Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght (14 page)

The searing memory of her writhing in his arms the night before flashed through him and he turned to Apollodorus. “If the Queen should bear another child soon–”

“It would be the child of the Gods, Lord Antony, and worthy of protection,” answered the old priest.

Antony’s eyes instinctively found her. Cleopatra watched them from a few paces off where she walked with Iris and Charmion. They appeared to be talking among themselves the way women did, but as she caught his eye, he had that familiar unnerving feeling she read his thoughts.

And she, with her divine blood, had chosen him to rule at her side and their children would be children of the immortals
.

As Cleopatra drew near, he lifted her hand as carefully as the most precious treasure, looking at her dusky face with new eyes. Their gaze met and he found a vulnerability there he had never seen before. There was no veil, no mystery hidden in the jade depths, only her naked trust and love now that he understood.

The look went straight to his heart and he squeezed her hand with all his warmth and reassurance. A contented glow spread over her face and she turned to respond to something Charmion said and drifted back to her companions.

He would protect Cleopatra and her land, no matter what he must do. If not for his love of her, for that beautiful Light. That heavenly Song. The Song and the Light lived in Cleopatra, in the spark of her eyes and the lilt of her voice. He understood now.

***

As Apollodorus stepped aside to allow Cleopatra and Antony into their pavilion, he caught her eye.
Does he know everything?

Almost imperceptibly she shook her head.
Not everything, but enough.

The old priest nodded and the curtain gracefully fell behind Cleopatra as she and Antony entered the shade of the royal tent.

***

Their stay at Giza lasted for many days. Cleopatra rarely had the opportunity to visit this part of her kingdom and she had business to attend to in the villages and temples in the surrounding area. But for those who remained in the shadow of the Gods’ eternal house, the Pyramid's powerful influence radiated through the still air. The desert brought out the inner life of each member of Cleopatra’s party and it was a time of reflection and purification for them all.

Except one.

As the dying moon hovered in the desert sky, Iris lay quietly in her tent, her heart thudding in the warm darkness, pale blue eyes wide, staring like a doll’s into space while her mind whirled with forbidden thoughts. What she contemplated was ungrateful, disloyal, treasonous….

She sat up slowly, careful not to wake Charmion, who lay asleep on the carpet next to her. She fumbled in the dim light for the chest which held her most precious belongings. Her hands closed around a small wooden box. Turning her back on Charmion, she hunched over the chest, and stealthy as any tomb robber, opened the lid. She pulled out a few trinkets and placed them quietly on the carpet next to her. Then moving by touch in the darkness, her fingers found the grooves on the bottom of the chest and the false bottom slid open revealing a secret chamber.

Her pulse quickened as she removed the ragged, old shred of papyrus and held it in her hands. Iris had paid dearly for this scroll of dark magic but she had never truly believed she would use it––until tonight.

She closed the chest and slipped the fragile scroll safely into her tunic.

Her stomach churned.

She had been the devoted servant of the queen for over four years. She loved the warm sun soaked lands of Egypt and the luxury of the court life she enjoyed as a member of Cleopatra’s entourage. A world so different from the freezing outpost where she had been born, far to the north where men with rude instruments and thick beards fought one another in heartbreaking battles that never seemed to end. In the winter, even at her father’s court, she had endured famine, and as a female child, she was treated not much better than the bitch war hound who lapped up scraps of meat from the chief’s table. The dirt, and the stench and the bone-chilling cold still haunted her.

Cleopatra had rescued her from that world.

It was in Rome Iris had her first glimpse of the infamous Egyptian Queen. Hoping to gain Caesar’s support in his battle against a neighboring tribe, her father brought Iris with him as a gift to Caesar’s villa. He ordered her to pick up her lyre and sing for Caesar and Cleopatra.

Apparently pleased by her performance, Caesar’s beautiful mistress asked to take Iris and have her trained in Alexandria, which even Iris knew boasted the best musical academies in the world. Caesar, who appeared all too happy to grant such a small request, allowed Cleopatra to bring Iris to Egypt and her life had changed forever.

As the months rolled on and Iris realized that this undreamed of new world of peace and safety was real, she begged the priestess at the temple where she studied to arrange a meeting with her patroness to thank her.

No one had ever been kind to Iris before, let alone hinted that she was in any way special. With tears of gratitude welling in her star-bright eyes, Iris had kissed the hem of Cleopatra’s robe, barely able to summon the courage to whisper her request that she be allowed the privilege of serving her.

Cleopatra placed a gentle hand under Iris’s chin, turning her face up to look into her unfathomable jade eyes. She felt the Queen peering into her heart and somehow she knew Cleopatra understood she was sincere in her desire to repay her debt.

Cleopatra patted Iris’s cheek, claiming to be charmed with her pale loveliness. She would allow Iris to serve as one of her personal attendants, on the provision that she continue her musical studies.

Iris blossomed under Cleopatra’s guidance and did everything in her power to please her new Queen, working hard to learn the gentle manners of the court until her tough exterior softened like her lily petal skin and angelic voice. Not many months had passed, when to her amazement, she realized she had become one of the Queen’s favorites, second only to Charmion.

As Cleopatra’s attendant, she was expected to become a priestess of Isis. The discipline required to rise at dawn to chant Her praise, or study the meaning of hieroglyphics was sometimes tiresome, but then again, she also studied magic, and that, she quickly discovered, was even more fascinating than music.

It was her intense interest in magic which most often called down the censure of Apollodorus upon her. With her strong will and powerful desires, she was constantly trying to refine her abilities and gain mastery over the art of enchantment, but Apollodorus had warned her many times that magic was not for the pursuit of idle wishes and he refused to teach her much that she burned to know.

But Iris had always been impatient, and being a clever girl, she found other teachers who dwelt in the shadows of Alexandria. Sorcerers who, for a few drachmas, were willing to show her things Apollodorus did not sanction. Iris also discovered she had a gift that could not be taught: the intuitive understanding of how to bend the ethers to your will, to call up the powers and create enchantments from thin air.

When they reached Giza, something new opened up in her. She had been privy to wondrous magic and witnessed many great Mysteries in her time in Egypt, but here in the land of the Pyramids, she sensed a power to surpass anything she had experienced before. She ached for some expression of the emotion she felt, but there was no one she could turn to, because her secret longing was not only spiritual, but of the heart as well.

Since the dashing Lord Antony had arrived in Cleopatra's court she had been wracked with this longing. In her seventeen years, no man had ever appeared more handsome, more gallant. He led the Roman legions to great victories and yet still had the refined manners and charm of the most civilized courtier. The twinkle in his eye and his merry jokes made her blush when she was near him, and it was all she could do not to run away when he said a kind word to her or complimented her musical performances at court.

Thank the Gods the priests in the temple of Isis had taught Iris enough self-control to maintain outer calm and hide her infatuation, even when her pulse raced just to be near Antony, or she heard his laughter floating out of the Queen's chamber late in the evening while the rest of Lochias slept.

Iris lived with constant fear since this unfortunate passion took hold of her. What if her feelings were discovered? She would be sent back to her family and forced to endure the life of barbarians. She would be married off to some brutish lord to be used as his whore and his slave. It was unbearable to think of. And she would be parted from her Queen––her mother in all but blood. But tonight the restless desert spirits seemed to reach into her heart and unlock the doors she had bolted so tightly shut. They whispered of love and fulfillment that she hardly dared dream of.

Iris sat with the forbidden scroll tucked against her skin, the rays of the bright moon emanating through the tent’s ceiling, calling to her of the ecstasies of passion. She could feel her young body respond, opening like a moonflower, ripened like the juicy plum Antony devoured with his wine in the torchlight this evening as she plucked daintily on her lyre.

If only once she could have Antony’s arms safe around her, feel his strength piercing the barrier of her virginity, perhaps she would be rid of this all-consuming fever.

Cleopatra and Apollodorus had left the camp to journey into the Valley of the Kings to perform some Mysteries so secret even she had no knowledge of what they were. Even Antony had not been permitted to accompany Cleopatra on her pilgrimage. If ever Iris were to find him alone, and have her chance with him, it was tonight.

Iris rose and tiptoed out of the tent into the light of the waning moon which hung like a sickle crowning the smallest Pyramid. She looked up at the temples rising into the star-filled sky. Would the Gods destroy her for what she was about to do?

With the recklessness of youth she didn’t care. The young sap of dawning womanhood flooded her and nothing but the passion of Antony's love would sate it.

She stole across the cool sand to the Sphinx standing guard over the monuments of the pharaohs. There, in-between two great stone paws, a small door lead down to an underground temple. Hieroglyphics were etched into the door. She ran her fingers over the oiled wood where the story of two divine sisters, Isis and Nephthys, came to life beneath her touch. They were much alike, these twin Goddesses. But one was given power to rule all things of light and the other to hover in the shadows of darker mysteries and hidden desires.

It was clear from the symbol of a crow presiding over the top of the carvings, its wings fanned out over a row of skull and bone etchings, that this temple was dedicated to the Dark One.

She turned her eyes up to the hieroglyphics above the door:
Descend with Nephthys, sink into darkness with the night
.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Iris pushed the ancient door open and carefully started down the stairs towards the chamber below.

As Iris reached the bottom of the stairs, a dank chill crept through her bones. She stood for a moment in the subterranean quiet of the temple. After the sparkling fresh desert night, the air in the small chamber was stagnant. Yet she sensed a presence watching her in the darkness. She swung around, searching the dim shrine to discover who could be there.

Iris caught her breath and jumped back a pace. At the far end of the temple a dark outline, blacker than the shadows around it, loomed. Whatever it was watched her. She could feel it.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded muffled, suppressed by the dead air.

She was about to turn and run, when the light shifted and the rays of the dying moon slanting through the shafts of the temple’s ceiling illuminated the figure of the Dark One, her body hewn of the blackest marble, a bowl of clear silver water crowning her head. She waited in the shadowy gloom at the back of the temple for those who dared approach her.

Iris let out a nervous laugh, pushing back a few loose strands of hair, gathering herself together. It was only a statue. At least, that’s all it was right now.

Clutching the spell to her, Iris prostrated herself before the Dark Sister, her pale forehead smudged with the dirt from the floor. Remaining on her knees in a humble posture, she lifted her eyes to the Goddess.

“Lady Nephthys, who reveals that which is hidden by moonlight, hear my prayer,” she whispered in a trembling voice. “As you once took on the shape and form of your bright sister, Isis, let me now take the form of my Queen, Cleopatra. Let my face be hers. Let my voice be hers. Let my body match the one Antony takes in his passion. Let my eyes hold the same divine light that sparks in her own for one night. In return, I will dedicate myself to your worship and perform your rites faithfully. For this night alone, let me walk in the form of Antony’s beloved!”

Unrolling the scroll with shaking fingers, she began slowly to chant the words written there. She did not understand their exact meaning, but she knew they held the power to invoke the Dark One. Squeezing her eyes shut, with all her will she repeated the chant over and over, until her jaw grew sore and her mouth was dry, and still she kept chanting into the dark temple, willing it to be, willing it to be, willing it to be….