Pharaoh Read Free

get herself out of sight.
    She shared these thoughts with Apollodorus.
    “It is not too late to turn around, Your Majesty-” he offered.
    “No!” she interrupted him. “This is my country. My brother sits in the palace as if he were the sole ruler of Egypt. Caesar,
     no doubt, is in receipt of my letter, and he awaits my arrival. I will not be shut out by these maritime monsters.” She raised
     her hands as if to encompass all the vessels in the sea. “The gods will not have it, and I will not have it.”
    Apollodorus said nothing. Kleopatra made another silent plea to the goddess. She stared into her lap waiting for inspiration
     to descend upon her. She was for a moment lost in the intricate pattern of the Persian carpet that the men had thrown aboard
     the boat at the last minute for the queen to sit on. An anonymous artisan had spent years of his life stitching the rows and
     rows of symmetrical crosses into the silk. Suddenly, she pulled her head up straight and focused on the rug, mentally measuring
     its dimensions. Its fine silk threads would not irritate the downy skin of a young woman, should she choose to lie upon it.
     Or to roll herself inside of it.
    The sun cast its final offering of light. Her companion’s square rock of a body sat helplessly waiting for the decision of
     the queen as his boat drifted precariously close to the shore.
    “Help me,” she said as she threw the rug on the floor of the boat and positioned herself at one end.
    Apollodorus stood up and stared down at the queen, who lay with her hands over her chest like a mummy.
    “But Your Majesty will suffocate,” he protested, stretching his palms out to her as if he hoped they would exercise upon her
     a modicum of reason. “We must leave this place.”
    The sun had set, and the boxlike form that hovered above her was only a silhouette against a darkening sky.
    “Help me quickly, and do not waste our time with questions,” she said. “Julius Caesar is waiting.”

    When the squatty Sicilian entered Caesar’s chamber to announce that he had a gift from the rightful queen of Egypt to lay
     at Great Caesar’s feet, the dictator’s soldiers drew swords. But Caesar simply laughed and said he was anxious to see what
     the exiled girl might smuggle through her brother’s guards.
    “This is a mistake, sir,” said the captain of his guard. “These people are ready to take advantage of your good nature.”
    “Then they, too, shall learn, shan’t they?” he replied.
    The pirate lay the carpet before Caesar, using his own knife to clip the ties that bound it. As he slowly and carefully unrolled
     it, Caesar could see that it was a fine example of the craftsmanship that was only to be found in the eastern countries, the
     kind he had so envied when he was last at Pompey’s house in Rome. Suddenly, as if she were part of the geometrical pattern
     itself, a girl rolled out from its folds, sat up cross-legged, and looked at him. Her small face was overly painted, with
     too much jewelry in her thick brown hair, and a meretricious scarf tied about her tiny waist, showing off her comely body.
     The young queen must be a woman of great humor to have sent Caesar a pirate’s little wench. She was not precisely lovely,
     he thought, but handsome. She had full lips, or so he assumed under the paint. Her eyes were green and slanted upward, and
     they challenged him now to speak to her, as if it was Caesar who should have to introduce himself to this little tart. But
     it was the pirate who spoke first.
    “Hail Queen Kleopatra, daughter of Isis, Lady of the Two Lands of Egypt.”
    Caesar stood-a habit, though he remained unconvinced that the girl was not a decoy. She stood, too, but quickly motioned for
     him to sit. Surely only a queen would have the guts to do that. He took his chair again, and she addressed him in Latin, not
     giving him the opportunity to interrogate her, but telling him the story of how her brother and hiscourtiers had