The Memoirs of Cleopatra (18 page)

Servants scurried around the hall, trays piled high with fragrant garlands, passing them to all the guests. The scent of flowers against warm skins soon rose in the room.

Next, Caesar lifted a jeweled cup and filled it from a pitcher of Falernian wine. “Drink!” he ordered them. “Drink and rejoice!”

He put the cup to his lips, but I did not see his throat move in drinking it. He set the cup down, then motioned for the servers to come forward with the crystal bowls and scented water to wash our hands before eating.

Then he abruptly held up his hands. “One thing further! I wish to announce that, as a gesture of friendship, Rome restores Cyprus to the house of Ptolemy. It will be governed by Princess Arsinoe and Prince Ptolemy.” He nodded to them, and they slowly rose. The people cheered, astounded, and the recipients of the honor looked just as astonished. So this was one of Caesar’s surprise strikes; this was the way he operated, both on and off the battlefield.

He looked over at me, and only in the slight change in his eyes and the lines around his mouth could I read his message:
I told you you would know me better after the banquet
.

“Can Caesar give away Roman territory on his own authority?” I asked coolly.

“Yes,” he answered. “Does it please you?”

“Should it? You did not give it to me.”

“I gave it
for
you, for your protection. And as a pledge from me.”

My heart was beating so fast I dared not continue speaking. It was true; Caesar had made a bold and shocking gesture, one sure to antagonize the Senate of Rome.

The meal commenced. There was course after course, and I could not but admire the ability of our royal cooks to have produced such lavish fare on short notice. In addition to the usual roasted oxen, kid, and duck, we were offered purple shellfish, sea nettles, fish pastries, honey from Attica, and nuts from Pontus.

But Caesar ate little, and drank nothing from his wine goblet, preferring well water flavored with rose petals instead.

“You do not drink,” I said, nodding toward his goblet.

“In my youth I drank enough for the rest of my life,” he said. “Now I find it incites dizziness and causes strange symptoms in me. So I do not court Bacchus.”

“You eat little, as well,” I commented. “Does food, too, incite strange symptoms?”

“You seem very interested in watching everything I do,” he said. “Have you, perhaps, added something to this food which you are anxious to see me eat?” Only the rising inflection at the end of the sentence assured me he was not serious.

“You are most suspicious,” I said, spearing a piece of food off his plate and eating it. “Let me lay your fears to rest.” Pothinus frowned at the lack of etiquette, but Caesar laughed—almost.

When the pomegranates were passed around with platters of fruit, Caesar took a large one and slowly cut it in half, pulling it apart while its center ran with bright red, acidic juice.

“You see how all the seeds fit,” he said. “But pulling it apart causes it injury.” He handed me the other half, watching my face intently.

I took the fruit and looked at its center, at the places where it had been wrenched open. “It should never be split away from itself like this.” I indicated my stained hands, and anyone listening would have assumed we spoke only of that particular pomegranate. He smiled.

At the conclusion of the meal, when all the dishes had been removed, the acrobats tumbled into the hall, their oiled bodies flashing and their movements so swift the eye could hardly follow them.

“I have watched snakes strike,” Caesar said, “but I never knew human beings could move like that.”

Next came Nubian dancers, tall, thin, and muscular, who performed intricate dances to the high, wild beat of drums and hand-clapping.

The sound of their frantic music drowned out all other sounds, and I did not see Caesar motion to his guards. I did see Pothinus look up and suddenly leave his couch. But the loud performance made it impossible for me to ask what had happened. By the time the music had finally ended, Caesar was looking impatient and chewing on a stick of cardamom pastry.

“Where is Pothinus?” I asked.

Arsinoe and Ptolemy were also stirring nervously in their places.

“By this time, beheaded, most like.”

“What?”

“Let us step outside!” said Caesar, grabbing my wrist in a grip as powerful as a lion’s jaw. He managed to pull me to my feet in a way that made it seem I was rising of my own accord. He guided me toward the small door that opened between two pillars on the balconied side of the hall.

The brisk air outside smacked my face after the overheated, highly scented air of the hall. The wind was rising, whipping up whitecaps in the harbor.

“Around here,” said Caesar, pulling me around the corner.

As I rounded it, I saw Pothinus—or what was left of him—lying sprawled across three steps. His head—if he had still had a head—would have been pointing downward. As it was, all the blood from his severed neck streamed in one direction down the white marble steps. Standing over him, holding the oiled, ringletted head with its swinging earrings, was a Roman soldier. His sword, or rather the middle part of it, was covered in globs of blood.

“Pompey, now you are avenged,” said Caesar. “Take away this carrion,” he ordered the soldier.

I was speechless. I could only stare at the corpse and then back again at Caesar, standing so calmly aside.

“Now I have seen a snake strike,” I finally whispered.

“No, now you have seen a snake prevented from striking,” said Caesar. “This afternoon my barber told me of Pothinus’s plot to have me killed tonight. My trusted barber is one of those timid men with a hundred ears. And so…” He shrugged and indicated the bloodstained steps. “The snake has been killed halfway through its coiling.”

“Halfway? He was only eating his dinner!” Somehow the thought of being butchered on a full stomach of sea pastry and roast ox was macabre.

“No, he had already performed half of his treachery,” said Caesar. “He had sent word to Achillas to bring the army and besiege us here. While he was reconciling you and Ptolemy, bowing and kissing your hand, he was sending for the troops that would put an end to us both.”

Now I felt sick. Was my only safety to lie with Caesar, who somehow—so far—managed to think faster, strike quicker, and thrust deadlier than those around him? But even Caesar must rest sometime, must nod and relax….

I burst into tears. It was the only release besides screaming, and I did not want people to come running out from the banquet hall.

He put his arm around me and led me away. “We cannot return to the banquet. Even I cannot pretend that nothing has happened.”

We were back in my—our—royal apartments. Caesar ordered a double guard around all entrances, using only his most trusted soldiers. Once in the innermost room, he sank down on a bench. Suddenly he looked much older, and the lines on his face were deeply etched. In the twilight, a gold signet ring on his tanned hand was the only bright thing about him.

“Oh, Caesar,” I said, standing beside him and putting my arms around him. “I thought I knew the world, and now I see it is even more merciless than I had imagined.”

“When first you realize that,” he said wearily, “it changes you forever. But then, in the morning, when the sun comes up, and there is work to do…” He sighed. “You surprise yourself by enjoying it.”

But he slumped against the wall, worn out by that day’s work. I stood behind him, and kissed the top of his balding head. I rubbed his temples and pulled his head back, so the master of the world rested his head against me. He closed his eyes and sat motionless.

I watched as the light outside changed, faded, and finally disappeared. Darkness stole into the room and veiled everything. Still Caesar rested against me, my arms around his neck, rising and falling with each breath he took.

What made him trust me? I wondered. Why me, and not Arsinoe or Pothinus? It would have been so much easier for him to ally himself with them. Now he had enveloped himself in a mantle of troubles by supporting me.

He could have come here, accepted Pompey’s head, confirmed Ptolemy on the throne, and gone his way back to Rome. So much simpler for a weary general. But he trusted me, for the same inexplicable reason that I trusted him. We had known each other instantly, recognized ourselves in each other.

He stirred. He had actually slept in my arms. I was deeply touched; no words could have given higher proof of his trust.

“My dear,” I said, “let us rest properly. I think we will not be disturbed in our bed tonight. Your guards are strong.”

He allowed me to pull him up and lead him to the bed, to unwind his toga and put it with his belongings on a trunk, to untie his sandals and rub his feet.

He watched me with drowsy eyes. “How well you perform all these things,” he murmured. “You can be queen or servant, as it pleases you.”

I lifted his legs gently onto the mattress, and spread the shining silken coverlet over him. “Rest,” I said. “Even Hercules rested after his twelve labors.”

He closed his eyes and turned his head to one side, giving a deep sigh—of contentment? exhaustion? relief?

I lay down beside him in the darkness, pulling up the coverlet. Silence pervaded the room, but I knew elsewhere in the palace, in the streets of Alexandria, there was no silence, but tumult. Our silence was the artificial child of the Roman guards outside the doors.

Sometime in the darkest part of night, when the heavens stand suspended, Caesar reached out for me. He was wide awake, and so was I.

“I told you you would know me better after the banquet,” he said quietly. Somehow he must have sensed I was awake.

“You knew about Pothinus then? You had already given your soldiers their orders?” I spoke equally quietly, as I turned to him.

“Yes,” he said. “Can you love the person you now know me to be?”

“More than ever before,” I said. “You did what had to be done, and did not flinch.” I admired him, was now in awe of him.

He pressed me to him, to his lean soldier’s body, already rested after only this little sleep. He kissed me and it seemed all the hungers he did not allow himself to feel—for food, for sleep, for wine—came together in his desire now, melted together and multiplied.

How intrusive it may seem for me to recount here that Caesar was noted for his thoroughness in war; it was said that any battle he fought was decided so completely that there was never any need to refight it. So he was with me that night; as he possessed me and made love to me, many times through that long night, in many different ways, he captured me forever, body, heart, and strength.

The Alexandrian War now commenced—for so Caesar called it when he began writing his commentaries on it. I was scarcely mentioned in the commentaries, but then that was Caesar’s way. It was a tricky war, not least because Caesar had not expected a war when he landed, but also because it was the first time he had ever fought with a city as the battleground, which required different tactics and strategy from those used in the open field.

The army of Achillas, which was already on its way during the reconciliation banquet, reached Alexandria in only a few days, twenty thousand strong. Caesar sent out envoys to Achillas, who were killed rather than being answered.

“So,” said Caesar in that quiet voice, “he not only kills when it seems a matter of political advantage, as with Pompey, but does not recognize time-honored diplomatic rules. I need have no mercy on him, then.”

I marveled at how he seemed to contain his anger, if indeed he felt anger. Perhaps he was past the stage where vile behavior was anything other than expected; perhaps to him it was loyalty and honor that were the rare finds. I also marveled at how he assumed he would beat Achillas and his large army of old Roman legionaries, runaway slaves, pirates, outlaws, and exiles—a motley, desperate bunch.

My own army, abandoned in Gaza, had dissolved for want of action and pay, and could not help. Earlier, Caesar had sent for reinforcements from Syria and Cilicia, but for now he would have to fortify the eastern section of Alexandria and try to make it secure, particularly the part where the palace was located on its peninsula. Safe inside the eastern harbor were his ten Rhodian warships among his others. I could see them from my windows, as they anchored inside the breakwaters. In the western harbor was the Egyptian fleet, which Ptolemy and I commanded: seventy-two warships.

Achillas and his forces, with the help of the excitable citizens, built gigantic triple barricades of stone blocks forty feet high across the streets, so that the magnificent Canopic Way was no longer passable, nor the wide north-south Street of the Soma. They hastily constructed mobile towers ten feet high, which could be pulled by ropes to any location they wished. Arms factories were established in the middle of the city, and the adult slaves were armed, while their veteran cohorts were centrally located, to be rushed to whatever site needed them. They were able to reproduce any arms they captured from our side, so cleverly that it seemed ours were the copies instead.

In the meantime, Caesar turned the banqueting room into his military headquarters, where he spread out his maps and reports on the long marble table and held conferences with his centurions and commanders. I insisted on attending the meetings, as I found myself fascinated to learn how the most disciplined and advanced army in the world operated.

“We must take the offensive,” said Caesar, after the first week of fighting. He tapped the diagram of the city tied up between two of the pillars in the hall.

One of his officers gave a snort. Caesar shot him a look.

“Not the entire city,” he said. “But we must capture the island and the Lighthouse so that our reinforcements can reach us from the sea. We are pinned in here, and must keep this sea side open.”

Was this the sort of daring for which he was renowned?

“How do we attack?” one of the centurions asked.

“There is only a little stretch of the waterfront between our barricades and theirs that controls the causeway. At the signal, we will rush from our section and storm the waterfront. We will fight our way there and then onto the causeway, then all the way to the Lighthouse.”

At midday after this conference, Caesar held his customary meal with me, my siblings, and his officers. The table was set with wooden platters, moldy bread, and cheap, yellowish Taeniotic wine—standing orders from Pothinus.

“See how the King and Queen of Egypt, and the rulers of Cyprus, dine,” said Caesar, gesturing to the table. “Soldiers’ fare after a long campaign?”

“Pothinus said there was nothing left for us to eat because of the Romans,” complained “big” Ptolemy in his whiny voice. “He said it was all devoured by your soldiers! And they melted down all our gold plate!”

“Pothinus will tell no more lies,” said Caesar. “And I am pleased to see that you are voluntarily eating such sparse fare, when there are fine foods aplenty in the kitchens. It will build your character. A man shouldn’t care overmuch about food. I myself once accidentally poured ointment over a vegetable dish and didn’t notice—even after I ate it.”

“Barbarian,” muttered Arsinoe.

“What’s that, my dear?” asked Caesar. “Barbarian? Yes, perhaps so. I came to have great respect for them in the nine years I fought them in Gaul. They have a different mentality from some of the degenerate minds of the east. For example, they do not kill their chiefs.”

Arsinoe gave a sour smile that still did nothing to ruin her beauty. Caesar lifted his wine goblet to her and took a sip.

“I do not feel well,” she said, putting hers down. “I must return to my quarters to rest.”

That night she escaped from the palace, accompanied by her eunuch-tutor Ganymedes, and went to join Achillas and his forces.

I expected Caesar to be angry, now that he could no longer claim the Egyptian troops were simply a treasonous faction in rebellion against the entire royal family, but he was not, even when the troops proclaimed Arsinoe their queen.

“Well, she’s lost Cyprus,” he said. “And she never even went to visit it. You and I must do that when the war is over. Venus was born on the seafoam and washed ashore there; it would be most fitting for us to be together there.” He gave that seemingly lighthearted smile that did not extend to his eyes.

When the war was over…how certain he was of victory!

That night, before retiring, he stood a long time on the roof of the palace, looking at the harbor and its configuration. His lined hands gripped the railings, and I could see the muscles pulling in his arms as he clenched and then relaxed his fingers.

“It will not be easy,” he conceded. “It is a long way, and the width will not allow very many men on it at any one time.”

Behind us the servants were lighting the evening torches, and the sun was sinking, turning what would be tomorrow’s battlefield into a basin of red.

“Tonight the sun, tomorrow the blood of men will color it,” he said.

“How can you ever get used to it?” I wondered. “How can you accustom yourself to death in advance?”

“Death,” he finally said. “Perhaps I am like that king of Pergamon who had a garden of poisonous plants that he enjoyed cultivating. Perhaps I surround myself with death in order to accustom myself to it.”

“And does it?”

“I think so,” he said. “I can honestly say death holds no terror for me, only sadness—sadness at what I must leave behind.” He turned and looked directly in my eyes. Even in the failing light I was riveted by the intense expression on his face. “I would hate to leave you so soon. We have so much to talk about, to see, to explore together. It is just the beginning for us. When I set out for Gaul, I was forty-two. It was a new world, an infinite green expanse—forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, all unknown and waiting for me. What happened to me there in those nine years should be enough for any man. But now I want more, not less. It built fires, it did not quench them.” He turned back to look at the harbor, growing blue and dim now. “Down there, tomorrow—it seems unthinkable that a short little piece of polished metal could put out my fire.”

I put my arm around him and leaned against him. “Don’t you Romans believe there are three immortal sisters who control your span of days? One who spins your thread of life, one who measures it, and one who cuts it? Your life is not measured yet.”

“Such is the skill of the sisters that one does not feel the thread being drawn out, or perceive the scissors being opened.” Then his tone of voice changed. “This sort of talk is bad luck! Come!” Abruptly he quit the rooftop and went inside.

Such was the oddness of the Alexandrian War that I was able to station myself on the roof to have a commanding view of the action the next day. I did not want to watch it, and yet I had to, for I needed to know what happened, and not from any messenger.

Early in the morning, before the sun’s rays had even reached beyond the tops of the temples, and when the streets were still dark, Caesar and his men poured from the palace grounds in full force, taking the enemy by surprise. The streets were quickly theirs, and by the time the sun was shining fully on the waterfront, I could see fierce fighting by the docks. The Romans were easy to spot because of their helmets and their distinctive military attire, in contrast to the forces of Achillas in their varying, pieced-together costumes. I could see Caesar himself in his purple general’s cloak, and although I wished I could look elsewhere, I could not for a second take my eyes from him.

I saw how he led the men into the most thinly guarded and dangerous areas, putting heart into them by his reckless bravery. He did not spare himself, but rushed out into the thick of the fighting. But then the superior numbers of Achillas began to tell, and suddenly the Romans seemed to be swallowed up. I felt a horrible cold fear as Caesar disappeared from view under a swirl of swords and shields. The tumult of metal against metal, of stones being lobbed and smashing against the docks and houses, and the screams of dying men, rose, like the cry of a monster, all the way up to my rooftop.

I saw a trace of fire arcing across the dock; someone had thrown a torch. Others followed, and suddenly one of the warships was on fire. The flames caught in the rigging and quickly spread to the deck.

One of my warships! I gasped. No!

The flames spread so fast it was obvious that tar and pitch on board had caught fire. Men poured from the ship and dived into the water. Then the ship next to that one caught fire. Screams rose as the water filled with escaping sailors. The fighting on the docks continued as furiously as ever.

My ships were aflame! My navy was being destroyed! I watched in horror as the entire fleet caught fire, and my pride and wealth of sea power vanished. But then—the wind carried sparks from the burning ships and set fire to warehouses on the docks. Well I knew what was in the warehouses—grain, oil, but most precious of all, manuscripts for the Library. An entire warehouse of manuscripts was being annihilated! I began to scream in helpless horror, but I went on watching.

The fires distracted the Alexandrians, which gave Caesar and his men their opportunity to make for the causeway. They swarmed down it and out to the Lighthouse, where I soon saw more smoke and fire rising in the midst of hand-to-hand combat.

It was impossible to tell what was happening, who was winning, until after what seemed hours, when the glint of the sun on the returning Roman helmets told the tale: They had subdued the island and were now going to secure the length of the causeway. The men spread out, and now—thanks be to you, Isis, and to all the gods who held him in their care—I saw the flash of Caesar’s purple cloak. He was out in front, leading the men back across the causeway and toward the waterfront.

Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, an enemy warship laden with soldiers sailed through the burning hulks of my ships in the western harbor, and made for the middle of the causeway, cutting the Romans in the forefront off from the rest of their troops, stranding them in one section of the causeway. It was Caesar they were after; they meant to hem him in and destroy him. The newly landed soldiers advanced on him, while the ones from the shore closed in on the other side.

The Romans decided to retreat to their ships, but the ships had pulled in their gangplanks and cast anchors to prevent themselves from being boarded by the enemy. The Romans dived into the water and began swimming to the ships; I saw Caesar plunge in and make for the nearest ship, but it was so overladen it was near capsizing, so he was forced to swim to one far distant, all the time dodging a hail of arrows and missiles. His progress was slowed by the fact that he was swimming one-handed, holding up a sheaf of papers—what could be so important, I wondered—and trailing his heavy general’s cloak behind him, determined not to yield the enemy that trophy. But at length I saw him throw off the cloak and swim free of it to the ship. The cloak floated back toward the causeway, where it was retrieved by the enemy with jeers and jubilation.

He was safe. He was safe. The sweetness of realizing that he would return from that day’s fighting almost overwhelmed me with gratitude.

He sat in our private room, hunched over his charts. His hair was matted, and he was shivering from exhaustion and the cold water. His arms were covered with cuts, and his legs were bruised, and he kept shaking his head.

“Four hundred men lost,” he was saying. “Four hundred!”

“But you won,” I said. “You won. And you did everything you set out to do. You captured the island and the Lighthouse.”

“And burnt a fleet!” He sounded bitter. “Forgive me! But it had to be done. I could see they were going to capture it, and that would have given them a navy, which they do not now have.”

“So it was you who threw that brand!” I said. “It was no accident!”

“No, of course not,” he said. “It was my decision. And a good one, too. Look at the damage they managed to do with only one ship!” Again he shook his head. “I lost four hundred men,” he repeated softly. “And my general’s cloak. They got that.”

“At least it was not
you
they got,” I said. “And why did you persist in trying to protect those papers? What was so important in them that was worth risking your life for?”

“Military plans,” he said. “Ciphers. Codes. Those must not be lost by us, or gained by them.” He withdrew them from inside his sodden leather jerkin and threw them on the table, heaving a deep sigh of relief. “There.”

“Manuscripts were lost that were on the docks, waiting to be transferred to the Library,” I said.

“I am sorry,” he said. “The burning of the warehouses was a true accident.”

“Yes,” I said. “An accident of war. I can see that war, once launched, is not very easily controlled. It goes wherever it pleases, like a mad but cunning animal. Even the great Caesar cannot keep it leashed!”