Kleopatra (42 page)

How strange it would be two weeks from now to attend the king’s funeral a if he had just died. She remembered her charades
of the past, masquerading, play-acting, but that had been all in fun. Now she must apply skills acquired in childish adventures
to her new position—that is, if she managed to hold on to it.

She was presently the sole ruler of the Two Lands of Egypt, although no one but herself, Hephaestion, and the embalmer knew
it. But both her father’s will and many thousands of years of tradition prevented her from remaining in that position without
a male consort, despite the fact that she had effectively ruled alone for the past year. Never mind that her brother was a
mere child controlled by an ambitious, meddling eunuch, and that her intelligence had kept the country running while her father
whiled away his last days in senseless pleasures. Those were the facts, but would Egypt ever accept a lone female sovereign?

Fate, show me your purpose
, she prayed, closing her eyes, the whisper of sultry air from the fans grazing her face.
Why have you delivered me to this point in life without mother or father, forcing me to govern when my father’s interests
left public affairs, if you were not preparing me for a life that would test my abilities? Surely I am not destined to stand
by while preposterous eunuchs and misguided children ruin the land conquered and made the center of the earth by my ancestors?
Isis, Lady of Wisdom, illuminate the path that Destiny has cut in all the possibilities of my existence.

Her meditation was interrupted not by a reply from the goddess, but by an adviser, a retired Greek governor from the Theban
region who now served as a diplomat. He sat beside her and began to brief her on Egyptian custom and history. He was sent
on the trip by Hephaestion, who had assured her of the man’s impeccable understanding of the darker recesses of Egypt’s arcane
culture, so she listened as carefully as she could to the story of the ancient drama into which she was about to step. She
would have to play her part convincingly, he said, for nothing set off the rebellious spirit of the Egyptians like sacrilege.
Now, how much did she know about the ceremony? She stared blankly at him. He was entirely gray—of hair, of pallor, of brow.
Even his lips had a slate-colored pall. Like the black lips of a dog, she thought and almost laughed.

But out of the grayish mouth came words. Words that she must pay attention to despite the heat that crushed her concentration
like a vise. Did she know that the Egyptians believed that the holy bull, Buchis, was the living soul of the sun god, Amon-Ra?
That Ra was King of the Gods, who lit the dawn every morning when he opened his eyes? Who shut light out of the world every
night when he closed them? He awakens in the east, said the official, whereupon he is dressed by the other gods. He steps
into his golden barge that sails across the sky, warming and lighting the earth. At night, he turns into a ram, passing through
the Twelve Gates of Night, each representing one hour, and arriving in the underworld to visit his son-in-law, Osiris, god
of that subterraneous region. But Ra must cross a snake-infested river to get to the land of the Dead, so the clever god turns
his barge into a great golden snake to deceive the reptiles. That is but one version of Ra’s journey into the darkness to
restore the light, the diplomat said, with big stony eyes. Another is that every night, the god wages war on the great serpent
Apophis, monster of Chaos, so the peaceful order of daylight might once again prevail over the earth.

“I see,” Kleopatra replied, letting the details of the story pass by her, along with the hot, punishing air that hit her face
and neck but offered no relief. “What does this have to do with the procession of Buchis?”

“Buchis represents the Great Father, Ra. Your Majesty will ride with the bull in Ra’s Sacred Vessel.”

“Such a thing exists?”

“Oh yes, it is housed in the temple of Osiris at Karnak, the one so recently restored by your father’s generous donation.”

“Then I shall be welcome here?” she asked hopefully.

“I would not say that, exactly,” he replied, hesitating, raising his thin eyebrows. “They may not welcome you. They never
do. But of course they will not
harm
you.”

He excused himself to retire to his cabin, for he was no longer acclimated to the desert temperatures, he said, but had been
spoiled by the gentler clime of the city by the sea. “Also, Your Majesty,” he added, “I am no longer young.” She watched him
shuffle away, leaving her to her own internal consternation, fueled by Egypt’s inglorious heat.

“Osiris!”

The oarsmen invoked the name of the god as they approached his house of worship at Karnak, and Kleopatra shook herself awake,
adjusting the wig to make certain it was not crooked. Having fallen asleep for a brief moment, she stood now, holding on to
her chair for balance, for she was still lightheaded. The gray adviser rejoined her on deck, and she hoped she would not fall
into his frail arms if she fainted.

On the east bank of the river she saw the temple, larger than any Egyptian monument she had ever seen. Surrounded by high
stone walls, like most of the temples of Egypt, its precinct reached beyond the sphere of worship and into the community.
The tops of its colossal columns and the flat-roofed buildings within the temple complex rose high above the walls. Nearby,
there would be shops where local craftsmen sat at looms making Egyptian cloth, where beer was brewed, where any number of
local goods were produced and sold by the temple priests. Before the main entrance, a long courtyard ended in a glistening
rectangular lake, the sacred waters where, the adviser told her, the priest bathed three times a day to purify himself before
entering Amon’s inner sanctuaries. From the heart of the temple shot four obelisks, granite phalluses penetrating the still
blue sky like a tetrad of insistent lovers. They had been placed in the temple, the diplomat explained, by pharaohs of old,
the tallest being the work of one named Hatshepsut, dead now for probably more than a thousand years.

“The top of the obelisk used to be lined with gold to attract the rays of Ra,” he said. Of course, she thought, imagining
how the sight must have dazzled, shimmering wildly before the mortal eye. Inspiring awe and not a little fear. “Who was this
king Hatshepsut?” she asked.

“The Egyptians say she was a woman who dressed like a man and ruled the kingdom,” he said. “But you know how they exaggerate.
Undoubtedly, Hatshepsut was a man. You can see him on temple walls, naked, as a young boy. He had a beard and phallus. If
he was a woman, he was a strange one indeed. He built a mortuary temple over there.” He pointed to the west bank of the river,
where the hard, dry Theban mountains jutted into the sky. “It is called Djeser-Djeseru, which means Most Holy of Holies. It
was once a magnificent tribute to Hatshepsut’s power, but now it is being reclaimed by the terrible sands of the western desert.”
He waved his arm toward the tall, dry slopes. “That is the great valley where the old pharaohs built their tombs and were
buried with their riches. It is all gone now, the treasures taken by thieves, and the tombs by Set, the Egyptian god of the
desert. To think, Your Majesty, a million people lived here in Thebes in those days. Then it was called Waset. We Greeks named
it Thebes. Now, not even eighty thousand live in and around it.”

Kleopatra turned her attention to the east bank. Despite the splendor of the temple, the shore was cluttered with rubble.
Buildings had crumbled, and new makeshift structures were built right next to the piles of unremoved debris. A civilization
on its way out, Kleopatra thought. Once great, once the pinnacle of power, culture, all that was large and bold in the world,
and most of it now lay in heaps of ruins. Yet the region still had political sway and could cause great headaches. During
the rule of Kleopatra’s grandfather, Laythrus, the Thebans had started a rebellion that was responsible for the destruction
of many quarters of what remained of the city. Men and nature had been trying to vanquish Thebes for more than a thousand
years and yet it still stood, no matter how shabbily, like an old man whose only joy in his waning years was to cause trouble
for the young. How majestic were these native monuments. She wondered if the civilization that had long ago constructed these
magnificent temples was remarkably different from the lazy, embittered body of citizens now employed by the Greek monarchy.

Though under their domination, this land had yet to be conquered entirely by the Greeks. The Greeks had layered their civilization
over the conquered, or so they believed, but here was the Mother Country, still looming so many hundreds of years after Alexander
had declared himself its king. Suddenly Kleopatra feared that Hephaestion had miscalculated, that the Egyptians would mock
her for dressing as their goddess, for daring to preside over their most sacred ritual. She, the latest, the youngest, of
the despised Greek usurpers. Was there any possibility that Hephaestion was in conspiracy with Pothinus? Was she sent into
a hostile territory only to be sacrificed? She wondered if the gray adviser standing next to her was indeed an enemy. She
scanned him for signs of betrayal, but when she caught him trying to stifle a yawn, she relaxed.

Kleopatra saw two naked children swimming in the river, small ochre-skinned boys frantically paddling their thin arms to get
to the shore. On the dock, a small assembly of peasants dressed in colorless linen tunics had gathered to greet the queen:
women with flat piles of hay atop their heads, little girls bearing flowers, old people bent from years of farming, all clustered
together, a small, animated hive. News of her arrival had preceded her, perhaps through the bureaucratic channels, perhaps
by means of Hephaestion’s private spies. It was a small crowd, precisely what she might have expected to gather on such short
notice. Nothing to fear. Perhaps this ancient ceremony that was to take place in the morning was no longer so important as
Hephaestion believed. Perhaps she would be allowed to politely play her role in the pageant and go home.

The barge glided without incident into the small harbor, with uniformed dock workers tying its wet ropes to metal spikes.
The humble-looking throng parted, making way for a procession of tonsured priests and priestesses from the temple, their shaved
heads bobbing slowly as they walked in a straight line like an army of ants. The temple officials dropped to their knees,
the shiny tops of their heads glaring like bright buttons in the sun. The rest of the congregation followed, falling to the
ground.

Kleopatra gave her arm to the adviser. She was uncertain that she might walk without help. She was so tired, so dizzy, so
hot, that she was not sure she could face even this small, suppliant gathering. As the queen’s feet touched shore, a young
man, a local Greek-speaking Egyptian official, raised himself. Afraid to meet her eyes, he announced to her staff that he
was to have the honor of serving the queen as interpreter. Kleopatra made a demonstrative wave of the hand, indicating that
she intended to speak for herself in the native tongue. The man did not understand her gesture, and retreated from her, hands
shielding his face as if he thought she was going to slap him.

She had wanted to use her command of Egyptian to placate, but already she had alienated the arrival party. She played nervously
with the fabric knot at her breast, rubbing it as if it were a charm. Realizing that she was demonstrating nervousness, she
quickly put down her hand. No one spoke, no one met her gaze. Why had she agreed to come here? Without Kinsmen, without friends.
Without Charmion, even, who had to remain behind to safeguard the truth of the king’s condition. There was no one to come
to her aid. The little gray man just smiled at her, waiting for her to act. There was no one on whom to depend. No one but
herself and She whose costume she wore.
Speak through me
, she prayed to the Lady of Compassion.
Let my words he yours.

Finally, she took a deep breath of arid air, so full of heat, so devoid of moisture that she thought she might choke. She
felt hollow and powerless, her arms limp, her throat constricted. Though no one looked at her, she sensed their anticipation.
Where was her strength now? Hoping her voice would not falter, Kleopatra took another gulp of desert air, and said, loudly
and in Egyptian, “I have no need of an interpreter. I shall address my subjects in their native tongue.”

The kneeling clergy raised their heads, careful not to meet her eyes. She heard the murmur of surprise work its way through
the Egyptians, who wondered if the Greek oppressor queen had tricked them by pretending to speak their language.

Thrill shot like an arrow through Kleopatra’s empty stomach. She would be the first to tell them in her own words, without
translators, what she wished of them—that is, if the goddess blessed her and she did not faint in the heat.

The chosen representative of the city of Thebes, an elderly priest, quietly presented himself, revealing an arrival gift,
a bronze necklace with an amulet of the goddess in the simple draped garment that Kleopatra presently wore. He knelt before
her with his head lowered, holding the offering by its ends with his large, wrinkled fingers, presumably so that she could
inspect it before she accepted it.