"Here you will be Pharaoh for eternity," I said to Caesarion. "You will always be young and handsome, always be offering gladsome gifts to the gods."
Art allows us to do that, while life hurries us on to our crumbling ends.
* * *
We had several events to celebrate. First, there was Caesarion's tenth birthday. Then there was the sudden marriage of Olympos to a quiet, even-tempered woman with a bent for scholarly study. There was the welcome news from Epaphroditus that our harvests had exceeded expectations--owing to a combination of a good Nile and freshly dredged canals--and our exports of glass and papyrus were booming. My rebuilt navy was almost complete, with two hundred new ships. Ambassadors from all over the east were flocking to us, courting us. I had even been able to issue new coinage with increased silver content. I had a pile of them on the table, as a proud display. Egypt was not only surviving, she was thriving.
Mardian picked one up and looked at it appreciatively. "There is no weight so pleasing as a heavy silver coin--unless it's a heavy gold one!" He was finely arrayed in a reworked silk robe, and thick gold armlets gleamed on his forearms.
"Perhaps you'd like to contribute your armlets to be melted down," I said, eyeing them.
He laughed and crossed his arms to shield them. "Never!"
Epaphroditus took one of the coins and examined it. "We must be the envy of the Romans," he said. "Lately they have had to debase their coinage, since the menace of Sextus so threatens their food supply--indeed, while he ranges unchecked, their whole economy trembles in the balance."
"Even Antony has felt the pinch," said Mardian. "Far away from Rome, he too has had to debase his coinage."
So Octavia's face would beam out from a coin that was more copper than silver? Pity.
I put my hands over my own coins possessively. If Egypt was strong and prosperous, it was because of my policies and the good ministers I had.
"Ah! The bridegroom!" I saluted Olympos as he arrived. "We all congratulate you."
It seemed odd to me that he was now married, the first of my inner attendants to be so. Certainly I had urged it on him for years, yet now that it had happened I found myself wondering if his wife would be worthy of him, would understand him. I hoped she was not as lost in her manuscripts as some women were in the kitchen. One extreme was as bad as the other. I remembered Olympos saying once, "There is only one thing more tedious than a stupid person, and that is a pedantic one."
"Yes, I have entered the blessed realm," he said. As a joke? "Come, give me some wine!"
"Because marriage is such thirsty work?" asked Mardian archly.
"You said it, not I," said Olympos, taking a cup and draining it. It occurred to me that although Olympos knew an unseemly amount about that side of my own life, I would never know about his. He would never share it with me, as I was forced to share mine with him: a strange privilege of physicians. That did not stop my curiosity, though.
"Is Dorcas to join us today?" I asked. I had yet to see her.
"No, she is at the Library. Besides, you didn't invite her."
"That's her imagination. Of course the invitation was for both of you."
"I will tell her. Later."
I wondered if he had not wanted to bring her. But all that would become apparent in time. Everything does.
"I am happy to be surrounded with all that a queen could want," I said loudly, to get their attention. "In this I am rich. I have the best and most loyal ministers in the world, and a son of whom any mother would be proud, any queen wish to succeed her." Caesarion first beamed, then blushed. "Pray, let us rejoice with one another." I nodded for the servers to bring around the pitchers of wine and platters of delicacies.
At the first opportunity, Mardian whispered to me, "Some Parthians have come, asking for an alliance."
"Are they official ambassadors, or private citizens?" I asked.
"Citizens," said Mardian. "They say they were sent to take a reading, and if the answer is favorable, ambassadors will follow with a formal offer."
"Parthia!" I said. "How puzzling! Do you think they have come to spy, because they mean to attack us next?" They were too far away to bother with alliances, I thought, but not too far away to harbor ideas of conquest.
"No, I think they are on the defensive against the expected Roman attack, and are scratching around for help. Perhaps they see it as black and white: Rome, the west, against the east. Many people do. Are they wrong?"
"Perhaps not." Perhaps it was really that simple. Romans, the west, would keep expanding eastward until they dashed themselves against some stone-- the Parthians? the Indians? How far would they roll, like ocean breakers, until they finally hit a barrier?
"Do you want to grant them an audience? Or shall I send them on their way?" he asked.
I was tempted. In certain moments I had toyed with the idea of an eastern alliance. The Kandake had offered one. It had an allure to it. We could band together with Nubia, with Arabia, with Parthia, Media, perhaps even Hindu Kush, and make a stand against the Romans.
But in the cold light of reason, it did not hold up. Egypt was too far west herself, cut off from those other lands by a ring of Roman provinces: by Syria, Asia, Pontus, and all the half-digested client kingdoms, like Judaea and Armenia. We were isolated, forced to deal directly with the Romans, make accommodation with them.
"Send them on their way," I said. "Hear their proposals first. Ascertain their chances against the Romans. Find out their military situation. Then send them back to Phraaspa or Ecbatana or Susa or whichever city they came from."
"Ecbatana, I believe." He adjusted his left armlet. "This is the wisest course. Keep aloof. Make no alliances. Make no promises."
"How easily you seem to have forgotten," I said. "We are already in an alliance. We are Friend and Ally of the Roman People."
He shrugged, as if it were of no moment.
"I keep my word," I said. "If it is to be broken, it must be broken by the other side." It was a point of honor with me--quaint, perhaps foolish, but it was my own personal code. Why, then, did I deride Antony for his loyalty to the Triumvirate?
Because, I answered myself, you cannot keep faith with a faithless person, and Octavian is faithless. Except to his own ambition.
When Octavian had first returned to Rome, he had declared his intentions openly: "May I succeed in attaining the honors and position of my father, to which I am entitled." People laughed, or ignored it. How blind!
Yes, I would keep my alliance with Rome, but with both eyes open. And it was really an alliance with Caesar and with Antony with which I kept faith.
* * *
"Tell your tale." Mardian prodded the men forward. He had brought them into my audience hall, where they cowered in a group. Hesitantly they inched toward me.
"Come, come, closer. Do not be afraid," Mardian urged them.
"Now, what is it you wish to tell me?" I asked.
"We--your dockmaster said you would wish to be informed personally," one man said.
"About what?"
"I am--I was--captain of one of the grain transports. We carry a thousand tons of wheat to Rome this time of year. We were attacked just outside Sicily--despoiled of not only our cargo, but our ship as well! I must tell you, such an act of piracy, upon such a huge ship, is unprecedented! Sextus rules the sea. Nothing is safe between here and Rome."
"Your ship is gone?"
"Yes, taken from me. There was nothing I could do to prevent it."
"Did you not have soldiers aboard?"
"Yes, a few, but grain transports cannot provide quarters for many men." He sighed. "All that investment--my family's entire estate--gone."
"I will repay you," I assured him. "But give me more information. From what you say, Rome will be starved out."
"It looks likely. When Sextus--for I beheld him face-to-face--let me free, he told me that Octavian had sent for help from Antony. 'But there's no help against me. I smashed him once and I'll smash him again, no m
atter how many ships he gets from Antony. The noose will tighten around his neck until he'll beg for mercy.' That's what he said, Your Majesty. The very words."
"He has sent for help to Antony?"
"So Sextus said. He laughed about it, saying that it would harm both of them. Antony would have to postpone his attack on Parthia, and Octavian would only reveal his weakness, making the Romans more discontented with him."
"It is hard to see what Sextus wants--other than to spoil the fortunes of others." He seemed to have no greater goal or calling. What a sad destiny for the last son of Pompey the Great.
"We were able to beg transport home on another merchant vessel, in exchange for seamen's duties," said another man. "And the captain of this ship told us that Agrippa has taken charge of the war against Sextus, and is engaged in secret preparations. He did not know anything about them, beyond the fact that they involved some vast engineering feat."
Agrippa--Octavian's boyhood friend, now his favorite general. I wondered what "secret" measures he could be invoking against Sextus.
"Well," I finally said, "I grieve with you for your losses, and will try to make them good. We are not at war, and there is no reason why you should suffer the pains of war."
After they left, I could not keep a small smile off my face. Octavian was floundering; he had been forced to call upon Antony for help.
It took several months for all the pieces of the mosaic to fall into place. Here I arrange them to form the picture of what happened next. A short sketch will suffice.
Antony, obedient to the call, set out for Tarentum, whence Octavian had summoned him in a panic. He brought three hundred ships. To his surprise, Octavian did not meet him. It seems the would-be Caesar had had second thoughts, echoing the first ones of Sextus: namely, that to call for outside help revealed his own weakness. He preferred to bank on Agrippa and his secret plans; he did not wish to share any glory with Antony.
Antony, furious with Octavian, was ready to break with him at last, but in the end Octavia acted as a mediator between them. She wept and cajoled, saying she would be the most miserable of women, should there be a falling-out between the two people dearest to her: her brother and her husband. The two men met reluctantly, and yet another treaty was forged: the Treaty of Tarentum. It renewed the Triumvirate--which had technically expired--for another five years. Antony was to yield two squadrons--one hundred twenty ships--for the war against Sextus. At some vague later date, Octavian would repay him with twenty thousand men for the war against the Parthians. Antony sailed away, leaving the ships behind, but with no promised soldiers. The rendezvous with Octavian had eaten up the better part of the summer, costing him another year's setback in launching the Parthian attack. Thus this treaty, like all the others with Octavian, lessened Antony's power. He took his leave, fuming.
* * *
It was very late. I was reading well past my usual time to sleep. I lay on my couch, a bolster under my head, my feet covered with a light blanket. The lamps guttered in the breeze coming through the window, beginning to gather force for the coming autumn. It was a night for ghosts, a night when the sea below seemed to moan and whisper.
At first I was not sure I heard a knock. It was too late for a knock. But it sounded again. I rose and said, "Enter."
Mardian stepped in, his bulk draped in a shawl. "Forgive me," he said. "But I thought you would want to hear this news immediately. Antony has sent Octavia back to Rome. On his voyage back east, he got as far as the island of Corcyra, when he suddenly said she belonged back in Rome. And he sent her packing on the next ship."
"He must have had some colorable reason," I said.
"Well, she is pregnant," said Mardian. "But he knew that before he set sail with her. He could have left her in Italy to begin with. Evidently he changed his mind on the voyage." He stood there looking at me for what seemed a very long time, his eyes holding mine. "You know he will send for you. What will you do?"
Had I been less than honest to myself and to Mardian, I would have given a proud, noncommittal answer. Instead I just told the truth. "I don't know."
lhad no illusions about what would happen if I saw him. I did not even bother to deny it to myself. I was very weak where he was concerned--weak as regards my person, not my country's interests.
Still, Mardian did not turn his gaze away.
I asked, "Do you hate him, as Olympos does?"
"Not if you love him. Do you?"
I--I did love him. But much has happened to us since those days. I fear neither of us is what we were then--we are scarred, both of us, and older. He has made decisions that I deplore; doubtless I have done likewise. What changes people, changes love."
Mardian rocked on his heels a bit. "A properly Alexandrian answer-- convoluted, artificial, clever."
"I am afraid to say either yes or no, for either of them would be unwelcome to me," I said.
"Then I leave you, dearest Queen, to your own thoughts for the rest of the night." Bowing, he opened the doors and glided away, moving very gracefully.
My thoughts for the rest of the night! I did not look forward to having hours alone to dwell on Mardian's news. I knew that any hope of sleep was gone, yet I really did not wish to substitute soul-searching for it.
I made ready for bed, as if I expected it to be a normal night, hoping to trick Morpheus, the god of sleep, luring him to my bed. I would attire myself in the sheerest night dress, rub my temples with oil of lily, which had both a beguiling and soporific odor--beguiling for Morpheus, soporific for me. I brushed my hair, pretending that I was Iras--whom I would not call, as I did not wish to talk--feeling it and touching it as a foreign thing. I made sure that fresh air was blowing into the chamber, and kept one oil lamp burning. Then I lay down, and waited.
I stretched my feet out, covering my legs with a light blanket, forbidding myself to think on any one thing in particular. I would force myself to picture the harbor, count the masts of the ships tied up there. That was usually effective.
But tonight, of course, the thought of ships made me think of Antony sending Octavia back on a ship. She must even now be only halfway back to Rome; I knew of her dismissal before Octavian would. But what did it mean, really? If Antony was preparing for his Parthian war, perhaps he reasoned that since he would be away for months, it was best for her to return to Rome to be with their passel of children and stepchildren--Antony's three and Octavia's three, plus their own. In fact, she might well have been the one to say she preferred to return to their children, even if he asked her to wait in Athens.
I sighed and turned over. My feet tangled in the blanket and I threw it off. What was it that Mardian had said? He suddenly said she belonged back in Rome. And he sent her packing on the next ship. But doubtless that was his interpretation. There could be perfectly respectable reasons why Octavia had left his side. Although she never had in the three years they had been together. . . . Antony had got away--why did I insist on using that term?-- only once, when he besieged Samasota with Bassus. The rest of the time they had been tethered to each other's company.
Now my side was uncomfortable and I twisted onto my stomach. Oh, let me sleep! It was I who was tethered--to the bed, shackled, unable to find a position that suited me, unable to sleep, unable to get up and do anything else--unable, above all, to stop thinking.
The cool air flowed over my back, which was sweaty. I had worked myself up into a state of agitation. The truth was I did not want my world disturbed, dry and ordered as it was. I ran it well, and it repaid me handsomely. Nights like tonight--restive, hungry, questioning--came to me only rarely, and were a small price to pay for my lack of an intimate companion. Nights could be like this, but the days were mine entirely. I deferred to no one, never had to compromise my plans or accommodate anyone's quirks or demands. I had quite got used to it, and would be loath to give it up.
I turned over again. Was there no way to find rest? The bed, and the bedding, felt like an instrument of torture. I had wrinkled
and twisted the covers as badly as a spinning crocodile caught in them.
You know he will send for you. What will you do?
.
HERE ENDS THE FIFTH SCROLL.
Chapter 54.
THE SIXTH SCROLL
I stood on the very edge of the shaded terrace of my quarters in the palace at Antioch, looking out over the river Orontes, which flowed directly beneath. Before me stretched a wide, flat, fertile plain to the distant seashore. The capital of the Seleucid dynasty, the once-great rival of the Ptolemies: It was not so fine as Alexandria, but then nothing was.
The Seleucids had gone now, vanquished by the Romans, their land turned into a province by Pompey--an object lesson for me. But they had never had my opportunities to hand: no Roman leaders with amorous proclivities passing through, no queens of the right age and temperament. We use what we have, and I had been blessed indeed by what fate had sent my way.
We Ptolemies had held this city briefly; my ancestor Ptolemy III had conquered this territory, all the way up to the Euphrates, and almost to India. Now I might be able to regain by personal influence what they had failed to keep by war.
A cool breeze from the sea was sweeping across the plain; Antioch was renowned for its pleasant setting. On the other side of the city glowered the tall peak of Mount Silpius, and in early morning its ragged shadow lay across the streets. I could see the villas of the wealthy built into the side of the mountain, spots of white against the deep green of the forested slopes. Yes, a supremely agreeable spot.