered. “But I have never seen anything like Egypt.”

  The way Kleopatra saw it-the reason she had undertaken the trip-was that the message had to be sent, and sent directly, not by third parties. The people of Egypt must be shown the alliance with the great man, and they must be given an inkling of what that alliance might mean to them and to their country. She would not send proclamations or pamphlets or make new coins. She would go to them as she had done in the past and present herself and her intentions. Twice before this method had proved successful. She would not start in Alexandria, where animosity toward both her and Caesar was high. She would begin with the rest of the country and then use the vast amount of goodwill she collected to influence the proud Graeco-Egyptians in the city. Soon, she was certain, she would have their support as well. Like the current of the Nile that flowed from south to north, so the goodwill she amassed in southern Egypt would float upward. She was sure she would not fail.

  The barge was three hundred feet long and was followed by a flotilla of ships carrying Caesar’s legions. Though they had won the war, and though Kleopatra had the widespread support of the native people in the lands beyond the Greek city of Alexandria, they had no idea whether to anticipate trouble. Besides, Kleopatra did not think i
t a bad idea to demonstrate the might of Rome united with the sumptuous wealth and charisma of the queen. She insisted that half the ships fly the Roman flag and the other half the Egyptian, solidifying the alliance. When they came to a settlement or a city, Caesar and Kleopatra would stand on the front deck, surrounded by statues of Aphrodite and Apollo, in full view of the spectators. Sometimes they displayed themselves from the upper deck, which housed an arbored garden and a huge alabaster statue of Aphrodite with the infant Eros and another of Isis suckling Horus. And in the event that the populace still did not understand Kleopatra’s condition, they were left with the image of baby Horus sitting on a lotus blossom right above the vessel’s rudder as the barge floated away.

  In a small ceremony at the ancient city of Thebes, Caesar removed the laurel wreath he wore at all ceremonies and replaced it with a garland of flowers in the tradition of the Ptolemaic kings. To the Egyptians, it signaled precisely what Kleopatra said it would-that Caesar demonstrated respect for the customs of their country and would be delighted to be the male consort of their queen, resplendent in the seventh month of her pregnancy.

  In the mornings, the rulers took their meals privately in their chamber, sheltered from the heat. Languorously they ate dates, mangoes, bananas, and drank chilled goat’s milk, reciting poetry to one another, and, when the mood took hold, lazily rolled together and made love. In the evenings they supped in the dining room with their guests-Caesar’s highest-ranking men, Greek and Egyptian dignitaries from the cities they visited, and clever Alexandrians Kleopatra had invited along for Caesar’s amusement. Of these, he preferred the conversation of Sosigenes the astronomer. Long after the queen took to bed, Caesar would stay up with the bearded scientist staring into the night sky. In the mornings, he would awaken full of their conversation about the placement of the stars, the length of days, weeks, months, and the calendar year. Sosigenes was working on a more precise yearly calendar, one that did not have to be adjusted to accommodate the days left over at the year’s end, and Caesar had decided to put more funding to the cause.