Pharaoh

by Karen Essex

  “Your Majesty.” The young man is on one knee, pressing one of those shriveled hands to his cheek. She hears the pity in his voice, the almost ironic use of her title, and she withdraws her hand.

  “How is it that you got permission to see me, Cornelius, when your general thinks me either too dangerous or too lowly to set eyes upon me?”

  “The general is all too familiar with the stories of your charms, madam. He heard them directly from his uncle. He is a man like any other and does not wish to make himself vulnerable to your famous enchantment.”

  Kleopatra finds that she is long past parrying with charming rogues. Despite her intention to use charm, she feels impatience insisting its way into her words. “Please! There is no need to invoke the ghost of Caesar, nor to taunt an ill woman with outrageous flattery. The general has my money and my country. There is nothing more I can offer him. And that is his conundrum, is it not?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, madam,” Cornelius says as if genuinely puzzled. He takes a seat opposite the queen. “The general sent me to check on your condition. He heard of your illness and wishes to know if you are improved.”

  “Why is he so concerned over my health? Does it really matter to him whether I live or die? Tell me, Cornelius. You have his ear, or you would not be sitting here. In which condition does he prefer me? Dead or living? Which would serve his purpose?”

  Though they are alone, Cornelius gets up from his seat and kneels next to Kleopatra so that he might whisper in her ear. “That is what I have come to tell you. In the name of Julius Caesar, for whose memory my father died, I did not want to be the bearer of this news.”

  Oh, these Romans, so deficient in the theatrical arts, are such natural performers. She feels her anger rise-a sign of improving health. “Then let us not prolong your agony.”

  “Madam.” The eyes are as wide as a cow’s and threaten to spill conjured little tears. The brows are knitted in false anxiety. “The general asks me to inform you that he is preparing to leave Alexandria for Rome. You are to prepare to leave as well. In three days’ time, you and your two children will travel to Rome.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “Yes. And marched as such in his triumphal parade in the capital.”

  She takes her time responding. His words send chills through her body. She is not sure if it is the fevers returning or the fear that what he says is true.

  “I see. The general is to march the mother of Caesar’s only son in chains through Rome, along with two of the children of the Imperator? Do I understand that correctly?”

  “That is correct, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, Cornelius. You may leave now.”

  He looks amazed at his hasty dismissal. Clearly he had anticipated some greater scene, some wonderful histrionic episode that he might relate to his commander. “Is that all you have to say on the matter?” His voice is shaky. Caesar will be so disappointed at the abrupt conclusion to the meeting.

  She smiles. “That is all I have to say.”

  Charmion returns to the room as Dolabella leaves. “Is your fever worsening? Is that why you sent him away?” Charmion’s serene hand is on Kleopatra’s forehead. “I’ll send for cool compresses.”

  Kleopatra stops her. She stands and begins pacing. “No, wait. As a matter of fact, this visit has remarkably improved my condition.”

  “Kleopatra, please get back in bed. You are no better than when you were eleven years old. You are not well.”

  “I did not think Octavian would take me for a fool. I don’t know what he has planned, but it is certainly not what he sent young Dolabella here to say.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That he will send me and the younger children to Rome and march us in his victory parade.”

  “Don’t be naive, Kleopatra. Do you think that is not within the scope of his evil?”

  “No, but I don’t think he is so stupid or so short-sighted. He plots and schemes with the skill of a Sophoclean dramatist. He is not a man of the moment; the tentacles of his schemes reach far into the future. No matter how desperate he is for my humiliation, he knows that even the barbarous citizens of Rome will not take kindly to a queen marched in chains like a common animal, much less the children of Antony.”

  Charmion is skeptical. “He has maligned you much in that city. Are you so sure the barbarians are not calling for the degradation?”

  “Charmion, do you not remember that all Rome was outraged when my sister Arsinoe was marched in chains in Caesar’s parade? The women of the city rallied behind her though she was a declared enemy. Remember, Arsinoe declared herself Caesar’s enemy. Octavian declared me an enemy of Rome. There are too many in the city who know better. He wouldn’t risk it. Not with Antony’s death fresh in everyone’s mind, particularly his soldiers. Their loyalty to Octavian is new and tenuous at best. The sight of Antony’s little ones-oh, and do they not look just like their father?-might be just the catalyst to turn at least a few of them on their new commander. I don’t know what he means by sending me this news, but I am sure it would be a mistake to take it literally.”

  “But what are you going to do? What if in three days’ time his men come and put you in chains and take you and the children away? Will you take the risk?”

  “Yes. Because I believe I know why he sent the message. He is hoping that the news will either worsen my illness and kill me, or that my pride will outweigh my will to live and I will kill myself.”

  “And is he right on either charge?”

  “He thinks he’s the cat and I’m the mouse, Charmion, but I will surprise him yet.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “Watch me.” Kleopatra takes a seat at a small table. She picks up a pen and begins to write, but the sleeves of her dressing gown drag across the page. She stands, throws off the gown, and takes up the pen again over Charmion’s protests that she is killing herself by not keeping warm.

  She mouths the words of her letter to Charmion as she writes:

  To: General Gaius Octavian

  From: Kleopatra VII, Queen of the Two Lands of Egypt

  I have received my old friend Cornelius Dolabella and heard the news from him that I and my children are to be taken to Rome as your prisoners. I ask that you allow my women access to my full wardrobe so that I shall not disappoint the Roman populace with my appearance. In addition, my health is so improving that I wish for full meals, prepared by my staff in the manner that they know I like, to be sent to me three times a day. I do not wish to relapse on the long voyage and die ignobly en route in a strange land or at sea. By the way, it would be extremely generous of you to allow me to make one final visit to the tomb of Marcus Antonius, as Fate in her wisdom has now decided that those who vowed to always be together shall be separated for all time.

  Thank you for your attention to these small matters.

  She signs the letter with a grand flourish, laughing so hard that her chest rattles and she begins to cough.

  “Despite your intentions, Kleopatra, you are going to kill yourself if you do not stop this nonsense.”

  Kleopatra brushes off Charmion’s worries. She opens the door and hands the letter to the guard. “See that the general gets this immediately.” She hopes her smile and the levity that has returned to her voice does not raise his suspicions.

  Swift, brutal action is the most expedient way to success. Julius Caesar had taught him that, and he wonders now what his uncle would have thought of him turning his own cruel philosophy on Caesar’s alleged son. Ah well. Perhaps Caesar would have been so incensed at how far Kleopatra was willing to carry the ruse of the boy’s paternity that he, from his Olympian vista, is smiling down upon Octavian for putting an end to it once and for all.

  He had been left with no choice, he reflects as he surveys the riches confiscated when Little Caesar’s party was intercepted in the desert. When the solution is simple and obvious, why debate the ethics or the means? He has silenced the solicitous Arius,
who cannot stop talking about what was done, as if he believes that each detail he furnishes will put another gem or coin in his pocket. Octavian does not wish to burden himself with an itemized account of the assassination; suffice it to say that the insignia ring and the money and the eyewitness chronicle of Rhodon, who under Arius’s supervision would know better than to lie, is proof enough that only one Caesar remains upon this planet. The account of the death of the other boy, Antyllus, whom he knows personally, causes a tear to fall, just as he had shed one for Antyllus’s father in a moment of uncharacteristic sentimentality. It is not remorse or sadness or grief or even guilt that make the tears well up at these times. It is the realization that all life, even his own, is temporal. The strange notion that a life can be taken so easily, and that this power is available to anyone who is willing to seize it. Why more do not exercise this ability is beyond him. Why these philosophers, Arius and Rhodon, do not right now strike him down and make off with all this gold before them is a mystery to him. Perhaps, as Caesar used to say, some men eschew leadership. Some men, most men, are simply happier to follow a man who will make those unhappy decisions and take responsibility for them.

  But a man must also exercise caution. The case might be made that Caesarion and Antyllus were of a dangerous age-an age when Alexander was already at war on behalf of his father’s kingdom, subduing tribes that the king had yet to conquer. He saw the boy Antyllus when he came with Antony’s offer; saw how the boy already carried Antony’s square jaw and puffed-up chest and long straight nose-and arrogant attitude. Octavia would have to forgive him that one.

  Everyone henceforth would have to get used to forgiving his actions because, well, they will have to. At any rate, surely such boys-scions of Caesar and Antony; sons of the celebrated lover of those men-would have united against him and caused another episode in Rome’s continuing civil wars, the wars Octavian now claimed to have ended forever. Surely the assassinations will be interpreted as necessary politics-as-usual. He has found that if one simply acts and offers no explanations and no remorse, those who surround one will quickly come up with reasons in one’s own defense. See how Arius and Rhodon are doing this right now, words tumbling together as they offer how Octavian has acted wisely, and listing all the reasons why. He is tempted to put to them the question of the little ones, but that is against his philosophy. He will decide their Fates and then act without seeking outside advice. But he does not think he will be able to satisfactorily explain the deaths of small children, even to himself. Well, those he would take back to Rome with him where he might keep an eye on them. What could be the harm? The twins were not yet nine years old.

  Octavian dismisses the two philosophers because he is weary of them waiting around for additional rewards for betraying their charges. He has given them money and their lives. Can they not see that despite the fact that he demanded the betrayal, he also has disgust for the betrayers? He slips a few more coins into each flat and eager palm and sends them off.

  Left alone with these magnificent additions to his personal trove, he tries the insignia ring on his index finger. It is tinged with something that he thinks might be blood, but it is easily wiped away with a stroke of his cloak. The ring is too small. Little Caesar must have inherited his father’s thinness; or, if he correctly gauges Kleopatra’s cunning, inherited the thinness of the person with whom Kleopatra copulated, selected for his keen resemblance to Caesar. She would have thought the entire scheme through, he is sure. The ring does fit nicely on the little finger, and that is where he will wear it for a while. It is heavy gold and engraved with the eagle of the Ptolemies, that beast who hangs over almost every room in the palace. It is so like the eagle that flies on the Roman standards, and he wonders if this is just a coincidence. At any rate, it is a convenience, a symbolic bridge from Greek to Roman rule. A sign from the gods that Egypt has always been destined for his command.

  He plucks the prize from the lush landscape of glittering treasure, gingerly at first, holding it between the thumb and index fingers of both hands. It is lighter than he anticipated, and he laughs at how hard he was prepared to try to lift it. In the end, it is effortless. He turns it so that his eyes meet the emerald eyes of the cobra-inscrutable, defiant. He pets the inflated chest of this asp, this symbol of pharaonic power, making slow friends with it, running his finger over the diamond-shaped scales, tapping its pointy tongue. He places the diadem on his head. How well it fits. It seems the sons of Caesar are the same circumference at the head. Poor Julius! Stabbed so viciously by his countrymen for wishing to wear this very crown. Ahead of his time. Sometimes, it is left to the younger generation to fulfill the ambitions of the elder. Sometimes, it simply took a different sort of man to accomplish the deed.

  She is in the middle of the first meal of the day when she hears the news. She has awakened refreshed and without fever for the first time in many days. The sun is already bright, which means that she has slept long and hard, dreaming of her father and the ritualistic dances to Dionysus that he used to perform for family and friends. In the dream, her father wears a transparent sheath so that his audience watches his ample flesh as it dances with him. The audience is Kleopatra and a roomful of Roman soldiers-some whom she recognizes as the dead from the battles in Greece. She does not wish to see them, for even though she is a child, all that has happened in her life has already passed. She tries to concentrate on her father’s agile movements as he sways his large body in time with the pipes, but the Romans keep distracting her. No one dances unless he is drunk, they mock. Her father does not hear them and continues dancing as if in a trance, the false curls of his hairpiece shimmying down his back as if he were a young maiden. But she, a little girl of ten, is all too aware of the ridicule. She looks for Antony, the only Roman who might make them understand that her father is not drunk but reverent; not mocking the god but honoring him. But Antony is not there.

  She shakes off the dream quickly, more quickly, she knows, than if Antony had appeared. She has already dreamed that he still lived, and upon awakening, her sadness was so great that she took medication and went straight back to sleep hoping to find him again. But this morning, her face is cool and her feet and hands are warm, sure signs that she has mended. Her chest is ugly and bruised but not swollen. She calls for her breakfast and it is delivered not by Charmion but by some silent servant whose name she does not know. She dismisses the girl and has taken the first bite of an orange when Charmion enters the chamber and asks her to stop eating.

  Still chewing the pulp, she is told that Charmion has been visited by the old philosopher, Philostratus, once a great lecturer at the Mouseion, and now a bent-over fellow with a long white beard and a mind half gone. He has spent the morning with Arius, who let it slip that the son of Julius Caesar and the elder son of Marcus Antonius have both been mysteriously murdered. By whom, the philosopher could not say. But he had been told by Arius to deliver these two items to the queen: a moonstone worn about the neck by Antyllus, and the medallion of Horus the falcon-god, which Caesarion wore always, even to sleep. Charmion slips the items into Kleopatra’s hand, very cold against her skin as if they had long been removed from the warm flesh against which they had once rested.

  Kleopatra puts her hands to her mouth and vomits the small bits of her food. The remaining contents of her stomach quickly follow. She is grateful to be ill again, to have the acid burn in her throat take away the pain in her heart. Charmion cleans the mess from the queen’s hands and tray and tells her that she must collect herself. There is more. The old philosopher said that Arius, a former tutor of mathematics, asked him to convey one equation to the queen’s lady: five minus two equals three.

  “I asked him to repeat it, for he is half mad these days. And he did, three times, angry with me as if I were one of his students who had not studied his tables.”

  Kleopatra pushes the quilts away from her legs. “We have very little time,” she says.

  For once, Charmion does not question Kleop
atra, does not spout the usual precautions over health. Health is no longer an issue. She gives the queen her hand, helping her out of bed. Kleopatra is dizzy as she stands, and pauses a moment to shake off the blackness that tries to take her over. “Get Iras right away.”

  “Will you dress for mourning?”

  “There is no time for that. I will have plenty of time to mourn when I am dead. But we must accomplish one final masquerade before that happens.”

  Charmion leaves without asking why she is being sent-a first in some thirty years. Alone, Kleopatra can review her choices: She might keep herself alive to see the rest of her children die. She might continue to wait out Octavian on the chance that he is not demonic enough to slaughter little children, nor stupid enough to parade a woman in chains before his fickle populace. She might end her life and save her youngest three-perhaps. She realizes that she no longer has any guarantees for her actions. What animal is as unpredictable as he? There is none; even the earth’s fiercest creatures act savagely only to save themselves.

  So many have disappeared now, and she wonders if they are waiting for her to join them; if Antony, missing her, has petitioned the gods to hurry their reunion. She cannot watch as more who are her life go to their deaths. With each death dies hope. How many times has she said that hope is an expensive commodity, borrowing from the historian Thucydides? Until today, she has not realized its cost.

  The robes of Isis are heavier now that she has lost so much weight and strength, and she is relieved to be lying down in the litter. The dress is of many colors-blood red like the sun in late afternoon, yellow as on a clear summer day, and white as a winter moon-and its pleats fold out from her like the rays in the crown of the sun-god Helios who lies fallen on the beach at Rhodes. The mantle alone must weigh several pounds. Black, fringed, it hangs on her chest like a shield, embroidered at the hems with glittering moons and stars that catch the flashes of light intruding into the dark carriage through heavy brocaded curtains. Everywhere on the dress are fruits and flowers, the earth’s beautiful bounty made manifest by the grace of the goddess, the mother of the earth, the queen of the moon, the daughter of the sky, the giver of life itself. When she stands, she must walk carefully to balance the big bronze orb of the crown that sits on her head, hugged on either side by snakes wrapped round golden ears of corn. But this is the final performance, and she will not falter at the end.