“Again,” she whispered, and he saw that her eyes were full of tears. He kissed her face until they were gone.

They made love for hours, even as the sounds outside the window grew louder and louder, music and laughing, screaming and shouting.

“I am yours,” she swore again and again, and he believed her, took strength from her.

“As I am yours,” he told her. “Until we both are dead.”

“And thereafter?” she asked.

“And thereafter,” he answered, holding her tightly, feeling his heart beating, and feeling hers as well.

At dawn, he kissed Cleopatra good-bye and marched his remaining troops through the Canopic Gate and toward the hippodrome, resolved to meet his death with honor.

He watched from a hillside as his fleet, rowing in galleys from the harbor, threw themselves courageously against Octavian’s force. Maybe Cleopatra was right. They might win yet.

He drove his fist into the air, preparing a battle cry, when, out on the water, his men suddenly raised their oars to salute the enemy. A moment later, his Egyptian legion hoisted the Roman flag and joined with Caesar’s fleet. The two armies rowed back toward Alexandria, attacking the city together.

Antony spun to consult with the head of his Egyptian cavalry, and the man finished the war with a single sentence.

“Cleopatra belongs to Rome now,” the man said. “Egypt’s armies go where Cleopatra goes.”

“What do you mean?” Antony asked. The words did not make sense. Egypt’s armies served Antony, and Cleopatra’s only goal was to defend her city.

The man looked at Antony with a pitying expression for a moment. “Your queen has betrayed you, sir. We no longer serve you.”

“Liar!” Antony shouted, tearing his sword from its scabbard to strike the man for his impudence, but he was already galloping away with his company, leaving Antony and his last loyal soldiers hopelessly outnumbered by enemy Romans and by his own former men. Still, they did not take him prisoner. They did not kill him. Why not? Whose orders did they follow?

Surely not hers. She would never do such a thing. Never.

With the remainder of his infantry, Antony attacked Octavian’s forces near the hippodrome, but he was forced back into the city in retreat, even as the ghastly understanding sank into him. Antony staggered as he made his way into Alexandria, scarcely noticing the enemy forces pushing their way through the gates behind him.

Betrayed. The knowledge boiled inside him.

“I am yours,” she’d sworn, but she had lied.

There was no other explanation for what had happened.

Cleopatra had directed the Egyptian legions to leave him, commanded his own men to abandon him. She’d sold him to save herself.

What would she receive in return?

Had she done with Octavian as she had done with Julius Caesar when he’d marched into Alexandria? Smuggled herself into his camp and wooed him? Caesar had given her the throne. Octavian might let her keep it, given the right bribe. This was a personal war more than a political one. Octavian wanted Antony’s shame, and what better way than to take his wife and all of his loyal soldiers? To laugh as Antony stood alone and beaten?