Pharaoh (54 page)

She is dizzy and suddenly cold. She clings to him to stop her shivering. She wishes he would put the full force of his weight
on her now and annihilate her. This is how she would like to die. But he rolls to his side and stares at her face. She takes
a deep breath, praying that he has not deceived her and slipped any of her passion back into her body.

To: Gaius Octavian
From: Marcus Antonius

By the time you receive this letter, I shall have honored your call for my death. I ask that you in turn honor our agreement
and show mercy to the queen and to her children. You and I once called each other friend and brother, and yet we have labored
long and hard against one another. Remember the Fate of King Eurystheus who refused sanctuary to the family of Herakles after
his death. After setting Herakles to twelve labors, the king was not satisfied with either his trials or his death. Eurystheus
was not honored for his vengeance, but executed by his people, who were outraged that a family was punished for the crimes
of the father. I ask you to follow not in the footsteps of the unforgiving, but rather the example of mercy given by your
uncle, whom I served and whom we both loved. Be content that my labors against you brought you no harm, but in the end, lifted
you up and made you even more mighty.

The queen is beloved by her people and she lives to protect them. They offered to take up arms against you in the city, inviting
slaughter upon them-selves, but the queen would not have it. She demanded that they offer you peaceful surrender and welcome
into their city. She rules with grace and intelligence. She merely found herself caught in the struggle between ourselves
after Caesars death. I demanded her allegiance because of her wealth and the strategic location of her country. In aligning
herself with me, she did not consider that she was making herself your enemy. Remember that she fought against Caesars assassins
when they threatened her borders, even at risk to herself. The children, as all children, are innocent. I ask you to remember
that we are bound by blood. My mother is descended of the Julian clan, and is the third cousin of your uncle and father. My
daughters are your nieces and will require your protection. Antyllus considers your sister his mother. I ask that my children
not pay the price of their fathers ambitions, but retain their portions of my estates so that they may fulfill the civic duties
set upon them by virtue of their births. Not for myself, but for the honor and memory of the distinguished service of the
Antonii clan to the Republic of Rome, I urge you to refrain from bringing shame upon my name and upon my children.

Caesar always said that the fearful governed by the sword, the great by mercy. Surely you no longer have any reason for fear.
The queen has no wish for any-thing but peace, and to live out her years in the kingdom of her ancestors. Like her father,
she wishes only to achieve the title already conferred upon her by the
senate, Friend and Ally of the Roman People. I give you my word as a Roman that she will salute you.

This is my final request and must be honored according to the wishes of the gods and by our sacosanct customs.

Marcus Antonius, Imperator of Rome

She awakens alone. It is not yet daylight, but he has crept away without waking her. He has left a note on the bed.
After all we have lived together, what is left to say? I love you.

This is how it will be now, every day, for the rest of her life. She will wake to see the empty space next to her cold body.
There will be no arms to roll into, no shelter from the world’s cruelties, no pleasure to celebrate a victory or to palliate
a defeat. No scent of wood and oil and musk on the linens. They have made their tragic bargain, and she lost the only argument
she ever lost with Antony. When she tried to convince him to change his mind, he drove her mad with his Socratic taunt.
Who is to say you are the more fortunate? I don’t envy you, my queen, for you will live in a world ruled by a tyrant while
I make mirth with the gods.
Perhaps he is right.

When she asked him if he would sacrifice before battle, he laughed at her and replied,
I am the sacrifice, Kleopatra.
He will fight as long as he might. This is his plan, to fight to the death, to die driven through the belly by a Roman swordsman,
probably one trained by his own hand. He has practiced this maneuver over and over in his mind. He does not think he can force
himself to make his throat vulnerable, not after all his years of perfecting the art of combat. But casting aside the shield
at just the propitious moment and thrusting himself into the weapon, all the while watching the look of surprise on his murderer’s
face at his rash self-destruction-this he says he might accomplish. He wishes to die fighting and not by his own hand. He
who loves life and all its offerings does not believe he has the will to rob himself of yet one more day, for surely each
day serves up some small pleasure hidden in its grand doses of pain. For those luxuries great and small he has lived. He has
embraced the Egyptian assumption that the dead continue with their lives in the manner in which they lived but on another
plane of exis-

tence, and like the pharaohs of old, he intends to rise into the next world complete. But it will have to be another hand
that sends him to that heavenly kingdom. His will to live is too great.

She worries over this as Charmion lights the lamps in her room and begins the process of dressing her. Iras appears with the
tools of his trade, opens his mouth, and is quickly silenced by that lady. He lays out the combs and pins and ribbons and
jewels that he will weave into Kleopatra’s hair, while in the next room she is sponged by the body servant. Kleopatra goes
through the ritual with no awareness of the hands that cleanse and perfume her, nor of those that pleat the folds of her dress
or curl the tendrils around her face. Her mind is with Antony as he marches his troops out of the city and into the dawn.

Both she and Antony know what will happen as surely as if they have lived the events. From a high hill overlooking the bay,
Antony will watch as one or two captains of die-hard loyalty engage Octavian’s vessels. But as soon as the superior numbers
make plain the outcome, those more attached to the idea of living will salute their enemies with their oars. The infantry,
more devoted to their commander, will undoubtedly engage in skirmish, and this Antony will use to facilitate his death. He
will charge into battle with the lowest of his men, and he will cast himself straight into the sword of some shocked legionnaire.
Thus his life with all its ambitions and anxieties will end, and she will be left to negotiate with his enemy. She has promised
to do this-for the children, for Egypt, for the sake of all they have been through together-but she fears that the lack of
variation in the plan, and the dependence upon the actions of others to carry it to fruition, may lead to unexpected results.
She has spent many days searching for her ultimate resolve, and no matter what she has promised, she has not yet decided if
it is death or survival. Just in case, she keeps a dagger strapped in a sheath to her thigh as Mohama taught her to so many
years ago.

She walks through the palace with a small escort, and no matter how hard she tries to take every detail with her, all is blurred.
In the halls, the servants are crying. The old Nubian men who squat patiently through the night, on call to answer her every
need and to carry her desires to those who may give them quick fulfillment, are on their knees now, wet eyes covered with
craggy hands. Some have been at their posts since her father placed them there decades ago. She sees those familiar old hands
reach out to touch the hem of her dress as she walks by, smiling at them, as if she is merely going on a long trip.

In the chaos of the main halls, kitchen maids, cooks, lamp lighters, laundresses are waiting to salute their queen. They have
been told to stay at their posts, that no harm will come to them, that if the Roman takes over the palace and sleeps in the
queens bed this very evening, he will be kind to those who attend to him. Still, the loyalists are pushed aside by a diaspora
of nonbelievers who flee into the streets, carrying full satchels in their hands and babies on their backs. Kleopatra wonders
where they think they will go. Some have said they will not wait upon the Romans, that they will anticipate her return and
come back. Others, she knows, have stolen what they believe they can get away with and are planning to sneak out of the city.
Do they not know that they will be stopped by Octavian’s men, who will put them to death for stealing his property?

Except for the lonely patter of the footsteps of the few who are running away, the streets are eerily quiet. She listens for
the sounds of war, but only hears the shrill chirp of birds in the acacia trees lining the avenue. It is a short walk to the
mausoleum, and she takes in the smell of honeysuckle carried on the morning breeze, still cool though it is the second day
of August. The sky is silvery, and the city is a blur of whites and greens. She does not imagine that it will be any different
tomorrow. The Romans do not sack great cities, but slowly bleed them. The treasures of her ancestors will not disappear in
any noticeable fashion, but slip away one by one on ships that will carry the glorious confluence of Egyptian majesty and
Greek beauty to their thieving bastard child, Rome. She wonders if it is better to die today, with the city and the treasury
and her pride intact, or to sit on a throne like a puppet, taking orders and cues from a man she disdains. She has lived her
life true to her principles. When that is no longer possible, is it better to die?

The mausoleum sits by the sea, next to the temple of Isis. It is very tall, with only one door that has a tiny, secret portal
for the queen to receive messages, and windows so high that robbers would have to be winged creatures or Titans to gain entrance.
The door locks from the inside, protecting the building’s inhabitants. Before she enters, she looks to the lighthouse, its
flame burning in the morning mist, guiding the enemy to its shores. She thinks of Alexander in his tomb, cursing her, she
imagines, for relinquishing his city to a Roman. Dirt farmers not
worthy of his interest when he was alive. She makes him a silent promise that this is but a momentary humiliation; that if
not she, then her children will rise up and seek revenge in his name. All must be in the service of that goal.

She asks her chosen companions-Charmion, Iras, Hephaestion- if they would change their minds. No one is required to entomb
themselves with her. Charmion answers her with a look of utter disdain. Hephaestion only smiles at her foolishness. She hopes
Iras will give in to his fears and remain outside because he is one to need comfort rather than to give it. But you are my
life, he says to the queen, and walks into the building before she can ask him again.

She has had the walls painted in murals of the city, with its temples and colonnades and glimmering white beauty, brought
to life now by torches, just as the city outside is awakened by the dawn. She wanted to live in the city in death as she had
presided over it in life. She had no idea when she built it that she would one day be entombed alive.