Pharaoh (36 page)

K
leopatra wondered if, true to the philosophers’ warnings, her reason and intellect would die an expedient death-by-drowning
in pleasure. “I’ve succumbed to you, Imperator,” she told Antony, “mind, body, and kingdom.”

“And I to you, Your Royal Grace,” he answered.

They had just made love-again-in her bath. When they finished, she moved to go to her bed, but Antony called for dinner. “At
midnight?” she asked.

“Time must subordinate itself to a man’s desires,” he said. “That is all there is to it.”

She hoped the cooks had obeyed her orders to have fresh and sumptuous meals ready to serve at all hours of the day and night.
Antony was completely unpredictable in his appetites. The only guarantee was that he would have them. Where, when, and for
what was always a surprise. Kleopatra had never seen a person with such passion for work and for life. Antony spent the major
part of his days preparing with his military staff to march on Parthia. He took meeting after meeting with cavalry officers,
weapons specialists, siege builders, and mapmakers, attending to the tedious details of assembling a war machine.

In the afternoons, Antony did not rest, but demanded to be entertained either with sport, lectures, theatrical performances,
or sex-and
sometimes those pursuits in combination. Before dinner, he met with visiting dignitaries and heard their concerns. In the
evenings, he and Kleopatra gave long dinners for Alexandria’s wealthiest and most interesting citizens and for the Romans
in Antony’s entourage. The Alexandrians adored him, calling him the Inimitable Liver, a man whose love of life knew no bounds,
who lived with style and passion, who literally gobbled up experience, both visceral and esoteric. He was cherished in the
city for his generosity, his sense of humor, for his love of all things Greek and Egyptian, and for the fact that he had made
their queen a partner in his enterprises. Those who had watched her father grovel before Roman leaders were amazed that their
queen was not only financing a large portion of Rome’s war with Parthia, but was clearly orchestrating its strategy with the
Imperator. After their guests would leave-often at dawn-Antony and Kleopatra would take horses from the stables and ride into
the wild country south of the city, just as she had done so many years ago with the desert girl, Mohama. After a brisk ride,
Kleopatra would sleep a few hours while Antony bathed and began his day, catching fifteen-minute naps between activities.
Though he was tireless, he was caught more than once falling asleep during a presentation by one of his staff.

This evening, they ate alone in one of the small dining rooms where her father often shared a late dinner with one of his
mistresses after he had supped with his wife. Antony lay on the same couch of purple silk that Auletes had so loved, and ]Kleopatra
marveled at the symmetry of things, that both men who had singled her out to share their power loved lounging and eating in
this small room. Antony cut a figure more pleasing to the eye, however. His bronze skin was pink from the bath and his face
flushed with hot food and warm, spicy wine. His months away from war and dining in royal style had put some bulk on his body,
but Kleopatra still found him beautiful. Somehow, each pound added more masculine appeal. Kleopatra sat in the crook of his
body, curled against his thighs and facing him. Occasionally, after a sip of wine, he pulled her to him and kissed her with
hot, well-seasoned lips.

“Of all the philosophies I have studied, Imperator-the Platonists, the Aristotelians, the Epicureans, the Stoics-none recommend
this sort of indulgence in the passions,” Kleopatra said, licking her freshly kissed lips. She picked up a tiny pheasant wing
and nibbled at its delicate flesh.

“And so they do not,” he said, nonchalant. “Their goal is detachment from all that one lives for-food, drink, friendship,
war, love. I studied with them myself in Greece, and I am proud to say that I could not be argued out of my desires. One crumpled
up old sophist called upon me to ’confess’ my wicked desires and rid my soul of their torment. ’I’ve no desire to rid myself
of my desires,’ I told him. ’I adore my desires, and they me.’ ”

“But do you not think that extirpation of the passions is crucial to rational decision-making?” She was goading him, of course.
She loved the time she spent with Antony, hunting, riding, feasting, laughing, making love. She had not had even a glimmer
of such fun since her youth. She was not about to abandon these pursuits in favor of philosophical restraint. But was it possible
to continue to live life on this grand and relentless scale, recklessly gobbling up time and experience?

“How bookish you sound, Kleopatra. It’s very erotic.”

She knew by the lascivious look on his face that he meant what he said.

“Don’t flirt with me, Imperator. You’ve already used me up this evening like the commonest of whores. You’ll get no more play
from me.”

She smiled at him, grateful that her strategy to lure him to Alexandria had paid off. When he had made love to her at Tarsus,
she had been entirely swept away by the experience, taken over in a way that had never before happened to her. She had worried
that she would not be able to hold her own with this man, who could obliterate her very consciousness with the ferocity of
his sex. It was intoxicating, but it would not do to become just another of Antony’s whores. She remembered fretting over
the same problem in those days with Archimedes when sex was new and overwhelming. But it was even more so with Antony. She
had no power over him as she had had with Archimedes. She must not become so vulnerable that she was in Antony’s control.
Politically, she was dangerously close to that fact. If she succumbed so utterly to him sexually, she would be lost.

On their last evening together in Tarsus, he had insisted on entertaining her in his quarters, taking up the challenge to
match her in lav-ishness. When she arrived, he announced that because Her Majesty had bought up all the food and luxuries
in the region, his staff was forced
to prepare a simple Roman meal. They ate together in smaller company than on previous nights, and when he dismissed his few
guests and presumed to carry her off to his bed, she protested that she was weary and would leave to prepare to set sail before
dawn. If he desired the pleasure of her sexual companionship again, she suggested he make haste to Alexandria as soon as his
business in Syria was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. This time, she left him stupefied, and there was no report of
his calling for whores.

It was a risk, but she had taken it and it had paid off. Here he was, indulging his feral Roman appetite at her table as he
considered what she said about the dichotomy between philosophical reason and sensual passion. He sucked the last of the fat
off a bone, washed it down with a long swig of wine, and wiped his hands on a napkin before reaching for a cluster of purple
grapes. “You’ve forgotten the Cynics,” he said.

“Ah, the Cynics. Do you ascribe to the philosophy of the Cynics, Imperator?”

“I seem to care little for money except to lavish it foolishly on others. Isn’t that one of the virtues the Cynics sought
to cultivate?”

“Yes, but that was only to realize that there is no value in material things.”

“And so I realize it. There is no value in material things, so we may as well throw them away as enjoy them. What does it
matter in the end? Yes, I do believe I am an exemplar Cynic.”

“Yes, my darling, you are its most perfect paragon. Did Diogenes not say that Herakles was the model of the perfect Cynic?
A simple soldier who lived hard and trained hard?”

“And do the people of your nation and mine not say that I am a great likeness to the god?” Antony turned his face upward so
that Kleopatra could admire his fine profile.

“Oh yes, but you are far from a simple soldier, though you fool others with that persona. And secondly, I hate to tell you
this, but Diogenes was mad.”

“He was not. He simply rejected rules and regulations so that people who love such things
thought
he was mad. They always do, you know. Those who love rules simply cannot abide those who do not. We frighten them.”

“But Crates, his disciple, was surely mad.”

“No, he wasn’t mad. He was a clown, a performer who taught wisdom through comedy.” Antony poured Kleopatra another cup of
wine and held it to her lips. “Here, have some more. You are entirely too moderate.”

“Yes, moderate in the Aristotelian sense,” she said. “It’s no accident, but part of my philosophy.”

“But our Crates would not have approved of your restraint. He used to make love in the open air with his wife, Hipparchia,
regardless of spectators. Now that’s freedom-freedom from rules, from shame, from inhibitions.”

“What a time they must have had,” Kleopatra said. “Hipparchia the aristocrat traipsing through the streets with her lunatic,
hunchback, philosophizing husband, Crates, knocking on the doors of the good people of Athens, giving philosophical instruction,
or just playing pranks. Imagine having such freedom.”

“People have freedom because they take it, Kleopatra. I thought you knew that.”

“What is the difference between freedom and hedonism? Between freedom and insanity?”

“Well he was all of those things. A hedonist, yes. But he merely indulged his passions; he was not ruled by them. He gave
away his money and her money just to show people that simplicity and love was all. Just like myself, don’t you think?” Antony
puffed out his chest and waited for her approval.

“But it is not all, is it?” she asked. “Bring
that
philosophy to your senate. The verdict upon you will surely be madness.”

“No, no, the senators all pose as Stoics, but privately live like Sybarites.” Antony smiled wickedly. “But we are not in Rome,
are we?”

Before she knew it, Antony was pulling her by the hand, dragging her across the courtyard past astonished guards and into
the stables. He burst into the dormitory shared by the stable boys, who were fast asleep, rousing them from their beds, throwing
them onto the floor and demanding that they shoo. The lads looked at Kleopatra quizzically as they gathered their nightshirts
about them and fled their beds, and she returned their glances with equal curiosity, for she had no idea what mischief was
in Antony’s head. He herded them out the door, rushing them with his arms as if they were chickens. When the last of the boys
was gone, he shut the door, lit a lamp, and demanded that the queen take off her clothes.

“Not
here,”
she said. Not with ten bleary-eyed stable boys at the door. She had her limits.

“No, not that,” he said. He opened the boys’ trunks, rifling through their habits. He pulled out a short chiton and a cloak
with a hood and threw them at the queen. “Put this on,” he said, as if commanding one of his soldiers. He continued to look
through the trunks, lifting the clothes to himself for size. When he found a costume long enough, he began to strip. Kleopatra
clutched the clothes to her body but did not move until Antony, naked and laughing, pulled them from her chest, stripped her,
and dressed her in the sacklike work clothes of the stable boy.

“Perfect,” he said, pulling the hood over her head.

“What evil plan are you concocting, Imperator?” she asked.

“Hipparchia.” He put the big brown cloak over himself and hunched his back, looking back at her, she thought, with the eyes
of a lunatic. “And Crates. Let us go out and meet our disciples.”

Antony stood in the open-air carriage. The night air was warm for autumn. Stars glittered in the black sky, a celestial backdrop
to his theatricality. He drank from the leather pouch as the vehicle rolled down the stone streets, spilling wine on the queen
and laughing at her fastidiousness as she wiped it away and admonished him with her looks. He was more playful than her seven-year-old
son, who sat for hours at his studies, his knitted brow a seriousness inherited from both mother and father. Antony, the son
who had seized Caesar’s power, was like a boy who had inherited the whole world for a playground.

“Here, stop here,” he commanded the driver. The carriage came to a halt, and he hopped out, offering his arms to help Kleopatra.
His men had followed behind on foot and had caught up with them, snickering, waiting to see their general’s latest mischief.
Antony leapt up the white marble stairs two at a time to the house. He knocked loudly on the door. A footman answered, and
quickly drew back when he saw the large, beggarly-looking man.

“Tell your master that Philosophy is at the door,” Antony said dramatically.

Kleopatra put her hand over her head. “You have chosen the most
serious man in the kingdom for your antics,” she said. “He will think us mad! He has no humor.”

Hephaestion. The Prime Minister. The loyal eunuch who had accompanied the queen into exile, risking his life and reputation
to secure the throne for her. The man whose motto was
in matters of state, let your blood run cold.
As much as she loved him and was beholden to him, Kleopatra believed that his blood ran cold at all hours of the day and
in all situations.

“Precisely,” Antony said, turning back to her. “He is the citizen in most need of comic relief.” Antony threw the hood over
his head and hobbled like a hunchback up the stairs.

Hephaestion appeared at the door flanked by his guests, the high priest of the Mouseion, and a thoroughly beautiful young
man of about eighteen years of age, undoubtedly a prize-winning athlete that the men had agreed to either fight over or share.
Kleopatra groaned, tightening her grip on her hood, hoping against all hope that they would not be recognized. But who else
would take to the night like this, drunk and delivering philosophical discourse, with the Imperator’s Roman militia in attendance?

“Prime Minister!” Antony’s voice rang out. “The god of mirth has sent me here on a special mission.”

Hephaestion exchanged looks with his guests. He cracked an almost discernible smile. “And what is that sacred mission?” To
make you laugh.