“Soon it may seem so, but know that I am not.” Her voice was as cool and calming as the breeze off the Nile. “My time is short here,” she said.
“No, please do not leave me. Stay with me, please —”
Her expression was filled with such grief and love and sadness and joy at once that my heart ached. “I will be sent away,” she said. “They will desecrate my temples and abandon me to their new gods.”
I felt rage burst up my chest. Why was she speaking about herself? Didn’t she realize I needed her help? “Please save me from Amut,” I prayed. “Tell me what to do!”
The Goddess took her golden shawl and covered her head with it in a gesture of mourning. “Do not forget me, daughter. It is the only way.”
“But why are you forgetting me?” I sobbed at her abandonment. I was her daughter! Her loyal servant. Didn’t she understand that I wanted her — needed her — to lift me up out of this dark place and bring me into the light?
I must have spoken those words aloud, for the Goddess turned to me. Head still covered, she laughed quietly, a melodious and sorrowful sound. “Those who destroy me will also claim that they are emerging from the dark into the light. It is how they will justify themselves.”
I did not understand. Was the Goddess mocking me? Despair flooded in.
“Poor little daughter,” Isis murmured. I looked up in surprise to see her push the shawl of mourning away from her head. She reached down to where I lay, as slow and graceful a movement as a sail unfurling on the Nile. “Cleave to me in your heart,” she said. “I will help you, I promise, even as they destroy me.”
None of her words made sense to me — not then, anyway. But at the touch of her warm palm on the top of my head, calm entered my heart. Golden light, as thick and slow-moving as honey, poured over me, around me, lifted me, and held me — suspended — in a pool of sweet peace.
“Well, you have had a time of it!” Mother said, smiling down at me.
I looked at her, confused. A time of what? And why was I in her antechamber? Hekate padded over my chest and butted her head against my cheek, purring. I noticed the small cat’s swollen belly and smiled.
“Hekate is full with babies!” I announced, surprised to hear my words come out in nothing stronger than a whisper. Mother smiled, and I realized she already knew. She sat down on the sleeping couch next to me.
“Why did that boy try to poison me?” I asked.
Mother sighed. “We uncovered a plot by a group of fanatical followers of the old ways — Egyptians who see the upcoming invasion as an opportunity to overthrow Greek rule and protect themselves from the Roman invasion. ‘Egypt for Egyptians’ was their motto, I believe.”
“Was?”
“Yes. The group has been rooted out, though I am sure another will sprout up in its place. This one began with a young priest from the Temple of Ptah in Memphis. Unfortunately, they saw an opening with you — and you paid the price.”
Mother looked down and rubbed my arm. I followed her gaze and saw small red indentations. “Ugh!” I cried. “Leeches! Olympus used leeches on me!”
“It saved your life, daughter. But at least you were not awake to see it.”
I shuddered and turned my head to the side. I did not want to look upon the evidence of the treatment. “Mother …,” I whispered.
“Yes?”
“What is going to happen to us?”
She stiffened. “I am negotiating with Octavianus for your safety.” Her tone had gone cold and official again.
I tried to sit up but found I was weaker than I’d thought. “What does that mean?”
“It means I will abdicate my throne if he will allow Caesarion to rule and allow you and your brothers to live in Egypt.”
I stared at my mother, wide-eyed. Abdicate her throne? Had it really come to the that? “But where would you go? What would you do?”
She paused. “It does not matter as long as my children live and rule in Egypt.”
“What does he answer?”
“Let us just say that he made a counteroffer.”
“What was it?”
Mother stood up. “Rest, daughter. I can see how tired you are.” She touched my cheek and left the room.
It was only later I learned that the queen of Egypt had offered more than her crown to Octavianus in exchange for our survival — she had offered her very life if he would guarantee our safety in Egypt. And the man who would rule the world told her she could keep her throne and her life on one condition: that she murder Father for him.
Of course, Mother did no such thing. Nor did she deliver him to Octavianus as a prisoner, as he also requested. Whether it was love or devotion or a combination of both, Mother never wavered in her loyalty to Tata, despite the vile rumors Romans spread about her later.
The morning I was to return to my own rooms, Father sauntered in from Mother’s inner chamber. I did not remember him passing through the antechamber the night before. Tata looked slightly rumpled in his casual brown tunic, his face a bit bristly. He would head for the baths soon, I knew.
“All right, daughter, for your last day in my personal gambling den, we play for high stakes,” he said, rolling the crystal Roman dice in his large square hands. Tata had been teaching me a game called Jactus.
“I am ready!” I said, sitting up.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “How many times must I tell you? You must appear reluctant, hesitant, as if your fine sensibility had never even considered sullying your hands with such a base sport!”
I crossed my arms. “Do you tell Alexandros the same thing?”
He laughed. “Of course not! But you are a girl. A smart girl can get away with such an act and catch her opponent off guard. It is all in the attitude!”
“Tata! This is a game of chance! How could catching my opponent off guard help me?”
Father smirked. “You will see when you are older. It is an art your mother has perfected.”
I did not know what he meant, and I did not care either. I just wanted to play. Father unfolded a small wooden tray with raised sides and put it on the couch next to me.
“Put your denarius in the center, girl. I feel lucky.”
“I thought we were playing for higher stakes today,” I said as I moved one of my Roman coins next to his on the end table.
“Well, then, put two in!”
I added another coin from my pile and moved an additional coin from his. Father poured the dice in the turricula and shook it up. “Gods, I love that sound!” he said.
“Wait, why do you get to go first?” I complained.
“Because I, my good child, can.” Father dragged a bronze-legged, red leather folding stool closer to me and sat, leaning forward. He shook the dice again and tossed them with a flourish, watching them bounce on the wood with an exaggerated frown of concentration.
I grinned at his playfulness and experienced a sense of unreality, of time stretching and slowing. I saw how Tata’s warm brown eyes twinkled, despite his pretense of cutthroat competitiveness. I noticed the close-cropped curls, tousled and grayer than ever; the way the muscles on his bronzed, battle-scarred arms flexed and relaxed as he put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward to see how the die fell. I took in the slow, sideways grin that spread over his face as he calculated the result of his toss.
In that strange, exaggerated moment, I wondered how it was possible to play a friendly game of Jactus with Father at the same time that Roman armies swarmed toward us like a vast cloud of locusts, bent on destroying everything we held dear. How could anyone hate my playful tata — or us — that much? I knew Father was flawed, but even the gods had their weaknesses, did they not? I looked down at my hands as my heart swelled with affection and love for my tata.
Time returned to its regular pace as Father reacted to his throw. “Ha! All different — the Venus. My take.” With a flourish, he swept the four coins in the center toward his pile and indicated with his head that I should replace them with two more
.
“Fortuna is with me this morning,” he announced. I knew that, ever since all his legions abandoned him, Father felt abandoned by the goddess of luck too. I remember thinking I should tell Fortuna that I would happily lose at Jactus forever if it meant she would smile upon Father when it really counted.
I snatched the turricula out of Father’s hand, poured the dice in, covered the top with my palm, and shook it with all my might. I closed my eyes and breathed on the dice, whispering, “Isis, Isis,” then tossed them onto the little tray.
“Duplex!” Father roared with a laugh and slapped his thigh. “Two sixes. You have to add six coins to the pot. Which I will soon win, I might add.”
He rubbed his hands together. I frowned. At this rate, I would lose all my coins too quickly, and I wanted to keep the game going as long as possible. Tata leaned toward me, looking around as if he had a special secret he did not want overheard. His eyes danced.
“Your first mistake was invoking Isis,” he whispered with mock seriousness. “Trust me on this, daughter. Dionysus would have been a much better choice!”
CHAPTER NINE
As Octavianus approached by land and sea on those last days of late summer, Caesarion, at Mother’s urging, fled across the Arabian desert on the way to India. Mother kept us in Alexandria, gambling that Octavianus would not hurt small children. As soon as she got word of Caesarion’s safe arrival, she would send us to him in secret.
In the meantime, she took all of her personal treasure — vast mounds of gold, silver, pearls, emeralds, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon — and stacked it over great heaps of kindling wood in her mausoleum. She would set it aflame, leaving Octavianus no way to pay his army if he did not guarantee our safety.
The night before Father and his remaining men would face Octavianus’s invading army, my parents seemed especially tender toward each other. I caught Mother tracing the line of Father’s jaw and Father running his fingers up and down Mother’s arm. When Zosima came to remove us from the triclinium, Father signaled us to approach. He grabbed Ptolly and kissed him on the neck, then made blowing noises on his stomach that made my almost-six-year-old brother shriek with joy. When Nafre took Ptolly away — the boy beaming with pride and confidence in his tata — Father watched him for a long time. Then he looked at Alexandros and me.
“I want to remind you of something very important,” Father said. “If Octavianus threatens you …”
“He will not because he will not win, Tata,” Alexandros said, outrage in his voice.
Father sighed. He looked at the floor for a moment, then back up at us. “Just listen. You must remember this. You are the children of Marcus Antonius. By virtue of that and of my bequest, you are full Roman citizens….”
“We know that! Why are you telling us this?” Alexandros said, sounding even more scared and irritated. My heart had begun to race too.
“It is important you know this about Romans. The phrase, ‘I am a Roman citizen,’ is very powerful — almost sacred. Remember to use it.”
I cut my eyes to Mother. She stared off in the distance, her face turned away from us.
“Stop it, Father!” Alexandros whispered. “I want to wish you luck for tomorrow.”
Tata smiled. “Yes. Thank you. Come here, my son, the sun.” He grabbed my brother in a huge bear hug and pinned him down on his couch in a mock wrestling move. Alexandros grinned and pretended to fight back. Father held him down and kissed him on his forehead. “Boy!” he said playfully. “Why were you not ready for that move? You must always be prepared for the surprise attack!”
“I will be ready next time. You will see,” Alexandros said.
My heart lurched. Why these long good nights? Usually, Father roared a farewell by lifting his goblet to us or offered a quick kiss with a pat on the bottom when it was time for us to retire.
“Tata, please don’t fight tomorrow,” I whispered as my twin left the room. At that, Mother stood up and walked away.
“I must,” Tata said. “There is no greater honor for a general than to die with his men.”
“Then you think you will be defeated? How can you go into battle thinking that way?” I asked.
“I did not say that. But I would not be a good general if I did not know the odds.”
“Tata, please!” I fought the urge to put my hands to my ears. I did not want to hear this. I needed to hear that everything would be all right, that Father would rout Octavianus’s army and that the world would continue as I had always known it. I must have covered my ears anyway, for I felt Father’s big warm hands move them away from my face. He looked at my palms and gently kissed the center of each one.
“You have your mother’s hands,” he murmured.
A surge of fear-fueled anger flowed through me. I jerked my hands out of his. “I will not say good-bye, Father! You cannot make me! You will come back tomorrow. And if you do not … I … I will find you wherever you are and … and …”
To my horror, Father threw back his head and laughed. “Come here,” he said, grabbing me in a bear hug and holding me hard against him. “My little Cleopatra.”
I hugged him back with all my might. Tata kissed my cheek, pushed me away, and said, “Now go on. Go to bed, my little beloved.”
I ran to my chamber. These are tears of anger, I told myself. Queens do not weep like little children. I am my mother’s daughter. I will control my emotions.
I knew Father marched out well before sunrise, for I heard the preparations — the muffled voices of men in the dark, the creaking of leather, the jangling of weapons — when I woke briefly before drifting back to sleep.
Quiet settled on the entire palace like a shroud. For comfort that morning, my brothers and I sought one another out in the main playroom. Iotape and her nurse came too. Ptolly teased his cat, Sebi — one of the kittens that Hekate had birthed — with a braided papyrus rope, cackling every time he pulled it just out of reach.
“Sebi will get angry if you do not let him win sometimes,” I warned, wondering where my own kitten, Tanafriti, had gone. Ptolly, as usual, ignored me.
Iotape and Alexandros whispered to each other. I crossed my arms and stared at them until they noticed me.
“What?” Alexandros asked.
“What were you whispering about?”
Alexandros rubbed his eyes. “We are planning on running away,” he said in a flat tone.
Before I could respond to this shocking remark, a wail erupted from somewhere deep inside the palace. Our heads snapped up and we looked at one another with wide eyes. “What is happening?” Ptolly whispered. “Was that a ghost?”
Nafre came over to him and picked him up. “Come here, my little prince. It is nothing. I think one of the cooks must have dropped his prized dish, that is all.”
Ptolly allowed himself to be taken to the corner, where he snuggled up to a reclining Nafre. I looked at Alexandros.
“What do you think has happened?” he asked.
“We should find out,” I whispered. I turned and bid him follow me.
“Come back here!” Zosima yelled once she realized what we were up to. “You must stay here!”
We dashed out into the hall. “Quick, separate,” I ordered. “I will take the north wing, you take the south.”
I raced off. I turned to see my twin, wide-eyed, still as a statue. He spun as if to go back to Iotape. “Go!” I hissed. “We’ll meet up later by the lotus pool.”
My footsteps echoed in the empty hallways. Where was everybody? I rounded a corner and saw an old Egyptian servant carrying a linen sack stuffed with palace goods. He stopped when he saw me, his eyes wide with fear.
“May Isis protect you, Daughter of Ra,” the old man said, bowing his head.
“What is happening?” I asked in Egyptian.
“All … all of the general’s men have surrendered to the other Romans. His navy rowed out as if to engage but then put up all their oars in surrender.”
Father’s men betrayed him again?
“And … and now,” the old man continued, “we hear that his cavalry has surrendered too.”
Isis! Poor Tata!
The old man ran away. I stood frozen. What would happen now? Mother would know. I raced to Mother’s study, sure she was there.
I burst into the room only to find it empty. Another round of wailing. Gods, why did old women do that! Think, I told myself. Think, think. Mother would have insisted on seeing for herself how events unfolded, wouldn’t she? I thought of King Priam watching Hector battle Achilles from the high walls of Troy. Yes, she would want to watch. But from which observation terrace? My mind raced.
That was when I heard Father’s voice, roaring for Mother. He sounded full of rage and despair.
“Cleopatra! Where is everybody? Gods-be-damned, someone answer me! Where is the queen?”
To my horror, I heard his hobnailed military boots marching my way, toward Mother’s study. They had forbidden me to come in here without permission. He would be furious that I had disobeyed.
Hide! But where? I dove under Mother’s great ebony desk, using the gold-trimmed, backless bench to hide myself from view.
“Cleopatra!” Father roared as he burst into the room. “They betrayed me! To a man, they betrayed me! Cacat! Where is she?”
Tata threw his helmet across the room in a rage. I froze at the thunderous, echoing sound of metal crashing against marble, watching his red-crested helmet bounce and wobble on the floor across from me.
“Eros! Where is …”
The wailing began again and Father stopped. He muttered a curse when his man came into the room.
“By the gods, Eros. Where is everybody? Where is Cleopatra?”
I could not see Eros’s face, but he sounded panicked. “Sire … um …”
“Spit it out, man!”
“The queen …”
Silence. My heart pounded in my ears.
“What? Where is she? I need to see her. They have all betrayed me! All of them!”
“The old women,” continued Eros. “They … they say a messenger came crying that the queen is dead.”
Cleopatra's Moon Page 8