Steampunk Cleopatra

by Thaddeus Thomas

  History does not remember the mother of Ptolemy’s other children. Half the Roman world believes Berenice and Cleopatra were full sisters, but we who were there know better. Cleopatra and Arsinoe's mother was the daughter of an Alexandrian princess and an Egyptian priest, and her name was Semat.

  “Is Berenice queen?” Amani asked.

  “Berenice is in a very difficult position.”

  Amani frowned. “It's copper-plated.”

  “It's a good system,” I said, “the best there is.”

  Two years after that first lesson, as Theodotus escorted me from the Serapeum to the cluster of homes where your family lived, my conscience hounded me over the wrong I had done Amani.

  She had been so happy, bursting with excitement and fear as we left the harbor-side palaces and approached the island where Pharaoh lived. A finger of land extended toward Antirhodos and ended at a pivoting bridge, which swung out to welcome us. Sun-scattering orbs hung along ropes strung from boats to the island. Plumes of colored smoke rose from the water, and we passed through a ceremonial gateway of red-granite columns, each topped with a crown.

  The stairs leading into the palace were guarded on either side by great stone lions. We stopped and waited. Amani gripped my hand.

  To the west, a land bridge split the great port in two and connected the city to the island of Pharos, where the lighthouse blazed. This side of the port was a vast space of open water dotted throughout with harbors, both royal and common. Pharaoh's ships rested peacefully in the calm waters. I distracted Amani by instructing her to focus on their stillness until the palace doors opened and guards filed out to flank our entrance.

  Inside, a peristyle surrounded an open courtyard. On the far side, beneath the shade of the peristyle's red-tiled roof, Pharaoh Ptolemy, Berenice, and Berenice's mother sat upon thrones. I had not expected Berenice's mother to be at the ritual, the choosing ceremony of another woman's daughter. She lived in the main place, on the easternmost point that defines the harbor. Ptolemy lived here, on the island, like a marital refugee.

  Ptolemy's pregnant wife, Semat, stood to his left with her uncle, Numenius, who was both an Egyptian priest and Ptolemy's cousin. Cleopatra stood at Berenice's side with Arsinoe after her. As the ten children and their tutors filled the courtyard, teen-aged Berenice looked down at Cleopatra with narrowed eyes and a curled lip. Cleopatra, eight, trembled in her restrained stillness, but her sister, Arsinoe, just one year younger, had no such restraint. Her attention darted like a bat.

  Ptolemy, a large man of great appetites, smiled down upon us. Berenice's mother, whose name was also Cleopatra, stared off into the distance without expression. If Ptolemy had named the young Cleopatra after his first wife in an attempt to help them bond, it had not worked.

  Pharaoh picked up a flute and played. As I watched, the tension melted from Amani's bunched-up shoulders. When the song ended, Numenius tapped a staff twice, and we, children and tutors alike, bowed before Pharaoh and his family, our faces to the floor.

  We waited for permission to rise, but instead of a general command, Ptolemy called my name. My face flushed, and I trembled. His eyes traced my form in careful consideration.

  “I've taken notice of you, Philostratos.” He spoke my name as if he were tearing meat from a bone.

  I shrunk beneath his gaze. “I am nothing, my lord.”

  “Would you like me to tell you what I've noticed?” His full lips kissed the flesh of each word.

  “I would hear everything.”

  “You're a eunuch, and yet you don't work in the palace. Grown men have their testicles crushed to work alongside my family. Your parents cut off yours, and yet you remain in the Museum.”

  “I love the Library, my lord.”

  He made a face as if the smell of my words offended him. “I don't think that's true. I don't think you love the Library. I think you hate me.”

  Wetness trickled down my leg. “My lord?”

  “Your parents sacrificed your manhood so you could serve me, and you waste their efforts. Either your loss matters little to you,” he looked over at his wife's protruding belly, “or you're awaiting another Pharaoh.”

  I fell before him, my nose to the ground. “I swear, my lord, no.”

  “Arise.”

  I looked up; death did not fall upon me.

  “Why do you not serve me?” he asked.

  “I do. I serve you daily among the books.”

  “The books?”

  I nodded, waiting, dreading what I thought would be his command, but no command came.

  “Have you no political ambition?” he asked.

  “No, my lord.”

  Again, his eyes narrowed, but this time in a smile. “And that is what I've noticed. You are loyal to me, Philostratos?”

  “With my very life.”

  “Do you love Alexandria?” he asked.

  “It is everything.”

  “The threat and promise of Rome are ever upon us,” he said. “Difficult times require great wisdom. I need good men around me, men who are ready to advise their Pharaoh.”

  “If it is your command,” I said.

  “If I must command you to advise me, I will not have you.”

  That night, Amani's grandfather touched my arm with gentle, gnarled fingers. “Come. Sit. Quench your thirst with goat's milk.”

  The clay-brick room abutted the houses of your other family members, both to the sides and above. Your voices mingled together beyond the walls. I sat and drank. Theodotus stood, watching.

  “You have news.” His name was Ma'nakhtuf, and he carried himself with the same pride and dignity that had once made him a respected leader within the quarter before Pharaoh dissolved the Egyptian council.

  “For the last two years,” I said, “we've trained the smartest, most attractive, most agreeable girls from the great cities of Egypt. From those forty girls, the family picked ten. Today, the princess chose who is to grow up beside her as a peer in her studies and as a friend in her life.”

  Ma'nakhtuf's brow eased upward. The cream of his eyes caught the lamplight like clouds catching the sun. “She chose Amani,” he said, almost as a prayer, his head bowed and his hand to his chest.

  “I've come to discuss today's events, to discuss our options, and to offer a token of appreciation.”

  “This is backward,” Theodotus said. “Do gods pay men for the right to bless them?”

  I refused to look at Theodotus, knowing he had come only to challenge me. “Your family and the palace must understand Amani’s value.”

  “Any amount of silver would suggest a limit to her worth, and you and I both know better.”

  “You're right,” I said. “I mean no insult, either to her or to you.”

  “I will not take any material gain in exchange for my granddaughter.”

  “You speak with great wisdom.” Theodotus sounded like a man of the court, worrying over finances that were not his and matters that did not concern him. I should have turned him away, insisted that he stay in the Serapeum, but until he had run afoul of the headmaster, Theodotus had always outdone me. The habits of living in his shadow, as if in his debt, lingered on.

  “We must discuss what happened, today,” I said.

  “No discussion,” Ma'nakhtuf said. “I know my answer. The cost for my granddaughter's service is a true history of Rhakotis.”

  I had never considered such an answer, and I made a habit of considering every possibility. A history of Rhakotis. A true history, at that. My heart sank beneath a rise of locusts.

  Alexander the Great, beloved of Amun and son of Ra, had little military might at sea. To secure his land victories against Persia, he had marched into Egypt where the occupying Medes, already battle-spent, could offer no resistance. The people welcomed him as their new Pharaoh and presented him Rhakotis.

  “The doorway to the Nile,” Ma'nakhtuf said, “Rhakotis gave birth to both Alexandria and your beloved Library, the premier institution in the fight against
ignorance and misinformation, and yet that same library removed Rhakotis from history and credited Alexandria to the Greeks as if Egyptian brilliance played no role.”

  Theodotus paced behind me and sputtered his response. “You are reciting myths.”

  “For over a hundred years, it was our knowledge that filled the books of the Library. It's gone now, whisked away to some temple at the time of the great revolution.”

  A hundred and fifty years earlier, Egypt had rebelled against Ptolemy Epiphanes, who at the time was little more than a child. The regents who ruled in his name answered that rebellion with a cruelty the people were never meant to forget.

  “If it is gone,” Theodotus asked, “what is Philostratos supposed to do? And if it never was, he cannot invent it. You took in earnest what, in jest, Homer had Telemachus say: ‘History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’”

  “There will be something left behind. Our songs promise us as much.”

  “Songs,” Theodotus scoffed.

  “That is my price.” Ma'nakhtuf's eyes never left mine.

  “Rhakotis was a fishing village,” Theodotus said. “That is its history.”

  “An auspicious spot for a fishing village.” Ma'nakhtuf faced two trained Masters of Rhetoric without fear, offering no promise of withdrawal.

  “A shipyard,” Theodotus said.

  Ma'nakhtuf placed his hand on mine. “In the space of a sentence, your companion had promoted us from village to shipyard. I ask you to grant us more. Return to us our history, our heritage, and our pride.”

  It was a disgrace to debate Ma'nakhtuf at a time like this, but what he required could not be done.

  “You put me in danger with such a request,” I said.

  “Alexandria is more than the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty,” Ma'nakhtuf said. “It's an occupying force, a foreign body grafted onto Egypt. For two hundred and fifty years, no Ptolemy has even bothered to speak the language of the people he rules.”

  “Pharaoh won't condone...” Theodotus began.

  “It's not a question of whether Pharaoh will condone the writing of such a book,” Ma'nakhtuf said. “No one would be fool enough to ask him. The problem goes beyond telling the truth to ever learning it in the first place.”

  He waited to see that he had our full attention before continuing.

  “In the Library, the Ptolemies have gathered all knowledge. The world gawks in wonder at your work, collecting books while others destroy them. History's great cities have never attempted so universal a feat, to house the knowledge of all the known lands. Other kings burned books and killed foreign scholars, seeking to govern their people by controlling the information they receive. The horrible truth, your great secret, is that your pharaohs are no different. Others destroy knowledge to control their people. You collected it for the same reason.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to be sure no one was listening. At the window, Theodotus secured the shutter.

  “Whether or not that's true,” I said, “the Rhakotis of old is nothing more than legend. The best I can offer is a collection of stories passed down orally through your generations.”

  He pointed west, over my shoulder, and I knew he was pointing at the Library. “The evidence of what was taken from us can still be found, but if you don't look now, it may be lost to us forever.”

  “It's been my honor to train and tutor Amani, and today, she has doubled that honor. Ask for gold, and it will be yours. Do not require this of me.”

  “The Pharaoh is rich with the gold of my people,” Ma'nakhtuf said. “I do not ask for it but for our identity and heritage.”

  With all those gathered in the courtyard watching and listening, Pharaoh glared at me from his throne. “If I must command you to advise me, I will not have you. Carry on with the ceremony.”

  I begged Pharaoh for a moment's reprieve, and, at his command, a servant brought me a basin of water and led me out into the garden. It felt like sacrilege to wash among the luxuries of Pharaoh, but I embraced the ocean breeze and ignored the passing of a ship, reminding myself that I was hidden by the vines and flowers. With a dab of oil for scent, I felt presentable again and returned to the ceremony.

  Young Cleopatra led the testing, and as she asked various questions, the children raised their hands and answered. They were simple questions about the culture and history of Alexandria, the Ptolemies, and the Macedonians.

  She then placed an astronomical computer before each of the children. One by one, they studied the box and then looked up at their princess. Cleopatra turned to her father for permission to begin.

  He nodded.

  She clasped her hands. “Make the arrow point 10 years on.”

  Each child indicated when she had done so. Cleopatra then instructed them to set their readings to the seventh of March.

  “What happens on that day?” Cleopatra asked.

  The children studied their devices. Soon, Amani looked up, but her gaze was off to the side, away from Cleopatra. I thought she must be confused by the symbols. She raised her hand.

  “Yes, Amani?” Cleopatra asked.

  Amani rose to her feet and approached Semat, Cleopatra's mother. The guards moved forward, but Ptolemy raised a hand, warning them off.

  “Are you not well?” Amani asked.

  Sweat beaded on Semat's ashen face. She swayed and would have fallen, but Numenius caught her. When she had recovered well enough to move, he walked her into the palace.

  Now, all the children were standing, and for several long seconds, everyone stared through the empty doorway.

  At last, Ptolemy broke the silence. “Thank you, Amani. My wife was on her feet for far too long, and you were the only one to notice.”

  The elder Cleopatra shifted her weight. “Maybe we should skip this particular test.”

  Again, Amani raised her hand. “An eclipse. It’s a solar eclipse.”

  My heart lifted as if it had wings. Everyone's attention returned to Amani. Even the elder Cleopatra took notice.

  Ptolemy called Amani to him, and, without hesitation, she stood before him and smiled.

  “I've never used the device, myself,” Ptolemy said. “Explain it to me.”

  Amani ran back to her spot, grabbed the computer, and handed it to him. On tip-toe, she indicated the reading. “Eclipses follow this wavy line.”

  “I see,” he said. “Very clever.”

  She pointed again. “This is the moon, and this is the sun.”

  The crowd murmured with approval, and a warmth grew in my cheeks. Once, someone had told me that passing knowledge to future generations was our one certain morality, and I knew now what he meant. Joy filled me like a fire.

  Ptolemy studied the device and then looked up at the blue expanse. “It knows all that?”

  Amani nodded. “It was a little difficult to think because the lady was wobbly, but it's not a full eclipse. It’s the kind where the edge of the sun peeks out like the ring around your finger.”

  The warmth left my cheeks. It fled my body entirely, and I thought I might faint. I grabbed a pillar to support myself. What she said was nonsense. There's no way she had the mathematical skill to arrive at such a conclusion, and once she showed herself a fool in this, everything else would be discounted.

  Ptolemy cast his gaze back upon her, slowly, as if she were some dangerous creature that he dare not provoke. “A ring? Which readout tells you that?”

  “The ones I showed you,” she said.

  At Pharaoh’s command, a soldier ran to retrieve Numenius. When he arrived, Ptolemy ordered Amani to repeat herself.

  “What of it?” Ptolemy demanded. “Is she right?”

  Numenius examined the device. “She's right about the eclipse, of course. That was the intent of the question, but the rest of it...” His voice trailed into silence.

  “Is there any way her tutor could have learned the date you used in the question?” Ptolemy asked.

  My breathing grew shallow.

&nbs
p; Numenius shook his head. “No, my lord.”

  Ptolemy returned his attention to Amani. “How old are you?”

  The explanation of the eclipse she had made without fuss, but her voice now squealed with pride. “Eight, if you please.”

  Ptolemy looked at her and then at me. “Did your tutor teach you this trick?”

  She said that I had, and I scrambled through my memories, trying to remember exactly what I had taught her. Maybe, over the course of two years, we had touched upon each of the subjects necessary, but I had intended them as an introduction to science and math. If she were correct, then she had not only learned and retained everything, but she had understood how these principles worked together and applied them creatively to the information the device gave her.

  It seemed impossible for someone her age. Yet, there were tales of the old Masters, those whose names we carved into the Library’s stone walls. They told of their acuity from a young age. Such stories people invented so the uneducated could stand in awe of the mental prowess of our greatest heroes. There were myths, like the tale of Siosirus, who, at the age of twelve, saved Egypt from the Nubian magician by reading the magician’s books while they remained sealed. This was none of that. This was real, and such things never happened in real life.

  Numenius looked up from his thoughts and whispered in Ptolemy's ear. Ptolemy nodded as hope and wonder drained from his face.

  “It was a good effort.” With a sigh, Pharaoh instructed Amani to return to her place.

  He and Numenius whispered a little more, and then he permitted Cleopatra to continue with the testing.

  My stomach churned, and when the soldiers came and said I had been summoned. I was not surprised.

  They led me through the doorway to the palace interior. A leopard skin lay flat across the floor. Furniture of dark, foreign woods decorated the room while leaving space so a crowd might mingle and lounge. Plump and ornate pillows adorned a couch. Other doors led to more private areas.

  Numenius stood on the balcony. He was tall and thin. His outer cloak, a saturated red, nearly touched the floor. When he turned to look at me, sunlight reflected off the gold in his necklace and earrings.