The Passion of Cleopatra Page 23

  The servant, or whoever he was, complied, and the woman went with him.

  In the tunnel, they acted too soon. She repeated these words in her mind. And so the trap into which she'd fallen had not been meant for her. But still they had confined her. Unwanted yet imprisoned. It is not her, the man had said. So the trap had been set for a woman.

  As she had fallen, she'd been sure it was Julie who had done it, who made the floor in the temple vanish from underfoot. That all of it had been a terrible ruse; Julie Stratford's sweetness, her repeated statements that she desired only to help. But she remembered now the startled look on Julie's face, the way she'd flung her arm out to stop Cleopatra from teetering and then falling through the hole.

  It is not her...

  Julie Stratford hadn't set the trap. These immortals had set the trap for Julie Stratford.

  But why?

  And more important, would she herself now be released?

  Whoever these immortals were, better were her chances of escape if they didn't learn her identity.

  The slat closed with a terrible grinding sound.

  The darkness closed around her. She blessed it. It gave her time to think and breathe.

  Her heightened senses couldn't detect departing footsteps. And so the door was incredibly thick, incredibly heavy. Designed to hold back the strength of one like herself.

  But did they know she was immortal? Had they peeled back her eyelids while she'd been lost in her dream?

  No telling...

  The slat opened again. She jumped.

  "Look at me," the man said.

  She turned her face to the wall.

  "Look at me!"

  She refused.

  "Did you hear those hounds? Do you hear the dogs, still barking at the sound of how you cried out? Obey me or I will set them loose upon you, right here in this cell."

  "Then I will tear them limb from limb with my bare hands," she cried. It was the contempt in the man's voice that caused her to snap. And in doing so, she'd turned her face to the light and given him a perfect look at her blue eyes. A terrible mistake. For now he gazed at her with a wondrous expression. His smile looked triumphant.

  Too late, she turned her face to the wall again.

  "And so our trap may yield the wrong woman, but it has snared another immortal," the man said. "This is interesting. This is most interesting."

  "Bring me your dogs and I shall do what I can to deepen their interest in me as well."

  "They are as strong as you are. It should make for quite a spectacle. Do you fancy yourself a Roman gladiator? I watched many of them work in the Colosseum. You lack their build."

  "They lacked my sharp eye."

  He laughed.

  But still, the thought of immortal, powerfully strong hounds descending upon her in this cell, it chilled her. But she couldn't display this feeling. Not to this strange being. This strange male who had sought to place Julie Stratford in this very cell, perhaps so he could menace her in just this way.

  But he has the elixir! He must!

  And how awful the choice seemed now. How impossible. To charm the cure to her ailment from this reluctant, vile captor, or to seek her escape so she might confront Ramses once more.

  If she could get free, would Julie take pity on her as she had in that temple turned trap? Would this be enough to convince Ramses to give her another dose?

  Mustn't show any evidence of this struggle to her captor. But once she'd done it, she realized turning her face back to the wall did that very thing.

  "I must say," the man said, "even though your arrival here is most unexpected, you do look remarkably familiar. Yours is a face I've seen before, long before...."

  And then, as if to torture her with these words, he closed the slat with a great scrape she could feel in her bones. And outside, somewhere on the grounds of this place, his dogs continued to howl.

  31

  Cornwall

  Shaktanu...

  Ramses had heard the name before. In the time when he had ruled as king, a name that conjured legends and fantasy and a naive belief in a more perfect, golden age. A time free of warfare and strife, brought down by the inexplicable fury of remote gods. Shaktanu, an African kingdom, a fantasy connected with remote jungles now covering innumerable rumors, jungles from which ivory and gold and jewels and slaves had once come.

  Not so naive, this belief, he now realized.

  As Bektaten spoke of its lands, of its networks of ships that had sailed the world, of temples whose ruins had yet to be discovered and might never be, of a world lost to the plague and tribal warfare that succeeded its fall, it was clear she told only the truth. Indeed, she had settled into her role as historian, archivist, and storyteller with absolute ease, and Ramses now found himself entirely under her spell. If her wide-eyed gaze was any indication, Julie had fallen under the queen's spell as well.

  Shaktanu.

  When he had first awakened in this century, he hadn't noted the absence of this kingdom's name from any of the history books he'd devoured, even the popular mythologies of ancient lost kingdoms. But he was keenly aware of it now.

  And this woman before him had been queen of Shaktanu; and the man who had sought to abduct Julie that afternoon, its prime minister.

  He should have known.

  This thought returned to him again and again as she spoke, as she showed them her leather-bound journals written entirely in ancient, unrecognizable script. Like no language he had ever seen, this script. Pre-scribal. Closer to the Roman alphabet than hieroglyphs, but with symbols interspersed that seemed almost like pictograms. She called these journals the Shaktanis, even though they also chronicled her life in the thousands of years since that kingdom's fall.

  I should have known, he thought again.

  He should have known that something as magical and momentous as the elixir could not have been dashed together by a madwoman living in a cave. Had this been naive of him or just reckless? But by Bektaten's own admission, the elixir's discovery had, in fact, been an accident. She had not even been searching for the secret to eternal life, but for tonics and cures for everyday ailments. And so perhaps he should forgive himself his blindness, just as she sought to forgive herself for not seeing his immortal wisdom as it had guided so many rulers of Egypt.

  But her discovery of him had been no accident.

  And she had spared his life, even though she had the power to destroy him.

  Before the expanse of her history, he felt a great humility. And with this humility came relief, for he was no longer the lone ancient among newly made immortals.

  But had she brought him here to stand trial?

  If so, why was she being so generous with her story?

  Why was she taking great pains to care for this Sibyl Parker?

  Perhaps, for now, she sought only to educate him and be educated in return.

  But would all that change when she learned he had used her creation to awaken Cleopatra?

  Footsteps startled all three of them. It was the one she called Aktamu, the one with the young face.

  "She is awake," he said. "Sibyl Parker is awake."

  "Then we will go to her," Bektaten said.

  *

  In a great four-poster bed, Sibyl Parker lay propped up on a mountain of pillows. As Ramses approached, her face seemed to dance in the flickering light from the fire. He was relieved to see her pale neck free of wounds. Curled next to the twin lumps of her feet was a slender gray cat who watched his approach with unnerving intensity.

  Even though he had entered this bedchamber with Bektaten and Julie at his side, Sibyl seemed to see only him. And in her expression, he saw the same recognition he felt when he'd looked upon her across the crowded party.

  Aktamu and Enamon stood silently in the far corner, closest to the window, and Bektaten next to the fireplace, as still as a statue, as if she thought a safe remove from all of them would allow her to absorb whatever strange story Sibyl Parker had brought to he
r castle.

  "You saved me," Sibyl whispered. "You saved me from that terrible man."

  "Are you well, Sibyl Parker?" Ramses asked. "Are you unharmed?"

  "How do you know my name? Do you recognize me as well?"

  Before he could answer, Julie stepped forward and said, "It was I who recognized you. I know your books quite well. My father, Lawrence Stratford, enjoyed them."

  "And now I have thoroughly ruined your engagement party." Tears filled Sibyl's eyes. Tears and a piteous expression made worse by exhaustion, he was sure. "I hope you can forgive me."

  "No, no." Julie rounded the foot of the bed, then sat down on the opposite side of it so she could take Sibyl's hand in hers. "Nothing of the kind."

  "She speaks the truth," Ramses said. "You were but one of several extraordinary and unexpected guests."

  "Well, that is a most polite way of putting it. I thank you. But that man. That crazy, drunken man--"

  "You have nothing more to fear from him." The note of finality in his voice brought about a long silence. "Now, please, Miss Parker. You must tell us what brought you all this way. You are American, are you not? Your accent."

  Ramses said nothing of the woman's mysterious demeanor, nothing of her expression so suggestive of the long-lost Cleopatra, the Cleopatra who was as dead as ever now. He said nothing of the bizarre effect upon him of this woman's manner and voice.

  Sibyl seemed to realize for the first time that Julie held one of her hands in between her own, and this made her smile. "Oh, Lord. Where do I begin?" Sibyl whispered.

  "Wherever you would like," Julie said, "for we are in no great hurry."

  "This is most kind. You are most kind. It is like a dream that you are all being so kind. You see, most of my life I've been a woman of distinct and powerful dreams. Dreams of Egypt, mostly...Oh, I'm afraid it makes so little sense, what I've been through."

  Ramses smiled. "You have come to the right place, Miss Parker. We are experts in that which does not make very much sense."

  "Good," she said, through her gentle laughter and her tears. "Good."

  Julie filled Sibyl's water glass and pressed it into the woman's trembling hand.

  After she drank, she began again.

  "As I told you, all my life I've experienced vivid dreams of Egypt. But there was one in particular which recurred again and again. I could always remember only fragments of it when I awoke, and those fragments felt more like an awareness, or a knowledge of what had taken place, rather than an actual recollection. But in this one dream in particular, I am aware that I am a queen. And you, Mr. Ramsey, or a man who looks exactly like you, you are my guardian. And I am also aware in this dream that you are immortal somehow.

  "One night, you arrive at my chambers carrying the clothes of a common woman, and you ask me to dress in them so that we may walk through my kingdom. So that I may view my people through a different pair of eyes. A commoner's eyes. Compassionate, sympathetic eyes. And I obey. Because it is you, my immortal counselor, who has made the request, I obey. And together, we make this journey on foot.

  "But when I would awake from this dream, I would remember almost nothing of the city we've walked through, and nothing of your face. Only the sense that I felt nothing for you but love and respect and awe. I have written and published an entire novel inspired by this dream, you understand? And then when I saw you at the party today, I realized this man, my immortal guide, was you.

  "You see, I crossed an ocean because you've appeared in other dreams of mine. More recent dreams. Terrible dreams. And then someone sent me a news clipping with your picture in it, and there you were. But only when I laid eyes upon you in the flesh for the first time did I realize you were the missing piece from a dream that has been with me my entire life. So I ask you now, how can this be? And is it possible that it was more than a dream?"

  Ramses reflected. If they continued on this path, if his suspicions about what had brought Sibyl Parker here were correct, he would soon have no choice but to reveal his great crime to Bektaten. But Julie's look implored him to answer Sibyl's question as honestly as he could.

  "Yes, it is far more than a dream, Sibyl Parker. The city was Alexandria. I was, indeed, your immortal counselor. And you were Cleopatra."

  Like a thunderbolt this news hit her. She tightened her grip on Julie's hand. It seemed she might lose her tenuous hold on the moment, on this place, and slip into dreams so deep she might never come back from them. But she struggled to concentrate, to ignore a vast undiscovered country of memories and sensations and voices.

  "It is not a dream," he said. "It is a memory. A memory from a former life."

  "And from your former life?" Sibyl whispered.

  "No," he answered. "No, from my continuing life, for I am immortal, and I have lived for thousands of years. And so what you experienced today at the party, it was an experience without compare."

  "How do you mean?" Sibyl asked.

  "You, for the first time, looked upon someone you had known in a past life. And not a reincarnated version of the person, but the person himself. In the flesh. And this experience by itself was powerful enough to make your vague dream into a coherent memory."

  "You. You are from a...past life?"

  "Yes."

  Sibyl shook her head gently and Julie pressed one palm to her forehead to comfort her. Again it seemed Sibyl might lose her hold on the moment, and that the long shadowy and undiscovered country would claim her. But against the pull of a dark wonderland, she clung to a purpose. To live now, to live and think and know now.

  For a while, no one spoke, and there was only the rumbling of the sea.

  A sense of resignation quieted Ramses. He did not look back over his shoulder at Bektaten, to see how the great queen responded to this new intelligence. No one in this room understood better than Ramses the prerogatives of ancient monarchs, the divine authority that had surrounded them, and the swiftness with which they might judge or act. But I too am a monarch, he thought, born and bred a monarch, born and bred with authority, and I must protect not only myself but my beloved Julie. Whatever is to come, I will be Ramses as I have always been.

  "These other dreams," Julie finally said, "the more recent ones, the ones in which you also saw Ramses. Describe them to us."

  "In the first one, it was as if I were coming out of darkness, out of death itself. I saw you standing over me, and when I reached for you, my hands, they were a skeleton's hands, and you were terrified."

  "My God," Julie whispered. "The Cairo Museum. Almost exactly as it happened."

  "In another, there were two great trains, bearing down on me out of darkness, and then fire. Terrible fire everywhere. And then, in another..." Tears spilled from her eyes now, but she still bravely tried to recall every detail. "I took life. My hands. I closed my hands around a woman's throat and I took her life. It was as if I did not know what I was doing. And the very fact that life could be taken by my bare hands, it was a source of great confusion...." And then it became too much for her, and she shook her head as if to banish these thoughts.

  "It's exactly as I suspected," Julie said.

  She looked to Ramses, but he could not speak.

  Guilt paralyzed him, filled his throat with something that felt like cloth, for here it was again, another consequence of the crime he'd committed in the Cairo Museum, the crime against life and death, against nature, against fate. They were ceaseless, the repercussions of this terrible event, and now this poor mortal woman had been laid low by it, and his terrible actions were being exposed to a queen whose existence had been entirely unknown to him before this day. He could think of nothing to say in this moment, nothing to do besides take Sibyl's other hand in an effort to comfort her. The face he revealed to Julie was strong, confident, a monarch's mask for the turmoil within.

  Julie had slipped one arm around the woman's shoulders, and brought Sibyl Parker's head to her breast. Tenderly Julie supported her even as she rested amidst these silken bed pillo
ws and luxurious covers.

  "Our Cleopatra of the Cairo Museum is ill," Julie explained. "In the temple today she could barely stand upright. She had difficulty walking. Her skin was shining and her eyes too vibrant. She bore all the marks of one who had consumed the elixir. The vitality, the physical health. But there was an illness within her. A deep illness in her mind, she said. And at the very moment when you, Sibyl, were assaulted by that awful man, it was as if she experienced the assault as well. Every blow. There is a connection between you two, a vital connection that was awakened when our Cleopatra opened her eyes in the Cairo Museum."

  "When I awakened her," Ramses said, "which I never should have done." He gave a deep sigh, his eyes moving over the ceiling. "These dreams you had, Sibyl Parker," he said. "These nightmares, they were all connected to this newly arisen Cleopatra as she roamed Cairo only months ago. The two of you have been connected since she woke."

  He shook his head, all Julie's talk of soulless clones returning to him, deepening his sense of horror for what he had done.

  "Because you, Sibyl, are Cleopatra reborn," Julie said excitedly. "You're the vessel for her true spirit."

  "We don't know this, Julie," Ramses said. "It may be true, but maybe it is not true. You speak of things no one can know for certain." Such anguish. What had possessed him as he had stood there in the museum with the vial of the elixir in his hand? He'd been a man then in the most tragic sense of the word, a fumbling and imperfect human being, struggling with a god's power and a lover's broken heart.

  "We don't know this?" Julie questioned him. "Ramses, what other explanation could there be? This resurrected Cleopatra is an aberration. I've always known it. She was never meant to exist. The true soul of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, had long ago moved on in its journey--living and dying in countless others, and finally being reborn in this all-too-human American woman, Sibyl Parker. The clone reaches out desperately for the soul in Sibyl Parker, because the clone has no soul. And Sibyl profits from this, while the clone sinks deeper into a decline."

  "You see me as profiting from this?" Sibyl whispered.

  Julie was startled into silence by this response. She appeared flustered, unable to find the right words for what she had meant to say.

  "I have been besieged by visions," said Sibyl, "many of them terrifying. Paralyzing. They grip me in public places and quite literally bring me to my knees. What were once only nightmares, they have begun to spill into my days. This process you describe. In which one of us rises, while the other one falls, it is not what I have experienced, Julie. It is not what I experience now."