Sands of Egypt

by S. J. A. Turney

  In a way it was the Aegyptians that had made it possible for the tribune to retreat. Their use of a cart to jam the gates open prevented them from sending enough men in at speed to hamper the Roman withdrawal. They would get out, and then have to run the gauntlet of enemy artillery along the Heptastadion to reach safety.

  Fronto became aware that he was being shouted and looked down. The cornicen and signifer were now down on the ground level, amid the press, gesturing at him. He realised with a sudden wave of alarm and foolish chagrin that he was the last Roman on the walls, and already the enemy had pushed the retreating Roman line back past the staircase he had used to get up here. Why hadn’t he listened to Carfulenus?

  He fretted. He was trapped. Probably. There would be other ways down, for these forts had been cobbled together from housing, but what if the only stairwells were already also behind the enemy. And if he spent time looking for one, he might end up trapped here with them.

  With a sinking feeling, he began to hurry back around the wall to the eastern side, with its commanding view of the corner where the Heptastadion almost met the port, separated only by the fort wall. He sighed and began to unbuckle his cuirass. His helmet he could do without. He would need his sword, and he damn well wasn’t getting rid of it anyway, but the rest was all replaceable. Lastly, he crouched, untying his boots. It would be easier with bare feet, after all.

  Finally ready, he approached the parapet and looked down. His stomach lurched unpleasantly.

  It was a lot further down than he’d thought. The water looked dark green here, which suggested depth, but Fronto was well aware of the nature of harbours and sea walls. It might look nice and deep, and yet have big, pointed rocks just a few feet below the surface.

  He was a good enough swimmer. He’d swum all his life, for sea-sickness didn’t touch you when you were immersed in it, oddly. Still, despite everything, Fronto hesitated. It is simple human nature to fight against the suicidally idiotic, after all. Hoping there might still be another way out, he glanced over his shoulder at the courtyard. One look answered that question. The Roman lines were closing on the north gate now, and the enemy were gaining control of the fort. Aegyptians were flooding in through the main gate. Archers were setting up in the courtyard, men hurrying up staircases to walls and towers, and he could even see a native bolt thrower of Greek design being manhandled through the arch by half a dozen burly men. Time to go.

  Still he delayed, heart thundering every time he looked down at the deep green sea below, which could be harbouring anything beneath its intractable surface. It was only as the first arrow clattered against the stonework a few feet to his left, and his hasty turn revealed half a dozen archers nocking arrows to bows and looking up at him, that the stupidity of throwing himself from a high wall was overcome by the stupidity of not doing so.

  Taking a deep breath, left hand grasping the twin figurines of Fortuna and Nemesis around his neck, he clambered up onto the battlements. A second arrow struck the merlon just beneath his left foot.

  He jumped.

  It was not supposed to be an ignominious and graceless plummet into the brine. It was supposed to be a beautiful dive executed in the manner of which a Roman officer could be proud, knifing into the water and emerging to swim to safety. Instead, Fronto fell feet first like a lead weight and hit the water like a boulder, sending up a great crown of foamy droplets.

  He struck the surface so hard that it robbed him of breath and all sense for a moment, and he seriously worried he might black out. Indeed, after some time he suddenly realised that he was simply sinking into the deeps, and finally began to take control, panic thrilling through him at the thought of drowning. His feet kicked, mercifully not finding any of the great pointy rocks of which he’d been afraid.

  He broke the surface a moment later and heaved in deep breaths, coughing and spluttering. Taking a last look up at the fort they had controlled so briefly, he put his head down and began to swim towards those ships coming to collect survivors.

  * * *

  The Paneum, central Alexandria, January 7th 47 BC

  Arsinoë leaned on the table, fuming, her face pale.

  ‘Send him in.’

  The eunuch bowed and hurried out backwards, grateful for a reason to leave the angry princess. Moments later, Ganymedes entered, striding confidently, tall and muscular, dressed in the garb of a general. Some days she regretted having raised him so. When he was simply her man, he’d had no ideas above his station. These days he seemed to believe he was in control, just because he commanded the army. She glowered at him, lip rising into an unpleasant sneer.

  ‘Highness?’ he said.

  Her glare hardened to diamond. ‘Majesty is the correct term of address for a queen.’

  Ganymedes nodded. ‘I concur, Highness. And when we have your brother and sisters’ heads on spikes I will be the first to announce such. Until then palace propriety should stand.’

  She seethed. Should she have him killed? He was becoming an affront to her. And she had been willing to overlook his attitude initially, because he had been doing so well. His new strategies and plans had been wonderfully effective. He had taken the useless war of Achillas and turned it into something that had the Romans reacting and fighting for even a toe-hold of power. She had been pleased with him.

  And it had culminated in the battle of the Heptastadion in which Caesar had been dealt a severe blow. They had lured the stupid Romans into spreading themselves thin and putting their neck under the Aegyptian sword. Ganymedes had brought that sword down, but had stopped just short of severing the neck.

  The Romans had retreated across the Heptastadion under a shower of missiles from the ships, and their fleeing force had returned to the island of Pharos to lick their wounds, even taking their ships back to there and to the Palace Harbour. They had manned the fort at the northern end of the Heptastadion and begun to dig in, adding to the defences there and filling the wall tops with missiles and artillery.

  Why Ganymedes had let this happen had struck Arsinoë as something of an important question. At the time and, indeed, over the days that followed, she had demanded to see the general for an explanation. In a move of the most astounding disobedience, Ganymedes had declined to see his queen, claiming more important matters demanding his attention.

  So she had watched, irritable, as the Romans once more drew their lines. Admittedly, the royal force had taken control of the Heptastadion once more, and were even now using great lines and hooks to clear the boulders that were blocking the arched bridge to larger ships. But the fact remained that while they were almost back where they had been, they could have done so much more.

  Finally, when she was seriously considering having Ganymedes assassinated, for there seemed no other way to get to him, he had sent word that he was coming and sought a royal audience.

  She cursed herself silently. She had let herself get so wound up that she was leaning over a table snorting angry breaths when he arrived. She’d meant to be sitting on her throne and looking unattainable and imperious, like a true daughter of the Nilus. Instead, she was worried that she more resembled a petulant teenager. Straightening, she forced herself to calm down, clasping her hands behind her back and stepping away from the table.

  She could not allow herself to be overcome with rage. It would make her do rash things. This interview had to be undertaken with her as the strong position. As such, she gave a nod and the doors were shut behind the general. Ganymedes turned, an eyebrow rising at the sight of the two hulking bodyguards that had closed the door. Two more stood behind the throne, as well as the usual lackeys and slaves. She was surrounded by the loyal, the faithful and the dangerous. Ganymedes was alone.

  It irked her that he showed no sign of nerves at that.

  ‘General, I demand an explanation for our failure to complete this war.’

  Ganymedes gave her a look that threatened to make her fly into a rage once more, somewhere between the condescension of the tutor to the f
oolish student, and the commander to the soldier.

  ‘Perhaps you could elucidate, Highness?’

  ‘We had them on the run, Ganymedes. We had them fleeing. We could have pressed and retaken Pharos Island and the fort. Once we had the fort, we would have had a strangle hold on their shipping. They would be back to having just the palace and the Diabathra, as they had in the beginning. Then we could have squeezed them until they burst. Why did we not press home our victory? I remember in our planning sessions before all of this, that our goal lay in pressing them right back to Cleopatra’s bedroom and destroying them there.’

  Ganymedes shrugged. ‘That was always your plan, Highness. I never concurred with it. To do so would be to overreach in the same way we tricked Rome into doing, and to let them have their revenge. I stopped short of such lunacy.’

  She shook and forced herself not to leap at him and tear his face off with her nails. Once she was sure she could speak without open venom, she continued.

  ‘We let them retain the island. Why could we not press for that at least?’

  ‘Because we would have lost an unacceptable number of men, Highness. That is the sort of move Achillas kept attempting, which depleted the army. The Romans had already fortified the northern fort. Their fleet had freed itself and could operate and, though their legion ran back across the Heptastadion, they were not running in panic. They withdrew like an army, in the control of their officers. Once they secured the far end, had we pressed them, we would have been funnelled along the mole into their maw. We would have lost thousands with little chance of gaining their walls. To do so was futile. Instead we consolidated what we had retaken and watched them limp away. Now we have the bridge clear again and can harry their ships if we decide to. We weakened them considerably and pushed them back.’

  ‘And now? What do you intend now? We are once more at that impasse. My accursed siblings remain alive in the palace, and Rome remains in our city.’

  ‘Now we do nothing, Highness.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘For the coming days, at least. I am reluctant to commit until I know better how things will look by the end of this month.’

  ‘What?’ This sounded important.

  ‘Highness, we have the superior army, but we do not have the power to take the palace from them by force without risking everything. I am not a man given to such risks. I have called up every soldier, every piece of artillery, every weapon we can secure. They are on the way to Alexandria. If they reach us and the odds remain as they are, then I will commit to a final push.’

  ‘And if not?’

  Ganymedes approached and began to jab the map on the table with his finger. ‘We have intelligence of Roman reinforcements. I cannot as yet confirm numbers or timescales, but we have been informed of infantry and archers coming from Crete and the west. From Syria and the north come at least two more legions. From the east, from the twin-faced traitorous client kings of the desert lands come archers, infantry and cavalry. Rome is hurrying to their general’s aid.’

  ‘Then we must push now.’

  ‘Do not be foolish, Highness.’

  She bristled again. One more phrase like that and she might just have him quartered and peeled.

  ‘Explain,’ she hissed in acid tones.

  ‘This has become a race, and a balancing act, all at once. We cannot put an end to the Romans until our men arrive, but Rome cannot defeat us until theirs do. Whoever gets here first will have the upper hand and will secure victory. There is nothing we can do now but wait and see whose dice come down favourably: ours or Caesar’s. In the meantime, we must be careful. We cannot afford to commit too heavily and risk everything, but we also cannot leave the Romans in peace. We must keep them on edge, for if our army arrives first we will be able to use that. But if we are careful and circumspect, then if their army arrives first we may yet be in a position to negotiate.’

  Arsinoë’s lip twitched again.

  ‘There will be no negotiation. If we must lose every man, we will continue to fight Rome.’

  ‘That will not be a popular idea with every man, Highness,’ he replied calmly. ‘We are in a strong position and I will not readily step out of that position without good reason. If you wish to put your divine power to good use, Highness, I would entreat the gods to move our reinforcements faster than theirs.’ He looked back down at the map. ‘I may yet consider diverting our reinforcements to stop theirs mid-delta. It all depends upon timing and numbers.’

  The princess fumed. Replaying their earlier conversations in her head she was certain that Ganymedes had been fully supportive of the plan to wipe the Romans out in this one great push. Now it seemed that he had been simply indulging her, while harbouring an entirely different opinion. Men who purported to serve, yet went against their mistress’s wishes were little more than traitors. She wondered once more whether to simply do away with him here and now.

  No. Irritating and disobedient he may be, but he was still a shrewd military man, and she was not blind enough to her own skills to believe she could step into his boots. Until she found a suitable replacement, Ganymedes would live.

  ‘Go,’ she barked. ‘But do not presume to exclude me or keep me waiting in future. I shall require constant updates of our situation, and if I call for you and I am told you are too busy, the next time you see me will be while your eyes are being plucked out. Do you understand me? I am your queen.’

  ‘I understand, Highness,’ he replied with a stress on the title of a princess, and blistering impudence. Leaving Arsinoë shuddering with anger, he bowed, turned and left. She entirely failed to notice that her oh-so-loyal bodyguards at the door gave her not a single glance, but threw open the exit at a simple nod from the general.

  * * *

  Royal palace, Alexandria, January 7th 47 BC

  The room had polarised into two camps at the first growled disapproval.

  ‘We still need control of the Heptastadion if we are to be secure,’ the queen said in those honeyed tones that seemed to win men over despite themselves.

  ‘The Heptastadion cannot be controlled without securing the forts at either end,’ Cassius snapped, and not for the first time. ‘And look how well that worked out for us the last time.’

  Fronto nodded at the officer. Cassius had been the only man who had leapt to his defence during their debrief after the disaster, and through the same arguments that had been raging for a week now.

  ‘Which is why I am still exasperated at the utter failure of certain men to consolidate their control,’ Cleopatra murmured, with just a flicker of a glance at Fronto. ‘Your men had the entire harbour in their grasp and fled at the sight of my sister’s army.’

  Fronto had meant to stand back and not put himself in the way of verbal arrows this time, but he simply could not help himself and stepped forwards, wagging an angry finger at the queen.

  ‘For hours I argued against the entire bloody campaign. I told you the dockside could not be taken and held with the men we had. I had already tried exactly that once before, remember? And just to make my gods-cursed life complete, you put me in command of the push that I knew damn well we couldn’t win.’

  ‘You ran away,’ the queen said, narrow eyed. Fronto was exceedingly irritated to see Caesar nod. The general should damn well know better than that, but the wiles of the seductress queen of Aegyptus seemed to be making the old man blind to the truth.

  ‘I sounded the retreat, and only once the flank had broken and the battle was lost anyway. If I had not done so, we would now have at least a thousand fewer men. I recognise your authority here, queen of Aegyptus, but you are not my queen. Do not presume to lecture me on strategy. You have fought as many battles as I have ruled countries, to wit: none, while I walked the fields of Mars covered in the blood of Rome’s enemies when you were still playing with child’s toys.’

  He stopped, breathing heavily, aware that he’d gone much further than he’d intended with that, but they had lost good men, the i
mage of Caesar’s bodyguard returning without their commander a particularly bitter low point. The queen’s eyes were filled with fire.

  ‘I cannot see how much can be gained by hauling out the same arguments and dusting them off at every meeting,’ Brutus said, stepping into the middle of the room between the ireful queen and her consul consort, and the pairing of Fronto and Cassius.

  ‘Quite,’ Caesar said finally, with a careful look at the queen, who paused, silent for a moment, and then gave a sharp nod.

  ‘Why the Aegyptians haven’t pressed home their advantage yet is the main mystery,’ Cassius grunted. ‘We’ve no word of support, and they outnumber us by some two to one at least. They could at least make a try for the island. Instead we have constant sallies by one side or another, pushing back and forth with no real purpose or strength. On the bright side, our men seem to have recovered their morale in the face of the enemy’s indolence.’

  ‘Do not mistake silence for indolence,’ Cleopatra snapped at Cassius. ‘Because you cannot see and hear them does not mean they are doing nothing.’

  ‘And yet they merely send out light sallies,’ countered Cassius with a sneer.

  ‘Time will tell all,’ Caesar said. ‘For now, let us continue to meet their half-hearted pushes with similar of our own. It gives the men a chance to recover their spirit with the occasional small victory, while a major campaign could break them.’

  The conversation moved on, but for Fronto it never seemed to go anywhere new, and no matter who spoke, or what they were speaking of, the focus for him remained the fact that the queen’s glare returned to rest on him again and again, and when it did not, it fell acidly upon Cassius. Following what the other officer had said to him earlier in the winter, Fronto could not help but notice that every time the queen’s eyes fell upon the consul, Caesar ended up nodding at her words, whether they made tactical sense or not.