Cleopatra's Heir

by Gillian Bradshaw

  There was a thick silence. Melanthe stood very still, trembling, her hands pressed together, watching the door with a hopeless look that Ani found still had the power to hurt him. He remembered when he had been a few years older than her, and had met her mother. O Isis, to have such a fire in the heart for a creature who had always belonged to another world, and who would soon be dead.

  They might all soon be dead, he reminded himself.

  The door opened again, and the little procession came through: the commander; the first guard; Arion; the second guard. Arion still wore the shackles on his wrists. He had lost his cloak, and there was dirt on the expensive gold-worked black tunic. His eyes were red. He held himself, though, like a king. He always had, Ani realized: on a camel or a boat, in company or alone, half naked on a pallet under an awning with a hole in his side, he had always had that air of disdainful assurance, that absolute grace. Ani himself had felt it from the start, had been irritated by it, had later approved its effect on others. He had never understood it for what it was.

  Arion glanced at Ani unhappily; looked for a longer moment at Melanthe, then turned his eyes to the emperor—as though, Ani thought, he were the one in command and the emperor merely someone who must report to him.

  “Archibios,” said Octavian levelly, “and Rhodon.”

  There was a flicker of grief. Arion’s eyes went again to Melanthe, and for a moment the look again became one of anguish. Then they went back to the emperor, and the mask of disdain settled again.

  “Rhodon is a surprise,” said Octavian. “When was that arranged?”

  “It was a chance meeting,” Arion replied, his voice completely steady and as beautifully modulated as ever. “When we arrived in Alexandria, I went to the precinct of the tombs to consider what to do. I found a certain urn in a garden where I used to like to sit. Rhodon came there to tend it. He was very surprised to find me, as he had sincerely believed me dead. For my part, I would have fled him if I could, but he prevented me. However, after some discussion, and after I told him that I wished only to disappear quietly, he asked me to allow him to help. I stayed at his house, and he approached Archibios. Neither of them suggested anything against you, O Emperor. They are innocent men whose only crime is that they tried to save the life of a friend. Will you grant my request?”

  Arion’s look was one of proud challenge; the emperor, seated, returned a gaze of cold appraisal. “Rhodon is still a surprise,” Octavian insisted. “He betrayed you. By all accounts, he injured you severely.”

  “He did so,” Arion said at once. “If you do not credit the account of a whole century of your own men, Caesar, the evidence is in my flesh. I am sure you will not scruple to examine it, and I cannot prevent you.”

  The emperor gazed at him a moment impassively. Then he nodded to the guard commander.

  The guards did not want to press any indignity upon a king. They took hold of Arion very tentatively, tried to see if they could work the tunic off his shoulders without taking it off. The tunic was stitched, and could not be slipped off, and the shackles were in the way. They fussed with the stitching and the chains. Arion, his face burning but expressionless, finally fumbled at his own belt with his chained hands, unfastened it and let it drop. At this the soldiers finally pulled the tunic up, over his head, exposing his body as though it were a slave’s. The new scar stood out on his right side, still red and swollen with blood. Octavian nodded again, and the guards pulled the tunic down and fastened the belt back on in embarrassed silence.

  “The centurion in charge was a reliable and trustworthy man,” said the emperor. “I am sure Rhodon wounded you, and you appeared dead. Yet you trusted Rhodon. You did more than that: when I asked you to name him, and threatened you with torture, you refused. This surprises me.”

  Melanthe put her hands over her mouth, appalled by the revelation that she’d betrayed something Arion had been willing to endure torture to suppress.

  “I forgave him,” said Arion. The color was still hot in his cheeks. He had not, Ani realized, expected the emperor to take up the offer to examine him, and he was humiliated and furious. “I understand why he acted as he did. I did not want him dead Caesar. I do not want anyone to die for helping me. Will you grant my request?”

  Melanthe caught her breath, and Arion looked round at her quickly, his face suddenly unguarded again.

  “He said he wouldn’t hurt anyone if all they’d done was help you,” Melanthe whispered.

  “Melanthion, kings lie,” Arion replied. “This man has lied, and lied, and lied again; he has signed treaties full of promises and broken them all. But you were not to know. What else did he tell you? That he’d spare you if you told him what he wanted to know?”

  “Yes,” said Melanthe, trembling. “And he said he’d kill all of us, even my brothers, if we didn’t.”

  “‘Kings lie’!” Octavian broke in sarcastically. “She should have learned that from you, Arion. Girl, I have no reason to kill your brothers. As for your request, Ptolemy Caesar, I have not yet decided whether to grant it or not. Whether or not you believe it, I wish to be clement where I can.”

  “Were you unable to be clement,” Arion asked savagely, “when you and your colleagues published the proscriptions and sentenced the best men in Italy to death? —Over two thousand of them, I believe.”

  “That was twelve years ago,” said Octavian, sharply. The cold was suddenly shot with real anger. “And those men were all enemies. Archibios and Rhodon have both, in their ways, rendered me service.”

  “Two thousand talents of silver,” Arion sneered, “and fifty of gold. Of course, proscriptions raise a lot of money, too. Your clemency has always been weaker than your greed. Were you clement to Mardion and Diomedes and Alexas? To Antyllus? To my mother? To me?”

  Octavian’s fists clenched.

  “Boy!” said Ani, through his teeth, and Arion looked at him angrily. “You’re not helping. If the man says he wants to be clement, don’t, for life’s sake, talk him out of it!”

  There was a silence. Arion’s cheeks were flaming, and his eyes were hot. Ani realized that he’d just called him “boy” in front of all of them.

  It seemed, however, to have cooled the imperial temper again. Octavian gave Ani an ironic glance, then turned his attention back to Arion. “You forgive Rhodon and understand why he acted as he did,” he prompted.

  Arion stood in silence for a moment, his cheeks still burning. “He has a mistress and children here in Alexandria,” he said at last. “He did not want to leave them unprotected when the city fell. And he said—quite rightly—that the war was over, and that to continue it was simply to waste more lives and money upon a cause that was already lost.” He lifted his head. “My mother could oppose you, Caesar, only because she allied herself with Antonius. I have no Roman allies: they are all yours, or dead. I am Caesar’s son, but you are his heir. If I were free, and king of Egypt, still I could not contend with you. The most I could do against you would be cause you some trouble and expense; any war I began would be over within a year, and my own people would suffer for it most. You alone have the power to create peace. And therefore I agree with Rhodon that it is better for me to die. What I have asked you—and the only thing I have asked you—is that you act justly and spare those who never committed any offense except to help me.”

  There was a long silence. “You surprise me very much,” Octavian said at last.

  “Will you grant my request?” Arion asked again.

  The emperor leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. “Let us be clear about what your friends were doing. If they had taken and concealed a treasure which was forfeit to the state, they would expect to die for it. If they had been found stockpiling weapons and engines of war, they would be executed—even if they claimed they wished only to preserve the things, not use them. You would be a very great treasure to any rebellion which might arise, and a very dangerous weapon in any future war. Your friends were well aware of that.”
r />   “These two here were not.”

  “They are, however, now aware of many things which I do not want revealed.”

  “If you will not grant them mercy,” Arion said, speaking faintly but with great deliberation, “will you let me buy it for them?”

  The eyes narrowed. “Anything you possessed is now mine by right of conquest. What do you think to offer me?”

  “A letter,” Arion replied, his face white. “Release them, Rhodon and Archibios, and leave them all their households and property intact, and I will write a letter in which I confess that my mother once confided to me the name of my real father. I will date it to a time earlier in this year, and address it to someone who might reasonably be supposed the recipient of such a confidence.”

  There was another silence. “I am astonished,” said Octavian at last. “Who was your real father, then?”

  “Caesar,” Arion replied, with a curl of the lip. “As you are aware. But I will name whomever you please. I trust you will not insult Caesar’s memory by requiring me to say that my mother deceived him with someone utterly unworthy.”

  After a moment of hesitation, Marcus shook his head. “It would be no use,” he told the emperor. “Such a document would have to have his personal seal attached if it was to carry any weight, and we’ve destroyed that. Those who believe he is Caesar’s son would dismiss it as a forgery.”

  “They’d do so even if we still had the seal,” Octavian replied. “They would say, ‘If he wasn’t Caesar’s son, why was he put to death?’ Still, an extraordinary offer. Two years ago I would have pardoned a dozen traitors for it, and paid a shipload of gold. Today … I think it simpler and better if I decline.”

  Arion’s shoulders slumped and he lowered his head.

  “I grant your request,” said the emperor.

  Arion’s head came up again, his eyes wide in disbelief.

  Octavian gave a self-satisfied smile. “My clemency is given, not bought. First I wish to confirm, as far as I can, the story these two have told. If they prove to have told the truth, I will require them to swear an oath never to tell anyone what they know of you—and then they may go free. Rhodon and Archibios I will question; if their account matches yours, I will release them on the same oath. When we last spoke, son of Cleopatra, you were pleased to say that, because I am a king or something more than one, there is no check upon my action but my own will, and that if I wished to kill your friends, public opinion would not protect them. This is, undoubtedly, a lesson you learned from your mother, and believe. She told my father the same thing. My father, however, died on the steps of the Capitol with twenty-three stab wounds in his body, and your mother might have learned from it that she was mistaken in her view of the importance of public opinion—but she did not. She told Antonius what she had told Caesar, and now Antonius is dead, and so is she. They might have survived, even after Actium, had their people remained loyal—but everyone deserted them as soon as their cause faltered. Why do you think that was? Your mother never cared whether she was hated, so long as she was obeyed. I do care, and I hope to rule longer than she did. Archibios is a man well liked and well respected; Rhodon is known to have done me a service; these two here are common people who never even understood what they had become involved in. I will be clement.”

  Ani understood that Octavian had realized some time before that he could be clement safely, and that, in fact, it would be easier and less trouble to him than being vindictive—but he had spun out his granting of that clemency because he wanted Arion to appreciate it, to ask for it, to thank him for it. It was, he felt suddenly, an outrageous demand—that Arion should thank the man who had invaded his country, killed and imprisoned his family, taken from him everything he owned, and sentenced him to death.

  Arion hesitated. Then he bowed, a slow inclination of the head that left his shackled hands still, and said, with real feeling, “I thank you, Caesar, for your clemency.”

  Octavian gave another satisfied smile. “Very gracefully done. Tell me, whose life was so important to you that you were willing to beg and to slander your mother for it? I think not Rhodon’s, however much you’ve forgiven him. Are you that much in love with this girl?”

  Arion straightened, his face royal again. “I do love the girl. But I would have begged for any of them. The shame I took upon myself is nothing compared to the shame of knowing that I destroyed my friends.”

  “Where did you acquire a conscience?” asked Octavian. “It was bred out of your mother’s line long ago.”

  “I would not have obtained such a commodity from my father’s people,” Arion replied, with that slight curl of the lip. “Let us agree that we are responsible for our own hearts.” Then he glanced over at Ani and added, “And this man here showed me the value of such things.”

  Ani was astonished. The emperor gazed at him a moment, thoughtfully. Then he lifted a commanding hand. “Marcus,” he said, “go find the documents the merchant mentioned; look them over and confirm the story. Areios, go with him. Longinus, get a horse, ride over to the harbor office, check the story about the robbers. Vitalus, go question the merchant’s people about their journey to Alexandria; check that the prisoner never left the boat on his own to talk to people we don’t know about. Don’t tell them who he is. You two”—Arion’s pair of guards—“take the prisoner back to the corridor. Let the girl go with him; let them talk, if they want to. I will speak to this merchant.”

  Marcus nodded and departed out the larger door. Areios bowed and followed him. The gilded commander and his subordinate each in turn saluted and left by the smaller door, into the passageway that led to the stables. The remaining two guards escorted Arion, and Melanthe, back through the small dark door. Ani stood bewildered where he was, alone in a room with the ruler of the world.

  Octavian stood, glanced around, and picked up from a place on the floor beneath his couch a sheathed knife, about the length of a man’s hand, with a plain black hilt. He walked over behind Ani and sawed through the rope that bound his hands. Then he went back to his seat.

  Ani eased his stiff arms straight and looked at his chafed wrists. He glanced warily at the emperor, who sat toying with the knife. “Thank you, lord,” he said—it seemed safe enough to say that. “And thank you, very much, for your clemency.” He essayed a weak smile. “I have a wife, sir, and children I will be very glad to see again.”

  Octavian nodded an acknowledgement. “You are no danger to me, I hope. You remind me a bit of my stepfather.”

  Ani gave him a startled look, and Octavian added, “Not in appearance, but there is a certain …” He wiggled his fingers expressively. “ … a certain quality in common.”

  “With your stepfather, lord?” Ani asked incredulously, wondering who the emperor’s stepfather was—not Caesar, surely?

  “Lucius Marcius Philippus,” said Octavian, as though he’d heard the thought. “My mother’s second husband. A good man, as you appear to be.”

  That was a surprising tribute. Isis: the emperor was well endowed with fathers—natural, adoptive, and now a stepfather as well. He wondered what the man wanted with him. He did not like him, and distrusted that promised clemency. He wondered whether Tiathres and the children and the men were still sitting in the barracks yard, or whether they’d been locked up in a prison. O Isis, to see them again …

  It was something, he told himself, that this cold, calculating, mean-spirited man wanted to be praised for clemency, rather than, say, magnificence or power or military glory. It was a far more humane ideal than the ones chosen by most other rulers. Give him credit for it: this was someone who at least wanted to be a good man.

  “I am curious,” the emperor told him. “What did you do to Ptolemy Caesar?”

  “Lord?” Ani asked in astonishment.

  “He credits you with teaching him the value of a conscience. You called him ‘boy,’ and he heeded you and checked himself. That is a Lagid! Probably a Julian as well, though I deny it, but undoubtedly a Lagid.
He begged for your life. He called the gods to witness it, and well they might, for I don’t imagine they’ve seen such a thing as a Lagid begging before—certainly not a Lagid begging for the benefit of someone else.”

  “Lord, nobody wants to ruin their friends. Arion …” He hesitated.

  “His name’s Ptolemy,” Octavian pointed out.

  “It’s the name I know him by, sir. Lord, I think Arion has had very few friends, and so he greatly treasures the ones he does have. If you want the truth, lord, I think he’s had a miserable life.”

  He stopped. It sounded a stupid thing to have said, now that he’d said it. Arion—Caesarion—was, after all, the son of a queen and a god. This room, this palace, this city, and the whole kingdom of Egypt had been his until that very summer. Ani plunged on, however, justifying himself. “He’s told me that nobody else was ever kind to him without expecting something for it, that he never trusted anyone, that flatterers put maggots into your heart that eat you alive. His mother apparently believed it would be good for him to see someone with the sacred disease cut open while they were still breathing—which tells me, at least, that she wasn’t a woman I’d entrust with any child, let alone one like that.”

  “Like what?”

  Ani shrugged. “High-strung, passionate, and imaginative.”

  “You speak as though you were his father.”

  Ani felt his face heat. “I know what I am, and what he is. But I found him injured and helpless, and I looked after him, and I suppose that yes, the nature of what I feel for him is fatherly. My daughter’s not much younger. If that’s insolent, I can’t help it. I didn’t know he was a king.”

  Octavian gave a snort of amusement. “Probably you would have made him a fine stepfather. But not at Cleopatra’s court. The queen would have punished your insolence severely.”

  “Isis! I’m not that insolent. I’m not a man who would have been admitted to the palace at all, except perhaps at the goods entrance.”

  “She was an extraordinary woman. Even at the end, as a prisoner. When she was in a room, everyone else seemed to fade. A glorious creature. I never intended her to die. I think, though, that she cannot have been a comfortable companion. I can’t imagine having such a woman as a mother, and she would never permit her colleague to be anything like an equal. I think you’re right, he had a hard life. The disease itself is a cruel affliction, too—I remember how my uncle suffered with it.”