Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [5]
Antony spun to consult with the head of his Egyptian cavalry, and the man finished the war with a single sentence.
“Cleopatra belongs to Rome now,” the man said. “Egypt’s armies go where Cleopatra goes.”
“What do you mean?” Antony asked. The words did not make sense. Egypt’s armies served Antony, and Cleopatra’s only goal was to defend her city.
The man looked at Antony with a pitying expression for a moment. “Your queen has betrayed you, sir. We no longer serve you.”
“Liar!” Antony shouted, tearing his sword from its scabbard to strike the man for his impudence, but he was already galloping away with his company, leaving Antony and his last loyal soldiers hopelessly outnumbered by enemy Romans and by his own former men. Still, they did not take him prisoner. They did not kill him. Why not? Whose orders did they follow?
Surely not hers. She would never do such a thing. Never.
With the remainder of his infantry, Antony attacked Octavian’s forces near the hippodrome, but he was forced back into the city in retreat, even as the ghastly understanding sank into him. Antony staggered as he made his way into Alexandria, scarcely noticing the enemy forces pushing their way through the gates behind him.
Betrayed. The knowledge boiled inside him.
“I am yours,” she’d sworn, but she had lied.
There was no other explanation for what had happened.
Cleopatra had directed the Egyptian legions to leave him, commanded his own men to abandon him. She’d sold him to save herself.
What would she receive in return?
Had she done with Octavian as she had done with Julius Caesar when he’d marched into Alexandria? Smuggled herself into his camp and wooed him? Caesar had given her the throne. Octavian might let her keep it, given the right bribe. This was a personal war more than a political one. Octavian wanted Antony’s shame, and what better way than to take his wife and all of his loyal soldiers? To laugh as Antony stood alone and beaten?
His men surrounded him, drawing him into the warrens of the Old City and hiding his recognizable figure behind their shields.
“What have you done?” he screamed, again and again, and his guards, pressing him into a decrepit building, surrounding the building with their swords, could not tell whether he referred to his queen or to himself.
3
The queen of Egypt willed herself to press the point of the knife deeper into her palm. Slowly, blood rose to the wound, and with it, a strange and terrible feeling. For an instant, she felt as though everything she loved was sealed away from her, forever trapped on the other side of the mausoleum walls. She stopped, her heart pounding.
No. They were only fears, and she was running out of time. Determined, Cleopatra cut more quickly until blood trickled over her fingers and into the goblet she held to catch it.
She glanced down at the incision from life line to heart line, trying not to tremble. She was doing the right thing.
There was no other choice. Her enemy was camped just outside the Gate of the Sun, his forces overwhelming the remaining resistance of Egypt.
Cleopatra must perform this spell or lose the kingdom. Her country had once been a place of magicians and gods. It would be again. She would not surrender.
She stood, her hair unbound, her feet bare and painted, her eyes rimmed in thick kohl, in the center of an intricate, faceted symbol incorporating countless glyphs etched in pigments. At each locus, priceless pyramids of fine-ground ebony, cinnamon, and lapis balanced, ready to be dispersed with a breath. Here, a scarab drawn in dust of malachite, and here, a sun disc poured in saffron. Polished metal bowls placed at intervals around the room smoked with clouds of incense, a perfume both sweet and biting. Her crown, with its three golden cobras, shone in the lamplight.
Cleopatra