Cleopatra Occult Read Free

the ground.”
    Iset moaned sympathetically. “Sorceress Thrace is very strong, indeed. She had enough time to smell you out at the palace. I’d hoped we had more time—I expected it to take longer. She’s always so distracted with her own mad vanity and lust. And like us, she isn’t in as much control of the wild forces of nature as she would like.”
    “Why wait for witches at all? Just have anybody cut my brother’s throat.”
    Iset grinned. “And Mark Antony just might do that for us. Let’s wait and see what can happen.”
    Cleopatra asked, “Why not just send any assassin to get my brother?”
    “That would be worse.”
    “Good.”
    Iset insisted, “No, no! Never take a terrible thing and make it worse.”
    “Nothing is worse than my brother.”
    Iset insisted, “We must keep this little Egyptian civil war within the family, if we can. If his throat were cut now and the throne were seen empty for it, you’d have a far bigger fight to get it back. If Mark Antony kills him, though, it’s Rome’s problem. Caesar already likes you—you’ve shared a lot of laughs.”
    Cleopatra rubbed her arms, realizing she didn’t feel cold even though the cave must be cold. “ So what about this Mark Antony… I’ve met him in Rome. What a dick.”
    Iset wagged her finger. “He’s Caesar’s great general. When abroad, he acts in Caesar’s name.”
    Cleopatra nodded impatiently. “Yes, I met him when I was with Caesar, and Mark is ridiculous—all swagger.”
    Iset winked. “That will be used in our favor.”
     
     
    Chapter three
     
     
    In the temple of Serapis in the Egyptian neighborhood of Alexandria, Cleopatra’s brother, Ptolemy, lounged nude watching the orgy of Greeks and Romans. Drums encouraged hips.
    A clothed Egyptian priest stepped up to him. “The gods will be horrified.” Like all Egyptians he wore black eye makeup to give him cat eyes.
    Ptolemy dismissively waved the priest off with his hand. “It’s the proper way. The crops will grow more fertile now if much seed is spilled. Athena likes seed. The Greeks do it best.”
    The priest stayed. “But in an Egyptian temple?” He looked around at the tall walls decorated in colorful paintings of papyrus plants and lotus flowers, and hieroglyphics. “For this fertility you bring on, like this, I fear only the crocodiles will grow larger.”
    Ptolemy said, “This city has always been for the Greeks and it was a mistake of my forefathers to let others in. This temple looks foreign and weird. I shouldn’t have left the palace, for this. This is horrible.”
    The priest warned, “Don’t offend the gods.”
    Ptolemy waved him off again. “They should have kept Egyptian temples out of Alexandria. It only makes people worry about the savage Nile.”
    “But we’re in Egypt.”
    “Egypt, back there , with Africa,” Ptolemy rudely gestured south, “is merely its farm. Those ignorant people face a river, not Rome.”
    To the Romans, Africa was the name of the land west of Egypt while Asia was the land east of Egypt. Ptolemy always dismissed everything beyond the main neighborhoods of his Hellenistic enclave of a city.
    Hellenism was a time in Greek history from Alexander the Great in 323 BC to Cleopatra in 30 BC. During this period Greek culture flourished throughout the Mediterranean. It thrived most at Alexandria in Egypt.
    The priest spoke cautiously, “The gods see all of this as one land.”
    Ptolemy picked his nose.
    The worried priest added, “We have a desert full of sins today. Isis has so much to forgive us for.”
    Ptolemy yelled at the orgy, “Do it like you mean it! Don’t insult Athena! She knows what’s in your heart! We’ll have no sinning here! You’re all atrocious!”
    The priest added, “And the gods will certainly punish us for how your sister was denied a proper burial.”
    “She’s jackal poop by now.” He laughed. They watched a man grow more frenzied as he tried to get himself to climax again. “And to