Clockwork Countess
Page 6
Carefully rolling her son from her warm breast, Cleopatra placed him in the cradle at her bedside. She walked to the balcony and looked out across the sprawling city below. Not an insect's chirp disrupted the unearthly silence which hung over the capital. In the Field of Mars, no midnight breeze stirred the laurel wreath crowning the brow of Caesar's statue. The Senate’s marble stones gleamed like polished old bones in the waning moonlight and a low fog lay heavy over the Tiber. Her eyes swept across the stone houses that lined the streets. They might almost have been mistaken for tombs of the Necropolis, so silent and mysterious were the sleeping citizens of Rome.
Isis, why this fear?
She gazed up at the cold moon. A cloud drifted across the silvery face of the Goddess and the light softened and diffused. Cleopatra’s limbs were suddenly too heavy. She grasped her forehead as pinpricks of pain surged through her third eye. Blinking back tears, she watched the clouds slowly whirl around the dying moon, swirling faster and faster, until she stood hypnotized by the spinning tunnel of stardust tearing a void in the sky.
With a sharp rush of breath, she lurched back as an intense pressure built in her chest. She grasped the railing for support. But her numbed fingers slipped across the metal as her heart center opened and her immortal ka was violently sucked from her chest into the shimmering tornado, leaving her crumpled body on the balcony floor.
She was spinning now, flying, airy as the feather of Ma’at. The light seared her eyes as she hit the whiteness, and for a moment was one with it, before she broke through and entered the Time Out of Time.
She was falling again, falling through billows of storm-gray fog. She reached out and tried to find something solid to grasp, tried to discern some shape or light, but everything was covered by heavy swirling mists. Taking a deep breath, she forced her mind to calm.
This was not, after all, her first time in this place.
As her mind grew steadier, the falling sensation began to still. She floated in the fog, a disembodied form lost in the Time Out of Time.
A familiar odor rose up from somewhere below. It was moist and filled with the aroma of damp fertile earth and soggy green things. Her feet touched muddy ground and she found herself walking along the banks of the Nile through the marshy Land of the Reeds––gateway to the Land of the Dead.
As the mists thinned, a black sarcophagus became visible floating in the murky water. Dread rose up from the pit of her stomach.
What lay in there?
Cleopatra splashed into the river, the warm currents dragging at her linen skirts, impeding her progress. She reached out to touch the coffin, but just as her fingertips brushed the smooth granite, it floated farther downstream. Diving into the water, she swam up to the side of the sarcophagus, determined this time to reach it, but once more the Nile carried it just beyond her grasp.
Cleopatra swam back and heaved herself onto dry land. With her heart hammering, she struggled to keep up with the sarcophagus on foot. As she ran through the mists, the coffin floated along the currents, until at last it hit a shallow bend in the river and stuck in the thick mud.
Ignoring the swampland that sucked at her feet, she forced her way through the papyrus reeds to the coffin. She paused, terrified of what lay inside, and yet she must know. Must see it with her own eyes.
The stone was as smooth and black as jet. Searching for a place to grip her fingers, she finally found a groove beneath the lip of the lid and began to pull with all her might. Her wrists ached as she strained her tendons trying to lift it, but her hands slipped out and she fell back into the marshland.
Cleopatra rose, the wet green clay sticking to her dress and hands, and once more grabbed hold of the sarcophagus. She would know what was inside. Taking a deep breath, and gritting her teeth, she pulled.
Isis, help me!
With a rough scraping of rock against rock, the enormous weight of the stone shifted. She pulled harder, with everything she had, and at last the heavy lid slowly, bit by bit, slipped off unit it finally fell with a thud into the silt.
She peered inside.
For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Cleopatra stared at the figure blankly, then gripped by sudden intense grief, crumpled against the side of the sarcophagus.
“This cannot be. This cannot be….” she repeated it like a mantra, closing her eyes tight and pressing her brow against the granite. She would block out everything but the darkness and the cool stone beneath her skin.
But the yearning to see him, to touch his cold cheek, forced her to lift her head and her tears spilled onto his lifeless form. With the strength of Isis flowing through her, she tenderly lifted him from the coffin and held him close against her breast, rocking him back and forth with a heartache so piercing, she knew only her immortal blood prevented it from killing her.
She traced her fingertips over his inanimate features. He was the great hope of her life: lover, mentor, protector, father of her son.
She pressed a heartbroken kiss to his chilled forehead. “Caesar, not you….”
Cleopatra awoke to feel Iris gently shaking her, calling her back from the vision. As consciousness returned, she realized she still lay on the chilly balcony. Her stiff limbs ached as Iris helped her to stand.
How long had she been there?
She looked up at the sky. The sickle of a moon still hung low over the dark horizon.
Perhaps it was not too late.
As Cleopatra hurried into her chamber, Charmion came forward with a goblet of water. Thankfully, Cleopatra drank it down, cooling the parched heat that always claimed her after a vision. She pressed her hands to her temples, trying to force away the nightmare image of Caesar’s lifeless body resting in the black sarcophagus.
Worry clouded Iris’s pale blue eyes. "Queen of Heaven, are you ill?"
Cleopatra took a deep breath. "I must see Caesar.” She turned to her other attendant. “Charmion, have my chariot prepared as quickly as possible."
Charmion, her ebony skin gleaming in the soft lamplight, bowed and retreated into the dark corridor.
Cleopatra’s attention fell back on Iris. "Awaken Apollodorus. I must speak with him–"
But the old priest already stood in her doorway, awaiting permission to enter. Cleopatra was not surprised. Her grandfather’s ability to read the thoughts of others was even greater than her own. She was thankful he had come so quickly. Even at this hour, he was correctly dressed in his pleated white kilt, a leopard skin fastened across his right shoulder, his head shaved clean.
Cleopatra beckoned him in. "Praise the Gods you’re here."
Apollodorus bowed. "Queen of Heaven, I thought you would need me tonight. I have seen terrible visions of Caesar."
Her heart sank. Why did he have to confirm her fears? "I’ve seen them too."
The old priest sighed. "Tomorrow the Senate is to award Caesar the crown of Rome, is it not?"
Cleopatra nodded, afraid of what they both knew. "The senators will betray him. They’ll claim they guard their precious Republic from the tyranny of a king, when it’s they who are tyrants, always greedy for more land, more power. I must warn Caesar!" She pulled her mantle around her shoulders and headed towards the corridor.
The old priest’s gaze fell on the sleeping baby in his cradled and lingered there a moment. “I’ll order your barge to sail at dawn and keep careful watch over Caesarion until you are aboard."
Cleopatra stopped in her tracks. "Are you so sure Caesar cannot be saved?"
Apollodorus gently took her hand and she detected pity in his eyes. "Caesar is a brave and stubborn man. Tomorrow he is to be crowned king of the largest territory in the world. Do you think he’ll stay away from the Senate because you have had a bad dream?"
"But he honors the Gods as we do," she protested. "He knows we’re sent visions for a reason. Surely I can persuade him, at least, to take precautions?"
"I pray you’re right, but you must prepare for the worst. If Caesar dies, how long do you think you and Caes
arion will be safe in Rome?”
Cleopatra cast a worried glance at her baby, his plump little face peaceful in slumber. Instinctively, she placed her hand over his tiny heart to quell the fear that anything might harm him.
“They have the audacity, in whispers of course, to question Caesarion's paternity,” said Cleopatra bitterly. “Because Caesar never got his barren wife, Calpurnia, with child, they don’t believe he could get one with me.”
Apollodorus looked grim. “Still, that doesn’t make Caesarion any safer from Rome’s assassins.”
"If I fail…." she paused at the unwelcome tightening in her throat. "If I fail to persuade Caesar to stay away from the Senate tomorrow, then we set sail at dawn."
Cleopatra looked down at her sleeping baby and felt dizzy at the idea of his father coming to harm, but she forced herself to take a deep breath and remain calm. Falling apart now would not help Caesar. She pulled the hood of her mantle up to hide her face in shadow, but just before slipping into the darkness of the unlit passage, she turned back to Iris and Apollodorus.
"Guard my son well."
Cleopatra ordered her driver to stop the chariot a short distance from Caesar's villa. The moon had disappeared behind gathering storm clouds and bold flashes of lightning streaked across the sky.
As she neared the servant’s entrance at the rear of the villa, the sound of chariot wheels clamoring up from the deserted stable yard reached her ears. Cleopatra paused. She did not need witnesses to her midnight visit at Caesar’s home. There had already been enough malicious gossip concerning herself and the beloved general.
She was about to head for another entrance, when a prickling down her spine made her peer into the stable yard.
The torchlight revealed a Roman soldier standing with one powerful hand gripping the reins of his two nervous stallions. He was staring at her boldly, naked aggression burned in his dark blue eyes, his broad handsome face was flushed with wine. Involuntarily, she looked up and he held her gaze.
Cleopatra felt blood rushing to her cheeks as her pulse began to race. Of course her reaction stemmed from indignation that he stared at her so openly, so ruthlessly, as if she were something on his battlefield to be conquered and ravished.
Or perhaps she was just someone he hated.
As she opened her mouth to speak, he smiled. His full sensual lips revealed animal-white teeth and he growled out a low deep laugh.
Tossing his horse’s reins to his attendant, he bowed mockingly, his scarlet general’s cloak hanging off his broad shoulders and dusting the ground. “Good evening, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt.” It was spoken like an insult.
She drew herself up. He was drunk––as usual. If this were not Caesar’s closest friend she would ignore him and walk away. With the grace of a practiced courtier she kept her voice cool as she returned his greeting. “Good evening, Lord Antony.”
Marc Antony raised his head, pushing his dark hair from his eyes, and staggered a few steps forward until she could smell the sweet scent of cloved wine mixed with his own musky sweat. He was close enough to take her in his powerful arms, crush her against him. And what? Strangle her?
These Romans were barbarians. None of her subjects in Alexandria would dare look at her like this. She drew her mantle closer across her breasts but forced herself not to step back.
His low laughter rumbled out from his deep chest again. “You have more courage than even I gave you credit for. Coming to Caesar at his own villa while Calpurnia sleeps innocent as a babe by his side.”
She let out a long breath to control her temper. He knew better than anyone that Calpurnia and Caesar had not shared a bed in many years. As for Caesar’s wife being innocent as a babe, it was on the tip of her tongue to reply that Antony could tell Cleopatra better than she could ever guess herself the nature of Calpurnia’s character; as it was rumored the handsome soldier had swept his best friend’s wife off to his bower––just as he had the rest of Rome’s female population.
Antony wavered on his feet for a moment, unconsciously clutching the hilt of the thick sword that hung carelessly at his waist. His challenging eyes never left hers.
Why did he hate her so much? But all of Rome hated her––except Caesar. Caesar whom she was here to warn.
She gave the inebriated general a dismissive nod. “Good evening, Lord Antony.”
Before he could respond, she turned away and began to head towards the villa. But after she had gone a few paces, Cleopatra stopped and glanced back.
Antony had climbed into his chariot, looking for all the world like a statue of Mars with his bronze breastplate aflame in the torchlight, the muscles of his arms rippling as he held the powerful stallions in check, his dark blue eyes kindling some unholy light.
“Lord Antony.” She spoke quietly, but he looked up the instant he heard her voice. “Stay close to Caesar tomorrow. He will need his friends.”
Antony narrowed his eyes. “Who needs friends when they have an Egyptian witch to do their bidding?”
He snapped his reins with a sharp crack across his stallions’ backs and the chariot tore across the stable yard out into the street, as if he were leading a battle charge.
END OF EXCERPT
Table of Contents
Praise for Lydia Storm
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the
Clockwork Countess
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX