Pharaoh (3 page)

“Posidonius has demonstrated that Rome, by embracing all the peoples of the world, secures all humanity into a commonwealth
under the gods,” Caesar explained. “Through submission, harmony is realized.”

A tiny laugh, almost a giggle, escaped Kleopatra’s lips despite herself. “Does Rome
embrace,
General? Is ’suffocation not a more appropriate word?” she asked, her eyes wide and twinkling. He did not know if she was
agitating him for the purpose of argument or to arouse him sexually. But with her enchanting voice that sounded almost like
a musical instrument, and the way she moved her body with sensuous fluidity, she was succeeding more at the latter.

“Suffocation, perhaps, but only in the service of the common good.”

“Whose good?”

“In Gaul, where I spent many years, tribes of men of the same bloodlines who speak the same language, who share common heritage,
have fought to destroy one another since time out of mind. I soon realized that while my army was at war with the tribes,
there was all the while a secret war in progress, one in which the tribes fought incessantly against one another. The same
is true in Illyricum and in Dacia. What you might perceive as an effort at domination is really a means to force peace. Only
by thralldom have they bought freedom from the tyranny of eternal tribal factions. But the first step is always the submission
of the collective will to a man of resolute vision. Do you take my meaning?”

“I see,” she said agreeably, and he wondered if she was storing up her thoughts to deliver an unexpected blow. “You do not
aim to suffocate, but rather to unite.”

“You are too young to have known Posidonius, my dear, but you would certainly have benefited by his acquaintance. He was most
well-traveled, having studied the arts and sciences over most of the known world.”

“Odd, we did not see him
here,
where the greatest philosophers in the world are known to gather,” she answered, much to Caesar’s annoyance. “And in any
event, this unity of peoples you describe, General, is only pertinent to those whom you believe you must improve. How might
it apply to we civilized Greeks, who require no improvement? How is it that we thrive under domination from a culture whose
arts and philosophies are so thoroughly derived from our own?”

It was too much, really, but she said it so charmingly, knowing as surely she must that she held no real power over him. He
could afford to be generous. She was so young, one and twenty, she had said, younger than his Julia would have been had she
lived. “Surely the gods were drunk on the day they made an imperious Greek girl the queen of a filthy-rich nation. Surely
I must be intoxicated to ensure the power of such a girl.”

“The Crown thanks you.”

“As you know, my child, as we have witnessed here in your own land, there must be a master. It’s as simple as that. In accordance
with the laws of the gods and the laws of nature. Otherwise, it’s a muddle. ’The strong do as they will while the weak suffer
what they must.’ If I may quote a Greek to a Greek.”

By this time, they were entirely alone. She had long ago dismissed the pirate, and Caesar his men. They sat facing each other
on two white linen couches with a table of refreshments between them. The queen regarded Caesar for some time, and he allowed
it, enjoying the flush of color across her high cheekbones and the way flashes of inspiration seemed to leap from her eyes.
“Is it not possible for the two civilized peoples, Greek and Roman, to rule side by side; one race of men of military might
in cooperation with another whose strength lies in the world of the intellect, the world of Art, Knowledge, and Beauty?”

“Possible, but not probable. If given the opportunity, men of means will always seek power and fortune.”

“And women of means as well,” she said.

“Yes, I have not seen that women lack ambition,” he replied. “And if a woman has sufficient means, then perhaps many things
are possible.”

“I’m relieved you think so.” She sat back, satisfied, her small hands folded in her lap, a quiet smile on her face as if she
shared some lovely humor with herself alone. Caesar was sure that they had not finished
with this line of discussion. But he wanted, at that moment, to seize her mind in his hands as if she were another territory
to be conquered in the name of Rome and of unity. Yet she was not a woman to be merely taken. Here was a woman, he thought,
who if giving herself of her own volition, would give the world.

“But we have parried enough, Your Majesty,” Caesar said, rising. “You’ve vexed an old man quite enough for one day. Now come
to bed. You are under my protection.”

But she did not rise with him. “General, just when I thought your command of Greek was beyond reproach, I find that you make
a linguistic mistake.”

“Caesar does not make linguistic mistakes,” he replied. What now? More argument with this fetching creature? Was she determined
to try his patience?

“You said,
come
to bed, when surely you meant
go
to bed.” Again, she looked at him as if she was either laughing at him or trying to seduce him. How could he, a man of fifty-two
who had had hundreds of lovers, not rapidly discern which?

“No, dear girl. You know what I meant. I always make myself perfectly clear.”

The chubby boy king burst into his sister’s chamber. Though it was early morning, he was dressed in formal robes and wearing
his crown. Kleopatra barely had a moment to pull the cover over her naked breasts. Caesar sat up quickly, the dagger under
his pillow already in his hand.

“What are you doing here?” the young king screamed, his bulbous lips quaking. “How did you get here?”

Caesar’s soldiers followed the boy into the room; trailing them, Arsinoe, her panther eyes darting from Kleopatra to her lover.
How old must the girl be now? Sixteen? She was the image of her treasonous, dead mother, Thea, only with marble green eyes
instead of Thea’s conniving brown ones. Arsinoe smirked but said nothing. She took her brother by the arm.

“Are you some kind of fiend or apparition? The entire city is on guard against you. How did you get into the palace, you ghost?”

Kleopatra did not answer but waited for Caesar to speak. Though he had just restored her to her own throne, he was dictator
of Rome, and she at his mercy. At least for the moment.

“My good King Ptolemy,” Caesar began, tossing the dagger aside, “I promised to repair relations between you and your sister,
and I have done so.”

Caesar’s men, ready to seize the boy, looked to their commander, but he waved them away.

“But I don’t want to reconcile with her,” the boy answered, pointing to Kleopatra, who tried to retain as much dignity as
a naked young woman in a roomful of strangers might. “She’s a monster! Has she poisoned you against us? Has she?”

“Come now, there is no need for this kind of upset,” Caesar said. “Let us set a meeting for later in the day-perhaps some
reasonable hour after breakfast-and I shall enlighten you and your regents as to the terms.”

Caesar’s calm voice settling over the room evaporated the anger Ptolemy had released into the air. But the boy king did not
relent. “What do you think you’re doing?” he stammered at Kleopatra.

“Is this how you welcome your sister back to Alexandria?” Kleopatra asked, trying to imitate Caesar’s mellow tone. “I have
not seen you for the better part of two years, my brother. How you’ve grown.” Though he was no taller, as far as Kleopatra
could discern, he had expanded horizontally, reminding her of the girth her late father had acquired in his last years.

Caesar leaned toward the boy. “You know the terms of your father’s will. You and Kleopatra are to rule jointly It isn’t for
you to question. You shouldn’t have run her out of the country in the first place.”

“Run her out? She sneaked away like a common thief and raised an army against me!” he sputtered.

Laughable, Kleopatra thought. She would not put one ounce of her energy into bolstering such a fool before the Roman general,
before the Alexandrian people, or even before the gods themselves.

“That’s all over now, and I insist that you make up. It’s all been decided. No need to create another dispute when harmony
is so easily attained.” Caesar smiled at Arsinoe. “Is that not what the philosophers tell us, young lady? You have your brother’s
ear. You must counsel him to be reasonable. You do not wish him to get himself hurt.”

“No, General. I do not.” Arsinoe folded her arms, making a bridge under her voluptuous breasts and chilling Kleopatra with
her glazed stare. It seemed to her that Arsinoe had been assessing the situation and had come to some dark private conclusion.
“Shall we go, Brother?”

The boy grimaced at Kleopatra, but let himself be guided away by his sister; more regal than he would ever be, she held his
elbow and led him out of the room as if he were blind.

Kleopatra let out a sigh and fell back on her pillow, grateful to have awakened in her own bed, no matter what the circumstances,
after two years of exile. She had not slept, really slept, in months, and even last night, she and Caesar were awake almost
until dawn negotiating and making love. Fortunately, her energy for both of those activities was of the torrential sort. She
had had years of practice for the former, both in her father’s government and in exile where resources were limited. The latter,
she was accustomed to with a man half Caesar’s age, so that the passions of this older man, so distant, so polite, hardly
troubled her at all. She thought of Archimedes-cousin, lover, comrade-still in exile, of his eyes as deep and dark as Nile
silt, of his strong square shoulders, of the way he lost himself in a private frenzy after he had done with pleasing her,
of the way his cries while making love seemed like prayers to some taunting goddess, and she ached with her betrayal. But
what choice did she have? For here was Julius Caesar, undisputed Master of the World, who had made it safe for her to be in
this room once more, where the sounds and smells of the sea rolled into her window. How many times had she wondered if she
would ever set foot upon Egyptian soil again, much less sleep in her own goosedown bed? She had made a coldblooded choice,
but she had made the correct one
. In matters of state, let your blood run cold.
Her most trusted adviser, Hephaestion, whom she had left back in the Sinai with Archimedes, had drilled those words into
her head for so many years now that she chanted them to herself day and night. She must have no regrets.

Caesar looked older this morning. The wine they had drunk last night in their orgy of conversation had blurred the lines around
his mouth and eyes and the brown spots that covered his skin like tiny mushrooms. Archimedes would have been on top of her
as soon as the last soldier had left the room, and she waited for what she assumed all men needed to do upon awakening, but
Caesar merely yawned, stretch
ing his arms in the direction of his toes, and groaning when he could not quite reach them. He seemed extraordinarily slim
and fit underneath his aged skin, she had to admit. Not one ounce of fat marred his taut, lean physique. He had a narrow Roman
nose and an elegant and knowing face, not handsome, fringed by his thinning brown hair. The frown lines at his mouth and the
deep crevice under his lower lip formed a severe triangle. His ears were aristocratic and small, just as his fingers and toes
were aristocratic and long. It was a well-proportioned face sitting upon a youthful neck that had yet to fall into jowl.

“What a fine, long neck you have,” she said to him.

“Like Venus,” he answered, nonchalant, and she smiled, remembering that Caesar claimed direct descent from that goddess. “We’ve
all got it in the family.

“And you,” he said, stroking her face. “The gods grace the faces of the young with morning dew. It won’t be so when you’re
old like me.”

Kleopatra accepted this with a smile while she assessed the new order of things. She was no longer in exile, waiting for the
right moment to attack her brother’s army. She was again the queen of Egypt. Caesar had overwhelmingly defeated Pompey and
the Roman senate, thus making him the most powerful man in the world. And Caesar was now her benefactor and lover.

Yet she did not know whether her country was in fact occupied or not. Caesar acted like a guest who had made himself overly
comfortable, rather than as a hostile commander who had entered the city with his standard raised, immediately engaging in
a skirmish with the Alexandrian army. Kleopatra did not care what version Caesar put forth of the story. She believed he had
entered her city with the intention of taking it. He had thought it would be easy; she was sure of this. He had just defeated
Pompey and was confident of his invincibility. But he had underestimated the Alexandrian hatred for all things Roman, the
old Greek and Egyptian pride that the city’s citizens still carried in their very veins. They did not lay down their arms
for the exalted Roman general. Far from it.

Now Caesar and his men were virtually barricaded inside the palace walls, so angered was the mob at his presence. Yet he did
not act at all like a prisoner.