Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght (24 page)

She had brought ruin upon herself and on the ancient house of the pharaohs. For nothing.

Shivering on the cold floor, she lay in the terrible void she had created for herself. What she had done was beyond foolish.

It was treason.

On wobbly limbs, she crawled to her chest once more and pulled out a vial of delicate white flower petals floating in distilled wine. Water hemlock. Taken in small doses it was used as a sedative, but in larger quantities this was deadly poison.

In the darkness of the underworld she could pay for her sins. At least she would not have to face Cleopatra.

Iris stared at the tiny petals swirling in wine. There could be no hesitation or she risked losing courage. Recklessly, with all her self-will, she unfastened the vial, unleashing the bitter turnip-like scent. But before the poison reached her lips, someone sprang from the darkness and knocked the bottle from her hands, sending it smashing against the wall with a sharp crash.

“Charmion!”

Iris gaped in astonishment, but she could see in her friend's eyes that she knew. She knew everything.

Sinking to the floor, Iris crumpled at Charmion’s feet. “Let me die! If you have any mercy, let me die!

Charmion roughly pulled her up, holding her at arm’s length, her strong hands bruising Iris's pale skin. “Stop it!” she hissed. “You must contain yourself! Do you think there will be mercy for you in the darkness of the underworld? When you go before Lord Thoth, who records the deeds of all mortals in the eternal book, he won’t know what you’ve done and you will not be punished?”

“Then let me be punished!” pleaded Iris, trying to tear herself away. “Let me be torn to bits by the Devourer of the Dead himself. In the pain, maybe I’ll forget what I am and what I’ve done!”

Iris broke from Charmion's grasp and slid across the floor, where she lay with her face hidden from view, crying bitterly into her arms.

Charmion moved to grasp the girl again, but apparently thinking better of it, she briefly left the chamber and returned a moment later with an alabaster cup. Without further words, she pulled Iris up again and forced the drink to her lips.

Too beaten and tired to resist, Iris gulped down the potion and her sobs began to quiet.

Charmion wiped Iris’s red bloated face with the hem of her linen tunic. Iris’s eyes had swollen up and grief made her look like an old woman instead of the blooming seventeen-year-old girl she was.

“Charmion,” she whispered, as she turned her head away, “Please don’t be kind to me. I don’t deserve your help. I must die. Be it now or at the Queen's hands.”

Charmion looked grave. “Death may indeed be your fate, but it’s not for you to decide. You must tell Cleopatra what you’ve done and face your punishment honorably.” Her eyes filled with compassion and she looked at Iris almost pleadingly. “Don’t you understand? It’s your only hope when you meet your judgment in the underworld.”

Though the potion Iris had drunk was potent, and beginning to have its sedative effects, she once more pulled away. “I can’t face the Queen! Please Charmion, don’t even speak of it!”

“Have we failed so completely to teach you our ways? You have many faults, but I never thought you a coward. You have brought sorrow enough on this court. Will you do more harm by taking this matter into your own rash hands and ending your life?”

“I would think, the Queen would be pleased at my death, once she knows––that she would demand it,” whimpered Iris, trying to avoid Charmion’s dark glare.

“You do not know her then. Perhaps she will have you executed but she might also spare you.”

“But it’s treason, what I’ve done,” gasped Iris. “She must kill me. Every king or queen must destroy those who work against them!”

“Cleopatra is not just a queen,” Charmion insisted. “She is our Goddess. The rules of mortals are not always the rules of pharaohs.”

Iris sat stunned, the sedative dulling her mind.

“I will leave it to you to decide what’s best.” Charmion, rose to her feet. “Pray to Isis for guidance and remember you are her sworn priestess, no matter what crimes you have committed.”

Iris did not look up but she heard the door close quietly behind Charmion. Outside her window the dawn was starting to break above the sea. She stumbled over to catch sight as Ra's first golden rays touched the surf. The sea gulls rose up in the pale light and a salty breeze wiped clean the tears from her face. Never had the sunrise seemed more achingly beautiful than now that perhaps she was beholding it for the last day of her life.

***

Cleopatra sat through another long day at the court of Ma’at. She was robed in glimmering gold and her skill with cosmetics hid the dark shadows beneath her tired eyes. It was all she could do to remain focused on the matter at hand, a dispute between two local landowners who squabbled over a stretch of pasture and several cattle they both claimed for themselves.

But she
would
give this her attention.

Cleopatra had purposefully kept her mind busy with the business of her court ever since her son’s recovery. Now that Caesarion was safe from immediate harm, she did not want to know what dreadful things lay ahead, what other horrors Caesar’s spirit had come to warn her of.

What could happen to Antony
.

As for the two landowners arguing over their cattle, she’d heard enough. Wearily, Cleopatra handed down her judgment and Apollodorus dismissed them. She was bent over a scroll delivered by an envoy from Nubia, when she became aware that a hush had fallen over the court.

Cleopatra looked up. Iris stood pale as death before her throne. The girl sank to her knees and bowed until the tip of her forehead pressed against the floor.

A murmur went through the crowd.

Apollodorus’s face looked thunderous. “Why do you come before the court, Iris?”

Still on her knees, Iris replied, “I am here to confess a crime.”

The courtiers stared at the girl curiously and began to whisper among themselves before Apollodorus struck his staff hard on the floor and called for silence.

“What is it, Iris?” he asked, concern seeping into his voice. His face looked almost as old as its years as he frowned down at her.

On shaking legs, Iris rose to her feet and looked up to meet Cleopatra's eyes. “I come to confess that I––”

But she stammered and stepped back a pace as Cleopatra’s presence grew larger and more dazzling before her eyes. A radiance shone from all around the Queen of Heaven and everyone in the hall quickly fell to their knees murmuring, “Isis! Blessed be the Lady Isis!”

Iris would have turned to run, but her knees gave way beneath her, and she found herself once more kneeling at her Queen's feet.

“
You are all dismissed
.” The voice of the Goddess filled the hall. “
All but you, Iris
.”

The courtiers quickly emptied the hall, bowing and muttering invocations of blessing as they left, but Apollodorus remained by Cleopatra’s side.

She turned her flashing eyes on him. “
You must go too, Apollodorus. I wish to be alone with this child
.”

“Yes, Queen of Heaven.” The old priest reverently backed from the room with his head bowed.

Iris’s eyes darted nervously around the empty court. The golden hall seemed impossibly large without people in it and she felt exposed and vulnerable in the cavernous space. Finally, she summoned the courage to look upon the face of the Goddess seated on the throne above her.

“My, my Queen...” she stammered, but Iris was so awed by the immortal presence she could not continue.

Cleopatra’s jade eyes clouded over and a dreamy expression crossed her face. “Nephthys,”
came the low melodious voice
. “Sister, you have worked dark magic.”

Iris did not know if the Queen spoke to her, or not, but she must voice her crime. She must speak it or let it putrefy her soul forever in the underworld.

“I have done as you say, Lady. I have cast spells to bind Antony to me and I have lain with him disguised as you...and…and,” she faltered, too terrified to go on. But then somehow she found herself continuing her confession, though she watched herself, as if from outside of her own body, and her voice sounded strange in her ears. “
I have unleashed a great darkness. Two nights past, Antony consummated his marriage to the lady Octavia in Rome
.”

With a rush of breath, suddenly Iris was back in herself. Feeling strangely hollow and spent, she sat with her head bowed, now that the truth was out, not daring to breathe as she awaited her sentence. “Let death come quickly,” she prayed, closing her eyes and once more pressing her forehead to the floor.

But the death sentence did not come. Nothing did. The hall was filled with silence.

Timidly, she peeked up to see a rosy light pouring from Cleopatra, her serene expression emanating love as the Queen knelt down and took the girl’s clammy hands in her own.

At the Goddess’s touch, strength and love poured into Iris, erasing the tangle of fear.

“
Iris, you are forgiven
.”

Iris gaped in shock. “Queen of Heaven, you don’t understand!”

“
It is you who do not understand,” replied the Goddess with a radiant smile. “No mortal fully knows my ways. I was here at the beginning of time and know all until the end. From your limited viewpoint, you cannot hope to fathom even a sliver of my truth. You have dedicated your service to my dark sister, Nephthys. You are now a Keeper Of The Darkness. Serve her well and you serve me too
.”

The Goddess pressed a warm kiss on Iris’s brow, sending waves of peace through her mind.

Speechless, Iris stared at Cleopatra as the divine light radiating from the Queen dimmed and slowly faded into the ethers.

Cleopatra sat blinking, her body fell limp against the back of the throne as she returned to herself.

Penitent tears slid down Iris’s face. “My lady––”

Iris jumped as the wide doors to the hall were thrown open and Apollodorus rushed in.

“Cleopatra, forgive me,” said the priest, his usually calm fathomless eyes wide with emotion, “but a courier from Rome has just arrived. He sends word that Antony has signed a treaty with Octavian.” He paused and took a step closer to the throne, his tone becoming more gentle. “To seal the bargain, he has married Octavian’s sister.”

Cleopatra's face turned to ash. The crook and flail, her sacred symbols of divine rulership, slipped from her fingers and bounced clumsily to the floor. Gripping the arm of her throne, she began to rise.

“This cannot be…”

But before Iris or Apollodorus could reach her, Cleopatra’s grasp on the throne faltered. She reached out to a nearby pylon for support, but it was too late, her eyes slid back in her head, her knees buckled and she collapsed to the ground unconscious, her golden robes fanning out around her limp body.

Apollodorus rushed to Cleopatra’s side, feeling for her pulse. He held his hand over her body, deep concentration written across his old face as he slowly moved up the length of her, reading her
ka
, until he paused just above her belly.

“Call the pharaoh’s surgeons.” His wide all-seeing eyes bored into Iris’s for a moment. “She doesn’t yet know it, has not allowed herself to know it, but the Queen carries Antony’s twins in her womb.”

Iris opened her mouth to speak, but Apollodorus roared, “Fetch the surgeons!”

Iris sprang to her feet and ran from the hall. The last sight that met her eyes before the golden doors closed behind her, was the old priest kneeling at the foot of the throne praying fervently over Cleopatra’s pale motionless body.

“Reverently we stepped in spirit within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil of “the one that is and was and shall be”.

–– H.P. Blavatsky

Winter gloom hung over Rome. It was gray and cold as the hazy sun, soft and dim as a muted pearl, struggled to break through a blanket of clouds for a few brief hours. The meager afternoon light gave little warmth or illumination to Octavia’s chamber as she sat with her daughter perched snugly in her lap. Shivering, she drew her mantle more securely around them before carefully placing the child’s chubby fingers upon the loom, showing her how to weave the wool slowly in and out of its frame.

Antony’s steward approached. His wizen face bore a look of consternation as he glanced back towards the door.

Octavia looked up from her daughter's tangle of thread. “What is it, Maurus?”

The steward hesitated for a moment. “Lady Octavia, Germanicus is here, but Lord Antony gave orders not to be disturbed.”

Octavia felt heat flushing her cheeks. She and the old steward both knew Antony had been alone in his chambers with his wine and those unfathomable scrolls of his since daybreak. When would she cease to feel shame before her own servants?

“Thank you, Maurus, I’ll see Germanicus in the atrium.”