Chapter Twenty-Two #2
A servant brought in a tray of hibiscus tea, sweetened with honey. Antonius watched me as I brought the drink to my lips. He seemed to be considering his next words.
“Ignore the tax. I will explain Serapion’s treachery to the senate. But you must remain an ally.”
“Must I?” I said coolly.
“Yes, you must. For how else can we keep company like this?” He gestured towards both our attires, and I couldn’t suppress the laugh he coaxed out of me.
“There must be more benefits.”
He raised one eyebrow in enquiry.
But I did not let his flirtation unmoor me from my purpose. I regarded him levelly. “Proclaim Caesarion as Caesar’s heir, and my armies will be yours.”
All mirth left Antonius’s face. “You know I cannot. Together Octavian and I rule the senate. To oppose his birthright is to declare war.”
“His birthright?” I hissed.
Antonius dipped his head as my anger washed over him. When he looked up, his face was full of remorse. “You know the love I had for Caesar. He called me son. But what you ask of me will bring more death than the toll your administrator reports. I cannot do that in Caesar’s name.”
I turned my head before he could see the tears in my eyes. I heard him step forward, and then his hands took mine.
I looked down at our entwined fingers and said, “You know my guards would execute you for less.”
“Ask me for anything else.”
I looked up, and noticed for the first time that his brown eyes grew moss-green towards the centre. As I looked into them, they stirred something in me that I had thought long dead.
Desire.
Oh, do not mistake me, I had taken many lovers since Caesar’s death, but that had been about fulfilment of lust, not need.
Yet there was still something I needed much more.
I hesitated, readying myself for my next words. “Execute Arsinoe.”
A dagger to the chest would have hurt less. But I knew how powerful a wound could be. It could cut away a limb to stop disease from spreading, or bleed a brain to relieve pressure. Arsinoe was both those things and worse.
“My sister must die,” I continued against the pain. “She has posed a threat to my reign for long enough. Do this and I will formally declare Egypt an ally of Rome once more.”
Antonius nodded. “It is done.”
I swallowed my gasp as I felt again the slice of a knife.
“I will send word to Ephesus. She will be dead within five days. But I have one thing to ask in return.”
“Are my armies not enough?”
His thumb caressed the top of my hand idly. “This is non-negotiable.”
I looked into his grass-flecked eyes once more, my heart fluttering like a bird in my chest.
“Dine with me,” he said simply.
I laughed, slipping my hand from his to wave him away. “Once you have done as I asked I will dine with you, Marcus.”
His smile returned and he straightened. “I will send word when my part of the deal is complete. Then, Selene, I will take my taxes in wine, good food and very beautiful company.”
He did not linger, and I was grateful as I could feel the heat in my cheeks. I heard afterwards that he was seen striding through the harbour whistling, as though he wore the formal robes of a king.
—
I did not need Antonius to tell me when Arsinoe died. I was walking along the pier in the harbour, enjoying the morning air, when a flock of ibis flew overhead. A single white feather fell on the cobbled ground in front of me.
I picked it up and I knew.
She was gone.
I imagined her face, defiant until the last, as she was dragged out of the Temple of Artemis. She would not have made a sound as she died, or if she did it would have been to laugh. Antonius had offered to bring me her head but I had refused it. There was no trophy to be won.
I held the feather against my chest and screamed up to the sky, tearing my throat.
Arsinoe, my shadow. Arsinoe, my friend. Though the nights would never be as dark, the days would never be as bright.
Devastation wrecked me, but so too did anger.
“You made me do this, sister!” I shouted through my tears. “I would have been happy to love you only. But you had to make me hate you too.”
She and I could not both have lived. She had proven she could out-manipulate me time and time again, so I knew it would be I who would fall if I did not strike first.
But still I mourned the sister I had once loved. And loved still.
I slept that night with the feather clutched in my hand. When Antonius sent word that the deed had been done, my grief had already dulled.
All my siblings had made the transition to the afterlife. As a Ptolemy, I was alone once more.
—
“Antonius has sent you a dress for the evening’s entertainment,” Charmion said. She pulled out a finely made woollen sheath. It was less opulent than anything I had brought, but charming in its simplicity. I also had enough jewels to make it grand.
“He likes you,” Charmion said carefully.
“Yes, I think he might.”
We spent half that day dressing me. First, we smoothed my skin with cedar oil flecked with gold leaf, so I shimmered as I moved. Next, we knotted my braids beneath a wig made of pearls. Then we adorned me in gold cuffs, emerald earrings and a copper mantle studded with amethysts.
Finally, I changed into the dress Antonius had gifted me. It was the colour of harvested wheat. Though it was humble, it was gentle on my skin. I imagined it was Antonius’s hands and I shivered.
“Are you cold?” Charmion asked. “I can get your robe.”
“No,” I said. Antonius’s phantom hands warmed me. “My crown, please.”
She lifted my Isis crown to my head. I stepped back and looked into the polished silver mirror.
Charmion dropped to her knees beside me as she took me in.
“You are Isis herself,” she breathed.
“Yes,” I said. I felt I was wearing my divinity like a jewel.
“Shall I tell Seti you are ready to leave?”
“No. Tell the captain that we are to set sail immediately.”
“We are to leave? What of your dinner with Antonius?”
I smiled.
I was not someone who easily broke promises, especially political ones. But there was something alluring about the game he and I played—the intoxicating sport of denying him. And though I wasn’t ready to admit it, I ran because I was scared of what would happen if I stayed.
I stood on the stern of the boat, looking back at the city of Tarsus as we began to sail away. There was movement at the end of the harbour and I saw Antonius, riding a horse along the pier as if he could reach me.
“Pharaoh, where are you going? We had an agreement!” The still harbour air carried his voice to me.
“You invited Selene,” I said. “Not Isis.”
He looked me up and down, in my glittering jewels and the dress he had gifted me. Then he began to laugh, great guffaws that shook his chest and unsettled the beast beneath him.
I thought that was the last I was to see of him. That my heart would be safe from the perils of love.
How wrong I was.