Kleopatra (23 page)

The princess screamed Mohama’s name as if the invocation would rouse the girl. She put her face into the chest of the Kinsman
and prayed, harder than she had ever prayed before. Harder and with more desperation.

Who has commanded this evil, O Holy Mother? Only you can tell me. I offer you everything I have. I offer my life to your will.
Only tell me who it is who wishes me dead so that I may stay alive to serve you. I am a small, motherless girl, and my father
is only sometimes wise and sometimes foolish. I have no companion now to watch over me. Enlighten me. Enlighten me.

The goddess did not reply. Kleopatra was alone, crying into the tunic of a Kinsman as he carefully carried her down the stairs
and into the dank stateroom below. She had believed in the goddess, believed in her own ability to summon her, but now the
goddess had deserted her. Perhaps it was her Fate to have died, and the goddess was angry that Mohama had taken her place
in the underworld. She cried harder still, praying again, bargaining and reasoning with the deity.
Oh surely Lord Hades is pleased with such a beautiful one as Mohama? Surely she is a more fitting companion to him than I,
a mere child? Mohama is more beautiful than Persephone herself.

Kleopatra turned her face away from her Kinsman, relieved not to be breathing his musky scent. She inhaled deeply, taking
in an effluvium as familiar as it was unexpected. Out of nowhere, from the salty air of her empty cabin, her nose was filled
with the unmistakable scent of lotus oil.

Thea Thea Thea. The name pounded like a drumbeat in Kleopatra’s head. The goddess had not abandoned her, but had sent her
an irrefutable sign: Someone in Alexandria had sent an emissary to poison the young royal who would one day grow up and oust
Thea and her offspring from the throne. Who could it be but Thea? And yet, Thea had convinced Berenike as of late to wear
the scent, too. So fitting. As far as Kleopatra was concerned, the two had always had the same smell. And now it appeared
that they were in collusion. It was more than likely; it had seemed so to Kleopatra for as long as she could remember.

She had always known that they hated her and would hurt her, though she had not known how, and she had not known who would
be sacrificed in the process. I will see the two of them dead, she told herself, and I will whisper the name Mohama in their
ears as they die.

What could he have done when the queen approached him? At first Meleager believed she had foiled his carefully laid plans,
but soon he saw the wisdom in going along with her scheme. Another gift from the goddess, another significant stone in the
structure of that intricate architecture he had designed to make Berenike queen. Once again Fate had intervened, showing him
the supreme wisdom of the gods, master conspirators divinely gifted for plotting the destiny of the world. Luckily he had
always been a religious man.

“I no longer see any use for the king,” Thea had said one morning over breakfast. “Do you?”

Meleager did not believe what he was hearing.

“He is gone, is he not? And the kingdom functions as well as when he was here. Better even.” The glazed look of victory on
Thea’s face chilled Meleager. “He is not missed by his people, nor by the queen, nor by her advisers. Not even by his children.
The only one who could possibly have missed him accompanied him on his treasonous mission to Rome.”

“Your Majesty, you surprise me,” said Meleager, swallowing his bread. It sat like a stone in his throat. “Pardon my silence,
but this is hardly the conversation I anticipated.”

“The king is off once again selling his people to the Roman oppressors. I foresaw this, and I have been building support,”
said Thea, a wide but close-lipped smile making wrinkles on her smooth cheeks.

“Among which parties, if I may ask?” inquired Meleager, trying to speak slowly and calmly while his mind absorbed the new
information.

“The Greek philosopher who has been so loyal to the king has become … how shall I say it?” she said coyly, twisting the lone
stray lock of her hair and averting her eyes from the eunuch’s skeptical stare. “My ally. In intimate conversation, he admitted
to me that he had always admired my position on the Roman question, and had always doubted the king’s solicitousness to those
barbarians.”

“Demetrius?” The eunuch could hardly believe what he heard.

“He taught in Rome. He knows of their barbarous ways firsthand. In dreams, the god showed Demetrius that the king was not
fit to rule, but that I possessed the qualities necessary to unite the great and diverse people of Egypt under Greek authority
and to repel the advances of the Romans if necessary. Though the king would never believe it, the god favors women.”

The eunuch knew that it was not nocturnal visions, but nocturnal visits from the queen that had changed the philosopher’s
allegiance. “How interesting,” he said, stalling for time. How could all of this have happened without his knowledge? Under
his nose? Meleager tried to conceal his surprise and his concern. Demetrius had been marked for extermination along with the
queen. But now, was that wise? Was it timely? How much support had she garnered? How many had fallen to her cloying ways?
His mind raced with the possibilities for using this new turn of events to his advantage. To Berenike’s advantage. Whom else
had the queen seduced? The Vizier? His own General? How many others had been taken in by her lewd charms?

How often had he watched the emaciated Demetrius walk with the king and the small princess in the palace gardens? Why is it
that so many men allowed coital bliss to alter their loyalty? The eunuch went over the events in his mind one more time. Demetrius
and Meleager were the formal representatives of the king. The queen, already believing she had Meleager’s loyalty, had seduced
Demetrius, or so she claimed. Now she must believe that no one stood in her way.

These ideas shot through the eunuch’s mind like random arrows in a badly planned confrontation. Rarely was he caught without
a plan. Rarely did he not anticipate an event and have prepared, at least theoretically, a counterplan. Yet he sat silently
while the queen revealed the extent of her deceit, trying not to give away any hint of his surprise, his horror. Listen. Smile.
Raise the left eyebrow. Feign innocence. It was all so difficult. Stupefaction did not agree with him.

“Your Majesty, I remain your servant,” he finally said. “Now and forever,” he added quickly, trying to disguise his agitation.

He reminded himself that the game was hardly over. There would be a way to twist this turn of events in his favor. He must
summon the patience upon which he had so relied in the past to get him through the difficult years. Time. Meleager had a long-standing
friendship with the element of Time. In his own lifetime, the eunuch had seen events sweep across the landscape with such
force as to wipe out great chunks of time. Cities that took years to erect and develop could be wiped out in a day by the
right man, or by the determined act of a hostile god. What was time, really? In time, he would have his way. In time, Thea
would be brought down, if not by his own hand, then by his own designs.

“Your Majesty, where do we go from here?”

The day after Mohama was murdered, the princess offered her theory to Charmion: Someone loyal to Thea had stolen aboard ship
and acted on Thea’s orders to rid the kingdom of Kleopatra—the sole heir loyal to Auletes.

“Why would Thea wish to see you dead and the king alive?” Charmion asked, holding the girl’s hand as they sat on the small
bed in Kleopatra’s cabin, petting it as if she were still a small child.

“Perhaps the cherries were meant for my father, too,” Kleopatra answered huffily. Charmion annoyed Kleopatra with her doubt.
“Do you not see it, Charmion? Berenike is Thea’s ally, and Arsinoe and the sons are her own. I am the only one who might bring
her harm, not now, but in the future. I will not be a child forever, despite what you think, and despite the way you treat
me. I believe you wish me to remain small because you know that when I am grown, I shall not require your attendance. Then
what will you do?”

Charmion sat slightly more erect, a sign that she was hurt by Kleopatra’s insult. “Have you thought that Mohama might have
been poisoned by one of the many soldiers or servants whom the desert girl tempted but spurned? Men are not as easily toyed
with as she liked to think.”

“Then I shall demand a full investigation. I shall demand that my father interrogate each of his men.”

“I do not think your father would sacrifice a loyal man,” Charmion replied coldly. “He is content to believe that this was
the work of the queen. You would do well to support that theory in his presence.”

“What is your meaning?”

“We do not know the position of Berenike, but she has always been rebellious, and she has always hung on the words of Thea.
The rest are children. At present, you are the only heir whose loyalty the king need not question. Your twelfth birthday approaches.
In not so many years, you will be of age to be named co-regent when your father removes Thea from the throne.”

“You mean that someday I shall be queen?”

“Long ago, the elder ladies made a prediction that I have kept from you. Until this time, you have been too young to understand.”

Kleopatra waited for Charmion to continue, withdrawing her hand and tucking it under the covers.

“There is but one descendant of the great Ptolemy who is destined to rule. She is still a girl, but as you say, she will not
remain so forever.”

The princess absorbed the words. “When did they say this to you? Why was I not told?”

“If it is Destiny, it does not need to be uttered.”

“Why do you keep things from me as if I were a child?” Kleopatra moved away from Charmion, rolling over on her side and pushing
herself upright. Forgetting that she was aboard ship and sleeping on a hard bed, she let herself drop with the full force
of her weight. Her bottom hit the immovable mattress with a force that made her teeth clack together. She tightened all the
muscles in her body to take her mind off the fact that in her indignation she had bitten her tongue.

“You are upset over the death of your companion. You will miss her very much. But perhaps this is the gods’ way of telling
you that it is time for childish games of disguise and intrigue to be put aside. It is time for you to realize who you are
and what your responsibilities will be. You must put Mohama and the adventures you shared with her behind you. That is my
purpose in telling you the prediction of the crones.”

“I will never forget Mohama,” Kleopatra said defiantly. “Not even when I am queen.” Not even when I am queen. She uttered
the words in haste, and then wondered at her daring. Might it be true?

“May the gods preserve her, if the gods are so generous in the afterlife to those of lowly birth. I do not suggest obliterating
the memory. Memories, unlike mortals, do not die.”

“When did the crones make this prediction?”

“At the time of your birth.”

“Does my father know? Does Thea know? Is that why she tried to poison me?”

“The ladies entrusted me with their knowledge because my mother served them. When you were a small child you caused Thea such
trouble that the women were afraid she would do something to you if she knew the destiny the gods had written for you. That
is why they suggested to the king that I enter into your service. But the king does not know what the crones foretold. The
crones do not reveal to men the visions that come to them.”

“But why?” asked Kleopatra

“Because that is their way and that is their tradition. They do not trust men, even kings, with this kind of knowledge. Men
make sport out of tampering with the will of the gods.”

“There is something else, Charmion.” Kleopatra recalled the image of her ancestor, Ptolemy I Savior, sitting stone-faced on
his horse. She told Charmion about the dream. The path in the thicket of the Delta. The lion. The king. Not her father, but
the great man. The youth who had conquered the world. And her ancient grandfather, the young king’s best friend and companion
and general and perhaps half brother. The one whose sharp, aggressive nose she wore on her face. “Ptolemy shot me but I didn’t
die. Before I knew it, I was flying above them.”