Kleopatra (9 page)

“Move on, move on,” a Satyr ordered one of the gluttons. He picked him up and threw him back into the crowd, where he landed
next to Meleager. The man’s friends pulled back his head and sloppily emptied a pouch of the elixir into his mouth. The eunuch
felt the sticky surplus creep into his sandals and between his toes. By the time Berenike reached these spectators, they would
be entirely blacked out from the spirits.

Auletes’ subjects were in a jovial mood as their king approached on a swaggering elephant. Under a canopy adorned with ivy
vine, fruits, crowns, drums, and masks of comedy and tragedy, the sun highlighted just enough of the gold in his costume to
make him appear a great shimmering god. Flanking His Majesty on horseback was the Order of the First Kinsmen, including the
newest member, a good-looking, longhaired youth whom Meleager resolved to invite to his next dinner party.

The next sight filled him with loathing. Thea, as Aphrodite rising out of the sea, was not nude, but wore transparent green
drapes about her body and tiny conch shells under her breasts. Sparrows and doves, the lascivious birds known to take to the
air with Aphrodite, fluttered in golden cages on either side of the queen. Thea’s second-born, the infant boy Ptolemy XIII,
represented the god Dionysus as a baby. Meleager had argued with Thea about the inappropriateness of her costume, patiently
explaining that the product of the union of Aphrodite and Dionysus had been the grotesque Priapus, and that people would laugh
at her baby son if they made the connection. Meleager, you are too rigid, she had said. Not everyone is so exacting about
the gods.

How fitting, he thought, that the queen chose to represent the whore of Mount Olympus. Then, ashamed, he chastised himself
for sounding like any crude person who did not understand the old religions. The Fates had assigned Aphrodite the duty of
lovemaking; it was her divine destiny. Aphrodite did not seduce her promiscuous father, Zeus, though it was said he desired
her. The same could not be said of Thea.

A ray of light shot into the crowd. Meleager and those about him looked everywhere for the origin, but had to turn their faces
away from its intensity. Then he saw the source: On an elephant-drawn float, Berenike stood as still as a statue, holding
her shield at just the right angle to catch the sun. She was dressed as Pallas Athena, goddess of war, in her battle gear.
Her baby sister, the Princess Arsinoe, firstborn to Thea, shared Berenike’s float and her glory, wearing a goatskin and representing
the goddess at birth. The float carried all that the goddess invented—flutes, horse bridles, spinning wheels, ox yokes, numbers,
small-scale models of chariots and ships. Atop the entire production was a banner with the goddess’s motto: “Athena never
loses the day.” Dozens of maidens in war attire surrounded the radiant Berenike yelling
olulu
, the victory cheer, into the crowd, and a troop of little girls armed with light shields and lances followed on foot like
a diminutive Amazon army, echoing the cry of the young warriors.

The princess looked like the goddess herself—fierce, distant, numinous. Her combative nature was well served in the deity’s
guise; the long limbs, elegant neck, and feral grace all conspired with Athena’s warrior persona to create an ineffable grandness.
Either ignited by their own happy intoxication, or moved by her regal attributes, or guided by the will of the Mother Goddess
herself, the people raised their fists and yelled back.

“Olulu! Olulu!
” shouted Meleager, to the surprise of his peers, who had never seen the reserved eunuch lose his composure. Meleager saw
that suspicious eyes were upon him but he did not care. The shouting rang in his ears, filling him with joy. The response
of the crowd to Berenike was an omen from the goddess—a sign of her destiny. He closed his eyes in prayer, his feelings of
loyalty to Berenike affirmed.

But his sense of victory was short-lived. On a small float in the shape of the stone boat of Isis, the Mother Goddess of all
Egypt, stood the favorite daughter of the king, the red robes of Isis a striking contrast against her dark long hair and her
small child’s face. She was attended by twenty priestesses, all wearing sacramental black wigs of long springy curls and blood-bright
robes. The mass of red hit the eunuch’s eye like an assault. He felt his spirit sink into the depths of his bowels as if he
had taken sick.

Kleopatra stood at the rear of the cart, holding her thin arms out to the people as if to embrace them, to protect them like
the Mother Goddess herself. The crowd, moved by her solemnity, applauded her, and the tribesmen lifted their totems in homage,
which they did not do, Meleager could not help but notice, for Berenike. Seeing the emotion she evoked from the people, the
child herself thought:
I have a flair for this kind of thing.

The eunuch Meleager noticed the same. This one will be trouble, he thought. She would never possess the beauty of her step-mother
nor the regal bearing of her older sister. She was petite, almost diminutive, but it did not seem to matter. Luckily, she
was yet so young. Luckily. For unlike her stepmother, this one had an acute intelligence and could present real danger.

Meleager was driven at the end of the day through the back streets of the city to the stadium to observe the sacrifice of
the bulls. The bulls would be butchered on the stadium floor, roasted on the spits, and, along with free fruits and breads
and the remaining flow from the wine cart, given away to anyone willing to wait their turn.

The royal women had abandoned their floats, and Auletes, his elephant, and the family sat upon thrones that had been transported
to the bleachers. Meleager and a few select courtiers sat under the royal canopy, the eunuch happy that he had missed the
artistic events though he was a great lover of the theater. He felt genuine abhorrence when he watched Auletes get carried
away at these affairs. At least on this day when he presented himself to the people as a god, Auletes did not insist on competing
with his subjects for the grand prize. The flautist who had taken first prize also sat with the Royal Family, his golden Delphic
trophy behind him. He was a beautiful youth with ringlets of marigold hair grazing his shoulders, and against this blond lushness,
startling dark brown eyes. Tonight, Meleager was sure, the lad would sleep with the king after being forced to listen to him
play the flute. But the eunuch made a mental note to find the location of the boy’s lodgings and invite him to breakfast.
He was not a local and would undoubtedly love to see the view of the sea from the eunuch’s balcony.

Kleopatra sat next to Archimedes, not sure which was more exciting, the procession of the bulls, or her cousin’s hot young
hand on her forearm. She did not dare breathe as the bulls—five hundred in all—moved into formation. Perhaps half an hour
passed, but time seemed to stand still as the animals were led into the stadium, each one restrained by three men, and escorted
by a priest wielding a scythe and four attendants carrying a large silver vessel into which the sacred blood would drain.

“It is the most solemn thing I have seen,” she whispered to her cousin.

“The blood of a sacrificial bull must not be spilt sloppily,” he replied, “for when the people eat of the flesh and drink
of the blood, they consume the god himself.”

The late afternoon sun slashed a streak of harsh yellow across the stadium. A choir of priestesses silently entered the field,
facing the bulls. All at once they began the invocation to the god: “Come hither, Lord Dionysus, god of the underworld who
resurrected his mother from Hades. Come hither, Zagreus, son of Zeus, child who wielded the lightning bolt. Come hither, Lord
of the vine, of the crops, of all that is green. The Titans tore your flesh; now we sacrifice you so that you may rise again.”

The priestesses flung themselves to the ground.

“Save the bulls and kill the king!” An angry choir of voices from the center of the stadium, opposite where the royals sat,
split the reverent silence. “Save the bulls and kill the king!” More voices joined the chant, growing louder—and closer, Kleopatra
could swear—gaining ground on the royals. She grabbed her cousin’s arm, but he shook her off, jumping to his feet to shelter
her with his body, while the other Kinsmen protected the king, queen, and Berenike with their shields.

“Throw the Roman-lover to the bulls!” someone shouted. His plea was echoed by another row of citizens. “To the bulls! To the
bulls!”

The row of troublemakers pelted the royals with eggs that smashed against the Kinsmen’s shields, a slimy yolk dripping in
front of Kleopatra’s sandaled feet. A swarm of navy uniforms of the king’s troops fell on the upstarts, clubbing them with
their weapons. Kleopatra saw the soldiers dragging the pummeled bodies of the rebels out of the bleachers. The king brushed
off his purple robes and straightened his blond headpiece, trying to regain his composure. But the General, still in his Satyr’s
gear, informed the royals that to be safe they must return to the palace.

Kleopatra allowed herself to be hustled away under Archimedes’ cloak. Looking back, she saw five hundred scythes reaching
for the sky, capturing the hot brilliance of the sun god, Osiris. But she did not get to see the moment when his earthbound
brother, the bull-god Dionysus, went peacefully to his Fate.

To: Gnaeus Pompeius, General

From: King Ptolemy XII Auletes

My good friend, the gods have presented an opportunity for you to repay my recent act of loyalty. My support of your cause
did not meet with the approval of my people. Today I stood within the palace walls listening to the demands of the mob outside—demands
to end all diplomatic relations with Rome. The people fear our complicity, fear that I shall invite you to share my throne.
My family is confined to the Inner Palace, where we depend upon the loyalty of the Royal Household Troops to protect us. On
several occasions, fires were started at the gates. Rumors of an assassination plot against me abound.

Therefore, I appeal to you, my good friend, to come to my aid as I most recently came to yours—quickly and without hesitation.
We must demonstrate the ruling Government of this nation has the support of Rome. Surely the mob would prove no match for
a Roman legion, men trained at your own superb hands. To ensure the continuing safety of your most loyal ally, please respond
in haste.

“I am ten years old. I am sick of Meleager’s dull histories,” Kleopatra said adamantly. “It is time for me to study philosophy
and mathematics. I also wish to increase my knowledge of Roman politics so that I might better serve the court of my father.”
She stood cross-armed before the king. Though she knew that the sweet approach would have worked better, she was not in the
mood to be saccharine. Her father was in constant danger, and she had to prepare herself to come to his aid. She knew a fair
amount about the mechanics of the Roman government, but she needed to know more if she was to fulfill her ambition to be his
adviser and diplomat. Thea was queen, Berenike was older, and the king now had two sons who, according to centuries-old custom,
would inherit the throne when he died. But none of these possessed either Kleopatra’s intelligence or her loyalty to Auletes.

“Besides, Father,” she said to the distracted king, “you know that I want nothing more than to study with the scholars at
the Mouseion.” Long before she apprehended that institution’s importance in the world of scholarship, she would sit in the
courtyard with Charmion and watch the men of learning in their billowing black robes huddle together like carping crows, arguing
about the secrets of the universe. The newest addition to the Mouseion’s roster of scholars was one Demetrius, a harrowingly
thin Greek philosopher who had recently taught in Rome. A neo-Platonist with secondary expertise in Roman law and literature.
A man who might facilitate the fulfillment of her ambitions.

“Well, why not? They’re all on my payroll over there.” The king sighed. “And the gods know how much it takes to keep them
fed and happy. Apparently luxury and erudition are necessary companions.”