Cleopatra's Heir

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Caesarion felt the blood throbbing fast and hard in his side. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s the most obvious person for the queen to send treasure to,” said Ani. “Maybe you’re planning to go join him.”

  Caesarion’s heart slowed down again. He said nothing.

  Ani apparently took silence as an admission that his guess was right. He gazed at Caesarion doubtfully and pulled at his lower lip. “I wouldn’t have thought Caesarion was a good person to follow into exile,” he said, with concern. “I heard a rumor that he’s a leper. I heard he’s been shut up in the palace for years.”

  Caesarion glared furiously. Sometimes he suspected that his mother’s attempts to keep his condition a secret only meant that there were dozens of rumors about him instead of just one. This, however, was one he hadn’t heard before. “That’s a lie!” he declared indignantly.

  Ani lifted his hands in concession. “If you say so, I believe you. You’re an Alexandrian; I’m from Coptos. I told you we don’t hear much news, only rumors from the traders and bargemen who come upriver, and even though I don’t know what the truth is, I can tell they’re full of lies. Most say the queen is a holy goddess who goes about working miracles; some, that she’s a drunken harlot. Some say that the young king is a god manifest; others, that he’s a half-wit or a leper. To tell the truth, to Coptos it doesn’t matter much. But even if the king deserves your loyalty, have you asked yourself whether he’ll welcome you if you arrive without the money—particularly now you’re wounded?”

  The question of what he would do without the money presented itself. Caesarion pushed it aside: the task now was to get safely out of Egypt. “I’ll worry about that when I get there,” he said, and let Ani believe what he liked.

  Ani made two or three more attempts to probe his origins and intentions, but Caesarion did not respond. His side was hurting more and more and his breath was short, and eventually the Egyptian realized this and gave up.

  They walked until it was fully dark; paused for a rest and a drink of water, then rose and continued on. At midnight they ate a meal of flatbread and cheese, and set out again when the moon rose. About half an hour later, Caesarion finally gave up and asked to be allowed the donkey.

  The caravan stopped again about an hour before sunrise. Caesarion was once more in a daze, his consciousness so crushed by pain that he could take in little else. He knew only that he had a chance to stop jolting and rest, and he slid off the donkey and lay down on the ground, wrapping his arms about himself for warmth. After a few minutes, Ani came over and draped a blanket over him.

  As the pain receded a little, he realized slowly that the others were pitching a camp. Awnings were rigged, bedrolls unpacked, camels tethered. A fire was lit, a stewpot was suspended over it, and presently there was a scent of pork and onions. A little while later, Ani came over again. He had a piece of flatbread rolled into a cone and filled with the stew. He bent over to offer it. When Caesarion didn’t move, he squatted down beside him, took the limp hand, positioned it upright, placed the bread in it, and folded over the fingers.

  Caesarion groaned and sat up. He looked at the bread with distaste, then glanced around. The light had brightened to a lucent pearl-gray, and he could see that the awnings had been pitched on a flat sandy area broken by a few scrubby bushes. Along one side of the sand there was water, and to the right were buildings—real buildings, of brick and tile, not the flimsy house-tents of the desert.

  “Are we in Berenike?” he asked hoarsely, hardly daring to believe it.

  “We are indeed!” replied Ani, grinning at him. “Eat your supper and get some rest. We’ll go over to the harbor this evening.”

  Caesarion looked at the cone of bread. He had no appetite, but he forced himself to nibble a corner. “We’ll go this morning,” he corrected Ani, when he had swallowed it down. “I’ll rest for a couple of hours, then go in.”

  The grin disappeared. “Boy, I’m not going to do business looking like a peasant. I’m going to have a sleep and a meal, and then I’m going to wash and put on my good clothes. You can wait until evening.”

  “I’ll go on my own. This morning.”

  “And run off without paying me? You swore I’d get money from your shipmates.”

  “How much do you expect to be paid?”

  Ani looked at him with narrowed eyes. Caesarion took another bite of the bread and swallowed it, refusing to meet that gaze. He did not know why he suddenly felt ashamed. Around them the light brightened.

  “I paid Scylla four drachmae,” the caravan-master said slowly. “I paid another two drachmae three obols for the myrrh, and one and five obols for the bandages. You’ve eaten food—oh, call it four drachmae’s worth. You rode my donkey and enjoyed our protection for two days: call that another eight drachmae as a hiring fee. The cloak you’re wearing cost me twenty drachmae …”

  “You can have it back,” Caesarion said, with a faint sneer. Cloak! The garment was barely more than a headdress!

  “I reckon you cost me twenty drachmae, then, and that I’m owed another ten for the trouble.”

  “I will give you the pin. The stone on it must be worth more than that.”

  The response startled him: Ani made a rude noise, and glared in anger and exasperation. “Boy, that pin is the only valuable you have! You are in a strange city hundreds of miles from your family and any source of money, and you’re heading off into exile. How, by all the good gods, do you think you’re going to survive if you throw away your only valuable?”

  “Stop calling me ‘boy’!” Caesarion shouted at him, stung.

  “If the stone on that pin is real, it’s worth sixty drachmae!” Ani shouted back. “And it belongs to you, not your oh-soreliable shipmates. Think, you young idiot! Are a few hours worth that much?” He got to his feet, towering over Caesarion. “And look at yourself! You’ve a hole in your side and you can barely stand. Sweet Lady Isis, if you had a grain of sense in your head you would’ve stayed at Hydreuma and let that pretty little whore look after you! What’s so wonderful about exile, eh?” He paused, caught his breath, then went on. “Well, I’m not taking your god-hated pin. You can come to the harbor with me this evening, or you can go off by yourself this morning knowing that you owe me twenty drachmae—and your life—and couldn’t be bothered to pay.”

  Caesarion had no idea how to answer. Ani waited for a reply, then, seeing that his antagonist couldn’t think of one, stamped off with a satisfied air. He stopped after a few steps, however, turned back, and said, “You can sleep there.” He pointed at an awning rigged up against a bush. A bedroll lay enticingly open beneath it. “You’ll want shelter when the sun comes up.”

  Caesarion sat nibbling the stew until Ani had disappeared into his own shelter. Then he crawled over to the awning, lay down on the bedroll, and went to sleep without even bothering to take the pin out of his tunic.

  HE WOKE UP when it got hot, and crawled awkwardly out from under the awning to find some water. It was still before noon, but the sun was like a furnace, the white sand of the campsite hurt the eyes, and the air above the sea gleamed like silk with the heat. Two other awnings were stretched nearby, with the linen bundles heaped between them and secured to them by a rope. Ani was asleep under the nearer one, his face hidden in the bedroll and one arm flung out above his kinked hair. The donkey was stretched out asleep in the shade between its master and a bush, and the tethered camels were lying down, chewing stolidly at pile of fodder.

  A public fountain stood only a few yards away, a plain stone basin with a tank which could be filled for animals. Caesarion staggered over to it, drank from the tap, then splashed more water against his wounded side, which was burning. He took off Ani’s shawl and ran water over his head. He drenched the shawl and draped it over himself again, then sat a moment, leaning against the cool stone and dangling his hands in the water.

  You must avoid cool, moist things. They will aggravate your condition.

  To Hades with tha
t: hot, dry things didn’t seem to be doing his condition any good.

  He ought to go find the ship. He was, he admitted to himself, desperately afraid that the ship would not be there after all. Since the middle of July they had waited for it, and it had not come. Why should he trust its captain to stay loyal, when so many others had turned traitor? To be sure, the captain had been selected for trustworthiness—but so had Rhodon, and all those others who had peeled away from the queen like cloth unraveling.

  Eumenes had posted a man in Berenike to watch for the ship. Didymos, that was the man’s name; he was lodged at an inn called the Happy Return. The thing to do now was to go into the town, find the inn and the man, and learn from him how things stood.

  What would Ani think when he woke and Caesarion wasn’t there?

  It didn’t matter. If the ship was there, Caesarion could send him the thirty drachmae and end the connection. If the ship wasn’t there …

  Ani would resent being sent thirty drachmae without seeing the ship for himself. He would feel that Caesarion had behaved very badly. Why he should feel that way, Caesarion could not say, nor could he explain why part of himself agreed with the verdict.

  What did it matter? Ani was an insolent peasant who had insulted him. Cleopatra would have had him flogged.

  It did matter, though. The caravan-master had saved his life. He might not like that, but it was true. And—little as he wished to admit it—apart from the insults, Ani had treated him with great kindness. His own donkey. The last of the beer. The myrrh. The stew and the bedroll.

  Ani could have taken the pin from him at any time, but he’d refused it even when it was offered. He wondered why. The Egyptian had sounded almost … concerned … for the safety of his guest. Perhaps that was it! He regarded Caesarion as a guest, to whom he had a host’s obligations. Perhaps that was why Caesarion felt ashamed at the thought of walking out on him: it would be a breach of hospitality.

  Or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps Ani was a lover of boys, and he had taken a fancy to Caesarion.

  Caesarion sat very still, struck through with disgust and utter revulsion. He remembered how Ani had steadied him on the donkey that first night—the man’s arm around his waist, his own head resting on the shoulder of the dirty tunic. Had he thought that kind? He remembered the proprietary look on Ani’s face as he watched Scylla cleaning the wound—suddenly saw himself sitting naked in the shadows of the house-tent, with the old witch dabbing myrrh onto his bare flesh, and the crude peasant ogling … He had been unconscious in Ani’s presence several times—the man had examined the remedy without his knowledge—what else might the fellow have done?

  He pressed a hand to his mouth, sick with humiliation. He was the son of a queen who claimed to be the living incarnation of the goddess Isis, and of a man greater than any king—a man whom even the Romans worshiped as a god! He had been given divine titles of his own, “Theos Philopator Philometor—the God Who Loves His Father and Mother”; he had been called “Lord of the Two Lands,” and then “King of Kings”; he had had a temple built in his honor. Maybe he was unworthy; maybe all the titles were propaganda for the ignorant masses—but to be the object of a camel-driver’s lust … He ought to kill the brute!

  That would be a poor return for his life, which the brute had saved. Ani had not, in fact, actually done anything to him—not while he was awake, anyway. It might even be the case that Ani’s feelings were, after all, only friendly and hospitable; he had no real evidence that it was not so. No: he would put the disgusting idea from his mind. Moreover, he would leave Ani the pin—a more fitting reward than a mere thirty drachmae. But he would go into the city on his own now, and have nothing more to do with the man.

  He went back to the awning, knelt down, and set the tunic pin on the bedroll where he had slept. Satisfied, he rose laboriously to his feet and straightened the shawl.

  Against his will he remembered that he’d told Ani he wouldn’t keep the garment. With the sun this fierce, though, he had to have some kind of head-covering, and he had no money to buy anything else. Well, the pin would pay for it and more.

  His feet crunching in the coarse coral sand, he set off slowly toward the town.

  Berenike was a small city. There was a central marketplace, flanked by a moderately sized temple dedicated to the god Serapis; there was a fort that could hold a small garrison, but which had been empty for some years; there were a few streets of rather flimsy houses—and there were more warehouses, shipping offices, and inns than would have seemed reasonable in a place three times the size. Berenike had been founded for the Red Sea trade, and apart from that trade, had no existence.

  The market was almost empty on this quiet morning, and the streets were deserted. A month before, the town had bustled—but that had been in July, when the monsoon blew from the west, and the ships of the India trade had set out for the East, making the sea blaze with their bright sails. Now it was too late in the year to sail eastward, and the ships would not return to the west until February, when the winds had changed. The coastal trade, southward along the shore of Africa, was not seasonal, and caused far less stir.

  Caesarion paused in the marketplace to drink water from the fountain and to soak his shawl, which had dried out on the short walk from the campsite. A couple of old women, spinning as they sat selling melons in the shade nearby, stared at him curiously and whispered to one another. He hesitated, then braved the stares and came over. “Women,” he said hoarsely, “do you know of an inn called the Happy Return?”

  The two of them looked at one another, as though amazed he could speak, but then one of them nodded and informed him, “It’s on the Harbor Street, child, about halfway along. Young man, you look very ill. Do you want to sit here and let me fetch your friends?”

  “No,” he told them. “Thank you.” He turned left out of the marketplace, and paced stiffly down to the street which flanked the harbor.

  Berenike had no deepwater harbor. Ships were drawn up on the shallow, sheltered beach, and loaded by ramps, or by men who waded out to them from shore. There were three or four ships run up on the beach now, their sterns lapped by the turquoise water of the lagoon, but one of them caught his eye at once. The others were round-bellied merchant vessels, but this was a galley, long, thin, and light. He started toward it, his heart speeding up, and soon there was no doubt. It was a triemiolia—a heavy trireme from which the top bank of oars could be removed to allow long voyages under sail—and the prow was decorated with a robed figure which held something round. He felt his face cracking in a manic grin. The ship for which they’d waited so long was a triemiolia called Nemesis, and the goddess Nemesis was always depicted as a woman holding a wheel of fire. He was going to get away.

  If he hadn’t reached the Happy Return first, he would have gone straight to the ship. However, he noticed the inn’s sign on his way—a painting of a harbor and a ship safely anchored, with the name picked out in red lettering—and he decided to stop and check whether Didymos was there and had anything to tell him.

  The Happy Return was one of the grander inns. A two-story building, it stood proudly at the center of the harbor front. He pushed open the plain door and walked through a dark entrance passage into an open courtyard flanked by a portico. Vines in pots set into the packed soil grew over the portico, creating a deep shade with their thick leaves, and bunches of black grapes, now ripe, dangled over the tables. A couple of men were sitting at one of the tables playing draughts; otherwise, the place was empty.

  Caesarion sat down at the nearest table, glad to be out of the sun. One of the draughtsplayers noticed him, left the game, and came over. “Wine, master?” he asked, smiling.

  “I’m looking for a man called Didymos,” said Caesarion.

  The smile vanished, instantly and absolutely. “He was arrested day before yesterday. He owes me money.”

  Something inside Caesarion seemed to go numb. The certainty of deliverance winked out like a lightning-stroke.
/>   “Are you a friend of his?” the waiter demanded. “He owes me for ten days’ lodging.”

  “Who arrested him?” Caesarion asked faintly. “What for?”

  The waiter spat. “The ship he was waiting for arrived, day before yesterday—he was expecting queen’s men, wasn’t he?—but the Romans had taken the ship, and when he went on board they arrested him. You one of his friends? I want my money.”

  “The Romans?”

  “You heard me. They’ve conquered Egypt, so they say; the war’s over, the queen’s a prisoner, and Antonius is dead. They had some information about the ship, and they went to Myos Hormos, where it was undergoing repairs, seized it, and brought it up here. My guess is they wanted to catch Didymos and his friends. You probably know more about that than I do; you’re one of Didymos’ friends, aren’t you?” The waiter leaned over the table and looked Caesarion implacably in the eye. “I want my money.”

  “I don’t have any money,” Caesarion told him. He was trembling.

  “Your friend owes me that money. Give it to me, or I’ll run down to the ship right now and tell the Romans that somebody has turned up asking for Didymos.”

  “The Romans took our camp,” Caesarion whispered. “I barely escaped alive. I can’t give you any money—and the Romans won’t, even if you hand me over to them. All they’ll do is ask you questions about why Didymos and I were here.”

  The waiter’s eyes raked him, taking in the coarse shawl over the rich but crudely mended tunic; the right side of the tunic hanging down because its owner lacked even a pin; the complete absence of a purse. Then he spat, this time directly into Caesarion’s face. “Get out!”

  Caesarion rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered back down the dark passageway and out into the blast of sun from the lagoon. Lapped by the calm waters, Nemesis mocked him. He wiped spittle from his face, rubbed his soiled hand against his thigh. It was hard to breathe. His stomach rose, and suddenly he smelt carrion.

  O gods, he cried silently, O Asklepios and Apollo, no, please no. Not here! He dropped to his knees in the street and tried to grab the remedy, but his fingers tangled in the shawl and it evaded the clasp of his hand.