Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [27]
The palace physician brought her prescriptions, ground herbs in his mortar, smeared honey on her skin. She could not tell him what was wrong. She held her breath and clenched her jaw as he came near.
“I cannot eat,” she told him.
“Drink, then,” he said, offering her pomegranate juice and muttering magic words.
She thrilled momentarily at the color, the deep red, and then laughed bitterly.
“I cannot drink,” she said, but she could cry. Tears ran from her eyes as hunger racked her body. The muscles in her back felt like blades. Her ribs grew prominent.
Outside the palace, her conqueror held a special audience, forgiving the citizens of Alexandria for crimes committed against Rome during the war. Debtors were received in grace. He’d win her people while she still lived, convince them that it was better to be ruled by a Roman than by a queen. That was his goal.
They chained her, six guards straining to keep her from breaking free, and Octavian visited her again, demanding an accounting of her treasures.
What treasures had she left?
“My children,” she said.
He sighed. “And what would you have me do with your children?” he asked. “Shall they fend for themselves?”
She had not expected him to negotiate. She stumbled, unprepared, then came upon a solution. “Send them to their brother, Caesarion. Only then will I tell you what I possess.”
She’d kill him as soon as she knew her children had left the city. He’d come for this final accounting of Alexandria’s gold, and she would lean in, close, closer.
He looked at her, his face smooth, his eyes untroubled.
“I am a family man,” he said again. “I’ll consider it.”
Could it be he meant to do as she asked?
“But where would I send them to meet him?”
She hesitated. Could she trust his honor?
“Koptos,” she said at last. “We sent Caesarion to Koptos with his tutor, and then overland to the Red Sea, and Myos Hormos. He will not have arrived yet.”
Octavian smiled. She could glean nothing of his thoughts. Nothing of his fears. Nothing of his plans. It made her uneasy.
“Son of Caesar,” he murmured. “I should like to meet him. Does he take after his father?”
“He does,” said Cleopatra. Her bones rattled, hollowed. Her skin burned where the chain wrapped about her wrists. Her mind felt blurred at the edges.
“He is just as Caesar was,” she continued, impatient to reach agreement. “Anyone would see it. He is Caesar’s only son.”
Octavian leaned back, his jaw tight. She saw his eyes darken.
“I think not,” he snapped. “I am Caesar’s only son. Your children are mine. Your gold, your palaces, your books? Mine. You are no longer the ruler here. I heard that Antony gave you the libraries of Pergamon, which were not his to give.”
She looked up at him, her eyes blazing.
“Your own dear Caesar burned the library of Alexandria, and I was owed a replacement,” she retorted, still bitter, even in this dire state, about the loss of Alexandria’s treasure. Tens of thousands of scrolls set afire as Caesar sacked her city. Had the library not been burned, had the summoning scroll not been damaged, perhaps things would be different.
“You’re owed nothing,” Octavian said quietly, enjoying himself, his calm returned. “You’re conquered. Do you not know what it means to surrender? You’ve surrendered to me, and all the world knows it. You are mine, Cleopatra. You belong to me.”
Antony’s words. Antony’s rights.
She screamed a wordless sound of rebellion, threw herself forward, straining against her bonds, and spat in Octavian’s simpering face. He stepped back in disgust, beckoning a servant to wash his skin.
“I have what I need, in any case,” he said. “You’re not the only one who knows where your treasures hide.”
Cleopatra’s secretary was summoned, and he searched through the accounting in front of them both, finding mistakes and crying them out, betraying her who had brought him from the countryside,