Pharaoh (23 page)

Servilia looked shocked, her eyebrows drawn into arching question marks. “And do you envision your own subjects someday being
Roman citizens, too?”

Kleopatra did, in fact, look forward to the day when her own subjects would be given Roman citizenship. They would become
Roman Graeco-Egyptians, combining the three most illustrious civilizations on earth. In her mind, it was a goal to strive
for, not a change to be feared. For without change, there is no progress. But she did not think it wise to reveal too much
to this woman, who undoubtedly soaked up information like a sponge.

“Madam, as your son was brought up on tales of vanquishing tyrants, so I sat on the lap of my father the king and listened
to stories of our forefather, Alexander, and his visions of a world empire governed in harmony. Alexander embraced the people
of the nations he conquered, and it seems that Caesar has decided to follow his example. Surely that cannot be an error?”

“Not in theory, Your Majesty. But this is Rome. You have not spent much time in the streets of our city. You have not heard
the mob shout, ’Restore the Republic! Restore Rome to the Romans!’ when Caesar passes by.”

Caesar had told Kleopatra that the conservative senators paid mobs to chant these slogans in the streets. “They wish to walk
backward in time, but it will never happen,” Caesar had said. “Men throughout the world find the idea of equal citizenship
intoxicating.”

“And I hear that the mob also shouts ’Hail to the king!’ when Caesar passes by. I suppose the slogan depends on who is meeting
the day’s payroll.”

Servilia looked insulted. The question marks dropped, and her lips shrank from a broad, solicitous smile to two pursed prunes.

“Madam, the world is changing,” Kleopatra pressed on. “Isn’t it wise to change with it? It seems to me that even Caesar’s
enemies have benefited mightily by his progress. But it appears that his opponents wanted to reap the rewards of progress
without paying the price of change.”

Servilia stood. “I have said what I came to say. You are correct, Your Majesty. Many will ride the rapids of Caesar’s sweeping
changes. But
there are those few-and I believe he knows who they are, those living ghosts of Cato-who cling to the old ways like barnacles.
They have my son’s ear, though Caesar still has his loyalty My advice to you is this: If you wish things to go your way, you
might encourage the dictator to stop pretending that the old ways no longer matter, and to toss the old dogs some fresh meat.
Otherwise, I fear that their fangs will find a way into his thigh.”

The colossal statues of her ancestors greeted Kleopatra at the Great Harbor. Try as Caesar might to rebuild Rome to meet Alexandria’s
proportions and majesty, there was still nothing in that sweaty and crowded place to rival this sight-Ptolemy Philadelphus
and his wife Arsinoe II, taller even than Titans or gods, their aristocratic Macedonian features adapted slightly to make
them more palatable to the conquered race, yet looming as impressively over humankind and nature as the greatest of the ancient
pharaohs. Rome would have to climb a long way out of its provinciality to measure up to this, she thought.

The pristine white city of Alexandria sprawled languidly along the rocky shore and up the hills beyond the harbor. Caesar’s
monument, the Caesareum, looked as if it had been completed in her absence. Dwarfing the temple of Isis, it dominated the
south shore, the twelve columns of its front and their stalwart black shadows facing the sea like a Greek phalanx. The day
was clear, and the statue of Pan on the hilltop held a welcoming arm out to the queen. She could just make out the silhouettes
of people in repose on the pine-cone shaped knoll, resting in the shade of satiny willow trees. She thought of Servilia’s
warning and realized that the truth of it was this: Alexandria, by its geographical situation, by its rich cultural history,
by virtue of the grandeur of its proportions, its sheer beauty, and the ancient knowledge housed within its institutions,
was a more appropriate capital of a world empire than Rome. That idea was bound to threaten the Roman senators, those aging
men whose political power was seeping from them as quickly as blood from a slaughtered animal. Oh yes, and they bled a little
more each day as Caesar pushed the boundaries of Rome’s empire farther and farther into exotic lands where he would easily
be hailed as king, just as
they had once hailed Alexander. Though Caesar had never
said
he wished to be a king, it seemed to Kleopatra the unavoidable next step in his ascension.

The ship sat in the harbor until sunset waiting for safety clearance. Nut, the sky-goddess, softened the horizon, turning
Zeus’s dancing white clouds into slim, tawny fingers guiding the ship to shore. In the final moments of the daylight, when
sky and city melted into a dusky blue dream, Kleopatra planted her feet on Egyptian soil. The ship’s crew had disembarked
and were kissing the ground and chanting the name of Ra, and she wished that she could join them.

She could not wait to eat food prepared in her own kitchens. The security protocol put into effect aboard the ship had taken
her appetite away. Every plate of food for her and for the prince was tested by food tasters, and even then, Charmion suspiciously
smelled everything before letting them put a morsel to their mouths. Sometimes Charmion made them wait to see if a toxic substance
might have a delayed effect, and by the time Kleopatra tasted her meals, they were often cold. She and Caesarion slept in
the same cabin, armed guards outside the door and attendants on pallets inside. The child’s fitful sleep kept her awake much
of the night, hunger gnawing away at her stomach. Two days into the voyage, she longed for privacy, for a fresh plate of food
served directly to her, for a walk on the deck without two big sailors following her around. She longed to tell them that
she followed the philosophy of Caesar, that she did not fear death and in fact preferred it to this anxiety over someone taking
her life. But she did fear death, not on her own account, but because of the blue-eyed infant, who would survive neither the
cesspool of Roman politics nor the snakepit of the Egyptian monarchy without his mother’s protection.

And now, though no hostile militia, no rebellious mob, no disgruntled faction of citizens greeted her at the harbor, she wondered
what trouble she had been called back to face. Hephaestion had kept her return quiet. No ceremonial party greeted her at the
harbor, only the stately eunuch, members of his staff, and a wagon of attendants to help transport the Royal Goods back to
the palace.

“Are you too tired to be briefed this evening?” Hephaestion asked as they settled into the carriage. She noticed that he had
arranged for them to be entirely alone.

“Are you asking out of politeness, Hephaestion? I know you too well. You have already decided that we must waste no time in
catching up. I’ll wager that the order is already given to serve us dinner in my office so that we can talk.”

“Your Majesty is ever wise. I would not trouble you if matters did not necessitate urgent action.”

He had aged in her service. When her father had appointed him ten years ago, he was slim, his face unlined, his mouth still
turned up buoyantly at its corners. The office was supposed to turn over to a new adviser annually, but the family’s long
history of being betrayed by its highest chancellor had persuaded Kleopatra’s father to appoint the eunuch to the position
for life. He was perhaps fifty now, close to Caesar’s age, close to the age her father was when he died. Hephaestion seemed
healthy still, despite the weight that had crept up his middle and into his neck and cheeks, puffing him up like a proud old
rooster. He had not yet taken to the use of cosmetics like so many of his aging, castrated colleagues, save for a thin line
of kohl around his fine brown eyes. His skin was much looser than when she had left him in their war camp outside the fort
at Pelusium to sneak away with Apollodorus the pirate and meet Julius Caesar. Steely gray streaks swirled with his tight black
curls. She wondered how many of the new visible lines chiseled into his smooth face could be attributed to his devotion to
her.

She did not stop to make a small sacrifice at the temple of Isis to give thanks for her safe return, or, once at the palace,
pay a visit to the state bedroom that she had missed so much in Rome, but went directly with Hephaestion to the room where
the two of them had so often met to conduct government business. Hephaestion dismissed all scribes and attendants at the door
and ushered her in. She sat in her usual chair with a cushion over the seat and golden arms like lions’ paws stretched out
in repose. Hephaestion took a small metal tool out of a black box on his desk, and with it loosened one of the stones in the
wall. Carefully he pulled out the stone and placed it on the floor. He reached inside the empty space and produced a packet
of letters.

“Is all this secrecy really necessary?” she asked. She was exhausted and lightheaded. Her body still felt the rhythm of the
sea, and she pressed her feet firmly against the tile floor to try to accustom herself to land. She was hungry, too, and longed
for a hot bath in her private quarters.
She could almost feel the warm
water
engulf her; her mind sank into a
reverie
imagining that pleasure. Hephaestion spread the letters on the desk in front of her, but instead of reading them, she closed
her eyes. “Must I read these now?” Her eyes stung from too many days of the whipping sea winds and from too little sleep aboard
the undulating vessel.

“I will tell you their contents. These missives are the correspondence between Princess Arsinoe, who calls herself queen of
Egypt, and the king. They have been slipping by our censors thanks to the treachery of a servant to the Royal Candlemaker,
whose sister was body servant to the princess in her captivity in Rome. A system of delivery was established even from Ephesus,
where the princess is supposed to be under Roman watch. Clearly, she has found co-conspirators among her guard.”

Kleopatra could only imagine the methods her beautiful sister employed to induce her captors to do her will, techniques perfected
in the bedroom of her younger brother, whom she manipulated all his days. Would she never be rid of her sister’s insidious
sway?

“Princess Arsinoe has been sending envoys to the Roman army here in Alexandria to rise up against you, Your Majesty, and take
the city back for her.”

Kleopatra scoffed. “Does the fool think the men of Julius Caesar would so swiftly betray their commander?”

“Some of them are mercenaries gathered from Pompey’s former eastern provinces, less interested in the glory of Rome than in
gold. She made quite a few inroads with those men. She wrote passionate decrees promising money, land, citizenship, and marriage
to Alexandrian wives for their cooperation. She was able to get the letters directly into the hands of their leaders.”

Kleopatra shook her head. “Even in captivity, she still insists she is queen.” She rubbed her ears as the masseuse had shown
her to do to manifest vigor, letting her fingers work down her neck and into her rock-tight shoulders. “And so we are on the
verge of another rebellion? Is that why you called me back here? What is going on, Hephaestion? Why did you have me say that
my brother has contracted a plague? Why not just say he is a traitor?”

“It is not entirely untrue that he has manifested signs of the disease.”

He had chosen his words carefully, but Hephaestion was a careful
man. She did not like this state of semi-knowledge in which he seemed determined to keep her. He was not a conniver or intriguer
like so many of his kind who had served the Ptolemaic dynasty, and never had he grabbed for power beyond the limits of his
office. But he had a eunuch’s unadulterated loyalty as well as the uncanny ability to mastermind. This was not the first time
he was one step ahead of her, but she was sure that whatever puzzle he was putting together was for her well-being. He had
proved himself a thousand times over, risking his own life to safely get her out of Alexandria when her brother’s regime had
made her a prisoner in the palace, and then serving her loyally in exile, even when her funds ran out.

“Why did you call me and my son back into a plague-ridden community?” She knew she sounded suspicious of him. “But wait, I
saw no warning flags at the harbor and no hospital wagons in the streets. What in the name of the gods is going on?”

“There were signs of the plague a few months ago, but it has been safely contained by quarantine.” Hephaestion fished through
the letters, found the one he wanted, and put it in front of her to read. It was written by her brother, the present king,
to a Roman lieutenant promising him one thousand talents and an estate near the Fayum if he could convince his troops to betray
the orders of Julius Caesar and allow Arsinoe to enter the city. Kleopatra read: ”’Arrangements have already been made with
your comrades in Ephesus. The True Queen of Egypt needs only a word from you to return to her home.’”