Cleopatra Occult (3 page)

Cleopatra assured her, “I know how to use the sun to find my direction. I can navigate any desert.”

“The sun does not move in the otherworld. You must follow the locusts from dune to dune or you will go in circles. Then the devils will come to you… all that has been born and has flesh sings of death.”

“That’s nonsense.” Cleopatra impatiently sat at the table and imperiously flicked aside a thin red snake. Other snakes scrambled. “You know that my dreams have nothing to do with afterlife preparations. What are you keeping from me? I’m not ready for the otherworld yet, or the underworld. I’m getting my throne back in
this
world! Everything I do is for the throne of Egypt.”

Iset didn’t answer but began to sing as she stirred the gruel, “
Follow the locusts. Follow them to the gardens of life. Make barren all that was green
.” 

Cleopatra lost patience. “I’m running out of time and you’re making a breakfast and I’m not even hungry. I’m sitting in a kitchen and kitchens are not for queens.”

Iset feigned surprised. “You’ve never been in one before?”

“No! The closest thing would be my laboratory at the palace.”

Iset looked at her pot. “I am stirring in a spiral. A careful spiral. A path isn’t a straight line. A spiral lets you continually come back to the same place, through time, and see deeper truths.”

Cleopatra stood as she huffed with impatience. “You’re doing magic now? Here? But this is a kitchen. I’m a queen!”

Iset ignored Cleopatra’s emotions. “The kitchen is the best place to begin a magic spell. The kitchen is the best place to end a magic spell. The strongest magic has its roots, seeds, flowers and straw in the kitchen.”

Cleopatra looked at the room in condescension. “But it’s all so mundane.”

“So.”

“So?” Cleopatra insisted, “Magic is supposed to be
occult
…
hidden
! Magic is supposed to be for queens, priestesses and witches… not the common maidservant.”

Iset smiled at the fire. “Long before the first temple was ever built, the hearth was the sacred altar to all the gods where every prayer was made. Many witches are now the maidservants in the shadows. Their dark smoky kitchens give them great power.”

“What I want is what
I
need. I’ll never need a kitchen. I want my throne!”

Iset swirled her wooden spoon in the air. “It is now lost in the spiral and labyrinth of the Minotaur. To slay that beast you must first jump back into the game.”

Cleopatra insisted again that kitchens weren’t for queens, and left the room to pray at the large red statue of the seven headed snake.

Alone, Iset opened a clay jar and pulled out a living baby rabbit. She swallowed it down whole.  

Chapter four

Leaving Rome in her wooden wagon, the iron-shod wheels clanked loudly on the basalt pavement of the Appian Way. Phaedra said to her maidservant, Circe, “I love the feel of the rocks that make up the road. I can feel the ground. I feel grounded.”

Circe argued, “They make us jiggle.”

They passed several crucifixions—the Roman capital punishment for slaves, traitors and thieves. Phaedra finally commented on them, “Hanging in limbo between heaven and earth. Life in suspension. It is so oddly ungrounded. As a display and symbol it is mad with contradictions about life and divinity. The symbol of the hangman is sometimes discussed in the temples.”

“I don’t think they think of themselves as a symbol right now.”

Phaedra answered, “Everything is a symbol if you want to look at it that way… even the hanging of thieves.”

Circe said, “I’ve heard that in Egypt there’s wolves that were once men that run amuck in the desert and they only kill the thieves. They use magic to judge men’s hearts. They know who to attack and eat because they were cursed by the gods for stealing from tombs. We could use that here.”

“Egypt is a strange place. I wonder if the thieves know to stay out of the desert, then.”

Where the road split off, Phaedra turned their wagon to head up the north road to Tarquinii. Circe stopped her and pointed the other way. “Truth be told, I feel we should go that way.”

In a great valley before them they could see a vast ancient cemetery. Phaedra asked, “You afraid of going through that?”

Circe frantically waved her hands before herself. “No, no, I don’t care about the tombstones. There’s something else. I feel we should go the other way. I feel it all over my body!”

Phaedra flipped a coin but it fell out of her hand and landed on its edge between bricks of the road. “We can’t both be right.” After they discussed Circe’s inexplicable feeling, Phaedra reluctantly gave in to her. She turned around and they traveled east.

They arrived at a large old inn called
Three Taverns
. Phaedra sat beside Circe at one of many long communal tables. As they were eating bread dipped in fish sauce, a thirty-year-old Roman man swaggered up and stood opposite her. He placed a bowl of olive oil on the table. “This is good with it too.” Though not wearing armor, and his chest was bare through a sleeveless tunic with an open front, he was dressed like a rich warrior.

Phaedra sat up straight. “For us?” She glanced nervously to her maidservant.

Circe said to her, under her breath, “Don’t mind me.”

He gave a manly nod to Phaedra. “Yes you are very beddable.”

“Pardon me?”

The man gave a crooked smile. “I mean
beautiful
.”

Phaedra narrowed her eyes. “Yes, by the gods of course you did.” She hoped he wouldn’t sit.

He lifted his legs high over the bench to sit opposite her, completely ignoring Circe.

Phaedra watched his battle skirt made up of leather straps, as she offered, “Sit then, if you must.”

He asked, “How did you keep a spot open for me? What were your powers of dissuasion?”

Phaedra look around in confusion. “I kept anyone away?”

“You must have. It’s a busy enough place and I only have
here
to sit, across from a feast for sore eyes. Are you a witch?”

She tried not to make any expression.

“I swear by my sword you could be a witch.”

Phaedra waved off the idea. “My witchcraft isn’t so marvelous…”

Circe kicked her under the table.

Phaedra quickly added “…just a
tiny
hobby. No magic was used here at all—somebody left moments before you came. Just luck. This spot at the table wasn’t empty for more than a minute. It’s all in
your
timing, really. Oh by the gods you’re the one who has the luck…”

He dipped more of his bread into the oil and interrupted her nervous chattering. “I should cut the small talk, we all know why we’re here. You’re fleeing the plague and have nowhere proper to stay.”

Phaedra glanced at Circe before she said to the Roman man, “You heard of it too? So it
is
true. This whole room must be full because everyone’s fleeing the plague.”

The man explained, “This room is always full. This is where three roads meet. They link Rome with Tusculum and Antium. So it’s always crowded. And the plague was only a few people with fevers. Some old woman with a weird old wig was crying about it, one of those old Egyptian wigs where you look like your head is stuck in a jar. But I believed her.”

Phaedra glanced at Circe again.

He continued, “But it’s a habit of us noble classes to flee the city in the summer as soon as we find excuses. I have my duties to carry out anyway. That just puts me on the road sooner.”

Phaedra looked at the thick wood beams of the ceiling. “We’re both at this same place, star-crossed.”

He laughed. “Good one.”

Phaedra put her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t know what I meant. It’s just a time to fill the roads I guess. How the army must hate it when we all fill their roads, on our wild goose chases, just when they probably want to race down them to whack at some mad Persians.”

He squinted at her suspiciously. He regarded the gold at her neck and wrists. “You look like a noblewoman. Are you really a noblewoman? I’ll put you to the test.”

She looked at his ruby ring as she asked, “A test to see if I’m noble?”

“No, to see if you are the woman
for me
.”

Phaedra derisively smirked. “Why would anybody be the woman for you?”

He sucked oil off his ring finger. “Indulge me. What’s your favorite song?”

She looked to the ceiling again. “Oooh… some hymn to Athena, I’m sure.”

He looked doubting.

She pursed her lips. “Who wouldn’t want some lovely song about beauty and order?”

He asked again.

She looked hard into his eyes. “By the gods, why would you want to know that?”

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Just asked.”

Phaedra recalled, “I once heard a haunting song last year. It has stayed with me. I heard it in the forum by a couple of singing brothers. They were a clown act but they had one or two songs that pulled at my heart. The Vomitorium Brothers.” 

The Roman man blurted, “
Into a Swan
!”

Circe asked Phaedra, “The rape of Leda?”

In the myth, Zeus lusted after Queen Leda. One day he turned himself into a swan and raped her. That made her give birth to several eggs. From one of them hatched Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world.

Phaedra was surprised. “Oh my Pegasus! You heard the song too?”

He said, “The Vomitorium Brothers really get around.”

Phaedra asked, “We both heard the same song and liked it. Does that make us soulmates to some muse?”

“I suppose. It’s rather funny don’t you think?”

“Funny that a swan would fall out of the sky onto her and rape her like that?”

He clarified, “At least it’s funny how that song got around.”

“Sure. But I’m not a lady, anyway, I must confess.”

“No, you look noble through and through, with the manners of a princess. Who are you?”

“I’m of the merchant class,” Phaedra explained.

“
Nooo
.”

“Yes.”

He asserted, “You don’t have the manner of a merchant’s daughter. You’re like a princess.”

“I was born in Rome. My father is a great olive trader.”

He dipped his finger into the olive oil and licked it again. “You’re even better than that.”

Phaedra added, “I was raised in a special school. A temple school for the magic of Persephone. A high priestess put me under her wing… so I suppose I have airs.” She laughed at herself.

The Roman man made a disapproving face.

She stopped smiling. “What.”

He said, “An image came to me just now of little girls in a temple school. Did you wear black and carry funeral flowers and sing from graves?”

Phaedra insisted, “Nothing like that. Religion is really all about the harvest. Death was only thought of as winter.”

“No it’s really all about
death
… little girls singing and going to Hades—how urbane.” He smirked mockingly.

Phaedra frowned as if he wasn’t being fair.

He jolted with an idea. “Perfect!”

“What is?”

He loudly clasped his hands together. “I knew that making love with you would make my day.”

She glared. “I didn’t realize it had come to all that. You must be having a rather boring day to think so much has already happened between us, since...”

He interrupted, “You’re a merchant’s daughter so you can help us circumvent the claudia lex laws.”

Phaedra was puzzled at the change of topic. “I don’t understand those laws since they don’t apply to me and my class.”

He explained, “The law prevents senatorial families from participating in trade. The lower classes are to be the merchants. The upper classes are to make money on their own land, government positions and profits from war.”

Phaedra said it made no difference to her.

“We have to know how to wiggle around them.” He winked at her.

She asked, “Why does Rome pass so many laws? We can’t really keep track of half of them.”

“You get a new law every time the senate finds out there’s been abuse somewhere.” He chuckled as if he was the one doing all the abusing.

Phaedra asked, “But what does that have to do with you and me? How could somebody like me help you?” 

“I’m on my way to Senator Octavian’s villa in Tarquinii. He’s my best friend. No… better yet, he’s like a brother to me. One can hate their brother.”

“You’re off to see someone you hate?”

“We also make money together. He’s always plotting ways to outfox Quintus Claudius and his damn claudia lex laws. Octavian’s noble family is of the equestrian order and so the senator’s chances of getting away with commerce is limited by that law… if he wants to appear lawful to everyone.”