Antony and Cleopatra (75 page)

“Antonius, yes. It’s what I want, Cleopatra. You can ask for my body and he’ll give it to you. He’s not a vengeful man—what he does is expedient, rational, carefully thought out. Don’t deny me the chance of a good death, my love, please!”

The tears felt hot, burning her cheeks as they ran down to the corners of her mouth. “I won’t deny you your good death, my most beloved. One last night in your living arms, I ask for that and nothing more.”

He kissed her once and left for the hippodrome, there to make his battle dispositions.

Aimless, killed inside, she walked through the palace to the door that led across palmy gardens to the Sema, Charmian and Iras in her wake as always. They hadn’t asked any questions; there was no need after seeing Pharaoh’s face. Antony was going to die in the battle, Caesarion was gone to India, and Pharaoh was rapidly approaching that dim horizon that separated living Nilus from the Realm of the Dead.

At her tomb she commanded the attention of those who still worked on Antony’s side, issuing orders to have everything ready for his body at dusk tomorrow. That done, she stood in the little anteroom just inside the great bronze doors and stared at them, then turned to look at the outermost of her own chambers, where a beautiful bed had been situated, and a bath, a corner for her private bodily functions, a table and two chairs, a desk stacked with finest papyrus paper, reed pens, and cakes of ink, a chair. Everything Pharaoh would require in the afterlife. But, she thought, it was also properly appointed for Pharaoh in this life.

That preyed on her, her caged impotence between Antony’s death and Octavian’s decision about her and her children. She had to hide! Hide until she discovered what Octavian’s decision was. If he found her where she could be captured, she would be incarcerated and her children probably murdered immediately. Antony kept insisting that Octavian was a merciful man, but to Cleopatra he was Basiliskos, the lethal reptile. Certainly he wanted her alive for his triumphal parade: ergo, a dead Queen of Beasts was the last kind he wanted. But if she took her own life now, her children would undoubtedly suffer. No, she could not take her own life until she had made her children safe. For one thing, Caesarion would not yet have reached harbor on the Sinus Arabicus; it would be
nundinae
before he sailed away. As for Antony’s children—she was their mother, caught by the intangible bond that fused a woman and her children together forever.

The idea had come when her eyes chanced upon the bed. Why not hide inside her tomb? Admittedly it could still be entered through the aperture, but before Octavian could order men to enter, she would be screaming down the speaking tube that if any minions tried to enter that way, they would find her dead of poison. The last type of death Octavian could condone in her; all his many enemies would be clamoring that
he
had poisoned her. Somehow she had to stay alive and a free agent with choices for long enough to get his oath that her children would live and prosper independently of Rome. In the event that the Master of Rome refused to agree, she would poison herself so publicly and so shockingly that the odium of the deed would destroy his political image ever after.

“I shall stay here,” she said to Charmian and Iras. “Put a dagger on that table, another dagger near the speaking tube, and go to Hapd’efan’e immediately. Tell him I want a phial of pure
aconitas
. Octavianus will never lay hands on a living Cleopatra.”

An order that Charmian and Iras mistook, thinking that their mistress meant to die—oh, the agony of it!—almost at once. So a shocked Apollodorus in turn mistook Cleopatra’s intentions when the two weeping women entered the palace. “Where is the Queen?”

“In her tomb,” sobbed Iras, hurrying off to find Hapd’efan’e.

“She’s going to die before Octavianus reaches Alexandria!” Charmian managed through spasms of tears.

“But—Antonius!” Apollodorus said, devastated.

“Antonius intends to die in tomorrow’s battle.”

“Will the Daughter of Ra be dead by then?”

“I don’t know! Perhaps, probably—I don’t know!” Charmian hurried off to find fresh food for her mistress in the tomb.

Within an hour everyone in the palace knew that Pharaoh was about to die; her appearance in the dining room astonished Cha’em, Apollodorus, and Sosigenes.

“Majesty, we have heard,” said Sosigenes.

“I don’t intend to die today,” said Cleopatra, amused.

“Please, Majesty, think again!” Cha’em beseeched.

“What, no visions about my death, son of Ptah? Rest easy! Death is nothing to fear. No one knows that better than you.”

“And the lord Antonius? Will you tell him?”

“No, I will not, gentlemen. He’s still a Roman, he won’t understand. I want our last night together to be perfect.”

In the middle of that last night Antony and Cleopatra spent in each other’s arms, serene, awash with love, senses unbearably heightened, the gods quit Alexandria. They heralded their going with a faint shudder, a sigh, an immense groan that dwindled away like dying thunder in the far distance.

“Serapis and the Alexandrian gods are like us, my dearest Antonius,” she whispered against his throat.

“It’s just a tremor,” he said indistinctly, half asleep.

“No, the gods refuse to stay in a Roman Alexandria.”

After that he slept, but Cleopatra couldn’t. The room was faintly lit with lamps so that she could lift herself on one elbow to gaze down at him, drink in the sight of his beloved face, the almost silvery curls a wonderful contrast against his ruddy skin, the planes of his bones sharpened because he had lost weight. Oh, Antonius, what I have done to you, and none of it good, or kind, or understanding! Tonight has been so peaceful that I am wrapped in your forgiveness—you never did hold my conduct against me. I used to wonder why that was, but now I realize that your love for me was great enough to forgive anything, everything. All I can do in return is make the eternity of death something beyond all human sensation, a golden idyll in the realm of Amun-Ra.

But then she must have dozed, because he was rising, a dim black outline against the pallid pearl of dawn. She watched his manservant help him into his armor: the padded scarlet tunic over the scarlet loincloth, the scarlet leather underdress, the plain contoured steel of the cuirass, skirt and sleeves of red leather straps, the shortish boots laced tightly, their tongues tooled with steel lions folded down over the crisscrossed laces. Giving her a wide grin, he tucked his steel helmet under his arm and flung the scarlet
paludamentum
back to fall free of his shoulders.

“Come, wife,” he said. “Wave me good-bye.”

She tucked her finest handkerchief, sprinkled with her own perfume, into the armhole of his cuirass and walked with him out into the clear, cool air, alive with birdsong.

Canidius, Cinna, Decimus Turullius, and Cassius Parmensis were waiting; Antony stepped upon a stool to reach saddle height, kicked his dappled grey Public Horse in the ribs, and galloped off for the five-mile ride to the hippodrome. It was the last day of Julius.

As soon as he had disappeared from sight she moved into her tomb, Charmian and Iras with her. The three of them working in unison, they lowered the bars over the inside of the double doors until only Antony’s famous eighty-foot ram could have burst them. Of fresh food there was plenty, Cleopatra discovered, as well as baskets of figs, olives, dates, and small bread rolls baked to a special formula that kept them at much the same consistency for many days. Not that she expected to be inside for many days.

The worst was going to be tonight, when Antony’s body was returned to her; he would go straight to his own sarcophagus room, there to submit voicelessly to the horrific talents of the embalming priests. But first she would have to look on his dead face—O Amun-Ra and all your gods, let it look peaceful, in no pain! Let his life have ceased quickly!

“I am glad,” said Charmian, shivering, “that the aperture lets in plenty of air. Oh, it’s so gloomy!”

“Light more lamps, silly” was the practical Iras’s answer.

Antony and his generals rode in the direction of Canopus, smiling with satisfaction at the prospect of battle. The area had been populated for many years, traditionally by wealthy foreign merchants, though their houses were not interspersed between tombs, like the houses to the west of the city, where the necropolis was. Here were gardens, plantations, stone mansions with pools and fountains, groves of black oak and palms. Beyond the hippodrome, spanning the low dunes near the sea—less desirable for a rich man’s house—lay the Roman camp, two miles on each ramrod straight side, entrenched, ditched, walled.

Good! thought Antony as they neared, seeing that the soldiers were already outside and in formation. Between their front ranks and Octavian’s front ranks lay half a mile of space. Eagles flashed, cohort flags fluttered in many colors, the scarlet
vexillum proponere
stood hard by Octavian’s Public Horse as he sat, surrounded by his marshals, waiting. Oh, I love this moment! Antony’s mind went on as he threaded his way among his troops, cavalry making their usual fuss and clatter on the flanks. I love the eerie feel of the air, the faces of my men, the potential of so much power.

Then, in a tiny moment, it was over. His own
vexillarius
, encrusted flag aloft, dipped it and walked toward Octavian’s army. Every
aquilifer
with his Eagle did the same, every
vexillarius
of every cohort, while his soldiers, crying quarter, followed, swords reversed, white kerchiefs tied around their
pila
.

How long Antony sat his jigging, prancing horse he didn’t know, but when his mind cleared enough to look sideways at his marshals, they had gone. Vanished, where he had no idea. With the stiff, jerky gestures of a marionette he turned the grey’s head and galloped for Alexandria, the tears coursing down his face and flying away like raindrops in a gale.

“Cleopatra, Cleopatra!” he shouted the moment he entered the palace, his helmet clanging and bouncing down a flight of stairs when he dropped it. “Cleopatra!”

Apollodorus came, then Sosigenes, and finally Cha’em. But Cleopatra did not.

“Where is she? Where’s my wife?” he demanded.

“What happened?” Apollodorus asked, shrinking.

“My army deserted, which no doubt means my fleet has too,” he said curtly. “Where is the Queen?”

“In her tomb,” said Apollodorus. There! It was spoken.

His face went grey, he staggered. “Dead?”

“Yes. She didn’t seem to think she’d see you alive again.”

“Nor would she, had my army fought.” He shrugged, untied the strings of his
paludamentum
, which fell to the floor in a puddle of bright red. “Well, it makes no difference.” He undid the straps of his cuirass; another clang as it hit the marble. The sword came out of its scabbard, a nobleman’s sword with an ivory eagle handle. “Help me get the leather off,” he commanded Apollodorus. “Come on, man, I’ll not ask you to push the sword in! Just get me down to my tunic.”

But it was Cha’em who stepped forward, took off the leather underdress and its
pteryges
straps.

The three old men stood watching transfixed as Antony put the tip of his
gladius
against his midriff, the fingers of his left hand groping to find the bottom of his rib cage. Satisfied, he clasped the ivory eagle in both hands, drew in an audible gulp of air, and pushed with all his might. Only then did the three old men move, flying to help him as he subsided to the floor, gasping, blinking, frowning not in pain but in anger.

“
Cacat!
” he said, lips drawn back to show his teeth. “I missed the heart. Should have been there….”

“What can we do?” Sosigenes asked, weeping.

“Stop blubbering, for one thing. The sword’s in my liver or lights, I’m going to take some time dying.” He groaned. “
Cacat
, it hurts! Serves me right…. The Queen—take me to her.”

“Stay here until you die, Marcus Antonius,” Cha’em pleaded.

“No, I want to die looking at her. Take me to her.”

Two embalmer priests went up in the basket first, their apparatus around them, then stood on the shelf of the aperture while two more embalmer priests got Antony into the basket, its base stuffed with white blankets. Priests on the ground outside winched the basket up; at the aperture they pulled it across on a set of rails until they could lower it into the tomb, where the first two embalmer priests steadied it down.

Cleopatra was waiting, expecting to see a lifeless Antony beautifully arranged in a death that bore no visible stigmata.

“Cleopatra!” he gasped. “They said you were dead!”

“My love, my love! You’re still alive!”

“Isn’t that a joke?” he asked, trying to chuckle through a coughing gurgle. “
Cacat!
There’s blood in my chest.”

“Put him on my bed,” she said to the priests, and hovered, a nuisance, until he was placed to her liking. The scarlet padded tunic didn’t betray the blood as the white blankets on which he lay did, but she had seen plenty of blood in her thirty-nine years and was not horrified at it. Until, priest-physicians that they were, they peeled off the tunic intending to bind the wound more tightly, stop the hemorrhage. When she saw that magnificent body rent by a wide, thin tear below the ribs, Cleopatra had to clench her teeth to prevent the cry of protest, the first stab of grief. He was going to die—well, she had expected that. But not the reality. The pain in his eyes, the spasm of agony that suddenly bent him like a bow as the priests fought to bind him. His hand crushed her fingers, ground the bones together, but she knew that touching her gave him strength, so she suffered it.

Once he was made as comfortable as he could be, she drew up a chair to the side of the bed and sat there talking to him in a soft, crooning voice, and his eyes, bright with pleasure, never left her face. Moment after moment, hour after hour, helping him to cross the River, as he put it, still at the core of him a Roman.