Page 22 of Cleopatra

“I heard what Pothinus said…that Pompey had to die.”

I sighed. “This was not your burden to carry.”

“I wanted to help,” she cried, her sobs growing stronger.

Pothinus and Theos arrived a breath later.

Theos looked down at the body with interest. “He does not smell yet,” he declared.

“No, not yet,” I confirmed.

Pothinus’s expression was triumphant. “Well done, Arsinoe.”

I ignored him and guided my sister to Charmion’s open arms.

“Take her to the baths,” I said to her. “It will help ease her shock.”

I ordered that the body of Pompey be taken away.

“Wait,” Pothinus said. “First, we should take his head. Theos, you must do it. A gift for Caesar.”

Pothinus withdrew a blade and pressed the hilt into my brother’s hands.

Theos looked glad of the task, until the sabre struck bone and he retched.

“Press down harder,” Pothinus insisted.

And I let him. I did not want to admit how my own stomach roiled to merely hear the slicing of flesh, let alone to think of being the one to cause it.

When it was done, Theos dropped the blade and ran to the sea to empty his stomach, and I averted my gaze as the body and head, now separate, were taken away.

The sabre Arsinoe had used lay on the ground.

Where did this dagger come from?

As I went to retrieve it, I thought for a moment my eyes were twisting the truth. For there wasn’t one sabre but two.

The blade Arsinoe had used and the one Pothinus had given Theos were identical, clearly made by the same craftsman. Arsinoe had been gifted the blade by Pothinus.

I looked at the eunuch sidelong, and for the first time I began to sense the danger that was to come.

Skip Notes

* Philadelphoi—sibling lovers—was a title bestowed on many of my forebears. Though the concept of marriage was not as you understand it today. It was not just political, it was protective. Many unions were not consummated, though those that were only reflected the gods Osiris and Isis, whose coupling resulted in the divine being Horus.

Chapter Five

49 BCE

rom the moment Pompey died, Egypt began to bleed.

A few days after his execution, I journeyed through the city in my litter. Charmion dozed next to me, lulled by the footfalls of the servants carrying us.

A slice of sunlight parted the heavy curtains that separated me from my citizens. I danced my fingers through the beam and watched as my gold nail overlays glittered. My hands, which had been so often prone to tremors in the days after I took the throne, had started to quiver once again. Pompey’s death had rattled me, and I knew it would not be long before Caesar arrived to claim his enemy’s remains. My father had spent many years allying himself with the Romans, but I sensed Caesar was a hungry man and I did not wish Egypt to fall into the maw of his ambition.

“Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!” my citizens cried as we passed.

I didn’t like travelling by litter, preferring to feel Egypt’s soil beneath my feet. But to cross the breadth of the city it proved a necessity.