Brought him? What sort of phrase was this? He’d lead his men, not be led. And why did he not come through the passage?

“Tell me what the matter is!” Cleopatra snapped, gripping the girl roughly by the shoulders.

“They’ve carried him here on a stretcher. He’s covered.”

Cleopatra was already running up the stairs to the window, her heart pounding in terror. This was her fault. She should never have let him go back to battle. She’d known better, after what she’d witnessed at the window the night before. Antony’s gods had left the city, declaring the war a loss. There’d been an invisible celebration as Dionysus departed through the center of Alexandria, his procession unseen but raucous with trumpets and harps, the beat of dancing steps, drums, and trills.

In the room behind her, Antony had stretched out his arms to her.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he asked.

“Looking at the moon,” she said. “Full and golden. A good omen.” She did not say for whom.

“We will win this war,” she told him, thinking of Sekhmet, imagining herself more powerful than any omen. “We will win this war.”

“Come back to me,” her husband replied, getting up from the bed as if to see for himself what drew her attention, but she pushed him back. They made love as though time had stopped, as though they had no battles to prepare for, no danger in the morning, no end to nights like these.

Cleopatra had sent her beloved out into battle unprotected and now she was paying for her arrogance.

She threw open the barred shutter, her body leaning out the window, a target for any archer. Antony’s personal guard was below. She knew the men well. And there, on a litter, covered in a cloth —

Cleopatra felt herself swaying. There was a bloodstain on the sheet, the crimson spreading on the ivory ground.

The leader of the guard looked up at the queen. Cleopatra could see the grief on his face.

“There was a false message,” he said. “He believed you killed yourself, and he sought to join you.”

“Is he dead?” she whispered, scarcely able to make the words leave her lips.

Antony’s hand rose to push aside the cloth that covered his face and chest.

“Not yet,” Antony said. His face was gray with suffering, his hand bloodied where it pressed the wound.

Cleopatra clenched her teeth to keep from screaming. How could this have happened? Had she followed her original plan, had she not stayed, thinking to tame the gods, she should have been beside him shipboard, the green and silver sea, the coast of India, their children safe in their beds belowdecks.

“I come to die with you,” Antony said. “Will you have me?”

Sobbing, she threw down the rope and let his men rig him in it. She and her handmaidens pulled him up to the window, the wound in her hand opening again as she held the fibers. She watched his face as he rose toward her, feeling every pain he did. He would not cry out in front of his men. By the time she had him in the mausoleum, her garments were covered in blood. Her limbs felt dipped in wax, slowed and numb.