Malenka had prepared the food for him-fruit, bread, cheese and wine-but she would not come near the room.
The creature's appetite was fierce and she ate almost savagely. The bottles of wine she'd drunk as if they were water. And though she had remained in the sun steadily, no more healing had taken place, of that he was fairly sure.
As for Malenka, she remained shivering in the front room. How long he could control her, Elliott was unsure.
He slipped away now and went in search of her. He found her crouched, her arms folded, against the far wall.
'Don't be frightened, dear,' he said to her.
'My poor English,' she said in a whisper.
'I know, my dear, I know.' But that's just it, he didn't know. He sat down in the peacock chair again, and took out a few more bills. He gestured to her to come and take them. But she merely stared at him, dull-eyed, shivering, and then turned her head to the wall.
'My poor English,'' she said, 'is in the boiling vat by now.''
Had he heard her properly?
'What vat?' he asked her. 'What are you saying?'
'They make a great Pharaoh of my English. My beautiful English. They put him in the bitumen; they make a mummy of him for tourists to buy.'
He was too shocked to answer her. He looked away, unable to form the simplest words.
'My beautiful English, they wrap him in linen; they make him a King.'
He wanted to say, Stop, he could hear no more. But he only sat there in silence until suddenly the sound of the gramophone startled him-the sound of a pinched voice speaking English grinding out from the other room. The English records. She had found them. He trusted that they would content her, that they would give him this little time to rest.
But there came a great shattering crash. The mirror. She had broken it.
He rose and hurried towards her; she stood rocking back and forth on the carpet, the broken glass all over the dressing table, all over the floor around her, the gramophone droning on.
'Regina, ' he said. 'Bella Regina Cleopatra. '
'Lord Rutherford,' she cried. 'What has happened to me! What is this place?'' A long string of words in a strange tongue she spoke rapidly, and then the words gave out altogether into hoarse hysterical cries breaking one after another, and finally forming one great roaring sob.
* * *
Zaki inspected the operation. He watched them sink the naked body of the Englishman deep into the thick, viscous green fluid. On occasion, he would embalm these bodies; he would carry the replication of the original process to the extreme. But that was no longer necessary. The English weren't so keen anymore to unwrapping them at their parties in London. It was only necessary to have them thoroughly soaked in bitumen, and then the wrappings could be applied.
He approached the vat; he studied the face of the Englishman floating below the surface. Good bones, that was true. That's what the tourists like-to see a real face beneath the linen. And this one would look very good indeed.
* * *
A soft knock on her door.
'I don't want to see anyone,' Julie said. She sat on the couch in the sitting room of her suite, beside Samir, who had been holding her as she cried.
She could not understand what had happened. There was no doubt Ramses had been in the museum, that he had been badly wounded, and that he had escaped. But the murder of the maid, she could not believe he would do such a thing.
'The theft of the mummy, this I understand,' she had told Samir only moments before. 'He knew that woman; he knew who she was. He could not bear to see the body desecrated any longer, and so he sought to remove her.'
'But none of the pieces fit together,' Samir said. 'If he was taken prisoner, who then removed the mummy?' He paused as Rita answered the door.
Julie turned, caught a glimpse of a tall Arab standing there, in full flowing robes. She was about to turn away when she saw a flash of blue eyes.
It was Ramses. He pushed his way past Rita and shut the door. At once she rushed into his arms.
She did not know what her doubts had been, or her fears. She held him, burying her face in his neck. She felt his lips graze her forehead, and then his embrace tightened. He kissed her hard, yet tenderly, on the mouth.
She heard Samir's urgent whisper. 'Sire, you are in danger. They are searching for you everywhere.'
But she couldn't release him. In the graceful robes, he looked more than ever otherworldly. The pure precious love she felt for him was sharpened to the point of pain.
'Do you know what's happened?' she whispered. 'A woman in the museum was murdered and they are accusing you of the crime.'
'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 hi 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 feint 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 stack; 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
