Pharaoh (8 page)

When would they learn? Caesar asked himself. How many faces of the dead would he have to see before it was all over, and how
many of those faces would be familiar to him? He would never be the one to capitulate, much as he would sometimes like to
lay down his sword and go to sleep for a good long while, a sleep that would not be interrupted by a call to battle or an
emissary bursting into his dreams in the middle of the night with stolen news of the enemy, or by the snaking dysentery that
seemed an inevitable part of every campaign. He was tired of it all. Not physically tired. Physically, he was always the same.
He had not been a vigorous young man, so he did not waste his later years mourning the absence of youth’s lost strength. Caesar
had found his true physical reserves in middle age, and they remained fresh and intact now into his sixth decade of life.
Just the other day he had found himself jumping ship to avoid a sword through his gut and swimming two hundred yards to another
of his ships, all while wearing his heavy armor. Not only that, but he had leapt into the water so carelessly that he forgot
that the latest dispatches from Rome were still unread in his breast pocket.

That would teach him to react out of fear, rather than to call upon Mother Venus, who had protected him all his days from
any serious injury. She would have stopped the Egyptian swordsman, because she was not yet ready to take Caesar. He knew.
He had always known, and that was why he feared neither death nor injury. That was the secret he would never reveal. Whenever
the dropping sickness overtook him, he saw her face, and she talked to him, telling him what to do. The last time had been
in Pompey’s abandoned tent at Pharsalos. Caesar had felt the spell coming on, and he had asked his men to give him a few moments
alone in his adversary’s quarters. The men did not question him; they never did. He had gone inside, struggling to reach Pompey’s
folding chair before he blacked out. As soon as he was in the darkness she was there, her eyes as blue and limpid as the waters
of a clear lake, and she was telling him to pursue Pompey into Egypt.

Caesar was confident that she would inform him when his time was up, when the gods of the underworld demanded their inevitable
meeting with him. Until then, he had no reason to fret. That is why he chastised himself for jumping overboard like a frightened
boy, like a virgin
in battle, when he might just have whispered her name. As it was, he had had to swim the long way to the other vessel with
only one hand to tread the water, the other carrying the letters high above his head. Worse, he had left his purple cloak
behind as a souvenir for the enemy. It pained him to think of his garment in the hands of some strutting Egyptian. Very unpleasant.
The swim had been neither convenient nor pleasurable, but it did not fatigue him. Yet his men had made such a ruckus when
they realized what he had done, saying that Caesar was like the gods, for neither did they age. He had aged all right, but
the men were correct about one thing: The body of Caesar did not really tire.

The mind was another story. He was tired of the sameness of human experience. He noticed that when he ate, he was tired of
food, tired of
chewing
it, for that was the very definition of monotony. Food was simply food; the experience was the same with each of the day’s
meals. Why did intelligent men set such store in consuming a well-prepared meal as if it were their first or their last, when
they had many times thus feasted and would do so again and again? He was weary of the sameness and regularity of the necessary
human functions-eating, sleeping, digestion and elimination, bathing, warring-and even more so of the uniformity of human
nature. The greed, the lies, the petty fears, the lusts, and particularly the transparency of those things in almost every
human being he encountered. He wondered if all people experienced this fatigue with life, or if it was a characteristic particular
to himself. He would like to take the discussion up with Cicero, if he could once again win the old coot back to his side.
That, he realized, was one of the very things of which he was so tired-the winning back of Cicero. Oh, he had done it all
before, hadn’t he? What might await him now? Would the next decades be so tediously like the last?

How many nations must he subdue before the message was clear?

How might he spread the word of his desires to all the peoples of the earth so that he would not have to keep up the monotonous
task of invading and annihilating? Perhaps he should commission an oral poet, one such as the legendary blind man, Homer,
to spin tales of his conquests. Then he would send legions of poets forth to all corners of the earth to recount the stories
of Great Caesar’s victories over his enemies, to tell tales of the horrors wreaked upon those who defied him. He would give
traveling bards a special stipend to take the tales into lands
he wished to conquer, inspiring terror in the people, who would then beg their leaders to lay down their arms and negotiate.
It would certainly be more economical than sending legions everywhere. What a good idea, he thought, congratulating himself.
He would pass it before Kleopatra this very evening, for she did know so much about poetry, and even more about ways to shape
public opinion in one’s favor.

He was not tired of
her,
neither of her supple body nor of her less flexible but infinitely interesting mind. It would be difficult to leave her.
He had not experienced the emotion of regret in decades. Would he carry it far from the Alexandrian shore? He did not know,
and this alone pleased him-the fact that his future emotions regarding the young queen were not a foregone conclusion. She
was the only surprising thing he had left. Something to which he might look forward. The only other adventure he might anticipate
was death. Perhaps that would be interesting. Perhaps death was a reward rather than a curse. He would have to die to know,
wouldn’t he?

His soldiers wanted to go home, but he realized that for them and for him, home was a theoretical place. They had been away
for so long and on so many campaigns that campfire tales in the open air of a strange land were more familiar, more like home,
than Rome. For what was Rome now but an idea they fought for? His idea, Pompey’s idea, Cicero’s idea, the senate’s idea. All
different, but in the end the same. A place where power might be changed into money, and the reverse. Did it matter so who
was in control as long as mouths were fed and pockets lined?

Caesar took a deep sigh, letting his shoulders relax, relieving the weight of his breastplate. He looked down at the murky
water. The boy king looked just like another drowned body; neither his lineage nor his title could protect him from the soggy
Fate. What an equalizer was death. Already fat, the water had bloated him further, his bulging eyes taken to caricature. So
unseemly for a royal to be dredged out of the river this way, scooped into a net like the day’s fresh catch, his glittering
armor catching the slanting rays of the sun as they hit the river. The king had perished along with some of his followers
who had optimistically tried to escape in a river vessel too small for their numbers. Where they intended to sail Caesar did
not know. Where did they think they might escape him? Escape Rome? He might have let the bodies remain at the river’s silted
bottom, but he wearied of the rumors spread by the
superstitious Alexandrians that whoever drowned in the river would inevitably rise again. No need for that to happen. And
no need for anyone to wish it to be so once Caesar left Egypt. He wanted Kleopatra to have as little difficulty as possible
once he was gone.

Was he dreaming that she had begun to behave exactly like his sweet Cornelia when she began to suspect that she was with child?
The secretive smiles, the complete obedience, the tender and unconscious stroking of the belly when she thought no one was
watching. The way she covered herself protectively with her arms. The downcast eyes. A perpetual look for docile Cornelia,
but he never dreamed he would see the same demeanor in Kleopatra. Each day when he returned to the palace, she was waiting
for him in the bedchamber. Yesterday, she had actually fallen at his feet, hugging his pelvis so close to her face that he
did not know whether she was ready to perform sexual favors or pray.

“The gods have spared you,” she had cried, and then she had looked up at him with tiny tears in the corner of her virid eyes.
So unlike her. The menacing intellect she had once used to gain equality with him was now hidden, and in its place was the
lush, enveloping softness of womanhood. He had no doubt the more caustic elements of her personality would again emerge once
she was on terra firma as queen and no longer required his services to ensure her authority. But it was nice, this radical
change that allowed him to enjoy her without challenge or effort.

Caesar stood over Ptolemy’s body. “Strip the armor and display it in the marketplace,” he said to Hirtius, who gave the command
to the men.

“And the king’s body, sir?”

“A respectable tomb, but without spectacle. Do I make myself clear?”

“Always, Caesar.”

Caesar took one last look into the dead boy’s eyes and turned away. An heir. What would he make of that? It would cause as
many problems as it would solve, bring as much sorrow as joy, he was sure, for that was the nature of life. But it would be
interesting. Perhaps there were a few surprises left after all.

Kleopatra watched the war from her own balcony like a spectator at a theatrical production. It was as if she had already read
the text of the
play, what with Caesar unfolding his plans to her at night, and then the next day enacting them to the letter. During those
times, she learned that Caesar was right; Fortune was on his side. It seemed true that if Caesar wished something, it inevitably
happened. It was as if he were dictating to the gods and not the opposite. Kleopatra thought that Alexander probably had possessed
the same gift-that is, until the end, when the gods decided to reclaim their mastery over the mortal man. At some point, they
would exact that toll from Caesar, but until then, it was clear that they kissed him with blessings. It was impossible to
learn the personal secrets of Alexander-how he had gained influence over both the divine and mortal worlds-but here was Julius
Caesar, in Kleopatra’s own bed, where she might observe his ways and learn how he managed to wield power over the gods themselves.

Ganymedes had had the palace entirely surrounded by land and by sea. His ships outnumbered Caesar’s navy, and to worsen the
siege, he had pumped salt water into the wells used by the Roman army. But Caesar did not get discouraged; in fact, to Kleopatra
he seemed nonplussed, mildly inconvenienced. He was certain that the Jewish forces would not let him down-they could not afford
to disappoint him again-and so he told Kleopatra that they would make the best of things in the interim. She knew that the
Roman army was only days from dying of thirst, and had told him so.

“No matter,” he had replied. “There’s always a way if men are willing to work. My men are bored anyway. They despise being
on this end of a siege. They find it rather embarrassing. They’ll relish the task.” She did not know what he had in mind,
until he urged her to look out her window. There, she watched Caesar’s men dig deep tunnels, working day and night, to reach
the drinkable wells near the shore. When she congratulated him on the discovery of the wells, he replied, “Roman ingenuity.”
He added, “A race of men who do not mind work,” as a slight against the Greeks, who were thought to have grown indolent in
the centuries since the great days of Pericles.

Finally, the Roman senate sent Caesar a small flotilla from Asia Minor. They had taken so long with naval reinforcements that
Kleopatra had begun to wonder if they wished Caesar victorious in Egypt, or if they had a covert agenda. She asked him about
the matter, and he replied that undoubtedly his enemies in Rome wished him van
quished. “But the wishes of my enemies are of no consequence to the Fate of Caesar,” he said.

He promised Kleopatra that the next day would prove eventful, and he did not disappoint. In a night-long meeting with his
admiral from Rhodes, to which he allowed Kleopatra attendance, she listened to them devise their plan. They would sail right
up to the Egyptian ships, engage them in battle, and quickly set them afire.

“After we defeat the fleet, we shall take Pharos Island,” he said.

“All on the same day?” she asked.

“Why waste time?”

The next day, it happened exactly as Caesar had said, giving more credence to Kleopatra’s theory about his relationship with
the gods. He burned most of the Egyptian fleet, including a merchant vessel carrying a large shipment of books to the Great
Library. “A mistake,” he said to her by way of apology. And she did not fault him, for he loved literature as much as she
and would never have done such a barbarous thing intentionally.

She felt a barrage of emotions as she watched ship by ship be overtaken and burned, great flames soaring into the blue Mediterranean
sky as if competing with the fire atop the towering lighthouse. These were her ships, her men, her navy. Only circumstance
had made them her enemy. Once reinstated, these same men would have to pledge loyalty to her. What did they care whether they
served one Ptolemy or another? These were the same men who would have faced her mercenary army at Pelusium, had Pompey not
been defeated by Caesar and fled to Egypt for quarter. Today they were her enemy; tomorrow they would have to be her defense.
It was an insecure position, and she did not know if after the war she should bring her own army into the city for extra protection,
or whether that would only increase hostility. She had a recent letter from Hephaestion saying that many of her mercenaries
had deserted because they received better offers from the Roman generals to go to Syria and fight the Parthians. He could
keep the rest paid and fed for another month, but no longer. What were her orders?