Colleen McCullough - 6. The October Horse - A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

By nightfall they were in the big palace, a vast edifice that ramified down halls and up corridors, sprouted galleries and rooms, had courtyards and pools large enough to swim in. All afternoon the city and the Royal Enclosure buzzed; five hundred of Caesar's legionaries had rounded up the Royal Guard and sent them to Achillas's mushrooming camp west of the Moon Gate with Caesar's compliments. That done, the five hundred men proceeded to fortify the Royal Enclosure wall with a fighting platform, proper breastworks and many watchtowers. Other things were happening too. Rufrius evacuated the camp in Rhakotis and evicted every tenant in the grand houses on either side of Royal Avenue, then stuffed the mansions with troops. While those affluent, suddenly homeless people ran about the city weeping and wailing, howling vengeance on Romans, hundreds of soldiers barged into the big temples, the gymnasium and the courts of justice, while a few left in Rhakotis went to the Serapeum. Under horrified Alexandrian eyes, they promptly tore out every beam from every ceiling and hustled them back to Royal Avenue. That done, they commenced work on the dockside structures quays, jetties, the emporium and carried off every useful piece of wood as well as all the beams. By nightfall most of public Alexandria lay in ruins, anything useful or sizably wooden safely delivered to Royal Avenue.

"This is an outrage! An Outrage!" cried Potheinus when the unwelcome guest marched in accompanied by a century of soldiers, his staff, and a very smug-looking Queen Cleopatra. "You!" shrilled Arsino. "What are you doing here? I am queen, Ptolemy has divorced you!" Cleopatra walked up to her and kicked her viciously on the shins, then raked her nails down Arsino's face. "I am queen! Shut up or I'll have you killed!" "Bitch! Sow! Crocodile! Jackal! Hippopotamus! Spider! Scorpion! Rat! Snake! Louse!" little Ptolemy Philadelphus was yelling. "Ape! Ape, ape, ape!" "And you shut up too, you filthy little toad!" Cleopatra said fiercely, whacking him around the head until he blubbered. Entranced by all this evidence of familial piety, Caesar stood and watched with arms folded. Twenty-one Pharaoh might be, but confronted by her littlest brother and her sister, she reverted to the nursery. Interesting that neither Philadelphus nor Arsino fought back physically: big sister cowed them. Then he grew tired of the unseemliness and deftly separated the three brawlers. "You, madam, stay with your tutor," he ordered Arsino. "It is high time young princesses retired. You too, Philadelphus." Potheinus was still ranting, but Ganymedes ushered Arsino away with an expressionless face. That one, Caesar thought, is far more dangerous than the Lord High Chamberlain. And Arsino is in love with him, eunuch or no. "Where is King Ptolemy?" he asked. "And Theodotus?"

King Ptolemy and Theodotus were in the agora, as yet untouched by Caesar's soldiers. They had been dallying in the King's own quarters when a slave came running to tell them that Caesar was taking over the Royal Enclosure and that Queen Cleopatra was with him. Moments later Theodotus had himself and the boy dressed for an audience, Ptolemy in his purple hat complete with diadem; then the two entered the secret tunnel constructed by Ptolemy Auletes to permit escape whenever the mob materialized. It ran below ground and under the wall to emerge on the flank of the Akron theater, where it offered the opportunity to head for the docks or go deeper into the city. The little king and Theodotus elected to go into the city, to the agora. This meeting place held a hundred thousand, and had been filling up since mid-afternoon, when Caesar's soldiers had started plundering beams. By instinct the Alexandrians went to it whenever tumult broke out, so when the pair from the palace appeared, the agora was already choked. Even so, Theodotus made the King wait in a corner; he needed time to coach the boy until he had a short speech off pat. After dark, by which time the mob spilled out on to the intersection and covered the arcade roofs, Theodotus led King Ptolemy to a statue of Callimachus the librarian and helped him climb up to its plinth. "Alexandrians, we are under attack!" the King screamed, face ruddied by the flames of a thousand torches. "Rome has invaded, the whole of the Royal Enclosure is in Caesar's hands! But more than that!" He paused to make sure he was saying what Theodotus had drummed into him, then went on. "Yes, more than that! My sister Cleopatra the traitor has returned and is in league with the Romans! It is she who has brought Caesar here! All your food has gone to fill Roman bellies, and Caesar's prick is filling Cleopatra's cunt! They have emptied the treasury and murdered everyone in the palace! They have murdered everyone who lives on Royal Avenue! Some of your wheat is being tipped into the Great Harbor out of sheer spite, and Roman soldiers are tearing your public buildings apart! Alexandria is being wrecked, her temples profaned, her women and children raped!" Dark in the night, the boy's eyes blazed a reflection of the crowd's mounting fury; a fury it had arrived with, a fury that the little king's words spurred to action. This was Alexandria, the one place in the world wherein a mob had become permanently conscious of the power a mob wielded, and wielded that power as a political instrument rather than in pure destructive rage. The mob had spilled many a Ptolemy; it could spill a mere Roman, tear him and his whore into pieces. "I, your king, have been wrested from my throne by a Roman cur and a traitorous harlot named Cleopatra!" The crowd moved, scooped King Ptolemy into its midst and put him upon a pair of broad shoulders, where he sat, his purple person on full display, urging his steed on with his ivory scepter. It moved as far as the gate into the Royal Enclosure, where Caesar stood barring its passage, clad in his purple-bordered toga, his oak-leaf crown upon his head, the rod of his imperium on his right forearm, and twelve lictors to either side of him. With him was Queen Cleopatra, still in her drab fawn robe. Unused to the sight of an adversary who faced it down, the crowd stopped moving. "What are you doing here?" Caesar asked. "We've come to drive you out and kill you!" Ptolemy cried. "King Ptolemy, King Ptolemy, you can't do both," Caesar answered reasonably. "Either drive us out, or kill us. But I assure you that there's no need to do either." Having located the leaders in the front ranks, Caesar now directly addressed them. "If you've been told that my soldiers occupy your granaries, I ask that you visit the granaries and see for yourselves that there are none of my soldiers present, and that they are full to the brim. It is not my business to levy the price of grain or other foodstuffs within Alexandria that is the business of your king, as your queen has been absent. So if you're paying too much, blame King Ptolemy, not Caesar. Caesar brought his own grain and supplies with him to Alexandria, he hasn't touched yours," he lied shamelessly. One hand went out to push Cleopatra forward, then it was extended to the little king. "Come down from your perch, Your Majesty, and stand here where a sovereign should stand facing his subjects, not among them at their mercy. I hear that the citizens of Alexandria can tear a king to shreds, and it's you to blame for their plight, not Rome. Come to me, do!" The eddies natural in such a host had separated the King from Theodotus, who couldn't make himself heard. Ptolemy sat on his steed's shoulders, his fair brows knitted in a frown, and a very real fear growing in his eyes. Bright he was not, but he was bright enough to understand that somehow Caesar was putting him in a wrong light; that Caesar's clear, carrying voice, its Greek now distinctly Macedonian, was turning the front ranks of the mob against him. "Set me down!" the King commanded. On his feet, he walked to Caesar and turned to face his irate subjects. "That's the way," said Caesar genially. "Behold your king and queen!" he shouted. "I have the testament of the late king, father of these children, and I am here to execute his wishes that Egypt and Alexandria be ruled by his eldest living daughter, the seventh Cleopatra, and his eldest son, the thirteenth Ptolemy! His directive is unmistakable! Cleopatra and Ptolemy Euergetes are his legal heirs and must rule jointly as husband and wife!" "Kill her!" Theodotus screamed: "Arsino is queen!" Even this Caesar spun to his own advantage. "The Princess Arsino has a different duty!" he cried. "As the Dictator of Rome, I am empowered to return Cyprus to Egypt, and I hereby do so!" His tones oozed sympathy. "I know how hard it has been for Alexandria since Marcus Cato annexed Cyprus you lost your good cedar timber, your copper mines, a great deal of cheap food. The Senate which decreed that annexation no longer exists. My Senate does not condone this injustice! Princess Arsino and Prince Ptolemy Philadelphus will be going to rule as satraps in Cyprus. Cleopatra and Ptolemy Euergetes will rule in Alexandria, Arsino and Ptolemy Philadelphus in Cyprus!" The mob was won, but Caesar wasn't finished. "I must add, people of Alexandria, that it is due to Queen Cleopatra that Cyprus is returned to you! Why do you think she has been absent? Because she traveled to me to negotiate the return of Cyprus! And she has succeeded." He walked forward a little, smiling. "How about a rousing cheer for your queen?" What Caesar said was relayed swiftly through the crowd from front to back; like all good speakers, he kept his message short and simple when he addressed masses of people. So, satisfied, they cheered deafeningly. "All very well, Caesar, but you can't deny that your troops are wrecking our temples and public buildings!" one of the mob's leaders called out. "Yes, a very serious business," said Caesar, spreading his hands. "However, even Romans must protect themselves, and outside the Moon Gate sits a huge army under General Achillas, who has declared war on me. I am preparing myself to be attacked. If you want the demolition stopped, then I suggest you go to General Achillas and tell him to disband his army." The mob reversed like soldiers drilling; the next moment it was gone, presumably to see Achillas. Stranded, a shivering Theodotus looked at the boy king with tears in his eyes, then slunk to take his hand, kiss it. "Very clever, Caesar," Potheinus sneered from the shadows. Caesar nodded at his lictors and turned to walk back to the palace. "As I have told you before, Potheinus, I am clever. May I suggest that you cease your subversive activities among the people of your city and go back to running the Royal Enclosure and the royal purse? If I catch you spreading a false rumor about me and your queen, I'll have you executed the Roman way flogging and beheading. If you spread two false rumors, it will be the death of a slave crucifixion. Three false rumors, and it will be crucifixion without broken legs." Inside the palace vestibule he dismissed his lictors, but put a hand out to rest on King Ptolemy's shoulder. "No more of these expeditions to the agora, young man. Now go to your rooms. I have had the secret tunnel blocked off at both ends, by the way." The eyes, very cold, looked over Ptolemy's tumbled curls to Theodotus. "Theodotus, you are banned from congress with the King. By morning I want you out of here. And be warned! If you try to reach the King, I'll give you the fate I described for Potheinus." A slight push, and King Ptolemy ran to weep in his quarters. Caesar's hand now went out to Cleopatra, took hers. "It's bedtime, my dear. Good night, everybody." She gave a faint smile and lowered her lashes; Trebatius stared at Faberius, staggered. Caesar and the Queen? But she wasn't his type at all!