The Memoirs of Cleopatra (143 page)

Mardian floated in and out of my sight, hovering. Iras was always there, dabbing with a scented cloth. Then one day I saw Olympos. They had let him in. That meant I was sinking. I was thankful. He attempted to dress my wounds. I pushed him away, tore off the bandages. He tried holding my mouth open to pour soup down it, but I bit him. He let out a howl and jumped away, shaking his hand.

“For a dying woman, you have strong jaws,” he said.

Inwardly I laughed, but I would not respond outwardly. I turned my face to the wall.

Olympos sat down on the bed beside me. He gently brushed my hair away from my ear, where it was matted by sweat, and whispered, “Whether you want to hear or not, listen.”

I gave no sign that I heard him.

“Octavian has sent a message.” I could hear a rattling of paper by my ear. But still I did not move. “Mardian will read it to you.”

The creak of the bed told me he had gotten up.

“Madam,” said Mardian in his gentle voice, “it is imperative you listen.” When he got no response, he bent closer. “Octavian says that unless you cease harming yourself, he will execute your children. He knows you are trying to kill yourself, and he will put a stop to it. Die, and your children will die also.”

So they still lived. He had spared them—so far. Why? What was his purpose?

“Do you hear me?” Mardian asked insistently.

Slowly I nodded. Then I said, “I hear.”

There was no doubt that Octavian would carry out his threat. But why did he want me alive? Surely his much-vaunted “clemency” would not be stained because a stubborn woman had starved herself. I did not delude myself it was because he wanted to keep me on the throne. Alive…there was only one thing where it was essential that I be presented alive: his Triumph. He wanted to exhibit me. And he would not be balked of his prey.

But if there was something he wanted, even something as repulsive and degrading as that, then I still had something to bargain with. The treasure was gone, but my person remained. It was worth the chance to secure my children’s lives, if not their throne.

I submitted to the ministrations. I let Olympos spoon soup into my mouth, let him sponge my body with a cooling lotion that helped bring the fever down. My protests died away, but still I did not wish to respond to their fussing.

Eat this…drink this…a pillow? Your wishes, my lady?

My wishes were that somehow I might secure the survival of my children, then die and be entombed beside Antony. How to ensure this? My thoughts were racing, trying desperately to form a plan. But I was so tired, so depleted, so confused. I had tried so many plans, staked myself so many times, gambling on this action, or that…I did not know if I could do it even one last time.

But you must. Or all the rest will have been for nothing
.

I knew that, but I had little faith in my schemes now. I had concocted so many, and so few had come to fruition. Fate—it was fate, Tyche, Fortune, who held the outcome in her hand. Prevailing against her might not be in my destiny.

But you must try, must try….
I am so weary of trying.

Octavian. If you can only see Octavian, have an interview with him…you excel at interviews. Remember, a personal meeting has rarely failed you. He will be smug, satisfied with his victory, probably gloating. If you fall abjectly at his feet, he will swell with pride.

Or…what about Caesar? Can you not appeal to his love of Caesar? Take refuge behind Caesar’s shield? How can he dishonor you, whom Caesar honored? The letters…the Caesar letters
…They are still in my apartments…where Octavian is. How to get them?

Or should I pretend I expect to live and am concerned about my diplomatic relationships in Rome?

Oh, what tack to take? If only I knew him better! I cannot guess his thoughts, and yet I must guess correctly. I will have only this one chance.

I must recover, so I can face him as an equal. Let him think I have been neither crushed nor broken by this, but am still a formidable statesman with whom he must negotiate—or at least respect.

I need a few days to regain my strength.

“How long have I been ill?” I asked Olympos. My voice was much weaker than I realized; it was just a whisper.

He was instantly beside me. “This is the fifth day since the funeral,” he said.

Five days. I had dreamed away five days. Octavian had been in Alexandria for eight, then. Antony dead for eight. I shuddered, and Olympos drew a covering over my shoulder.

“Go to Octavian,” I said. “Or tell Dolabella to do so. Tell him I am recovering, but that I wish to have a box I left behind in the apartments, which I will let him inspect. And my papers—the ones in the workroom. I need them, too. Let him see them, so he knows it is no trick. But I need them.”

Mardian rustled over. “You don’t need papers! You mustn’t trouble yourself with—”

“I think it is a good sign she asks for them,” said Olympos dryly. “It means she is scheming again.”

I had not got that far; I was not sure I could scheme, or that I had the means at hand to do so. But the papers would help me decide.

“The ivory box with the lock,” I said. “And the papers—in the wooden container in the workroom, by the stool.”

“More soup first,” said Olympos firmly. “Here we have some delicious soup of goat’s milk and barley….”

It warmed my stomach, helped push the dizziness away. I struggled to sit up and see where I was. The quarters where we had been transferred…the sun was coming in, and that meant we were facing south. There were no bars on the windows; they were pretending we were not strict prisoners.

“Outside—who is stationed outside the door?” I asked.

“There’s that Epaphroditus in the outer chamber,” said Mardian, “and then, outside that, two or three guards.”

From the way he said “that Epaphroditus,” I could tell he did not like him.

The afternoon passed; I saw the slant of the light change as the sun moved across the windows.

I was still shivering and weak, as I discovered when I tried to sit up. My bones felt like jelly. It would take as many more days for me to recover as I had been ill.

Mardian ceremoniously brought in the two boxes, and placed them on a table. “He made no trouble about it,” he said. “Or so Epaphroditus claimed.”

Now I must look through them. But later. I had not the strength now.

“Draw the curtains,” I said. “Shut out the light. I must sleep.”

I dreamed, a deep, sweet dream of being on the seas, riding over the wave troughs, a western wind filling the sails. I knew it was a western wind, as one does in dreams, and that it was bringing me home, back to Egypt, with Rome at my back. Caesarion was with me, still a small child, holding my hand. I could taste the salt spray in my mouth, could feel the jolts as the ship rode the waves…exhilarating, fast….

“Madam!” An urgent voice filled my ear, a hand shook my shoulder. “Madam! It is Octavian!”

The words twined themselves around my dream, so somehow it was the ropes of the ship singing “Octavian, Octavian!” But the shaking continued, and I had the horror of hearing the words, loud now, no dream.

“The most glorious Imperator Caesar,” barked a stranger’s voice.

I opened my eyes to see him standing there, stiffly, staring at me from the door of the room. Octavian himself.

Although a cold recognition ran through me, it still seemed like a dream. The man himself, in the flesh, after a hundred statues, coins, imaginings.

And to have swooped down on me like this. He had won the day; I had not even the vestige of a plan of how to address him, had not looked at the papers, had not even stood up or dressed myself—

I was lying in a sweat-soaked sickbed, dirty, undressed, weak. He had all the advantages; I could not face him like this.

He was staring at me in frank distaste, colored by suspicion at what his eyes beheld. Finding some hidden store of strength in my legs, I left the bed and walked across the floor to him. Then weakness caused me to sink to my knees in front of him and grasp his feet. I shivered as I touched them; all this still seemed part of the fever-dream. I was too aware that I was wearing only a thin sleep-garment, that my hair was wild and matted.

“Up, up,” he said, in that voice that I would recognize anywhere. Flat, quiet, a deadly monotone.

In truth, I did not have the power to rise. I just huddled there, shaking.

“Up, up, I say.” An emotion at last: a hint of impatience, annoyance. He reached down and touched my shoulder, then offered his hand. It was dry, like a lizard. He drew me up.

“Imperator,” I said in so small a voice it was almost a whisper, “the day is yours. Hail, master—for heaven has granted you the mastery and taken it from me.”

He motioned to Epaphroditus—a burly, plain man, nothing like my Epaphroditus—to help me back to the bed. I did not argue; I was at a loss as to what to do. Then, to my horror, Octavian sat down on it beside me.

We looked at one another. I tried to concentrate on what I saw and forget what he was seeing. Strange how little he had changed, but how age puts a new stamp on our features. The triangular face, the wide-set eyes, the little ears, the prim mouth, all the same, but the expression in the eyes, the hard-set clamping of the mouth, had cast the old sweetness away and replaced it with an implacable wariness.
The Roman boy
, Antony had called him, but he was no boy, and had not a shred of youthfulness.

His gray-blue eyes, with that darker rim around them…they were looking directly into mine, no deference or shielding. This was a man who was not afraid to stare, where the boy had veiled his looks.

How hard you have grown
, I wanted to murmur.
And how old you have grown
, he would answer.

Now his eyes moved to my neck and farther down. He was inspecting the wounds on my upper body, as if to convince himself they were real. Satisfied, he took his eyes away and attempted a stiff smile.

“I trust the Queen is recovering?” he asked politely.

“Little by little, I mend.” It was hard to get the words out.

“You must take care of yourself,” he said. “Your health is important to us.”

I must think. This was my interview, whether I wanted it now or not. I must use it as best I could. “For that, I thank you,” I said.

He kept staring at me. Finally he said, “For years you have filled my vision. Wherever I looked, you blocked my way.” He shifted his weight a little. He was about to take his leave!

“Sir, may we speak in private?” I asked him. “May I send these attendants away?”

He looked startled. “The guards—” he said.

“Of course you must leave the guards at the door,” I said. “But the others?”

He gave a curt nod; with so small a motion may the master of the world dismiss all those around him. Charmian, Iras, Mardian, Olympos, and Epaphroditus all filed out.

Octavian and I faced one another, less than an arm’s length away.

I tried to smile. I knew my smile was a good spokesman. I lifted my chin as if I felt better than I did. I would have to forget about the dirty, transparent clothes, and my uncombed hair. I would have to make him forget them, too. “Sir,” I said, “what can I do but ask you to remember that night so long ago, when we first met at the home of Caesar? We were both dear to him, and it would grieve him if we continued to hate one another. Under his shadow we must reconcile.”

“I do not hate you,” he said, and in his cold voice I heard something worse than hate.

“You have ample reason to, and would be as godlike as Caesar himself if you did not.”

He grunted, and crossed his arms, as if to protect himself.

“But I ask you to consider, and respect the trust I was held in by the man whom you love and honor more than anyone who ever lived,” I said. “I wish you to read these letters, letters he wrote me in his own hand, so you can learn something of me from him, see me through his eyes.” I got up and took the box from the table, and handed it to him.

I was deeply thankful that I had retained some of the letters. Let them plead for me now!

Octavian unlatched the box and drew out a letter. Wordlessly, he read it. Very fast—too fast.

“Of what avail to me are these letters now?” I murmured, as if to Caesar himself, embodied in the letters. “Would that I had died before you. But in this young man, perhaps in some way you may still live for me.”

Octavian just grunted again, and took up another letter. His eyes skimmed it, and he folded it up.

Surely he would read them all, and more thoroughly!

“Very interesting,” is all he said. He closed the box. Now he shifted again, ready to take his leave.

I must think of something else to delay him, sway him.

“I regret my actions that have caused Rome grief,” I finally said. “We are not always free to choose our course of action.”

“On the contrary,” he said, “we are always responsible for what we do—and for what we cause others to do, leading them into error and treason.”

He meant Antony. He meant I had led him astray.

“Lord Antony and I were not always in agreement in everything,” I said. True enough. “Sometimes he pursued actions, and I was punished for them. I am well aware that Rome declared me, not Antony, the enemy. And yet, forget not, it was Caesar who placed me on my throne, Caesar who declared me an ally of the Roman people. He was wise, for I have been a devoted ruler of my country, and I have never been Rome’s enemy.” I paused. Was he listening? “Like you, I pursued the murderers of Caesar, and would not rest until they were punished.”