The Memoirs of Cleopatra (79 page)

I backed away from it. Why had I not even thought of any counterarguments before starting to down it? It was as if my mind were paralyzed, dumbly obedient to Olympos’s suggestions—all rational, all persuasive.

Except…they ignored the main fact. Regardless of anything else—Antony’s other children, Fulvia, Rome, Octavian, Caesar, bastardy, ridicule—the gods, and Isis, the great mother-goddess, had given me a child. I was its mother, and all the other facts were unimportant beside that one great fact. As Caesarion had brought me joy, so would this one. What happened to their fathers was almost beside the point, or rather, it was a completely different point. One could not cancel out the other.

I fell weeping on the bed, afraid of how near I had come to making what would have been the one mistake—the only mistake—in all this. And it could never have been undone, Olympos’s words notwithstanding.

Perhaps it was Isis herself who had come to me.

I jerked off the covering cloths and lay down on the bed. My hands were warm again, and I fell asleep, with deep relief.

I awoke to find Olympos bending over me. He was pointing to the gathered cloth, and stuffed it into his basket. He touched me tenderly and proudly. Then he saw the full bottle on the table. His face changed.

“I see you didn’t go through with it,” he said sadly.

“I couldn’t,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to.”

“You shouldn’t have been afraid. I told you—”

“I wasn’t afraid,” I assured him. “But you see—as hard as it is to explain—I love this child—even though I don’t yet know its face or name.”

He shook his head. “You are right. You are not able to explain it. Not coherently, anyway.” Defeated, he took up the bottle, the basket, and disappeared. It was not yet dawn, and by the time Iras came in and said cheerily, “Good morning!” the whole night seemed a dream.

Perhaps it had been Caesar who had come to me, saying,
Don’t protect me at your own cost. I won’t allow it
. Or perhaps it was the child itself, calling out to me. Or perhaps it was simply my own good sense. I would never know.

I just lay in bed, feeling weak. Iras was chattering away, talking about the weather and whether it would be warm enough to eat outside on the terrace.

“Iras,” I finally said, “I am still tired. I think I will rest a bit longer.” I pulled the covers up over my head, shutting out the light.

Days passed. I had no desire to call Olympos back or send for his potion; instead, I felt a great sense of deliverance. I kept imagining how I would have felt, had I taken it.
Tomorrow night all this will be only a memory. It will be past
. I was thankful that what I still had was not a memory, but something still in my future, coming toward me.

There were bits and pieces of news. Antony had reached Tyre. From there he sailed on to Rhodes, then to Ephesus—the Parthians had been stopped east of that. Everything else they held, including Tarsus, so lately Antony’s playground. I wondered what had happened to the new gymnasion there, the proud symbol of Greek life. Such odd concerns come to us in the midst of larger ones.

From Ephesus, Antony had sailed on to Athens, where he planned to gather the legions from Macedonia. But they were engaged in fighting off attacks to the north, and so he knew he would have to call on his legions stationed in faraway Gaul, and bring them east. That would take months.

Waiting for Antony in Athens were his general Munatius Plancus, and his other general, his wife Fulvia. I tried to picture the reunion, and failed—probably because I did not wish to see it in my mind. But a long letter arrived from one of Mardian’s informants, and he hurried in to show it to me.

“Here, here’s news from Athens,” he said, thrusting it out at me. “You can trust the writer; he was one of my fellow students here at the palace school, and quite a storyteller.”

I took the letter, half reluctantly, and read it. Now that it was here, did I wish to know?

“My most esteemed Mardian, greetings—” and so on; I skipped the personal items.

I put the letter down for a moment. “But it is Octavian who is the cause of his troubles!” I said aloud. Mardian merely raised his eyebrows.

I felt my face growing tight, realizing how I furnished a topic of conversation to while away the hours of bored people. A Club of Excess!

I lowered the paper. That was all there was concerning Antony; the rest was all personal and local.

“Thank you,” I told Mardian. “This is much more informative than official correspondence.” I paused. “So I have caused a scandal?”

“You always do,” he said shyly, shrugging. “Even in the days of the Egyptian Club, remember? That time we ran away…” He laughed. “Scandals are just the earmark of an extraordinary person. What you do is unexpected, and noteworthy.”

“That is a flattering way of putting it, but I shall not argue.” And wait until the next item became apparent, I thought. More for the Athenians to talk about next winter.

But after he left, gloom settled on me. Antony’s situation was grim. How many legions lost? His own eastern territory had been seized, and now he was being shut out of the west by the machinations of Octavian.

Egypt should also prepare, in case the Parthians turned their eyes in our direction. Thanks to the recent good harvest, we had the resources to arm ourselves, and my new navy was almost ready. Certainly we would put up a strong resistance; we would not be easily overcome.

Outside, the sun was sparkling on the water. High summer was here, the time when things happened in the world. Ships sailed, armies marched, messengers galloped where they would. And events gathered force like a coming storm.

At long last a letter came from Antony himself. It had been sent from Athens, before he departed, and so the news in it was old. Where was he now? What had happened since?

I shook my head. He was so stubborn. Even with Octavian taking his legions away, he refused to think ill of him. Or rather, refused to act on what he must sense.

I could almost feel them. Smiling, I put the letter into a strongbox for private correspondence. I noted that he had not mentioned Fulvia.

Several weeks passed, with no further news—at least from the outside world. I had taken to swathing myself in voluminous gowns of layers of the lightest silk, proclaiming it a new fashion. I took care to order the gowns and begin wearing them very early, when there was as yet nothing to excite attention. Thus I hoped to keep my condition a secret as long as possible. I made Charmian and Iras wear similar gowns, and soon everyone at court was imitating us. The palace was filled with fluttering human butterflies, long, swirling clouds of color against the white marble. I must say, it was one of the loveliest seasons we had ever had.

Mardian had even let himself try an adaptation of the fashion, using lighter colors and a looser fit in his clothes than usual, and pronounced them very comfortable. As his girth was steadily increasing, this did not surprise me. Tight belts and fitted shoulders must have been torture to him, yet as my head minister he had to dress formally much of the time. Thus he benefited from my condition.

One hot day he came padding into my quarters, his eyes excited. I noted that he had a new type of sandal to go with his clothes—they had a special strap circling the big toe, and another for the rest of the toes. Around the soles, gilded lotuses were painted directly on the leather.

He was waving a letter. “This has just arrived!” he said.

I took it. “It must be good news, from the look on your face,” I said. “Pray, pour yourself some of this cool juice; it is a mixture of cherries and tamarind, and quite good.” I indicated the pitcher on my table, surrounded with goblets.

He did so, sipping a sample, then refilling his goblet. “Most refreshing,” he agreed, nodding. He seated himself expectantly, arranging his gown precisely.

The letter was from the Egyptian envoy at Apollonia, on the west coast of Greece, where the great main road, the Via Egnatia, began. Situated on a narrow strait of the Adriatric, directly across from Italy, it was an excellent listening post for both Greece and Italy.

I stopped reading and tried to picture it. The ships on the sea, making toward one another, with those on land watching…the warships turning aside only at the last minute, and Antony doubtless standing on the deck, unflinching.

“How very like him,” I said.

“What?” asked Mardian.

“That statement about preferring to die by breach of faith—someone else’s breach, that is, not his. Never his.” It was both his glory and his folly. Someday it would be his undoing. In that he was like Caesar, only with this difference: Caesar never had any belief in other people’s good faith, but only in his own. “And so we are left watching him, still on his way to Italy,” I said to Mardian. “The tale is still to tell!” I felt the waiting was killing me.