Kleopatra (56 page)

“Attend to the wounded immediately,” Caesar said to his commanding officer. He turned to the boy king. “Now then, where is
your palace?”

“If anyone goes to meet Julius Caesar, it shall be me.”

Kleopatra was adamant. She looked at her closest advisers, Hephaestion, Archimedes, and Apollodorus the pirate. Through her
trials in exile, these three had been her most loyal and astute chancellors. Still, did they imagine that she would send one
of them in her place for the most important meeting of her life? She looked about the table and wondered which of these men
might communicate better than she with Julius Caesar. Which of them had her education or her command of languages, including
Caesar’s own? Who but she could converse so dexterously on the arts, or on philosophy, which she knew also intrigued him?
Which of them knew the details of his history as she did, or had sat at the banquet table of Pompey the Great as he petted
the pretty breast of Caesar’s own daughter, Julia?

Archimedes interceded. “Caesar has already made his intentions clear. He wishes to make peace between you and your brother.
He has already made himself a confidant of the king. Do you not think we should send him a representative?”

“Yes,” Kleopatra said. “I believe we should send him the queen, just as he requested.”

“That is much too dangerous,” replied her cousin. “There is no safe route into Alexandria. I do not care what Caesar has said—if
you are intercepted by Achillas’s troops, you will not live to meet the Roman.”

Kleopatra felt a surge of will rise up and take over her being. Her heart pounded with more ferocity than she believed it
could withstand. She would have liked to have taken the organ out of her body and put it on the floor, where its maddening
rhythm could not hurt her. She put her hand to her chest to stop the turbulence that had kidnapped her internal self. Reading
her body’s signals, Archimedes took her hands and put them in his, squeezing firmly as if trying to bring her back from some
dark place without clutching her to him and giving away their intimacy.

This was the news they had heard: Julius Caesar made the boy king send two messengers, Dioscorides and Serapion, to Pelusium
to convey the king’s wishes that there be peace between the king and his exiled sister. Without delay, Achillas had them arrested
and murdered. Now Caesar was at war with Achillas. But Caesar had only three thousand men with him in Alexandria, whereas
Achillas could raise five times that count.

“You would do well not to put yourself in harm’s way to meet Caesar,” Hephaestion said. “He is outnumbered.”

“Five to one is not good odds, even for Caesar,” echoed Archimedes.

“I would wager that Pompey’s supporters said precisely that before the battle at Pharsalos,” countered Kleopatra. “I always
said that Caesar would prevail against Pompey. Is there any chance that he can be defeated by a bloated eunuch, a punctilious
scholar, and a foppish general?”

Kleopatra did not know if she was up to a game of chess with a master like Caesar, but she was willing to try. What choice
did she have? It seemed to her that Fate had led her on a specific path to this distinct moment in time, and now she had little
recourse but to go to Alexandria and confront Caesar—not as an enemy but as a potential friend in the sea of monsters into
which he had docked in Egypt. She would lay it all out for Caesar—how her father had made her his queen while he was still
alive, and how he had wished for her to continue to reign after his death. She would describe how her brother’s Regency Council
had banished her, in direct opposition to the will of the late king, who was, after all, a Friend and Ally of the Roman People.

She said, “It is crucial that I go to Caesar and speak on my own behalf. He has called for a meeting.”

Archimedes protested. “Kleopatra, it is much too dangerous. Thousands of Achillas’s men remain at Pelusium; thousands are
on their way to Alexandria now. Who has control of the seas, we do not know. You must send an emissary. There are many possible
emissaries and only one Kleopatra. If anything should happen to you—” He broke off. He could not say what he wished to say.
He continued: “If anything should happen to you the throne would be lost to Caesar, to the eunuch Pothinus, to your brother,
who knows? Which would be the worst for Egypt it is impossible to say.”

She did not know if her lover had begun to suspect what was in her mind, or if he was merely acting the protective Kinsman.
She hoped that she had concealed from him the plan that had begun to take form. It began with the recognition that she felt
a mild thrill whenever she said the name Julius Caesar. She found melody in its syllables, and she found herself mentally
repeating it time and again. She liked the discernible quiver of fear the mention of the name seemed to inspire in whoever
said it. Even if the speaker attempted to demonstrate disdain, what was usually projected was awe.

She felt as if she knew him. Her fascination with him began when she was a mere girl of eight or nine, escaping to the bazaar
and overhearing the tales of his prowess in politics, on the battlefield, and as a lover. She had paid strict attention to
his actions in the world and listened for gossip about his private life whenever she had the opportunity. Soon it seemed as
if all the world was fascinated with this man, for his private life was the subject of popular discussion everywhere, or wherever
civilized people lived and kept abreast of important affairs. She had analyzed his actions, trying to put together the pieces
of the puzzle of his difficult personality, and now she must meet him, if only to see if her perceptions about him had been
correct.

“Who can get me to the city?” she asked.

Before Archimedes could protest, Apollodorus offered, “I believe I can promise you a safe journey to the shores of Alexandria,
Your Majesty. We can take a small escort of your men—men who will not talk, that is—to the sea, where we will meet with my
vessel. We will sail within a very short distance of the harbor, and at the moment when night is about to fall, lower the
small dinghy and row into shore. I will send word ahead by land to one of my comrades, who can easily smuggle us past the
harbor police as if we were refugees or merchants with small goods to sell at the market the next day. You must disguise yourself,
however, or you surely risk being recognized. It is not easy to mask the greatness of a queen,” he said with some pride.

“Then this is our plan,” Kleopatra said. “Might you get a letter to Caesar?”

“Yes, it will be sent with the man who will ride to the city ahead of us.”

“Scribe!” she said.

“Kleopatra, I know that there is no stopping you. But I just want you to know that I protest.” Archimedes looked at her with
much concern.

“Cousin, I believe I have no choice. I am going to introduce myself to Caesar. I want him to know that he will have to reckon
with me before he makes any irreversible arrangements with my brother, who undoubtedly has told him I am a traitor to our
father, or a lunatic, or worse.

“Write this down in your best Greek letters,” she said to the scribe, who had jumped so fast to the queen’s summons that his
ink and paper juggled precariously as he approached her. He positioned himself on the floor and sat attentively as she began
to dictate.

To Gaius Julius Caesar,

I have been informed of the ignoble murder of Pompey by Pothinus, my brothers regent, whose treachery sent me, the legitimate
queen of Egypt, into exile for fear of my life. My father and I were the guests of Pompey in the days when the two of you
were aligned in government and by the solemn marriage between your daughter and the Imperator. Julia was a wonderful companion
to me in my exile. I can testify that she and the General were, in those happier early times, deeply content and in love.
I nope that Knowledge is a comfort to you now. As for the Imperator, I despise the odious methods by which he met his end.
He came to Egypt for refuge because early in the war Pothinus had acted as his friend, giving ships and men to his cause.
I his action was against my wishes and better judgment. Unlike my brother’s regents, I did not believe that Pompey, whom I
had observed eight years prior in Rome as already exhausted with public life, could defeat the man who had subdued Gaul and
Britannia. I was to be proved correct, but at that time my power had been usurped by the Regency Council, and as I reared
for my life, I was even then planning my escape from Alexandria. I am returning to the city under cover, and I will find a
way into the palace to meet with you. I wish to continue my father’s legacy as Friend and Ally of the Roman People, and I
am prepared to carry out my part in upholding that bargain. The stories toId of the great Julius Caesar boast of his wisdom,
his mercy, and his fairness. It is these noble qualities I look forward to meeting when we stand face-to-face and solidify
what I hope will be a lifelong friendship.

Yours, Kleopatra VII, Queen of the Two Lands of Egypt

Archimedes followed Kleopatra to her tent, assuming a lover’s privilege.

“One week ago, we were prepared for war, death. We made a lover’s foolhardy send-off to life,” he mused.

Kleopatra did not want to meet his eyes. “This has been the lesson of my life,” she said. “I can never make plans for myself
or for my country, for our collective destinies are entirely intertwined with the designs of Rome. Her Fate dictates mine.
I must bend to her will, as did my father and his father and so many of our fathers before him.”

“The gods are cruel weavers, spinning the threads of grief and problems around us as if we were spindles,” said Archimedes,
taking her hand, pulling her to his chest. Kleopatra was relieved to hide in the shelter of his arms so that she could avoid
his face.

“Perhaps this design may turn out for our good after all,” said Kleopatra. “I shall pray to Athena, the master weaver, for
a lovely outcome in this tapestry of seeming woe.

“Perhaps you should not pray to the goddess of war in a matter where you only wish for peace,” said Archimedes, kissing her
forehead.

“Then I shall pray to Aphrodite, who encourages love,” said Kleopatra. She lowered her head, though she knew he wanted her
to raise it so that he could kiss her.

“It is a risky business, involving the volatile Aphrodite in such a grave affair.”

“Then let us pray to the god of Caution, whoever he is,” she said, pulling away from him and closing the matter.

“You are very different this morning, Kleopatra,” he said.

“I am preoccupied with my mission. I had prepared for war, and now I find that I must be a diplomat. And a very clever one
at that.”

Though she did not admit it, she knew what he meant. She knew that he was thinking of her behavior just twelve hours in the
past, when she let him hold her breathless body and submitted to him utterly. But at this moment, there was not a thing she
could do to recover last night’s bewildering emotions. It was as if she had regained her balance, her power.

She was grateful to be back on solid ground, for she felt as though she had been losing herself in his love. Every night,
at lust’s furious conclusion, she prayed that there would be more; that the gods would allow her to have this exhilaration
as a constant part of her life and not just mete it out in stingy increments. Archimedes had made her moan and gasp and reach
for that ultimate pleasure, which to her prior self had been just a vague rumor, like a story that is told about people who
live far away. Before they were to go to battle, she had prayed that they both might live and prevail so that they might repeat
the glory of the moment. Every night since, she immersed herself in his passion and in the mysterious revelations she had
about hers.

What oracle might have prophesied the events that she had learned of today? What god had primed her and Archimedes for love
one day and then sent Caesar marching directly into her world in the next? Archimedes was right; they were merely the spindles
the gods used to weave the threads of their ironies. But Caesar was a man who tempted the gods, who had made an apparent bargain
with Fortune.