He let her go, backing off. 'I don't know,' he said in a defeated voice. 'I have lost her.'
Julie watched him as he paced, turned and looked at her from a distance. She was keenly aware that she loved him, and would go on loving him no matter what had happened. But she could not say such a thing to him, not until she knew. . . .
'Let me call Samir,' she said. 'He's there, in the sitting room.'
'I want to be alone with you for a moment,' he said. And for the first time, he appeared just slightly afraid of her. It was a subtle thing, but she felt it.
'You must tell me what's happened.'
He remained impassive, looking at her, the sheikh robes doing their damnedest to make him irresistible. And then suddenly his expression broke her heart; no use denying it.
In a tremulous voice, she said, 'You gave her more of it.'
'You haven't seen her,' he said quietly, his voice unhurried, his eyes full of undisguised sorrow. 'You have not heard the sound of her voice! You have not heard her weeping. Don't judge me. She is as alive as I am! I brought her back. Let me judge myself.'
She clasped her hands tightly, hurting the fingers of her right hand with the fingers of the other.
'What do you mean, you don't know where she is?'
'I mean she escaped from me. She attacked me; she tried to kill me. And she is mad. Lord Rutherford was right. Absolutely mad. She would have killed him if I hadn't stopped her. The elixir hasn't changed that. It merely healed her body.'
He took a step towards her, and before she could stop herself she turned her back. She was going to cry again; oh, so many tears. And she didn't want to.
'Pray to your gods,' she said, looking at him through the mirror. 'Ask them what to do. My God would only condemn you. But whatever happens with this creature, one thing is certain.' She turned and looked him in the eye. 'You must never, never brew the elixir again. Whatever remains, consume it. Do it now in my presence. And men erase the formula from your mind.'
No response. Slowly he removed the headdress, and ran his hand back through his hair. For some reason this only made him look all the more gallant and seductive. A biblical figure now with flowing hair and flowing robes. It maddened her slightly, and made the threat of tears all the more sharp.
'Do you realize what you're saying?'
'If it's too dangerous to consume it, then find someplace far out in the desert sands, and make a deep shaft into which to pour it! But get rid of it.'
'Let me put a question to you.'
'No.' She turned her back again. She covered her ears. When she looked up she saw in the mirror that he was right at her shoulder. There was that awareness again of her own world destroyed, of a brilliant light having thrown all else into hopeless shadow.
Gently, he took her hands, and lowered them from her ears. He looked into her eyes through the mirror, his body warm and close to her.
'Julie, last night. If instead of taking the elixir with me to the museum, if instead of pouring it over Cleopatra's remains- if instead, I'd offered it to you, wouldn't you have taken it?'
She refused to answer. Roughly he grabbed her wrist and turned her around.
'Answer me! If I had never seen her lying there in that glass case ...'
'But you did.'
She meant to hold firm, but he surprised her with his kiss, with the roughness and the desperation of his embrace, with his hands moving over her face and her cheek almost cruelly. He was saying her name like a prayer. He murmured something in the ancient Egyptian tongue, she didn't know what it was. And then he said softly in Latin that he loved her. He loved her. It seemed both explanation and apology, somehow, the reason for all this suffering. He loved her. He said it as if he were just realizing it, and now her tears were coming again, stupidly. It infuriated her.
She pulled back; then kissed him and let him kiss her again, and sank against his chest, merely letting him hold her.
Then softly she said:
'What does she look like?'
He sighed.
'Is she beautiful?'
'She always was. She is now. She is the woman who seduced Caesar, and Mark Antony, and the whole world.'
She stiffened, drawing away from him.
'She is as beautiful as you are,' he said. 'But you are right. She is not Cleopatra. She is a stranger in Cleopatra's body. A monster looking through Cleopatra's eyes. And struggling to use Cleopatra's wits to her own purposeless advantage.'
What more was there to say? What could she do? It was in his hands, it had been since the beginning. She forced him to release her and then she sat down and leaned her elbow on the arm of the chair and rested her forehead in her hand.
'I'll find her,' he said. 'And I will undo this awful error. I will put her back into the darkness from which I took her. And she will suffer only a litde while. And then she will sleep.'
' 'Oh, but it's too awful! There must be some other way. ...' She broke into sobs.
'What have I done to you, Julie Stratford?' he said. 'What have I done to your life, all your tender dreams and ambitions?''
She took her handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it to her mouth. She forced herself to stop this foolish crying. She wiped her nose, then looked up at him, the great handsome dreamy figure he was standing there with that tragic expression. A man, only a man. Immortal, yes, a ruler once, a teacher always, perhaps, but human as we all are. Fallible as we all are. Lovable as we all are.
'I cannot live without you, Ramses,' she said. 'Well, I could. But I don't want to.' Ah, tears from him now. If she didn't look away, she'd be weeping again. 'Reason has nothing to do with it anymore,' she went on, 'But it's this creature you've wronged. It's this thing you've resurrected that will be hurt. You speak of burying her alive. I cannot ... 1 cannot ...'
'Trust in me that I shall find a painless way,' he whispered.
She couldn't speak. She couldn't look at him.
'And know this, for what it's worth. Know it now because later it may bring contusion. Your cousin Henry is dead. Cleopatra killed him.'
'What!'
'It was to Henry's abode in the old Cairo that Elliott took her. He did follow me to the museum. And when the soldiers took me away, Elliott gave shelter to the creature I 'd resurrected. He took her there, and there she killed both Henry and the woman, Malenka.'
She shook her head, and once again her hands went up to her ears. All the things she knew of Henry, of her father's death, of his attempt on her life, somehow could not help her now; they could not touch her. She heard only the horror.
'Trust in me when I say that I shall find a painless way. For that I must do before more innocent blood is shed. I cannot turn my back until it's finished.'
* * *
'My son left no message?' Elliott had not forsaken the leather chair, or the gin, and had no intention of doing so. But he knew he had to call Alex before he got any drunker. And so he'd sent for the telephone. 'But he wouldn't go out without telling me. All right. Samir Ibrahaim, where is he? Can you ring his room for me?'
'He's in Miss Stratford's suite, sir. Two-oh-three. He requests that any messages be sent there. Shall I ring? It is eleven of the clock, sir.'
'No, I'll go up, thank you.'
* * *
