Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  Enobarbus, who, together with Scarus and his legions, had followed Antony from Actium to Alexandria, stayed on in the palace, as if to warm himself at the dying fire of his master’s greatness. The schoolmaster had returned with Caesar’s harsh terms, and Antony, in a raging fit of self-pity, had shouted to the Queen, “To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head, and he will fill thy wishes to the brim with principalities!” And when his mad offer was greeted with the amazement it deserved, he’d rushed off to write a letter, challenging Caesar to single combat!

  Briefly Enobarbus wondered who was the greater fool: himself or Antony? “Yet he that can endure to follow with allegiance a fallen lord,” he murmured, “earns a place i’ the story.”

  There was a messenger from Caesar. Enobarbus knew him, and did not like him. He was Thidias, a young man on whom the gods had spread charm like oil. He was a young man well-calculated to win the hearts of ladies with his silver smiles and golden promises. He begged leave to speak with the Queen in private. She declined; she was among friends. But one friend was missing, thought Enobarbus, and went in search of Antony.

  When he returned, accompanied by his master, the handsome Thidias was kneeling and gallantly kissing the extended hand of the Queen. Enobarbus smiled inwardly. The moment could scarcely have been better chosen.

  “Favours? By Jove that thunders!” roared Antony. “What art thou, fellow?”

  “You will be whipped,” murmured Enobarbus, with pleasurable anticipation. Haughtily, Thidias proclaimed himself Caesar’s envoy. He might have saved his breath. “Take hence this Jack and whip him!” Antony commanded; and, as the protesting Thidias was dragged away, Enobarbus reflected, “ ’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp than with an old one dying.”

  Then Antony turned his fury on Cleopatra, the universal whore, who had so readily let the hand she’d given to Antony be soiled by another’s kisses. “You were half blasted ere I knew you!” he shouted, and flung in her face the salty catalogue of her past lusts, breaking off only when Thidias was brought back, supported between guards. “Is he whipped?”

  “Soundly, my lord.”

  “Get thee back to Caesar, tell him thy entertainment,” Antony commanded the moaning Thidias. “Hence with thy stripes; begone!”

  “Have you done yet?” quietly asked the Queen, when the messenger had been helped away. Antony began to accuse her again. She shook her head. “Not know me yet?” she asked, with a sad smile.

  Antony faltered. “Cold-hearted toward me?”

  “Ah! dear, if I be so, from my cold heart let heaven engender hail and poison it in the source; dissolve my life!”

  In an instant, all her past misdeeds were forgiven and forgotten. Antony was smiling eagerly. Suddenly he was full of plans for the battle to come. He still had troops, he still had ships—

  “That’s my brave lord!”

  “When mine hours were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives of me for jests; but now I’ll set my teeth and send to darkness all that stop me!” cried Antony defiantly. “Come, let’s have one other gaudy night!”

  “It is my birthday,” said she, laughing as Antony embraced her. “I had thought to have held it poor; but since my lord is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra!”

  “Come on, my Queen; there’s sap in’t yet!” promised Antony; and together they left the room.

  Sadly Enobarbus watched them go. He shivered. “I will seek some way to leave him,” he whispered. The dying fire was out.

  Antony’s challenge to single combat had been laughed at. “Let the old ruffian know,” Caesar had said, “I have many other ways to die!” It was plain that Antony’s end was near. Already his soldiers were deserting him. They were coming over to Caesar in sufficient numbers for them to be set upon their old master like dogs, and bring him down. “Poor Antony!” murmured Caesar, and sighed.

  But Antony, though poor in luck, was still rich in love; and the glimmering palace heaved and murmured in the heavy, perfumed air of Antony and Cleopatra’s gaudy night.

  Outside, in the dark, soldiers were talking quietly together. They spoke of rumours, of strange sights seen in the streets, and of the chances of victory in the coming battle. “Tomorrow is the day,” murmured one, testing the edge of his sword against his thumb; when suddenly another held up his hand. “Peace! What noise?”

  They fell silent. There was a sound of strange music. It was very soft, and seemed to be moving from place to place. It was a lively, dancing music, of pipes and cymbals, that somehow seemed to make the heart long to follow. The soldiers stared at one another. “What should this mean?”

  Even as the words were spoken, the music died away, as if invisible dancers were departing, leaving a cold and sullen world behind.

  “ ’Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, now leaves him.”

  The soldiers nodded. “ ’Tis strange.”

  The morning was bright, and the lovers full of laughter and hope.

  “Nay, I’ll help too!” cried Cleopatra, as Antony’s servant, Eros, began attiring his master in armour. “What’s this for?” she demanded, seizing up an article of steel with a spider’s nightmare of straps. “Ah! let be, let be!” protested Antony as she set about buckling onto his arm what was meant for his leg. “Sooth, la! Thus it must be!” she exclaimed, discovering her error and setting it to rights. “Is not this buckled well?”

  “Rarely, rarely!” said he; and so it continued until, at last, between the efforts of Eros and the busy Queen, he was ready for battle. “O love!” he declared, standing before her with the sunshine flashing on his breast-plate. “That thou could’st see my wars today!” He took her in his arms. “Fare thee well, dame, whate’er becomes of me, this is a soldier’s kiss.”

  The busy camp looked up from its stern preparations to smile a greeting as the well-loved figure of Mark Antony walked among his soldiers, exchanging old memories, and giving fresh hope.

  “The gods make this a happy day to Antony!” He halted. He recognized the soldier who’d addressed him. It was the same man who begged him, before the battle of Actium, not to trust to rotten planks. Antony smiled ruefully, and confessed he wished he’d taken that good advice.

  “Hadst thou done so,” went on the man, not to be stopped from speaking his mind, “the kings that have revolted, and the soldier that has this morning left thee, would have still followed at thy heels.”

  “Who’s gone this morning?”

  “One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus, he shall not hear thee.”

  Antony bowed his head. “Sir,” said Eros softly, “his chests and treasure he has not with him.”

  Curiously the soldier watched his general, and waited for the outburst of bitterness and anger that must surely come. Antony looked up. There was neither anger nor bitterness in his face; only a great sorrow. “Go, Eros,” he said quietly, “send his treasure after. Write to him—I will subscribe—gentle adieus and greetings: say that I wish he never find more cause to change a master.” He paused, and sighed deeply, “O! my fortunes have corrupted honest men!”

  Enobarbus was in Caesar’s camp. He hovered on the outskirts of a throng of officers about Caesar; but no man spared him so much as a glance. He listened as Caesar gave orders that Antony was to be taken alive, so that he might be led in chains through the streets of Rome. Then he heard Caesar order that those who had deserted from Antony should be sent into battle first. A shrewd move. Nothing would dismay Antony more than to be met by the swords of yesterday’s friends.

  Caesar was a clever young man, no doubt about it. He was cleverer by far than the careless, ageing Antony. Very soon now, he would be the sole ruler of the world. Any sensible man would choose to follow him; yet, when Caesar and his officers moved away, Enobarbus did not follow. “I have done ill,” he whispered miserably. “I have done ill . . .”

  “Enobarbus!” A soldier had approached him. The man looked at him coldly and said, “Antony hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with his bounty o
verplus.”

  “I give it you,” said Enobarbus, and smiled, as if he’d expected no less. The soldier frowned. “Mock not, Enobarbus. I tell you true. Your emperor continues still a Jove.”

  When the soldier had gone, Enobarbus considered his good fortune, and wept. Antony’s generosity had broken his heart. “O Antony!” he cried out, “thou mine of bounty! I fight against thee? No: I will go seek some ditch wherein to die . . .”

  Against all expectation, the old ruffian was victorious! The fury of his assault, and his superior skill in generalship, had scattered Caesar’s troops and sent them flying from the field of battle. “O thou day o’ the world!” he cried, holding out his arms to Cleopatra as she came running to meet him on his triumphant return.

  “Lord of lords!” she wept joyously. “O infinite virtue, com’st thou smiling from the world’s great snare uncaught?”

  “Mine nightingale, we have beat them to their beds! What, girl,” he laughed, “though grey do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha’ we a brain that nourishes our nerves, and can get goal for goal of youth!”

  The years seemed to fall away from Antony like a discarded garment. He called for fierce music and feasting to celebrate the victory achieved, and the greater one to come.

  That night, there was dancing in the streets of Alexandria; but in Caesar’s camp, there was a heavy quiet. A man lay dying. Two soldiers, near at hand, heard him whispering and sighing strangely. “O Antony, nobler than my revolt is infamous, forgive me . . . but let the world rank me . . . a master-leaver and a fugitive. O Antony! O Antony . . .” Then no more.

  Cautiously the soldiers approached. “He sleeps,” said one. “Awake, sir, awake!” said the other. “Hear you, sir?” But Enobarbus was dead.

  The soldiers looked up. Already grey was beginning to mingle in the blackness of the sky. There was a mutter of thunder in the air. Drums were beginning to beat to rouse the sleeping army to the second day of battle.

  Antony was filled with excitement. The war had moved from land to sea, and he’d sent his best troops to man Cleopatra’s galleys. Now, on a hilltop outside Alexandria, he and Scarus impatiently awaited the outcome of the battle. “Yet they are not joined,” muttered Antony, for the long stillness was unsettling him. “Where yond pine does stand, I shall discover all!” and away he galloped, leaving Scarus alone.

  Scarus frowned. He was deeply troubled. He’d heard that swallows had built their nests in Cleopatra’s sails. It was an unlucky sign; and Antony’s moods were as changeable as the sky: one moment bright with hope, the next, clouded over with uncertainty and doubt.

  He was returning, and an iron fist clutched at Scarus’s heart! There was ruin in his master’s face!

  “All is lost!” howled Antony, mad with rage. “This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me!”

  His fleet had surrendered to Caesar! Cleopatra’s galleys had yielded themselves up as if by design! “Triple-turned whore, ’tis thou hast sold me to this novice, and my heart makes only wars on thee! Bid them all fly,” he shouted to Scarus; “for when I am revenged upon my charm, I have done all!” For a moment, Scarus hesitated; then, with a soldier’s farewell, he galloped away.

  Antony was alone. He looked up at the sky. “O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more, fortune and Antony part here, even here do we shake hands. Betrayed I am.”

  Slowly he rode back to Alexandria. He came to the palace and heavily dismounted from his horse. “Eros, Eros!” he called; but instead of his servant, it was the whore herself who appeared. He cursed her violently, and she, shrinking back, all false innocence and wide-eyed, wondered, “Why is my lord enraged against his love?”

  “Vanish!” he screamed at her, “or I shall give thee thy deserving!” He drew his sword, and Cleopatra fled in terror!

  “The witch shall die!” she heard Antony shouting as she rushed for safety to her apartment. “Help me, my women!” she begged, with fearful backward looks, as if the maddened Antony was at her heels.

  “To the monument,” instantly advised Charmian. “There lock yourself and send him word you are dead.”

  “To the monument!” Cleopatra eagerly agreed; and bade her servant Mardian tell Antony that she had killed herself. “Say that the last I spoke was ‘Antony’, and word it, prithee, piteously!” Then, hearing the noise of approaching footsteps, she and her frightened girls rushed away.

  Antony entered with Eros by his side. His sword was still in his hand, but his rage had flickered out. He looked round the empty room. He caught sight of Cleopatra’s golden mirror. He picked it up and stared into it, as if puzzled by what he saw. “Eros,” he murmured, “thou yet behold’st me?”

  “Ay, noble lord.”

  “Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish, a vapour sometime, like a bear or lion, a towered citadel, a pendant rock . . .”

  “Ay, my lord.”

  “That which is now a horse, even with a thought the rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct, as water is in water.”

  “It does, my lord.”

  Antony sighed. “Now thy captain is even such a body: here I am Antony; yet cannot hold this visible shape . . .” He shook his head and laid the mirror aside. “I made these wars for Egypt; and the Queen, whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine—she, Eros, has packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory—”

  He paused. Mardian, Cleopatra’s fleshy servant, had appeared in the doorway. At once, Antony’s face grew dark with anger. “O! thy vile lady, she has robbed me of my sword!”

  “No, Antony,” bleated the wretched eunuch, “my mistress loved thee—”

  “She has betrayed me and shall die the death!”

  “Death of one person can be paid but once,” cried Mardian anxiously, “and that she has discharged. What thou wouldst do is done unto thy hand. The last she spake was ‘Antony! most noble Antony!’ She rendered life, thy name so buried in her.”

  Eros watched his master with a breaking heart; but Antony received the news of Cleopatra’s death with Roman calm. He turned to Eros and held out his sword, as if it was suddenly too heavy for him. “Unarm, Eros, the long day’s task is done, and we must sleep.”

  He dismissed Mardian and, when Eros had helped him take off his armour, he bade his servant leave him for awhile. Obediently, Eros withdrew.

  Antony gazed round the room. Its emptiness seemed to have stretched till it encompassed all the world. “I will o’er take thee, Cleopatra,” he whispered, “and weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now all length is torture; since the torch is out, lie down and stray no farther.” His gaze fell upon his sword. “I come, my Queen! Stay for me! Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand, and with our sprightly port, make the ghosts gaze!” He called for Eros. He was eager to make an end.

  Eros came. “What would my lord?”

  “Since Cleopatra died,” said Antony quietly, “I have lived in such dishonour that the gods detest my baseness. Thou hast sworn, Eros,” Antony reminded him, “that, on my command, thou then would’st kill me. Do’t, the time has come.”

  “The gods withhold me!” cried Eros, filled with pity and dread; but Antony would not release him from his oath.

  “Come then, draw that thy gentle sword . . .”

  “Turn from me then—” begged Eros.

  Antony turned away his head.

  “My dear master, my captain, my emperor: let me say before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.”

  “ ’Tis said, man, and farewell.”

  “Shall I strike now?”

  “Now, Eros.”

  “Why, there, then: thus I do escape the sorrow of Antony’s death.”

  Antony heard him fall. Rather than kill his beloved master, Eros had killed himself.

  “Thrice-nobler than myself,” cried Antony, ashamed, “thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what I should, and thou could’st not. But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into’t as to a lover’s bed.” He took up his sword, and, making a ho
op of his body, like a runner about to begin a race, thrust until he felt the blade pierce his entrails, and he fell, bleeding to the ground.

  But he had not been so skilful as Eros. His sword, like all his glorious fortunes, had failed him in the end. “O despatch me!” he cried out piteously and when guards came running, he begged them to put him out of his misery and pain. But there was no man who would kill Antony. Frightened by the hugeness of the calamity, they melted away. All save one, who saw some profit to be had. He crept forward and, avoiding Antony’s dying gaze, drew the sword out of the wound. He heard someone coming. Hastily he hid the sword under his cloak.

  “Where’s Antony?” It was Diomedes, a servant of Cleopatra. The sword-thief pointed and, as Diomedes rushed to Antony’s side, he vanished away.

  “Most absolute lord,” cried Diomedes, kneeling beside the dying man in terror, “my mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee!”

  “When did she send thee?”

  “Now, my lord.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Locked in her monument,” said the servant miserably, and told how Cleopatra, fearing Antony’s anger, had sent word that she’d killed herself; and then, fearing even more the consequences of her lie, had sent to tell him the truth.

  “Too late, good Diomed,” sighed Antony. He was beyond caring about truth or lies. Nothing mattered to him but Cleopatra. He asked for the guards to be called back, and when they came, he begged to be carried to the Queen. “ ’Tis the last service that I shall command you.”

  They bore him gently to the tall black house of the monument, that Cleopatra had built to be her own tomb. They laid him down beneath the high balcony, from which the white faces of the Queen and her women looked down.