Pharaoh (52 page)

“You will be safe, I promise you.” Kleopatra looks at the soft, princely features of her tall son. He has Caesar’s impenetrable
eyes, brown and narrow, and the long, graceful neck he inherited from Venus, if one believed Caesar’s claims. She has helped
Caesarion prepare for his long voyage up the Nile River to the Thebiad, where in Koptos, Kleopatra’s allies will see him across
the eastern desert to the Red Sea. At the port city of Berenike, he will be picked up by Kleopatra’s trusted old friend, Apollodorus
the pirate. Apollodorus-an old man now but still conducting his illicit maritime operations-will hide Caesarion until he receives
further orders from the queen. Alexander is to be his travel companion until Apollodorus turns him over to a Median guard
who will take him to safety in the kingdom of his betrothed, the princess Iotape. King Artavasdes has promised the boy prince
sanction until “circumstances permit him to return with his bride to the land of his fathers.” Or so the polite and secret
missive reads. Alexander does not want to go to his tiny bride. He does not want to be separated from his sister, but Kleopatra
will not risk her daughter on the journey Even if all were lost, no Roman, not even Octavian, would see wisdom in harming
an eight-year-old princess. She reasons that Selene would be more at risk of contracting disease on the journey than in Alexandria,
even if hostile forces overtake the city.

The boys know that Octavian and his forces have landed at Ptolemais Ace, and that they intend to march from there to Alexandria.
If history is any indicator, he will storm the fort at Pelusium-where she, a young queen in exile, had once faced her brother’s
army-and if he is successful, he will march straight into Alexandria. And unless circumstances change in a way that neither
she nor Antony can foresee, Octavian will be successful at Pelusium. The numbers guarding the old fortress are not half of
what they will confront.

Where is Hammonius? she asks herself. Why is he not here? But she knows. Hammonius is seventy-two years old and living out
his last years bouncing Archimedes’ little daughter on his knee. He is much too old to serve the queen in the ways of the
past, which is a pity, for no one knows the eastern trade routes like him; no one has bribed more greedy merchants along the
way, and no one is craftier at hiding a mission of espionage behind a jovial face and a good joke. She would like to call
upon Archimedes himself to see her sons safely across Egypt, but she cannot ask him to risk his life for her again.

She would feel much better if she were entrusting the welfare of her sons to Hammonius or even Archimedes instead of the tutor
Rhodon who has sworn to protect the king and the prince, but whom Kleopatra does not trust. He wears too much pomade in his
hair and is overly delighted with the gifts of jewelry Caesarion has given him. Kleopatra does not believe that scholars should
concern themselves with hair and jewels. Besides, Rhodon is a disciple of Arius, another philosopher Kleopatra cannot abide.
But the tutor offered to accompany the boys into this hastily planned exile, and Kleopatra wants her sons to have the comforts
on this journey of at least one who is close to them. Once the boys are separated, Caesarion will be entirely without familiar
companionship. Kleopatra is sending him with a goodly fortune, but an entourage would attract too much attention.

“Why do we not all go at once?” he asks. “Why must Alexander and I be separated from Antyllus and Selene and Philip?”

She does not want to share with him the realities. Octavian’s sister is fond of Antyllus, and Antony is certain that under
no circumstances would Octavian harm the boy. He is not quite fifteen. Octavian had been courteous to Antyllus when the boy
came to him with Antony’s offer, though he confiscated the money and sent him back to his father without an answer. Still,
if he were going to harm Antyllus, he would have done so then. But Caesarion is the son of Caesar, and Octavian, who now calls
himself Caesar, will not look favorably on Caesar’s true and only son. The stamp of Julius Caesar is on Caesarion’s face,
and Kleopatra wants to keep that face out of Octavian’s sight forever.

Caesarion waits patiently for an answer to his question, so she offers him one that is slightly less frightening than the
truth.

“We must not travel together because if we are intercepted, our family line is ended.”

He takes in that information without any expression of surprise. He is sixteen and a king, and has never been protected by
the consolations afforded an ordinary youth. “I’m not leaving until I know your plans, Mother.”

If only she knew them herself. She has none and a thousand all at once. “As soon as I am guaranteed a clear route, I will
join you and we will make the journey through Media to India, where a great palace awaits us. We shall either live there in
peace, or we shall wait for the day when we might regain our kingdom, or both.”

“And if you do not join me? What am I to do?”

She is anxious for the boys to leave. She will not feel secure until they are safely out of the city, out of reach of the
monster. She tries to cover the impatience in her voice.

“You may either proceed in the journey without me, or you may remain with Apollodorus and learn the ways of piracy.” She tries
to smile at him, knowing she cannot answer his question more directly because she does not possess such an answer. “If I do
not join you, you must rely upon your own intuition and your wits. Pray to the gods for enlightenment, and then follow the
course they set for you. Even if it frightens you.”

She looks him straight in the eye and is hit with a pain in her gut. If only his father were alive to protect him. “All my
life I have known fear. But I have acted in spite of it. I urge you to do the same. Your father used to say that it is preferable
to die rather than to live fearing death. It was the philosophy by which he lived. Your father was a great man, but he was
only able to accomplish great and impossible things because he believed that Fortune would protect him. While you are on that
ship, staring into the blue waters of the Nile, think on Caesar’s words and let them become a part of you, and let them guide
you throughout your life. It is the very best advice I might offer.”

She thinks he stands a little taller now. She hopes he has taken her words to heart. She is unsure about Caesarion’s future.
He has had such an easy life in so many ways. Indoctrinated from birth with the details of his illustrious lineage, he grew
up having very little to prove. He is happier reading than accompanying his mother on her duties. He has none of Caesar’s
desire to conquer lands, none of his mother’s ambitions to unite the eastern half of the world under one great monarchy. She
feels that if he is handed the throne, he will try his best to be an intelligent and benevolent ruler, but she wonders if
these qualities will be enough to survive the challenges of being a king. Perhaps he will go to India and live a peaceful
life while Alexander marries the Median princess and brings to fruition all Kleopatra’s dreams and ambitions. She allows herself
one brief moment of comfort in this thought.

But now Alexander rushes into the queen’s quarters with his sister hanging on his travel cloak. She is crying, and he is trying
very hard to refrain from tears himself. Kleopatra pries the girl away from her broth-

er and holds her. Selene buries her face in her mother’s dress and sobs. “You are going to see the great lands conquered by
the man whose name you carry,” she says to the boy. It is he whom she must bolster first. There will be time later to comfort
Selene. “Are you not excited and proud?”

The boy tries to be strong. “I want to take my sister. Mother, they say that in Egypt for many thousands of years, princes
married their sisters. That only you have put a stop to the tradition. Why can I not marry my sister and stay here?”

Odd that Kleopatra had not once thought of this possibility-that her twins would resume the tradition of both the Egyptian
pharaohs and the Ptolemies and marry one another and rule together.

“You are a prince, Alexander, and princes may not simply do as they like. Your responsibility is to go to Media and remain
betrothed to the princess there. That is what Egypt needs at this hour to make her strong. If it turns out that you do not
marry the princess, you may come back to Egypt and do as you like. With my permission, of course.”

“But Mother. It is being said that you and Father have pledged to die together. We can’t leave you here to die.”

Hearing these words, Selene’s sobs turn into a howl. What else have her children heard? Rumors about the kingdom are rampant.
Octavian is coming to kill Antony and to marry Kleopatra. Octavian is coming to kill them both. Antony has a secret army with
which he will vanquish Octavian once and for all. She has heard all of these things.

“Your father and I are determined to keep ourselves and our children safe. You must cooperate with us by doing your duty.”

Alexander puts his arms around his sister, and Kleopatra embraces the two of them, holding back her own tears. “My darlings.
I won’t let anything happen to you, and neither will Caesarion.”

But Selene breaks away. “I’m going with them and you can’t stop me!”

Kleopatra is almost relieved to see fire in her daughter. She likes the way Selene’s eyes quiver with the power of her own
words. She is lovely in her defiance, and for one moment, Kleopatra sees a flash of her sister Berenike in the girl’s face.
She prays that Selene’s newfound defiance does not lead her to Berenike’s end. “My darling daughter, you must stay here and
keep me company and help me soothe the little one. He
would be lost without you, but your twin is almost a man. Alexander will happily sacrifice your companionship to his more
vulnerable little brother. Correct?”

She knows Alexander will be gallant just like his father. The boy thrusts his small chest forward. He kisses his sister’s
forehead. “It’s just for a little while,” he whispers in her ear, and then looks to his mother’s eyes for confirmation of
what he has just said. She answers him with all the trust she can muster.

“Yes, darling. A very little while.”

She sends jewels beyond reason, money, ivory, exotic spices unknown in the west, with the message that she and Antony will
go into exile if her children may inherit the throne. He sends back a curt message that he has already put forth the only
acceptable terms, and she is free to comply. Antony intercepts the message, has the messenger flogged, and sends the beaten
man back to Octavian with a letter saying he is free to flog in retaliation any of the traitors who left Antony and are now
in his camp.

The creature is trying to drive a final wedge between Antony and Kleopatra so that he may have the pleasure of saying that
in the end, they had even turned against one another. Kleopatra is certain of this, but this game she will not let him win.
How he would love to spread the twisted propaganda that Kleopatra betrayed Antony to save her own life. That would the last
stroke of false color on the ugly portrait he was trying to paint and put before the world’s eyes.

So this is despair, she thinks. This is the darkness she has seen fall over Antony, to which she once believed she was immune.
She sits in its black cauldron, and it buffers her against the rest of the world. She knows now how her husband spent all
those months in his remote post on the sea, watching the waves and drowning himself in anything that offered relief from the
agony of failure. She is sitting in the suffocating vacuum left by hope’s departure.

Now it is Antony who tries to cheer her. Her suicide threat has rein-vigorated him, and he is full of plans for, if not victory,
then survival. He resurrects the memory of Caesar, of their unofficial triumvirate in
those early days in Rome when the three of them made plans to divide up the world. He recites her own speeches of yesterday
about the lineage of their children; the fickle nature of the Roman senate that will turn against Octavian if he gets too
powerful; the loyalty of the armies not to a general but to a paymaster. You could be that paymaster, he tells her. We must
only put out the word. He reminds her that the gods manipulate the Fates of men for their amusement and then right the wrongs
they set in motion at the last moment. He is certain that is what is happening here. He spins lengthy scenarios of how their
fortunes may change, and how she will soon be laughing with the gods at their trickery. It is as if he has memorized everything
she has said and now regurgitates it back to her like a pupil trying to please his teacher. He repeats the wisdom of taking
his own life in exchange for her safety, and she repeats her threat: My spirit will join yours immediately.