The October Horse (10 page)

Her face was painted into a mask with exquisite care, its mouth glossily crimson, its cheeks adorned with rouge, and its eyes replicas of the eye on her throne: rimmed with black stibium extending in thin lines toward her ears and ending in little triangles filled in with the coppery green that colored her upper lids all the way to her stibium-enhanced brows; below them a curled black line was drawn down onto each cheek. The effect of the paint was as sinister as it was stunning; one could almost imagine that the face beneath was not human.

Her two Macedonian attendants, Charmian and Iras, today were clad in Egyptian mode too. Because Pharaoh's sandals were so high, they assisted Cleopatra up the steps of the dais to her throne, where she sat, took the enameled gold crook and flail from them and crossed these symbols of her deity upon her breast.

No one, Caesar noticed, prostrated himself; a low bow seemed adequate.

“We are here to preside,” she said in a strong voice. “We are Pharaoh, you see our Godhead revealed. Gaius Julius Caesar, Son of Amun-Ra, Osiris Reincarnated, Pontifex Maximus, Imperator, Dictator of the Senate and People of Rome, proceed.”

And that's it! he was thinking exultantly as she rolled the sonorous phrases out, that's it! Alexandria and things Macedonian don't even enter her ken. She's Egyptian to the core—once she dons this incredible regalia, she radiates power!

“I am overwhelmed at your majesty, Daughter of Ammon-Ra,” he said, then indicated his delegates, rising from their bows. “May I introduce Simeon, Abraham and Joshua of the Jews, and Cibyrus, Phormion and Darius of the Metics?”

“Welcome, and be seated,” said Pharaoh.

Whereupon Caesar quite forgot the occupant of the throne. Choosing to approach his subject tangentially, he indicated one laden side table. “I know that flesh has to be religiously prepared and that wine has to be properly Judaic,” he said to Simeon, the chief elder of the Jews. “All has been done as your laws stipulate, so after we've spoken, don't hesitate to eat. Similarly,” he said to Darius, ethnarch of the Metics, “the food and wine on the second table has been prepared for you.”

“Your kindness is appreciated, Caesar,” said Simeon, “but so much hospitality can't alter the fact that your fortified corridor has cut us off from the rest of the city—our ultimate source of food, our livelihoods, and the raw materials for our trades. We note that you've finished demolishing the houses at the rear of Royal Avenue's west side, so we must presume that you are about to demolish our houses on the east side.”

“Don't worry, Simeon,” Caesar said in Hebrew, “hear me out.”

Cleopatra's eyes looked startled; Simeon jumped.

“You speak Hebrew?” he asked.

“A little. I grew up in a very polyglot quarter of Rome, the Subura, where my mother was the landlady of an insula. We always had a number of Jews among our tenants, and I had the run of the place when I was a child. So I picked up languages. Our resident elder was a goldsmith, Shimon. I know the nature of your god, your customs, your traditions, your foods, your songs, and the history of your people.” He turned to Cibyrus. “I can even speak a little Pisidian,” he said in that tongue. “Alas, Darius, I cannot speak Persian,” he said in Greek, “so for the sake of convenience, let us have our talk in Greek.”

Within a quarter of an hour he had explained the situation without apology; a war in Alexandria was inevitable.

“However,” he said, “for my own protection I would prefer to fight the war on one side of my corridor only—the western side. Do nothing to oppose me and I'll guarantee that my soldiers don't invade you, that the war won't spread east of Royal Avenue, and that you'll continue to eat. As for the raw materials you need for your trades and the wages those of you who work on the west side will lose, I am not in a position to help. But there may be compensations for the hardships you're bound to suffer until I beat Achillas and subdue the Alexandrians. Don't hinder Caesar and Caesar will be in your debt. And Caesar pays his debts.”

He rose from his ivory curule chair and approached the throne. “I imagine, great Pharaoh, that it is in your power to pay all who help you keep your throne?”

“It is.”

“Then are you willing to compensate the Jews and Metics for the financial losses they will sustain?”

“I am, provided they do nothing to hinder you, Caesar.”

Simeon stood, bowed deeply. “Great Queen,” he said, “in return for our co-operation, there is one other thing we ask of you, as do the Metics.”

“Ask, Simeon.”

“Give us the Alexandrian citizenship.”

A long pause ensued. Cleopatra sat hidden behind her exotic mask, her eyes veiled by coppery green lids, the crook and flail crossed on her breast rising and falling slightly as she breathed. Finally the shiny red lips parted. “I agree, Simeon, Darius. The Alexandrian citizenship for all Jews and Metics who have lived in the city for more than three years. Plus financial restitution for what this war will cost you, and a bonus for every Jewish or Metic man who actively fights for Caesar.”

Simeon sagged in relief; the other five stared at one another incredulously. What had been withheld for generations was theirs!

“And I,” said Caesar, “will add the Roman citizenship.”

“The price is more than fair, we have a deal.” Simeon beamed. “Furthermore, to prove our loyalty, we will hold the coast between Cape Lochias and the hippodrome. It isn't suitable for mass landings, but Achillas could get plenty of men ashore in small boats. Beyond the hippodrome,” he explained for Caesar's benefit, “the swamps of the Delta begin, which is God's Will. God is our best ally.”

“Then let's eat!” Caesar cried.

Cleopatra rose. “You don't need Pharaoh anymore,” she said. “Charmian, Iras, your help.”

•      •      •

“Oh, get me out of all this!” Pharaoh yelled, kicking off her shoes the moment she reached her rooms. Off came the incongruous false beard, the huge and weighty collar, a shower of rings and bracelets bouncing and rolling around the floor with fearful servants crawling after them, calling on one another to witness that nothing was purloined. She had to sit while Charmian and Iras battled to remove the mighty double crown; its enamel was layered over wood, not metal, but it was tailored to the shape of Cleopatra's skull so it could not fall off, and it was heavy.

Then she saw the beautiful Egyptian woman in her temple musician's garb, shrieked with joy and ran into her arms.

“Tach'a! Tach'a! My mother, my mother!”

While Charmian and Iras scolded and clucked because she was crushing her beaded coat, Cleopatra hugged and kissed Tach'a in a frenzy of love.

Her own mother had been very kind, very sweet, but always too preoccupied for love; something Cleopatra could forgive, herself a victim of that awful atmosphere in the palace at Alexandria. Mama's name had been Cleopatra Tryphaena, and she was a daughter of Mithridates the Great; he had given her as wife to Ptolemy Auletes, who was the illegitimate son of the tenth Ptolemy, Soter nicknamed Chickpea. She had borne two daughters, Berenice and Cleopatra, but no sons. Auletes had had a half sister, still a child when Mithridates forced him to marry Cleopatra Tryphaena, but that had been thirty-three years ago, and the half sister grew up. Until Mithridates died, Auletes was too afraid of his father-in-law to dispose of his wife; all he could do was wait.

When Berenice was twelve years old and little Cleopatra five, Pompey the Great ended the career of King Mithridates the Great, who fled to Cimmeria and was murdered by one of his sons, the same Pharnaces at present invading Anatolia. Freed at last, Auletes divorced Cleopatra Tryphaena and married his half sister. But the daughter of Mithridates was as pragmatic as she was shrewd; she managed to stay alive, continue to live in the palace with her own two daughters while her replacement gave Auletes yet another girl, Arsinoë, and finally two sons.

Berenice was old enough to join the adults, but Cleopatra was relegated to the nursery, a hideous place. Then, as the conduct of Auletes deteriorated, her mother sent little Cleopatra to the temple of Ptah in Memphis, where she entered a world that bore no resemblance to the palace at Alexandria. Cool limestone buildings in the ancient Egyptian style, warm arms to fold her close. For Cha'em, high priest of Ptah, and his wife, Tach'a, took Cleopatra for their own. They taught her both kinds of Egyptian, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic, taught her to sing and play the big harp, taught her all that there was to know about Egypt of Nilus, the mighty pantheon of gods Creator Ptah had made.

More than sexual perversities and wine-soaked orgies rendered Auletes difficult to live with; he had scrambled on to the throne after his legitimate half brother, the eleventh Ptolemy, died without issue— but leaving a will that had bequeathed Egypt to Rome. Thus had Rome entered the picture, a fearsome presence. In Caesar's consulship Auletes had paid six thousand gold talents to secure Roman approval of his tenure of the throne, gold he had stolen from the Alexandrians. For Auletes was not Pharaoh, and had no access to the fabulous treasure vaults in Memphis. The trouble was that the Alexandrian income was in the purlieu of the Alexandrians, who insisted that their ruler pay them back. Times were hard, the price of food inflated, Roman pressures omnipresent and dangerous. Auletes's solution was to debase the Alexandrian coinage.

The people rose against him immediately, set the mob loose. His secret tunnel enabled Auletes to escape into exile by sailing away, but he left penniless. Which was of scant concern to the Alexandrians, who replaced him with his eldest daughter, Berenice, and her mother, Cleopatra Tryphaena. The situation in the palace was now reversed; it was Auletes's second wife and second family who had to take a back seat to the pair of Mithridatid queens.

And little Cleopatra was recalled from Memphis. A terrible blow! How she had wept for Tach'a, for Cha'em, for that idyllic life of love and scholarship beside the wide blue snake of Nilus! The palace in Alexandria was worse than ever; now eleven years old, Cleopatra was still in the nursery, which she shared with two biting, scratching, brawling little Ptolemies. Arsinoë was the worse, forever telling her that she was not “good enough”—too little Ptolemaic blood, and grandchild of a rascally old king who might have terrorized Anatolia for forty years, but still ended a broken man. Broken by Rome.

Cleopatra Tryphaena died a year after assuming the throne, so Berenice decided to marry. Something Rome didn't want. Crassus and Pompey were still plotting for annexation, aided and abetted by the governors of Cilicia and Syria. Wherever Berenice tried to find a husband, Rome was there before her to warn the fellow off. Finally she turned to her Mithridatid relatives, and among them found that elusive husband, one Archelaus. Caring nothing for Rome, he made the journey to Alexandria and married Queen Berenice. For a few short, sweet days they were happy; then Aulus Gabinius, the governor of Syria, invaded Egypt.

Ptolemy Auletes hadn't frittered away his time in exile, he had gone to the moneylenders (including Rabirius Postumus) and offered any governor of an eastern province ten thousand talents of silver to win back his kingdom. Gabinius agreed and marched for Pelusium with Auletes in his train. Another interesting man marched with Gabinius too: his commander of horse, a twenty-seven-year-old Roman noble named Marcus Antonius.

But Cleopatra had never set eyes on Mark Antony; the moment that Gabinius breached the Egyptian border, Berenice sent her little sister to Cha'em and Tach'a in Memphis. King Archelaus called up the Egyptian army intending to fight, but neither he nor Berenice was aware that Alexandria didn't approve of the Queen's marriage to yet another Mithridatid. The Alexandrian element in the army mutinied and killed Archelaus, which marked the end of Egyptian resistance. Gabinius entered Alexandria and put Ptolemy Auletes back on the throne; Auletes murdered his daughter Berenice before Gabinius had even quit the city.

Cleopatra had just turned fourteen, Arsinoë was eight, one little boy was six, and the other barely three. The scales had tipped; the second wife and the second family of Auletes were back on top again. Understanding that were Cleopatra to be sent home, she would be murdered, Cha'em and Tach'a kept her in Memphis until her father died from his vices. The Alexandrians hadn't wanted her on the throne, but the high priest of Ptah was the present holder of an office over three thousand years old, and he understood what to do. Namely, to anoint Cleopatra as Pharaoh before she left Memphis. If she returned to Alexandria as Pharaoh, no one would dare touch her, even a Potheinus or a Theodotus. Or an Arsinoë. For Pharaoh held the key to the treasure vaults, an unlimited supply of money, and Pharaoh was God in Egypt of Nilus, where Alexandria's food came from.

The chief source of the royal income was not Alexandria, but Egypt of the river. There, where sovereigns had existed for who knew how many thousands of years, everything belonged to Pharaoh. The land, the crops, the beasts and fowls of the field and farmyard, the honeybees, the taxes, duties and fares. Only the production of linen, in the province of the priests, did Pharaoh share; the priests received one-third of the income this finest linen in the world generated. Nowhere save in Egypt was linen woven so tenuously that it was sheer as faintly clouded glass, nowhere save in Egypt could it be pleated or dyed such magical colors, nowhere save in Egypt was it so brilliantly white. One other source of income was as unique as it was lucrative: Egypt produced paper from the papyrus plant that grew everywhere in the Delta, and Pharaoh owned the paper too.

Therefore Pharaoh's income amounted to over twelve thousand talents of gold a year, divided into two purses, the privy and the public. Six thousand talents in each. Out of the public purse Pharaoh paid his district governors, his bureaucrats, his police, his water police, his army, his navy, his factory workers, his farmers and peasants. Even when Nilus failed to inundate, that public income was sufficient to buy in grain from foreign lands. The privy purse belonged outright to Pharaoh and could not be touched for any but Pharaoh's personal needs and desires. In it were lumped the country's production of gold, gemstones, porphyry, ebony, ivory, spices and pearls. The fleets that sailed to the Horn of Africa for most of these belonged to—Pharaoh.