Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Eiras returned, an obsidian slate in one hand, a carving knife in the other.
I began to write my final message to Antonius.
Marcus, I will see you again in the field of reeds. Our love is more than this life; it is blood, it is bone, it is breath.
I handed the finished tablet to Eiras. “Be sure that when Marcus arrives, he is given this.”
She read the message and blanched. “Pharaoh…”
I nodded, confirming her suspicions.
There was only one more thing I had to do before my death. I stopped in the throne room, where Faunus sat with his head in his hands. He looked up as I called to him.
“Pharaoh,” he said, “have you heard the news? Octavian will be upon us this night.”
I nodded. “Yes. You must leave the city. You have been too loyal to me—Octavian will not let you live.”
Faunus began to argue, but I would not hear of it. I held out a hand to silence his protestations.
“I ask one more thing of you only. Send a missive to Octavian. Tell him I have died by my own hand in the Temple of Isis. I wish to lure his eyes away from the shoreline.”
“But it will be a ruse? Yes? You will leave Egypt?”
“He will need to see a body. Or he will never stop looking for me.”
“Pharaoh—”
“You were a great advisor to me, Faunus. Live out the rest of your life knowing I treasured you well.”
Then I left. I did not have the strength to linger on any more goodbyes.
—
I locked the doors of my temple and sequestered myself inside.
I removed the jar of wolfsbane from my medicine bag and added it to a chalice of wine that had been left as an offering to my god.
I placed the tincture next to the flickering rushlight, to warm the wine and brew the herbs.
I wished for a quick death, so I wanted the poison to be potent.
Then I kneeled before my goddess and prayed.
“Isis, you have deemed me unworthy of my divine power and for that I know I must repent. But I ask you one final thing: look over my children. They are unblemished by the horrors of this world. Do not let my failures condemn them. Please, Isis, protect them.”
The tears came then. Floods of them. I do not know how long I cried for. But I was only aware of the time when there came a great knocking at the door of the temple.
Octavian is here.
I reached for the wolfsbane tincture and was suddenly reminded of my brother.
Guilt, as I told you, accompanies me even in death.
But as I opened my mouth to welcome the end, I heard a scream. It was a voice I recognised.
“Marcus?”
I ran to the temple door and pulled up the wooden bar that held it in place.
There in the dappled moonlight was Antonius.
“Marcus, what are you doing here?” He was kneeling before the door to the temple, his head tilted to the side.
But as I drew closer, I saw that he was slumped forward, his hand gripping the hilt of a small dagger that was buried in his chest.
“Marcus!”
Blood spilled from his mouth as he murmured, “Selene, Isis, Cleopatra. All the names I have known you by. But you are Egypt. You are her. And Egypt, I am dying.”
“I am here.” I pulled him into the safety of the temple. Then I relocked the door.
I laid him flat before the image of Isis.
“What have you done, Marcus?” I saw then that the ivory dagger he had used to end his life was the one I had gifted him. Or rather, the blade Charmion had gifted me.
“I arrived with the infantry; they are half a day’s ride away.
Too late, I had thought I was too late,” he said weakly.
Blood seeped from his chest. He did not have long.
“I read your letter. A cruel joke to pen it on obsidian.” Even now he laughed.
The sound was sharper than a blade in my heart, and it hurt just as much.
Centuries have passed but I cannot recall this moment without smiling, without crying. That was the dichotomy of my dear Marcus. There was no one who could make me laugh or weep harder than he.
“You were not meant to die this day, Marcus. Why did you do this?”
Why did you do this? I have asked the sky a hundred times, a thousand times, since then. As the beam of sunlight he was in life, I knew that in death Re had welcomed him aboard his ship.
I have wept many times under the blistering sun, yearning for the warmth of his love.
We could have lived, Marcus.
But death beckons.
“I came to you, to die with you here,” he gasped. “But when I found the doors locked, I struck myself on the steps. To be close to you in the end.”
“O mighty Helios, sweet Dionysus.”
“What of the children? What of our gods?”
“They are safe, with Charmion.”
He smiled his last smile. “That is good. Let them live and love like we did. A rich life.”
“A rich life,” I agreed.
Then I kissed his bloodied lips and whispered, “In blood, in bone, in breath—forever we are bound.”
When his chest stilled, I wailed like a bull struck with a spear.
I screamed like Caesarion when the needle had pierced his skin.
I howled like Arsinoe losing Qar. I gasped as though the senate killed me along with Caesar.
I sobbed like the waves that took my brother and moaned like the last words of another brother lost. All the griefs I had seen surged out of me in a single note.
So immense was the pain, I knew the gods could hear it.
The silence that followed my cry was more agonising still. For it denoted the absence of Antonius’s breath.
I knew then that I would never be the same. You see, my legend can bear more sorrow than I ever could. She is made of marble, and quartz, and more books than I can count. But as I was, I could endure no more grief.
I took in a ragged breath, preparing for my own journey to the beyond. A calmness overcame me as I reached for the pins in my hair.
Quicker to feed the poison into my blood than to drink it. I did not want to keep Antonius waiting.
I have seen my death so many times since this day.
Shakespeare bemoaned my immortal longings—but I did not speak so eloquently.
Elizabeth Taylor awoke from a dream, only to sleep again—but poison is no slumber.
Michelangelo stripped me bare and placed the asp to my bosom—but nothing but a babe sucked at my breast.
Shawqi brought me to my knees to plead mercy in death—but I sought no forgiveness, only blessed release.
There are countless more versions of this moment.
They overlap in my mind, making it hard to finish this tale; it is as though each rendition has drained the vibrancy of the true memory.
But I will not rob you of these final moments.
You and I have journeyed through the years, each page bringing us closer to this very conclusion. Though it labours me, conclude I must.
There was no escaping the island alive. The infantry may have been only half a day away, but Octavian was here, now. I did not have long before his soldiers broke down the door to my temple.
“Now, my love, it is my turn to join you.”
When I turned to pick up the wolfsbane, I found someone was already holding it.
“Charmion?”
“I have never lied to you,” she told me. “Except when I promised you that I would leave with our children.”
“But—”
“Caesarion is old enough to protect them, he is a man grown. He knows the sacrifice you make for them, and he’ll see to their survival.”
I looked back at the sealed door.
“How did you get in here?”
She pointed to the empty pool, still unfinished after all these years. “It is connected to the cistern—I climbed through the empty tunnel.”
“I am to die this day.”
She held three fingers to my chest.
“I go with you, always.”
I wanted to fight her, to send her back through the cistern. But in truth I was comforted by her presence. And I had no fight left except this one.
“Give me the wolfsbane,” I said with finality.
We kneeled together at the altar, and I carefully laced my hairpins with the poison.
“Press them into your arm.”
“Both of them?” she asked.
“Yes, it will be a surer dose.”
I watched as the pins pierced her flesh. She gasped in pain immediately, slumping into my arms.
I took the hairpins from her arm and eased her to the ground.
“Let us go on one final journey, you and I,” she said through her pain.
I coated the needles with the wolfsbane once more, then lay down next to her and Antonius.
“When next we meet, I will beat you at senet,” I said and pushed the hairpins into my skin.
And so, we died.