Pharaoh

by Karen Essex

  She has no idea how long they make love, nor how long they stay in each other’s arms. Time has stopped, and there is no talk. It is very dark, and no one dares

  enter the chamber to light the lamps. Moonlight slips gently through the window, turning their warm skin a cold white. She clings to him for warmth, throwing her leg over his belly while he holds her to his chest. She twirls his chest hairs around her finger like a child plays with her curls. She does not want to cover the nakedness. She has missed the sight of them together like this for so long.

  It must be just before midnight because they hear singing in the streets. The worshippers are leaving the temples and are pouring into the avenues crying, “The Virgin has given birth! The light has come!” In their voices ring gladness and joy, and it rouses her and makes her want to be a part of the celebration of her people.

  Come into the streets with me, she says. It has been too long.

  She puts on her simple dress and he a plain Greek chiton and they cover themselves with cloaks. The Feast of the Nativity of the Sun is a quaint ceremony, and they do not wish to interrupt it with the regal formality of their presence. Besides, they have not run about the streets at night since the burden of war has taken them prisoners. Two guards follow them with torches. Light dances under their footsteps, and they try to step into it as it moves forward, laughing like children at their game, catching up to the Procession of the Sun Child, the infant chosen to represent the son of the great goddess Astarte, worshipped in the far-off eastern lands. The little babe chosen this year has a wizened face. He does not cry as they usually do, but sits wide-eyed and in good humor upon his tiny litter like an infant king as he is paraded through the streets, lit by the flambeaux of the worshippers. She thinks: How beautiful my city is at night. How white the columns and walls and houses against the black midnight sky. She thinks for a moment that she catches the little baby’s eye, and she is reminded of her first look at each of her own children, and of the visions she had at their births for their futures and the parts each would play in the future of the nation.

  All around them people’s faces are full of joy. She does not know if she and her husband have been resurrected on this holy day as a gift from the gods, or if their reborn love is so great that it has spread its joy to the people. She thinks that such events are orchestrated by the mysterious wills of the gods, and, if the astrologers are to be believed, by the arrangement of the stars. She does not know what will happen tomorrow, but tonight their desires are in alignment with the heavens, and it seems enough.

  The Procession ends at the temple of Serapis, the god of east and west created by her ancestor Ptolemy the Savior. Serapis was Ptolemy’s gift to the people. He discovered the worship of such a god in both Delos and Egypt, saw that Serapis was loved by both peoples, and appreciated the opportunity for unity. The people saw it, too; they made Serapis the consort of the Lady Isis-mother goddess of healing and creation, warrior, Lady of Compassion. The union was a happy one. Ptolemy the Savior united people everywhere through his understanding of the power of the Divine. No temples were destroyed, no worshippers persecuted when the successor of Alexander was made king of Egypt.

  Unity. The dream of Alexander, of Ptolemy the Savior, of Kleopatra and Caesar, and of Kleopatra and Antony. Honor all the gods of the world and unite the people under their worship. That vision has been handed down to her through so many generations, and despite everything she has suffered, she realizes that the dream of unity is still alive.

  She thinks of her discussions with the philosophers who suggest a theology in which all gods, including the singular, fierce one worshipped by the Semites, are but one Divine being, and she wonders if her ancestors did not invent this concept. Her father, though a devotee of Dionysus, leaned toward this theology. She remembers when as a child of nine her father took her to the temple of Serapis and had the priests demonstrate for her the science behind the magic of the temple. She was shown how magnets and wires moved the god into the arms of the goddess, how siphons were used to make water appear to turn into wine, and how the great blaze at the altar was created by fire machines. All these spectacles were recorded by Polybius in his histories, who had been appalled at the way the priests used magic to frighten the native population into fearing the gods. But Kleopatra thinks it is not a way of creating fear but a form of appeasement, a physical confirmation of all the magic of the gods that the people feel in their hearts and know to be true.

  “The god has no power to perform miracles?” she remembers asking her father, grim-faced and indignant. Auletes said, “The people call it a miracle; the scientists call it invention. But invention is miraculous, is it not? You must never deprive the people of their belief in the power of the gods, and you must never deprive yourself of it either”

  Kleopatra holds Antony’s hand as she meets the gaze of the little child in the Procession. His eyes are two black bowls of wisdom. Looking into them, she is neither queen nor goddess but a mother praying for safe and secure futures for her children. A humble worshipper inspired with an awe that she does not understand but accepts.

  Actium, the coast of Greece: the 20th year of Kleopatra’s reign

  Though Antony had forbidden her to do so, Kleopatra walked among the dying men, talking to them in their native tongues, assuring them that she would see that they were cared for, or in the worst cases, promising that their mothers would be informed of the day of their deaths and the details of their funerals. Antony was furious with her for risking her health, but she never contracted a disease. Besides, she thought she actually detected looks of admiration on the faces of the Romans for her willingness to give sympathy to the sick. She was more courageous than they were; no healthy soldiers of any rank dared come near the diseased.

  They had been blockaded into the Gulf of Ambracia for nearly four months. Death by dysentery was protracted and grotesque, and when combined with the fevers of malaria, it was doubly long and horrible. It had hit their rowers two months ago, the third in a series of abrupt and unanticipated disasters that had toppled them into despair. Kleopatra held a scarf over her nose and mouth to protect herself from the stench of death. The hospital camp was overcrowded, and the blockade had made it impossible to call in more doctors or to receive the necessary medical supplies. She walked among them now, if only to witness the extent of the damage. They had lost half their oarsmen; others who might be lucky enough to survive would never again be strong enough to row. The result was inevitable: They would have to either burn half their fleet or leave it for Octavian to add to his navy. So they remained encamped in the marsh.

  “How is it, after all our planning and all our advantages, that we are now the ones who are planning a retreat?” she asked Antony. She knew as well as anyone what had happened, but she believed that if they went over the details again and again, some previously unseen solution would manifest.

  “I have tried to engage him in a land war. He would not be budged.”

  It was true. Antony had crossed the gulf twice in the last two months, once to bait Octavian into battle, the other to cut off his water supplies. Both efforts failed. Octavian and his legions sat upon high ground and would not come down from their camps.

  “There are those who whisper that the gods have left me,” Antony said in a low voice. He mocked the idea with his tone, but Kleopatra thought that deep in his private thoughts he believed it.

  Kleopatra hoped that Caesar had not willed Octavian the thing he considered his most priceless asset: the patronage of Fortune. But she feared that when Caesar died, Fortune had frantically looked about for someone to whom she might attach herself, and she had found Octavian. Perhaps Fortune believed that the boy, so seemingly devoid of natural assets, required her attention far more than someone like Antony, who already had so much on his side-age, experience, renowned bravery and courage, statesmanship, craftiness, articulateness, and beauty. Perhaps Fortune considered Antony, but decided that he had been blessed enough. So she tur
ned her favor on the unimpressive boy whom Caesar had elevated by the terms of his will. Fortune had been so devoted to Caesar until that moment when she stepped aside and let his enemies stick their daggers into his flesh. She must have been a little lost without his demands, like a mother whose only son is sent away for schooling, and finds herself with nowhere to place her great love.

  Even if Octavian did not have Caesar’s direct relationship with Fortune, it was clear that she had sent him Marcus Agrippa. Agrippa had Caesar’s strategic genius, coupled with his willingness to take sweeping risks. No one liked him, but it did not seem to matter. He was austere and by all accounts without charm. He was the antithesis of Antony, who veritably commanded by charm.

  “I don’t know if it was luck or wisdom, but Agrippa’s strategy was brilliant,” Antony said. “Attack Methone in the south so that our naval forces will have to leave the northern base of Corcyra to help, freeing the sea for Octavian’s voyage. He cut off our supplies and landed his own forces all in one swoop. Did he know our minds? Then we rush to the Gulf of Ambracia to meet Octavian, and Agrippa takes Patrae in our wake! I do not believe it was planned. Octavian cannot be so clever. I believe the gods favor him.”

  Agrippa had taken a circuitous sea route with a small navy and surprised King Bogud, who commanded Antony’s forces at Methone. Bogud was ambushed and killed; once their king was dead, the men were thrown into confusion and hastily surrendered to Agrippa. It was only one victory, but Agrippa had risked all to capture the base that was the gateway to Egypt, Antony’s source of money, food, and supplies. For months now, food had had to be carried over steep, narrow paths on the backs of local Greeks whom Kleopatra heard that the soldiers lashed with whips to keep them at their labor. She was not surprised. Hungry men are not known for their patience or their kindness. The swampy land where they were encamped was infested with insects. The men were weak from lack of nourishing foods and easily fell prey to the diseases that incubated in the marsh.

  “Well then, we must act swiftly to get the favor of the gods back,” she said impatiently. She did not want to discuss the will of the gods- it was disheartening enough to entertain her own private thoughts on the matter-but the will of her general. “We should have attacked earlier, before we gave them the chance to attack us!”

  “You are very good at saying what we should have done after you’ve seen the results of what we have already done. You would have had us give credence to Octavian’s claims that you would not rest until you were standing on the Capitol like some kind of mad goddess of war? Is that what you wanted, Kleopatra? Has that been your secret mission all along? To march into Rome with an army behind you and bring it to its knees? Do you think the Roman soldiers would have followed you into their own country?” He was very harsh with her at times now. The anxiety that accompanies setbacks had erased many of the niceties between them.

  “Then you should have left me behind and attacked on your own.”

  “Don’t think that wasn’t discussed,” he said. “But it was not practical. You have the treasure and the fleet.”

  “Thank the gods that I still have some worth.”

  He must have seen the pained look on her face because he softened his tone. “Kleopatra, we both know that these men would not have willingly attacked Italy, at least not the Roman legions, and without the Roman legions we do not have a full army.”

  “It appears we have caught ourselves in an untenable position. You cannot win this war with me, and you cannot win it without me,” she said bitterly, knowing that she had just spoken the truth.

  “That is not quite correct. There are other factors. You see how the men are since Octavian’s army has arrived. They had much too long to think about fighting. That much I concede. I did not think of it in advance. But for months, they sat in their camps and thought about the fighting to come, and of the cousins, brothers, and friends whose faces they would inevitably encounter on the battlefield. It weakens a man’s heart for fighting.”

  “We have sat here the winter and watched their will for confrontation dwindle along with the food source,” Kleopatra said bitterly. “Did you hear Dellius last night at dinner, complaining over the quality of the wine? ’Why must we drink this sour stuff, Your Majesty, when even the pages who wait upon Octavian have in their cups the finest Italian vintages?’ He will be the first Roman in history to change his allegiance for a better quality of wine.”

  They were in their private quarters, he on one side of the room and she on the other, squared off as if it were the two of them who were at war. Kleopatra knew that they must unite themselves again before they faced anyone else.

  “But he will not be the first to change his allegiance, now will he?”

  Nothing depressed Antony like loss of loyalty. He lived for his men’s adoration, and when they took it away, he became like a dejected child deprived of the attentions of his playmates. In fact, nothing at all soured Antony’s spirits but this. And this was the one thing over which Kleopatra had no control.

  “My husband, are you still smarting over the desertion of that fat Greek peasant?”

  Antony had sent Dellius in co-command with Amyntas, whom he had not so long ago elevated to landed nobility with large tracts of farmland in Pontus, to Macedonia to raise more troops. Their covert mission, however, had been to distract Octavian’s army so that Gaius Sosius could break Antony’s navy through Agrippa’s blockade and out of the Gulf of Ambracia. Amyntas had two thousand horsemen under his personal command, but the mission was soon aborted. Dellius returned to Antony with the story of how he and his men watched as Amyntas declined to take the road to Macedonia, instead leading his men straight to Octavian’s camp. An incredulous Dellius looked on as Amyntas shouted, “Come, Dellius, let us go with the winners.”

  “I had thought that my generosity would not have been so soon forgotten,” Antony said.

  “Then we must remember not to give such generous donations to men of low character,” she answered. “We must now forget about Amyntas, and we must rouse ourselves. Whatever action we take, even if it is wrong, will be better than continuing to allow ourselves to be blockaded in this bog watching our men die of malaria. Even the officers are taking ill. Have you seen Ahenobarbus as of late? He hides the day long in his tent, but I have seen him sneaking to the latrines. He is as green as the gulf. And he weighs nothing.”

  “I thought you did not like him,” Antony said. “Perhaps I should take ill. Then your sympathies for me might be aroused again, too.”

  Kleopatra lost all patience. “Why are you turning against me, who am your friend, your ally, your wife? Why do you not turn your hostilities north toward your enemy? Isn’t that where they might do us some good?”

  Antony froze. She hated these moments when his flow of emotions was stopped. It was only in these times that she feared him. He was so like her father, who was never frightening when he was screaming and flailing, but who made his coldest decisions when he was silent and calm. She thought Antony might lunge at her as he had lunged at the messenger Germinius. But he did not move. She had insulted his manhood, she knew, and she wished she could take it all back. Without meaning to, she had accused him of attacking a woman because he had not been able to attack a man. She would pay for this, either in a loss of his affection, or in the damage done by her words. She decided to refrain from apologizing, but to turn to him for wisdom.

  “Antony, what shall we do?” It was a simple and sincere question. She realized that she was not used to asking questions of others without already having arrived at the appropriate answer herself.

  “We shall call a War Council. And we shall all have our say. I want to listen to everyone. I do not want to risk more desertions. Then we will decide what to do.”

  She did not like this. She believed that the two of them must always present a united front; that without making a show of their unbending unity her position with the others would be weakened considerably. She knew this was true, but she als
o knew by the look on his face and by the chill that seemed to emanate from his usually warm body that he would not change his mind.

  Kleopatra listened to the reports of the generals in the War Tent, each summary of hardship and defeat taking away a chunk of her flesh. But no matter. As for herself, she knew that she would survive any amount of bad news and rally. She was unsure about her husband, though he coolly listened to each report.

  “The legions stationed at Crete have defected to the enemy, sir.”

  Antony did not reply to this. “Has anyone a report from Cyrene?” he asked. “Did the legions there follow their neighbors into Octavian’s camp?”

  “They have remained loyal, thanks to the leadership of Lucius Scarpus,” Canidius replied.

  Antony looked about the room. “Where is Ahenobarbus? Is he too ill to attend a War Council?”

  Canidius and Sosius exchanged a quick furtive glance that did not go unnoticed by Kleopatra. Sosius spoke. “Sir, this morning, Ahenobarbus stole a small boat and rowed himself over to Octavian’s camp.”

  “He was very ill, sir,” Canidius added. “I believe the fevers got to his mind.”

  “The last time I saw him he was too weak to salute. Now you say he has rowed himself across the gulf?” Antony seemed more incredulous than angry.

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “Well then, good riddance to him. We don’t need another sick man to care for. Send a skiff after him with his baggage, with a message that it comes with my compliments.”

  “Is that necessary?” Kleopatra asked.

  “I do not want him to think he is missed,” Antony snapped at her. “Do as I say,” he commanded to one of his secretaries. “See that it is done and done now.”