Page 105 of Cleopatra

My brother was dead, and I reigned alone once more.

Chapter Twenty-One

42 BCE

was much changed after the loss of Ptolemy. Where Caesar’s death had broken me, Ptolemy’s had tainted me with regret. Guilt motivated me where misery had not. So I put down the wine and picked up my medicine bag once again.

My citizens were glad to see me return. And as the bright red pain of grief dulled to an incessant ache over the next two years, I spent more and more time in the hospital—healing others to comfort myself.

I heard from Antonius sporadically. His campaign, alongside Caesar’s false heir Octavian, to capture the leaders of Caesar’s assassination had found him engaged in war once more. I followed his pursuits with little interest.

You may question why I was not yearning for vengeance. I was. The fire of my anger burned like hot coals, never going out. But I was also practical. If Antonius and Octavian were to be victorious, then Caesar’s assassins would be killed and perhaps the heat behind my eyes would cool. However, if Cassius and Brutus dispatched Octavian, then Caesarion’s claim as Caesar’s heir would be undisputed.

My son would no longer be a threat and his feet could once more walk upon Roman soil.

“Another letter from Antonius,” Faunus said. We sat in one of the smaller staterooms. I had all but abandoned the throne room, reserving it only for formal occasions, my taste for opulence waning. I was well enough established as a monarch that I did not need to prove my wealth or status.

It also pained me to paint myself as I had done for Caesar. I was no longer Venus, and I was no longer sure who Cleopatra was.

“She is Egypt,” Antonius said when I voiced my inner doubts in the early days of our courtship.

“I am not sure if Egypt died with Caesar,” I admitted.

Antonius rested his hand on my breast and felt the rhythm of my heart. “Let yourself live, Egypt. Live.”

With these words he reinstated some of the pride I had lost. But we are not there yet in my tale: first I must be cast adrift.

—

“What says the letter from Antonius?” I said. I was at my desk, reading a recent addition to the new Library of Alexandria: On Pulses by Herophilus.

“He requests the return of the four Roman legions stationed here, for his fight against Cassius and Brutus.”

I waved a hand in the administrator’s direction. “Send them. This quest for vengeance is his battle to win. If he requires my help, I shall provide it.”

Faunus nodded. “I will send them with Commander Serapion.”

I had kept the governor close since his attempt to reveal my lack of divinity all those years ago. I had never voiced my suspicions that he was a sympathiser of Arsinoe’s. And though I knew my sister was exiled, I still watched him warily, despite his having shown me nothing but loyalty since that ill-fated day. Over time I rewarded him with the Cypriote fleet to foster his ignorance of my mistrust, but it was also to leash him closer to my court.

I did not think much about Serapion or Antonius for some time after that. Caesarion kept me busy. At five years old he had proved himself to be the perfect blend of me and Caesar. He could already speak in Latin, Greek and Egyptian, and Charmion was teaching him Arabic. When he wasn’t enjoying his studies, he was with his gelding, learning to master a chariot.

I found pleasure in seeing the wind tousle his curls as he turned around the paddock. Every time he practised, I would have my desk brought to the stables’ edge to watch him as I worked. The tunic he wore ended just above the ink mark of Horus on his thigh. His small body was strapped into the chariot’s frame, for I was cautious of his safety. I could not lose another love.

Still less another king.

Caesarion had been crowned as co-regent shortly after Ptolemy’s death. I wanted to quickly secure him as Pharaoh as he had already been stripped of his rights as Caesar’s heir.

“What troubles you?” Charmion, ever perceptive, asked. She took my pen from my hand and refilled its ink.

Papyrus pages lay fanned out in front of me. I had resumed my writings earlier that year, finding pleasure once more in sharing my remedies with the world. It was one of the ways I satisfied my curiosity with academia. I still courted the ghost of Cleopatra the scholar on quiet evenings, wondering what life would have been like without the crown. Instead, I held both wherever I could: crown and pen.

That my work did not survive into modernity vexes me more than I can express. I have seen how even fragments of poems penned by men have kept their lyrics through the centuries. Not only did my words disappear, but the very melody of them was distorted, leaving the barest of echoes. My science was reduced to love potions and aphrodisiacs, and I found myself once again debased by my sex.[*]

Charmion handed me back my pen but I waved it away. My thoughts were too troubled to continue. I watched Caesarion smile as his teacher corrected his grip on the reins. “He is entitled to more than just Egypt.”

“You cannot give him everything,” she said.

“Indeed I cannot; he has already lost his father,” I snapped.