Pharaoh (35 page)

Kleopatra was more vulnerable with Antony than with Caesar and
she knew it. Not only was Antony’s power not as solid as Caesar’s; the fact remained, Kleopatra wanted Antony in a way that
she had never wanted her late lover.

Antony’s demeanor this evening was different. He was less relaxed than at previous dinners, when he had made long and flowery
speeches praising every detail of the banquet, holding up pieces of meat until a cook was summoned from the kitchen to explain
every step of their preparation. He would drink goblet after goblet of wine, telling jokes and stories as if he were not the
Master of the World on a tour of his empire, but rather a loquacious vagabond who had nowhere else to go and nothing else
to do.

But this evening he merely looked about at the tables of food around which the rose petals were disseminated, and with the
briefest nod of approval, sat down and began to eat-not with his previous gusto, but methodically.

“Is all to your liking, Imperator?” Kleopatra asked, flinching at the insecurity that crept out with her words. Was he tiring
of their game?

“Quite so,” he said perfunctorily.

“You seem not yourself.”

“Like you, Your Majesty, I find that I must be not one man but many. My duties are pressing. I shall not long be in your company.”

“Where are you going?” she asked. She knew that she sounded both surprised and afraid, and she cursed herself for not being
able to summon up every morsel of her powers to disguise her emotions. She felt like an insecure girl again, in the days when
only a small flame of intuition and the hotter burn of desire told her that she had what it took to be queen.

“There is incessant trouble in Judaea. I must settle it and confer power upon my allies in that region. There is no present
governor of Syria, and I must see to that as well. And, as you know, I must also begin preparations to march on Parthia.”

He spoke to her as if to a stranger. He had shared with her every detail of his planned attack on Parthia, and she was to
play a very definite strategic role in the campaign. Now it was as if they had not had that conversation. What had changed?

“And when do you leave Tarsus?” she asked.

“Day after tomorrow.”

“I see. And when do I anticipate your arrival in Alexandria?”

Antony did not look at her. He put the last piece of quail on his plate in his mouth, dipped his fingers in the water bowl,
cleaned his hands with his napkin, and drained his goblet, slamming it down on the table forcefully so that it captured the
attention of his men.

“Dinner is over, gentlemen,” he said. “The queen and I have business to attend to, and so you must forgive us for asking you
to take your leave.”

The men murmured and muttered, but no one was going to challenge Antony’s demand. Kleopatra did not want to give them any
cause to think that it was she who had arranged this unceremonious dismissal of their company, so she stood and smiled at
them.

“Gentlemen, please forgive us for putting country and kingdom over pleasure.” She could see the disappointment on their faces-and
Roman disappointment always turned to bitter tongues. “As a token of our lovely times together, I wish to make a gift to each
of you of the gold dining couch upon which you have lain these many glorious evenings. If you require help in transporting
them back to your quarters, my staff is available to serve you.”

There was great applause at this, and the men excitedly jumped off their couches, examining the details of the curved legs
and overstuffed pillows and glimmering silk fabrics as if they had not been lying on them for four nights, but had never seen
them before.

Antony said nothing until they were alone. Kleopatra awaited him, realizing all the while that she was completely unprepared
for whatever it was he was going to say.

Finally, he spoke. “I have seen my way to accommodating the last of your requests.”

She did not answer him, did not demonstrate a reaction at all, because she did not want him to see how grateful she was.

“I was thinking of your son, Kleopatra, and of my sons. We must do what we must do to protect our sons. I have come around
to see that your sister’s very life endangers your son. And so I will go against my policies of clemency for your sake.”

“I am grateful to you for it,” she said quietly.

She looked at him and saw something dark flash across his face.

“What troubles you, Imperator? Is it the quality of my entertainment?”

“There is trouble in Rome,” he said. “I’ve just received a very disturbing dispatch from my wife.” Fulvia’s letter informed
Antony that while he attended to the business of settling the empire’s eastern territories, his alleged ally, Octavian, was
trying to usurp his supporters in the city itself.

“How is he accomplishing that?” Kleopatra asked.

“The traditional way. Bribing the soldiers,” Antony replied.

Fulvia was so concerned about the state of things that she marched her children through the ranks of Antony’s troops, reminding
the men that it was Antony to whom they had pledged their loyalty. “She’s in an awkward position. One of the conditions of
alliance with Octavian was that he marry Clodia, Fulvia’s daughter by Clodius. Now Fulvia says there is great tension between
Octavian and herself, which puts her daughter in jeopardy.”

“This Octavian? What sort is he?”

“No one knows, really. He is whatever he needs to be to your face. He probably thought that with me out of the way, he could
easily usurp my legions. He didn’t count on Fulvia’s tenacity-or her audacity.”

“Your wife is quite a woman,” Kleopatra said in what she hoped sounded like a respectful tone. “In other circumstances, she
might have been a queen.”

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her,” he said.

Kleopatra did not know if he was trying to convince himself or her. “I am sure of it,” she replied, wondering if she had miscalculated
Antony’s interest in becoming her lover.

“Do you know why Cicero’s head was displayed in the Forum?”

“Because he had your stepfather executed on false charges of conspiracy?”

“I did hold a grudge for a long while over that. He caused my mother no end of financial woes and shame. But that is not the
reason.”

“Because he spoke against you before the senate?” she answered. “I would have executed him myself had he leveled such outrageous
accusations against me.”

“I don’t begrudge him that. Those were merely political speeches. I
ordered his body disgraced because he
never
tired of speaking ill of my wife.”

“Your loyalty does you credit, Imperator,” she said all too formally, feeling her heart sink. He had negotiated with her,
allied with her, and now he would close those negotiations and send her away. He had toyed with her as women so often toy
with men, using his charms to strike a favorable deal when he had no intention of satisfying her deeper, personal longings.
Now she would be relegated to Friend and Ally of the Roman People, like her father before her. No more; no less. When Antony
required something of the Egyptian purse or the Egyptian army or wished to claim a portion of the Egyptian granary to feed
his men as they trampled over her land to reach Parthia, he would send a letter of demand to her as he did to any other eastern
potentate over whom he held inexorable power.

“I’m afraid I’ve disappointed her,” he said. “Her letter was quite harsh, and rather sarcastic. She closed it by saying that
she hoped that her news wouldn’t disturb the enjoyment of my triumphs on foreign soil.”

“And will it?” Kleopatra looked him straight in the eye.

“No, Your Royal Grace, it will not. I have a few more triumphs to make before I leave.” He stood up, scooping her in his arms
as if she were a baby, lifting her off the dining couch and holding her close to him.

She was sure that the stunned look on her face was what provoked his first laugh of the evening. “You’re as light as a feather,
Kleopatra. I believe it is only your brain that carries any weight at all.”

She opened her mouth, either to chastise him for so handling the body of a queen, or to tell him to be discreet, that servants
were watching. She had not made up her mind about what she would say. But he covered her lips with his, kissing her hard,
blotting out any concerns she might have of observers. Before the dawn’s light, every member of her staff would know anyway.
There were no secrets in a queen’s life.

She opened her mouth wider to take his tongue, sucking on it wildly, as if it gave her nourishment. And it did. It had been
so long. She felt like an infant at the breast as she circled his tongue with hers, grasping at it with her lips, sliding
it in and out of her hungry mouth. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck, turning her body into his,
greedy
for all that was to come. She wanted to lose every thought, every responsibility every worry, in his solid mass of flesh.

Silently, kissing her all the while, he carried her down the stairs and into her chamber. The body servants crept away like
mice when he entered the room, rolling themselves into obsequious balls. He slammed the door shut with his foot and put her
down, backing her against a wall, pulling up her dress. At the same time he put his tongue in her mouth, he put his fingers
inside her so deep that he lifted her in the air. She wrapped her legs around him, amazed that he could raise her body so
high while she pushed down on his hand. He held her against the wall with the strength of his thighs, and before she realized
what he was doing, had replaced his fingers with something larger, hotter, harder. She cried into his mouth as he thrust into
her, grateful that his lips muffled her sighs to curious ears that might be at her door. He tore at her belt, sending its
jewels skittering to the floor, and lifted her dress over her head, leaving her naked and shaking. She clung to his shoulders,
letting him enter her, feeling as if she was being slain over and over, and as if the wounds were so sweet that she could
not die enough times. Fear seeped into her ecstasy; at some point soon, tonight, within this very hour, this would be over,
and life and all its pain and uncertainty would once again creep back in. But for now, she was not Kleopatra but the receptacle
of this man’s passion, and she let her own rise up to meet his. She concentrated on her own mounting pleasure, biting into
his neck, hugging him harder, letting him go deeper and deeper into her body, like an explorer who was helping her mine the
secret gems in the abyss of her own body. His hands were beneath her and he moved her up and down rhythmically as if she were
a musical instrument and he the musician, playing her pleasure. It was completely new for her, this surrender. She had been
the object of her lovers’ desires, but never had she so thoroughly put her pleasure in a man’s hands.

When he felt the spasms of her orgasm, he carried her to the bed and put her down like a baby. He removed his own clothes,
his penis still huge and jutting at her as he stepped out of his sandals. Little scars covered his chest like a constellation,
white and jagged against his tanned brown skin. He was broad at the middle, and she could see where he would be fat in his
later years, but now that weight sat on him handsomely, making his large body seem so much more substantial than that
of some lithe boy. A gash, badly repaired, shot like a lightning bolt across his left side.

When he lay beside her she traced it with her fingers.

“Taken in the service of our Caesar,” he said. He took her fingers and put them in his hot mouth, sucking them gently. “We
had some very bad seamstresses in Gaul.”

“You should have had a Greek doctor,” she said, smiling at him.

“So much finer than a coarse Roman physician?”

“Precisely.”

“Ah, Your Majesty, back to your imperious ways so soon?” He pulled her to him and rolled on top of her, pushing into her quickly,
searing her with quick, hot friction. “We must humble you again.”

A
rsinoe did not know where she was going, but she knew she had to leave the temple precinct immediately. The high priest had
found out that her death warrant had been signed by the Imperator himself, and there was no escaping it unless she fled in
disguise. Where could she go? She was under guard, followed everywhere she went, even to her daily offerings at the temple.
She was sure the Romans would have joined her in her prayers if they knew that each day she beseeched the goddess to do away
with her sister, the Romans whore. The orders left for her care by Julius Caesar were more compassionate than she would have
believed possible from a Roman; she was to be kept under house arrest, but left unharmed. Unharmed. Everyone knew what that
meant, even the soldiers who lasciviously eyed her body as they fell behind her wherever she went. They were not to defile
her. They wanted to, of course, and she could not imagine why Julius Caesar had given such an order. What had he cared of
her safety? He had marched her in chains in his disgusting victory parade. Well, he had shamed himself in the act more than
he had humiliated her. She was sure of that. The Roman matrons who visited her regularly in prison were horrified that a princess-young,
regal, educated, of illustrious lineage-should be paraded like a savage, an animal. She made sure that those tongue-wagging
women knew exactly who was responsible for her treatment. Not Caesar. No, she told them, the poor
aging
general
was bewitched by her sister, who worked through the dark nights with conjurers while all decent people were asleep to put
spells and enchantments on all those she wished to control. Poor Caesar was just one of her many victims. Did he not become
frail in his later years, with the strange falling-down sickness? Either Kleopatra had caused those spells by her alchemy,
or she had taken advantage of Caesar’s weakness in order to manipulate him. Their cherished late father, Kleopatra had duped
with her dark magic all his life. She probably had had a curse put on him, the true cause of his death, once he had made her
queen. Did they not know that she had also murdered two of her own brothers? Arsinoe loved watching the disgust on the faces
of the Romans, so concerned with filial ties, when she told them stories of her sister’s crimes. No matter what happened to
her now, she would at least know that she had done as much damage as possible to Kleopatra in the eyes of those whom she wished
most to impress-the citizens of her beloved Rome.

But now Julius Caesar was dead, and the orders against harming Arsinoe no longer stood. Now her sister was in the bed of the
swaggering hulk whom Arsinoe had seen in Rome-all beef and bluster, that one. Was there no limit to Kleopatra’s harlotry?
She, Arsinoe, would rather be dead than to find herself under the pernicious bulk of these shark-toothed monsters. She had
made that much clear to the cretin Helvinius, who, despite Caesar’s orders, could not take his eyes off her breasts. She thought
his eyes would fall out of his head with the force of his staring. He had tried-one time only-to sneak into her chamber when
he thought everyone was asleep. He had crept onto her bed and tried to stick his penis in her mouth, but she gripped it, jerked
it up, and bit with all her might one of his testicles. She had never heard anyone scream so loud. Within seconds, the priest
was rushing into her room, followed by the other Roman sentries. Helvinius was carried away, still hunched over his balls,
and assigned to a new post. Her only regret was that she had broken the skin, and tasted his salty blood on her tongue. She
could not eat for a week. But at least she had tasted spilt Roman blood. That much was gratifying.

Three short knocks on the door was the signal. Arsinoe covered her head, said a last-minute prayer to the goddess, and wrapped
herself in a long shawl. She and her most loyal man, the High Priest, would slip away into the night and take a boat for Cyprus,
where the governor would give
them shelter, at least until the Romans found out where they were. Then-who knew? If necessary, she would disguise herself
as a palace slave and scrub the governor’s floors until the proper time when she might once again raise support to win back
her kingdom. As long as whichever Roman was calling the shots was in her sister’s grip, she was not safe.

She opened the door. The High Priest was in the custody of two Roman sentries whom she had never before seen. One was taller
and stockier than the other, but the shorter one had his sword drawn and looked meaner. The priest could not meet her eyes.
The shorter of the Romans grabbed her arm gruffly. “Your friend here has given you up in exchange for his pardon,” he said.

“That is untrue, Your Highness,” the priest insisted, still not able to look her in the face. “We are both sentenced to die.”

“But only one of you will,” the Roman countered. “Isn’t that interesting?”

He pulled her arms behind her back while the taller, silent one tied them with a coarse rope.

“What are you doing?” she screamed, trying to pull away from them, falling forward into the priest, who leapt backward as
if she carried the plague. “What are they doing to me?” she demanded of him, but he shied away from her.

“I won’t be a part of this,” he said to the sentries, walking away. But the shorter sentry grabbed his arm and jerked him
to a stop.

“You are a part of this, whether you like it or not. You defied the orders of the triumvirs of Rome, you sided with the assassins
of Caesar, and now you will pay for it.”

The priest stood still and looked at Arsinoe for the first time, summoning up his dignity. “Your Highness, I will have the
privilege of dying with you.”

“No you won’t,” said the taller Roman, breaking his silence. He spoke as if he regretted his words, whether because he did
not like what he had to say, or because he did not like what he was ordered to do, Arsinoe did not know. But he spoke evenly
and bitterly. “We are under orders to spare you. Someone-who knows who?-has pleaded for your life. Perhaps your position at
the temple has saved you.”

“But you will witness the death of the one you call the queen of Egypt,” said the other. “And you will remind yourself of
your part in her demise. You are a holy man. You should have delivered better advice.”

The Romans pushed Arsinoe and the priest down the hall, torches on the wall making black shadows on the floor ahead of them,
and into the brisk night air. Arsinoe’s shawl fell to the ground and she stopped, looking at one Roman and then the other
to retrieve it for her. “You won’t need it where you’re going,” the short one said.

The priest picked up the shawl and wrapped it around Arsinoe’s shoulders. “If you die tonight, you die the rightful queen
of Egypt,” he whispered in her ear. “And if I live, I shall spend the rest of my days making that known.”

“The rightful queen of Egypt lies in the arms of Marcus Antonius, Imperator of Rome,” said the short guard. “If you had better
sense, you might have been in her place.”

Arsinoe looked about her, but there was no one there to meet them but the columns of the temple precinct, so beautiful by
day, but now stony sentries to her disgrace. She thought of Berenike at the moment of her death. What did her sister do but
look with scorn, hatred, even pity, at those who condemned her, right up to the second when the sword met with her neck? Arsinoe
would make Berenike proud. She would not disgrace the memory of her sister by showing fear to these Romans. They might take
her life, but not her dignity.

She walked right up to the short Roman and stared straight into his eyes. “I prefer death as a lover to a Roman,” she said.

He swept his right arm across his chest to backhand her in the face, but the taller guard checked him. “Stick to the orders,”
he said. He turned Arsinoe around and marched her forward. “You’re just dragging things out.”

Arsinoe squared her shoulders, looking ahead. At the end of the courtyard, behind the sacrificial stone, stood a Roman centurion.
Arsinoe could not quite make out his features, but saw that he was a large man, standing with his feet apart, making a long
triangle of his legs. Was she to be sacrificed on the same stone where animals were offered to the goddess? No trial, no witnesses
to her death but these barbarians and the betrayer of a priest? The sentries pushed her forward, out of the shadows. It was
then that she recognized the face of Helvinius, his smile broad, and his sword drawn and gleaming in the light of the moon
goddess along with his straight, white Roman teeth.