Page 84 of Cleopatra

There was a loud clatter from the side of my throne. The sound startled Caesarion awake, and he began to cry.

“I am so sorry, my queen,” Charmion mumbled as she tried to gather up the pieces of the clay flask she had dropped.

“I must attend to my son,” I said to the governor, the anticipation of the moment broken. “Your sister may come to me in the hospital tomorrow.”

His smile was slick like oil. “Indeed, I will send her there.”

The chatter returned as I stood and made my way out of the room. When I reached the antechamber, I turned to Charmion.

“Thank you,” I said. I sat heavily in a chair and began nursing the crying Caesarion.

“He does not have a sister, let alone a sick one,” Charmion said. “I remember him from the boat—he was talking to Arsinoe of the woes of being an only child. I distinctly recall the conversation because Arsinoe laughed and said she wished she was one.”

“He seeks to reveal my lack of power.”

“Why?”

Arsinoe. Her name floated like oil to the surface of my mind. After we’d quelled her rebellion, she had gone into hiding. Caesar had long suspected she was in Syria, but his spies had yet to confirm it.

How can it be her, if even the might of Rome cannot find her?

But there was something in this trick that reminded me of her shrewdness.

“You think it is her.” Charmion surmised my suspicions quickly.

“I know not. But either way, his words have already sown dissent,” I said quietly, then hissed as Caesarion pulled off my breast painfully. I pressed him back onto the nipple, inadvertently squeezing the leg that bore the ink work.

Caesarion’s eyes flew open and he began to scream, the skin there still tender. Recalling the moment the needle had first struck his skin, I closed my eyes to the sound.

“Cleo?”

My arms trembled, and though I tried to stop them, tears began to flow down my cheeks, blurring the kohl I wore.

“It was all for naught,” I whispered.

“What was?”

“The pain I subjected Caesarion to. All it takes is one question, one governor to unravel it all.”

The truth poured out of me: the soothsayer, Khufu, the lies, they ran from my mouth like the purging of a poison.

“I am sorry I did not tell you,” I whispered, my throat burning with the confession. “I was so ashamed that the gods had abandoned me, and in my loneliness, I walked a dark path.”

Charmion closed her eyes. “I thought I had lost your trust.”

“Never. It is I who was lost.”

Charmion wrapped her arms around me and Caesarion, rocking us back and forth.

“I wish you had told me of this sooner, I would have supported you, shared in your worry. We could have walked a different path.”

“There was no other choice,” I said.

“But at least we would have walked together.” Her hand went to my cheek and she pressed her lips against the salty tears there. “Do not abandon me again, Cleo.”

I shook my head. “I will not.”

I never did, you know. We were never parted again, not even in our last moments.