Keeper of the Flame (6 page)

Pothinus recovered and stepped in front of her brother. “It is a pleasure to see you again, Cleopatra. Perhaps we can finally end the strife.”

She came from behind Caesar, letting her hand glide along his muscular shoulders. “Perhaps.” She moved slowly away from the Roman, and circled Pothinus. He straightened and did not meet her eyes, but she could sense the usual discomfiture she caused him. She gave her brother a cold-eyed stare, then returned to Caesar’s side.

Pothinus looked down his thin nose at her. “It seems you are—acquainted—with the Roman general already.”

Caesar stood. “Cleopatra came to see me last night.” He lifted a few of her braids and let them slide through his fingers. “I found we had much to speak of, and much in common.”

Her brother shook a finger at Caesar, and his himation slipped from his shoulder. “Caesar, remember who it was that removed your great enemy Pompey.”

Cleopatra hid her amusement at her brother’s foolishness. Pothinus tried to smooth over the boy idiot’s comment, but Caesar’s face had already gone dark. “You treat a great man like a criminal and you expect me to reward you?”

Pothinus jerked the boy’s himation straight and turned to Cleopatra, scowling. It was clear he had read the situation accurately, even if the brat was a fool. “Caesar,” he began with a bow to the Roman, “you have come to collect on a debt, and the king has every desire to repay it. Do not let others convince you—”

“I do not need anyone to make my decisions for me, Pothinus.” Caesar looked to her, then to her brother. “This civil war must end. It divides the country and wastes resources that could be used to produce revenue.”

Cleopatra watched him carefully. Where was he going? Would he bring his legion to bear upon Ptolemy’s troops, and reestablish her as the rightful ruler of Egypt, as she desired?

He looked to her with that disturbingly possessive light in his eye. “You must rule together, as your father wished. It is the only way to unite the country.”

“No!” Ptolemy stomped a heavy foot. His full face reddened. “I will be king alone! Tell him, Pothinus! Tell him I want to be king!”

Pothinus licked his lips and eyed Cleopatra. She slid closer to Caesar and ran a light hand up his arm. “He is a boy, Caesar. Not ready to rule. And his advisors—”

Caesar held up a hand. “You have my decision. Rome’s presence in your city has been one of peace to this point.” He turned
to Cleopatra and she felt a chill between them. “If you wish this peace to continue, you will end this rift, reunite your country, and repay the ten million denarii you owe Rome.”

“That’s not fair!” Ptolemy whined. “Egypt doesn’t need a queen! One Pharaoh, that’s all this land has ever needed!”

Pothinus wrapped long fingers around the boy’s arm, and with the other hand he smoothed back his graying hair. “Come, my king. We have much to discuss.” He dragged the boy from the room, and Cleopatra half-expected her brother to fly at her with a kick in the shins as he used to do when they were younger.

When the door clanked shut behind them, she turned to Caesar, her questions playing across her face.

Amusement danced in his dark eyes. “You are a powerful and brilliant woman, Cleopatra. You have more than proven yourself to me since you rolled out of that carpet at my feet last night. But you cannot rule Egypt alone. The people will not have it, and without the people, you have nothing.”

She frowned and studied a tapestry that hung on the wall. The truth galled her, but it was the truth nonetheless. She must have a co-regent, even in name only, if she wanted to be queen.

She lifted her eyes to Caesar, willed them to turn soft and flattering. “I can see why every land you touch falls into your hands, General. But remember that Ptolemy and his advisors hold no affection for the Romans.”

In two steps he closed the gap between them and swept her into his arms. “And you, Queen of Egypt? Do you hold affection for the Romans?”

She gave him her fullest smile. “One Roman, especially.”

He met her lips with his own, but for only a moment. The
peace of the chamber broke apart when a scream went up from outside the palace window.

Cleopatra ran from Caesar’s side and leaned out the window to search the palace grounds below.

“What is it?”

“Ptolemy. He is running from the palace, crying like he’s skinned his knee.”

Caesar joined her and leaned through the open window.

Below them, Ptolemy lumbered across the courtyard, keening loudly. He passed the lotus-flower pool, ran under the squared-off stone entryway to the palace grounds where two sphinx sat guard, and into the street beyond. Cleopatra saw Pothinus amble toward the street, watching Ptolemy, his fingers intertwined at his waist.

“My sister has given Egypt to the Romans!” Ptolemy screamed to those who walked past. “This very moment she shares his bedchamber, and they plot against the people of Alexandria!” A crowd was forming, and Ptolemy pointed a fat finger toward the window where she and Caesar watched. She drew back, letting the window coverings conceal her.

Surely the people would recognize petty jealousy.

But still, her palms felt slick. She gripped the fabric of her chitôn.

Caesar turned to her, eyes narrowed. “I have heard about the Alexandrians. They have a tendency to”—he seemed to grope for an inoffensive term—“assert their opinions most forcefully, do they not?”

She tried to smile. “Alexandria is filled with Greeks who live at the crossroads of foreign cultures. Their philosophy and their experience of the world gives them rightful cause to
be opinionated. Their freedom gives them confidence to voice those thoughts.”

The crowd outside the palace was growing vocal. Caesar wrapped a hand around her upper arm and drew her from the window. She pulled from his grip. “They will remember that I am still Queen of Egypt.”

“Let us hope so.” Caesar went to the door, leaned out, and barked a command to the legionary that stood guard. When he returned, his jaw was set in a hard line.

Now this is Caesar the Conqueror.
The nervous twitch in her stomach settled a bit.

He crossed to the desk, his attention there, but his words were for her. “I hope that I have not made a mistake in backing you, Cleopatra.”

She rubbed at the back of her neck. “My brother and his leeches will destroy Egypt. Better to rid the land of them now, no matter how difficult.” She hardened her voice and played the moment well. “It is the only way to give Rome what she deserves.”

Caesar glanced up at her, a shrewd look of knowing on his features. But his only comment was, “Hmmm.”

Cleopatra spent most of the morning at the window, halfhidden by the gold silks, her eye on her city. Her father’s chamber window was only three stories above the gardens, but even from here, she could see southward across the uniform grid of streets, each cell having its front on the street, with the privacy of gardens and fountains within.

From her perch she could see the dazzling white marble colonnades of the Street of the Soma, where Alexander’s body lay along with other Ptolemaic kings. The street led southward, from the Gate of the Moon at the Great Harbor behind her to the Gate
of the Sun at the south of the city. And beyond that, the flashing waters of Lake Mareotis winked in the sunlight, where shiploads of grain sailed northward to the Great Harbor, and returned with their hulls full of foreign treasures.

But it was not Lake Mareotis, or even the beauty of the city, that captured her attention today. It was the growing horde of Alexandrians that formed along the Canopic Way, the east-west thoroughfare that was the heart of the city, where merchants and philosophers both plied their wares and their ideas. It was here that Ptolemy’s screams of betrayal were taken up and passed along, until the street was clogged with people, and the daily sounds of the market replaced with the noisy shouts of protestors.

“My soldiers are trained to quell unrest,” Caesar said when the sun grew high and her skin damp. “You have nothing to fear.”

She did not turn. “I am never afraid. I am only thinking on how best to sway the people. With proper rhetoric, any situation, no matter how uncivil, can be turned on its head.”

He chuckled. “Spoken like a true Greek.”

At that, she did turn and let her anger find its way into her voice. “But I am Egyptian as well. Do not forget that, Gaius Julius Caesar. I am a daughter of Isis.”

He bowed his head. “A philosopher for the Greeks, a goddess for the Egyptians.”

“And an ally for Rome.”

His eyes found hers, and again, an awareness passed between them. In less than a day, she had found that they understood each other perfectly.

A mighty pounding at the door startled them both, and a soldier pushed into the room. “General! The mob has organized.”

Caesar reached for his leather and mail body armor and slid it over his head. “How long?”

“Minutes.”

“The First Cohort?”

“In place, and given instructions.”

Cleopatra hurried to Caesar’s side, but stepped back again when he brandished his dagger. “What is happening?”

He sheathed the dagger. “It begins. Your brother’s eunuch has convinced the mob to storm the palace.”

She swallowed and looked to the window. “They are coming for me?”

Caesar tightened the straps at his ankles. “For you. For me. For anyone whom Pothinus has accused.” He straightened. “Stay here. My legion will have the situation under control within minutes.”

She snorted. “Stay here? Who do you think I am?”

Caesar gave her a look—from the black wig with the rearing cobra affixed to her head, to the jeweled sandals beneath her chitôn. The question hung in the air between them, the question of who held control. With a slight smile, he turned his back to her and stalked from the chamber.

Cleopatra inclined her ear to the window once more, listened to the rising chant of her city, and then followed the Roman.

It begins.

Six

S
ophia awoke in her own bed, unsure of how she came to be there after falling asleep at her letter last night.

She burrowed deeper into the plush bedcoverings, unwilling to face the day. Cleopatra’s visit had left her restless and discontent with her life.
Where are you this morning, Cleo?

But the plight of the scholars finally drove her from her bed. She rinsed her face with water from an engraved bronze basin beside her bed and paused to breathe in the scent of a jar of cut roses. When she had dressed, she called Ares. He appeared in moments.

The letter was there, rolled and sealed, upon her desk. Ready to deliver to Pothinus, to beg the aid of Ptolemy XIII in rescuing the scholars from Roman interference.

“Here”—she said, pressing the sealed papyrus scroll into his hand—“deliver it to Pothinus. No one else.”

He frowned and tapped the scroll against his bottom lip. “And where do you suppose I will find him?”

Sophia clenched a fist at her side. “Do you expect me to take care of all your other tasks, too? He will be about the palace somewhere. Find him!”

Ares nodded. “I will try.”

He slipped from the room, but she called after him. “No one but Pothinus! Do not come back without delivering it!” She slammed the door and turned to the room. She should pray for Pothinus to help her.

She crossed to her wall niche shrine to Isis, bent the knee, and forced her eyes closed before the marble alcove that housed a
small statue of the goddess. Isis loomed over her, with her headdress of cow’s horns and solar disc.

Isis, speed Ares to Pothinus.

She lifted the small terra-cotta lamp she kept burning in the niche and touched the tip of a stick of incense to the wick that floated in olive oil. The incense smoked and caught, then burned off to a powdery yellow. The spicy scent overwhelmed the niche, and she pulled away.

Aloud she intoned a familiar prayer, then added her own. “Isis, protect the best minds of Alexandria, the future of Egypt, the future of the world.”

Her voice came back to her from the rounded recess, hollow and dead, reminding her of the echo when one spoke in the empty chambers of the lighthouse’s Base.

Is it only an illusion of emptiness? Does the goddess hear my prayer?
Sosigenes was always speaking to her of his One God. She tried to push away the doubts he had planted.

The incense flickered and extinguished. She held the tiny piece to the flame again, too close. The flame licked her finger, and she jerked away. The incense fell to her tunic and left a scorched hole. She licked her finger, then took a small alabaster jar from the wall and poured a tiny drop of wine over her burned fingertip.

A burn is a small sacrifice if it will please the goddess.
And yet, the action felt as empty as her voice.

A swoosh behind her startled her from her cramped position. “Ares! Must I whip you to secure your obedience?”

He was out of breath. “I have left to deliver your message and been turned back, mistress.”

She stood, tightening her fingers into her tunic. “The whole city has fallen?”

Ares held out her message, still panting. “Not fallen, no. But there is much commotion, and the Roman soldiers are barring entrance into the city from our island.”

“A riot?”

He swallowed. “They are saying it is because of Cleopatra.”

She crossed the room and gripped his arm, ignoring the scroll. “Speak! What has happened to her?”

“She is in the palace. She has secured the Roman’s support.”

Sophia breathed and released Ares.

“Ptolemy is screaming of betrayal, and the city is forming a mob to attack the palace and rid us of the Romans.”

Sophia turned away. “Fools. All of them. They would put a child on the throne, with those who care only for their own wealth sitting behind him. When they could have a true queen.”

“What shall I do with the message, Abbas?”

She snatched it from him. “Perhaps it shall not be necessary. Cleopatra’s influence may be all the help we need. We shall wait.”

Ares left her. She returned to her desk, to yesterday’s labor charts shoved aside so long ago, and tried to concentrate. But the charts were to be interrupted again.