Page 2 of Cleopatra
2
CLEOPATRA
I do not want to go to Rome. In my thirteen years, I have never left Egypt and for all the dangers and skullduggery of the palace, Alexandria is home. Rome is filthy and loud in comparison, even from behind the curtain of my litter. As I am carried through the streets, the stink overwhelms me. The taste of rotting vegetables and butchery and the ever-pervasive reek of sweat and human flesh grates the back of my nose and throat. I sniff at the oil of myrrh daubed on my wrists to try and stop the bile rising in my stomach. The roads twist, narrow and dark as a vein, and I long for the wide-open streets of home. There is no ocean breeze here, only the fermenting stink of shit and piss – urns set out on every corner for all citizens and slaves alike to fill and then leave for the dyers and the laundry men until the entire place reeks of stale urine. We have been away now for more than two months and I long to go home.
The road we progress along is slammed with ox-carts lined up nose to tail and the shouting of freedmen and slaves, the slap of their whips against the bony backs of the cattle. Peeping out of the curtain, I glimpse Charmian walking beside the litter trying to keep up, stepping around the molten rounds of dung. I wave at her, and she blows me a kiss. I see a few eyes marvelling at the magnificence of the litter, its golden struts studded with a hundred varieties of polished shells and black scarabs, the thick red curtains. Most, however, grunt and swear at the inconvenience. Our train of litters and attendants are clogging the already busy street, and the muscular slaves on either side of us wield stout cudgels to keep the path clear.
There is a sudden cry above, an almost human shriek of grief. I tug the curtain aside again and, glancing upwards, I see a flock of pintail ducks, a fleet of arrows sailing towards the sun, outlines sharp as a whetted blade against the brightening sky. I marvel at the wonder of them, my heart catching. They’re gone in a moment and I feel a pang on seeing them vanish. I scour the sky, hoping for another glimpse, and to my delight I’m rewarded when the birds turn and appear again for a few seconds before melting into the clouds that seem to peel apart to accept them. I notice that Charmian has stopped to stare up at the sky too, searching for the ducks. She stands in the street, quite still, the crowds surging around her like a river rushing around a rock. With concern, I see that our procession has continued some distance without her and I shout out. Startled, she races to catch up, shoving her way through the crowd which now swarms into the space left by the departing train. I reach out of the window, and her damp fingers brush mine.
The litters halt outside an austere villa set back from the road, surrounded by a lush garden. A path of bleached stone leads between sentinel rows of orange and lemon trees with myrtle bushes at their base, their purpling leaves coated with dust and crowded with butterflies. Neptune bathes in a fountain before the entrance, holding his polished trident so high that it looks as if he wishes to spear the sun. Yet, it is a villa and not a palace. I can’t understand why we must walk to Cato the Roman and he won’t come to us; my father Auletes is a god-king. I don’t know why my father holds Cato in such high regard. He is just a senator, but supposedly renowned for his honesty, integrity and parsimony. The last of these doesn’t interest me and the first two I doubt. I’m yet to meet a Roman who cared for anyone other than himself, for anything other than the interests of Rome.
As our party reaches the end of the path, a slave opens the door. The litters are set down on the floor and Charmian hands me down. We stand in a large and sunlit vestibule lined with shrines and garlanded statues of their gods around a low pool. They look small to me and badly carved with misshapen, lumpish limbs, the secret godhead missing from the sculptor’s hand. They shall not dance into life at dusk. With a flurry of activity, my father emerges from behind the curtain of his litter, sweating and corpulent, and yet the moment he sees me, he smiles. Winks at me. Concern and affection nudge me. Perspiration is beaded in the fleshy folds at his wrists and in the sausages of his neck. I pity the slaves who lugged him here, and I watch as one of them vomits in the corner, exhausted from the effort. No one takes any notice. More slaves and servants crowd around my father the king, plying him with cool linen and drinks flavoured with roses and herbs, chilled from the river. I linger further back while Charmian adjusts my cloak and the jewels stitched into my hair. After a few moments, a man appears before us, his toga white like his hair, skin creased and yellow as old papyrus. He mumbles a series of compliments but his flattery is as tired as his face. My father winces but cannot voice his displeasure.
‘Senator Cato is ready to receive you, great Auletes, mighty ruler of Egypt and the lands of the Nile,’ concludes the man with a flourish.
If this declaration of power were true and not just breath, then we would not be here, forced to pay morning salutatio to a mere senator and magistrate. My father holds out his arm, and I take it. He places his slippery hand over mine. He’s comforted having me at his side. I know how much he dislikes politics and manoeuvrings.
‘Do you think he received the gifts we sent?’ he whispers, anxious.
‘Of course he did,’ I reassure him. ‘He will thank you for them prettily in a moment.’
Or so he ought, I think, but with these Romans nothing is certain. As I glance at my father, pale and sweaty with worry, I know that he’d prefer to be at home in the palace, eating figs and overripe cheese, his feet tap-tapping to the cheerful medley of assorted musicians. I stifle a sigh, my frustration and irritation scratching against my affection for him.
We follow the man but to my bewilderment he leads us straight through the triclinium with its sofas covered in silk and its frescoed ceilings and into a much smaller room half bathed in darkness. The smell hits me first. More shit. I hold my wrist to my nose and try to block out the stench. I cannot distinguish the man in the gloom. Then, I see him. At first I thought he was seated on a throne, and then I realise he is on the latrina, his toga hitched up around his waist, the nest of pubic hair visible at his crotch. He does not rise but grunts and there follows a wet squirt as excrement slops into the brimming bucket below. My father stands and gapes at him, unspeaking and wretched. He grips my arm, uncertain of what he ought to do. Disgust rises in my throat and mingles with rage at the insult. I hardly dare to breathe, which seems wise considering the circumstance.
‘Welcome, Great Pharaoh, Ruler of the Red Lands and the Black,' says the man, who I now understand to be Cato himself. ‘I am sorry to receive you like this without the honour and pomp you deserve, but I had taken a laxative before we received notice of your intention to visit us this morning Rome.’
This is clearly a lie. Our caravan of gifts would have alerted him to our plan.
‘We understand and take no offence, senator,’ replies my father Pharaoh, forcing himself into obsequiousness, pretending the Roman does not fib. ‘It is your advice and help we require, not empty ceremony.’
‘All the same,’ responds Cato, ‘we would have preferred to receive you properly. There is food and music at least.’
I look around and now notice a banquet has been laid out at the side of the room: bowls of honeyed figs and melon, cured meat, flagons of wine, bitter leaves spread with pomegranate seeds, dishes of oil, mounds of herbed olives and elaborate plaited loaves of bread; a large plump fish with glassy, unseeing eyes and its skin peeled back and a stuffed peacock on a roost of lemons and walnuts, the eye feathers stuck into the lemons so that the dish leers back at us like the giant Argus. The bodies of several dozen roasted quail huddle beside it. Yet the food is like a feast from the underworld, it stirs no appetite for the room is crammed with the foul and pervasive smell of Cato’s bowels. The musicians cannot fit into the small room and the sound of the lyre and mournful singing filters through an open doorway. I observe that while Cato apologises for his bizarre and inadequate reception, he does not acknowledge that he ought to be the one to appear before King Auletes.
‘Please, if you do not wish to eat, sit. Sit,’ says Cato with a wave of his hand, as though the Pharaoh is an ordinary supplicant.
I wait expectantly for my father to admonish him for his disrespect. I exchange a look with Charmian, for she and I have witnessed lesser slights provoke the tinkle of spraying teeth and the wine-red splash of blood against the wall. Charmian winces in anticipation, but my father only blinks and swallows in astonishment, like a plump and glossy bullfrog. A moment later, at a loss for what else to do, he sits, releases my arm and perches on the edge of a small sofa. It creaks beneath his bulk.
I eye both men, my heart burdened with sorrow. I love my father and yet my affection does not blind me to his ineptitude.
‘You have come for my advice,’ says Cato.
I do not get to hear it, for at that moment a woman appears and inclines her head to my father – Romans will not bow even when they are not on the toilet.
‘Servilia,’ says Cato. ‘My sister. She is here to offer hospitality to the royal princess.’
I am torn, for while I want to stay with my father, listen to the politics and the suggestions of the famed Cato, the smell is overwhelming and I long to escape. As it is, I have no choice, for my father signals me to follow Servilia.
Unwillingly, Charmian and I trail after her into the garden. Beyond the vine-strewn loggia is spread a green paradise of tranquil beauty but I observe it all with impatience. I’m a princess, a Pharaoh in waiting, but because I’m a woman, Cato the Roman has shuffled me into the garden with the children and the dogs. There are scented mulberry bushes, their leaves silver against the vivid blue of the sky. A sculpted Priapus with a distended cock lurks amongst a cluster of birches, which I assume are metamorphosed nymphs, transformed into trees as they tried to escape his ravishing. It’s mystical and charming but I don’t care. Irritation prickles my skin like a heat rash.
‘May I offer you some wine?’ says Servilia. ‘Or a tour of the viridarium?’
I shake my head, impatient. I have no interest in the roses sprawling across the dusty trellis and festooning the statues of lascivious Roman gods. I want to hear Cato speak or else how can I counsel my father?
I see her give a small nod, a tiny tight smile playing at the edges of her mouth as though I am exactly as she expects: a foreign princess, spoiled, rude. I take a breath.
‘I wanted to hear what my father and your brother discuss,’ I say. ‘I need to know what advice he offers.’
Servilia is quiet for a moment, as though still considering me. ‘My brother’s advice is renowned. It doesn’t mean that it’s right.’
Then, I realise, it’s not Cato who has concocted this plan to prise me away from my father but Servilia herself. I’m intrigued and suddenly, the heat is less irritating, the noise of the crickets less loathsome, and I look at her with interest. Her eyes are a soft blue-grey, petalled with thick lashes, but their expression is so shrewd that I’m certain they miss nothing.
‘Why, madam, I think I have changed my mind. Let us walk around the viridarium. I should like to rest in the cool of the fountain,’ I say.
We process slowly, Charmian trying to shade me against the barrage of the sun, but I signal to her to stop fussing. The heat of Rome is nothing to me. When we are a little distance from the villa, Servilia sends the slaves away and waits for me to do the same with Charmian.
‘She stays. I would sooner remove my shadow,’ I say.
Servilia nods, accepting her presence. She trails long fingers in the spray of the water; rainbows shimmer where it catches the light, colouring the mist.
‘Is there advice that you would you give?’ I ask.
Now she smiles, warm and open. Her teeth are white and small as seed pearls.
‘I heard that you were pretty. That didn’t interest me,’ she says. ‘I also heard that you are clever. Cleverer than your brothers and sisters.’
She doesn’t include my father, but we both understand her implication. It is mere months since Charmian and I were racing scorpions in the palace, and yet it feels so long ago. I was a child then. I am no longer. Servilia does not treat me as a child but my father’s daughter, a princess. Her expression darkens and grows serious as she speaks.
‘My advice is this, return home and persuade great Auletes to make peace with the warring factions in your country. Do not ask Rome for an army. The price is too high.’
‘My father is rich beyond thought,’ I say. ‘He can pay any price.’
Servilia shakes her head. ‘The greed of the men in Rome is insatiable and if you converted all Egypt into cash it would not be enough for them. You will be in perpetual servility to Rome, not only your father but all his heirs.’
She shapes her advice so it pricks at me too.
‘I am grateful for your insight,’ I say. ‘It is wise and considered, but you must understand my hesitation. Why do you give it? Excuse my bluntness, but what do you care, madam, if Egypt is reduced to rags, her gold shipped across the sea?’
Servilia looks at me, her expression grave but a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
‘I like your cleverness,’ she says.
‘Don’t distract me with flattery,’ I say. ‘I’m not a man. It won’t work.’
‘I’m not trying to,’ she says softly. She takes a deep breath and sighs. ‘Pompey wants your father to have his legions. He wants your father in his debt. He seeks to pocket Egypt and all her riches.’
‘And you do not like Pompey? You do not want to see him fat on our gold?’
All humour leaves her face, her voice hardens. ‘I hate Pompey. He killed my first husband. It was a coward’s murder. One day, he will receive the retribution he deserves from the gods. Until that day, I will not aid the murderer of my son’s father.’
I study her expression, full of loathing and rage. I believe her.
‘Pray to Osiris if Mars does not hear you,’ I say. ‘His vengeance is swift and vicious. He’ll drag Pompey down to the underworld, voiceless and alone. The prayers of Rome won’t reach his soul there.’
She bows her head.
‘What would you have me and my father do?’ I ask.
‘Sail home. Go now and seek reconciliation. There can be no happiness for you otherwise. Grasping senators will melt your crown into coins.’
‘But without a Roman army, how shall my father remain king?’
‘What king will he be, if he and his heirs are owned by Rome?’
I do not answer. She voices those fears that already lingered in my breast from when my father first told me that we were coming here as supplicants. He must not sell Egypt. I will not be owned by Rome. I am to be a queen, not a chattel. I only hope that he’ll listen to me.
We return to the villa, and find Cato still seated upon the latrina. He’s talking as we enter, pausing only for a moment. Auletes’ tongue darts across his lips, quick as a gecko. Cato continues.
‘The signs are against you. Did you not see the birds this morning? The ducks circled and then flew east. The augur says they shrieked as they flew. Your situation is perilous. The gods warn against helping you. Romans will not want to offer you an army now.’
Auletes’ expression tightens, alarmed.
‘I understand. The price is high, if I must buy against the warnings of your gods,’ he says.
Fury heats inside me. I understand what my father does not, that Cato is preparing him to be bled, to gush Egypt’s riches into Rome. I glance at Servilia, and she is looking at me as if to say, ‘See, I told you so? Take heed.’
My father rises and steps forward as if to take Cato’s hand and then, remembering what the senator is seated upon, hesitates. Cato, however, unconcerned, beckons him forward, and rising a little from his noxious throne kisses Auletes’ cheek.
As we leave, Servilia places her own kiss upon my cheek, and as she does, she whispers in my ear, ‘My counsel is offered in friendship. Do not let your father become a beggar king.’
I want to talk to my father after his potbellied advisors have retired to sleep. They do not like that a girl countermands them. I wait until he’s in bed, and then I slide into his chamber and sit at the bottom of his bed. His skin is waxy and pale. All my life I’ve observed my father’s mistakes, the greed and sycophancy of his advisors, their dry whisperings as much use as the shuffling of old papyrus. At home, I sit at my father’s side or in the great library at Alexandria, learning how not to rule. The only time I ever really see him happy is when he picks up his wooden flute and plays. Then he sways to his own music, for once his bulk almost graceful, the childlike expression of bliss upon his face transforming his features into surprising sweetness. He ought to have been a minstrel and not a king, but such is the will of the gods. He had to rule so that his throne could pass to me.
I brush his cheek with my fingertips, and he smiles at me.
‘Papa, don’t sell us to Rome. It’s a bloodletting.’
He looks grey but he continues to smile. ‘One we can afford.’
‘No. They want to reduce us to nothing so that we can be absorbed into the Roman empire, like milk into linen.’
‘What would you have me do? We need the fist of Rome.’
‘The money you’d pay to Rome, pay to our citizens instead. Use it to raise our own army.’
‘They will not fight for me, child.’
‘Then pay them until they will. The money will seep back into Egypt, like the rain from the sky always finds its way to the Nile. But, if you water Rome with our gold, then it will be their rivers that shall swell, their land that shall fatten.’
I talk for nearly an hour, and he listens. He asks questions and I try to answer as best I can. I offer him Servilia’s warning and he frowns, unhappy, but does not ask how or why I came to such a view. At last he sighs and closes his eyes.
‘I shall sleep on this, Cleo. But, it is true that I do not like it here. The food sickens my stomach. I should not be sorry to be travelling home.’
I kiss him good night and go to bed with my heart lighter, almost certain that I have persuaded him.
We are living in a villa that Pompey has lent us. He seems to expect our gratitude but it is cramped and it smells of river mud and effluence. I pine for the salt sea air, and the date palms and the wind singing through the high reeds. Rome is stuffed with great men, a forest full of lumbering oaks, but there are two taller than all the others: Pompey and Caesar. They are joined in an uneasy sharing of power, but the city is divided into factions. We tread lightly, trying to buy new friends on every side. My father wants to purchase enough senators to approve his request for Roman legions in the senate. They demur and obfuscate, pretending reluctance. My father sends emissaries to haggle. The great men of Rome have a price. Over the next weeks, we allow prominent citizens to call upon us and stuff us with compliments. The senators smile and blink and suggest to my father that they can be bought, at a price. They’ll support his plea to the senate for legions in exchange for gold and cash. Auletes thanks them for their greed, which he renames as kindness. But we are already planning our journey home. I feel the relief like the bright sea air of Alexandria. I wait to see if Servilia will come again, but I do not see her face amongst the other Romans. She is the only one who snagged my interest. The others are all alike in their flattery and avarice. Their sticky compliments leave a residue on my skin like honey and I long to wash them away.
We are sitting in the garden of the villa listening to flautists play. I watch my father, shiny with happiness, when a messenger arrives. He’s grey with dust and half falls from his horse. The beast itself is more than half dead, flanks hollowed out and snorting a gale. The slaves catch the man as he slumps and carry him to us, laying him on the ground at my father’s feet. His lips are cracked with blood and muck. A slave pokes him with his foot, until he speaks.
‘One of your daughters is dead. The other declares herself Pharaoh,’ he whispers.
‘Which is dead?’ asks my father with a lack of grief.
‘Cleopatra Typhinia. Berenice proclaims herself Pharaoh.’
My father’s eyes go very wide. He is more wounded by this betrayal than he is by the news of the other Cleopatra’s death.
‘How did she die?’ I ask.
The messenger shakes his head. ‘I do not know. A sudden illness.’
A sudden illness called Berenice. I had always thought my sisters were attached to one another as twisting vines. It is now clear that one vine has strangled the other.
‘Berenice sends a hundred men to Rome, to argue her case in the senate. That she is more beloved by the people than you and should be declared Pharaoh by Rome. I rode ahead but they follow quickly behind.’
I can see my father is dumb with fear.
‘We must go home,’ I say. ‘You must punish her and reclaim your throne.’
‘Without a Roman army?’ he asks. ‘That means death.’
‘We must go back to Egypt,’ I insist. ‘We will buy more men as we approach. There are still some who are loyal to us and no one has love for my sister.’
‘No, I need a Roman army,’ he insists. ‘But Cato warns me that the Roman gods are against me. There was a portent. The gods do not want us to have Roman legions.’
‘For shame! He said this to raise the price. The Roman gods do not care about us one way or another. We belong to our own gods. We wield their power. You know this, Papa.’
He grunts, uncertain.
‘Do not buy their legions.’
‘And what of your sister’s agents coming to Rome, their pockets stuffed with gold and bribes?’
‘You are richer still. You are Pharaoh. And as for her men, Papa, dead men can’t argue in the senate.’
I look at my father. He knows what he must do, if he wants to live. If he wants me to live. He blinks and swallows. He rubs and rubs his hands, until the skin is red and raw.
I order the slaves to prepare for our journey back to Alexandria with all haste. While my father hesitates and fumbles, I take charge. As they pack and assemble horses, I go to the temple of Isis, preparing to make an offering, taking only Charmian with me. Isis is my goddess and I am her earthly body. She is the most powerful of the women gods, the mother of the earth and magic, married to Death himself. I brush her power with my fingertips.
Charmian and I ride to the temple together in the litter. This is an indulgence that would not be tolerated at home, but here no one notices. In any case, I sense the household looks at me differently. Before I was a precious and indulged child but now I am the royal consort, my father’s voice. They won’t beat Charmian again as my proxy, they would not dare.
The streets are as packed as ever, and I stare through a gap in the curtain with little interest, busy with my own thoughts. Berenice must be removed and punished. The nature of her punishment will be up to my father, but it will almost certainly be death. Anything less will suggest weakness. And, then, something intrudes upon my thoughts. I notice more litters than usual amongst the traffic. They’re all the same, and in Egyptian style and colours. They’re borne by Egyptian slaves. For a moment, panic flares – my sister’s men are here. Then, I realise, the colours are my father’s. The purple and white of our royal house. These are gifts, bribes for Romans. We pass three. Four. A dozen. A horrid suspicion grows. Then, as we stop, held up by cattle who’ve wandered onto the road, I notice a wall papered in flyers. Charmian sees it at the same time and has slid down from the litter in a moment and run across the street to the wall. She tears one down and carries it back to the litter, narrowly being missed by a cart piled high with dung. She presses the parchment into my hand. It’s written in Latin in large letters, and I read aloud in dismay.
‘ To the people of Rome, support the cause of the Great Auletes, friend of Rome. Grant him Roman legions .’
My father has ignored my pleas. He is trying to buy Rome, and the price will be Egypt and a mortgage on my throne.
That night as Charmian undresses me with the help of her fellow slaves, I’m quiet, steeped in my own thoughts. I don’t even murmur as she yanks at the knots in my hair or as she bathes my hands, feet, face and private parts in warm and scented water. Furious thoughts buzz around my mind like biting flies. The other slaves withdraw, leaving me alone with Charmian. Only then do I finally speak, my words hissing from my lips, globby with rage and frustration.
‘He won’t listen. How can someone capable of such sweetness also be such a fool? Giving him advice is like hurling drops of water into a pan of fat. It comes back at you, spitting.’
I ball my hands into fists so tightly that my nails dig into my flesh. I’m so angry that a mess of tears and anger knots in my throat, choking me.
‘He might love me. But he will beggar me anyway. Not through design but folly.’
I take a breath, trying to steady myself.
‘When I am queen, I will not plead like him. I shall never supplicate to a man straining upon a latrina, where his attention is divided between my country’s fate and his own arsehole.’
Needing air, I stalk to the window where the lid of sky droops heavy and purple with dusk. I take deep breaths and blink away my tears. When I speak again, my voice is steady.
‘And, Cato was wrong about the birds. His augur should be beaten and told to read more books so he can divine better. Pintail ducks in flight declare a woman’s power. Her resolve. What my father gives away, I shall take back.’
I stare at Charmian.
‘I believe you, princess,’ she says.
I am shiny with anger and brimming with absolute resolve. I order her to bring me papyrus and pen and ink. I do not want this moment misunderstood by those who come later. I write for myself and so that others can know what happened. By the light of the candle, I sit and I write and write, my pen scratching in fury, as though through the act I can exorcise the rage inside me and lance my resentment with my sharpened nib.