Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  "Good-bye, my love," was all I could say.

  I knew I would never see him again.

  Quickly he turned and left the chamber, clutching his helmet, without a backward glance.

  And so it was over. Is over. I wait now, midmorning, for the news I do not want to receive. After he left, I dressed myself, called the children, hugged and played with them. Mardian is here, and the others. Olympos came. I showed him the scrolls, where I had stored them. He promised. Then he kissed my cheek and left, to hide in his house until the danger had passed. I told him there would be just this one scroll to add to the rest; I would have that with me, wherever I was. He seemed to accept it; at least he asked no questions.

  One hy one they leave. I am stripped bare like an athlete before a contest.

  Mardian touches my shoulder. "What is their battle plan?" he asks.

  "Publicola will command the ships," I say. "Antony will lead the cavalry, Canidius the infantry. This time there is no question of the enemy refusing to give battle. They have been encamped only a few hours; they have not had time to dig in well enough to resist an attack." No second Actium.

  He shakes his head. "And we shall know . . . how?"

  "By the sound of the returning soldiers. If the day is ours, the shout will be 'Anubis!' "

  "How fitting," he says.

  High noon, but not as hot as yesterday. The slight breeze cools us. I am again on the ramparts, and I see the motionless fleets, still drawn up in battle lines. Why does no one move? What are they waiting for?

  Clutching the marble edge, I see at last the oars flash, see them plunge down into the water, rise, shoot the ships forward. Our fleet is on its way out of the harbor, heading toward the breakwater, to confront Octavian's.

  The enemy ships now move a little, drawing back. They will lie in wait like a panther, let us come to them.

  Now . . . now we are close enough to start firing stones and fireballs at them. Why don't we? Fire! Loose a volley on them!

  But they stream on, harmlessly. Instead ... I cannot believe my own eyes . . . they turn themselves broadside and salute Octavian's ships! They raise their oars to signal nonaggression. And now ... a shout of camaraderie!

  Caps fly through the air . . . rejoicing . . . reunion! The two fleets join in brotherhood. Our navy, the survivors of Actium, and the new-built ships, have joined the enemy.

  That was several hours ago. I knew then that the day was lost. Dionysus had laid us low. Calmly (for what was there to be wild about? it was over), I ordered the children to their hiding place, took my mantle and this scroll, and walked slowly to the mausoleum. Its wide doors were open, bidding me welcome.

  Following behind us were two slaves carrying a trunk, in which my royal robes and crown and scepter were laid. This crown was finer than the one I had sent Octavian, as he would doubtless note when he beheld it. Another slave walked behind the trunk, carrying a large basket with a tightly fitting lid. Now these had been deposited on the floor of the monument, and the slaves departed.

  There is no natural light here except what enters from the second story. And yet I hesitated, unwilling to proceed, in case I heard the miraculous word Anubis. The story of the army was yet to tell, regardless of what happened at sea.

  In the quiet heat of noon I made my way to the adjoining Temple of Isis in order to offer final prayers. It was a formality only, as I had no words left to use. I stood before the milky-white statue of the goddess and silently pleaded with her to soften Octavian's heart and spare my children and Egypt. Look on them with mercy, I asked. Impart some of that mercy to him.

  Outside the sea was washing against the base of the temple. The harbor was filling with returning ships. Not much time left.

  I descended from the high platform of the temple and returned to the monument. I could hear shouts now, a din of riders. Something had happened beyond the city wall. Something decisive.

  I cried to one of the passing servant boys to run out into the Canopic Way and tell me what he saw. He obeyed and sprinted away.

  There was noise, lots of noise, but no trumpet blasts of victory. Just cries and screams, and the thudding of hooves and tramping of feet.

  I stood in the door of the mausoleum. I would not move until I knew; it would not be much longer now. . . .

  The boy came running, his long tunic streaming out behind him. He skidded to a stop beside me and stood panting. "It's . . He gasped for breath. "The legions are defeated, and the cavalry deserted to Octavian." He bent over in pain from a cramp in his side.

  "The legions fought? And were beaten?"

  He nodded, still doubled over.

  "And Lord Antony--he led them? Is he--did he--?"

  He shook his head. "I know not."

  "Has he entered the city?"

  "I know not. I think not. There seemed to be no officers, only common foot soldiers in the returning men." His breath was still harsh.

  So Antony had perished on the battlefield. It was as he had wanted it.

  "Thank you," I told the boy. I wanted to reward him, but had nothing but my jewelry. I took off the pearl earrings and put them in his hand.

  Before I could move at all, I shut my eyes to stop the fierce wheeling of the ground all around me. So this is what is feels like, this is how you are told. Not even the solemn, final words that impart some dignity. Instead, a guess, a surmise, a confusion.

  Is he? Did he? I know not. I think not.

  O Antony, you deserve a higher announcement than that, and I deserve to know for a certainty. Else how can I have the courage I need in this hour?

  Lying dead on a field? Would he be recognized? Yes, of course, from his marks of rank. But he would be tended by enemies. Oh, it was too much to be borne.

  And now he lay far from me. I was stunned, as stunned as if we had not prepared, had not expected it. Now the cruelty of it robbed me of speech and movement. I stood unmoving, rooted, while all around me people were running, panic-stricken.

  The mausoleum. I had to get back inside it. To safety. To Mardian and Iras and Charmian. I forced myself to turn, leave the sunlit grounds, and reenter the tomb.

  I ordered the inner doors closed. They are not the permanent ones, for those can be sealed only once, and we have funerals to conduct first. But they are strong enough, locked in all the conventional ways, fitted with iron bands and oak bolts. An enemy would need a battering ram to enter.

  Here we have huddled for hours, waiting to know for an absolute certainty what has happened. My right to know must be satisfied, I tell myself; it is only that, not cowardice or second thoughts, that keeps me from lifting the lid on the basket. . . .

  How long can they live in that basket? Many days, I have been told. The silent creatures just lie motionless, barely breathing. Nakht had done well, obeying my orders. He said they were prize ones, two of Ipuwer's favorites. But could they be the same? How long did the creatures live?

  There was so much I would know, so much I would learn! my healthy mind cried out in protest. I am still young--I don't want to die this afternoon. Not this afternoon . . . perhaps tomorrow afternoon, or the next night, but, sweet Isis, not this afternoon!

  But that was a momentary lapse and rebellion of my desire against the sternness of my will. It must not happen again. I bent and listened for any sound from within the basket, to assure myself that deliverance was at hand, and all I had to do was lift a light woven lid of straw.

  Through the grille on the doors I could see, and hear, that the city was boiling with troops. Had Octavian arrived? Were these his soldiers? We climbed the stairs to the second story, which had a sort of inner balcony and windows that looked out over all the grounds. It was the one part of the building that was incomplete, and two of the windows were lacking bars.

  With sadness I saw the tumult in my beloved city, lying helpless now before an invader, its gates thrown open, its citizens running in panic. And I was powerless to help it; all my life, dedicated to keeping it safe, has been spent l
aboring in vain to prevent this hour. My alliances, my plans, my stratagems, my sacrifices had staved it off but not stopped it.

  Why delay any longer? Why behold this grisly spectacle of failure any longer? I was resolved to do it now; suddenly death was welcome. I spun away from the window and motioned to Charmian and Iras. But Charmian was pointing to something outside, and her face was rigid.

  "Yes, it is pitiful," I told her. "But do not torture yourself by watching any longer." I took her hand.

  "Madam, it is--see where they are bringing him," she whispered, pointing our hands together in the direction of an odd little procession.

  Far to the right, on the path from the palace, men were carrying a litter with a sprawled body on it, and a knot of attendants clustered on both sides.

  Even from this distance, I could see that the man--it was a man--was covered in blood, but lived. He did not have that limpness that betokens death.

  "O my friend, it is--it is Antony," said Mardian, his voice strained.

  Yes, it was. Had he been carried from the battlefield? Had he wished to lie here with me, today? In a hot gush of relief, I poured out my thanks to Isis that I yet lived. I would have missed him, had I steeled myself only a few minutes earlier.

  He was trying to sit up, but did not have the strength. The whole front of his tunic was bathed in blood, and it was dripping off the litter and staining the ground. The armor was gone.

  One of his attendants banged on the door, but I cried from the window, "We cannot open it now, lest Octavian storm inside and take the treasure. But the window--can we not use that?"

  There were ropes still dangling from the unfinished upper masonry, and we lowered them to fasten to the litter. It was a long way to the ground, and I wondered if we would have the strength to haul him all the way up. He was a heavy man, his body now was almost dead weight, since he could not haul or help us pull.

  He looked so weak, lying there, the blood bubbling up from wherever the wound was, his face pale and his words coming only with difficulty.

  "Courage! Courage!" I cried, to strengthen him, as we four strained to pull the ropes and hoist him. None of us had enough strength, and it was grueling. Inadvertently we banged the litter against the wall over and over again, and each time I could see the pain chase across his face as he was jolted on the stone.

  "Oh, hurry," he begged in so low a voice I could barely hear it. The sun was beating down on his blood-smeared face and cracked lips, and flies, attracted to the blood, were plaguing him. He was too weak to lift his hand and ward them off.

  That hand, which had always been so strong. . . too weak now to wave away flies.

  With a surge of determination, the four of us together yanked the ropes up and got the litter to the windowsill, where we lifted it over and set it on the floor.

  "Oh, my dear--do not die without me!" I heard myself saying, as I threw myself on his chest, which was sleek with blood. Now I was covered in it, too, but I wanted to be. I took the palms of my hands and smeared my face, my neck, with his blood. Then, without even knowing it, I tore the top of my gown open and stripped myself of it, covering his chest with it. The blood soaked right through it.

  "My lord, my husband, my emperor," I whispered by his ear. "Wait for me!"

  I knew nothing could save him; the wound was mortal. He could barely speak.

  "How did you get this?" I asked, laying my hand over the wound. "How did it get through your armor?"

  "I--I myself," he said. "No enemy but Antony. Antony only conquers Antony."

  "My brave Imperator," I said, and only he could hear me. I bent to kiss him. His lips were already cold.

  "Eros--" he whispered. "Eros--"

  "What of Eros?" I only now noticed his absence.

  "He failed me." Antony attempted to laugh, but it was so painful he could not. "He--disobeyed his instructions. When he was to have killed me, and I turned away, he killed himself instead."

  How horrible! And left Antony to dispatch himself.

  "Oh, my dear--" I cradled his head in my arms. This was not the noble end we had planned, but messy and painful and inelegant.

  "Some wine--" he asked faintly.

  A cup was brought to him, and he managed, with our help, to raise himself a little to drink. "Octavian comes," he said. I had to strain to hear him. "You must not trust anyone about him, but an officer named Proculeius. Deal with him."

  "Deal with him! There will be no dealing; I will not linger on in this world."

  So he thought I might survive after all? His hopefulness was touching. He had kept it to the end.

  He grasped my hand in his. With my other hand I beat and tore at my breasts in grief. He tried to take it, too, and stop me. But he did not have the strength. "Please," he whispered. "Do not pity me for this last turn of fate. Remember all the good fortune I had, for many years, and that I was the most powerful and illustrious man in the world. And even now I have not fallen ignobly."

  "Yes," I said, through my tears. They were blurring my vision of his face, while he still lived and his lips moved. "No. You have been given an honorable death. The gods granted you that one last gift."

  I could feel the grip in his hand slackening, and he gradually, reluctantly, released mine. His eyes closed and he seemed to concentrate all his strength on a series of gasping, heaving breaths--each causing more blood to spill out of the chest wound. Then they shuddered to a stop, and he ceased breathing.

  "No! No/" I cried, willing the chest to move again. But it did not, and the hand fell away and slid down to lie upturned at his side. The fingers, curling in that half-circle, just as they had when he slept. . . .

  His lids were shut, and the long eyelashes locked together: the beautiful long lashes that I had teased him about, now holding the lids down to cover the starkness of death, to veil its indecency.

  Antony was dead. The whole world rolled away.

  "Madam--madam--" I felt someone pulling on me, trying to separate us. I was almost stuck to him by the blood. I did not want to leave, be taken away. I clung tighter.

  "Dear friend," said Mardian. "You must. He is gone."

  I refused to let go, and they had to pry me away, and Mardian carry me in his arms down the steps, leaving Antony on his litter, alone.

  "No--" I said feebly, reaching back.

  "He can have a proper funeral," Mardian said. "But that must wait. Have you forgotten Octavian? He must be nearly here!"

  Octavian. What did I care for Octavian? I cared for nothing now, just to lie in the sheltering arms of Mardian, my oldest, truest friend, and cease to think. The world had shrunk down into a dried black husk, and Antony was lying dead, alone, up there. . . .

  I clutched his arm, wordlessly. Or did I speak? I do not know. Only that in the swirl where I almost felt my spirit leaving my body, floating silently and secretly up the steps and back to Antony, there to join with him and flee from all the blood and foulness of this hour, I was suddenly dumped onto the floor. Mardian had flung me down before the great doors.

  He pushed me toward them, his hands on my shoulders. "Look out there!" he demanded.

  No. I cannot face all this now. Not in such immediate succession. But he is relentless, guiding me toward the grille.

  Swarms of people. What people? What matter? I feel so weak, I grab the bars to enable me to stand. There are shadows across the grass. Hours have passed, hours when Antony took his slow, painful leave of this world. It was a time beyond time; how odd that real time stole past, outside. I do not want to reenter it. I want to stay in this timeless, seasonless, unchanging place of stone and sealed doors.

  "Madam," said Charmian, by my side. She wiped my face with a scarf, and it came away red with blood. "Courage!"

  Now time snaps into place again, like a band on a pulley, connecting everything. Now I see people outside. Roman soldiers. Not ours. Others. Octavian's.

  There are hordes of them, striding across the grass, across my palace grounds, lounging on the steps
of Isis's temple. They are drinking from their water bags, peeling fruit, laughing. It is a holiday for them: the obscene holiday of victory, now beheld by the vanquished. Is any taste so bitter in all the world?

  "Look where they come," Mardian whispered. And I could see a company of officers striding purposefully toward us. Was Octavian among them?

  No. I would recognize him anywhere, even across all the years. He was not there. One of them separated himself and approached our doors. He was a tall man, dressed as a staff officer; not even a general.

  He came closer and closer, until the vision of him was distorted by the grate and the nearness. I saw a big, sunburnt nose, saw the beads of sweat on his face. A banging. He was hammering with a sword handle on the door.

  "Queen Cleopatra!" he yelled, only a hand's breadth from my ear. The loudness was painful. "Come out, and yield yourself to us!"

  The volume of the voice and its very nearness were startling. I could not answer, could not find my own voice. Must I speak to the outside world?

  "We know he is dead! We have his sword, taken from his side by his guard, Dercetaeus. This, the very one he used to kill himself!" I could see the flash of the sword, recognized it. Its blade was coated with blood.

  Anger swept through me; good clean anger. That sword--it belonged to Antyllus, or Alexander--not to this gloating enemy.

  "Give me that sword!" I demanded. "Do not befoul it with your touch!"