Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online Page A

not a trace.
    “All hail the two Pharaohs, Lords of the Two Ladies Upper and Lower Egypt, Lords of the Sedge and Bee, Children of Amun-Ra, Isis and Ptah!” roared the Lord High Chamberlain, drumming his golden staff on the floor, a dull sound that had Dellius revising his opinion about thin tissue. The floor sounded solid .
    They sat on two elaborate thrones, the woman on top of the golden dais and the boy one step beneath her. Each was clad in strange raiment made of finely pleated white linen, and each wore a huge headdress of red enamel around a tubular cone of white enamel. About their necks were wide collars of magnificent jewels set in gold, on their arms bracelets, broad girdles of gems around their waists, on their feet golden sandals. Their faces were thick with paint, hers white, the boy’s a rusty red, and their eyes were so hedged in by black lines and colored shapes that they slid, sinister as fanged fish, as surely no human eyes were intended to.
    “Quintus Dellius,” said the Queen (Dellius had no idea what the epithet “Pharaoh” meant), “we bid you welcome to Egypt.”
    “I come as Imperator Marcus Antonius’s official ambassador,” said Dellius, getting into the swing of things, “with greetings and salutations to the twin thrones of Egypt.”
    “How impressive,” said the Queen, eyes sliding eerily.
    “Is that all?” asked the boy, whose eyes sparkled more.
    “Er—unfortunately not, Your Majesty. The Triumvir Marcus Antonius requires your presence in Tarsus to answer charges.”
    “Charges?” asked the boy.
    “It is alleged that Egypt aided Gaius Cassius, thereby breaking its status of Friend and Ally of the Roman People.”
    “And that is a charge?” Cleopatra asked.
    “A very serious one, Your Majesty.”
    “Then we will go to Tarsus to answer it in person. You may leave our presence, Quintus Dellius. When we are ready to set out, you will be notified.”
    And that was that! No dinner invitations, no reception to introduce him to the court—there must surely be a court! No eastern monarch could function without several hundred sycophants to tell him (or her) how wonderful he (or she) was. But here was Apollodorus firmly ushering him from the room, apparently to be left to his own devices!
    “Pharaoh will sail to Tarsus,” Apollodorus said, “therefore you have two choices, Quintus Dellius. You may send your people home overland and travel with them, or you may send your people home overland and sail aboard one of the royal ships.”
    Ah! thought Dellius. Somone warned them I was coming. There is a spy in Tarsus. This audience was a sham designed to put me—and Antonius—in our places.
    “I will sail,” he said haughtily.
    “A wise decision.” Apollodorus bowed and walked away, leaving Dellius to storm off at a hasty walk to cool his temper, sorely tried. How dared they? The audience had given him no opportunity to gauge the Queen’s feminine charms or even discover for himself if the boy was really Caesar’s son. They were a pair of painted dolls, stranger than the wooden thing his daughter dragged about the house as if it were human.
    The sun was hot; perhaps, thought Dellius, it would do me good to paddle in the wavelets of that delicious cove outside my palace. Dellius couldn’t swim—odd for a Roman—but an ankle-deep paddle was harmless. He descended a series of limestone steps, then perched on a boulder to unbuckle his maroon senatorial shoes.
    “Fancy a swim? So do I,” said a cheerful voice—a child’s, but deep.
    “It’s the funnest way to get rid of all this muck.”
    Startled, Dellius turned to see the boy king, stripped down to a loincloth, his face still painted.
    “You swim, I’ll paddle,” said Dellius.
    Caesarion waded in as far as his waist and then tipped himself forward to swim, moving fearlessly into deep water. He dived, came up with face a curious mixture of black and rusty red; then under again, up again.
    “The paint’s soluble in