Steampunk Cleopatra

by Thaddeus Thomas

  “I don't know if that should make me sad or happy,” she said.

  “Will you tell him I forgive him?”

  “I might never see him.”

  “You will,” he said. “It might not be my most logical statement, but it is my most certain.”

  After Dio left, Amani explored as many terraces as her leg would allow. In the shade of a cypress, she found mushrooms in profusion, as if cultivated, but by sight, she knew they were deadly. A turtle foraged among them and craned its neck to look at her. After a moment, he lumbered away, and Amani meant to follow him until footsteps on the terrace above caught her attention.

  Cleopatra walked unattended by guards or servants. “The very first Pharaoh cultivated poisons, as have they all, I suppose. It should be no surprise that others do the same.”

  “You're alone,” Amani said.

  “I'm with you.”

  “I'm glad. I want to ask something that the others must not hear.”

  “Ask me anything.”

  “Does Pharaoh trust me despite my secret?”

  “You could have stayed in Alexandria or gone to Philostratos in Cyprus, but you came here. Why?”

  Amani took a step, ready to run to her, but she took only that step and nothing more. “Because you're here.”

  “And that's why my father trusts you. When the others leave tomorrow, he will give you the option to go with them or stay with us. He fully expects you to stay.”

  Amani held her hands at her chest, clinging to a joy that felt like sadness. “Of course, I stay.”

  Cleopatra came to her. “Promise me you won't change your mind.”

  “Never.” Amani tasted savagery in her own voice.

  Four ornate wineskins sat on a low table. Amani had seen this tradition before, if not with wineskins, then something equally ephemeral, embellished with finely detailed designs of gold.

  Ptolemy took one skin and poured the wine for his guests, including Amani. When they had drunk, Ptolemy brought the skin to his lips, emptied it, and let it drop to the floor. “This life will pass too quickly, but we are richer, all, for having met.”

  Of the remaining wineskin, he presented the first to Dio and the second to Urban. Then he turned to Amani. “Do you stay with us, child, or return with the others?”

  Amani bowed her head. “My place is here.”

  Ptolemy kept the last skin. “Then I will drink this, tonight, in honor of your decision, and in honor of the bravery of the men who delivered you to us. I have had these days to consider our situation, and you may tell the others I will not interfere with the delegates' speech before the Senate.”

  When the ceremony had ended, Dio embraced Amani. “You're limping again. I've seen it. You're pushing yourself too hard.”

  “I'll never regain my strength by sitting still,” she said.

  “Stay here. You've said your goodbyes. If you climb these stairs, you'll have to come right back up, and I won't have it.”

  “I can't. It's the last time I'll see you.”

  “Another reason to stay. Old men make ugly criers. Promise me?”

  At last, she agreed. He kissed her cheek, and he and the others descended the long staircase. Cleopatra stood beside her, and together they watched them go.

  Papyrus 4.05

  The last wineskin lay forgotten on the table. Amani picked it up, dry-mouthed and thirsty. Cleopatra grabbed her hand. Amani saw fear in her eyes.

  “That’s not for you to drink,” Cleopatra said.

  Amani pouted. “Your father doesn’t mean to drink this in their honor. Allow me to do it for him.”

  “Give me the wineskin,” Cleopatra hissed.

  Amani took a step back, and Cleopatra snatched it from her.

  “You stayed,” Cleopatra said. “This isn't yours.”

  Even as Amani asked the next question, she knew. “What's wrong with the wine?”

  She turned without waiting for an answer.

  “I'd never have allowed it,” Cleopatra said.

  Amani hobbled downstairs as fast as her leg would allow. The stables occupied a stretch of earth between the slope and the road. Inside, the horses whinnied from the recent excitement, but Dio and the others were gone; not even their silhouettes dotted the horizon.

  Cleopatra stood at the villa's great front door. “They knew the punishment for siding against Pharaoh. Let them be.”

  “You've killed the men who brought me to your door.” Amani threw open the stables and pulled herself up on the nearest mount.

  Cleopatra blocked her way. “You chose me. No doubts.”

  Amani kicked. The horse surged forward. Cleopatra dodged the striking hooves, and Amani galloped north toward Rome.

  After an hour, she could see them. An hour more and she charged alongside. At her cry, the soldiers allowed her to pass.

  She pulled up to Dio and Urban, scrambled off her horse, and threw their skins to the ground. “Tell me you didn't drink.”

  “It's okay,” Dio said. He and Urban exchanged glances.

  Amani breathed, rapid and shallow, like her horse behind her. She waited and watched. Dio’s eyes traced the spilled wine.

  “It's not,” Amani said.

  “Urban did not drink,” Dio said. “Do you know what it was?”

  “If it has been any time at all, maybe mushrooms.”

  Dio ran his tongue between his lips as if tasting something. “Perhaps. Now, mount your ride. We have far to go, and there's no turning back for you now.”

  “But the wine.”

  He trotted forward. “Tonight, I mean to sleep in Rome.”

  By the time they rode into the city, Dio’s shoulders were hunched and his face pinched. Amani and Urban tried to help him inside the house, but he insisted on walking on his own. He climbed the stairs without a word and fell into his bed without undressing.

  Amani stayed with him through the night and throughout the next week. He made her promise she would go to Cyprus and deliver his farewell. Twice he repeated to her that his house now belonged to her and to me. He hoped we would be happy there.

  “I’m not ready to let you go,” she said.

  He quoted the philosopher. “Summoned or not, the gods come.”

  As the false dawn rose on the eighth day, Dio sucked in one last wet and raspy breath. Amani saw the moment of his death. In a twinkle of sadistic sorcery, he passed as if from flesh to stone.

  Amani awoke and for several seconds knew a morning without Dio's death. Then the room constricted around her, and she exploded out onto the mezzanine, gasping for breath. The sun was still low. The morning, young. Amani splashed water on her face, mentally climbing from a deep well, too deep to have been asleep for only a few hours.

  She checked Dio's room. The bed was empty.

  She brushed her teeth with a chew stick and Alexandrian paste. Romans used a more abrasive paste and rinsed with goat's milk and urine. That seemed a very important detail to latch onto as her mind reeled with a feeling of being untethered from time.

  When she had finished dressing, Urban came. He stood at the doorway to the mezzanine, looking somber and gray.

  “The Senate has agreed to hear us,” he said. “They will know what Ptolemy did to Dio.”

  He gave her a cup of goat's milk, but she set it aside.

  “When did this happen?”

  “While you slept.”

  “Just this morning?”

  He allowed himself a brief smile. “Yesterday.”

  The logical order of the world snapped back into place. “I want to go with you.”

  “It's not safe.”

  “Cleopatra was my sister, and she prepared my poison.”

  He stepped out of the doorway, inviting her to take the lead. “You'll stand in Dio's stead. There will be a hundred of us once again.”

  Papyrus 4.06

  Ninety-nine delegates flowed like streams from their many houses: a river; a torrent; a deluge. In their shared energy, they convinced themselves th
ey could overwhelm any threat. Ptolemy would not defeat them, and Rome could not ignore them. The Senate would hear their cause.

  Citizens cast wary glances and avoided the throng. Amani marched alongside Urban, toward the Curia, and saw little more than bodies before her, two or three deep. When a crack opened in the crowd, she saw pity and dread in the faces of those who watched them.

  The streets filled, and men moved in ahead of the Alexandrians. Over the whispers of startled delegates, Urban said, “Should we get separated, be aware of where you are. If we must run, cross the pomerium only between the markers.”

  In a land where the Senate ignored its own law, how could her life be at less risk among murderers than in defying tradition? They had come this far, and now she knew, deep in her bowels, they would never reach the Senate. Theodotus had spoken the truth, and she had failed to see it, unlike Berenice. Vain, stupid Berenice had murdered her own mother for the right to rule; maybe she was the pharaoh Alexandria deserved.

  The horde pressed closer. Amani told herself the Romans would not attack. Her group might not carry weapons, but they were a hundred strong. The Romans would threaten and follow but ultimately turn away. The delegates shared her thinking and moved forward as a unit. Urban held her hand.

  But Amani had heard stories. The men Clodius and Milo armed to enforce their respective wills were not random citizens. They were gladiators, not cowards, but fighters and killers. She eyed the men who gathered in alongside the delegates. Each glimpse of their broken faces and muscular bodies, thick with scars, attested to this truth.

  She looked up at Urban and felt the comfort of his hand enclosing hers. Since the age of eight, she had lived as if these were her people. Since the age of six, she had thought what they instructed her to think. She had lived as one of them. She sensed now she would die the same way.

  She stared hard at the glint of weapons now pulled out of hiding. As a group, the delegates stopped.

  The faces of brave men turned craven. The air reeked of excrement. There was nowhere to run, but, as some died, she hoped others might make their escape.

  Someone pushed by her, almost knocking her to the ground. Bodies pressed close together. Someone screamed. Elbows stabbed at her and hands brushed her aside. With every chance opening, someone ran. Now more, and Amani felt herself pushed, and she stumbled. Run or be crushed. On throbbing knee, she ran.

  A man lay in the street, his flesh cleaved in two, his bones shattered. Amani stepped over him and ran on. His image clung to her thoughts, and she wept. She called out for Urban but heard no reply.

  Wiping her eyes, she stopped, uncertain now even which way to run. A man with a knife slashed at men beside her, and she ran for higher ground.

  Atop the hill, within the court of a temple, she found herself able to breathe and to think over the chaos below. She saw the pillared outline of the temple and wondered if she could seek sanctuary. A killer had followed her into the brothel, but maybe this would be different? No. The fear that palpitated in her chest told her no. It would be no different here.

  The world she had once described as magical was cruel and full of death. There was no magic. There was no wonder, only pain.

  She saw Consivius’s house and the blood-drenched men who blocked the streets. West of them, by the Tiber, was Capitoline hill with its temple of Jupiter. Below it stood a wall that guarded a wooden bridge. To cross the bridge was to cross the pomerium.

  She ran west, clinging to dreams of Alexandrian soldiers who waited on the other side. She reached the plaza. Ahead of her stood the wall with the gate to the bridge. She could almost believe herself free.

  A swordsman entered the broad square just inside the wall, at the foot of Capitoline hill. The violence had cleared the streets of morning traffic. Only he stared at only her.

  She turned to run the other way, but a large, lumbering man blocked the road east. Both men charged. She spun, looking for a way out, knowing it was too late.

  “Don’t do this,” she said. “All we want is to be heard.”

  The swordsman stopped. The suddenness almost made her smile.

  “Come, girl,” he said without warmth or pity. “I’ll listen.”

  He moved, and all she could do was watch him come. She thought of Cleopatra in the villa, me in Cyprus, and her grandfather in his grave. “Look for me, grandfather. I’ll be there soon.”

  With a flash of steel, Urban crashed into the street.

  He thrust his blade into the gut of the swordsman. The man slashed in return, his reflexes not yet aware of his own death. His blade caught Urban across the chest. The sword’s design assumed a thrusting blow, not a slashing cut, but Urban's clothes and flesh tore open all the same. He collapsed; his hands gripped his blood-soaked wounds.

  The giant ran at Amani, but the path to the Tiber and the pomerium was now open. All she had to do was leave Urban behind. She looked at him. He hissed at her to go.

  Amani threw herself atop him. She faced the giant as he stood over them, his fist cranked back for the blow.

  She gritted her teeth and waited to die. “I serve Cleopatra. I am the companion to the princess.”

  Death did not come. When Amani opened her eyes; the giant stood above her. He lowered his massive fists, and his rapid breathing deepened and slowed. He looked upon her without compassion and turned away in search of others.

  5

  The Myths of Cyprus

  Moses married a Kushite woman. For this, his sister spoke against him, but no one knows who the Kushite woman was. In the book of Genesis, he marries Zipporah, daughter of the Midian priest, but she is not the Kushite.

  There is, however, a tale told in Jerusalem.

  Moses was still a prince of Egypt, and the Jews were slaves in the land. Moses led an Egyptian army into Kush, and Tharbis, the daughter of the Qore, saw Moses and his military brilliance and fell in love. As their peoples fought, Tharbis's love grew beyond control. She sent out messengers with an offer of marriage, and Moses accepted on one condition. She must surrender her city.

  Tharbis accepted.

  It is not so different a tale than Alexander marching into Egypt and being embraced as their savior. The oracle even made him a god, beloved of Amun and son of Ra. Whether it is Egypt upon Kush, or Greece upon Egypt, the mythology of the victor admits no oppression. They needed us, says the story, and they need us still.

  Amani joined the Alexandrian soldiers outside the city, alongside those few who survived with her. They marched to Ostia, and soon, their sails snapped against the headwinds. Rain soaked both man and timber as waves capped in deep waters. Foam tumbled forward and fell away, trailing down the backside of dark waves like the spittle of gods.

  These gods fought them until they reached striated cliffs that sloped away to gentle beaches and flatlands where the city of Paphos reined like a queen. Her green train flowed straight into the sea.

  Rain-darkened, white-plaster buildings extended out along the harbor breakwater, and Amani arrived in Cyprus. Under the shelter of the harbor offices, a doctor examined the injured. Nine delegates completed the journey, and they looked like only a curse had kept them going.

  When the rain allowed, they ventured on. The house belonging to Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis remained formal enough for hosting and possessed a small garden, but it would be too small and humble for any other Roman-appointed governor. Amani glanced around the city, wondering where Cleopatra's uncle would have lived when he was king. It would have been anything but this. Cato held a position ripe for exploitation, but he had chosen simplicity.

  Thin and muscular, Cato had dark, sad eyes set in a tanned but delicate face. He ordered beds for the wounded and a change of clothes for Amani. Sorrow caressed his voice as he talked about the death of Cleopatra's uncle.

  “There is around us, always, so much tragedy,” he said. “I knew your friend Philostratos, as well.”

  “Did tragedy befall him?” Amani asked.

  “Lost to the mines,
we fear.”

  “You fear? You're not certain?”

  “Cyprus is known for its copper mines, but for a century, it provided Egypt with other items. It was in these Philostratos took an interest: coal, for one, and then there's the air.”

  Amani paused. “Air?”

  “Underground air. Deadly. Dangerous to mine. Stories say there have been earthquakes and fire. Each one would shutter a mine for years, but the Egyptian gold was good, so they always got it going again.”

  “And Philostratos died exploring these mines?”

  “Months ago,” he said, “he fell in a fissure.”

  “But you're not sure,” Amani said.

  “He was staying with a Jewish farming community. You could talk with them.” He poured himself a glass of wine. “But you serve in the court of Ptolemy, and that gives me pause. He seeks the friendship of Julius Caesar.”

  “Ptolemy is an outcast from his own country,” Amani said. “Our people have come to you at the behest of Pharaoh Berenice.”

  “You mean Theodotus has come,” Cato said.

  She heard the challenge and ignored it. “Do you know where Theodotus is?”

  Cato tilted his head in a non-answer that suggested Theodotus was wandering, on the edge of being lost. He finished his drink and brought Amani to see the wounded. She lingered in the room of burly Urban, whose dull eyes once twinkled with wit.

  “I understand your wounds and the conditions of travel should have killed you,” Cato said to him, “if it weren't for the attention of your personal angel.”

  Amani felt herself blush.

  Cato circled the bed and perched on a wooden stool. He followed Urban's gaze out the window to the northern edge of town and the island beyond. Amani patted Urban's forehead dry with the back of her hand, and she, too, looked to see what the others saw, the sunlit distance of fields and forests.

  “Where do you go from here?” Cato asked.