Antony and Cleopatra (53 page)

“The mallet head is made of cork,” whispered Iras.

How lovely they were! Five years old now, and so different in appearance that no one would have guessed that they were twins. The Sun was appropriately gold of hair and eye and skin, handsome in a more eastern than Roman vein; it was easy to see that when he matured he would have a curved beak of a nose, high cheekbones. The Moon had dense, curly black hair, a delicate face, and a pair of huge eyes the color of amber between long black lashes; it was easy to see that when she matured she would be very beautiful in no way save her own. Neither of them resembled Antony, or indeed their mother. The mingling of two disparate strains had produced children more physically attractive than either parent.

Little Ptolemy Philadelphus, on the other hand, was Mark Antony from head to feet: big, thickset, reddish hair and eyes, the nose that strove to meet the chin across a small, full mouth. He had been born in Roman October the year before last, which made him eighteen months old.

“He’s a typical youngest child,” Charmian murmured. “Makes no attempt to speak, though he walks like his daddy.”

“Typical?” Cleopatra asked, enveloping his wriggling body in a hug he clearly didn’t appreciate.

“Youngests don’t talk because their elders talk for them. He gabbles, they understand.”

“Oh.” She dropped Philadelphus in a hurry when he sank his milk teeth into her hand, stood flapping it in pain. “He really is like his father, isn’t he? Determined. Iras, have the court jeweler make him an amethyst bracelet. It guards against wine.”

“He’d tear it off, Majesty.”

“Then a close-fitting necklet, or a brooch—I don’t care, as long as he wears an amethyst.”

“Does Antonius wear his?” Iras asked.

“He does now,” said Cleopatra grimly.

From the nursery she went to her bath, Charmian and Iras accompanying her. In Rome, she knew, they told fabulous stories of her bath; that it was filled with ass’s milk, that it was the size of a carp pond, that a miniature waterfall refreshed it, that its heat was tested by immersing a slave in it first. None of the tales that sprang out of her sojourn in Rome was true; the tub Julius Caesar found in Lentulus Crus’s tent after Pharsalus was far more sumptuous. Cleopatra’s was a rectangular tub of ordinary size, made of unpolished red granite. It was filled by slaves carrying amphorae of plain water, some hot, some cold; the recipe was standard, so the temperature scarcely varied.

“Does Caesarion mix with his little brothers and sister?” she asked as Charmian massaged her back, poured water over it.

“No, Majesty,” Charmian answered, sighing. “He
likes
them, but they don’t interest him.”

“Hardly surprising,” said Iras, preparing perfumed unguent. “The age difference is too great for intimacy, and he was never treated as a child. That is the fate of Pharaoh.”

“True.”

An observation reinforced at dinner, which Caesarion attended in body, but not in mind; that was elsewhere. If someone thrust food at him, he ate it, always the plainest of fare. Clearly the servants were educated in what to offer him. His intake of fish was consoling, and he did eat lamb, but poultry, young crocodile, and other meats were ignored. Crisp bread, as snowy white as the bakers could make it, formed the largest part of his meal, dipped in olive oil or, at breakfast time, honey, he told his mother.

“My father ate plain,” he said in response to a chiding remark from Cleopatra aimed at persuading him to vary his diet more, “and it didn’t do him any harm, did it?”

“No, it didn’t,” she admitted, giving up.

She held her councils in a room designed for them, having a big marble table that could seat her and Caesarion at its end, and take four men down either side; the far end was always vacant as an honorary place for Amun-Ra, who never managed to come. This day saw Apollodorus sitting opposite Sosigenes and Cha’em. Their queen took her seat, annoyed to find no Caesarion, but before she could say something scathing, in he strolled with both hands full of documents. A loud gasp went up; Caesarion went to the place of Amun-Ra and seated himself there.

“Take your designated chair, Caesarion,” Cleopatra said.

“This is my chair.”

“It belongs to Amun-Ra, and even Pharaoh is not Amun-Ra.”

“I have contracted an agreement with Amun-Ra, that I represent him at all councils,” the lad said, unruffled. “It is foolish to sit in a chair from which I cannot see the one face I need most to see, Pharaoh—yours.”

“We reign jointly, therefore we should sit together.”

“Were I your parrot, Pharaoh, we could. But now that I have become a man, I do not intend to be your parrot. When I think it necessary, I will disagree with you. I bow to your age and your experience, but you must bow to me as senior partner in our joint rule. I am male Pharaoh, it is my right to have the final word.”

A silence followed this level speech, during which Cha’em, Sosigenes, and Apollodorus looked fixedly at the surface of the table and Cleopatra looked down its length at her rebel son. It was her own doing; she had elevated him to the throne, had him anointed and consecrated Pharaoh of Egypt and King of Alexandria. Now she didn’t know what to do for the best, and doubted that she had sufficient influence with this stranger to reassert herself as the senior partner. Oh, pray this is not the beginning of a war between ruling Ptolemies! she thought. Pray this isn’t going to be Ptolemy Gross Belly versus Cleopatra the Mother! But I see no corruption in him, no greed, no savagery. He’s a Caesar, not a Ptolemy! Which means he will not subject himself to me, that he thinks himself wiser than me, for all my “age and experience.” I must give way, I must give in.

“Your point is taken, Pharaoh,” she said without anger. “I sit at this end, you at that end.” Unconsciously she rubbed her hand across the base of her neck, where, she had discovered in her bath, a swelling had arisen. “Is there anything you wish to discuss about your conduct of state affairs while I was away?”

“No, all went smoothly. I dispensed justice without needing to consult previous cases, and none disputed my verdicts. The public purse of Egypt is properly accounted for, also the public purse of Alexandria. I have left it to the Recorder and the other magistrates of Alexandria to do all the necessary repairs to the city’s buildings, and authorized repairs to various temples and precincts along the shores of Nilus as petitioned.” His face changed, became more animated. “If you have no questions and have heard no complaints about my conduct, may I ask that you listen to my plans for the future of Egypt and Alexandria?”

“I have heard no complaints thus far,” Cleopatra said with caution. “You may proceed, Ptolemy Caesar.”

He had put his bundles of scrolls on the table, and spoke now without consulting them. The room was dim because the day was drawing to a close, but wayward spears of light dancing with dust motes flickered in time to the swaying of palm fronds outside. One ray, steadier than the rest, illuminated the disc of Amun-Ra on the wall behind Caesarion’s head; Cha’em took on his seer’s look, said something in the back of his throat too strangled to understand, and put trembling hands on the table. Perhaps it was the fading light made his skin seem grey; Cleopatra didn’t know, but did know that whatever vision had come to him would not be imparted to her. Which meant it had been malign.

“First, I shall deal with Alexandria,” said Caesarion briskly. “There have to be changes—immediate changes. In future we will follow Roman practice by providing a free grain dole for the poor. Means tested, of course. Further to grain, its price will not fluctuate to reflect its cost if bought from overseas when Nilus does not inundate. The additional expense will be absorbed by Alexandria’s public purse. However, these laws apply only to the amount of grain a small family consumes during the course of one month—the
medimnus
. Any Alexandrian buying more than one
medimnus
a month will have to pay the going rate.”

He paused, chin up, eyes challenging, but no one spoke. He resumed. “Those residents of Alexandria who are not at the moment entitled to the citizenship will be enfranchised. This applies to all free men, including freedmen. That way, there will be citizen rolls and the apparatus to issue grain chits, be they for free grain or that one subsidized monthly
medimnus
. All the city’s magistracies from Interpreter down will be filled in the fairest way—by free election—and last for one year only. Any citizen, be he Macedonian, Greek, Jew, Metic, or hybrid Egyptian, will be permitted to stand, and laws will be enacted to punish electoral bribery, as well as corruption while in office.”

Another pause, greeted by profound silence. Caesarion took that as a sign that opposition, when it came, would be implacable.

“Finally,” he announced, “at every major intersection I will build a marble fountain. It will have several spouts for drawing water and a roomy pool for washing clothes. For washing persons, I will build public baths in each of the city’s districts except Beta, where the Royal Enclosure already has adequate facilities.”

Time to switch from man to boy; eyes dancing, he looked at each set face around the table. “There!” he cried, laughing now. “Isn’t all of that splendid?”

“Splendid indeed,” Cleopatra said, “but manifestly impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because Alexandria cannot afford your program.”

“Since when did a democratic form of government cost more than a bunch of life-tenured Macedonians who are too busy feathering their own nests to spend the city’s moneys where they should be spent? Why should public income support their plush existences? And since when should a youth be castrated in order to enter senior service with the King and Queen? Why can’t women guard our virgin princesses? Eunuchs, in this day and age? It’s abominable!”

“Unanswerable,” said Cha’em, mouth twitching at the look of horror on Apollodorus’s face; he was a eunuch.

“And since when did universal suffrage cost more than select suffrage?” Caesarion demanded. “Setting up an electoral apparatus will cost, yes. A free grain dole will cost. A subsidized grain ration will cost. Fountains and baths will cost. But if the nest-featherers are hauled down from their perches at the top of the roost and
every
citizen pays
all
his taxes instead of some people’s taxes being winked at, I think the money can be found.”

“Oh, stop being a child, Caesarion!” Cleopatra said in weary tones. “Just because you have a huge allowance to squander doesn’t mean you understand high finance! Find money, piffle! You’re a child with a child’s idea of how the world works.”

All the glee vanished; Caesarion’s face took on a pinched, rigid hauteur. “I am no child!” he said through his teeth, voice as cold as Rome in winter. “Do you know how I spend my huge allowance, Pharaoh? I pay the wages of a dozen accountants and clerks! Nine months ago I commissioned them to investigate Alexandria’s revenues and expenditures. Our Macedonian magistrates from the Interpreter to their bureaucracy of nephews and cousins are corrupt!
Rotten!
” One hand, a ruby ring flashing crimson fire, brushed the scrolls. “It is all here, every last peculation, embezzlement, fraud, petty theft! Once the data were all in, I felt ashamed to call myself King of Alexandria!”

If silence could boom, this silence did. One part of Cleopatra exulted in her son’s amazing precocity, but another part was so angry that her right palm itched to strike the little monster’s face. How dared he! Yet how wonderful that he dared! And what could she answer? How was she going to get out of this with her dignity intact, her pride unhumbled?

Sosigenes postponed that evil moment. “What I want to know, is who gave you these ideas, Pharaoh? You certainly didn’t get them from me, and I refuse to believe that they sprang fully armed from your own brow. So where did they come from?”

Even as he asked, Sosigenes was conscious of a twisting in his chest, a pang of pure sorrow for the lost boyhood of Caesarion. It has always been awesome to witness the evolution of this true prodigy, he thought, for, like his father, he is a true prodigy.

But it has meant no boyhood. As a tiny babe in arms he had talked in polished sentences; no one could fail to see what a mighty mind dwelled inside the infant Caesarion. Though his father had never once remarked on it, or indeed seemed to see it; perhaps the memories of his own early years closed his eyes. How had Julius Caesar been when he was twelve years old? How, for instance, had his mother treated him? Not the way Cleopatra treated Caesarion, Sosigenes decided in that minute slice of time waiting for Caesarion to answer. Cleopatra regarded her son as a god, so the depth of his intellect only served to increase her foolishness. Oh, if only Caesarion had been more…
ordinary
!

Well did Sosigenes remember persuading Cleopatra to let the five-year-old boy play with some of the children belonging to high-born Macedonians like the Recorder and the Accountant. Those boys had drawn back from Caesarion in fear, or punched and kicked him, or mocked him cruelly. All of which he had borne without complaint, as determined to conquer them as he was to conquer the woes of Alexandria today. But seeing their behavior, Cleopatra had banished all children, girls as well as boys, from contact with her son. In future, she had ordained, Caesarion must be content with his own company. Whereupon Sosigenes had produced a mongrel puppy. Horrified, Cleopatra would have had the creature drowned. But Caesarion had walked in at that opportune moment, seen the dog, and become a little boy of five. Face wreathed in smiles, his hands went out to hold the squirming scrap: thus had Fido entered Caesarion’s life. Yet the boy knew Fido displeased his mother, and had been obliged to conceal from her the dog’s importance to him. Again, that wasn’t normal. Again, Caesarion was forced into adult behavior. A careworn old man lives within him, while the boy he has never been allowed to be withers save in secret moments spent far from his mother and the thrones he occupies as her equal.
Equal?
No, not that, never that! Caesarion is his mother’s superior in every way, and that is a tragedy.