Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght (5 page)

Cleopatra opened her mouth to cry out––to order him from the room. But as her lips parted, he pulled her into his arms, his leather breastplate solid against her soft flesh, which was only thinly veiled by the finest linen. For a moment she met those blazing dark blue eyes, now drunk with desire instead of wine, before his lips claimed hers, thoroughly––ruthlessly.

The passion in his kiss sent flames licking through her, heat rising from her core up through her flushed breasts, making her nipples rise to his touch as he tore the sheer fabric of her robe and cupped her full honey-colored breasts in his impatient grasp, his thumbs rubbing in firm, burning circles around her flesh.

She let out a moan of pleasure, even as she somehow forced her drugged mind to form words. “This is not the way….”

But his kisses were scorching down her neck, sharp as scorpion stings, and her body arched, aching for this divine fire he was sparking in her. As his lips reached the swell of her breast she let her mind go, pushing her body against him, shameless, melting, surrendering utterly to the inflamed Roman general.

He tore fiercely at the remaining fabric of her robe, pulling the wisps of shredded linen from her ripe flesh. She lay back, completely exposed, her almond skin glowing with sweat, her lips parted, her thighs opening under his firm hands to reveal the deep pink flesh of her sex.

She wanted him, this hard Roman soldier to fill her up, flood her with his brutal, urgent need, ached for his thrusts.

“Please…” she whispered, “don’t wait!”

His eyes glowed as he wrapped one arm firmly around her waist and pulled her up against him. The tip of his shaft touched her delicate nerve endings and a lightening storm of sensation flooded her body as he began to enter her.

She sucked in her breath. “Antony!”

***

Cleopatra’s eyes popped open. The room was dark and silent. She was alone in bed, but her body still pulsed and throbbed with a warm glow. Turning onto her back, she tried to shake off the unfulfilled longing that left her irritable and confused.

Why was she dreaming of Antony?

She frowned into the dark room. She had simply been without a man for too long. After all, it might be politically advantageous to forge an alliance with Antony, but she was not some naive maiden to wantonly fall prey to his very common form of, what some would call, charm. He was simply on her mind because they had discussed him earlier. Her dream meant nothing.

And yet, didn’t the women of Egypt enter the temple of Isis to sleep away the night in the hopes the Goddess would send visions to reveal an image of the lover who would soon overtake them?

Cleopatra turned over again, this time onto her belly and closed her eyes. She would think of this no more. She lay still as a rock with her eyes pressed shut, willing herself to sleep. If only the subtle pulse between her legs would quiet, she would be asleep already….

***

Cleopatra was awake when Iris and Charmion arrived to prepare her for morning rituals at the temple.

She handed Charmion a scroll of tightly bound papyrus. “See that this reaches Mark Antony.”

Meeting Charmion’s dark knowing eyes for a moment, she thought she detected a flicker of worry, but Charmion only nodded, and taking the scroll, went to fulfill her task.

With a tired smile, Cleopatra turned her eyes on her young attendant. “Do you disapprove too, Iris?”

Iris brought forward a pair of sandals delicately tooled with emeralds and glinting diamonds and laid them at Cleopatra’s feet. “Surely Isis would never guide you in the wrong direction, Queen of Heaven?”

Cleopatra placed her palm against the girl’s soft pink cheek, feeling a deep fondness for the child she had rescued years before from the warring tribes of the North. “I am glad at least you are on my side.”

“Always, my lady!”

The sincerity in Iris’s pale star-blue eyes helped allay a little of the fear that pricked at Cleopatra as she thought of what she had committed to written words in her letter to Antony.

***

The smell of sweet new cut hay and the oil which Antony rubbed into the flanks of his powerful warhorse, Hercules, soothed him, as did the rhythmic strokes of the brush he used to untangle the silver mane of his old friend. The stables were a refuge for Antony, a place where he could be at ease with the men he handpicked to care for his priceless horses.

In his storm-gray stallion, Antony had recognized a kindred spirit. Hercules and the Roman general had been through many deadly moments together and the horse’s quick reflexes, and courageous heart, had seen them safely through all the clamor and violence of the battlefield. He gave Hercules an affectionate pat as Germanicus marched into the stables.

“What is it?” asked Antony, handing the brush to a stable boy who trailed after the famous general with hero-worship in his eyes.

Germanicus thrust a scroll towards Antony.

Frowning, Antony took the delicate papyrus in his hands and carefully opened it. He stared at the page for a long moment as his powerful jaw tightened.

At last, he lifted his eyes from the paper. “It’s Cleopatra.”

“So the messenger informed me.” Germanicus’s sharp eyes studied Antony’s face.

Antony took up the brush from the stable boy, and nodded for him to go, as he began vigorously working on Hercules’s gleaming hide.

Germanicus just stood there, his lean body straight as a sword, his arms crossed as he waited.

“She has agreed to meet me,” Antony informed his friend, though he kept his eyes glued to his work.

“When and where?”

Antony continued to groom the stallion as if he had not heard the question, but finally, he threw down the brush and turned to glower at Germanicus. “She will come to me at a time and place of her choosing.”

Germanicus’s expression was grim, but Antony gave him a look of such violence, for once he managed to silence the legionary commander.

The golden bowl of the sun poured late afternoon light through the tall pines on the Greek island of Tarsus, where Antony had come to celebrate his initiation into the Mysteries of Dionysus. He reclined on a low couch in the center of the town square, which was decked with garlands of pine boughs and heavy purple grapes in preparation for the rites.

He cast a fine figure today, his strong masculine body almost bare, but for the fawn-skin wrapped around his waist and a wreath of ivy leaves to crown his dark hair in honor of the God. Antony held up his goblet to a pretty maiden, her flaxen locks unbound and falling around her hips, carrying a clay jar overflowing with wine. She replenished his cup and through veiled lashes favored him with a seductive smile before turning away.

Eyes as blue as the Aegean
, he thought, as he watched her go, but then a pair of jade green eyes, brimming with light, shifting shadows and unfathomable depths rose up in his brain, blocking out everything else like ocean tides sweeping clean shallow lines in the sand.

Frustrated, he took a deep drink from his goblet and willed the siren temptress from his mind. He prayed that here in Tarsus he would forget, and if Dionysus truly possessed his spirit tonight, as the priestess had promised, perhaps He would burn away the shame of his disloyalty, leaving Antony as he was before he ever laid eyes on the Egyptian Queen. Pouring a generous libation to the ground, he vowed, for tonight, he would be merry and brood on Caesar and Cleopatra no more.

The last of the sun's golden-red beams faded over the square and the village maidens lit translucent oil and salt lanterns which glowed cheerfully in the twilight. Barefoot women decked in festive robes, grape leaves wound through their loose hair, poured wine for the men, who donned leering Pan masks, transforming themselves into satyrs. The musicians brought forth their reed pipes and flutes, and began to play cheerful tunes, the sweet notes of their music mingling with the laughter and song which filled the square. Antony tapped his hand in time with the musicians, who added lutes, tambourines and tightly bound animal skin drums to the chorus of song that swayed the first of the dancers to their feet.

The Priestess of Dionysus, a handsome woman with gray streaks running through her copper hair, approached Antony, followed by several women dressed as Bacchantes. Bowing, she presented him with the thyrsus wand of Dionysus. He accepted the gift with a gracious smile and opened his mouth to catch the purple wine which the maidens poured down his throat. They petted him and he sucked honey from their soft fingers in remembrance that Dionysus, as a boy, had been raised on this sweet sustenance.

A laughing dark-haired beauty with wild dilated eyes threw herself onto his lap. She squeezed purple-black deadly nightshade berries between her stained fingers, expelling the hallucinogenic poison into the goblet of wine she grasped provocatively between her thighs. Reaching down, she raised the cup and held it to Antony’s lips. He drank deeply before passing the brew to the priestess as a feeling of lightheaded unreality began to take hold of him.

Antony noticed, through his distorted vision, similar goblets were circulating throughout the square to the wild dancing women, whose skirts swirled round and round to the increasing tempo of the panpipes. The scene made him dizzy, but the young Bacchante still bouncing on his lap pulled him from his place of honor and led him into the center of the festival, where he was absorbed into the dance.

As he moved, his head cleared a bit and he noticed he was the only man dancing. All the others stood to the side in their wild Pan masks, clapping and stamping their feet, calling out to the women who spun faster and faster, some reaching for tambourines or drums to beat time with their unrestrained movements.

He was caught in a swirl of bare legs and loose hair, red cheeks and bright inebriated eyes. All around him the Bacchantes took his hands and pulled him this way and that, blowing him kisses as they rushed by, twining their slender arms around his waist to the screams of the crowd and spinning him around, confused and disoriented, but laughing in delight as he held one woman in his arms, only to find her sister's hands over his eyes, until, whipping around, he found another there to playfully kiss his lips and skip out of his grasp.

The crescent moon had made her pale ascent and the stars shone bright in the country sky. Antony could feel the music in his blood, the beating of the drums dictating the throb of his heart, and a strange disorientation struck him as his vision began to blur and then clear again. He heard, as if it were another person, his own voice echoing up into the night with wild exultant cries.

He barely noticed as the women lured him, chased him, somehow willed him to follow them out of the square, through the narrow streets of the village. They passed small houses decked with wreaths of ivy and hung with colored lanterns. They were maddening these women, who more boldly now pressed their bodies up against him, holding him for a moment in a hot kiss, before slipping from his arms to lead him stumbling after them farther down the road.

As they left the town behind, the musicians were gone, and the only music came from the primitive drums and tambourines which the Bacchantes banged wildly in a cacophony of sound ringing out through the solitary hillside. And now they were running, swift as deer, through the moonlit forest. He was with them, his bare feet unfeeling of the stones and sharp twigs on the wood's floor. The women tugged at their clothing, ripping it from their bodies to expose the supple skin of rounded breasts and sleek bellies.

He was after them, tearing the cloth from their backs, hungry for their warm flesh. A half-naked girl, with a tangle of wheat-colored curls, threw her arms around him and pressed her body against his. Her head fell back, her cheeks flushed, soft lips parted. Erotic longing burned in her dark dilated eyes and revealed itself in the way her rosy nipples stiffened, crying out for his touch, his tongue, to be taken.

He slid his hand around the exposed flesh of her thighs and felt warm silky wetness under his fingers. He throbbed to be inside her, devour her whole, but with an impish grin she wriggled out of his embrace and darted into the dark forest.

The other women followed, shamelessly teasing and provoking him, one moment seeming only a breath away, the next farther than he possibly could imagine as his distorted vision played tricks on him. The trees and grass began to glow in the moonlight, and he could smell the deep rich scent of the earth along with the sweat of the Bacchantes as they ran, dancing, skipping and crying out in feral screams of bliss to the nighttime countryside.

Antony stumbled as he tore across a dried creek bed. He looked up and was overwhelmed by the sight of the heavens. The stars pressed down on him, their shimmering light fragmenting and swimming in a strange dance of their own, his brain intoxicated with their celestial light.

The low hum of chanting made Antony tear his eyes from the stars. The women had clasped hands in a circle. He was at its center. Slowly the circle began to move as the chanting accelerated.

The earth was firm and fertile beneath his feet, he felt its strength rising up in him, filling his body with the life force of nature. Everything was spinning, his soul melting away into the darkness of the pines and midnight breeze which carried the taste of the sea to his lips.