Caesar (89 page)

“But how can that be?” the woman, not Pharaoh, asked.“ It will come to pass,” said Cha'em. He rose to his feet the long way, by first prostrating himself. “In the meantime, O Queen of Queens, we must see to the purchase of a good army.”

For two months Cleopatra traveled greater Syria, enlisting mercenaries. All the kingdoms of old Syria had made a profitable industry out of producing mercenaries who were universally deemed the world's best hired troops. Idumaeans, Nabataeans. But the best mercenaries of all were Jewish. Cleopatra hied herself to Jerusalem. There at last she met the famous Antipater—and liked him. With him was his second son, Herod; of that arrogant, ugly young man she wasn't so sure. Save that the pair of them were extremely intelligent and extremely rapacious. Her gold, they inferred, could buy their services as well as soldiers.“ You see,” said Antipater, intrigued by the fact that this wispy scion of a degenerate house spoke impeccable Aramaic, “I am having grave doubts about Pompeius Magnus's chances of defeating the mysterious man out of the West, Gaius Julius Caesar.”

“Man out of the West?” asked Cleopatra idly, biting into a delicious pomegranate.“ Yes, that's what Herod and I call him. His conquests have been in the West. Now we shall see how he fares in the East.”

“Gaius Julius Caesar ... I know little about him except that he sold my father Friend and Ally status and confirmed his tenure of the throne. For a price. Tell me who this Caesar is.”

“Who is Caesar?” Antipater leaned aside to wash his hands in a golden basin. “In any other place than Rome he'd be a king, great Queen. His family is ancient and august. He is, they say, descended from Aphrodite and Ares through Aeneas and Romulus.” The large and beautiful eyes, leonine, looked startled; down came long lashes to veil them. “Then he is a god.”

“Not to anyone Judaic like us, but yes, he might claim a degree of godhead, I suppose,” said Herod lazily, browsing through a bowl of nuts with pudgy, hennaed fingers. How conceited these peoples of the minor Syrian kingdoms are! thought Cleopatra. They act as if the world's navel were here in Jerusalem or Petra or Tyre. But it isn't. The navel of the world is in Rome. I wish it were in Memphis! Or even Alexandria.

Her army of twenty thousand men plumped out by volunteers from the Land of Onias, the Queen of Alexandria and Egypt marched down the shore road from Raphia between the great salt marsh of Lake Sirbonis and the sea, then dug herself in on the Syrian flank of Mount Casius, a sandhill just ten miles from Pelusium. Here was the proper place to decide who would sit on the Egyptian throne. She had pure water and a viable supply line into Syria, where Antipater and son Herod were buying in foodstuffs and taking a nice big commission she didn't grudge them in the least. Achillas and the army of Egypt moved to contain her; midway through September he arrived on the Pelusiac side of Mount Casius and dug himself in. A careful soldier, Achillas wanted to wear Cleopatra down before he struck. At midsummer, when the heat was fierce and her mercenaries would think of cool homes versus the sweat of battle. That was the time to crush her. Midsummer! The next Inundation! Cleopatra prowled her mud-brick house and itched to get the business over and done with. The world was falling apart! The man out of the West had defeated Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus at Pharsalus! But how, sitting here at Mount Casius, was she ever going to persuade him to visit Egypt? To do that she would need to occupy her throne securely and issue an invitation to pay a State visit. The Romans loved touring Egypt, demanded to see the crocodiles and at least one hippopotamus, wanted to be dazzled by gold and jewels, devastated by mighty temples. The tears coursing down her pinched face, Cleopatra reconciled herself to a third Inundation in the Cubits of Death. The omens were always right when Cha'em selected for purity. Gaius Julius Caesar, the God out of the West, would surely come. But not before midsummer.

Pompey arrived in the roads off Pelusium in the morning two days before his fifty-eighth birthday to find that old, neglected harbor choked with Egyptian war galleys and troop transports. No hope of easing inshore, even to anchor off some muddy beach. He and Sextus leaned on the ship's rail and stared at the pandemonium in fascination.“ There must be a civil war,” said Sextus.“ Well, it's certainly not for my benefit,” said his father with a grin. “We'd better send someone to scout for us, then we'll decide what to do.”

“Sail on to Alexandria, you mean?”

“We might, but my three captains tell me we're low on food as well as water, so we'll have to stay here long enough to victual.”

“I'll go,” Sextus offered.“ No, I'll send Philip.” Sextus looked offended; his father punched him lightly on the shoulder.“ Serves you right, Sextus, you should have done your Greek homework years ago. I'm sending Philip because he's a Syrian Greek, he'll be able to communicate. If it isn't Attic, you're stuck.” Gnaeus Pompeius Philip, one of Pompey's own freedmen, came to receive his instructions. A big, fair man, he listened intently, nodded without questioning, and climbed over the trireme's side into its dinghy.“ There's a battle in the offing, Gnaeus Pompeius,” he said when he returned two hours later. “Half of Egypt is somewhere in this vicinity. The Queen's army is camped on the far side of Mount Casius, the King's army is camped on this side. Talk in Pelusium is that they'll come to grips within days.”

“How does Pelusium know when they'll fight?” asked Pompey.“ The little King has arrived here—a very rare event. He's too young to be war leader—someone called Achillas is that—but apparently the battle won't be official if he's not present.” Pompey sat down and wrote a letter to King Ptolemy asking for an audience immediately. The rest of the day went by without an answer, which gave Pompey fresh things to consider. Two years ago that letter would have acted like a prod up the podex from a spear were it addressed to the rulers of Mount Olympus. Now a child king felt himself at liberty to answer it in his own good time.“ I wonder how long it would have taken for Caesar to get a reply?” Pompey asked Cornelia Metella, a little bitterly. She patted his hand. “Magnus, it's not worth fretting about. These are strange people; their customs must be strange too. Besides, no one here might know about Pharsalus yet.”

“That I don't believe, Cornelia. I think by now even the King of the Parthians knows about Pharsalus.”

“Come to bed and sleep. The answer will arrive tomorrow.”

Delivered by Philip to the merest clerk, Pompey's letter took some hours to ascend the ladder of the paper-pushing hierarchy; Egypt, so the saying went, could give lessons in bureaucracy to the Greeks of Asia. Shortly before sunset it reached the secretary to the secretary of Potheinus, the Lord High Chamberlain. He examined its seal curiously, then stiffened. A lion's head and the letters CN POMP MAG around its mane? “Serapis! Serapis!” He fled to Potheinus's secretary, who fled to Potheinus.“ Lord High Chamberlain!” the man gasped, holding out the little scroll. “A letter from Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus!”

Clad in a gauzy purple linen reclining robe because he had done with business for the day, Potheinus uncoiled from his couch in a single movement, snatched the scroll and stared at its seal incredulously. It was! It had to be!"

Send for Theodoras and Achillas,“ he said curtly, sat down at his desk and snapped the bright red wax. Hands trembling, he unfurled the single sheet of Fannian paper and began to try to decipher its sprawling, spidery Greek. By the time Theodotus and Achillas came, he had finished and was sitting staring out the window, which faced west and the harbor of Pelusium, still aswarm with activity. He was looking at three trim triremes at anchor in the sea lanes.” What is it?“ asked Achillas, a hybrid Macedonian-Egyptian with the size of his Macedonian forebears and the darkness of his Egyptian ones. A lithe man in his middle thirties and a professional soldier all his life, he was well aware that he had to defeat the Queen sooner or later; if he did not, he faced exile and ruin.” See those three ships?“ asked Potheinus, pointing.” Built in Pamphylia, from the look of the prows."

“Do you know who's on board one of them?”

“No idea at all.”

“Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.” Theodotus squawked, sat down on a chair limply. Achillas flexed the muscles in his bare forearms, put his hands against the chest of his hard leather cuirass. “Serapis!”

“Indeed,” said the Lord High Chamberlain.“ What does he want?”

“An audience with the King and safe passage to Alexandria.”

“We should have the King here,” said Theodotus, stumbling to his feet. “I'll get him.” Neither Potheinus nor Achillas protested; whatever was going to be done would be done in the name of the King, who was entitled to listen to his advisers in council. He wouldn't have a say, of course. But he was entitled to listen. The thirteenth Ptolemy had stuffed himself with sweetmeats and was feeling rather sick; when he was informed who was on board one of those three triremes, his queasiness disappeared instantly, was replaced by eager interest.“ Oh! Will I get to see him, Theodotus?”

“That remains to be seen,” said his tutor. “Now sit down, listen carefully, and don't interrupt . . . great King,” he added as an afterthought. Potheinus took the chair and nodded at Achillas. “Your opinion first, Achillas. What do we do with Gnaeus Pompeius?”

“Well, his letter doesn't tell us much, just asks for an audience and safe passage to Alexandria. He's got three warships, no doubt a handful of troops too. But nothing to be worried about. It's my opinion,” said Achillas, “that we should grant him his audience and send him on to Alexandria. He'll be heading for his friends in Africa, I imagine.”

“But in the meantime,” said Theodotus, agitated, “it will become known that he sought assistance here, was received here, saw the King here. He didn't win Pharsalus—he lost Pharsalus! Can we afford to offend his conqueror, the mighty Gaius Caesar?” Handsome face impassive, Potheinus paid as much attention to Theodotus as he had to Achillas. “So far,” he said, “Theodotus makes a better case. What do you think, great King?” The twelve-year-old King of Egypt frowned solemnly. “I agree with you, Potheinus.”

“Good, good! Theodotus, continue.”

“Consider, please! Pompeius Magnus has lost the struggle to maintain his supremacy in Rome, the most powerful nation west of the Kingdom of the Parthians. The will of the late King Ptolemy Alexander, which was given to the Roman Dictator Sulla, bequeathed Egypt to Rome. We in Alexandria subverted that will, found our present king's father to put on the throne. Marcus Crassus tried to annex Egypt. We evaded that and then bribed this same Gaius Caesar to confirm Auletes in his tenure of the throne.” The thin, painted, febrile face twisted up in anxiety. “But now this Gaius Caesar is, one might say with truth, the ruler of the world. How can we afford to offend him? With one snap of his fingers he can take away what he gave—an independent Egypt. Our own destiny. Keeping possession of our treasures and our way of life. We walk the edge of a razor! We cannot afford to offend Rome in the person of Gaius Caesar.”

“You're right, Theodotus,” said Achillas abruptly. He put his knuckles to his mouth and bit them. “We're having our own war here—a secret war! We daren't draw Rome's attention to it—what if Rome should decide we're incapable of managing our own affairs? That old will still exists. It's still in Rome. I say that we send a message to Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus at dawn tomorrow and tell him to take himself off. Give him nothing.”

“What do you think, great King?” asked Potheinus.“ Achillas is right!” cried the thirteenth Ptolemy, then heaved a sigh. “Oh, but I would have liked to see him!”

“Theodotus, you have more to say?”

“I do, Potheinus.” The tutor got up from his chair and went around the table to stand behind the little King, his hands fondling the boy's thick, dark gold hair, sliding to the smooth young neck. “I don't think what Achillas suggests is strong enough. Naturally the mighty Caesar won't come chasing after Pompeius himself—the ruler of the world has fleets and legions for that, legates by the hundreds to depute. As we know, at the moment he is touring the Roman province of Asia like a king. Where might he be now? They say he is in his own ancestral home, Ilium, Troy of old.” The little King's eyes closed; he leaned against Theodotus and drowsed off to sleep.“ Why,” asked Theodotus, carmined lips straining, “don't we send the mighty Gaius Caesar a gift in the name of the King of Egypt? Why don't we send the mighty Caesar the head of his enemy?” He fluttered his darkened lashes. “Dead men, they say, do not bite.” A silence fell. Potheinus linked his hands on the table in front of him and stared down at them reflectively. Then he looked up, his fine grey eyes wide open, still. “Quite so, Theodotus. Dead men do not bite. We will ship the head of his enemy to Gaius Caesar.”

“But how do we accomplish the deed itself?” asked Theodotus, delighted that his was the mind thought of it.“ Leave that to me,” said Achillas crisply. “Potheinus, write a letter to Pompeius Magnus in the King's name, granting him an audience. I'll take it to him myself and lure him ashore.”

“He mightn't want to come without a bodyguard,” said Potheinus.“ He will. You see, I happen to know a man—a Roman man—whose face Pompeius will recognize. A man Pompeius trusts.”

* * *

Dawn came. Pompey, Sextus and Cornelia ate stale bread with the lack of enthusiasm a monotonous diet makes inevitable, drank of water which tasted faintly brackish.“ Let us hope,” said Cornelia, “that we can at least provision our ships in Pelusium.” Philip the freedman appeared, beaming. “Gnaeus Pompeius, a letter from the King of Egypt! Beautiful paper!”

The seal broken, the single sheet of—yes, beautiful paper indeed!— expensive papyrus spread open, Pompey mumbled his way through the short Greek text and looked up.“ Well, I'm to have my audience. A boat will pick me up in an hour's time.” He looked startled. “Ye Gods, I need a shave and my toga praetexta! Philip, send my man to me, please.” He stood, properly robed as proconsul of the Senate and People of Rome, Cornelia Metella and Sextus one on either side of him, waiting for some gorgeous gilded barge with purple sail to swan out from the shore.“ Sextus,” he said suddenly.“ Yes, Father?”