Pharaoh Read Free Page A

placed her under house arrest and forced her to flee Alexandria and go into exile; how her brother’s regents
     were representative of the anti-Roman faction in Egypt; how she had always carried out her late father’s policy of friendship
     with Rome; and how, most importantly, once restored, she intended to repay the large loan that her father had taken from the
     Roman moneylender, Rabirius, which she must have guessed was the real reason that Caesar had followed Pompey to Alexandria.
    Before Caesar might reply to her speech, the queen said, “Shall we converse in Greek, General? It is a more precise language
     for negotiation, don’t you agree?”
    “As you wish,” Caesar replied. From there, the conversation was held in her native tongue and not his-not that it mattered.
     He spoke Greek as if he had been born in Athens. He admired her ploy of simultaneously demonstrating her command of his native
     tongue while diminishing it in comparison to the more sophisticated Greek language. There was no pride like that of the Greeks,
     and this girl was obviously no exception.
    But she had great charm and intelligence, so Caesar pledged her restoration, in accordance with her father’s will and the
     nation’s tradition. He would have done so anyway, but now he could do it with pleasure. Not only would it please the young
     queen, it would also irritate Pothinus, the dreadful eunuch whom Caesar despised. For Kleopatra’s part, she pledged a great
     portion of her treasury that he might take with him back to Rome to satisfy Rabirius. A relief, he assured her, to have that
     clacking old duck paid and off his back. Kleopatra laughed, remembering the sight of Rabirius’s great waddling ass as he was
     chased out of Alexandria.
    “I do hope you are enjoying our city,” Kleopatra said. “Are we occupying you as satisfactorily as you occupy us?”
    Caesar felt he had no choice but to laugh. He told the girl about a lecture he had recently attended at the Mouseion, the
     center for scholarly learning that he’d heard about all his years. She had studied there herself, she said, and in her exile
     what she most had longed for was not her feathery bed nor the kitchen staff of one hundred who prepared for her the finest
     meals on earth, but the books at the Great Library, and the visits of scholars, poets, and scientists who engaged her mind.
    Now secure that she was once again at home and in charge, she relaxed in her seat and called for wine, stretching her thin,
     shapely arm over the back of the couch and stretching her small sandaled feet in his direction. Caesar was startled at the
     way she so easily issued commands in his presence, but it was her palace, after all. Before he knew it, however, they were
     discussing the philosophy of domination, and he was drunk and praising Posidonius while she disputed every point.
    “Posidonius has demonstrated that Rome, by embracing all the peoples of the world, secures all humanity into a commonwealth
     under the gods,” Caesar explained. “Through submission, harmony is realized.”
    A tiny laugh, almost a giggle, escaped Kleopatra’s lips despite herself. “Does Rome
embrace,
General? Is ’suffocation not a more appropriate word?” she asked, her eyes wide and twinkling. He did not know if she was
     agitating him for the purpose of argument or to arouse him sexually. But with her enchanting voice that sounded almost like
     a musical instrument, and the way she moved her body with sensuous fluidity, she was succeeding more at the latter.
    “Suffocation, perhaps, but only in the service of the common good.”
    “Whose good?”
    “In Gaul, where I spent many years, tribes of men of the same bloodlines who speak the same language, who share common heritage,
     have fought to destroy one another since time out of mind. I soon realized that while my army was at war with the tribes,
     there was all the while a secret war in progress, one in which the tribes fought incessantly