Chapter Twenty-Five
nd so it began, the final song of my heart.
“Show me more of Egypt. Let me travel along her tresses, and glide upon her neck,” Antonius begged. I revelled in sharing my country’s wonders with him. We toured the Nile and Upper Egypt. I took him to Hermonthis to visit the Buchis bull, and to the pyramids to visit the dead.
Shemu season was spent tangled in each other’s arms on the banks of the Siwa Oasis. Home to the Oracle of Amun, Siwa was a holy place, closer to the pantheon than Alexandria was.
One night we made love beneath the olive groves, and as the day became night, we watched stars cast streaks of light across the sky.
“Do you think there is another love like ours?” Antonius asked me.
I understood his meaning: a scalding, breathless sort of love.
“No; the world could not contain such love twice over.”
“I think so too.”
If love were a well, then both Caesar’s and Antonius’s love was deep, but where Caesar’s water had been sweet and refreshing, Antonius’s was hot and addictive.
There was a movement in the bushes and I sat up, expecting a desert fox or some such. But as the shadow stretched upwards, I saw the silhouette of a cobra outlined by moonlight.
She even dared to gaze with face serene upon her fallen palace
courageous, too, to handle poisonous asps
that she might draw black venom to her heart,
waxing bolder as she resolved to die.
Such pitiless, pretty words from Horace. Why must the gentle cobra bear such malice? She who protects her young, a sacred mother blessed by Isis. Let this creature live without blame.
“The serpent rears to kill,” Antonius whispered fiercely beside me, and the snake’s eyes turned to him.
“No, she blesses us only.”
“Your god?” Antonius asked.
As she lazily turned her bejewelled gaze back to me, I said, “She is no one’s god but her own.”
Before I had finished speaking, the snake lunged forward until there was but a handspan between us. I heard Antonius inhale sharply behind me. But I did not share his fear.
The cobra’s tongue darted out, tasting the air, and I saw a glimpse of her fangs.
We regarded each other, each destined to play a part in the other’s legend. Both perceived as monsters instead of mothers.
Though I had been naked for half the night, for the first time I felt truly stripped bare. It was not a premonition, as I was not poisoned by snake’s venom, this night or any other, but perhaps a warning. She sensed a change in me.
A sound of a bird in the distance startled us both, breaking the spell between us. I watched the asp disappear back into the undergrowth with a touch of sorrow in my heart.
A warning indeed. What happened that night changed my future more than I could have known.
—
A handful of days later, I suffered cramps in the belly and eased them with a morning bath in the freshwater springs.
“I have heard talk from Rome,” Charmion said as she rubbed a cloth against my back.
The waters were a cool respite from the heat of shemu season.
The sun was rising behind the sand dunes that surrounded the lush oasis.
And as the breeze swept through my hair, it brought with it flecks of the sparkling desert.
Egypt, how I love your breath, seasoned sweet with sand and sea.
“You know how word travels far quicker through servants than through missives,” Charmion continued.
“Yes, what do the servants gossip on now? For I can tell by your tone it is not pleasant.”
Charmion went quiet and I splashed her with water; such was Antonius’s effect on me, I had remembered how to be merry.
She squealed before becoming serious once more. “A man named Cicero speaks against Antonius to the senate. Among many insults he claims he is a degenerate of wanton regard. With an appetite for flesh and drink few have seen the likes of.”
I swirled my hands in the water, making a momentary current. Charmion’s words did not surprise me. I knew exactly who Antonius was. He was Dionysus, a god of indulgence, of pleasure. The slander did not worry me like it should have.
“Mere words. I see Marcus plain.”
When Charmion didn’t respond, I engaged her once more. “Tell me your thoughts. I can see the worry on your face.”
“I am worried. Words have power, and if the senate moves against him while he is here with you…”
She feared war. A foretelling once again.
I moved through the water to clasp her hands in mine. “Rest your worries. Egypt is safe. I am safe, and you too are safe.”
For now.
I questioned Antonius on Cicero later. He laughed. “The man is a withered old fool. Pious and pompous in equal measure.”
But there was a catch to his tone, an inflection that was not all pleasant. I didn’t press him on it. I knew he would bring it to me with time.
It was on the way back to Alexandria that we next spoke on Rome. I could see something troubled him. It was a long journey by camel-drawn caravan and we had no entertainment but each other. Once we had sated our desires, there was little to do but talk.
It took him two nights before he told me the extent of his concerns.
“Fulvia brought arms against Octavian in my absence,” he said quietly. “She has raised two legions from my veterans.”[*]
“Your wife fights against the triumvirate?”
He ran a hand through his hair. It had grown long and wild in the shemu heat. “Cicero has led a campaign against me, weakening my position. She seeks to overthrow Octavian and Lepidus to make me sole ruler and end the dissent. Lucius, my fool brother, has also lent his soldiers to the cause.”
I was surprised Antonius had managed to keep such news so close to his chest. When I asked him why he had not told me before now, he said, “I did not want you to concern yourself with the tensions in Rome.”
“My son is Caesar’s heir; Rome is his home as much as Egypt is. Do not deny me the truth.”
I trusted Antonius, but I also knew his limitations. He did not hide things from me out of spite. He simply avoided discussing matters that did not bring him pleasure. And Fulvia did not bring him pleasure.
“She draws you to her,” I concluded.
“Yes.” He must have seen something in my expression, for he kneeled before me and laid his head on my lap. “But I will not go. Let her have her war; I will not be a part of it.”
So much blood was shed in my lifetime, it was easy to forget the smaller battles. Fulvia and Lucius’s insurgence came to naught except more death. Octavian spared both their lives, but Fulvia died of disease not long after.
It was Charmion who told me the news, not Antonius: “Some say she died of a broken heart.”
I knew she only recounted court hearsay, but the words still stung. I knew who Fulvia had been to Antonius—simply put, she was not me.
Antonius never told me of her death. But the night I found out, he drank himself into such a stupor, four soldiers had to bring him to bed. The next day he smiled once more. For Fulvia had just been a cloud in his sky, and I was the moon itself.
Soon we had news of our own that kept us occupied. I was pregnant.
“I feel them,” Antonius said, his hands resting on my belly. Tears sparkled in his eyes.
“Twins,” the soothsayer had predicted after running her hands over my stomach. The silence had stretched for longer than was comfortable. So when she spoke, both Antonius and I let out a great breath of relief.
Then came the joy, which has not abated since.
“Twins can sometimes be weak, but they are both strong,” I said, placing my hand onto his.
“They have the blood of Romulus and Remus in them. Roman blood,” said Antonius.
“Divine blood,” I said. “Blessed by the pantheon of Egypt.” Though I doubted the words as I said them. I feared that, like Caesarion, the babes would not be blessed. I had not divulged my worries to Antonius. He believed my blood to be linked to the gods, and so too would his children’s be.
“It’s my turn,” Caesarion claimed, climbing across the bed. He placed his little hand on top of mine and squealed when he felt the babies move.
“They hurt me,” he claimed.
I reached for his hand and cradled it between mine before pressing a kiss to it. “They did not hurt you, they will not hurt you.” I hoped my words prophesied their future.
Antonius saw my concern and gathered up Caesarion in his arms. “You shall be great friends with your siblings.”
“Will we go fishing together?” Caesarion asked hopefully.
“You will, and much more besides,” Antonius said.
That seemed to satisfy Caesarion, who bucked out of Antonius’s arms and ran from the room. His maids followed after him and Antonius and I were alone once more.
“Are you well?” Antonius asked after I sighed.
I nodded. “This pregnancy is harder on my body than Caesarion’s was.”
He reached over and began to massage my legs. I grunted softly as I felt myself relax.
“Not very long now,” he said. I could hear the excitement in his voice and it did more to ease the tension in my muscles than his hands.
“A moon cycle, no more. Twins come earlier.”
He looked away and I read concern in his face.
I sat up. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said. But Antonius could never lie to me convincingly.
When he left to attend the gymnasium later that evening, I found myself looking through his letters.
“What do you expect to find?” Charmion said.
“I’m not sure.” There were scrolls upon scrolls of correspondence, for Antonius had not been idle during his time in Egypt; he took his role as triumvir seriously.
There were not many from Octavian, so when I came across his name I lingered on the words.
You forget yourself and your duties to your country.
First your wife raises an army—in which you say you had no part, but how can I trust your word when you have broken it repeatedly?
When we were bound together as triumvirs you promised yourself to the Roman people, not to a foreign queen.
You may barter your bed for her soldiers, but it is our people who suffer for your indulgence.
If you do not return to Rome, I will take your motives as an act of war.