The Gods of war

CHAPTER 31

Horns blew across Alexandria as the royal barge was sighted in the last days of summer. Brutus sent a dozen trim Roman galleys to meet them, and food enough for banquets was given out from the dock stores. The purple sail could be seen from a great distance and hundreds of boats joined the exodus through the mouth of the port, gathering around the queen's ship like a flight of brightly colored birds.

Though the shorter days were on them, the air was still heavy with heat. Cleopatra's slaves fanned her as she stood on deck and watched the fleet come out. Her advancing pregnancy had brought an end to the peaceful days on the Nile, and she could no longer find comfort in any position for long. Julius had learned to tread carefully as her temper frayed, and at the sight of Roman galleys her eyes narrowed in a flash of anger.

"You have brought your army here?" she said, looking at him.

"A tiny part of it," he replied. "You would not have me leave Alexandria undefended when you come to Rome."

"My warriors have seen to our defense over the years," she replied indignantly.

Julius chose his words with care. "I would not take even a small risk with Egypt," he murmured. "The galleys protect our son's inheritance. Trust me in this. I have given you my oath."

She felt the child move within her and she shuddered as she listened. Had she lost her throne to the Roman? Egypt had grown tired over five thousand years and she knew her enemies watched for weakness. The young strength of Rome would keep the wolves away from her lands, like a flaming torch thrust into their faces. Julius could fire her blood when he talked of twin capitals, but the sight of his legionaries swarming on her docks made her fear. He could be kind as a man, as a lover, but as a general he was a destroying storm and her city had come to his notice.

Julius saw her shiver and took a shawl from one of her slave girls. He placed it about Cleopatra's shoulders and his tenderness brought tears to her eyes.

"You must believe me," he said softly. "This is a beginning."

Legion centuries stood in perfect order on the docks as the queen's crew moored the barge. As Julius and Cleopatra stepped down, the Romans cheered the return of the consul and victor of Rome. A litter was brought for Cleopatra, removing her from the vulgar gaze behind a canopy raised on the shoulders of slaves. Julius stood on her right side, taking in the changes that had occurred in his absence.

The busy port had a sense of order that had been missing before. In the distance, he could see legionaries on patrol. New customhouses had been built or commandeered to control the wealth of trade that came through Alexandria. Brutus had clearly been busy.

As the procession made its way through the city toward the royal palace, the presence of legions became even more obvious. Soldiers stood to attention on every corner, saluting as Julius came into sight. The citizens of Alexandria who might have clustered around their queen were held back by solid barriers at every street mouth, leaving the main path clear.

Julius winced to himself at how the casual efficiency must look to Cleopatra. He had sent his orders to Greece before leaving, but the reality of seeing twenty thousand more of his countrymen descend on the city was strangely disturbing. Alexandria had been an alien place when he arrived. His men were busy turning it into an outpost of Rome.

At the palace, Cleopatra's slaves gathered around her in a flurry of excitement. Her feet hurt and she was weary, but as she stood again on the steps, she turned to Julius before entering the cooler rooms within.

"How can I trust you?" she said.

"You carry my son, Cleopatra. Even if you did not, you are more valuable to me than anything else. Let me protect you."

She opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it, compressing her lips into a thin line of disapproval.

Julius sighed. Thousands of his soldiers were in view. "Very well, my queen. Let me show my men, at least."

Without another word, he knelt on the steps before her.

The tension slid away from Cleopatra as she looked down on his flushed face. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "I have never known a man to kneel with such pride," she murmured into his ear, making him laugh.

Julius summoned his Gaul generals to him after he had eaten and bathed. The new officers from Greece would have to wait a little longer for an audience. He chose the room Brutus had been using in the scribes' quarter and looked around him in interest at the changes as he waited for them to arrive.

Brutus and Domitius entered first, saluting and taking the chairs he offered. Regulus came behind them, his usual grim manner made lighter by Julius's return. Octavian and Ciro took their seats as Domitius poured wine for the rest.

Julius watched them all as they accepted the goblets and raised them in his direction before drinking. They looked fit and dark from the sun, Ciro in particular. He might have passed for one of the native Egyptians. Octavian had a new scar on his cheek that stood out against his skin. Of all of them, his manner was the most reserved and Julius missed the relaxed camaraderie of their years together. He had been away for almost six months and felt uncomfortable at the distance that had grown between them.

"Should I ask for a formal report, gentlemen?" he said. "Or shall we drink and talk until the sun goes down?"

Regulus smiled, but the others were oddly wary. It was Octavian who broke the silence.

"I'm glad to see you back, sir," he said.

Brutus was staring at the younger man in what could have been polite interest, and Julius wondered what had gone on between them. He did not want to hear of squabbling and bad feeling. His time on the Nile made such things seem trivial.

"The city is quiet, Julius," Brutus said, "as you might expect with the best part of thirty thousand soldiers here. We've had a few incidents of looting and some of the men are in desert barracks on punishment drills. Nothing that couldn't be handled. We've given them a decent sewage system and brought a little order to the docks. Apart from that, it's been a pleasant rest for some of us. How is the queen?"

Julius nodded to Brutus, pleased at the lack of fuss. "The birth is due in a few weeks, or even less," he said, his eyes softening at the thought.

"A son and heir," Brutus said. Julius did not see him glance at Octavian. "You'll have to make peace with Calpurnia when you return."

Julius nodded, sipping at his wine. The thought of his latest wife weeping on his shoulder was not a pleasant one. "I could not have known this would happen when I married her," he said, musing. "So much has changed since I set out for Greece."

"Are we going home then, when the child is born?" Octavian said suddenly.

Julius looked at him, seeing a tension he did not understand. "We are. I will leave two legions here to keep the peace. I'll write to Mark Antony and have him set up the galley routes for pay and orders. By the gods, it will be good to see him again. I've missed the old place. Just to speak about it here makes me long to see Rome."

He seemed to collect himself as he looked around at their earnest faces.

"We will take Pompey's remains back to be buried in the city, and I'll raise a statue to him, perhaps in his own theater. Even now the manner of his death sits poorly with me. I have written to my daughter to tell her, and I will honor him in death, for her sake at least."

He paused, staring off into space. It had been more than a year since Pharsalus, and the memory of crossing the Rubicon seemed impossibly distant. The hiatus in his life that had come on the slow Nile had changed him, he realized. The other men in the room still had the look of lean wolves, hardened by years of conflict. He did not feel quite in step with them.

"It will be a strange thing to have the Republic restored after so many years of conflict," Octavian murmured, looking into his wine. "The city will welcome you back as a savior of the old ways." It took an effort for him to look up into Julius's eyes as his general regarded him thoughtfully.

"Perhaps they will," Julius said. "I will have to see how things stand when I'm back." He missed the glimmer of hope in Octavian's eyes as he refilled his cup from a silver jug. "Things change, though," he went on. "I've had time to think on that slow river. I have been granted the chance to raise Rome higher than any other city. I should not waste it."

He felt Octavian's stare and raised his cup in salute.

"Alexander's dreams have fallen into my hands here. In this place, I can see further. We could bring the light of Rome to the world." He smiled, oblivious to Octavian's distress. "Like the Pharos lighthouse," he said. "We could make an empire."

"Does this come from the queen?" Octavian said softly.

Julius glanced at him in puzzlement. "My blood is joined in her. Egypt and I are already one. Rome will come with me." He gestured toward the window with his cup, feeling the wine heat his thoughts. "The years ahead are golden, Octavian. I have seen them."

"Welcome back, sir," Brutus said.

Julius paced up and down the hall of the palace, wincing at every cry from Cleopatra's lips. His son was coming into the world and he could hardly remember being more nervous. Her courtiers had come to wake him in his quarters and he had dressed hurriedly in a toga and sandals, calling for Brutus to attend him.

The two men had come barreling into the meeting hall only to be told that the queen's privacy was not to be interrupted. To Julius's irritation, the door to her chambers was guarded by her own men and he had been left to pace and fret, his empty stomach growling hungrily as the hours wore on. Messengers came and went at the run, carrying steaming pails of water and piles of white linen. Julius could hear the voices of women inside and at intervals Cleopatra cried out in pain. He clenched his fists in frustration and barely noticed the warm tisane that Brutus pressed into his hands.

At dawn, Sosigenes came out, snapping orders for more cloths to a waiting slave. The astrologer was flushed and busy, but a glance at Julius's face brought him up short.

"Your son is coming, Caesar. It is a great omen that he is to be born in the first light of day," Sosigenes said.

Julius gripped his arm. "Is she well? The birth, is it all right?"

Sosigenes smiled and nodded his head. "You should rest, Consul. You will be called in soon enough. My queen is young and strong, as her mother was. Rest."

He returned the grip on his arm with a brief pressure of his hand, then he walked past the guards. A long scream could be heard then, which made Julius groan.

"By the gods, I can't bear it," he said.

"Were you like this when Julia was born?" Brutus asked him.

Julius shook his head. "I don't remember. No, I wasn't, I think. But I am older now. If the child dies, how many other chances will I have?"

"What will he be called then, this son of yours?" Brutus asked, in part to take Julius's mind off the chanting they could hear within. He had no idea what strange rituals were being enacted and it showed the depth of Julius's agitation that he had hardly noticed them.

The question seemed to calm Julius a little. "His name will be Ptolemy Caesarion," he said, with pride. "Two houses joined."

"You will show him in the forum," Brutus prompted.

Julius's face lit up. "I will. As soon as he can be moved, I will take him home. The king of Syria has invited me to visit him and I will take Cleopatra there. Then Crete, perhaps, or Cyprus, Greece, and home at last. We will stand in the forum in a Roman summer and I'll hold the boy up to the crowd for them to see."

"There will be a struggle ahead if you still intend a dynasty, an empire," Brutus murmured.

Julius shook his head. "Not now, Brutus. Can't you see it? The legions are loyal to me and the Senate will be handpicked. Whether they realize it or not, the empire is already begun. Who is left to resist my claim, after all? Pompey was the last of them."

Brutus nodded, his eyes dark with thought.

An hour later Sosigenes came bustling out to them, surprising the guards. The man was beaming as if personally responsible for the events of the night.

"You have your son, Caesar, as I said you would. Will you come in?"

Julius clapped a hand on his shoulder, making him wince. "Show me," he said.

Brutus did not follow and was left alone to spread the happy news to the legions that had gathered outside in the dawn.

Cleopatra lay on her bed with the hangings tied back to give her air. She looked exhausted and dazed, with shadows under her eyes. Her skin was pale and as Julius rushed over to her a slave girl dried the perspiration from her skin, dabbing gently with a cloth.

There were many others in the room, though Julius didn't notice them. Cleopatra's breasts were bared and against one was the baby he had hoped for, the tiny face lost as it pressed against the yielding flesh.

Julius sat on the bed and leaned over them, ignoring the slave girl as she moved away. Cleopatra opened her eyes.

"My beautiful queen," Julius murmured, smiling. "Sosigenes said it was a boy."

"The old fool is very proud of himself," Cleopatra said, wincing as the baby clenched her nipple in its gums. "You have a son, Julius."

Gently, he reached up and smoothed a tendril of hair from her forehead.

"I have waited all my life for you," he said to her.

Tears filled her eyes and she laughed at her own reaction. "I seem to cry at the slightest thing," she said, then grimaced as the baby shifted once more. For an instant, her nipple was revealed before the hungry mouth found it and clamped on, sucking busily. "He is strong," she said.

Julius looked at the tiny figure half concealed by cloths. Fresh from the womb, the baby was wrinkled, his skin a shade of blue that faded even as Julius watched. A smear of blood lay on his head, mingled with hair as black as his mother's.

"He'll have to be if he stays that ugly," Julius said, laughing as Cleopatra swatted at him with a free hand.

"He is beautiful," she said, "and he is ours. He will be a great king, Sosigenes has sworn it. Greater than you or I, Julius."

He kissed her gently and she sagged back into the pillows, her eyes closing. Julius felt a presence at his shoulder and turned to look into the stern gaze of one of the royal midwives.

"Yes?" he said.

Cleopatra sighed without opening her eyes. "She does not speak Latin, Julius."

The woman gestured to Julius and the door, muttering under her breath.

"I understand," he said. "I will return when you have had a chance to rest."

He took her hand and squeezed it, before standing. He looked down on his family and thanked his gods for having lived long enough to see it.