Antony and Cleopatra. Colleen McCullough

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СКАЧАТЬ I have to have the same conversation with you that once I had with him,’ Cleopatra said, furtively wiping her eyes.

      ‘What conversation is that?’ he asked, trailing a finger down her arm.

      This time she didn’t remove it. ‘Nilus has not inundated in four years, Marcus Antonius, because Pharaoh is barren. To heal her people, Pharaoh must conceive a child with the blood of gods in its veins. Your blood is Caesar’s blood – on your mother’s side you are a Julian. I have prayed to Amun-Ra and Isis, and they have told me that a child of your loins would please them.’

      Not exactly a declaration of love! How did a man answer such a dispassionate explanation? And did he, Marcus Antonius, want to commence an affair with such a cold-blooded little woman? A woman who genuinely believed what she said. Still, he thought, to sire gods on earth would be a new experience – one in the eye for old Caesar, the family martinet!

      He took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it. ‘I would be honored, my Queen. And while I can’t speak for Caesar, I do love you.’

      Liar, liar! she cried in her heart. You are a Roman, in love with nothing beyond Rome. But I will use you, as Caesar used me. ‘Will you share my bed while you are in Alexandria?’

      ‘Gladly,’ he said, and kissed her.

      It was pleasant, not the ordeal she had imagined; his lips were cool and smooth, and he didn’t shove his tongue inside her mouth at this first, tentative exploration. Just lips against lips, gentle and sensuous.

      ‘Come,’ she said, picking up a lamp.

      Her bedroom was not far away; these were Pharaoh’s private quarters, on the small side. He pulled his tunic off – no loincloth underneath – and untied the bows that held her dress up at the shoulders. It fell in a puddle around her as she sat on the edge of the bed.

      ‘Skin is good,’ he murmured, stretching out beside her. ‘I won’t hurt you, my Queen. Antonius is a good lover; he knows what kind of love to give a frail little creature like you.’

      As indeed he did. Their coupling was slow and amazingly pleasant, for he stroked her body with smooth hands and paid her breasts delightful attention. Despite his assurances that he would not, he would have hurt her had she not given birth to Caesarion, though he teased her into torment before he entered her, and knew how to use that enormous member in many ways. He let her come to climax before he did, and her climax astonished her. It seemed a betrayal of Caesar, yet Caesar had betrayed her, so what did it matter? And, greatest gift of all, he didn’t remind her of Caesar in any respect. What she had with Antony belonged to Antony. Different, too, to find that within moments of each climax he was ready for her again, and almost embarrassing to count the number of her own climaxes. Was she so starved? The answer, obviously, was yes. Cleopatra the monarch was once again a woman.

      Caesarion was thrilled that she had taken the great Marcus Antonius as her lover. In that respect he was not naive. ‘Will you marry him?’ he asked, dancing about in glee.

      ‘In time, perhaps,’ she said, profoundly relieved.

      ‘Why not now? He is the mightiest man in the world.’

      ‘Because it is too soon, my son. Let Antonius and I learn first if our love will bear the responsibilities of marriage.’

      As for Antony, he was bursting with pride. Cleopatra was not the first sovereign he had bedded, but she was by far the most important. And, he had discovered, her sexual attentions lay halfway between those of a professional whore and a dutiful Roman wife. Which suited him. When a man embarked upon a relationship destined to last for more than a night, he needed neither one nor the other, so Cleopatra was perfect.

      All of which may have accounted for his mood on the first evening when his mistress entertained him lavishly; the wine was superb and the water rather bitter, so why add water and spoil a great vintage? Antony let go of his good intentions without even realizing that he had, and got happily, hopelessly drunk.

      The Alexandrian guests, all Macedonians of the highest stratum, looked on bewildered at first, then suddenly seemed to decide that there was much to be said for dissipation. The Recorder, an awesome man of huge conceit, whooped and giggled his way through the first flagon, then seized a passing female servant of beauty and began to make love to her. Within moments he was joined by the other Alexandrians, who proved that they were any Roman’s equal when it came to participating in an orgy.

      To Cleopatra, watching fascinated (and sober), it was a lesson of a kind she had never expected to need to learn. Luckily Antony didn’t seem to notice that she didn’t join in the hilarities; he was too busy drinking. Perhaps because he also ate hugely, the wine didn’t reduce him to a helpless fool. In a discreet corner Sosigenes, somewhat more experienced in these matters than his queen, had placed chamber pots and bowls behind a screen where the guests could relieve themselves through any orifice, and also put out beakers of potions that rendered the next morning less painful.

      ‘Oh, I enjoyed myself!’ roared Antony the next morning, his rude health unimpaired. ‘Let’s do it again this afternoon!’

      And so began for Cleopatra two months and more of constant, remorseless revels. And the wilder the goings-on became, the more Antony enjoyed them and the better he thrived. Sosigenes had inherited the task of dreaming up novelties to vary the tenor of these sybaritic festivities, with the result that the ships docking in Alexandria disgorged musicians, dancers, acrobats, mimes, dwarfs, freaks and magicians from all over the eastern end of Our Sea.

      Antony adored practical jokes that sometimes verged on the cruel; he adored to fish; he adored to swim among naked girls; he adored to drive chariots, an activity forbidden to a nobleman in Rome; he adored hunting crocodile and hippopotamus; he adored pranks; he adored rude poetry; he adored pageants. His appetites were so enormous that he would roar that he was hungry a dozen times each day; Sosigenes hit on the bright idea of always having a full dinner ready to be served, together with vast quantities of the best wines. It was an instant success, and Antony, kissing him soundly, apostrophized the little philosopher as a prince of good fellows.

      There wasn’t much Alexandria could do to protest against fifty-odd drunken people running up and down the streets in torchlit dances, banging loudly on doors and skipping away with bellows of delighted laughter; some of these annoying people were the chief officials of the city, whose wives sat at home weeping and wondering why the Queen permitted it.

      The Queen permitted it because she had no choice, though her own participation in the capers was half-hearted. Once Antony dared her to drop Servilia’s six-million-sesterces pearl into a goblet of vinegar and drink it; he was of that school that believed pearls dissolved in vinegar. Knowing better, Cleopatra did as dared, though drinking the vinegar was beyond her. The pearl, quite unharmed, was around her neck the next day. And the fish pranks never stopped. Having no luck as a fisherman, Antony paid divers to go down and attach live fish to his line; he would pull up these flapping creatures and boast of his fishing skills until one day Cleopatra, tired of his bombast, had a diver attach a putrid fish to his line. But he took the joke in good part, for that was his nature.

      Caesarion watched the antics with amusement, though he never asked to go to the parties. When Antony was in the mood the pair of them would vanish on horseback to hunt crocodile or hippopotamus, leaving Cleopatra in anguish at the vision of her son mangled by massive trotters or long yellow teeth. But, give Antony his due, he protected the boy from danger, just gave him a wonderful time.

      ‘You like Antonius,’ she said to her son toward the end of January.

      ‘Yes, СКАЧАТЬ