Kleopatra (35 page)

”No, no,” said Auletes. “I am quite interested in this testimony. Do go on.”

Gabinius sat down, exasperated, grumbling loudly to his neighbors, who were more interested in hearing Berenike’s version
of the events than his low-pitched indignation.

Berenike, her outstretched arms making a shadowy curtain, told of how she decided to choose here own husband, Archelaus of
Pontus, handsome, fierce, and the illegitimate son of the great tyrant Mithridates. Archelaus came to her with a dowry of
his own, his militia. Still, Gabinius was happy to ally with them, though Pompey, when hearing that Berenike had married the
bastard son of his former enemy, expressed his displeasure. “Did you wonder, Father, why your host in Rome remained inactive
in the face of your pleas? Did you never think that he was waiting to see which of us could supply him with the most blood
money?”

Auletes did not show emotion as Berenike ran through her accusations, but sat placidly, his hands folded in his lap, and his
face attentive but inscrutable. Kleopatra wondered if he was judging the truthfulness of her words, or if he was by now numb
to tales of betrayal and intrigue.

Berenike, voice full of knowledge, taunting her father, explained how her relations with Gabinius finally soured: The Roman
heard that as much as ten thousand talents might be extracted from the desperate Egyptian king for his reinstatement, money
that, if not readily accessible from the treasury, might easily be furnished by Rabirius. “When he realized that Archelaus
and I did not have access to
that
kind of capital, that he could not perform the slow bleed of the leech on us, the friendship, shall we call it, came to an
abrupt end. Then he cut off my negotiations with the Roman senate by trumping up charges that I was conspiring with pirates
in the Mediterranean to form a fleet that would attack Rome.

“A good story,” she said to Gabinius. “I congratulate you on your imagination.”

Turning to her father, she continued, her voice colder now and full of confidence, as if she were not the one on trial but
the prosecutor in a guaranteed victory. “I assure you, Father, if I had had better access to our treasury, you and I would
be in different seats today. As it is, you have the money. Or, rather, you have the
moneylenders
.” Berenike smiled disdainfully at Rabirius, who rebuffed her gaze by raising his bulbous eyes to the ceiling. “That is why
Gabinius ignored the senate’s decree giving Lentulus the commission. He began the westward march across desert and marsh only
because you agreed to produce ten thousand talents. And now, I leave it to you to do just that.”

“This is an outrage! Silence the girl,” yelled Gabinius, jumping out of his seat, words and spit flying from his mouth like
sleet. “She is a treasonous bitch who thinks she can save herself by indicting me. Your Majesty, let us leave this room. Let
us not suffer the insults of a traitor.”

“The blood of my husband is on your hands, Roman,” Berenike fired back. “May the gods see that you have the same unhappy Fate
as Archelaus.”

No authority rose to stop the altercation. Kleopatra could see that the magistrate, his smile shiny like a crescent dagger,
was enjoying the exchange.

“Enough of this,” the king said finally. He stood, facing Berenike, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Your very soul is
stained with your husband’s blood. His and that of many others. Loyalty has never figured into your character. You attached
yourself to your stepmother, a woman you loved all your life, and when she became inconvenient to you, you did away with her.
I will never forgive Thea, and I will never forgive you. I cannot hear you out, Daughter. You speak the words of an enemy.”

“Ah, Father, as if you could recognize a friend,” Berenike said quietly. She looked at Kleopatra, her eyes deadly cold. “Behold,
Sister, a premonition of your Fate. You were always an ambitious child. I am warming the seat of the condemned for you.”

Kleopatra said nothing, but averted her eyes from her sister. “Do not listen to her,” whispered Archimedes. “The condemned
never wish to suffer alone.”

“Are we not ready to pronounce the verdict?” sighed the king.

Berenike threw back her head and began to cackle like a crone, her laugh bouncing off the marble floor and echoing through
the room. Kleopatra made two shells out of her hands to protect her ears from the unholy noise, but she only muffled the sound.
She tucked herself under Archimedes’ shoulder and he held her close.

“The court finds Berenike IV Ptolemy guilty of the murder of Kleopatra VI Tryphaena, of the philosopher Demetrius, and of
the eunuch and Prime Minister Meleager. The court finds Berenike IV Ptolemy guilty of illegally seizing the throne. Therefore
the court finds the accused guilty of three counts of murder, and of treason against the crown, all of which are capital crimes”

Berenike continued to laugh through the reading of the verdict. When the magistrate finished, she wiped her watery eyes and
stared at her father, a look of triumph on her face. Was this courage or madness? wondered Kleopatra. What kind of person
celebrates receiving the grim gift of death for their crimes?

“Does Your Highness wish to have a final word?” asked the magistrate of the king.

Kleopatra wondered if her father might exonerate her sister—not dismiss her crimes, but lessen the sentence to exile. Berenike
was a full-blooded daughter, the firstborn of the king and his beloved, dead Tryphaena. If Tryphaena had lived, none of this
would have happened. Tryphaena, gentle, lamblike, caring only for music and thought. How had she begotten Thea, whose fault
this was entirely? Thea had infected Berenike, Kleopatra thought, infused her dirty ambitions into the child Berenike’s susceptible
mind. Perhaps Kleopatra needed to be grateful to Berenike. Perhaps if she had been the firstborn, Thea would have cast her
poisonous intentions onto her, and she would be sitting in Berenike’s place. She had never thought of that, and she wondered
now if that might be true. Perhaps the gods were good to Kleopatra as Auletes always swore they were to him. Thinking of her
mother, Kleopatra was certain that the king, too, would remember the delicate nature, the lovely face of his long-dead first
wife and palliate the punishment doled out hastily to their daughter.

Auletes took a deep wheezy breath and blew the air out through his lips. “I am still weary from my voyages abroad,” he replied.
To Berenike, who still looked at him defiantly, he said, “I shall see you dead in the morning.” He rose, gathering his white
linen robes about him like a cloud, and floated from the chambers.

Not wishing to spend another moment in the same room with the condemned, Kleopatra took Archimedes’ hand and quickly followed
her father, who waited for her to catch up to his side. She did not look back at Berenike. She did not know if she would ever
see her sister alive again, but she did not want to meet that mad gaze, the gaze that implied that she, Kleopatra, presently
the king’s favored child, was also a candidate for the king’s proscription.

“Father, do you believe the things Berenike said about Gabinius?” she asked, searching her father’s face for remorse over
condemning his own flesh and blood. But she merely saw the face of a tired man. The sacks under the king’s eyes hung low,
his mouth turned downward. “Do you think Gabinius was in an alliance with her at one time?”

“It is not inconceivable, my child. Who among the Romans we have met is a loyal man? Anyway, it hardly matters,” said the
king. “Tomorrow we shall put the past behind us for good.”

Berenike was executed before their eyes. Kleopatra was startled to learn that she was to witness the death of her sister.
She thought the king would spare his children the spectacle, but Auletes announced the news stone-faced, his features so rigid
that Kleopatra knew he was not to be challenged. She had never watched a person be executed, much less her own flesh and blood.
That evening, she listened to Auletes consider the traditional Greek means of putting to death—hemlock, casting the criminal
off a cliff or into a pit, even the brutal cudgeling that was customary in the execution of slaves. After much discussion,
he decided that the first was too merciful, the second, unseemly for a royal, and the third would leave him with a reputation
for cruelty. After all, he wanted to be as fair to the condemned as possible. So that the next morning as the sun crept its
way into the courtyard of the magisterial building, the remaining children—Kleopatra, Arsinoe, and the little boys, five and
three—stood silent in dawn’s roseate glow, waiting for the executioner’s sword to decapitate their sister. “A lesson,” said
Auletes to the lot of them, including Kleopatra, who was not allowed to sit with the Kinsmen, but had to forsake the comfort
of Archimedes’ strong arms and stand next to Charmion. “A lesson and a warning.”

Defiant to the end, Berenike, pink-skinned and lustrous in the morning light, stared directly at her father as if she awaited
the arrival of a good meal or a swift new pony rather than the sword upon her neck. In her long black robes, she looked, to
Kleopatra, like the moon goddess; as if she might rise from the platform of the condemned and drive her white chariot across
the sky, wiping out the sun’s light with her cold blanket of darkness.

When the executioner raised the sleek, gleaming instrument of death, Kleopatra tensed her feet, legs, and stomach muscles
so that she would not lose her balance at the sight. She believed that she must see this thing through, must watch every gruesome
detail of it and survive it, remaining distant, glacial to its horror. Kleopatra told herself over and over that she had never
cared for Berenike—had despised her in youth for her alliance with Thea, detested her even more for her betrayal of Auletes.
That Berenike deserved to die in this horrible way, that the king must punish, must send the message, must smite his enemies
or risk another rebellion. She even told herself that her father was killing Berenike for her sake, so that Berenike would
not harm her in the future. That attending her sister’s execution was, strictly speaking, an act of duty. That she must not
flinch; that she was present in an official capacity.

That this could never happen to her.

Kleopatra could not suppress the sickness in her stomach, the rise of bile into her throat, when she saw Berenike’s eyes pop
wide upon the impact, as if they were trying to free themselves from either the pain, or from death itself. She willed the
putridness back into the pit of her belly and blurred her eyes so that all she saw was an awful gush of red. The little princes,
chubby and bleary-eyed, turned into the skirts of their governess when Berenike’s head toppled forward, but Kleopatra noticed
that Arsinoe, a pretty but distracted girl of ten, did not recoil. Arsinoe had spent her childhood at the feet of Berenike,
listening to her stories, learning her ways. How did the girl numb herself for this event? Kleopatra could almost detect a
tacit smile. The executioner quickly covered Berenike with a black cloth, and Kleopatra lowered her eyes to the ground, remembering
that last grimace on Berenike’s face. Nineteen years old and already having led a rebellion, Berenike IV Ptolemy died smirking
and alone, one husband murdered by her own hand, the other killed in battle, her faithful Bactrian attendants having committed
double suicide in prison.

Auletes hugged Kleopatra, and then embraced his other children one by one, as if to demonstrate that he held no malice toward
them. Kleopatra watched as he took the small boys into the folds of his robes, remembering that as they sailed back to Alexandria,
he had said, “We must not despise the little ones. They’ve committed no crime but to be born to a traitor.” She had nodded
in agreement, looking out to sea, but recalled Arsinoe, as a child of eight, gleefully following Berenike around like a pet.
She thought: Even after this, he is naive about the potential treachery of his remaining children.

The execution, a private affair for family and officials only, was followed by a parade for the king down the Street of the
Soma so that his subjects might welcome him back to his kingdom. Gabinius’s army led the procession, glimmering in the slats
of bronze armor that bound their chests, their tall helmets beacons in the sun, their only vulnerability bare legs, but those
as solid as any stone column. Berenike had faced this legion, Kleopatra thought, had stood at the fort at Pelusium on the
eastern border of Egypt and watched this glistening force of destruction march in her direction, herself and her bridegroom
their primary targets. Perhaps she
was
mad. Most certainly she was mad. Yet, with nothing but the force of her madness, or some internal sense of power, of entitlement,
she had negotiated with the Romans she so hated, and when that negotiation failed, she had raised an Egyptian army and faced
her enemy. Kleopatra heard it said that when the Roman legion marched into Pelusium, they were so impressed with the size
of the opposing army that they threatened to turn around and go back to Syria. Perhaps Gabinius bolstered their courage by
handing out coins at the fortress gates. Berenike was a traitor to her own father, that much was incontestable. But she had
lived and died by her own aberrant convictions.