The garrison from Pelusium joined up with us in the desert. They could protect us from a surprise attack, though the risk of one was minimal, since we had spent two full days in the saddle. Even so, I refused to relax. It was midnight and royal tents had been prepared to receive me, with a banquet on the point of being served. But I rejected any rest. I wanted, before all else, to get behind the walls of Pelusium or, better still, sail for Ascalon.
We left behind the musicians and the steaming plates. In no time at all, with fresh horses pulling our light, open chariots, we saw the torches and the enormous campfires of our army vanish into the distant night. The darkness was not total; the sky was unclouded and the enormous full moon of September lit our path. The earth, empty apart from us, flew beneath our feet, and the moon followed us. We had not slept a wink when dawn broke. In the green patch of an oasis, there in the white desert, stood four small towers, protecting it. Under its green cover fresh horses, water, wine, and food awaited us. My maids and I freshened up, and the priests chanted prayers for the gods’ blessings. The scribes left messages in the care of pigeons. I half-heard the murmur of the prayers but attended to nothing fully. Palm trees shaded us and a damp coolness wrapped us round. But I was obsessed by the acid, grating breath of the desert. The desert breeze rustled incessantly, a menacing, dizzying restlessness. Ignorant of trees and flowers, it threatened the green and blue silence of the oasis with its low moanings. Nothing in the desert stayed in place. The desert knew nothing of roots and foundations. The desert was only motion. The sand danced by day and by night, tirelessly. At first glance, the sky seemed to refract only the light of the sun and stars, but a more careful scrutiny revealed it shone with sand as well, a sand of light, fine blue sand, of black, white, and golden sands.
With renewed vigor we resumed our flight in the speedy chariots. In my chariot, its fine fittings removed to make it faster for the last lap of our race, I now traveled with the Jewish general, Aristarchus, the head of the garrison in Pelusium. I intended that the city see us together. In the wink of an eye — compared to the long stretch of territory we had already covered — we were at Pelusium. The company of Aristarchus was a delight for that one particular feature of his person, the rose-like odor emanating from his mouth, so intense that even the air stirred up by our speed did not disperse it. Thanks to it, I did not need to fake a smile to persuade the citizens of Pelusium that we were allies. I shook off any trace of weariness, enlivened by that perfume from his mouth. On the road were gathering witnesses of our passing. Those roses made a visible bond between me and Aristarchus. If the presence of onlookers had not deterred me, I would have yielded to that perfume and plucked a rose from his mouth in the form of a kiss.
As I told you earlier, night still had not fallen when we reached the city gates. The sun, round and enormous, seemed to support itself on the horizon. The main thoroughfare had been cleared for our passing. The caravans had been shifted aside and a carpet of flower petals had been laid on the stones of the road. At the foot of the high gates, a reception committee greeted us with standards, and musicians and dancers, exquisitely adorned, celebrated our arrival.
This port is the key to Egypt, with its nonstop handling of all kinds of merchandise. Pelusium never experienced hunger and the scarcity common throughout the rest of Egypt, even in those dark days. The approach to the city was cluttered with travelers, mostly merchants, loaded with many kinds of goods, the typical exports of Egypt: papyrus, linen, perfumes, ivory, and stones for building or sculpting.
A storm in the Mediterranean, common in the region, had confined a multitude of merchants to the city, along with their endless variety of goods. This was the first day of good weather, after two weeks of storms. Fed up with delays, they had improvised a market at the gates to the city. There were exhibited loads of precious emeralds, metal tools, many of them of silver, imported into Egypt for our craftsmen to form into finely designed pieces. There were vessels of glass decorated with gilding or watercolors, blown glass being a recent invention that had caught the fancy of Rome, along with grotesque figurines from Alexandria, an extensive selection of ceramic ware. There, too, was the merchandise of Quintus Ovinius, which came from my wool workshops.
On both sides of the road rolled carts crammed with hens, pigs, and sheep. Wild beasts in cages growled and roared above the squeaking wheels, lions and panthers among them. A recalcitrant elephant was giving its handlers trouble. The music with which we were received was mingled with the hubbub of the travelers and the cries of animals. If Egypt were to be judged by Pelusium, it was the richest country on earth. Here were slaves, black ones from Nubia, white ones from cities fallen on bad times, there goats, over there donkeys, horses of all sorts, and camels adorned with fine trappings topped by a seat.
One thing seized my attention mightily. I commanded the chariot come to a halt. A few yards back I had seen a cart with a yoke of four robust bulls, a rare sight in Egypt, and for a second I thought it was only the effect of my tiredness. For one thing, on this side of the Mediterranean we did not see such carts, and certainly never drawn by sacred animals. But additionally, I had observed from the corner of my eye that it was identical to the one in which I had made my escape from Rome to Brundisium all those years before.
Deciding to clear up the matter, I got down from the chariot and hurried back to the cart. The vision was real enough. There stood the cart with its four strong oxen. I checked it over. “Identical!” I kept saying over and over, more shocked by the likeness than by the profane use of the animals. I got up onto it and was suddenly flooded with memories. On the planks were hundreds of scratchings: Queen of Kings. I was flabbergasted. I had to sit down. The sacks of soil were just like those we had rested on years before, as we had accommodated ourselves to the narrow spaces. The memories of that journey blinded me. I was speechless. What was it doing on this side of the waters, close by the seven mouths of the Nile, the cart the sailors had hired to help the child-princess escape from her shameful condition? I was too overwhelmed to seek an answer to the question, swamped by dreams of other times. Traitors had lured me out of Upper Egypt, where the people were loyal to me. After snatching my throne, they were now on my heels. I could not afford to lose an instant. Yet there I was, still not having received the welcome of the dignitaries, snubbing my key allies, staring at an old cart. The sight of it had reduced me to just another of its sacks of earth. A strange odor roused me from my daydreams. It was truly sublime. I leaned halfway out of the back of the cart; the odor did not come from there. But from the front. I jumped down hurriedly to trace its source. Behind my back, as if coming from a great distance, I heard the voice of my loyal Apollodorus: “It’s the cart that got us away from Rome!” If it was a vision, it wasn’t exclusive to Cleopatra.
I followed my nose. The bulls! It was the bulls that were giving off that odor, wholly out of character with animals. It was not hard for me to decide which of the four it was; one had a tawny hide and in the middle of its forehead gleamed a silver circle, and its light blue eyes burned with desire, while its horns curved on its head like a crescent moon on its back. The bull was breathing out an intense, divine odor that I could not pull myself away from. Its shiny hide was soft to my touch. It bent its legs without withdrawing its eyes from mine. It was offering me its broad back. Fascinated by the sight, I got up on the animal. As soon as I was mounted, it stood up abruptly, slipping out of the traces that fastened it to the cart. I could not save myself by grabbing hold of the traces, for it carried me off, as agile as a rapacious feline, as rapid as lightning. As we passed under the gate of the city, I turned my head and I saw my company and the reception committee charging after me, yelling and gesticulating. In an instant we left them behind. We raced down the streets of Pelusium. Our passage created an uproar. At one corner they tried to halt us. The bull flew over a barrier and crossed the square faster than the sound of the cries that had been reaching us: “It’s carrying off the queen! The bull is stealing our Cleopatra!”