The Memoirs of Cleopatra (90 page)

“The very name of Babylon has a magic,” he said. “In truth, I never thought I might be the one to conquer it—the first westerner since Alexander himself. Fate is capricious, is she not? Why should she grant to me what she denied to Caesar?”

“You have answered your own question—because she is capricious. And deaf to entreaties and questions. And I sometimes think she enjoys offering her prizes to those who seem reluctant to seek them. Perhaps Caesar sought too hard.” I had given much thought to this. Did that mean one should never seek? It was confusing.

He propped himself up on one elbow. “When my father died in my eleventh year, he left me a tarnished name, an empty purse, and an unstable family. It was not a promising start. And now, thirty-five years later, I call a queen my wife and will lead the largest and finest Roman army of the age—perhaps of any age—into the east. Fate
has
been a strange partner to me all these years.”

“I have heard snatches of your scandalous youth, cavorting with Curio and his gang in Rome—again, not a promising start.”

“True. But I wearied of it—just about the time the debt collectors were breathing uncomfortably close to me. I managed to get far away—betook myself to Greece to study oratory. Speechmaking ran in my family, and it made a reasonable excuse for escaping Rome. On his way to Syria, the new governor, Gabinius, spotted me during some military exercises and persuaded me to come with him as commander of his cavalry.”

“The first of your good fortune,” I said. What if Gabinius had come to the exercise grounds on a different day?

“Yes,” Antony acknowledged. “And of course the second stroke of good fortune was leading the cavalry to Egypt when Gabinius agreed to restore your father to the throne. That led me to Alexandria, where I first saw you.”

It had seemed so unremarkable at the time—a pleasant young Roman who had been kindly tolerant of my father’s weakness. I had been grateful to him for that, and surprised that a Roman could be so likable, but it did not seem a fateful event. “Which did not seem anything out of the ordinary at the time, I am sure,” I said.

“Oh no, you are wrong!” he protested, sitting bolt upright. “I was very taken with you!”

I could not help laughing. It was a conventional thing for lovers to plead, but his memory was playing tricks on him. “You said that once before, but I cannot imagine why,” I said. At the time I had been barely fourteen years old, badly shaken by the dethronement of my father and the fine line I had had to walk to mollify my sisters and stay alive. I could recall the fear very vividly, even now. Too vividly.

“Because of the way you stood,” he said. “Anyone could see you were a princess.” When he saw my questioning look, he hurried on to explain himself. “That you could hold yourself like that after all you had endured, all the uncertainty, the loss of your father—it was very affecting. I knew you were no ordinary person.”

“So it was my posture that struck you!”

“It was what the posture
meant
.”

I had not even been aware of my posture, in my youthful focus on other things—my hair, my height, my skin. “You saw things in me that I did not,” I said. “I must thank you for those eyes.” I paused. “But Gabinius paid dearly for helping my father—he was sent back to Rome in disgrace. How did you escape that?”

“Luckily—that word again—I was so clearly just a subordinate, taking orders, that I could not be blamed for Gabinius’s defiance of the Senate. Still, I thought it best to give Rome a wide berth, and so I went to Gaul to serve as a legate to Caesar. And that was my third stroke of fortune, for all else followed from that. Caesar noticed me, gave me responsibilities, trusted me…and in the reckoning with Pompey, when I burst through Pompey’s sea blockade in the dead of night, risking all on that venture, I won Caesar’s heart as a gambler like himself. In the final battle I commanded the left wing of his army, fighting outnumbered. Caesar won the battle and I shared the victory.”

He had a mighty legacy. Truly, Fate had been leading him, step by step, toward something very large.

I, too, had been led past many dangers and reversals, to find myself here. Now, on the eve of the greatest leap of all, let not our guardian fates desert us.

“If I think on it too much, I tremble,” I had to admit.

“Then do not think on it, do not look down as you skirt the narrow ledge, lest you lose heart, lose balance, and fall,” he said.

“Yet if you lead an army, you must prepare,” I said. “I think—I think I would like to see those papers now, hear your plans.” Now, before I lost stomach for the details.

He groaned. “So you will force me to spread them out?” He rose to his feet, then held out his hands for mine. “I warn you, they are numbing in their sheer numbers!”

Yet from those numbers and charts our chances would be revealed. “It is early yet, and I am not tired,” I assured him.

Down the seemingly endless hallways—oh, how the Seleucids had liked vastness!—unheated, unlighted, he took me to the apartments where he kept all the war records and documents. A sleepy guard—scarcely more than a boy—jumped to attention and scurried to light a fire and additional lamps to banish the bone-chilling damp and dreariness.

Antony flung open a trunk and gathered up an armful of scrolls, then dumped them down on a large table. “The best maps we have,” he said. Two of them rolled off the table and lay at his feet. He spread out the biggest one on the table, securing it with a heavy oil lamp.

“There—that’s the entire region, from Syria to Parthia and beyond,” he said.

I was impressed with its detail. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

“I drew it myself,” he said. “I put together all the intelligence about the area. Look—”

He pointed out various features. “It just stretches east, and east,” he said. “We are used to the Tigris River marking the easternmost part of the world. To a Parthian, that is far west.”

“A world beyond the edge of ours,” I said. “I know the Parthians came from even farther east—some other desert region. They still fight like desert peoples, using horses and bows. If the Greeks are of the sea, and the Romans of the earth, then the Parthians come closest to being of the air.”

Antony grunted, leaning on his elbows and staring at the map. “Yes, their arrows whistle through the air, with their front and back archers using two different trajectories, so that our shields cannot guard against all of them. But in this war I will force them to fight using Roman methods. And I have trained slingers with lead pellets that carry farther than Parthian arrows and can pierce armor, to show them they do
not
control the air.”

Still, they were expert riders and had given the term “Parthian shot” to the world: When they appeared to be retreating, they would turn and shoot over their shoulders with deadly accuracy. And they had invented special bows shortened below the grip for use in the saddle, and a camel corps that carried unlimited replacement arrows. They fought exclusively with long-range weapons, never face-to-face.

“I plan to meet Canidius here”—he stabbed a finger down in Armenia—“and join our armies. Then we will march south, traversing the mountains and making for Phraaspa, where the national treasure is kept. We will attack the city and force them to fight for it in Roman fashion—after all, the city is not mobile and cannot ride away.” He laughed. “They will have to stand like men and defend themselves, not flee.” He seemed optimistic. “Since the countryside has little useful timber, I will be bringing my own battering rams and siege equipment.”

“You will transport them all that way? How arduous and time-consuming!”

“True, but without them I cannot force the cities to yield.”

“What were Caesar’s exact plans for the campaign?” I asked quietly.

“He also planned to attack from the north, avoiding the west, where Crassus met his doom. He also had sixteen legions, and wished to gain experience in Parthian methods of fighting before actually engaging in full battle with them; his men would get their practice in skirmishes along the way.”

“May I see the papers?”

He frowned, reluctant to bring them out. Why? Had Caesar different plans, ones that Antony had abandoned? Was he just using the magic name of Caesar to color his own strategy? “Very well,” he finally said, making his way over to a small locked casket on another table. He opened it and pulled out a sheaf of papers, not the neatly folded papers of a man who had had the opportunity to store them, but the papers of a man caught by death unawares and in mid-action—messy and jumbled.

“This is exactly as I found them,” he said, handing them to me. “I swear.”

I was half afraid to spread them out. I did not want my suspicions confirmed. I did not want to let the force of Caesar loose in the room.

But I did, smoothing them out and holding down their corners with more oil lamps. The familiar writing—but with new, unknown thoughts—rose up and hit me.

How cherished was the writing itself to me—the ink, the very letters. How miraculous that they would tell me something novel, contain a message from him that was brand new.

There were sketches, hasty maps, labels. From the paths traced out in the fading ink, I could see that it was as Antony had said: This was the route he had meant to take. Relief flooded me, as if that guaranteed success. I felt ashamed to have doubted Antony, so to have mistrusted his judgment should it have differed from Caesar’s.

I looked up to see Antony studying me intently. He had watched my expression as I read the notes, trying to penetrate my thoughts. I hoped they had not been transparent.

“You see?” he said defensively. “It is as I said.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “But I gather he planned to garrison Armenia, whereas you—”

“I told you I cannot spare the manpower! The Armenian king is our ally, and contributing—”

“Yes, yes, you did. I only meant—”

“Crassus took only eight legions. I must have adequate troops.”

“And it looks as though Caesar meant to take Ecbatana and thereby cut Babylon off from Parthia proper.”

“So shall I. But first Ecbatana must be reached, and before that Phraaspa must be taken.”

“Of course.” Carefully I folded up the papers. I hated to close them so soon, but they had told me what I wished to know, whispering of old memories and future conquests. “Here.” I handed them back.

He returned them to their place, like a priest before a shrine. Perhaps that was what he was. In Rome he served as a priest to the cult of Julius Caesar, but here on the borders of the Roman world he was serving in an infinitely more demanding capacity, as the heir of Caesar and the executor of his last wishes—and what could be a higher act of respect and worship than that?

Snapping the lid shut on the box, he said fiercely, “The Parthians knew of his plans, and rejoiced in his murder. They sent a small contingent to help the assassins in their last stand at Philippi. In doing so they have marked themselves for retribution. We cannot let that pass unpunished.”

“No. We cannot.” We must pursue them to the very heart of their stronghold, as relentlessly as Caesar himself, and in his name.

Outside I could hear the rain beating. In the dark night, in winter’s grip, it seemed impossible that warm weather would return, and that Antony would actually set out for Parthia. It was a long journey—over three hundred miles to the spot where he and Canidius would meet and review their troops, and another four hundred, through mountain passes and trails, to Phraaspa. Ecbatana, his target, lay another hundred and fifty to the south: a total that approached a thousand Roman miles, and over difficult terrain, infested with enemies. A land march of a thousand miles for a fully equipped army was a staggering undertaking. It would be a miracle if he reached Ecbatana by winter. The mountains were the sticking point in the plans—he could not cross them until winter was over, but that delayed the starting time a great deal.

“Everything takes so long!” I burst out.

He turned around and came back to the table. “Yes,” he said. “And it seems to have taken a long time already, because year after year I have had to postpone the campaign. I think that soured me on Octavian more than anything else—attending to his needs, rushing back to Italy at his beck and call, only to be kept waiting and ignored!” His voice grew angry, an unusual thing to hear. “He has put stumbling blocks in my way, done everything to keep me from this campaign!”

“Yes, and we know why,” I said. “Because he would not have you attain the position that fate has reserved for you. Thanks be to Isis that your eyes have finally seen his maneuvering! Now let Sextus sink him in their next sea battle. When you return from Parthia, may you find nothing left of Octavian but an empty ship lying in shallow waters, its mast gone, its hull smashed.”

He began rolling up the maps. “Have you seen what you wished?” he asked politely.

“Yes.” I had seen the magnitude of the task that lay before him. “I will come with you, at least to Armenia,” I said. “Perhaps farther.”

He looked startled. “You are welcome, of course, but—”

“After all, am I not supporting the campaign with Egyptian money?” I had invested three hundred talents, enough to support six legions for a year. Antony had had difficulty raising funds in the east, which was wrung dry by Cassius and then the Parthians. Our allies had little left to give. “I will not distract you.” I could not resist teasing him.

“I would insist that you turn back before we cross the mountains,” he said. “One of us must survive the war.”

I put my arms around his waist and rested my head on his chest. I thought of the Ninety-nine Soldiers. “Yes, I know.”

“Before we set out,” he said, “please send for our children. I wish to see them, in case—in case—”

In case I am one of the Ninety-nine, and not the Hundredth
.

“Yes. Of course.”

I wondered if Octavian was even now saying to Livia that the Parthians would take care of Antony for him—just as I had said Sextus would take care of Octavian for us.

Surrounded by a hundred shades of green—the deep mourning-green of cypresses, the exuberant bright green of spring meadow grass, the silvery green of old olive leaves, and far away on the flat plain, the many hues of just-sown crops, and beyond even that, the dancing blue-green of shallow waters in the Gulf of Alexandretta—I felt as though I were in a painting on the wall of a Roman villa. Behind us, Mount Silpius was thrusting up into the sky, and we stretched out on its flanks, eating our picnic in the warm sunshine.

From where I lay I could hear the soft clanking sound of goat-bells from herds higher up on the mountain, and fancied they were those of Pan himself, and that if I strained my ears harder I could hear his pipes.

“Here.” Antony leaned over and placed a crown of wildflowers on my head. Their delicate leaves and petals felt cool on my forehead, and the soft smell of the violets and marigolds was lulling. Idly I pulled it off my head and looked at the bands of intertwined flowers.

“What is this?” I asked, seeing an unfamiliar pinkish flower with twisted, curly leaves.

“A wild orchid,” he said.

I was amazed that he would know.

“I have spent a great many days in the field,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts. “Sometimes I have had to survive on what I found there.” He motioned to the children, romping farther down the hill, holding up two smaller crowns for them.

“Crowns for my wife, crowns for my children—crowns for all those with royal blood.” He laughed, seeming not to mind excluding himself.

“You will earn yours,” I assured him. “When you conquer Parthia—”

“No talk of that,” he said quickly. “I would not think of anything today but the blue skies and the racing clouds. And spring on the hillside with you, and them.”

Alexander and Selene came stumbling over the stones that studded the mountainside. They were three and a half years old now, as eager to play in the open air as any colt or kid.

“For you, Your Majesty,” Antony said solemnly, placing the coronet on Alexander’s head, where it was all but lost in his thick curls. “And you.” He had one for Selene, this one with more poppies. She accepted regally.

“Well done,” he said. “You see, that queenly gesture comes from you,” he said to me. “It’s inherited, not learned.”

I put my arms around their shoulders. Antony seemed inordinately proud of them, as if they were the only children he had ever had. Seeing them together, the resemblance between Alexander and him was quite marked—Alexander had the same husky frame and wide face—but the true similarity was in their rambling, exuberant personalities. Alexander never brooded, or minded taking a tumble.

Selene was a bit of a mystery, as befitted a child named for the moon. She was not really like either of us, and with her pale coloring she looked as though she came from far to the north. She was quiet, but unusually self-possessed, and seldom cried or betrayed her feelings, either of joy or sorrow.

As promised, I had sent for them, and they had been with us for almost a month now. Mardian had accompanied them, wishing to confer with me about matters of state, as well as to ascertain my plans for the next few months. He had found Antioch and Antiochenes quite congenial to his tastes, enjoying their frivolity and overlooking their renowned tendency toward luxury and quarrelsomeness.

“Alexandrians can be described the same way,” he had said.

“Antiochenes are less intellectual than Alexandrians,” I had said, defending my city.

“When a mob forms in Alexandria, it is not particularly intellectual,” he said. “You know how volatile they are.”

“Well, here in Antioch they are too lazy to get up out of their scented baths to
form
a mob,” I said.

“Good,” said Mardian. “That makes the streets safer.”

Alexander and Selene had betrayed great curiosity about their father. Until now, they had assumed that he was dead, like Caesarion’s father. In fact, it seemed the normal state for a father, to have retired to the heavens. Now that he was with them, they kept staring at him and saying, “Are you
truly
our father? Will you stay?”

“Yes,” Antony had said the first time, hugging them both at the same time. “And yes, I will stay, although I will be gone from time to time. But I will always come back.”

Now he lay back down on the blanket covering the rough ground, and closed his eyes. “I will give you a hundred counts to hide,” he said. “And if I cannot find you in another hundred counts, you may name a prize for yourself.” He opened one eye and stared at them. “Ready?”

With a squeal, they scampered off. “One—two—” When he got up to ten, he stopped. “That should busy them for a while,” he said, sitting up and kissing me.

“You are cheating,” I said. “Those poor children—”

“They will welcome a few extra minutes to hide,” he assured me.

Behind us the tinkle of the goat-bells grew louder, and the olive trees shading us rustled in the soft breeze. I had never been so content. Just as the vista of Antioch and the plain spread out below me as far as I could see in all directions, so the future lay, fair and promising. I loved, I was loved; I was surrounded by my children; my country was prosperous, and the ugly past, fraught with dangers and defeats, was receding like a distant shore. Antony and I saw eye-to-eye in everything; now that he had cast off Octavian, our aims had truly become one. The joy of it was dizzying.

It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.

So those days in Antioch with Antony. The world lay before him, waiting for his invading footstep. Anticipation quickened every day, but reality still was far enough off to float on the mist of possibilities, seductive and soothing, just out of reach.

We danced in a haze of joy like two butterflies, flying from one hedge to another, caught up in a divine drunkenness of the spirit. I was young, sometimes feeling younger even than the children; I was entirely adult, believing myself endowed with mature wisdom, having no trouble making even the most difficult decisions—all answers seemed given to me.
Everything
seemed given to me. If I forgot to thank you, Isis—forgive me. I do so now, belatedly.

Mardian was leaving, taking the children back to Alexandria with him.

“Duty calls,” he said pointedly.

“I will return by summer,” I promised him. “If I did not have such trustworthy ministers, I could not be away so long.”

“Oh, so I am to blame for your absence?” he said. “Am I to be punished for being competent?”

I laughed. “Most ministers would not consider being left in charge to be punishment,” I reminded him.

“Perhaps most ministers do not like the kings and generals they serve,” he said. “We must be the exception. Well, do not linger too long. How do you plan to return? When shall I send a ship?”

I had been thinking of that. A brilliant idea had come to me. All my ideas during those weeks seemed brilliant. “I won’t need a ship,” I said. “I plan to accompany Antony as far as Armenia, and that leaves me a long way from the sea. So I have decided to retrace my steps and journey through Judaea. I will pay Herod a diplomatic visit.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re a trusting soul,” he said. “Putting yourself in his hands! He has little cause to protect you, and much cause to see that an ‘accident’ befalls you.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” I said. I knew Herod and I were antagonists now, since I had asked for—and been granted—large portions of his kingdom. He was said to be boiling about the loss of the lucrative date palm and balsam groves in Jericho, and his seaports as far south as Gaza.

“I repeat, you
are
a trusting soul,” said Mardian. “There is no limit to what someone will dare when he sees his country’s existence threatened.”

Now those words return to me; someone continually pours them into Octavian’s ear about me.

“It is in my interest to placate him, then,” I said.

“Unless you plan to restore his property to him, I fail to see what you can offer.”

“My friendship rather than my enmity.”

“It is his place to offer that. Naturally,
you
would want to offer friendship, since you are the gainer; it is up to the loser to put aside enmity, and you cannot force that.”

“True,” I said. “But no harm can come of meeting with him.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Mardian.

It was hard for me to tell whether he was entirely serious. He raised one of his eyebrows and stretched, breaking the tension.

“You have not shown me Daphne yet, and how can I return to Alexandria without seeing the famous laurel tree? Olympos will be disappointed.”

Yes, Olympos had an academic interest in the sites where supernatural transformations had taken place. He had visited the weeping rock that had once been Niobe, had inspected an oak tree said to contain a nymph, and had dissected sunflowers to see if their stems were different from those of regular flowers, since they were supposed to originate from a maiden named Clytie who was hopelessly in love with Apollo. Seeing no difference, he published a paper refuting the story.

“As if anyone had believed it anyway,” Mardian said. “Why does he waste his time like that?”

Now I agreed that Mardian and I must inspect one of the most famous “transformation” trees, the one where Daphne had taken root and sprouted leaves to escape the predations of Apollo.

“Apollo seems to have an adverse effect on women,” I said. “Clytie had to turn into a sunflower to put an end to her unrequited love, and Daphne decided she would rather be a tree than yield to his embraces. How sad they could not change places!”

“That’s how legends are,” said Mardian. “Everyone wants what he cannot have, and gets punished. But tell me—if Apollo was so attractive, why did that nymph run away? I ask you, as a woman, to explain it.”

“Perhaps she ran away from him because he
was
so attractive,” I said.

“That makes no sense,” argued Mardian.

It did not, but I knew it happened. After all, I had resisted meeting with Antony.

“Sometimes we run away just to thwart fate,” I finally said. “Come, let us go out to Daphne.”

We clattered along in our carriage, leaving the palace island, passing the old agora, and then traveling the wide paved street toward the elaborate fountain built over the original sweet springs of Antioch. Crowds of people were gathered idly around it, dressed in outlandish garb. They waved at us and shouted in high-pitched voices. A peculiar oily smell drifted toward us.

“Faster!” Mardian ordered the driver. “That smell—how can they call it perfume?” He held his nose.

“I think it is many perfumes fighting,” I said.

“Well, it makes a stink!” Mardian looked disdainful. “And did you see the makeup? As garish as a mummy-carton! On both sexes!”

“Mardian, I do believe you are turning into a prude,” I said. “Who would ever have expected it of an Alexandrian eunuch?”

“Don’t tell me you
like
these people!” His initial enthusiasm for the Antiochenes had waned.

“I have no prejudices against any particular people. I take them as individuals, you should know that.” I would have to, if Antony and I were to rule over many lands and peoples. But I had always felt that way.

“This city seems to have adopted all the bad fashions of Alexandria.”

“And much of the good,” I insisted. “It is the third city in the world now, after Alexandria and Rome. If it does not quite measure up to them—that is why it is third. But there is much to like here.” Could the place where I had married ever be less than dear to me?

Soon we passed the famous Antioch statue, the goddess of Fortune wearing city walls for her crown, resting on Mount Silpius, the Orontes River swimming beneath her feet. How placid, how uninvolved Fortune looked, as she blandly oversaw men’s fates. Her indifference was chilling.

Some little distance from the city lay the sacred precinct of Daphne, where Seleucus I had been commanded by Apollo to plant an extensive grove of cypresses. They surrounded the ancient laurel tree; and of course there was the inevitable Temple of Apollo nestled nearby.

We alighted from the carriage and followed a path through the shadowy grove. The long fingers of the cypresses, like a hall of columns, made us feel we were passing through a natural temple.

The laurel, twisted and thick, lay in the very center of the grove. It stood with a forsaken dignity, as if long-suffering. It had long ago lost its slender form, becoming gnarled with age, and any nymph residing within was imprisoned in an ugly citadel—a sad fate for something once lovely and young. She had paid a high price for resisting Apollo.

Mardian ran his fingers over the rough bark. “Are you in there, Daphne?” he called lightly.