Page 130 of Cleopatra

He tilted his head towards my touch. “I fear I have underestimated his popularity. The Republic rises against me.”

“Reconciliation is the only way.” As much as I wanted Octavian dispatched and all threat to Caesarion’s legitimacy vanquished, I knew that now was not the right time.

“I have thought on this, but there is little I can do from here.”

“And that is why you are going to return to Rome,” I said firmly.

Antonius shook his head, kneeling before me and resting his head on my swollen stomach.

“I will not.”

“You must,” I said. Tears began to seep from my eyes. “And you must marry Octavian’s sister.”

“What?” he exclaimed.

I had thought of the plan that evening. It was the only way to protect Egypt from Octavian’s wrath.

I sense you furrowing your brow, as if to say, “You were the one who forced him into Octavia’s arms?”

Grant me grace. There was little I could control in Rome to guide my own fate. But this I could steer. So, I reached the heartrending conclusion that Antonius must be wed.

“Octavia is recently widowed, is she not?” I pressed.

“Yes, but—”

“Bind yourself to your enemies so you can watch them more closely.”

Antonius was crying now too, his sobs muffled against my flesh. Our flesh, that grew within me.

“I cannot, Cleopatra. I cannot do that.”

I tilted his head upwards, so he could look into my eyes and see the depth of my conviction. “I know what we share; it is blood, it is bone, it is breath.”

These words remain as crisp as a fallen leaf in my memory; even in death they keep their form.

“Nothing can break us,” I continued. “Not even another marriage.”

Antonius stood, colour coming back into his cheeks. “I will go on one condition.”

I laughed. “Not another wager.”

Antonius did not smile. He was watching me intensely. “No wager. Only a promise. Marry me first. Marry me here, beneath the gods of Egypt. Then I will do what must be done in Rome.”

Tears fell down my cheeks once more as I felt my children move beneath my skin under the light of their father’s love.

I nodded and Antonius embraced me.

—

We were wed the next day in the Temple of Isis. We did not announce our union to the world, for what did the world need to know of it?

That morning, I donned my most precious crown. It bore a likeness to Isis’s golden horns, but in place of the solar disc sat a cluster of pearls. Beneath it I wore a coiled wig of gold thread, decorated with shells and gold beads. My dress, I’d had made by Apollodorus. It was voluminous enough to cover my swelling stomach but still cut in the knotted style of the goddess.

As I came out to greet Antonius at the temple, I smiled. He had dressed as Dionysus, with an ivy wreath around his long hair and a panther skin over his shoulders.

He bowed low when he saw me.

“Isis,” he greeted me.