Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  "What is more insane than Rome herself now? Oh, in the years I was away I have outgrown it--outgrown the stifling pettiness, the continual bickering, the lack of any vision or even foresight for the simplest things. The field-- out in the field I'll be free again, free to dare, to make decisions, to be obeyed. No one has ever loved me like my soldiers!" he burst out.

  "True, if it's love you want, Rome will not grant it," I said. "But must you run away? That makes you just another Cassius!"

  He started to say something, then sat silently. From far away I heard the low tinkle of sheep's bells on some hidden hillside.

  "What are your military plans?" I finally asked.

  "I have to settle a messy business in Macedonia," he said. "And then I will invade Parthia from the north, through Armenia. That route has not been tried; everyone always invades from the west or the south."

  He turned to me, took my hand. "You are an essential part of my plan," he said. "While I am in Parthia, you will be in Egypt, my foremost ally. You will be my partner in conquest, for I will rely on Egypt's support and resources for the campaign. Will you agree?" He waited for my answer. "I do not need the support and approval of the Senate and the people of Rome, as long as I have you. Do I have you?"

  "Do you have Egypt, do you mean?" Suddenly I was gripped by a horrible suspicion that perhaps he had seen me all along as only an incarnation of Egypt, someone to abet his ambitions and plans. He had not annexed Egypt to Rome because that would have put Egypt at the disposal of the Senate--- the last thing he would have wanted. "My country's resources?"

  "Yes, of course that is what I mean!" He sounded impatient. "But as my partner." He grasped my hand tighter. "You are a queen; I come before you as your client. If I had a crown and scepter, I would place them at your feet. Please consider my request."

  "And what do you foresee for us?"

  "A kingdom that you and I can rule together, equally. And that our son can inherit, as sole ruler." Before I could say anything, he continued hurriedly, "You know he can have no inheritance at Rome. But what of it? There are grander things. Let him be King of Egypt and Parthia and all the regions in between. Then I--though not a king myself--will have given rise to kings. That is enough for me."

  "You ask an enormous commitment. Egypt is at peace. Parthia has never attacked us. You ask that we spend men and money to chase your dreams."

  "Your dreams, too."

  "No, that is not my dream."

  "Then what is your dream?"

  "I have achieved it. Egypt at peace, independent, strong. Myself as sole ruler. I have no need of Parthia."

  "Have you no need of me?" he asked. "For only away from Rome can we have a life together."

  "Your price is very high. I must spend heaps of silver and gold, rivers of blood, in order for us to have a life together."

  "We cannot reckon in those terms."

  "I am afraid it is the only way I can reckon. Oh, I would give anything for you--except Egypt."

  He looked at me with subdued respect. "Then you are a better queen than a lover. Your subjects are fortunate."

  He climbed down from the rock and walked a little way down the stream. I came and stood beside him.

  "I shall be your ally, I will provide a staging area for you, a place to rest, but I do not wish to fight Parthia," I told him. "I shall be the first to rejoice when you have conquered. You may stage the biggest Triumph in the history of the world in Alexandria."

  I tried to keep my voice light and happy, when all the while I was seized with the dreadful fear that he would never return. Never, never return from the east, to die like Alexander in the shadow of Babylon. ... I felt sick.

  "Perhaps that is enough," he finally said, hearing only my words and not my thoughts. At length, after many minutes of silence, he reached his hand into the bosom of his tunic and drew out a pouch of leather.

  "This is for you," he said, handing it to me.

  I opened it slowly and found a silver medallion there, on a small chain. I shook it out into the palm of my hand and turned it over. It had an elephant on one side, and lettering on the other.

  "It was my mother's," he said. "The elephant is one of the emblems of the Caesars; an ancestor killed one from the Carthaginian army at a crucial moment. She wore it for my father. I wish you to have it."

  I bent my neck while he fastened it.

  "She wore it always. I have kept it for years. I loved her dearly; I still miss her every day. She died six years before I came to know you. Please take it. I do not know what else I can give you to show you how precious you are to me, how you alone fill that one place in me left vacant all my life. This is my most guarded, most treasured possession."

  As I felt his fingers on my bowed neck, I knew it was an anointing of a kind. Caesar was making me a part of his family in the only way he. knew how.

  "I am honored," I said, raising my head. I touched the medallion, now hanging near the top of my breasts. It seemed more precious to me than anything of gold, emeralds, lapis. It had protected Caesar's mother, the one woman he had always been true to and respected. Now it passed to me, the mother of his son.

  "I told you, you are my very self," he said, and his lips sought mine. They were hungry for me, wishing to unite us. I stood on tiptoe on the banks of the stream and held him tightly.

  The horses were standing patiently watching us, not disturbed by the future.

  "Will you take Odysseus?" I whispered.

  "No, he is too old," said Caesar. "He has earned his rest. And I could not bear to watch him fall in a foreign field."

  I feel the same, I thought. Why are you kinder to your horse than I am being to you? Yet I cannot forbid you to go, and withholding Egypt's forces has made no difference to your plans. What else can I do, what other influence bring to bear?

  My hands trembled as I stroked his back. Everything about us was open to the air and sky, and it was too early yet for there to be masking leaves on the hedges and branches.

  "Come," he said, wading across the stream. "The temple isn't far."

  It was the only shelter for miles, and it looked derelict, its path overgrown, its roof partially collapsed. Yet its old marble was a fine white with bluish veins, and its circular shape was graceful.

  As we approached it, I saw green lizards darting through the overgrown grass. Whose temple was it, I wondered. We reached the decaying door and looked in; there was a crumbling statue of Venus on a pedestal.

  "Venus," he said. "This is extraordinary. Even here, my ancestress provides for my needs."

  We stepped inside; it was a sorry sight. Tree roots burrowed in the pavement, causing its black and white marble slabs to buckle, and moss, weeds, and wildflowers sprouted in the chipped wall crevices. The worn goddess tilted on her pedestal and looked at us wistfully. At her feet a brackish pool of water had collected. Light poured in through the broken domed ceiling, making a spot on the far side of the temple.

  "Poor goddess," said Caesar slowly. "I hereby vow that when I return from Parthia, I will restore this temple, if only you will grant me victory once more."

  The goddess did not indicate that she had heard, and her sightless eyes stared out the door into the open fields.

  "It does not look as if anyone comes here," said Caesar. "We are quite alone." He leaned one powerful arm against the wall. Then he turned to me and, putting his head down, began to kiss the hollow of my neck, then to each side of it, and then softly up to my ears.

  I turned my head to one side, letting him continue because of the sweet feeling of his mouth on my throat, even in this dispiriting setting. The uneven floor was damp and had lizards and worms crawling on it, and the air was chilly. Yet I moved back and flattened myself against the rough, crumbling wall and let him press himself against me. His lean, hard body against mine made me tremble with expectation. It had been so long since we were together as a man and a woman that I hungered for it, all the more so because I could never predict our times together.
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  I threw my head back, closing my eyes and giving myself up to the rising sensation of pleasure. He was silent, making no noise at all but the sound of his shoes scuffling a little on the ground. His mouth, hungrier now, was traveling up my cheek and seeking my lips; when he reached them he kissed me so deeply I had trouble breathing.

  Then I suddenly knew that this could not be suspended, or even broken off midway, not with my blood galloping faster than my horse had through the fields, pounding in my ears, my throat, my stomach. I gave a groan of fretted longing, and sighed, "This floor is worse than the riverbank."

  He took my right leg and lifted it up over his hip, positioned me gently back against the wall and lifted up the other leg, then, putting his arms under my shoulders, whispered into my ear, "I will make sure you never touch the ground." He moved his own body to brace his strong legs and repeated, "No, it is no place for a queen," his voice low and uneven, but then he said no more. He stood and made love to me, looking at my face all the while, and I thought I would die of both the exertion and the pleasure. I longed for the life force of him to infuse me, so thereby I could keep him forever, and while it was happening I felt as if that took place. But all too soon it was over, and we were standing, panting and shaken, in the sad little temple, where the beauty had long since fled.

  Our return ride across the fields at sunset was subdued. The sky was streaked with purple--like a Triumphator's robe--and the peculiarly Roman slanted yellow light of late afternoon was splashed everywhere. It glowed with a joyful intensity, bathing Caesar's straight back in gold.

  At the gate of the villa there were no farewells. He took the reins of Barricade and said he would return the horses to the stables.

  "May you rest well tonight," he said, wheeling away.

  But I did not. How could I?

  Caesar made his announcement about the Parthian campaign to the Senate, and at the same time revealed that he had filled all the political appointments for three years in advance. For this year, the Consuls were Antony and himself, with himself to be replaced by Dolabella when he departed for the east. For the next year, the Consuls were Hirtius and Pansa; for the year after, Decimus and Pansa. The governors of provinces were to be Decimus for Gaul, to be replaced by Pansa and Brutus thereafter. Trebonius would take Asia and Tillius Cimber, Bithynia. He meant to leave a smooth-running government behind him.

  But I wondered whom he meant to employ as his generals? Antony was to be tied down in Rome, Munatius Plancus likewise, and Cassius--a fairly good general in spite of his cowardly record in Parthia--was praetor peregrinus in Rome now and could not leave. Surely Caesar did not mean to fight his war with Octavian and Agrippa--those boys! My fears for him mounted.

  Yet I continued making ready to leave Rome. At least in Egypt I would be able to help, in a limited fashion. Here I was nothing but a troublesome guest.

  His news was not well received. People were horrified that he meant to leave without surrendering his absolute control of the government. For three years decisions would have to be suspended; the ordinary business of life would come to a standstill. All power had been invested in Caesar, and now he was removing himself, with no provisions for a substitute. When he had been away in Egypt, in Africa, the same thing had happened. No one had had the authority to act in his name. Everyone had hated the situation, and that was but a taste of what was now looming. The Dictator for life had Rome by the neck, strangling her, and was preparing to leave her gasping for air, abandoning her for the east.

  I saw him not at all. He was furiously busy, fending off his critics, trying to make final arrangements for both his appointees and his army. Then a strange rumor began circulating, circulating so widely that even my servants heard it in the marketplace: The priests had consulted the Sibylline books of prophesy--the same one that had forbade anyone to "restore the king of Egypt with a multitude"--and they said no one could conquer Parthia but a king, or he would be annihilated and Rome humbled. If Rome sent Caesar, or allowed him to go, it would have to be as a king. The moment had come, the moment they assumed he had been aiming at all along.

  The rumor said that at last the Senate was going to confer this title, when it met at Pompey's theater for the last time before Parthia, on the Ides of March. He was to depart for Parthia three days later--as a king.

  Chapter 34.

  The warm winds blew through the garden during the first half of March, gently coaxing the hedges to bloom and the trees to unfurl their tightly rolled, delicate leaves. My preparations for my journey were occupying my thoughts, but not quieting my heart. Parthia . . . why was he going, really? What was driving him there? Egypt's role in his campaign ... no matter how much I thought about it, my feeling was still the same as my initial outburst. No, I would not involve Egypt in it! And the gift of his mother's jewelry--how could I adequately express the depths of my feelings about it? I promised myself I would never take it off until he returned from Parthia--as if that would make up for having refused him men and arms. I was confused and longed to see him, so that we could have a happy parting. The night before the Senate was to meet, he had planned to come to the villa, but in the late afternoon I received a message that he must dine with Lepidus that night. He would postpone our meeting until the day after. But there were still three days left in Rome, and we would have time to say our farewells.

  The weather changed abruptly by the time the messenger brought me that note, and everyone was scurrying inside. Black-bottomed clouds coalesced, blotting out the sun, and a high wind shrieked through the trees. The shutters, drawn tight, rattled like an old woman's teeth.

  "Roman weather is so changeable," I complained to Charmian, "just like Roman opinion." I had almost got used to the severe, booming thunderstorms that Jupiter hurled at his chosen city, but I would never like them. And the lightning--everyone had a story to tell about a statue, if not a person, that had been struck by it.

  "It's a very nasty night," said Charmian, drawing a woolen shawl about her shoulders. She started as one of the tall lamp stands--a pretty one with a slender pole and clawed feet for its base--was blown over. It rolled, clanking, a little way and then stopped, spilling its oil in a trail.

  I was sorry Caesar had to venture out at all, but at least Lepidus's house was conveniently near him, not like this villa across the Tiber.

  What did Caesar think about the rumor? Did he believe it? Encourage it? Dismiss it? There were so many things I needed to know.

  But I would not know them this night.

  I slept almost not at all, for the bright blue lightning flashes and the crashing thunder seemed to invade my very chamber. Perhaps I dreamt, because at one point I thought the shutters had blown open and a tongue of lightning licked at the foot of my bed.

  In the morning the ugly aftermath did not dispel. The wake of the storm had left several trees in the garden uprooted, and flooded the plants by the ornamental pool. In addition, the Hercules statue had been overturned, and his club was broken off, although he still stared up at the sky as if he had the situation well in hand.

  As I walked through the strewn garden, I heard ugly noises coming from across the Tiber; people must be fighting, or lamenting the storm's damage to their market stalls.

  I forced myself to continue with the busywork of packing my clothing, with Charmian helping. I had brought so many beautiful gowns, so much jewelry, ornamented sandals, hairpins and diadems and headdresses. And I had worn most of them, too, and now each one was connected with something in Rome. There was the dress I had worn to Caesar's dinner party, and the Triumph gown, and now my riding costume, which I had worn on our gallop through the fields.

  I can remember exactly how I was smoothing out the material of that gown, running my fingers over the sturdy woven linen, when I heard a commotion downstairs. There were cries and shrieks, and then footsteps running lightly up to the door. I looked up and saw a boy I recognized, someone from Caesar's household. He was standing, trembling, panting and gasping.


  Then he said those words, those words that struck me down.

  "Murder! Murder! Caesar's been murdered!" he cried. He flung himself on me, collapsing in my arms, sobbing. "Caesar's dead!"

  In my most terrible, dark dreams I had heard those words--in dreams you cannot even repeat to yourself the next morning, hiding away the horror, lest it truly happen. The unthinkable.

  Charmian was staring, her face white, her hands to her mouth.

  Caesar was dead. Caesar was dead. No, it was impossible. Caesar could not die. I could not be hearing those words now, not now, not after all the danger was past, the old wars over, the new one not begun, he here in Rome, with his honors. ... A strange sort of cold gripped me, it had an urgency of its own, and it sucked me into a place I had never imagined--unconnected, beyond time, cold, cold, cold, all the familiar gone. No. It could not be true.

  I heard myself asking, "What has happened?" and felt myself stroking the boy's hair, comforting him, as if he were my own child.

  He was wrong. He would explain it away. Or ... if there was anything wrong . . . Caesar was only injured.

  "How do you know Caesar was murdered?" I asked him, as gently as I could. I almost whispered, lest speaking it loudly might make it true.

  All he did was sob, and I could not stand it any longer, could not give him another instant before refuting the false news. And all the while that awful coldness, encasing me, making a stiff sort of shield around me.