Pharaoh (20 page)

Hammonius sighed. “I suppose I would just be so happy to see the king’s face again. It’s a sad thing to grow old, Kleopatra,
and watch those who have witnessed your life be taken by the god of death, who is omnipotent and remorseless. Someday soon
I’ll join Auletes, and he’ll play his flute for me once more.” A little tear escaped the old man’s eye and he wiped it away
with his big, woolly hand.

“You do not look like you are ready for the tomb. And you had better not die on me, because you are the closest thing to a
father I will ever have again.”

“Your father would be so proud of you. The poor man tried all his life to make alliances with important Romans, and they bled
him dry. Now here you are in the home of Caesar. You shall exceed all your ancestors, Kleopatra.”

Kleopatra sat close to Hammonius on the couch, absentmindedly smoothing her son’s hair over his pointy head as she whispered
in the Greek man’s ear. “That is my aim, my friend. Because there is no compromise in this game. One must either rule side
by side or be subdued entirely. That is the lesson I learned from so many years of watching them extort the money and the
spirit of my father until he was drained of both gold and life. He might have lived many more years had he received better
treatment from Rome.”

Hammonius shook his head. “His troubles turned him into an old man at fifty! And look at me, sixty-two and still feeling like
a boy of nineteen. And I mean that in every sense, my dear!” He kissed the prince’s head with a great smack of his broad lips.
“But what is wrong, Kleopatra? You look upset. Surely you are not offended by an old man’s pride in his virility?”

“No, no, my friend. I am thinking that next year, Caesar will be the age of my father when he died. He won’t listen to my
warnings because he is so much older than I, and so believes that he has learned the lessons of power. But Hammonius, he believes
he can win over his enemies by kindness and clemency.”

“The merciful man is rarely victorious,” Hammonius said. “One’s enemies are like snakes; though one may learn to handle them,
they are always poisonous.”

“But he thinks himself invincible!”

“He is also wise, Kleopatra. You must have some faith in a man who has conquered half the world and has lived to enjoy it.”

“Of course that is what he says, too. But I remain skeptical. And unfortunately, the future of my son and of our kingdom depends
on his judgment.”

Hammonius’s carriage was spacious, with plush, cushioned linen seats, and heavy brocade curtains that could be opened for
ventilation. Unlike so many vehicles, its canopy was pale so that the sun’s heat did not settle in its weave. The carriage
would be driven to the gates of Rome, where they would transfer themselves to litters that would carry them to see the new
Julian Forum.

Julius Caesar, disgusted with the traffic that congested his city day and night, had made a law that forbade wheeled vehicles
in Rome’s narrow and swarming streets except for the purposes of trash collection and delivery of goods to the shops and markets.
His new Forum, named after himself, was also built to relieve the overcrowding that suffocated Rome’s streets and byways.
He had sent word to her at the villa asking her to meet him there today at an appointed hour. He said he would send a party
to fetch her, but she preferred to trust herself to her loyal Kinsman and friend. Hammonius usually kept himself busy in the
city nosing into the public and private affairs of Rome so that he could send written reports to his queen. While he mingled
with the city’s wealthiest inhabitants, he made lucrative contracts for the goods that Kleopatra and her father before her
allowed him to export from Egypt tax-free.

The carriage was so luxurious that its passengers could indulge in conversation without danger of chipping their teeth, even
as they wound their way down Janiculum Hill, jostling along on the rural road paved with big stones like an elephant’s toenails.
Though the loud trotting of the bodyguards’ horses invaded the carriage, the pair could still converse without yelling. Normally,
if one was in a mood to socialize with one’s fellow passengers, even a short carriage ride left one throaty.

Kleopatra had been avoiding the subject of Archimedes, Hammonius’s protégé, business partner, confidant, and nephew, and she
felt the tension of it in the air between them. She was certain that the particulars of her affair with him had been disclosed
in detail to Hammonius, though it had occurred on the other side of the world while she had been in exile. Archimedes had
indicated that he was going to seek refuge from her betrayal in Rome, and also in Hammonius, whose buoyant spirits would be
a soothing emollient to his wounded pride and broken heart.

“And what of Archimedes,” she said now, plunging ahead with her question before she could weigh the emotional cost of hearing
news of him. She was prepared to hear Hammonius deliver an account from her former lover’s point of view on how she hurt him-a
man who would have easily given up his life for her and nearly did. “I am sure you know the circumstances under which he left
my service.”

Hammonius took her slender hands in his. “Kleopatra, what could you have done? You chose for your kingdom, and that is why
you are a great queen. Again, I say that your father is now with the gods chanting your name, and celebrating the fact that
he chose it for you so wisely. Glory to her father. Which Kleopatra in the family has ever lived up to her name so loyally
and so brilliantly?”

“I am aware of the reasons for my actions, and I have no regrets. But I am asking you of my cousin. Is he well?”

“Well?” Hammonius dropped her hands and threw his beefy arms up to the gods in exasperation. “No, he is a whimpering, lovesick
puppy. In his thirty years, no woman has ever turned him down, much less released him from her heart. He is wounded, of course,
but he will recover. I got sick of his skulking around and sent him to Greece to lick his wounds. I told him to come back
a man!”

“I hurt him very badly and without explanation. Please don’t be hard on him.”

“He believes that he is the true father of the prince.”

Kleopatra’s tender feelings hardened into fear. “He must be stopped from saying that.”

“He only says it for my own ears. He knows better. And now that I have seen the long face and Roman nose of Caesar on the
boy, I will tell him that his fantasy is just that.”

“I love my cousin, but if I hear that he has publicly disputed Caesar’s paternity, I shall take action against him. Tell him
that.”

“Kleopatra, you are a queen and are above all men. But don’t forget that it is natural for a man to want progeny. Archimedes
will never do anything that will cause you harm.”

“Anything that jeopardizes the future of my son with his father causes me harm.” Did he not realize how alternately delicate
and complex were the ties with Caesar-the political alliance held together by her treasury, the geographical location of her
country, and one tiny little boy, who could not yet even say his name? Her ambitions hung by the thread of feeling that Caesar
was developing for the small facsimile of himself to whom she had given birth.

“Is there a chance that Caesar will claim the boy as his own?”

“He has already done so privately and to his immediate social connections. A public announcement will follow the enactment
of pending legislation. Until then, it would be awkward. You understand, don’t you?”

Hammonius pulled the chain to signal the driver to stop. “An old man’s bladder is as demanding as a young man’s prick!” he
said by way of apology, and excused himself from the carriage to relieve his misery. They were still on the west bank of the
river, south of Rome and her giant arched walls, but in sight of Tiber Island, whose triangular stone embankment wall pointed
toward them like a river barge on a cruise. Hammonius finished his business in the outdoors and then invited the queen to
stretch her legs before they continued into the city.

He pointed to the island. “The home of Aesclepius the healer,” he said. The temple to the god of medicine had been built more
than two hundred years earlier after a terrible plague swept through the city.

” ’Tis both lovely and unseemly to have a sacred spot in the midst of this pestilent river,” Kleopatra said. The river and
the heavens had taken on the same preternatural pearlescent green. No sunshine came to bring normalcy back to the color of
earth, water, and sky. Kleopatra felt as if she had sipped the mushroom broth at a Dionysian ritual, the strange brew that
always turned natural things unnatural shades. The two sections of bridge that connected the island to both sides of the river
spanned its waters like the graceful outstretched arms of a dancer.

“Do you know how the Romans say the island came into being?” he asked. “When the people expelled the last of the Tarquin kings,
they threw his wheat crop into the river and it formed the island’s mass.”

“A pretty story of pride and independence, but undoubtedly apocryphal,” she replied.

“The Romans have never taken kindly to men who wished for singular rule. It is not in their nature.”

“What are you saying to me?”

Hammonius smiled at her. “I am telling you a story like I used to do when you were a little girl and were rapt to my silly
tales.”

“I think there is covert meaning, my friend. Do you think you cannot speak directly to me anymore because I am sleeping in
the bed of Caesar? Come, Hammonius, you are my oldest friend and my most astute spy and adviser. You do not need to speak
of myths and legends to make your point.”

His face took on a look of gravity; his worried brow knitted his eyes into two giant teardrops. “Kleopatra, Your Majesty Oh,
sometimes I do not even know what to call you. One moment you are the little girl who used to sit on my lap, and the next,
the most formidable woman in the world. The partner of Rome’s dictator-may the gods themselves stand in your honor, Kleopatra.”

“But there is more you wish to say. Come, come Hammonius. I know you as well as I knew my father. Neither of you has ever
been difficult to read.”

“When I came of age, I took the vow of the First Brotherhood of Kinsmen to protect you with my life. At nineteen, Archimedes
took the same vow. Do you believe that either of us would happily thrust a sword into our bellies rather than break that vow?”

“I do believe it. Even Archimedes, whose pride and heart I have so wounded.”

“It is our duty to protect and advise you, not merely to go along with your plans, or to comfort you.”

Kleopatra did not think she could ever raise anger against this man, but why was he treating her as if she were a child, unaware
of her position or of his? “Why would I wish for anything else? Do you think me not woman enough to know the truth of things?
Do you think I need to be coddled like a painted princess?”

He looked at her very sternly, like her father used to do when he was about to forbid her to do something she wanted to do
very badly. Her heart melted once more, because, like her father, Hammonius was of a
jovial and harmonious nature, a man who had to force himself to be strict and stern.

“Archimedes has written from Greece. He visited Apollonia, where the commander who trained him in Athens now resides, teaching
young Roman cadets military strategies. He had cause to meet Caesar’s nephew, Gaius Octavian, the boy who rode in Caesar’s
triumphal parade.”

Kleopatra’s heart quickened. She had wanted to ask Caesar about this mysterious boy, but she did not wish to appear nosy.
It disturbed him enough that she paid Hammonius big sacks of gold for information about his countrymen and their private doings
that even he, Caesar, did not know. She sensed that her network of spies threatened the accord between them. But the boy Octavian
had raised concerns in her mind. When she learned of the unearned honors Caesar had heaped upon him, she worried that he was
Caesar’s new beloved, though she had heard he was frail and wan and hardly out of childhood. But there would be no dictating
to the dictator whom he might bring into his bed, and so she let go her curiosity about him.

She stood straight, moving away from the tree against which she leaned and grabbing Hammonius’s sleeve. “Go on.”

“Caesar sent the boy to Apollonia to study.”

“Why would Caesar not participate in the schooling of his nephew? Is that not a worldwide custom, to educate our loved ones?”

“Apparently he has paid the families of two splendid Roman boys to attach their sons body and soul to Octavian’s service.
The boys are of great intelligence and skill, but not of patrician birth. Caesar gave their families great sacks of treasure
from Gaul, which he said were the families’ to keep as long as the two boys-one, an intellectual who shows great political
promise, and the other, a military prodigy-are loyal to his nephew.”

“Does that not demonstrate Caesar’s mercy and goodness?” she asked. “Why should this generosity to a frail nephew rouse our
suspicions?”

The moment she asked the question she had her answer. Why was Caesar heaping favor upon a distant relative that he should
be reserving for his own son?