The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Eros appeared, entering the room shyly.

  “Your industry in making my quarters more…er…amusing is impressive,” Antony said.

  Eros blushed, and bustled around, laying out clothes for Antony and bringing in heated water. I watched carefully as Antony raised his arms for the tunic; the right hand had gotten worse.

  “Olympos has to treat it,” I insisted. That Olympos would finally have to meet Antony and treat him like a human being might be hard for him, but he would have to endure it. It was time. I would not have Antony lose his sword hand to spare Olympos’s feelings.

  I am Caesar’s right hand, he had once said. Was that right hand now to fail?

  Olympos was supposed to meet with me later in the morning; he had spent the previous day visiting the soldiers himself and conferring with the army physicians. His stay in Rome had left him with an abiding interest in treating war wounds.

  He met me in the outer chamber of the headquarters, his color up and his eyes dancing. “I’ve never seen so many arrow wounds,” he said. “I’ve been practicing with the spoon of Diokles—the arrow extractor. It really works!” He sounded elated—and surprised.

  “It is a clever instrument,” I said. “Of course, since it is Greek!” I had read about them, but never seen one.

  “Would you like a demonstration?” he asked. “This afternoon—”

  I shook my head, and he stopped chattering and looked at me.

  “Well, I must say, you look better! No more drooping! I suppose I needn’t ask the cure!” He sounded annoyed, as if he begrudged me any pleasure with Antony.

  “I feel much better, but I am not fully restored,” I said, to placate him. “But I have two medical problems—not mine—I hope you can solve. One is this root.” I handed him the dried stem and explained about its effect on the soldiers.

  He shook his head. “I have never heard of it—unless it could be something called wolfsbane that grows in colder climates—yes, perhaps. But I need the manuscripts at the Museion to check it. Curses—travel makes everything so difficult!” He looked frustrated. “What’s the other?”

  “Antony’s hand—it won’t heal. The wound looks angry.”

  He drew back in a way only I could have sensed, knowing him as well as I did. “A simple wound—I have no magic to cure that. There are no secrets to that.”

  “He has had it for a long time—he mentioned it in a letter. I can see that it is getting worse, but he ignores it. Please at least look at it.”

  “A simple wound is a simple wound,” he repeated stubbornly. “It either heals or it doesn’t, I assume it’s already been treated with wine and honey?”

  “I don’t know. It looks as if it hasn’t been treated at all.”

  He snorted. “Well, when he has tried the usual remedies, and they don’t work, call me.” He paused. “It isn’t bandaged?”

  “No. That’s how I saw it.”

  “Hmm. It’s good that it isn’t bandaged. But—” I could see him thinking.

  “He won’t bite you,” I assured him. “He won’t taint you. Touching his hand won’t compromise your standards. In fact, not treating him would compromise your oath, I would think.” There, let him digest that!

  “Why are you doing this? You know my feelings. Are you determined to force me to accept him?”

  “If you think all this is a plot on my part, you flatter yourself!” Suddenly I was disgusted with him and his high “principles.” “It was you who insisted on coming with me. I didn’t ask you to leave Alexandria! I want the best physician I know—you—to treat the hand of the best commander in the Roman empire. Is that so nefarious?”

  He grunted. “Very well. I’ll look at it. But I told you, I have no magic to cure wounds. They can baffle our best attempts.”

  I had an equally hard time persuading Antony. He voiced the usual disclaimers—it’s nothing, doesn’t hurt, doesn’t matter, let it alone—but I prevailed. That night, in the fading light of dusk, he proffered his hand and let Olympos examine it. Only after several minutes of silence, waiting for a word from the taciturn physician, did Antony say, “So I meet the famous Olympos at last.”

  Olympos gave a noncommittal grunt, and I could have kicked him. He could be so aloof it crossed over into rudeness. It was amusing sometimes, but not now; Antony did not deserve the treatment Olympos usually meted out to bad carriage drivers or overeager merchants.

  “You are supposed to be so skilled you can bring back the dead,” said Antony, in his friendly, open manner.

  More silence. Olympos was turning over the hand and sniffing it.

  “But the most wonderful thing you ever did was to bring my children safely into the world, when it seemed they were doomed, along with the Queen herself.”

  I had told Antony of the debt we owed to Olympos for the lives of the twins.

  Finally, Olympos looked up at him, and I saw the faintest trace of a smile on his lips—or rather, a softening of the dour expression. He nodded slightly. “How long have you had this?” he asked.

  “In the last skirmish with the Parthians, just before we crossed over the boundary into Armenia…about twenty or thirty days, I suppose. I didn’t notice it at first.”

  “Yes, that’s the way these things develop,” said Olympos, poking at it. “I suppose this hurts?”

  Antony attempted to laugh, but it was a thin one. “Oh, a bit—it feels like a mild torture.” He jumped a little.

  “Hot, I see.” Olympos was laying a finger along it.

  “Well?” said Antony.

  “Untreated, it might cure itself,” said Olympos, straightening up. “Of course, it would leave a large scar, and the hand would always be stiff.”

  “And treated?” Antony was clenching his fist, then stretching out the fingers, like someone trying on a glove.

  “It would be very painful,” said Olympos in his haughtiest voice. You certainly don’t want that, his tone implied. “I would have to cut away all the darkened flesh. It is dying—my nostrils told me that. I would have to scrape it down to the raw flesh and let it start healing from there. And perhaps—depending on the size of it—it may need an old device, so old no one uses it anymore—a tin pipe so it can drain—”

  “Then do it,” said Antony simply.

  Olympos looked surprised; he had been hoping Antony would demur and spare him any further involvement.

  “I can’t do it now!” he said quickly. “I need daylight so I can see. And time to prepare the drain—and I will need other things as well.”

  “What are they?” I asked. “I will see that all is ready by tomorrow.”

  “Red wine that is between six and nine years old,” he said. “That has the strongest effect on fresh wounds.”

  Antony laughed. “Wounds have expensive tastes! Order enough that we can drink some ourselves. Afterward, that is.”

  “I think you ought to drink yours beforehand,” said Olympos. “It will dull the pain—which will be considerable.” He emphasized the last word, hoping to scare him.

  “I will follow your prescription, wise one,” said Antony, and Olympos smiled in spite of himself.

  “I will need myrrh as well,” he said, turning to me. “If you can get it for me by tonight, I can make a medicated stick for tomorrow.”

  “You don’t ask for much!” I scoffed. “Myrrh at sundown!” But I would find some.

  The next day Olympos and Antony disappeared into a field station set up to admit light without the glare of the sun. They were gone so long I found myself pacing back and forth, even talking to the raven, who alternated cawing with rasping, “Hail! Farewell! Kiss, kiss!”

  When Olympos finally returned, he was drained; his medicine case, slung over his shoulder, looked ransacked.

  “Well, I’ve done my best,” he said. “But it’s nasty. I had to take so much flesh out that he’ll always have an indentation there—assuming it heals over.”

  “Is that why it took so long?” Babies had been born in less
time.

  “How long did it take?” He sank down on a bench. “I lost track. But with the wine, and the myrrh, it has a good chance. And the drainage tube—I’m quite proud of it. Hippocrates used them, but no one does now. This will be interesting.”

  “So, did you drink the wine?”

  “Not me,” said Olympos. “And Antony—he passed the time and distracted himself by asking the oddest questions.”

  “Well, what?”

  “He wanted to know what we did as children—when I first met you, and all that. What you were like.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell him!” Yet I was touched that he would be curious.

  “Only the respectable parts,” said Olympos. “I did tell him about some of our adventures—like the time we went to the embalmer’s, and you lay down on the table like a mummy. And the time we hid in the marsh and overturned the little fishing boat, pretending to be crocodiles.”

  “Now that I know more,” I said, “it’s a miracle we didn’t encounter a real crocodile ourselves.”

  He laughed. “Those were happy days,” he said.

  But I knew better. They had been dangerous days, and my danger had come not from crocodiles but from the court, where my sisters seized the crown. Yet such is the stoutheartedness of childhood that we were able to put that out of our minds for an afternoon and paddle around in the marshes, making memories that lasted a lifetime.

  “Yes, I am surprised that he would ask,” said Olympos. But he was pleased, I could tell. Antony had begun to win him over. Although it would be a long time before he capitulated completely, at least he would no longer think of him as a demon.

  That night Antony waved the bandaged hand, so bulky it looked like a bear’s paw. A little tin straw protruded from it, allowing liquid to run out. The entire hand, bandage and all, was to be plunged into a bucket—a bucket—of eight-year-old Falernian every hour or so.

  “Does it hurt?” I ventured to ask.

  “Like hell,” he said jovially.

  “If it works, then it will be worth it,” I said.

  “That’s easy for you to say—you didn’t have to sit still while he carved you up,” he reminded me.

  The hand responded, and after several days, and multiple inspections and bandage changes, Olympos seemed elated. The red puffiness of the original wound had subsided, and the edges were clean. Olympos kept dousing it with the wine and sprinkling ground myrrh on it. His stitches looked as neat as Syrian embroidery, and I told him so.

  “Next time I must employ gold thread,” he said, “and make it truly decorative.”

  Decision time was at hand—the seas had opened and a message must go to Rome. But what was it to be? At length Antony told me that after much deliberation, he had decided to downplay the losses in Parthia, but not claim outright victory.

  “It will not be dishonorable to be vague about the particulars,” he said.

  “But misleading.” I had to say it.

  “I prefer ‘vague,’ ” he repeated stubbornly. “It is no dishonor—”

  How concerned he was about that word! He would do anything to avoid it.

  “—to refuse to dwell on the past, and look to the future. I will emphasize the coming campaign in Armenia.”

  At least that would buy us some time to recoup our losses. “With Octavian away from Rome, that will serve us well,” I said.

  “If he has not left already, he will soon.” The word was out that Octavian had found a task for his legions—he would employ them on the frontier of Illyria.

  “Is he really going to command his own troops?” I asked.

  “So they say. He is desperate to prove himself a military leader. Even getting himself injured would be helpful,” said Antony. “It has become so glaring that without Agrippa to fight for him, he is totally ineffectual.” But then a look of pain passed over his face. It was not Octavian who had lost forty-two thousand legionaries. The irony, of course, was that Octavian never would have attempted such a campaign in the first place.

  “If he is gone, it would serve me well to go to Rome myself,” Antony said, thinking out loud. “I could renew my ties there.”

  With Octavia? Quickly I said, “If you were to return in person, you would be questioned closely about Parthia. There would be no hiding it. Don’t return in weakness!”

  “I have been gone so long, I fear I may be losing my hold there—politically and in the memories of the people. It may be necessary to make a return visit.”

  “If you go when Octavian is gone, it will appear you are afraid of him!” I said quickly. “As if you are sneaking into the city behind his back, too timid to face him.” Of course, I knew well enough that that was the time to go—when he could have Rome to himself. But if he went, he might drift back into the wake of Octavian.

  The strongest nature that’s nearest him will always lead him, rule him. I could not risk that. I must keep him away from Rome.

  “Then I’ll go and call him to a meeting,” said Antony.

  “No, no!” I said. “Let him stay in Illyria. Let him be beaten there—let the Illyrians do your work for you. Otherwise he’ll be looking for an excuse to leave and turn the fighting over to Agrippa, who’ll earn him more glory!”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” said Antony. But I could tell he was far from convinced. “I will go later. After I can present the Armenian king in chains in a Triumphal procession.”

  “Yes. That will dazzle the Romans. They love Triumphs. And so far Octavian has not been able to claim one.” Now I must change the subject, and quickly. “I am needed in Egypt. I must return soon.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are your plans? Will you come, or stay here with the troops?”

  “If I could only rebuild my legions, I would mount the attack on Armenia as soon as possible. But it is already March, and there is no way I could be ready to campaign this season—it’s such a short one in the mountains. And then there’s Sextus on the loose, roaming here with his three renegade legions. I dare not march east and leave my back unprotected.”

  “So you must lose another year,” I said. “Another year canceled out by other people.” First Octavian’s dallying, now Sextus’s. How maddening it is to be caught in the grip of faraway events, when you cannot either surmount them or ignore them!

  “Sextus must be dealt with,” Antony insisted.

  He was right, of course. And the truth was that Antony needed to regroup after last year, to revive both his army and his spirits.

  “So you will remain here?”

  “For a few more weeks,” he said. “Then I will probably be able to oversee my responsibilities from Alexandria.”

  “Hurry,” I said. “Your city has missed you.”

  “Alexandria is wherever you are,” he said, taking my face in his hands—one still bandaged and the other normal—and looking at me.

  My preparations for departure were almost complete, and I would leave in deep gratitude that Isis and the two gods of medicine—Asclepius and Imhotep—had returned Antony’s hand to him. It had healed nicely, the tube and stitches long gone.

  Then it came, the letter from Rome, announcing that Octavia was on her way to bring help to Antony: cattle, food, the ships left over from those he had lent Octavian, and two thousand of the best Roman soldiers, handpicked from Octavian’s prize guard.

  A pleasant messenger—Niger, a friend of Antony’s—had brought the letter. I was forced to entertain him and ask polite questions about the journey, trying to find out exactly where Octavia was now. The answer was, almost to Athens with her cargo. There she would await instructions from Antony.

  “And what will those instructions be?” I asked Antony as we prepared for bed. “I am sure she will obediently do whatever you ask!” Oh, why had he not divorced her already? Why had I not insisted on it? My mistake!

  “I could use the soldiers—”

  “This is comical,” I said. “Your two wives both sailing to you with aid and comfort. It�
��s a miracle we didn’t collide on the high seas.”

  “She isn’t my wife,” he said lamely.

  “Why? Have you divorced her? And I remember that Rome ignored our marriage announcement completely. I don’t exist as your wife—not in their eyes.”

  “Oh, I am tired of this!” said Antony, flopping back on the bed.

  “Then end it!” I said. I wanted to add, As you should have done long ago. But I must not nag. Not now. “Send her back.” That would convey a loud message.

  “But the men—”

  “The men are an insult! He owes you four legions, and what does he do but send this little token as a bait—or as a means of bringing you to heel! They are attached to Octavia, hooked to her, so you are supposed to swallow the entire thing, like a fish. ‘Be good, Antony, and perhaps I shall let you have more’—that’s what he’s saying! Is that what you want—to be his subordinate, dance to his tunes? I tell you, it’s an insolent challenge! Two thousand men when he owes you twenty thousand, and only in a package with his sister—the extension of himself.” I glared at him. “You said it was like having Octavian himself in your bed!”

  “Yes, yes.” He was staring up at the ceiling.

  “Well, do as you like,” I said, and I meant it. He must decide for himself. “I am returning to Alexandria. You must board a ship for either Athens or Alexandria. They lie in opposite directions.”

  I turned on my side and pulled the covers over my shoulders. My heart was beating fast, but it was only because, like all irrevocable choices, this had descended fast and unlooked for. Yet it was welcome, in some mysterious way. Now it must happen; at last he must sail either north or south.

  It was unlike me, but I would say nothing further to sway him either way. It must be entirely his own decision, originate in his own heart. Otherwise it would mean nothing.

  The next morning a cheery letter came from Octavia, announcing her arrival in Athens, and signing herself, “Your devoted wife.” The day after that, Olympos and I boarded a ship for Alexandria.