Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght

by LYDIA STORM

  And yet, an urgent voice within kept her moving, forced her to stand and rouse Alexander too. They must leave Lochias tonight.

  Iris and Apollodorus arrived in the nursery and helped pack the bare essentials which the children would need. Little Alexander was deceived enough to believe they truly were off on a great adventure and gleefully capered around the room in his excitement, while his sister quietly looked on with her big eyes taking in everything said and unsaid.

  Much too soon, they gathered in the deadness of night outside the walls of Alexandria. Bright cold stars pierced through black sky but there was no moon to light their way. Two of Cleopatra’s most trusted guards, Akil and Chigaru, were ready, their swords carefully hidden beneath rough peasant’s cloaks. Caesarion also had his weapon slung at his side but he was shivering in the chilly darkness, whether from cold or fear she could not tell.

  The twins, wrapped warmly in soft lambswool cloaks, stood with their great-grandfather, Apollodorus, as he whispered soothing words to them and perhaps a spell of protection to keep them safe on their journey.

  Cleopatra placed her hand inside her mantle and removed a chain with a golden ring hanging on it. She pulled the ring off the chain and pressed it into Caesarion's hand.

  “This was your father’s. His signet. He gave it to me for your keeping when you were a baby. When he gave it to me, he said it was a token of his intention to proclaim you his heir.”

  Caesarion could barely see the heavy ring in the darkness, but he felt its weight, and the outline of a noble visage pressed into the gold.

  “Don’t wear it until your reach India safely,” cautioned Cleopatra. “There are not many nomadic peasants to be found with such a ring.”

  “I will wear it with honor in the Indian court,” replied Caesarion.

  The gentle voice of her grandfather called her back to the group. “They must go now. Dawn is drawing near.”

  Cleopatra nodded, though in the darkness no one could see it.

  Caesarion swung onto his horse. His eagerness for this goodbye to be over communicated itself to her as he restlessly fidgeted with the horse’s reins and stared out at the cold desert ahead of him. Akil and Chigaru also mounted their horses and now she had only to kiss her twins goodbye.

  Alexander, who was tired and cold, no longer looked forward to his journey. He clung close to Cleopatra as she kissed his chubby face and murmured a quiet prayer over him before passing him into the strong arms of Akil, who swung the boy in front of him on the horse and distracted him by pointing out a star just sinking on the horizon, asking Alexander if he could name it.

  Cleopatra felt the large dark eyes of her daughter boring into her back and she turned to look down at the little girl who had remained so quiet all night.

  “Selene, will you kiss me goodbye?”

  The little girl ran to her mother and her silence exploded into a storm of tears. Cleopatra held her girl close. She tried to whisper calming words to her daughter but they dried up in her throat. All her resolve, all her strength deserted her as she clung to her desperate child and she became blind to everything else. The fear and horror her daughter felt ran through every nerve of Cleopatra’s body. The heartbreak of a parting that might be forever was too much to stand. She felt Apollodorus slowly pulling the screaming girl from her arms. Instinctively Cleopatra grasped the little princess tighter.

  “Come child, let her go” said the old man in a trembling voice and Cleopatra did not know if he spoke to her or her daughter, but she surrender at the sound of his command and opened her arms, releasing her little girl into Apollodorus's grasp.

  The old man placed the weeping child in Chigaru’s arms and as the horses rode off, little Selene’s shrieks of grief echoed through the silent desert.

  “She sees something terrible!” gasped Cleopatra. All the air left her lungs and the bile in her rose up as she clutched at her stomach. The pain was so visceral, so deep in her body. Her knees were buckling as grief overtook her, but the gentle hands of Charmion steadied her, and her attendants and Apollodorus were leading her back towards Lochias Palace.

  ***

  As the ashen light of dawn broke over Alexandria, Cleopatra took refuge in the only possible place, the great temple on the eastern shore of Lochias. The intensity of her grief left her spent and numb, as if she walked through a dream. She entered the dimly lit building with its massive limestone columns and beautifully painted murals. The swirl of incense and the soft prayers of the Isians floated around her. Without stopping to preside over the morning prayers, she drifted past the priests and priestesses chanting their hymns like a sleepwalker, until she reached the inner holy of holies. She unlocked the golden bolts and entered the chamber.

  The silver statue of Isis stood out against the gilded walls and the torchlight glinting off her sapphire eyes lent the illusion of life to the Goddess’s face.

  The child Horus sat on his Mother’s divine lap and a visceral ache wrenched Cleopatra. How could she let go of own little children, and Caesarion, who had once held all of her greatest hopes within his tiny being?

  She covered her eyes. She would not think of it. She could not think of it. Not now.

  With a trembling hand she lit the heavy myrrh incense in the brazier at the feet of the Goddess. But instead of feeling reverence, a white-hot flame of rage washed through her. She snatched up the clay brazier and hurled it with all her might at the magnificent statue. It broke against the silver breast of the Goddess and smashed apart, scattering powdery gray ashes across the immaculate floor.

  Collapsing to her knees, sobs of fury choked her. Cleopatra tore at handfuls of her streaming hair as she screamed in a raw hoarse voice. “Why have you taken my children? Why have you taken my husbands––both of them?”

  She was crying so hard she couldn’t breathe. He stomach clenched in pain, her chest locked up with heaving tears. Burying her head at the foot of Isis, she clung to her silver ankles, her words came out in a strangled whisper. “Why have you deserted me when I need you most?”

  But Isis stood mute, her vacant sapphire eyes sparkling in the torchlight.

  Cleopatra grasped onto the legs of the silver Goddess as if she would pull Her down with her bare hands.

  “You are not truly our Mother! We have served you faithfully! After Egypt has heaped her honors upon you, built temples to you and sacrificed to you! You desert us to the lowest, the most barbaric land in the world! Is it your wish to see Rome destroy Egypt?” Her voice echoed through the hall as she shook the Goddess with every muscle in her body, trying to pull Isis from her place. To see the statue smash upon the floor.

  But Isis remained where she stood, her face calm and mysterious. Cleopatra stared up at the shimmering silver figure searching for any spark of life. Any sign at all. But there was nothing.

  Exhausted, Cleopatra collapsed onto the cool marble. Drained of all feeling. All hope. She concentrated on the blackness of the floor.

  Antony.

  She understood him now. The utter hopelessness he felt. When all is lost, and the Gods have deserted you, what more was there to do besides drink to oblivion and stare out through his ocean window?

  Yes, now that all hope was truly lost, she understood.

  She looked past the statue of Isis and in her mind’s eye saw the secret door behind the Goddess which led to her tomb. For the first time in her life, she wondered if it was fully prepared to receive her. Had The Book Of The Dead been painted in bright hieroglyphics on the walls? Were copies of the magical writings and secret sciences rolled up on papyrus scrolls inside their carved alabaster jars? Was her sarcophagus completed yet? Or did the artisans with their gold leaf, carnelian and jade still labor away, creating a resting place magnificent enough to house the bones of a pharaoh?

  She was so caught up in her morbid ruminations, she did not at first notice Charmion had slipped into the chamber, but a shiver ran through her as she became aware of a presence. A presence much greater than her atten
dant’s.

  Cleopatra lifted her dull gaze to stare at the priestess.

  Charmion glowed with the light of divinity pouring from her ebony skin. The air was suddenly sweet with the heady scent of roses. She could almost hear the celestial refrain of the Song, illusive, yet tingling in the fresh ocean breeze which gently wafted into the shrine. As Charmion spoke, her eyes gazing blankly out at the swirl of incense, it was not her soft elegant voice with its accent of the upper Nile, but the rich melodious voice of Isis that vibrated through the chamber.

  “And so it came to be, when Isis discovered her Lord Osiris in his sarcophagus on the muddy shores of the Nile, by her magic the lid was raised and inside she beheld her beloved husband. She laid her face against his, and caressed it, and wept for joy to have discovered him at last. And she parted his lips, so he might inhale the breath of life and blew softly the light of the Ankh into his lungs. And he awoke, as if from a deep sleep. In his death dreams, the wisdom of the underworld had been whispered to him by the spirits below and he was filled with the knowledge of heaven and earth.”

  Cleopatra approached the Goddess and fell to her knees, her teardrops falling on Charmion’s dark fingers.

  Charmion’s eyes rolled back in her head and she began to waver, barely giving Cleopatra time to catch her attendant and gently lay her on the floor before running to the door to call for the temple physicians. But Charmion fought to maintain her consciousness before lapsing into the peaceful rest which always came to the few mortals strong enough to act as divine vessels.

  “Queen of Heaven,” she whispered, her speech slurred with slumber, “go to Lord Antony…Octavian’s bargain…he knows….”

  Cleopatra stood frowning at her priestess for a moment, still shaking off the presence of Isis herself, trying to understand Charmion’s words.

  Octavian’s bargain?

  Then it came to her. Octavian’s bargain with her! She might continue to rule Egypt if she delivered the head of Antony. If Antony knew of this plan, he would see no other way of winning back his lost honor than to die by his own hand and buy Cleopatra back her throne. Even if he still hated and blamed her, his Roman honor would demand nothing less.

  Cleopatra tore out of the temple, past her surprised priestesses and ran along the shoreline until she came to the dock of Lochias. She called out for her oarsmen, waiting anxiously as the men hastened to her unexpected command. The Island of Pharos, with its lighthouse rising proudly up from the morning mists, was so close she could see the foam of the breakers against the jagged rocks. Yet, in her impatience, it seemed an impossibly far distance.

  At last her boat pushed off into the still waters, cutting the disintegrating wisps of fog with its prow.

  “Hold your sword, Antony,” she whispered across the salty winds, praying that somehow he would hear her plea. That she would not arrive to find his body pierced through, his blood mixing with the ocean water which washed across the floor of his hut at high tide.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Antony kept vigil at his window, staring at the waves as they changed from black churning water to dawn's pale green sea foam washing gently into shore. The gulls had risen above the early mists into the awakening sky and the beauty of the new day ached within him. Because it would be his last.

  The alcoholic haze of many weeks of constant drinking seemed broken through this morning, like a piercing ray of clarifying sunlight. He had drowned his senses and cruel destructive thoughts with wine, until at last even the drink could not push back his memories––could not cloud the truth. Oblivion was no longer to be had with the uncorking of the wine jug. He did not know if it was some curse of the Gods which kept the libations from doing their job, but it had become clear sometime in the night that he might as well have been drinking water.

  His brain simply refused to get drunk.

  With his mind unclouded, he had nowhere to hide from the thoughts circling like carrion to tear at him with recrimination and self-loathing. As he gazed out at the midnight sea, he witnessed anew the shameful battle at Actium, spectral ships rising up from the depths to haunt him. He watched the Roman galleys with their sails of screeching Eagles flying from their masts and then the smooth low boats of the Egyptians carrying his men off to death and dishonor.

  Brooding over the impenetrable dark waves crashing against his hut, shaking the small building with their might only to withdraw back into themselves in a hypnotic never-ending cycle, he realized it was the treacherous ocean which had betrayed them.

  Antony had never seen such strange currents as he witnessed at Actium. Such supernatural waves and winds, which he now understood, answered to the call of a woman. A superstitious shudder went through him as he imagined in his mind’s eye the turn of the tides and the tiny figure of a High Priestess, he now felt he did not really know, standing on the prow of her royal ship, arms raised, head thrown back in the wind calling out ancient words of magic.

  Because of the unnatural powers of Cleopatra, he was the despised and pitied laughingstock of Rome. His men called him traitor and coward. They spoke so of Antony, the greatest living Roman general. The popular beloved Antony, whom soldiers would face a legion of demons for.

  How had this happened?

  He reached for his wine jug to suck down another futile drink, but the wine had no fire in it, at least not for him. Desperation began to creep through his veins. He couldn’t face the night, couldn’t face his thoughts without something to take the sting away. He needed anything to blot out the painful reality that, in fact, it was not Cleopatra’s fault that his men had been butchered, that he had run away, or was now in disgrace.

  The truth was, the blame really rested with him alone.

  He had failed somehow. Octavian, with his tricks and dishonorable tactics, had danced another circle around him, and Antony, like a child playing a game of blind man’s bluff, had flailed about and lost the battle. His soldiers had been slaughtered, and those that were not, had been carried off to dishonor and defeat––all because of his stupidity.

  Of course this was not the first time he had failed those who trusted him. Had he not failed his greatest friend Julius Caesar in his hour of need? The Gods had granted him some victories in life, but in his bones Antony always knew when it was most important for him to rise to the occasion, he would somehow bring disaster upon himself and all those who relied upon him.

  He looked down at his two great fists. Hercules they called him. What good was all the strength and courage in the world when it was granted to a fool? The people had thought him a great general––a God. Well, now they knew better.

  The tiny walls of the hut seemed to be closing in and the darkness outside was so complete, a superstitious thrill of fear ran through him. He had the uncomfortable idea that perhaps the ominous Egyptian Jackal God stood just outside the door, waiting in the darkness, and the evil sea seemed to whisper his name, mocking him from the depths, calling him to the underworld.

  Was he going mad? Or was the wine still potent and playing nasty tricks in his mind? he wondered, as he rubbed his hands together nervously.

  A sharp rapping sounded at the door of the hut.

  Nearly overturning the wine jug, his eyes shot to the doorway. It was Anubis, the Jackal who led men to the underworld. He could feel his gloomy presence lurking in the shadows outside the hut.

  The rapping came again.

  “Get away from here!” called Antony, finding his voice. “Go back to Hades you fiendish dog!”

  But a human voice answered him from the other side of the door. “ Lord Antony, I have a message from Augustus Caesar.”

  Antony slowly rose, and on legs which trembled from the weeks of consumption, went to the door and flung it open. “I know of only one Caesar and he is in his grave!”

  The young soldier who stood in the doorway instinctively took a step back at the sight of the wild looking Antony with his dirty clothes and unshaved face. His eyes fierce and furious, his tall frame imposing
even after weeks of malnourishment.

  “Well?” asked Antony, glaring at the youth.

  “I have a letter for you, Lord Antony.” The soldier held out a scroll.

  Antony took the scroll, and carrying it over to the lamp which burned on a broken table in the center of the room, began to read.

  The young Roman stood cowering in the doorway as Antony let out a low bitter laugh and then, crushing the parchment in his fist, tossed it to the floor.

  “Your master has invited me to kill myself,” said Antony looking at the young officer intently. “What do you think I should do?”

  “I…I could not say,” stammered the legionnaire taken aback.

  “Yes, but you can,” replied Antony quietly. “You, a common Roman soldier, it is you above all people who can tell me. Am I not mocked and slandered around the campfires? Do the ladies of Rome now snicker about my cowardice in the marketplace? Does Antony deserve an honorable death? Would it erase the shame I have brought upon myself?”

  The youth looked down embarrassed.

  Antony saw the young soldier’s discomfort and turned his back on him. “You’ve given me my answer.”

  “Lord Antony–”

  “Get out of here!” roared Antony.

  The terrified soldier struck his chest with his fist and quickly departed, leaving Antony alone again in the ramshackled hut.

  Unexpected grief welled up in his heart to mingle with the shame and self-hatred. Was death the only way out?

  “Perhaps you shall have me after all, Jackal,” he muttered to the shadows which filled the room like dark spirits waiting to absorb him.

  His eyes went to his sword resting against a beat up chest in the corner of the room. Its blade gleamed pale as the moon. He picked it up. The familiar feel of the scabbard in his hand was almost comforting.

  I have you still to be my friend.

  Antony stared down fascinated at the cold steel which had claimed so many lives. He dragged the sword to his seat by the window and resumed his vigil, watching the eternal ebb and flow of the dark waves with wide sober eyes.