to do.
He approached the front steps of Shepheard's, eyes down.
And he did not see the two men who stopped him until they were blocking his path.
'Lord Rutherford?'
'Let me alone.'
'Sorry, my lord, I wish I could. We're from the governor's office. There are some questions we must ask you.'
Ah, the last humiliation. He did not fight.
'Help me up the steps, then, young man,' he said.
* * *
She stepped out of the copper bathtub, the long coarse white towel around her, her hair still damp and curling in the steam. It was a bath for a palace, this room of painted tiles, and hot water running through a tiny pipe. And the perfumes she had found; how sweet the scent, like crushed lilies.
She walked back into the bedroom and saw herself again in the mirrored cabinet door. Whole. Perfect. Her legs had their proper contour. Even the pain inside her, where the evil one called Henry had wounded her, that was no more.
Blue eyes! How the sight shocked her.
Had she been this beautiful when she was alive? Did he know? Men had always said she was beautiful. She did a little dance, loving her own nakedness, enjoying the softness of her own hair against the backs of her arms.
Ramses watched her sullenly from the corner. Well, that was nothing out of the ordinary, was it? Ramses, the secret watcher. Ramses, the judge.
She reached out for the wine bottle on the dressing table. Empty. She smashed it on the marble top. Bits and pieces of glass fell to the floor.
No response from him; only that hard unyielding gaze.
So what did it matter? Why not go on dancing? She knew that she was beautiful, that men would love her. The two men she'd killed this afternoon had been charmed by her, and now there was no dreadful secret evidence of death to hide.
Pivoting, letting her hair fly about her, she cried out:' 'Whole! Alive and whole.'
From the other room came the sudden frantic cry of that parrot, that evil bird. Now was the time to kill it, a sacrifice to her happiness, like buying a white dove in the marketplace and letting it go in thanks to the gods.
She went to the cage, opened the little door and thrust her hand inside, catching the fluttering, screeching thing at once.
She killed it by pressing her fingers together. Then shook out her hand and watched it drop to the floor of the cage.
Turning, she looked at Ramses. Ah, such a sad face, so full of disapproval! Poor dearest!
'I can't die now. Isn't that true?'
No answer. Ah, but she knew. She'd been pondering ever since . . . ever since all of this began. When she looked at the others, it had been the realization hovering in the back of her mind. He'd raised her from the dead. Now she couldn't die.
'Oh, how disconsolate you look. Aren't you pleased with your magic?'' She came towards him, laughing under her breath. 'Am I not beautiful? And now you weep. What a fool you are! It was all your design, wasn't it? You came into my tomb; you brought me back; and now you weep as if I were dead. Well, you turned away from me when I was dying! You let them pull the shroud over my face!'
He sighed. 'No. I never did that. You don't remember what happened.'
'Why did you do it? Why did you bring me back? What were we to each other, you and I?' How did all these little shimmering bits and pieces of memory fit together? When would they make one cloth?
She drew closer, peering at his skin, touching it again. Such resilient skin.
'Don't you know the answer?' he asked. 'Isn't it deep inside you?'
'I know only that you were there when I died. You were someone I loved. I remember. You were there and I was frightened. The poison from the snake had paralyzed me, and I wanted to cry out to you, but I couldn't- I struggled. I said your name. You turned your back.''
'No! No, that could not have happened! I stood there watching you.'
The women weeping, she heard it again. Move away from that room full of death, the room where Antony had died, beloved Antony. She wouldn't let them take the couch away, though the blood from his wounds had soaked into the silk.
'You let me die.'
He look her by the arms again, roughly. Was that always his way?
'I wanted you to be with me, the way you are now.'
'As I am now. And how is that? What is this world? Is it the Hades of myth? Will we come upon the others . . . upon ...' But it had been right there a moment ago. 'Upon Antony!' she said. 'Where is Antony!' Oh ... but she knew.
She turned away. Antony was dead and gone; laid in the tomb. And he would not give the magic to Antony; it was all there again.
He came up behind her, and embraced her.
'When you called out to me,' he said, 'what was it you wanted? Tell me now.''
'To make you suffer!' She laughed. She could see him in the mirrored door of the cabinet, and she laughed at the pain in his face. 'I don't know why I called out to you! I don't even know who you are!'' She slapped him suddenly. No effect. Like slapping marble.
She wandered away from him into the dressing room. She wanted something beautiful. What was the finest dress that miserable woman had possessed? Ah, this one of rose-colored silk with fragile cutwork trimming. She took it up, slipped her arms into it and quickly snapped the little hooks up the front. It flattered her breasts beautifully; and the skirt was full and beautiful, though she no longer had to hide her feet.
Once again she put on the sandals.
'Where are you going?'
'Out in the city. This is the city of Cairo. Why should I not go out into it?'
'I must talk to you. ...'
'Must you?' She gathered up her canvas bag. In the corner of her eye she could see a great sliver of broken glass on the marble dressing table top. A shard from the bottle she'd smashed.
She moved lazily towards it. Her hand played with the pearls there. She should take these too. Of course he followed her.
'Cleopatra, look at me,' he said.
She turned abruptly and kissed him. Could he be so easily fooled? Yes, his lips told her that, oh, so delicious. How splendidly he suffered! Groping blindly at her side, she found that shard and, lifting it, gashed his throat.
She stepped backwards. He stood staring at her. The blood poured down his white robe. But he wasn't afraid. He did not move to stop the bleeding. His face showed only sadness, not fear.
'I cannot die either,' he whispered softly.
'Ah!' She smiled. 'Did someone wake you from the grave?'
Again she rushed at him, kicking at him, clawing at his eyes.
'Stop, I beg you.'
She raised her knee, jamming him hard between his legs. That pain he felt, oh, yes. He doubled over with it, and she kicked him hard in the side of the head.
Through the courtyard she raced, gripping the canvas bag with her left hand, as with her right she reached for the top of the wall. In a second she was over it and racing through the narrow unlighted street.
Within minutes she reached the motorcar. Instantly she turned on the engine, gave it fuel with a stab of the pedal and roared out of the small alleyway and onto the main road.
Ah, the wind in her face again; the freedom; and the power of this great iron beast at her command.
'Take me to the bright lights of British Cairo,' she said, 'dear sweet little beast. Yes!'
