The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Was this right? Was I becoming as unhinged as Antony, unstable in this high wind of misfortune and desperate stakes? Why was I taking such mad delight in this? It was more than just the contemplated thwarting of Octavian. Destruction, sacrifice, extravagant offerings to the gods who would doom us—it was a dizzying, intoxicating brew.

  “Yes, add the turquoise!” I said. “And if that is not enough, put lapis in as well.” Lapis, with its glistening gold veins, its royal hue…never would it bedeck the First Citizen, Princeps, Octavian, to make a Republican crown! “Lapis on the heap!” I heard high, shrill laughter: mine. The workers bent and unloaded their precious burdens, a solemn stream coming from the palace, ants preparing the great nest of treasure.

  “Octavian has landed in our part of the world.” The news we had waited for—here at last.

  Mardian, a rustle of red, handed me the dispatch.

  I read it carefully. He had left Rome at the very earliest opportunity, and sailed back to Samos. “He does not disappoint,” I said.

  Mardian nodded. “Never.”

  “From here on I fear he will be quite predictable in his movements.” He would come for us, advancing slowly—festina lente, hasten slowly—through Syria, then Judaea, then to the eastern gates of Egypt. “We are the ones who must be unpredictable.” Let him not count on an easy victory, nor on no surprises. There was the Egyptian fleet, there were four Roman legions here, and there was the treasure-pile in the mausoleum…and there was Caesarion, almost a grown man. In fact, I realized with a start, the exact same age Octavian himself had been the last time I had seen him. Would he remember what he himself had been at seventeen? He never forgot anything.

  “More of the client kings have gathered to kiss his hand,” said Mardian.

  “I did not think there were any left!” I said, fighting hard to keep my voice light and free of bitterness. “Who else could there be?”

  “Yes, you are right, most of the kings have already bent the knee. Now it’s mostly small territories, or cities, like Tarsus—”

  Not Tarsus! Not the place where I had gone to Antony, where we had first loved—trampled under Octavian’s heel, soiled! It hurt like a swift blow in the stomach.

  “Antioch, too, I suppose,” I said. He would besmirch both places.

  “Not yet,” said Mardian.

  “Then I will have a little while to remember it as it was,” I said. “Is there no one left loyal to us?” I could not help this cry.

  “Indeed, yes,” Mardian replied. “And from a most unexpected quarter—a school of gladiators at Cyzicus in Bithynia, that Antony was having trained to perform in his victory games. They have defied the governor there and set out for Egypt, to fight for us.”

  So there were still some…how surprising. How heartening.

  Next Octavian went to Rhodes, where Herod came to him and surrendered his royal insignia. Herod, who always had a winning way with words, said that he had been stalwartly loyal to Antony, and that if Octavian would accept his vow of fealty, he would be equally loyal to him. Octavian accepted, but most likely because he had no one to put in Herod’s place, since Herod had taken the precaution of executing his only possible rival. Along with Herod had come his creature, Alexas of Laodicea, wagging his tail and slobbering on Octavian’s hand. It was Alexas, once a friend of Antony’s, whom Antony had sent to Herod to beg him to remain loyal. Instead they had both run to Octavian. I was most pleased when I heard that Octavian had executed Alexas. He felt that Alexas had urged Antony to make the final break and divorce Octavia, and that was unforgivable.

  That meant—as if I had not known it—that Octavian would pour every drop of his acid hatred onto my head. For if the bystander Alexas had had to be executed for his part in the divorce, what must become of the woman who had caused it all?

  “Put them here.” I indicated the sandalwood box, covered with gold sheet and lined with ten layers of tissue-thin silk, in every color: a rainbow in a box. The outermost layer was midnight-blue, the next purple, and so on, lighter and lighter, until the final one was shimmering white. A fitting background for the gold diadem and scepter.

  Charmian and Iras, each carrying one in their graceful hands, set them on the silk, looking longingly at them. They remembered when I had worn them, at the Donations.

  Of course I had others, but these were among my finest. And they were going to Octavian.

  Would he be tempted to try them on? Late at night, would he leave the box carelessly in his room, and then, when no one was looking, lift the diadem out and set it on his high forehead? I imagined that he would find the gold chilly at first, but be amazed at how fast it warms, next to the skin. It is easy to become accustomed to. Oh, very easy, even for a dedicated Republican.

  How ironic, what a joke of the gods, if he should end up going the way of Antony after all. The best way to conquer an enemy is not to crush him but to corrupt him.

  “But too late for us,” I said to myself, stroking the diadem. Even if Octavian turned into a replica of Antony, and came at last to understand what had happened here in the east and how it had happened, it did us no good.

  “Madam?” asked Charmian.

  “Nothing. I was only bidding these farewell.” I touched them again. “I was trying to imagine what it would be like to receive them.” I hoped they would have the intended—though unlikely—effect. They gleamed conspiratorially, like winking eyes.

  Reluctantly I folded the silk over them, covering their beauty. I drew the lid down, then locked it with the gold-and-emerald lock, with a Hercules knot design, that my goldsmith had made to fit the latch. “A knot he must untie,” I said. I thought his self-importance would cause him to compare it to the Gordian one that Alexander had severed to obtain his eastern realms. But perhaps I gave him too much credit. Imagination was not his leading trait.

  There was a formal letter to go along with it, resigning my throne and its insignia into his hands, if he would please to bestow them on my son as King of Egypt—“a title you have already granted him,” I reminded him. I said that I came from a long and honorable line of kings, related to Alexander himself, and that we knew Egypt and had ruled it well, and he could find no abler governors to continue in this line. I pledged my son’s loyalty, and pointed out that he had taken no part in the fighting at Actium.

  “Although you have declared war on me and pronounced me your enemy, my son has remained aloof from our quarrels, and will serve you faithfully,” I assured him. “From his earliest days I have trained him for ruling, and you can find no better or more dedicated”—my hand had almost rebelled against writing—“servant to your wishes.” But it had to be. I had to say it. “Remember his youth, and your own in the day when Caesar fell. Just as Caesar knew your promise, so you should be able to discern it in this worthy young man. Do not punish him for my own deeds, for they are a thing apart.” There was more in this vein. I never apologized for my own actions, but emphasized that they were mine and mine alone. I hated people who pretended they had not done what everyone knew they had, or that it was somehow not their fault, or that they had been forced to it. I knew Octavian would, too. Hence no apology. I thought the letter struck a good middle ground between pride and submission.

  “Thank you, Charmian and Iras,” I told them. “Would you be so kind as to send for Caesarion?”

  I wanted him to see the treasure, and read the letter before it was sent. He must know everything.

  He was not interested in opening the box, but read the letter carefully. He rolled it up again and put it in the ivory tube that would serve as its envelope. “Are you sure you wish to do this?” he asked. “This is so—unlike you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just to surrender them, and sound so final about it.”

  “Ah. It is the only way to avoid its being truly final,” I said. “If I wait until he demands them, then—if he takes them himself, he will never release his grasp on them.”

  He frowned, wrinkling his
brow in a way that was most endearing. “Do you honestly think these will ever be bestowed on me by his hands?”

  “It may be possible,” I said. “It depends entirely on how he achieves his goal of conquering Egypt. If it is too difficult, it may put him in a bad mood!” I laughed. “Or, on the other hand, it may give him pause and impress on him the wisdom of keeping a native dynasty on the throne. There are too many unknowns now. But one thing I do know: You must prepare to leave Egypt.” When he opened his mouth to protest, I said, “You promised! When I promised not to—” I would remind him sternly of our bargain.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “But later. Not yet—”

  I shook my head. “It must be soon. You will have to travel down the Nile as far as Coptos, a ten-day journey. Then make the desert crossing to Berenice, on the Red Sea—”

  “What, in the heat of summer? You are joking!”

  “No, it is necessary. You must be in Berenice by early July in order to take a ship to India during the monsoon, the only time ships can sail east. There you will wait, in safety, until all this is—over. If Octavian confirms you, then you can return. If not, then I will have the consolation of knowing that you have slipped from his grasp. No matter what he does to the rest of us, he cannot touch you!”

  “Do you honestly think I can ever draw a happy breath, knowing my whole family has perished, and I survive, a miserable exile?” He looked insulted.

  “You will not be a ‘miserable exile,’ but the son of the great Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Wherever you go, you will be honored. I am making arrangements even now with the ruler of Bharukaccha in India to receive you. Not such a bad life. Remember, Octavian is sixteen years older than you, and his health has always been poor. A bone sliver caught in the throat, a slight cold that settles on his lungs, a small riding accident, can change things in the twinkling of an eye. And he has no son, nor is likely to have one—his marriage to Livia is as barren as an Aegean rock. Live, and wait.” I patted his cheek. “They say India is a pleasant land of colors and scents. I have always wished to see it myself.”

  He crossed his arms sulkily. “I don’t imagine I will be paying much attention to the colors and scents,” he said stubbornly.

  “They are supposed to be overwhelming,” I said. “And if a seventeen-year-old does not respond to the calling of his eyes and nose, then he is a poor creature! I will tell you what I have learned: The young are meant to bear sorrow lightly, and all their senses conspire to help them.” I took his hand. “You must never forget us—not me, not Antony, not Alexander or Selene or Philadelphos—but if you can sing, savor fine food, and feel your heart stop at the sight of an exquisite work of art, we will live on in you. That is all I ask.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You will.” Now I touched his fine, silky hair. “That I promise you.”

  Abruptly I turned away, acting very busy, picking up the letter. “So? You will be ready. Next month it must be.” It was already April. “Before that, we will have a final, important ceremony. But more of that later.” I could not continue the conversation; he had to leave before I betrayed how hard it was for me. “Perhaps you should compose a letter of your own to Octavian.” Let him leave, now. “Go.”

  He bent over and kissed my cheek. “Very well, Mother.”

  After I heard his footsteps fading away, I bent over the box and wept; tears fell into the intricate workmanship. But gold was impervious to salt, and it would never show.

  Sending him away was going to be the hardest part of it all, knowing I would never see him again—and that I would break my promise to him, making him keep his side of our bargain while I did not. But it was a duty of queenship, and someday he would understand. I had spoken the truth just now.

  The wide harbor now wore its tenderest colors—its frothy blues and its shadowy greens, its milky-white foam. No wonder we think that Venus was born of seafoam, for it is so ethereal it is hard to believe we can actually wade into it and dip our hands in it. With the children I often came down the wide palace steps leading into the water, at our private place where the sandy bottom was shallow, and they could collect starfish and anemones. The dolphins were back with the spring, sporting themselves, showing their sleek backs.

  As a child I had spent hours here, but like many things of childhood—tiny coral bracelets, illustrated stories, baby-sized pillows—I had set it aside in my mind and forgotten it. Also like many of those things, it did not deserve to be forgotten. I found my hours here with my own children to be deeply restorative, a refuge where time suspended itself and was measured only by the height of the sun. We wore floppy-brimmed hats to protect us from sunburn, and built miniature forts out of sand and shells. Their most ambitious creation was a model of the Lighthouse; Alexander wanted it to be as tall as he, but it crumbled every time it got shoulder-high.

  “The amount of water in the sand must be perfect,” Caesarion would say, sometimes coming to watch the progress but never participating; he considered himself much too dignified. “If it is too much, the sand can’t bear weight. But if it is too little, the sun will dry the bottom out before the top is finished, and it will collapse.”

  The impatient Alexander would smack it and knock it flat in frustration. “If you know so much, why don’t you make one yourself?” he would insist.

  “He doesn’t want to get his fine tunic mussed,” Selene said. “He is much too grown-up for playing in the sand.” She cocked her head and looked at him, squinting. “Isn’t that right?”

  The twins were almost ten now, just on the brink of leaving childhood themselves. Perhaps that was why they enjoyed it so.

  “He hasn’t time.” I defended him. “He is learning many tasks.” And my heart was heavy with it. In addition to his usual lessons with his tutor, Rhodon, he was having to master all the things I would have him take away inside his head—things to learn that normally would have been spread out over several years.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Caesarion agreed. “In fact, I must get back to Rhodon now. He let me wander away in the midst of Xerxes’ account.” He turned and walked back up the steps—poor child. Poor man.

  Philadelphos was playing with the beached trireme, putting sand crabs on its deck and trying to make them sit at oars. He still tried to get Alexander and Selene to board it; sometimes they humored him and did it. They would sit at the oar-bench and try pulling in unison; the boat usually sank with the unbalanced weight, gurgling to the shallow bottom.

  I clung to those precious, private hours, knowing they were numbered.

  Some mornings I would come to this spot very early, long before sunrise. My sleep was disturbed now, and I seldom slept the night through. I found that sitting quietly on the steps, watching the light gradually fill the sky and turn the harbor from a dark void into a pearly plate, was balm for my soul. Sometimes I would relive parts of my life, as I wished to recount them in my story that day.

  The marble steps, slippery with night mist, would grow warm under me as the dawn came up. Sitting there, seeing the Lighthouse glowing red at the top, as it always had, with an empty horizon beyond it, it was hard to imagine that there was any threat to us. Everything was calm, ordered, functioning smoothly. Thus it had always been, thus it would continue—so it seemed. But preparations had to be made on faith, faith in the end of things as we knew them.

  As the first rays of sunlight broke through the soft blanket of clouds in the east, I would go to the Temple of Isis and perform the ancient ritual with her sacred water, opening my day. Then I would linger there with her until I sensed that it was time to begin the demanding round of decisions and duties that would occupy me until Iras drew my curtains at night, when I would supposedly sleep.

  I was thus savoring my private hour when I saw a figure walking in the darkness along the sand. Because the eastern harbor is a great arc sweeping from the Lighthouse to the farthest tip of the royal promontory, it is possible at low tide to walk the shoreline all the
way from one end to the other. But few ever do, oddly enough.

  I looked closer. Then rose, startled. It was Antony. Alive, away from his hermitage! For so long I had steeled myself for the messenger, expecting him at high noon, when the sun beat down pitilessly, or sunset, when things come to their natural close. I had even rehearsed what I would say. And the tomb was ready.

  But this—this I had not expected, not rehearsed. “Antony?”

  He bounded up the stairs and embraced me. His arms were tight and hard around me.

  “My dearest, dearest wife—” The words were rushed, whispered against my ear. He was kissing the side of my face, my neck, as if he dared not kiss my lips.

  He was here, alive, whole, warm. But it was frightening; in my determination to be strong, I had already buried him and mourned him. His touch on me seemed unnatural—yet it was only in my imagination that he had ever ceased to live.

  “Antony?” I drew away and clutched myself, to escape his embrace. “You are—” I touched the side of my face, where his kiss lingered on the skin. “You are—I thought you had—”

  Now he dropped his arms and backed away. “Of course. Forgive me. But I did not ever think to find you here, sitting, waiting—it made me bold. I meant to write, send a proper messenger, but—”

  “This is better,” I said. How lucky we were, to have it come about like this. But my head was reeling. “But you must give me time, explain…you said you would never come back. And I had feared, and in my fear—”

  “Yes. I know. I understand.” He sat down on the stairs, letting his arms dangle over his knees in that way I remembered so well. Cautiously I sat down beside him.

  Silence blanketed us. The only sound was the lapping of the tamed waves within the harbor.

  My heart was hammering. I was deliriously happy that he lived, and was sitting here beside me, but now all was in turmoil. Wherever Antony was, turmoil reigned, not the least of it in my heart. Shakily I extended my hand and took his.