by Anne Rice
"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 he knew that he could not take refuge in Lord Rutherford's shadow. On the contrary, he dreaded another run-in. He would keep to himself.
Seven o'clock.
Julie stood before the mirror in her sitting room. She had put on the low-cut gown that violently disturbed Ramses, but then she had no other appropriate clothing for this inane occasion. As she watched Elliott through the mirror, he fastened her pearls at the back of her neck.
Elliott always looked better than almost anyone around him. Trim, still handsome at fifty-five, he wore white tie and tails as if they were entirely natural to him.
And it struck her as faintly horrible that they could resume like this, as if nothing had happened. They might as well have been in London; Egypt was a nightmare suddenly; only Julie was not ready to wake up.
"And so here we are in our feathers," she said, "ready to do our ritual dance.''
"Remember, until he's apprehended, which he won't be, we have every right to presume he's innocent. And carry on as if he were."
"It's monstrous and you know it."
"It's necessary."
"For Alex, yes. And Alex hasn't seen fit to call us all day. As for myself, it doesn't matter."
"You have to go back to London," he said. "I want you to go back to London."
"I'll always love you," she said. "You're flesh and blood to me, really, you always have been. But what you want doesn't matter anymore." She turned around.
Up close she could see the evidence of the strain in him; he'd aged, the way Randolph had suddenly aged when he'd heard of Lawrence's death. He was as handsome as ever, but now there was a tragic quality to it; a certain philosophical sadness had replaced the old twinkle in his eye.
"I can't go back to London," she said. "But I will get Alex on that train."
Destroy the elixir. He stood before the mirror. He had put on most of the required garments, taken from the trunk of Lawrence Stratford-the shining black trousers, shoes, belt. Naked from the waist up, he stared at his own reflection. The money-belt girded him as it had since he left London. And the vials gleamed in their canvas pockets.
Destroy the elixir. Never use it again.
He lifted the stiff white shirt and put it on carefully, working the impossible buttons. He saw Elliott Savarell's drawn and weary face. You will persuade Julie to go back to London-until this is over,
Beyond the windows, the city of Cairo seethed quietly with the great noise of modern cities, a sound he had never heard in ancient times.
Where was she, the dark-haired queen with the violent blue eyes? He saw her again, sighing under him, her head thrown back on the pillows, same flesh. "Suckle me!" she'd cried out as she had done so long ago; back arched like a cat. And then the smile on her face; a stranger's smile.
"Yes, Master Alex," Walter said into the telephone, "to suite two-oh-one, I'll bring your clothes right away. But do call your father in Miss Stratford's suite. He's eager to get in touch with you. He's worried that he hasn't seen you all day. So much has happened, Master Alex-'' But the connection was already broken. Quickly he rang Miss Stratford. No answer. He had no time. He had to hurry with the clothes.
Cleopatra stood at the window. She had dressed in the gorgeous gown of pure silver which she had taken from the poor woman in the little shop. Ropes of pearls fell down over the swell of her breasts. She had never done her hair properly; in a dark black veil it hung down about her, moist still from the bath, and full of perfume, and she liked it. It made her smile bitterly to think it was like being a girl again.
Running through the palace gardens, her hair her cloak.
"I like your world, Lord Alex," she said as she watched the winking lights of Cairo under the paling evening sky. The stars seemed so lost above th
is dazzling splendor. Even the headlamps moving through the streets had a soothing beauty. "Yes, I like your world. I like everything about it. I want to have money and power in it; and for you to be at my side."
She turned. He was staring at her as if she'd hurt him. She ignored the knock at the door.
"Dearest, those things don't always go hand in hand in my world," he said. "Lands, a title, education-these I have, but money I do not."
"Don't worry," she said, so relieved it was only that. "I shall acquire the wealth, my lord, that's nothing. Not when one is invulnerable. But there are some scores I must settle first. I must hurt someone who has hurt me. I must take from him . . . what he took from me."
The knock sounded again. As if waking from a dream, he took his eyes off her and went to the door. A servant. His evening clothes had come.
"Your father's already left, sir. Your tickets will be at the box office under his name."
"Thank you, Walter."
There was barely time for him to dress. As he shut the door, he looked at her again, curiously, with that little touch of sadness.
"Not now," she said, quickly kissing him. "And we may use these tickets, may we not?" She picked up off the dressing table the pair she'd stolen from the poor dead boy in the alleyway, the little papers which said "Admit One."
"But I want you to meet my father, I want you to meet all of them. I want them to meet you."
"Of course you do, and I shall, soon enough. But let us be alone somewhere lost in the crowd so that we can be together. We shall see them when it suits us. Please?"
He wanted to protest, but she was kissing him, stroking his hair again. "Let me have a chance to see your lost love Julie Stratford from a distance."
"Oh, but none of that matters now," he said.
8
ANOTHER MODERN palace-the Opera House, swarming with bejeweled women in gowns the colors of the rainbow, and the men beside them, elegant in white and black. How curious it was, all colors belonging to the females. The males wore uniforms, it seemed, each perfectly identical with the other. She blurred her eyes, to see the reds and blues dancing independently of all detail.
She watched the great surge up the grand staircase. She felt admiring glances on her; the soft glaze of admiration like a light on her skin.
Lord Summerfield beamed at her with pride and affection. "You are the Queen here," he whispered, cheeks flushed again for an instant. He turned to one of the merchants peddling strange little instruments the purpose of which she couldn't guess.
"Opera glasses," he said as he handed them to her. "And the program, yes, please."
"But what are they?" she asked.
He gave a startled little laugh. "You did fall from heaven, didn't you?'' His lips touched her neck and then her cheek. "Put them to your eyes, adjust them until they come into focus. Yes, that's it. You see?"
She was shocked. She jumped back as the people on the upper gallery appeared to loom over her.
"What a curious tiling. What makes it happen?"
"Magnification," he said. "Pieces of glass." How delighted he seemed that she'd never heard of it. She wondered how Ramses had mastered all these little secrets; Ramses, whose "mysterious tomb" had been discovered only a month ago by "poor Lawrence," who was now dead. Ramses, who told "in the scrolls'' of his love for Cleopatra. Was it really possible that Alex didn't know that the mummy and his nemesis Ramsey were the same?
But how could he grasp it? With only the inane story of the disreputable cousin to link the two? Had she believed when the old priest had led her into the cave?
Chimes sounded. "The opera's going to begin."
They moved up the stairs together. It seemed to her a brilliant light surrounded both of them, separated them from others, and others could see this light, and cast their glances carefully, perceiving that it was love. Love. She did love him; it was not a full-blooded love such as she'd known for Antony; that hurtling through darkness and destruction because one cannot resist another, one cannot live with him or without him, and one goes on, knowing full well that one is being destroyed.
No, this was a newborn love, fresh and gentle as Alex was, but it was love. Julie Stratford had been a fool not to love him; but then Ramses could seduce the goddess Isis. Had there not been Antony, she would never have loved anyone but Ramses. That he had always understood.
Ramses the father, the judge, the teacher; Antony the bad boy with whom she'd run away. Playing in the royal bedchamber like children; drunk; mad; answerable to no one; until Ramses had appeared after all those years.
This is what you've done with your freedom? Your life?
The question was, what would she do with her freedom now? Why did the pain not cripple her? Because this newborn world was too magnificent. Because she had what she had dreamed of in those last few months, when the Roman armies swarmed over Egypt, when Antony was desperate and full of delusions: another chance. Another chance, without the weight of a love that was dragging her down into those dark waves forever; another chance without a hatred for Ramses, who wouldn't save her doomed lover; who wouldn't forgive her for being doomed herself.
"Your Highness, I'm losing you again," he said intimately.
|'No, you're not," she said. The lights swam around her. "I'm with you, Lord Alex." The high crystal light fixture above was full of tiny sparkling rainbows; she could hear the faint tinkle of glass as it moved in the breeze from the open doors.
"Oh, but look, there they are!" Alex said suddenly, pointing up to where the banister curved and ran away from the top of die stairs.
The noise died around her; the lights; the crowds, the soft communal excitement. Ramses stood there!
Ramses in modem raiment, and beside him the woman, of considerable beauty, young and fragile as Alex was fragile, her auburn hair brushed exquisitely back from her face. A flash of dark eyes as she looked at them and did not see them. And Lord Rutherford, dear Lord Rutherford, struggling on his silver cane. Did Ramses really fool the mortals around him? This giant of a man, his face glistening with immortal vigor, hair a tousled mane. And the woman-she had not been given it. She was mortal still. Desperately, fearfully, she clung to Ramses' arm.
"Darling, not now," she begged.
Onward the party moved, the crowd swallowing them.
"But dearest, just to tell them that we're here. Why, this is splendid, it means Ramsey's been cleared. Everything's back to normal. Pitfield worked the miracle."
"Give me this time, Alex, I beg you!" Had her tone become imperious?
"All right, Your Highness," he said with a forgiving smile.
Away from them! She felt desperate, as if she were suffocating. Reaching the top of the stairs, she glanced back. They had gone into a far doorway draped with velvet. And Alex was taking her in another direction. Thank the gods for this.
"Well, it seems we're at the opposite end of the dress circle," he said to her, smiling. "But how can you be so shy when you're so lovely? When you're more beautiful than any woman I've ever beheld?"
"I'm jealous of you, of the hours we've spent together. Believe me, the world will ruin it, Lord Alex."
"Ah, that's not possible," he said with utter innocence.
Elliott stood at the curtained doorway. "Where on earth can Alex be? What could possess him to wander off at a time like this? Oh, this is past all patience."
"Elliott, Alex is the least of our worries!" Julie said. "He's probably found another American heiress. The third consecutive love of his life in one week."
Elliott gave a faintly bitter smile as they went on into the box. The woman he'd glimpsed in the car had been all hat, ribbons and hair flying. Maybe it was just the bit of good fortune his son required.
A curved tier; a giant amphitheatre save it was covered over; and only one-half of the oval. At the far end lay the stage, obviously, hidden by a wall of soft shimmering curtains; and sunk beneath and before it, a gathering of men and women making horrid sounds with their stringed instr
uments and horns. She put her hands to her ears.
Alex led her down the little step to the front row of this small section. The soft red chairs at the railing were theirs. She turned to her left. Across the dimly lighted gulf she saw Ramses! She saw the pale-faced woman, with large sad eyes. Lord Rutherford had settled directly behind them; and at his arm was a dark-skinned Egyptian, beautifully clad as the other men.
She tried to take her eyes off them; she did not fully understand the tumult inside her, as she continued to stare. Then Ramses put his arm around the woman. He embraced her tightly as if to comfort her, and the woman lowered her eyes, and there was a sudden glisten of tears on her cheeks! Ramses kissed this woman, and the woman, inclining towards him, returned his kiss!