Chapter Seventeen #2
The world stilled around me and I was thrust backwards in time.
“An ibis chick has nested in her locs,” Mother said. I had noticed her walking quickly through the palace courtiers with her handmaidens. When I called to her, she didn’t turn to my voice. So I followed in her wake to the foot of my father’s dining table.
“At first I thought to chase the bird away,” Mother continued. “But then our daughter opened her eyes.”
Father hadn’t caught sight of me yet, either. His head was cocked to the side as he listened to Mother speak with clear impatience. “Make haste, my queen; I should come to know why you have disturbed my feasting.”
“Arsinoe spoke as if from a dream, ‘Thoth has plucked a feather from his brow.’ And then she pointed to the bird.” I still didn’t comprehend my mother’s meaning, though she spoke with such pride, I felt my first stirrings of jealousy.
My father stood from the table, and bellowed a great cry of triumph. “She has been blessed!”
Understanding struck me and I took a step backwards. “I am the e-elder,” I said. But my voice was thin, that of a nine-year-old, and it warbled in front of so many.
No one paid me any heed.
The courtiers around the room pounded their chalices upon the table.
Dun, dun, dun.
Their cheers carried forward to the present moment. “Arsinoe! Arsinoe! Arsinoe!”
Envy spread like acid down my scalp. By the time Qar hit the ground, the feeling had gone.
Was that what she felt every time they sang my name? Was the acid more potent because she knew in her heart that I was yet to be blessed?
I looked at Arsinoe, understanding her a little more than I ever had in these final moments.
She lurched forward, her chains going taut as she tried to reach Qar. But it was too late; he was already another sacrifice to Jupiter.
Arsinoe screamed, a sound only the purest form of pain could produce. Though this was more merciless than the beheadings, I did not close my eyes to her.
She deserved that, at least.
The crowd grew silent as she fell to her knees, sobbing.
The executioner stepped forward, his axe prepared to strike its final blow. Another guard came forward to bare her neck, the skin streaked from the splatter of the other prisoners’ blood.
“Have you not punished her enough?” The cry came from somewhere a few rows back. When I looked for the speaker, I could not see them, but I felt the dissent their words produced.
The crowd began to murmur. Then someone else called, “Mercy!” Soon the cry caught fire, and more and more of the crowd called for clemency.
Caesar looked at me, troubled. “If I order her execution, we may have a mob to contend with.”
I felt breathless from the emotions that roiled within me. He mistook my expression for anger.
“But I will risk a thousand riots to carry out this wish.”
All I needed to do was nod and it would be over.
“Mama?” Caesarion whispered. His voice cut through the crowd to my ears alone. I still had him pressed against my leg, but he had turned his head from me, his wide eyes fixed on Arsinoe. He pointed a questioning finger at her.
I bent down low next to him. “That is your aunt. My sister.”
As I said those two words which bound me to her in blood and fate, I knew she would not die this day.
“Let her live,” I said to Caesar. “Qar’s death has sated my need for vengeance for now.”
Caesar walked up the steps to Arsinoe, blood splashing up his legs. He held up his hand for quiet.
“I hear your calls for mercy, and I grant it.” He helped Arsinoe to stand and she collapsed into his side, grief robbing her of stability.
“You have been saved this day by Queen Cleopatra’s grace.
But the gods still require justice for your crimes.
You will live the remainder of your days exiled in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. ”
The cheer from the crowd was deafening.
Arsinoe’s eyes caught mine as Caesar handed her to the guards.
Weak, she called me once, and I knew, even in her grief-stricken state, she thought it now too. But her death would one day come to strengthen me: not today, but soon.
I watched as she was led down from the temple steps, her bare feet leaving bloody footprints through the streets and to her future beyond.
Caesar came back to me, his face a mask of disappointment. “That did not go as I had planned.”
“No, but the crowd cheer for you still.”
“Are you vexed that the traitor lives?”
I wished he hadn’t asked, as I didn’t want to lie. But lie I did. “Yes,” I said. “Arsinoe was a false queen. Egypt will not be happy she lives still.”
Caesar looked morose. “Your second gift will succeed the first.”
I cupped his cheek, hoping to draw out a smile. “You continue to fight for me, and that is gift enough.”
The banquet that concluded the parade was not half as lavish as the festivities my father used to throw, but there was food and wine in abundance.
“She looked thinner, don’t you think?” I said over the rim of my cup.
“Arsinoe?” Charmion replied.
“Yes.” I hadn’t been able to shake her from my mind.
“She did. I imagine prisoner fare is not what she is used to.”
I shook my head ruefully. “No, I imagine not.”
Charmion’s hand snaked under the table and squeezed my thigh. I felt wretched. Though I’m not sure what I was more distressed by: my sister’s state, or the fact that I still cared for her.
The callouses hadn’t yet eclipsed my heart. There was some feeling there, beneath the thickened skin of war and strife.
“She will hate Ephesus,” Charmion said.
I imagined her in the pious clothing of a priestess. “Yes, she will.”
“But it is good that she lives?” Charmion said the statement as a question.
“I-I…” There had been a time when words stuttered from me in times of stress. Though the years had healed this malady, it came back to me now.
I didn’t know what to say. My feelings were not clear to me.
Know this about me: control was something I had fought to regain so many times, and would come to fight for time and time again. My own mind was so frequently tempestuous that I sought to calm the storm around me.
Arsinoe’s reappearance had shaken me more than Caesar could have understood. He thought he had handed me a gift, but instead it was a burden.
“Do you remember when she followed us to the river?” Charmion said, her expression becoming wistful. For Arsinoe had been like a sister to her, too.
I did. “She jumped in without a care, even though she couldn’t swim. Sank like a stone.”
“When I pulled her up, she was laughing as she choked.”
I recalled Arsinoe’s cackle as the water ran from her nose. She’d only been six years old. “My sister has never respected death.”
“No.”
A soldier lifted up the flag of Caesar’s legion and Caesar raised his cup as the eagle insignia swayed in the breeze. The crowds cheered.
Caesar sat at the far end of the table, his head framed from where I sat by the antlers of the whole roasted deer that separated us. The Roman nobles fawned around him, something he would once have despised. But now he seemed content to bask in their adoration.
Caesarion slid down in the chair beside me and I reached to catch him before his head struck the table. His eyes were half closed even as I clutched him to my chest.
“Shall I take Caesarion back to Caesar’s home?” Charmion asked.
“I can send one of the nursemaids back with him, you need not go.”
“It is no bother. I would prefer to return myself.”
Charmion’s hair fell over her face as she looked down. “What is it?” I asked.
Worry jaded her gaze. “I do not know. I cannot explain it, but there is something about this night that feels…wrong.”
Once again, Charmion proved to be astute at noticing the ripples of the world’s waters. Though Caesar’s fall had barely begun, she sensed it.
I laughed her worry away with a kiss to her cheek. “Indulge yourself tonight—take pleasure in one of the night attendants Caesar has assigned to my rooms. Helvia was very comely.”
She shook her head and took Caesarion from my arms. “Sleep calls to me.”
“Go, then. I won’t be long. I am fatigued myself but Caesar has promised me another gift. So, I must extend my patience.”
“I know that is hard for you,” she teased before leaving.
Charmion had proved to be my gatekeeper, because as soon as she left, I drew in the curiosity of Rome’s elite with a steady stream of visitors. A particularly odious man called Cicero sought to lecture me on the details of Homer’s Iliad—which I could recite in its entirety.
As the night drew on, as Charmion had predicted, I grew impatient with Caesar and my long-awaited surprise. I found myself indulging in the Roman wine. It was stronger than I was used to, and soon enough I felt as if the room was swaying.
“My queen? Are you quite well?” I still can’t recollect the name or the face of the woman I was speaking to and for a moment I saw Arsinoe.
My heart stuttered painfully in my chest before I realised the illusion.
“I am quite well,” I declared. “But you must excuse me.”
I stumbled out of the great hall and into the courtyard.
My skin felt flushed and I pulled at the purple cloak Caesar had gifted me for the occasion, letting it fall to the ground. Then I plucked out the pins knotting my hair at the nape of my neck. The smaller braids that wound through my curls tumbled down my back.
Finally, I pulled off my crown, setting it on the stone wall that surrounded a small reflecting pool.
It was only then that I felt like I could breathe.
I took some slow breaths until the world around me stilled.
When I no longer felt as if I were sailing across the Nile, I looked around me.
The Forum was a beautiful complex of temples and courtyards. Newly completed, it still smelled of setting mortar. I bent down and trailed my hand through the water of the reflecting pool. My image shimmered in the moonlight, sending ripples through the pond.
I brought my wet hands to my face and rubbed the kohl from my eyes.