Colleen McCullough - Antony and Cleopatra

‘All hail the two Pharaohs, Lords of the Two Ladies Upper and Lower Egypt, Lords of the Sedge and Bee, Children of Amun-Ra, Isis and Ptah!’ roared the lord high chamberlain, drumming his golden staff on the floor, a dull sound that had Dellius revising his opinion about thin tissue. The floor sounded solid .

They sat on two elaborate thrones, the woman on top of the golden dais and the boy one step beneath her. Each was clad in a strange raiment made of finely pleated white linen, and each wore a huge headdress of red enamel around a tubular cone of white enamel. About their necks were wide collars of magnificent jewels set in gold, on their arms bracelets, around their waists broad girdles of gems, on their feet golden sandals. Their faces were thick with paint, hers white, the boy’s a rusty red, and their eyes were so hedged in by black lines and colored shapes that they slid, sinister as fanged fish, as no human eyes were surely intended to.

‘Quintus Dellius,’ said the Queen (Dellius had no idea what the epithet ‘Pharaoh’ meant), ‘we bid you welcome to Egypt.’

‘I come as Imperator Marcus Antonius’s official ambassador,’ said Dellius, getting into the swing of things, ‘with greetings and salutations to the twin thrones of Egypt.’

‘How impressive,’ said the Queen, eyes sliding eerily.

‘Is that all?’ asked the boy, whose eyes sparkled more.

‘Er – unfortunately not, Your Majesty. The Triumvir Marcus Antonius requires your presence in Tarsus to answer charges.’

‘Charges?’ asked the boy.

‘It is alleged that Egypt aided Gaius Cassius, thereby breaking its status of Friend and Ally of the Roman People.’

‘And that is a charge?’ Cleopatra asked.

‘A very serious one, Your Majesty.’

‘Then we will go to Tarsus to answer it in person. You may leave our presence, Quintus Dellius. When we are ready to set out, you will be notified.’

And that was that! No dinner invitations, no reception to introduce him to the court – there must surely be a court! No Eastern monarch could function without several hundred sycophants to tell him (or her) how wonderful he (or she) was. But here was Apollodorus firmly ushering him from the room, apparently to be left to his own devices!

‘Pharaoh will sail to Tarsus,’ Apollodorus said, ‘therefore you have two choices, Quintus Dellius. You may send your people home overland and travel with them, or you may send your people home overland and sail aboard one of the royal ships.’

Ah! thought Dellius. Someone warned them I was coming. There is a spy in Tarsus. This audience was a sham designed to put me – and Antonius – in our places.

‘I will sail,’ he said haughtily.

‘A wise decision.’ Apollodorus bowed and walked away, leaving Dellius to storm off at a hasty walk to cool his temper, sorely tried. How dared they? The audience had given him no opportunity to gauge the Queen’s feminine charms or even discover for himself if the boy was really Caesar’s son. They were a pair of painted dolls, stranger than the wooden thing his daughter dragged about the house as if it were human.

The sun was hot; perhaps, thought Dellius, it would do me good to paddle in the wavelets of that delicious cove outside my palace. Dellius couldn’t swim – odd for a Roman – but an ankle-deep paddle was harmless. He descended a series of limestone steps, then perched on a boulder to unbuckle his maroon senatorial shoes.

‘Fancy a swim? So do I,’ said a cheerful voice – a child’s, but deep. ‘It’s the funnest way to get rid of all this muck.’

Startled, Dellius turned to see the boy King, stripped down to a loincloth, his face still painted.

‘You swim, I’ll paddle,’ said Dellius.

Caesarion waded in as far as his waist and then tipped himself forward to swim, moving fearlessly into deep water. He dived, came up with face a curious mixture of black and rusty red; then under again, up again.

‘The paint’s soluble in water, even salt,’ the boy said, hip-deep now, scrubbing at his face with both hands.

And there stood Caesar. No one could dispute the identity of the father after seeing the child. Is that why Antonius wants to present him to the Senate and petition it to confirm him King of Egypt? Let anyone in Rome who knew Caesar see this boy, and he’ll gather clients faster than a ship’s hull does barnacles. Marcus Antonius wants to unsettle Octavian, who can only ape Caesar with thick-soled boots and practiced Caesarean gestures. Caesarion is the real thing, Octavian a parody. Oh, clever Marcus Antonius! Bring Octavian down by showing Rome Caesar. The veteran soldiers will melt like ice in the sun, and they have so much power.

Cleopatra, cleansed of her regal make-up by the more orthodox method of a bowl of warm water, burst out laughing. ‘Apollodorus, this is marvelous!’ she cried, handing the papers she had read to Sosigenes. ‘Where did you get these?’ she asked while Sosigenes pored his way through them, chuckling.

‘His scribe is fonder of money than statues, Daughter of Amun-Ra. The scribe made an extra copy and sold it to me.’

‘Did Dellius act on instructions, I wonder? Or is this merely a way of demonstrating to his master that he’s worth his salt?’

‘The latter, Your Majesty,’ said Sosigenes, wiping his eyes. ‘It’s so silly! The statue of Serapis, painted by Nicias? He was dead long before Bryaxis first poured bronze into a mold. And he missed the Praxiteles Apollo in the gymnasium – “a sculpture of no great artistic worth,” he called it! Oh, Quintus Dellius, you are a fool!’

‘Let us not underestimate the man just because he doesn’t know a Phidias from a Neapolitan plaster copy,’ Cleopatra said. ‘What his list tells me is that Antonius is desperate for money. Money that I, for one, do not intend to give him.’

Cha’em pattered in, accompanied by his wife.

‘Tach’a, at last! What does the bowl say about Antonius?’

The smoothly beautiful face remained impassive; Tach’a was a priestess of Ptah, trained almost from birth not to betray her emotions. ‘The lotus petals formed a pattern I have never seen, Daughter of Ra. No matter how many times I cast them on the water, the pattern always stayed the same. Yes, Isis approves of Marcus Antonius as the sire of your children, but it will not be easy, and it will not happen in Tarsus. In Egypt, only in Egypt. His seed is spread too thinly, he must be fed on the juices and fruits that strengthen a man’s seed.’

‘If the pattern is so unique, Tach’a my mother, how can you be sure that is what the petals are saying?’

‘Because I went to the holy archives, Pharaoh. My readings are only the last in three thousand years.’

‘Ought I refuse to go to Tarsus?’ Cleopatra asked Cha’em.

‘No, Pharaoh. My own visions say that Tarsus is necessary. Antonius is not the God out of the West, but he has some of the same blood. Enough for our purposes, which are not to raise up a rival for Caesarion! What he needs are a sister to marry and some brothers who will be loyal subordinates.’

Caesarion walked in, trailing water. ‘Mama, I’ve just talked to Quintus Dellius,’ he said, flopping on a couch while a clucking Charmian hurried off to find towels.

‘Did you, now? Where was that?’ Cleopatra asked, smiling.

The wide eyes, greener than Caesar’s and lacking that piercing quality, creased up in amusement. ‘When I went for a swim. He was paddling. Can you imagine it? Paddling ! He told me he couldn’t swim, and that confession told me that he was never a contubernalis in any army that mattered. He’s a couch soldier.’

‘Did you have an interesting conversation, my son?’