Page 101 of Cleopatra

We were lounging in the gardens, my back against Caesar’s chest. I felt his laugh in my ribcage.

“Of course I was. I had been in peril so rarely. Had I been alone, know that I would have soiled my garments.”

“You would not!”

“No,” he admitted, “probably not, but know that I feared for my life.”

“How did you get free?”

“I told them who I was. Even then, I had made a name for myself. They ransomed me twenty talents.”

“Is that all?” I spoke in jest, but he took my words to heart.

“I told them to ransom me fifty at least.”

Bartering with pirates with a knife at his throat. That was the man Caesar was. He knew his worth, and the world was a poorer place without him in it.

It was Antonius who told me of Caesar’s fate. He said not a word, but I could read it on his face. His skin was wan, his eyes wild like those of the horse he had cantered in on.

Ptolemy’s prophecy had come to pass.

The sun lost all its warmth and I began to shiver.

“No,” I said as Antonius slipped from the sweat-covered beast and approached me.

“Pharaoh…” His voice was a shattered thing, barely a rasp.

“No,” I said again. “Do not say it.”

But I knew it in my heart: Caesar had passed to the next realm.

Charmion looked between us, concern weaving her brows together.

“He is gone, Cleopatra.” It was the first time he called me by my name, and not “Isis” or “Pharaoh.” I remember it starkly, for I focused on the shape it made of his mouth—anything to stop thinking on what he was saying. “Killed by conspirators fearful of his power.”

“Julius…” I heard a moan escape from low in my throat, like the sound of a deer struck by an arrow.

“Mama!” I turned. Caesarion held a stick larger than his small body. He thrust it forward as if lunging with a trident. “I’m a gladiator. Can I show Papa?”

My knees struck the ground and I began to sob. Charmion wrapped her arms around my waist but I shrugged her off.

“Take Caesarion away, take him away!” I said. I did not want my son to see me so broken, laid so low.

The cloudless sky pressed upon my back.

How will I ever stand again?

I would have lain there forever; let the worms eat my flesh, and the soil take my waters. Let grass push through my skin, and roots bind my bones.

But Antonius was there, his rough hands picking me up. He cradled me against his chest like a babe, and I let him.

“Show me the way to her chambers?” I heard him ask as if from a vast distance. I was inconsolable, my tears and my breath one and the same.

I felt softness beneath me, but I was overcome with paralysis.

Had I closed my eyes, or were they too swollen to open?

I do not know how much time passed before I eventually fell asleep.