Page 15 of Cleopatra

15

CLEOPATRA

O n the third day, Caesar and I hear the shouts of triumph when our men reach fresh water. We shall not die of thirst. We toast our small victory with crystal goblets of cool, clear water. Cunning has saved us from Achillas. The streams and rills refill with fresh water spurting from the new wells but it’s too late to save the fish. We must survive on the palace stores, already depleted. I have the slaves bring Arsinoe and Tol to me in the mornings. I spend time discussing various topics with them. Arsinoe listens rapt, her falcon eyeing her from the silver-tipped horn of an ibis across the room. Tol struggles to concentrate. He’s soon bored and restless, staring at the gardens outside the windows with a lover’s longing. I take pity and release him. Soon, his shouts reverberate through the afternoon. A slave brings Arsinoe and me chilled rosewater sweetened with honey. Arsinoe eyes me carefully.

‘Will you kill our brother Ptolemy?’ she asks, her tone sharp and accusatory.

‘No,’ I reply, taken aback. ‘Why do you ask such a thing?’

She frowns, neat furrows on her brow, and picks at a tiny scab on her knee. ‘He’s scared. He thinks you’re going to murder him. He’s drunk most of the day now. It dulls his fear. He knows you contrived to have Caesar kill his eunuch.’

‘Murder is his habit not mine, Arsinoe.’

The colour rises in her cheeks. She’s never spoken like this to me before, and I look at her in surprise. Only now recognising she’s no longer the child she was. Perhaps she hasn’t been for a while, but distracted by war, I haven’t noticed.

‘And when do you see him? Who takes you to him, little one?’ I ask.

‘Am I a prisoner? Can I not see who I like? He’s my brother too,’ she retorts.

‘He lies as he breathes, my darling. I worry.’

‘He isn’t lying. He only told me that he’s afraid. His fear is not a lie.’

I say nothing for a moment. I expect that Ptolemy is afraid. And he will be sharing his terror with anyone who will listen. It’s partly his character – he has no self-restraint nor shame – but it’s also sensible. If he tells everyone that he’s afraid I will kill him, then if anything happens to him, all eyes will turn to me. His supporters already loathe me and rage a war on his behalf; it will set them further against me, make it difficult to rule them even when I win. Arsinoe and I talk for a while longer, but her answers are by rote. Eventually, I dismiss her, promising that we’ll talk again tomorrow. She’s leaving childhood behind, and I need to be ready for her. I don’t like the distance between us, the antagonism of her questions. I suppose it’s to be expected for a teenage princess, but I feel deflated and weary.

Charmian and I walk in the gardens in the late afternoon, the sky steeped in blue ink. The sun dangles low, a polished gold coin on a thread, it lacks only my image or Caesar’s stamped upon its face. Charmian plucks a lemon leaf, inhales its sharp scent, tucks it behind my ear. Then, she thrusts out her arm and stops me from stepping forward. Silently, she points to a viper in the dust just in front of my feet. It oozes along the ground, its skin molten metal. A fat lizard pauses at the base of a tree, stupefied with sunshine, and the snake leaks closer and closer in fluid curves, never directly. When it’s within striking distance, the viper fires itself like an arrow. There is now no lizard, only snake.

I look into the face of my oldest friend. Her brown eyes, the black braided hair. She doesn’t smile, her lips are a tight line. She wants me to survive. I know what she wants me to do. She wants me to be the viper and swallow my brother whole. Despite everything he’s done, everything I’ve already done, I balk at this mortal taboo. My family is not like any other on this earth and while Ptolemy lives, the dagger hovers over my breast, nicking at my skin. Even though as a god I shall reign in the next life, I want to rule for a little longer in this one.

I don’t sleep. I only think about the problem of Ptolemy. The thought is gristle stuck between my teeth and no amount of teasing can poke it free. My mind is already stained with red, my thoughts slippery with blood. There’s a thudding on my bedroom door at dawn. Charmian pads over to answer it and Apollodorus follows her inside, his expression panicked, and his sword belt is askew.

‘She’s gone,’ he says.

‘She?’ I ask.

‘Your sister. Arsinoe fled the palace and has joined the enemy troops outside the city.’

‘No,’ I say. I shake my head. If I deny it enough, it can’t be true.

‘She has gone. She’s gone to Achillas and your enemies. She declares herself queen, and that when she has killed you, she’ll marry Ptolemy and they will rule together. Brother and sister Pharaoh.’

Bile rises in my throat. I feel sick. The blood leaves my cheeks. I think of the teenage girl. Her thin arms. The falcon on the wrist that seems almost too slim to hold it. And before that, the baby who slept in my arms, suckled my finger for comfort.

‘Not my sister,’ I repeat dumbly. ‘She would not leave me.’

But I left her first, a voice nags in my head. I left her alone in the palace with my brother and his cut-throats while I journeyed down the Nile. While I was gone the eunuchs must have dripped their sweet poison in her ear, turning her against me. They could not tolerate her loyalty towards me. They did not kill her but they killed her love for me. I cannot blame them for it is my own fault for abandoning her. I deserve this betrayal. How did I not see that her love for me had guttered out?

*

The sky is never dark. Fires burn beyond the walls all through the night. Arsinoe’s presence has rallied my enemies with renewed enthusiasm, and their ships prevent ours from reaching us with fresh supplies. The palace stores dwindle faster than we expect. The freedmen blame the slaves for stealing it and beat them, until Apollodorus orders them to stop – the slaves don’t have enough energy to heal their wounds without food, and we need them to work. Beyond the palace walls Arsinoe and Achillas’s army swells into a sea of men. Mine are stranded outside the city, cut off from Caesar’s men. They will be mown down if they try to join them and divided in two, our strength is weakened. I pray to the gods for favourable winds to carry Caesar’s fresh legions to break the siege, but I grow restless. I want to do more than pray.

I hold private counsel with Charmian and Apollodorus.

‘We cannot fight them until we have more legions. Then, your army can join with Caesar’s and we can push back properly,’ says Apollodorus again.

‘There are other ways to fight. We must wait for more soldiers, but until then, we must be clever.’

Charmian looks at me, her expression hopeful for the first time in weeks.

‘Take us to Caesar,’ I say. ‘I need an audience with the consul.’

Caesar is busy with his commanders, but he dismisses them as I enter.

‘You must release Ptolemy. Send him to Achillas and Arsinoe,’ I say.

‘To be rid of the noise of his weeping?’ asks Caesar, attempting a joke. ‘I could just call for musicians to drown him out.’

I try to laugh, but I don’t have it in me. ‘If you allow Ptolemy to go over to the enemy camp, he and Arsinoe will fight. Achillas will be caught between them, snared in their ambition unable to properly command the troops.’

Caesar leans back, sweating, and closes his eyes as he considers. I sigh and press my argument. ‘My siblings cannot be together for an hour without trying to kill each other. Their hatred will split the enemy, cause squabbling and division. One of them will die without our having to wield the knife.’

I know what I’m saying is true, but plotting against my sister causes an ache in my chest, even as she schemes to hurt me. I feel as if I am putting a beloved pet dog into a fightpit alongside another, even if this pet dog has just bitten my ankle.

‘I shall tell him that I’m sending him to sue for peace. And, I’ll send two Roman envoys with him to help him argue our cause,’ says Caesar.

I’m silent – he does not want to hear my warning – but I am confident that there will soon be two more widows in Rome. I only say, ‘You mustn’t tell Ptolemy that it is my suggestion that he should go, or he will refuse. Instead, tell him I am against it and then he will be tempted to leave. But you must accept that he’ll betray you the moment he can.’

He smiles at me, indulgent. ‘Caesar inspires devotion. There’s a chance that his love for me is enough to plead our cause for peace.’

I look at him, meet his eye. ‘There is none.’

Of course he betrays us. It’s reassuring in a way, like the ebb and flow of the tides, the constancy of my brother’s nature. He has the two envoys sent with him by Caesar killed as soon as he arrives at the enemy camp. His guards stab the Romans so many times they bleed like perforated wineskins. The first man dies at once, they allow the other to crawl back to the palace, where he dies of his wounds, leaking blood all over the floors in a sloppy trail, staining the grout between the tiles. The message of my brother’s betrayal is inscribed in the stab wounds on the Romans’ bodies. If Caesar is surprised by my brother’s actions, he does not say so. I am sorry for the men’s deaths, but I gave Caesar warning. He listened to me as Menelaus did Cassandra, disbelieving the truth.

I try to imagine the reunion between my siblings, my sister’s feigned delight at Ptolemy’s sudden arrival. Only the eunuch will be genuinely pleased to see him. With Apollodorus’s help, I dispatch my spies into my siblings’ camp. They come back with stories of bickering but not outright division. I’m frustrated as I have never known them keep peace with one another for more than a few hours. Their hatred of me has unified them. Apollodorus counsels patience until I lose mine.

Over the next weeks my brother’s ships strike at ours, causing inconvenience and irritation but not disaster, with neither side winning a real victory. Pompey’s ships sit in the harbour. They belong to no one. His men hate my brother for murdering their general but they hate Caesar too, the deep-rooted enemy. The ships do nothing but bob on the tide. They neither return to Rome nor join the fight. I watch them from the high window of the palace tower as they sway in the wind, swinging on their moorings as the sailors carouse and declare for no one. The immobility of the ships in the harbour symbolises our own stasis. I worry we’re becalmed by fate, doomed to wait endlessly, nothing changing.

The war is stuck even as the seasons turn. The winter brings hot sandstorms rolling across the city. Unlike us walled up in the palace, the sand is free, slicing across the enemy army and Caesar’s legions. We close all the doors and shutters in the palace but still the sand seeps inside, forming fine piles beneath each sill as though the desert is only waiting to reclaim the city, the final victor who shall outlast us all. The palace and the moon gate are ours, but the enemy still controls the other parts of the city. The great harbour belongs to no one and whoever controls it wins this war. We watch their ships sail up to our lines in the waters, close but not within arrow’s reach.

Then, at last, something shifts. News arrives; good and ill. Apollodorus races to find me in the upper tower, where I have taken to sitting for hours on end, watching the harbour. Charmian is sprawled on a cushion beside me. Apollodorus is flushed not only from running but with excitement.

‘You want Pompey’s sailors to take your side in this conflict. Your brother and sister want them on theirs.’

‘Yes, we all want those ships. And I have tried to get them. But no matter of argument or bribery persuades them. Pompey’s men do not care for me one way or the other, but their loathing of Caesar is bone deep.’

‘And your sister wants to win Pompey’s ships and men to her side every bit as much as you do,’ he says.

‘Of course she does. Those fifty ships if on their side could cut off our access to the sea. When the legions arrive to relieve us, they wouldn’t be able to land,’ I reply, impatient. He is telling me nothing new.

‘But she has a problem. Much like yours. While Pompey’s men are not so full of hatred towards your sister, they despise your brother. And especially his eunuch, Achillas.’

‘Yes. This is why we are stuck. Stranded in this endless impasse.’

‘Ah, but your sister, spider that she is, has found a way through. Arsinoe has killed the eunuch. Poisoned him.’

I stare at Apollodorus. ‘And my brother is outraged and spitting with betrayal?’

‘Yes. The camp is full of bitter divisions. It writhes with hate.’

My triumph is momentary. I look at Apollodorus in understanding. ‘But, Arsinoe murdered the eunuch to appease Pompey’s men.’

‘Or so she claims. There was no love lost between her and the eunuch. But she has certainly told Pompey’s crew that she has carried out vengeance for them, in Pompey’s name.’

‘Then, those fifty ships are now my enemies,’ I say, rising. ‘Come. We must warn Caesar.’

I find Caesar sitting at his desk in one of the chambers in the royal suite. The walls and ceilings are frescoed with scenes from the Book of the Dead, the eyes of the gods picked out in onyx, so they all seem to glint at me as I enter. Caesar listens in silence without interruption while Apollodorus tells him the news. He asks a few questions, and then considers for a moment.

‘They will try to take the harbour,’ he says.

‘Tonight,’ I say. ‘They will not wait. They’ll strike at once.’

My heart hammers in my chest, even though I knew this moment must come. We cannot lose the harbour or Caesar’s relief ships when they arrive will not be able to land, and then there will be no end to this siege other than death.

‘We must burn Pompey’s ships,’ I say. ‘Set the harbour ablaze, before they try to take it.’

Caesar studies me for a moment. He turns to a slave. ‘Bring the commanders to me,’ he says.

We wait for them to arrive, neither of us speaking, but I can hear the hum and tick as his mind whirs.

‘Once I’ve burned the ships in the harbour, I’ll take Pharos Island,’ he says slowly. ‘We must hold the point where reinforcements can land.’

I nod once. His plan needs twice the number of soldiers and ships than we have, but I don’t condescend to him by saying this aloud. He knows the danger and that we have no choice.

‘I shall come with you and command my ships myself in this fight. I have only a few ships here in Alexandria but those I do have, I command,’ I say.

Caesar laughs, and then seeing my expression, stops. ‘No, good queen. A woman has no place amid a battle. I fight in your name and for Egypt.’

‘Then I join you. You are not my proxy.’

He pauses for a moment, choosing his words carefully.

When the way is cleared for your army to join with mine, then command them with my thanks and prayers. Do not risk your life in battle to command a handful of ships. I do not value your life so cheaply. And, as Pharaoh, Queen of the Red Lands and Black, neither should you.’

I frown and try to think of another reason that I should fight alongside him, but as I’m pondering, he turns and walks away, already intent on what is ahead. I stand in the quiet chamber, my fists clenched at my sides.

Charmian steps forward, her expression tense.

‘Do not go,’ she says. ‘Please.’

‘I do not like that they fight for me, and I am not there. I’m no coward.’

‘Of course not, my queen. What if Caesar wins this fight for you, but you die in the onslaught? Then it will all have been for nothing,’ says Apollodorus. ‘You have so few ships here. When the enemy discovers that you are here, they will target you with all their power and you will be exposed.’

I’m furious but I know they speak the truth. If Caesar achieves his aim and burns Pompey’s ships, takes Pharos Island, but I am dead, then what will be the purpose? Caesar would have no choice but to invite my brother to take my throne. Frustration at my helplessness buzzes in my ears.

A hush has fallen over the palace, all usual business is stilled. There are soldiers left here to guard the palace, but a fraction of the usual number. The rest march with Caesar down to the harbour. If the battle there is lost, there are not enough left to protect the palace from my brother’s mob. I feel the energy across the city like a pulse. Everyone waits. Charmian paces, chewing her nail until I take her hand, pulling her close to me. I tuck her hair behind her small, shell-like ear and tell her, ‘Go to the apothecary at once, and bring me poison. If Caesar dies, and they take the harbour, then death will find me tonight. But I shall not die at their hands – murdered and hacked to pieces. I shall rob them of the pleasure of my death and die at the moment and in the manner of my choosing.’

Charmian blinks and pales but does not try to argue with me. She knows what I say is true.

‘I will bring it to you, my queen, enough to still two hearts. Wherever you go, I follow.’

I hug her tightly, inhale the jasmine plaited into her hair. ‘If we die tonight, then it shall be side-by-side amongst the lemon trees; we’ll quietly step down into the underworld.’

After she has gone, there is little left for me to do but pray and talk to the gods, demand their favour. I order all the priests to hold a procession in their honour through the palace gardens. The priests arrive at dusk in their white linen robes, holding the emblems adorned with her golden stars, while the acolytes carry tiny golden palm trees and serpent wands. The high priest leads them, clasping a bright lamp in one hand and in the other a golden vessel shaped like a woman’s breast where from the nipple streams milk that falls to the earth. Following the priests come the deities, Anubis with his jackal head and gleaming teeth, ready to take messages to the dead. He will be kept busy tonight.

With the prayers continuing below, I ascend the lookout tower, the highest point of the palace looking out across the harbour and east towards the isle of Pharos. My feet clatter on the stone, and as I emerge at the top I can see the sky is already bright with flames, the harbour filled with blazing ships, even the water seems to burn. From here, I cannot hear the noise of war so I watch it in a dumb show like a masque performed by players at court to amuse us, toy ships toppling upon a pond, the men only toy soldiers. Soon, the smoke blows towards us and the procession of priests in the gardens below is wreathed with smoke, and I can only hear the march of their feet and their drums. Charmian hurries up the steps, and stands beside me breathless, sliding her hand into mine. I glance at her and see that slung around her neck are two tiny vials containing the death we may soon seek.

We watch together as the sea blazes. My mouth is sour with fear as I watch. Far below sailors drown and bleed. I can do nothing but mutter prayers for the safe passage of their souls. Apollodorus hurries up the stairs to the tower, a messenger panting behind him. The messenger stands before me, breathless and sweating.

‘Speak quickly,’ I snap. ‘Already your news cools as you stand.’

He swallows, wipes his face, smearing grime.

‘Speak,’ I say, impatient.

‘Caesar has burned Pompey’s ships, but he has been forced to set fire to much of his own fleet to stop them falling into enemy hands.’

All is not lost. We have not managed to take Pharos, but we have still struck a blow to the enemy. I absorb the news. ‘So he returns to us now?’

‘No. He says to tell you that he takes the ships he still has, and tries for Pharos.’

I shake my head. I don’t know whether Caesar is brave or mad. He does not take his little victory but gambles on a larger one, despite the odds.

‘It’s possible he might take it,’ I say, turning to Apollodorus and Charmian, wanting it to be true.

‘Of course it is possible, for it is Caesar who attempts it,’ says Apollodorus.

I taste fear in my mouth.

‘Pay the slave in gold for his news,’ I say to Charmian, turning back to watch the harbour.

The messenger hurtles down the stairs to return to the battle and gather the next scrap of information. Apollodorus remains with Charmian and me, and the three of us wait and watch together in silence, trying to decipher meaning in the swirl of smoke and ships below. We float like the curls of ash on the breeze, unknowing, adrift in the currents of fate.

I hate that I’m not part of this fight, that I’m here, waiting to live or die. I vow to myself that if I survive this, I will join the next battle. I’m not just a woman but a queen. I won’t let Caesar dictate to me again.

My eyes weep from the smoke. Even up here, the air is thick. The island of Pharos is hidden by the fumes, the beam of the lighthouse is eclipsed. And yet, there is a strange light cast upon the city from all the fires, red glowing pools that blink through the fog of smoke. My city burns. I gather my shawl around my shoulders as the wind lifts my hair. A hot desert wind, warm as breath and dry as the dunes.

‘The fire spreads,’ I say quietly.

The fire will surely race through the wooden buildings lining the harbour. I can only hope it won’t climb to the palace, consume the rest of the city. Most of the buildings in Alexandria are masonry to avoid this very disaster but those older warehouses around the docks are still wood, tinder-dry and hollowed out by dry rot and beetles. They are packed with goods and grain and silks. Biting my lip, I think of the half dozen buildings crammed with scrolls that cannot be housed in the overstuffed library of the mouseion. I mutter a prayer, let those be the ones spared – grain can be seeded and grown again, silks rewoven. But the writers of these texts have long since vanished into dust themselves, their thoughts desiccated, surviving only in the marks scratched upon these scrolls. The texts hold hundreds of years of knowledge and secrets and if they burn, the ideas will sputter out too.

I try to remember precisely which works are housed there. I don’t know, and that frightens me. We won’t even know what riches we have lost. Not the works of Plato or Aristotle or Homer, but scattered treasures by unknown hands. And yet no less valuable for being less renowned. Perhaps a new Plato lurked there, still waiting to be discovered, who shall now vanish unread. I glance down towards the vast building of the mouseion and the library, both still just visible through the smoke. Will the great library burn one day too? I always believed that its ideas would live on forever, the scrolls transcribed again and again from one generation of scholars to the next, the worm and time defeated. But that thought now feels as fragile as thistledown.

What survives our mortal death is our ideas. Transcribed in art and words and stone, they are the piece of us that remains. But if that can disappear in a single night, consumed by flame? What then for immortality? The sky is red and the smoke extinguishes the stars. Prometheus stalks amongst us; he gave us the great gift with one hand, but he also steals back with the other.

I turn to Apollodorus. ‘Send half of the soldiers guarding the palace down to the dock. They’re not to join the fight, but to put out the flames. Save the library warehouses. I want the scrolls salvaged. Soak any buildings not yet aflame with seawater.’

Apollodorus stares at me in dismay. ‘My queen, there are not enough soldiers here as it is.’

‘No. There are far too few. If my brother’s men fight their way up from the harbour and reach the palace, we’re dead anyway.’

‘But my queen and Pharaoh—’

‘Do it,’ I snap. ‘This is an order, not a discussion.’

He bows, and hurries away.

The next messenger arrives but I can’t tell at what hour, for there is no water clock up here in the tower and the stars are sheathed. He stands before me, his face blackened with soot and smeared with sweat. Blood from a wound trickles down his cheek. He bows his head and does not speak for a moment and he clutches a bundle of rags in his arms.

‘Speak,’ I say, exasperated.

He kneels. ‘My queen, our soldiers saw great Caesar jump into the water near Pharos Island. His own galley was sunk and he had to swim past the enemy. It’s not possible that he lives.’

‘Not possible? This is Caesar,’ I say. I try to sound resolute but my voice cracks.

The messenger holds out to me a soaking rag. I recoil, disgusted, and don’t take it, but he shoves it into my hands, and as I look down at the sodden mass, I realise that it is Caesar’s purple cloak stained with water and blood.

‘They pelted him with rocks and arrows, for his purple cloak made him a good target. And then some while later his cloak was pulled from the waters.’

I turn to Charmian, the wet cloak still grasped in my hands. ‘So it’s true then, he’s dead.’

I have no time to grieve for him, although there is a tightness in my chest. If Caesar is dead, they will be coming for us. My death will not be far behind Caesar’s. I look at Charmian. ‘Pay the man for his words. Give him gold for he brought us news of Caesar and Caesar’s name must be paid for in gold.’

After the messenger is gone, back to the battle – though to what good I do not know – I make my way down from the tower and walk slowly towards the lemon grove. I hear Charmian behind me, running to catch up with me, and I turn to her.

‘You do not have to stay with me. Not in this moment,’ I say. ‘You can try to escape with Apollodorus. He will come for you.’

She shakes her head. ‘There is no choice, not for us.’

I sigh, for what she says is true. They know she is mine, and when they find her, they will kill her too. It’s better that she comes with me and chooses an easeful death. As we pad through the dust and smoke, Charmian sobs silently, shoulders shaking, her face slick with tears, two clean channels through her soot-lined face. We do not speak for there is nothing left to say.

I choose the patch where the trees grow tightly together, the spot where we used to sit as children and race our scorpions or play knucklebone. I am frightened and not ready for death. Will it hurt? There is so much more I want to do, to be. I’m impatient for life and outraged that I must now unwillingly surrender to the death gods to whom I offered so many sacrifices. They released their claim upon me only to summon me back again. I am cheated.

Snow begins to fall, fat flakes. I have never seen snow before. But as I catch a flake, I realise it’s not snow but ash. Some curls are large, I hold one on my palm. It’s a tiny scrap of papyrus. The words are coiled and as I watch it disintegrates into dust in my hand, the letters dissolve into nothing before I can decipher a single word. So, is this what is to come? The fragility of words and the stories they form frightens me. Even if I am to die tonight, I want my story – however short – and Egypt’s to endure. The library must survive, always. Without it, the last specks of me and my history will vanish into spirals of dust, lost in the sand.

My heart beats in time with the priests drumming in the far side of the garden. Charmian takes the vials from her neck and places one in my hand. It’s perfectly clear, pure as water, nothing about it suggests the poison within. I hope the death it promises is as flawless as the liquid. I open the lid and raise it to my lips but Charmian stills my hand.

‘Not yet, please,’ she says. ‘They do not come for us yet. There is time.’

‘Time for what?’ I ask.

‘A kiss. A song.’

We kiss, and she tries a song but her voice cracks with fear and grief, so I sing instead; the lullaby that our nursemaid slave used to sing to us when we were infants. Charmian and I were born within the same hour, it’s only right that we should die within the same in our place beneath the lemon trees. I sing the lullaby twice through. I cannot sing forever, this thing must done. As I finish the song for the second time, we raise the vials towards our lips, ready to hurry death on his black wings, but then before we can drink, I hear an explosion of shouts. My heart thunders. Are they here already to kill us? Charmian shudders in fear, clings to me.

‘Hurry now, swallow,’ I urge her.

And then I realise the voice belongs to Apollodorus. We hesitate, the unstoppered vials ready.

‘Hold! My queen, Charmian, do not drink!’

There are more cries, the sound of more people entering the grove.

‘This is the place they always go,’ says Apollodorus.

There is the snap of branches brushed aside, footsteps through the fallen leaves. Why is he leading them to us?

‘Let me pass.’

I know that voice. Caesar. He reaches our spot beneath the lemon trees and comes to sit on the ground beside us. He’s wet and bruised and bleeding. I stare at him in wonder.

‘You fell into the water. You’re dead,’ I say.

‘I am as you see,’ he says. His face is cut, his eye swollen shut, but he smiles. ‘Caesar is hard to kill.’

A noise hums in my ears, the hurry of my own heart.

I hug him, gripping him tightly, and he holds me fast, surprised and pleased by the warmth of my response. I don’t want to release him, lest he should disappear like the ash that blizzards all around us.

He smiles at my expression of relief, I’m still too shocked to yet be happy. He strokes his thumb across my cheek. I hold his hand there, kiss it, and he looks at me, both of us taken aback by the force of my affection, a mild breeze that had built into a steady squall without my noticing.

‘I threw off my cloak and managed to swim some distance to where a skiff lay. I heaved myself aboard,’ he says, as though slightly bewildered by the audacity of his own escape.

‘Pharos Island?’ I ask.

‘It’s ours. Yours. We’ve won. For now.’

I kiss him.

‘And the library warehouses?’

Apollodorus steps forward. ‘Most of them burned. We were too late. But we saved one.’

He proffers a bundle to me. I look down and see that he’s passed me a packet of slightly soggy papers, stamped with the great library seal.

‘Caesar’s men helped us save that which we did,’ he says.

Caesar wipes a hand across his forehead, smudging it with black.

‘When I saw Apollodorus trying to save the library ware-houses, I ordered my men to stop their looting and to help. I’m only sorry we couldn’t save more.’

Caesar is a brutish soldier, but he’s also a man who understands the value of words, and their value to me. It’s a gift of knowledge, both in and of itself, but it also reveals his understanding of me. He knows what matters to me. I kiss him. He smiles, taken aback at my affection.

The enemy is wounded, but not yet defeated. They withdraw, hissing, to the edges of the city and the desert beyond. We need to finish them, but we lack the strength for the final blow. Days drift past like scudding clouds. I’m sitting in the tower, staring out across the waters, smooth and blue-tipped with white. The waves are high, but there’s only a light breeze. I stand and go to the edge of the parapet, leaning over the edge as far as I dare, shading my eyes against the sun. The white tips aren’t foam or waves, they’re sails.

‘The Roman fleet arrives!’ I yell.

My cries are carried down, the news passed from person to person until the entire palace vibrates with it. Within the hour every street in Alexandria teems with legionaries, and the air is busy with Latin instead of Greek, noisier than the dawn chorus. After months of being outnumbered, now we have many more men than the enemy, and ours are better armed and trained. That evening, I watch the beam from the lighthouse race out across the harbour illuminating the sails of hundreds of galleys like gulls on white wings.

At last, I issue the command I’ve been waiting months to give: I order my army to join with Caesar’s. They’ve been stranded outside the city for so long, and yet they remained loyal to me, waiting, certain that the order to fight would come. I watch as they flow into the city, the narrow streets piped full of men. Outnumbered, my brother’s men scuttle away, withdrawing from the city and vanishing into the desert, regrouping there under his and Arsinoe’s command.

I have supplies carried from the port into the palace. All the goods that have been unable to reach us for months: grain, fruit, linen, vivid silks, wine, olives, oils, perfume, beer, salted fish, rare woods and pigments. I order a feast, but while the court gorges and drinks and vomits with joy and excess, Caesar and I talk together, eating only bread and fruit and drinking cups of sweetened wine.

‘My brother and sister flee with their ships and armies. But we must chase them down. End this,’ I say.

‘I’ve readied all the ships. Tomorrow, we sail.’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘This time I’m coming with you.’

He opens his mouth as though to object, but then, wisely, says nothing.

My brother and sister make camp near Pelusium. There are fortified villages nearby and the soldiers take control of them, while the surviving ships from their fleet are moored on the Nile, a few miles away. We sail to meet them. The river is calm and wide, herons fish and the wind stirs the reeds. Above, kites surf on warm currents of air. The peace is almost deceiving me as to what lies ahead, beyond the curve of the river. Caesar and I lie on silken cushions, surveying the banks. It could almost be a pleasure cruise except we discuss the battle and our tactics. We decide to meet them on land, for they expect a water battle.

For the rest of the day, we prepare for the attack. All through the night, we assemble the men. We have thousands of soldiers, all eager for war. At the far end of the barge, I can see Charmian pacing, jittery and anxious. I’m glad of her restlessness and fear, for it’s as if she holds mine for me, so I can be calm as Caesar and I debate how best to attack. We talk for hours, arguing over tactics, until finally we’re agreed. We’ll take the enemy camp just before dawn.

Caesar looks at me. ‘I will lead the men into the battle. You wait here with the fleet.’

‘We agreed. This is my fight,’ I tell him.

‘And you are here. We need you to command the fleet. If we are chased back to the water, you must be waiting here with at least a thousand men and our ships, ready. If it comes to it, you must finish the battle on the river. You know these waters.’

I do. I know them better than Caesar. I agree.

Dawn is still a couple of hours away and I’m sweaty and dizzy. Charmian plies me with cool rosewater and gives me a herbal poultice. I thank her, drink the water and then vomit. Caesar appears at the door of our tent.

‘You are frightened,’ he says. His voice is kind, but I hear the note of disappointment. He had hoped for more from me, only to discover that I am womanish after all.

‘I am not frightened,’ I say, my voice sharp. This is only half a lie. I am frightened for I am not a fool, but it is not fear that has made me sick.

He looks at me again, more closely, beginning to understand.

‘It’s not fear in my belly,’ I say softly. ‘It’s something else.’

Then, Caesar smiles, a broad, boyish grin. ‘The soothsayer foretold it. This child lives. So we shall surely win.’

I smile back, more confident than I feel. The soothsayer said the child would outlive Caesar. His death might yet be tomorrow.

*

A narrow tributary flows between where our ships are moored and the road which Caesar intends to march up to reach the enemy camp. I send Apollodorus with Caesar and the armies, with instructions to return to me with news.

‘I forbid you to die. You do not have my permission,’ I tell him.

‘No, my queen. I would not dare.’

Charmian and I wait. The sun rises, a polished golden plate spinning against blue. Birds circle, every now and then swooping to snag a fish. A jackal rustles the reeds. We hear nothing. Just the wind and the mosquitos. The sun starts to fall again. The cicadas tick. The light starts to fade. Charmian scrambles to her feet.

‘There!’

Narrowing my eyes, I see the figure of Apollodorus on the bank. The minutes it takes for him to row his skiff to us last forever.

‘Tell us,’ I say, the moment he scrambles onto the deck.

He’s brown with mud and smeared with sweat, his breath is short.

‘Caesar charged at dawn, the cavalry rushed through the water but the banks are steep, much steeper than we’d reckoned with, and the horses were slow to climb, some even slipped and fell. And then there was a storm of arrows upon them. The river turned red with blood. The living rode over the dead. But then we noticed a clump of trees and the legionaries cut them down, and used them to bridge the banks. We were able to cross quicker and all at once. As soon as the enemy saw us come in such numbers they retreated towards the village.’

I’m silent for a second, picturing it. The smoke and cries and the water churning with blood. For weeks to come, the banks will be stacked with the dead, open-mouthed, bloated and gutted, stranded on the mud like fishes.

‘What then?’ I demand.

‘Caesar launched a full assault on the villages, taking their forts. They were outnumbered. Your brother and sister’s men hurled themselves over the ramparts.’

‘And my brother and sister?’

‘Your sister escaped. I don’t know where. Your brother rushed down to his ships. There’s a company with him. I’m ahead, but I don’t know how far.’

‘We are ready for them,’ I say, resolute.

My ships are prepared for battle. I don’t know how many boats will come with my brother. They’ll sail along the tributary that feeds into the Nile, trying to reach their fleet down river. The tributary is shallow, and only small skiffs can navigate it. Only a few small boats will be able to sail with him, he’ll be ill protected and he surely guesses that we wait for him to appear, our ships larger and in greater numbers, our archers poised. His cause is desperate, hopeless, and he must know it. I almost feel sorry for him.

Our ship stays in the deeper water in the centre of the Nile, but we watch the mouth of the tributary, waiting like a cat with its paw poised outside the mousehole. I will finish this before Caesar returns. My heart races in anticipation. It’s nearly dark. Ptolemy will be trying to hide under its blanket. I order all the torches lit and the priests to offer sacrifices that the clouds will peel back from the moon. The air is filled with the sound of their voices raised to the gods, and the smell of burning flesh. The smoke curls upwards towards the clouds which slowly draw apart like curtains to reveal the bright eye of the moon. It blinks on the surface of the Nile.

And then, I see a small boat, rushing down the small stream. It’s overloaded with people. Then, in the light of the moon, I see a gleam of golden armour. Ptolemy.

I realise how to end this.

My archers raise their bows.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Do not fire. Sail closer.’

‘Yes, my queen.’

We chase them. It’s the work of a few minutes. I stare at my brother. His armour flashes like golden lightning in the torch light. We’re almost alongside.

‘Order twenty men to swim to the skiff, and climb aboard.’

I watch from the deck as twenty slaves swim with easy strokes to my brother’s skiff. He and his men realise what’s happening too late. As the swimmers clamber onto the lowslung boat, it sinks lower into the water, then begins to flood with water, toppling. Men are thrown into the river. They shout and swim. My brother clings to the side of the boat, crawling to the last part afloat. If he screams, I can’t hear it. In his golden armour, he’s brighter than the stars. I see him flail, cling to the side, but the boat disappears under the tide and then, so does he. He sinks at once. He does not come up again. I know he cannot, his armour is too heavy. He will be like an arrow sailing to the bottom where he will strike the mud and lodge. His men swim down and down, trying to save him, but come up empty-handed, spitting out water. He will be too heavy to drag to the surface. His armour anchors him to the river bed. I picture him under the water, the gold river king. Already he sails across another river, blacker, colder, to Osiris and Anubis.

When Caesar arrives back at dawn, bloody and triumphant, I’m having the river dredged.

‘Why?’ he asks. ‘A thousand men saw him drown. Let the fishes eat his corpse.’

‘We can’t let the people start to think of him as an Osiris. The god’s body was cast into the river and then rose again, his soul nurtured by the mud of the Nile. We need Ptolemy’s corpse, bloated and broken.’

They’ve been dredging for hours. Then, at last, they drag him up. His golden armour is streaked with brown, a gold coin dropped in shit.

His corpse lies on the bank, starting to stiffen. Something pokes at my happy triumph, not as sharp as sadness, perhaps regret. His death means peace. Like the sun and moon, there was never room for us both in the sky. He’s now passed into night. And yet, I no longer feel any pleasure at his death, and the way he scrabbled for life tugs at me. I see him drowning at the bottom of the river in his gleaming armour, deep beneath the waters. His eunuchs are dead with him. Everyone who loved my brother is gone. He has slid out of the world, regretted by no one.

I lie under a canopy on the royal barge, listening to the burping of the frogs, and the smack of the oars. Birds score patterns on the unbroken blue of the sky. I’m sticky and swollen with heat and an unfamiliar feeling pricks at me. I think this is happiness. I clutch at it, for it won’t last long, so I hold it in my hands like ice, delighting in the sensation before it melts away. I’m dressed in a glistening white dress, trimmed with crocus-yellow silk and embroidered with flowers and fruit. I’m drowsy and yet not quite ready for sleep, though I’m lulled further and further in by the steady slap of the water against the hull. Caesar runs his fingers through my hair, tugs at my braids, and then leans low to kiss me. I want to stay here, drift in this moment. He tucks my black silk mantle around my shoulders. It’s fringed and stitched with the moon and stars in gold and silver thread.

‘You mustn’t get cold,’ he says, fussing like a nursemaid.

I laugh. ‘Cold? I’m drunk with heat.’

He lies beside me, and we remain still, shaded by the silken canopy stitched with coiled serpents, our hands almost touching. Neither of us speaks, and I realise that it is comfortable to lie in silence beside a man for whom, if I do not feel love, I harbour the tenderest of affection. I no longer need to try and charm him or perform, for he is caught. He is mine, for today at least, and tomorrow too. He has gifted me back my kingdom. His finger runs up the down on my arm. I shiver and smile. His expression darkens for a moment.

‘Your sister was captured. We’ll take her back to Rome. Parade her there before she is—’

‘Hush,’ I silence him, place my fingers on his lips.

I can’t hear about Arsinoe. Her betrayal aches in my chest. It’s acid rising in my throat. I have a letter in the bag around my neck from her, begging for forgiveness, pleading to come back to my court, my affections. It’s a letter full of love and lies. I have not replied.

Caesar places his hands on my belly. I know it is only an echo of love that I have for him for it does not touch how I feel about this tiny secret, this secret as small as a leaf inside me. I must survive now, no longer for me or even for Egypt, but for my son. I glance to the side of the barge where Charmian stands, Apollodorus behind her, his chin resting on the top of her head. She smiles at me. When Caesar returns to Rome in a week or two, she and Apollodorus will remain. We are a family of sorts – not like my blood family, where we scheme against one another for power and death – but one created out of friendship and love. They will do anything to protect me and my son.