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venomous gaze. Here was the man who had driven her from her own palace and into the treacherous
     heat of Middle Egypt and the Sinai, the man who had her brothers and sister in his thrall. He had been clever enough to drive
     Kleopatra away, but foolish, too. He did not understand that in cutting her off from the security she’d known all her life
     he had enabled her to find the depth of her determination and her strength. She had departed from him an adventurous and clever
     girl, and returned a woman of unstoppable resolve.
    And now the fool thought that he might defy not only Egypt’s queen but Julius Caesar as well.
    “The king does not wish to be a prisoner in his own kingdom,” Pothinus said to Caesar. “It is unnecessary and unseemly.”
    The boy king sat sullen in his chair next to Arsinoe, letting his regent speak for him. Arsinoe, too, exercised tight control,
     showing no emotion over the proceedings. Days earlier, Caesar and his men had gentlyremoved the boy from the crowd he’d gathered in front of the palace. Ptolemy had been midway through a temper tantrum, throwing
     his crown to his subjects, denouncing Kleopatra as the traitor who would sell the nation out to the Romans and Caesar as the
     dictator who would murder the king and make Kleopatra sole ruler of Egypt. Caesar had instructed his soldiers not to harm
     the boy; he knew that Ptolemy had no mind of his own, that his emotions were easily whipped up by Pothinus.
    “My dear fellow, who knows who is a prisoner of whom in these strange circumstances. To some minds, Caesar is prisoner of
     the Alexandrians.”
    Kleopatra had become accustomed to Caesar’s manner of referring to himself in the third person, but it never failed to startle
     her ear.
    “Because if Caesar steps into the streets, he is attacked by this mob that you cannot seem to control. And Caesar does not
     wish to make war on your mob.”
    “I am quite certain that if Great Caesar wished to leave Alexandria, the mob would cooperate,” the eunuch said. Kleopatra
     wondered how long Caesar would tolerate this fool.
    “Ah, but Caesar does not wish to leave Alexandria just yet,” the dictator replied in a most pleasant tone. “Not only is his
     business here incomplete, but Caesar is prisoner of the northern winds which do not make sailing favorable. So you see, Caesar
     is a prisoner here on your shores. But
you,
my friend, are also a prisoner, though you may not choose to acknowledge it. However, if you set foot outside the palace
     gates, my soldiers will enlighten you. And the queen is also prisoner, is she not? We are all happy captives, and I suggest
     we make the most of it.”
    “By returning to Egypt, the queen defied a royal edict. She must suffer the consequences.”
    “The queen is the government itself, whereas you are an appointee. Do not forget that.” Caesar maintained his agreeable demeanor,
     and Kleopatra noticed that the more sanguine he sounded, the more menacing he became. “Here is the will of Rome: Queen Kleopatra
     and her brother King Ptolemy the Elder shall rule in concert. I am their protector and adviser. As a show of my good faith,
     I hereby return the island of Cyprus to Egyptian rule. The princess Arsinoe and the princePtolemy the Younger shall be its governors. As soon as the winds are favorable, they shall depart for those territories with
     a Regency Council selected by me.”
    Kleopatra and Caesar had plotted this the night before. She knew she would never be safe as long as Arsinoe was in Egypt.
     Dynastic tradition forbade two women to be in power at the same time, and so the only way to deal with one’s sisters was murder
     or exile. Kleopatra explained to Caesar that Arsinoe must go if ever there was to be peace. She told him how their sister,
     Arsinoe’s mentor Berenike, had raised an army against her own father, for which she was eventually executed. Arsinoe had spent
     her girlhood in Berenike’s shadow. Did they have to wait