Cleopatra Confesses (23 page)

Sepa and Hasani buy bread and beer from a vendor and inquire casually about the warships blocking the entrance to the harbor. “Pothinus ordered the ships,” my bodyguards report. “He is expecting to seize Queen Cleopatra when she arrives in her galley. You have slipped right under his nose.”

This would be amusing if it were not so frightening.

But even in disguise it will not be easy to continue avoiding detection during the long daylight hours. I plan to wait until dark and then find a way to meet with Caesar without my brother’s knowledge. I am determined to persuade Caesar that I, Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, am the true and rightful ruler of Egypt. But what am I to do until nightfall?

Charmion has the solution. “We will go at once to the harem. You can stay safely in my mother’s house during the day, even
sleep a little, while we work out a way to arrange a meeting with Caesar.”

I agree readily. We leave my bodyguards to bring the rest of my servants safely ashore and to hide them in the Jewish quarter, where they are unlikely to be found. We plan to meet Sepa and Hasani again that night near the lighthouse.

No one gives a second glance to two young women in servants’ tunics hurrying toward the harem, and we arrive without incident. Lady Amandaris greets me warmly, and when I see the deep affection mother and daughter show each other, I am frankly envious. I have not known a mother’s love since I have been old enough to remember.

Lady Amandaris welcomes us, obviously relieved to see that we are safe, and after we have explained our mission, she arranges for us to bathe. It has been more than a month since I last enjoyed the luxury of soaking in a warm bath. What bliss! When we have put on clean clothes, she brings us food and drink and, as we rest, she adds distressing details to what we already know of the situation in Alexandria.

“Julius Caesar entered the city dressed in a purple cloak trimmed in gold,” she says. “His bodyguards marched boldly through the streets, each carrying a bundle of birch rods bound together with an ax—a symbol of his authority, we were told. The people were furious when they found out! Riots broke out all over the city, and several people were killed. But the Romans prevailed—there are four thousand soldiers, and you no doubt saw the fleet of warships waiting in the harbor—and now Caesar has taken over the royal palace. King Ptolemy XIII and the wicked Pothinus have also settled in the royal quarter. I beg you to imagine this—a Roman general living in the house of pharaohs!”

“Father always said that Caesar was an ambitious man.” I reach out and take her hand.

“It appears that the king was right,” Lady Amandaris agrees.

My strength restored, I am ready now to act. “Why has the great Julius Caesar gone to all this trouble? What does he want here? I believe I can reason with him and convince him that the throne of Egypt is rightfully mine, but I must first meet with him alone and in secret, not before the eyes of the whole world. The two of you must help me devise a plan,” I tell them. “I need to find a way to get past the palace guards and into Caesar’s private quarters. I want to take him by surprise, when he is unguarded and vulnerable.”

Lady Amandaris takes up the challenge. “I understand, and I think I can help you,” she says. “You need first to charm Caesar, then to reason with him.”

Lady Amandaris surely knows how to charm men! Did she not charm my father for twenty years? How much he must have loved this beautiful lady! “Tell me your idea.”

“It is a simple one,” she says. “I have an acquaintance, a merchant by the name of Apollodorus, who deals in linen cloth of the finest weave. He told me just a day or two ago that Caesar has ordered new bedding more suitable to the tastes of a Roman general, though I have no idea what that might be. I will propose to Apollodorus that he make an appointment to deliver the linens in person to Caesar tonight. You will be rolled up inside these linens, and in that way he will carry you concealed into the palace and directly to Caesar’s quarters. When Apollodorus lays down his burden, he will unroll the cloth in front of Caesar’s eyes. And you, my lovely queen, will tumble out. What happens after that is up to you.” Lady Amandaris sits back and waits for my reply.

“What you are suggesting is outrageous!” I exclaim, but I cannot help laughing. The more I think about it, the better I like her idea, and before the afternoon is over, I embrace the scheme wholeheartedly. We proceed with the plan.

That same evening the linen merchant arrives at the harem carrying a large bundle. Lady Amandaris has procured for me a white linen sheath made of the sheerest fabric that clings to every curve of my body. We agree that I should not make overuse of cosmetics, except for my eyes. I have no jewels—they are still on the galley with Mshai, now on his way from Ashkelon. But will Caesar believe I am who I claim to be if I have not even the golden circlet with the uraeus to prove it?

Once again, Lady Amandaris offers a solution. “Take this ring,” she says, removing the ring from her finger. It is heavy gold, carved with King Ptolemy XII’s
shenu
, the symbols for his name. “Your father gave this to me as a token of his affection,” she explains. “It will make clear to Caesar that you are truly the daughter of the king.”

I embrace this generous-spirited woman and prepare to meet the great general, Julius Caesar, who, I have come to understand, is the most famous man in the world.

Chapter 47

M
EETING
C
AESAR

“I can’t breathe,” I complain from deep inside several folds of linen. “I feel like a mummified body wrapped for burial.”

Our plan has been set in motion.

Apollodorus, the linen merchant, leaves his young assistant waiting outside while the package is being prepared for presentation to Caesar. Charmion wants to accompany the merchant and his “parcel,” but Lady Armandaris insists that she must remain behind. “Your presence would alert the guards and give away the secret,” she says. Instead, Charmion will meet Sepa and Hasani at the lighthouse, as we agreed, describe the plan, and instruct them to wait near the palace, in case I need them.

Once the lengths of cloth have been loosened enough that I will not suffocate and the ends of the roll bound just tightly enough that I am completely hidden, the assistant is summoned and the two men pick up their bundle and begin the walk from
the harem to the king’s palace. The assistant says nothing about the additional weight of the bundle, though surely he notices.

Guards have been set up all around the palace, and I can hear their muffled voices as the merchant and his assistant make their way through the crowd. I wish I could see where we are and what is happening, but I must trust that this merchant will not decide to turn me over to the soldiers for a price. It has not been explained to me how Lady Amandaris knows this man. I have come to expect treasonous plots, and I experience a moment of panic, nearly shouting for Apollodorus to set me down here and let me take my chances.

But then I hear the great wooden doors of the king’s palace creak open on their iron hinges, the slap of leather sandals on the stone floor, exchanges in Latin between Apollodorus and members of Caesar’s special guard. Apollodorus does his best to persuade the guard that Caesar has ordered the linens to be delivered at once, this very evening. The guard is skeptical, unconvinced.

I strain to hear the murmured reply when a commanding voice calls out, “Enter!”

That, I think, must be Caesar. Now that the plan is in motion, my nervousness has disappeared, and I feel calm and confident.

We are moving forward again, and the bundle, with me wrapped inside it, is lowered carefully to the floor. The assistant is dismissed. Apollodorus takes his time unrolling the linens, explaining as he does so the fine quality of the flax, the excellence of the weave. With a final flourish, the bundle is opened and I tumble out.

Sprawled on the cool marble floor, I gaze up at the startled man peering down at me with raised eyebrows. Not a young
man—perhaps fifty or more—and not handsome, certainly, with thinning hair and a weathered face, but tall and well proportioned, strong featured, and possessing great elegance. And those eyes! They are filled with intelligence and humor.

So this is Caesar!

“Well now, what is this?” he asks.

“Hail, noble Caesar!” I greet him in Latin, rising gracefully, as dancers are taught to do. My gown has slipped off one shoulder, and I hurriedly straighten it. My hair has come unbound and falls loose on my shoulders. “I am Queen Cleopatra VII,” I tell him with my most engaging smile. “Welcome to my kingdom.”

This is my introduction to Julius Caesar, and his to me. Caesar recovers his composure quickly—he never really lost it—and sends Apollodorus away with thanks and, I imagine, a more than generous payment. He calls for refreshments and dismisses his servants and guards. I wonder briefly if he has at least one guard concealed nearby. But I think not. Caesar is not afraid of me. I doubt that he is afraid of anyone.

I know Caesar’s reputation. My father spoke of his brilliant oratory and the skill with which he controlled the Roman senate. King Ptolemy did not like Caesar, but he could not help admiring him. “He succeeds in everything he undertakes,” Father once told me.

We begin to talk. We have a great deal to talk about. We discuss the crop failures and the famine that plagues Egypt but not of the military aid I once pledged to his fallen enemy, Pompey. And neither of us mentions my brother.

Somewhere in Alexandria’s royal quarter, Ptolemy XIII no doubt sleeps peacefully, believing that I am safely out of the
way and that he alone will rule Egypt. Because of him, I need Caesar’s support to assure my place on the throne of Egypt. I hope that Caesar also needs me.

Neither of us touches the food in front of us, and we have little interest in the wine. I am here to charm Caesar and to persuade him. It is not my plan to seduce him. Though I am twenty-one, an age at which most women, even queens, have married and borne children, I am inexperienced in the art of love, and Caesar is a man who enjoys a well-deserved reputation for romantic conquests.

As the night goes on, the magnetism between us grows as strong as the pull of the moon on the tides. By the next morning I am Caesar’s mistress, confident that he is now bound to me by silken cords of desire.

I am not Caesar’s conquest. He is mine.

Chapter 48

B
ROTHER
-H
USBAND

The morning after my first meeting with Caesar, Ptolemy XIII awakens to discover that he has been fooled. When he realizes that I have eluded Achillas’s blockade at Pelusium, slipped past Pothinus’s warships in the Great Harbor of Alexandria, and somehow arrived in Caesar’s bed, my brother unleashes a tantrum. He dashes out into the forecourt of his palace in a rage, flinging his golden diadem to the ground and kicking it aside. This incites an angry outcry from the crowd milling outside the palace gates. I did not foresee this, and I wonder aloud if I should arrange to be smuggled out of the palace in much the same way as I was smuggled in.

But Caesar is unperturbed by the uproar. “I will handle it, Cleopatra,” he says calmly. “You are the queen, and you shall remain the queen. Your brother will not displace you. But you must marry him and rule together. It is your father’s will and my wish.”

This is surely not
my
wish, but I realize that Caesar is right. It is what Father intended.

He steps out onto a balcony and addresses the crowd, demanding order and respect. Once he has quieted the shouting mob and assured them that he will act in their best interests, he orders the guards to disperse them and returns to the bed we shared the previous night.

He gazes down at me. “I want you here with me, Cleopatra,” he tells me. He buries his fingers in my hair and breathes in the perfumed scent.

From this time on, events unfold swiftly. The suite of rooms adjoining Caesar’s in the king’s palace will now be mine. My brother and Pothinus have ordered all my possessions—gowns, robes, cosmetics, jewels, everything—to be tossed into an empty storage granary. I send for Irisi and Monifa, who spent the night in the harem with Charmion, and instruct them to get whatever help they need to move my belongings into my new quarters. If my servants are surprised by this sudden change in my living arrangements, they say nothing but begin to set things right.

I wonder what Charmion is thinking. She surely did not expect this turn of events. But I will wager Lady Amandaris is not at all surprised.

Late that afternoon Caesar summons the ranking noblemen and high officials of Alexandria to gather in the throne room. On Caesar’s orders I am seated at his right hand, Ptolemy XIII at his left. My brother, red faced and so angry he can scarcely contain himself, writhes in his chair and refuses to look at me. Two of his regents, Pothinus and Theodotus, are present as well. Achillas is still in Pelusium, fending off my hired troops.
Arsinoë and our younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, sit off to the side, staring at us wide-eyed. Grand Vizier Yuya’s bland face registers nothing of what he is thinking.

Magnificent in his gold-trimmed robe of rich purple, Caesar rises and announces that he is about to read aloud the will of King Ptolemy XII. “I am well acquainted with the terms of the will,” he says, his voice deep and resonant, “as I was with its author. It is my intent, as well as my solemn duty, to see that the terms of the will drawn up by your late king are carried out.”

Caesar reads out the document, which is quite brief. This is the second time the will has been read publicly since Father’s death three years earlier. My brother was ten years old then, and I intended to delay formalizing any marriage for as long as I could. But it may no longer be possible. There can be no arguing with my father’s wishes or with Caesar’s decision:
Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII are to rule together as husband and wife and as equals.
This does not please Ptolemy any more than it pleases me. He throws me a look of pure hatred. But Ptolemy is still just thirteen, and were he not controlled by his scheming regents, I would not consider the unhappy arrangement anything but a minor problem.