Although our pace matched only a slow walk, I felt myself soaring. I shut my eyes as I heard the lapping waters of the lake. I picked up a sharp-pointed stone that protruded from one of the sacks and, on the planks of the cart’s siding, against which I was resting my back, I scratched “Queen of Kings,” working in the dark, using my fingers to measure the spaces between the letters. I could see nothing. My fingers did all the work. As I scratched away, I fell asleep. I have no idea if my fingers kept on working as I slept, but the following morning, as I awoke, my eyes confirmed what I had written in the dark, as if in a dream: “Queen of Kings.”
That first night, accompanied by the voices of my fellow-travelers and the sailors, we passed down the road built between the Alban and Nemi lakes. As the night got darker, the voices got fewer, even the boisterous banter of the sailors dwindled away, but the lapping of the waves and the sputtering of our guide’s torch attended us all the way.
Our first stop, at dawn, was at Aricia. Afraid we might be being followed, we were quick to resume our journey, replacing the bulls with four stout horses, since we aimed to reach the Appian Forum by nightfall and immediately cross the Pontine canal by barge. Once we were on our way, Apollodorus changed back into men’s clothes, and this time the gladiator was dressed as a sailor. By the fourth hour, we had arrived at the sanctuary and the spring of Juno. At Anxur, where the road passes along the coast, we quickly bought a fine tunic for Apollodorus, and around Terracina we arranged a change of horses. There, the view was impressive. We traveled along the edge of a cliff, with the sea far below. Charmian ordered a halt. We got down from the creaking, rickety cart to stretch our legs and breathe the dry air. Charmian pointed to the Mediterranean, saying, “All this is yours, Cleopatra, as far as your eyes can see, and beyond that, all these great lands that border these wide waters.” With tears in her kindly eyes, she hugged me warmly.
Apollodorus and I laughed. “What’s come over you, Charmian? All this bouncing around in the cart and traveling over bad roads has affected your noodle!”
Yet even though we teased her, we turned back to the humble cart and, taking out the sacks in search of sharp stones, we were fired by the desire to leave the planks covered with the inscription “Queen of Kings” in letters large and small, broad and narrow, according to what stones we used, till every surface was covered. Apollodorus, determined to please me to the fullest, left no corner untouched.
The days flew by, as crammed with jokes and games as we had left the planks of the cart.
Rumor told us it would be unwise to linger in Fundos, because the one-eyed aedile, Aufidius Lusco, a humorless lout, would have half-killed us with his unwanted attentions. He would have burnt incense in our honor, while all we wanted was to escape. So we crossed Fundos without halting, and as we left, we changed horses and spent the night in clean beds.
At the close of the following day’s journey, we reached luxurious Formion. Its wide streets were jammed with pedestrians. The sight of our broken-down cart, an eyesore among so much elegance, brought us scornful attention. I sank down out of sight, ashamed of my appearance, my clothes, and the vehicle, all so inappropriate for a future queen.
Apollodorus, crouched beside me, said, “Don’t worry, Cleopatra. Even if some friend of your father is here, he won’t notice us. We’re invisible.”
Invisible! The notion aroused me! I stopped hiding and raised my head to survey the city, convinced that nobody would recognize me. Charmian had got down from the cart to arrange our lodgings. There was a great demand for accommodation, from palaces down to establishments with dancing girls and young male whores. Charmian send somebody to find us. She had arranged for us to dine and sleep like royalty that night, but she forbade me and Apollodorus to visit any of the entetainment sites. But we managed to elude her, when she fell asleep early, worn out by the journey.
As we turned the first corner, we came across a place with music floating out of its doors. We craned our necks to see the walls of its tiny rooms covered by frescos from floor to ceiling, depicting the pleasures of the flesh. The crude appearance of these clumsily painted figures involved in graceless varieties of sexual activity took away our appetite to go any farther. We returned to our rooms unenlightened as to what other forms of entertainment Formion might offer by night.
As soon as dawn broke, we made our way to Sinuesa and, once again, to poverty-stricken existence. At Sinuesa, the Appian Way left the coast and headed inland. Now my excitement died away and was superseded by boredom. I felt thoroughly fed up. At our first halt, Charmian hired me a good horse. I invited Apollodorus to climb up behind me and we set off at a gallop, leaving the cart behind.
“Now we can get serious about being invisible, Cleopatra.”
“Invisible? On horseback?”
“Totally invisible, here, there, and everywhere. Wherever you like. But to do it, you have to count one hundred white goats and a hundred dappled cows. Once you’ve counted them, you’ll be invisible.”
My bodyguards were following closely. The cart was long out of sight. But there were no cows, not a single one. We came across flock after flock of goats chewing insatiably, like good Romans. But cows or anything like them, very few. There were three at the creek of a small village, one here at a house, two over there, but a hundred? It was unlikely that there were a hundred cows in the length and breadth of Italy.
The soil was changing from white to gray, to red, to black, to pink, to brown, but Apollodorus did not change. His mood was elated, his energy tireless. Everything seemed to excite him. The sands, the rocks, the grass — all were an occasion for recalling some story, each one an opportunity for laughter.
Unfortunately, at the next changing post there were no mounts for us, and we went back to riding in the cart. In it we crossed the Campanus Bridge, over the River Savus, which divides Lacium, founded by the Homeric hero, Diomedes, from Campania, Capua, Caudius, and Beneventus.
In Beneventus, the road split in two. One led to Venusia along the Appian Way, going to the heel of Italy and to Brun-disium, our destination. The other went along the Trajan Way, shorter but in worse condition, to Bari and the coast. We chose the second, because we were in such a hurry. There were so many potholes in it that we soon regretted not having taken the first route. We passed through Ordona, where people pay for water and, incredibly, swallow dust, but where the bread is the best in the world. Then came Canusius, on the banks of the Aufidius; Petreus, a place with less water than a puddle; Rubos; Bari; Gnatia, built without the blessing of the nymphs; and finally, our destination, Brundisium, where we arrived, more dead than alive, sick of all the jolting on the hard soil, but only to confront a more severe hardness, that of the sea.
Brundisium — I have already mentioned it twice, and each time I mention it, I realize, Antony, how much I have come to hate it, all these years later, for you went there to sign your treaty with Octavius. I was about to deliver your children, your twins, while you were agreeing with that puny creature to marry his sister, Octavia, now that Fulvia had died. .
We arrived at first nightfall. Without delay, for we were still worried my father might have sent men in pursuit of us, we went aboard the three quinqueremes, taking with us my jewels and a certain amount of money that my father had agreed to give me, thanks to the wheeling and dealing of my crafty mother, on condition that I would keep it for her, something I had not the least intention of doing, because, for one thing, it was funding our escape. And also the masks that Apollodorus had got for us, plus a small mountain of clothing. We cast off and anchored a little off the coast, awaiting the first light before we sailed in earnest. I had thought it best to sail away immediately but Apollodorus and the sailors told me that the Mediterranean was not to be trusted.