Chapter Thirty
A Beginning
opened my eyes beneath a bright red sky, clouds like clotted blood swirling above. A figure in my likeness stood beside me.
“Rise, Cleopatra.”
Not in my likeness. It was her likeness that I emulated.
“Isis,” I breathed.
I could not see her face, for she had many. But I knew her like I knew my own reflection. Here was my god.
I kneeled on the ground and bowed lower than I had for any other.
It was then that I realised the floor beneath me was crimson too, undulating like blood from a wound.
I looked back to my god. “Are you to judge my entry to the beyond?”
She shook her head, the beads in her hair chiming like the sweetest of melodies. “You are not to pass beyond, Cleopatra. Today your curse awakens.”
I rose, confused. “Am I not worthy of the field of reeds?”
“The fate that binds your family to the gods has come to pass this day. You are the last to suffer from it.”
“The gift of the gods?”
Isis laughed and I winced—the sound was like grinding metal.
“Gift?” she said. “No, indeed. When your ancestor came to Egypt he pillaged and desecrated the tombs of old, searching for the lost arts in the Book of the Dead. For there was once a time when we gods walked the earth with men, and he sought to bind us once more.”
I shook my head in disbelief. But of course a god would not lie.
“He uncovered a spell that bound the soul of Serapis to his temple. We gods do not do well in cages. He invoked our wrath, and so we cursed his descendants with a power that would prove their downfall.”
“Our divine gifts are a punishment?”
She laughed again, and this time it sounded like the crack of thunder. “Look at your family. Betrayal, murder, deceit. The curse held true. Each of you branded with the god who would weave your demise.”
I could not hide my shock. My hand went to my neck where my precious mark of Isis lay. How many times had I touched the skin there and believed myself blessed?
I thought of the many tales I had heard about Sōter: songs, poems, performances. How they had rejoiced at his powers! How they had venerated his deeds!
I’ve spoken on your historians’ lies, but the greatest deception was my own.
“But what of my children, born without the mark?”
“Ah, now we gods are ruthless, but not cruel. Babes born of love would come into the world free of the curse.”
Am I weeping? Or am I laughing? I could not distinguish the feelings that overcame me.
“You see, you understand it all much better now,” Isis said.
“The curse ends with me. There is no one left.”
“Your curse will never end,” she said.
I looked at her questioningly.
“You wish to know what your power is to be? It is the greatest of all my talents. Resurrection. Never shall you die.”
“No.”
“Yes. Every time you depart the realm of life, you shall find yourself back here, in the waters of my womb, to be born again as you are now. Bound forever in this body, time and time again.”
Then her hands came down on either side of my neck and she pushed me through a crevice that had opened in the ground.
I felt as though I was falling for half a day. Terror tightened my throat with screams, my stomach lurching upwards, my arms flailing until they grew numb with fatigue.
On I fell.
And fell.
I wanted to die. I wanted to live. Hope and horror battled within me.
Then I blinked and found myself beside the bodies of Antonius and Charmion.
“No,” I whispered. “No, it cannot be.”
I reached for Charmion’s wrist; though it was still warm, it was as lifeless as Antonius’s.
The twin beads of blood caused by the hairpins were yet to clot on her arm. They matched my own.
Not an asp’s bite. It would have taken only a brief inspection to compare the size of the puncture to their fangs. But Octavian had heard of my method of vengeance during the donations of Alexandria. And what better way to emphasise my monstrous ways than to entwine my fate with that of the cobra.
“No.” I beat my fists against Charmion’s chest. “We were meant to go together.”
I would have stayed with them both, if I could have. But the distant footfalls of soldiers drew closer.
Soon Octavian would enter the temple and find me alive.
And no longer can I die.
Though I could feel pain: looking down at two of my loves, that was certain.
Octavian will not have me.
But I could not bear to leave my heart in this temple. I looked at Antonius and Charmion and felt a sob claw at my throat. “A curse it is to live when you are gone.”
The soldiers drew ever nearer.
I knew I had to flee but I was paralysed. As well as making good my escape, I had to ensure they would not search for me.
I stroked Charmion’s hair, a plan forming. “I will not let your sacrifice be for naught. Let me play one final ruse.”
And so I removed my cloak and wrapped it around Charmion’s shoulders. Then I took some ash from burned incense and lined her eyes. Finally, I removed my crown and placed it on her head.
I had not encountered Octavian in many years and even then, only briefly. When he entered the temple, he would see the queen he searched for. Few ever looked beyond the crown.
The soldiers were close now, their boots striking the tiles in the temple district.
I squeezed the hands of the two people I had loved and lost. But I knew I had to leave, quickly.
I followed the path Charmion had taken, slipping through the tunnels of the empty pool. I was able to go as far as the central cistern without getting wet, and from there I could navigate my way through the collapsed remains that led to the cave by the sea.
My children were still there when I arrived. The four of them sobbed when they saw me.
“We must go: Octavian is on Antirhodos, now is the time to slip away,” I said.
Caesarion rowed while I searched the water for any sign of a threat.
But no one was looking for a servant and her four children. They were looking for a queen.
And I would never be that again.