CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

 

The walk back to the palace was a long one.  Not because I was supporting Iras’ weight as she limped along on her sore ankles, but because I wasn’t sure how to answer Antony’s demands for information. And one thing about Antony… he was definitely demanding. He expected to get what he asked for.

        “Antony, I told you,” I leveled my gaze at him once more as we trekked along the beach to the palace. “We’ll go straight to Cleopatra and get the answers that you seek.” 

        I was desperately trying to buy time, to decide what to do, so I allowed him to think that Cleopatra was the mastermind behind our deception. 

        “And I told you, Charmian,” he replied through gritted teeth.  “She won’t give me the answers that I seek.  She’ll give me what she wants me to hear.  I want the real answers from you, right now.”

        I sighed and stared at the fiery light of the lighthouse across the harbor.  It was hard to believe that I could’ve died beneath it just a scant hour ago. It seemed so benign now as its beacon guided sailors safely in from the sea.

        “Antony, please. You know that I cannot do that.  Don’t ask me to- You know that I am loyal to you, my lord… but my loyalty is first to Cleopatra.” I implored him with my eyes and he grunted in frustration, looking away.  

        “Oh and Antony…”

        He glared sullenly at me once more.  “Yes?”

        “Thank you for saving my life.”

        His taut mouth stretched into a grin. 

        “You saved your own life, Charmian.  You’re quite the feisty hell-cat!” 

        He slapped my shoulder and we continued on past the guards stationed at the staircase in silence.  He abandoned his efforts to get information from me, as he scooped Iras up in his arms and carried her up the stairs. 

        As we re-entered the palace, Antony led the way, barging down the quiet hallway with the subtly of a charging bull.  I sighed again.  At this rate, he was going to wake the entire palace. 

        He pushed open the doors to Cleopatra’s chambers without knocking, as I trailed along in his wake.  Cleopatra was reclining in a chaise lounge by her open balcony doors, reading thick papyrus scrolls by the light of an oil lamp. She looked up in surprise as we barged into her chamber.

        “Antony, what in the world…” her voice trailed off.  “Iras!” she breathed, obviously relieved.

        “So you did know,” Antony hissed at her as he towered above her. “You knew that Pothinus was holding Iras hostage… because he wants some sort of magical stone.  And you never thought it was important enough to share with me!” 

        His voice elevated to a thunderous pitch and I cringed.  Antony was a kind man, but he did have an explosive temper. 

        “My lord,” Cleopatra purred soothingly as she rose from her lounge.

        She took one look at my face and read the unspoken message there.  She rolled with the punches and I had never been so impressed.  The woman was good.  

        “I did not share it with you because the more people that knew, the more dangerous the whole situation became.” 

        I was certain that she was dying to know what had happened with Pothinus, but she didn’t show it.  She reached up to touch Antony’s face, but he jerked away from her hand.

        “Cleopatra, this is unacceptable.  You will explain what is going on!” he thundered. 

        She glanced quickly at me before returning her gaze to her angry husband.  I knew that her wheels must be spinning a mile a minute, thinking of damage control and trying to decide what to say, probably wondering what I had already said. 

        Unfortunately, as far as I could determine, there wasn’t much she could say… except for the truth.  She must have come to the same conclusion, because she sank back down into her chaise with a sigh.

        “Alright, husband.  If you will have a seat and be calm, I will explain to you all of the complexities that I have been dealing with.  I’m warning you now, though, you won’t like it.” He nodded curtly, accepting that. 

        She nodded too, in resignation as Antony lowered Iras into a chaise lounge and then dropped his large body to sit next to Cleopatra on hers. He tapped his foot as he waited expectantly.  I crossed the room to sit with Iras while Cleopatra began to speak.

        It took her the same amount of time to explain to Antony as it did when I explained it to her. At the end of which time, both he and Iras’ eyes were the size of silver dollars.  He rose shakily from his seat, paced to the balcony and stared at the sea and then paced back to fall on his knees in front of Cleopatra.

        “You know our future?”  he asked again uncertainly.

        “Yes, my love.  I do,” she confirmed.  She reached out and grasped his hand.  “And trust me, there is no place I would rather be than here with you right now.”

        His face softened as he gazed at her. 

        “I feel the same, my queen,” he murmured.  “But tell me.  What happens to us?

        She hesitated.  I bowed my head.  I dreaded this next part.

        “We die, Antony,” she whispered. 

        “I’m sorry… we what?” He asked incredulously.

        “We die, Antony.”  She gestured toward Iras and I.  “All of us in this room will be dead in a week’s time.” 

        Iras inhaled sharply and her nails dug into my arm.  I gently uncurled her fingers and placed them at her side.  She looked at me apologetically, but didn’t say anything.  Instead, her gaze was glued to Cleopatra.

        “But that was before,” he rasped in frustration.  “Before you found out.  You can change it now.  We can live.”

        Her face was inordinately pained as she stroked his back gently. 

        “I could change it, yes.  But my love, I cannot.   Don’t you see?  We cannot change history.  We have already upset things that were never meant to be upset.  And now here we are, worse off than ever...because even more people know about this situation.”  Her shoulders were slumped as she realized the gravity of our predicament.

        Antony was staring at the queen in disbelief, flexing and unflexing his large fists at his sides. 

        “You mean to say that you could save all of our lives, but you will not?” he asked in astonishment. “I don’t believe you, Cleopatra.” 

        His disbelief and puzzlement was written all over his face.  I knew it must pull on Cleopatra’s heartstrings, because it certainly pulled on mine. And when she spoke, her pain was clearly evident in her voice.

        “Antony, that was my initial reaction also- that we must save everyone. But think on this. History has already been written.  We cannot change it, because things happened as they were meant to happen.  But don’t you understand what I am saying to you?  We will die here and now in Alexandria, but we will go on to live… over and over again.  Death is not forever, my love.  It is not the end.”

        His jaw was set mulishly as he glared at her. 

        “You are impossible, Cleopatra.  Do you not love me enough to save me?  I would die for you! I love you that much!”

        “I know, husband,” she whispered.  “Do you not see how much this pains me? You did die for me.  Charmian has told me that you impaled yourself on your own sword and died in my arms.  I have no wish to live through that—you might as well rip my heart from my chest right here and now.  Yet, it already happened… and it will happen again, We cannot stop it.” 

        “Do you die with me?” Antony asked thinly.  

        “Not at the same time. Apparently, Octavian sneaked someone into a window of my tomb and apprehended me before I could.  It took me a few days to outsmart him and manage to join you in death.”

        “It took you a few days to outsmart Octavian?  That stupid boy?” Antony asked dubiously.  “How did you…” his sad voice trailed off.

        “Snake.” She stared at him firmly. 

        I heard Iras’ small gasp at my side and I reached down to grasp her hand.  She squeezed it tightly.  She inherently knew that if Cleopatra died by snake, so would we. 

        “But Cleopatra…” Antony pleaded.

        “There is no ‘but’, Antony.  It is done.  We cannot change it. But take comfort in the fact that the sniveling weasel Octavian did not triumph over us.  He did not kill us. We chose our own ends.”

        He nodded sullenly, but knowing Antony as I did, I knew he was simply biding his time until he could think of a way to change her mind.  I looked up at Cleopatra to find her gazing at me pointedly.  I raised my eyebrows questioningly.  She looked at the door and back to me. 

        I released Iras’ hand and she nodded gratefully as I placed a pillow behind her back. 

        “Is that better?” I murmured.  She nodded again.

        “Thank you, Charmian.” As I began to straighten, she placed her slender dark hand on my arm.  “And thank you for coming to find me.”

        Her voice was smooth and musical, her eyes liquid.  I swallowed hard and nodded.  It was the least I could do. It was partly my fault she had been taken in the first place.

        “I’ll get you some wine, my friend.”

        I turned and quickly fled the room, leaning on the ivory banquette that housed the wine.  A jug of shedeh was clearly sitting right in front of me and I focused on it as I called to Cleopatra.

        “My queen, did you move the wine?  I do not see it.”

        A moment later, she appeared alone in the doorway, her face tired. 

        Her gaze darted to the shedeh and then to me as she crossed the room quickly to me.

        “Where is your bloodstone?” she hissed.  “I do not see it!”

        “You do not see it because I’m no longer wearing it,” I replied wearily.  “Pothinus took it.”

        She stared at me in shock.

        “What are we going to do?” she asked.

        “There is only one thing to do,” a raspy voice interjected from the corner.  We whirled around.

        Ahmose lurked nearby, his black robes twisted around his bare feet. 

        “Charmian, what have you done?  You were to retrieve Iras from Pothinus, not come back without your bloodstone and reveal every secret that you know to Antony and Iras,” he chastised. 

        “Don’t lecture me,” I snapped.  “I’m doing the best that I can- without your help, I might add.  And apparently, there is more to the Order of the Moirae than you have ever explained to me.”

        “Now is not the time,” he murmured, closing the distance between us.     

        He quickly pulled his cloak around the three of us and I gasped as he grasped our hands. He began murmuring quickly, reciting the same incoherent words over and over in a monotone. 

        “What is taking so long? Iras and I require wine to swallow this tale.”

        Antony appeared curiously in the doorway.  As soon as he saw us huddled together, he began taking long strides across the room to reach us, his face shocked and suspicious. 

        But it was too late.  Warmth was spreading into my body, the electrical impulses throwing my head back.  Before my eyes fluttered closed, I caught a glimpse of Antony’s astonished face and then I saw only blackness as Cleopatra, Ahmose and I were rocketed through the channels of time.

        When I was able to open my eyes again, we were alone in Cleopatra’s chambers, standing in the same exact spot.  Only now, daylight was shining into her chambers.  There was no sign of Iras or Antony anywhere.

        “When is this?” I glanced at Ahmose as I made my way into the bedchamber to verify that we were truly alone.  And we were.  They both followed me and we walked to the open air of her balcony. 

        “This is the day that Antony kills Tehran,” Ahmose answered, as Cleopatra ran her fingers absently back and forth on the stone railing.  “Iras has not yet been taken- she is still safe and sound in her rooms, because you have not yet asked her to find Annen.  We need to carefully consider our next steps… we do not want to get ourselves into a deeper mess.

        I sighed heavily as I sunk into a chair.  This was beginning to seem impossible. 

        “Ahmose, I don’t see how a deeper mess is even possible.  The fat eunuch has my bloodstone and who knows what he will attempt to do with it? But that aside, it is just simple physics.   Everything that we do… every single action, has an equal and opposite reaction.  It’s Newton’s law of motion, but it seems to apply to time, as well.  I think that everything we do, no matter how careful we are, is going to have an effect.”

        Cleopatra nodded dejectedly.

        “Charmian’s right. It’s like a ripple in a pond.  It starts out small, but creates an ever-widening circle. It seems our smallest actions have big consequences.”

        She walked back into the room, dropping down onto her bed in a heap, covering her face with one arm. 

        “Ahmose, what was the eunuch talking about?  His words were strikingly similar to Annen’s.  Is there more to the Order than you have explained?”

        I watched him hopefully for a good answer.  I didn’t receive one. 

        “I don’t know what you speak of,” he muttered vaguely.  “You know what you need to know.”

        “That’s not what I asked.  Is there more that you aren’t telling me?”

        My hands were on my hips and my feet were planted as I demanded answers from the priest.  I knew I looked intimidating, but after the night I had had, I deserved answers.  I could see from his wrinkled old face that he knew more than he was telling.

        “Obviously whatever Pothinus knows of us, he learned through Annen.  And I do not know how much of what Annen knows is truth.  I have wondered at his motives for quite a while.  I do know that he learned about us when he was at the Temple of the Phoenix in Heliopolis.  Not long after, he was imprisoned by the Moirae.”

        “What did he learn that caused his imprisonment?” I whispered.

        “That I do not know,” Ahmose admitted.

        “Then there is only one way to find out,” Cleopatra interjected. “We must find this priest. It appears that nothing will be resolved until we determine his true motives.”

        Ahmose nodded reluctantly. 

        “Yes. We must find Annen.  It shouldn’t be too difficult- I am guessing that he is at the Serapis.  But we must be incredibly careful to not disturb time again.”

        Cleopatra quickly flipped over onto her stomach so that we were lying head to head on her thick embroidered bedding.  She grabbed my hand, holding it as she listened to Ahmose speak. 

        “To begin with, you cannot dismiss Tehran when you see him in the hallway.  I am not certain, but that might have been the trigger to the series of events that led to his death and Iras’ kidnapping. And then, I think we should find Annen today- before Tehran sees us tonight at the banquet.” 

        “Okay,” I agreed slowly.  “But once we find Annen, then what?”

        “Hopefully, he can explain how much Pothinus knows and why he brought him here in the first place.  And then, obviously we still need to get your bloodstone back from the eunuch.” 

        I nodded. 

        “Alright.  We’ll begin with Annen.  I’ll go there today and speak with him. Will you be joining me?” I turned to Ahmose.

        “No. I am already participating too much.  I cannot accompany you.”  

        “I’ll go with you.  We’ll use the underground corridors to avoid being seen,” Cleopatra offered. 

        I hadn’t been in the underground corridors for quite a while. But the damp, poorly lit passageways wound underneath the entire city of Alexandria.  Of course, they didn’t come straight up to the Palace, because that would risk a security breach to the queen.  We would have to travel down to the beach once again- without arousing suspicion.

        “Well, we have all afternoon until we are expected back here for dinner, my queen.”

        “Then there is no time like the present, is there?” she asked.  I shook my head.

        “No, I suppose not.  I can’t help but feel apprehensive, though.  I can’t explain why.” 

        That was an understatement.  My instincts were all screaming at me that we shouldn’t go. 

        “Don’t think about it,” Ahmose advised.  “Just get in there, find out what you can and return safely to the palace.” 

        Easy for him to say.  It seemed that he always had the easy part- he got to sit back and watch me unfold Fate’s tapestry.  I didn’t point that out for him, though. There was no use.  The only way we would ever fix this mess and get things back to normal, was to begin by seeking out Annen, the most frightening man I’d ever met.  

        Cleopatra was right.  There was no time like the present, because we didn’t have much of a future left.