Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  He sent for Calvinus and ordered him to provide a cohort to accompany the prince and his servants as far as the Lochias gate. “Afford the prince every facility to take his personal belongings with him, including his dancing-girls,” he commanded. “But as the gate must be barred and thoroughly protected before sunset, make haste!”

  Ptolemy, in tears, was almost hustled from the room, snapping his fingers to summon evil spirits to bedevil Cleopatra, who had not opened her lips once during the interview.

  CHAPTER XXVI. “You have made your own choice. You must take the consequences.”

  It is sometimes wise to simulate a fear of what one fears not, to avoid an issue that one does fear. For a dangerous opponent always thrusts at the apparent point of least resistance.

  — Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

  LIKE most supremely self-reliant men, Caesar was wholly off guard to such influences as escaped his cynical analysis, and he was unaware how subtly Cleopatra’s spiritual alchemy was working on his thought. It was new wine, in an aging bottle, causing a refermentation of his own ideas and arousing in him all his latent possibilities for good and evil, as well as exciting his energy.

  He became impatient of anything that stood between him and the consummation of his new ambitions, for he could see a world dominion waiting to be won, where formerly he had only thought in terms of Rome and Roman politics. It seemed to him he could understand at last how Alexander, at scarcely more than half his own age, had sighed for new worlds to conquer. In that mood, the thought of being obstructed or delayed by such a boy as Ptolemy or such a general as Ganymedes was not to be borne.

  But his phase of recklessness was over. There were to be no repetitions of the silly exploit on the Heptastadium. He waited until Mithridates’ army had reached the border and had stormed Pelusium before he resumed the offensive. Even then he waited until Ptolemy, in a desperate, final flare of royal spirit, put himself at the head of more than half the troops in Alexandria, and, leaving Ganymedes with the remainder to continue the siege of the Lochias, marched to repel the invaders, who were advancing on Memphis and extremely likely to reward themselves by looting that prosperous city.

  Instantly then Caesar acted. He left only a small garrison to guard the Lochias, crowded his fleet with the rest of his men and sailed out of the harbor — eastward, as though making for Pelusium, to throw the enemy off guard. But under cover of the darkness, with a wind that, in accordance with his usual fortune, favored his design, he turned about and disembarked his whole force shortly before dawn on a stretch of deserted sand a few miles to the westward of Alexandria, where the enemy least expected him.

  His ships then faced about to deal with the Egyptian fleet that had followed him up; but no naval engagement took place, because the wind failed, and because Cleopatra persuaded Tros to put to sea in the rear of the Egyptians. Tros did nothing except maneuver in the offing, but his suspicious movements kept the Egyptians worried until they turned and rowed home.

  Caesar skirted Alexandria and marched on Memphis, arriving in time to prevent Mithridates from reaching the city and looting it. Taking supreme command at once of the united army be turned northward and advanced to meet the Egyptians under Ptolemy.

  Ptolemy showed unexpected generalship, fortifying a strong position with the Nile on one flank, a marsh on the other and a wide canal in front, where he awaited Caesar’s onslaught. At the Egyptian army’s rear there was a high mound from which Ptolemy watched the greater part of the two days’ battle, gradually losing confidence as Caesar, keeping a tremendous pressure on the front to hold the Egyptian army, sent an officer named Carfulenus around the marsh, far out of range, to execute a turning movement, that eventually cut off the Egyptians’ retreat and threw them into panic.

  Carfulenus fought his way into the Egyptian camp at the head of his men. Spying Ptolemy, he shouted to him to surrender. But Ptolemy, anticipating no mercy whatever at Caesar’s hands, took flight and jumped into a boat that lay moored to the bank of the Nile. His flight became the signal for a rout and hundreds followed him, crowding into the boat in such confusion that they overturned it, and it sank, forcing the boy down into the Nile mud in his heavy golden armor.

  Caesar did not wait to find out whether the boy was actually drowned or not. He sent ahead to announce the news of victory to Cleopatra, and followed the messengers so swiftly with his cavalry that the Alexandrians had hardly time to gather and decide what course to take; but since there was only one course possible they wasted very little time arriving at it.

  Dressing themselves in mourning garments, they sent messengers and deputations to him begging for forgiveness. He was met at the gate by city fathers, bearing on litters the small marble, waxen, ivory and wooden statues of the gods, that were kept for the festival processions and whose surrender symbolized the city’s unconditional submission to the conqueror’s will.

  They were a melancholy spectacle, those statues of the city gods, shorn of their trappings of jewels and flowers and colored lamps, without a priest or anchorite to lend them sanctity, and some of them even upset in the haste to reach the gate in time; but there was an element of humor even there, because the Jews, foreseeing opportunity, identified themselves with the surrender. Caesar knew as well as anyone with what scorn they loathed the graven images, behind which they had to mass themselves notwithstanding; and it suited his sardonic humor, when he made a speech to them and promised them full civic rights, to check their exhilaration by assuring them that some of their gods should be left for them to worship, even though the majority would have to go to Rome as trophies.

  “You can make yourselves new ones,” he said, “and you may have my image also for your temple.” Then he rode on, smiling grimly but pretending not to notice their embarrassment, aware that their eagerness for the promised political rights would not exactly offset the insult but would make them able to endure it. He did not propose to let the Jews imagine they were henceforth without need to feel their way cautiously. He hoped they would understand the meaning of the hint.

  Toward the Alexandrians themselves his attitude was chilly and aloof. As he rode slowly up the street of Canopus he made no acknowledgment of their salutations, even declining the offer of a wreath of roses that was made to him by a deputation of the wives of merchants. It was clear that he demanded more than lip- and knee-homage before he would pardon them; and there was haste used — there was violence exerted to provide a living scapegoat for his wrath before he should reach the palace and learn Cleopatra’s views on vengeance. (For their estimate of Cleopatra until that hour had been mainly made from the discreditable stories promulgated by Potheinos and Achillas, Ganymedes and the wits whose stock-in-trade was slander.)

  So an even more depressing spectacle than that array of statues of the gods was presently presented. Litters approached, without slaves in attendance except those who bore the poles; and they had halters on their necks. The crowd around the litters was a second-rate assembly of aspiring “outs” — of courtiers and politicians who could hope for no advancement unless someone’s fall from high estate should result in a free-for-all scramble, — flatterers — mouthers of loyalty — treacherous, meddlesome, lickspittle liars, of the sort that can be counted on to pad the ranks of court conspiracies — betraying their arrant worthlessness by the smugness of their righteous faces and the simulated purposefulness of their hurrying stride. Caesar knew that breed; he had employed them and left them a thousand times to curse his cold ingratitude.

  The curtains of the litters had been torn off, that the world might see the shame of those who sat within. Arsinoe was in the foremost litter, pretty much disheveled from the haste with which they had dragged her out from hiding, and in tears because her erstwhile friends had left her to the mercy of such vermin in human shapes. She dried her eyes as she drew near Caesar.

  Ganymedes was in the second litter, bleeding from a blow over the eye that somebody had dealt him with a slipper-heel. They had tie
d his hands and put a halter around his neck, and they used the halter roughly to drag him forth from the litter when the procession halted in mid-street, blocking Caesar’s way. Arsinoe leaped out before a hand could touch her and stood alone, exactly in front of Caesar’s charger, her eyes flashing the more splendidly because the tears had wetted them. Some erstwhile courtiers approached to stand on either side of her as custodians, but Caesar motioned them aside.

  “You prefer this to being Queen of Cyprus?” Caesar asked her. “You have made your own choice. You must take the consequences.”

  “Slay me now!” she answered, proudly, giving him no glimpse of fear — of him, or death, or anything whatever.

  He took no notice of Ganymedes. A centurion rode up and, throwing away the halter with a gesture of fine contempt for the swine who had hung it around his neck, ordered him into the Roman ranks, where mounted legionaries closed around him. Caesar, sternly gazing at Arsinoe, beckoned her litter forward, nodded to her to climb in, ordered his own men to surround her, and resumed the triumphal march, ignoring, as if he were not even conscious of their existence, the ignoble well-dressed vermin who had brought into his hands the only two remaining personages who by any chance whatever could have prolonged the war or could have embarrassed him with new intrigues if left at liberty.

  CHAPTER XXVII. “Tell me the secret of Caesar’S strength, for he is stronger than I.”

  What superiority may we attain to without stirring enmity in others? Has it not been written on the face of nature? Wisdom counsels us to seem inferior, in secret gathering our spiritual strength, since enmity is aimed at virtue, seeking to reduce us to a common level with the human herd; whereas we should rise to an equal level with the gods.

  — Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

  CLEOPATRA received news of Caesar’s movements almost hourly, although Apollodorus had absented himself without the formality of taking leave and most of her usual informants were in a state of alternating panic and hysteria. Caesar’s own dispatches were brief and supplied no details; but Tros had friends among the Jews, and it was the business of the Jews to know everything, as exactly as possible, for business reasons. Tros was prompt with his information, and Cleopatra’s ficklest friends began to try to reinstate themselves in favor by sending their slaves with congratulations on the heels of every rumor; those who had been less half hearted actually came in person with the latest news. When Arsinoe became Caesar’s prisoner Cleopatra was informed of it almost before it had happened, because the ringleaders of that betrayal hurried to the palace to get credit for it, letting their cat’s-paws perform the public act of cowardice.

  So Cleopatra was prepared. The last touches, of banners and gaily arrayed crowds of servants, were being attended to by the assistant chamberlains, and all the palace musicians had been massed to greet the returning conqueror with stirring sounds of drums and sistra, lutes, flutes, harps and the booming horns whose throats were like the throats of hippopotami at war. There was nothing to do but wait, in the room at the head of the stairs of gold and malachite, whence she would step forth presently to win a world or lose it. Vain at all times, Caesar in the hour of victory might be insatiable — might make it clear to her and everybody else that she was now a subject princess, not a royal ally. Charmian was useless — all aflutter of expectation and alarm, as loyal and selfless as a good slave, but as worried about details as if a wrong fold of a chiton probably would change the destiny of Egypt. And Olympus was indefinite as usual when Cleopatra wanted finite prophecy.

  “You have cast the horoscope of this hour?” she demanded.

  “Yes,” he answered. “It is an evil hour for the fish that has swallowed the hook. A most propitious hour for the successful fisherman. It is an hour in which water runs down-hill and wise women let wisdom lead them. It is an hour when fools sow folly and reap want; when calmness is the mirror of ideas; when—”

  “It is an hour when I will endure no insolence,” she interrupted. “Caesar is flushed with victory and he feels his strength. Shall I dare to betray my weakness?”

  “Weakness betrays itself,” he answered. “It is only strength that can be covered up.”

  “Is the secret, that only you and I know, weakness or strength?” she asked him.

  “Neither,” he answered. “Strength cannot be rendered weak, nor weakness strong; for you are strong if you have strength, and if you have it not, weakness shall weaken itself with every struggle.”

  “Tell me the secret of Caesar’s strength, for he is stronger than I.”

  Olympus smiled. It seemed he doubted it. “His is the secret of any man’s strength, or any woman’s. He loves.”

  “You mean he loves me? That is something that I knew a month ago. Love may have strengthened Caesar, but it weakened me. What shall I do, Olympus? What shall I say to him?”

  “He loves,” replied Olympus, “as the fowler loves the bird he snares or as the hunter loves the lion — as the outlaw loves the victims whom he robs. I tell you: they who love not are so ignorant and unobservant that the fowls escape them, or the lions slay them, or the watchmen catch and crucify them; and success of any sort is unobtainable by any but a lover. Is it not apparent to you that unless a man should love his enemy he could not understand him and defeat him? Without love, even scorn and hate are nothing. Though he love to his own undoing, Caesar is a lover almost without limit.”

  “Does he love only Caesar?” she asked, studying Olympus’ eyes; for she intended that Olympus should read, if he could, the courage that underlay her own perplexity. She wanted him to tell her naked truth in the assurance that she would face her destiny whatever the answer might be.

  “He does not know what love is,” said Olympus. “It appears to him as interest; by that name he would recognize it. Interest him, and until he sees a more absorbing interest, although he weary of the outer woman he will seek the inner with an even greater determination. Cease to interest him and though you were a very Circe, he would become Odysseus, and the stronger the bonds with which you tried to hold him, the more craftily he would break away. And if the bonds were too tight, woe betide you!”

  “Now you talk like the true Olympus,” she said, smiling. “You spoke to me nothing but words at first.”

  Then Caesar came, amid a blare of music and the clatter of hoofs of cavalry, dismounting from a splendid horse amid a shouting throng, who knelt, and rose, and knelt again; receiving garlands from young Greek girls with blasphemous praises on their ruby lips and in their dark eyes yielding adoration; entering the palace as its master, alone, between ranks of kneeling servants whose foreheads pressed the marble floor — to the foot of that marvelous malachite stair that had golden handrails like long serpents held by laughing nymphs of Parian marble.

  There he paused. For at the stairhead Cleopatra stood. The Romans of his staff and the Arabian commanders of his cavalry, grouped on the threshold, watched with speculating eyes. The Romans knew their Caesar in the hour of victory. The Arab chieftains never had beheld such splendor, nor had seen a woman meet men with such calm assurance and gentle dignity. It could not be, they knew, that any unveiled woman, without a eunuch near her, and no barrier between her and a host of men, could stand thus and retain her modesty. A wanton she must be. The white-robed women of the presence grouped behind her, with their bare feet, stained with henna, showing through the straps of jeweled sandals, surely were the light o’ loves that desert chieftains dream of when the night wind blows across the hot sands of Arabia and black tents are the pits of torment. Wantons — but they wondered.

  Caesar knelt. What chivalry, or what artistic genius of gallantry had hold of him none knew — not he, nor Cleopatra. But his officers, observing, whispered to one another she had used the siren’s art and snared the calvus moechus, who never until that day had knelt to man or woman.

  Neither she nor Caesar spoke. He stretched his arms toward her, too aware of the dignity to mock that moment with a vestige of extravagance. His
gesture was a Roman Imperator’s offering a kingdom he had conquered to the Queen whose heritage it was: and with it homage, as the conqueror, to her whom he acknowledged worthy of the gift. But it was Caesar’s gift, not destiny’s. And gracious though his homage was, it was that of the Pontifex Maximus who might remove an image, even of a great god, from a temple in pursuance of his own whim.

  Cleopatra, infinitely more aware than Caesar of unseen powers influencing the ebb and flow of the affairs of men, advanced down the malachite stairs to meet him with the rhythm and calm of moonrise, matching even Caesar’s genius for splendid drama. Better than even Caesar did, she knew the simple and unconquerable force of timeliness — the fitting of words and deeds to moments.

  They embraced on the landing midway of the stair, and she was seen to whisper to him. They ascended, he with an arm around her, and the women at the stairhead recognized on Caesar’s face a gentler vanity: on hers a new, less nervous confidence. In the hall below, the watching Romans whispered she had asked for Arsinoe’s head for a birthday gift, and that Caesar had assented. Whisper became rumor. Rumor became news. Within the hour it was all over Alexandria that Arsinoe had been slain.

  In the same room where she had first met Caesar, Cleopatra let Charmian overhear the secret that she had not hesitated to tell to Olympus. Unaccountably, she had dreaded having to reveal to Charmian, from whom she kept no secrets as a rule, that unkeepable one that she was already destined to be the mother of Caesar’s child; and, still more unaccountably, she had not guessed what the effect would be on Charmian, of whom, like the Goddess Diana, it was impossible to think as otherwise than virginal. She had supposed that Charmian would shrink from her; or if not that, at least would grieve, although Charmian had known from the first of the intimacy with Caesar, and had never appeared critical.