Hand of Isis (12 page)

Iras and I looked at each other. I opened my mouth and then shut it.

“I need you to stand behind me,” Cleopatra said, her back to us. Her voice sounded odd. “If you can’t do that, I need you to leave.”

“I’m with you,” I said. “You know that I am.”

Iras nodded. “I’ll do what you need me to do,” she said.

I took a step toward her. “You know we would never leave you.”

She nodded. One piece of hair had fallen from her pins. “It can’t be worse than a bitter draft, can it?”

“And maybe sweet can come after,” I said. “After this, you could pick your lovers as you wished.”

“I doubt I can ever do that,” she said.

F
OUR NIGHTS LATER
, Pharaoh entertained privately in one of his small dining rooms, three couches, one for Cleopatra, one for him, and one for Gnaeus Pompeius. When the evening was over, she came back to her bedroom.

“Brush out my hair, Iras,” she said. “And bring me a silk robe. The pale pink one.”

Iras went to find it, and I knelt beside her, pressing her hand to my lips.

“Does it hurt?” she whispered.

“Not so badly,” I said. “It’s better if you’re wet first.”

She nodded.

“I liked it,” I said. “After a while. But Lucan was gentle.”

She nodded again, looking over the cosmetics arrayed on her table. “Take that oil there,” she said, “and put it where it needs to be. Quickly, before Iras gets back. It will upset her.”

I took the glass bottle and poured some out, still kneeling. She lifted her chiton and spread her legs while I warmed the oil in my hands, attar of roses, the oil we had used to anoint the goddess’ image back in Bubastis. “Like a goddess,” I whispered.

She gave me a tiny smile.

I worked the oil into her nether lips, sliding one slick finger just inside, making sure it was where it needed to be. She did not resist my fingers at all. I felt the soft skin there flush in my hands.

“It will be better if you can touch yourself some,” I said. “When he’s with you.” I didn’t look at her face.

We had never talked of such things directly, Iras, Cleopatra, and I. But we had shared a room long enough to know the sounds in the night that come when one thinks one’s sisters are asleep.

She nodded, straightening her chiton as I sat back on my heels. I slid the stopper into the bottle.

Iras came in, holding the robe. “It’s one of your best,” she said.

“I know.”

There was a knock at the door. I went to it, and called to the guardsman outside. “Who is it?”

“Gnaeus Pompeius seeks entry, Lady.”

Cleopatra stood up, the robe falling in graceful folds around her. “Please let him in. Then you may go.”

I
n the morning, I waited until I heard movement in her chamber before I went in. Cleopatra was awake and standing beside the window, draping her pink robe about her. She put her finger to her lips.

Gnaeus Pompeius was sprawled across her bed, sleeping. He was completely naked, except for one of the bedsheets tangled around his feet. It had a bloody stain, no more than a few drops.

She tiptoed across the room to me, and did not speak until we were outside and the door was closed behind us. “Leave him be. Let’s go to the palace baths. There won’t likely be anyone there this early.”

I wondered why, when she had her own bath right here that she usually preferred, but then if Gnaeus woke up he might decide to bathe too.

We went to the palace baths, which were indeed empty except for one old slave who was putting clean cloths out. She got in the warm bath, and I settled to washing her hair. Cleopatra leaned her head back onto the rolled cloths at the edge of the pool. As my fingers worked the lotions through her hair, I saw her face begin to relax, the tight lines around her mouth fading away.

I did not ask how it had gone.

After a while she sighed. “It was not as bad as it could have been,” she said. “I suppose it could have been much worse. Now comes the hard part.”

I raised my eyebrows. “The hard part?”

“I have to keep him interested until he forgets about the money. For as long as it takes, I must play the lover.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Until we can pay Pompeius his debt, or until something happens.” Cleopatra closed her eyes. “Sooner or later, something will.”

A
ND SO
we bought a little time. Gnaeus Pompeius made himself comfortable as the honored guest of Pharaoh Ptolemy Auletes, dicing, hunting lions in the desert rather fruitlessly, attending one banquet after another, and of course dallying with Cleopatra, who kept an eternally bland smile on her face. He had no interest in the running of the realm, in the business and internal politics that continually demanded the attention of the ruler. As far as he was concerned, Egypt governed itself as nothing more than a big moneymaking arrangement. Pompeius Magnus might be the First Man of Rome, and famed for his political prowess, but his eldest son seemed to understand little of governance besides force. He spoke no more than a few words of Koine, seeing it of little importance to understand what people might say around him. It was a good thing that Cleopatra, Iras, and I had studied Latin. He expected everyone to speak it to him.

Meanwhile, by day, Cleopatra immersed herself in the running of the realm. No detail was too small or complicated to study, that she might see how it was done, or how the men who attended to it served her. How should she know if it were done wrong, at some future time, if she did not know how it was supposed to be? So she spent her days learning about canal dredging, talking with scientists and priests, with the Patriarch of the chief synagogue of Alexandria, with the Treasurer, and with the Horologers who measured time and set the calendar, predicting when the Inundation would come.

When the next payment came due, Gnaeus Pompeius wrote to his father.

Though it is clear that Ptolemy Auletes intends to repay his debt in good faith, it has been a difficult year in Egypt. The harvest was poor, and the revenues have been much less than expected. Consequently, it is impossible for him to send the payment at this time without imposing great hardship on his people. As a wise farmer tends his fields so that they may yield more in the long run, we must wisely allow him to husband his people, so that in due course of time our investment may pay greater dividends.

Gnaeus Pompeius sent the letter, but no one doubted that the words were Cleopatra’s. Certainly Pompeius Magnus did not doubt it. The next month a letter came from him to his son, stating it plainly.

I know that you greatly enjoy the hospitality of Ptolemy Auletes; however, I hope that you will remember your duty to me. If it is difficult to collect the debt, then you must lend your energy to its collection, and not accept any idle excuses you are given.

Gnaeus Pompeius took the letter straight to Auletes. Auletes put his hand on Gnaeus’ arm, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “So might a father speak, to such a son as you! Alas, if I had so worthy a son, my burdens would be lighter! But I am only an old man, whose health is failing, and the prop of my throne is Cleopatra. True, she is nineteen, and her beauty and wit are unsurpassed, but she is only a woman! You must not blame us if all is not done as you would wish. Your mercy on my failing age, and her feminine foibles, dear Gnaeus! Would that I had a man such as you to follow after me, as her consort and husband!”

Iras got Gnaeus Pompeius’ reply for his father before it left, and made a clever copy so that we all might see.

Most esteemed father, I hear and reverence your words. I have come upon an opportunity too wonderful to pass by—it seems that Ptolemy Auletes is ailing, and his eldest daughter is much taken with me. Would it be possible, do you think, for you to procure a divorce for me from Appia? If so, I could promise you always the riches of Egypt at your disposal?. . . .

Before a reply could come from Rome, the worst happened. Ptolemy Auletes died.

His death was hardly unexpected. We were prepared. He had been ill for months, and his last sickness went on for weeks before he drew his final breath. By that time we could only hope he would go soon, and suffer no more. At least that is what I hoped. I loved him, I suppose, for all that he only regarded me a little. He had done well by me. I had not lacked for anything it was in his power to give. Those things that were not within his power, I did not begrudge him.

I walked in the funeral cortege, far in the rear, with the other women of Cleopatra’s household, my hair covered with a white veil. About me, Iras and the others set up ritual wails.

Now I should never know, I thought. I should never know what he had felt, who he had been. Was my mother as little to him as Lucan was to me? Who was he, and what might he have said, if things had been different? Of all his children, Asetnefer said I was the one most like him, the one who might have understood.

If I had been born a boy, I should even now stand as a contender to the throne. Auletes himself had been a son of the harem. He would not have hesitated to raise me to the throne beside Cleopatra, a much more compatible consort to her than Theo, now known as Young Ptolemy. If I were a boy, would it be I who even now walked beside his bier, beside my sister in mourning? Would it be I who stood as Horus, the son of Serapis, the promised Falcon of Egypt?

Something in me whispered that I could do it. If I were a boy, I should be her consort, the prop to her throne, her general. I should exchange fashion for a sword, and the meticulous dance of court events for the swirl of the battlefield. Instead of provisioning funeral feasts, I should provision armies. And I should do it well.

I inclined my head. Through the trumpets and drums of the funeral procession, I heard Isis’ voice speaking softly behind me.
That is not the task I have set before you.

Auletes lay in a crypt in the royal parkland, long prepared for him, in a sarcophagus of Carian marble, his mummy wrapped in fine linen and encased in gold.

“It’s only gold leaf,” Cleopatra whispered to me after. “Over cartonnage. We can’t possibly afford gold.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” I said, thinking how it was like Auletes, to look fine beneath something that was essentially no more than paper, the kind of coffin used by ordinary people. Even in death, he still owed money to Pompeius Magnus. Unfortunately, that debt still hung around our necks.

“How are you going to find the money?” I asked Cleopatra. There would be Theo’s counselors to deal with as well as the men who had served Auletes. His tutor was a man called Theocritus, whom I didn’t like, and his household was run by a eunuch named Pothinus, who had come to us from Tyre. They would have a great deal to say, I imagined.

“I don’t know yet,” she said, and shook her head.

In a few days, I saw how at least she meant to delay.

“You must stay with me,” Cleopatra said. She reclined beside Gnaeus Pompeius on the dining couch, lifting a morsel of meat to her mouth. “Now that I am bereft of my father, what shall I do?”

Gnaeus Pompeius raised his wine cup. “I’m sure my father will make certain that Rome supports the terms of the will. And supports your claim to the throne. I suppose you must marry your brother, as your father intended.”

“But Theo is only twelve,” she said, gazing at him adoringly. “And there are factions and factions here at court.”

“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “I will see you crowned. And then perhaps I will see if I can find you a better husband than your little brother.”

“That would please me greatly,” she said, dipping her head and smiling at him.

“She cannot think to marry him,” Iras fumed in native Egyptian. “He is nothing, nothing except the spoiled son of a rich man who does his father’s bidding badly. She is the daughter of kings, of the noblest line in the world.”

“I do not think she means to marry him,” I said. “But she certainly means to be crowned. And I doubt that the Queen’s faction would wish it.”

Though the Queen was gone, her faction among the nobles was alive and well. And Theo had a full sister, Arsinoe, who could be his queen as well as Cleopatra. I wondered if she should have Arsinoe killed, but dared not say anything about it to her. I was sure she would not do it. Not until something happened to make Arsinoe less innocent. She would not be Berenice. That I knew.

Of the coronation, I cannot say as much as I should. Mostly, I remember the tremendous amount of work. A coronation is a complicated affair, and the priests of the Temple of Serapis and Isis were very firm on what must go into it, that it should conform to the formulae of previous coronations. There were huge crowds lining the streets from the gates of the Palace Quarter to the Serapeum, cheering and shouting, throwing flowers. For although this was their fourth ruler in five years, the people of Alexandria loved a festival.

Meanwhile, Gnaeus Pompeius had some bad news of his own. Not only was his father pressing for a loan payment, but it seemed that Pompeius Magnus himself was in great need of money. His feud with this Caesar, which had at first seemed some sort of falling out between men closely allied by marriage, had gone further. Caesar was in arms against Pompeius, or against Rome itself, depending on whose letters were most reliable. In any event, Pompeius was raising an army, which is never a cheap endeavor. Toward that end, he was sending Gnaeus some very probing letters, pushing for funds immediately.

After as great a delay as possible, Cleopatra sent as little as she could. Still, it was talents and talents of gold, money we might have better spent in Egypt. And not enough to more than put off Pompeius Magnus for a short time.

On top of this, the harvest in the north was poor. Cleopatra directed, in the name of the joint rulers, the Twin Gods Ptolemy and Cleopatra Philopater, that the grain surplus from Upper Egypt should be sent to Alexandria immediately. If the price of grain in the city went too high, we risked the kind of riots that had originally cost Auletes his throne.

_______

I
RAS PASSED
her twentieth birthday, and then Cleopatra did, in the winter when the fields of the Black Land greened. And as the year turned, the days measured by the Horologers getting almost imperceptibly longer, Gnaeus Pompeius received yet another letter from his father.

While Gnaeus was out hunting, Iras and Apollodorus worked on the letter, carefully steaming loose Pompeius Magnus’ seal without damaging it. Cleopatra paced around the room.

“Not more money,” Cleopatra said, stopping by the windows, her himation hanging over one arm instead of about her shoulders. “Not more money now. It’s not possible. We’re bleeding money right now on grain.”

“We have to,” I said from where I sat in a chair by the table. “It will be months yet before the new harvest, and the city has to have grain. If you don’t keep the price down, it will be a disaster.”

“I’ll have to think of something to keep Gnaeus busy,” Cleopatra said. She was silhouetted against the light from the windows, and I couldn’t see her face. “His father is pressing him hard.”

“I have it,” Apollodorus said, and carefully he and Iras unrolled the letter.