The Memoirs of Cleopatra (64 page)

“Yes,” I said, “golden mountains.”

“Do you trust Epaphroditus and Mardian as the Pharaoh trusted Joseph?” he asked suddenly.

I did not have to hesitate. “Indeed I do. I am blessed to have such trustworthy ministers.”

“How can you tell whether to trust someone or not?” he asked.

“As I said, it is a gift. And, of course, you should always watch what they do.” But as I spoke, I knew that it was not a foolproof gift. Intelligent and discerning rulers had been betrayed. Perhaps the most successful betrayer is one who is loyal until the last minute. No one can detect him; he himself does not realize he is about to swerve.

Caesarion put his arms around my neck. “Good night, Mother. Please don’t dream of cows!” And then he padded happily back to his own chamber, hand-in-hand with his nurse.

No, I would not dream of cows. But I did dream of my fleet, my wonderful fleet that I would build with stout timbers from Syria, and I dreamed of a sea battle, a great battle in which I hoisted my sails and shot through a barricade onto the high seas…. I awoke hearing the pounding of the sea outside, one of the first storms of autumn.

The fleet began to take shape, and dockyards throughout the Delta, as well as in Alexandria, worked overtime. Through daring seamanship (for which the Syrians were well paid, and for which they were willing to risk much), enough long timbers were brought across the sea that the skeletons of the largest warships could be laid, and allowed to season. The fittings of the ships—oars, sails, steering, lines, and rams—were assembled separately and proceeded apace. I had decided to divide the fleet in two, and station half with my governor at Cyprus, for more flexible deployment. While I was studying all the particulars of the designs for the ships, I made sure that a shipwright here in Alexandria was busy making the miniature trireme that I had promised to Caesarion. He was delighted with it, and we made many trips down the palace steps to the royal harbor for him to see it. It was to be about twenty feet long, small enough for two adult rowers to power it; the other oars were for show only, and were bolted down.

“And am I to be the captain?” he asked, parading around the half-finished vessel, peering up over the railings and onto its deck.

“Yes, but until you are seven you must always have an adult under-captain with you,” I said. And this adult would be an expert. There must be no more accidents at sea for my family.

“What shall I name the boat?” he wondered.

“Something wonderful,” I said. “But it is for you to decide.”

He got that perplexed look again, which made him seem so old. “Oh, that is so difficult!” he moaned.

With the coming of the Roman New Year, the first of the conspirators met his doom. Trebonius—who, although he had not actually stabbed Caesar, had played a key part by detaining Antony to prevent him from interfering on the Ides—had calmly gone to the province of Asia to assume his governorship. Evidently his conscience was not troubled by proceeding to the province Caesar had so kindly allotted to him. But Dolabella, one of the Caesarian party, pursued him to Asia, fought with him there, and wrenched the province away from him. He killed Trebonius and hacked off his head, first flinging it before a statue of Caesar, then tossing it into the streets of Smyrna, where boys kicked it about like a ball.

So it began: the retribution. I rejoiced when I heard it. I only wished I could have stood over the bloody head and kicked it myself, kicked it and ground its eyes into the cinders and smashed the skull in.

In Rome, Octavian and Antony were becoming open enemies, mainly as a result of Cicero’s whipping up the Senate against Antony. The orator thought to run Rome himself, to be wise mentor and guide to the young, impressionable, obedient lad. At last he, Cicero, would come into his own, statesman and savior of his country. How little he knew Octavian! It was Cicero who was the fool and the dupe.

But the vain old man wrote and delivered a series of speeches against Antony, and this ended with the Senate declaring war against him. They were filled with the most vicious lies and distortions, but, like most calumny, they were entertaining. There was no one alive who could smear a character better, with clever words and innuendo, than Cicero. He paid for it with his life, but not before he almost cost Antony his.

My prediction came true: After spending some time in Athens, Brutus made his way over to Macedonia, and Cassius came to Asia. They would unite and make their stand in the east. There would be a war.

Cassius set about unseating Dolabella from his governorship, and Dolabella appealed for help to me, asking for the Roman legions. Again, it was as I had foreseen. I had no choice but to yield them, because if they were not sent to Dolabella, Cassius would demand them. But before they could reach Dolabella, they were captured by Cassius.

My legions were in the hands of the enemy—Caesar’s assassin! And then he pursued Dolabella over Syria, surrounding him at last in the city of Laodicea. Knowing he was beaten, Dolabella committed suicide. Cassius was victor, and now commanded all of Asia Minor, as well as Syria, and had fourteen legions, eight of which were contributed by the governors of Syria and Bithynia, Allienus’s four captured en route from Egypt, and the two from the defeated Dolabella. Fourteen legions! And then the hardest blow of all—he persuaded Serapion, my governor in Cyprus, to surrender all the ships of my new fleet stationed there to him. They sailed off to Asia, joining Cassius.

The perfidy of it! The assassins were not only making their stand, but they were appropriating my forces!

Cassius next turned his eyes toward Egypt, and announced that he planned to invade and capture us, since we had sent the legions to aid Dolabella. It was time, he said, for us to be punished, and to yield our resources to them—the Liberators, as they called themselves.

Plague was raging; it had followed hard on the heels of the famine. The heavens seemed to be hurling thunderbolts at my kingdom, as if determined to topple it. I fought back, to the utmost of my strength.

More meetings with my ministers—Mardian, Epaphroditus, and Olympos got very little rest during those weeks. Every morning there were mounds of people who had died during the night. They couldn’t be embalmed, for no one wanted to touch them; instead they were burned like trash.

One morning after a particularly bad night, Olympos brought me a manuscript and said I should read it; the author had written a brilliant description of the disease.

“What good is a description?” I asked. “Who cannot describe it? Fever, thirst, eruption of boils, black swellings that burst open, quick death. But how can it be stopped? That’s the question.”

“Please, do read this. He has ideas about how it spreads.” Olympos thrust it into my hand.

“Very well. I am ready to do anything to halt the disease.” I looked at Epaphroditus. “I suppose there is something about this in your scriptures!”

He grinned. “How did you know?”

“What
isn’t
in there? Well, what cured it?”

“Nothing cured it,” he admitted. “There was a succession of plagues—of frogs, of gnats, of flies, of locusts, of boils—but they were sent to make a point. They weren’t natural.”

“What point is
this
plague making? I cannot believe that the gods are aiding our enemies! Am I now to expect plagues of flies, frogs, and locusts as well?”

We were almost bankrupted by the combination of the plague, the famine, and the loss of half the fleet. Work continued on the other half, based in Alexandria. Let Cassius come and get it, and die trying!

A messenger rode all the way from Syria on the bidding of his master, Cassius, who was now attacking Rhodes to get money and ships. I received the man in my audience hall, seated on my elevated throne, in my most formal attire.

He marched into the hall, his Roman soldier’s uniform bringing old memories sharply into focus. It was like seeing a shell of Caesar—the breastplate that I had loved, the leather lappets that made a slapping noise when he strode forward, the cloak slung over his shoulder. It seemed a travesty for this runty little man to be wearing the same clothes.

He barely bowed. But he had to wait for me to acknowledge him before he could speak.

“What do you wish?” I asked coldly.

“I come in the name of Gaius Cassius Longinus,” he said. “My commander requests that you send the remainder of your navy to him in Syria. Immediately.”

As much as I hated and despised the assassins, I knew that craft and dissemblance, delays and prevarication are weapons as powerful as outright defiance. The man who cannot control his face and words before an enemy is soon overthrown. So I put a false smile on my face and spread my hands helplessly.

“I would comply willingly,” I said, the words sounding abominable in my own ears, “but my country is devastated by plague. The fleet is not finished yet, and I can get no workmen to continue, let alone sailors to man it. We are in dire straits. In fact, you are a very brave man to have come within our borders—risking your own life!”

He shifted a little on his feet. I noticed that he was bandy-legged. “Indeed?” His voice was gruff.

“Yes. The plague attacks where it will. And one of our physicians has recently written a paper in which he puts forward a theory that it travels through the air.” I rolled my eyes about the room. “That would explain its mysterious ability to attack from nowhere. No one is safe. Especially not foreigners, who seem especially susceptible.”

“I feel well enough,” he said truculently.

“Mars be praised!” I said. “May it continue!”

“We’ll send our own men to man the ships,” he said. “They must be yielded to us immediately.”

“Of course,” I said. “But there is no need to send them while the plague rages and the fleet is yet unfinished. They cannot sail ships without keels or masts. We shall complete the fleet as soon as possible, and deliver them to you.”

“We will brook no delays!” he said. “Do not toy with us!”

I nodded to one of my attendants, who nodded to two men standing just outside the hall. They marched in, carrying a litter with a corpse on it, and laid it down at the man’s feet. He recoiled from the sight of the swollen, stench-ridden body, and leapt to one side.

“Is this toying with you? Is this victim joking?”

The man covered his nostrils and turned his head away. I indicated that the litter should be removed.

“You seem to have a strong enough stomach,” the messenger finally said, breathing again. “Do not think to put us off with such dramatic, repulsive displays!”

“Why, how could I? You see worse at the Roman games,” I said. “No real
man
would be bothered by the sight of a flyblown corpse. Yes, you shall have the fleet, as soon as you may.”

“My commander will be seeing you soon enough in person, when he marches to Egypt. Do not flatter yourself that he can be put off with such tricks.” I hated the way he kept rolling his shoulders. I wanted to tell him it made him look like a juggler. Now he squared them. “You should know what has happened to Marc Antony, that Caesarian dog. He attempted to wrest the province of Near Gaul away from Decimus—”

Decimus, the vile traitor! Decimus, who, like the evil Trebonius, had helped himself to the province Caesar had entrusted him with! It was too much to be borne!

“—in defiance of the Senate, which declared him a public enemy—”

The Senate! What had Cicero done to them?

“—and besieged him at Mutina. But Decimus and an army sent by the Senate routed him, and he had to flee across the Alps with his legions. He is struggling there now, starving, we have heard, stranded in shoulder-high snow and reduced to eating roots. That’s the end of
him
.” He nodded, his chin making stabbing motions of satisfaction.

I felt a sickening, swooping sensation, as if my throne had dipped and plunged. Antony stranded in the snow, starving, freezing! It could not be. Only then did I realize how much confidence I had had in him to prevail, to set the times right again.
I am Caesar’s right hand
, he had said. Was Caesar’s right hand now to be stilled?

And…the only remaining Roman I had liked and respected would disappear, plunging the world into true chaos, where one could choose only between one villain and another, with no honorable men anywhere. Antony had failings, but they were failings of the flesh, not of the spirit—unlike his enemies, who were the opposite.

The man was watching my face. Had my thoughts been visible? “What has happened to Decimus?” I asked calmly.

He scowled. “Decimus had to flee,” he conceded. “Octavian could not see his way clear to—cooperating with him.”

Hardly. Octavian would never ally himself with Caesar’s murderer.

“Where has he gone?”

“He—he tried to go to Greece, to join Brutus, but Octavian’s army blocked his way, so he had to flee to Gaul, where he wandered as a fugitive. It seems that a chieftain there has slain him.”

Joy surged through me. Another assassin dead, killed!

“They say the chieftain was an agent of Antony’s,” the man admitted.

O glory! O praise to Antony!

“But Antony will not live to know it,” he said. “Undoubtedly he is dead now, a frozen corpse, eaten by wolves.”

No. I refused to let myself picture it. “All that is in the hands of the gods,” I finally said. “What dreadful things were set in motion by the Ides of March, we cannot know until they run their course.”

“The deed itself was noble,” he insisted, “and the Liberators acted from the highest motives.”

“The gods will judge,” I said. Even my iron will could not steel itself to make a polite answer, when I longed to strangle the man. And all I had to do was signal my guards to kill him. But why give Cassius the satisfaction, the excuse to revenge himself on me? I meant to win the battle of wills, and if fate was kind to me, to stab Cassius myself, using his own dagger, the one that had taken my love away from me. I needed to get close enough to him to do it. I would embrace him, only to kill him. Thus I must lull his natural caution, let him think it was safe to approach. Yes. Let him come to Alexandria! And such a feast I would give him, such a welcome…wine, song, food, and his own dagger, buried up to its hilt in his lean belly.