The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 153

me later, and along with her, her shadow, Babe. I expected more of Lazarus’s persuasions, began again about the conspiracy against me, and thus her as well. She sat beside me. Babe stood vigilantly behind her. Cleopatra was no longer a beauty, her hair cropped off, her teeth rotten, her body weakened by starvation, the cold, the sunlessness, the sort of fatigue from which sleep is no relief. For some cause that I have forgotten—an accident that not even Babe could prevent—she was slightly paralyzed. She had to look and talk out of one side of her face, had to use one arm to lift the other. I did not pity her. I appealed to her hard heart. Her heart answered me.

“You have it right,” she said.

“I am surrounded by enemies,” I said.

“You must act,” she said.

“Satan is my ally. My enemies are his enemies. I shall assemble my army and attack!”

“There is more than that. You must do more,” she said.

“How do you know?” I said.

“She told me, your albatross,” she said.

It fills me with wonder now, twenty-nine years later, to recall Cleopatra’s wasted face when she spoke the lie that slew the Kingdom of Antarctica while in the same instant it gave birth to the People’s Republic of Antarctica. One of her eyes was moist with tears because she had to keep opening and shutting it by hand. Her lips were cracked, her skin pitted with sores. She might have wanted to change her expression in order to give conviction to her deceit, could not, because of the paralysis perhaps, more likely because, in imitation of Lazarus, Cleopatra had forsaken smiles, grimaces, surprises. Her face was a single facade. It surely would have misled a saint into thinking he beheld a victim. I doubt if even a looking glass could have displayed Cleopatra accurately. Yes, there was misery, mourning, hatred there; but more tellingly there was a “queen of slaves” who was willing to do the last that was necessary to settle her fate. That face was resolution. I do not blame her. I suppose I am proud of her for her cleverness, can still feel my admiration. She possessed one confidence to use against me, for only once had I shared my secrets, and that was when I ravished Cleopatra after murdering Jaguaquara. I told her I had reached for her because it was my destiny, and then I told her of Grandfather, Skallagrim Strider, and Lamba Time-Thief, in specific, of that pale albatross.

I credit Lazarus’s role as well, for he must have been behind Cleopatra’s ruse. I guess that he had gone to her to debate what could be done either to enlist my aid in making truce with the republican masters or to conceive a plan to unseat me. My capitanes were caught between their self-interest and their loyalty to me, not out of love, out of fear of what I had done to all who wavered. I was their purpose; I was also their peril. They fought for me, or they fought me. Lazarus could not negotiate without their cooperation, which meant that he had to have my authority. I see his dilemma. I see the wisdom of his treachery. The king was mad. My victory over Lykantropovin was a defeat for hundreds of thousands unless the Hielistos accepted the Ice Cross’s surrender and the offer by the republican masters to relieve the deprivation in the camps. What had to be done was clear. How to do it, and with what weapon, was not clear. Lazarus needed to get rid of me in such a way that he could sign the truce while not shattering my kingdom into dozens of conclaves of pirates. If he had assassinated me, he would have risked having my capitanes put forward a new warlord who owed nothing to Lazarus and his plans. Therefore, Lazarus had to keep me alive, and a threat to the capitanes, but also had to keep me out of the way until the truce was in effect. Cleopatra provided Lazarus with a weapon, a perfect blade, a lie she knew Grim Fiddle would believe. Cleopatra picked up my mother’s power and thrust it into my heart.

I do not recall much of the convoluted debate that followed her lie. I must have knelt before her, thinking she could provide me with genuine counsel. That does not mean her task was easy. She had me, she had to maneuver me. Who introduced the idea of a new quest? Who first raised the possibility that a pilgrimage to Satan would give me new strength to carry on my war? Who began talk of a journey to Satan’s Seat so that Grim Fiddle could confer with his ally? I recall dimly that I did most of the ranting, that Cleopatra did not raise points so much as confirm my hallucinatory logic.

There was another voice in our conference, a real thunderer. As we talked in my ice cave, Satan’s Seat rumbled way to the south. It made Cleopatra bend, from her fear of sudden fissures. It made me thunder back, a pathetic imitation of my birth, when I sang the upper part of that Fiddle duet. I convinced myself that as I had answered Grandfather, so now I should answer Satan’s Seat, as I had condemned everyone on board King James and Candlemas Packet in pursuit of my heart’s desire, so now I condemned myself in pursuit of my black heart’s desire, Satan.

Cleopatra withdrew. Babe trailed behind her. He gave me a sad, hard, fertile look. There are no parting words with her to record. I have not seen Cleopatra since.

For his part, Lazarus did come to me, while I prepared my pilgrimage. He said he understood my decision was final. I suppose this means that even then, as he watched me ready my own regicide, he had his plans firm. I said that my decision was inspired. He said yes.

I can sympathize with his betrayal. I had fought