Page 5 of Cleopatra

“What are you doing?” Charmion asked.

“It’s quicker to swim to the palace from here. I cannot waste time taking a litter across the Heptastadion.”

“Cleo.” It was the nickname Charmion only used beneath the softness of our sheets.

“Cleopatra,” I corrected her with irritation. Glory of thy father.

As I began to remove my clothing, I wondered if I was quite fulfilling my name’s meaning in that moment.

Charmion sighed behind me before her fingers joined mine at the knot of my dress. She rested her hand there for a moment as she said, “All will be well. Osiris will grant him passage to the next realm.”

I felt some of the tension inside me loosen slightly as the layers of my clothing fell to the ground like petals. Charmion soothed me in a way that no other person could.

I turned and reached for her cheek. “I know, because you are by my side.”

Charmion leaned into my touch and brought three fingers up to her lips in turn. “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.”

She recited the prayer we had composed as children. I felt the words give me strength.

We had been each other’s first lover, and for years that was all we were. But then our love shifted, it grew outward, beyond our bodies into something more potent than the ecstasy of pleasure. Our friendship was celestial, greater than the two parts of us.

I turned away from her. I now wore nothing but my diadem, a single gold band that met in the middle of my forehead to form a rearing cobra. Charmion reached to remove it and I shook my head. “Secure it with my braids. When I arrive, they must see me as Queen.”

Once Charmion had finished weaving my hair around my diadem, I instructed her to make her way to the palace. Though she too could swim—we’d run off enough times to the Nile for her to learn—I knew she didn’t like it.

“I will not leave you—”

“Go,” I commanded. Then, more quietly, I said, “This is my favourite dress, I do not want the seawater to harm its fibres.”

Charmion’s lashes fluttered. She heard the lie and saw the mercy in it. “I will be sure to have it washed and ready for you later tonight.”

Her shadow stretched across the shoreline as she walked away. The further she got, the hotter my breath felt in my mouth, until I shouted, “I-I can’t do it, I can’t be queen!”

“You can!” she called back.

Dread curdled my stomach. “Do you remember when Father asked me to lead the Ptolemaia procession?” I said. It had been the first festival after I turned fourteen and Father had wished to present me as the future Pharaoh of Egypt.

“I remember.”

“Do you? Do you recall how I tripped and fell in front of the whole of Alexandria? All I had to do was lead the dancers. And I couldn’t even do that.”

“Walking does prove difficult for some people.”

“This isn’t funny, Charmion. I was never a good pharaoh’s daughter—how can I expect to be a good pharaoh?”

Charmion pointed to the ground. “Look.”

I followed her line of sight.

There, scattered between rocks and sand, were the throwing sticks.

“You won after all,” she said, smiling.

The odds had been so small. But by the angle at which the sticks had fallen, I knew she was right. The gods had guided my hand.

The dread within my belly eased.

“A Ptolemy never loses,” I repeated softly. This time the words held hope.