The Memoirs of Cleopatra Read online

  Praise for Margaret George

  The Memoirs of Cleopatra

  “Not merely a great lover, Cleopatra emerges here as a compassionate ruler and political genius. It is a tribute to George’s artistry that the strings are hidden, that not once will readers doubt that the Queen of Egypt is telling the tale. In nearly a thousand pages, [George] creates countless memorable moments…. Readers looking to be transported to another place and time will find their magic carpet here.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “[George] revels in historical detail and the unfolding of events…. Her magnificent, flawed characters are particularly impressive.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “George’s novel is a transport to another time….”

  —Portsmouth Herald

  Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

  “An historical novel of exceptional quality, and one that is completely mesmerizing. The world of Mary Queen of Scots is brought vividly to life by Margaret George, and the heroine is captivating—beautiful, emotional, learned, rash, impulsive, always courageous, but inevitably flawed in her judgment…. A wholly engrossing book and a rare treat.”

  —Barbara Taylor Bradford

  “A triumph of historical fiction.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  The Autobiography of Henry VIII

  “I have read The Autobiography of Henry VIII with great interest and found it quite an impressive work. The author has obviously researched her subject thoroughly…. I would say that anyone interested in Henry and his times would want to read this book.”

  —Victoria Holt

  “A feat of imaginative reconstruction.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  for

  CLEOPATRA

  QUEEN, GODDESS, SCHOLAR, WARRIOR

  69–30 B.C.

  and ALISON,

  MY CLEOPATRA SELENE,

  and PAUL

  A BIT OF CAESAR, ANTONY, AND ESPECIALLY OLYMPOS

  ALL IN ONE

  To Isis, my mother, my refuge, my compassionate companion and keeper all the days of my life, from their beginning until it pleases you that they come to their end, I commit these writings, a record of my days on earth. You, who granted them to me, will guard and preserve them, and look kindly and with favor upon their author, your daughter. For as you gave me the formless days—and I marked them with my deeds, and thereby am truly their owner—so I have recorded my life that I might offer it entire and without falsehood to you. You must judge all the works of my hand and the worthiness of my heart—both the outer deeds and the inner being.

  I submit them to you, praying you to be merciful, saving my accomplishments, and the very memory of them, from the destruction of my enemies.

  I am the seventh Cleopatra of the royal house of Ptolemy, the Queen, the Lady of the Two Lands, Thea Philopator, the Goddess Who Loves Her Father, Thea Neotera, the Younger Goddess; the daughter of Ptolemy Neos Dionysus, the New Dionysus.

  I am mother to Ptolemy Caesar, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphos.

  I was wife to Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius.

  Preserve my words, and grant them sanctuary, I beseech you.

  My thanks to:

  My editor, Hope Dellon, who, with insight and humor, helps fashion the potter’s clay of first drafts into finished works; my father, Scott George, who introduced me to the Principle of the Ninety-Nine Soldiers; my sister, Rosemary George, who has Antony’s high sense of fun; Lynn Courtenay, who patiently scours obscure references in search of classical tidbits; Bob Feibel, who helped me refight the Battle of Actium; Erik Gray, for his help in the mysteries of Latin usage (any remaining errors are mine); and our old pet snake, Julius, who for sixteen years has taught me the way of serpents.

  Contents

  The First Scroll

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The Second Scroll

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Third Scroll

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  The Fourth Scroll

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  The Fifth Scroll

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  The Sixth Scroll

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  The Seventh Scroll

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  The Eighth Scroll

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  The Ninth Scroll

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  The Tenth Scroll

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  The Scroll of Olympos

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Author’s Note

  A Reading Group Guide

  The First Scroll

  1

  Warmth. Wind. Dancing blue waters, and the sound of waves. I see, hear, feel them all still. I even taste the sting of the salt against my lips, where the fine, misty spray coats them. And closer even than that, the lulling, drowsy smell of my mother’s skin by my nose, where she holds me against her bosom, her hand making a sunshade across my forehead to shield my eyes. The boat is rocking gently, and my mother is rocking me as well, so I sway to a double rhythm. It makes me very sleepy, and the sloshing of the water all around me makes a blanket of sound, wrapping me securely. I am held safely, cradled in love and watchfulness. I remember. I remember…

  And then…the memory is torn apart, upended, overturned, as the boat must have been. My mother gone, and I tumbling through the air, caught by other arms, rough ones that grip so hard around my middle that I can hardly breathe. And the splashing…I can still hear the splashing, hear the brief, surprised cries.

  They say I could not possibly, that I was not yet three years old when my mother
drowned in the harbor, terrible accident, and on such a calm day, how did it ever happen? was the boat tampered with? did someone push? no, she just tripped and fell in while trying to stand up, and you know she couldn’t swim, no, we didn’t know that, until it was too late, why then did she go out on the water so often? She liked it, poor soul, poor Queen, liked the sound and the colors…

  A bright blue ball seems to envelop all that terror, that thrashing and the arcs of water flying all over, a sweeping circle, and the screams of the ladies on the boat. They say that someone dived over to help and was dragged down, too, and that two died instead of one. They also say that I clawed and kicked and tried to fling myself after my mother, screaming in fear and loss, but my strong-armed nurse, who had caught me, held me fast.

  I remember being pushed onto my back and being held flat, staring up at the underside of a canopy where dazzling blue water was reflected, and unable to throw off my captor’s hands.

  No one comforts me, as one would expect someone to do for a frightened child. They are too concerned with preventing me from escaping. They say I cannot remember that either, but I do. How exposed I feel, how naked on that boat bench, torn from my mother’s arms and now forcibly held down, as the boat hurries for shore.

  Some days later I am taken to a large, echoing room, where light seems to come in from all sides and wind sweeps through, too. It is a room, but it feels as if it is also outdoors—a special sort of room, the room for someone who is not a person but a god. It is the temple of Isis, and the nurse is leading me to a huge statue—pulling me, rather. I remember digging in my heels and having to be almost dragged across the shiny stone floor.

  The base of the statue is enormous. I can barely see over the top of it, to where two white feet seem to be, and a figure standing above it. The face is lost in shadow.

  “Put your flowers at her feet,” the nurse is saying, tugging at my fist with the flowers I am clutching.

  I don’t want to let go of them, don’t want to put them there.

  “This is Isis,” the nurse says gently. “Look at her face. She is watching you. She will take care of you. She is your mother now.”

  Is she? I try to see the face, but it is so high and far away. It does not look like my mother’s face.

  “Give her the flowers,” the nurse prompts.

  Slowly I lift my hand and put my little offering on the pedestal at the end of my reach. I look up again, hoping to see the statue smile, and I imagine that I do.

  So, Isis, it is thus, and on that day, I became your daughter.

  2

  My mother the late Queen’s name was Cleopatra, and I was proud to bear her name. But I would have been proud of it in any case, for it is a great name in the history of our family, going all the way back to the sister of Alexander the Great, to whom we Ptolemies are related. It means “Glory to her Ancestry,” and all my life and reign I have tried to fulfill that promise. All that I have done, I have done to preserve my heritage and Egypt.

  All the women in our line were named Cleopatra, Berenice, or Arsinoe. Those names, too, went all the way back to Macedonia, where our family had its origins. Thus my two older sisters received the names of Cleopatra (yes, there were two of us) and Berenice, and my younger sister the name of Arsinoe.

  Younger sister…there were others after me. For the King needed to marry again, and soon after the untimely death of his Queen Cleopatra, he took a new wife, and she straightway produced my sister Arsinoe. Later she gave birth to the two little boys to whom I was briefly “married.” Then she died, leaving Father a widower again. This time he did not remarry.

  I did not care for my father’s new wife, nor for my sister Arsinoe, who was only a little more than three years younger than I. From her earliest days she was sly and deceitful, a whiner and complainer. It did not help that she was also quite beautiful—the kind of child that everyone exclaims over, and asks, “And where did she come by those eyes?” and not merely out of politeness. It gave her an arrogance from the cradle, as she saw it not as a gift to be appreciated but as a power to be used.

  My sister Cleopatra was some ten years older than I, and Berenice eight. Fortunate sisters, to have had our mother for that many years longer than I! Not that they seemed to be grateful for it. The eldest was a dour, drooping sort of creature; I fear I cannot even recall her very well. And Berenice—she was a veritable bull of a woman, big-shouldered, raw-voiced, with wide, flat feet that made even normal walking sound like stamping. There was nothing about her to recall our ancestor, the delicate-featured Berenice II, who had reigned with Ptolemy III two hundred years earlier and passed into legend as a strong-willed beauty to whom court poets dedicated their works. No, the red-faced, snorting Berenice would never inspire such literary outpourings.

  I basked in the knowledge that I was my father’s favorite. Do not ask me how children know these things, but they do, no matter how well parents try to hide it. Perhaps it was because I found the other Cleopatra and Berenice to be so peculiar that I could not imagine anyone being partial to them rather than to me. But later, even after Arsinoe with all her beauty came along, I retained the leading place in my father’s heart. I know now it was because I was the only one who showed any concern for him in return.

  I must admit it, honestly but with reluctance: The rest of the world (including his own children) found Father either comical or pitiful—perhaps both. He was a handsome, slight man, with a diffident and dreamy manner that could turn quickly to nervousness when he felt threatened. People blamed him both for what he himself was—an artist by inclination, a flute player, and a dancer—and for the situation he had inherited. The first was his own doing, but the second was an unfortunate legacy. It was not his fault that by the time he managed to climb onto the throne, it was practically in the jaws of Rome, necessitating any number of undignified postures to retain it. These included groveling, flattering, jettisoning his brother, paying colossal bribes, and entertaining the hated potential conquerors at his very court. It did not make him loved. Nor did it make him secure. Was it any wonder that he sought escape with the wine and music of Dionysus, his patron god? But the more he sought it, the more disdain he reaped.

  Father’s Magnificent Banquet for Pompey the Great: I was almost seven then, and eager finally to see Romans, real Romans, the Romans (that is, the dangerous ones, not the harmless merchants or scholars who showed up in Alexandria on personal business). I pestered Father to let me attend, knowing well how to persuade him, since he was susceptible to almost everything I asked, within reason.

  “I want to see them,” I told him. “The famous Pompey—what does he look like?”

  Everyone had trembled about Pompey, since he had just swooped down on our part of the world. First he had put down a major rebellion in Pontus, then he had continued into Syria and taken the remnants of the empire of the Seleucids, turning it into a Roman province.

  A Roman province. The whole world was turning into a Roman province, so it seemed. For a long time, Rome—which was located far away, on the other side of the Mediterranean—had confined itself to its own area. Then gradually it had extended its grasp in all directions, like the arms of an octopus. It grabbed Spain to the west, and Carthage to the south, and then Greece to the east, swelling and swelling. And the larger it swelled, the more its appetite grew to feed its bulk.

  Little kingdoms were just morsels to it—tidbits like Pergamon and Caria, easily swallowed. The ancient realms of Alexander would be more satisfying, stave off its hunger better.

  Once there had been three kingdoms carved out of Alexander’s domains, ruled by his three generals and their descendants: Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt. Then two. Then Syria fell and there was only one: Egypt. There were reports that the Romans now felt the time was ripe to annex Egypt as well, and that Pompey himself was particularly keen on it. So Father had decided to do everything in his power to buy Pompey off. He sent cavalry units to help Pompey in crushing his next victim, our nearest neighbo
r, Judaea.

  Yes, it was shameful. I admit it. No wonder his own people hated him. But would they rather have fallen to the Romans? His choices were those of a desperate man, between bad and worse. He chose bad. Would they have preferred worse?

  “He’s a big, strapping man,” Father said. “Not unlike your sister Berenice!” We laughed together at that, conspirators. Then the laughter died. “He’s frightening,” he added. “Anyone with that much power is frightening, no matter how charming his manners.”

  “I want to see him,” I insisted.

  “The banquet will go on for hours—it will be loud, and hot, and boring for you. There’s no point to it. Perhaps when you are older—”