Pharaoh

The pirate lay the carpet before Caesar, using his own knife to clip the ties that bound it. As he slowly and carefully unrolled it, Caesar could see that it was a fine example of the craftsmanship that was only to be found in the eastern countries...suddenly, as if she were part of the geometrical pattern itself, a girl rolled out from its folds, sat up cross-legged, and looked at him...Her eyes were green and slanted upward, and they challenged him now to speak to her, as if it was Caesar who should introduce himself to this little tart. But it was the pirate who spoke first

"Hail Queen Kleopatra, daughter of Isis, Lady of the Two Lands of Egypt."

In this second novel of the Kleopatra series, the Queen moves into the better known part of her history. She still believes that the only way to keep from becoming the latest conquest for the Roman empire is to become its most important ally, and she meets with Julius Caesar, hoping that he will back her claim to the throne over her half-siblings Ptolemy and Arsinoe. Caesar has her continue the tradition of her people, and she marries her half brother, Ptolemy, in order to keep with the conditions in her father's will. She will soon become Caesar's lover, and bear him his son. After Caesar's death at the hands of those who love him, she becomes Mark Anthony's partner and eventually his wife. In this book we are shown how delicate public opinion is, and how easily swayed as people who fear the power and strength of Kleopatra work to engineer her down fall.

The first thing that strikes the reader is the way the book is set up. We begin the book with the 20th year of her reign, and then go back to the third. The 20th year will keep showing up once in awhile between chapters, foreshadowing the doom to come. This is a clever way of doing things, because it sets the tone for the story, reminding us that while everything seems happy and positive, it will not always be so. It softens the impact of the end, mercifully, and keeps the reader moving on to discover why things became this way.
Perhaps, at least for me, the most tragic aspect of a fictionalized history where the characters are so well known is the fact that their end is inevitable. I kept mentally begging Julius Caesar not to go into the senate, especially when I saw that the date was quite close to the ides of March. I kept waiting for someone to pull a knife. The point is, Essex writes these people in such a way as to make them very likable. They are all realistic, and they feel historically correct. Kleopatra always feels like a Greco-Egyptian monarch to me, yet she is so sympathetic. It makes the facts of their lives and the conclusion that you know the book is going to reach painful, as you secretly hope that Essex will go mad and declare that history had it all wrong and create a much happier ending. It's also what makes the book so readable, as you see the world through Kleopatra's eyes and discover the probable reasoning behind the actions. Essex keeps the narrative going, so that I was swept away into this other world, where everything from the cadence of the dialogue to the nasty web of politics felt true to history.

The things that I praised in the last book are kept up in this one. Kleopatra continues to grow, becoming more complex, more fascinating a main character as the story unravels. The battles and the political plottings are all well recreated, the settings sumptuous.

As I mentioned in my review of Kleopatra, Kleopatra isn't usually portrayed very positively. I always give room for poetic license, so all the accusations made of her could be justifiable. Our historical tradition and records often leads more from the Roman side of things, and, well, the victors always have the chance to re-write history. Most of the good that Kleopatra and Anthony did would have been taken away from them, and history bent to make her look like the perfect caricature of an evil and conniving seductress. Time has softened some of this, making her seem to be more of a woman ruled by her love of Mark Anthony.

The books can be read by themselves, but I really recommend reading them both in order. There's enough context in Pharaoh that it would make sense, but then you would miss a lot of the background that made Kleopatra who she is. The first book is called Kleopatra, I think, because this is where we learn who she is as a person...it's about her childhood and growing up and the experiences that formed so much of her later actions and thoughts. Pharaoh is named so (rather than Kleopatra II) because ultimately that's what she is. She is also a woman and a mother, but necessity often forces her to be Pharaoh over all other things.

Essex gives us a woman to admire, to believe in. I'm a bit in awe of the time and the research that Essex has put into these books, piecing together what was left of Kleopatra's history and making a memorable and amazing novel, creating a Kleopatra of powerful significance.