Kleopatra (37 page)

He must have seen the disappointment on her face when he had announced his departure. Undoubtedly, he could take for granted
the fact that women wanted to know him, to have him turn his easy charm in their directions. For all her practice at cloaking
her feelings, this man saw right through her, and now—she was sure—was taunting her for her silly, girlish crush.

She wanted to say something entirely haughty to make him believe that she had not given him a thought. Instead, all she managed
was to murmur that she did indeed, hope they would meet again. Then she committed the unpardonable gaff of blushing.

What was the use in trying to mask her feelings? She had already spun elaborate fantasies about this young Herakles: She would
sit at his side during long dinners, watching the candlelight flicker on his bronze face, offering him every delectable variety
of food—marinated quail, roasted boar and fishes, figs, wines from their vineyards, beers from their breweries—and even, if
her father was not looking, slip, with her slim fingers, a date into his mouth. She would conduct tours of their city designed
to impress him with their wealth and sophistication, taking him to the Library, to the Mouseion, to the zoo to see the great
black panther her father had just imported from Armenia. She would engage with him in his own Latin, demonstrating her command
of Roman literature, including the more erotic rants of Catullus. In her mind she had already envisioned the devilment in
his eyes as she read to him the sensual escapades of his debauched countryman. She would
tolerate
the journeys he would make with the king to the palace prostitutes and to the brothels in the Fayum where Antony would experience
the pleasures of the flesh in which she, a princess, might not indulge. She would summon him to the courtyard to see the ponds
with lotus blossoms like welcoming hands, the aviaries of crimson canaries, chattering parrots, and fluttering creatures with
gossamer wings and a barely audible song. She would tell him how, from her bedroom, she could watch the waves lick the beaches
of the Royal Harbor, and hope he imagined himself there with her. When he drank too much with the king, she would admonish
him with a smile and give him a powder for his hangover. Despite her young years and her childish body, she would charm him,
and in the end, she would make him love her.

But these would have to remain girlish fantasies. With a low bow and an unsettling smile in her direction, he was gone.

C
aesar sat on the rubble of the fallen siege wall sunning himself. The autumn air in Gaul came earlier than in Italy and could
be so pleasant. His legions labored below, busily cleaning up the residue of a battle fought and won, packing the remaining
bags of grain into giant sacks, counting the horses, repairing the leather ties that held together their armor, loading the
battering gear into the baggage carts. How could he be a happier man? Whether Fate or himself governed events, Caesar did
not know. He suspected that Fate recognized his talents and his efforts and decided to play in his favor.

He had waited for this moment for many years, the moment when he could breathe easily, assured that he had once and for all
subdued this rebellious nation of feral tribes. It had been five long years in the making, but he had earlier that day received
word from Vercingetorix’s men that their leader wished to know the terms of surrender. Caesar quickly sent back his orders.
Lay down your arms and come to me.

Now the giant of a man walked toward him, young, so young still. How old could he be? Thirty? An Alexander, but with the height
the Greek general had lacked. Unarmed, surrounded by his men, most of whom were crying. But not Vercingetorix. He had polished
his silver-and-bronze armor and wore it proudly. How nice it would look on display in Caesar’s home in Rome.

The blond man quickened his pace as he made his way directly to Caesar. His men dropped back, linking arms to hold one another
up as their leader prostrated himself at Caesar’s feet. Then he looked his conqueror straight in the eye. “I told my men to
kill me or to surrender me to you. I am not dead, therefore I am begging your mercy. Not for myself. But for them.”

Thank you, Mother Venus, Caesar said silently to his ancestress. For here in the suppliant position was his nemesis, the man
whose insolent rebellion had caused him to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Gauls. His Hannibal. A Titan of a man a full
head taller than the tall Caesar, his muscle triple the size of Caesar’s lean physique. A man whom, under other circumstances,
he might be curious enough to see what gifts were hidden under his battle gear.

“Vercingetorix, get up. You are no earnest suppliant,” said Caesar. “You ask for mercy, but what mercy have you shown me?”

Caesar pulled himself up taller to his full six feet, preparing to speak from deep within his gut, so that he would be heard
by the mile-long, pristine rows of soldiers that stretched in front of him.

“You used our friendship to seduce me into a false sense of security. As soon as I left your country, you rode from one end
of this land to the other urging your countrymen to betray me. When they would not join your cause, you encouraged them by—what
methods? You cut off their ears, tortured them, poked out their eyes, branded them with a burning sword, until they agreed
to join your madness.

“You are indeed a savage. But you are a fortunate savage. I shall give to you more mercy than you demonstrated to your own
people.”

“My life is yours to do with as you wish,” replied the man. He displayed no emotion, not even irony.

“Put him in chains,” Caesar said indifferently to his men. He called to Labienus, his second in command, and ordered him to
seek out among the prisoners the members of the tribes of the Avernii and the Aedui.

Caesar watched as his officers pulled the longhaired savages out of the ranks of the imprisoned, some cowering as if they
believed themselves singled out for additional punishment. Now they would see the mercy of Caesar in action. Caesar balanced
himself atop the fallen wall, making a strong triangle with his legs. He raised his arms to speak and smiled at the speed
at which the hush fell over his audience, Roman and Gallic men alike.

“Listen to me, you men of Avernii and Aedui—you allies of Rome intimidated into joining the rebellion by this animal’s hideous
tactics. In your hands I place the keys to peace and harmony with Rome. I say to each one of you—go home. Go to your wives,
your children, your elders, and tell them of the mercy of Caesar. Tell them that today, Caesar could have killed each treasonous
prisoner who made Roman soldiers suffer and die. Instead, he released you to return to your loved ones. Go now in peace.”

Caesar took in the satisfying hum of the prisoners as the news of his unexpected clemency traveled to the back of the lines.
He allowed himself to be helped off the rock by one of his men, squaring off to face the still-impenetrable face of Vercingetorix.
Well, he would show him, wouldn’t he? “Now, each of my men, officers first, will select a personal slave from your ranks.
Vercingetorix, you will turn your head and watch the process.”

Caesar knew this tedious selection of slaves would be a long and dreary procedure, one during which he himself would get bored,
but tired as he was, he wanted a definitive end to this conflict. He had spent the winter, the spring, and the summer listening
to the sound of dying. Perhaps the weather god was the cruelest dictator of all.

In the winter, Vercingetorix had set fire to every farm or town or village that he could not defend, trying to starve out
Caesar’s army by burning all the local crops and killing the animals. In retaliation, Caesar built a massive siege wall around
Avaricum, the one city the Gauls pleaded with Vercingetorix to save. Caesar’s men were exhausted, having traveled through
mountain passes, clearing six and eight feet of snow as they walked. They were out of grain and living off animals stolen
and slaughtered as they marched through the relentless white mountains of a Gallic winter. Both Caesar and his men were past
their patience. They had subdued this nation once, and now the rebel Vercingetorix was forcing them to do the job again.

So what choice did he have when his soldiers—rabid, angry, hungry, and made even more bestial on their unbroken diet of wild
meats—entered the town of Avaricum and began the slaughter? Never had he, a man of war, witnessed such mayhem and bloodshed,
such ritualistic and thorough extermination of a town. Half dead already with winter’s ravages, his men finished nature’s
job on the townspeople, tearing out the guts of men, women, children alike with their cold metal weapons. They stopped neither
to save the town’s assets for their own, nor to quench their sexual thirsts. Their needs were beyond money and lust. After
the massacre, the body count took two days. Thirty-nine thousand, two hundred twenty-seven, if he remembered correctly.

That is what this creature before him had driven the soldiers to do, this thing now asking for mercy, this Vercingetorix,
with his army of two hundred thousand vandals and hoodlums.

Caesar thought that the Avaricum massacre would send the message, but it had the reverse effect. The Gauls became even more
determined. Desperate for victory, they started their burning campaign anew. In the spring, Caesar marched his men through
fields of ash where farms, meadows, mills, and markets once stood. By the onset of summer, their clothes and weapons were
burnished black with the ashen remnants of Gallic civilization. Vercingetorix, unmoved, had retreated to the city of Alesia,
atop the summit of a hill, impregnable—or so he thought. Had he not already borne witness to the fruits of Caesar, the master
builder? Was his hope so great that it deterred his judgment?

Caesar’s men cheerfully accepted the challenge of constructing the fortifications. And he was so proud of the product—a circular
siege wall, ten miles long, fourteen miles in width, to the best of his approximation. Three tiered circles around it so that
there was no way in and no way out. It was his magnum opus.

He confiscated all the food that the Gauls tried to sneak into the city. He estimated that he could starve the town into either
death or surrender in thirty days or less.

After two weeks, Vercingetorix opened the gates long enough to push out all those who were unfit for battle—the women, the
children, the old men. In tattered rags, bones jutting like thorns, they came to Caesar for quarter. But how could he take
on the responsibilities of his enemy? He felt certain that Vercingetorix was trying to take advantage of his reputation for
mercy. He told them to go back to their men and demand that they take care of their own.

“We cannot go back,” said one bold woman, whom Caesar could tell had been quite beautiful before her starving body began to
feast upon itself. “The warriors have said they will dine upon our babies if it means keeping themselves alive to fight you.”

Caesar took this into consideration, but refused them nonetheless. And so they camped under the fortifications, the old and
the young, and the women who cared for them, sheltering themselves from summer’s burning sun, and tortured his men with the
sound of their babies crying themselves to hungry deaths. The low moans and curses of the old men, the whimpering cries of
the mothers and the girls, the vows of hatred against all things Roman, the rotting smells—these things so discouraged the
more sensitive of his commanders. Every time one more would die, the women would beat their chests—why did women of all cultures
do this strange thing?—and curse not Vercingetorix, but Caesar. Starvation had made them irrational.

Who should pay for these crimes but this beautiful, implacable savage?

Vercingetorix did not flinch as the Roman soldiers eyed the Gallic warriors greedily like customers in a whorehouse. Tullian,
a cavalry officer known for his homosexual predilection, had placed two of the youngest, fairest of the soldiers side by side,
looking from one to the other, trying to choose.

“Labienus, please tell Tullian that he may have both of those young men. I do not wish him baffled by the choice,” Caesar
said, looking for a response of some kind from Vercingetorix, who scowled but remained still. After all, what were Caesar’s
men to do? The Gauls had sentenced their own women to death by starvation. The few that remained were scrawny and dying. Still,
they made him think of
her.
In his dreams, which came all too frequently now, their dying bodies had her face.

Julia.

His only child, the coltish girl he so loved, was dead. And Caesar was not even there to witness her demise, to hold her hand,
to apply the ointments to her fevered brow, but was at war with these barbarians. He had been given complete reports of the
event; still, he had a difficult time believing she was gone.

She had died trying to give Pompey an heir. Pompey, devastated, prepared a grand funeral ceremony at his property in Alba,
but a mob of citizens showed up at his house and demanded the girl’s body. Stole it, really. They took the corpse from the
house and performed the ceremony in the Field of Mars where all Rome might attend. They told Pompey to his face that the daughter
of Caesar belonged to the people and not to him. That, Caesar would like to have seen. He was told that the funeral pyre was
spectacular. The mourning, city-wide. All in tribute to his only heir. Clodius, poor dead Clodius, had arranged the spectacle.

Julia, dead. Clodius, dead. Murdered on a lonesome stretch of the Appian Way by his rival, Milo. Intoxicated by violence,
Clodius had gotten out of hand, stirring up trouble in the city to the point where the senate had threatened to put off the
coming elections. Antony, running for quaestor, put a stop to it. He drew his sword on Clodius and promised to kill him if
he did not change his tactics. When it came time to choose between Clodius and Antony, Caesar was decided. Clodius was the
past, Antony the future. No one rivaled Antony in battle, no one, not even Caesar himself. Milo merely took care of an ugly
job, saving Caesar from the necessity of turning forever on an old friend. The tear Caesar had shed upon Clodius’s death was
merely nostalgic.