The October Horse (11 page)

Little wonder then that Ptolemies like Auletes, denied the title of Pharaoh, lusted after it. For Alexandria was an entity entirely separate from Egypt; while the King and Queen took a goodly share of its profits in taxes, they did not own it or its assets, be they ships or glassworks or companies of merchants. Nor did they have title to the land on which it stood. Alexandria had been founded by Alexander the Great, who fancied himself a Greek, but was Macedonian through and through. The Interpreter, Recorder and Accountant collected all Alexandrian public income, and used much of it to feather their own nests, working through a system of privileges and perquisites that included the palace.

Veterans of Assyrian, Kushite and Persian dynasties before the arrival of Alexander the Great's marshal Ptolemy, the priests of Ptah in Memphis had come to an accommodation with Ptolemy and paid him Egypt's public purse on the condition that sufficient was spent on Egypt of Nilus to keep its people and temples thriving. If the Ptolemy were also Pharaoh, then he took the private income too. Except that it did not leave the treasury vaults in Memphis unless Pharaoh came in person to remove what he needed. Thus when Cleopatra had fled Alexandria, she didn't emulate her father by sailing out of the Great Harbor penniless; she went to Memphis and obtained the money to hire an army of mercenaries.

•      •      •

“Oh,” said Cleopatra, freed from the last of her regalia, “it weighs me down so!”

“It may wear you down, Daughter of Amun-Ra, but it buoyed you up in Caesar's eyes,” Cha'em said, tenderly smoothing her hair. “In Greek guise you're disappointing—Tyrian purple ill serves Pharaoh. When all this is over and your throne is assured, you must robe yourself as Pharaoh even in Alexandria.”

“Did I, the Alexandrians would tear me to pieces. You know how they loathe Egypt.”

“The answer to Rome lies with Pharaoh, not with Alexandria,” Cha'em said a little sharply. “Your first duty is to secure Egypt's autonomy once and for all, no matter how many Ptolemies left Egypt to Rome in their wills. Through Caesar you can do that, and Alexandria ought to be grateful. What is this city, except a parasite feeding off Egypt and Pharaoh?”

“Perhaps,” Cleopatra said thoughtfully, “all that is about to change, Cha'em. I know you've just arrived by boat, but walk down Royal Avenue and see what Caesar's done to the city. He's wrecked it, and I suspect that what he's done so far is only the beginning. The Alexandrians are devastated, but in a very angry way. They'll fight Caesar until they can't fight anymore, yet I know they can't win. When the day comes that tames them, things will change forever. I've read the commentaries Caesar wrote of his war in Gaul—very detached, very unemotional. But since I've met him, I understand them far better. Caesar gives latitude and will continue to give latitude, but if he is constantly rebuffed, he changes. Mercy and understanding no longer exist, he will go to any lengths to kill all opposition. No one of his kind has ever warred with the Alexandrians.” The strange eyes stared at Cha'em with some of Caesar's detachment. “When he is pushed to it, Caesar breaks spirits as well as backbones.”

Tach'a shivered. “Poor Alexandria!”

Her husband said nothing, too intent upon his welling joy. Were Alexandria utterly crushed, it would be to the advantage of Egypt— power would return to Memphis. Those years Cleopatra had spent in the temple of Ptah were paying off; witnessing Alexandria humbled and ravaged would not cause her any anguish.

“No word yet from Elephantine?” Pharaoh asked.

“It is too early, Daughter of Amun-Ra, but we have come to be with you when the news arrives, as is our duty,” Cha'em said. “You cannot come to Memphis at the moment, we know.”

“True,” Cleopatra said, and sighed. “Oh, how much I miss Ptah, Memphis and you!”

“But Caesar has married you,” Tach'a said, clasping her dear girl's hands. “You are quickened, I can tell.”

“Yes, I am quickened with a son, I know it.”

The two priests of Ptah exchanged a glance, well satisfied.

•      •      •

Yes, I am quickened with a boy, but Caesar does not love me. I loved him the moment I set eyes upon him—so tall, so fair, so godlike. That I hadn't expected, that he would look Osiris. Old and young at once, father and husband. Filled with power, majesty. But I am a duty to him, something he can do with his earthly life that leads him in a new direction. In the past he has loved. When he isn't aware that I watch him, his pain shows. So they must be gone, the women he loved. I know his daughter died in childbirth. I will not die in childbirth, the rulers of Egypt never do. Though he fears for me, mistaking my exterior for inner frailty. What there is of me is tested metal. I will live to be very old, as is fitting for Amun-Ra's Daughter. Caesar's son out of my body will be an old man before he can rule with his wife rather than his mother. He too will live to be very old, but he will not be the only child. Next I must have Caesar's daughter, so that our son can marry his full sister. After that, more sons and more daughters, all married to each other, all fertile.

They will found a new dynasty, the House of Ptolemy Caesar. The son I am carrying will build temples up and down the river, we will both be Pharaoh. See to the choosing of the Buchis Bull, the Apis Bull, be at the Elephantine Nilometer every year to read the Inundation. Egypt is going to enjoy the Cubits of Plenty for generations upon generations; while ever the House of Ptolemy Caesar exists, Egypt will know no want. But more than that. The Land of the Two Ladies, of the Sedge and Bee, will regain all its past glories and all its past territories—Syria, Cilicia, Cos, Chios, Cyprus and Cyrenaica. In this child lies Egypt's destiny, in his brothers and sisters a wealth of talent and genius.

•      •      •

So when, five days later, Cha'em told Cleopatra that Nilus was going to rise twenty-eight feet into the Cubits of Plenty, she wasn't at all surprised. Twenty-eight feet was the perfect Inundation, just as hers was the perfect child. The son of two Gods, Osiris and Isis: Horus, Haroeris.

The war in Alexandria raged on into November, but was confined to the west side of Royal Avenue. The Jews and Metics proved doughty allies, marshaled soldiers of their own and turned all their small metal shops and foundries into armaments factories. A serious matter for the Alexandrians of Macedonian and Greek ancestry, for in other days they had welcomed the sequestration of nasty, smelly activities like metalworking to the east end, where all the skilled metalworkers lived anyway. Grinding his teeth in anguish, the Interpreter was forced to spend some of the city's funds on the importation of weapons of war from Syria, and do what he could to encourage anyone on the western side with any metal skills to start forging swords and daggers.

Achillas attacked across that no-man's-land time and time again, to no effect; Caesar's soldiers repulsed the sallies with the ease of veterans bolstered by their growing hatred of Alexandrians.

Arsinoë and Ganymedes escaped Caesar's palace net early in November and arrived in the western city, where the girl donned cuirass, helmet and greaves, waved a sword and produced a spate of stirring oratory. Thus capturing everyone's attention for long enough to let Ganymedes enter Achillas's camp, where the canny eunuch murdered Achillas at once. A survivor, the Interpreter promptly made Arsinoë queen and promoted Ganymedes to the general's tent. A wise decision; Ganymedes was made for the job.

The new general walked down to the bridge across Canopic Avenue, ordered the oxen to be harnessed to the capstans controlling the sluice gates, and shut off the water supply to Delta and Epsilon Districts. Though Beta District and the Royal Enclosure were spared, Royal Avenue was not. Then, using an ingenious combination of human treadmills and the good old Archimedes' screw, he pumped salt water from the Cibotus into the pipes, sat back and waited.

It took two days of steadily more brackish water for the Romans, Jews and Metics to realize what was happening; then they panicked. Caesar was obliged to deal with the frenzy in person, which he did by lifting the paving in the middle of Royal Avenue and digging a deep hole. As soon as it filled up with fresh water, the crisis was over; soon paving was being lifted in every Delta and Epsilon street and enough wells appeared to resemble the efforts of an army of moles. Capped by an admiration for Caesar that raised him to the status of a demigod.

“We're sitting on limestone,” Caesar explained to Simeon and Cibyrus, “which always contains layers of fresh water because it's soft enough for underground streams to erode. After all, we're not very far from the world's biggest river.”

While waiting to see what effect salt water would have on Caesar, Ganymedes concentrated on artillery fire, lobbing flaming missiles into Royal Avenue as fast as his men could load their ballistas and catapults. But Caesar had a secret weapon: men specially trained to fire small engines called scorpions. These shot short, pointed wooden bolts the artificers made by the dozens from templates guaranteed to produce uniform flights. The flat roofs of Royal Avenue made excellent platforms for scorpions; Caesar ranged them behind wooden beams right down the length of Royal Avenue's western mansions. The ballista operators were exposed targets; a good scorpion man could plug his target in chest or side every time he fired a bolt. Ganymedes was forced to shield his men behind iron screens, which spoiled their aim.

•      •      •

Just after the middle of November the long-awaited Roman fleet arrived, though no one in Alexandria knew it; the winds were blowing so hard that the ships were driven miles to the west of the city. A skiff stole into the Great Harbor and made for the Royal Harbor when its crew spotted the General's scarlet flag flying from the main palace pediment. It bore messages from the legate in charge of the fleet, and a letter from Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus. Though the messages said that the fleet was desperate for water, Caesar sat down first to read Calvinus's note.

I am very sorry that it isn't possible to send you the Thirty-eighth Legion as well as the Thirty-seventh, but recent events in Pontus render that impossible. Pharnaces has landed at Amisus, and I am off with Sestius and the Thirty-eighth to see what I can do. The situation is very grim, Caesar. Though as yet I've only heard of the awful destruction, reports say that Pharnaces has upward of a hundred thousand men, all Skythians—formidable foes, if one can believe the memoranda of Pompeius Magnus.

What I am able to do for you is to send you my entire fleet of warships, as it seems unlikely that they will be needed in the campaign against the King of Cimmeria, who has brought no navy with him. The best of my bunch are the ten Rhodian triremes— fast, maneuverable and bronze-beaked. They come under the command of a man you know well—Euphranor, the best admiral this side of Gnaeus Pompeius. The other ten warships are Pontic quinqueremes, very big and strong, though not speedy. I have also tricked out twenty transports as war vessels—rigged their bows with oaken beaks and added extra oar banks. I have no idea why I have a feeling that you're in need of a war fleet, but I do all the same. Of course, since you're now going to Africa Province, I daresay you'll run into Gnaeus Pompeius and his fleets soon enough. The latest news on that front is that the Republicans are definitely gathering there for another try. It is terrible to hear what the Egyptians did to Pompeius Magnus.

The Thirty-seventh comes with plenty of good artillery, and I thought you might be in need of provisions, as we hear that Egypt is in famine. I've loaded up forty merchantmen with wheat, chickpea, oil, bacon, and some very nice dried beans, perfect for bean-and-dumpling soup. There are some barrels of salt pork for the soup.

I've also commissioned Mithridates of Pergamum to round up at least another legion of troops for you—thank you for the imperium maius, it enabled me to waive the stipulations of our treaty. Just when he'll turn up in Alexandria is in the lap of the gods, but he's a good fellow, so I'm sure he'll be hurrying. He'll be marching, not sailing, by the way. We are too short of transports. If he misses you, he can commandeer transports in Alexandria to follow you to Africa Province.

My next letter will be from Pontus. By the by, I left Marcus Brutus governing Cilicia—under strict orders to concentrate on troop recruitment and training rather than on debt collection.

“I think,” said Caesar to Rufrius as he burned this missive, “that we'll pull a little wool over Ganymedes's eyes. Let's load every empty water barrel we can find aboard our transports, and take a little sea voyage to the west. We'll create as much fuss as we can—who knows? Ganymedes might gain the impression that his saltwater trick has worked, and Caesar is quitting the city with all his men except the cavalry, whom he has callously abandoned to their fate.”

At first this was exactly what Ganymedes thought, but a detachment of his cavalry, scouting west of the city, stumbled upon a party of Caesar's legionaries wandering on the shore. They seemed nice, if naive, Romans; captured, they told the squadron leader that Caesar hadn't sailed away, he was just getting fresh water at the spring. Too eager to get back to Ganymedes and tell him this news, the horsemen galloped off, leaving their erstwhile prisoners to return to Caesar.

“What we forgot to tell them,” said their junior centurion to Rufrius, “was that we're really here to meet a new fleet and a whole lot of warships. They don't know about that.”

“We've got Ganymedes!” Caesar cried when Rufrius reported. “Our eunuch friend will have his navy in the roads off the Eunostus Harbor to waylay thirty-five humble transports returning loaded with fresh water. Sitting ducks for the Alexandrians ibises, eh? Where's Euphranor?”

Had the day been less advanced, the Alexandrian war might have ended there and then. Ganymedes had forty quinqueremes and quadriremes lying in ambush off the Eunostus Harbor when Caesar's transports hove in view, all rowing against the wind. Not too difficult a task with empty ships. Then, as the Alexandrians moved in for the kill, ten Rhodians, ten Pontics and twenty converted transports emerged from behind Caesar's fleet, rowing at ramming speed. With only two and a half hours of daylight left, the victory couldn't be complete, but the damage Ganymedes sustained was severe: one quadrireme and its marines captured, one sunk, two more disabled and their marines killed to a man. Caesar's warships were unhurt.

At dawn on the following day the troop transports and food ships belonging to the Thirty-seventh Legion sailed into the Great Harbor. Caesar wasn't out of boiling water yet, but he had successfully fought a defensive war against huge odds until these urgently needed reinforcements arrived. Now he also had 5,000 ex-Republican veteran soldiers, 1,000 noncombatants, and a war fleet commanded by Euphranor. As well as stacks of proper legionary food. How the men loathed Alexandrian rations! Especially oil made from sesame, pumpkin or croton seeds.

“I'll take Pharos Isle,” Caesar announced.

Relatively easy; Ganymedes wasn't willing to expend any of his trained personnel to defend the island, though its inhabitants resisted the Romans bitterly. In the end, to no avail.

Rather than waste his resources on Pharos, Ganymedes concentrated on marshaling every ship he could put in the water; he was convinced that the answer to Alexandria's dilemma was a big victory at sea. Potheinus was sending information from the palace daily, though neither Caesar nor Ganymedes himself had told the Lord High Chamberlain that Achillas was dead; Ganymedes knew that did Potheinus know who was in command, his reports might dry up.

•      •      •

At the beginning of December, Ganymedes lost his informant in the palace.

“I can't permit any hint of my next move to reach Ganymedes, so Potheinus must die,” said Caesar to Cleopatra. “Do you object to that?”

She blinked. “Not in the least.”

“Well, I thought it polite to ask, my dear. He's your Lord High Chamberlain, after all. You might be running out of eunuchs.”

“I have plenty of eunuchs, and will appoint Apollodorus.”

Their time together was limited to an hour here and an hour there; Caesar never slept in the palace, or dined with her. All his energies were devoted to the war, an interminable business thanks to Caesar's lack of numbers. She hadn't told him yet about the baby growing in her womb. Time for that when he was less preoccupied. She wanted him to glow, not glower.

“Let me deal with Potheinus,” she said now.

“As long as you don't torture him. A quick, clean death.”

Her face darkened. “He deserves to suffer,” she growled.

“According to your lights, definitely. But while I command, he gets a knife up under the ribs on the left side. I could flog and behead, but that's a ceremony I don't have time to conduct.”

So Potheinus died with a knife up under his ribs on the left side, as ordered. What Cleopatra didn't bother to tell Caesar was that she showed Potheinus the knife a full two days before it was used. Potheinus did a lot of weeping, wailing and begging for his life in those two days.

•      •      •

The naval battle came on shortly into December. Caesar put his ships just seaward of the shoals outside the Eunostus Harbor without a center; the ten Rhodians on his right, the ten Pontics on his left, and a gap of two thousand feet between them in which to maneuver. His twenty converted transports lay well behind the gap. The strategy was his, the execution Euphranor's, and the preparations before the first galley left its moorings meticulously detailed. Each of his reserve vessels knew exactly which ship of the line it was to replace, each legate and tribune knew precisely what his duties were, every century of legionaries knew which corvus it would use to board an enemy ship, and Caesar himself visited every unit with cheery words and a crisp summary of what he intended to achieve. Long experience had shown him that trained and experienced ranker soldiers could often take matters into their own hands and wrest victory from defeat if they too had been told exactly what the General planned, so he always kept his rankers informed.

The corvus, a wooden gangway equipped with an iron hook under its far end, was a Roman invention dating back to the wars against Carthage, a naval power far more skilled than any Roman admiral of that time. But the new device turned a sea battle into a land one, and Rome had no peer on land. The moment the corvus plunked down on the deck of an enemy ship, the hook married it to the enemy ship and let Roman troops pour aboard.

Ganymedes arranged the twenty-two biggest and best of his warships in a straight line facing Caesar's gap, with twenty-two more behind them, and beyond this second line a great many undecked pinnaces and biremes. These last two kinds were not to fight; each held a small catapult to fire incendiary missiles.

The tricky part of the operation concerned the shoals and reefs; whichever side advanced first was the most at risk of being cut off and forced on to the rocks. While Ganymedes hung back, hesitating, Euphranor fearlessly rowed his vessels into the passage and skimmed past the hazards to engage. His leading ships were immediately surrounded, but the Rhodians were brilliant on the sea; no matter how he tried to manipulate his own clumsier galleys, Ganymedes couldn't manage to sink, or board, or even disable any of the Rhodians. When the Pontics followed the Rhodians in, disaster struck for Ganymedes, his fleet now in complete disorder and at Caesar's mercy—a quality Caesar wasn't famous for in battle.

By the time dusk broke the hostilities off, the Romans had captured a bireme and a quinquereme with all their marines and oarsmen, sunk three quinqueremes, and badly damaged a score of other Alexandrian ships, which limped back to the Cibotus and left Caesar in command of the Eunostus Harbor. The Romans incurred no losses whatsoever.

Now remained the Heptastadion mole and the Cibotus, heavily fortified and manned. At the Pharos end of the mole the Romans dug themselves in, but the Cibotus end was a different matter. Caesar's greatest handicap was the narrowness of the Heptastadion, which didn't permit more than twelve hundred men a foothold, and so few men were not enough to storm the Alexandrian defenses.