Authors: Peter Joseph Swanson
Cleopatra became panicky. “It’s been awhile?”
He shrugged.
“It’s been since my brother snuck away. Why did she go away when he did?”
Mark said, “They have nothing to do with each other.”
“I suddenly had a feeling that they did.”
“Women’s intuition?”
Cleopatra couldn’t decide if she should agree or not.
Mark gestured toward the side door. “Maybe she didn’t go away but we just haven’t been talking to her so we lost track of her. She could be out in the garden right now. The party has spilled out into the garden, too. They say Octavian is drinking out there—he doesn’t want to drink with me. Whoever once said he and I were like brothers must have been drunk.”
“Caesar.”
“Oh, yes. Caesar said that. Well, yes then, we are like brothers. And you can hate your brother.”
Cleopatra shook with emotion.
“Don’t worry.” He pulled off her hat, breaking a few of the dozens of peacock feathers. “Relax.”
“Phaedra has vanished! I now realize it. I didn’t realize it all along because I wasn’t paying attention. I haven’t been paying attention. When people disappear we’re all expected to notice right away so we can do something about it. I lost my throne because I didn’t pay attention to my brother… that he grew up and would want what men want.”
Mark said, “Well, you got it back from him again. You won, in the end. Now it’s his turn to be on the run and let’s see how long that lasts. Then he can learn how to be a man as a soldier.”
Cleopatra insisted, “I lost my witch because I, likewise, wasn’t paying proper attention to others.”
“She’s not lost. She’s just not here.”
Cleopatra brooded.
He finally said, “Queens are selfish. So am I.” He winked.
“Being a queen doesn’t mean I have to also be a fool.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “We’ll find her. She didn’t grow wings and fly away. I swear by my sword she’s around somewhere. Let’s only think about ourselves tonight.”
“I only feel death.”
“You think she’s dead?”
Cleopatra rubbed her hands together. “I feel ill and I feel like I could die of it. And I feel she went away with my brother for some reason…”
Mark Antony drank the wine from her cup. “Well, I didn’t poison you just now. I’m your champion.”
“It’s a horrible feeling that’s been growing for some time…”
Mark fidgeted. “Then it’s just emotion. I hope the feeling passes. I was hoping we’d have fun tonight.”
“I couldn’t stand being touched right now.”
He looked out at voluptuous dancing women wearing nothing but holly wreaths on their heads. “Another hour and I’ll want the touch of anything and everything. Don’t tease me.”
She looked at him like he was appalling.
He ordered a servant to get a doctor.
~
Phaedra wandered the streets of Alexandria until she came to the largest of the several synagogues in the city, a massive double colonnade temple. Since the Jewish neighborhoods had their own opulent synagogues, this largest one became mostly a secular meeting place for artisans. That made the carnival environment easy for Phaedra to melt into. On outdoor steps, a group of actors in Greek masks were putting on a play. She listened.
“At the harbor is the royal ship,” said one.
“Run to the ship and escape before the witch attacks,” said the other.
“We know because we are Jews and we feel the witch in our temple,” said the first.
The crowd howled with laughter. Phaedra didn’t know what was funny about that so she turned to the man next to her and asked, “Can the Jews really feel a witch in their temple? Is that funny?”
He looked annoyed. “Why would you ask something like that?”
She felt cold. “Oh my Pegasus. Isn’t that what the actors just said?” She shivered. “Is the witch here now?”
He shook his head. “They’re telling the story of a farmer praying so he can cross the Nile without getting eaten by a crocodile. Why? Did you hear otherwise?”
She nodded, terrified.
He looked behind her. “Are you in distress? Who is after you?”
“Evil! Evil itself!”
He instructed, “Paint the blood of sacrifice on your door and wait for the Angel of Death to pass you by.”
She looked around. “I have no door! I have no home! I have nowhere to put the blood!”
The man responded, “When fleeing evil, don’t ever look back. Sympathy for the undeserving will turn you into a pillar of salt.”
Phaedra called out, “Circe? Is that you trying to warn me?” She said to the man, “My maidservant isn’t here, is she. You must think I’m as mad as a Persian.” Phaedra looked around, trying to ignore the false words still coming from the masks.
It seemed as if an actor was saying, “The witch is in the temple! Go to the harbor and sail back to Rome!” Phaedra knew it was deceitful. She ran from the synagogue.
In the streets of the adjacent neighborhoods, she lost her sense of direction, not able to decide where the palace was. She decided, “To the harbor! I’ll see the palace from the market!” In a street filled with merchants from India, she asked what direction the sea was at, and walked in that direction.
She heard the ghostly echo of Circe’s voice again. “No, no, oh no. Oh dum ditty! I feel we should go the other way.”
“What did you say?” She heard drums and saw a large idol of a god with an elephant head.
Some of the Indians were singing, “
Ganesha, the patron of arts and sciences and intellect and wisdom
.”
She heard a farther echo of Circe’s voice, “The other way!”
Phaedra yelled at the air, “What other way, what other way from where? I don’t know where I am!”
“Turn around!”
“Circe? I can’t hear you.” In an alley, Phaedra pushed through large hanging cloths. Cast upon a saffron yellow sheet she saw the shadow of Circe. When she pulled the sheet aside, no one was behind it. “I can’t hear you anymore. By the gods make yourself into a ghost that I can see with my eyes! Point the way!” Beyond the layers of hanging fabric, she left the other end of an alley and ran down a side street. She asked again where the harbor was and then ran to it, running towards the sound of terrible reverberations.
People around her also started running. She heard shouting, “Ships are on fire!” “Rome’s ships!” “Roman ships are burning!”
She followed. At the harbor, she saw six Roman war ships, side by side, ablaze fore to aft. The ships were heavily armed with artillery ballista to provide lethal salvoes. The many stored pots of burning pitch were now creating internal fireballs. The entire harbor roared with its thunder.
The crowd of gawkers grew so thick that Phaedra ran farther down the harbor.
Circe’s voice called out, “No! The other way!”
Phaedra said to the wind, “I’m going this way! Where am I going? Am I going back to Rome?”
Circe cried, “No, you’re being tricked. I’m being tricked!”
“How can you be tricked? You’re a ghost!”
“Tricked by a powerful witch!”
At the far side of the huge breakwater, bridging a small island near the coast, Phaedra saw a ship with a large wooden statue of a hawk at the front of it. She turned and ran the other way. Six strong palace guards grabbed her and took her aboard.
Chapter twelve
In her apartment hidden within inner walls of the palace, Sorceress Thrace watched visions in the smoke of her magic fire. She saw Phaedra being taken aboard the ship. She turned to Ptolemy. “She is on your ship now and Rome will not bother with it today. They wasted time looking within the royal harbor.”
“Burn all the Roman ships!”
“No. Rome now thinks they have an accident.”
“An accident with four ships?”
“Six. Their burning masts were too tall and fell over into other ships that were too close. They are lucky it stopped at that. Let them think that they are lucky, in the end.”
“Six ships are on fire! I have punched them in the face!”
She answered, “In the Battle of Ecnomus they lost two thousands ships. On top of that they lost three hundred ships and one hundred thousand men in a single storm off the coast of Camarina... and they still won that war. Do not play Rome’s game if you want to attack. When they lose they just send for reinforcements. If you are small pretend you are a poisonous snake not a loud elephant.”
“I feel like an elephant!”
She said, “Rome will not be content burning your palace, then. They will pull it down and toss every stone into the sea.”
He finally nodded that she was correct. “Yes, I must first just think of my new witch.”
Sorceress Thrace frowned. “That is not what I was thinking of. She will be more trouble than she is worth. You do not want to travel with her. That awful Roman woman should have just killed herself to leave you alone! When you get to your ship, toss her into the water and watch her drown!” Sorceress Thrace threw herbs into her fire to send out the curse. “I curse you to drown!”
He cautioned, “You’re not worried about her mirror spell?”
She smiled. “That idiot will never drown me.”
Ptolemy reminded her, “But she’s a witch.”
“You saw how easy it was to push her where I wanted her—where
you
wanted her. I led her easier than leading a dog to her master. She is such a weak undisciplined witch. It will be easy for you to kill her now.”
He stretched his arms. “I don’t want her dead.”
“She was sent to you by the magical forces out to destroy you!”
He smirked. “I know that.”
“It is treason! She must die!”
“I’ll toy with her like I toy with a kitten.”
Sorceress Thrace became strident. “She is a witch from your sister!”
Ptolemy said, “What a better trick than to steal my enemy’s army and make it my own.”
“It is plain your sister has nothing at all. She has been bluffing. As soon as Rome leaves, Cleopatra has nobody. She can be knocked off the throne with a feather!”
He laughed. “Phaedra was sent to stop me. I am not stopped!”
Sorceress Thrace scoffed, “That witch could not stop a rock.”
He smiled. “Yes, she’s so weak and for her it’s been only a hobby so I have nothing to fear. I’ve seen how she’s no harm to you or me. So stop thinking about her so much.”
Sorceress Thrace insisted, “She is terrible and I see doom! Stay away from her! Doom!”
Ptolemy shook his head. “That’s only your petty mundane jealously talking to you now.” He walked to a wall panel and pressed part of a Greek design to unlock it and push it open.
Sorceress Thrace begged, “Take me with you!”
“Stay here for now and make sure I arrive safely in Cairo. Keep the Romans busy here. Set some more mischievous fires. Sleep with a few generals and spread some plagues. Have fun with it.”
“But!”
“Then come to me later, after they’ve given up on me and have left back to Rome. I’ll return with a bigger army and will rule Egypt again. Egypt wants a man to rule—it will be easy to raise an army in Cairo.”
Sorceress Thrace cried, “That is a terrible idea! I must stay with you.”
“Why must you be at my side all the time?”
“You are not safe with that witch! I know what you want! You want a new witch! I am always a new witch! I have the magic of the phoenix bird! Does she have that? She will grow old! You will not want to look at that face of hers in a few years. No! You want me!”
“Don’t be atrocious.” He glared at his witch angrily and walked out of the room.
The magic smoke turned green and blew in Sorceress Thrace’s eyes, blinding her. As she rubbed at her eyes, she shouted, “No, no, it is not safe to leave without me!”
He passed through another secret door, entering a storage room where he’d had his sister’s things dumped. Ptolemy grabbed a gold cat statue. He said to it, “This’ll help pay for my new army.” He kissed its nose and tucked it under his arm as he hurried into another secret hallway that led out of the palace until it came up out of a hay chute in the stables.
~
Aboard his ship, after it launched up the Nile, Ptolemy had his men hold Phaedra down as he raped her. After he finished, he looked down into her face and said, “There. Now I feel better about you. Now you know your place. You are no longer a Roman woman. You are
my
woman. My servant! You should be honored. I wouldn’t let my last witch touch me. But then she was Sorceress Thrace. You know what that means?”
Phaedra said she didn’t.
He stepped away and tucked himself back into his loincloth. “She was from
Thrace
!”
“By the gods I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I’m not letting her touch me! She was from mountains where it’s weird. Time for a new witch. A better witch. A witch I can control! A witch I’m not afraid of all the time! You! You’ll become the greatest protector of kings the world has ever seen. And Rome will allow me my throne back. I am a bull elephant and Rome respects strength!”