The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
Potheinus had jumped. Now he reached out an imperious hand. “Let me see it!” he demanded. “If it were a true and legal will, it would reside either here in Alexandria with the Recorder, or with the Vestal Virgins in Rome.”
Theodotus had moved to stand behind the little king, fingers digging into his shoulder to keep him awake; Ganymedes sat, face impassive, listening. You, thought Caesar of Ganymedes, are the most able one. How it must irk you to suffer Potheinus as your superior! And, I suspect, you would far rather see your young Ptolemy, the Princess Arsinoë, sitting on the high throne. They all hate Cleopatra, but why?
“No, Lord High Chamberlain, you may not see it,” he said coldly. “In it, Ptolemy XII known as Auletes says that his will was not lodged either in Alexandria or Rome due to—er—‘embarrassments of the state.’ Since our civil war was far in the future when this document was drawn up, Auletes must have meant events here in Alexandria.” He straightened, face setting hard. “It is high time that Alexandria settled down, and that its rulers were more generous toward the lowly. I do not intend to depart this city until some consistent, humane conditions have been established for all its people, rather than its Macedonian citizens. I will not countenance festering sores of resistance to Rome in my wake, or permit any country to offer itself as a nucleus of further resistance to Rome. Accept the fact, gentlemen, that Caesar Dictator will remain in Alexandria to sort out its affairs—lance the boil, you might say. Therefore I sincerely hope that you have sent that courier to Queen Cleopatra, and that we see her here within a very few days.”
And that, he thought, is as close as I go to conveying the message that Caesar Dictator will not go away to leave Alexandria as a base for Republicans to use. They must all be shepherded to Africa Province, where I can stamp on them collectively.
He rose to his feet. “You are dismissed.”
They went, faces scowling.
“Did you send a courier to Cleopatra?” Ganymedes asked the Lord High Chamberlain as they emerged into the rose garden.
“I sent two,” said Potheinus, smiling, “but on a very slow boat. I also sent a third—on a very fast punt—to General Achillas, of course. When the two slow couriers emerge from the Delta at the Pelusiac mouth, Achillas will have men waiting. I am very much afraid”—he sighed—“that Cleopatra will receive no message from Caesar. Eventually he will turn on her, deeming her too arrogant to submit to Roman arbitration.”
“She has her spies in the palace,” Ganymedes said, eyes on the dwindling forms of Theodotus and the little king, hurrying ahead. “She’ll try to reach Caesar—it’s in her interests.”
“I am aware of that. But Captain Agathacles and his men are policing every inch of the wall and every wavelet on either side of Cape Lochias. She won’t get through my net.” Potheinus stopped to face the other eunuch, equally tall, equally handsome. “I take it, Ganymedes, that you would prefer Arsinoë as queen?”
“There are many who would prefer Arsinoë as queen,” said Ganymedes, unruffled. “Arsinoë herself, for example. And her brother the King. Cleopatra is tainted with Egypt, she’s poison.”
“Then,” said Potheinus, beginning to walk again, “I think it behooves both of us to work to that end. You can’t have my job, but if your own chargeling occupies the throne, that won’t really inconvenience you too much, will it?”
“No,” said Ganymedes, smiling. “What is Caesar up to?”
“Up to?”
“He’s up to something, I feel it in my bones. There’s a lot of activity at the cavalry camp, and I confess I’m surprised that he hasn’t begun to fortify his infantry camp in Rhakotis with anything like his reputed thoroughness.”
“What annoys me is his high-handedness!” Potheinus snapped tartly. “By the time he’s finished fortifying his cavalry camp, there won’t be a stone left in the old city walls.”
“Why,” asked Ganymedes, “do I think all this is a blind?”
The next day Caesar sent for Potheinus, no one else.
“I’ve a matter to broach with you on behalf of an old friend,” Caesar said, manner relaxed and expansive.
“Indeed?”
“Perhaps you remember Gaius Rabirius Postumus?”
Potheinus frowned. “Rabirius Postumus…Perhaps vaguely.”
“He arrived in Alexandria after the late Auletes had been put back on his throne. His purpose was to collect some forty million sesterces Auletes owed a consortium of Roman bankers, chief of whom was Rabirius. However, it seems the Accountant and all his splendid Macedonian public servants had allowed the city finances to get into a shocking state. So Auletes told my friend Rabirius that he would have to earn his money by tidying up both the royal and the public fiscus. Which Rabirius did, working night and day in Macedonian garments he found as repulsive as he did irksome. At the end of a year, Alexandria’s moneys were brilliantly organized. But when Rabirius asked for his forty million sesterces, Auletes and your predecessor stripped him as naked as a bird and threw him on a ship bound for Rome. Be thankful for your life, was their message. Rabirius arrived in Rome absolutely penniless. For a banker, Potheinus, a hideous fate.”
Grey eyes were locked with pale blue; neither man lowered his gaze. But a pulse was beating very fast in Potheinus’s neck.
“Luckily,” Caesar went on blandly, “I was able to assist my friend Rabirius get back on his financial feet, and today he is, with my other friends the Balbi Major and Minor, and Gaius Oppius, a veritable plutocrat of the plutocrats. However, a debt is a debt, and one of the reasons I decided to visit Alexandria concerns that debt. Behold in me, Lord High Chamberlain, Rabirius Postumus’s bailiff. Pay back the forty million sesterces at once. In international terms, they amount to one thousand six hundred talents of silver. Strictly speaking, I should demand interest on the sum at my fixed rate of ten percent, but I’m willing to forgo that. The principal will do nicely.”
“I am not authorized to pay the late king’s debts.”
“No, but the present king is.”
“The King is a minor.”
“Which is why I’m applying to you, my dear fellow. Pay up.”
“I shall need extensive documentation for proof.”
“My secretary Faberius will be pleased to furnish it.”
“Is that all, Caesar?” Potheinus asked, getting to his feet.
“For the moment.” Caesar strolled out with his guest, the personification of courtesy. “Any sign of the Queen yet?”
“Not a shadow, Caesar.”
Theodotus met Potheinus in the main palace, big with news. “Word from Achillas!” he said.
“I thank Serapis for that! He says?”
“That the couriers are dead, and that Cleopatra is still in her earth on Mount Casius. Achillas is sure she has no idea of Caesar’s presence in Alexandria, though what she’s going to make of Achillas’s next action is anyone’s guess. He’s moving twenty thousand foot and ten thousand horse by ship from Pelusium even as I speak. The Etesian winds have begun to blow, so he should be here in two days.” Theodotus chuckled gleefully. “Oh, what I would give to see Caesar’s face when Achillas arrives! He says he’ll use both harbors, but plans to make camp outside the Moon Gate.” Not a very observant man, he looked at the grim-faced Potheinus in sudden bewilderment. “Aren’t you pleased, Potheinus?”
“Yes, yes, that’s not what’s bothering me!” Potheinus snapped. “I’ve just seen Caesar, who dunned the royal purse for the money Auletes refused to pay the Roman banker, Rabirius Postumus. The hide! The temerity! After all these years! And I can’t ask the Interpreter to pay a private debt of the late king’s!”
“Oh, dear!”
“Well,” said Potheinus through his teeth, “I’ll pay Caesar the money, but he’ll rue the day he asked for it!”
“Trouble,” said Rufrius to Caesar the next day, the eighth since they had arrived in Alexandria.
“Of what kind?”
“Did you collect Rabirius Postumus’s debt?”
“Yes.”
“Potheinus’s agents are telling everybody that you’ve looted the royal treasury, melted down all the gold plate, and garnished the contents of the granaries for your troops.”
Caesar burst out laughing. “Things are beginning to come to a boil, Rufrius! My messenger has returned from Queen Cleopatra’s camp—no, I didn’t use the much-vaunted Delta canals, I sent him at the gallop on horseback, a fresh mount every ten miles. No courier from Potheinus ever contacted her, of course. Killed, I imagine. The Queen has sent me a very amiable and informative letter, in which she tells me that Achillas and his army are packing up to return to Alexandria, where they intend to camp outside the city in the area of the Moon Gate.”
Rufrius looked eager. “We begin?” he asked.
“Not until after I’ve moved into the main palace and taken charge of the King,” said Caesar. “If Potheinus and Theodotus can use the poor lad as a tool, so can I. Let the cabal build its funeral pyre in ignorance two or three more days. But have my men absolutely ready to dash. When the time comes they have a great deal to do, and not much time to do it in.” He stretched his arms luxuriously. “Ah, how good it is to have a foreign foe!”
On the tenth day of Caesar’s stay in Alexandria, a small Nilus dhow slipped into the Great Harbor in the midst of Achillas’s arriving fleet, and maneuvered its way between the clumsy transports unnoticed. It finally tied up at the jetty in the Royal Harbor, where a detachment of guards watched its advent closely to make sure no furtive swimmer left it. Only two men were in the dhow, both Egyptian priests—barefoot, shaven-headed, clad in white linen dresses that fitted tightly under the nipples and flared gently to a hemline at midcalf. Both were mete-en-sa, ordinary priests not entitled to wear gold on their persons.
“Here, where do you think you’re going?” asked the corporal of the guards.
The priest in the bow got out and stood with arms joined at the hands, palm to palm over his groin, a pose of subservience and humility. “We wish to see Caesar,” he said in crooked Greek.
“Why?”
“We carry a gift to him from the U’eb.”
“The who?”
“Sem of Ptah, Neb-notru, wer-kherep-hemw, Seker-cha’bau, Ptahmose, Cha’em-uese,” chanted the priest in a singsong voice.
“I am none the wiser, priest, and losing my patience.”
“We carry a gift for Caesar from the U’eb, the high priest of Ptah in Memphis. That was his full name I spoke.”
“What gift?”
“Here,” said the priest, stepping back into the boat with the corporal on his heels.
A rush mat rolled into a flat cylinder lay in the bottom, a dowdy thing to a Macedonian Alexandrian, with its shabby colors and angular patterns. You could buy better in the meanest market of Rhakotis. Probably seething with vermin too.
“You’re going to give Caesar that?”
“Yes, O royal personage.”
The corporal unsheathed his sword and poked it at the mat, but gingerly.
“I wouldn’t,” said the priest softly.
“Why not?”
The priest caught the corporal’s eyes and pinned them with his own, then did something with his head and neck that caused the man to back away, terrified. Suddenly he wasn’t looking at an Egyptian priest, but at the head and hood of a cobra.
“Ssssssss!” hissed the priest, and stuck out a forked tongue.
The corporal leaped in one bound on to the jetty, face ashen. Swallowing, he found speech. “Doesn’t Ptah like Caesar?”
“Ptah created Serapis, as he did all the gods, but he finds Jupiter Optimus Maximus an affront to Egypt,” said the priest.
The corporal grinned; a lovely cash bonus from Lord Potheinus danced before his eyes. “Take your gift to Caesar,” he said, “and may Ptah achieve his ends. Be careful!”
“We will, O royal personage.”
The two priests bent, lifted the slightly floppy cylinder one at either end, and levered their burden neatly on to the jetty. “Where do we go?” asked the speaking priest.
“Just follow that path through the rose garden, first palace on your left past the small obelisk.”
And off they trotted, the mat between them. A light thing.
Now, thought the corporal, all I have to do is wait until I hear that our unwelcome guest has died of snakebite. Then I’m going to be rewarded.
That podgy gourmet Gaius Trebatius Testa came waddling in, frowning; it went without saying that he would choose to serve with Caesar in this civil war, despite the fact that his official patron was Marcus Tullius Cicero. Quite why he had elected to sail to Alexandria he didn’t know, save that he was always in search of new taste treats. But Alexandria didn’t have any.
“Caesar,” he said, “a rather peculiar object has arrived for you from Memphis, from the high priest of Ptah. Not a letter!”
“How intriguing,” said Caesar, looking up from his papers. “Is the object in good condition? It hasn’t been tampered with?”
“I doubt it ever was in good condition,” Trebatius said with a moue of disapproval. “A dingy old mat. A rug it is not.”
“Have it brought in exactly as it arrived.”
“It will have to be your lictors, Caesar. The palace slaves took one look at its bearers and went paler than a German from the Cimbric Chersonnese.”
“Just send it in, Trebatius.”
Two junior lictors carried it between them, deposited it on the floor and gazed at Caesar in a rather minatory fashion.
“Thank you. You may go.”
Manlius shifted uneasily. “Caesar, may we stay? This—er—thing arrived in the custody of two of the oddest fellows we’ve ever seen. The moment they got it inside the door, they bolted as if pursued by the Furies. Fabius and Cornelius wanted to open it, but Gaius Trebatius said no.”
“Excellent! Now push off, Manlius. Out, out!”
Alone with the mat, the smiling Caesar toured it, then got down on his knees and peered into one end. “Can you breathe in there?” he asked.
Someone spoke from the interior, but unintelligibly. Then he discovered that either end of the mat was plugged with a thin strip of extra rush to make the thickness uniform from end to end. How ingenious! He pulled the padding out, unrolled Ptah’s gift very gently.
No wonder she could hide in a mat. There was nothing to her. Where is all that big-boned Mithridatid blood? Caesar asked himself, going to a chair and sitting down to study her. Not five Roman feet tall, she would be lucky to weigh a talent and a half—eighty pounds if she wore lead shoes.
It was not his habit to waste his precious time speculating how unknown persons would look, even when said persons were of this one’s status. Though he certainly hadn’t expected a wispy little creature devoid of the slightest hint of majesty! Nor, he now discovered, amazed, did she care about her appearance, for she scrambled up like a monkey and never even looked around to see if there was a polished metal object she could use as a mirror. Oh, I like her! he thought. She reminds me of Mater—the same brisk, no-nonsense air to her. However, his mother had been called the most beautiful woman in Rome, whereas no one would ever call Cleopatra beautiful by any standard.
No breasts to speak of, nor any hips; just straight up and down, arms attached to stark shoulders like sticks, a long and skinny neck, and a head that reminded him of Cicero’s—too big for its body.
Her face was downright ugly, for it bore a nose so large and hooked that it riveted all attention upon it. By comparison, the rest of her features were quite nice: a full but not too full mouth, good cheekbones, an oval face with a firm chin. Only the eyes were beautiful, very large and widely opened, dark lashes below dark brows, and having irises the same color as a lion’s, golden yellow. Now where have I seen eyes that color? Among the offspring of Mithridates the Great, of course! Well, she is his granddaughter, but in no other way than the eyes is she a Mithridatid; they are big, tall people with Germanic noses and yellow hair. H
She was inspecting him just as closely, and in surprise.
“What do you see?” he asked solemnly.
“Great beauty, Caesar, though I expected you to be dark.”
“There are fair Romans, medium Romans and dark Romans—also many Romans with red or sandy hair and lots of freckles.”
“Hence your cognomina—Albinus, Flavus, Rufus, Niger.”
Ah, the voice was wonderful! Low-pitched and so melodious that she seemed to sing rather than to speak. “You know Latin?” he asked, surprised in his turn.
“No, I’ve had no opportunity to learn it,” Cleopatra said. “I speak eight languages, but they’re all eastern—Greek, old Egyptian, demotic Egyptian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Median and Persian.” The feline eyes gleamed. “Perhaps you’ll teach me Latin? I’m a very quick student.”
“I doubt I’ll have the time, child, but if you like, I’ll send you a tutor from Rome. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one. I have sat on my throne for four years.”
“A fifth of a lifetime. You’re a veteran. Sit down, do.”
“No, then I won’t be able to see you properly. You’re very tall,” she said, prowling.
“Yes, right up there with the Gauls and the Germans. Like Sulla, I could pass for one if I had to. What happened to your height? Your brothers and sister are tall.”