Antony and Cleopatra. Colleen McCullough

he want?’

      ‘Not gold, at any rate,’ said Caesarion, looking up from his tablets with a grin. ‘He’s the richest man in Asia Province.’

      ‘Pay attention to your sums, boy!’ said Sosigenes.

      Cleopatra got up from her chair and walked across to an open section of wall where the light was good. A close examination of the green wax seal showed a small temple in its middle and the words PYTHO · TRALLES around its edge. Yes, it seemed authentic. She broke it and unfurled the scroll, written in a hand that said no scribe had been made privy to its contents. Too untidy.

      Pharaoh and Queen, Daughter of Amun-Ra,

      I write as one who loved the God Julius Caesar for many years, and as one who respected his devotion to you. Though I am aware you have informants to keep you apprised of what is going on in Rome and the Roman world, I doubt that any of them stands high in the confidence of Marcus Antonius. You will of course know that Antonius journeyed from Philippi to Nicomedia last November, and that many kings, princes and ethnarchs met him there. He did virtually nothing to alter the state of affairs in the East, but he did command that twenty thousand silver talents be paid to him immediately. The size of this tribute shocked all of us.

      After visiting Galatia and Cappadocia, he arrived in Tarsus. I followed him with the two thousand silver talents that we ethnarchs of Asia Province had managed to scrape together. Where were the other eighteen thousand talents? he asked. I think I succeeded in convincing him that nothing like this sum is to be found, but his answer was one we have grown used to: pay him nine more years’ tribute in advance, and we would be forgiven. As if we have salted away ten years’ tribute against the day! They just do not listen, these Roman governors.

      I crave your pardon, great Queen, for burdening you with our troubles, and our troubles are not why I am writing this in secret. This is to warn you that within a very few days you will receive a visit from one Quintus Dellius, a grasping, cunning little man who has wormed his way into Marcus Antonius’s good opinion. His whisperings into Antonius’s ear are aimed at filling Antonius’s war chest, for Antonius hungers to do what Caesar did not live to do – conquer the Parthians. Cilicia Pedia is being scoured from end to end, the brigands chased from their strongholds and the Arab raiders back across the Amanus. A profitable exercise, but not profitable enough, so Dellius suggested that Antonius summon you to Tarsus and there fine you ten thousand gold talents for supporting Gaius Cassius.

      There is nothing I can do to help you, dear good Queen, beyond warn you that Dellius is even now upon his way south. Perhaps with foreknowledge you will have the time to devise a scheme to thwart him and his master.

      Cleopatra handed the scroll back to Apollodorus and stood chewing her lip, eyes closed. Quintus Dellius? Not a name she recognized, therefore no one with sufficient clout in Rome to have attended her receptions, even the largest; Cleopatra never forgot a name or the face attached to it. He would be a Vettius, some ignoble knight with smarm and charm, just the type to appeal to a boor like Marcus Antonius. Him, she remembered! Big and burly, thews like Hercules, shoulders as wide as mountains, an ugly face whose nose strove to meet an upthrust chin across a small, thick-lipped mouth. Women swooned over him because he was supposed to have a gigantic penis – what a reason to swoon! Men liked him for his bluff, hearty manner, his confidence in himself. But Caesar, whose close cousin he was, had grown disenchanted with him – the main reason, she was sure, why Antonius’s visits to her had been few. When left in charge of Italia he had slaughtered eight hundred citizens in the Forum Romanum, a crime Caesar could not forgive. Then he tried to woo Caesar’s soldiers and ended in instigating a mutiny that had broken Caesar’s heart.

      Of course her agents had reported that many thought Antony was a part of the plot to assassinate Caesar, though she herself was not sure; the occasional letter Antony had written to her explained that he had had no choice other than to ignore the murder, forswear vengeance on the assassins, even condone their conduct. And in those letters Antony had assured her that, as soon as Rome settled down, he would recommend Caesarion to the Senate as one of Caesar’s chief heirs. To a woman devastated by grief, his words had been balm. She wanted to believe them! Oh, no, he wasn’t saying that Caesarion should be admitted into Roman law as Caesar’s Roman heir! Only that Caesarion’s right to the throne of Egypt should be sanctioned by the Senate. Were it not, her son would be faced by the same problems that had dogged her father, never certain of his tenure of the throne because Rome said Egypt really belonged to Rome. Anymore than she herself had been certain until Caesar entered her life. Now Caesar was gone, and his nephew Gaius Octavius had usurped more power than any lad of eighteen had ever done before. Calmly, cannily, quickly. At first she had thought of young Octavian as a possible father for more children, but he had rebuffed her in a brief letter she could still recite by heart.

      Marcus Antonius, he of the reddish eyes and curly reddish hair, no more like Caesar than Hercules was like Apollo. Now he had turned his eyes toward Egypt – but not to woo Pharaoh. All he wanted was to fill his war chest with Egypt’s wealth. Well, that would never happen – never!

      ‘Caesarion, it’s time you had some fresh air,’ she said with brisk decision. ‘Sosigenes, I need you. Apollodorus, find Cha’em and bring him back with you. It’s council time.’

      When Cleopatra spoke in that tone, no one argued, least of all her son, who took himself off at once, whistling for his puppy, a small ratter named Fido.

      ‘Read this,’ she said curtly when the council assembled, thrusting the scroll at Cha’em. ‘All of you, read it.’

      ‘If Antonius brings his legions, he can sack Alexandria and Memphis,’ Sosigenes said, handing the scroll to Apollodorus. ‘Since the plague, no one has had the spirit to resist. Nor do we have the numbers to resist. There are many gold statues to melt down.’

      Cha’em was the high priest of Ptah, the creator god, and had been a beloved part of Cleopatra’s life since her tenth year. His brown, firm body was wrapped from just below the nipples to mid-calf in a flaring white linen dress, and around his neck he wore the complex mixture of chains, crosses, roundels and breastplate proclaiming his position. ‘Antonius will melt nothing down,’ he said firmly. ‘You will go to Tarsus, Cleopatra, meet him there.’

      ‘Like a chattel? Like a mouse? Like a whipped cur?’

      ‘No, like a mighty sovereign. Like Pharaoh Hatshepsut, so great that her successor obliterated her cartouches. Armed with all the wiles and cunning of your ancestors. As Ptolemy Soter was the natural brother of Alexander the Great, you have the blood of many gods in your veins. Not only Isis, Hathor and Mut, but Amun-Ra on two sides – from the line of the pharaohs and from Alexander the Great, who was Amun-Ra’s son and also a god.’

      ‘I see where Cha’em is going,’ said Sosigenes thoughtfully. ‘This Marcus Antonius is no Caesar, therefore he can be duped. You must awe him into pardoning you. After all, you didn’t aid Cassius, and he can’t prove you did. When this Quintus Dellius arrives, he will try to cow you. But you are Pharaoh; no minion has the power to cow you.’

      ‘A pity that the fleet you sent Antonius and Octavianus was obliged to turn back,’ said Apollodorus.

      ‘Oh, what’s done is done!’ Cleopatra said impatiently. She sat back in her chair, suddenly pensive. ‘No one can cow Pharaoh, but … Cha’em, ask Tach’a to look at the lotus petals in her bowl. Antonius might have a use.’

      Sosigenes looked startled. ‘Majesty!’

      ‘Oh, come, Sosigenes, Egypt matters more than any living being! I have been a poor ruler, deprived of Osiris time and time again! Do I care what kind of man this Marcus Antonius is? No, I do not! Antonius has Julian blood. If the bowl of Isis says there is enough Julian blood in him, then perhaps I can take more from him than he can from me.’

      ‘I will do it,’ said Cha’em, getting to his feet.

      ‘Apollodorus, will Philopator’s river barge sustain a sea voyage to Tarsus at this time of year?’

      The Lord High Chamberlain frowned. ‘I’m not sure, Majesty.’