Page 106 of Cleopatra

I looked away from Caesarion before I fell once more into the chasm of my own grief. It had already taken me so very long to climb out. “I seek simply to give him what he is due,” I said, more gently.

“Octavian is still supported by Rome?” Charmion asked.

“And Marcus,” I said. I felt great bitterness over this: I had thought our friendship and his fealty to Caesar would see him hold true to my son’s legacy.

“And Caesar’s assassins?”

“Will soon be dead. The battle commences in Philippi. I have sent troops with Serapion to aid the cause.”

“It will be a relief to see Caesar’s killers brought to justice.”

Caesarion screamed and I jolted, ready to run to him. I saw his body bloodied and broken in my mind’s eye before I focused and saw that he was only laughing, his gelding nibbling his hand.

I released a slow breath. “There will be no relief. So many others had a hand in Julius’s death. They may not all have held the knife, but their ignorance of the plot eased the blade’s path.”

Charmion reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Justice will be dealt, in this life or the next.”

Comforted by her touch, I brought our joined hands up to my lips. “I never thanked you, Charmion.”

“For what?”

“For being by my side during these last few years. It has not always been easy, but having you with me has eased some of my torment.”

With her free hand she pressed three fingers to the pulse at my neck. Then she invoked our childhood mantra: “One for the past and the happy years well spent, one for the present and the patience we extend, one for the future and the love that never ends.”

I laughed, and realised that it had been some time since my face had stretched the muscles of a smile.

It did not last long.

“Pharaoh!” Faunus was running across the paddock, clutching a scroll, his bare feet kicking up dust and his eyes wide.

“What is it?” I did not rise to his panic, as everyone I loved was in my sights.

“Serapion,” he said as he reached us. “He has taken the legions we sent to Antonius to aid his enemy.”

“You mean to say that Cassius and Brutus are to benefit from my fleet?”

“Yes—Serapion has abandoned your orders.”

It had been a risk sending him, I knew this. But this betrayal was greater than even I might have anticipated.

I thought back to Arsinoe and the bloodied footprints she had left as she had walked down the temple steps in Rome. I had hoped that was the last I would see of her. But now I think of it as a warning I did not heed.

She walked through my life still, sullying it.

But how would I ever prove it was her?

I felt a surge of fury. “Go to his estate and bring me his family in chains,” I said. “For every day he refuses my summons I will remove a finger from his children’s hands.”

Charmion gasped.

“Is it necessary to be so cruel?” she asked. She rarely spoke out against my orders so brazenly: if she had any issue with a ruling, we would discuss it in the solitude of my chambers, so as not to undermine me in public.

For this reason I considered her words carefully, because I knew she thought them significant.

“Strength can often be mistaken for cruelty,” I said eventually.

I didn’t recall at the time that I was echoing Arsinoe’s words from all those years earlier. Back then, I had thought her immaturity made her merciless. But now the years had brought me wisdom. There were no boons for mercy, no blessings from the gods for my morality.