Pharaoh by Karen Essex

Author:Karen Essex [ESSEX, KAREN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446559621
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Though Kleopatra was making her way to the most important political negotiation of her life, the scent of sensuality hung in the air. It had arrived with Antony’s first letters, delivered by Quintus Dellius, a scholarly man who was nonetheless a hedonist of infamous pluralistic sexual tastes. Antony’s choice in messenger was not lost on the queen. He might have had any somber diplomat deliver his demands, but he sent Dellius, whose every sentence was laced with sexual overtones. “The Imperator would delight in your presence at Tarsus. He wishes to share in the same favor you so graciously and wisely showed to Caesar. Unlike Caesar, he is a man in his prime, and able to return that favor tenfold.”

Kleopatra accepted the offer to meet with Antony in Syria, and then sent his messenger to the Alexandrian brothels, from which he did not emerge for one week. He would return to Antony intoxicated and confident that the queen of Egypt was, so to speak, in Antony’s pocket.

Then she made him wait. She was scheduled to appear immediately, but she did not like the idea that anyone, even Antony, could summon her. If she rushed off to meet him, she would be playing right into his hand. He would have her alliance, her resources for his war on the Parthians, access to her army and her navy, and her body-for she was certain he would demand to take Caesar’s place in her bed. And she would have-what? The privilege of giving him all those things. So she waited and she made preparations to meet him on terms that were her own. He may have been proclaimed the New Dionysus by the people of Asia Minor, but she was unimpressed. Her own father had held that title for most of his life, and he did not have to win a war to earn it. She had been consorting with gods-on-earth all her life. She herself was the earthly representative of Isis and Aphrodite, and the lover of the mortal man who was descended from Mother Venus. Not to mention the mother of his son. She would go to this New Dionysus, but not as a beggar holding out her hand for the favor of Rome, all the while opening her legs for him. She would to go him as his equal. If he was Dionysus, then let him negotiate with Aphrodite, the Greek Venus, the Mother of All Life and Creation. The significance would escape no one. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, all who saw her would know that she, living incarnation of Lady Isis, had come to meet with the conquering god-Osiris to the Egyptians, Dionysus to the Greeks, Bacchus to the Romans-in a sacred union not only of nations, but of man and woman, of god and goddess, to spread peace and beneficence over the earth.

“It shall be the greatest event the world has seen,” she told Charmion as they hastily sketched the costumes for the dressmakers. As she made her

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