by Karen Essex
“Ramses looks terribly lonely,” said Thea. Berenike’s favorite hound sulked in a corner. “I think he is crying for you.” Thea deposited Berenike on the floor next to her dog. She walked straight to the stupefied king and took his hand. “Come, Father,” she said. Kleopatra tried to hold on to her father’s woolly leg, but he slipped from her grip, leaving her little hands empty.
To the astonishment of the ladies, Thea led the king from his post at the queen Tryphaena’s bed. Undaunted by the disapproving stares of the wrinkled, fierce dowagers, she steered Auletes through their circle of worship and down the stairs to the level of the palace that housed his private quarters. She took him into his favorite room, the hunting room, and in a voice that she had never before heard come from her body, ordered his attendants to go away. They skittered to all corners of the palace to report what was happening.
Kleopatra sat alone on the floor, screaming words that she thought would make her father return. “Stop your gibberish,” yelled Berenike. “No one knows what you are saying, you idiot.” But Kleopatra could not stop, could not quiet the desire to bring her father back, to curl into his big firm belly. Berenike stood over her little sister, her long legs tall as smooth young trees. She crushed the cricket beneath her sandal, leaving Kleopatra to stare at the insect’s smashed remains.
Thea sat the king down upon the wide, soft pallet of his kills. She said, “I am a woman now, Father. Let me take away your pain.” She opened the front of her white chiton and let it slide off her shoulders. The king looked into the wide eyes, identical to those of her mother, his wife, and then to the pair of dark nipples that crowned his stepdaughter’s breasts. So like the queen’s, but somehow more tangible than Tryphaena’s lovely mounds, somehow more conducive to a large pair of rapacious hands upon them. He pulled the trembling girl onto his lap and closed his eyes, letting the heat of her lips dissipate any thoughts that might invade this god-sent moment of solace.
The next morning, the king ordered breakfast for two. Thea lay upon a mattress of animal skins—lion, boar, leopard, bear, and softest of all, panther—lost in the luxurious pile and thick musk smell enveloping her. The king had risen and gone to his bath. She imagined herself Aphrodite after she had lain upon a bearskin with the mortal Anchises in his herdsman’s hut while bees circled their bodies, though it was thoughts that buzzed about Thea’s head. The day before she had wondered in agony about the destiny the Fates had assigned to her; today she was the lover of the king.
The first time, when wordlessly he mounted her, she believed he would snuff the life out of her with the pressure of his august stomach spreading over her small body. In the morning, she took him by surprise, mounting him despite the burning soreness she felt and making vigorous love to him before he could do the same to her. It was a trick she had learned from her mother. One day she had heard the gentle Tryphaena whisper about the problem of Auletes’ formidable size to her lady in attendance, whereupon the lady imparted her best advice to the queen. Before he wakes, take the king’s member into your mouth and ensure its sturdiness. Then mount him quickly and he will submit to you in the upper position and not wish to roll you to the bottom. Like Thea, Tryphaena was petite and did not enjoy her time under the girth of the king.
What must the talk be upstairs? And why should it matter? She had ensured her good fortune. She had made herself useful, replacing her mother in the eyes of the king, causing him no inconvenience upon the death of his wife. She was certain her position at court was secured.
A council of crones, the meddlesome great-aunts of the queen Tryphaena, awaited Thea in the late afternoon as she, disheveled, exited the hunting room. They demanded, in the fearless way of women past the years of femininity, what business Thea conducted with her mother’s husband.
“I am comforting the king,” she replied sanctimoniously, brushing them aside and walking haughtily down the hall.
“Performing a duty of state, dear?” one of the ladies said sarcastically as Thea passed.
“Is there blood on the king’s sleeping skins, dear?” taunted another.
“She is ruined now. The daughter of Kleopatra Tryphaena, a king’s whore.”
“Her mother’s husband’s whore.”
“The state’s concubine. Send her to the courtesan quarters for costume.”
“A disgrace. No one will have her now.”
They waited for Thea to turn to them, to answer their accusations, to seek their help for her folly. But she continued to ignore them and walk down the hall.
“Your mother is dead. She died one hour ago.”
Still she walked on. The women stared at Thea’s long black mane swaying saucily as the girl marched away from their derision, into her future. Deflated by her dismissal, they gingerly knocked on the door to deliver the news of the queen’s death to the king.
“You must call me Mother now, Kleopatra,” Thea announced to the small princess. The child watched as the Royal Seamstress slipped a deep blue gown over Berenike’s head. Heavy with jewels, the garment fell over the girl, its gems against the plush fabric like shining stars on a clear winter night.
“My mother is dead,” replied Kleopatra in very precise Greek. “She died five months ago. She is buried in the royal catacombs near the temple of Isis.”
It was the morning of the wedding. The black robes of mourning for Tryphaena, worn a shockingly short time, were to be aced by ceremonial gowns so rich they were considered part of the treasury. Locked away in the national costume dock, they had been retrieved, refurbished, and altered very quickly for the occasion.
Kleopatra was next to be fitted—a prospect she did not like. The miniature gown of heavy linen embroidered with golden threads rested on the mannequin, looking weighty and dangerous.
“Dear little Kleopatra,” said Thea, kneeling to the child’s level, conjuring with great effort her most solicitous voice. “Do help your mother out on her wedding day and do as you are told.”
“My mother is dead. I saw her body.”
Berenike rolled her eyes. Thea widened her patient smile. The Royal Seamstress winced, but did not remove her eyes from the garment she pinned at Berenike’s side.
“Our sister is our mother now,” Berenike declared, admiring herself in the mirror. “It is very simple, Kleopatra. Thea is to marry our father. When I was small, Thea and I used to pretend that she was the mother and I was her baby. Our pretend game has now come true.”
“The aunties say it’s all wrong. They say mother hasn’t been dead long enough for father to marry,” Kleopatra said, parroting what had been said in vicious, hushed tones, knowing she was not supposed to repeat it. “They say that mother is cursing Thea for doing this.”
“Do they?” shrieked Thea. “What do they know, those old hags? Are you going to listen to them, or to your mother?”
“You are our sister. Our mother is dead,” Kleopatra insisted.
“I am going to put an arrow through you, Kleopatra, if you do not stop saying that,” said Berenike, lifting the sleeve of her gown and showing Kleopatra the muscles in her upper arm. “And you know I can do it. I am an Amazon princess and you are just a little four-year-old girl.”
Kleopatra glared at the taller girl. Berenike was one to be feared. She had read the ancient accounts of the Amazons’ training practices with her tutor, Meleager, who indulged her fascination, as it was the only way he could persuade her to read Greek. Convinced that she was descended from these mighty warrior women, Berenike put herself through the same rigors—shooting, riding, swordsmanship—and now she was as lean and muscled as any of the palace boys she challenged to wrestling matches.
“I have taken our mother’s name, Kleopatra,” Thea said insistently. “Henceforth, I am Kleopatra VI Tryphaena and I am your mother.”
“You are Thea,” Kleopatra countered, though this time in the Syrian tongue, a language Thea had heard in her childhood, but which she had long ago forgotten.
“Don’t you do that!” Thea o
rdered. “You will speak to me in Greek or you will be silent.”
Pleased that she had frustrated Thea, Kleopatra let loose a stream of dialogue in Syrian, all insulting, all aimed at Thea’s face.
“Shut up, shut up!” yelled Thea. “Why do you speak these foreign tongues? What is wrong with you?”
Kleopatra smiled innocently. She did not understand how she knew the dialects; they were like magical gifts bequeathed to her during her sleep. Regardless of the language, Kleopatra looked into the eyes of the speaker and understood the meaning of the words. She was three years and a half before she spoke at all, but by the time she was two months shy of her fourth birthday, she was able to mimic full sentences in Egyptian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Troglodyte, Numidian, and Arabic—the languages of the international cast of slaves and attendants in the palace. She did not adopt the heavily accented Macedonian Greek of her family; rather, she imitated the more refined speech of the scholars who visited her father. Word of her linguistic gifts had spread throughout the city like an outbreak of typhoid, and she knew it, taking pleasure in the fact that her sisters, who had thought her dim, were now made to hear others speak of her with awe.
“You are jealous,” said Kleopatra quietly. “Because I am special and you are not.”
“How are you special, you odd creature?” Thea seethed through her small teeth.
“I am the first of the Ptolemies to speak the language of the Egyptian people. The first in almost three hundred years to speak anything but Greek. That’s what the Egyptians say. That I am an oracle.” She saw Thea’s mounting anger so she added, “Anyone can speak Greek.”
Kleopatra heard everything the Egyptian servants said about her. They interpreted this case of a child of the Greek tyrants speaking Egyptian in a number of ominous ways. Perhaps it was evidence of further Greek oppression; the Ptolemies were breeding a new race of rulers who would pose as Egyptian sympathizers and deceive the populace all the more. Or, more optimistically, Egypt had not fallen to the cultural influence of the Greeks, but the children of the tyrants had finally succumbed to the irresistible Egyptian ways. Kleopatra did not know which was correct, but she liked speaking a language her sisters did not understand.
“No one can stand you, you obstinate creature,” Thea said, utterly exasperated. “I wish you were slave-born and could be beaten with a whip like you deserve.”
“Where are my nurses?” cried Kleopatra, suddenly afraid that she had pushed Thea too far. “I want my nurses.”
“They are waiting for you outside this room, and you will not be allowed to go to them until you do as I say. You have exhausted every nurse assigned to you, you strange and terrible child,” said Thea.
“And such a pretty little girl,” said the Royal Seamstress in a singsong voice that only made Kleopatra angrier. The seamstress turned to the dress Kleopatra was to wear and lifted it from the mannequin. Then she turned to Kleopatra. “Come here, my pretty princess. Come and try on the beautiful little gown.”
“No,” said the child, adamant.
“Do you see how she is?” complained Thea. “As soon as she is left with a governess, the sneaky thing runs away, or yells at them in the tongues of the demons. She is not even above biting. The nurses give thanks to the gods when they are relieved of the duty.” At present, Kleopatra was in the care of a skinny, sullen Egyptian nurse and two West African female slaves, fleet of foot, who handled her with trepidation.
“You are nothing but bad luck,” said Berenike. “I think it was you who cursed our mother with the fever that killed her.”
“I did not,” said Kleopatra defensively. “The Egyptians say that I am gifted by the gods and that I will rise into the sky and become a star.” Kleopatra hoped this was not true. She did not want to be a placid object whose only job was to shine in the heavens.
“I wish you would hurry up and go!” said Thea.
“I will not. Because my father would miss me too much if I left.” Even the governesses said that. “I am his favorite, you know.”
She had heard other rumors, too:
She was a newborn goddess. She was the savior of the Egyptian people who would wear Pharaoh’s crown and drive the Greeks out of the land. That one she did not like, for that meant that she would have to cast out her own father. But she would not stop speaking the different tongues, for Auletes himself said that her gifts were a blessing. My princess is touched by the gods, he would say, for the Lord Dionysus speaks to us in all tongues. That is true, Thea would reply. But surely the princess Kleopatra must be instructed to hold hers.
Now Thea put her clenched fists on her waist and faced Kleopatra in a showdown. “Today is my wedding day. I do not have time to play your games.”
Thea called the two attendants into the room. “She must be fitted into her gown, even if she has to be held down.” The two women exchanged worried looks.
The seamstress held the gown high above Kleopatra’s head. “Come, Your Highness,” came the voice from behind the dress.
“Come, Kleopatra,” Thea said. “Please do as you are told.”
The small princess saw the dress coming toward her as if a monster in a dream, a big garish thing waiting to swallow her whole. She raised her arms, but when the fabric fell over her body it felt as if it singed her skin. Believing that it would set her aflame, she tore the gown from her little body before the seamstress could fasten it. She kicked the seamstress hard on the shin, stepped on the bare toe of one of the slaves, spat at Thea, and darted from the room.
“Go!” yelled Thea, and the two slaves ran after her. Thea, Berenike, and the seamstress followed, Thea ordering the hall attendants to pick up the princess’s trail, and Berenike, cursing, hampered by the heavy gown tightly basted to her frame.
The child ran through the corridor like a tiny fox chased by a pack of hounds, flying down the stairs, where those on her trail stumbled over themselves. Running straight to the sealed chambers of the queen Tryphaena, Kleopatra pounded her small fist on the door until her hand throbbed. A tall slave scooped her up in his arms, holding her gently until she gave up her ineffective blows and caught hold of the man’s chest hairs, clutching as if to a favored blanket.
By Thea’s orders, Kleopatra was sedated with a potent infusion of valerian root that stank like rancid vegetables. Groggy, she was laced into her gown while Berenike watched, wearing the face of victory. Kleopatra noted this but did nothing; before she was completely dressed, she was asleep. Hours later she was carried into the ceremony, where she could not participate as planned, but slept in the soft arms of a big slave woman who sat on the floor in the back of the hall. When she awakened the next day, her half sister was queen.
TWO
Kleopatra, why do you enter the Royal Reception with disheveled hair?” asked Thea. “Thank the gods our guest is not already here. What would he think of a royal daughter rushing about with wild and snarly hair like an untamed thing?”
“He would think, Madam, that the daughter had more remarkable pursuits than attending her hair.” Kleopatra could barely contain her joy at the way the condescending response sprang into her mind and out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
“At least straighten your crown,” Thea hissed.
The nine-year-old Kleopatra despised Thea; she wanted to knock the golden diadem—the crown of their mother—off her head. She wanted to scratch her pretty face, the face Auletes loved to stroke with his fleshy fingers. She could not stand to be near Thea; the sickly smell of her, thick with the scent of lotus oil, made Kleopatra gag, and she wanted to tell Thea so. But Kleopatra was attended by Charmion, her newly assigned Greek governess, who stood primly at her side. The young woman had been presented to Kleopatra as a lady-in-waiting, in the hope that the more dignified position would discourage the princess’s notorious acts of rebellion. Though Charmion was in the bloom of her maidenhood, the stern lines of her face were set like ridges in smooth stone; her posture, impossibly erect. She rarely corrected Kleopatra, b
ut could squelch her outbursts with an admonishing look. Kleopatra did not fear her nineteen-year-old companion, but admired her and knew that she should strive to achieve a modicum of Charmion’s restraint. In ambitious and pious moments, Kleopatra tried to emulate Charmion, but with very limited success.
The Royal Family sat enthroned in the State Reception Room, the centerpiece of the palace Auletes had built and dedicated to the god Dionysus. A double-headed cobra, the symbol of pharaonic power, crowned each dais, peeking out over each royal head. Splayed before the royal feet were mosaic scenes from the earthly life of the god. Hovering overhead, a snarling bronze eagle, the emblem of the dynasty’s founder, Ptolemy I Savior, flexed his impressive wingspan, almost embracing the royals from above. Visitors to the court could not help but notice that both the king and his younger daughter Kleopatra had noses that resembled the eagle’s beak.
The king had explained the significance of the eagle to Kleopatra in one of their history lessons. Kleopatra had official lessons with her tutor, but she preferred learning the story of her family’s rule over Egypt from the king, who took her into his lap and drank his wine as he unfolded the legend of the Ptolemies. The king allowed this privilege to Kleopatra alone, who stunned the court by gaining admission to the Royal Reception Room at will and jumping onto the person of the king without asking permission.
