Page 3 of Cleopatra

Charmion’s eyes met mine, one dark eyebrow quirked. “So, you do concede?”

“Never,” I said with a grin.

Charmion laughed and together we peered over the balcony’s edge.

Alexandria lay before me. The city had neither the beauty of Rome nor the grandeur of Babylon. No, Alexandria was not a city to be admired, it was far more than that. It lived and breathed like a beast.

Sailors called to one another across the harbour, the cacophony of many languages resonating throughout the city like a pack of wolves yipping and howling in the hunt. Though we were far above the docks, I could smell the brackish char of eels being cooked over fire. Boats undulated on the waves along the expanse of the coast, their many-coloured sails glittering like scales on a sea snake.

To the south, the Heptastadion causeway connected the lighthouse’s isle to the mainland. Beyond that, the awnings of market stalls lined the streets and though I couldn’t see them, I imagined the traders gesturing emphatically to their customers.

You could not separate the citizens from the city’s heartbeat; they were one and the same. Asiatic, Parthian, Greek, Egyptian; no matter their origin, the silt of the Nile Delta thickened their blood. It brought a wildness to the city, tamed only by the pharaohs who ruled over it—my family.

Soon to be me.

But I was not sure I had the fortitude to bridle the people of Egypt.

My doubts were not new, though they had grown more prominent since my father’s affliction. He did not have much time left before departing this world for the next.

As he got sicker and sicker, I became tormented by dreams of my own reflection; like the facets of a jewel, each side a different version of the pharaoh I was to be. One was cruel and callous, another gracious and gentle. Every echo of my being was a stranger to me, and I would awaken bathed in a chilling sweat, haunted by the outlanders in my mind.

I was not ready to be Pharaoh. Though I wonder if I ever would have reached true readiness. Without the skill of prophecy, I was always going to be ill-prepared for the years that followed. No one could have been prepared to live the life I would go on to lead. I must forgive my younger self this flaw, if nothing else.

Charmion leaned over the balcony, her brows pinched, unaware of my dark thoughts. “I don’t think we can see what you rolled from here, so we shall presume I won.”

A sudden breeze plucked a braid from the knot above my head. Charmion immediately moved to tuck it back into my diadem.

Her fingers grazed the mark on the back of my neck. Black, as if drawn in kohl, the three-stepped shape of the throne ran from the edge of my hairline to the top of my back. It marked me as the chosen of the goddess Isis.

I shivered from her touch and Charmion drew away.

“If we cannot see the sticks, then we will never know. So we must call it a draw,” I teased her.

Charmion laughed, tossing her head back until her curling hair crested the tips of her shoulder blades. “Every time you do not win it must be a draw.”

“I am a Ptolemy; we were not born to lose.” Though I smiled, my words felt a little bitter. Like the rind of a pomegranate, the reminder of the duties that awaited me tainted the sweetness of the day.

Charmion heard the footsteps first. “Someone comes.”

“Who knew we were here?” I asked with a flash of annoyance.

“I do not know. But since your father has been bound to his bed, I have long suspected Pothinus has been watching you.”

I felt my lips twist at the eunuch’s name. He lingered in my father’s shadow like a crocodile amongst the reeds of the riverbank.

For the last ten years he had been a tutor to my younger brother. But since the onset of my father’s illness, his interest in teaching had seemed to wane. Instead, he turned to politicking, circling my father in the murky shallows of the throne room.

I tightened my gold belt where I had loosened it from sitting on the ground. Charmion tutted behind me and moved to help.

She twisted the metal links until the belt bound my ribs like armour. I dusted away the sand that clung to the weave of my skirts and waited for the newcomer to present themselves.

The slapping of sandals on stone slowed as the servant approached.

He entered the balcony, his eyes averted, and then kneeled prostrate on the ground. “Cleopatra, chosen by the goddess Isis, second daughter to Ptolemy, twelfth of his name,” he said, breathless from the long staircase.

The goddess’s name pricked at a raw wound in my mind.

Chosen by Isis but not yet gifted with her power. I dismissed the familiar disappointment and replied, “Yes?”