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

On the following day he summoned King Ptolemy, Potheinus, Theodotus and Ganymedes to the guest palace, where he seated them in chairs on the floor while he occupied his ivory curule chair on a dais. Which didn't please the little king, though he allowed Theodotus to pacify him. That one has started sexual initiation, thought Caesar. What chance does the boy have, with such advisers? If he lives, he'll be no better a ruler than his father was. "I've called you here to speak about a subject I mentioned the day before yesterday," Caesar said, a scroll in his lap. "Namely, the succession to the throne of Alexandria in Egypt, which I now understand is a somewhat different question from the throne of Egypt of the Nilus. Apparently the latter, King, is a position your absent sister enjoys, but you do not. To rule in Egypt of the Nilus, the sovereign must be Pharaoh. As is Queen Cleopatra. Why, King, is your co-ruler, sister and wife an exile commanding an army of mercenaries against her own subjects?" Potheinus answered; Caesar had expected nothing else. The little king did as he was told, and had insufficient intelligence to think without being led through the facts first. "Because her subjects rose up against her and ejected her, Caesar." "Why did they rise up against her?" "Because of the famine," Potheinus said. "Nilus has failed to inundate for two years in a row. Last year saw the lowest reading of the Nilometer since the priests started taking records three thousand years ago. Nilus rose only eight Roman feet." "Explain." "There are three kinds of inundation, Caesar. The Cubits of Death, the Cubits of Plenty, and the Cubits of Surfeit. To overflow its banks and inundate the valley, Nilus must rise eighteen Roman feet. Anything below that is in the Cubits of Death water and silt will not be deposited on the land, so no crops can be planted. In Egypt, it never rains. Succor comes from Nilus. Readings between eighteen and thirty-two Roman feet constitute the Cubits of Plenty. Nilus floods enough to spread water and silt on all the growing land, and the crops come in. Inundations above thirty-two feet drown the valley so deeply that the villages are washed away and the waters do not recede in time to plant the crops," Potheinus said as if by rote; evidently this was not the first time he had had to explain the inundation cycle to some ignorant foreigner. "Nilometer?" Caesar asked. "The device off which the inundation level is read. It is a well dug to one side of Nilus with the cubits marked on its wall. There are several, but the one of greatest importance is hundreds of miles to the south, at Elephantine on the First Cataract. There Nilus starts to rise one month before it does in Memphis, at the apex of the Delta. So we have warning what the year's inundation is going to be like. A messenger brings the news down the river." "I see. However, Potheinus, the royal income is enormous. Don't you use it to buy in grain when the crops don't germinate?" "Caesar must surely know," said Potheinus smoothly, "that there has been drought all around Your Sea, from Spain to Syria. We have bought, but the cost is staggering, and naturally the cost must be passed on to the consumers." "Really? How sensible" was Caesar's equally smooth reply. He lifted the scroll on his lap. "I found this in Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus's tent after Pharsalus. It is the will of the twelfth Ptolemy, your father" spoken to the lad, bored enough to doze "and it is very clear. It directs that Alexandria and Egypt shall be jointly ruled by his eldest living daughter, Cleopatra, and his eldest son, Ptolemy Euergetes, as husband and wife." Potheinus had jumped. Now he reached out an imperious hand. "Let me see it!" he demanded. "If it were a true and legal will, it would reside either here in Alexandria with the Recorder, or with the Vestal Virgins in Rome." Theodotus had moved to stand behind the little king, fingers digging into his shoulder to keep him awake; Ganymedes sat, face impassive, listening. You, thought Caesar of Ganymedes, are the most able one. How it must irk you to suffer Potheinus as your superior! And, I suspect, you would far rather see your young Ptolemy, the Princess Arsino, sitting on the high throne. They all hate Cleopatra, but why? "No, Lord High Chamberlain, you may not see it," he said coldly. "In it, Ptolemy XII known as Auletes says that his will was not lodged either in Alexandria or Rome due to er 'embarrassments of the state.' Since our civil war was far in the future when this document was drawn up, Auletes must have meant events here in Alexandria." He straightened, face setting hard. "It is high time that Alexandria settled down, and that its rulers were more generous toward the lowly. I do not intend to depart this city until some consistent, humane conditions have been established for all its people, rather than its Macedonian citizens. I will not countenance festering sores of resistance to Rome in my wake, or permit any country to offer itself as a nucleus of further resistance to Rome. Accept the fact, gentlemen, that Caesar Dictator will remain in Alexandria to sort out its affairs lance the boil, you might say. Therefore I sincerely hope that you have sent that courier to Queen Cleopatra, and that we see her here within a very few days." And that, he thought, is as close as I go to conveying the message that Caesar Dictator will not go away to leave Alexandria as a base for Republicans to use. They must all be shepherded to Africa Province, where I can stamp on them collectively. He rose to his feet. "You are dismissed." They went, faces scowling.

"Did you send a courier to Cleopatra?" Ganymedes asked the Lord High Chamberlain as they emerged into the rose garden. "I sent two," said Potheinus, smiling, "but on a very slow boat. I also sent a third on a very fast punt to General Achillas, of course. When the two slow couriers emerge from the Delta at the Pelusiac mouth, Achillas will have men waiting. I am very much afraid" he sighed "that Cleopatra will receive no message from Caesar. Eventually he will turn on her, deeming her too arrogant to submit to Roman arbitration." "She has her spies in the palace," Ganymedes said, eyes on the dwindling forms of Theodotus and the little king, hurrying ahead. "She'll try to reach Caesar it's in her interests." "I am aware of that. But Captain Agathacles and his men are policing every inch of the wall and every wavelet on either side of Cape Lochias. She won't get through my net." Potheinus stopped to face the other eunuch, equally tall, equally handsome. "I take it, Ganymedes, that you would prefer Arsino as queen?" "There are many who would prefer Arsino as queen," said Ganymedes, unruffled. "Arsino herself, for example. And her brother the King. Cleopatra is tainted with Egypt, she's poison." "Then," said Potheinus, beginning to walk again, "I think it behooves both of us to work to that end. You can't have my job, but if your own chargeling occupies the throne, that won't really inconvenience you too much, will it?" "No," said Ganymedes, smiling. "What is Caesar up to?" "Up to?" "He's up to something, I feel it in my bones. There's a lot of activity at the cavalry camp, and I confess I'm surprised that he hasn't begun to fortify his infantry camp in Rhakotis with anything like his reputed thoroughness." "What annoys me is his high-handedness!" Potheinus snapped tartly. "By the time he's finished fortifying his cavalry camp, there won't be a stone left in the old city walls." "Why," asked Ganymedes, "do I think all this is a blind?"

The next day Caesar sent for Potheinus, no one else. "I've a matter to broach with you on behalf of an old friend," Caesar said, manner relaxed and expansive. "Indeed?" "Perhaps you remember Gaius Rabirius Postumus?" Potheinus frowned. "Rabirius Postumus . . . Perhaps vaguely." "He arrived in Alexandria after the late Auletes had been put back on his throne. His purpose was to collect some forty million sesterces Auletes owed a consortium of Roman bankers, chief of whom was Rabirius. However, it seems the Accountant and all his splendid Macedonian public servants had allowed the city finances to get into a shocking state. So Auletes told my friend Rabirius that he would have to earn his money by tidying up both the royal and the public fiscus. Which Rabirius did, working night and day in Macedonian garments he found as repulsive as he did irksome. At the end of a year, Alexandria's moneys were brilliantly organized. But when Rabirius asked for his forty million sesterces, Auletes and your predecessor stripped him as naked as a bird and threw him on a ship bound for Rome. Be thankful for your life, was their message. Rabirius arrived in Rome absolutely penniless. For a banker, Potheinus, a hideous fate." Grey eyes were locked with pale blue; neither man lowered his gaze. But a pulse was beating very fast in Potheinus's neck. "Luckily," Caesar went on blandly, "I was able to assist my friend Rabirius get back on his financial feet, and today he is, with my other friends the Balbi Major and Minor, and Gaius Oppius, a veritable plutocrat of the plutocrats. However, a debt is a debt, and one of the reasons I decided to visit Alexandria concerns that debt. Behold in me, Lord High Chamberlain, Rabirius Postumus's bailiff. Pay back the forty million sesterces at once. In international terms, they amount to one thousand six hundred talents of silver. Strictly speaking, I should demand interest on the sum at my fixed rate of ten percent, but I'm willing to forgo that. The principal will do nicely." "I am not authorized to pay the late king's debts." "No, but the present king is." "The King is a minor." "Which is why I'm applying to you, my dear fellow. Pay up." "I shall need extensive documentation for proof." "My secretary Faberius will be pleased to furnish it." "Is that all, Caesar?" Potheinus asked, getting to his feet. "For the moment." Caesar strolled out with his guest, the personification of courtesy. "Any sign of the Queen yet?" "Not a shadow, Caesar."