Cleopatra’s Daughter

“No, it’s Father,” Alexander said. But he held out his hands before she could come closer. “He tried to kill himself, Mother. He’s dying!”

“Antony!” my mother screamed, and she pressed her face against the metal grille in the door. “Antony, what have you done?” Alexander and I couldn’t hear what our father was saying. Our mother was shaking her head. “No,” she said, “I can’t…. If I open this door, any one of your soldiers could seize us for ransom.”

“Please!” Alexander cried. “He’s dying!”

“But if she opens the door—” Charmion began.

“Then use the window!” I exclaimed.

My mother had already thought of it. She was rushing up the stairs, and the five of us followed swiftly at her heels. The mausoleum wasn’t complete—no one could have predicted it would be needed so soon. Workmen’s equipment had been left behind, and my mother shouted, “Alexander, the rope!”

She flung open the lattice shutters of the window overlooking the Temple of Isis. Below, waves crashed against the eastern casements. I can’t say how long it took for my mother to do the unthinkable. Of course, she had Alexander and Iras to help. But as soon as our father’s bloodied litter on the ground below was fastened to the rope, she lifted him two stories and moved him onto the floor of the mausoleum.

I stood with my back pressed against the marble wall. The happy sound of the gulls outside had faded, and there were no more waves, or soldiers, or servants. Nothing existed but my father, and the place where he had pushed his own sword between his ribs. I could hear Alexander’s ragged breathing, but I couldn’t see him. I only saw my mother’s hands, which came away bloodied from my father’s tunic.

“Antony,” she was crying. “Antony!” She pressed her cheek to my father’s chest. “Do you know what Octavian promised after the Battle of Actium? That if I had you killed, he would let me keep my throne. But I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it!” She was becoming hysterical. “And now … what have you done?”

His eyelids fluttered. I had never seen my father in pain. He was Dionysus, larger than life, bigger than any man who stood next to him, faster, stronger, with a louder laugh and a wider smile. But his tanned good looks had gone pale, and his hair was wet with perspiration. He looked unfamiliar without his Greek robes and crown of ivy, like a mortal Roman soldier struggling to speak. “They said you were dead.”

“Because I told them to. So you would flee, not kill yourself. Antony, it’s not over.” But the light in his eyes was growing dim.

“Where are my sun and moon?” he whispered.

Alexander led me forward. I don’t think I could have crossed the chamber without his help.

My father’s eyes fell on me. “Selene….” He took several deep breaths. “Selene, will you bring your father some wine?”

“Father, there’s no wine in the mausoleum.” But he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying.

“Some good Chian wine,” he went on, and my mother sobbed. “Don’t cry.” He touched her braids tenderly. “I am finally becoming Dionysus.” My mother wept loudly, and he had enough strength to grasp her hand in his.

“I need you to stay alive,” she begged, but our father had closed his eyes. “Antony!” she screamed. “Antony!”

Outside the doors of our tomb, I could hear the Roman soldiers approaching. Their chanting carried over the water, and my mother clung to my father’s body, grasping him to her chest and pleading with Isis to bring him back.

“What is that?” Alexander asked fearfully.

“The evocatio,” Charmion whispered. “Octavian’s soldiers are calling on our gods to switch sides and accept them as the rightful rulers.”

“The gods will never abandon us!” my mother shouted, frightening Ptolemy with her rage. He buried his head in Charmion’s lap as Mother stood. My father’s blood stained the blue silk of her gown; it soaked her chest, her arms, even her braids. “Downstairs!” she commanded. “If they try to break down the door, we will set fire to every piece of wood in that chamber!”

We left my father’s body on his litter, but I turned to be sure he wasn’t moving.

“He’s gone, Selene.” My brother was weeping.

“But what if—?”

“He’s gone. And the gods only know what’s happening to Antyllus.”

I felt a tightening in my throat, as if the air I was breathing suddenly wasn’t enough. At the top of the stairs, my mother handed daggers to Charmion and Iras. “Stay here and watch the windows,” she commanded. “If they force their way in, you know what to do!”

My brothers and I followed my mother’s bloodied steps to the first floor. Outside, soldiers were beating on the door and pressing their faces, one by one, to the grille.

“Stand behind me,” my mother instructed.

We did as we were told, and I dug my nails into Alexander’s arm while our mother approached the door. There was the muffled sound of voices as she appeared before the grille, and then a man on the other side of the door told her to surrender. She raised her chin so that the vulture’s carnelian eyes would look directly at this Roman soldier. “I will surrender,” she told him through the iron bars, “when Octavian gives me word that Caesarion will rule over the kingdom of Egypt.”

We moved closer to the door to hear the soldier’s reply.

“I cannot give that assurance, Your Majesty. But you may trust that Octavian will treat you with both respect and clemency.”

“I don’t care about clemency!” she shouted. “Caesarion is the son of Julius Caesar and the rightful heir to this throne. The Ptolemies have ruled over Egypt for nearly three hundred years. What do you propose? To have Roman rule? To burn down the Library of Alexandria and do murder in the streets of the greatest city in the world? Do you think the people will stand for it?”

“Your people are already falling over themselves to show deference to Caesar Octavian.”

My mother reeled back as though the man had slapped her from the other side of the door. “He has taken Julius’s name?”

“He is the adopted son and heir of Gaius Julius Caesar.”

“And Caesarion is Caesar’s son by blood! Which makes them brothers.”

I had never thought of it this way, and as I moved forward to glimpse the soldier’s face in the window, a man’s arm caught me around the waist, and I felt the cold tip of metal at my neck.

“Mother!” I screamed, and before Alexander could leap forward to defend me, a line of soldiers descended the stairs from the second story. They had come through the open window. Two held Iras and Charmion, and a third held Ptolemy by the arm.

My mother unsheathed the dagger at her waist, but a broad-shouldered Roman caught her wrist in his hand while another man unlocked the door.

“Let go of me!” My mother’s voice was a sharp warning, and although she had no power to command Roman soldiers, once the man had disarmed her, he freed her wrist. He was built like my father, with well-muscled legs and a powerful chest. He could have snapped her arm if he had wanted to. I wondered if this was Octavian.

“Take them to the palace.” His words were clipped. “Caesar will wish to see her before he speaks with the people of Alexandria.”

My mother raised her chin. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Marcus Agrippa. Former consul of Rome and commander in chief of Caesar’s fleet.”

Alexander looked across the chamber at me. Agrippa was the general who had defeated our father at Actium. He was the secret behind every one of Octavian’s military successes, and the man our father had feared above any other. His face was round, and although I knew from our father’s descriptions that he was already thirty-one or thirty-two, he looked much younger.

“Agrippa.” My mother caressed his name like silk. She spoke Latin to him, and though she knew eight languages flawlessly, her words were accented. “Do you see this treasure?” She indicated the leopard skins on the floor, and the heavy chests wrought from silver and gold that nearly obscured the rugs from view. “It can be yours. All of Egypt can be yours if you wish. Why give it to Octavian when you are the one who conquered Antony?”

But Agrippa narrowed his eyes. “Are you proposing that I betray Caesar with you?”

“I am saying that, with me, you would be accepted as Pharaoh, by the people. There would be no war. No