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Titus demonstrated the seal on his scroll to a nearby scribe, who gave an approving nod. The young commander broke the wax and cleared his voice.
‘Before you begin,’ interrupted the Queen, ‘will you not also introduce your companion?’
Titus paused.
‘The one who lurks at the edge of the tent there,’ said the Queen, pointing to the very shadows in which Wen hid.
‘My Queen?’ asked Titus.
Wen prepared to step forward, certain that the Queen had noticed her.
‘Do not play the fool, Titus,’ said the Queen, craning her neck in Wen’s direction. ‘He is as big as a Theban bull.’
There was a sudden movement near Wen and a towering figure stepped out of the shadows beside her.
‘Ah, you refer to my guard,’ said Titus. ‘Apologies, Queen. That is, ah, Clodius.’
Wen’s heart skipped with the realisation that a Roman soldier had been standing beside her all the while, as quiet as a kheft. ‘He accompanied me from Alexandria for my protection,’ Titus continued. ‘He is one of our legion’s most decorated soldiers.’
Wen sank farther into the shadows as the Roman guard made his way through the crowd. He wore no sleeves and his chainmail cuirass fit tightly around his sprawling chest, as if at any moment he might burst from it. The red kilt that extended beneath his steely shell was too short for him, exposing most of his well-muscled legs. He held a helmet against his waist and walked in measured strides that seemed to radiate discipline. Wen wondered how she had not noticed him.
‘You may stop where you are, Clodius,’ said Cleopatra, holding up her hand as her own guards gripped their swords.
The towering Roman turned to his young compatriot in apparent confusion.
‘You heard her, Comm—ah—Clodius,’ he said in a rough soldier’s Latin.
The guard dropped to his knee and bowed. The torches flashed on the muscled contours of his arms, giving Wen a chill. She feared such arms. They were Roman arms, designed to destroy lives.
‘Apologies, Queen Cleopatra,’ said Titus. ‘My guard does not speak the Greek tongue.’
‘Of course he does not,’ said Cleopatra, regarding the man’s arms as Wen had done, ‘for his realm is obviously the battlefield, not the halls of learning.’
‘Shall I dismiss him?’
A buxom young woman standing beside the Queen bent and whispered something into her ear. ‘Do not fear, dear Charmion,’ Cleopatra answered aloud. ‘He will not harm me. As you know, the Romans value glory over all else. There would be no glory in assassinating a queen on the eve of her military defeat now, would there?’
‘You heard her, ah—Clodius,’ said Titus in Latin. ‘Please, return to your post.’
There was something curious about the way Titus spoke to Clodius. Something in the tone of his voice, perhaps, or in his choice of words. The High Priestess would have sensed it right away and known exactly what was amiss. But Wen could not identify it and was soon distracted by the sight of Clodius himself striding back towards the shadows in which she stood.
Time slowed as he took his position beside her and she perceived the long exhale of his breaths. She braved a glance at him, but his brow was too heavy to see his eyes and the rest of his expression was a mask of shadowy stone. ‘General Gaius Julius Caesar,’ Titus began, reading from his scroll, ‘Protector of the Roman Republic, Defeater of Pompey the Great, Conqueror of Gaul...’
The Queen held up her hand. ‘We do not have time for scrolls, good Titus. Please speak Caesar’s message in your own words.’
The Roman looked up. ‘My Goddess?’
‘What does General Caesar ask of me?’
Titus cast his gaze about the room, as if searching for Clodius. ‘Well?’ asked Cleopatra.
‘Ah, General Caesar begs an audience with Your Divine Person,’ he said at last.
Cleopatra’s expression betrayed no sentiment, yet Wen sensed her careful choice of words. ‘What does Caesar hope to gain by summoning me? He allies himself with my husband-brother, Ptolemy, after all, and occupies our very palaces.’
‘He has made no alliance with Ptolemy,’ answered Titus. ‘He wishes to reunite the Lord and Lady of the Two Lands.’
There was a collective gasp and then the room went quiet. ‘Reunite me with Ptolemy? For what motive?’
‘Your Divinity...ah...to please the gods.’
‘He wishes to collect the money my late father owed him,’ Cleopatra said to a flood of laughter.
A bald man in a green robe bent to whisper something into Cleopatra’s ear. The Queen gave a resigned nod, then set her flickering gaze upon the crowd.
‘This priest of Osiris believes that Caesar and my husband-brother conspire to kill me. Who here agrees that Caesar summons me to my death?’
A chorus of voices sang out in agreement, and Wen thought to herself how mistaken they all were.
‘You there,’ the Queen called out. ‘Why do you shake your head in dissent?’
The room went silent. Wen looked around, but she could not discern which of the men had been addressed. ‘Do you disagree with the Osiris priest and these other distinguished men?’ asked the Queen. She was staring directly at Wen.
She had addressed Wen.
Wen felt heat rising in her cheeks. ‘Ah, yes, My Queen,’ she sputtered.
‘Come forward,’ said Cleopatra.
Wen willed her quaking legs through the crowd of advisors, imagining what her head would look like on a spike. When she arrived before the Living Goddess and kneeled, her hands were trembling like a thief’s.
‘You may rise,’ said Cleopatra. ‘Who are you and by whose permission do you appear in my presence?’
‘This is Wen of Alexandria,’ offered an ancient man with long white hair. ‘She is the woman you requested, Goddess. Egyptian by birth, but speaks a commoners’ Latin.’
‘Ah, yes, the...translator,’ Cleopatra said. ‘Thank you, Mardion.’ Cleopatra studied Wen with interest and Wen became painfully aware of her bare feet on the Queen’s fine Persian carpet. ‘Tell me, Translator, why would Caesar not kill me if I go to him now?’
Wen felt every eye in the room upon her and her courage flickered with the braziers.
‘Speak,’ Cleopatra commanded. ‘The fate of Egypt is at stake!’
‘I have heard that Caesar has a taste for h-high-born women,’ Wen blurted, instantly aware of the veiled insult she had made.
But the Queen only nodded. ‘I have heard this rumour as well. Go on.’
‘Th-the Gabiniani of Alexandria say that he has conquered as many women as he has kingdoms. The wives of Crassus and Pompey—even Lollia, the wife of the Gabiniani’s own beloved General. I do not think Caesar will kill you, Goddess. Instead he will seek to conquer you as he does all women of power and beauty. In order to prove his worth.’
Cleopatra wore a puzzled expression. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Do you support my brother Ptolemy’s claim to the Horus Throne?’
‘No, my Goddess!’
‘Then why do you mingle with the Gabiniani?’
‘They frequent the brew house where I toil. Toiled. In Alexandria.’
‘In other words, you were bound to serve Roman soldiers and speak to them in their tongue?’
‘I did not speak, my Queen. I only listened.’
‘An Egyptian woman fluent in the Latin of Rome, yet wise enough not to use it,’ the Queen said. She sat back in her throne. ‘You are a rare coin, Wen of Alexandria.’
Wen exhaled, feeling that she had passed some sort of test.
A beautiful woman with a halo of black hair bent and whispered something in the Queen’s ear. The Queen nodded. ‘Speak your question, Iras.’
The woman stepped forward and fixed her thick-lidded gaze on Wen. ‘You say that Roman soldiers value conquest above all else. How come you by such knowledge?’
‘The Roman men I serve often brag of it, Mistress. They seek to conquer foreign women as a kind of sport. I know this to be true because I—’ she began, but her mind filled with a hot fog and she could not continue.
The Queen and Iras exchanged a knowing glance. ‘You do not love Roman soldiers, I presume?’ asked Cleopatra.
‘You presume correctly, Goddess.’
‘What is your name again, Translator?’
‘Wen-Nefer, my Queen. Wen.’
‘Wen, do you believe I can conquer this Caesar of Rome?’
‘I do.’
‘Tell me how you would have it done.’
‘You must make him believe that he has conquered you.’
‘And you know this to be the best way possible, based on your knowledge of Roman soldiers?’
‘Yes, and because you are cleverer than he.’
‘You seek to flatter me?’
‘I seek... I seek only to avow that Egypt is cleverer than Rome. And you are Egypt.’
The Queen sat still for several long moments. She motioned to her advisor Mardion and whispered something in his ear. He studied Wen closely, then whispered something back.
She glanced at her two handmaids, both of whom gave solemn nods. ‘It is decided,’ she said at last. ‘I shall heed Caesar’s call. I shall travel to Alexandria in secret and meet him in my palace. I shall trick him into conquering me and thus shall conquer him. And you, Wen, will come with me.’
* * *
It trespassed the boundaries of reason. A Queen of Egypt relying on the political advice of a simple slave woman? Madness. Either the witty Queen Cleopatra had lost her wits, or the woman who called herself Wen was not who she appeared to be.
Who was she, then? The question gnawed at him. He studied her from his position at the tent’s periphery, hoping to discover a clue.
She was a disaster of a woman, in truth. She stood rigid before the Queen in that sack of a dress, staring at her grubby toes. Her hair was a tangle of dirty locks that cascaded over her bronze shoulders in wild black tongues. He could not discern her shape, but her bare arms displayed the unfeminine musculature of a hard-toiling slave. He might have pitied her, if he were not so totally perplexed.
How could an Egyptian slave woman have such profound insights into Rome’s greatest General? Her assessment of Caesar had been brilliant—something a military officer or political advisor might have given. It seemed impossible that she could have gleaned such knowledge by simply pouring beer for Roman soldiers.
Perhaps she does more than pour beer, he thought. Perhaps she served as a hetaira, a learned prostitute for high-born men. He watched how she held herself, searching for clues. Impossible. Her posture alone suggested a kind of defeat and her chapped, calloused hands told the story of a life of washing dishes and scrubbing floors.
Nay, she was no hetaira. She was about as far from such a role as a woman could get. He scanned her body and noticed the pink stain of a scar rising up from the small of her leg. He followed the scar’s intriguing path, wondering where it led, but it quickly disappeared beneath the ragged hem of her tunic.
She was an enigma: the only thing about this tedious war council that he did not understand.
Yet she already seemed to understand him, or at least to suspect his ruse.
He had given her no reason to suspect him of anything. He had played the role of soldier flawlessly, had approached the Queen with a single-minded militancy and correctly feigned ignorance of her royal Greek. If there had been a weakness in the performance, it had been in the fumbling commands of his guard Clodius, though none in the Queen’s audience seemed to have noticed.
None except—what had she called herself?
Wen.
She seemed to be the only one to suspect anything, for as he, the real Titus, had returned to the shadows beside her, she had flashed him a suspicious glance—one that had rattled him to his bones. Even if she did not know that he and his guard had switched places, she obviously suspected something. And if she could tease out that secret so easily, what other, more serious secrets might she be capable of discovering?
He shook off a shiver and directed his attention to the discussion at hand. The advisors were debating how the Queen might travel to Alexandria without detection by Ptolemy’s spies.
‘The Queen must make the journey by the River,’ one of the priests was saying. ‘She can take the Pelusiac branch of the Delta up to Memphis, then back down the Canopic branch to Alexandria.’
‘That would take five days or more,’ said one advisor.
‘And the river boatmen gossip like wives,’ said another. ‘She would be discovered and Ptolemy would send out his assassins.’
‘To go by land would also be unwise,’ called another. ‘Ptolemy has offered a reward in gold for the Queen’s capture. There will be men in every village looking to profit from her head.’
‘Then she must go by sea!’ someone called. ‘It is the only way.’
‘Ptah’s foot!’ barked the advisor Mardion. He wagged a knobby finger at them all. ‘Her vessel would be seized the moment it entered the Great Harbour.’
The room erupted in another spate of discussion—one to which even young Clodius did not appear immune. Wen appeared to be the only one in the room not engaged in the debate. She remained eerily still and silent against the din.
At length, Cleopatra stood and raised her hands. ‘Gentlemen, it is late. Decisions made in the hours of Seth are never good ones. Tomorrow afternoon we shall reconvene and make our decision.’
There was a collective sigh of relief as the council turned to await the Queen’s exit. Titus felt himself relax. They had succeeded in their ruse. None seemed to guess that the two Romans had switched places—that he, the elder and the stronger, was the true son of a senator and the real commander of Caesar’s Sixth.
None except, possibly, Wen. She remained still and unmoving as the Queen’s entourage of women bustled about their beloved monarch. She had become invisible, it seemed, to everyone but him.
Chapter Three (#ue835f918-7c19-5b74-8cf2-2cf2453eb71e)
Wen kept her head bowed as the war council concluded and the Queen and her entourage exited the tent. The advisors followed after, streaming out of the tent in a garrulous mass. Someone pushed Wen forward and she became swept up in the exodus.
