by Karen Essex
Leaving Sekkie as a sleeping decoy in Kleopatra’s bed, they scampered down the servants’ stairs in the rear of the palace and into the great kitchens, ducking under hanging fowl and small game, past the rows of men still washing the breakfast plates of the royals and their guests, and skipping through the grain pantry, where they stopped to collect baskets for shopping. With Mohama leading the way and Kleopatra assuming the mien of her humble assistant, they were soon out the back door, where workers unloaded produce-cars that delivered fresh food daily to the palace. They quickened their pace, not daring to look back at the indifferent pair of guards from the Royal Macedonian Household Troops who stood at the loading-dock doors.
“Mohama!” one called out with grave authority. The princess’s feet stopped in middle step.
“Wait here,” Mohama said. She sauntered back to the dock to talk to the man, a husky Graeco-Egyptian with a dark beard. Mohama cocked her head and smiled at the guard, with her hand placed firmly on her right hip. The princess was not accustomed to seeing her slave act coy with men, though Mohama seemed very practiced at this art. After a brief exchange, ending with a loud laugh from the guard, Mohama skipped back to the princess.
“Does he know who I am?” asked Kleopatra.
“Of course not. His name is Demonsthenes. He thinks you are my little cousin. He will believe whatever I say.”
“Why is that? Are you so clever?”
“He believes whatever I say because he wants to,” she answered cryptically.
They had no agenda for the day, only the desire to escape the court on a day of perfect weather in a city known throughout the world for its welcoming climate. Swollen clouds dappled the blue sky, moving with the sea breezes over the late morning warmth. The smell of jasmine struck their senses as they skipped along the Canopic Way. Free of everything, even her own identity, Kleopatra pranced alongside Mohama’s long gait, dodging the loping Egyptian women balancing huge earthen jugs of fresh drinking water on their heads.
Swinging their baskets through the Gate of the Sun, they raced through the southeast corner of the Jewish Quarter to the footbridge that crossed the canal and into the more fashionable section of town where Greek aristocrats kept large, white Mediterranean houses built in the style of their homeland.
On the Boulevard of Herakles, a crowd of perhaps a hundred men peppered with a few women gathered in front of one of the larger mansions. Dressed in traditional Egyptian clothing, they moved about like a hive of nervous white-cloaked bees. Some faced the front courtyard, yelling angry words at the closed gates, while others gathered in small groups, talking excitedly among themselves. The horses and carriages and camels that had carried them into the Greek Quarter lined the street.
“Perhaps someone has died!” exclaimed the princess, quickening her pace, trying to ascertain the words chanted by the crowd. As they moved closer, she heard a man yell, “Show yourself to us, you coward!”
“They are calling to someone inside the house,” she whispered to Mohama, who did not speak the language of the country that held her captive.
“Murderer! You must answer to the people!” shouted a young man in belligerent but very correct Greek. His dress was of a fine-quality linen belted with an embroidered sash. His sandals were leather. His face was recently shaven and his skin oiled and smooth—signs that he had just visited that ancient practitioner of cosmetic arts, the barber. His skin shone in the moist heat of the noon sun. He smelled of high-quality myrrh. Kleopatra recognized him as the son of Melcheir, the Exegete in charge of public services in the city. An educated Egyptian with command of the Greek tongue. Not the usual sort of person who attended a demonstration.
“This one next to us is the son of the City Exegete, Melcheir. He must be here on his father’s business.”
“There is no official business here. Let us go quickly,” said Mohama. It was the first time Kleopatra had seen her afraid.
“No, let us investigate,” the princess countered. “Perhaps we will take information to my father that is valuable and we shall be rewarded.”
“If your father finds that we have been in the streets, you will be locked in your room and I will be dead. You know his rules. We must only go to the stables.”
“I will protect you,” the princess said with authority.
“Celsius. Celsius. Come out, Roman pig.” The men shouted the name again and again, the pitch of their demand escalating. “Show yourself, Roman fiend!” an old brown woman said.
“What is the trouble here, sir?” the princess asked the son of Melcheir. She used the native tongue to enhance her disguise.
“You have no business here, girl. Go on.”
“Sir, I recognize you for the son of Melcheir. My grandmother, Selinke, was your father’s wet nurse,” she invented, hoping the man would not deign to know the name of his father’s nurse.
The man sneered at the princess. “If you must know, grand-daughter of a suckling cow, the Roman intruder who lives inside these gates and feeds his obesity on revenue earned from the bent backs of Egyptian workers yesterday murdered an innocent household cat. We are here to make him answer for his crime.” The cat, the man explained, was a princely bluehair from the northern regions above Persia, and a favorite of the Roman’s Egyptian cook, who put out a special piece of fish every morning for the animal. “Yesterday the cook was sick and the creature was deprived of his sustenance. He made his way to the dining room crying for his meal. The fat man was hungover from his endless debauchery, and like all Romans, cruel. He threw the creature against a wall and killed it.” He returned his attention to the demonstration while Kleopatra translated the story for the incredulous Mohama, who hailed from a land where a cat was not a sacred animal but a nuisance.
A small militia of Egyptians rode toward the assembly at a speed too dangerously fast for a city street, the drumbeat of the horses’ hooves heralding their arrival. An outlaw army, thought Kleopatra, one forbidden by the king’s orders to gather. She had heard of such ragtag bands—groups of men of vacillating allegiances that organized somewhere out in desert regions or in suburban demes. Men who could be bought for any cause that had the funds to pay for their strong-arm services. What were they doing here in the elite Greek section of the city? How had they managed to pass through the king’s men at the Gate of the Moon on the south side of town? Had the city tribes begun to organize private militias against the king?
The horses kicked up the dry dust of the street, and Kleopatra took off her kerchief to cover her nose, letting her long brown hair loose like a woman in mourning. The men wore clean white uniforms that could not have endured a gritty morning’s ride from the regions outside the city. These were Alexandrians. Egyptian men, heavily armed and riding unrestrained through the Greek Quarter. Bandits, soldiers, who knew?
Mohama grabbed the princess so hard that her arm would have the red, swollen memory of fingers for days to come. “We are getting out of here.”
“I can take care of myself,” said Kleopatra, jerking her arm free. “If you are scared, you go.”
The crowd of protesters parted, making a path for the cavalry. The captain of the militia rode to the gate of the house, reared his horse, and brought the animal’s hooves down directly on the wooden barrier, almost jostling it free. “We are not playing with you, Roman. Open your gates and answer to the people of Egypt.”
The captain forced his animal again to rear against the gate, this time cracking the wood. Kleopatra felt an invincible pressure from behind thrust her into motion as the crowd, oblivious to the jagged edges, stormed the gate and crashed into the courtyard. Kleopatra looked right and left for Mohama, but the slave was not in sight. Helpless, she let herself be carried along with the mass to avoid being trampled by the men and the horses that held up the rear of the mob.
The crowd was momentarily lost for their next action. Everyone froze in an eerie moment of quiet, looking about for direction after this first victory. Suddenly, three Egyptian house serva
nts pushed the Roman Celsius into the courtyard, surrendering him like an offering at the feet of the captain of the militia.
He reminded her of her father. Dark, obese, hairy eyebrows quivering together in fear. Fat arms his only shields against the protesters.
“Get up, Roman.” The son of Melcheir spoke to the prostrate man in his punctilious Greek.
The Roman tried to speak, but nothing emanated from his open mouth. His face was drenched with sweat, his thick flesh quivering, his breathing belabored, his throat muscles in wild spasms.
“Go through his house,” Melcheir ordered, ignoring the frightened man. “Take what you will of the riches the king stole from the people to give to this menace.”
The men and women, some on horseback, took flight into the house. Kleopatra did not move, her eyes riveted to Celsius. The Roman tried once again to speak, but appeared to have a sudden agony in his chest. He collapsed over his belly, clutching his heart.
“Get up, I say,” the son of Melcheir said in a chilling voice, kicking the Roman in the back.
The thud of the man’s foot against the Roman’s soft flesh scared the princess. She was torn between a desire to defend her father’s guest and desperation to keep her identity a secret. She was powerless against such a crowd. Her father would pay the price if the Roman was harmed, but what could she do? Announce to this mob that she was the daughter of the king?
Afraid to witness the Roman’s fate, Kleopatra followed the ravaging crowd into the interior of the house. She heard the crashing of plate and glass and the shrieks of household servants, some who tried to hide under tables and some who joined the fray. A fat-faced man had a young serving girl pinned to the floor, tearing open the front of her dress and laughing at her nakedness. The princess reached under her long djellaba and felt the hilt of her knife. She wished with all her heart to drive the deadly steel into the back of the bully. But the man allowed himself to be distracted by the sight of one of his comrades making off with a bronze statue of the cow-goddess, Hathor, and ran to catch up with him.
Some of the mob had stormed the kitchen and were throwing great jars of grain over the furnishings in the main hall. An old man urinated into a large urn painted with scenes from Egyptian myths, laughing as the yellow arc hit its mark. A militiaman and a kitchen maid copulated on the Roman’s couch. The woman’s legs shot straight into the air while the man moved furiously on top of her. The woman seemed in a trance, making animal noises, oblivious to the girl who searched her expression for a clue as to how the rabid assault caused such frenzied delight.
An arm went tightly around her waist, holding her intently. Mohama’s voice whispered in her ear, “There will be time for that later. Let us get out of here.”
Gripping Kleopatra’s hand, Mohama led her back into the courtyard, where a group of men had hoisted the Roman high above their heads and were tossing his weight about from one to the other like boys with a bouncing ball.
“Take him to the king!” shouted the captain. “Let us show Nothos the Bastard what we think of his Roman friends!”
The men ran out of the courtyard, bouncing the Roman up and down, his arms jerking away from his body like a puppet whose master has lost control. His eyes rolled about in his head. He made no sound. When the men tried all at once to force their way through the gate, the body hit the top of the arch and fell behind onto the ground with a sickening thump. The captain stopped his horse where the Roman lay. He did not move. One of the men leaned down and picked him up by his shoulders. Still his expression did not change, his eyes open but lifeless.
“He is dead.”
“Dead? Do the mighty Romans die so easily? Does fear kill a Roman?”
No one answered the rhetorical questions asked by the son of Melcheir. The princess stared at the corpse, still holding the dry, cool hand of Mohama.
“Throw him inside and make the king’s gifts his funeral pyre. Let us take our grievances to the palace.”
Mohama pulled Kleopatra out of the path of the pallbearers and out of the gate as the captain and his militia rode away with the mob trailing behind, some on foot, some on horses, a few on scraggly camels, some in the servant-driven carriages that had delivered them to the protest.
“They are going to the palace,” Kleopatra said as Mohama dragged her down the street.
“Yes, and so must we. We must get back inside before the trouble starts. Now come.” Mohama took her arm and tried to overcome her resistance, but Kleopatra was not resisting. She could not move. She gagged on the limestone dust kicked up by the horses, her chest racking with coughs as she tried to protect herself from the grimy stuff with the hem of her garment. A horrible acrid smell rose to her nose, pushing the contents of her stomach into her throat. She realized that she’d stepped in a mound of horse manure left behind by one of the militia’s mounts. She cursed, kicking the ruined sandal from her foot. Mohama jumped aside as to not become the target of the shit-soaked slipper.
“Come on. You must run, shoes or no. This is no time to act pampered.”
When they had gained a safe distance from the house, Kleopatra looked back and saw flames shoot from the interior of the courtyard into the sky like the arrows of the war god.
By the time the mob spilled onto the Canopic Way, its number had doubled. Kleopatra wondered if dissatisfaction with her father’s policy toward Rome was so great that it caused people to take to the streets, or was this sudden multiplication spontaneous? Did these normally indolent citizens join the ruckus out of boredom with the predictable rituals of their miserable quotidian lives? They infuriated her. They understood nothing of politics, of economics, of the difficult demands of Rome upon her father, whose only goal was to keep Egypt—their Egypt—a nation free from Roman dominion.
Her bare feet pounded the road, keeping up with the older and taller girl. More citizens, some alone, some in groups, fell in with them, shouting obscenities about the king and the Romans. By the time they reached the palace zone, they were part of a frantic, angry parade whose destination was her home and her father.
At the north gate to the palace, Kleopatra and Mohama stopped running, allowing the throng to pass them. Mohama positioned them behind a cluster of oleander trees where they would not be overrun in the mayhem. They squatted down to hide in the shade of the thick foliage and to catch their breath.
“How can the Alexandrians hope to defy Rome?” Kleopatra asked. “Do they wish to martyr themselves?”
Mohama shrugged. “They are hoping that their gods will be with them.”
“The historian Thucydides said that hope is an expensive commodity. There is no sense in hoping in a case where there is no hope, gods or no.”
Mohama did not answer.
“If the Romans annex Egypt, I am going to tell my father to take whatever position they offer. Priest, king, beggar. Mohama, I do not want my father to die like his brother did. I would rather live in exile in some terrible place.”
Kleopatra started to cry. Mohama said, “There is no need to cry. If we are sent into exile, then you and I will tend flocks of goats, or roam the fields at night looking for prey. We will live free like desert nomads. It is a good life for a clever person. So stop your crying. You are with me now and I will never let anything happen to you.”
“We would be barefoot and free and running over soft grassy meadows,” said Kleopatra, wiping her tears on her dress and smiling.
“That is right. Not dodging camel shit and other dirt on these hard streets of this city.”
“Then I could live a very happy life as a shepherd girl,” Kleopatra said. Perhaps even happier than as a perfumed, guarded princess.
One hundred yards ahead, the militias had lined up in phalanx style, confronting the smaller, though better armed, palace guard. Demonstrators on foot arrived from all directions. Someone had apparently spread the word to congregate at this hour. Kleopatra looked for Greek faces but saw none.
“I believe we are in the midst of the native upri
sing that all the generations of Ptolemies have feared,” she said.
“Then it is a good thing we are dressed like them,” Mohama said. “Between my skill and your tongue, we will get safely out of here.”
“Mohama, why do you not escape?”
The girl looked suspiciously at Kleopatra.
“Why do you not simply run away? I won’t stop you. The kingdom is in turmoil. My father is too busy saving himself to even report that you are missing. I would not say a thing. Not until you are long gone.”
“Are you mad, suggesting such a thing?”
“Why should you remain a slave? Go. Go, I say. Before I change my mind.”
Mohama ignored her. “I am not sure if we are better off inside the walls of the residence, or if we should take our chances in the streets where no one knows who you are. Your father will be worried about you, but we cannot go to the king if your chances of survival are greater where he is not.”
“I am telling you to go. This is your chance at freedom. Just go. It may be days before you are missed.”
Mohama looked about, then turned to the princess. She grabbed both Kleopatra’s arms in her strong hands and faced her. “I must say something to you. I do not know what will happen to us today. I do not expect you to forgive me, but only to understand. I am your servant, but I am no longer a slave. I serve the crown.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean to tell you that your father has long been aware of your escapes from the palace. He employs me to keep an eye on you. For your safety. That is why I must forbid you from doing anything that may cause you harm. That is why I do not run.”
Kleopatra looked into the cool, duplicitous eyes. A deep burning began just below the rib cage. Her companion in sleuthing and espionage worked double duty for her father. So this is betrayal, She thought.
