Cleopatra Confesses (8 page)

On the thirty-ninth day the royal boat passes through a fertile area of luscious gardens thickly planted with date palms and pomegranates. Toward sunset we arrive at the sacred city of Abydos, revered throughout Egypt as the burial place of Osiris, brother-husband of the goddess Isis. The river is crowded with funeral barks carrying coffins of the dead. Everyone who does not have the money to pay for a pyramid wishes to be brought here for burial.

Monifa has often told me the story of Osiris, the god who was murdered by his brother, Seth. Seth dismembered Osiris’s body and flung the pieces far and wide over Egypt. After many years of searching, Osiris’s sister-wife, Isis, gathered up the pieces and made him whole again. Her magic must have been very powerful, for nine months later she gave birth to Osiris’s son, Horus.

Isis is the goddess I most admire and to whom I am devoted. Because I was born on her festival day, she is my patroness, and each morning I leave an offering at her shrine on the deck of the royal boat. The statue in her shrine portrays Isis with a headdress shaped like a throne. Father seems certain that one day I will become pharaoh and sit on the throne of Egypt. I cannot yet see how that will happen or how I am to learn to use my power well. But if it does come to pass that I rule Egypt, I know that Isis will guide me.

“Make me your incarnation, beloved Isis, the human embodiment of all your virtues,” I pray, and I leave a flower at her feet.

The royal boat remains moored in Abydos for five days. It is now the second month of Harvest. Many on the boat are restless
and eager to push on, but Father seems to be in no hurry. He continues to be welcomed by the priests at every temple he visits, always reassuring them that he supports their plans to build even larger temples. He is not eager to return to Alexandria and the problems waiting for him there. I had hoped that Father would have more time to spend with me on this journey, but he does not. I would rather be alone than in the company of my older sisters.

I keep up my studies with Demetrius, but I think of all the things I would be doing if I were back in Alexandria. I am used to more freedom than I can enjoy aboard the royal boat. I would return to the marketplace or to the great Library and the Museion. Or I might be attending a dance class with the daughters of the noble families who live in the royal quarter. I am told that boys and young men engage in vigorous exercise and gymnastics in their class.

“That sounds so much more interesting than anything we do,” I once remarked to Akantha, the niece of Antiochus, one of the girls in the class. “Since high-born women do not dance in public, I see little point in learning these dull routines. I would rather learn the kind of dancing the girls perform at our banquets.”

“You
would
want to do something like that, Cleopatra,” said Akantha with a disapproving scowl.

She did not come on this journey. On these long, empty days I would welcome even scowling Akantha for company.

Early one morning Captain Mshai prepares to enter a difficult passage on the river. I study his charts and see that the Nile follows a generally straight line flowing north through Egypt to
the sea, but now it makes a great eastern loop. Cliffs rear up sharply from the very edge of the water, and I mark them on my map. The captain orders the sails taken in, and the oarsmen get ready to maneuver the royal boat against the current through treacherous waters. Sudden gusts of wind sweep in and threaten to send us careening into one of the sandbars that lurk beneath the dark surface. I ignore the screeching birds that swoop out of holes in the rock cliff and dive at those of us who decide to stay on deck.

For an entire day the boat travels almost directly east before turning to the south. Finally, after another day and another bend, we enter the westward leg as the river turns back on itself. During this challenging stretch, the captain stops only when darkness falls and it is too dangerous to continue. There are no banquets, no music, no dancers. The air fairly hums with tension.

On the third day, just before the king’s boat completes the dangerous loop and resumes its southward journey, Demetrius touches my arm and points ahead. “There it is,” he says. “Thebes of the Hundred Gates.”

The ancient capital of Upper Egypt comes slowly into view, gigantic pylons and towering obelisks silhouetted against the lavender sky. “I have never seen anything like this,” I whisper.

“And you likely never will again,” Demetrius agrees.

P
ART
III

U
PPER
E
GYPT

Thebes and Dendara, in my eleventh year

Chapter 15

C
HARMION

After sunset on our fiftieth day on the Nile, we finally reach Thebes. The captain ties up the royal boat at the dock illuminated by torches for the pharaoh’s arrival. A group of musicians plays with spirit. Everyone is in a good mood, and after being on a boat, even a luxurious one, for almost two months, we are eager to spend time ashore. But the lavender twilight has faded and it is too dark to see much, even with the torches. The king decides that we will stay on the boat until morning and invites the musicians aboard to entertain us.

The next morning the welcoming speeches and ceremonies go on longer than usual. When I become queen, I will order these ceremonies to be much shorter, and I believe everyone will love me for it. Finally, King Ptolemy is escorted in a grand procession to Ipet-Isut, “the biggest religious complex in the whole world,” according to Demetrius, who has been stuffing
my head with information about this place for days. The construction of Ipet-Isut was begun by a pharaoh who lived fifteen hundred years ago. Since then more than thirty pharaohs have added to it.

“Now they will expect me to contribute another structure,” Father says with a grimace.

But I wonder—not for the first time—
How does he plan to pay for it?
Day after day, at every stop the royal boat has made on this journey, the local people sent delegations to complain to the king about their burdensome taxes, pointing out several years of poor harvests. If the farmers have no way to pay these taxes, then where will the money come from to build the new temples Father has promised? And what about the enormous sum of money he owes to the Roman moneylender? I long to ask Father these questions. If I am to become queen, I must understand these things, and I have a mind for them, as my sisters certainly do not. And yet, as the third daughter, and one who is not even yet a woman, I must wait for him to decide to tell me. It is hard for me to keep silent.

The grand procession moves slowly toward Ipet-Isut. Tryphaena and Berenike have made sure they are near the front, and Arsinoë is with them, but I prefer to take a place far to the back, almost at the end. When I think no one will notice, I try to slip away. Unfortunately, Monifa
does
notice and shakes a warning finger. Sometimes she is strict with me and sometimes indulgent. I am never sure which way it will be.

But now, with a complicit smile, she instructs me to put my royal jewelry in her basket so that I will not be recognized as a princess. We follow the grand procession at a little distance and make our way up a broad avenue between a double row of
ramheaded sphinxes. The avenue ends at a massive wall supporting gilded poles with streaming scarlet banners. We dawdle and lag behind while the rest of the procession disappears beyond the gate. We are free.

We are staring up at this wall, awestruck by its enormous size, when a young priest, his hairless head glistening with oil, steps forward. “Welcome to the temple of Amun,” he says with a bow, and offers to show it to us.

“Do you think he knows who I am?” I whisper to Monifa in Greek. She understands enough to communicate with me.

She shakes her head. That pleases me.

We follow the young priest through the gate in the thick wall—he calls it a pylon, explaining that it represents the horizon—and enter a huge open courtyard filled with gigantic stone columns and colossal statues.

“There is nothing like this in Alexandria,” Monifa whispers, squeezing my arm. “These must be the biggest statues in the world!”

I repeat what Demetrius told me: “You will never see anything like this again.”

The priest wants to be sure we miss nothing, but the sun is now directly overhead, and Monifa is hot and tired and needs to rest. I suggest that we find the marketplace, and the priest obligingly points the way.

The marketplace is smaller than Alexandria’s but just as crowded, and it rings with the sounds of bargaining, arguing, shouts, and laughter. The sun beats down mercilessly. Monifa settles gratefully on a low stone wall and drops a few coins in my hand, for as usual I have none. I hurry off to buy her a fruit drink. We both know that she should be serving me, but I
prefer it this way and she allows it. I bring her the drink and a sweet cake and promise to return soon.

“Do not go far, Cleopatra,” she warns, the kind of warning she always gives me.

“I won’t.” It is the kind of promise I rarely keep. “Please don’t worry,” I add, though I know she will. I know myself, too—how much I enjoy being on my own, away from the royal boat and the confinement of my royal rank.

I wander through the section where shoppers hover over sacks of dried chickpeas and lentils, spices brought overland from the East in donkey trains, jars of oil, heaps of onions, radishes, leeks, and lettuce, baskets of fresh eggs, piles of flatbread, and loaves of several shapes. Pungent smells of cooking drift through the dusty air.

I leave the food booths and stroll over to the vendors of clothing and jewelry. If I had enough money, I would buy a plain dress like the ones worn by local women. My dress of fine pleated linen marks me as a rich man’s daughter. I consider trading a little gold ring, the only jewelry I am still wearing, but that would make the vendors suspicious.

Then I recognize a girl kneeling before a large basket of shells under the watchful eye of a barefoot old man in a dirty robe. She is one of the dancers who perform at Father’s banquets. She glances up as I approach and leaps to her feet, bowing low. The old man stares at us and then slowly appears to realize that she and I are strangers in Thebes. Though he cannot guess I am the pharaoh’s daughter, he nearly topples over in his effort to show his respect.

I acknowledge their greetings and turn to the dancer. “I enjoy myself more if I appear to be like everyone else,” I tell her, speaking Egyptian.

She smiles broadly. Her skin is nut brown, and her teeth are even and white. “I understand,” she replies in Egyptian. “Unfortunately, mistress, you do not look like everyone else. Anyone can see that you are a princess! May I help you with something? Where are your servants? I thought you never went anywhere without them.”

“I’m not supposed to, but Monifa is tired and I persuaded her to let me go for a little while. The problem is that I have no money, so I can’t buy anything.”

“I have a little money,” the girl says. “Do you want some shells? I am buying them to make a hip belt, to wear when I dance. I have some colored beads”—she opens a small bag to show me—“and I can teach you how to make a hip belt for yourself, if you like. It will protect your fertility.”