'She was ... a living thing. A being in pain.'
Ramsey thought about this for a moment.
'You will persuade Julie to go back to London-until t*1*8 is over,' Elliott asked.
'Yes, I'll do that,' Ramsey said.
He went out quietly, closing the door behind him.
* * *
They walked through the City of the Dead, 'the place of the exalted ones,' as they said in Arabic. Where the Maml1^6 Sultans had built their mausoleums; they had seen the fortes of Babylon; they had wandered the bazaars; now the he'l °f me afternoon wore on Alex, and her soul was chastened and shocked by the things she'd discovered, the long thread of history having connected the centuries for her from this radiant afternoon to the time she'd been alive.
She wanted to see no more of the ancient ruins. She wanted only to be with him.
'I like you, young lord,' she said to him. 'You comfort me-You make me forget my pain. And the scores I must settle.'
'But what do you mean, my darling?'
She was overcome again by that sense of his fragU^' m*s mortal man. She laid her fingers on his neck. The memories rose, threatening inundation; all too similar to the black waves from which she'd risen, as if death were water.
Was it different for each being? Had Antony gone down in black waves? Nothing separated her from that moment if she wanted to seize it, to see Ramses turn his back again and refuse to give Antony the elixir; to see herself on her knees, begging. 'Don't let him die.'
'So fragile, all of you . . .' she whispered.
'I don't understand, dearest.'
And so I 'm to be alone, am I? In this wilderness of those who can die! Oh, Ramses, I curse you! Yet when she saw the ancient bedchamber again, when she saw the man dying on the couch, and the other, immortal, turning his back on her, she saw something she had not seen in those tragic moments. She saw that both were human; she saw the grief in Ramses' eyes.
Later, when she'd lain as if dead herself, refusing to move or speak, after they'd buried Antony, Ramses had said to her: 'You were the finest of them all. You were the one. You had the courage of a man and the heart of a woman. You had the wits of a King and a Queen's cunning. You were the finest. I thought your lovers would be a school for you; not your ruin.'
What would she say now if she could revisit that chamber? I know. I understand? Yet the bitterness welled in her, the dark uncontrollable hatred when she looked at young Lord Summer-field walking beside her, this fair and fragile mortal boy-man.
'Dearest, can you confide in me? I've only known you for a short while, but I . . .'
'What is it you want to say, Alex?'
'It sounds so foolish.'
'Tell me.'
'That I love you.'
She lifted her hand to his cheek, touched it tenderly with her knuckles.
'But who are you? Where did you come from?' he whispered. He took her hand and kissed it, his thumbs rubbing her palm. A faint ripple of passion softened her all over; made the heat throb in her breasts.
'I'll never hurt you, Lord Alex.'
'Your Highness, tell me your name.'
'Make a name for me, Lord Alex. Call me what you will, if you do not believe the name I gave you.'
Troubled, his dark brown eyes. If he bent to kiss her, she would pull him down here on the stones. Make love to him till he was spent again.
'Regina, ' he whispered. 'My Queen.'
So Julie Stratford had left him, had she? The modern woman who went everywhere on her own and did as she pleased. But then it had been a great King who had seduced her. And now Alex had his Queen.
She saw Antony again, dead on the couch. Your Majesty, we should take him away now.
Ramses had turned to her and whispered, 'Come with me!'
Lord Summerfield stoked the heat in her, his mouth on her mouth, oblivious to the tourists who passed them. Lord Summerfield, who would die as Antony had died.
Would Julie Stratford be allowed to die?
'Take me back to the bedchamber,' she whispered. 'I starve for you, Lord Alex. I shall strip the clothes off you here if we don't go.'
'Your slave forever,' he answered.
In the motor car, she clung to him.
'What is it, Your Highness, tell me?'
She looked out at the hordes of mortals passing her; the countless thousands of this ancient city, in their timeless peasant robes.
Why had he brought her to life? What had been his purpose? She saw his tearstained face again. She saw the picture in which he stood, smiling at the miracle of Camera, with his arm around Julie Stratford, whose eyes were dark.
'Hold me, Lord Alex. Keep me warm.'
* * *
Through the streets of old Cairo, Ramses walked alone.
How could he persuade Julie to get on that train? How could he let her go back to London, but then was it not best for her, and mustn't he think of that for once? Had he not caused evil enough?
And what about his debt to the Earl of Rutherford; this much he owed the man who had sheltered Cleopatra; the man he liked and wanted so to be near, the man whose advice would always have been good for him, die man for whom he felt a deep and uncertain affection that just might be love.
Put Julie on the train. How could he? His thoughts gave out in confusion. Over and over he saw her face. Destroy the elixir. Never brew the elixir again.
He thought of the headlines in the paper. Woman on the floor of the dress shop. I like to kill It soothes my pain.
* * *
In the old-fashioned Victorian bed in his suite, Elliott slept. He dreamed a dream of Lawrence. They were talking together in the Babylon and Malenka was dancing, and Lawrence said: It's almost time for you to come.
But I have to go home to Edith. I have to take care of Alex, he had said. And I want to drink myself to death in the country. I've already planned it.
I know, said Lawrence, that's what I mean. That won't take very long.
* * *
Miles Winthrop didn't know what to make of any of it finally. They had issued a warrant for Henry's arrest, but frankly at this moment everything pointed to the possibility that the bastard was dead. Clothes, money, identification, all left behind at the scene of Malenka's murder. And no telling when the shopkeeper had been killed.
He had a premonition that this whole grisly case might never be solved.
The only thing to be thankful for was that Lord Rutherford was not at the moment his sworn enemy. A stigma like that would never be overcome.
Well, at least the day so far had been peaceful. No more hideous corpses with their necks broken, staring off as they lay on the slab, saying in a silent whisper, Will you not find the one who did this to me?
He dreaded the opera tonight, the continuous questions he would get from the entire British community. And
