Pharaoh (27 page)

“Paradoxical but true, my dear,” he had said. Antony had agreed and
had invented the particulars of how and when it would happen. When Antony laid out the details, Caesar had said that he possessed
the dramatic talents of a Euripides, and Antony had grinned broadly like a boy

“Take it away, my son,” Caesar called to Antony, and the crowd exploded, some cheering the refusal, others begging Caesar
to take it. Antony pretended that Caesar had offended him. He pulled his head back and scowled, first at Caesar, then at the
crowd, turning far to his right and to his left for all to see the displeasure on his face. He called for three of his associates
to lift him on their shoulders. Carried forward as if mounted on some lumbering animal, he approached the Rostra once more
and, this time, tried to place the crown on Caesar’s head. Caesar waited for a moment and then shielded himself with his hand,
turning the crown away. The crowd now began to cheer more and more, chanting the name of Caesar. Kleopatra thought it difficult
to gauge their reaction. She imagined that it could easily be construed that they wished Caesar to take the crown. And she
wished he would accept it just to see the reaction. After all, if the response was negative, he could always give it back.
“If the majority objects, you can take it from your head, fling it to the ground, and stomp on it!” she had told him.

But Caesar was acting conservatively. Antony proffered the crown once again, and this time, Caesar shook his head slowly and
dramatically in the negative for all to see. Then, according to plan, he called out to Lucius Cotta to have the event recorded
in the public records.

“Let it be written that on this day, the fourteenth of February, before the people of Rome, Caesar was thrice offered the
crown of a monarch and thrice he refused it.”

Even to the ear of a queen who wished to hear otherwise, the Roman people unmistakably cheered his words.

The Vestal Virgins, the High Priestesses of Rome, keepers of the flame of the hearth-goddess, Vesta, that lit every Roman
fire and burned day and night atop her temple, were not above the bribe. In addition to this duty, they also vaulted in their
temple all official Roman documents, holding them in safety and secrecy. Hammonius had made contact with one of the youngest,
Belinda, whose bitterness at her family
for forcing her to forsake the love of a man and honor them with her position made her amenable to betrayal. She feared for
her life, so that his discretion was mandatory. He swore it on all manner of gods and principles, and, to the best of his
ability, made the queen swear the same, though he was but her servant and unable to enforce anything upon her. “Please swear
it on the memory of your father,” he implored her. “For the young woman will be flung into the Tiber if she is found out.”

And so Kleopatra promised it, knowing that the information she gleaned would have to remain private.

Caesar had made a will. He retired to a country estate to document his final wishes, and he refused to reveal its contents.
“I am not so very
old
”
,’
he told her, “that we should concern ourselves with the advent of my demise. But I am planning a two-year campaign, and the
gods may have it that it is my last. I do not wish my estates to be challenged. Rome does not need to fight more internal
battles over money and property. And besides, I have already told you that it is illegal according to Roman law to leave property
to a foreigner, which, regrettably, until we can change the law, our son must be regarded as such.”

“And that is that?” she asked.

“Yes, my dear, that is that.”

He promised that as soon as he was able to declare victory over Parthia, his friend and supporter Lucius Cotta along with
a group of others would put forth the bill that Caesar be given the special privilege of marrying any number of wives he wished
in order to produce an heir. And no one, not Cicero, not Brutus, not the most strident of constitutionalists, would contest
it if Caesar had added the vast and thus far unconquerable territory of Parthia to the empire.

“It is the most expedient solution, Kleopatra. I will not have to alienate my countrymen by putting Calpurnia away. You and
I will marry in Egypt, and there I will be your king. I will remain Rome’s dictator until someone has a better idea. Our son
will be legitimate, you will be my wife, and we will proceed from there.”

She knew that anything more in her favor was impossible, but she wanted a guarantee of some sort, which neither Caesar nor
the gods could give. She would have to take yet another risk in a lifetime whose path looked like one long backbone of risk
upon risk.

“My darling, you look at me most pitifully, as if our son requires my money for his daily bread,” Caesar said. “Unlike you,
I have no title that I might pass to him. It is merely a question of some money-much less than you yourself possess. Please
be reasonable. This is the best we can hope for at this time.”

Still, she wondered if he was covering up something, so she gave Hammonius a purse heavy with gold to pass quietly to Belinda,
who reported the contents of the will. That maiden informed Hammonius that the Roman people were Caesar’s primary heir. He
was leaving a massive portion of his fortune to the individual citizens of Rome. His secondary heir, who was to receive virtually
everything else was Octavian, the malnourished nephew.

“It’s only money, Your Majesty,” said Hammonius, and Kleopatra agreed. “And your son is a king, with a king’s treasure. Money
is the single ingredient of his power that he need not acquire from his father.”

Marcus Lepidus had the finest mansion in the city of Rome-or the finest one paid for with his own money and not stolen in
the war, Antony joked. Kleopatra was a guest in that home for the week so that she might enjoy more time with Caesar in the
days before he left Rome. Little Caesar remained behind at the villa under Charmion’s supervision, and Kleopatra wished that
she might have used those final days together to further imprint the affection of father upon son, but Caesar did not want
the boy to stay in the city, where he might be vulnerable to foreign diseases and to the dictator’s own enemies.

They were gathered around ten large round tables, the men reclining on couches and the women sitting in chairs as was Roman
custom. It was the fourteenth of March, the month of Mars, the Roman war god, and Caesar was to depart in four days to launch
the greatest campaign in Rome’s seven-hundred-year history. Lepidus had gathered Caesar’s most faithful friends and supporters
to honor him at a dinner. It would certainly be two years before they saw the great man on home soil again.

“Marcus Brutus is conspicuously absent,” Kleopatra whispered to Caesar and Lepidus. “In fact, none of Servilia’s clan is here.”

“Oh, it is more fun without Brutus’s somber countenance to rain on our fun,” Lepidus replied.

“He is serious by nature,” said Caesar. “It is not an easy temperament to disguise for the sake of socializing.”

Antony was festive throughout the meal, proposing toasts to the future, and lavishing the attention he had previously given
to Kleopatra upon his wife, Fulvia. She was a tall woman, fair-skinned and striking, with almost black eyes and dark hair
hennaed to a deep red. Kleopatra noticed the respect she commanded from Antony’s peers. She spent the evening in deep conversation
with one senator or another, whispering in emphatic tones about policy and civic affairs. Her opinion was sought, even courted.
Despite the respect given her, and the smiles and caresses she received from her handsome husband, she was prone to frowning.
The single line in her face cut across the space between her eyebrows like a deep canal, ruining the symmetry of her beauty.
It seemed that she was as serious as Antony was playful, and he went out of his way to keep her in good humor.

A few nights before, Caesar had commented to Kleopatra in the privacy of their bedroom that he did not quite understand a
man like Antony-a man who commanded legions of men, but was so susceptible to a woman. “When Antony was under the influence
of the actress, he was debauched. Now that he is married to Fulvia, a taskmaster if there ever was one, he is a model statesman.”

“Perhaps women have greater influence than Romans give credit,” Kleopatra had answered, wondering where Caesar placed her
influence over him in the realm of his life.

“It makes me think of the ancient rituals where men dressed in women’s clothing to steal some of their mysterious and life-giving
powers,” Caesar had said. “That was surely what Clodius was doing when he was caught with my wife Pompeia at the festival
of the Good Goddess. He had donned women’s clothes, sneaked into the festival, and had his way with my wife on the couch.
I believe he was trying to either steal her power, or steal mine through her.”

“The goddess gives life to all,” Kleopatra had said. “It is not a mistake to seek her wisdom and strength in the mortals of
her sex.”

“My dear, you do not have to convince me of that fact.”

Tonight, after the meal, Antony worked his way around the room to Kleopatra’s table, whispering in her ear that he must talk
to her.

“Would you like to take the air in the garden, Your Majesty?” he asked her aloud.

Kleopatra noticed that Fulvia’s gaze had followed Antony around the room and straight to the queen, who gave him her hand
and allowed him to escort her outside, aware that the two black spies of Fulvia’s eyes did not leave them until they disappeared
from the banqueting room. He led her into the small garden, for no mansions within the city limits had the sprawling manicured
outdoor spaces such as she knew in Alexandria. But there were rows of potted citrus trees offering lemons and oranges, and
ambitious climbing roses that crawled up the garden walls, mingling sweet pleasant smells. Antony led her to a secluded spot.

“What is it, Antony? You look so glum. What serious matter is causing you to interrupt your fun and risk your wife’s suspicions?”

Antony let himself smile again, but he had clearly not brought her into a private area just to play with her attentions. “Did
you notice that Caesar didn’t eat a morsel of food?”

“He rarely does these days. I suppose the details of planning the campaign and the details of leaving Rome in secure hands
have left little room for an appetite.”

“It is more than that. I believe he is far too ill to leave the country, but he won’t listen to me. I was hoping he might
listen to you.”

Kleopatra grimaced. She had hoped that her own worry over Caesar’s condition was ill-founded, the result, as he so often suggested,
of her natural womanly concerns. “I have in my entourage the finest doctor in Alexandria, a medical genius. I have asked Caesar
many times to be examined by him, but he refuses, no matter how I beg or cajole. He says that illness is caused in the mind,
and if the mind of Caesar refuses to entertain the thought of illness, the body will not get the idea to be sick.”

“He is sick nonetheless. A few days ago, I brought an assembly of senators before him to discuss certain burning issues. When
we approached him, he sat back in his throne holding his head, barely acknowledging our presence, as if he was on the verge
of another of his spells. The men were mostly insulted that he didn’t even rise to greet them. Others could see that he was
sick. And that is worse indeed, for they will surely find ways to use weakness of any sort against him. Some of the men left
that meeting saying that Caesar was now so regal that he needn’t rise to meet his peers; others have spread
the word that he is ill and incapable of leading either a war or an empire. Either way, the incident has worked in his disfavor.”

She did not dare tell Antony of the most recent telltale sign of Caesar’s failing health. For the first time, in recent days,
he had been unable to make love. Caesar put it down to fatigue, and Kleopatra ascribed it to worry, but privately she wondered
if it was but another sign-along with his yellow complexion and his lackluster smile-of a physical decline of a more permanent
nature.