Cleopatra's Heir

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Caesarion found himself on his feet with his arms open before he was aware of moving. Melanthe went directly into them as though it were her natural place, and pressed her face against his shoulder. It was an embrace for comfort, not love, but his whole body seemed to open to it like an eye. He kissed her hair, stroked it, suddenly and intensely happy. Melanthe was whole and free this morning because of him. That was an achievement to be proud of.

  He had thought of taking her home the previous night—but the terror and violence had taken their toll, and as soon as she understood that it was safe to collapse, she’d done so, in tears and fits of shivering. He’d ordered the female slaves to look after her, and they’d given her a dose of warm honeyed wine mixed with opium and put her to bed. Now she was awake again—and, it seemed, washed, anointed, and throwing herself into his arms.

  The slave-woman was looking amused. “You are willing to see the girl, then, master?” she asked—unnecessarily, as she’d plainly seen that he was more than willing.

  Caesarion nodded. “Thank you for caring for her.”

  The woman bowed and withdrew. Melanthe lifted her face and looked at him. One side of her mouth was still swollen from the blows she’d sustained the previous day, and there was a cut on her left eyebrow, but her eyes were as beautiful as ever. “Are you their master?” she asked.

  He wondered how much of what had happened she’d understood. He thought, probably not much—yet. She was observant and far from stupid, but she had been far too shaken to have reasoned her way through it yet. “Only temporarily,” he told her. “They belong to one of my mother’s friends. They’re going back to him as soon as we finish packing.”

  Melanthe flinched. “Because of me? Because there was a fight over me, and the captain won’t take you anymore?”

  “It’s for the best,” he told her firmly. “I didn’t really want to go to Cyprus anyway.”

  “What happened to your little brother?”

  He shook his head. “He’s alive. He has his own nurse with him. I don’t think he’s going to be harmed. I have to be content with that, since I can’t improve on it.”

  “What about your second cousin? Does he know you’re here?”

  “Second cousin!” exclaimed Rhodon in surprise.

  Caesarion had forgotten he was there. He glanced around. “He is, you know. Once removed.”

  “Not as far as he’s concerned,” Rhodon remarked darkly. “You’re the one removed, in his view.—Young woman, good health.”

  To Caesarion’s disappointment, Melanthe let him go. She eyed Rhodon warily. “Good health, sir. You are a friend of Arion?”

  Rhodon was not disconcerted by the name: Caesarion had already decided to keep it during the voyage. “I would wish to be,” he told Melanthe calmly. “But I fear that he is resolved to have no friends now. I have been trying to persuade him to accept help, and he refuses it. Is it true that your father does business down the Red Sea?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Melanthe, still very wary. “He has a partnership with a captain called Kleon, who sails out of Berenike.”

  “I very much wish that Kleon and your father could persuade Arion to sail out of Berenike, as a third partner, perhaps with a second ship. Given the piracy common in those waters, a convoy would surely be safer than one ship on its own. I and my friends have some money we could invest. I understand that it’s a profitable trade.”

  “Rhodon!” protested Caesarion, shocked and dismayed. It had never been any part of his intention to involve Melanthe in the discussion of what to do next.

  Melanthe looked at him wide-eyed, then at Rhodon. “My father offered Arion a partnership,” she said. “He refused it.”

  Rhodon lifted his eyebrows. “Did he? I would like to meet your father. He must be a remarkable man. My young friend here esteems him greatly, and members of his family are not easily impressed.”

  Melanthe visibly swelled with pleasure and satisfaction. “I thought he was just too proud to accept it!”

  “If he refused, it’s probably out of fear of his second cousin,” Rhodon told her. “Personally, I think that so long as he stayed out of Alexandria there would be little danger. His cousin believes him dead, and will not go looking for him.” He tapped the letter-case against his chin. “You know, the more I consider it, the more it seems to me that Arion would do very well commanding a ship on the Red Sea, fighting pirates and negotiating with barbarians. It is much closer to what he was brought up to do than managing an estate on Cyprus.”

  “Rhodon, I can’t!” Caesarion cried angrily. “You know I can’t!”

  Rhodon met his eyes. “You could endure it more easily than your friends could endure your death.” He glanced over to Melanthe. “He intends to kill himself as soon as he’s returned you to your family.”

  “Arion!” cried Melanthe accusingly, whirling back to him. “Is that true?” She looked into his face searchingly—then flared into a blaze of indignation. “It is true! You mean, you were going to go manage an estate on Cyprus for this gentleman, and I ruined it, so now you’re going to kill yourself? You mustn’t! You saved my whole family at Ptolemais, and last night you saved me. I would die to repay you. Papa would, too, I’m sure! You can’t go off and kill yourself without saying a word! If we ruined one plan, you must let us provide you with another!”

  “Melanthion …” Caesarion began hesitantly.

  She seized him by the shoulders, shook him urgently. “You mustn’t! Maybe you don’t care about yourself, but your friends care, my family cares, I care! Doesn’t that matter to you at all?”

  Caesarion glared over her shoulder at Rhodon, who smiled and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, looking quite insufferably pleased with himself.

  “It does matter to me,” he told Melanthe. “That’s why …”

  “He is resolved,” Rhodon interrupted. “And he is very stubborn and headstrong, like all his family. He thinks his life is no longer worth living, and I have no hope of changing his mind. But you might be able to.”

  Melanthe digested that in a blink. She looked searchingly into Caesarion’s face. Then she let go of his shoulders, caught his left hand, turned it over, and traced the red weal across the wrist. “When you did that,” she told him, looking up seriously into his eyes, “it hurt me, too. Only a little, though, because then I didn’t care so much. If you did it again, I would feel the knife on my heart.” She lifted the hand and kissed the scar; the touch of her lips made his skin tingle. “You mustn’t do it. Please, Arion. You’re precious to me. You mustn’t, there’s no need. You can come back to Soteria and stay there quietly until we leave Alexandria. We’re going very soon. Papa may have the tin already. Your second cousin doesn’t know about us, he won’t suspect a thing. If your friends want to invest in another ship for you, they can write to Papa and Kleon. No one would even know you were with us. It would be perfectly safe.”

  “It would be natural for our friend Archibios to invest in a ship,” Rhodon put in eagerly. “He has several such investments already.”

  Caesarion extracted his hand. “Go back to the women and get ready to go,” he ordered Melanthe sternly. “Tell them to find you a cloak. I need to discuss this.”

  “You mustn’t kill yourself!” Melanthe insisted. “I won’t let you!”

  “I will discuss this with my friend!” snapped Caesarion, and pushed her toward the door.

  She went, though with a defiant backward glare that said he had not heard the last on the subject. Caesarion closed the door and leaned against it.

  Rhodon laughed. “O Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, you are greatest of all the immortals! Not even kings can contend with you.”

  Caesarion glared at him furiously. “That was unjust! She doesn’t know who I am or what she risks!”

  “She doesn’t care,” replied Rhodon. “She has put a line through your name and marked it with an obelus: I want this one! And you’re very pleased with that. Don’t try to deny it: it was plain on
your face. Nothing wrong with that, either. I’d be pleased, too, to have a brave, beautiful girl like that in love with me. If that isn’t worth staying alive for, what is?” He came over and set the letter case down on the desk. “Write another letter,” he urged. “Tell Archibios that you have found a Red Sea trader who has accepted you as a partner, that you will depart in a few days for Coptos and Berenike. Invite him to write to the merchant and invest in a ship.”

  Caesarion found that he didn’t know how to reply. All his resignation to his fate had left the room with Melanthe, and his treacherous imagination was building another flimsy edifice for him: Ani welcoming him back as a full partner; Melanthe smiling at him, kissing him, holding him; voyages out of Berenike into the wonders of the south … “And won’t Archibios be grieved and ashamed, to find that I would sink to working as a merchant?” he managed, trying again to marshal his sense that the whole idea was ludicrous.

  “Why do you think Archibios had two thousand talents ready to hand over to the emperor?” said Rhodon. “To be sure, he owns land. But he has always invested the income from it wisely. He has no contempt for trade—and he wants you to live, O king. He wants to know that the blood of the Lagids still flows in Egypt, that the old order endures within the new, that the glories of our inheritance are not altogether destroyed. That is precious to him—as it is to me. I will tell him that I think you are much better suited to activity and danger than to idleness on an estate, and I think he will agree. He knows the history of your house.”

  “The risk …”

  “Is not great! I chose to take it; Archibios chose to take it; the girl would have no hesitation. You are dead, remember: your ashes are in that urn. I don’t think our preparations hitherto will have created much stir, and Kinesias is certainly not going to take his story to the authorities. In Alexandria you might be recognized, but if you stay out of Alexandria you should be safe. And in a year or two, if you grow a beard, you’ll be safer still.” He pulled the letter out of the case, held it toward the lamp. “Let me burn this,” he urged. “Write a new one. Live. Give the girl what she wants. She is promising you life and love. Why should you choose death?”

  He bit his lip until he tasted blood. “I will not ask them to commit themselves in ignorance,” he whispered at last. “I will take Melanthe home, and I will tell Ani the truth. Then, if he agrees, we will take the course you suggest.”

  Rhodon smiled and held the papyrus in the flame from the lamp. It flared and smoked. Rhodon held it up by one corner after another, finally dropped it to the cabin floor and ground the ashes into the rough wood with his foot. Caesarion took out another sheet of papyrus, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote a new letter.

  When he’d finished it and put it in the case, he took out a final sheet of papyrus and wrote out carefully:

  I, King Ptolemy Caesar, Theos Philometor Philopator, decree in respect of my tutor, Rhodon, son of Nikanor, that his children by the freedwoman Velva are to be regarded as legitimate. They are to be enrolled as citizens of Alexandria and are to be permitted to claim their inheritance from their father. Witnessed, this twenty-eighth day of June, in the twenty-second year of the reign of Queen Cleopatra, which is the fifteenth year of my Kingship, by

  Second Witness:

  He handed it to Rhodon. “I don’t have the royal seal,” he said. “But if you want to make use of it, you could tell Archibios that I ask him to sign it. If you sign it as well, that should be sufficient to sway a court of law. The Romans may, of course, disallow it, but they have ratified most of the ordinary acts and ordinances of the realm, and they would have no reason to spite you.”

  Rhodon stared at the paper, his face white. “The date?” he whispered.

  “Just before we left Alexandria,” said Caesarion. “You must remember it thus. We were about to leave. You begged me to do something to provide for your children, and I wrote this. We happened to be near Archbios’ house, so we asked him to witness it. He took charge of it, and was to have obtained the seal from my mother, but in the confusion of the siege he did not do so, and when he learned of your treachery he resolved not to return the document at all. Recently, however, you visited him, and explained that you had been misled by Roman promises. Seeing that you had been deceived and were stricken with remorse, he returned the paper to you—which provides an explanation for your recent visits to one another, if anyone takes an interest in them.”

  Rhodon stared at the paper a moment longer. Then he touched it to his lips and slid it into the front of his tunic with a trembling hand. “Thank you,” he said. He knelt and prostrated himself—the formal salute to a reigning monarch, which Alexander’s heirs had adopted from the Persians, and which the Persians had used before their kings and their gods.

  “Get up!” Caesarion hissed in alarm. “This isn’t the place for that! Zeus, someone might come in!”

  Rhodon stayed down. “I beg your forgiveness, O king,” he said formally, “for my treachery, and for the injury I did you.”

  “I’ve already forgiven you,” whispered Caesarion. “I would hardly have written that if I hadn’t. Get up!”

  Rhodon got up, moved hesitantly toward him for the embrace a royal Kinsman would expect after making the prostration ; stopped in shame. Caesarion completed the movement himself, and found himself clasped hard in Rhodon’s trembling arms. The papyrus crackled, the remedy made a lump against his chest, and the sheath of the knife—concealed in a hidden pocket behind the thick gold border of his tunic—pressed uncomfortably against his side. “I’m sorry,” choked Rhodon. “I should have gone to you, exactly like that. I didn’t think you would pay attention.”

  “I might not have,” Caesarion admitted. His heart was pounding hard and he felt sick with too much emotion. He extricated himself as quickly as he could, sat down again, got out the remedy. The herbs had been renewed, and the scent was strong again. He breathed it deeply, fighting off a sense of panic. Suddenly he wanted all this to be over: he wanted King Ptolemy Caesar, the focus of so much passion and danger, dead and buried. He wanted to be Arion again.

  “Seal the letter,” he ordered. “We should go.”

  Two slaves were waiting outside the cabin to remove the desk and the lamp. Caesarion nodded to them, started up the ladder, and heard them collapsing the desk-legs as he emerged onto the deck. Rhodon followed him in silence.

  Kinesias’ ship was moored in the Eunostos Harbor, to the west of the Pharos, in a run-down area beyond the stonewalled central quays favored by more respectable vessels. Archibios’ people were already waiting in a solid bunch at the end of the tumbledown pier, and the two mule-drawn carts were piled with the rest of the luggage.

  Kinesias was on deck, and came over when he saw Caesarion emerge. He rubbed his hands together nervously, gave what was probably intended as an appeasing smile but came out as a sick simper, and ducked his head. Slave-trader, thief, pimp, and smuggler though he was, he was still in awe of a king. “Lord,” he said, “I hope there are no ill-feelings.”

  Caesarion tossed the end of his cloak over his shoulder and pulled on his hat. The cloak was new—dark, and unobtrusive—the hat the one Ani had bought for him in Berenike. “If I am caught,” he said levelly, “be certain that I will do my utmost to ensure you are beheaded, as you deserve for your abuse of free people. If I am not caught, I can only pray that the gods allot you the punishment I cannot provide. May you be accursed, Kinesias, now and forever.” He nodded briskly at Kinesias’ ghastly stare, and strode down the gangplank and along the pier.

  Melanthe was waiting with the others. The women had indeed found her a cloak—respectable girls did not wander about the city dressed only in a tunic—and he had not at first registered her presence. It was a plain cloak of bleached linen—there had been no reason to bring anything more elaborate for the three slave-women-but Melanthe still contrived to look unusually pretty in it. She watched him anxiously from under the draped hood.

  He nodded to her, then to the a
ttendants and slaves. He waited for the final two men to arrive with the desk, then held up his hand for attention.

  “As you all know,” he began, “our plan has miscarried, and I am sending you back to your lord. I have written him a letter which explains the situation and which makes it clear that you are none of you at fault in any way. You have given me good service in the past few days, and I thank you for it—and yet I am pleased to be able to send you home. You serve a good and loyal man, and I cannot believe that you left his service gladly, or that you are not at heart pleased to return to it.

  “I have advised your lord that I am going to try another route out of the city. I will make arrangements for it through someone else, however, and you will not be required to do anything more. It would be best if you took the road along by the harbors, where your carts will attract no attention—though if you are questioned you should say that you are moving goods from a property your lord has recently sold. I will say farewell to you here.” He gestured a summons to Chaireas, the leader of the free attendants; the tall man came over and bowed deeply. Caesarion handed him the sealed letter, and Chaireas bowed again and slipped it into the front of his tunic.

  There was a shuffling, and then Chaireas cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, “Lord, shouldn’t some of us go with you?”

  “No,” Caesarion replied at once. “I wish to attract as little attention as possible.” This was true, though he also wanted as few people as possible to know the name and situation of Soteria: it seemed safer that way. “I will go very quietly, with just the girl I am taking back to her family.”

  Sosias, the butler who was responsible for ordering the slaves, looked unhappy with this. “What about your luggage, lord?” he asked, waving at the large traveling-chest full of clothing. “You’ll need someone to carry it.”

  “Too conspicuous,” Caesarion told him, with a disdainful glance. “Too conspicuous to move, and most of it too conspicuous to wear. Give me a spare tunic and cloak in a basket, and that will be enough.”