Pharaoh by Karen Essex Read Free Book Online Page B

hisrepast need not be disturbed when the dead thing shifted. He would not know impatience, Kleopatra thought, admiring the way
     he kept coming at his prey one way and another without any acknowledgment of discouragement or fatigue.
    Caesar’s long legs were stretched out in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles. Ptolemy the Elder sat opposite him, twisting
     a fold of his linen robe with both his hands. Kleopatra completed the triangle, sitting adjacent to the two men, continuing
     to watch the spider gobble his victim on the corner of her brother’s chair while he sat unaware of the arachnid’s valiant
     efforts inches from his arm.
    The war-for now they were clearly at war, but with and against whom was still slightly unclear-had gone on for weeks, with
     Caesar waiting patiently for reinforcements to arrive. He was certain that he would not be disappointed, despite some messages
     from Rome’s eastern client kingdoms that few Roman troops could be spared because the Parthians would not let up in their
     attacks on Syria. Their best hope for reinforcements lay with Antipater of Judaea. “Pompey had such trouble with those Jewish
     warriors,” Caesar had said earlier that morning. “They
resisted
him and frustrated him terribly. He repaid them by forcing them to side with him and against me in this recent war. I believe
     they will not let me down this time. After all, they do need to make amends.”
    “I wonder if they are a different race from the Jews with whom we have lived in peace here in Alexandria for so many hundreds
     of years,” she had asked, amazed at her arch tone. “They are almost thirty percent of our population. Perhaps we know better
     how to
embrace.
And to think we have done so without the wisdom of your Posidonius.”
    Caesar did not argue with her; he never did. She could not bait him into a good Greek-style dialogue. He treated her as if
     she were a precocious child whose sarcasm amused him in his dotage. That’s one way of diminishing my power over him, she thought.
     She knew that despite the fact that he did not exhibit the typical male ferocity in bed, he took great pleasure in coming
     to her every night for lovemaking, which was followed by a long conversation until they fell asleep, naked, she on her back,
     he curled about her, his breath on her forehead like a soft wind.
    They were able to spend lengthy amounts of time together becauseGeneral Achillas had kept with his strategy of enforcing the siege on the palace quarter, attacking Caesar’s troops if they
     attempted to venture beyond the barricades. It was only a matter of time before he ordered an attack on the palace itself
     The only thing preventing this, Caesar concluded, was the fact that the king was held hostage.
    It was a little awkward, however, the king’s forces fighting against Caesar while Caesar both befriended and imprisoned him.
     But Caesar did not allow him to think he was a hostage. He would take long walks with the boy through the palace gardens,
     asking him for his opinions, and telling him that only together might they resolve this dreadful crisis. When Ptolemy was
     so bold as to inquire over Caesar’s relations with his sister, Caesar simply looked at him and asked,
Are you not a man?
He declared to the boy that he was protector of all the children of the dead King Ptolemy Auletes, and not until harmony
     reigned among the heirs themselves and the heirs and their subjects would he, Caesar, get a good night’s sleep. He was awfully
     sorry that he had had to execute Pothinus, but the eunuch was damaging the situation by claiming that Caesar was no friend
     to Egypt, that he intended to make Kleopatra its sole ruler, and worse, that he intended to annex Egypt to Rome’s empire and
     institute a policy of extracting exorbitant taxes from its population. Ptolemy had reluctantly accepted Caesar’s action, and
     had almost stopped trying his sister’s patience by complaining about it.
    Caesar, too,