Pharaoh (50 page)

“What on earth has happened to bring you here?” Antony asked without greeting Canidius. “Canidius, have you deserted the men?”
The alarm in his voice escalated with each word.

Canidius did not seem to want to answer the question. He looked at Kleopatra with wild eyes. “Your Majesty,” he whispered
hoarsely.

“What is it, Canidius? Are you ill?” Kleopatra asked.

Antony showed no concern for Canidius’s condition. “You’d better speak up,” he said.

Canidius stood straight to his full height, which still put him inches shorter than Antony. Looking up into his commander’s
eyes, he said, “Sir, I . . . I barely escaped with my life. I am here to inform you that the land army was intercepted on
our way to Macedonia by a column of Octavian’s negotiators. Sir, at first, the men wanted to kill them, but they were Romans,
and familiar to so many of our officers. So the men voted to hear them out.”

Canidius stopped talking as if waiting for some miraculous reprieve from having to deliver the rest of his message.

“Finish the story, Canidius,” Antony said. It was as if Kleopatra felt all the energy around Antony’s body freeze. She wondered
if fear could make the blood cease to flow, because the room was suddenly very cold.

“After listening to General Octavian’s offers of Italian land grants and large sums of gold, delivered by our fellow Romans
in the sweet and longed-for language of peace, all but a very few went over to him.”

I
t was the easiest thing he’d ever done, easier than his examinations at school, where he’d never been regarded as a brilliant,
or even better-than-average student. Easier than military training, which required more physical stamina than he’d been given
at birth. Octavian found that manipulating the minds of others was easier than any other human endeavor he’d had to tackle.
Caesar had had all kinds of gifts he employed to astonish others-he wrote books and poetry, conquered nations, made great
speeches, bedded perhaps thousands of lovers. But Octavian didn’t seem to need to do any of these things to get what he wanted.
He simply had to turn people’s minds in a direction that followed his ambitions. All the hard work of his uncle, all the posturing
and soldiering of Antony, was really unnecessary. All one had to do was change people’s beliefs. Even the slaughter of battles
past now seemed superfluous. Once the mind-that most rigid human aspect-flexed itself, physical reality altered immediately.
Who would have thought that the mind, which was not a physical thing at all, which was located nowhere, which one couldn’t
touch with one’s hands, would have turned out to be more powerful than corporal reality? How ironic, he thought. If one could
gain control over the intangible, the tangible fell under one’s control immediately.

The whole world had been behind his enemies, and now, thanks to
the way he had
altered
their image in the minds of their allies, the whole world had turned on them. Except for an obstinate few, those who had
followed Antony and Kleopatra across the world, who had heralded them as gods, saviors, emperor and empress, were now against
them. They had changed their minds, or rather, he had changed their minds, and now everything was different. Octavian laughed.
He would probably never have to take to the battlefield again. Henceforth, all combat was to take place in the mental realms,
where he now believed he excelled above all men.

Thank the gods for Dellius’s love of luxury and his malleable loyalties. Dellius had changed his mind on his own. He had escaped
to Octavian right before Antony led his ships into the gulf and had betrayed Antony’s plan. If he hadn’t done that, Octavian
wondered if he would have had the prescience, the presence of mind, to use Antony’s actions against him. Had Antony’s plan
been made obvious only by his actions, and not by Dellius’s treacherous whispers in Octavian’s ear, Octavian did not think
he would have been given the enlightenment to do what he did. If he had watched Antony fight only to escape and re-marshal
his forces in Egypt, Octavian would have sighed and waited out another year, anticipating another war and wondering how on
earth he was going to feed one hundred thousand men through a long winter in barren Greece, whose fields and crops had never
recovered from the last Roman Civil War. It would have been a year of stealing goats and lambs from sobbing shepherd boys,
of taking bread from the mouths of old ladies, not to mention solving the food shortage in Rome itself. But Dellius’s betrayal
had gifted Octavian with Antony’s clever plan, and Octavian was able to swiftly rewrite that plan in his own words.

All he had to do when Antony’s navy fled the Gulf of Ambracia was to tell the captured men that Antony had abandoned them
in favor of Kleopatra; that all this time they thought they were fighting for their great Roman general when in reality, that
general was no longer in control of his senses but enslaved-body, soul, and penis-to the ambitious queen. All this time they
thought that Antony lived for the loyalty of his men, would sacrifice himself to save the very least among them, but that
was myth. Had he not demonstrated the truth about his unquenchable lust for the queen when he left his own men to die in battle
in the gulf so that he could remain in her company? What kind of
man-what kind of
Roman
man-would behave in so thoroughly uxorious a manner? He
realized
that most of the men had no idea what the word “uxorious” meant, so he forced himself to be crude and say “pussy-whipped,”
and they all snickered.

When he saw how successful he was in quickly changing their minds about their general, he sent messengers to Antony’s army,
which was marching under Canidius Crassus’s leadership to Alexandria. Octavian’s negotiators met up with them after just a
few days of being free from Antony’s charisma. After Octavian’s offers of gold and land, and with Canidius shouting, “Men!
Keep your wits about you!” at their backs, Antony’s army marched in the direction of Octavian’s camp.

Once the bulk of the army fell to Octavian, the rest was child’s play. There was only one remaining problem. There
was
no land in Italy, and there was no money to pay the soldiers the exorbitant promised amounts. Soldiers without pay often
turned to the first man who dangled gold in front of them. Given a little time, that man would once again be Antony. As it
was, they had started riots in Italy when their demands were not met immediately, and even Agrippa could not quiet them. Instead
of pursuing Antony to Egypt to solidify his victory, Octavian had to sail to Brundisium, order the confiscation of all the
land and the wealth of Antony’s allies, and distribute it to the senior veterans. The rest he quieted by making personal oaths
to them that they would soon receive their due. To assure them that he was serious, he put his own lands up for sale, but
only after Maecenas assured him that no one would be foolish enough to buy them.

Octavian would have to act very quickly, while he still had the advantage. Land in Italy would have to be bought from its
rightful owners. There was nothing left to confiscate from anyone who could be clearly called an enemy. He would not risk
another civil war by confiscating the property of those who were now coming over to his side. Money would have to be doled
out quickly, before the soldiers found a new master or returned to their old one. Time was now of the essence, and there was
no time to invade lands, levy taxes, or rape temples. There was only one place in the world where that much money existed
in a single, graspable heap. And it was in that direction that he now turned all his attention.

May the first, from the city of Hera on the isle of Samos
To: Kleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt
From: Gaius Octavian, Son of the Divine Julius Caesar
Madam,

It has been many months since our engagement in the Gulf of Ambracia, and I have waited long to hear from you. I am in receipt
of your letter offering to open negotiations. I realize there is much you have to offer. But I am afraid I cannot negotiate
with you until you demonstrate that you are ready to live up to the title the senate once conferred upon you, Friend and Ally
of the Roman People. There is but one method of accomplishing this: Surrender Marcus Antonius to the nearest representative
of the Roman government, or send proof of his execution. May I suggest my lieutenant Cornelius Gallus in Cyrene to serve as
our intermediary in this matter? Once you have dispatched Marcus Antonius in whatever way you deem appropriate, we will begin
to forge our alliance, which we might make in the memory of my father and your friend, the Divine Julius Caesar.

Signed and sealed, Octavian, Son of the Divine Julius Caesar

Kleopatra crushes the letter in her hand and holds it to her stomach. How many blows can one deliver in a short message? It
is the first open
declaration of his long-held agenda; he wants Antony dead. She never believed that he would share power, and now she sits
with confirmation of her intuitions in her lap. Octavian waited until he was in Samos, standing on the same soil where she
and Antony had held the celebration of their armies, to answer her letter. She regrets now sending the missive at all, but
she and Antony had agreed that they must pretend to negotiate while they strengthen themselves for confrontation. Perhaps
Octavian sees through their plan and that is why he offers a response steeped in arrogance and innuendo.

It feels to Kleopatra as if eight years and not eight months have passed since that impossibly gray day on which Antony sailed
back into Alexandria. When he found out at Taenarum that he had lost his army, he refused to come home with her, sending her
away on her own vessel. Kleopatra knew that Antony would have to mourn such a disaster in private. No man would let a woman
see him in such grief, especially not Antony. She said all the things she knew to say-that he had saved her and the treasury;
that with that money they could rebuild an army even greater than the last; that Octavian was broke, and when his soldiers
figured out he couldn’t pay them, they’d come back over to Antony, the general for whom their hearts beat. She recited this
litany of hope and left. After all, her first concern was to get back to Egypt flying the flags of victory before word of
what had happened reached her people.

Weeks later Antony returned, not as she had with her sails high and her ships garlanded, but creeping into the harbor in silent
defeat. Immediately, he locked himself in the house on the promontory named after the misanthrope Timon. When she went to
him, he explained what had happened during their weeks of separation. He had sailed to Cyrene, where he had stationed five
legions under Caesar’s man, Lucius Scarpus. He had believed in what she said, that they could quickly rebuild, and he was
looking forward to rallying the legions. Besides, he needed to wipe his mind clean of the summer locked into the gulf and
the surrender of his foot soldiers. He always had liked Scarpus, and he looked forward to long drunken evenings in which they
would relive their glory days as young soldiers under Julius Caesar. But Antony and his fleet were not allowed to dock in
Cyrene. He came under attack as he sailed into the harbor, soon receiving word that after the legionnaires heard that Antony
had abandoned his men at Actium, they executed
Scarpus and put themselves under the command of Octavian’s man, Cornelius Gallus. When Antony heard that, it had taken three
men to stop him from thrusting his sword into his belly.

Abandoned my men? Abandon my men? Antony landed in Alexandria chanting the phrase. He repeated it a thousand times, whispering
it as a question to the gods, screaming it at Kleopatra, laughing to himself at this awful misreading of his actions, this
slander upon his character as a man and as a soldier. He had shut himself up in that solitary villa, his only companion the
erroneous idea of his betrayal. He punished himself with liquor and loneliness and living with the shame of what the whole
world thought he had done. And thanks to Kleopatra and her misguided attempts to revive his manhood, he was able to spend
months mortifying himself between the legs of whores.

But now Antony’s penance is over. His sorrow left him months before at winter solstice as he and Kleopatra made love listening
to the prayer songs of the Feast of the Nativity of the Sun outside their window. Now he has taken a fleet of forty ships
to Paraetonium to block a reported attack on Egypt by that same Cornelius Gallus. His real mission is to win back the legions
that fell to Gallus. Antony is convinced that he can change their minds, that he will send operatives before him just as Octavian
had done. Those offers, combined with the very sight of him, will win back his five legions. He will need them because the
monster who calls for Kleopatra to slay her own husband is reported to have left Samos and is headed for Judaea, where the
traitor Herod will undoubtedly furnish him with whatever he requires to march into Egypt. Antony does not believe Herod will
capitulate, but Kleopatra knows that Herod has hated her for years, calling for her assassination, trying to slander her to
Antony behind her back. She has told Antony this, but she does not press the point. She avoids argument these days.

She is sure that Herod sabotaged her backup plan to escape Egypt by the Sea of Reeds. The Nabataean king Malchus intercepted
the ships Kleopatra was carrying over land to the sea. He burned them in retaliation for the concessions of land he had to
make to Kleopatra so many years ago. Herod has his own problems with Malchus, but she doesn’t imagine that would stop the
two of them from uniting to connive against her. Easy escape to the east now seems improbable. Betraying her husband, impossible.
She has abandoned the plan to escape to the king
of Media. She would have done so if Antony had not made the vow to fight back, but now he has.

If Antony is successful in Paraetonium, then what? He will sail back with his reclaimed men and they will repel Octavian,
or perhaps scare him from marching on them at all. If Herod hears that Antony is empowered once more, he will remain true.
It is a guarantee that Herod will end up on the side of the winner, for that is the game he plays, even if it means putting
off his plans to destroy her.

Enough rumination. She must go about the business of the day as if no threat is upon herself or her country. A queen must
carry the burden of the future in silence. She asks Iras to apply cosmetics to her face today, not to enhance her beauty as
in days past, but to cloak any seepage of her feelings. The smooth pale color he rubs into her hard cheeks is a mask behind
which she might shelter her fear.

She has no adviser at present in whom she confides entirely, not even her husband. She alternately protects him, and protects
herself from him and what he might do if he relapses into the old melancholy. She is not entirely sure he will not. Hephaestion
still looks at her dead straight in the eye and says, In matters of state, let your blood run cold. Hephaestion is not sure
she should not do what Octavian urges. Survival is all, Your Majesty, he tells her. Only those who are alive may negotiate
a future. The eunuch does not understand that the loyalty he feels to the queen is the same loyalty she feels to Antony. As
long as Antony is devoted to their cause and to her and the children, she will remain loyal to him. If Charmion and Hephaestion
had their way, Kleopatra would slip him the dagger as they made love. She knows that it takes all Charmions restraint not
to poison Antony’s meals.

There is no giving up, of course. The next morning she takes her children on her rounds to the departments, explaining to
them that someday they will rule this great kingdom, and they must know its every detail. She does not tell them of the latest
plan that is forming in her head-her plan to secure the throne for these four curious and intelligent faces once and for all.
She knows she must not reveal her agenda to them or to anyone else, not even Antony, for he would surely stop her.

Caesarion listens to every word his mother tells her ministers, instructing his scribe to take notes on everything she says.
He will study
her methods, he assures her, so that when his time comes-long into the future, Mother-he will run every aspect of the kingdom
with the efficiency she has taught him. “I am more given to reading philosophy than to reading the accounting of our industries,
Mother, but given enough time, I shall train myself to be no less diligent a man of business than you.”

She gathers all four around her. All operations require careful supervision, she tells them. “Generally, the ministers are
out to line their pockets with gold skimmed from government revenue, but it is possible to find good men. My father-your grandfather,
may the gods rest and keep his soul-taught me to factor the costs of human nature into all business transactions. Do you understand
me?”

All four faces nod in agreement. They are good and dutiful children. She knows that Caesarion would rather be with his scholars
reading Lucretius, that the twins would rather be wrestling in the courtyards, that the little one has no idea what his mother
is talking about, but looks at her with agonizing seriousness so that he might be thought attentive and smart.

“When is our father to return?” Selene asks with a sad face. “I miss him.”

Caesarion snaps at her: “Our father is in Cyrene reclaiming that kingdom for you so that you may rule it when you come of
age. He is a general on a mission.”

“It is permissible to miss one’s father, Caesarion,” Kleopatra gently scolds. “I miss mine every day. Apologize to your sister
for your harsh tone.”

Kleopatra does not like to see a shred of anger between her children. She has never forgotten the poison blood between herself
and her siblings. How Berenike tried to have her poisoned. How Ptolemy the Elder sent her into exile. How she had to go to
war with him to get her country back. How her youngest brother colluded with Arsinoe to rid Egypt of Kleopatra until she was
forced to see the both of them dead.

“I am sorry for my reprimand,” Caesarion says, turning the aloof eyes and the superior demeanor he inherited from Caesar on
his sister. “But I do not like to hear you whine as if you were just a little girl. You are the daughter of Marcus Antonius
and Queen Kleopatra. You must act like it at all times.”

Kleopatra watches Alexander squirm through this exchange, his fierce gallantry to his twin roiling beneath his olive complexion.
His father’s charm and his father’s manliness are well-seeded in his young body He is not yet nine years old, but he is already
outspoken and brave. “My sister is a little girl,” he says to Caesarion. “And I am a boy but I miss my father, too.” He looks
at Caesarion with perfect innocence and perfect candor and asks in a voice beyond reproach, “Don’t you ever miss yours?”

Kleopatra wonders if Alexander is not more fit to rule a kingdom than Caesarion. He is already a favorite of the tutors, and
takes his namesake seriously. He is going to be very tall and handsome just like his father. There is little of Kleopatra
in these twins; they look like Romans. Kleopatra is not sure about Selene’s prospects of beauty. She, too, is the image of
Antony, but the queen is not sure whether the cleft chin and the high, wide cheekbones will make her daughter beautiful or
too masculine. She will be tall. She trails her twin brother everywhere, listening attentively when he speaks, letting him
choose the games they will play, the books they will read. Kleopatra is not sure she quite knows her daughter. The girl is
obedient, respectful, bright, but inscrutable. Alexander is so strong a personality that maybe, Kleopatra thinks, Selene is
keeping her own disposition a secret until she is confident enough to challenge him. She adores him. She behaves more like
his little sister than his twin. Ah well, Kleopatra thinks, no need for all four children to be chiefs.

She takes her children to the offices of the ink and papyrus factories where they look over the accounting for the month of
April. She explains to them that the profits from these exports are so lucrative that they alone might fuel the economy while
other resources are used for another military confrontation. “We will put everything behind this next encounter,” she says.
“It must be swift and decisive.”

She muses to herself-for she does not wish them to know how vehemently their mother is despised on the other side of the world-
how the Romans’ hatred of her does not diminish their insatiable appetite for all things Egyptian. Egyptian oils, fabrics,
perfumes, rugs, jewelry, foods are in high demand in Rome and her territories. At the fish factory, she looks at the income
from exporting the silurus and is amazed.