Chapter Twenty-Eight
ctavian declared war on me two years later.
First he had to convince Rome of the worthiness of the fight. Though many would die in the battle between Antonius and Octavian, it was a war of words before it was a war of swords.
The day after Antonius penned his will, he had sent Faunus to Rome to give the document to the Temple of Vesta, where it would be protected until his death.
But before Faunus could meet with the priestesses there, he was set upon by Octavian’s men.
“They beat me and robbed me of all I had, even my toga.” The old man quivered before me, the mark of Iphis smeared from the sweat that beaded his brow.
“How dare Octavian touch one of mine,” I seethed.
“Pharaoh, there is more.”
I braced myself on the edge of my throne.
The gold cages that had once held the asps had been replaced.
In their place now lay ivory carvings of the rearing snakes.
I patted the head of one fondly. They were a fitting tribute to the creatures who had helped carry out my vengeance.
Antonius sat beside me. Faunus turned to him now.
“Octavian took from me your will, my lord, and he made a show of reading it to the senate.”
Antonius ran a hand through his greying hair. “He goes against the laws set in paper and stone,” he growled. “My allies were able to regain my documents, I assume?”
Faunus grimaced. “No, my lord. Octavian called for soldiers to prevent anyone from relinquishing the tablet while he read. He embellished upon the words within, making bold claims that swayed the senate’s ire to you.”
“Bold claims?” I said quietly.
Faunus replied in a rush, as if getting the words out quickly would somehow soften their impact.
“That you intend to turn Alexandria into the capital of Rome, that you mean to give the spoils of war to your children by the Pharaoh and not your children by Octavia. That you wish to die beneath the gods of Egypt and be interred in a tomb here.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Alexandria the capital of Rome? I would not let it be so. Egypt is master of her own.”
Faunus blanched. “But the rest he spoke on, it is true?”
Antonius’s eyes narrowed. “This should be no surprise, Faunus. I have made my home in Egypt and my children already rule the lands I have conquered.”
“But to be laid to rest in Alexandria…” Faunus swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It appeared to sicken some of the senate. They believe you to be, ah…possessed by the Pharaoh’s wanton ways.”
“Of course—it always comes back to me,” I said bitterly.
“Do not let Octavian’s words come to harm you, my love. He is a fool.”
“A fool with ambition, and now one with the senate behind him,” I replied.
“Peace, Cleopatra,” Antonius said.
“Peace?” I laughed scornfully. “There will be no peace while Octavian means to attack our family.”
Faunus looked stricken as he watched us argue.
“You are dismissed,” I said, relieving the administrator, but he did not leave. “What is it? Tell me there is not more.”
Faunus squirmed and I would have felt sorry for the man if I hadn’t been so blinded by my own anxiety.
“Pharaoh, they have declared you an enemy of Rome.”
There was a shocked silence as we took in what he had said. Then my hands tightened around the throats of the ivory snakes beneath my palms, as if at any moment they would come alive and I could brandish them at my foes.
I smiled, baring imaginary fangs dripping imaginary venom.
“So, war it will be.”
—
Antonius and I raised an army of five hundred warships, one hundred thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry. We called on our allies from across the world, gaining the support of nearly a dozen kings and queens. But this war was never about numbers. It was about strategy.
Few men could match my military prowess. Go and look through your books and your poems: my skill is rarely spoken on. For it is difficult for men to imagine me for the general I was; easier to speak on my beauty than on my mind.
“We need to attack, take him unawares in his home waters,” Antonius argued.
I disagreed. “We may have the superior numbers, but if we proceed north, we leave Egypt vulnerable to attack. They may yet call in reserves from their allies and strike while our backs are turned.”
We sat in a stateroom in Patrae in southern Greece, where we had spent a season campaigning for allies.
A map was laid out before us, our generals at our backs.
The anticipation of the war between Antonius and Octavian had increased over the years, until even I could feel the invisible string that tethered them together waiting to snap.
“His fleet is in port at Tarentum; we should use this opportunity to gain the upper hand.”
“Aggression is not the answer, Marcus; we must be calculating and reserved. We cannot be the ones to strike first, especially if that strike lands us a sword in our backs.”
Antonius scowled, a rare expression on his face.
With Octavian’s army waiting on the southern coastline of Italy, every night had become a debate on what we should do.
We bickered relentlessly about the best tactics.
Both of us had participated in wars, but neither had reckoned with the might of a navy this size.
“Let me take my fleet to Tarentum, then, and you may command yours to Actium,” he said.
I let out a sigh. “Though a noble gesture, that would be suicide. And I do not think that is how you wish to die.”
“I do not wish to die at all, that is why we must strike.” He slammed his fist on the table.
I laid a hand on his shoulder. “We cannot make rash decisions. For it is not just our own fate we look to protect, but the fate of our children, as well as all of Egypt.”
Antonius tipped his head to the side, resting his jaw on my hand. “I know you are right. But I am impatient for the battle to be won. Octavian has been the thorn in my side for too long.”
“Do not rush to remove it, for you may lose too much blood.” I kissed his brow.
“So, to Actium?”
I nodded. “The bay allows us sight of the Greek coastline should Octavian move on to Egypt. We can send our infantry ahead of us across land.”
Actium. It was so nearly my final resting place.
Leaving Patrae meant leaving the children. We had brought them with us on our journey across the sea, and I was pained to leave them.
“Mama, why can’t we go with you? I can fight,” Selene said. At nine years old she was as fierce and as mighty as many of the queens of Egypt’s past. I gathered her into my arms.
“You cannot; this is not a war for children.”
“I am not a child. Let me lead the Egyptian fleet,” Caesarion said sullenly from across the room.
I went to him and gripped his chin between my fingers, his jaw dusted with the first showings of hair. “No, you are not. You are a king, my son. You are Horus. You are a pharaoh. And to be these things you must protect Egypt for me.”
He stood a little straighter. “You will come home victorious, will you not?”
I forced a smile. “Of course! I am Isis-blessed and cannot be killed so easily.”
Helios’s arms circled my waist, followed by those of Ptolemy, who did not want to be left out.
Once I had embraced my children, I turned to Charmion.
“Will you take our children home, my dear friend? The ship awaits you in the harbour,” I said to her quietly. Her image swam through the tears in my eyes.
“Why do you cry, Cleo?” she said softly, lest the children hear. “Why do you act as though this is the last time you will see them?”
“It may be the last time,” I admitted. That morning, I had awoken with dread in the pit of my stomach. Despite the odds being in our favour, I had a certainty that we would lose this fight with Octavian. I had not brought my doubts to Antonius, only to Charmion.
She reached for me now, her hand gripping my wrist tightly, almost painfully. “Do not let it be. I will not abide you dying without me by your side.”
“Charmion…”
She silenced me with a kiss. Since Ahmose’s death, her devotion to me had become absolute, and I basked in her love. “I will see you soon,” she said firmly.
—
They departed the next day, leaving Antonius and me to cross the ocean in the opposite direction, docking our fleet in the Ambracian Gulf near Actium.
I’d heard tales of the land’s luscious greenery. And in my mind, I sailed to the Land of Punt.
It was the hakawati who had first told me about the far-off isle of Punt, sparking my imagination for years to come. The story spoke of a shipwrecked sailor who awoke in a land of abundance, reigned solely by a gargantuan gold snake known only as the Lord of Punt.
When I struggled to sleep, Charmion and I used to conjure up the fantastical island, hissing into the darkness as if we were the lord of the land.
“The sand is made of gemstones.”
“And the trees’ boughs are heavy with fruit.”
“And fowl! Plump for roasting.”
“With crystal rivers to bathe in.”
“Don’t forget the pools filled with wine to drink.”
But Actium was not that. The only thing in abundance were the biting insects.
“The air is sticky,” I complained, swatting at a fly.
“The summer season is upon us,” Antonius said, mopping his brow. “Our infantry will suffer for it.”
I looked to the coastline. Actium was a sea of tents and canopies. The swampland surrounding the Ambracian Gulf had proven a difficult campsite; though it was green with ferns and mallows, the mud pulled at the foundations of our fortifications.
Soldiers dotted the landscape like buds on a trailing plant, the feathered plumes of our allies, in shades of red, purple, blue and green, brightening the land like flowers in bloom.
With my navy at my back, and the infantry ahead of me, I should have felt safe, powerful even. But the dread had not eased; instead it had deepened after a Roman commander had spotted swallows roosting under the stern just that morning.
“A bad omen,” he’d said quietly, thinking I had not heard him. But I had, and so too had some of my men, which set unease swirling like the eddies of the currents.