The Memoirs of Cleopatra (86 page)

“Are they official ambassadors, or private citizens?” I asked.

“Citizens,” said Mardian. “They say they were sent to take a reading, and if the answer is favorable, ambassadors will follow with a formal offer.”

“Parthia!” I said. “How puzzling! Do you think they have come to spy, because they mean to attack us next?” They were too far away to bother with alliances, I thought, but not too far away to harbor ideas of conquest.

“No, I think they are on the defensive against the expected Roman attack, and are scratching around for help. Perhaps they see it as black and white: Rome, the west, against the east. Many people do. Are they wrong?”

“Perhaps not.” Perhaps it was really that simple. Romans, the west, would keep expanding eastward until they dashed themselves against some stone—the Parthians? the Indians? How far would they roll, like ocean breakers, until they finally hit a barrier?

“Do you want to grant them an audience? Or shall I send them on their way?” he asked.

I was tempted. In certain moments I had toyed with the idea of an eastern alliance. The Kandake had offered one. It had an allure to it. We could band together with Nubia, with Arabia, with Parthia, Media, perhaps even Hindu Kush, and make a stand against the Romans.

But in the cold light of reason, it did not hold up. Egypt was too far west herself, cut off from those other lands by a ring of Roman provinces: by Syria, Asia, Pontus, and all the half-digested client kingdoms, like Judaea and Armenia. We were isolated, forced to deal directly with the Romans, make accommodation with them.

“Send them on their way,” I said. “Hear their proposals first. Ascertain their chances against the Romans. Find out their military situation.
Then
send them back to Phraaspa or Ecbatana or Susa or whichever city they came from.”

“Ecbatana, I believe.” He adjusted his left armlet. “This is the wisest course. Keep aloof. Make no alliances. Make no promises.”

“How easily you seem to have forgotten,” I said. “We are already in an alliance. We are Friend and Ally of the Roman People.”

He shrugged, as if it were of no moment.

“I keep my word,” I said. “If it is to be broken, it must be broken by the other side.” It was a point of honor with me—quaint, perhaps foolish, but it was my own personal code. Why, then, did I deride Antony for his loyalty to the Triumvirate?

Because, I answered myself, you cannot keep faith with a faithless person, and Octavian is faithless. Except to his own ambition.

When Octavian had first returned to Rome, he had declared his intentions openly: “May I succeed in attaining the honors and position of my father, to which I am entitled.” People laughed, or ignored it. How blind!

Yes, I would keep my alliance with Rome, but with both eyes open. And it was really an alliance with Caesar and with Antony with which I kept faith.

“Tell your tale.” Mardian prodded the men forward. He had brought them into my audience hall, where they cowered in a group.

Hesitantly they inched toward me.

“Come, come, closer. Do not be afraid,” Mardian urged them.

“Now, what is it you wish to tell me?” I asked.

“We—your dockmaster said you would wish to be informed personally,” one man said.

“About what?”

“I am—I was—captain of one of the grain transports. We carry a thousand tons of wheat to Rome this time of year. We were attacked just outside Sicily—despoiled of not only our cargo, but our ship as well! I must tell you, such an act of piracy, upon such a huge ship, is unprecedented! Sextus rules the sea. Nothing is safe between here and Rome.”

“Your ship is gone?”

“Yes, taken from me. There was nothing I could do to prevent it.”

“Did you not have soldiers aboard?”

“Yes, a few, but grain transports cannot provide quarters for many men.” He sighed. “All that investment—my family’s entire estate—gone.”

“I will repay you,” I assured him. “But give me more information. From what you say, Rome will be starved out.”

“It looks likely. When Sextus—for I beheld him face-to-face—let me free, he told me that Octavian had sent for help from Antony. ‘But there’s no help against me. I smashed him once and I’ll smash him again, no matter how many ships he gets from Antony. The noose will tighten around his neck until he’ll beg for mercy.’ That’s what he said, Your Majesty. The very words.”

“He has sent for help to Antony?”

“So Sextus said. He laughed about it, saying that it would harm both of them. Antony would have to postpone his attack on Parthia, and Octavian would only reveal his weakness, making the Romans more discontented with him.”

“It is hard to see what Sextus wants—other than to spoil the fortunes of others.” He seemed to have no greater goal or calling. What a sad destiny for the last son of Pompey the Great.

“We were able to beg transport home on another merchant vessel, in exchange for seamen’s duties,” said another man. “And the captain of this ship told us that Agrippa has taken charge of the war against Sextus, and is engaged in secret preparations. He did not know anything about them, beyond the fact that they involved some vast engineering feat.”

Agrippa—Octavian’s boyhood friend, now his favorite general. I wondered what “secret” measures he could be invoking against Sextus.

“Well,” I finally said, “I grieve with you for your losses, and will try to make them good. We are not at war, and there is no reason why you should suffer the pains of war.”

After they left, I could not keep a small smile off my face. Octavian was floundering; he had been forced to call upon Antony for help.

It took several months for all the pieces of the mosaic to fall into place. Here I arrange them to form the picture of what happened next. A short sketch will suffice.

Antony, obedient to the call, set out for Tarentum, whence Octavian had summoned him in a panic. He brought three hundred ships. To his surprise, Octavian did not meet him. It seems the would-be Caesar had had second thoughts, echoing the first ones of Sextus: namely, that to call for outside help revealed his own weakness. He preferred to bank on Agrippa and his secret plans; he did not wish to share any glory with Antony.

Antony, furious with Octavian, was ready to break with him at last, but in the end Octavia acted as a mediator between them. She wept and cajoled, saying she would be the most miserable of women, should there be a falling-out between the two people dearest to her: her brother and her husband. The two men met reluctantly, and yet another treaty was forged: the Treaty of Tarentum. It renewed the Triumvirate—which had technically expired—for another five years. Antony was to yield two squadrons—one hundred twenty ships—for the war against Sextus. At some vague later date, Octavian would repay him with twenty thousand men for the war against the Parthians. Antony sailed away, leaving the ships behind, but with no promised soldiers. The rendezvous with Octavian had eaten up the better part of the summer, costing him another year’s setback in launching the Parthian attack. Thus this treaty, like all the others with Octavian, lessened Antony’s power. He took his leave, fuming.

It was very late. I was reading well past my usual time to sleep. I lay on my couch, a bolster under my head, my feet covered with a light blanket. The lamps guttered in the breeze coming through the window, beginning to gather force for the coming autumn. It was a night for ghosts, a night when the sea below seemed to moan and whisper.

At first I was not sure I heard a knock. It was too late for a knock. But it sounded again. I rose and said, “Enter.”

Mardian stepped in, his bulk draped in a shawl. “Forgive me,” he said. “But I thought you would want to hear this news immediately. Antony has sent Octavia back to Rome. On his voyage back east, he got as far as the island of Corcyra, when he suddenly said she belonged back in Rome. And he sent her packing on the next ship.”

“He must have had some colorable reason,” I said.

“Well, she is pregnant,” said Mardian. “But he knew that before he set sail with her. He could have left her in Italy to begin with. Evidently he changed his mind on the voyage.” He stood there looking at me for what seemed a very long time, his eyes holding mine. “You know he will send for you. What will you do?”

Had I been less than honest to myself and to Mardian, I would have given a proud, noncommittal answer. Instead I just told the truth. “I don’t know.”

I had no illusions about what would happen if I saw him. I did not even bother to deny it to myself. I was very weak where he was concerned—weak as regards my person, not my country’s interests.

Still, Mardian did not turn his gaze away.

I asked, “Do you hate him, as Olympos does?”

“Not if you love him. Do you?”

“I—I
did
love him. But much has happened to us since those days. I fear neither of us is what we were then—we are scarred, both of us, and older. He has made decisions that I deplore; doubtless I have done likewise. What changes people, changes love.”

Mardian rocked on his heels a bit. “A properly Alexandrian answer—convoluted, artificial, clever.”

“I am afraid to say either yes or no, for either of them would be unwelcome to me,” I said.

“Then I leave you, dearest Queen, to your own thoughts for the rest of the night.” Bowing, he opened the doors and glided away, moving very gracefully.

My thoughts for the rest of the night! I did not look forward to having hours alone to dwell on Mardian’s news. I knew that any hope of sleep was gone, yet I really did not wish to substitute soul-searching for it.

I made ready for bed, as if I expected it to be a normal night, hoping to trick Morpheus, the god of sleep, luring him to my bed. I would attire myself in the sheerest night dress, rub my temples with oil of lily, which had both a beguiling and soporific odor—beguiling for Morpheus, soporific for me. I brushed my hair, pretending that I was Iras—whom I would not call, as I did not wish to talk—feeling it and touching it as a foreign thing. I made sure that fresh air was blowing into the chamber, and kept one oil lamp burning. Then I lay down, and waited.

I stretched my feet out, covering my legs with a light blanket, forbidding myself to think on any one thing in particular. I would force myself to picture the harbor, count the masts of the ships tied up there. That was usually effective.

But tonight, of course, the thought of ships made me think of Antony sending Octavia back on a ship. She must even now be only halfway back to Rome; I knew of her dismissal before Octavian would. But what did it mean, really? If Antony was preparing for his Parthian war, perhaps he reasoned that since he would be away for months, it was best for her to return to Rome to be with their passel of children and stepchildren—Antony’s three and Octavia’s three, plus their own. In fact, she might well have been the one to say she preferred to return to their children, even if he asked her to wait in Athens.

I sighed and turned over. My feet tangled in the blanket and I threw it off. What was it that Mardian had said?
He suddenly said she belonged back in Rome. And he sent her pocking on the next ship
. But doubtless that was his interpretation. There could be perfectly respectable reasons why Octavia had left his side. Although she never had in the three years they had been together…. Antony had got away—why did I insist on using that term?—only once, when he besieged Samasota with Bassus. The rest of the time they had been tethered to each other’s company.