Chapter Twenty-One
was much changed after the loss of Ptolemy. Where Caesar’s death had broken me, Ptolemy’s had tainted me with regret. Guilt motivated me where misery had not. So I put down the wine and picked up my medicine bag once again.
My citizens were glad to see me return. And as the bright red pain of grief dulled to an incessant ache over the next two years, I spent more and more time in the hospital—healing others to comfort myself.
I heard from Antonius sporadically. His campaign, alongside Caesar’s false heir Octavian, to capture the leaders of Caesar’s assassination had found him engaged in war once more. I followed his pursuits with little interest.
You may question why I was not yearning for vengeance.
I was. The fire of my anger burned like hot coals, never going out.
But I was also practical. If Antonius and Octavian were to be victorious, then Caesar’s assassins would be killed and perhaps the heat behind my eyes would cool.
However, if Cassius and Brutus dispatched Octavian, then Caesarion’s claim as Caesar’s heir would be undisputed.
My son would no longer be a threat and his feet could once more walk upon Roman soil.
“Another letter from Antonius,” Faunus said. We sat in one of the smaller staterooms. I had all but abandoned the throne room, reserving it only for formal occasions, my taste for opulence waning. I was well enough established as a monarch that I did not need to prove my wealth or status.
It also pained me to paint myself as I had done for Caesar. I was no longer Venus, and I was no longer sure who Cleopatra was.
“She is Egypt,” Antonius said when I voiced my inner doubts in the early days of our courtship.
“I am not sure if Egypt died with Caesar,” I admitted.
Antonius rested his hand on my breast and felt the rhythm of my heart. “Let yourself live, Egypt. Live.”
With these words he reinstated some of the pride I had lost. But we are not there yet in my tale: first I must be cast adrift.
—
“What says the letter from Antonius?” I said. I was at my desk, reading a recent addition to the new Library of Alexandria: On Pulses by Herophilus.
“He requests the return of the four Roman legions stationed here, for his fight against Cassius and Brutus.”
I waved a hand in the administrator’s direction. “Send them. This quest for vengeance is his battle to win. If he requires my help, I shall provide it.”
Faunus nodded. “I will send them with Commander Serapion.”
I had kept the governor close since his attempt to reveal my lack of divinity all those years ago.
I had never voiced my suspicions that he was a sympathiser of Arsinoe’s.
And though I knew my sister was exiled, I still watched him warily, despite his having shown me nothing but loyalty since that ill-fated day.
Over time I rewarded him with the Cypriote fleet to foster his ignorance of my mistrust, but it was also to leash him closer to my court.
I did not think much about Serapion or Antonius for some time after that.
Caesarion kept me busy. At five years old he had proved himself to be the perfect blend of me and Caesar.
He could already speak in Latin, Greek and Egyptian, and Charmion was teaching him Arabic.
When he wasn’t enjoying his studies, he was with his gelding, learning to master a chariot.
I found pleasure in seeing the wind tousle his curls as he turned around the paddock.
Every time he practised, I would have my desk brought to the stables’ edge to watch him as I worked.
The tunic he wore ended just above the ink mark of Horus on his thigh.
His small body was strapped into the chariot’s frame, for I was cautious of his safety. I could not lose another love.
Still less another king.
Caesarion had been crowned as co-regent shortly after Ptolemy’s death. I wanted to quickly secure him as Pharaoh as he had already been stripped of his rights as Caesar’s heir.
“What troubles you?” Charmion, ever perceptive, asked. She took my pen from my hand and refilled its ink.
Papyrus pages lay fanned out in front of me.
I had resumed my writings earlier that year, finding pleasure once more in sharing my remedies with the world.
It was one of the ways I satisfied my curiosity with academia.
I still courted the ghost of Cleopatra the scholar on quiet evenings, wondering what life would have been like without the crown.
Instead, I held both wherever I could: crown and pen.
That my work did not survive into modernity vexes me more than I can express.
I have seen how even fragments of poems penned by men have kept their lyrics through the centuries.
Not only did my words disappear, but the very melody of them was distorted, leaving the barest of echoes.
My science was reduced to love potions and aphrodisiacs, and I found myself once again debased by my sex. [*]
Charmion handed me back my pen but I waved it away. My thoughts were too troubled to continue. I watched Caesarion smile as his teacher corrected his grip on the reins. “He is entitled to more than just Egypt.”
“You cannot give him everything,” she said.
“Indeed I cannot; he has already lost his father,” I snapped.
I looked away from Caesarion before I fell once more into the chasm of my own grief. It had already taken me so very long to climb out. “I seek simply to give him what he is due,” I said, more gently.
“Octavian is still supported by Rome?” Charmion asked.
“And Marcus,” I said. I felt great bitterness over this: I had thought our friendship and his fealty to Caesar would see him hold true to my son’s legacy.
“And Caesar’s assassins?”
“Will soon be dead. The battle commences in Philippi. I have sent troops with Serapion to aid the cause.”
“It will be a relief to see Caesar’s killers brought to justice.”
Caesarion screamed and I jolted, ready to run to him. I saw his body bloodied and broken in my mind’s eye before I focused and saw that he was only laughing, his gelding nibbling his hand.
I released a slow breath. “There will be no relief. So many others had a hand in Julius’s death. They may not all have held the knife, but their ignorance of the plot eased the blade’s path.”
Charmion reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Justice will be dealt, in this life or the next.”
Comforted by her touch, I brought our joined hands up to my lips. “I never thanked you, Charmion.”
“For what?”
“For being by my side during these last few years. It has not always been easy, but having you with me has eased some of my torment.”
With her free hand she pressed three fingers to the pulse at my neck. Then she invoked our childhood mantra: “One for the past and the happy years well spent, one for the present and the patience we extend, one for the future and the love that never ends.”
I laughed, and realised that it had been some time since my face had stretched the muscles of a smile.
It did not last long.
“Pharaoh!” Faunus was running across the paddock, clutching a scroll, his bare feet kicking up dust and his eyes wide.
“What is it?” I did not rise to his panic, as everyone I loved was in my sights.
“Serapion,” he said as he reached us. “He has taken the legions we sent to Antonius to aid his enemy.”
“You mean to say that Cassius and Brutus are to benefit from my fleet?”
“Yes—Serapion has abandoned your orders.”
It had been a risk sending him, I knew this. But this betrayal was greater than even I might have anticipated.
I thought back to Arsinoe and the bloodied footprints she had left as she had walked down the temple steps in Rome. I had hoped that was the last I would see of her. But now I think of it as a warning I did not heed.
She walked through my life still, sullying it.
But how would I ever prove it was her?
I felt a surge of fury. “Go to his estate and bring me his family in chains,” I said. “For every day he refuses my summons I will remove a finger from his children’s hands.”
Charmion gasped.
“Is it necessary to be so cruel?” she asked. She rarely spoke out against my orders so brazenly: if she had any issue with a ruling, we would discuss it in the solitude of my chambers, so as not to undermine me in public.
For this reason I considered her words carefully, because I knew she thought them significant.
“Strength can often be mistaken for cruelty,” I said eventually.
I didn’t recall at the time that I was echoing Arsinoe’s words from all those years earlier. Back then, I had thought her immaturity made her merciless. But now the years had brought me wisdom. There were no boons for mercy, no blessings from the gods for my morality.
Sometime between cutting down my lions and Ptolemy’s death I had begun to use cruelty as a tool—and remorse became more fleeting.
Charmion looked troubled but did not contradict me further, and I was glad of it. I would not have liked to turn my ire on her.
That evening Faunus returned to me in the dining hall, his expression grave.
“His family are gone, my queen, his estate empty.”
I set down my cup, filled with sweetened water only, and kneaded my brow. “You found nothing?”
He hesitated, then reached into his robes and removed a scroll, which he set before me.
My eyes scanned the letter. It was only a few words long, outlining the location of Cassius’s and Brutus’s army. That alone was not damning enough.
But then I saw the words that ended the letter.
By order of Queen Arsinoe…
I felt no triumph in having my suspicions confirmed. I only felt the fool for loosening the leash around Serapion’s neck longer than I should have.
I held the scroll for longer than the words warranted, as eventually Charmion asked impatiently, “What is it?”
I handed her the scroll. “My sister rises once more.”
“I have sent word to my contacts in Ephesus,” Faunus said. “But it does appear she is once again laying claim to your throne.”