"I know, my dearest," he said softly. "The death is on my head. And worse horrors than that."
She stared at him, trying to accept his words. Then the tears rose once again, and she covered her face with her hands.
She sat on the bed, staring stupidly at him. Did she understand when he told her the dress was a very fine dress? She mimicked the words of the gramophone in perfect English. "I should like a little sugar in my coffee. I should like a bit of lemon in my tea." Then she fell silent again.
She let him button the pearl buttons; she stared down in amazement as he tied the sash of the pink skirt. She gave an evil little laugh and lifted her leg against the heavy gores of the skirt.
"Pretty, pretty," she said. He had taught her that much in English. "Pretty dress."
She brushed past him suddenly and picked up a magazine from the dressing table and looked at the pictures of the women. Then in Latin, she asked again, What is this place?
"Egypt," he told her. He had told her over and over. Then would come the blank look, then the look of pain.
Timidly he lifted the brush, and brought it down through her hair. Lovely, fine hair. Hair so black there were faint glints of blue in it. She sighed, lifted her shoulders; she loved him brushing it. A low laugh came from her lips.
"Very good, Lord Rutherford," she said in English. She arched her back and moved her limbs languidly, a cat stretching, her hands exquisitely graceful as she held them poised in the air.
"Bella Regina Cleopatra," he sighed. Was it safe now to leave her? Could he make her understand? Perhaps if Malenka stood outside in the street before the bolted door until he came back.
"I must go now, Your Majesty. I must get more of the medicine if I can."
She turned, stared at him blankly. She didn't know what he was talking about! Was it possible she could not even remember what had happened moments before? She was trying to remember.
"From Ramses," he said.
There was a spark in her eye, then a deep shadow over her face. She whispered something, but he didn't hear it. "Kind Lord Rutherford," she said.
He pulled firmly on the hairbrush. Her hair was now a great soft drift of rippling waves.
The strangest light had come into her expression; her mouth was slack; her cheeks flushed.
She turned and stroked his face. She said something quickly in Latin that meant he possessed an older man's knowledge and a young man's mouth.
He puzzled over it, trying to think as she looked into his eyes. It seemed his own awareness of things drifted in and out; one moment she was this deeply afflicted creature he must care for; the next the great Cleopatra, and the full shock of it struck him again.
Luscious, this woman; the seducer of Caesar. She drew closer to him. It seemed the shrewdness had returned. Then her arm went up around his neck. Her fingers stroked his hair.
Warm her flesh. Dear God, the same flesh that had lain rotted and black beneath that dirty glass, thick and impenetrable as tar, that mass.
But these eyes, these deep hazel eyes with the tiny flecks of yellow in the pupils, impossible that they had sprung alive again from the dark filth. The filth of death.... Her lips touched his suddenly. Her mouth opened against his and he felt her tongue sliding between his teeth.
Instantly, his sex stirred. But this was madness. He was incapable. His heart, the pain in his bones, he could not possibly ... She pushed her breasts against him. Through the cloth he felt their throbbing heat. The lace, the pearl buttons; they only made her seem all the more deliciously savage.
His vision blurred, he saw the naked bones of her fingers as she reached to force his hair back off his forehead, as her kiss became more insistent and her tongue plunged deep into his mouth.
Cleopatra, the lover of Caesar, of Antony, and of Ramses the Damned. He closed his arms around her waist. She went back on the lace pillows, pulling him down on top of her.
He groaned aloud, his mouth gnawing at her. God, to take her. His hand gathered up the silk skirts and plunged between her legs. Moist, hot hair there, moist lips.
"Good, Lord Rutherford," she said in Latin. Her hips knocked against him, against his sex bulging and ready to be free.
He opened the few buttons quickly. How many years had it been since the thing was done in such haste? But there was no question now of what was meant to happen.
"Ah, take me, Lord Rutherford!" came her hissing whisper. "Plunge your dagger into my soul!"
And this is how I die. Not from the horrors I've beheld. But from this, this which is beyond my strength yet irresistible. He kissed her almost cruelly, his sex pumping between her damp thighs. The sweet evil laughter was bubbling out of her.
He shut his eyes as he thrust against the tight little fount.
*
"You cannot stay here, sire," Samir said. "The risk is too great. They're watching the entrance. Surely we are being followed wherever we go. And sire, they searched your room, they found the ancient coins. They may have found ... more than that."
"No. There was nothing else for them to find. But I must speak with you, both of you."
"Some sort of hiding place," Julie said. "Where we can meet."
"I can arrange this," Samir said. "But I need a couple of hours. Can you come to me outside the Great Mosque at three o'clock? I shall dress as you are dressed."
"I'm coming with you!" Julie insisted. "Nothing is going to keep me away."
"Julie, you don't know what I've done," Ramses whispered.
"Ah, then you must tell me," she said. "These robes, Samir can get them for me as well as for himself."
"Oh, how I love you," Ramses whispered very low under his breath. "And I need you. But for your own sake, Julie, do not--"
"Whatever it is, I stand with you."
"Sire, leave now. There are policemen everywhere in this hotel. They will come back to question us. At the mosque. Three o'clock."
The pain in his chest was bad, but he wasn't dying. He sat slumped in a small wooden chair near the bed. He needed a drink from the bottle in the other room, but he had no stamina to get it. It was all he could manage to slowly button his shirt.
He turned to look at her again, her smooth waxen face in sleep. But now her eyes were open. She sat up and held out the glass vial to him.
"Medicine," she said.
"Yes, I shall get it. But you must stay here. You understand?" In Latin first he explained it. "You are safe here. You must remain in this house."
It seemed she did not want to do this.
"Where will you go?" she asked. She looked around her; she looked at the window beside the bed, open onto the slanting afternoon sun and a barren whitewashed wall. "Egypt. I do not believe this is Egypt."
"Yes, yes, my dear. And I must try to find Ramses."
That spark again, and then the confusion, and suddenly the panic.
But he rose; he could delay this no longer. He could only hope and pray that Ramses had somehow gotten free of his captors. Surely Julie and Alex had marshalled the appropriate lawyers. Whatever the case, he must try to reach the hotel.
"Not very long, Your Majesty," he said to her. "I shall return with the medicine as soon as I can."
She did not appear to trust him. She watched suspiciously as he went out of the room.
Malenka sat crouched still in the corner of the sitting room. She was shivering and she stared at him with empty, stupid eyes.
"My dear, listen to me," he said. He found his cane by the drinks cupboard and took it in hand. "I want you to go out with me, lock the door and stand guard."
Did the girl understand? She was staring past him; he turned around and saw Cleopatra in the door--barefoot, her hair streaming, so that again she looked utterly savage in the proper pink silk English dress. She stared at Malenka.
The girl recoiled, whimpering. Her loathing and fear were plain.
"No, no, dearest. Come with me," Elliott said. "Don't be afraid, she won't hurt you."
Malenka was too te
rrified to listen or obey. Her piteous cries grew louder. Cleopatra's blank face had changed to a mask of rage.
She came towards the helpless woman, who stared at the naked bones in her hand and in her foot.
"She's only a servant girl," said the Earl, reaching out for Cleopatra's arm. She pivoted and slapped him, knocking him backwards so that he fell against the parrot's cage. As Malenka screamed in pure hysteria, the bird began to screech frantically, beating his wings against the bars.
Elliott tried to steady himself. The girl must stop screaming. This was a disaster. Cleopatra, looking from the screeching bird to the screaming woman, appeared on the verge of hysteria herself. Then she lunged at the woman, grabbing her by the throat and forcing her down on her knees as she had done to Henry only hours before.
"No, stop it." Elliott hurled himself at her. This time he could not let it happen, and once again he felt her powerful blow knocking him yards across the room. He fell against the wall, his hand up on the plaster. Then came that sound, that unspeakable sound. The girl was dead. Cleopatra had broken her neck.
The bird had ceased its screeching. It stared with one round senseless eye into the room. Malenka lay on her back on the carpet, her head wrenched to one side at an impossible angle, her brown eyes half-closed.
Cleopatra stood staring down at her. Thoughtfully she looked at the girl. Then she said in Latin:
"She is dead."
Elliott didn't answer. He gripped the edge of the marble-top cupboard and pulled himself to his feet. The throbbing in his chest meant nothing to him. Nothing could equal the pain in his soul.
"Why did you do it!" he whispered. Oh, but was he mad to ask such a question of this being? This thing whose brain was damaged, without doubt, as her body was damaged, beautiful though she was.
Almost innocently she stared at Elliott. Then she looked back at the dead woman.
"Tell me, Lord Rutherford, how did I come to be here!" Her eyes narrowed. She approached him. In fact, she reached out and effortlessly helped him to stand upright. She picked up the walking stick and put it in his left hand. "Where did I come from?" she asked. "Lord Rutherford!" She bent forward, her eyes growing wide and full of terror. "Lord Rutherford, was I dead?"
She didn't wait for him to answer; her scream came in pulses. He embraced her, and put his hand over her mouth.
"Ramses brought you here. Ramses! You called out to him. You saw him."
"Yes!" She stood still, not struggling, merely clutching his wrist. "Ramses was there. And when I ... when I called out to him, he ran from me. Like the woman, he ran from me! That same look in his eyes."
"He wanted to come back to you. Others stopped him. Now I must go to get him. Do you understand? You must stay here. You must wait for me." She stared past him. "Ramses has the medicine," he said. "I shall bring it back here."
"How long?"
"A few hours," he said. "It's midafternoon. I'll be back before dark."
She moaned again, and pressed her curved thumb to her teeth, staring at the floor. She looked like a child suddenly, a child wrestling with an enormous puzzle. "Ramses," she whispered. Clearly she was not certain who he was.
He patted her shoulder gently; then with the aid of his cane, he approached the body of the girl. What in the name of heaven was he to do with it? Let it lie here and rot as the hours passed? How could he bury it in the garden, when he could barely walk as it was? He closed his eyes and laughed to himself bitterly. It seemed a thousand years since he had seen his son, or Julie, or the civilized rooms of a common place like Shepheard's Hotel. It seemed a thousand years ago that he had done anything normal or loved anything normal; or believed in it; or made the sacrifices that normality required.
"Go, get the medicine," she said to him. She stepped between him and the dead woman. She reached down and lifted Malenka by her right arm. Effortlessly she dragged the woman across the carpet, past the clucking bird, which had the good fortune to be silent, and threw the corpse of the woman out into the yard as if it were a stuffed doll. The body landed on its face against the far wall.
Do not think now. Go to Ramses. Go!
"Three hours," he said to her, again using the two languages. "Bolt the door after me. You see the bolt?"
She turned and looked at the door. She nodded.
"Very well, Lord Rutherford," she said in Latin. "Before dark."
She did not bolt the door. She stood there, her hands on the bare wood, listening as he walked away. It would take him a long time to move out of sight.
And she must get out of this place! She must see where she was! This could not be Egypt. And she could not understand why she was here, or why she hungered so, and could not be satisfied, or why she felt this sharp, enervating desire to be in a man's arms. She would have forced Lord Rutherford again if she had not wanted him to go on his errand.
But the errand; it was not clear to her suddenly. He meant to get the medicine, but what was the medicine! How could she live with the great gaping wounds she had?
Yet only a moment ago she'd realized something about this, something to do with that dead woman, that shrieking slave girl whose neck she'd snapped.
Ah, but the thing to do was leave here, while Lord Rutherford was not here to scold her like a teacher and tell her to remain.
In a haze, she remembered the streets she had glimpsed earlier, full of great rumbling monstrous things made from metal; full of foul smoke and deafening noise. Who were the people she had seen around her? Women in dresses such as she wore.
She'd been terrified then; but her body had been full of aches and misery. Now her body was full of cravings. She must not be terrified. She must go.
She went back into the bedchamber. She opened the "magazine" called Harper's Weekly and looked at the drawings of pretty women in these strange dresses that pinched them in the middle like insects. Then she looked at herself in the mirror on the cabinet door.
She needed a covering for her head, and sandals. Yes, sandals. Quickly she searched the bedchamber, and found them in a wooden closet--sandals with gold worked into the leather, and small enough for her feet; and a great strange thing with silk flowers all over it, a thing such as one would wear to keep off rain.
She laughed as she looked at it. Then she put it on her head, and tied the ribbons under her chin. Now she looked very much like the women in the pictures. Except for her hands. What was she to do about her hands!
She stared at the naked bones of the first right finger. A thin covering of skin overlaid them, but it was like silk, more sheer than the dress. She could see blood in it; but it was transparent. And the mere sight of the bones caused her to become dizzy, confused again.
A memory--someone standing above her. No, don't let it begin again. She must wrap her hand in something, a bandage. The left hand would do well enough. She turned and began to search through the cabinet of female clothes.
And then she made the loveliest discovery! Here were two little silk garments made for hands. They were white; they had pearls sewn on them! Each had five fingers and had been cut to fit closely over the hand. This was perfect. She slipped them on; they hid the naked bone completely.
Ah, the wonder of what Lord Rutherford had called these "modern times." These times of music boxes and "motor cars," as he called them, the things she had seen this morning, all around her, like great roaring hippopotami from the river. What would Lord Rutherford call these things, these clothes for hands?
She was wasting time. She went to the dressing table, gathered up a few small coins that lay there and put these in the deep hidden side pocket of the heavy skirt.
As she opened the front door of the house, she glanced over at the dead body, out in the courtyard, heaped against the wall. Something, what was it, she had to understand it, but it simply would not come clear to her. Something ...
She saw again that hazy figure standing over her. She heard again those sacred words. A tongue she knew speaking to her. This was the tongue of your
forefathers, you must learn it. No, but that had been another time. They had been in a bright room full of Italian marble, and he had been teaching her. This time, it had been dark and hot and she'd been struggling upwards as if from deep water, her limbs weak, the water crushing her, her mouth full of water so that she couldn't scream.
"Your heart beats again; you come to life! You are young and strong once more; you are now and forever."
No, do not weep again! Do not struggle to grasp it, to see it. The figure moving away; blue eyes. She had known those blue eyes. As soon as I drank it, it happened. The priestess showed me in the mirror ... blue eyes. Ah, but whose voice was this! This voice that had said the prayer in the darkness, the ancient sacred prayer for the opening of the mummy's mouth.
She had called out his name! And here, in this strange little house, Lord Rutherford had spoken the name also. Lord Rutherford was going ...
Be back before dark.
It was no use. She stared through the archway at the dead body. She must get out into this strange land. And she must remember that it was extremely easy to kill them, to snap their necks like brittle stems.
She hurried out, without closing the door. The whitewashed houses on either side of her looked familiar and good to her. She had known such cities. Maybe this was Egypt, but no, that could not be.
She rushed along, holding the ribbons tight so that the strange headdress would not fly from her hair. So easy to walk fast. And the sun felt so good to her. The sun. In a flash she saw it flooding down from a high portal in a cave. A wooden shutter had opened. She heard the creak of the chain.
Then it was gone, the memory, if it had even been a memory. Wake, Ramses.
That was his name. But she didn't care now. She was free to roam this strange city; free to discover, to see!
AMIR PURCHASED several Bedouin garments in the first shop in old Cairo that sold such clothes. He ducked into a small restaurant, a filthy alleyway of a place full of down-on-their-luck Frenchmen, and there put on the loose, concealing garb and tucked the other garments--those he'd bought for Julie--under his arm, inside his robes.
He liked this loose peasant costume, which was infinitely older than the tailored robes and hats which most Egyptians wore. In fact, it was probably the oldest mode of dress still in active existence--the long, loose drapery of the desert wanderers. He felt free in it, and safe from all eyes.