by Talbot Mundy
However, only two words leaped to Charmian’s lips as she stood gazing into his eyes — unuttered, but so close to utterance that Caesar could not fail to understand her.
“Caesar’s wife!” he said and nodded, not unkindly. “Charmian, until a Roman’s wife has borne him three sons she has but a slender claim on wifehood. She may be lawfully set aside by the mere formality of writing her a letter.”
It was then that Cleopatra more astonished Charmian, and Caesar, too, than at any time, by anything that she had said or done.
“I am no man’s wife, nor will be,” she announced. “I am nothing that can be taken and set aside. I am blessed by the gods, who need no law of human making to provide my son a royal destiny. Who is there higher in Egypt than I am, and to whose law shall I yield myself? Who shall make laws for Caesar? And shall I acknowledge the laws of Rome that Caesar trampled on because they were stupid and had brought Rome to a state of anarchy — even as the laws men made in Egypt had brought Egypt to the very verge of ruin?”
That was beyond Charmian’s skill to answer, though she knitted her brow and would have liked to disagree. Her happiness was wrapped in Cleopatra’s destiny, and nothing could shake her loyalty, but she could sense the danger of ignoring the laws of men, more easily than she could follow Cleopatra’s reasoning.
But Caesar leaped into the opening with the alertness with which he usually pounced on opportunity. He neither knew nor cared whether Cleopatra was voicing genuine convictions and her inmost feelings. He recognized her tact and, in a certain sort, her genius. She flattered him in the way that he liked to be flattered, offering him full rein and an opening for escape from what might turn into a grim responsibility. There was a Roman law, that always had been jealously enforced, forbidding a patrician’s marriage with a foreigner. There were laws he had disregarded, and others he meant to repeal, but knowing the Roman patrician pride he was alert to the danger of repudiating that one. Cleopatra’s spirit, too, excited him; she practically challenged him to stand with her aloof above the human law, as equals. He could readily concede that, since he was in no possible military danger from her. Egypt as his personal reserve, apart from Rome, would be a source of strength. Dimly, too, he had begun to glimpse the meaning of her other-worldly views, and he reverted to his earlier, friendly judgment of Olympus, whom he suspected of having given her shrewd political advice under the cloak of vague philosophy.
For if there was anything in what Cleopatra and Olympus maintained about man’s essential divinity, then he, Caesar, had been justified in overriding the laws of men. That was a subtly comforting reflection, even to a man of Caesar’s arrogant temper. Far more clearly than Charmian did, he saw the danger of the theory but danger thrilled him. The point was, that he saw the possibility of making that alleged divinity a concrete force in politics. Alexander had succeeded. Why not he? There might, after all, be something in that myth of his own descent from Aeneas and Venus. And he thought, with a moment’s grim smile, of that other story about Aeneas and Dido.
He did not understand that Aristotle’s teachings, not enough diluted with discretion, had made Alexander mad. He did know that the world consists, in the main, of people who will believe anything provided someone in authority asserts it often enough and points to what appear to be results. As for himself, he had no legitimate son, and, his only daughter being dead, the thought of founding a new dynasty was worth considering. The sex of the child might make a prodigious difference to his ultimate plans. There was no Roman law against the adoption of a child, whatever his mother’s race or origin.
“Rest assured of this,” he said, “you are Queen of Egypt. Your Ptolemaic dynasty was the outcome of Alexander’s unfinished work, which I intend to rebegin, rebuild and finish.”
“I will name our son Caesarion,” said Cleopatra. “He shall rule what Caesar has made ready.”
There was a change in Caesar by the time he left the room to attend to the needs of his men, never neglected when his normally dynamic mood was uppermost. Even his stride had altered as he pondered that idea of man’s divinity, confusing fact with essence; overlooking, too, that the divinity is universal. The divinity, for instance, of Apollodorus, on his way in, was neither apparent nor pleasant to contemplate, to Caesar on his way out.
Sullen, savage-looking, dull-eyed — indignation emphasized by the immaculate condition of his clothes — Apollodorus saluted with such lack of courtesy that Caesar paused to stare at him.
“Your haste outweighs your memory of manners!” he remarked.
Apollodorus met the stare unflinching and with a curling lip that showed less strength than self-disgust inviting recognition — a sub-subtle vanity.
“Manners,” he retorted, “are for those who care for other men’s opinion or the future. Having neither trouble on my mind, I nevertheless saluted you from habit. I withdraw the compliment.”
“I never crucified a man for rudeness,” Caesar answered, “but I have seen men whose rudeness led them into greater indiscretions, for which there was only one remedy. Your fortune is better than you appear to think if I judge correctly from your attitude. You find me in a forgiving mood. What is the offense you have committed against me, that you so suddenly turn against me?”
Apollodorus smiled in spite of himself at that shrewd summary of man’s disloyalty to man.
“I have done what you never did,” he replied. “I attempted for one moment to live nobly. Lo, the aftermath! If there is anything you think that you can do to restore my respect for anything, myself and you included, I defy you to make the attempt.”
“I have been defied by even lesser individuals than you,” said Caesar, “and have not always thought it necessary to my dignity to take up the challenge.”
Tros came, striding along like an Argive warrior in quest of Trojan armies, amber eyes aglow with passionate, impatient purpose.
“Here is a man,” said Caesar, “who has shown me very persistent and resourceful enmity. However, you will observe it is beneath his dignity to be discourteous.”
Tros’ salutation was an oak tree’s to the wind. Sturdy, rooted deep in valorously held convictions, he acknowledged Caesar’s eminence and gave him credit for being master of the Roman world, but not of Tros of Samothrace. Bend he must, and even break he might, but neither he himself nor Caesar nor the gods should ever doubt his oaken courage.
“Caesar,” he said, when his salute had been returned, “I have come to require fulfilment of the bargain between us, having done my part.”
Apollodorus could not resist that opening for a shaft of acrid humor: “Caesar, I suppose you think, is fairer than the gods you advised me recently to trust? Not long ago, Tros, in a moment’s despicable folly, I made a three-cornered bargain with all the gods and one unhappy woman. She kept her part of it. I and the gods are equal renegades. Your gods mock me, and I mock myself for having mocked my common sense by trusting anything but evil. Evil is the only certainty — evil, death and broken faith, my own included!”
Tros knew the cause of Apollodorus’ trouble. He received the outburst in silence. Caesar, affecting resentment, adroitly used it as a shift for denying Tros the settlement he sought:
“Broken faith,” he said, “is usually charged by men who seek reward and honor for themselves before the hour when destiny awards the laurels. I will speak with you later, Tros, when I can read the meaning of events more clearly. As for you” — he frowned at Apollodorus as if pained and disappointed in him— “if you should compel yourself to think less of fame and profit, and more of duty, you would more readily win my sympathy for you in your affliction, whatever it is.”
The world’s arch-plunderer and arch-priest at the shrine of fame strode on to receive the plaudits of his men — to promise them money and tax-free holdings — in a district from which other people should be dispossessed. Apollodorus, making a grimace to Tros, led the way into Cleopatra’s presence.
But Olympus had entered through another door
and was in conversation with her. Tros and Apollodorus had to wait, and Charmian, who was entertaining half a dozen wives of the aristocracy who had come to try to make their husbands’ peace, broke away — eager to talk to men to whom she could speak her mind unreservedly. She wanted news of Lollianè, knowing Apollodorus had been absent many days in quest of it from the lips of Antipater’s men.
“Dead! Herod slew her,” said Apollodorus, “boasting through his foul teeth that she loved him for a night or two and then slew herself when he threatened to send her back to me. He sent that message by the mouth of his father, Antipater, who was at pains that I should fully understand that he was lying. Thus do your glorious gods reward me! They ignore the risk I ran — the sacrifices I have made — my services. And they let Herod grin. I will open a wider gap for him to grin through presently!”
His words were so unlike Apollodorus’ normal understatement of his own emotional reactions that Charmian hardly hid her recognition of the breakdown — hardly tried to hide it. All she said was:
“May I be as brave as Lollianè. May I never need to be as brave!”
For which Tros bowed to her, then turned and faced Apollodorus.
“Caesar slew my father and my wife,” he said, “and yet I slay not Caesar, though I have had a score of opportunities. Add vengeance to outrage, and shall wisdom be the total?”
“I have done with compunctions,” Apollodorus answered. “I am here to take my leave of Egypt, for I will go and slay Herod or die.”
“I, too,” said Tros, “am here to ask dismissal, and I need it for a higher purpose than to go slaying rats in Galilee. But I will confess myself a poor prophet if the leave is forthcoming. It is the gods who give leave or withhold it. Caesars and Cleopatras serve for the gods as pieces in the game.”
“It seems to me that all this godly argument is human cowardice,” Apollodorus sneered.
“You have not gone very deep into the mysteries,” Tros answered, “or you would know that cowardice is deafness to the secret counsel of a man’s own soul. It is spiritual deafness worse than any animal’s; it submits him to passion and whim, and leaves him a prey to whatever devil cares to hunt him for his pelt. Sharks — seaweed — anything is nobler than a man who has lost spiritual hearing. For what did Lollianè die? To save her mistress. Is the work done? Had you a hand in it? Then finish the task! For, I tell you, one by one we come before the gods, though we live and die in legions. Rot me all this coward talk of vengeance! It is what Apollodorus does, and not what Herod did, that matters to Apollodorus, and to the gods who are in search of equals to include among themselves.”
Then Charmian drew Tros aside, he none too willing; he mistrusted women’s confidences.
“Tros,” she said, “Cleopatra will weigh your words, though she might reject mine or another’s without giving thought to them.”
“Let us hope so,” Tros answered. “I am here to ask for my dismissal, which Caesar will never grant me unless she persuades him.”
“Tros, already she is with child!”
Tros answered as if the news were neither interesting nor important:
“Then she needs Olympus and a midwife. Why me?”
“Tros, Olympus only prates philosophy. He does not tell her what, or what not, to do. He is not like you; he talks about the universe and eternity when what we need is now’s advice — the moment’s wisdom.”
“It appears to me he has that wisdom. I have won battles at sea by prating to myself philosophy and thinking of the universe. And I have brought my ship through storms by thinking of eternity.”
“Tros, speak with her! Tell her again what Caesar is and how unwise it is to trust him Beg her to ask Caesar to divorce his Roman wife before the child is born.”
“So that he may divorce your Cleopatra also when the time comes? Trust him! Trust him to be Caesar! Do you expect him to become a masculine Cleopatra merely because he has got her with child?”
“She declares she will never become a Roman’s legal wife, but that is because a woman with child is not in her proper senses. Tros, tell her about Dido. Tell her—”
“I will tell her, if you like, about me,” he answered. “I was free of all seas. Yet I put into Alexandria and into Caesar’s net. Now I must beg Caesar’s leave to come and go. Shall I advise your Queen to yoke herself to Caesar any faster than he has her now?”
“What will the world call her?”
“Will she marry the world?” he retorted. “I have yet to see anyone gain in reputation by asking the world’s authority to flout the world’s opinion. She may have vision. Can you see through her eyes?”
“But Caesar may leave her unprotected.”
“Let us hope so. He left Britain unprotected, after we convinced him twice that he was invading the home of hornets.”
“But there is no throne that can defy Rome nowadays.”
“There might be. I think Egyptians might be taught. Give me even what is left of the Egyptian fleet, a month or two to discipline the crews, and I doubt — I gravely doubt whether Caesar could conquer any sea-girt land without my leave.”
But neither politics nor statecraft nor the strategy of high-sea fleets was any affair of Charmian. She was wholly, heart and soul, for Cleopatra, shocked by the news of Lollianè’s death, and utterly mistrustful of Caesar’s motives. She began to believe that even Tros was unreliable.
“Then speak to her about Arsinoe,” she urged. “Caesar intends that she shall judge Arsinoe, and I think Caesar is testing her. It is one of his tricks. What shall she do, Tros? Shall she order her sister beheaded? Then the world will say that Cleopatra is Caesar’s cat’s-paw and merely another Ptolemy. Shall she pardon her? You know Arsinoe? I know her! She will never rest until she has slain Cleopatra by one means or another. She is as vindictive as a viper. What shall Cleopatra do?”
Tros hesitated. “She shall advise me,” he said after a moment. “If she knows the answer to that riddle, she is well worth serving a while longer.”
Cleopatra sent Olympus to bring Charmian, Tros and Apollodorus to her seat near the window; and then Caesar came, with Calvinus and four other Roman officers. Caesar sat beside Cleopatra. The Romans stood, one of them wondering at Tros’ muscles, another curiously studying Apollodorus, whose gloomy, half-beaten look belied his brilliant reputation.
“Speak, Calvinus,” said Caesar.
Calvinus forthwith arraigned Arsinoe and Ganymedes, begging Cleopatra not to see them in the judgment hall but to order their immediate execution, waxing vehement because Cleopatra seemed to be paying slight attention to him. But one of the Roman officers was trying to flirt with Charmian, spreading himself like a cock-pigeon, and Charmian’s face was much more amusing than Calvinus’ court-martial arguments.
“Treason against the state,” insisted Calvinus, “has ever been regarded by all honorable men and women as meriting sentence of death.”
Cleopatra glanced at Caesar slyly from under dark eyelashes, and Tros’ eyes glared a watchful challenge, but Caesar appeared unself-conscious, and Calvinus continued:
“It is a pity they were not both slain by the mob that made them prisoners and brought them to Caesar.”
“Well,” said Cleopatra, “that was Caesar’s opportunity, not mine. And since he chose to be magnanimous, I can do no better than to follow his example. Let Arsinoe be confined to her palace until she begs my pardon and gives evidence of purpose to amend her ways. We will marry her to someone. Let Ganymedes be kept with the other prisoners who are to be sent to Rome for Caesar’s triumph.”
“Are you wise?” asked Caesar, studying her face, and Calvinus began to urge him:
“Caesar, I beg you to take this matter in your own hands! Wisdom — remember Potheinos, and my advice to you, that if you had followed sooner—”
“The essentials of wisdom utterly elude analysis!” said Cleopatra, laughing at Olympus. “They are like Olympus’ smile: there is no knowing what mysteries it hides! — Caesar!” She turned
to him and her voice changed. “In the allegory Isis is a woman bringing forth a child. The dragon pursues the woman to devour, the child. The woman flees. I flee from the thought of vengeance, which is like quicksand, in which serpents dwell.”
“Are not serpents said to symbolize the wisdom?” Caesar asked her.
“Not when they dwell in quicksands!”
Tragic vanity of grief obliged Apollodorus then to call attention to himself.
“Allegories,” he remarked, “are riddles concocted by priests for our confusion. But I have one that even Olympus may unravel rightly: there is a lying dragon near a lake in Galilee, who slew a woman before she had any chance to bear a child. I ask leave to go and slit that slimy dragon’s throat.”
“You speak of whom?” asked Caesar, staring at him. “Of Herod, Antipater’s son.”
Cleopatra was on the verge of speech, for that was her first news of Lollianè’s death. But Caesar saw the blaze of indignation in her eyes and spoke first, glaring at Apollodorus:
“Do you dare to set your personal vendettas above Egypt’s welfare and my alliances? Calvinus, see you to it that Apollodorus stays in Alexandria. Accommodate him with some witnesses. A Roman bodyguard, until he recovers his senses, will save him having to restrain himself.”
Apollodorus backed away, throwing a cloak over his face. Calvinus sent a Roman officer to follow him. For a while Cleopatra was silent, studying Caesar’s face and mastering her own emotion; for already she had learned that statesmanship permits no private griefs to interfere with policy.
“Apollodorus,” she remarked, when she had herself under control, “was an optimist because he had never known misfortune of the kind that stings. He is wavering now between relief that Lollianè is not to cling to him all his days, and vanity that urges vengeance. He will never be the same Apollodorus. But I knew he was too vain to last — just as I know Herod is too venomous to harm more than a few individuals. He will use up his venom too quickly.”