Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [20]
Charmian twined a jeweled snake about Cleopatra’s arm and wrapped a silken veil around her throat to hide the evidence of the goddess. There was that, at least, to prove Cleopatra’s memory. Those two fang marks, swollen at the edges, burning with an invisible fire.
She wanted to disappear, to die as she had been meant to die, but instead, the first citizen of Rome desired her to dine with him. He feared that she was planning a death by starvation, a martyrdom that would reflect badly on him.
“Eat something,” Eiras begged, offering her a platter of sliced figs, in better days her favorite fruit. The scent, the seeping red centers, revolted her. She would starve to death if she only could. Her stomach twisted with hunger; her mouth was parched with thirst; yet water nauseated her, and wine held no allure. She could not eat.
She’d kill Octavian, she promised herself. He would pay for Antony’s murder. It was murder. Antony had been alive when the legionary stabbed him. She would make the emperor of Rome pay for her lover’s death, no matter what it cost her.
“The emperor approaches,” Eiras whispered.
Cleopatra looked up, but it was not Octavian who entered the room. He’d sent her children instead.
The ten-year-old twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, ran toward Cleopatra. The sun and moon, she and Antony had named them, imagining themselves, the royal parents—oh, she regretted it now—to be the sky. The baby, Ptolemy Philadelphus, just four, scampered in behind them, grinning wildly at his mother, his face smeared with sweets.
He had them, Octavian was telling her. They were at his mercy should their mother not provide what he desired.
An icy wave of misery ran through her. She loved her children. She’d often dismissed the governesses and tutors, and spent hours teaching her children to talk and write and read, sharing with them her command of the languages of the world. She’d cooed at them in Arabic, chided them in Greek, praised them in Egyptian, denied them in Macedonian. She’d fed them in Hebrew, and now that they were growing tall, she advised them in Latin.
“Mama,” Ptolemy cried, the joy in his voice crumpling what was left of her calm. The cleft in his chin, the tilt of his head—
Her children were the images of Antony. Each face brought his face back to her, the nights spent drinking and dancing, his hands on her waist, his lips on her throat, and the memories grieved her anew. She could see it as if it were happening again, the two of them sharing one cloak, walking the streets of their city, pretending to be common people. They’d thought themselves immortal, but he had been wrong. And she? She had not imagined they would end like this, herself bereft of a husband, her children bereft of their father, and all of them broken.
She could feel the absence blasting through her center even now, the horrible feeling she’d had in the mausoleum, the emptiness, the bleak, black sky, and her heart missing, her skin frozen, her love halting and hopeless.
Ptolemy climbed into her lap, nuzzling into her arms, and though she tried to stay strong, she clutched him. She did not want to show Octavian that she loved them. If he knew this, he’d be more likely to kill them.
“Send them away,” she ordered, desperate to keep herself from crying in front of her children. Their father was dead. Did they not know it? Cleopatra had grown up with only a father, her mother having died birthing her. Did her children not feel the strangeness inside her?
“But, Mama,” said Ptolemy, tears already streaking his face. He had a toy with him, a small lion carved out of ebony, and he showed it to his mother. His fingers on the toy were chubby, and she knew he would never survive without her. He was a baby still. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she held him tighter for a moment, then let him go.
He stared at her, bewildered.