The Memoirs of Cleopatra (19 page)

“I am sorry,” he repeated, throwing off the last of his soaked, tattered clothing and lying down on the bed.

“You are safe,” I said. “That is all that ultimately matters.”

And as I watched him slide into sleep, I knew that was true for me. He was safe tonight. But tomorrow, when the fighting commenced again?

The Roman civil wars that had spread to us now seemed to infect everything. It did not take long for the murdered Pompey’s ghost to exact his final revenge: Achillas did not outlive Pothinus by many days, because Arsinoe killed him and turned the army over to Ganymedes. The knives that the assassins had used against Pompey had now found their way home into their masters’ entrails.

Jubilant with power, Ganymedes launched a direct attack on the palace. Caesar and I were dining in the private apartments a week after the fighting on the island when a burning missile was lobbed right onto our balcony, followed by a rain of arrows with messages attached.

Caesar pulled one out of the wooden sun canopy and held it up for me to see.

Surrender, you Roman dogs!
it read.

“How original,” I said.

“Here’s another,” said Caesar, bending down to pick one up.

A gold piece for every soldier who comes over to Arsinoe
, it promised.

That was more dangerous.

“They have no money to pay,” I said scornfully.

“The common soldier does not know that,” said Caesar. “I must go below and rally them.” He hastened away.

Within a few days the furious ingenuity of Ganymedes was manifested directly in our water supply. Unable to storm the palace or to dislodge us from our holdings in the city and the island, he resolved to drive us out by thirst.

The cooks had discovered that the water in the conduits had turned salty and brackish, and the soldiers stationed in town reported that all the water in the local households had the same problem, which had mysteriously developed overnight.

“How did they manage to do it?” Caesar marveled. “How did they taint all our water without hurting their own?”

I called in our engineers, and the answer was soon clear. Alexandria’s water supply comes from underground tunnels that channel Nile water through the city. Ganymedes had divided the water flow, protecting his own, and pumping seawater into ours.

“This war has not been easy,” Caesar admitted. “The enemy is resourceful and clever. They force us to be more so. I will speak to the troops.” I thought he sounded tired, and nearer the end of his resources than he would wish to sound.

From the upper balcony of the palace he addressed his officers and men, as they waited in the open space below.

“The cowardly Ganymedes and his put-together army of pirates and slaves and corrupted Romans have the knowledge to construct giant waterwheels to draw seawater up to higher ground,” he shouted. “How clever! How impressive! Does he think by this to conquer us? By a boy’s toys?”

From the way the men were restlessly moving, I could see how uncomfortable they were. They were thirsty. They had probably drunk all the wine available, and now there was nothing.

“A boy should not go to war! A boy’s toys cannot triumph over an experienced man’s knowledge, and the determination and courage of his troops! You see, I know where there is water to be found, and easily. There are always veins of fresh water in beaches, and not far below the surface. A few hours’ digging will yield us all the water we wish!”

Was this true? Or was he merely hoping?

“And furthermore, even if there is no water there, we hold command of the sea, and it is an easy matter to sail forth in either direction and bring back a supply of water. So fear not, but get out your shovels!”

The men did not give their usual cheers. They craved an orderly retreat, to sail away from this mess.

“Think not of abandoning your posts! If they see us boarding ships, they will rush our barricades. An orderly withdrawal is not possible for us now.” He paused. “Nor is it necessary! To the shovels!” He hoisted one up and flourished it. “To the beach!”

Once again, the fair goddess of fortune looked upon her favorite son, and Caesar’s conjecture was proved right. Overnight digging yielded several wells, and when the sun came up the next morning the problem was solved. The enemy’s days of labor had been thwarted in only a few hours by Caesar’s efforts.

News came that some supply ships of the Thirty-seventh Legion, arriving ahead of the overland troops, had overshot Alexandria and were anchored to the west. Caesar took his small fleet and went out to meet them. It looked as if the end of the war was near, but even this simple action turned into a battle, as the enemy attacked the ships and Caesar was hard put to avoid being captured. In the end, the seamanship of the Romans defeated the enemy, and Caesar returned safely.

“Each thing has proved harder than I ever expected,” he said wearily. “And this has gone on for much too long. I am very tired.” He shook his head. “I was expecting Alexandria to provide me with a rest from all my campaigning. Amusing, isn’t it?”

Yes, the war had gone on for a long time. And in the last few days I had finally realized something, something I had decided not to tell Caesar until the war was over. But each time I thought it might be over, it proved to be merely one episode that was over. It seemed to stretch out interminably.

One of my odd ways of thinking is that I find it hard to mix things. I like to take each thing in its turn, one at a time. That was what I had meant to do now. But the war went on and on! And seeing Caesar grow more and more worn and tired, his sleep deeper and his footsteps less springy, my heart took hold of my tongue. I also found it harder and harder to keep anything from him, he seemed so much a part of myself.

“You are a great general,” I said slowly. “There is now no one in all the world to challenge you. What is occurring here is almost an accident, as if these men have not heard what everyone else knows. I have heard of isolated troops fighting on long after a war is ended and their commanders have gone home. Such is the situation here. Do not lose heart.”

“I haven’t lost heart,” he said, “so much as patience.”

“If you conquered the entire world, it is not too late to found a dynasty,” I said.

“Rome does not have monarchs.”

“I said the entire world, not just Rome. Egypt joined with Rome is no longer Rome. And this new creation would need a dynasty.”

He jerked his head up and looked at me as if I were dangling something dangerous in front of him. A forbidden golden object. A sealed will. An enormous bribe. His eyes narrowed, but not before I had caught the quick leap of curiosity and desire there. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying simply that—if you have an empire to bequeath, then we shall have the child to bequeath it to.” It was thus I told him.

“A child.” He looked shocked and disbelieving. “I had not thought to have a child.”

“I know. It is almost thirty years since your daughter was born, your only child. All the world knew of your sorrow when she died.”

He struggled not to show his rising joy. “It is possible?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is not only possible, it is a certainty. And it is my gift to you. Not Alexandria, not Egypt—for those you could conquer—but a child, an heir of Caesar.”

“A gift from the gods,” he said, rising slowly and holding out his arms to me. “A most sublime, and unlooked-for, gift from the gods.” He held me differently. And I was filled with joy that I had not waited any longer to tell him.

It was, of course, your gift, Isis: you, the Great Mother, had decided to bestow this fortune on us. It is you who can command barrenness to depart at your will, and you did so for Caesar. It was your purpose that—just as your son Horus could avenge his father, Osiris—when Caesar fell, attacked by evil men, he would have a son to avenge him. I know that now, whereas then I only rejoiced in the fact that I was able to give Caesar something that he wanted so badly, which until now had been withheld from him, when all the rest of the world had been laid at his feet.

I wished for Olympos, for his medical care, but he and Mardian were still retained behind the lines of the rebel army. How he would shake his head, and say, “Where was the silphion when you needed it? Why did you neglect it?” and when I replied, “I am happy with what has happened,” he would be perplexed. And Mardian! What would he think? Everything was changed from what we had expected and planned for, back in the tent in the desert sand.

Caesar could not hide his delight. An uncharacteristic smile played over his features at meetings, until his officers asked him if he was pleased that the populace was destroying the buildings of the city in their attempt to replace their navy.

“They are determined to build themselves a fleet,” reported one of the centurions.

“With what?” scoffed another.

“They have doubtless remembered the guard ships at all seven mouths of the Nile, stationed to levy customs duties,” I said, speaking from the back of the room, where I had been quietly listening. “There are also a number of secret dockyards with old, moldering ships. These they could lay hands on with little difficulty.”

Still Caesar did not lose his pleasant expression. “And they will make these seaworthy—in how many months?”

“Days, Caesar,” said one of the soldiers to whom the spies reported. “They have already gathered some ships on the lake, and set about preparing them. The shortage of oars and timbers is being met by dismantling public buildings and chopping off the roofs of colonnades for the beams. I have heard that twenty quadriremes are being readied.”

“Twenty quadriremes!” Still Caesar did not lose his composure. “An industrious people.”

“How much has been destroyed?” I asked. My beautiful city! That they could so wantonly tear her apart! I braced myself to hear the worst.

“They have ripped the roof off the Museion, and even attacked the Temple of Neptune,” the man said. “As for the Gymnasion—the long porticoes proved to be too great a temptation. They are taken apart.”

I gave a moan of anguish. All that beauty, gone. “The Library? The royal tombs?”

“Those still stand untouched,” he said.

“But not for long,” another said, “if they wish to equip quinqueremes.”

“So, if we are to save your city, Queen Cleopatra,” said Caesar, “we will have to distract them, or make it clear there is no further need for naval vessels. The next engagement will be a land one, perforce. After all, we came to rescue Alexandria, not destroy her.”

That night, in our apartments, Caesar was pacing up and down the largest of the rooms, where sliding doors opened out onto the terrace. The marble floor was so polished that his legs and the lower part of his military attire—the red tunic and the leather thongs—were reflected in it, although the upper parts of him disappeared, dissolved into the dark.

“What troubles you so, my love?” I asked, coming over to him. “We can rebuild the city, when it is all ours again.” In truth, I was not as unconcerned as I made it sound. My heart ached to picture what was being destroyed, and I knew nothing could ever be the same again. Those timbers could not be replaced; the forests in the Atlas Mountains and in Lebanon no longer grew trees of such height. Skill alone cannot restore the vanished.

“The destructiveness of war somehow hurts more now that it is lessening what I will leave behind to—to our child,” he said. “But the sailors of the Thirty-seventh told me that land forces, raised by Mithridates of Pergamon, are already on the march. The war will indeed end soon.”

“Forever,” I said. Now there would be no more uncertainty about who ruled Egypt, what its status was with Rome, whether it would remain independent, and what its future was. All those questions had been answered, even if blood had been spilled to do it. In the future—in the days of our child—there would be no bloodshed necessary, because his parents had already sacrificed it.

“Mars is a very thirsty god,” he said. “He never seems to have his fill of blood.” He paused. “But, yes, for the time being…” He pulled out a small message scroll that he had been keeping in his belt. “What do you advise?” he asked me.

I read it over quickly. It was from a delegation of Alexandrians serving in the council of the enemy army. They stated that the whole population was turning against Arsinoe and Ganymedes and wanted to follow Ptolemy instead, were he released to them. They would sign a cease-fire and negotiate with Caesar under the leadership of their King.

“This is absurd,” I finally answered. “They can come forward and submit to Ptolemy now. There is no need to release him from the palace.”

“Exactly. Yet I shall do so,” said Caesar. “This could not be more perfect! Now we can rid ourselves of him, and remove the last enemy from our midst.”

“No!” I said. “It is a trick!”

He looked at me as if to say, How slow you are! “Yes, of course it is a trick! But we have a greater trick! For we know their forces are doomed to be crushed between ours and the land army bearing down on Egypt even now. So let us send him out to lead his troops—for a little while. Let him put on his crown and wave his sword. Don’t you think every child deserves to play for an afternoon?”

I smiled, but his chilling analysis was troubling. How long did it take to become that way, that hardened? How many wars, how many betrayals, how many disappointments? Was that the ultimate outcome of survival?
Count no man happy until he is dead
, a saying went. Perhaps it should really say,
Count no man happy unless he dies young and inexperienced in the ways of men
.

“It is almost over,” I said, to reassure myself. “It is almost over.”

The next morning, after Caesar had arisen and had his customary cold meal of bread, honey, and cheese, he called for Ptolemy to come to the military room. The little King came striding in, attired in rich golden brocade, wearing his royal fillet. Caesar was seated and did not rise.

“Good morning,” he said blandly. “I have what I believe will be welcome news for you.”