Page 55 of Cleopatra

“And I will wear the golden column dress.”

“A wise choice.”

I was going to request one more thing, but it was lost to sleep. The activities of the evening had fatigued my already tired body.

I had only one more thought before I succumbed: Whose room did Caesar go to this night?

Chapter Eleven

48 BCE

was waiting in the dining chamber when my brother entered. He came alone, without Pothinus. His eyes shuttered closed as he saw me, as if he were testing the truth of his sight.

“Theos, you have been very busy.”

He lurched at my voice, as if I spoke from beyond the realm of life.

“Cleopatra, what are you doing here?” He looked to the Roman soldiers who stood behind me.

“Is it not morning? Am I not allowed to break my fast in my palace?”

“Where is Pothinus?”

Oh, poor boy, so easily frightened without his eunuch.

“Brother, you have been listening to his lies for far too long.”

Theos’s eyes flashed with anger. “It is he who uncovered your lies. You are an agent of Apep.”

My temper flared. “On what grounds do you accuse me of being Apep’s minion? The god of chaos has not claimed me and never will.”

Berenice had been murdered for the very same claim. And for the first time I wondered at the truth in it.

Had the locusts been merely coincidence?

Berenice had charmed the nobility from a young age. Courtiers hovered around her like insects round a flame. She was beloved, and defiant: a dangerous mix to a king in power.

Had my father been so threatened by her that he had spun a web of lies?

“Pothinus foretold you would say that,” Theos said.

“Isis is my benefactor. You know this, Mikro Theos.”

“My name is Ptolemy, but you can call me Pharaoh,” he said, raising his nose to the air.

My heart broke to hear him dismiss his nickname, little god. But I couldn’t let it show on my face.

“Have I ever given you cause to doubt me, Pharaoh?” I asked.

He hesitated, and I knew then that there was some semblance of loyalty left in him.

“Pothinus said—”

I cut him off with a click of my tongue. “Do not speak to me of your regent. Tell me from your own mind, have I ever given you cause to doubt me?”

He looked pensive, and in his face I could see again the boy I used to know. “You never let me make decisions. Even with Hermonthis, I wanted to go, but you would not let me.”

“It was important that I went—you do not understand the political nuance.” I did not speak on my suspicions that Pothinus had been behind the murder of the Buchis bull.