Pharaoh (29 page)

Caesar gagged on his own pain, a throaty lamentation into the air,
acknowledged by no one. Surrounded by men he had known all the days of his life, he was utterly alone.

Through the window he saw a ray of sunlight swell through a black cloud, making a crucifix of light. The light grew taller
and wider, taking over the scenery around it until it was all that he could see. No longer could he hear even the cries of
his own pain, though he was aware that his body was in agony and his voice still cried out for someone to help him. He could
hear nothing at all but that familiar silent hush of his spells. He could not stop looking at the light, whiter than anything
he had ever seen, whiter than the clouds that covered the Italian mountains like collars of fur. Whiter than snow, and with
a shimmer of gold at its edges. He left his body entirely behind on the senate floor and walked toward the glittering shaft.
Out of its great gleam, suddenly
she
emerged, more beautiful in this radiant manifestation than she had ever appeared before. She was huge now, taller than him,
taller than any mortal, and the light spread about her as if a part of her being. She carried it with her as she moved to
Caesar, drenched in it as if in some glorious bath.

Do you like the light of heaven?
she asked him, all smiles. Here was the fickle beauty who had given him great Fortune and safe harbor all the days of his
life. He knew that she was not toying with him as she had done in the past. She was finally ready to unite with him forever
in perfect and divine union.
Come with me,
she seemed to say through her smile.
Take your place with us at last.

Caesar looked back at his body, still twisting and turning against the blows of the senators, and he made his last conscious
choice for that self he was leaving behind. The last human gesture of Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, was to cover
his body with his cloak and let them finish him off, because that was the only way to leave the pain behind and to walk into
the exhilaration she offered.

Are you ready to be rejoined for all time with your fellow gods?
she asked.

Finally, the proof. He was so pleased to see that he’d been right all along, that he had indeed been a god, descended from
a goddess. They had doubted him, but as usual, he had the last laugh. “So I have been right?” he asked.

Oh yes, she explained. For not only was he a god, but so were all mortals gods in disguise, divorced from their divine lineage,
their true
identities shrouded from their earthly selves. That is what she now revealed to him: He had been one of the rare humans who
had not forgotten the connection with his divine self, and had lived like a god all of his mortal life.

Caesar stood with the goddess at the entrance to the chamber, where he could see Antony still trying to disengage from Albinus.
At least that son was a loyal one. Octavian would have Caesar’s money, and Antony his power, and all would be as it should.
The goddess instantly read Caesar’s thoughts.
One possibility in a world of endless varieties of possibility,
she said. She cracked the sky, revealing to him the many layers of possibilities that represented the futures of those he
was leaving behind. He watched in awe, with a multiplicity of vision he’d never known in his mortal life, all the possible
variations of the same drama he was leaving behind. He saw that the drama shifted and the stories changed as the players made
decisions, turning their lives one way or another, each action affecting themselves and those around them.
You see, Great Caesar,
she said,
this is the way in which mortals retain the power of the divine-in every earthly choice they make.

“But it’s a paradox,” he said. “Human beings are in control of everything and nothing at all.”

Yes,
she answered, her coy smile spreading joy across her lovely face.
It is that simple.

Caesar brought his attention back to the present moment, which now seemed an awkward lump in the straight arrow of earthly
time-time he would soon leave behind forever. He realized that he was to join
forever,
to be a part of the very idea of it; that he would now attain the immortality that he had so fruitlessly sought on earth.

Inside the chamber, the statue of Pompey presided over the murder, watching it all from his pedestal, staring down remorselessly
at Caesar’s bloody body. The men were still stabbing frantically, white cloaks splattered with his blood, as if they were
afraid to stop, for then they would have to face the consequences of their actions. Like puppets driven by some master who
was divorced from his own reason, they continued to pour wounds into a lifeless body.

“It hardly matters, does it?” he said, turning to her and letting any sadness he felt melt away in her radiance. And she agreed.
Yes, Caesar, it all melts away in the ether. Shall we go? There are those on the other side who are most anxious to see you.

“Julia?” he asked hopefully.

Oh yes, Julia and so many more. You shall have a triumphal parade the likes of which you have never known. But this time,
the victory is sweet and uncon-tested, and there are no enemies. All is honor.

He felt light and giddy, pulled irretrievably away from all that he had known, but then something yanked him back to the corporeal
world. Suddenly, at the house of Marcus Lepidus, where Caesar had dined the night before, he saw Kleopatra standing on a balcony
staring at the same strange crucifix of light, an expression of stark fear on her face. He could hear his murderers begin
to yell in the streets.
Liberty! Liberty!
Kleopatra heard this, and he knew that she knew in that instant what had happened. How he wanted to hold her, to send her
this great love that he felt, and the knowledge that all things of this earth fade into the luster of heaven.

“But we haven’t finished yet, she and I,” he protested, hoping that the goddess would allow him this final gesture to the
woman he was leaving to her own Fate.

Oh yes you have, my darling. Time has another agenda.

Caesar sighed, letting the sight of Kleopatra slip away as the goddess took his hand and gently led him home.

Kleopatra felt a chill slip into her body, making ice of her blood. She breathed deeply and then shuddered, holding herself
tighter, a look of panic spreading across her worried face. She was engulfed by the very scent of him, the gentle essence
of eucalyptus his manservant rubbed into his shoulders and arms in the morning after his bath, and the deeper smell all his
own that lay underneath the aroma of oil. She opened her arms to clasp him, hoping that some part of him would come to her,
would hold her, would take her with him. But her embrace was empty. She had felt him for a fleeting moment, just as surely
as she had held him night after night in their bed. It was unmistakably him, but in seconds he was gone, leaving her to confront
the future without him. Now she could barely sense her own body. Frozen, arms wrapped about herself, she felt her knees buckle,
and she fell to the ground. She put her hands on the cold tile, and yet her flesh was colder still. She tried to bal
ance herself, but could not, and rolled to her side so that she lay like a baby on the rigid floor, curled about herself,
biting her hand and feeling nothing.

She heard the cries in the streets escalate.
Liberty! Liberty! The tyrant is dead! Long live the Republic!
People screamed in horror, anguished moans wailing in response to this news. She wondered who exactly it was who had liberated
the earth of Julius Caesar. Which son was it who had slain the father to collect his inheritance? She did not have to ask
the question twice, for she knew which son was prepared to murder for an ideology. And if he had taken such a cold-blooded
step, killing the man whom he called father, the man who had mentored him all the days of his life, who spoke to him in loving
tones in Greek over philosophy and poetics, who had forgiven him for joining Pompey’s war against him, who had honored him
even after his betrayal-if Brutus could manage that, then would he not at this moment be wiping his dagger clean of Caesar’s
blood to use on her and her son? If they had killed the father, would the true son of his blood not be the next target? If
the son was to die, then so too his mother, so that no one would be alive to take vengeance. Son and mother to be wiped out,
leaving no one to threaten the claims of the assassins.

And what of Antony? Kleopatra could not imagine that anyone could harm Caesar while Antony was around-unless Antony was in
on the conspiracy. She let herself ponder this evil for a moment, until she thought she would retch. But she did not have
the luxury of being ill now, and she breathed deeply until the desire to empty her insides subsided.

She lay on the floor for a long time, unable to move, shivering against the cool morning air and the tiles still damp with
the morning dew. She knew that action had to be taken, preparations made, safety sought, but she could not imagine what to
do. She remembered that she had felt this way before, been a player in this kind of predicament, and had survived. When her
father had died, she was left alone, without the sanctuary of his power, a teenage queen with hostile factions against her.
Was there not one safe place in the world? Was there no person to whom one could turn for protection? She clenched her hand
into a fist and bit it even harder until she could once again feel pain. She let her teeth sink into her soft skin, breaking
it, until she could take the infliction no longer.
No, there was no such being anywhere on the earth, no person of such power and magnitude that he might direct events in her
favor.
We come into this world alone and thus we leave it.
And in the interim, there was little respite from that solitary fate. Henceforth, she
realized,
it was but herself and the gods-no father, no Caesar, no mortal individual in whose power she might rest. No mortal could
accomplish for her what she must petition from her own strength and from the gods. And so she appealed to them, for they were
the solution to every grim situation.

Mother Isis, Lady of Compassion, once again you have taken away the source of my power, leaving me alone on this earth without
mother or father or husband. It is only I who can protect the kingdom of my ancestors and my tiny son, the true prince of
Egypt and the only true son of Caesar. Once again I ask you to restore my power to me so that I may carry out your purpose
on earth, not in the body of another, but in my own person, where only you and I may guide my actions and declare Destiny.
I ask you this as your humble daughter, in all sacred-ness. Let me survive.

Hot tears came falling down her face, cutting warm little rivers over her cold cheeks. She should not cry now, not when there
was so much to be done. She would weep later, much later, when she and her son were safe and back on Egyptian soil. She forced
herself to sit up, wiping the tears from her eyes. Wobbling, she stood, holding the wooden rail for support.

Under the noise in the streets, Kleopatra heard an unmistakable, rhythmic beat. She had heard it so many times before that
she knew it was the pounding of the sandaled feet of Roman soldiers marching toward the center of the city. Now there would
be war, and she was miles away from her son.
Mother, please, he is but a little child. Help him!
She had neither the energy nor the imagination to elaborate on her
prayer.

A
tall man in a tattered peasant’s cloak rushed onto the balcony. She shrank from him, but he pushed his hood away from his
face and she saw that it was Antony. He put an arm around her. “Quickly,” he said. “You must go inside.” She had not the strength
to question him, nor the need, for she knew very well the chain of events that had brought him here in disguise. She was relieved
to see him, not just because he represented a friend and ally of both herself and Caesar, but because his presence exonerated
him from participation in the terrible crime.

“You realize what has happened?” Antony asked.

“It is being shouted in the streets,” she said.

“And you realize what that means? We must get you out of Rome.”

“Tell me what happened,” she said, choking on her words. “Was it Brutus?”

“Not now, Kleopatra. There is no time for talk. Lepidus has called his troops stationed on Tiber Island and they are marching
on the city.”

“You are going to war with Caesar’s murderers?”

“No. I am going to negotiate with them.”

Kleopatra was shocked at the news. “But how can you?”

Antony’s face was lit with an energy that she had yet to see in him. He was entirely calm, though marvelously alert. He was
glowing, as if driven by a light within. “There is no time for emotion. War must be averted, power seized. The greatness that
was Julius Caesar is dispersed in his death.”

“Just tell me, was it Brutus?” She wanted to know. She had warned Caesar, and he had ignored her. He must have wanted this
death, designed it somehow, with an unspoken will. Why would he leave her?