“Stuff?”
“The first chemists boiled and poured metals from newly invented furnaces, glass lenses, and all sorts of new glass and metal vessels and tools. New stuff!”
Phaedra said, “Rome has taken credit for the sciences now. They always have to be best.”
Ptolemy insisted, “No, Rome just steals all its ideas. Rome has nothing original of its own. It was done in Alexandria first, for hundreds of years, by now. The Egyptians were skilled at fashioning glass, gold and other metal. Greek scientists used that skill to build new laboratory tools and put ideas to the test. For the first time ever workshops were devoted to ideas… to science!”
She didn’t care.
He told her anyway, “Inspired by how Egyptians were mummified, surgeons made the first scientific studies of human anatomy. The convicted criminals deserved to be cut apart while still alive and their reactions studied. How can you see how a heart beats or the lungs breathe if one is dead—you must see that while still alive.”
Phaedra put her hands to her ears. “That’s gruesome. I don’t want to hear anymore.”
He continued, “And there was more music. The mechanical organ was invented in Alexandria when Ctesibius decided he wanted pipes bigger than could be sounded off with human lungs, and he also invented the keyboard for it so more pipes and notes could be played than was ever imaginable before. And the circumference of the earth was decided two hundred years ago. Eratosthenes, a head librarian, who made a map of the stars, also calculated the circumference of the earth.”
Phaedra said, “You just gave the Egyptians some credit for some of this.”
He waved a bug away from his face. “I did not.”
“They made new stuff. The Egyptians knew how to work with metal and glass to fashion the instruments the Greeks used. The experiments needed their own special instruments.”
“That part isn’t as important.”
Phaedra argued, “I keep hearing about what a fantastic city Alexandria is because it takes in the best of the whole Mediterranean world. But people keep forgetting to mention Egypt’s contribution to the arts and sciences of Alexandria. Greece would have never become so marvelous if it had only stayed in Athens. It needed to meet the world to put it all to the test and it needed the special instruments to test it with. And from what I was once told, Greek ideas first came from the Phoenicians and they were the Canaanites who got their ideas first from the Egyptians so it all just comes full circle, really, in the end… something smarter than the sum of its parts.”
He turned to yell at his men, “Why didn’t anybody bring food?”
“We only had minutes to board, my pharaoh.”
“First you grab your weapons! Then you grab my food! My hands were full of gold to pay for it all! And now I’m hungry! When we get to Cairo I’m eating a whole hippo!”
Their boat began to sail past farms. Soon they saw houses. A sailor said, “We are shortly in Cairo.”
Phaedra remembered a dream. “Wind. Water. Fire. Earth.” She remembered that she was earth. “Dirt. Rocks. Sand. What good can ever be done with a pile of sand?”
Ptolemy turned to her. “You said what?”
“I was talking to myself. Sorry.”
Ptolemy asked her what she was thinking about.
“A memory. It’s nothing at all to anybody else. I just need to be grounded… that’s all anybody says of me.”
“Yes, I need your magic here and now, and you always seem like you’re about to fly away… or else trip and fall. Settle down!” Ptolemy turned to a sailor. “Why is the boat turning away? Go that way! The wind and water will not conspire against me. Take me to shore now!”
Phaedra cried, “We’re out of control!”
Ptolemy scolded her, “Settle down before you fall overboard! I forbid you to drown!”
They all stumbled forward together as the boat stopped moving. It hung up on a sandbar in the middle of the river. They couldn’t move it off with their oars. The sailor finally said, “A fishing boat will take us to Cairo.”
While they waited for a fishing boat to go by, Ptolemy saw five Nubian women walking along a road above the steep slope of the riverbank. They were wearing modest white tube dresses with thick shoulder straps. From their distance, their petite straw hats looked like short blond hair.
Ptolemy commented, “I would think the women would be nude.”
Phaedra questioned that.
Ptolemy said, “How could they spend so much time weaving cloth for themselves? They should all be doing things for Rome.” He yelled to them, “And I’m hungry now!” He put his hands to his mouth.
One of the women held up a loaf of emmer bread—hearty bread that pulled apart into planks that soup was scooped up with.
“I’m not sitting here another minute!”
A sailor assured him, “We are doing all we can!”
Ptolemy took the gold cat statue, kissed its nose, and handed it to Phaedra, as he told her, “When you join up with me again, this is the first thing I will see. I feel Athena in it. It has all the blessings of Athena. It will buy me an army and I will rule Egypt again for Athens!” He jumped into the water and swam to the shore. At the reeds, he screamed and splashed violently. He vanished.
Minutes later, Phaedra saw the crocodiles with bloody teeth swimming away. She clutched at her heart, horrified. “Oh by the gods! Oh, all the gods!”
Soon after, a fishing boat came and freed the boat from the sandbar. Phaedra put the head of the gold cat statue against her heart. She could feel it had once been in a tomb. She wrapped it up to appear like it was a baby in her arms, and went to shore.
Chapter thirteen
In the Palace of Alexandria, Octavian walked up to Mark Antony and slapped his face with a scroll.
Mark slapped it away. “What?”
“This is your last will and testament. How dare you!”
Mark pulled it from Octavian’s hand and ripped it up.
“I had a dozen copies made. And the original is headed for Rome as we speak.”
Mark yelled, “How dare you! Where did you get this? That’s improper for you to have seen my will! Nobody can see that—that’s secret!”
“I read all the papers in your room.”
“How dare you! My room was guarded!”
Octavian twitched. “Your guards were smart and stepped aside for my guards.”
Mark was too angry to think. “How dare you!”
Octavian looked grim.
Mark accused, “That was illegal! What you did was illegal! You can’t use this in any court in Rome!”
“We aren’t in Rome now and to hell with the laws here. But they’ll love hearing your will in Rome in the forums. All the people will see you for who you really are.”
Mark Antony yelled again, “How dare you!”
“How dare you. Divorcing my sister? Divorcing her for a foreigner? My family has never been so insulted. And that isn’t even half of it. This is pure treason to Rome! You aren’t even a true Roman to think this way.”
Mark yelled, “Not so!”
Octavian continued, “When you die you want to be buried in Egypt? You want all of your inheritance to go to your children that you expect to have with Cleopatra? You think that putting Cleopatra on the throne and taking her as your wife makes you the new pharaoh and starts off the new Dynasty of Antony?”
Mark turned red.
“You are so stupid! In Egypt, women are the ones who carry the bloodline. Not the men—not even if it’s somebody as arrogant as you. No matter who the father, under Egyptian law, Cleopatra would give birth to a Ptolemy.”
“Oh. Yeah. I knew that. Really, I did.”
“Where is she?”
Mark shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know something like that? Where is Cleopatra?”
“It does sound ludicrous but I don’t know where she is. After the victory feast I thought I’d bed her. I thought I’d give her a son.
My son. I’m certain of it—that a son would come of it. Such a great feast certainly put all the gods in a fertile mood. But she was unwell and she left the table. I was growing so testy, you can imagine my disappointment.”
“So follow her servants to where she is.”
“I’m sure they’re locked away with her, now, too. She is proud and proper—I’m sure she’ll only allow herself to be seen when she is well again. But I’m running things at the palace anyway.”
Octavian gave a mocking laugh. “Cleopatra thinks she’s outsmarted and tamed you.”
“What?”
Octavian explained, “She thinks that making you her husband, Egypt can control Rome. It’s all treason, from you two, as you plotted against Rome and also plotted against each other. Greedy fools! There will be no new ruler of Egypt. By the authority of Caesar, I remove both of you!”
“You have no right!”
“Yes I do. I have more troops.”
Mark asked, “Where did you get more than me?”
“I bought yours up. Egypt will be taken care of from now on as a territory of Rome. Nothing more. The dynasties are over! You’re through. You’re forbidden from returning to Rome… you now have nothing. Cleopatra is coming back to Rome with me. She’ll be having one last parade.” He glanced about. “Where is she?”
Mark said, “Don’t worry about her!”
Octavian insisted, “Where is she?”
“Don’t worry about her or me! Go back to Rome alone and play and live. Live large. Get fat. Don’t worry so much about politics. Don’t worry so much about Rome and Egypt. Politics is not for you.”
Octavian remained grim. “I’m tired of you making Rome look like a stupid dick!”
After a moment of glaring at each other, Mark wearily sat. “I don’t know where the queen is.”
“Tell me or I’ll find her myself. If I have to find her myself I’ll have her whipped before we even set sail.”
Mark wearily shook his head. “I swear by my sword. She is not in any room in the palace… not in any known room. There are hidden rooms. Let her be if she is hiding like a sick cat.”
“What did she last tell you? Did she admit her treason?”
“When I last saw her, she’d noticed that Phaedra had disappeared. That’s all we discussed.”
“When I find her she’ll be dragged through the streets of Rome!”
“You can’t do that!”
“She is a traitor to Rome! As you are! Rome is no longer your motherland. Men like you have no home.”
Mark moaned. “You can’t leave me with nothing!”
Octavian sardonically raised his well plucked eyebrows. “I left you with your sword. Fall on it.”
Then with the quick help of five soldiers, he did.
~
Under the shifting sands of the Sinai Desert, Cleopatra limped back to the temple to the snake god Apophis. On a balcony along one wall, Iset sat at a table, in her thick horsehair wig. On a stone plate she coiled up a cord of clay to build a pot.
Cleopatra fell to her knees. “Oh Iset! What’s wrong with me? I’m so tired! Look at my hands! I can barely move my fingers! I grow so stiff! Cure me now! Cure me so I can get back to the throne before there’s trouble!” She wiped the back of her hand on her trembling black lips.
“There is nothing I can do anymore.”
“Look! Look at me! Look, my hair is all falling out. I’m sick with stress. My magic is gone now and I must be restored.”
“I cannot help you now.” Iset stopped pinching at her clay pot coils, and stood. She wiped her hands on the sides of her robe.
Cleopatra moaned in despair. “Tell me how to help myself. Where’s my magic? I must break the spell that takes my dreams away, takes away my magic, and makes me suffer the dreamless sleep of the dead. I can cure myself if I can merely dream again, I know it!”
Iset sadly shook her head.
“Why won’t you help me? Or can’t you?”
Iset said, “You don’t even know who I am.”
“I know you’re the most powerful desert witch. That’s all that matters… your great power…”
“I am the most powerful witch of all the lands because I have the greatest witchcraft from being the greatest outcast of the gods. I do not wish to live under the desert. But I’m not bitter any longer. I make the best of it and use my wild state to help the failings of civilization. My magic travels far on a good windy day.”
“How far? For what ends? Did it involve me?” Cleopatra looked down in dread. “Of course it involved me. How was I used?”
Iset said, “You were killed. You are dead. You are but like a walking mummy.”
Cleopatra insisted otherwise.
Iset frowned. “Now that I have said it, you know it to be true.”
“Why would you do something so horrible to me? When did that happen? Just now?”
“Just before your brother had you taken to the desert. You now know it to be true.”
Cleopatra swore. “I don’t remember!”
“Memory and dreams are gates to the supernatural.”
“What don’t I remember?”
Iset continued, “What you can’t remember, just before awakening in the desert, is your own moment of death.”
“Dead? No! But how? At the palace I was just becoming strong with new magic!” She looked at her own hands in disbelief.
Iset explained, “And that’s what helped you become how you are now. You had already nearly mummified yourself with your own spells and liquid gold potions moments before your brother’s clever witch poisoned you. It all made an accidental witches brew like none other.”
Cleopatra was at a loss for words.
Iset sadly chuckled. “Why? Why did I get involved? Revenge. I couldn’t let your brother get away with taking the throne from you. All the omens had already decreed that you would end it all for your Greek dynasty, and be the last dynasty for all time. I had to make sure it would be so.”
“Revenge?”
Iset nodded. “Revenge against your brother is ultimately revenge against Athena. Now all the Greeks are out of power in Egypt.”
“I won’t die now! I will live and the Greeks will rule forever! Greeks do not die out!”
Iset said, “Socrates once said that death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
“But I’m a queen and the river needs me!” Cleopatra grabbed a thin red snake from the steps and made it bite her breast. “Now I have more magic! I feel more venom in my veins!” She didn’t feel it. She only felt her guts shriveling and her bones crumbling.
Iset sadly shook her head. “The Proverbs of Amen-em-Ope say it is better to reach port than it is to set sail.”
“It’s not my day to die!” Cleopatra squirmed, trying to get up off her knees. “You did this to me! You wanted me dead! You always wanted me dead! You’ve always hated me because I’m Greek!”
“No. Not at all. Though Greek, you were much loved for it by the Egyptians.”
“You hate Greece? Why?”
Iset puckered. “I only hate Athena. I haven’t had the final word against her but I have kicked her back into Athens.”
Cleopatra cried, “Let the gods quarrel, I don’t care. Do that spell again to me! I want more! I still love Egypt! Let me rule. I want more!”
“Spells only last so long. Then the light of the full moon eats them up, cleaning the land of old tired spells that litter like kitchen garbage. Thank the gods for that. A mummy ruling Egypt—what a scandal against nature. The gods have released the Kraken for far less.”
Cleopatra asked, “What will history say of me?”
“It will say that your suicide, because of the conquest by Rome, marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt… Athena’s light went out in Egypt. The Nile is no longer hers.”
“I can’t let it end like that! I must not let the dynasty end. It was the greatest of all the dynasties!”
“Dead women don’t have babies.”
/> Cleopatra’s breath became shallow. She said with a moan, “I feel horrible… I feel as if foul mud is about to pour from my eyes.”
Iset said, “So that you don’t quickly become putrid, I will give you a final gift. I have one final way of keeping you eternal.”
Cleopatra gasped for air. “You can give me more life?” She coughed black blood onto her stiff fingers. She realized she couldn’t move them.
“No, that is beyond me.” Iset swirled her hand in the air. “But I can keep you beautiful for all eternity.”
“How can you do that? Who are you?”
“Iset is only my Egyptian name. I am originally from Greece, too. I am angry at the Greek goddess for how she cursed me. But time has restored my heart. You have helped restore my humanity. Athena’s curse will never be lifted from me but I have felt my human heart grow, anyway. My heart has felt deep love for you.”
“You’re Greek? Who are you, truly?”
“I am Medusa. Stand one last time. Look into my eyes.” She took off her wig.
With her final breath, Cleopatra became an exquisite wide-eyed marble statue.
Iset sadly said to it, “Your heart has not been turned into stone. It is already too heavy. Anubis will weigh it—pray he only weighs it against the hearts of other kings. And may Isis always forgive us all.”
Iset covered her head again, walked back to her pottery table and rolled out a rope of clay to wind into a pot. She said to the snakes on the table, “This time, the Nile will sleep for six thousand years. I wonder if I’ll live to see that day. It doesn’t matter. The Greek gods will have no power over me anymore.” She cackled.
Epilog
To diminish Alexandria, Octavian had much of the city burned, including the rest of the library. He pulled down the temple that held the tomb of Alexander the Great and sent all its gold back to Rome to be recycled.
Later, back in Rome, Caesar was murdered by his friends. In an elaborate public ceremony staged to evoke the good ole days, Octavian pretended to surrender all his power to the senate. To the people it looked like he was restoring the old Republic so that they could return to the golden age of myth. But in reality the new Empire became entrenched: Octavian kept his power, becoming permanently re-elected as the leader of the senate until death. In addition to his power over the senate of Rome he was given all control of Egypt, Africa, Cyprus, Spain, Gaul and Syria.
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