The Passion of Cleopatra Read online

  But there was still much to be done. And the newspapers, always available at the inn, told her that she had time to ponder the mystery of Ramsey and Julie Stratford, who were quite busy in London visiting old friends at receptions and teas, touring galleries, and even, it seemed, riding bicycles in fashionable attire or dashing about in Ramsey's new motorcar.

  But it was the story of the betrothal party that assured Bektaten she would soon be able to see the couple firsthand--when she was ready.

  Until then, she roamed the surrounding cliffs, explored the caves carved by the surf. The nearest tin mines were some distance away, and so the place enjoyed the isolation she sought.

  Only the lightest items could be carried by hand across the short suspension bridge between the mainland and the headland on which the castle stood, so a crane was brought in to swing the furniture and crates over the gap, high above the crashing waves.

  As they worked, some of the men caught glimpses of her, a lone, black-skinned woman, swaddled in timeless robes, gazing out at an angry northern sea with which she was largely unfamiliar. When they inquired impertinently as to her history, Enamon and Aktamu repeated the tale that she was a member of the Ethiopian royal family seeking long respite from the heat of her ancestral lands.

  It didn't matter.

  She had lived in thousands of places all over the globe, too many to call any one of them home. A network of castles and estates maintained by mortals who had sworn a kind of loyalty to her based in love and adoration. Many of them she had met in the same way she had made the acquaintance of the Brogdons: through an offer of salvation. They were the last descendants of once-wealthy families, struggling to maintain once-grand pieces of property falling to ruin. And then, out of nowhere, it seemed, she appeared to them, offering them restoration. And hope.

  Only a few of these mortals knew her secret.

  Not a one knew her entire story. That was contained within her journals, and she had allowed no one ever to read them. Written in the ancient language of her lost kingdom, they contained not only the history of her reign but all that had followed. She called them the Shaktanis, and she turned to them now as she awaited the return of Enamon and Aktamu from London.

  In the tower room she had transformed into her library, the window nearest to her had been repaired and glassed in. And a cozy fire warmed her.

  Ramses the Damned. She turned the pages of her journals, so recently copied, and within minutes, she had found the account that had inspired her to cross oceans, to settle for the first time amidst the cool and the green of an island on which she had vowed never to set foot.

  *

  In the time when Ramses II had ruled Egypt, plague swept through the Hittite Empire to Egypt's north.

  It was not a plague on the order of the one that had brought down the last remnants of her ancient kingdom. But its victims were many, and so she and her servants had traveled into the Hittite Empire in hopes of tending to the sick.

  During her wanderings, she had discovered many miraculous plants blossoming atop mountain peaks or thriving deep within dark caverns. Some were miracles only within the blood of those who had consumed her elixir. And one of them, the strangle lily, was an outright poison, discovered when the bold and magnificent leopard she had made into an immortal companion nibbled from its leaves and turned to ash before her eyes.

  But she had never resigned her vocation as a healer, a role she'd played long before she rose to become queen of Shaktanu, and so she had discovered and formulated medicines of surprising potency that could be used to treat sick mortals.

  She longed to heal the world, of course, but this was a dangerous desire and always would be; a passel of reckless emotions without a clear, organizing purpose. To administer the elixir was to risk exposing it to those who might use it for domination and control. And whenever she considered this possibility, bitter, angry memories of Saqnos paralyzed her.

  But plague, its horrors and its ultimate cost, always drew her like a Siren's call.

  Plague stirred her tortured memories of Shaktanu's final hours.

  And so it was to heal those afflicted by plague that she entered the kingdom of the Hittites in the year they now called 1274 B.C., bringing her many medicines and potions with her.

  There, in the land of the Hittites, a strange tragedy had befallen Bektaten. She had fallen under the spell of a fearless maverick priestess, a worshipper of the goddess of healing, Kamrusepa. Her name had been Marupa.

  Marupa had been possessed of remarkable strength and independence. Weary of cities and courts, she had created a remote mountain sanctuary for her goddess, to which many came for healing. In the eyes of Bektaten, Marupa possessed a wild vintage beauty. Gray streaked Marupa's hair, and there were times when she would cock her head, listening to the voice of the goddess, and then break forth in frenzied dancing and singing that terrified those who came for her curative magic. But her gnarled hands brought comfort, and her potions could banish pain, even heal bones, it seemed, and Marupa turned away no one from Kamrusepa's altar.

  Marupa had known without being told that Bektaten was no ordinary human being. But she felt only sympathy and awe for the strange Ethiopian who sought to share her own curative potions so generously.

  Though Bektaten herself prayed to no god or goddess, and had long ago turned against all pantheons as lies, she marveled at Marupa's faith, Marupa's insistence that Kamrusepa spoke to her.

  Marupa had become Bektaten's treasured companion. And at last, succumbing to the loneliness which had so often driven her to confide her secrets, Bektaten told Marupa everything. They had spent many hours talking together, hours which came to be weeks and weeks that came to be months. All her doubts, her griefs, her great fears, Bektaten poured out to this new friend, inspired by Marupa's tenderness.

  The very worst secret of her soul, Bektaten confided, was that she wished she had never discovered the elixir; and she feared she would never know how to use it to help anyone. It was not like her other potions or curatives, she confessed. And Marupa listened with tears in her eyes without censure or judgment.

  At last Marupa put a request to Bektaten. "Let me give this elixir to the doves of my shrine, the birds sacred to the great Kamrusepa. And let me put before the goddess herself a goblet of this strange concoction, and let Kamrusepa tell us whether this is bad or good, to be destroyed or used, and how it might help all humankind."

  Bektaten had no faith that Kamrusepa even existed. But to Marupa's gentle voice and smile, to Marupa's faith, she yielded.

  And so it was that an altar was set up in the mountain shrine, with a goblet of the elixir and even the secret of the ingredients spelled out in writing on a stone tablet. And indeed the elixir was given to the birds of the shrine. And Marupa told Bektaten to be patient and let the goddess deliver her verdict.

  It did not surprise Bektaten when the goddess, so often talkative and forthcoming, said nothing to her devoted Marupa. Marupa would never have deceived Bektaten. "Wait," said Marupa. "Give the great Kamrusepa time to speak," she said. And Bektaten agreed to it. The altar, the tablet, the goblet, the immortal birds now circling forever about the shrine--all this gave Bektaten a kind of hope. Never mind that that hope might die with Marupa.

  Bektaten went about her wandering in the mountains, visiting the lonely shepherds who had need of her cures, and gathering new plants for which she might have a use, her devoted Enamon and Aktamu with her.

  Then one morning early Bektaten had returned to the shrine to find a small crowd of crude mountain folk weeping at the entrance. All shrank from her in fear when she questioned them. Going in alone, Bektaten found Marupa dead at the foot of Kamrusepa's altar. The elixir in the goblet had been drunk or stolen, and the empty goblet itself lay in fragments on the floor, mingled with the broken pieces of the tablet that had contained the formula.

  Bektaten had let out a scream so dreadful that the country folk had run for their lives. Her devoted companions had been unable to
comfort her. And it fell to them to bury the brave, maverick priestess who had known the whole life of her beloved friend Bektaten.

  That woman, who had never asked for the elixir herself, a woman to whom Bektaten might have given the potion one day with her blessing, had been buried in an unmarked grave on a windswept mountainside.

  "Who has done this thing?" Bektaten demanded of the mountain folk far and wide. "Who has done this sacrilege?"

  She was never to find out. Those she sought to question cowered or shrank from her. Had it been Saqnos? Had he somehow pursued Bektaten here, and stolen not only the elixir itself but the secret of how to make the pure and perfect version?

  Bektaten was never to know.

  At last, she withdrew from the Hittite kingdom, leaving the murder of Marupa unavenged. She abandoned the kingdom to its pestilence and to its wars, as the great Ramses II of Egypt battled the Hittite king, Muwatalli, at Kadesh.

  In time, fate did bring Bektaten close to Saqnos again, only for Bektaten to ascertain that he had not been the thief and the murderer. In the fabled city of Babylon with its one hundred thousand citizens, Enamon and Aktamu spied on Saqnos easily from afar, and bribed his mortal servants for intelligence of him.

  It was plain enough that he had gathered alchemists around him, paying them absurd sums, and constructing a secret laboratorium where he and they desperately sought the pure, uncorrupted form of the elixir he had begged from Bektaten in Jericho. It almost saddened her to see him still lost in the grip of this obsession.

  But she had not confronted him. She had left Babylon without ever speaking to him. However, from then on, she had maintained a network of mortal spies to report to her on Saqnos's whereabouts and doings. At times, the network had failed, and Saqnos had vanished only to be rediscovered at some later date, engaged in the same desperate experiments. Mortals passed on the tales of the mad one who was ever enticing new healers or alchemists with rich bribes and wild promises, the mad one who paid absurd sums for any new plant or cure or potion or purgative on the market.

  Who had stolen the elixir from the slain priestess? Who had murdered Marupa?

  Bektaten looked at the news clippings, both old and new, spread out on the table before her.

  MUMMY'S CURSE KILLS STRATFORD SHIPPING MAGNATE, "RAMSES THE DAMNED" STRIKES DOWN THOSE WHO DISTURB HIS REST

  HEIRESS DEFIES MUMMY'S CURSE, "RAMSES THE DAMNED" TO VISIT LONDON

  And the latest:

  ENGAGEMENT PARTY FOR REGINALD RAMSEY AND JULIE STRATFORD ATTRACTS FAMOUS NOVELIST FROM AMERICA AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

  Could it have been Ramses II himself who blundered into that cave long ago? Could he have been the one who dared to drink the elixir to the dregs and strike down the helpless Marupa with his sword?

  Tales of ancient times told Bektaten nothing. But what of the talk now of "blue eyes," the handsome blue eyes of the enigmatic Egyptian, and then that talk of Julie Stratford's blue eyes--a remarkable result indeed of a fever she'd contracted in Cairo?

  Bektaten rose to stir the fire in the grate, and then to walk about the small stone-walled library before gazing out on the sea-carved landscape before her.

  Time had cooled her rage. It was true. And though the pain she felt for the loss of Marupa would never entirely go away, she had to admit to herself that she felt curiosity now more than a desire for vengeance.

  She settled in her chair once more and scarcely noticed when her beloved cat, Bastet, came into the room, sidling up to the chair to rub her back against its legs and to stir the folds of Bektaten's long robe. Without looking at the animal, Bektaten scooped her up in her arms and kissed her, Bektaten's long fingers massaging her fur and the bones beneath it.

  Bastet gazed up at her mistress with blue eyes--just as she had for the last three hundred years, ever since the day that Bektaten had given the cat the elixir. It was not a cruelty for such animals, Bektaten mused, not for those tender creatures who lived effortlessly in the moment, as all creatures should perhaps, enjoying each moment of being alive without memory or anticipation of anything more than a meal of fish or lamb, or a bowl of clean cool water.

  "There are times when I wish I knew no more than you know, my pretty," said Bektaten, lifting the cat so that she might feel the silken fur against her cheek. "There are times when I wished I knew nothing."

  Ramses the Damned. Mummy's curse. Legends.

  Three thousand years had passed since Bektaten had knelt weeping in that cave, and the dread pharaoh of Egypt led his armies on their rampage on the banks of the Orontes River in the land of the Hittites. Surely he had learned much since then, just as Bektaten herself had learned. And maybe that was far more important than bringing the doomed king's life to a close with a touch of the strangle lily. But then again, maybe not. Bektaten had more to study, more to ponder, more to learn about the man called Reginald Ramsey.

  16

  They gathered in the castle keep as dawn's first light broke across the roaring sea outside.

  They had dressed the part of British gentlemen, her loyal servants, in shirt and tie and raglan overcoats and derby hats. Both men were so tall their clothes had to be tailored specifically for them.

  Her own height was the reason she preferred the swaddling of robes and linens to elegant garments. She maintained a trunk full of fashions suitable to every social occasion, a wardrobe befitting a member of a royal family on perpetual holiday. But when she enjoyed relative solitude, she had no patience for such ensembles, no patience for foundation garments her tall, slender figure did not need.

  The hats her men wore were an amusing touch. Far too small, teetering atop their heads like molded, ill-fitting crowns. As they began to recount what they had witnessed, she passed between them, removed their hats, and set them on the grand console table against the nearest stone wall.

  Now she would not be distracted from their words.

  Of the two men, Enamon had always been the more forceful. Aktamu, on the other hand, had a quiet, introspective nature complemented by his round, boyish face. Perhaps Enamon's bent nose, a reminder of his mortal tilt towards physical confrontation, only made him seem more aggressive, or perhaps it was his age; he had been a few years older than Aktamu when they were made.

  But any mortal years which had once separated the two men made for a meaningless division now, Bektaten thought. Both had lived centuries. They were now equals in experience and acquired wisdom. And yet, this difference in temperament flared up every now and then, particularly when she asked them to work together on a mission of great importance. It seemed to exist in the very fiber of their beings, preserved forever in the elixir's grip.

  "He is immortal, this Mr. Ramsey," Enamon said. "I'm sure of it. His eyes are the very right shade of blue and he does not sleep. The windows of the house in Mayfair glowed at all hours and he made love to his fiancee throughout the night."

  "And his fiancee?" she asked.

  "She wears dark glasses much of the time. The newspapers say that she experienced a fever in Egypt that changed the color of her eyes. We are almost certain that she is indeed immortal."

  "But there is something else," Aktamu said, his voice a soft whisper next to Enamon's confident baritone. "We were not alone."

  "What do you mean by this?" she asked.

  "There were others watching the house," Aktamu continued, "they did not see us, but we saw them. I followed them. Enamon remained behind so as to collect a full night's report on the house in Mayfair, as you instructed."

  "The fracti of Saqnos? Here, now?"

  "We don't know. Perhaps not."

  "What did you see when you followed these others?"

  "It was one man who led me to others. He drove with great speed. I followed him to a vast estate halfway between London and the area they now call Yorkshire."

  Aktamu's facility with the map of this island was good and helpful. When she had taken several long sleeps in the past, she had set her beloved assistants free to explore the wo
rld. So Enamon and Aktamu had spent some time here, while she had not. This would be valuable.

  "And this man, he was immortal?" she asked.

  "It was dark and the hour was late," Aktuma answered. "But this estate, it is known and it has a name. Havilland Park. A grand place. Sprawling, with high gates. And others were arriving."

  "Arriving? How do you mean, Aktamu?"

  "Beyond the gates, I glimpsed a driveway filled with cars. Various types. The lights in the estate's front rooms were ablaze even at the late hour. And another car arrived shortly after the man I followed. A man and a woman, elegantly dressed. I was too far away to see their faces. Had there not been so much activity, I would have scaled the walls and explored further. But this seemed a risk. I thought to consult you first. Perhaps you wanted to take a different approach."

  Aktamu cast a glance at the slinky, gray cat rubbing itself against Bektaten's ankles.

  "This is good, Aktamu," she answered. "This is wise."

  Bektaten scooped the cat up into her arms, ran her fingernails along the length of its spine with a pressure that made it purr and lick the fingers of her other hand. How she loved this creature.

  "These people of Havilland Park," Aktamu said. "We recognized them as people we had seen in the streets of London, spying on Ramsey and his paramour as well. They gather at a late hour. They are either immortals, or people so caught up in the planning of something, that they find sleep impossible."

  "Or both, my queen," Enamon offered.

  "Indeed."

  For a long while, none of them spoke. The sound of the surf crashing against the rocks below made for a kind of meditative chant that allowed Bektaten to absorb what she had been told.

  "He is the thief," she finally said. "Ramses the Great is the thief of the elixir. I know this now. The sword that killed my beloved Marupa was powerful, bronze. I should have seen it. I was too fearful of Saqnos. I should have seen that Ramses the Great's near century of life was only the beginning."

  "You did see it, my queen," Aktamu encouraged. "That is why we are here now."

  He was being generous. She had seen it only recently.

  And so, apparently, had someone else.