Marcus Antonius, former triumvir, arch-enemy of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, and the admiral of a fleet mere minutes away from defeat, stood aboard the deck of his hexareme. The deck was awash with blood and entrails from dozens of dead crewmen, javelins and pila protruding from slick decking and armoured bodies like the heathen grave markers of the Galli before the coming of the Romans. The dead and the dying were everywhere, and the screams from those unfortunate enough to suffer lingering deaths seemed to coalesce into a chaotic dirge, a morbid Maraviglia with which to fill the macabre music halls of a long-forsaken hell. Fire licked at the red sails of his flagship incessantly, and the mast itself was in danger of collapse, thanks to a well-aimed ballista shot that had gouged a sizable portion out of said mast and nearly decapitated him.
Smoke filled the sky, seeming for all the world like a legion of locusts descending upon Pharoah's crops, whilst shots from ballistae and other siege engines splashed into the water around the ship, occasionally plowing with deadly force into a subsidiary mast. Thankfully, none had been able to pierce the ship's deck and injure the rowers beneath, without which the entire ship would become a stationary target for Octavian's ships.
"Imperator," a voice, hoarse from hours of shouting orders, came from behind him. It was Gellius Publicola, one of his chief lieutenants, a faithful, if unimaginative soldier. His hair, a dark brown, was damp and tousled from sweat and sea-spray, and his angular features were contorted into a mask of anguish and frustration. "We must retreat. The battle is lost."
"We can still win this," Antony looked into his subordinate's grey eyes, which were brimming with tears from the acrid air. "The Queen's fleet is still in reserve-"
"The Queen has fled, you fool," Publicola grasped the front of his cuirass and slapped him hard on his scarred right cheek.
He pointed to the east, where the galleys of the Egyptian fleet were, one by one, breaking formation and turning tail, following a gloriously appointed galley of purple sailcloth and a hull of beaten bronze.
Betrayal. It was a feeling that visited him mere days before. In particular, when he received word that his longtime friend and ally, Domitius Ahenobarbus, had defected to Octavian's camp.
"Even you?" He whispered as he stepped to a nearby rail and watched the galley disappear into the distance. Soon, all he could see were its purple sails, and soon, not even those. He closed his eyes for a moment, spending every ounce of discipline to quash that feeling before he opened his eyes and turned back to Publicola.
"We must leave," Publicola's voice lost some of its previous harshness. "Sosius is gone, and our left flank is collapsed. If we stay, Octavian's fleet will encircle and destroy us."
"Do we have any other options?" Antony asked. Publicola did not immediately reply, ducking involuntarily as a ballista shot passed a metre or so overhead, tearing a rent in the sailcloth. Antony noted wryly that his personal standard had been destroyed by a similar shot as well, removing his ship as a priority target in the eyes of enemy artillery.
"Unless you wish to ram and board Octavianus' flagship and risk being captured and killed," he replied sarcastically. Publicola's gaze sought out an enemy vessel near the rear of the formation, its standard clearly visible for all to see. "Our only option is to follow the Queen."
"It is just as well," Antony said, after a moment of respite to consider Publicola's words. Sarcastic as he was, an option was an option nonetheless. "Romans always fight better on dry land. Sound the retreat."
Publicola nodded, not precisely pleased, but satisfied at Antony's decision. "It shall be done, Imperator."
Antony turned away from Publicola, barely succeeding in keeping the anguish he felt from reflecting upon his countenance. A legionnaire stepped up to a wooden podium with an affixed horn of tarnished bronze and blew one long, strident note. The other surviving vessels answered in kind, one by one, the mournful tone carrying clearly across the calm sea.
Antony felt the deck shift slightly beneath his sandaled feet as the drumbeats of the oar-master sounded. The rowers had begun their efforts in shifting the massive flagship away from the fight, and back to Alexandria.
As he looked back towards the enemy fleet and the rag tag remains of his own, his heart lurched. Octavian's crew was cheering, bashing their gladii against their shields, roaring taunts and challenges. There would be no glorious triumph today, no laurels for Marcus Antonius. A part of him smarted at the ignominy of defeat, but as a general, he had known defeat before, and today would be no different.
As he watched his tired soldiers trudge back to their stations, he drifted into reverie, his consciousness reliving past days of glory and merriment, where war was naught but a distant memory.
When life had but one purpose – to be by her side.
"How much longer, Ahenobarbus?" Antony asked.
Mark Antony, along with his personal guard of no less than fifty legionnaires, occupied the central market square of the city of Tarsus. Adorned in ceremonial cuirasses emblazoned with the Roman Aquila and plumed helms freshly polished by local blacksmiths and armourers, they were an intimidating display of Roman military might.
In a less civilized locale, they might have been met with hostile stares and insults, but Tarsus, the new provincial capital of the Roman province of Cilicia, was well-populated with Latin or Latin-disposed citizens. Most of the womenfolk going about their errands took the opportunity to either gawk or admire the gathered soldiers, with a few daring vendors offering fresh produce and wines to the gathered throng despite the perceived severity of their disposition. To their credit, none took the proffered food, but as the day wore on, Antony permitted them to relax from their formal stance and wander the market.
The central marketplace was naturally the most crowded area in the city and also the chosen locale for their meeting, since the Queen's barge would be making its way into the delta of the river Cydnus where the main dock was, close to the marketplace itself in order to expedite more efficient commerce with berthed trade-ships. The entire area smelt of spices, cooked meats and freshly harvested vegetables, a tempting prospect for any soldier, considering the meagre rations of the average Roman legionnaire.
Domitius Ahenobarbus, a friend and subordinate commander, accompanied Antony in the small pavilion that one of the traders had set out for the Triumvir, his face set in a languid expression of bored cynicism. Antony, in contrast, was a like a taut bowstring, temper flaring at the slightest provocation thanks to the heat and the delay in the Queen's arrival. Antony was seated in an ornate throne of Parthian aesthetic, while Ahenobarbus stood, leaning upon the throne genially. They were attended by servants and slaves that the governor had provided for their comfort, who were attired simply in loose robes of white, adorned with the sigil of the provincial government.
"You know very well how royals adore punctuality," Ahenobarbus drawled, shooing away a particularly irritating fly and giving the nearby servant girl, who had been fanning the two commanders gently with a palm frond, a rather unpleasant leer.
"I came here to discuss an alliance," Antony drained a goblet of wine in a single swallow, the rough burn of the alcohol at the back of his throat irritating him even more. "We need her ships to oppose Sextus Pompeius' Sicilian fleet, or have you already forgotten?"
He threw the bronze vessel aside, which skittered to a halt in front of another servant in attendance. The servant stooped to retrieve the cup and refilled it, but Antony declined the drink. Ahenobarbus, on the other hand, took the drink and sipped it slowly and with unwarranted gusto.
"Relax, Marcus," Ahenobarbus placed a placating hand on the Triumvir's shoulder. He thought to give it a reassuring squeeze, but the fact that he could not very well squeeze armour, as well as Antony's foul mood, gave him pause. "You're going to have to be diplomatic when you meet with her, or this summons would all be for naught."
"Fine, fine," Antony waved away Ahenobarbus' reminder. "Let's find something to occupy ourselves while-"
A series of triumphal blasts from some strange horn-like instrument interrupted Antony, who looked around in bewilderment as the crowd of plebeians and traders dropped what they were doing and surged in the direction of the sound. All around them, legionnaires percolated through the hoi polloi, making their way back to their commanders, some looking sheepish as they replaced their helmets and stood to attention with murmured apologies. Antony himself gathered his helm from beside his seat and made his way forth, it's reassuring weight in the crook of his arm.
As his guard cleared a path to the docks, Antony became cognizant of a peculiar scent on the wind, like crushed flowers of a sort he had never encountered before. Rounding a corner, he beheld the barge of the Queen of Aegyptus, its porphyry mainsail unfurled as in glided gracefully into dock without bumping or scratching its curved, bronze-coated hull. Clearly, her Majesty spared no expense in finding the best steersman for her vessel. Male slaves in loincloths of the finest white linen attended the lines and ropes, securing the vessel with practiced efficiency that would have put well-drilled Roman sailors to shame, their muscled torsos glinting like onyx in the afternoon sun.
As he drew closer, the wind inflated the mainsail again as the slaves began to furl the purple cloth, and he realized that the peculiar perfumed scent he had noticed from the outset was emanating from the sailcloth. Indeed, the Queen had seen fit to colour her sails with rare and expensive purple dye, but also drench them in perfume.
The sail furled, revealing a square pavilion draped in translucent white silks, within which sat three figures he could not make out.
Another slave extended a ramp of what seemed to be beaten gold-leaf, and a long roll of purple cloth extended from the ramp unto the dirty wood of the dock, till it came, fully spent, to an area a few paces before him.
His fifty legionnaires parted the crowd, creating two lines of soldiers from the barge to Antony, not precisely long enough to cover the entire length of the cloth. However, more muscled slaves with shaven heads emerged from the barge to fill out the line, armed with golden-hilted khopeshes of an ornate, but clearly functional design.
The three figures emerged from the silken canopy, two maidservants of dark complexion also attired in white Egyptian linen, strode forth before the Queen herself. Her maids strew petals in her path, which she crushed underfoot, the scent of which was mild in comparison to the perfumed sails of her barge. Her maidservants parted slightly, and Antony finally caught sight of her.
She wore no heavy crown of gold, but a small diadem of electrum encrusted with precious gems and topped at her forehead with the symbol of the Kingdom of Aegyptus – a hooded serpent. Her hair was cut to shoulder length, bangs bluntly cut, and braided with strands of gold thread. Her eyes were dark brown, edged in kohl and lapis-lazuli, framed by darkened eyebrows and olive skin, with cheekbones made prominent by a dusting of rouge. Her lips were full, but not overly so, which she curved into an ever-so-slight smile. A pendant of silver hung at her neck, a circle atop a cross that was draped almost thoughtlessly upon the silken robe of white she wore. She was bare of feet, but a delicate chain tinkled at her right ankle as she walked. Behind her, an aged priest walked, carrying standard of some kind, topped by a disc bracketed by the horns of some bovine animal.
He looked at Ahenobarbus, who did not return his gaze, already long since struck dumb by the appearance of the Queen. It only occurred to him that he was staring at her when he realized she had come to a halt in front of him, and had yet to say anything.
"W-welcome, your Majesty," he blurted with almost unseemly haste, greeting her in Latin instead of Greek, which Ahenobarbus had suggested. "I am Marcus Antonius, Triumvir and general of the armies of Rome."
"You stare, man of Rome," she spoke Latin as well, her voice just slightly husky, but still mellifluous in quality. "Does my appearance displease you?"
She shifted her weight from one leg to another, eliciting a rustle of fabric as her hips strained slightly against the fabric of her robe, Antony noticed uncomfortably.
He swallowed. "On the contrary, your Majesty."
For a moment, Antony wondered how he looked from afar, an important Roman Triumvir exchanging matters of import with a foreign queen, and decided it best that the general populace of Tarsus never found out how he had been reduced to the level of a stammering schoolboy in front of her.
"Perhaps we should retire to more pleasant surroundings," she suggested, gesturing with fluid grace at her barge, rings of precious metals and ornamented fetishes tinkling on her manicured hands.
"Perhaps," agreed Antony, who handed his helm to Ahenobarbus, who started as if he had just woken up from a dream.
They walked together, behind her maidservants, back to the waiting ramp of the barge.
She gestured for her maidservants to leave before pulling aside a gossamer curtain to admit herself into the pavilion. He followed, and they both seated themselves upon the cushions within. Then, and only then, did he realize that he had forgotten something.
"May I know your name, your Majesty?" he asked, shifting awkwardly on the plush fabric.
She smiled again, almost the same slight-smile as when he had greeted her upon the docks, though just a little wider.
"My name," she said. "Is Cleopatra."