Pharaoh

  Caesar brought his attention back to the present moment, which now seemed an awkward lump in the straight arrow of earthly time-time he would soon leave behind forever. He realized that he was to join forever, to be a part of the very idea of it; that he would now attain the immortality that he had so fruitlessly sought on earth.

  Inside the chamber, the statue of Pompey presided over the murder, watching it all from his pedestal, staring down remorselessly at Caesar’s bloody body. The men were still stabbing frantically, white cloaks splattered with his blood, as if they were afraid to stop, for then they would have to face the consequences of their actions. Like puppets driven by some master who was divorced from his own reason, they continued to pour wounds into a lifeless body.

  “It hardly matters, does it?” he said, turning to her and letting any sadness he felt melt away in her radiance. And she agreed. Yes, Caesar, it all melts away in the ether. Shall we go? There are those on the other side who are most anxious to see you.

  “Julia?” he asked hopefully.

  Oh yes, Julia and so many more. You shall have a triumphal parade the likes of which you have never known. But this time, the victory is sweet and uncon-tested, and there are no enemies. All is honor.

  He felt light and giddy, pulled irretrievably away from all that he had known, but then something yanked him back to the corporeal world. Suddenly, at the house of Marcus Lepidus, where Caesar had dined the night before, he saw Kleopatra standing on a balcony staring at the same strange crucifix of light, an expression of stark fear on her face. He could hear his murderers begin to yell in the streets. Liberty! Liberty! Kleopatra heard this, and he knew that she knew in that instant what had happened. How he wanted to hold her, to send her this great love that he felt, and the knowledge that all things of this earth fade into the luster of heaven.

  “But we haven’t finished yet, she and I,” he protested, hoping that the goddess would allow him this final gesture to the woman he was leaving to her own Fate.

  Oh yes you have, my darling. Time has another agenda.

  Caesar sighed, letting the sight of Kleopatra slip away as the goddess took his hand and gently led him home.

  Kleopatra felt a chill slip into her body, making ice of her blood. She breathed deeply and then shuddered, holding herself tighter, a look of panic spreading across her worried face. She was engulfed by the very scent of him, the gentle essence of eucalyptus his manservant rubbed into his shoulders and arms in the morning after his bath, and the deeper smell all his own that lay underneath the aroma of oil. She opened her arms to clasp him, hoping that some part of him would come to her, would hold her, would take her with him. But her embrace was empty. She had felt him for a fleeting moment, just as surely as she had held him night after night in their bed. It was unmistakably him, but in seconds he was gone, leaving her to confront the future without him. Now she could barely sense her own body. Frozen, arms wrapped about herself, she felt her knees buckle, and she fell to the ground. She put her hands on the cold tile, and yet her flesh was colder still. She tried to bal ance herself, but could not, and rolled to her side so that she lay like a baby on the rigid floor, curled about herself, biting her hand and feeling nothing.

  She heard the cries in the streets escalate. Liberty! Liberty! The tyrant is dead! Long live the Republic! People screamed in horror, anguished moans wailing in response to this news. She wondered who exactly it was who had liberated the earth of Julius Caesar. Which son was it who had slain the father to collect his inheritance? She did not have to ask the question twice, for she knew which son was prepared to murder for an ideology. And if he had taken such a cold-blooded step, killing the man whom he called father, the man who had mentored him all the days of his life, who spoke to him in loving tones in Greek over philosophy and poetics, who had forgiven him for joining Pompey’s war against him, who had honored him even after his betrayal-if Brutus could manage that, then would he not at this moment be wiping his dagger clean of Caesar’s blood to use on her and her son? If they had killed the father, would the true son of his blood not be the next target? If the son was to die, then so too his mother, so that no one would be alive to take vengeance. Son and mother to be wiped out, leaving no one to threaten the claims of the assassins.

  And what of Antony? Kleopatra could not imagine that anyone could harm Caesar while Antony was around-unless Antony was in on the conspiracy. She let herself ponder this evil for a moment, until she thought she would retch. But she did not have the luxury of being ill now, and she breathed deeply until the desire to empty her insides subsided.

  She lay on the floor for a long time, unable to move, shivering against the cool morning air and the tiles still damp with the morning dew. She knew that action had to be taken, preparations made, safety sought, but she could not imagine what to do. She remembered that she had felt this way before, been a player in this kind of predicament, and had survived. When her father had died, she was left alone, without the sanctuary of his power, a teenage queen with hostile factions against her. Was there not one safe place in the world? Was there no person to whom one could turn for protection? She clenched her hand into a fist and bit it even harder until she could once again feel pain. She let her teeth sink into her soft skin, breaking it, until she could take the infliction no longer. No, there was no such being anywhere on the earth, no person of such power and magnitude that he might direct events in her favor. We come into this world alone and thus we leave it. And in the interim, there was little respite from that solitary fate. Henceforth, she realized, it was but herself and the gods-no father, no Caesar, no mortal individual in whose power she might rest. No mortal could accomplish for her what she must petition from her own strength and from the gods. And so she appealed to them, for they were the solution to every grim situation.

  Mother Isis, Lady of Compassion, once again you have taken away the source of my power, leaving me alone on this earth without mother or father or husband. It is only I who can protect the kingdom of my ancestors and my tiny son, the true prince of Egypt and the only true son of Caesar. Once again I ask you to restore my power to me so that I may carry out your purpose on earth, not in the body of another, but in my own person, where only you and I may guide my actions and declare Destiny. I ask you this as your humble daughter, in all sacred-ness. Let me survive.

  Hot tears came falling down her face, cutting warm little rivers over her cold cheeks. She should not cry now, not when there was so much to be done. She would weep later, much later, when she and her son were safe and back on Egyptian soil. She forced herself to sit up, wiping the tears from her eyes. Wobbling, she stood, holding the wooden rail for support.

  Under the noise in the streets, Kleopatra heard an unmistakable, rhythmic beat. She had heard it so many times before that she knew it was the pounding of the sandaled feet of Roman soldiers marching toward the center of the city. Now there would be war, and she was miles away from her son. Mother, please, he is but a little child. Help him! She had neither the energy nor the imagination to elaborate on her prayer.

  A tall man in a tattered peasant’s cloak rushed onto the balcony. She shrank from him, but he pushed his hood away from his face and she saw that it was Antony. He put an arm around her. “Quickly,” he said. “You must go inside.” She had not the strength to question him, nor the need, for she knew very well the chain of events that had brought him here in disguise. She was relieved to see him, not just because he represented a friend and ally of both herself and Caesar, but because his presence exonerated him from participation in the terrible crime.

  “You realize what has happened?” Antony asked.

  “It is being shouted in the streets,” she said.

  “And you realize what that means? We must get you out of Rome.”

  “Tell me what happened,” she said, choking on her words. “Was it Brutus?”

  “Not now, Kleopatra. There is no time for talk. Lepidus has called his troops stationed on Tiber Island and they are ma
rching on the city.”

  “You are going to war with Caesar’s murderers?”

  “No. I am going to negotiate with them.”

  Kleopatra was shocked at the news. “But how can you?”

  Antony’s face was lit with an energy that she had yet to see in him. He was entirely calm, though marvelously alert. He was glowing, as if driven by a light within. “There is no time for emotion. War must be averted, power seized. The greatness that was Julius Caesar is dispersed in his death.”

  “Just tell me, was it Brutus?” She wanted to know. She had warned Caesar, and he had ignored her. He must have wanted this death, designed it somehow, with an unspoken will. Why would he leave her?

  “Yes, Brutus. And many others. But they were scorned, not praised, when they ran through the streets shouting their news. People threw rocks at them and chased them away. Apparently they had no plan of action. I suppose they thought they would be thanked for their crime.” Antony smiled bitterly at the irony. He took Kleopatra’s face in his large hand, his fingers very warm and gentle against her cold cheek. “No tears now. We will all cry later. I must go now, first to Calpurnia, and then to the assassins.”

  To console her? Kleopatra asked in a strange voice that she did not recognize as her own.

  Antony smiled again. “She has control over Caesar’s private papers and a large fund that he used to pay his soldiers. Whoever has those tools has Caesar’s power. Lepidus and I already have the loyalty of his troops.”

  “What do I do? My son is at the Janiculum villa with his nurses.”

  “You’ll go back to Egypt and wait to hear from us. Arrangements are already being made for your voyage home, or so I am told by a Greek man who is at the door. He is detained by the guard until we verify his identity.”

  “Hammonius?” she asked. “Is he old and fat?” Her old friend and Kinsman come once again to help her. Was there no end to his goodness and loyalty?

  “No, he is young and slim and handsome for a Greek.”

  When she saw Archimedes, she saw not the lover of her womanhood, but the friend and protector of her youth. All that had passed between them-her betrayal in the name of politics and his bitterness at the loss of her-vanished in the sight of his familiar expression. “Cousin! Thank the gods it is you.” She moved to put her arms around him, but something in his manner stopped her. He did not smile. She composed herself and stood still at Antony’s side.

  “Cousin.” Archimedes bowed formally. The two soldiers who stood at his side fell back.

  “He is your Kinsman, then?” Antony asked.

  “Yes, he is my Kinsman,” she said, smiling at him. For all that I have done to break his heart and wound his pride, he is still my faithful Kinsman. She felt tears well up again, and though she tried to check them, they ran freely down her face for him to see.

  “I do apologize,” Antony offered Archimedes. “I did seem to remember you in the king’s service, but it has been so many years since I was in Alexandria.”

  “I appreciate your precautions,” Archimedes said.

  “I must go, Kleopatra,” Antony said. He embraced her, not as a man embraces a woman, but as she had seen him embrace Caesar many times, in a kind of fraternal hug. “Our alliance is not broken by this tragedy. You will hear from me shortly.” He took her elbows and looked at her one last time. Then he pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “The sons of Caesar shall have their revenge.” He released her, signaled his men, and rushed away.

  It was dusk in the Forum. The day’s black sky turned to the color of the sea at midnight, pink clouds hanging like rosy anvils over the square.

  Kleopatra stood with her cousin, dressed as one of his guard, wearing a short chiton, thick leather sandals, and a white cloak bordered with a Greek pattern of gold. She had forced Lepidus’s maid to chop off her hair, and now it hung about her ears and forehead in little ringlets, making it exactly like Archimedes’ cut. She had lost weight during the last months of constant anxiety, and she looked like a fifteen-year-old boy, going to honor the fallen dictator with a young uncle.

  People poured into the square from all entrances, carrying gifts to lay at the body of Caesar. Soldiers came with the arms they had used under his command. Women brought their family jewelry and the amulets that had protected their children. The poor brought simple household items, well-worn pots and kettles that were undoubtedly the only goods they had to offer, while servants of the wealthy carted bronze goblets and bowls, silver chalices and wine bowls, and statues of their household gods.

  Hammonius had already left the city for Janiculum Hill, where he would secure Caesarion and the entourage and see them safely to Ostia. There they would board a vessel for Alexandria that would leave in the morning. Archimedes had arranged with Antony for a guard to wait at the port until the boat was safely at sea.

  But Kleopatra had heard that the citizens of Rome were outraged at the death of Caesar, and had already begun a fire in the Field of Mars, where, years before, they had taken the body of his daughter Julia, stolen from the house of Pompey, and cremated her for all of Rome to behold and to honor. Groups of mourners had gathered in the Forum, making public speeches and sacrifices, grieving, and waiting for Caesar’s body to arrive so that they could make a spectacular funeral pyre to his glory. And she-lover, partner, ally-would not leave the city until she witnessed the spectacle and said good-bye to him along with his people.

  “I thought I had ended my days of arguing with you against your unreasonable demands,” Archimedes said without the slightest trace of emotion or humility. “Is your lust for adventure and intrigue so strong that you’ll risk leaving a motherless son?”

  “Caesar would not wish me to run off like a frightened child,” she said. “There is always a way, Cousin, to be safe in the face of danger. I need not appear in the Forum as myself.”

  He smiled for the first time. “You’re still the little girl who dreamed of running away with the slave Spartacus. You never change.”

  Now flocks of people-Romans and foreigners alike-poured into the Forum, each mourning Caesar according to their own custom. Jews in long black robes and wearing skullcaps walked slowly to the tune of their women, who took turns crying lamentations in their strange and guttural language. Blond-haired Gauls and Britons whose legs were wrapped in a fashion called trousers held gold breastplates to the skies as they let out short shrieks.

  Roman sentinels on horseback trotted up the Via Sacra, blowing trumpets and crying, “Make way for the body of Caesar! Make way for our leader!” The throngs parted. Led by Antony and his soldiers, a procession of magistrates carried Caesar’s body on an ivory funeral carriage. Trailing them were musicians playing a mournful tune, wearing the very clothes Caesar had donned in his triumphal parades. Kleopatra knew this because they had been on display in his office and he had shown them to her. The long procession walked slowly and solemnly toward the Rostra, where they laid him down. The body was cushioned by fabrics of purple and gold, and at the head hung the torn and bloody clothes in which the dictator had been murdered, blowing now in the breeze, billowing as if inhabited by Caesar’s ghost. Four men carried a tall statue of Mother Venus from the temple to preside over the funeral, just as it was whispered throughout the crowd that the statue of Pompey had presided over the murder.

  Antony climbed onto the Rostra and called for silence. He was in his senatorial robes, looking more like the solemn statesman than the fierce warrior. He raised his arms until the crowd was quiet.

  “Many of you have asked me to speak tonight, to honor our fallen leader with a eulogy.” Antony’s voice was as powerful as his body-deep, intense, resonating until it hushed the emotional crowd. “But perhaps the greatest way that I may honor Caesar, and that you may know how deeply he loved the citizens of Rome, is to share with you the contents of his will, read to me today by his grief-stricken widow.

  “Citizens! Who is Caesar’s heir?”

  Many shouted, “You are, Marcus Antoni
us! We will now follow you!”

  Antony laughed, shaking his head. “No, my friends, I am not Caesar’s heir. But you are! All of you. For our benevolent and all-knowing Caesar has left every Roman citizen, rich and poor alike, three pieces of gold from his personal fortune.”

  A huge cheer went up, but a woman standing near Kleopatra clutched her small son to her and began to cry. Antony called for silence once more.

  “That is not all. He has also left us his lands by the Tiber to use as public parks for our pleasure and in his memory.”

  Now the mob chanted, Caesar, Caesar, Caesar! Death to the assassins! And people were shouting at Antony, begging him to help them kill those who had killed their leader. Even the soldiers, who until this moment had stood at absolute attention, began to yell. Vengeance for Caesar! Vengeance for Caesar!

  Antony shook his head as if to agree with their desires, but he did not move to join the cause.

  “Remember, citizens and soldiers, that Caesar was not a man of vengeance. He was a man of mercy. He had already forgiven once many of those who raised their daggers and drew their swords upon his undefended body after they had joined with Pompey against him in the war. Those men he might have slain, but he did not. He forgave them and he prospered them, thinking that mercy and forgiveness would breed the same.

  “But let us talk more about Caesar the man. Citizens, he fed you, did he not, with his own money that he might have used to make his pockets all the heavier? Instead, he shared each and every victory and treasure with you. He gave you corn, oil, wine, and money. Not just his favorites, but every man, so that every man might take a small part of Rome’s glory home with him and feed his family.”

  The Romans around Kleopatra were crying now, and she wanted to cry, too. Archimedes stood beside her, not touching her, watching in perfect stillness the eulogy of his rival, the man who had caused him so much pain. And yet Archimedes was there, always there, when she needed him. Before her father, he had taken the oath to protect the Royal Family, and despite what she had done to him, he had not reneged. Kleopatra could not reach out to him, so she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort.