It was. Titus had witnessed it himself. The bull and the rose—Caesar and Cleopatra—were allies now. If they could succeed in defeating Ptolemy’s forces, they would emerge the two most powerful people in the world.
‘The Roman Republic is at risk,’ added the man. ‘What more does Caesar plan?’
Titus hesitated. He did not wish to betray Caesar—not when Wen’s life was risk. Then again, how many more people would lose their lives if monarchs once again ruled Rome?
Titus sighed. ‘If Ptolemy’s army marches on Alexandria, Caesar will send me to Pergamon to secure aid from Prince Mithridates. He cannot defeat Ptolemy’s army without such aid.’
The man nodded. ‘A messenger will contact you soon with your orders.’
Titus bowed his head and tried to collect himself. He feared that he would soon be ordered to kill Caesar, something he did not know if he could do. Or perhaps he would be ordered to simply abandon his duty, allowing Caesar to be butchered by Ptolemy’s army. Either way, he would be leaving Wen in grave danger. The thought of it made him ill.
He emerged from the latrine and made his way towards Wen. She was moving among the women she served like flowing water. A pour of wine here, an offer of fruit there. Her long thin arms reached out like a swimmer’s.
He pushed his way past stands of bearded scholars and thickets of bejewelled merchants.
As he neared, he noticed several Roman officers clustered near her, including the snivelling Gnaeus. They were observing her, casting lewd glances in her direction and exchanging veiled comments with one another. Titus paused, listening. ‘I wonder how those melons would taste with a bit of honey,’ said Gnaeus.
Titus knew it was neither the time nor the place for a scene. But it was impossible to see anything but Gnaeus’s covetous gaze, or hear anything other than the roar of anger between his own ears.
* * *
She felt Titus’s hand upon her arm before she saw him and the simmering cauldron of desire swirling inside her was suddenly set to boil. He was here. He had come. She could not show her delight, though she felt it spreading to every part of her. She could show nothing but placid grace.
‘Greetings, Commander,’ she said, keeping her gaze on the distant mosaic.
‘You must come with me now,’ Titus urged.
‘Apologies, Commander, but women may not serve men during this part of the banquet. I will find a male servant to attend you straight away.’ It took every bit of her will to keep from meeting his gaze. Beauty and restraint, she told herself. She was a representative of the Queen. She needed to preserve the ma’at.
‘I am not your Commander and do not wish for a male servant.’ Angling his body around hers, he hustled her into a servants’ closet.
‘This is not allowed,’ she said, stepping deeper into the closet. He was oddly agitated. She feared him and yearned for him all at once.
‘I did not like how those men were looking at you.’
‘What men?’
‘The Roman officers standing near you. They were speaking about you as if you were a piece of fruit.’
‘I must return to my duty,’ she said. As a spy for the Queen. She tried to move around him, but he blocked her path. ‘We cannot speak together,’ she explained. ‘It is against the rules of the first hall.’
‘What rules? Am I not a guest at this banquet? Can I not do as I like?’
‘I admit that I had hoped to see you,’ she said at last. Had longed for it.
‘And I had hoped to see you, though there is too much of you to see.’
His disappointment in her appearance felt like a blow to her body. ‘I had hoped that you would be pleased with the beauty of my gown.’
‘Pleased? You have exposed yourself to the base desires of every single man in this hall.’
‘Perhaps you do not understand the Egyptian custom of dress.’
He stepped forward, removing the space she had placed between them. ‘You have made yourself an object of lust.’
He was so close.
‘I am an embodiment of beauty.’
He pressed his chest against hers and she felt an almost painful warmth somewhere deep inside. It was happening again. Their bodies were moving together, doing what they liked. ‘You should not be serving at all,’ said Titus huskily. ‘You are the Queen’s closest advisor.’
She tilted her head back, and could almost feel his lips on hers. He pushed his body hard against hers, and she stepped backwards into a shelf. A silver knife clanked to the ground. A bell inside Wen’s mind. You are dishonouring the Queen. Recovering her senses, she stepped away. ‘Of course I should be here. I am a servant—a slave.’
Titus bent over slightly, as if she had wounded him. ‘I want you to cover yourself at once,’ he breathed.
‘I cannot cover myself. I am playing a role and this is my costume. I represent the beauty and grace of Egypt.’
‘I do not care what you represent! No Greek or Roman woman would ever be seen in public with her br—’ He motioned towards her chest, then looked away.
‘But I am not a Greek or a Roman woman. I am an Egyptian woman.’
‘You are my woman!’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘I am no man’s woman. I belong to the Queen.’
She turned to escape, but he caught her by the arm.
‘I am leaving soon,’ he said.
‘Leaving?’ But you cannot leave.
‘If Ptolemy marches his army on Alexandria, then Caesar will dispatch me to seek aid.’
‘But Ptolemy does not march on Alexandria.’
‘Not yet.’
‘You think that he will?’
‘I fear that we have little time left, Wen. Together, I mean.’ They were the saddest words she had ever heard.
His fingers found hers and interwove with them. A candle flickered inside her and she swayed forward into him.
‘Wen—’ he began, but could not finish, because a tall thin figure stepped into the closet beside them.
‘If you would be so kind as to unhand the royal servant,’ said the High Steward.
Titus released Wen’s arm.
‘Now if you would be so kind as to explain what you are doing in a servants’ closet?’
‘I came to cover her. She should not be wearing such a gown,’ Titus said.
‘Indeed?’ said Hemut with mock amusement. ‘And why not?’
‘It is indiscreet. It exposes what should only be seen by her husband.’
‘In Egypt, young women expose their breasts with pride, for they represent their potential as mothers. You must honour our custom.’ Hemut gave a loud sniff. ‘Roman.’
‘I am Titus Tillius Fortis, commander of Caesar’s Sixth Legion. You would ignore the wishes of one of your most exalted guests?’
‘In this matter, yes.’
‘Why?’
Hemut sighed. ‘Let me try to explain it in a way a Roman can understand.’ His high boyish voice became a kind of blade. ‘As the guests at this banquet, you and all the other Romans must adhere to the customs of your hosts, the Ptolemies of Egypt. If you do not, word will spread among the Alexandrian elite that the Romans do not show respect.’
Noticing the knife that had fallen, Hemut lifted it, though he did not put it away.
‘I do not know if you have noticed, but the Alexandrians are fickle and quick to revolt. Who knows? They might decide to run your little legion out of the city. Or worse, they might try to start a war with Rome. At the very least, they may decide to stop exporting Egyptian grain, without which half of Rome and its hinterlands would starve. Her breasts stay bare, Commander. Have I made myself clear?’
Suddenly, a trumpet blared and a herald’s voice sang out. ‘Lord of the Two Lands, Horus Incarnate, Pharaoh Ptolemy the Thirteenth!’
Wen jumped. If Ptolemy had arrived, Cleopatra would not be far behind. She watched closely as the young Pharaoh Ptolemy stepped into the hall. He was dressed in the Greek style, with a lengthy white chiton and strappy brown sandals he seemed to drag as he walked. A thick golden collar hung heavily around his young neck, causing him to slouch, and the royal diadem tied across his brow had already gone crooked.
The servants held out their trays to receive the guests’ goblets. Then all the guests dropped to their knees and the male servants who had been selected to serve Ptolemy made their way through the kneeling crowd.
‘You may rise,’ the young Pharaoh said at last.
Inside the closet, Wen turned to Titus. ‘The Queen will arrive soon. I must go.’
‘Yes, you must,’ said Hemut, urging Wen out of the closet as the trumpets blared once again.
‘Lady of the Two Lands, Isis Incarnate, Queen Cleopatra Philopator the Seventh!’ sang the herald.
Queen Cleopatra appeared in the entryway of the great chamber and paused. She wore an expression of cool dignity and, as she stepped forward, the only sound was the soft clinking of her gem-studded sandals upon the ebony floor.
The guests dropped to their knees. As Wen began to make her way towards the Queen, Titus’s words sank into her soul. He was leaving soon. They had very little time left.
Wen studied the Queen’s long, shimmering black gown, fighting her emotion. Beauty and grace, she told herself as she walked. Heel to toe.
She had no idea how much time they had. A week? A month? One night? She felt panic sneaking beneath her skin. It was as if the gods had presented her with a table full of food and commanded her to eat it in a single bite.
Heel to toe. Heel to toe.
Wen arrived at Cleopatra’s side. ‘You may rise,’ the Queen told her guests.
Wen slipped into a nearby servants’ closet and found a full amphora of wine. She tipped it into an empty goblet and brought it before the Queen, taking a cautionary sip before handing it to the Living Goddess. ‘I know you cannot speak to me, or look at me,’ Cleopatra whispered to Wen conspiratorially, ‘but I wish you to find Pothinus and General Achillas. Try to discover their plan.’
Wen nodded graciously, determined to play her role. She filled the cups of Iras and Charmion next, and they thanked Wen in whispers.
‘Pothinus is the portly one,’ said Iras.
‘General Achillas wears an Egyptian-style kilt.’
Soon the trumpet sounded once again. ‘General Gaius Julius Caesar,’ announced the herald. There was a smattering of weak applause as Caesar and his large entourage of officers swept into the room. This time, nobody dropped to their knees, though an ominous silence prevailed.
Caesar ignored the affront. He appeared determined to endear himself to the snobbish Alexandrians. He made his way across the hall, sipping the wine, admiring the statues and speaking courteously to anyone willing to converse. Wen searched for Titus, but could no longer find him.
Disappointment weighted her steps. Perhaps Hemut had dismissed him from the banquet altogether and all her secret hopes for the Hall of Delights would come to nothing.
Perhaps she would never see him again.
She was so preoccupied with thoughts of Titus that she almost passed by two men—one short and portly, the other thick and strong—speaking in hushed tones. She slowed her pace.
‘We must wait until the right moment,’ the first was saying softly, scratching at his fleshy jaw. The strong man stepped closer, but directed his attention at a distant wall.
‘No, we must act now. Every day he grows stronger.’
Wen made a slow circle around them and, when she returned, she noticed that the strong man wore an Egyptian military kilt and shirt. ‘No more talk,’ he was saying. ‘We shall begin our march on Alexandria tomorrow. In three days, we will make our attack.’
‘How many men do we have?’ asked the fat man.
‘Twenty thousand.’
Wen arrived at the servants’ closet to find Marni squeezing a lemon over a plateful of oysters.
‘Who is that man in the kilt and shirt?’ Wen asked. ‘He does not look like the others.’
‘That is General Achillas,’ said Marni. ‘He is the head of the Pharaoh’s army. Will you hand me that cloth?’
Wen could scarcely believe her ears. It appeared that her spying mission had been a success. An alarming, terrifying one. She needed to tell the Queen as soon as she could. Then her own curiosity stirred.
‘One more question.’ Wen held the cloth in the air. ‘How many men do you think Caesar has with him? How many soldiers?’
‘I thought you said only one question?’ Marni asked. Seeing Wen’s expression, she sighed. ‘I would say four thousand men—a little more than a legion. Now will you give me the cloth?’
Wen tried to imagine Caesar’s four thousand men defending the palace against Achillas’s twenty thousand. It is not a cloth, she thought. It is a white flag.
Chapter Twelve
He watched her wash the Queen’s hands—another absurd Egyptian custom, yet there was something wholly sensuous about the way she did it. Her long, thin fingers kneaded and splashed in a quiet rhythm, never spilling a drop.
He imagined her washing his own hands. He wondered how it might feel to have her fingers interlock with his once again, this time immersed in the element of water. He admitted that he wished for much more than that, though he tried to put it out of his mind.
He fingered his coin purse absently. It was much lighter than it had been before his encounter with Hemut. But for everything there was a price and Titus knew he would have given every last denarius he owned to the cranky Steward if it meant being allowed to watch Wen for just a few more hours.
Now she patted Cleopatra’s hands with a linen towel and appeared to be whispering something in the Queen’s ear. What secret was she telling? Probably some trifling, womanly thing, though the Queen shot an urgent glance at Caesar after Wen finished.
Caesar, for his part, was the picture of manners. He sat across the long banquet table from Cleopatra, conversing quietly as his hands were washed by his own attendant.
As Pharaoh Ptolemy’s honoured guest, Caesar sat beside the young monarch. The sullen-looking boy slumped at the head of the table, already looking bored. Beside Caesar sat the portly advisor Pothinus, his eyes never resting, then Titus himself, then the younger Ptolemy brother, and so on according to rank.
General Achillas, the head of Ptolemy’s army, was conspicuously absent, though that absence did not make Titus feel any safer. Indeed, it was painfully obvious that he and Caesar were surrounded on all sides by men who would very much like to see them dead.
Fortunately, the banquet hall—or Hall of Sustenance as they so ceremoniously called it—was no battle ground, unless they were in a war of the sexes. In another strange proclivity, the Egyptians had arranged the seating so that all the male guests were seated on one side of the table and all the female guests on the other.
Cleopatra sat to Ptolemy’s right, directly across from Caesar, then came Cleopatra’s younger sister Arsinoe, then Iras and Charmion, and so on. The result was that whenever a male guest looked up, he beheld the female sitting across from him—in Titus’s case, Charmion—and the bare-breasted female servant designated to serve that female guest—in his case, Wen.
Pothinus slid Titus a patronising grin. ‘Our customs must seem strange to a Roman,’ he said.
‘Not strange,’ Titus lied. ‘Only fascinating.’
‘Women and men remain separated until after dinner—that is a Greek tradition. But ritual hand washing goes back to at least the Seventh Dynasty of Egypt,’ explained Pothinus. ‘We have proof in the form of mosaics.’
‘Is that so?’ said Caesar. ‘I should like to see such ancient works.’
‘That would require a tr
ip upriver,’ Pothinus remarked. ‘I imagine you are anxious to get back to Rome soon.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Caesar. ‘It is in Roman interests to ensure the security of Egypt, however long that takes.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Pothinus, his voice like rusted tin.
‘It is not necessary to journey upriver to see the sights when we have so many marvels to be witnessed here in Alexandria,’ offered Cleopatra.
She leaned forward solicitously. ‘General Caesar, will you allow me to give you a tour of our humble Museion tomorrow? As you know, we are quite proud of our Alexandrian scholars. We have manuscripts written by the hands of Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Archimedes and many others.’
‘Ah! Eratosthenes,’ said Caesar. ‘There is a man I would have liked to have met. Calculated the circumference of the world, did he not?’
‘We have his maps!’ exclaimed the Queen. ‘I must show you them tomorrow.’
Caesar gave Cleopatra a devouring look. ‘I would very much like to see them.’
Caesar’s interest in Eratosthenes’s maps was not feigned. It was said that they were the most detailed reflection of the known world—the world Caesar wished to conquer.
‘I will give you a tour of our great Hall of Muses,’ said Cleopatra. ‘It is where Iras, Charmion and I studied.’
‘You studied at the Museion?’ asked Caesar.
‘Yes, of course,’ replied Cleopatra.
‘Alongside men?’
‘Women are equally able to benefit from the enrichment of the mind, are they not?’
Caesar shook his head. ‘Plato did not think so.’
‘Perhaps he did not, but I am sure his wife disagreed.’
There was hearty laughter.
Caesar leaned forward and studied the Queen closely. ‘Do you truly believe that women are equally able to study the mysteries of the world as men?’
‘I do,’ said the Queen. ‘And I can prove it to you, if you would like.’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
Now the whole table had gone silent. This was exactly what the bright-minded nobles of Alexandria had come for and they listened with rapt interest as their Queen attempted to prove herself against the world’s most conquering General.
In Thrall to the Enemy Commander Page 14
