Kleopatra (18 page)

Mohama did not answer.

“If the Romans annex Egypt, I am going to tell my father to take whatever position they offer. Priest, king, beggar. Mohama,
I do not want my father to die like his brother did. I would rather live in exile in some terrible place.”

Kleopatra started to cry. Mohama said, “There is no need to cry. If we are sent into exile, then you and I will tend flocks
of goats, or roam the fields at night looking for prey. We will live free like desert nomads. It is a good life for a clever
person. So stop your crying. You are with me now and I will never let anything happen to you.”

“We would be barefoot and free and running over soft grassy meadows,” said Kleopatra, wiping her tears on her dress and smiling.

“That is right. Not dodging camel shit and other dirt on these hard streets of this city.”

“Then I could live a very happy life as a shepherd girl,” Kleopatra said. Perhaps even happier than as a perfumed, guarded
princess.

One hundred yards ahead, the militias had lined up in phalanx style, confronting the smaller, though better armed, palace
guard. Demonstrators on foot arrived from all directions. Someone had apparently spread the word to congregate at this hour.
Kleopatra looked for Greek faces but saw none.

“I believe we are in the midst of the native uprising that all the generations of Ptolemies have feared,” she said.

“Then it is a good thing we are dressed like them,” Mohama said. “Between my skill and your tongue, we will get safely out
of here.”

“Mohama, why do you not escape?”

The girl looked suspiciously at Kleopatra.

“Why do you not simply run away? I won’t stop you. The kingdom is in turmoil. My father is too busy saving himself to even
report that you are missing. I would not say a thing. Not until you are long gone.”

“Are you mad, suggesting such a thing?”

“Why should you remain a slave? Go.
Go
, I say. Before I change my mind.”

Mohama ignored her. “I am not sure if we are better off inside the walls of the residence, or if we should take our chances
in the streets where no one knows who you are. Your father will be worried about you, but we cannot go to the king if your
chances of survival are greater where he is not.”

“I am telling you to go. This is your chance at freedom. Just go. It may be days before you are missed.”

Mohama looked about, then turned to the princess. She grabbed both Kleopatra’s arms in her strong hands and faced her. “I
must say something to you. I do not know what will happen to us today. I do not expect you to forgive me, but only to understand.
I am your servant, but I am no longer a slave. I serve the crown.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean to tell you that your father has long been aware of your escapes from the palace. He employs me to keep an eye on
you. For your safety. That is why I must forbid you from doing anything that may cause you harm. That is why I do not run.”

Kleopatra looked into the cool, duplicitous eyes. A deep burning began just below the rib cage. Her companion in sleuthing
and espionage worked double duty for her father. So this is betrayal, She thought.

“I hate you,” she said.

“Listen to me,” Mohama said calmly and without fear, strengthening the chasm between them—bodyguard and charge. “After I was
captured in the desert, I was taken to the Royal Brothel to apprentice as a court prostitute. I learned to speak Greek from
the Madam, who took a special liking to me. She groomed me and trained me for one year in the arts of pleasing both man and
woman. She said that people at court were versatile in their tastes and one must be prepared for anything.”

“You’re a whore?” Kleopatra asked angrily.

Mohama merely shrugged at the sling. “On my first day as a prostitute, a man tried to take me from behind and use me as if
I were a boy. It hurt me so much that I asked him to stop. He would not, so I got free of him. I broke his arm, twisting his
wrist and kicking his forearm with my heel as my brothers had taught me to do. Then, to leave my mark, I bit a chunk of flesh
from his face.”

Kleopatra tried not to show her admiration for Mohama’s ferocity. She squinted to stop herself smiling.

“I was locked in a small room. For three days I lay on the floor with no food. I thought I was going to be left to die, but
the next day, two Royal Macedonian Guards brought me before the Lady Charmion, who interviewed me about my skills in weaponry
and fighting, and then took me to the king.”

“Why? Why would my father call for you? You are lying to me and I know it.”

“It seems that the man I injured was one of your father’s Kinsmen.”

“And my father did not have you killed?”

“Your father had been looking for a companion for you. He told me that he had a daughter whose ebullient spirit he did not
wish to kill, nor did he wish to see harm come to her. He commanded me to make your trust me, and to accompany you on your
forays into the city.”

Kleopatra felt the hot sting of humiliation. She had gotten away with nothing, fooled no one. Not Charmion, who every day
feigned disapproval for her adventuring spirit, but who allowed her to sneak past her watchful eye. Not her father, who pretended
to be the fool with her, just as he feigned that role for others. She was neither spy nor Kinsman, but a child, pampered and
humored by the grownups. Every time she thought she had escaped their hawklike watch over her, every time she thought she
was free, she was observed. Like a silly girl, she played the spy while her father, through real spies, kept knowing eyes
upon her.

She looked at her companion as if for the first time. Here was a girl who had done the things she had seen Berenike do with
the Bactrian girls. Who had done the things her father did with Thea, with his mistresses. Mohama was no longer her ally,
but one of them.

“Traitor,” was all she could say.

“I know that you will be angry with me,” said Mohama in an even voice. She had dropped the veneer of kinship and assumed the
voice of authority, the voice Charmion used when she had a purpose, the kind of voice a guardian would use on her charge.
“There is no time now for anger or for questioning. We are in danger. Every day when we leave the palace, two bodyguards secretly
follow us. Today, they are nowhere in sight.”

“This is a plot against my father and we are being sacrificed,” said Kleopatra.

“Perhaps. I only know that we have been left alone and that we must get safely back into the palace. Yet I do not know if
that is the right thing to do since the palace is under attack.”

The princess stared at the orange oleander flowers that shrouded the sheltering bushes, knowing them to contain a powerful
poison, and wondering if she had the courage to stuff one into her mouth. Everyone had betrayed her. No one needed her. She
was just a burdensome child—a nonessential, a thing to be tended to while the real business of the kingdom was conducted by
others.

At the palace wall, the mob gained ground on the Royal Macedonian Household Troops, who tried to hold the line of protesters
back with the points of their spears, but were outnumbered.

“Shields!” cried the captain. His men raised their bronze shields against those who threatened to storm the front gates with
their horses. “We have reinforcements coming from the king’s army,” the captain shouted into the crowd. “You’d better go back
to your homes and your families, or many of you will not live to see the sun set.”

“Out of the way, Greek,” said the son of Melcheir to the captain. “It’s your king we want, not you. Bring us the king, the
Roman lover, and we’ll leave you and your men in peace.”

“We are the king’s men, fool,” said the captain. “We will die defending the king.”

Kleopatra and Mohama watched this exchange from their safe spot near the thick oleander bushes. “They mean to enter the palace,”
said the princess. “They are going to take my father and kill him.”

Mohama put her arm around the princess, who out of desperation and fear allowed herself to be embraced.

“Deliver the king,” the son of Melcheir demanded again. The mob echoed his order.

“Not even if you deliver your sister,” the captain scoffed.

The son of Melcheir raised his left hand in a signal. From the middle of the mob, someone shot a flaming arrow over the palace
wall and into the gardens. Then another. Then another. The Royal Macedonian Troops answered with a shower of javelins at the
source of the arrows. The crowd parted. Those who saw what was coming tried to save themselves by ducking aside, allowing
the guard to attack to the middle. Indifferent to the targets of the lethal metal points, they thrust ahead with their spears
until they reached the group in the center who controlled the fire.

The princess saw two members of the elite Greek guard seize the fire-throwers, young men not too long at the razor, throw
them to the ground, and slay them through the chest with their swords. The Egyptians tried to jump the soldiers, but, better
trained than the common demonstrators, they threw the men from their backs and slashed their way through the crowd and back
to their own line.

Inflamed, the protesters held up the bodies of their dead and screamed hysterically, “Death to Auletes! Death to the Bastard!”

Kleopatra saw a group of men put their clubs and spears into the firepot, raising their flaming weapons against the palace.
“Burn him out!”

“I want to go home,” Kleopatra insisted, trying not to let Mohama see the tears swelling in her eyes. “I want my father. If
he dies, I want to die with him.”

“Follow me. Do not let go of my hand,” she ordered in a tone that did not leave room for dispute.

Kleopatra, shoulders cringing with each demand for the surrender of Auletes to the mob, did not look back to see the progress
the dissidents were making against her father’s guard. Mohama led them to the service entrance of the royal compound on the
east side, hoping to find an area safe from the throng, but the palace was entirely surrounded from the east end to the west.
Only the side facing the sea was clear—and perhaps it, too, was threatened. The huge gates were open and Kleopatra could see
that the masses had infiltrated and overthrown the food-cars delivering supplies to the king’s kitchen. The merchants had
abandoned their carts and their goods. Lettuces, vegetables, heaps of herbs, grains, and fruits littered the grounds around
the loading dock.

Only a small guard stood between the protesters and the king’s kitchens, and they were outnumbered. They looked very frightened,
eyes shifting past the mob as if hoping for help to arrive. The protesters yelled the same demands. “We want the king.’ Bring
us the bastard Auletes!”

“There is no way in,” Mohama said.

“Yes there is,” said Kleopatra, surprising herself with the returned confidence in her voice. “We must pretend to be one of
the rabble. We’ll infiltrate their ranks to get past them. When we reach the front of the protesters, we’ll tell the guards
who we are and they will let us in. That Demonsthenes, he knows you. He is sweet on you. He will let us back in.”

“No. It is too dangerous. Let us go to the Park of Pan and wait until the trouble is over.”

“My duty is with my father. I am going in.”

Kleopatra felt the heat from the men’s bodies and smelled their cheap hair oil as she squeezed by them, eyes on the ground
seeking a path through the fray. Finding herself in the front lines of the mob, she hoisted herself upon the loading platform
where the guards stood. One of them grabbed her by the shoulders. “Get out of here, you little vermin,” he said.

“Demonsthenes,” she said. “I am the princess Kleopatra.”

“And I am Alexander the Great,” he said. He picked her up to throw her back to the crowd.

“Demonsthenes!” Mohama screamed his name. He looked at her. “Please do not hurt her.” Kleopatra hoped that Mohama would not
reveal her identity. The throng would smash her into shards and send the pieces to Auletes.

“I am the cousin of Mohama,” she said to Demonsthenes. “I am sorry I lied. I am a polisher of silver in the king’s kitchen.
Please do not hurt me.”

Demonsthenes threw Kleopatra aside, letting her hit the hard planks of the dock. He leaned over to help Mohama onto the platform,
but an Egyptian protester caught her from behind, pulling her back into the crowd.

“Look what we’ve got here,” said another as the man held Mohama. “The king’s property. One of the king’s cooks. Or maybe one
of his young harlots. Let’s show the king what we think of his whore!”

Demonsthenes rushed to the edge of the platform and tried to intimidate the protesters with his sword. He squatted down to
jump into the crowd to help Mohama, but another guard yanked him back by his clothing. “She’s not worth it. We need you. Let
her go to her fate.”

“No,” he said, trying to escape the grip of his fellow soldier.

The Egyptian had Mohama’s neck locked inside his arms. Kleopatra looked into her friend’s terrified eyes, paralyzed to help
her. She had never seen Mohama exhibit fear, but the desert girl who had sacrificed herself to save her brothers now looked
back at her companion with the resignation of a deer caught in the hunters’ nets. Kleopatra stood up, beating the second guard
in the back with her fist. “Help her, I command you,” she said.

He knocked her back to the ground. “Shut up, little whore. I’m not losing my best man to save the hide of a common harlot.”

Mohama pulled at the arms that gripped around her throat, cutting off her breath. She could not budge the man’s tight hold
on her. He had lifted her onto her tiptoes. The harder Mohama struggled, the farther he lifted her, until her feet were practically
dangling off the ground.

“Help her,” Kleopatra yelled again. “Help her or I will have my father kill you.”

But the guards were engaged in staving off the other demonstrators who took advantage of the moment by trying to leap onto
the platform.

Kleopatra cowered against the wall, pushing her back against the cold granite slab. Mohama stared straight ahead, her face
red and strained, her mouth in the grimace of a corpse that had been tortured, and her eyes bulging. Her body seemed completely
frozen, as if she was using every bit of remaining strength just to stay alive.