Pharaoh by Karen Essex

had made it plain to Kleopatra that she must reconcile with her brother. She did not know if he really meant
     for this to happen, or if he had a larger plan that he would eventually reveal to her. She did apprehend that her bedroom
     relations with Caesar did not figure into his political policies. She had once thought otherwise, but now she was forced to
     sit in this room with her tedious brother and pretend anticipation of the day when the two of them might rule as king and
     queen, brother and sister, husband and wife. The dictator of Rome had his own agenda, independent of hers. She did not believe
     he would make concessions to her unless her ambitions were in accordance with his own. She could not figure if he was engaging
     in a bit of political dissembling by pretending friendship with the king, or if he merely intended to dally with Kleopatra
     until the war was over and he could safely return to his larger business of conquering the world in the name of Rome. Would
     he really leave her alone in Egypt with her brother? Didn’the know that as soon as his ships left the harbor, Ptolemy would have her assassinated and make Arsinoe his queen? And if
     Caesar knew that reality but was ignoring it, would he think differently when he discovered Kleopatra’s secret?
    Aulus Hirtius interrupted their silence. A slender man with a soft voice and a love of literature and fine foods, Hirtius
     was one of Caesar’s men whose company Kleopatra enjoyed. She had apologized many times to him for her inability to provide
     those things he loved in any abundance while the war was in progress, and had promised him that as soon as victory was achieved,
     they would celebrate with fine feasts and a long tour of the Great Library. She had had the cooks prepare meals as best they
     could while the siege was on, and the Romans seemed suitably impressed, but the banquets were inferior to the delicacies they
     might experience when supplies were once again flowing abundantly into the palace.
    Hirtius bowed formally to the royals, handing Caesar a letter. “A dispatch from our man behind enemy lines, sir. Sealed for
     safety and authenticity.”
    Caesar held out his hand for the knife Hirtius knew to give him, and cut the seal. He unrolled the letter, read it quickly,
     and then scanned it again. The expression on his face did not change. When finally he looked at Kleopatra, she detected only
     one eyebrow raised slightly above the other, the singular way she knew that Caesar registered surprise.
    “Do prepare yourself for a shock,” he said to the boy king, who immediately clenched even harder the wad of fabric he’d been
     wringing, as if he were a washerwoman doing laundry.
    Kleopatra waited, and Caesar did, too, apparently giving the boy a moment to collect himself.
    “It appears that last evening Princess Arsinoe escaped the palace barricade dressed as a Roman page. She went straight to
     Achillas.”
    The boy king jumped to his feet, his robe a net of wrinkles where he had been clutching it. It looked for an instant to Kleopatra
     as if the spider’s web on his chair had leapt upon his stomach, and despite the news they had just received, she almost grinned
     at his childish, slovenly appearance. Caesar merely looked at him, waiting for an explanation.
    “I had no idea,” Ptolemy protested. “I swear. I
swear!
She told me nothing.”
    “This is a serious blow to the peace between us,” Caesar said calmly. “I trusted you to keep your family members under control.”
    “But I didn’t know,” he said. “She tricked me, too.” He looked very hurt, his mouth turned down into a deep frown, his plump
     cheeks quavering just as his father’s used to do when he got upset.
    “Surely you must know that this does not reflect well upon the trust I’ve so carefully built between us.” If Kleopatra had
     to judge, she would have said that Caesar was seriously grieved by the news. His demeanor was convincing; nonetheless, she