by Karen Essex
Feet off the bottom of the sea, stomach falling, breath going out of her body, she was lifted onto a strong, wet shoulder. She felt as though she were breaking in two at the waist and kicked her legs up, almost falling headfirst back into the ocean. The abductor leaned back, the two of them tumbling into a wave. She, lost, scrambled to evade him, but he caught her from behind and carried her like a baby out of the water. She did not know whether to struggle. She wanted to push away from him, but if she did, she would remain untouched by the god and untouched by man. She gave in to the strong arms and closed her eyes, licking the salty water that trailed from a lock of her hair pasted to her face.
Then she was down, a spiky patch of grass a bed beneath her back. She opened her eyes but it was dark. They had moved away from the shoreline to a desolate place behind the temple of Artemis. He was but a shadow figure, a spirit kneeling over her. He stood up tall to look at her. The moonlight illuminated his painted horrific mask, gigantic purple lips turned down, the image of the god’s face in displeasure. His body was lean and muscled but hairless. An athlete, she thought. Had she once seen him in the games? Did he know her identity? She closed her eyes again and heard the rip of linen as he tore her robe apart.
“You are just a child,” he said. His voice was young, not thick and low like the older men, like her father or the Kinsmen. Or Archimedes. He was not much older than herself. But he had passed that crucial time and was a man, for his penis stood straight out in front of him.
He entered her like some kind of hot swift weapon, wounding her, touching a place deep inside where she was sure no one belonged. She locked eyes with him. That was the only way she got through the pain. She was feeling now, but wishing that the numbness would overtake her again. She kept looking into his eyes, hypnotizing them both as he writhed on top of her, twisting and thrusting. Nor did he stop looking at her; neither knew any better than to play their roles without guile. He hurt her again with the intrusion of his flesh, so she screamed the name of the god. He looked frightened, pained, but he too invoked the god’s name until she realized that she was not only chanting with him but riding his rhythm. She ceased all resistance and locked her legs around his bare buttocks. There was nothing now but this, nothing in the world but the motion and the pain and the rhythm. Swallowing the word as she gasped for new breath, taking in the smell of the wet ivy crown, of the salty, sweaty boy on top of her, of the strange musky odor that came from herself.
But then—was it moments or hours into the act?—he choked on his breath and began to move faster and deeper into her. She kept with his rhythm, obeying a driving agitation from within. Suddenly, he uttered a loud snort and then a sigh. His eyes rolled into his head as if he were about to die. He arched over her, sighed again, and collapsed upon her. She screamed the name of the god, moving now with ferocity, for all his weight was upon her. She kicked and screamed against him, calling the god, calling the name of her slave, calling Mohama, calling for Charmion. Nothing. She wondered if he had died right there on top of her in the service of the god.
And then she passed out.
The next morning, close to dawn, Kleopatra awoke in the arms of Charmion’s slave, a tall, silent Numidian man who spoke only to Charmion in his halting Greek. Filthy and bleeding, her head spun as it fell back over his crooked arm. She tensed her neck muscles to still the whirlpool behind her eyes, but the insides of her head continued to move on their own accord.
The tide had gone out and the beach was covered with the slime of the sea. The initiates lay on the shore, their naked bodies wrapped in seaweed, as if a mermaid had come in the night and dressed them. Her partner had disappeared. She would never know who he was.
wordlessly, Charmion took off her clothes and bathed her gently, sponging away the sand, the caked and crusty debris of the body’s ecstasies. She led the princess to her bed, pulled the covers over her and said, “The princess is a woman now.”
They never spoke of it again.
From: Hammonius in the city of Rome
To: Ptolemy XII Auletes
I hope this finds you well and happy in Ephesus, and thank the gods you are not in Rome. The last months have seen violence beyond our measure. Pompey got tired of being the victim of Clodius’s mob tactics and has formed a mob of his own under Milo. This week, they clashed in the Forum, and Cicero’s brother Quintus almost perished in the fray. He hid under the bodies of two dead slaves until the atmosphere calmed. Cleaning crews are still mopping up the blood.
Your Majesty, it is the strangest thing. After one year of lethargy, suddenly Rome’s most powerful men see profit in reinstating you and vie for the honor, Pompey (imagine a stance from him!) has petitioned the senate to restore you himself. I suppose that having Milo’s gladiators at his disposal has made him once again brave. They say he is tired of things in Rome and longs for another eastern campaign. It is also speculated that a victory in Egypt would provide a nice counterbalance to Caesar’s impressive conquest of Gaul and Briton.
Meanwhile, Caesar has sent letters to the senate saying that he will gladly take the burden of Egypt from their shoulders. Everyone knows that he acts due to pressure from Rabirius. The two of them see nothing but money. Not wishing to be left out, Crassus has also petitioned to go to Egypt with an army to restore you. Crassus is very jealous of the military glories of Caesar and Pompey. Though he is extremely wealthy and getting on in years, he is determined to compete with his fellow Coalition members for military greatness. He has so much money that it is likely that he will get his wish.
Finally, my king, one of the gods interceded on our behalf. Yesterday morning, the statue of Jupiter was struck by lightning, which the Roman diviners took as a great portent. As you know, they report all sightings of lightning to the governing bodies, who act or decline to act that day according to the omens. The striking of the statue caused great concern. The Board of Fifteen, led by Cato—who is back from Cyprus—marched solemnly to the oracle, where the Sibylline Books were consulted. In them was found the most unusual advice: Restore the king of Lgypt, out do not use a multitude of force. From the oracle they marched in procession to the Forum, where Cato read the words aloud. By the end of the day, it had been translated into Latin and posted throughout the city. Still, no one had a satisfactory interpretation.
Cicero—back from exile, his new house full of blond-haired slaves sent as a gift from Julius Caesar—is the one who solved the Sibyl’s conundrum. Cicero has advised that the military man Lentulus, an honest man, should escort you back to Alexandria, but must leave you outside the city and march in with his troops. Then, when he is certain the city is secure, he should bring you home. Force would be used to take the city, but reinstatement would occur afterward in a peaceful manner. The senate is pleased with the plan, so that when you return home, you will have the orator to thank.
You will soon hear from Lentulus, and you must quickly acquiesce to whatever he proposes regardless of price. (Count yourself lucky-Caesar, Pompey, or Crassus would have demanded more for their services.) You have often said the gods are with Rome. It appears that they are also now with you.
Please give my love to the princess. Tell her to prepare for the voyage home.
Kleopatra was lightheaded. She had fasted the night before to purify herself. This would be the first time she paid for a sacrifice out of her private purse, and the first time she would make the kill. She wanted to be certain that the goddess Artemis knew her precise intentions and did not confuse her prayers and offerings with those of the king.
The temple was empty except for the princess and the young priestess. The priestess washed the lamb with holy water while the princess remained in silent meditation, trying to mask her fury with words of supplication. After weeks of anxiety waiting for word from Lentulus, her father had been contacted instead by Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria, who had demanded the usurious sum of ten thousand talents for marching his troops from Syria to Alexandria and toppling the government of Bereni
ke. Auletes, frantic to return home, agreed. Now the king complained daily of an ulcerous stomach, for he did not know how he was to make peace with Julius Caesar over the earlier debt, much less raise the money for Gabinius.
Kleopatra knelt before the immense statue of the goddess and prayed with a new fierceness. Lady Artemis, goddess of young women, of maidens, of the creatures of the forest, accept this small sacrifice. I beseech you to expand the riches of Egypt. If you so bless my kingdom, I promise that when my time comes, I will not sit on the throne like my ancestors, draining the country to keep myself in power. I will not walk the floors at night like my father, wondering how to fulfill the extortionists’ ransom on our country. I will succeed where they have failed.
Why did the gods allow one who had served them so well as Auletes suffer this endless humiliation? Kleopatra and her father had waited and waited for Lentulus, Auletes becoming more and more dejected by the day. What had happened to this Lentulus, this honest man, she asked the goddess, whose name had inspired so much hope? Why was he replaced by the greedy pig Gabinius?
Divine Lady, do the gods not exceed the Romans in power and strength?
Hear my vow. Lady, I will never retreat from this position: I will happily face death rather than live a life devoid of dignity. This I swear before She who hears and knows all Death before humiliation. Death before supplication before the might of Rome.
She fell prostrate in front of the statue, hugging the hard tile floor with her body, murmuring the promises over and over. Tears streamed onto the goddess’s feet until Kleopatra’s face rested in a cold wet puddle between Artemis’s heels. Exhausted, she raised herself upright.
“Are you ready, Your Highness?” asked the priestess. Wearing the short hunting tunic of the goddess, she did not seem much older than Kleopatra. She was an unmarried Greek woman, an anomaly in a country where women had no other function than to wed. Unlike the Romans, who demanded chastity from their priestesses, the Greeks only demanded chastity from the priestesses of the chaste goddesses.
Kleopatra caressed the white wool of the animal and looked into his unsuspecting, watery eyes. How could anything be so soft? She had heard from the Arab people that the softest fabric on earth was from the chin hairs of a particular kind of mountain goat raised for the sole purpose of donating its wool to blankets made for their king. She would have to procure such a thing herself someday, for she loved such luxury.
She stopped touching the animal. She was queasy in the stomach, either from lack of food or from the pressure of the vows she had just made or from anticipation of what she must do to the small lamb.
”Your Highness looks a little sick,” said the priestess.
The color of humiliation invaded her cheeks, giving her away. She was not able to hide her emotions from the woman. This would not do. No, it would simply not do to have commoners, even if they were priestesses of the goddess, able to read her thoughts. She must be even more mysterious than the mystics. She looked away from the priestess and, without pause, pulled back the head of the lamb. Ignoring the way his soft wool felt between her fingers and the last bleating gasp of protestation, she slid the knife across his throat. The kill was not easy. She had to use more strength than she had anticipated as she ripped across the supple neck of the small creature, closing her ears against his cry and her eyes against his stunned expression. The blood came spewing from the neck vein with such force that the priestess had to push the bowl forward to catch it. Kleopatra watched the blood spill into the bowl like a long red tongue. She dropped the animal and looked straight ahead, not wanting to meet its open lifeless eyes.
Damnation to Gabinius. Damnation to Pompey. To Rabirius. To Cicero. To Julius Caesar. To all those Masters of the World who had caused her father and her people so much pain. Those barbarians who made the descendants of Alexander lie down and weep. Goddess, holy virgin who rules over vast lands, watch over me. I am of Alexander, of the highest and most noble Greek blood. We are your subjects, your chosen, your people. Abandon these Romans who steal everywhere from us, our money, our poems, our art, and our very deities. Do they not call you Diana? Who is Diana but a Roman fantasy, a Roman bastardization of something pure and Greek? Lady, I ask you to consort with your fellow deities and protect us, the original and true people who serve you.
The priestess raised her head from the posture of supplication and looked into the eyes of the princess. “Your Highness, the goddess has received your prayers and your sacrifice. Whatever you ask is done.”
Part III
THE TWO LANDS OF EGYPT
SIXTEEN
Berenike IV Ptolemy, you are accused of murdering your stepmother, the usurper Kleopatra VI Tryphaena, and of illegally assuming the monarchy. Further, you are accused of the murder of the philosopher Demetrius and of the eunuch Meleager. How do you plead? Guilty or innocent?”
“Meleager committed suicide,” Berenike corrected, her black robes of mourning stark against the chilly marble podium for the accused. She had cut off her chestnut brown tresses as a funereal offering to her husband, an enemy of the state whose body had yet to be buried. Shorn of her hair, stripped of her weapons and her adornments, she seemed, to Kleopatra, more powerful. As if peeling her down to her essence revealed the source of her strength.
“That is not a plea,” the magistrate shot back at her.
Kleopatra sat next to Archimedes, craning her neck around his shoulder to see her father’s face. The king witnessed the trial from his usual box seat surrounded by those whom the general Gabinius had told him were his supporters—including the Roman moneylender Rabirius, who had insisted on coming to Alexandria to be sure of collecting his debt. Draped in commodious Greek robes, Rabirius’s rouged and flabby cheeks were framed by unreasonably long curls, still imprinted with the crease of his crimping iron. He sat next to the chiseled military man Gabinius, the pair looking curiously like a long-married couple who had aged in opposite ways; one given to cosmetics and bloat, and the other, gaunt, his skin as brown and spotted as an antique scroll.
Berenike cocked her head like an amused coquette. “Does it matter how I plead? This trial is a mockery staged for the amusement of my father. I will not plead. I choose not to plead at all before the bastard king.”
”I will give you another chance to enter a plea and to save yourself. Berenike IV Ptolemy, how do you plead before this court?”
Berenike ignored the magistrate and addressed her father. “What a fool you are, Father. I know about the money you paid the Roman to arrange my demise. Do you think you were the first Ptolemy he approached to fill his pockets with our gold?” She waved at Gabinius as if acknowledging a long-lost acquaintance.
She continued, “Let us dispense with this travesty. Father, hear this: Gabinius and I have been in close communication since before he left Rome for his governorship in Syria. The Roman wished me to marry a co-regent from Syria so that he could extort money from yourself. But he was coarse and ignorant and not fit for my bed so do business with me, as long as I was willing to pay. You do know how that system works, do you not, Father?”
A low mumble slithered through the crowd, but was silenced by the booming voice of Gabinius. “Will no one quiet this girl and her lies? Your Majesty,” he began. “Surely you will not allow the words of a traitor to vulgarize these proceedings.”
”The defendant may continue,” said the magistrate. “Unless the king wishes to object.”
”No, no,” said Auletes. “I am quite interested in this testimony. Do go on.”
Gabinius sat down, exasperated, grumbling loudly to his neighbors, who were more interested in hearing Berenike’s version of the events than his low-pitched indignation.
Berenike, her outstretched arms making a shadowy curtain, told of how she decided to choose here own husband, Archelaus of Pontus, handsome, fierce, and the illegitimate son of the great tyrant Mithridates. Archelaus came to her with a dowry of his own, his militia. Still, Gabinius was happy to ally with them, t
hough Pompey, when hearing that Berenike had married the bastard son of his former enemy, expressed his displeasure. “Did you wonder, Father, why your host in Rome remained inactive in the face of your pleas? Did you never think that he was waiting to see which of us could supply him with the most blood money?”
Auletes did not show emotion as Berenike ran through her accusations, but sat placidly, his hands folded in his lap, and his face attentive but inscrutable. Kleopatra wondered if he was judging the truthfulness of her words, or if he was by now numb to tales of betrayal and intrigue.
Berenike, voice full of knowledge, taunting her father, explained how her relations with Gabinius finally soured: The Roman heard that as much as ten thousand talents might be extracted from the desperate Egyptian king for his reinstatement, money that, if not readily accessible from the treasury, might easily be furnished by Rabirius. “When he realized that Archelaus and I did not have access to that kind of capital, that he could not perform the slow bleed of the leech on us, the friendship, shall we call it, came to an abrupt end. Then he cut off my negotiations with the Roman senate by trumping up charges that I was conspiring with pirates in the Mediterranean to form a fleet that would attack Rome.
“A good story,” she said to Gabinius. “I congratulate you on your imagination.”
