Pharaoh

by Karen Essex

  “And behind one woman,” he added. “Alexander may have had such an army and such a navy, but even he did not have you, Kleopatra.”

  Patrae: the 19th year of Kleopatra’s reign

  We shall form a chain of naval outposts along the Ionian coast, one for every pearl in your necklace.” Antony had said it in his most courtly voice as they were moving their theater of operations to Patrae, one of the most key of those seaside bases, for the remainder of the winter. Near the opening to the Gulf of Corinth, Patrae was just one of the pearls of the sea where Antony set up operations. Beginning with Corcyra in the north, Antony stationed his legions in a curving impregnable strand through the island of Leucas to Zacynthus, down to Methone, and around the southern tip of Greece, all the way to Crete and Cyrene. He showed Kleopatra on the map how they would be invincible to attack by land or by sea, and how their supply vessels could continue to reach them from Egypt without being threatened. Now all they had to do was wait until Octavian and his forces crossed the sea. Subject to its rigors, they would lose many.

  “They will have traveled through the winter, crossing the sea at a most inauspicious time. I made that trip for Caesar, so I know what I’m talking about. There’s a food and money shortage in Italy as it is. They’ll be half mad with starvation by the time they reach shore. We’d better make provisions for them because they’ll undoubtedly begin to desert Octavian as soon as they are on Greek soil, and they’ll want to be fed.” Antony’s confidence was as high as Kleopatra had ever seen it. So great was his power, and such awe did it inspire that his friends in Alexandria had stopped calling him the Inimitable One and had begun to call him the Invincible One. “When Octavian’s foot soldiers begin to desert, we’ll swiftly attack the navy-there won’t even be a need for a land war-and by summer, we’ll be sitting on the terrace in your palace in Alexandria, sipping our lemon drinks while the sea breeze cools our faces.”

  “May you be as prescient as you are powerful,” Kleopatra answered.

  He looked again at the map, tracing the naval bases with his finger, making a slow, sinewy curve. “It’s the most precious necklace I’ve given you, my darling, and how well you shall wear it. The world is yours.”

  He said all of this privately, of course, because any public affection between them now was made to be a sign of his disproportionate solicitousness of her. She should have learned her lesson at Caesar’s side, she thought. He was severely criticized whenever he had associated himself with the rights and privileges of a king, though he had made the conquests of a king and had a king’s army. But Kleopatra was not assuming the mantle of a queen. She was a queen. Why did that threaten these Roman generals so? Would it make any difference to those who criticized her if she were a king, a man? In Rome, the power of a woman was confined to how well she could boss her husband. Fulvia had been crushed like a bug when she tried to step outside that narrow definition of power. She had been criticized more vehemently for taking action without her husband’s permission than for the wisdom in the measures she took.

  The Romans had never seen a woman with powers as strong and as far-reaching as those of Kleopatra. She believed that the very assets she thought would win their admiration, like her resources and the loyalty given her by the troops from her country and from countries east of Egypt, were the very things that made them turn against her. The longer she spent encamped with Antony’s Roman friends, the more she realized how terrified they were of her monarchical authority. They were fascinated, too, but they covered their awe in a veneer of fear. Sometimes that fear took the form of disdain, as in Athens, where Antony almost attacked a man for his insult.

  They had stopped in Athens on the way to Patrae. Kleopatra had not been to that city since the funeral of her lady-in-waiting, Mohama. She visited that monument again after so many years, wiping a speck of dirt from the stone as an unexpected tear escaped from her eye. She had insisted upon erecting the memorial to her murdered companion, and she smiled now, remembering the crooked priest who had taken her money, and the shoddy craftsmen in his employ Not thinking she would come back to see the fruits of her coins, they had completely garbled her instructions for the epitaph, naming Kleopatra, who paid for the monument, the little Libyan Princess, and not naming Mohama’s origins at all. Kleopatra had been eleven years old. Twenty-seven years had passed. Mohama, forever sixteen, would have been over forty years old now. Kleopatra could not picture the desert girl a woman. If there was beauty in untimely death, it was in preserving eternal youth. Mohama, so strong and fierce, so sensual, would never age. Her beautiful brown skin would never wither into the wrinkled chestnut shell that inevitably covered the dew of youth. The taut skin of her breasts and belly would never be slackened in bearing children.

  Kleopatra wished she could summon the dead. She had never felt fear when she was with Mohama. What would Mohama make of the Queen of Kings and of her Sons who were Kings? And what would the men who now challenged the authority of the queen have made of her if she still had as her constant companion the dark-skinned siren who wielded a scimitar with the skill of a Scythian warrior? What stories Mohama’s presence would have spawned. The generals would have all tried to sleep with her, all the while spreading stories of Kleopatra’s terrible Amazon. It would have made fine gossip back in Rome.

  Kleopatra turned away from the monument to her girlhood companion, but not before she saw Charmion put a hand on the stone and whisper, “Good-bye, desert girl. May the gods be with you.” And that made the tiny tears in Kleopatra’s eyes swell into pools of sadness. Charmion put her arms around the queen. “You are crying over the loss of your youth and the carefree days you enjoyed in her company. They ended forever on the day of her death.”

  Charmion was correct; on that day, the little princess who used to love to put on disguises and run through the streets of Alexandria put away her costumes and her childhood adventures for good. “But Charmion, it was as if the gods had sent Mohama to me to prepare me for my later years. The adventures we pretended to have I have had in actual experience. My days with Mohama were like a rehearsal for my true duties as queen.”

  “The gods are good to those who honor them. You and your father honored the gods, and you have been blessed above all women for your attentions to them.”

  In honor of Kleopatra’s arrival in Athens, a statue of her in the robes of Isis had been placed atop the Acropolis, the holiest spot in the city, where Athena stood in her magnificent temple. Kleopatra was sure that the city wished to redeem itself for the honors it had heaped upon Octavia, whom they had lauded as an earthly incarnation of Athena. Now the streets were practically littered with coins honoring Antony and Kleopatra. There were so many statues of them that everywhere they went, they ran into themselves. At all events, Kleopatra was hailed as Queen of Kings and was honored as the first queen of Egypt to grace the city with her divine presence. A huge assembly of officials and priests had met her at the harbor with poems written in her honor. Athletes, actors, singers, and philosophers dedicated their every endeavor to her majesty Little Athenian maidens threw flowers in her path wherever she walked, and the serving women were made to wear Egyptian dress at formal dinner parties she attended.

  Antony, though he was called Imperator, was given all the honors of a visiting king. Kleopatra wondered if the Greeks, so fiercely attached to democracy, were sending the signal that they would welcome a Greek-inspired monarchy over Roman rule. And why not? A Greek monarchy would honor the glory of their country, whereas the Romans only wished to rob its temples. At night, after all the festivities, when they were finally alone, she and Antony talked over the details of their vision of a Graeco-Egyptian empire, ruled jointly by themselves, and governed locally by the native people under their supervision. The only exception would be Rome itself, in which the Republican forms would be preserved as an appeasement-at least until the people lost their sentimentality for bygone days.

  Kleopatra felt as if the two of them saw from the same set of eye
s. She had been Antony’s friend, his ally, his benefactor, his lover, his wife, and the mother of his children, but now she believed that she had transcended all of these roles and the two of them had become one being with a singular mission. Together, they were greater than either of them could possibly be apart. Together, she prayed, they were invincible.

  Two arrivals from Rome, however, cracked her pool of joy like great thudding rocks. One of these was Antony’s son Antyllus, who had been “returned” to his father after Octavia had finally displayed enough humiliation and quitted Antony’s house. The younger Antonius was returned to relatives in Rome.

  “Octavian is very good at returning sons to fathers,” Kleopatra said, recalling how he sent Livia’s son back to his father after his birth.

  Antyllus was happy to be in his father’s company again, but was full of stories of Octavia’s kindness. “She treated me as a son,” the boy said, an innocent unaware of the pain his words caused the queen. “She is as honorable a woman as has lived. And she is terribly upset about the trouble between her brother and her husband.”

  Kleopatra had not seen Antyllus in several years, and she was disturbed to see that he was so thoroughly smitten by Octavia. “Your friend and brother Caesarion longs for your company,” Kleopatra said. “And the twins talk of you all the time to the smaller brother whom you have not even met.”

  Antyllus thanked her formally, as if he had forgotten every affection between them, as well as all the time he had spent with Caesarion, the two of them tramping about the palace all day long. Antony saw her disappointment and sent his son to bed. “The boy has been in Rome, Kleopatra, spending his days with our enemies. Who knows what lies he has been told about you? We’ll send him to Egypt for safekeeping.”

  Kleopatra agreed, hoping that when she returned home, her own children would not be full of stories of the lovely Octavia. Someone would have to enlighten the boy-in the struggle between Antony and Octavian, Octavia had long ago chosen sides. Her kindness to Antyllus was purely a matter of form, or so Kleopatra wished to believe.

  Antyllus had been escorted to his father in Athens by Gaius Ger-minius, a thin, arrogant man. Kleopatra could not see how Germinius would have been charged with the care of Antyllus without being an agent of Octavian, or at the very least of his sister. She shared this concern with Antony, who said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. He is pale and thin and looks like one of them. Put him at a table far away from us at dinner tonight, and we’ll rid ourselves of him tomorrow.”

  The mood was light and jovial at dinner. Kleopatra kept her eye on Germinius, who barely sipped his wine, watching everyone’s good humor with a sour look on his face. After dinner, he sent a footman to Antony announcing that he had brought a message from Rome and required an audience.

  “What did I tell you?” Kleopatra hissed as the man walked to their table. “He is bringing some poisonous words from Octavian.”

  “What is your message, Gaius Germinius?” Antony addressed him without greeting him or inviting him to be seated.

  “Perhaps I should save it for a more sober occasion,” Germinius responded, looking at Antony’s bowl of wine.

  Kleopatra was outraged. How dare this creature stand before Antony with insinuations of Cicero’s old accusations of his drunkenness?

  “Perhaps you will not live to see a more sober occasion.” Antony put both hands on his bowl of wine and squeezed it hard. “So you’d better deliver your message and be gone.”

  All conversation in the room came to a halt. So many eyes were on Antony, while others, too afraid to see the countenance that matched the seething tone, looked down.

  “The message is this. The supporters of the Antonian cause in Rome remain faithful so long as you send the queen away from your camp.”

  “Who sent you here?” Antony asked, not acknowledging the message.

  “I am a representative of the Antonian factions in Rome. I was sent here by your friends, who will not long be your friends if you do not respect their wishes.”

  Antony stood, thrusting his chest at the man, and Germinius fell back, but Antony grabbed him and raised him so that his face was inches away. “You are a representative of man’s evil daimon. You and your friends are no friends of mine. Now get out of here before I torture you to death.”

  He threw Germinius aside. “Go.”

  The messenger did not dare give Antony the same insulting look that he had worn into the room. Tripping on his own cloak, Germinius ran scrambling from the hall.

  Antony said no more about it, but the incident had shaken Kleopatra, and she left Athens depressed despite the honors that had been heaped upon her. Half the world had minted coins hailing Kleopatra their queen. Even the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Achaea had boldly placed Kleopatra’s face on bright silver, demonstrating to all the world that she was entitled to once again rule the birthplace of her ancestors. Yet these Romans could not tolerate her authority.

  She worried now that her presence was becoming increasingly detrimental, but what was she to do? How would her own country react if she left Antony and returned to Egypt? If she was thrown out of the war? She could not leave all her resources behind, and Antony would be half as strong without them.

  She also knew that if she left, with no one to represent her interests but Antony, she would have to make great concessions at the end of the war to those who had stayed and fought until victory. It was the way of the world. Antony would owe more to those who remained and fought with him than to her. Personal obligations would subside as the realities took over. Just days ago, she had fused herself and Antony into one being. Now she was faced with the reality that love had no place in this conflict. That much was plain. Had he not said it himself? What kind of general sends away his greatest ally? He had used those words to comfort her, to let her know that he was not so foolish as to ignore her worth.

  Now she had an answer to the question he had asked: What kind of general sends away his greatest ally?

  A general who determines that his ally is no longer an asset. The conundrum was, was Antony that kind of a general?

  Alexandria: the 20th year of Kleopatra’s reign

  They slip quietly into the streets hand in hand like a pair of young lovers. They have hooded themselves in drab cloaks against the winter winds, with only two men carrying the secret of their identity along with brightly burning torches. They have not done this for many years. But her hand feels as it has always felt in his-small, soft, protected. They have had wine together and the taste of it lingers on her tongue. She pulls him to her and kisses him. She is so happy to taste those lips again. They meet hers almost hungrily, and she feels a long-absent thrill shake the deepest part of her.

  It is the twenty fourth of December, a special night of celebration to greet the Sun Child, whose birth brings the winter solstice, the lengthening of days, the welcoming again of the light. On the eve of this great night, the goddess has gfted her with a dream, a dream of him when he was young. It is so lovely to visit the warmth of his love again that when she wakes she sees that he is not beside her and she weeps. She cries through much of the day, and only at the end of her festival of tears does she realize that through every ordeal, she has refrained from weeping She has stored a year of tears, and now she lets them flow until the last drop falls.

  She puts on a simple dress, not something magnificent to make him feel small, but a plain linen shift. She leaves most of her hair down, only pinning back the side with tiny silver combs. She puts a hint of red on her lips and cheeks to make him remember the flush of her younger days before anxiety made her wan. She is as thin as a girl again because she can no longer eat. When she looks into the mirror, she sees the self of many years ago. She wonders what it is that had brought back the visage of her youth and she realizes that the ingredient is hope.

  She goes alone to him without a plan of anything to say. No speeches, no recriminations, no threats, no gifts, no whores. And she finds him alone, too, and sobe
r, looking at the giant red ball of the sun as it sinks into the sea. She stands behind him, laying her head on his back, not speaking a word, staying very still and quiet, just resting against him, pretending that nothing of the last six months has passed. Pretending they have never left Alexandria, never raised an army or gone to war, never had an ambition beyond feeling one another, skin against skin. She does not want the moment to end so she says nothing but hopes that she is back in her dream; hopes in fact that she is already dead and this is the afterlife where they may be together for all time with no wars to fight and no kingdoms to govern.

  It is almost dark before he speaks. I have let you down, he says in the last violet haze of twilight, his words going straight out to the sea. You and many others. I wont do it again. He turns around and without looking at her envelops her in his arms, squeezing her so tightly that she has to hold her breath. She gasps a little and he loosens his arms, but she does not want to move. Is she dreaming? She has kept hope at bay for so long that she wonders if the day she has just lived is merely part of her reverie. Wonders if she will have to wake once more and realize that the bed is empty, the war is lost, and their plans are in ruin. She will have to wake up all over again and cry more streams of sadness. But she does not think she can do that because her body has wrung itself of tears and left her drained, as if someone has punctured a hole in her gut and let out all the wrenching anxiety. In its place, though, an odd peace has settled over her.

  Finally he takes her small face in his hard hands and looks at her. Like a ghost, he has come back from the dead. Grief has marked his face, but it seems that the anger and humiliation have left and he, too, shares her strangely peaceful state. Without leaving that place of calm, they make love. There is nothing of the desperate passion of the past. They are driven neither by lust nor by ambition nor by the thrilling, encroaching drumbeat of war, but by some odd bliss. Without force or struggle, without drowning in pleasure or desperately grasping for satisfaction, they simply couple like two innocents who come to the act in a state of wonder, learning its mysteries step by step.