The Memoirs of Cleopatra Read Online Free PDF Page B

proudly. These manuscripts were his children. “The multi-scrolled works are all in these baskets on the floor, with their labels on the basket handles.”
    Pompey was clearly impressed. “The organization is an inspiration to those of us who have archives and records of our own to manage,” he said.
    The Romans busied themselves unrolling scrolls; the resulting noise gave me the opportunity to whisper to the all-knowing Olympos, “What is all this business about a will that gives Rome rights to Egypt? I wanted to hear about it last night, but you were talking too much!”
    Now let him tell me, if he could.
    “Oh.” Olympos thought for a moment. Then he whispered back, “Your great uncle Alexander the Tenth made a will that gave Egypt to Rome. So the Romans claim! But no one is sure whether he really did, or, if he did, whether it was legal or not.”
    “Why can’t they just read it and decide?” That seemed the easiest way to find out.
    “It seems to have mysteriously disappeared,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “How convenient!”
    For us, or for them? I wondered.
    Suddenly the scroll-noises around us ceased, and so must our conversation.
     
    Leaving the Library, we gave the Romans a quick look at the enormous Gymnasion, where our athletes trained. And finally, to the Lighthouse.
    “Welcome!” The master of the Lighthouse was standing in the wide doorway, waiting for us. “King Ptolemy, Princess Cleopatra, come and show the Imperator Pompey what your glorious ancestor, Ptolemy Philadelphos, built over two hundred years ago.”
    Once inside, he indicated the enormous store of fuel; it looked like a mountain and took up the entire room.
    “The light must burn night and day, and to do that it consumes wood, dung, paper, charcoal—anything that will catch fire. We store all our supply here, and then it is hauled up, four hundred feet, in these baskets.” He bade us follow him to a central well, where dangling ropes disappeared upward into what seemed the sky itself.
    “Stairs go up around the perimeter,” he said.
    “Can’t we ride up in the baskets?” asked Olympos.
    “No,” said the Lighthouse master. “For you would emerge right next to the fire; and if you did not, still I would not entrust the pride of Egypt and Rome to a fraying rope.”
    It would be a long trudge to the top. There were windows all along the ascent, and as we wound around and around, I saw the harbor growing smaller and the boats beginning to look like the toy ones children sailed in lotus ponds. The higher we got, the more I could see of flat Alexandria stretching out behind the harbor; finally, near the top, I could see past the Hippodrome on the outskirts of the city and almost all the way east to the pleasure-city of Canopus, where that branch of the Nile ended.
    I had aching legs and was short of breath when we finally rounded the last turn of the stairs and emerged at the top.
    The beacon-master waited, framed by his fire. It roared behind him, curling up like the snakes in Medusa’s hair, and the sound of the sucking fire, combined with the wind outside, made a fearful howl. Behind it I could see something shimmering and wavering, and then a slave, clad in wet leather, appeared. He was turning the polished bronze mirror-shield that slid in a groove around the fire’s perimeter, so that it could be reflected and seen far out to sea. The shield would also catch and throw back the sun’s rays at the same time, adding to the brightness. It was said that the fire-beacon could be seen as far out as thirty miles, but that from that distance it twinkled like a star and could easily be mistaken for one.
    The fire was a monster, hardly to be contained. Only then did I notice that the beacon-master was wearing thick leather armor, and had a helmet tucked under his arm—obviously removed in honor of us—that had an iron mesh veil for the face. He knew his monster, and would dress to protect himself. In spite of the heat, the