Free Pharaoh by Karen Essex Page A

them afire.
    “After we defeat the fleet, we shall take Pharos Island,” he said.
    “All on the same day?” she asked.
    “Why waste time?”
    The next day, it happened exactly as Caesar had said, giving more credence to Kleopatra’s theory about his relationship with
     the gods. He burned most of the Egyptian fleet, including a merchant vessel carrying a large shipment of books to the Great
     Library. “A mistake,” he said to her by way of apology. And she did not fault him, for he loved literature as much as she
     and would never have done such a barbarous thing intentionally.
    She felt a barrage of emotions as she watched ship by ship be overtaken and burned, great flames soaring into the blue Mediterranean
     sky as if competing with the fire atop the towering lighthouse. These were her ships, her men, her navy. Only circumstance
     had made them her enemy. Once reinstated, these same men would have to pledge loyalty to her. What did they care whether they
     served one Ptolemy or another? These were the same men who would have faced her mercenary army at Pelusium, had Pompey not
     been defeated by Caesar and fled to Egypt for quarter. Today they were her enemy; tomorrow they would have to be her defense.
     It was an insecure position, and she did not know if after the war she should bring her own army into the city for extra protection,
     or whether that would only increase hostility. She had a recent letter from Hephaestion saying that many of her mercenaries
     had deserted because they received better offers from the Roman generals to go to Syria and fight the Parthians. He could
     keep the rest paid and fed for another month, but no longer. What were her orders?
    She had no orders to give. Inertia simply did not suit her, and yet it would not be intelligent to take action independent
     of Caesar. Would the rest of her life be like this? Was she just another useless Ptolemy hanging on to her throne by playing
     the suppliant to Rome?
    The child, she
realized,
was the only means by which she might escape the Fate of her ancestors. It was the solution she had prayed for all those
     years ago at the feet of Artemis of Ephesus, when she-fourteen years old and a lover of small animals-had slit the throat
     of the lamb with her own hands and watched its blood run like a red river into the sacrificial bowl. She had sworn before
     the goddess to be different from her degraded ancestors, and now Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt, the very one who had
     rendered a man blind for simply looking at her naked body, had not begrudged Kleopatra the pleasures of sex but had gifted
     her with pregnancy.
The gods are good to those who serve them.
She heard the voice of her father in her head and felt a chill run through her body-the sign that his spirit was still with
     her.
    She had told Caesar nothing of her suspicions, which were now confirmed by the fact that two months had come and gone without
     her shedding so much as a drop of blood. One night, in the elation over the destruction of the Egyptian navy and the reclaiming
     of Pharos Island, she and Caesar had made love in a great burst of fury, faster and with more heat than they had done before,
     though that was the very day that Caesar had swum a long distance in his full armor. Yet he seemed younger and less fatigued
     than ever. She hoped that vigorous sex did not harm the unborn, but there was no one she might ask without arousing suspicions.
     One word from her on the subject and there would be a chain of gossip from one end of the besieged palace to another, as if
     the details of her love affair were not enough fodder to keep that machinery in constant operation day and night. She knew
     that most of her subjects did not understand her reasoning in the affair, but she held the faith that someday soon, she would
     stand before them and explain to them what she had done on their behalf and for their futures.
    After their lovemaking, Caesar had lain on his back, eyes