Kleopatra (22 page)

“That is a remarkable tale,” said the king.

“I see that you view me with skepticism, but that would be a mistake. I am not a particularly imaginative man. I do not invent
wild stories. Take my advice; to trust either Pompey or Caesar would be a miscalculation. Unlike my peers and colleagues in
Rome, I have no aversion to speaking the truth.”

“What are my choices?” asked the king. Kleopatra could see that the Roman’s honest manner of speaking intrigued her father.

“Return to Egypt and reconcile with your subjects. I offer my services to you. I and my staff will accompany you to Alexandria.
We shall meet with the necessary parties and negotiate a settlement between them and yourself. Do you see how far I am willing
to go to have you avoid the treachery and bribery you will confront in Rome?”

“And would you not extract your own price for this deed?” asked the king.

“Your Majesty, I am as rich as I ever care to be.”

“This is an exceptional offer, my good man, and one I shall sincerely consider. What do you propose my other choices to be?”

“You might take the offer your brother was too stubborn to accept. Submit to the inevitable: Await the news that your country
is Rome’s next annexed nation. At that time, take up the robes of the priest, save your family, and live in peace. Or perhaps
you might negotiate with Caesar or Pompey, whichever decides to march into your kingdom and usurp your treasury. They might
allow you to remain on the throne. But surely you are aware that you would be a king in name only.”

The Roman sat back and rubbed his ailing stomach. He raised an index finger into the air ominously. “I say this for your own
protection. Do not go to Rome with your hand out and your pockets open. There will be no end to the price you will pay.”

“Have I been disgraced or not?”

Auletes did not trust the Roman; yet he believed that Cato’s offer to travel to Alexandria was made with noble intentions.
The princess did not trust the Roman’s motivations, but was not sure that the king should not honor the proposed scenario.
The Kinsmen, on the other hand, believed the king had been mocked.

“Send word to Demetrius,” the king gruffly ordered his secretary. “Tell him of Marcus Cato’s offer and ask him if he thinks
such a delicate arrangement might be made without an outbreak of violence.”

But upon return to the great parlor of the Rhodian mansion, Auletes received a letter that made his direction very clear.

To: Ptolemy XII Auletes, former king of Egypt

From: Meleager, Regent and Adviser to Queen Kleopatra VI Tryphaena

Enclosed please find a document signed by the Egyptian and Greek tribe leaders of the majority of the
phratries
in the city. The people of Alexandria and of Lower and Upper Egypt have declared you an illegal usurper. You are officially
deposed. Your wife, Kleopatra VI Tryphaena, is the recognized ruler of Egypt. You and your daughter, the princess Kleopatra,
are banished forever from the kingdom of Egypt and all her territories, including but not limited to territories presently
under her domain. Should you be found on the soil of the Two Lands of Egypt, the penalty is death.

Auletes dropped the letter. His body quaked; red crept into his cheeks, his nostrils, his neck, his forehead. “Treasonous
bitch!” he spat, saliva flying madly across the room like a burst of hail. “Lying whore, blemish to the memory of her mother.”

The king gripped the back of his chair with both hands and shook it, rocking its legs against the tile floor. He picked it
up and crashed it to the ground, breaking off one of the legs. His men watched, silent. Kleopatra cowered, waiting for her
father to calm, wondering what role her sister Berenike played in the coup.

“To Rome,” ordered the king. “To Rome.” He brandished the splintered leg of the chair at no one in particular. “If it costs
me every cent of my money, I’ll see the bitch dead.” The king paced about, the chair leg in his hand like a big shank of mutton.
“She will be awakened from her thrall by the mocking face of a Roman centurion and his soldiers. And I will be commanding
them to treat her no better than a whore to be passed among them.”

A cold calm passed over Auletes’ face, relaxing his features. “When she begs for death, I will personally cut her venomous
throat.”

“Father, what of Demetrius?” asked Kleopatra, thinking of the emaciated scholar at the mercy of Thea’s cold inclemency. “Surely
he will be killed. We should never have left him there. We should have insisted that he come with us. And what about Berenike,
Father? Does the eunuch say that she had a part in this?”

The king made no response, his face unusually icy. Kleopatra preferred her father furious, a state of mind that appeared less
dangerous than this calculated chill. “Thea sits on the throne, while the eunuch rules. There is no mention of Demetrius.
There is no mention of Berenike. But if either of them is aligned with Thea, I shall see them dead, too.”

M
ohama threw back her head, dangled the small morsel of fruit above her open pink mouth, and then dropped it in. Aware that
she was being watched by every man on deck—the soldiers, the Kinsmen, the servants, the king—she chewed the fruit slowly,
rocking the pit back and forth from cheek to cheek. Finally, she walked to the bow, spitting the seed into the water.

An exasperated princess waited for her at the game table. She wished she had eaten the bowl of cherries herself and not brought
them to Mohama, who used them to agitate the men. But Mohama had an intemperate love for such fruits, having been ignorant
of them for most of her life, and the princess, who had not much appetite, and who had been deprived of nothing, preferred
to finish her repast with one chewy date.

It was after lunch. The royal party and companions had removed themselves to the deck to take advantage of the afternoon sun,
as if they were traveling on one of the sumptuous Nile barges to which they were accustomed and not a ship that was presently
tossed about on the more turbulent waters of Poseidon. Oars were in; sails billowed in the crisp oceanic breeze.

Kleopatra and Mohama were at a game of dice under a white cotton canopy set up on the deck of the ship. The king had been
given a marble dice set by a Roman guest at court and was encouraged to perfect his game in preparation for the visit to Rome.
The Romans were mad for the game, he was told, and that fact alone intrigued the princess. She had taught Mohama to play it
and was often furious because the girl’s luck exceeded hers. They had many observers, Kleopatra knew, because Mohama had chosen
to wear a dress of sheer linen through which the men could clearly see her large brown nipples made erect by the sea winds.

“It is your turn to roll, and I am standing here waiting. I am out of patience,” Kleopatra said petulantly. “You have no qualms
about keeping me waiting. I am going to have you flogged.”

“I live in fear of that command,” said Mohama. Slyly she looked about her to see if she still had the attention of her admirers.
She did. She reached into the bowl of cherries and with an extreme amount of time given to the selection, plucked another
and held it above her open mouth.

“If you do not roll I am going to strangle you,” said the princess. She was tense. Her father had moved them from Rhodes with
alacrity, shuffling them—barely packed—aboard the ship. Hearing the news of Thea’s usurpation, he had quit talking to anyone,
but spent his days muttering into the ear of Hekate, who patted his hand and poured his wine and allowed him to rant while
she sat in silent dignity against his angry patter. He had kept his distance from his daughter, who wondered if he had begun
to doubt her loyalty, too, though she had never pretended to like or to trust Thea. Perhaps the king did not like that Kleopatra’s
judgment had proved more acute than his. In time, she trusted, he would allow her to be close to him again. Of this she was
sure. Nonetheless, she felt less than settled.

Mohama picked up the rolling cup, shaking it back and forth in the rhythm of her chewing, her hips swaying.

“This is not dance. This is dice. You have eaten two thousand cherries! I am going to turn my back on you right now and go
to my cabin!”

Mohama gave Kleopatra a smile of concession and threw the die, her eyes following the six-sided marble pieces as they rolled
down the table. When they landed, her eyes bulged and she clutched at her throat.

“Three!” said the princess gleefully. “You lose.”

Mohama fell forward onto the table, chin hitting the wood with a loud clump. A dark bile spewed from her mouth onto the gaming
board. Kleopatra watched Mohama’s eyes roll in her head before it fell to the side. She tried to propel herself away from
the spew but seemed to have no strength. She screamed. The king heard his daughter and pushed himself away from Hekate, arriving
at the table as Mohama fell to the hard deck. Charmion rushed to the princess, trying to turn her head away. Kleopatra fought
against Charmion’s embrace and yelled to her father to help Mohama.

The Royal Physician and his man in attendance uncurled Mohama’s arms from her belly and stretched her out on the floor. Her
eyes rolled helplessly and her limbs were limp, a sweat bubbling on her brow. She was delirious, trying to speak, but was
not in control of her tongue. A foam gathered around the opening of her mouth. Charmion again tried to turn the princess’s
face away, but Kleopatra would not desert her companion. She broke from Charmion and knelt at Mohama’s feet while the medical
men propped open her mouth and stared into her throat.

The physician looked not at the princess but at the king and said, “What did she eat? Who prepared her last meal?”

Kleopatra put her hands to her mouth. “The cherries,” she whispered through her bloodless fingers. The assistant fetched the
bowl of cherries, carefully picking it up as if its contents could jump out and injure him. Gingerly he carried the vessel
to the doctor, who squeezed two cherries between his fingers, slowly bringing them to his nose. He crushed a few more, inhaled
their essence, and then shook his head as if to confirm what he suspected. He sent his assistant below to gather his supplies,
among which, he said, was a chemical antidote to the poison he believed she had ingested—deadly little red berries whose liquid
would easily be disguised in a cherry.

“We will know very soon if we have saved her,” he said. The assistant returned with a box of vials, and the doctor pointed
to the one to be unsealed. With a small knife, the assistant delicately cut open the wax seal and poured the liquid into the
girl’s mouth while the physician massaged her throat.

Kleopatra sat rigid, refusing all hands that offered to help her up. Mohama had ceased to move. Occasionally her foot would
twitch ever so slightly, giving the princess a moment of hope in the midst of her fear.

“Who has done this thing?” demanded the king, standing over Mohama’s inert body.

Kleopatra raised her face to her father, letting the tears stream down her face. “The cherries were placed in front of me,
Father. She is from the desert and had never had cherries before entering our service. I gave them to her because there is
no fruit served at the table of the servants.”

The king scoured the observers with his wide, angry eyes. “Whoever has done this shall die,” he said to no one, to everyone.

The princess realized the king’s meaning. “Father, were they meant for me?”

The king raised his beefy fists to the heavens. “Dionysus, god of all that is of the earth, god of the trees, of the vine,
of the crops that we eat. Mighty Poseidon, god of these waters upon which we sail. You have spared my daughter but taken from
her a loyal companion. Deliver into these hands—the hands of your faithful servant—the lying whore behind this evil deed.”

A billowing cloud masked the sun’s rays, and the light about the ship grew dimmer. No one issued a sound. The sea seemed to
come to a dead calm in answer to the king’s words.

“Do you see the skies darken?” shouted one of the Kinsmen. “The gods have heard the king. Someone shall die for this crime.”

The king lowered his fists, satisfied that he had been recognized by the deities, but this did not pacify him. He began frantically
barking orders: Arrest the cooks. Imprison the serving staff in the cargo. Cast the fruit on board into the ocean. Take the
princess to her suite.

To Charmion: Do not leave my daughter.

To the doctor: Do not lose the girl.

The girl. It was as if for a moment all had forgotten Mohama. Kleopatra looked back at the still body of the dark young woman,
whose rich color had begun to drain from her face. Her hair was strewn carelessly about her sweaty face like a Medusa. Another
Libyan, Kleopatra thought, who made a game of tempting men.

The physician put his ear to Mohama’s chest. He took her wrist in his hand and held it there. “The girl is dead.”

Kleopatra crawled to the body of her companion, reaching her arm out to touch her face, but before she could complete the
gesture, she was lifted into the arms of one of her father’s men. The physician’s two attendants raised Mohama. Her torso
hung limp in the middle as they picked up her shoulders and legs in the flat parts of their forearms like a funereal sacrifice.