Pharaoh (10 page)

There was nothing here to mourn, and yet the Roman soldiers kept looking at Arsinoe as if she was supposed to have a certain
kind of reaction. She had cried her tears over the serene death mask of Ganymedes, who had been executed by the Romans for
political expediency. Arsinoe had begged for his life to the Roman commander, but was told that the eunuch had too many militaristic
ambitions to be spared. She knew that he was being killed merely because he had almost outsmarted Julius
Caesar, and undoubtedly the crafty old Roman could not tolerate the existence of one who had almost bettered him in battle.
If it had not been for the late arrival of the Jewish forces-bullied into joining their conqueror’s cause-Arsinoe would at
this moment be queen of Egypt and Ganymedes her Prime Minister. And Kleopatra’s head would be on the executioner’s block,
and it would be Julius Caesar’s filthy Roman armor and not her brother’s displayed in the marketplace, though she would have
undone her brother anyway.

Arsinoe remembered the first time Ptolemy came to her chamber. It was right after the death of their father, when the eunuch
Pothinus- dead now as well-had insisted the marriage between Ptolemy and Kleopatra take place. Kleopatra had agreed to the
ceremony, but afterward she refused to let Ptolemy into her bed. The boy, red with humiliation and anger, came rushing into
Arsinoe’s room, calling her his true wife and queen and promising that he would see Kleopatra if not dead, then in exile.
And he had made good on that promise.

Arsinoe had had no choice but to comply with his salacious wishes. She had no one to look after her interests but the unsavory
boy who removed his clothes and slipped under the blanket beside her. And so she succumbed, playing the role of lover with
all the passion of an actress, for she remembered what sweet love had felt like and she could enact it for this fool who actually
believed she enjoyed touching his putrid flesh. She could not tell him that compared to the body of the fair and taut Berenike,
it looked to her like uncooked, milk-fed veal.

She turned away from the sarcophagus and met the faces of her captors, Roman soldiers who eyed her leeringly, staring at her
body. She was not afraid, and returned their gaze with an imperious and defiant stare like the one Berenike had given at her
trial. She had heard that Caesar had given strict orders to the men not to harm her in any way. Surely he had disobeyed the
wishes of his mistress in that regard, for she knew that Kleopatra wanted nothing more than to see her dead. Then and only
then would that whore of the Romans be safe.

Well, let the Roman-lover try to have her executed. Arsinoe would face her death bravely and with dignity, just as Berenike
had done when their own father demanded her death. And she would leave behind her a trail of animosity against Kleopatra and
the Romans that would
destroy them all, for she knew that many of the tribes of Alexandria were disappointed that Kleopatra had prevailed.

She dared not hope for life. Alive, she was of no earthly use to her sister. She could be nothing but a threat, because there
was still the younger brother who was already twelve years old, and Kleopatra would soon have to face the reality of his existence
and of her own position. And at any point in his life, under the influence of an ambitious courtier or of his own volition,
Ptolemy the Younger could decide that Kleopatra was not his ally, and he could have her murdered in her sleep and replaced
with the seemingly compliant Arsinoe. After all, the two of them had grown up together in the nursery, and after his mother
and Berenike were dead, who had mothered him but herself? To him, Kleopatra was a half sister, an inconvenience, a threat,
or all of these things, whereas Arsinoe was a full and true sister, an affectionate sibling, the closest thing to a mother
the boy would ever know.

She knew the reason she was presently kept alive, and it had nothing to do with Kleopatra. She had heard it from those within
the palace who attended her and who secretly still supported her. Julius Caesar had told Kleopatra that he would not execute
a girl. Not that he cared who lived or died, but he did not wish to mar his reputation for mercy. And that was that. Apparently,
Kleopatra had shut up for once and did not argue with Caesar to do her bidding. Arsinoe doubted that Kleopatra was trying
to follow her lover’s example for mercy. Julius Caesar could afford to be merciful; a Ptolemaic queen fighting for the throne
could not. Kleopatra probably had an alternative plan for Arsinoe’s demise and was not yet ready to reveal it to Caesar. If
Arsinoe’s sources were correct, Kleopatra must have revealed quite a bit of news to Caesar in recent weeks. Unless Kleopatra
had suddenly taken to doing her own laundry, there was only one reason for a woman to go two months in the palace without
sending bloody linens into the baskets for cleaning.

Arsinoe’s women could not help but to notice this discrepancy. And Arsinoe had laughed and replied that she had always suspected
Kleopatra was not a real woman. Perhaps she did not bleed like one.

With a Roman sentinel flanking her on either side, Arsinoe stepped out of the mausoleum and into the light. The winter air
had dried out the city, and the sky was as gray as the metal of a sword. It was as if the whole of Alexandria had taken on
the color of war. The young princess
looked down the long colonnade that lined the Street of the Soma. The vines that snaked up its columns had shriveled up for
the season, leaving those tall, elegant Greek flutes wrapped in dead brown leaves. She did not know if she would ever see
her city again. She was to be taken prisoner in the palace, and then sent to Rome to be marched in Julius Caesar’s victory
parade. His prize. How she wished she might find a way to take her life before that humiliating moment. But something kept
Arsinoe from pursuing that line of thought. Surely she could have a servant sneak in a vial of poison or a dagger. How complicated
could that be? On the other hand, she might gain something from this long voyage to the city of her enemy. She had spent her
life pretending to be one thing or another-a compliant lover, a nurturing sister, an ally. Only with Berenike had she passed
those rare and early moments of authenticity in her short life. She would now rely on her ability to dissemble. She would
allow herself to be paraded in front of the Roman vermin, because that was the price to pay for access to the Roman mind.
Once given that access, Arsinoe would fill eager ears with stories of her sister, of how Kleopatra’s ambitions were only seemingly
in line with those of Rome. She would tell long tales of how Kleopatra had deceived her father, her brothers, and her sister,
only to serve her own ambitions to be queen. It was all Arsinoe might manage in the way of revenge. She knew that Kleopatra
would continue to call for her demise, and she could not blame her. If the gods had been good to Arsinoe and if she had been
in Kleopatra’s place, she would do exactly the same.

Dear Your Majesty,

It has come to my attention that you no longer require
any
of my services. Therefore, forgive me if I do not return to my position as your adviser and to the Order of the Brotherhood
of the First Kinsmen. As you recall I am a partner in a very lucrative import business with our friend Hammonius, and I am
needed in Rome. I shall go where I am needed. It was a pleasure and an honor to serve you. If I was not assured that you were
receiving equally good service in my stead, I would return to you immediately. But it does appear that you are well taken
care of in all regards.

I am leaving all further matters of the army to the discretion and administration of Hephaestion, a man equally loyal to you
and, given his physical condition, perhaps more suited to be part of your new regime.

I shall always honor the memory of your father and the kindness he bestowed upon me. If Your Majesty finds in the future that
she needs me, I shall return to her immediately and without question. Until then-

Your Cousin and Kinsman,
Archimedes

She could not say that the sight of his penmanship and the hurt and bitterness that bled from the words did not go straight
to her heart and wound her. She had disappointed him and injured his pride, and he had deserved much better from her. He had
been loyal, he had been willing to lay down his life for her, and he had loved her. For those sacrifices he willingly made,
he received in return the news that she had become the lover of Rome’s dictator.

Why is it that a man might have had such a liaison and thrown it off as either necessity or dalliance? Why is it that a man,
particularly a king, might have arranged to keep them both? Caesar-indifferent, implacable Caesar-might have tolerated an
alternative lover in her bed, but Archimedes, with his Greek passion and temperament and masculine pride, would never play
the lover to another man’s mistress, especially if she were carrying his child. She was glad Archimedes was going straight
away to Rome. She could not bear to look upon his face, his keen, moist eyes that undressed her even before he laid his hands
on her body, his beautiful long neck, his brown locks that tickled her face when he was on top of her. Sometimes she could
hear his laugh inside her head, or remember the way he bit her neck with hot teeth, and she would thrill to her core, blushing,
covering her face with her hands lest she have to explain this sudden color to anyone, especially Caesar.

She missed him. But she did not have the luxury of wallowing in that sorrow. Caesar had planted inside her belly the course
for a different kind of future.

At least she was spared the ritual of mourning for a husband. She had had the foresight to rush a divorce through the Egyptian
court as soon as her brother left the palace. She argued that she could not stay married to someone with whom she was at war.
That fact, combined
with a word of encouragement from the Roman dictator, and the divorce was quickly granted. She did not have to go to his tomb
and beat her breasts or enact any such nonsense over the brother-husband for whom she felt not one iota of affection or even
respect.

With Ptolemy the Elder interred and Arsinoe in prison, Kleopatra went to her last sibling, Ptolemy the Younger, and explained
to him the situation. He was the youngest of a fairly large family and had the characteristics of one who was positioned as
such. He had been indulged in some ways and kept ignorant in others. Too young to have a keen sense or memory of the coups
of his mother and eldest sister, he had been allowed to play the role of prince in the nursery. He had grown accustomed to
Arsinoe and the older brother calling him “King of the Seleucids,” for they, with Pothinus’s ample encouragement, had promised
him they would conquer the lost empire of Seleucus for him and allow him to rule over it. Kleopatra told him that the Romans
had long since conquered the lands once ruled by Alexander’s companion, and that they were fighting the Parthians now to keep
their domain. The boy seemed surprised.

“That doesn’t mean that I shan’t have it in the future,” he said. “Pothinus always said that Rome would destroy itself, either
with or without help from us.”

“Whether that is true or not, only the gods know,” she replied, trying to be patient with this pudgy boy, this ugly reminder
of her stepmother, Thea. “In the meanwhile, the papers are being drawn up for our marriage. Caesar wishes us to follow the
traditions of our ancestors and the terms of our father’s will.”

“I am to be king, then?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I shall have a Regency Council? Like Pothinus and Achillas and Theodotus were to my brother?”

“Julius Caesar and I are your Regency Council,” she said.

“But he is your lover!” the boy said. “If you are to be my wife, then how is it proper that your lover be my regent?”

“Dear Brother, listen to me. Despite the foolishness you have heard all your life from your brother and sister and their silly
eunuchs, you must adjust to the present situation, to the order of things as it exists, not as you wish it to exist in your
fantasies. Now, if you simply follow
the wise counsel of Caesar and myself, you shall not fall victim to the same Fate as your elders.”

“And if I do not?”

How tedious was this conversation. The boy did not know how fortunate he was to be alive at this moment, to be free, and not
to be chained to Arsinoe, waiting to be paraded through Caesar’s triumphal arch and into Rome. She had suggested it, but Caesar
declined to follow her advice. To rule Egypt legally, she required a male consort. Neither Rome nor Egypt was prepared for
that man to be Julius Caesar, at least not yet. Since the time when Ptolemy I had married his son to his daughter in imitation
of the pharaohs, the pattern had been the same. To change it so quickly, on the tail of a civil war, would not be wise. “One
thing at a time, darling,” Caesar had said. “You mustn’t be impatient. It’s the surest road to failure.”

Kleopatra accepted the judgment of Caesar, but she was already tired of explaining things to this preposterous boy. Did he
really think she would allow him to reign with her once her son was born?