Pharaoh (55 page)

The tomb is as silent as if its inhabitants are already dead. No one speaks. Hephaestion reads poetry. Charmion writes letters,
and Iras embroiders tiny diamonds into a comb, as if the queen were this evening attending a state affair and he readying
her hair ornament. Barely a noise creeps in from outside; it is as if the city has died, too. People have shut themselves
inside their homes. Merchants have not opened their stores; stalls at the marketplace sit abandoned. Peasant children do not
play on the shore. It is so quiet that she wonders if Poseidon has silenced the oceans waves in sorrow.

Finally, she hears the clop of a single horse in the distance, and an interminable time before someone dismounts and raps
at the portal. Hephaestion opens the small trap so that Kleopatra can see the moving lips of Diomedes, the scribe she sent
to record the details of the battle, telling her the story she does not want to hear. She watches it play out in her mind
as the dreadful words pass into the chamber.

“There was no battle, Your Majesty The Imperator watched as his fleet sailed into the dawn and joined the single line of Octavian’s
vessels. The ships fit so neatly and naturally in his formation that one won-

ders if they had been expected and their places reserved. The entire navy sails now toward the city as one. When the cavalry
saw the rapid desertion of the navy, they rode away from the Imperator to Octavian. The foot soldiers fell in behind the horses
and deserted. The Imperator was left standing with only his personal guard. I believe he lost his mind while witnessing his
men go over to his enemy.”

Though Kleopatra’s heart is racing, her body is cold. “And what did he do?”

“He started for the palace. He said that after the morning’s events, he expected to find you there in the Roman Octavian’s
arms.”

“Even at this hour he is not above histrionics,” Charmion mutters.

Kleopatra ignores her. “He is alive?”

“He is alive, but he has offered his servant a thousand talents to kill him. He is not himself, Your Majesty.”

Her husband is pacing about his chamber, a defeated lion, begging a servant to kill him. The Inimitable One, the Invincible
One, trying to face his mortality. His love of life surpasses all reason, and he is staring into the shadows of death, unable
to walk into its dark, welcoming arms. Torn between the two worlds, powerless to choose, while Octavian marches into the city.
Someone must rescue him from this agony.

“Diomedes, go immediately to the Imperator and tell him that I am already dead; that I heard of the morning’s events, and
I took my life.”

No one questions her. These are her closest associates, and they know what she is doing.

Diomedes looks into the portal for the queen’s eyes. She reiterates: “Tell the Imperator that I took a dagger to my own breast,
and that I died immediately.”

Diomedes leaves. Kleopatra hisses at her companions, “Do not speak.”

She wants to be alone with her thoughts. She knows that Antony will do one of two things. Either he will follow her example
of courage and quickly take his own life so that they will go together to the gods. Or he will hurry to the mausoleum to see
if she is truly dead, knowing he will have to keep himself alive to negotiate for the children.

She begs the Lady Isis to exercise her wisdom.
What is best for the higher good of all is what shall transpire,
she prays. But what she prays for is not what she hopes for. She hopes that Antony will hurry to her. When he
arrives and finds that she is alive, they will not kill themselves, but tear off their clothes and dress in rags and run away.
She has been an artist of disguise all her life. Antony is a natural man of the stage. He once disguised himself as a slave
to escape the hostility of those against Caesar. With an actor’s aplomb, he put on a tattered hood and hobbled out of the
city and into Caesar’s camp to demonstrate what degradation he was willing to stoop to in Caesar’s service. She will convince
him that it does not matter where they go as long as they are alive. Let Octavian have Egypt. He will make himself their children’s
regent, and when the time comes, he will put them on the throne like little puppets and he will pull their strings. Better
the children, who have yet to learn independence, than herself.

She praises the gods for giving Antony this reprieve from death. It was the work of the Divine, she knows. The gods did not
allow a battle today because they do not want Antony to die. Not yet. It is a sure sign that they are to live, to prevail.
Together they will flee to India, not as king and queen, but as simple lovers. They will meet up with Caesarion along the
way, and take the trade routes through the east with a caravan of merchants paid to keep their secret. They will live in her
palace in India in peace, waiting for Octavian to be overthrown, probably by his own people. Then they will return and guide
their children to fulfill the ambitions of empire spun long ago. If the gods are merciful, then this is what will happen.
Antony will read the truth into Diomedes’ message, or beat it out of him, and he will come to her.

She knows, of course, that these are fantasies. Antony will never run away with her. A general first, a leader of men, he
goes nowhere without an army marching behind him. Which is why he is so lost now. The footsteps of soldiers that have followed
him all his life are silent, and he is lost without that driving rhythm.

Charmion and Hephaestion stare at her like proud parents, while Iras, who loves Antony, tends more fastidiously to his chore
of making a new comb. They believe they know what she has done, that she has finally taken the step the two cold-blooded ones
have urged all along. Rush Antony to his death so that she might live. They think they know her mind, but none can guess her
private hope.

Antony does come to her, but he is covered in his own blood. His arrival is announced by woeful cries. She recognizes the
voices of his
servants asking her to open the door to let him in, but she no longer knows who she can trust. Octavian’s men cannot be far
behind. She orders Hephaestion to lower ropes through a wide window so that only Antony may be let in.

“He is slain!” Diomedes yells. “He has taken his own life!”

She hears her husband say, “I am tied to the ropes. Take me up.”

Kleopatra and her companions pull on two ropes, she and Iras at one, Hephaestion and Charmion at the other. He must have fastened
a rope to each of his arms because she can hear him use his feet against the wall to climb. He yells at her to keep pulling,
that he is dying, and that she must hurry or he will die alone. She can hear his servants weeping as he uses the last bit
of his strength to die in her sight.

Inside, all four of them are pulling, Kleopatra working so hard that with each effort her arms are in searing pain and her
head is to the ground. The servants are screaming to them to keep pulling, to not let their master fall, to be strong. That
he is dying, that he must see the queen before he goes to the gods, that this is his final wish. Two times, they almost falter.
Charmion’s hands are bleeding. Hephaestion and Iras, though they have lived lives of little physical exertion, are stronger
than the women, but Antony is the weight of two men. She calls out to him to hold on, that he is almost inside. A ladder is
placed against the wall, and three of them struggle with the ropes while Iras climbs to the top, grabbing Antony and helping
him inside. Antony strives to balance on the sill of the window while Iras swings his legs over for him and places them on
the top rung. One step at a time, Antony descends, groaning in pain. His feet hit the ground and he falls into her arms. Hephaestion
helps her carry him to a couch. He is still in his armor.

She surveys his body, taking stock of the laceration in his gut. By the stains on his clothes, on his body, on the walls,
on the ladder, she knows that he has lost most of his blood.

Holding his face, she looks into his eyes and sobs. “Oh, my husband, my love, my lord, I have killed you.”

“You simply helped an old soldier to die.”

Antony smiles, and she wonders if he is so far gone now that he can no longer feel pain. “Get me some wine, would you?” He
is casual, as if he has just come in from military drills and is thirsty.

“What have you done? My darling, I wanted us to run away together. I prayed for you to see through my lie!” She helps him
out of his breastplate and puts her head on his chest. His leather tunic is damp and smells salty and metallic like blood.

“When they told me you were dead, I begged Eros yet again to kill me, but he turned his sword on himself. It took a servant’s
bravery and a woman’s lie for me to let go of life.”

“Because you
love
life, my darling, not because you have no courage.” Kleopatra takes the goblet of wine from Charmion and holds it to his
lips. Iras props Antony’s head with his hands. The eunuch is crying, trying to hide his face.

Kleopatra turns to Hephaestion. “Check his wound. See what can be done.”

Antony puts a hand up to stop Hephaestion, and then pleads to Kleopatra with eyes. He whispers, “We only have a moment longer.
Drink with me, as if we were alone in our room, with no cares but one another’s pleasure.”

Her hands shake as she takes a sip of the wine. Antony watches her, wincing with pain, but his eyes are bright. “That’s it,”
he says. “Now, let me have some more. You know how I love a good vintage.” He tries to chuckle, but the laugh catches in his
throat and he coughs.

Now she breaks down, tearing at her clothes, taking a swath of her white dress and covering his wound. “Let me help you,”
she cries, spreading the cloth, watching it soak up his blood. She cannot bear to see the life seep from his body this way
and she throws the cloth aside and tries to stanch the flow of blood with her hands. She realizes she is hurting him, so she
lets him take her wet hand, and they both feel his warm blood between their skin.

“My guard has taken my bloody sword to Octavian. My death will buy you smooth negotiations.”

She puts the wine to his lips again because she does not want to hear talk of death or of Octavian. Closing his eyes, he sips
a very little bit, swallowing with some effort. “I might have died far away from you, slain by some ignoble foreign sword,”
he says. “It is better this way, taking your face with me to the gods.”

But she does not want him to comfort her. She wants him to live. She tears again at her clothes, thinking she might fashion
some magical
tourniquet. She begs him, “Do not give in so quickly, Imperator. Let me help you.”

He stops her again with his hand, and pulls her close to his face so that he is burying his mouth in her hair. “Happier times,”
he whispers, and the hot air of his breath makes her body go slack. She stays there, with his warm mouth nuzzling her ear
until she feels him let drop her hand.

She realizes she has never known grief, not even for Caesar, because it overtakes her with an unfamiliar ferocity. She has
seen death before, and she has always remained calm in its wake. But now, when she is most called upon to remain composed,
sorrow takes her prisoner and she is no longer in control. She feels Antony leave her, just as if his flesh is walking away.
She tries to grab at his ghost but he is too quickly gone, and she thinks he is laughing, not with her but with someone, something
else. She wonders if Caesar has come for his Master of the Horse, and if they are sharing a joke. Or has Antony realized so
soon death’s pleasures? She is furious that he has this quick relief from life’s anxieties, jealous that he has expeditiously
discharged himself of their woes. She beats on his chest as if she might resurrect him; as if she can hurt him enough to make
him come back. But her fists ring hollow against his breast and so she turns on herself. She wipes his blood on her face like
a mad Dionysian, ripping her dress open and beating at her chest. She hears her fists pound against her breasts, sees her
hands flying in the air and striking her body, but she is numb to her own pain. She tears open her dress and, making animal
paws out of her hands, lacerates her skin with the nails Charmion has so carefully painted pale blue. She cannot make herself
hurt enough, and she gives up and falls over his corpse, that same body in which she has taken refuge so many times. Now it
has nothing to offer.

She hears shouts and screams outside. As heavy footsteps approach, others scamper away. She knows the unmistakable thud of
a Roman soldier’s gait.

Pounding on the door. “My name is Marcus Proculeius, Your Majesty, and I am sent by Caesar.”

Charmion helps her up and away from Antony’s body, but this man’s words have awakened her, and she remembers who she is and
what she has promised.

“Caesar is dead, murdered by twenty-three blows of the knife. But if you promise to deliver me to him, I will happily open
my door.”

Charmion takes her arm and yanks her to attention. “Marcus Antonius is with the gods and you are with the living.” Charmion
has never taken such a liberty, not even when Kleopatra was small and rebellious.