by Jack Lindsay
He raised quavering fists towards the ceiling, and fell heavily back, a rattling noise in his wasted throat.
Olympos placed a hand on the chest of the collapsed man, but knew that he would find no heart-beat. Nicias was dead. All for the best. Olympos went to the door and spoke calmly to Simon. “Simon, your master is dead.” With a howl Simon ran for the study, bent almost down on his hands and feet. Olympos signed to the guard to leave him alone, and stood at the stairhead, wondering whether to go or to stay out the night.
Noting the roll that Simon had fetched for him from the Museion, he picked it up from the floor where it had fallen, and dusted it carefully. Knowledge—was it all no more than the blank sheets which Nicias had consigned his discovery, the blankness of life, the scrawled fantasies of his overheated brain? The anatomist Herophilos had discovered the cerebrum and cerebellum; his statue stood in the portico of the Museion where he had once taught. A great man. Olympos unrolled the first few pages of the treatise in his hand. What was it all about? Both Herophilos and Nicias were now dead, and Nicias would have no statue. There was the difference. He had been a good man, Nicias, in his way.
Olympos tried to come to a decision. He couldn’t stand at the stairhead for the rest of the night. But somehow decisions didn’t seem to matter. Why not stay where he was, instead of going out at once into the street again, being forced to speak to people at the Museion or the Palace? Besides, he had been friendly with Nicias, certainly his best friend. In the morning he could arrange for the interment.
“We’ll stay for the night,” he said to his guard. “I’ll pay you well tomorrow. Make me up a bed on the floor here.”
Perhaps things would grow clearer if he delayed and slept in these rooms of crime and hatred; where his sister had died, and where he had had many pleasant conversations and watched Daphne comb her hair. It was hard to get one’s thoughts in order. There was such vileness in everyone.
*
Cleopatra had called for him, but he was absent, nobody knew where. She smiled sadly, being too weak to feel vindictive, thinking that his negligence was disrespect; then knew otherwise. He wasn’t of that paltry kind. Meanwhile she did not trust anyone else for an opiate (queer that she couldn’t trust them, in view of the course on which she had already determined, but so it was), and she had none left of what he had given her. She had the other phial, under her pillow; but that she did not mean to drink as yet. In a short while, a very short while. But she wouldn’t be hurried. There was all the rest of life left to die in, and therefore no hurry at all. The endlessness of time was about her. But she would have liked to sleep first, and now she must lie and think.
It wasn’t the past of her queening that she wanted to think about; she was beyond reviewing those bleached triumphs. She thought rather of the days when she was very young and used to play in the rose-garden, while her father blew on the flute, his fat cheeks puffed out, usually a little drunk, but she hadn’t understood that in her young days. She thought it was merely a part of being a grownup king to have such hot breath and kindly, somewhat glassy eyes, and to talk in a rambling sort of way that never quite made sense. Berenice had been too old to be a playmate; but Cleopatra had hated Arsinoe ever since she took Cleopatra’s best doll one morning and hung it on a tree with its head half torn away...Arsinoe, who had been strangled at Ephesos...Cleopatra stuffed her fingers into her mouth: a thing which she had never done since those far-off times of the rose-garden when she had also been frightened of the dark—but not for the same reasons, for it was of a broken-necked doll she dreamed, not of a strangled sister. And yet there could not be so much difference between doll and sister, since both had brought the same dreams, and Cleopatra had been guiltless about the doll. What was conscience then?
She grew reassured. For Charmion and Eiras were close at hand, ready to spring to her aid at a whisper. Fear went deeper than conscience, yet conscience could only work through the power of fear. There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing.
Caesarion was dead. His trustful, loving face was wiped out of the mirrors of life, but he lived in her thoughts, charming still, asking questions about his father, wanting to be worthy. Her heart paused, and a great moon of silence burst out within her, a sponge of light that absorbed the sweat and blood of her being...But she set her teeth and made no sound. The girls slept, evenly breathing. Somewhere Octavianus slept.
He puzzled her. He seemed so ordinary, and yet the strongest man she had ever met. She had almost loved him when he laughed at her, though she had wanted to kill him too. How dare he laugh? She smiled, and then her face hardened into a mask of suffering hate. He had murdered her Caesarion. But he couldn’t win. Rome was already half-Eastern. Egypt would do more to Rome than Rome did to Egypt; but Cleopatra would lie in a sarcophagus, for tourists to see.
The beauty of the night stirred in her blood like sudden wine. She didn’t want to die. If she could hide away successfully anywhere, she would toil as the wife of the poorest peasant, and would bless every moment wrung from life. Anything was better than death. Life in a prison, shame in the streets of Rome, pain and insult. And yet she had to die. Caesarion was dead, and Antonius was dead, and, long ago, Caesar was dead. And many others, countless others. Go away, Arsinoe!
She wouldn’t die. She would do anything but die. O Antonius. She loved him at last, who had always loved him. But he had been so weak, and she had been a thousand times right in all her too-few interferences. Any man with fine words could sway Antonius. How they two had laughed together. She held her left breast to still her painful heart. The dying god...the everlasting earth...O for another word with him. But never would it be. Silence for ever, a widening silence. Thanked be the mocking gods that death ended all, despite the tales told by the priests to the people. The gods were all in the blood. She had learned that when the world became her shrine and she walked therein as Isis newborn. The priests were right to teach as they taught, because they spoke of the images in the blood, and what could the people do but misunderstand? Yet the images must be uttered.
She must die, and Egypt would conquer Rome. Rome would conquer the world, and out of the East would come a voice that would make of her order a scorn and a plaything. Perhaps. One exaggerated so much, even when speaking the truth. Anyhow, Octavianus wouldn’t have things all his own way, or those that came after him. He had no son. May he die eaten of worms for murdering Caesarion!
She put her hand under the pillow and touched the poison-phial. But she wouldn’t drink it yet. Tomorrow, in the light. Fitly dressed, like a queen; not tousled in bed, where they could make jokes of her. One thing worried her badly: a petition from the township of Sais, which she had neglected to settle—an urgent matter relating to judicial bribery. Things had got out of hand during the last few weeks. That shamed her.
Two soldiers below exchanged quarrelsome words, and the sounds floated up through the open window. She wanted to hear what they were saying; to enter into their quarrel, into their lives; to be part of everyone in the world. The expanding moment of acceptance hovered with soft wings over the seething earth. The darkness of the hermit-hours overbrimmed with love; but the dawn would be different. Then she would contract to impotent disgust, left only one way of asserting herself, one last assumption of power, one throne—death. The night was murmurous with love, but the day would be armoured with resistant surfaces, Roman faces thronging, daggering high-lights all aimed at her heart.
She would drink the phial in the day, with the serpent-crown on her head...and the serpent-fancy in her heart. Bride of the sunlight, the everlasting earth.
12 A CHILD IS BORN
Next morning Victor went from the apartment-house where he and Daphne were staying, to buy food. He felt at once a deep current of emotion pulsing among the people, and in a few moments he learned the cause. Cleopatra was dead. Some said that Octavianus had smothered her while soldiers held her down, some that she had been dropped into a pit of serpents, some that she had poisoned hersel
f to escape the overtures of Octavianus, some that she had placed a cobra to her breast. The people mourned for her. Though they would be no more enslaved under the Romans, they felt in the death of their Queen the loss of something inestimable, the end of a personal achievement. Egypt was now submerged in an Empire. Sincerely they mourned.
They were in this mood when a legionary, startled by a cat, drew his sword and slashed out. The cat was killed. The deed occurred in the street along which Victor was walking. He saw the flash of the sword and heard the outcry. The rush of people swept him on, and he saw the Roman’s astonished face for a moment lifted above the stormy sea of heads and thrashing arms. It was all he could do to save himself from being thrown over and trampled. The mob pushed and roared, surging over the dead Roman, tearing at his flesh, stamping him into the roadway. Then they scattered in fear for shelter, still breathing threats against all aliens who did not respect Bast. A trumpet had been heard.
Victor retreated back to the apartment-house, carrying the three small loaves which were all he had had time to buy and which, though crushed, were still eatable. Shopping was not a very safe pursuit at the moment. After haggling with the caretaker, he obtained some cheese, beans and barley.
Daphne was still in bed; but now her eyes were clear and softly happy, despite the drawn lines of her thinned face and the shadow that fell across her as soon as she began to tell of the last few weeks. Victor too was unbelievably happy, though he could not bear to listen to Daphne’s account of her sufferings; and she, in her effort to realise that they were all over, kept on repeating details and remembering something new. It seemed that until she had told it all she wouldn’t have finalised the escape. They wept together, clutched with a pity which both feared would turn into reproaches. Yet they were happy.
He stroked her hair, paler than ever but still gold. She asked him what the noise had been; for though the brawl had occurred two streets away, she had heard the uproar and feared that Nicias had found Victor.
He told her what had happened. She shivered. “Can’t we get away ? I’m frightened he’ll find us here.”
Victor too wanted to go, though he dreaded the final wrench of parting from an environment which was at least familiar. He had sent a street-boy with a letter to be delivered at the Palace for Olympos; for he didn’t dare to go there himself. One of the eunuchs might see him and cause trouble. Doubtless Octavianus would now claim what was left of the property of Antonius, as the guardian of the young children; but there would be no great search for a missing slave outside Alexandria. The Palace would be in confusion; there would have been gaps caused by casualties in the skirmishes; and the eunuchs would be too busy trying to peculate, they wouldn’t produce exhaustive lists. Once in the Arsinoite Nome with a propertied friend Victor would be safe. It would be taken for granted that Antonius had freed him if by chance anyone ever recognised his face. Lucilius would testify on his behalf...
Every argument led to Lucilius. It was necessary to go. Victor said that he’d make arrangements to go in two days’ time.
“Don’t leave me more than you must,” Daphne pleaded. They kissed, and talked of the life that they would lead, blessedly free from the city and its crooked ways. Lucilius would leave them the farm; it was freehold, unlike almost all the other property in Egypt.
Later, after endless homilies and warnings from Daphne, Victor went out again, having promised to watch for traffic and soldiers and Nicias and everything else that was dangerous. He wandered along the canal towards the dockyards, but all the shipping seemed to have stopped and no one could give him any information. After the first aches of disappointment, he felt not unrelieved at having the responsibility of settling the departure thus taken from his shoulders; but as soon as he felt that there was no means of leaving Alexandria, he longed again for the farm. He was so tired and overwrought that he didn’t know what he wanted, and was about to retrace his steps when he saw two men come out of a beershop, wiping their lips. They climbed down some steps and got into a large flat-bottomed boat. Victor watched them, leaning over into the canal. He would make one more effort; and if that failed, he’d go straight back to Daphne.
“Do you know any boat shortly sailing up the Nile?” he called.
The men considered him for a while, and then one of them answered, “Say we do?”
He grew confused. “I mean a boat that would take passengers.”
“Suppose you did?” said the man, who had a snub nose and a fringe of beard under his chin. “What’s that got to do with the price of a mug of beer?”
He laughed loudly at his own joke; but the other man, who seemed more serious, a dark man with a large greasy forelock, addressed Victor who was about to retire in discomfiture:
“If you know a person who’ll pay passage-money down on the spot, we know a boat. But it all depends how far you want to go.”
“To the Limne,” said Victor, unwilling to give the full details.
“You came to the right men this time,” said the man, nodding importantly. “We’re going to the City of Dogs—miles further up. We can put you off at the nearest spot for the City of Crocodiles. Where is it exactly you want to go?”
Victor, with shrinking courage told him. “That’s thirty miles inland,” said the man.
“Twenty-eight,” replied the snub-nosed one.
“Thirty-eight, if you like,” said the other firmly. He turned again to Victor. “Can you pay? That’s the main thing.”
Victor produced some of the gold pieces, and the men stared at him with something of the respect due to a successful thief. Quickly they stated terms, insisting on payment down. Victor handed the coins over, feeling sure that he’d been cheated. He muttered a few words about a receipt, but the men stared him silent.
“We’ve got no paper and pen,” said the serious man.
“And we can’t write,” added his friend.
“And all the scribes have run away.”
“So you either trust us or you don’t.”
Victor realised that he hadn’t explained that passage for two was required. “It isn’t only myself. There’s my...my wife too.”
“You ought to pay double for that,” said the serious man, spreading out his arms.
“She isn’t at all fat,” answered Victor, who objected to the gesture; then remembering that Daphne’s womb-burden was now plain, he went on, “riot very fat.”
“Still she’s a woman,” said the serious man. “And a woman always takes up more room than you’d think.”
“Perhaps he hasn’t had experience of the barge-trade before,” remarked the snub-nosed man, excusing Victor for not understanding the fine points of the discussion.
“If you won’t pay double, what will you pay?” asked the serious man. “You aren’t playing fair, arranging terms and then springing a woman on us.”
“You should have told us first,” agreed the snub-nosed man. “We had a friend whose boat was swamped because of a woman he took aboard.”
“It wasn’t swamped,” said the serious man. “It was a leak.”
“There isn’t any difference,” the other protested. “You can’t say it wasn’t a woman.”
“When a boat’s swamped,” said the serious man in an argumentative voice, “the water comes in from the top, and when there’s a leak it comes in from the bottom.”
“I told you it was the woman, and now you say the same thing in different words.”
“Anyway he always was a liar, and I don’t believe what he said.”
After much more discussion, which seemed to Victor not quite relevant, they agreed to take Daphne for another gold piece; and Victor, though he knew he was being outrageously overcharged, was yet proud of not having been browbeaten into paying double the first amount. When the price was fixed, the men proposed a drink to seal the bargain, expatiating on the sacrifices they were making in accepting passages at such an unprecedented low rate. The suggestion pleased Victor, since it looked as if the men were in earne
st; but he didn’t want to drink. Daphne would smell it on him and think that he’d wasted time in mere pleasure. He was seized with a tearing need to get back to her, afraid that something dreadful would have happened, that she would be weeping, misjudging him, sick...
They went into the beershop, and the bargemen pounded on the wall, disturbing a sleepy group in a corner. A slatterny girl came out, stared at the new customers, and went away without waiting for the order.
“She knows our tastes,” said the snub-nosed man complacently. “It will be beer in a double-sized can.”
In a few moments the girl returned with large mugs of beer, thrust them at the ready customers, and put out her hand after rubbing it on her hip without particularly cleaning it, since her dress was as dirty as her hands. The bargemen looked at Victor, and he paid. Seeing one of the gold coins, the girl took a sudden interest, sat on Victor’s knee, and began plaiting her hair. He didn’t like to push her off, and at the same time he was terrified that the sailors would make some jocular reference to the girl when they later saw Daphne—that is, if they didn’t abscond without waiting for the passengers. He therefore did his best to pretend that he wasn’t aware of the girl on his knee, and was overjoyed when one of the men called for more beer; the girl would have to rise to fill the cups. She rose, and he rose also. The men at once grasped his arm.
“Come on now. One round more. We ought to get to know one another. We don’t like taking strangers on our boat. No hurry.”
Victor didn’t like to say that Daphne was ill. They might suspect plague and refuse to have her on the boat. He mumbled something about an appointment, and sat down again. The girl came back with the beer, including a mug for herself. She sat on Victor’s knee again, and, having finished plaiting her hair, kissed him with slobbery mouth. It was harder now to pretend not to notice, but he did his best, rather overcome with the fumes of the weak but unfamiliar beer and trying to follow what the bargemen were saying. They seemed to be simultaneously computing the last harvest, advising him about the journey, and talking of a girl nicknamed Three-legs. The beer-waitress wriggled against him shamelessly; and he, conscious that she was pleasantly warm though abominably ugly, that beer was even warmer, and that the bargemen were fine fellows with magnificent powers of conversation, was yet agonised by the wish to get back to Daphne, a rebuking image in the distance of his mind.