Kleopatra (57 page)

And it was a deal into which she, Kleopatra, intended to be admitted.

But what must she do now? Archimedes was in a state. He paced about the tent like a lion that had stumbled into the wrong
den. She knew that he was wondering if Julius Caesar was going to usurp the privileges he had taken for himself the previous
evening.

It had occurred to Kleopatra—as it would occur to any woman who had to negotiate with a man thirty years her senior—that Julius
Caesar, the notorious lover, might attempt to make a conjugal union between them a condition of alliance. And what would she
do? She loved her cousin, there was no doubt of that, and now, as she looked into his bewildered brown eyes, she felt herself
drawn toward him again. But he was not the man who could save her kingdom.
In matters of state, let your blood run cold.
The eunuch Hephaestion had advised her thusly time and again. There was no choice. And yet Kleopatra felt ill at what she
must do now to this beautiful and loyal man. Only last night he had told her that she was intoxicating, that she was an enchantress,
a woman for whom men would kill for the privilege of being taken into the rapture of her intimacy.

“Woman, goddess, queen,” he had muttered over and over again while he lost himself in her. If that was only a lover’s heated
speech, so be it. Perhaps that was what all men said as they pleasured themselves. She had no way of knowing. But in that
moment, he had given Kleopatra the key to men. Or one of the keys, at any rate. Money certainly was another. And what would
a man not do for power and position? What had Julius Caesar done already for these things?

Well, she had it all, did she not? She had the treasures of her ancestors, the riches of Egypt, the bloom of youth, and the
knowledge that the Achilles’ heel of a man was not necessarily in his foot.

This was her battle gear. It was not an army or a navy, but she had access to those things, too. She was as well armed as
anyone Julius Caesar had ever faced.

K
leopatra looked out the window at the scene that had greeted her all the mornings of her days before her flight into exile.
There was little in the Royal Harbor to suggest Roman occupation of Alexandria. The pleasure vessels of the Royal Family rocked
lazily at the dock. The morning fog had lifted, revealing a sky already white with heat above vivid blue waters, and she was
grateful that she was no longer breathing the deadening summer air of the Sinai.

She did not know whether her country was in fact occupied or not. Caesar acted like a guest who had made himself overly comfortable
rather than as the hostile commander who had entered the city with his standards raised, immediately engaging in a skirmish
with the Alexandrian army. Kleopatra did not care what version Caesar put forth of the story. She believed he had entered
her city with the intention of taking it. He had thought it would be easy; she was sure of this. Caesar had just defeated
Pompey and was confident of his invincibility. But he had underestimated the Alexandrian hatred for all things Roman, the
old Greek pride that the city’s citizens still carried in their very veins. They did not lay down their arms for the exalted
Roman general. Far from it.

Now Caesar and his men were virtually barricaded inside the palace walls, so angered was the mob at his presence. Yet he did
not act at all like a prisoner. She had asked him if he was at war with her brother, and he replied that no, he was a friend
to the Crown, as was all of Rome. He had come to Alexandria merely to chase down his former ally and old friend Pompey, whom
he had had the unfortunate task of defeating in Greece in battle over whose policies would predominate in Rome. He had intended
to reconcile with Pompey, to bring him back to Rome and to his senses, and to make Pompey see that the greedy Roman senators
who had incited him to go to war with Caesar were acting in self-interest rather than in the interests of either Caesar or
Pompey. “But your brother’s eunuch Pothinus had already taken care of the issue for me. Upon my arrival, he presented me with
Pompey’s head.” Caesar had looked very sad. “I may be at war with Pothinus,” he said. “I may be at war with your brothers
army but not your brother. We shall see what unfolds in the coming days.”

How could a man be so casual about war? she wondered. Perhaps it was from a lifetime of waging it. And yet he seemed equally
calm and dispassionate about everything, even those things that usually provoked the extreme emotions: debate, negotiation,
money, sex.

She let her mind drift with the oceans waves as she assessed the new order of things. She was no longer in exile, waiting
for the right moment to attack her brother’s army. She was again the queen of Egypt. Caesar had overwhelmingly defeated Pompey
and the Roman senate, thus this made him the most powerful man in the world. And Caesar was now her benefactor and lover.

Could it have been just yesterday that she was in the middle of that great blue sea, stowing away on a pirate’s vessel to
sneak back into her own country? She had dressed herself as well as she could without her servants, knowing that the last
leg of her journey would be a rigorous one and that she could not arrive in the harbor of Alexandria and be recognized. She
had let Dorinda, the wife of Apollodorus the pirate, help with her toilette, fixing and bejeweling the locks that had been
neglected while she was in exile. She would have done it herself, but her hands had shook with anxiety; she had fought with
her advisers, rejecting their claims that it was too dangerous to reenter Egypt, and now she was faced with the task of using
stealth to slip past both her brother’s army and Caesar’s army to meet with the Roman general.

At dusk, in view of the Great Harbor of her city, she had found herself with Apollodorus in a small vessel bobbing in the
water. In the fading sunlight, she had seen the familiar Pharos Lighthouse, the landmark of her youth and one of the great
hallmarks of her family’s reign over Egypt. The tower was bathed in diffuse red light, which lingered as the sun sank behind
her into the depths of the Mediterranean. The eternal flame in the top floor of the tower burned vigilantly. The imposing
structure that had served as a marker of safe harbor for three centuries was the genius of her ancestor Ptolemy Philadelphus
and his sister-wife, Arsinoe II, and now it welcomed her home. This had not been the first time she had approached her country
from the vantage point of exile. But this was the first time she had returned from exile to find a flotilla of warships in
a V formation pointing dangerously toward her city.

“These are not Egyptian vessels,” she said, noting their flags. “Some are Rhodian, some from Syria, some from Cilicia.”

“All territories from which Caesar might have called for reinforcements,” said Apollodorus.

“Warships in the harbor? What can this mean? That Alexandria is already at full-scale war with Caesar?” said Kleopatra.

“So it appears. And now we must get you through Caesar’s navy and the army of your brother’s general Achillas before you can
have a conference with Caesar. I do not know if my contacts at the docks can help us in these circumstances. As Your Majesty
is well aware, in wartime all policies change to meet the dire times. I’m afraid that our simple scheme of disguising you
as my wife may not serve us in these hazardous conditions.”

“I agree,” she said. Her heart began the now familiar hammering in her chest, its punch taking over her body and consuming
her mental strength.
No, this cannot happen
, she said to herself. I cannot submit to this tidal wave of emotion, of fear that threatens to wreak disaster on my Fate.

Only I and the gods may dictate my Fate
, she said to herself. Not a heart, not an organ.
I control my heart, my heart does not control me
, she said to herself over and over until the pounding in her ears gave way to the benevolent slurping of the placid waters
as they slapped haphazardly against the boat, calming her nerves. She put her head down and prayed.

Lady Isis, the Lady of Compassion, the Lady to whom I owe my fortune and my Fate. Protect me, sustain me, guide me as I make
this daring move so that I may continue to honor you and continue to serve the country of my fathers.

When she looked up from her prayer, she saw that they had drifted closer to the shore. Trapped now between the Rhodian flotilla
and the Syrian flotilla, she realized that she must take some kind of cover. How could she have so foolishly thought that
she could just slip into the city where she was known above all women? She must do something quickly to get herself out of
sight.

She shared these thoughts with Apollodorus.

“It is not too late to turn around, Your Majesty—he offered.

“No!” she interrupted him. “This is my country. My brother sits in the palace as if he were the sole ruler of Egypt. Caesar,
no doubt, is in receipt of my letter and he awaits my arrival. I will not be shut out by these maritime monsters,” she said,
raising her hands as if to encompass all the vessels in the sea. “The gods will not have it, and I will not have it.”

Apollodorus said nothing. Kleopatra made another silent plea to the goddess. She stared into her lap, waiting for inspiration
to descend upon her. She was for a moment lost in the intricate pattern of the Persian carpet that the men had thrown aboard
the boat at the last minute for the queen to sit on. An anonymous artisan had spent years of his life stitching the rows and
rows of symmetrical crosses into the silk. Suddenly, she pulled her head up straight and focused on the rug, mentally measuring
its dimension. Its fine silk threads would not irritate the downy skin of a young woman should she choose to lie upon it.
Or to roll herself inside of it.

The sun cast its final offering of light. Her companion’s square rock of a body sat helplessly waiting for the decision of
the queen as his boat sailed precariously close to the shore.

“Help me,” she said as she threw the rug on the floor of the boat and positioned herself at one end.

Apollodorus stood up and stared down at the queen, who lay with her hands over her chest like a mummy.

“But Your Majesty will suffocate,” he protested, stretching out his palms to her as if he hoped they would exercise upon her
a modicum of reason. “We must leave this place.”

The sun had set, and the boxlike form that hovered above her was only a silhouette against a darkening sky.

“Help me quickly, and do not waste our time with questions,” she said. “Julius Caesar is waiting.”

When the squatty Sicilian had entered Caesar’s chamber announcing that he had a gift from the rightful queen of Egypt to lay
at Great Caesar’s feet, Caesar’s soldiers drew swords. But Caesar had simply laughed and said he was anxious to see what the
exiled girl might smuggle through her brother’s guards.

“This is a mistake, sir,” said the captain of his guard. “These people are ready to take advantage of your good nature.”

“Then they, too, shall learn, shan’t they?” he replied.

The pirate laid the carpet before Caesar, then used his own knife to clip the ties that bound it. As he slowly and carefully
unrolled it, Caesar could see that it was a fine example of the craftsmanship that was only to be found in the eastern countries,
the kind he had so envied when he was last at Pompey’s house in Rome. Suddenly, as if she were part of the geometrical pattern
itself, a girl rolled out from its folds, sat up cross-legged, and looked at him. Her small face was overly painted, with
too much jewelry in her thick brown hair, and a meretricious scarf tied about her tiny waist, showing off her comely body.
The young queen must be a woman of great humor to have sent Caesar a pirate’s little wench. She was not precisely lovely,
he thought, but handsome. She had full lips, or so he assumed under the paint. Her eyes were green and slanted upward, and
they challenged him now to speak to her, as if it were Caesar who should have to introduce himself to this little tart. But
it was the pirate who spoke first.