Cleopatra Confesses

by Carolyn Meyer

  The noblemen and their wives come aboard the royal boat in the twilight. They arrive dressed in their finest clothes, the women in nearly transparent linen, the young, pretty ones and sometimes the older ones as well leaving their breasts bare. The men wear finely pleated linen kilts, sometimes with shirts, sometimes not, but always displaying their gold collars set with lapis and coral and turquoise. Each tries to outdo the others—except, of course, one must not outdo the king. To make sure this does not happen, the noblemen first send their servants to find out from the king’s servants how elaborately turned out King Ptolemy will be that night.

  This is one of the parts of the day I look forward to the most. Love of beautiful clothes and jewelry is one thing my sisters and I have in common. We never discuss it, but we compete to see which of us is the best dressed. Tryphaena always overdoes it with too much of everything—too many jewels, too many sashes around her waist and straps on her sandals, cosmetics too thickly applied. Berenike makes it a point to show off her breasts—a good idea, because they are prettier than her face. I do not yet have anything to display, as my sisters like to remind me. It bothers me that I have not yet become a woman. When I mention this to Monifa, she points out that I am just eleven.

  “Another year or two,” she says. “Your body will know when the time has come.”

  “But I feel older,” I insist. “I should look as old as I feel. Don’t you agree?”

  Monifa just smiles and does not answer.

  Irisi supervises my clothes. “Put on as much jewelry as you like,” she tells me, “and if you have chosen two or three of any item, then subtract at least one bracelet, one ring, and one necklace. Dress simply and let your natural beauty shine.” Her advice for cosmetics is the same, and for perfumes, too. “You do not want your scent to announce you before you even enter the room,” she reminds me, for I do sometimes forget.

  The noblewomen who attend our nightly banquets would do well to follow Irisi’s rules for simplicity. Most of them do exactly the opposite, and so do my sisters. I am better dressed than either of them.

  The same people appear every evening, along with a few local officials who receive a special invitation and arrive in one of the small gilded boats sent to convey them. The guests settle on cushions at one of the low tables in the great dining hall, and servant girls carry in the first of several courses, beginning with bowls of onions and peppers and chickpeas. When we have finished that course, the servants bring the next one, rabbit stew, perhaps, and then bowls of nuts and olives, followed by fish baked in palm leaves or platters of roast goose, depending on what the cooks could procure at the market that day. We cut off mouthfuls with little silver knives and eat with our fingers. Between courses servants pour water over our hands from basins set beneath each table. Honeyed fruits and sweetened cakes arrive at the end of the meal.

  As the hours pass, the voices grow louder and the talk looser. I have become skilled at listening in on several conversations at once. Sooner or later Father reaches for his aulos, the noblemen and their wives return to their own boats, and the royal boat settles finally into quiet, with only the sound of the gentle lapping of the river. The guests from the town are sometimes left to wonder how they will get back to shore.

  “Tell me what the ladies wore tonight,” Irisi says as she undresses me, and long after I should be asleep we discuss the noblemen’s wives, how they were dressed and how they behaved.

  In my opinion they dress well but often behave badly. They are vain and arrogant. Gossip—the crueler the better—is their chief diversion.

  Chapter 12

  CROCODILES

  As the royal boat continues to sail southward, each day is hotter than the one before. It has been more than two weeks on the river. The yearly floods that carry fertile soil to the fields along the Nile subsided months ago, and planting began. Now the new crops of wheat and barley and other grains are ripening in the fields on both banks, east and west. The harvest will soon be under way.

  We have tied up our boats near the river that connects the Nile to the great oasis called the Fayum, the most fertile area in all of Egypt, known for its dates and figs as well as its vineyards. The largest city in the region is called Arsinoë. This delights my younger sister until Father begins to tease her.

  “The city is now named for your ancestor, Queen Arsinoë II, but its original name was”—he pauses dramatically—“Crocodilopolis! The lake used to be the home to sacred crocodiles worshipped by the ancient Egyptians.”

  My two older sisters snort with laughter, jeering, “Crocodile! Crocodile!” My younger sister gratifies them by bursting into exasperated tears. Not wanting to make matters worse, I refrain from pointing out that Queen Arsinoë II had her stepson murdered to keep him from inheriting the throne. This was two centuries before the murders that put Father on the throne. What a violent thread runs through our family history!

  Father leaves the royal boat to pay his expected visit to the local officials and priests. This time I choose to stay behind. I sit under the awning, practicing my lute. The sun beats down, fiercely hot, and I struggle to keep the instrument in tune. Arsinoë is nearby, playing with Ako.

  Earlier in the day the creature sneaked into my quarters and stole a scarab, a carving of a beetle that I believe has hidden powers. This scarab was given to me at my birth, and I love to rub the smooth alabaster between my fingers and feel its warmth. I often wear it on a silk cord around my neck, but now I see the little thief scampering along the deck, the scarab clutched in his wiry fingers, the cord dragging behind him.

  “Don’t worry, Cleopatra,” Arsinoë says. “He’ll bring it back when he gets tired of playing with it.”

  “Best for him if he does,” I warn her.

  Ako sees me and races off with my scarab. Arsinoë disappears. I put down my lute and chase Ako, but the monkey stays out of my reach, scrambling up the mast and onto the rigging of the sails. Where has Arsinoë gone? Why does she not come for her dreadful little pet?

  The monkey leaps onto the railing of the boat, wearing my scarab around his skinny neck. He takes off my scarab and eyes it curiously, puts it in his mouth, and then spits it out again. I have lost all patience. As I lunge for the scarab, Ako slips from his perch and plunges, screeching, into the Nile.

  The monkey flails in the water, panic stricken. I am panic stricken as well. I have no idea if monkeys can swim. “Help!” I cry. “Ako fell into the river!”

  My cries bring Arsinoë’s bodyguard, the eunuch Nebtawi, rushing to the railing. We both look down and see a dark and menacing shape gliding through the water, directly toward the frightened Ako. Without hesitating, Nebtawi vaults over the railing and dives into the water. In a moment he has seized the monkey by the cord around its neck and flings him upward. Even before the sopping-wet monkey lands sprawling on the deck, the gigantic jaws of the crocodile close around Nebtawi’s arm. Nebtawi screams and thrashes, and he tries to battle the vicious beast with the terrifying jaws. But a man is no match for a crocodile. The beast drags Nebtawi under as I watch in helpless horror. The thrashing stops. I hear myself screaming. The monkey scrambles away, yanking off the scarab and hurling it at me. A terrible bloom of blood rises to the surface of the water.

  I crouch on the deck, staring at the spot where Nebtawi disappeared. I cannot stop screaming. A small crowd clusters by the boat’s railing. “What happened?” they ask.

  “You must help him!” I cry, and try to explain. “Ako fell in the river, and Nebtawi jumped in to save him. But a crocodile . . .” I am not able to finish. I am sobbing, and I choke on my words.

  Arsinoë has learned what occurred, and she begins shrieking. “You made Ako fall into the river, and now Nebtawi is dead! It’s your fault, Cleopatra! All your fault!” She is sobbing too, we both are, and nothing anyone does can calm us.

  For years Nebtawi has been a good and faithful servant and bodyguard to our family, and now he is dead—all for the sake of the thieving monkey. I have ne
ver felt worse. I curl up on my bed for the rest of the day and speak to no one. My head throbs. Then Monifa sits beside me and takes my head in her lap, gently stroking my brow with her cool fingers.

  “Nebtawi has begun his cosmic journey,” she says soothingly. “Anubis, the jackal-headed god, is with him. When his heart is weighed against the feather of truth by the goddess Maat and proves to be lighter, our friend will be allowed to go to the afterlife that is waiting for him. It is not for us to determine.”

  But I worry. If the scales tip the other way and his heart is too heavy, then his spirit will be turned over to the monsters of the underworld. I shudder to think of it. He was a young man, and not a rich one, and I doubt that he made preparations for the afterlife. His body is lost forever.

  When Father hears about it, he comes to me. “It wasn’t your fault, daughter,” Father reassures me. “Nebtawi believed it was his duty to save Ako. The scarab amulet surely protected him.”

  “It protected the monkey, but it did not protect Nebtawi,” I say miserably, and I begin to weep again.

  My father watches me as I struggle to get my feelings under control. “Cleopatra,” he says, “you will one day have to deal with losses far more difficult than this. And you will be blamed for much more.”

  If Father believes his words will comfort me, he is wrong. But perhaps comfort is not what he intends. If I am truly to follow in his footsteps, I must learn to handle whatever difficulties—and losses—come to me.

  Chapter 13

  EXPECTING TROUBLE

  Our journey up the Nile is now in its twenty-seventh day, each day much the same as the one before it. The heat clings to my skin and dries my lips, but after sunset the nights turn cold.

  After close to a month on the river, my older sisters complain constantly about nearly everything. Arsinoë grieves for Nebtawi, and to distract her I play countless games of Hounds and Jackals and let her win. Ako, who escaped a horrible end in the jaws of a crocodile, scampers around the boat, bothering everyone, though no one dares object. I am surely not alone in wishing it had been the monkey instead of Nebtawi who was devoured.

  I welcome a summons from Demetrius, who is accompanied by Captain Mshai. The three of us watch the farmers at work in their fields. Canals carry water from the river to the crops. A laborer works a shaduf, a pole balanced on a crossbeam with a bucket on one end and a weight on the other. Over and over he fills the bucket, swings the shaduf, and empties the water into the canal.

  “Rain seldom falls here. Everything depends on the Nile,” Mshai says, calling my attention to a Nilometer, a long flight of steep steps cut into rock on the riverbank. “The markings on the rock show the height of the water during the Inundation. This year the torrential rains in the highlands far to the south were much less than hoped for, and so there is less water in the Nile,” he says. “When that happens, the fields dry out too soon, and the crops wither before they can be cut. You can see that the water is low. Farmers again expect a poor harvest.”

  Demetrius and I exchange glances. This is not what the king wants to hear. I have already seen the worry on his face.

  The noblemen and their wives who attend the nightly banquets are not amused when Father decides to play his aulos and joins the dancing girls as they perform that evening. After dinner, I overhear the noblemen’s wives discussing him as they prepare to leave. “How disgusting!” grumbles one of the usual gossips.

  “It is undignified,” says another. “Auletes may be the pharaoh, but he behaves like any commoner.”

  Their remarks anger me. Slowly, very slowly, I stroll close by the women and greet them with the kind of false smile they are used to, letting them know by my smile that I heard every word they said. I see the fear in their eyes when they realize they have been caught speaking badly of the king—and caught by a princess. They are no doubt afraid that I will report their words to Father and that they will be punished. What if King Ptolemy—Auletes, as they call him disrespectfully—banishes them from his boat, from his banquets?

  “I wish you a pleasant evening, my ladies,” I say with another false smile, and walk on. In that moment I get a small taste of the power I have over them, and I savor it.

  Chapter 14

  DANGEROUS PASSAGE

  I have been marking off the days on a shard of pottery: thirty-three days since we left Alexandria. I love the Nile, but I have begun to crave the intellectual life of the city. I miss the busy harbor with ships arriving from distant lands. I miss the great Library with its thousands of papyrus scrolls stacked to the ceiling, and the Museion when the scholars gather to debate.

  We stop for a short time at Hermopolis, a city built in ancient times to honor the baboons. Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and wisdom, often took the form of a baboon, and thousands of these animals once made their home here. Thousands more were mummified and entombed in the catacombs beneath the city. Everywhere huge sandstone carvings of baboons crouch, seeming to stare at me with their glittery eyes. I find them unnerving.

  I am relieved when we are once again on the river, but soon I find Tryphaena and Berenike carrying around a baby baboon. Though it is a remarkably ugly creature, they treat it like an infant.

  “We’ve decided to call him Bubu,” Tryphaena announces.

  “Baboons can be taught to do almost anything,” says Berenike. “We’re going to teach Bubu to dance.”

  I can already guess what will happen: My sisters will quickly tire of their new plaything, and poor Bubu will find himself sadly neglected. He will never learn to dance.

  We continue past the ruined city of Akhetaton without stopping. The temples and palaces that once occupied a broad plain surrounded by cliffs were abandoned over a thousand years ago, and still no one seems willing to talk about the disgraced pharaoh who built them or even to speak his name. This uneasy silence makes him all the more interesting to me, and I question my tutor relentlessly. “Who was this man, Demetrius? What did he do?”

  “King Akhenaten was a heretic,” Demetrius says. “He insisted that his people worship just one god, the Sun God Ra. They hated him for it.”

  That strange idea runs counter to everything our people, Greek and Egyptian, have believed for thousands of years. Ra is the greatest, but there are many gods! What would those gods think—and what would they do—if people singled out just one god? Only those people from the East, the Jews, are loyal to a single god. I have met Jews among the scholars at the Museion in Alexandria and admire their intellect, but I have yet to understand their peculiar faith.

  On the thirty-ninth day the royal boat passes through a fertile area of luscious gardens thickly planted with date palms and pomegranates. Toward sunset we arrive at the sacred city of Abydos, revered throughout Egypt as the burial place of Osiris, brother-husband of the goddess Isis. The river is crowded with funeral barks carrying coffins of the dead. Everyone who does not have the money to pay for a pyramid wishes to be brought here for burial.

  Monifa has often told me the story of Osiris, the god who was murdered by his brother, Seth. Seth dismembered Osiris’s body and flung the pieces far and wide over Egypt. After many years of searching, Osiris’s sister-wife, Isis, gathered up the pieces and made him whole again. Her magic must have been very powerful, for nine months later she gave birth to Osiris’s son, Horus.

  Isis is the goddess I most admire and to whom I am devoted. Because I was born on her festival day, she is my patroness, and each morning I leave an offering at her shrine on the deck of the royal boat. The statue in her shrine portrays Isis with a headdress shaped like a throne. Father seems certain that one day I will become pharaoh and sit on the throne of Egypt. I cannot yet see how that will happen or how I am to learn to use my power well. But if it does come to pass that I rule Egypt, I know that Isis will guide me.

  “Make me your incarnation, beloved Isis, the human embodiment of all your virtues,” I pray, and I leave a flower at her feet.

  The royal boat remains moored in Aby
dos for five days. It is now the second month of Harvest. Many on the boat are restless and eager to push on, but Father seems to be in no hurry. He continues to be welcomed by the priests at every temple he visits, always reassuring them that he supports their plans to build even larger temples. He is not eager to return to Alexandria and the problems waiting for him there. I had hoped that Father would have more time to spend with me on this journey, but he does not. I would rather be alone than in the company of my older sisters.

  I keep up my studies with Demetrius, but I think of all the things I would be doing if I were back in Alexandria. I am used to more freedom than I can enjoy aboard the royal boat. I would return to the marketplace or to the great Library and the Museion. Or I might be attending a dance class with the daughters of the noble families who live in the royal quarter. I am told that boys and young men engage in vigorous exercise and gymnastics in their class.

  “That sounds so much more interesting than anything we do,” I once remarked to Akantha, the niece of Antiochus, one of the girls in the class. “Since high-born women do not dance in public, I see little point in learning these dull routines. I would rather learn the kind of dancing the girls perform at our banquets.”

  “You would want to do something like that, Cleopatra,” said Akantha with a disapproving scowl.

  She did not come on this journey. On these long, empty days I would welcome even scowling Akantha for company.

  Early one morning Captain Mshai prepares to enter a difficult passage on the river. I study his charts and see that the Nile follows a generally straight line flowing north through Egypt to the sea, but now it makes a great eastern loop. Cliffs rear up sharply from the very edge of the water, and I mark them on my map. The captain orders the sails taken in, and the oarsmen get ready to maneuver the royal boat against the current through treacherous waters. Sudden gusts of wind sweep in and threaten to send us careening into one of the sandbars that lurk beneath the dark surface. I ignore the screeching birds that swoop out of holes in the rock cliff and dive at those of us who decide to stay on deck.