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‘Your master has been paid,’ Sol continued, ‘and has released you to me. I have been instructed to escort you directly to Queen Cleopatra’s camp near Pelousion. Our driver awaits us outside.’
He was halfway through the open doorway when he turned to regard her motionless figure. ‘I see,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I must have been mistaken about you. It appears that you support Ptolemy’s claim to the Horus Throne.’
‘What? No!’
‘Then why do you not follow me?’
‘I...’ She paused. Her thoughts would not arrange themselves. How could she trust this strange man when his errand stretched the bounds of reason? ‘Forgive me, but I must know, why would the Queen want...me?’
‘It is my understanding that you have a special skill.’
Skill? She searched her mind. Beyond pouring beers and mixing brews, she had only one skill. ‘Do you refer to my ability to speak Latin?’
‘It must be that,’ said Sol, ‘though the Queen did mention something about your holy birth. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘I am a child of the Temple of Hathor.’
‘Ah! A child of the gods—it is no wonder the Queen summons you.’
Wen stood in confounded silence. Up until that moment, she had perceived herself unfortunate in her birth.
‘I assure you that I mean you no harm,’ said Sol. ‘But neither do I have time to waste. You may come with me now or remain here for the rest of your days. It is your choice. Only choose.’
Wen turned the coin over in her hands. She studied the profile that had been etched into its golden metal. It was a woman’s profile to be sure—a woman who, until only a year before, had ably ruled the oldest, most powerful kingdom in the world. She was a woman who had never known her own mother, had been neglected by her father and was hated by her husband-brother, who had lately put a price on her head.
If Sol was telling the truth, he would be leading Wen into mortal danger. Cleopatra was a woman surrounded by dangerous men, fighting to survive and likely to perish.
‘Well?’ asked Sol. ‘Are you coming or not?’
* * *
The carriage was of modest size, but to Wen it seemed a great chariot. They raced past the grand colonnades of Canopus Street with such speed that the pedestrians paused to observe them, staring out from beneath the green shade cloths.
Wen’s heart hummed. How bold she felt sitting on the bench with Sol—how wholly unlike herself. She undid her braid and let her hair fly behind her like a tattered flag.
Soon they had boarded a barge and were sailing upriver with the wind at their backs. Wen gazed out at the verdant marshlands as long-forgotten memories flooded in.
As a child, Wen had often travelled the River as part of the holy entourage of the High Priestess of Hathor.
It had been a great honor to travel with the High Priestess. As the goddess Hathor’s representative on earth, the Priestess was required to attend ceremonies from Alexandria to Thebes. She would always select from among the children of the temple to journey with her, for she loved them as her own.
There were dozens of children to choose from and more every year. They were conceived during the Festival of Drunkenness, when high-born men were allowed to couple with the priestesses of Hathor and experience the divine. Any children that resulted from their holy act belonged to the temple, their paternity unknown, their maternity unimportant.
For each of her journeys, the High Priestess chose a different set of temple children to accompany her, but she never failed to include Wen. While they sailed, she would invite Wen beneath her gauze-covered canopy and instruct her in the invisible arts.
She called the lessons ‘reading lessons’, though they had nothing to do with texts. They were lessons on how to read people—how to look into a man’s eyes and discover his thoughts.
She taught Wen how to spot flattery, how to uncover a lie and how to use the art of rhetoric to pull the truth from a man’s heart. She told Wen wondrous tales—the Pieces of Osiris, she called them, for they were words gathered together to teach Wen lessons.
‘You have the gift,’ the High Priestess told Wen one day as they floated towards Memphis. She stared into the eyes of her golden-cobra bracelet as if consulting it, then gave a solemn nod. ‘When you are ready, I will take you to meet the Pharaohs and we will find a place for you at the Alexandrian court. You will become a royal advisor, just as I have been.’
But that day never came.
Wen gazed at the silken water. So much had changed since then, though the River itself seemed unaltered. They skirted around shadowy marshes thick with lotus blooms, and floated past big-shouldered farmers who laboured in the deepening dusk.
Sol studied Wen with amusement as she gaped at the sights. ‘You watch with the eyes of a child,’ he mused, ‘though a child you are not.’ He glanced at her scar, which she had allowed to become exposed.
‘It is a battle scar,’ she offered, quickly pulling her leg beneath her skirt.
‘And did you win the battle?’
‘I am here, am I not?’
They travelled relentlessly into the night, moving from the gentle current of the river to the jarring bumps of unseen roads. Wen willed herself awake, fearful she might close her eyes and discover that the journey had been nothing but a dream.
She must have finally slept, however, for by the time she opened her eyes it was evening again and the souls of dead Pharaohs had already begun to salt the sky. Wen sat up and smelled the air. It was thick and briny, and she knew the sea was near.
They descended into a wide, flat plain where thousands of men loitered amidst a collection of tents. Sol explained that the men were soldiers—Syrian, Nabataean and Egyptian mercenaries who had been hired by Queen Cleopatra with what remained of her wealth. They were her only chance against her husband-brother’s much larger army, which was stationed in the nearby town of Pelousion, preparing to strike.
They came to a halt beside a large cowhide tent, and Sol leaped to the ground. ‘We have arrived. This is where we must part.’
‘Arrived where?’ asked Wen, taking his hand and jumping down beside him.
He flashed her an enigmatic grin, then motioned to the tent. ‘Go inside and wait. The Queen’s attendants will find you when her council concludes. No matter what happens, you must never address the Queen directly. You must wait until she speaks to you. Now go.’
‘You are not going to accompany me?’
He laughed. ‘The fate of Egypt will be decided in that tent.’
‘Do you not wish to learn it?’
‘The less I know, the better.’
‘I do not understand.’
He shook his head. ‘I think you do understand. You only pretend not to.’
He does not wish to be implicated in what is being decided, Wen thought. ‘Sol is not your real name, is it?’ she asked.
‘No, it is not,’ he said, smiling like a jackal. ‘Good for you.’ He bent and kissed her hand. ‘It has been an honour, Wen-Nefer. Perhaps we shall meet again some day.’ He gave a deep bow, then jumped back into the carriage.
‘Wait! You cannot just leave me here!’ she yelled, but he was already rolling away.
Chapter Two (#ue835f918-7c19-5b74-8cf2-2cf2453eb71e)
He might not have seen her at all: the colour of her shabby tunic matched the colour of the sand and her hair was so tangled and dusty it resembled a tumbleweed. But the group of guards escorting him to the Queen’s tent had grown larger as they passed through the camp, cramping his stride, and slowly he’d made his way to the edge of the entourage. As he passed by her, his thigh brushed her hand.
A shiver rippled across his skin. He wondered when he had last felt the touch of a woman. In Gaul, perhaps. Troupes of harlots always followed Caesar’s legions and, as commander of Caesar’s Sixth, Titus was allowed his choice from among them.
Not that he was particular. Women were mostly alike, he had found. Their minds were usually empty, but their bodies were soft and yielding, and they could provide a special kind of comfort after a day of taking lives.
Or at least—they had once provided him with such comfort. Now, after so many years of leading men to their deaths, even a woman’s soft touch had ceased to console him.
The woman drew her hand away, keeping her gaze upon the ground. She was obviously a slave, but she was also quite obviously a woman—a woman living in a desert military camp where women were as rare as trees. He wondered which commander she would be keeping warm tonight.
He had a sudden desire that it might be him.
There was no chance of that, however. As Caesar’s messengers, Titus and his young guard, Clodius, were under orders to deliver Caesar’s message to Queen Cleopatra, then return to Alexandria immediately. It was dangerous for Romans in Egypt, especially Roman soldiers. They were viewed as conquerors and pillagers, and were unwelcome in military camps such as these, along with most everywhere else.
As if to underscore that point, the guard nearest Titus scowled, then nudged Titus back towards the middle of the escort. There, Titus’s own guard, Clodius, marched obediently, his nerves as apparent as the sweat stains on his toga.
As was custom for sensitive missions such as these, Titus and Clodius had switched places. Clodius was playing the role of Titus the commander and Titus the role of Clodius, his faithful guard. This way, if Cleopatra chose to keep one of them for ransom, she would keep Clodius, whom she would erroneously believe to be the higher-ranking man, leaving Titus to return to Caesar.
‘Hello, there, my little honey cake,’ said a guard somewhere behind him. Something in Titus tensed and he turned to see one of the guards standing before the woman, pushing the hair out of her eyes.
She was not moving—she hardly even looked to be breathing—and was studying the ground with an intensity that belied her fear. Clearly she was not offering her services to the man, or any other. Titus almost lunged towards the man, but he was suddenly ushered into the tent and directed to a place at its perimeter. The offending guard entered soon after him and Titus breathed a sigh of relief, though he puzzled over the reason for it.
He tried to put the woman out of his mind as his eyes adjusted to the low light. In addition to the guards, there were several robed advisors spread about the small space, along with a dozen military commanders and men of rank. They stood around a large wooden throne where a pretty young woman sat with her hands in her lap.
Queen Cleopatra, he thought. Titus watched as Clodius dropped to his knees before the exiled Pharaoh in the customary obeisance. ‘Pharaoh Cleopatra Philopator the Seventh, Rightful Queen of Egypt,’ announced one of the guards.
To Titus’s mind, there was nothing Egyptian about her. She wore her hair in a Macedonian-style bun and donned a traditional Greek chiton with little to distinguish it from any other. She was surprisingly spare in her adornments and quite small of stature, especially compared to the large cedar throne in which she sat.
Still, she held her head high and appeared fiercely composed. It was an admirable quality, given that she was a woman. In Cleopatra’s case, it was particularly admirable, for her husband-brother Ptolemy had made no secret of his determination to cut off her head.
‘Whom do you bring me, Guard Captain?’ asked the Queen. ‘Why do you interrupt my war council?’
‘Two messengers, my Queen,’ said the head guard. ‘They come from Alexandria. They bring an urgent message to you from General Julius Caesar.’
The Queen exchanged glances with two women standing on one side of her throne. The taller of the two bent and whispered something into Cleopatra’s ear. The Queen nodded gravely.
Cleopatra was known as a goodly queen—one of those rare monarchs who actually cared about the people she ruled. Before her exile, it was said that she had done more than any of her predecessors to ease the lives of the peasants and to honour their ancient traditions.
Now that Titus finally beheld her, he believed that that her goodness was real. Her face exuded kindness, but also an intelligence that seemed unusual for one of her sex. She smiled placidly, but her eyes danced about the tent, never resting.
Still, Titus was careful not to venerate her. She was a woman, after all, and naturally inferior to the men who surrounded her. But even if she were a man, he would not make the mistake of supporting her rule. He knew the dangers of monarchs. One would spread peace and justice, then the next would spread war and misery. Kings and queens—or pharaohs, as they called themselves here in Egypt—were as fickle as their blessed gods and they could never be trusted.
There was a better way, or so Titus believed. It was a vast, complex blanket, woven by all citizens, that protected from the caprices of kings. They had been practising it in Rome for almost five hundred years and Titus understood it well, for his own ancestors had helped weave its threads.
Res publica.
Though now that glorious blanket was in danger of unravelling. When Caesar had crossed the Rubicon with his Thirteenth Legion, he had led the Republic down a dangerous path. Generals were not allowed to bring their armies into Rome. Nor were they allowed to become dictators for life, yet that was exactly what the Roman Senate was contemplating, for Caesar had bribed most of its members. There were only a few good men left in the government of Rome who remembered the dangers of monarchs.
Titus was one of them. He was one of the Boni—the Good Men—and also their most powerful spy. His job was to watch Caesar closely and, if necessary, to prevent the great General from making himself into a king.
And now that Caesar had defeated his rival Pompey, there were no more armies standing in his way. What better way to begin his rule than by occupying Egypt, the richest kingdom in the world, and turn its warring monarchs into tributary clients?
Or perhaps just murder them instead.
Titus could not guess General Caesar’s intentions, but he feared for the young Queen sitting before him now. Much like the woman he had seen outside the tent, she appeared to have no idea of the danger she was in, or how very helpless she was.
* * *
It was growing darker outside the tent. Wen had been ordered to wait inside, but could not gather the courage to enter. She placed her ear between the folds of the tent and listened.
‘Caesar means to conquer Egypt—the Queen cannot trust him.’
‘The Queen must trust him!’
‘He will take Egypt by force.’
‘The Roman Senate would never allow it.’
‘The Roman Senate does not matter any more!’
The clashing voices rose to a crescendo, then a woman’s voice sang out above them all. ‘Peace, now, friends,’ she said. ‘There are many ways to be bold.’
Wen drew a breath, then slipped into the shadows.
She could see very little at first. The torches and braziers were clustered at the centre of the room, illuminating a handful of nobles gathered around a wide wooden throne. On its pillowed seat sat a slight, dark-eyed woman dressed in a simple white tunic and mantle, and wearing the ivory-silk headband of royalty.
Cleopatra Philopator, thought Wen. The rightful Queen of Egypt.
The Queen wore no eye colour, no black kohl, and her lips displayed only the faintest orange tinge. Her jewellery consisted of two simple white pearls, which dangled from her ears on golden hooks.
To an Egyptian eye, she was sinfully unadorned, yet she radiated beauty and intelligence. She motioned gracefully to the figure of a man kneeling before her on the carpet. ‘Good counsellors,’ she sang out, ‘before we disagree about what Caesar’s messenger has to say, let us first allow him to say it.’
Laughter split the air, morphing into more discussion, all of which the Queen summarily ignored. ‘Rise, Messenger,’ she said, ‘and tell us your name.’
‘I am, ah, Titus Tillius Fortis,’ the young man said, rising to his feet, ‘son of Lucius Tillius Cimber.’ The room quieted as the counsellors observed the young messenger. He wore a diplomat’s toga virilis, though he appeared uncertain of how to position its arm folds.
‘The name is familiar,’ said the Queen. ‘Is your father not a Roman Senator?’
‘He is, Queen Cleopatra.’
‘I believe I met him many years ago. I was in Rome with my own father, begging the Senate to end their designs on our great kingdom.’
The Roman appeared at a loss for words. There was a long silence, which Cleopatra carefully filled. ‘Your father said that one of his sons served in Caesar’s Sixth.’
‘That is I, Goddess,’ the man said, taking the prompt. ‘I command that legion now. I am their legate, though I appear before you in a messenger’s robes.’
‘Caesar sends his highest-ranking officer to deliver his message?’ Cleopatra gazed out at the crowded sea of advisors. ‘That is promising, is it not, Counsellors?’
Someone shouted, ‘Is he not very young to command a legion?’ There were several grunts of assent and the Queen looked doubtfully at Titus.
‘I have only recently been promoted,’ Titus said. ‘I took the place of General Maximus Severus, who died defeating Pompey at Pharsalus.’
The Queen gave a crisp nod. ‘You may rise, young Titus,’ she said. ‘This council will hear your message.’
