Kleopatra Read Online Free PDF Page A

Socrates,” Auletes
     insisted, his face flushing with the color of conviction. “Alexander—not some effete Athenian—kept the Greek world alive!”
    “I see, Father,” Kleopatra said. Then she confessed what else she had heard: The Ptolemies were inbred freaks who misunderstood
     Pharaoh’s custom of calling his wife Sister, and began the shocking tradition of marrying sibling to sibling. “The damned
     Egyptians are ignorant of their own history,” the king retorted, for the great Ptolemy, a historian himself, would not have
     made such a mistake. But Auletes did not seem hurt by what his subjects said about him, and it made Kleopatra wonder whether
     her father possessed enough pride. She had just begun to read the books of history Ptolemy had written, and she was sure,
     from his portraits of both himself and of Alexander, that they would never have tolerated the abuse her father’s subjects
     heaped upon his character.
    Some said that the Ptolemies made up the story of the eagle to impress upon their subjects their direct lineage from Alexander,
     but Kleopatra did not believe it. The busts of King Philip and the busts of Ptolemy I all demonstrated the identical nose—the
     one that now presented itself on both her and her father.
    Auletes was so pleased with the conviction with which Kleopatra told the story of the eagle that he made her repeat it for
     his guests. Kleopatra hoped she would be asked to perform today, for she had heard the visitor was a Roman. Like her father,
     she loved showing off for Romans, because they were less educated than Greeks and easier to impress. Kleopatra always paid
     dearly for her bright moments at court, however, when later, Berenike would find her in the nursery, and when no one was looking,
     twist her arm and call her a dirty Roman-lover. Now Kleopatra tried to sneak a furtive stare at her sister to gauge her humor.
    Fourteen and sullen, Berenike sat next to Thea, sweaty in the corset Thea had cajoled her to wear, sucking on a lock of hair
     as if she were still a child. Her other hand stroked the dagger she kept sheathed beneath her long dress. Berenike preferred
     the short, ungirdled chiton of young Greek children, but Thea and Auletes, already cognizant of Berenike’s value in the matrimonial
     market, no longer allowed her to dress like an unruly feral thing. According to tradition, the eldest daughter should be married
     to her brother, but the new baby, Ptolemy XIII, was still in the cradle. With the present queen only one and twenty, it did
     not seem intelligent to let the beautiful Berenike linger unmarried. “You must exhibit the qualities of a young queen,” Thea
     told her repeatedly. “I
am
a queen,” she would reply as if in a dream, and to Auletes’ annoyance. “I am Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons.”
    Meleager, the eunuch courtier, adviser to the royals, and tutor to the two princesses, sat next to Berenike, though one step
     lower, according to custom and protocol. A tall, smooth-skinned man in his forties, he had yet to succumb to the paunch eunuchs
     experienced in middle age. He was said to keep himself fit by dieting with religious fervor, exercising daily at the gymnasium,
     and engaging in orgiastic sex. He was officious, princely, and cunning, and Kleopatra did not like him. She sensed his condescension
     to her father, whom Meleager, punctilious about dynastic history, never forgave for being a bastard king.
    Auletes briefed the family on the day’s visitor, a Roman who had been, in younger days, a high-ranking officer in Crassus’s
     army. Now he conducted diplomatic affairs and had a small import business. “I am told he wants my permission to pass through
     Egyptian waters with spices from the Cinnamon Country without paying the usual duties,” Auletes chuckled. “It is quite possible
     that I shall grant him this privilege, but I suspect there will be a price for him to pay.”
    Kleopatra understood his meaning; the king often