Pharaoh (49 page)

Kleopatra knew she still claimed Canidius’s respect. She no longer addressed Antony in a personal way when Romans were present,
but she was not afraid of Canidius’s judgment. She grabbed Antony by the cloth of his cloak. “You convinced Gabinius’s army
to make a monthlong march across a waterless desert to restore my father to his throne. Surely you will have no difficulty
inspiring your own men today.”

Antony gave her a light kiss on the lips. He took her hands and freed himself from her grip. “I’ll join you in Cape Taenarum.
May the gods be with us both.”

As her ship left shore, Kleopatra looked out over the lush green mass of land they were leaving, with its patches of brown
left by the hot summer sun and the abuses of the soldiers. Shepherd boys with their small flocks had come out to the sloping
hillsides to watch the action, and Kleopatra could see one of them resting in the noonday sun in the stalky shade of a cypress
tree. He looked as if he was taking his lunch while his sheep, indifferent to the looming confrontation, helped themselves
to the thick blades of grass on the hills. She had forgotten to eat, and she wished she could leave her ship and join the
shepherd boy in his meal of bread, grapes, and cheese, washed down with sweet peasant wine. Antony’s army had lined up along
the shore in the event that the enemy navy pushed his ships back to land. It was ready to engage if that
were the case. Octavian’s army, following suit, had lined up on the opposite shore. Like pieces in a board game, they faced
each other across the water.

Antony waited until he felt the first stirrings of the Maestro before he gave the signal to move. Slowly, his three squadrons
of one hundred seventy ships eased into the gulf, the wings moving forward before the center, to tease Agrippa’s ships into
an identical motion, and leaving the middle free so that when given the command, Kleopatra’s squadron could quickly sail straight
through the fighting, out of the gulf, and into the open sea.

Agrippa did not take the bait but spread his line longer, moving his south flank toward the open sea as well, blocking any
quick escape of the treasure-loaded fleet that lagged behind the action. Kleopatra worried that Agrippa had uncovered their
plan; either that, or someone had uncovered it for him. But it was too late to worry over betrayals now. Antony’s vessels
were quickly outflanked on the north and the south by Agrippa’s greater numbers. Kleopatra had not anticipated how difficult
it would be to remain out of the action, watching as their navy took blows and assaults from Agrippa’s warships. They were
so outnumbered that many vessels were attacked by multiple ships. Before long, twelve of their boats were surrounded and forced
to surrender.

How could she refrain from engaging? Could her sixty ships, armed with men and weapons, not save some of their navy? Kleopatra
ran the length of the vessel to find Eumenes, the Graeco-Egyptian commander of the squadron, defying Antony’s orders to remain
either below with her staff or safely out of sight at the ship’s rear.

“Admiral!” she yelled to him above the creaking rhythm of the rowers. “We must reinforce the front line! We’ve already lost
a dozen vessels. If we cannot escape, then let us at least die fighting with honor.”

The admiral merely shook his head. “The Imperator anticipated Your Majesty’s will to join the fighting. He assured me that
if I disobeyed his orders, he would execute me with his own hands. He was not speaking lightly.”

Kleopatra wanted to rip Eumenes’ fine black beard off his face. “But can you not see that the plan is falling apart? You might
be executed anyway for your reticence while our men are dying.”

“Your Majesty, I assure you that the Imperator has already calculat-

ed these risks. Please. He will get us out of here. You must not allow the small defeats to test you. They are a grim but
necessary step to victory.”

He was patronizing her, and nothing infuriated her more. But she also knew that he was right, that she was not of a temperament
to simply watch men die in the service of her plans. The Romans were quite skilled at this, as perhaps were all men of war.
She wondered if bearing four children had erased this particular instinct from her character and made her softer to the horrors
of bloodshed and death. But she knew she must steel herself for the day ahead. She had not seen the last of death and dying
on this day.

“As you wish,” she said. “But we cannot wait forever. If the center is not clear for escape by the afternoons end, we
will
join in the fray. And if you refuse me,
I
will execute you with my own hands.”

“Your Majesty.” He bowed. If he had any plans to defy her later, he did not demonstrate them now.

Kleopatra returned to her safe place at the back of the ship, panicking when she realized that she no longer had Antony in
her sight. He was not on his own flagship, but commanded from a smaller, lighter vessel. He knew that his ship would be the
first the enemy tried to board, for if they captured Antony, the war was over. She saw now that his strategy was correct.
Two of Agrippa’s vessels, battering rams readied, were making haste to the flagship, sliding up against it. Archers stationed
in tall towers aboard Antony’s ship began to shower the rammers with arrows, but Kleopatra saw that the rams had not moved.
Replacements ready to take the positions of the dead or wounded held those shimmering timbers in place as the two metal prows
of the ships collided. On the leeward side, Agrippa’s second ship rammed the flagship, whose crew tried to hold off the soldiers
from the other enemy vessel from boarding. Like ants, the Roman soldiers pushed one another in a straight line onto Antony’s
ship, tumbling onto the deck, swords drawn and thrusting as they landed. Antony’s ships were larger than Agrippa’s, and Antony
had taken advantage of this asset by putting as many foot soldiers aboard as possible. If they were lacking in the number
of vessels, they might compensate by having larger forces to fight once the enemy boarded. Antony also had figured that their
greater numbers of men might easily overwhelm any enemy ship they were lucky enough to overtake and board.

But men were pouring onto the flagship from either side now, two
legions of well-fed Romans who had been drinking Octavian’s fine wines all summer and not suffering from the illnesses that
had drained the will to fight in Antony’s camp. Still, this was Antony’s flagship, with some of his best and most loyal men
aboard. But from the distance, the men’s bodies were but a jumble of thrashing metal and flesh, and Kleopatra could not gauge
which men were theirs, much less who had the advantage. She looked north, where Octavian’s ships were closing in on their
front line, sailing just close enough to pummel the vessels with missiles and then retreating to reload. They were lighter
than Antony’s ships and easily fell back into the empty waters behind them. The south end fared better. This was under Antony’s
direct command. His squadron of fifty ships had managed to engage Agrippa’s flotilla in more even numbers. From their turrets,
the archers sent well-aimed arrows into the helpless men on the decks.

Kleopatra ran again to the bow to plead again with Eumenes to aid the right flank. Antony himself was aboard one of those
vessels. Even though he was outnumbered, he and his men were holding their own, that much was clear. But how long could they
last? Were they to let them fight to the death while they watched like spectators at a gladiatorial match? She was about to
open her mouth to yell at the admiral when she followed his eyes out to sea. The meticulous drawings Antony had sketched in
their War Tent were now drawn upon the sea itself. Agrippa’s entire naval force of four hundred vessels or more was completely
engaged by Antony’s one hundred seventy ships. The middle of the gulf was a great blue void of endless lazy waves. There was
no longer a center line protecting Kleopatra’s squadron, and there was nothing to prevent them from hoisting their sails and
catching the wind straight into the open seas.

“Sails!” yelled the admiral to the riggers, who were hustling the white canvases to their launches. He took Kleopatra’s arm.
“Your Majesty, please go below. The winds are picking up. You risk being hit in the head by a careless and excitable rigger.”

“Where is the Imperator?” she demanded. “We cannot leave him engaged in the fight.”

“Your Majesty, the Imperator knows what’s best. He’s made the clearing for you to flee. He will follow as soon as he can disengage
from the enemy.”

Kleopatra’s heart sank at the idea of leaving Antony without knowing his Fate. How easy it had been to make this hypothetical
plan, and how difficult it was to carry it through. Antony would be furious if she did not take advantage of the winds and
escape. His soldiers would be roused against her if by her fault they were once again trapped in the gulf. They might even
overwhelm their commander and murder her. And there were no provisions to care for the sick and the dying, little food for
the hungry, and nothing with which to boost their wavering morale. There was nothing to do but carry on and secure the treasury.

“If I must leave the Imperator in the gulf, please do not ask me to turn my back to him as well,” she said to Eumenes. “I
will stay here with you. Aboard what ship is Antony?”

“He is jumping from ship to ship to encourage his men and to avoid capture.” Kleopatra could see the admiration in Eumenes’
eyes. “He is much too sly to be taken prisoner and much too strong to die.”

The sails cut giant white triangles in the clear blue sky, the wind puffing them up like rising dough. Kleopatra looked from
ship to ship for a sign of Antony-his standards, his closest commanders, the bright metal of his breastplate stamped with
the Nemean lion, or the flash of his sword high above his head to get the attention of his men. But in the commotion, she
could not decipher her husband. She was still searching for some clue of his whereabouts as the wind took her through the
straits and into the choppier waters of the Ionian Sea.

W
hen I looked back and saw Agrippa’s ships close in on those left behind, I had a moment of unequaled despair,” Antony said.
He sat glumly on the bed in Kleopatra’s stateroom. A tiny shaft of light shot through a single small portal. The room was
dark, though it was only late afternoon, and Kleopatra had run her servants away before they could light her lamps. Antony’s
shoulders were slumped, and he refused all offers of food, wine, and touch. His elbows rested on his thighs, and he looked
up at her in sorrow. “I am ordinarily the last to retreat from a fight, not the first.”

“My darling, you succeeded where any other man would have failed,” she said pacing before him. “You managed to get us out
of a disastrous position. Concentrate on the lives you have saved. You rescued many of our ships, the treasury, and
me.
Our casualties were minimal compared to what they might have been under the leadership of a less courageous man.”

“If we do not count those who were forced to surrender.”

“We knew that was inevitable. It was the only way out.”

“My dreams are haunted by the faces of my commanders in

Octavian’s grip,” Antony said, turning his face up and into the ray of

light so that she could now see the full scale of his remorse. His eyes

sagged at the outer corners, as if they might slide off his face in dis-

grace. “They’re some of my best men. And he is not known for his mercy.”

“Perhaps he will be inspired by the ghost of the one whose name he flings about as if it were his own.”

Antony swung his legs around and lay on the bed. “Come here,” he said, stretching his arms out so that Kleopatra might lie
next to him and rest on his shoulder. It was a feeling she had known only as a child, this respite in a man’s chest, and then,
it had belonged to her father, whose judgment she often had to question and override. She was not sure if she was there to
comfort Antony or he to comfort her, but she took what solace she might in his strength, in the musky scent of his leather
tunic, and in his hot hands that reached around to enclose her in the circle of his grief.

“We did not lose,” she said.

“Nor did we win,” he answered. “I had to abandon my own flagship, and with it, some of the most valiant men I’ve known.”

“Let us not mourn those who may still be alive, drinking good wine with pockets full of Octavian’s bribes.”

He laughed a bitter laugh. “You offer grim comfort, Kleopatra.”

“You carefully calculated our risks, Imperator. We’ve fared better than we predicted.”

“That is true. But when one loses men, one loses a piece of one’s soul.”

“My darling, would your soul have fared better watching more of them die of dysentery?”

“My soul would have fared better if we had not been ensnared in that wretched place to begin with.”

She realized that he would remain glum for whatever he considered a respectable amount of time. She lay beside him breathing
quietly, grateful to have him alive at all, even minus odd pieces of his soul, which she was sure would return once he stopped
blaming himself for their losses. He had managed a valiant retreat from a terrible situation. Surely his men recognized that
and, like Kleopatra, were at this very moment grateful for their lives. For when she escaped, all did not go as planned, and
she thought that she had lost him.

After Kleopatra had sailed out of the gulf her eyes remained on the sea, searching for Antony’s ships that she had expected
would quickly
follow. She squinted into the setting sun until it sank deep into the water, and then stayed on deck until the night air forced
her into her cabin. Antony had fought on, and was still trying to extricate himself as Kleopatra was watching the sunset.
Because of his greater numbers, Agrippa was able to close in on many of Antony’s ships and keep them blockaded into the gulf.
When Antony saw that those commanders had no choice but to surrender-were, in fact, in the act of surrendering- he took the
opportunity to raise sail and quickly flee the gulf with most of his squadrons following. All in all it was a successful operation,
but Antony was not to be pacified with small gains.

He caught up with Kleopatra’s fleet the next morning just in time to rebuff an attack from the king of Sparta, who surprised
them off the Peloponnesian coast with a shower of missiles from some fifty ships, but Antony’s colossal rams were still in
position. He battered the Spartan ships mercilessly as Kleopatra watched from her flagship. To protect the queen from direct
attack, however, Eumenes was under orders to refrain from engagement. Together, they watched Antony’s archers man the turrets
in the gusty ocean winds, hitting their marks on the Spartan decks while the sea breeze bent their tall towers. She did not
know if it was their training or their anger at having been entrapped all summer in the gulf, but she had not seen men repel
an advance so quickly and with such ferocity.

But after the battle, Antony would not board her ship. When they moved into position to allow him entrance, he sent a messenger
instead to inform the queen that he would join her later. She could not imagine why he did not rejoin her, and she spent two
sleepless nights wondering if he was wounded and keeping it from her. She sent a messenger to his ship to inquire, with orders
that he would be drowned at sea if he returned without witnessing Antony’s state of being. Breathless from rowing the dinghy,
the messenger brought the news to Kleopatra that the Imperator seemed in fine health, was wearing no bandages, and showed
no sign of injury or the shedding of blood, not even the usual cuts and bruises that marred one’s face and arms after any
skirmish.

Eumenes whispered to the queen, “Perhaps it is an injury of the soul that keeps the lion alone in his quarters. The goddess
of war collects a heavy toll from even the fiercest men. And the Imperator is such a passionate man.” He bowed his head until
Kleopatra saw the shiny red spot
at the top of his scalp where his thin black hair had ceased to grow. “Forgive my familiarity, Your Majesty I wish to console,
not insult.”

“You are forgiven, Admiral, because I suspect you offer a glimmer of insight.”

When at Cape Taenarum he finally agreed to join her, Antony greeted her with open arms and the face of victory. His face was
flushed and tanned, making his teeth seem as white as the moon. As he and his officers disembarked, Kleopatra heard his men
singing a filthy song in Latin about Antony’s prowess in slaying his victims, and the stiffness of his mighty sword. All with
double meaning, of course. She was used to such ditties. To honor their general’s renowned virility, Caesar’s men used to
sing that he was every woman’s husband and every man’s wife. Just as Caesar had never minded this-liked it, even-Antony strode
down the plank of his vessel, his dark purple cape split at his chest like a giant orchid flying behind him, gleaming scabbard
slapping his thigh. His men were still celebrating not only their escape, but their quick and decisive victory over the Spartan
fleet. Antony gave Kleopatra a lupine smile, a quick bow, and then took her arm.

Not until they were alone did he share his private suffering. As soon as the door to their quarters closed, shutting out the
soldiers’ raucous singing, Antony sat on the bed and slumped over, as if someone had let the air out of his leonine posture.

Now they lay on the bed in silence. Kleopatra closed her eyes, sending a prayer of gratitude to the goddess that her general
and husband, the father of her children, was safe, if somewhat despondent. She had seen him in similar condition after his
retreat from Phraaspa, when he had lost so many men to the snow-covered Armenian mountains. Eumenes was right; Antony was
impassioned. The very quality that propelled him to make vigorous love as if he were still a boy, to drink and laugh with
his friends or with the lowliest soldiers in his command until dawn, to fight with preternatural courage, to pursue command
of an empire-that was the same quality that caused him to retreat like a lion licking his wounds in the face of loss or defeat.
He did not have Caesar’s nonchalance, she thought, but Caesar did not have Antony’s heart. His very mortal, very breakable
heart.

She put her hand over his heart and left it there until there was syn-chronicity in their breath and in the pumping of their
blood. His heart
beat under her pulse in a dance of camaraderie, not something that might be felt between casual lovers, or between a husband
and wife who shared only the domestic realm. This was union of the highest order- of a man and a woman who together had seen
life enter the world and leave it, of lovers who had visited the deepest recesses of each other’s secret lusts, of warriors
who had faced the enemy and prevailed, of friends who simply cherished the presence of one another in a moment of strife.
A deep calm settled over her. Her breathing slowed, and with each exhalation the tension stored in her muscles during the
long summer siege left her body. She thought she was asleep or in a trance when she heard Antony say, “Help me with this,”
and he released her so that she could untie the leather laces of his tunic.

The final step in expiating his sorrow, she thought, and she welcomed it. She unlaced the ties under his right arm, releasing
his scent into the air, the smell of blood and salt, of the polished timbers of his ship, of the sea, of the almond oil he
used to prevent the leather from chafing his body. Antony always smelled like sex to her, like the essence of a man, like
conquest. There was power in his scent. Even now, when he was sweaty and unbathed, she could bite the muscle in the pit of
his underarm and be aroused by it.
Your Royal Grace Mother Egypt, you are no better than a Fayum prostitute,
she laughed to herself as she traced the muscle around her husband’s nipple with her index finger. But Antony had no patience
for such play. He was anxious to rid himself of his anguish, which both of them intuitively knew would be released with his
semen. He rolled on top of her, pulling her dress up to her neck. He did not bother to touch her breasts, but took a moment
to look at them. Satisfied, he clutched the mane of her hair in his hand so that he had utter control of her head. He kissed
her hard, covering her mouth with his lips, taking her tongue into his warm cavern and sucking on it until he felt her thighs
wrap around his. Sinking his teeth into her neck, he thrust himself inside her. With one hand pulling her hair and the other
on her buttocks, he pressed himself deeper and deeper into her. She moved with him, meeting his thrusts, but he whispered
in her ear,
just let me fuck you.
He liked this sometimes, when she was not the queen of Egypt or his partner or his wife but a passive pocket for his pleasure.
She loosened her legs, opening to him like a lotus flower, letting him explore the deepest part of
her. She breathed in his essence, taking all of him into her body, letting his smell fill her nose, letting the sound of him
pour into her ears, inviting his sweat to seep into her skin and mingle with her blood- sucking the liquid off his tongue
as if she were in the desert and his mouth her only source of water. As her desperation for him quickened, he pulled away,
and then gradually reentered her, this time very slowly, like a soldier carefully sheathing a dangerous weapon. She loved
that about him, that even in his steady march to his own satisfaction, he could not resist slowing his pace to bring on her
ecstasy. Still he had her head in his hand. He held her like a little doll while he brought her to climax, putting his palm
over her mouth when she started to scream, for the ship’s staff was about in the hall doing their chores. Then he tightened
his grip on her hair, pinning her arm to the bed at the wrist, and shoved himself deep inside, moving so fast now she felt
a burning between her legs, because a besieged and starving camp on a marshy shore had been no place to make love. With a
low groan that sounded almost like a plea, he released into her in one final thrust.

They lay very quietly, sweating in the cabins hot air. Antony reached to the bedside for a cup of cold water. He took a huge
gulp and then poured the rest of it on Kleopatra’s belly. She yelped like a shocked puppy, jolting up, their heads almost
clashing. But he was prepared for her and quickly pinned her back down to the bed. He laughed so hard at her indignant face
that she had to laugh, too, mostly because she realized that his period of mourning for the loss at Actium had come to an
end. Now they could sail back to Egypt, kiss the shiny young faces of their children, and begin to plan the next confrontation.

Kleopatra longed for home, where the two of them could once again bathe together in her smooth marble tub with her body servants
pouring hot water on Antony’s shoulders while he made dirty jokes that sent them into giggles. Sometimes, if they spoke no
Greek, he would make Kleopatra teach him what he wanted to say in their own tongue, which would shock them and make them laugh
all the more.

Their lovemaking had made them very hungry, and they dressed quickly for dinner, Kleopatra sending a servant ahead to the
kitchen to warn of their arrival.

“You have a visitor waiting for you aboard ship, sir,” the girl said to Antony. “General Canidius Crassus has only just arrived.”

“Bring him to our table,” Antony said. “Thank the gods he is safe, but what is he doing at Taenarum?”

Canidius was already seated when Antony and Kleopatra entered the dining hall. He jumped up when he saw them, his face and
his hair showing signs of neglect. He had obviously cleaned himself very quickly for the encounter. Kleopatra noticed that
there was dirt under his nails, and his usually immaculately shaved face was covered with stubble. Outside of the battlefield,
she had never seen a Roman officer of his rank enter the presence of his commander in so disheveled a state.

When Antony saw him, he walked faster, leaving Kleopatra behind. She rushed to keep up with him.