Chapter Sixteen #2
I remembered now: he had been the only courtier to answer my summons. He had spent most of the evening speaking to Arsinoe alone. “You were not governor then.”
“No—my father, may he find eternal peace, passed into the next realm at the beginning of shemu season.”
“May he find eternal peace,” I echoed, and he inclined his head at my blessing.
“I have a humble request, great Pharaoh, blessed of Isis. My sister suffers from an unknown malady, I hoped you might use your divine power to cure her.”
There was something in his tone that made me pause. I narrowed my eyes as I scrutinised him. Maahes sensed my disquiet and stood up.
Serapion shifted his feet.
I laid a hand on the cub’s head and he settled again. “Do not worry, he won’t hurt you. Unless you wish to cause me harm, that is,” I said.
Serapion’s laugh was as thick as fresh honey. “No, my queen. I only ask for your help.”
“Bring your sister to the hospital on the mainland; I will be sure to treat her there.”
“I have brought her here with me. If it pleases you, I can send for her now.” His voice had increased in volume and it carried to the party guests nearest to me.
I frowned. “I will prioritise her treatment in the morning.”
“I have travelled far for your fabled touch,” he persisted. “Like many of us here, I seek to bask in your divinity. Grant us this gift, let us see your power in action.”
The silence gathered momentum, and soon a hush had fallen across the feast.
I sensed the trap, but it was too late. Expectant eyes stared back at me. Even Caesar watched with keen interest from across the room.
There was a loud clatter from the side of my throne. The sound startled Caesarion awake, and he began to cry.
“I am so sorry, my queen,” Charmion mumbled as she tried to gather up the pieces of the clay flask she had dropped.
“I must attend to my son,” I said to the governor, the anticipation of the moment broken. “Your sister may come to me in the hospital tomorrow.”
His smile was slick like oil. “Indeed, I will send her there.”
The chatter returned as I stood and made my way out of the room. When I reached the antechamber, I turned to Charmion.
“Thank you,” I said. I sat heavily in a chair and began nursing the crying Caesarion.
“He does not have a sister, let alone a sick one,” Charmion said. “I remember him from the boat—he was talking to Arsinoe of the woes of being an only child. I distinctly recall the conversation because Arsinoe laughed and said she wished she was one.”
“He seeks to reveal my lack of power.”
“Why?”
Arsinoe. Her name floated like oil to the surface of my mind. After we’d quelled her rebellion, she had gone into hiding. Caesar had long suspected she was in Syria, but his spies had yet to confirm it.
How can it be her, if even the might of Rome cannot find her?
But there was something in this trick that reminded me of her shrewdness.
“You think it is her.” Charmion surmised my suspicions quickly.
“I know not. But either way, his words have already sown dissent,” I said quietly, then hissed as Caesarion pulled off my breast painfully. I pressed him back onto the nipple, inadvertently squeezing the leg that bore the ink work.
Caesarion’s eyes flew open and he began to scream, the skin there still tender. Recalling the moment the needle had first struck his skin, I closed my eyes to the sound.
“Cleo?”
My arms trembled, and though I tried to stop them, tears began to flow down my cheeks, blurring the kohl I wore.
“It was all for naught,” I whispered.
“What was?”
“The pain I subjected Caesarion to. All it takes is one question, one governor to unravel it all.”
The truth poured out of me: the soothsayer, Khufu, the lies, they ran from my mouth like the purging of a poison.
“I am sorry I did not tell you,” I whispered, my throat burning with the confession. “I was so ashamed that the gods had abandoned me, and in my loneliness, I walked a dark path.”
Charmion closed her eyes. “I thought I had lost your trust.”
“Never. It is I who was lost.”
Charmion wrapped her arms around me and Caesarion, rocking us back and forth.
“I wish you had told me of this sooner, I would have supported you, shared in your worry. We could have walked a different path.”
“There was no other choice,” I said.
“But at least we would have walked together.” Her hand went to my cheek and she pressed her lips against the salty tears there. “Do not abandon me again, Cleo.”
I shook my head. “I will not.”
I never did, you know. We were never parted again, not even in our last moments.
“Now, Serapion,” she continued. “We must think of a solution.”
I felt defeated, my bones aching from bending over the babe, my nipples sore. I shook my head. “Let the rumours swirl. I have no power and my child is not even blessed by the gods. Let my reign end in the turmoil I have lived.”
Charmion narrowed her eyes at me. “Must I slap sense into you?”
The question was so dry, I laughed. “No.”
“Then perhaps we can try something else. How can we convince the court of your divinity?”
The sting of defeat began to subside as a plan formed in my mind.
I returned to the throne later that evening. The free-flowing wine had left a collective flush across the cheeks of the courtiers. Merriment could be heard throughout the hall, but my arrival subdued some of it.
It was clear that Serapion’s request had spread disquiet, resurrecting the rumour I had spent years trying to eliminate the last traces of.
Caesar saw me return. He approached the throne and Bastet rolled onto her back so that he could stroke her belly. She had a particular fondness for Caesar, I believe because he often slipped her pieces of meat at the dinner table.
“Is all well?” Caesar asked, concern etched into his features. He too had sensed the shift in the room.
“All is well.”
I held my hand out to him and he clasped it before pressing my palm to his lips.
“Where is our son?”
I had left Caesarion with the newly reinstated wet nurse, and I told him so. I required full focus as I did not want the plan to falter.
“Go, rejoin the festivities, I am fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Something caught his eye as he turned.
“Who is that?” he asked.
A courtier had entered the hall, wearing a long indigo gown styled like a Greek tunic. The wig on her brow was heavily beaded, her eyes lined with thick kohl. If questioned, I knew, she’d speak Greek fluently with an accent of the south.
I waited for Caesar to recognise Charmion, but he didn’t.
I smiled, a little smugly. “She must be from Upper Egypt.”
We both watched as she swept through the room, quickly drawing an audience, including Serapion. Though I couldn’t hear her, I knew she was engaging them with a lively tale of her late arrival. A hakawati in a noble’s dress.
Bastet pawed at Caesar’s leg and he once again dutifully petted her. I was grateful the cub distracted him, because though he did not recognise Charmion by sight, there was more danger of him knowing her voice.
“You’re gaining too much weight, little one, much more than your brother.”
“She gains weight because you feed her too much.”
Caesar looked as though I had struck him. “But she must be fed.”
“Yes, indeed. But perhaps not a whole duck at every meal.”
There was a commotion behind us and I leaned forward, feigning shock. “That woman, she’s afflicted.”
Charmion was coughing violently. Her face was red, and the veins in her neck bulging. When she collapsed to her knees, I stood from my chair.
“I will go to her.”
The crowd parted to let me through.
“Is she breathing?” I asked the nearest noble, who nodded. The anticipation of the stunt made my heart flutter.
This had to work. I was tired of chasing the rumours that had haunted my reign. This needed to end the whispers.
Isis, guide me. Let this ruse prove true. Despite everything, I never questioned my faith. Even now, when most people’s belief would have begun to waver, I begged for her veneration.
“Allow me to heal her,” I said loudly. I caught Serapion’s eye as I lowered myself to the floor beside Charmion. He watched with great interest, his chin protruding like a turtle’s head from its shell.
Charmion’s eyelids fluttered and her lips were slack and drooling. She was always the greatest of players.
I needed to draw out the moment. This healing required some thrilling details in order to go from story to legend.[*]
“Bring me vinegar,” I said.
While I waited, I placed my hands over Charmion’s chest.
“Isis, grant me the power to heal this woman,” I intoned, projecting my voice to draw in the last few stragglers from the periphery of the hall.
“Pharaoh.” It was Serapion who handed me the vinegar, his eyes pensive as he watched my power at work.
I plucked a pearl earring from my lobe and dropped it into the cup.
An heirloom from generations past, it was believed to have been sent through the Silk Roads by an emperor in the east. I could not use common medicines for the healing; the potion had to be impossible to replicate with herbs or tinctures—I did not want the false recipe to feature in future homes as a cure for all.
I swirled the contents of the cup before raising it above my head. “Lady of glory, mother of life, bless me this night, fill me with light. Vinegar for my tears, pearl for my bones.” I lowered the drink to my lips and swallowed the pearl whole.
The room gasped, and I revelled in the overture as I reached the final act.
I bent over Charmion and placed my moistened lips on hers. When I drew back, she was already waking, her breathing settling, her fainting spell gone.
Caesar had watched the proceedings from beside me, his expression neutral. I was worried that he had finally recognised Charmion beneath the make-up and costumery. But at her recovery he began to cheer, lifting the room’s voices with him.
“Hail Cleopatra, chosen of Isis! Hail Cleopatra, chosen of Isis!”
Each lie I told was a link on a chain that only I could see. It bound tighter and tighter with each passing day. But in that moment, I relished the sound of my name on many people’s lips.
They called me a god, and for once, I felt like one.
Skip Notes
* I had hoped for the story to spread throughout Egypt, not throughout time. I have Pliny the Elder to thank for that, though by the time he recorded the tale it had been twisted by the lips of Octavian’s court.