The Memoirs of Cleopatra (101 page)

I received this letter not long after it was written; luck had speeded it to me. Alexandria still lay in its stupor of heat and debilitation, barely moving. But the letter jolted me like a blast of winter air hitting a naked man. At once I was pacing the room—where I had just been lying languidly on a couch, pronouncing myself too enervated to stir. Octavian! Octavian had swooped down on my son like a bird of prey! He must have been watching—or have spies in every house, on every corner. And even so, how would they have known who Caesarion and Olympos were? Rome had nearly a million people, most of them poor and crowded into places like the Subura. How could two individuals come to Octavian’s attention like that?

And the way he appeared and disappeared…it was almost supernatural. How had his ship traveled so fast on the windless seas, how had he entered Rome secretly?

And for such a man, a stealthy killing would be easy. Was Caesarion’s very life in danger? I reread the letter, with the ominous lines, “I must return to Illyria, and I will not leave you behind here.” If Olympos and Caesarion did not comply immediately, would he dispatch his agents to dispatch
them?

“Antony!” I hurried to his quarters, clutching the letter. I expected to find him at his workdesk, hunched over papers. Instead the table, cluttered with scrolls, ledgers, and reports, stood unattended. I found him in one of the smaller connected chambers, dozing on a couch. One foot dangled off the end, and the other was propped up on a pillow. A bored attendant was fanning him, and his light breathing kept time with the puffs of heated air.

“Wake up!” I shook his shoulders. I could not bear to wait to tell him this horrible development. “Go away!” I ordered the attendant, who gladly put down the long-handled fan and left.

“Uh…” Antony slowly opened his eyes and tried to orient himself. He had been in that particularly deep sleep that sometimes falls upon us in the daytime.

Hurry up, hurry up
, I thought,
I need you!

I needed him to read the letter, to convince me, in his unexcited way, that it was somehow not as it seemed, or not as bad, or—I often grew exasperated by his underreaction to what I considered vital, or obvious, but now I welcomed that very trait.

“What is it?” he finally mumbled. His words were thick, his eyes still unfocused. He rubbed them.

“I—a letter has come. A dreadful letter!” I pushed it into his hands, before he had struggled to sit up. He just looked at it, bewildered.

“Well, read it!” I cried.

He lurched up from his supine position, and swung his feet down onto the floor. Groggily he held the letter and read it. I watched his face carefully. It showed nothing.

His eyes went back to the beginning and he reread it, awake now. Now there was an expression on his face—a heavy resignation, something between distaste and bracing himself.

“I am sorry,” was all he said, laying it down on the couch. And in the tone of those three words he managed to convey both sorrow and deep understanding of what we faced.

I found myself in his arms, my face buried against his shoulder, thankful for the solid feel of him, wondering why that could comfort when words could not. I also found myself weeping, like a child, while he held me. Sobs tore my chest, and I clung to him, marveling at what, perhaps, at base, marriage really is: someone to cling to when all else fails, someone whose very touch can bring surcease of pain. At moments when we revert to childhood, crying and fighting nightmares, that person stands by as an adult to dry our tears.

I had soaked the shoulder of his tunic, and only when my sobs died away did I pluck at it apologetically. “I’ve ruined it,” I said, feeling foolish. The gold threads were all twisted and broken where I had squeezed them, and the salt in my tears had made the dye run into the white.

“Never mind,” he said. “It served a good purpose.” He pulled my hair back from my neck and throat, where it stuck to the skin, matted and wet from the crying. “There.” He smoothed it down. It was like something I did for the children. Next he would ask me if I wanted a sweet.

“Here,” he said, reaching out for a plate of figs, and I laughed.

“No, thank you,” I said. He pulled his arm back and put it around my shoulder.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry,” he said, more to himself than to me.

“I try never to,” I said. “At least not in front of anyone. It is considered unqueenly.”

“Then you must, at last, trust me,” he said.

Yes, I supposed it must mean that. Somewhere, sometime, I had let down my guard to Antony as I never had to another person. Now there was no raising it again.

“Yes, I have learned to trust you,” I admitted.

“You are like a wild animal that has taken a long time to eat from my hand,” he said. “And still you are always poised for flight in case I make a wrong move.”

“Not any longer,” I said, wiping my face with my fingertips. And it was true—flight was out of the question. We were together, and it was not conditional.

“That gladdens my heart,” he said, tightening his arm around me. “Now, my dearest, about the letter—it is alarming. But in some ways it is liberating.”

“How so?”

“Because Octavian has finally been forced to make a move,” said Antony. “He has revealed himself—revealed his naked ambition to
be
Caesar, and his determination to brook no rivals. And revealed whom he considers his rival. Not me. Not you. But Caesarion.”

I supposed that was a victory of sorts. Like a creature that hid under the shadow of a rock, Octavian liked to keep his goals obscure. He shunned the sunlight that would illuminate his movements. But this time he had been flushed out into the open.

But it was scant comfort, when I feared for Caesarion’s safety.

Disguises…Caesarion’s had forced Octavian to abandon his.

HERE ENDS THE SIXTH SCROLL
.

I could scarcely believe that I was once more in Antioch, and in winter, too. I had done everything backward: remained in baking Alexandria for the summer, and then transferred to Antioch for the dreary, rain-swept winter. Once again Antony was spending a winter preparing for an eastern campaign; once more he was gathering his generals around him, readying his troops. This time it was not Parthia he was aiming at, but Armenia.

The drafty, overdecorated rooms were still the same, their cavernous corridors and gaping stairs like empty eye sockets. I should not have returned; it would have been better to remember the palace when it reverberated with the first joy of my marriage. Then the rooms were more than rooms, the windows enchanted vistas. Now it had shrunk back into the ordinary, and I felt the loss keenly. The magic had flown, taken wing to its own secret places.

Antony was too busy to notice. Once he had made up his mind to launch his long-delayed retributive campaign, his days were a succession of embassies and conferences. First he had called Marcus Titius to report to us, to explain the Sextus debacle.

I say “us” because I insisted on being present. If Egyptian money was being spent, if Egyptian resources were being used, Egypt should be privy to all. Besides, Antony and I were now openly co-rulers of an eastern empire…. But more about that later.

Titius was commander of the forces in Syria, and had only to journey a little way to report to us. I had always liked him, perhaps because his lean, dark looks appealed to me, and he was younger than the other generals. And he took great care to flatter me. At the same time I sensed that he harbored some faint disdain for Antony. Do not ask me how I knew; I can sense these things acutely. When I said this to Antony, he just snorted and said, “You’ll have to have something more definite than that for me to go on.”

Titius had been among those who had taken refuge with Sextus when the proscriptions were raging; later he had joined his uncle Plancus under Antony’s banner. The two of them made an odd pair: Titius swarthy, long-faced, sardonic; Plancus blond, ruddy, and laughing.

Titus reported to us in the enormous audience chamber. I had wanted us to be seated on thrones, but Antony would not hear of it.

“Here I am the general, not Autocrator,” he said.
Autocrator
was a Greek word he used to describe his status as lord and ruler of the east, although not a king.

“Well, what am I?” I asked. “I am still a queen.”

“You are the admiral,” he said. “Which is fitting, since my navy is mostly made up of your ships. So seat yourself as an admiral, in a comfortable chair, but not a throne.”

Titius strode in, looking edgy and defensive. After the usual formal greetings, and his brief summary of what had happened, Titius awaited Antony’s response.

“Who gave you the orders to execute him? That’s what I want to know,” said Antony.

“I was given to understand they were
your
orders,” he said. “Sextus was trying to flee, and was apprehended as he ran toward the Parthians. He meant to put himself under their protection. He was a traitor, sir.”

“A traitor to whom? He had never sworn allegiance to me.”

“A traitor to Rome. A traitor to his ancestors—a blot on their name, a shame to them!”

“So you felt called upon to punish him?”

“You killed Cicero, to punish
him
! And how many others during the proscriptions—of which I was almost a victim?”

“That is the shame of it,” said Antony. “Sextus gave you protection and spared your life when you sheltered under his wing. Then, in your turn, you killed him.”

Titius bristled. “With all respect, Imperator, Sextus did not flee to me—he was fleeing
from
me. I am a soldier, in the service of Rome. Are you suggesting that I should be traitor to my vow of allegiance to Rome, should spare her enemies, because of a personal softness? A strange sort of honor! Something more fitted for a woman, I think.”

I resented that. “If you think that women spare their enemies, General Titius, then you do not know your history. We can be as hard as men—and we have longer memories,” I said.

“Be that as it may, Queen Cleopatra, I do not think
you
would have spared Sextus, either.” He nodded toward me, smiling. “No one with any sense of self-preservation would. I had the reprobate in my hands, and I squeezed him—thus.” He made a choking motion with his hands. “I stopped his breath, so that Rome and Alexandria could draw theirs easier.”

“Enough,” said Antony. “I will expect you to obey orders in the future, and when you have no orders, to wait for them.”

“Can you honestly say they would have been different from what I did?” Titius was bold.

“After the fact, one can never know.” Antony sighed, and shifted in his chair. “Now, during the campaign to Armenia, I shall rely on you to secure my back. Syria must be held tightly. I have received overtures from the Medians—they have changed sides for the thousandth time, and want to help us against, as they suppose, the Parthians. They shall not find Syria unguarded. I entrust its security to you, and your three legions.”

“You will find me worthy of the trust, sir,” he said.

After he left, I said, “I hope you have not made an enemy.”

“Nonsense. He expected a dressing-down. He’s lucky I allowed him to retain his command.”

“I don’t think you had much choice,” I reminded him.

“Certainly I could have replaced him,” he said. “He is not the only young Roman general to hand.”

“Isn’t he? Since Octavian has cut you off from Rome, and recruiting there, where will replacements come from?”

“Is the east devoid of talent?”

“Choosing a non-Roman would just fuel fears about the Asiatic hordes massing to overrun Rome,” I said. “You know that. It’s the one thing Rome dreads. They know the prophecies.”

“Yes, and that they are to be led by a woman…my admiral.” He leaned over and touched my hand, lightly.

The Median ambassador assured us that his master was so eager to have us as allies he was willing to betroth his only daughter Iotape to our son Alexander, and to make Alexander heir to his throne.

“My most gracious King reaches out to embrace you,” was how he put it. “And to surrender his precious jewel, his only child and daughter, into your keeping.”

I felt my heart grow heavy. Not my Alexander—not betrothed at only five years old! I remembered my own childhood, free from the shadow of forced marriage, because of the upheavals at court. Once I was a queen and not a princess, I had been free to select my own men. My children would not be so lucky.

Of course I had not been entirely free; there were the dictated formal marriages to my two brothers. But I had ignored them, and taken the men I pleased.

My children were all safe in Alexandria. Caesarion had returned from Rome, escaping whatever vague malevolence Octavian had planned for him. And I would not surrender them to the world so soon. But sometimes there is no choice for princes.

The Median king had even released King Polemo of Pontus, that poor man who had been captured along with the siege train, and he made his way to us in Antioch, carrying the captured Roman eagles from the two slain legions.

All that remained to redeem Roman honor was to take revenge on Artavasdes himself.

“All hail for the birthdays of their most exalted persons, Imperator Marcus Antonius and Queen Cleopatra!” bellowed the chief steward. Antony and I stood at the entrance to the vast hall, decorated with boughs of evergreen and imitation flowers made of dried, colored reeds. So many candles and torches were blazing, it looked like a temple, and filling the chamber were our generals and their officers, military tribunes, and Syrian nobles and merchants. We posed, holding hands, smiling, never betraying our quarrel about what titles we should use.

In truth, it was a delicate matter. Antony was both more and less than a king; as Autocrator—absolute personal ruler—he made and unmade kings. But the title of king was repugnant to Romans. And the title Triumvir—the Triumvirate was due to expire in two years, so it was best not to stress that. In Rome, Octavian’s person had lately been declared sacrosanct, and he was using “Triumvir” less and less. “Imperator,” meaning “commander-general,” was a good, neutral title, and Antony insisted on it for now.

Our birthdays fell close enough together to be celebrated at the same time, early in the new year. Antony was now forty-eight, and I thirty-five. With a heaviness in my heart, I realized my once-youthful, exuberant lord was approaching the age Caesar had been when I first met him. Where had the years flown? A trite though, but they seemed to have winged past, as I recalled flickering images of Antony—the cavalryman in his late twenties, the oiled and leaping priest of Lupercal in the masterful prime years of his thirties. And now, to be almost fifty…

Slow yourself, god of time
, I begged.
Halt your wagon, let us rest and look about, give us a moment free of changes.…
. But I knew the cruel god would never grant the request. He was more merciless to those in his grip than Titius.

I turned to look at Antony’s proud profile, still beautiful to me, still commanding, still saying to fate, I’ll meet you in single combat….

Lifting my arm high, I was ready to descend.

Strange how I did not grieve for my own lost years; I was incapable of seeing them through other eyes. We always think
we
have halted time in his flight, that there still remain many paths for us, unexplored, and of course we shall explore them; yes, we will….

A loud shout of salute greeted us. The Incomparables were long gone, and it had been years since we had celebrated in such a raucous fashion, but it fitted our mood that winter night.

Canidius Crassus, his face more weather-worn than ever, bent stiffly from his waist, then straightened up and slapped Antony’s forearm. “To the field once more, Imperator!” he said.

“Jupiter himself grant us victory!” Plancus raised his arm in salute.

King Polemo of Pontus—a soft-voiced and mannered man—presented us with a box of emeralds, and expressed his birthday wishes. “Aristotle says in his
Rhetoric
that the body is at its best between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, and the mind at its best about the age of forty-nine,” he said. “That means you both are in the enviable position of being at the best ages!”

“I think it means together we make a perfect whole,” said Antony. “My mind in concert with her body.”

Dellius sidled up to us, raising his eyebrows as if picturing something lascivious. I had never cared for his manner. “You are not the oldest general to take to the field,” he assured Antony, as if it were a matter of concern.

“I have not thought of it,” said Antony. “The retreat from Parthia under those inhuman conditions proved me young enough.”

“True, true.” Dellius was appraising him as if unconvinced.

“And in any case, I am sending you to Armenia before the winter ends, so you—being younger—can test yourself in the snows.” Dellius looked alarmed. “I wish you to approach Artavasdes with an offer of…alliance. A marriage treaty between our children. He will refuse it, of course, and then we will have an excuse to attack. I have heard, from reliable sources, that he is trafficking with Octavian. Neither of them wishes me well. They are two of a kind.”

I was shocked at his harsh public appraisal of Octavian—lumping him together with his betrayer Artavasdes!

“Yes, sir,” said Dellius, looking about for an escape before Antony could assign him another unpalatable task. He scuttled—for his movement was sideways, like a beach crab—into the mass of guests.

The torches burned bright; the walls resounded with glad high spirits. Plancus led the officers in a round praising Antony, calling him “Conquering Hercules” and “Beneficent Dionysus.” Their shouts seemed like a platform raising him high, lifting him up to the rafters. He had won their admiring loyalty in the courage and toughness of the retreat from Parthia, which he had borne and led so manfully.

Even the piercing-eyed—and piercing-tongued—Ahenobarbus was gentle that night, and presented Antony with a gift of a new sword of Chalybean tempered iron. “A new sword for a new conquest,” he said, the light of coming battle in his eyes. “Yet you must keep your old fighting style—coolness in the heat of battle, a splendid daring.”

“Now you can give your old faithful one to Alexander, for his heritage,” I said.

Antony took the new sword, and ran his thumb appreciatively along its finely honed blade.

“I thank you,” he said to Ahenobarbus, “my friend.”

Five braziers, fired so hot they almost glowed, kept the cold at bay in our sleeping chamber. The festivities over, we had piled our booty—the tribute from our captive guests—on a table and gratefully exchanged our stiff, constricting clothes for Syrian chamber-robes. We sat on thronelike chairs decorated with mother-of-pearl patterns, and sighed with relief.

“That was tiring,” Antony admitted. He yawned.

“It was nothing compared with the old days in Alexandria,” I reminded him. “Our evenings with the Incomparables…remember?”

“I was younger then,” he said, without thinking. Then he realized how it sounded. “Perhaps I’ve just grown bored with it,” he suggested. “Same old people, same old songs.”

“Not the same old wine, though,” I said. In this area, we drank Laodicean, not Falernian. I poured out a cup from the pitcher left for our pleasure, and handed it to him.

“Wine never lets you down,” he said, sipping it.

I disagreed, but did not say anything. Wine was a betrayer, and lately I felt it was betraying Antony. He was drinking too much of it, imagining it did not affect him, but it did. He sat silent for a few minutes, savoring the distinctive taste of this particular wine. Finally he said, “Tonight was the unveiling of our new empire.”

“What do you mean?” His statement, coming out of nowhere, was puzzling.

“It is useless to pretend any longer—or rather, for
me
to pretend any longer. Step by step I have been led into a strange role: ruler of a vast eastern empire, with an empress by my side. By Hercules, I did not mean it to happen!” His voice was touched with anguish, and he set the cup down. He ran both his hands through his hair, as if somehow that would straighten out his thoughts. “Tonight we played the roles well, standing side by side in all our eastern finery, accepting obeisance from our subjects—oh, what have you done to me?” He jumped up from the chair and started pulling at the gown, tearing it off. “Away! Get off!”