Part 15 (2/2)
”Exactly Yet I shall do so,” said Caesar ”This could not be more perfect! Noe can rid ourselves of him, and remove the last enemy from our midst”
”No!” I said ”It is a trick!”
He looked at me as if to say, Ho you are! ”Yes, of course it is a trick! But we have a greater trick! For we know their forces are doo down on Egypt even now So let us send him out to lead his troops--for a little while Let him put on his crown and wave his sword Don't you think every child deserves to play for an afternoon?”
I s did it take to become that way, that hardened? How many wars, how many betrayals, how many disappointments? Was that the ultimate outcome of survival? Count no man happy until he is dead Count nowent Perhaps it should really say, Count noand inexperienced in the ways ofand inexperienced in the ways of men
”It is almost over,” I said, to reassure , after Caesar had arisen and had his customary cold meal of bread, honey, and cheese, he called for Ptole in, attired in rich golden brocade, wearing his royal fillet Caesar was seated and did not rise
”Good ,” he said blandly ”I have what I believe will be welcome news for you”
Ptoleood for Caesar be likewise good for him? ”Yes?” He braced himself
Caesar unrolled the little scroll and read it ”As you can see, your subjects long for your presence Who am I to stand in your way? Perhaps this will be the heaven-sent opportunity we yearn for to end the war Go to theave a theatrical wave of his arm
Ptolemy was puzzled ” ”Butwhy should you force me to leave the palace and join them? I have no wish to do so”
”What sort of talk is that for a king? A king do called ”boy,” Ptolemy bristled and drew himself up taller He was thirteen now ”I fear they wish to sacrifice o!”
”And I say you shall,” Caesar insisted I watched his face carefully, and I could tell he was enjoying Ptolemy's discomfort
”No, please!” Ptolemy's face wrinkled up, and he burst into tears ”Please, please, don't send me away! I wish to remain with you! My loyalty is with my sister and you!”
”Ah” Caesar looked touched ” ”How this pleases my heart” He solemnly laid his hand over his breast ”But you o to them and help recall the the city with fire and desolation Thus will you prove your loyalty to me, and to the Roman people I trust you; why else would I send you directly out to join an eneainst rabbed Caesar's ar in reat Caesar!”
Caesar disengaged Ptolerip ”Courage!” he exhorted hi, Ptolemy scurried from the room
Caesar exa nails” He shook his head ”It felt like being grabbed by auntil he comes at us at the head of his troops?”
”Before sunset, no doubt,” said Caesar
He was off by only two or three hours Indeed, before the day was over, Ptolemy had been received by his troops and, raised up on a royal sedan chair, denounced Caesar and e that the spy who reported it had to stammer, ” The--word unfit for repetition--tyrannical, unprincipled, greedy Julius Caesar and his whore, the--another word unfit for repetition--pleasure-soaked, lustful Cleopatra, must be destroyed, and the evil--yet another word unfit for repetition--gluttonous Romans stopped in their tracks as they seek to devour us,' the King said”
”I see Theodotos installed an extensive vocabulary in his charge,” said Caesar Then he laughed, and the h of relief
”Hedisplay of loyalty he had put on only that !
”You can understand why there are those who likewise question your loyalty to es the Ptole deceitful Your brother is a classic exae” He leaned over and then whispered into my ear, so low I could barely hear him, ”But those who question do not knohat I know of you How could they?” He slid his arm around my back and squeezed the flesh near my hip I a backone The sun had already set Oh, had Ptole me as pleasure-soaked and lustful?
Caesar's purpose had been fulfilled Ptolemy would be destroyed, separated from us, ould ultimately prevail Had he not sent him away, Ptolemy would have been able to stay on the throne withCaesar's victory as his own Perhaps Ptoleed not to be sent away; he could see what his ht and closure Mithridates of Pergaates of Pelusiuypt's eastern borders He storypt to join Caesar But Pelusiu way froonally across the Delta until he reached the spot near Mele river, before he could cross it and head for Alexandria Ptolemy and Arsinoe set out to intercept hi Caesar, and hurried toward that spot on the Nile where he would be crossing
Caesar kept abreast of all this by a constant strea on the rooftop terrace of the palace and gazing out over the harbor while he formed his plan His eyes searched the horizon as if he expected a shi+p, but that was just his way of thinking Other row clouded and dreamy when tley confer within thele's
”When the sun sets,” he said resolutely, ”then I go”
”How?” I asked I had learned that he always had a plan, and it was one I never could have guessed ”Part of Ptole the route from the city They mean to keep you bottled up here”
”Do we not have shi+ps? Did I not retain sea pohile destroying theirs?” He sht, at sunset, I will leave the harbor and sail east, in full view of the enemy They will look for me to land at one of the mouths of the Nile Then, as darkness falls, I will turn the fleet We will sail due west, and land to the far side of Alexandria, on the desert Then illPtolemy's forces, and join Mithridates” He nodded It was all so simple--for him
That was exactly what happened I heard all the details froement Ptolemy had taken his forces by way of his patched-up vessels down the Nile, then set up a fort alongside it on a bit of high ground protruding above the yptians, and they sent out cavalry to stop hies and chased the rebels back into the fort The next day Caesar's forces attacked the fort, having ascertained that the highest sector of it eakly guarded because it was the yptians, in a panic to escape, hurled the for the river The first wave of the trench and were trampled to death by those behind them, who rushed to the little boats and attempted to paddle away in the reeds and papyrus The boats were never meant to hold so many, and they sank Ptolemy was on one; it capsized and he disappeared into the water, vanishi+ng a the reeds
The rebels surrendered Arsinoe was brought before Caesar, her hands behind her back, her dress spattered with swaone She spat at him and cursed him before she was trussed up and led away
”Find Ptolemy!” ordered Caesar ”Where was he last seen?”
One of his soldiers pointed to a dark, oily-looking area of reeds Birds were clinging to the swaying stalks
”Dive for hi in the Nile was considered sacred to Osiris, and he also knew that a king whoyears later--in the form of an impostor
It was a nasty business The shalloa beds, hoed frothe slight body of Ptole dirty water He earing a corselet of pure gold, and its links gleale of weeds entwined in it
”The weight is what drowned hiold sent hiht show-armor ”Exhibit this to the troops, and the people Let the has perished He will not rise froain”
Caesar left the battlefield and,his horse, set out immediately for Alexandria with his cavalry Darkness had fallen before he reached it; but fro their way to the city gate to receive hih the streets, dressed inThey had been beaten; for the first time, Alexandria had fallen to a conqueror
Alexandria, and Egypt, had fallen to Rome: the very fate that I had always seen as the worst misfortune that could befall us, that I had vowed to prevent at all costs Noaiting in the palace, watching, eager to receive the conqueror, with child by the general as even now approaching the city that lay supine before him I should have been torn with shame had I been told, in these very sentences, these sio (Of what purpose are oracles, then, if they veil such eneral, the conqueror, was Julius Caesar, and in those tords, in that na, happy, to embrace him True, he was a Roman, for, but he was so row into so new
The people of Alexandriaprostrate before the Gate of the Sun, placing statues of Anubis, Bastet, Sekmet, and Thoth on the street to sub cloth, unshaven, barefoot, throwing dust on their heads, the city elders wailed in chorus, ”Mercy, O Son of Ahty conqueror! Hail, Caesar, descendant of Ares and Aphrodite, God Incarnate, and Savior of Mankind!” I could hear the dirgelike sound of their laht air
I heard the groaning as the gates were flung open, and Caesar rode past the rows of hunched Alexandrians, past the gilded statues of the Gods who silently let hih the shattered, torchlit street to the palace
He strode into the wide, pillared hall where the s adarden to fill the space I aiting, scarcely able to breathe I held out ypt is yours,” I said
”You are Egypt,” he said ”The most precious conquest I have ever made”
Chapter 14
Caesar wished to see his new possession, and I wished to show it to hiypt from Alexandria to Aswan, over six hundred e of the Ptolemies I counted on it to take his breath away; this conqueror of forests and wild vales of Gaul would now behold the riches of the east, fabled and ancient