Page 145 of Cleopatra

“Why do you cry, Cleo?” she said softly, lest the children hear. “Why do you act as though this is the last time you will see them?”

“It may be the last time,” I admitted. That morning, I had awoken with dread in the pit of my stomach. Despite the odds being in our favour, I had a certainty that we would lose this fight with Octavian. I had not brought my doubts to Antonius, only to Charmion.

She reached for me now, her hand gripping my wrist tightly, almost painfully. “Do not let it be. I will not abide you dying without me by your side.”

“Charmion…”

She silenced me with a kiss. Since Ahmose’s death, her devotion to me had become absolute, and I basked in her love. “I will see you soon,” she said firmly.

—

They departed the next day, leaving Antonius and me to cross the ocean in the opposite direction, docking our fleet in the Ambracian Gulf near Actium.

I’d heard tales of the land’s luscious greenery. And in my mind, I sailed to the Land of Punt.

It was the hakawati who had first told me about the far-off isle of Punt, sparking my imagination for years to come. The story spoke of a shipwrecked sailor who awoke in a land of abundance, reigned solely by a gargantuan gold snake known only as the Lord of Punt.

When I struggled to sleep, Charmion and I used to conjure up the fantastical island, hissing into the darkness as if we were the lord of the land.

“The sand is made of gemstones.”

“And the trees’ boughs are heavy with fruit.”

“And fowl! Plump for roasting.”

“With crystal rivers to bathe in.”

“Don’t forget the pools filled with wine to drink.”

But Actium was not that. The only thing in abundance were the biting insects.

“The air is sticky,” I complained, swatting at a fly.

“The summer season is upon us,” Antonius said, mopping his brow. “Our infantry will suffer for it.”

I looked to the coastline. Actium was a sea of tents and canopies. The swampland surrounding the Ambracian Gulf had proven a difficult campsite; though it was green with ferns and mallows, the mud pulled at the foundations of our fortifications.

Soldiers dotted the landscape like buds on a trailing plant, the feathered plumes of our allies, in shades of red, purple, blue and green, brightening the land like flowers in bloom.

With my navy at my back, and the infantry ahead of me, I should have felt safe, powerful even. But the dread had not eased; instead it had deepened after a Roman commander had spotted swallows roosting under the stern just that morning.

“A bad omen,” he’d said quietly, thinking I had not heard him. But I had, and so too had some of my men, which set unease swirling like the eddies of the currents.

I wrapped my arms around myself, pulling at the gold cloak I wore. Every morning, I dressed in formal garb and stood in this spot on the bow of my ship. I knew the importance of my presence for the troops, though it fatigued me, the sun sheening my skin with sweat.

Antonius often joined me, and so we stood, like two statues of the gods, awaiting our fates.

“Do you remember when we first met?” I asked him.

He looked at me, his gaze tender. “Of course. That was the very moment I fell in love with you. You were cut from bronze and gold in the Temple of Venus.”

I tutted. “You did not love me then.”

“I did,” he said seriously. “I may not have known it, but I did. The gods carved our love in stone, for why else were we both drawn to the temple that day?”

I did not tell him about my quest for mint to soothe my stomach.

“Do you think we will survive this, Marcus?” I asked.