“What do you mean by that?” I demanded.
But it was too late. No sooner had the words left my mouth before he disappeared into thin air yet again and I was left standing alone in the hallway, talking to myself.
CHAPTER TEN
Cleopatra was already in a panic when I arrived in her rooms.
“Charmian, all is lost.”
She was wringing her hands and distress practically dripped from her face. Adrenaline instantly burst through me in reaction.
“What is it, my queen? Has Pothinus…”
“No, no. Not that cur.” She turned her frantic gaze toward me.
“I have come to terms with what you told me. My whole life is lost, Charmian. It is lost.”
She collapsed into a heap on the floor and began rocking with her eyes closed. Her alarm was contagious and my heart pounded hard against my sternum as I watched her composure disintegrate.
I rushed across the room and knelt in front of her.
“Cleopatra,” I started firmly, grasping her arms. “You have to pull yourself together. We cannot do what we must unless you are calm and clear-headed. You are a queen, your highness. You have been bred to make difficult decisions. All is not lost. It’s only a matter of perspective.”
She raised bleary eyes to me and whimpered and I felt my heart break just a little more.
“So, you are saying that we won’t die—that Hasani and Antony won’t die? And I won’t lose my throne to Rome?”
She paused her muted hysteria, tiny glimmering rays of hope emerging in her dark eyes. Hopeful of what? That I had lied before? I didn’t know what to say, so I stared at her helplessly for a minute before answering.
“No, my queen. That is not what I’m saying. Everything I said before is true. We will all die. But we go on to live in other lives. You will live over and over. And you are always magnificent and important.”
She whimpered again and dropped her head back down, her hair swinging forward and surrounding her face like a curtain. I brushed it back for her and tucked it behind her ears.
“My queen, I’m sorry. To expect your usual composure and grace in the face of this enormity is unfair. But I still need to ask it. I need you to be the strong leader that I know you are. You’re the strongest person that I know.”
“You’re right,” she agreed softly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I am strong, aren’t I?”
As I nodded, I felt the soft texture of the papyrus in my hand, reminding me of why I was here. And now was just as good a time as any to show her. She was already upset. I handed it to her and watched confusion and then realization ripple over her lovely face.
And then she started wailing.
There was nothing I could do but stand by calmly and wait, as I stroked her back comfortingly. Her eyes finally flew open and stared at me in panic.
“What can we do, Charmian? What shall we do?”
Her voice was drenched in hopelessness and I flinched. I had never heard that from her before and I had to be honest and admit that it unnerved me. She was the strong, confident queenly one. Her distress just drove home our dire situation like a stake to the heart. We were screwed. But we were screwed in every life. She just didn’t know that.
“I don’t know, Cleopatra,” I murmured quietly. “I suppose I will just meet him and see what happens.”
“You’ll see what happens? How is that a plan?” She screeched. “We need to think this through! We can’t make a mistake- not with fate itself hanging in the balance. You’ve already said that everything hinges on us- on our decisions. We cannot allow him to ruin everything. He must have taken Iras for some specific reason- probably to strong-arm us into doing something. But what?”
She wrung her hands as she stood and paced restlessly across her carpets, before she finally sank onto her cushioned vanity table stool.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I am the queen of Egypt. My life was not supposed to end like this.”
Her eyes were unfocused and wild and my alarm grew.
“Cleopatra, you must calm yourself. We cannot think of a plan if you are hysterical.”
As I spoke, I grasped her shoulders and silently willed her to calm. As I felt each vein in my hand throb against my palm, I literally felt peace from inside of me ebb into her. I had no idea how I knew to do it, but it didn’t matter. It was working. I kept my voice quiet and soothing, a difficult feat in the face of her hysteria.
She looked at me in utter amazement, and I could see that my surprising little parlor trick had worked. Her breathing had slowed, her chest was no longer heaving, her eyes became focused and bright.
Leveling her obsidian gaze at me, she murmured coolly, “Who are you and what have you done with my friend? You’re not the calm one, I am. How did you do that?”
I smiled, crossing the room to kneel next to her, grasping one of her hands within my own.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you’re the calm one. And I don’t know how I did that. I keep discovering interesting tricks like that. But Cleopatra, I want you to realize that this is not the end. It will only be the end of Charmian and Cleopatra. We’ll be other people and have other full lives. And I know that if we fall apart now, either one of us, we will accomplish nothing.”
She nodded slowly, her astonishment still evident on her face.
“Who will I be, Charmian?” She turned watery eyes to me. “In the next life, who will I be?”
“That’s something I don’t know, Cleopatra. I am not able to recall anything between the time that we died here and the time that I am reborn 2,000 years from now. That’s the way the Order works- it’s for our own protection, to ensure that we are able to do what we must.”
She nodded and stared absently into space, tapping her toe nervously against the stool leg.
“Cleopatra, you were right. This particular incident with Pothinus wasn’t meant to happen. But this is just a blip. A mistake. And we will fix it. As long as we are able to figure out what he wants, we can continue with our lives as we were meant and everything will be fine.”
“How will we do that?” A level of calmness had returned to her voice and I felt a rush of relief. This was the woman I knew and loved.
“I’m not sure just yet. We’ll figure out something. I need to speak with Ahmose. He’ll surely have some ideas.”
I noticed that she was staring in fascination at my pendant.
“You have your bloodstone! How did you retrieve it?”
“I didn’t. Annen delivered it to me.”
“You saw Annen! Did he say anything about Tehran or…“
“No, he didn’t. And he disappeared before I could ask. But he was cryptic enough—he wanted me to have my bloodstone for my meeting with Pothinus tonight. He said I would need it.”
“Then by all means, make sure you wear it. We cannot take chances with your safety.”
I looked up at her with my eyebrows raised. “You think it offers me protection?”
“I know not. But the powers that you have described it as having… they are strong. Who knows that it doesn’t offer you protection as well? May I see it?”
I pulled it out of my tunic and over my head so that it could set it on my upturned palm. She reached for it, but I stepped back.
“No, don’t, your highness. I don’t know how it would affect you. You were right in that it’s magic is powerful. You shouldn’t touch it.”
I was secretly terrified that it would trigger her other memories, in the same way that it released mine every life. She would have a nervous break-down.
She nodded. “You’re probably right. But wear it tonight, sweet.”
“I am never without it, my queen. And perhaps you are right and it has abilities that I don’t even know about. Maybe it will work some sort of magic tonight,” I tacked on wryly. She shot a glare at me.
“I’m not doubting!” I assured her. “I was just saying that I hope it works. I haven’t actually seen it pro
tect anything yet.”
“It will if you believe that it will,” she muttered as she re-seated herself at her vanity and arranged her cosmetics jars neatly in front of her. Antony’s words from the other night came back to me. Cleopatra did have the ability to believe that she could wish things into reality. Not so.
“We should prepare for dinner,” I changed the subject. “No one must know that there is anything amiss.”
I calmly picked up her brush and began the evening ritual of winding her hair neatly so that it could be tucked away under a wig for dinner.
As I worked, I felt the constant heavy presence of the bloodstone against my chest. Regardless of being nestled against my warm body, the stone remained cold. Almost as big as my fist, it was obviously visible under the thin material of my shift. I found myself absently wondering if it did possess powers that I was unaware of. My current situation was a glaring reminder that I hadn’t seen everything yet.
I finished her makeup and dug into her armoire for a jeweled collar. I chose an intricate blue-beaded affair that would look lovely topping her white linen sheath. Fastening it, I stood back and gazed at her. She looked perfectly normal, every inch the queen that she was.
Gazing into the mirror, I found that I, on the other hand, looked out of sorts. My cheeks were flushed in excitement and worry and tendrils of my simple bun had escaped, drifting around my face. Cleopatra followed my gaze.
“Well, that’s certainly not going to do, Charmian. You can’t attract attention.”
She rose and walked past me, trailing her musky scent behind her. Digging through another jewelry box, she came up with coiled simple golden chains that ended in a snake’s head on each end. I gulped at the poetic irony when I saw them. We would die by snake bite. I couldn’t say that I was excited about wearing one on my head, fake or not. But I didn’t say anything.
She gently pushed me into her vanity chair and stood behind me, piling my hair onto my head and securing it with golden pins from her own drawers. Winding the golden chain around my crown, she secured the snake heads in the front. I gazed at her in amazement through the mirror.
“What?” She asked innocently as she finished with my hair and then she smiled. “Don’t get used to this. You have your own maid.”
She picked up her lip stain and brushed it carefully across my lips followed by her crushed pearl powder on my face, her slender fingers working quickly.
“Charmian, you are pale as a ghost. Remember, you must act as though everything is well,” she admonished as she finished applying the make-up.
I stared into the mirror again with a sigh and realized that I did look better, almost normal. I pinched my cheeks for more color and then stood.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” I grumbled as I stood at her side, waiting for her to start moving.
Custom dictated that I couldn’t walk ahead of the queen. She grinned sideways at me and took a small step forward, then turned to me.
“All will be well, Charmian,” she insisted, her face drawn into a determined expression.
“Well, if you mean that we will somehow manage to fix this mess so that we can tragically commit suicide in the prime of our lives right on schedule… then yes,” I muttered sarcastically. “All will be well.”
She rolled her eyes and started walking.
“Charmian, you are so melodramatic. Are you like this in every life?”
I shook my head and accompanied her as we tried to casually appear that we were simply walking to another routine banquet as usual.
* * *
Dinner was hell.
Hasani kept one hand on me throughout our meal, whether it rested on my back, my thigh or slung loosely around my shoulders…a tell-tale give-away of his concern.
Normally, I wouldn’t complain about it. But being anchored to him so tightly tonight just reminded me that he was completely aware that I was hiding something from him and it tore at my heart. He acted as though he was afraid to let me out of his sight… for fear that something would happen to me.
As the drums beat and the oboes played, scantily clad dancers undulated around the room, clapping and banging tambourines against their bare thighs. The candlelight glistened off of their damp skin as they moved and I allowed myself to stare absently at their lithe movement, avoiding Hasani’s gaze as much as I could.
I caught Cleopatra’s gaze several times throughout the evening and each time, she nodded reassuringly at me. I must be carrying off the “normal as can be” routine adequately enough, but on the inside I was anything but. My heart raced erratically and my hands were sweaty and jittery, bouncing nervously on the table in front of me, inadvertently keeping time with the beating drums.
Knowing me as well as he did, I didn’t fool Hasani even a little bit. He watched my nervous movements and restless stares silently, but he comfortingly rubbed small circles on my back. I knew it was in an effect to reassure me, even though he was unaware of the source of the problem. As an acrobat twisted and turned in front of us, Hasani bent his head to huskily murmur into my ear.
“My love, you are as nervous as a young doe. Are you alright?”
As he spoke, he wrapped both of his strong arms around me, clutching me to his chest from behind. I nodded and then leaned my head back against his rock-solid body.
“Yes, I’m fine, sweet,” I lied through my teeth.
“Then relax and enjoy the dancers,” he instructed calmly, knowing full well that I had lied.
I nodded, not commenting further. More than anything else, I hated lying to him. I tried to relax my body so that I folded liquidly into his chest, a feat that was increasingly difficult as my pounding heart continued to pump adrenaline through my veins.
Finally, as soon as she possibly could without drawing undue attention, Cleopatra stood from Antony’s side and excused herself early. Everyone around us looked up in surprise, since she and Antony typically stayed all evening, outlasting all of the guests.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “I have a slight headache and wish to retire early. The pounding from the drums is agitating it.”
She waved away her personal physician’s offer to bring a herbal dressing to alleviate it.
“I think I will just retire early,” she reiterated firmly. “But please, everyone stay and enjoy yourselves. Charmian?”
She looked at me and I hurriedly got up to accompany her. I felt Hasani’s reluctance as he let me slip from his grasp. But he couldn’t say anything… the queen herself had summoned me in front of the entire table.
As we made our way out of the room, I turned in the doorway and glanced at Hasani. He was watching me with a troubled look on his handsome face. He knew that we were up to something. I hadn’t fooled him at all. I swallowed hard and walked from the room without another backward glance.
Once inside the privacy of Cleopatra’s chambers, I quickly began stripping off my light-colored clothes and exchanging them for a brown linen sheath from Cleopatra’s closet.
I removed the shining gold chains from my hair and replaced them into her jewelry box and she handed me a dark brown scarf to wrap around my head and shoulders. Kicking off my leather sandals, I examined myself in the mirror.
Other than my vivid green eyes, I knew I wouldn’t stand out in the darkened streets of Alexandria. I would need to keep my eyes down though. My eyes were fairly unique. I didn’t want to be recognized.
“Alright,” Cleopatra breathed as she stood in front of me. “You look like a peasant. This is good- you won’t draw attention. Now, what are you going to do when you get to the lighthouse?”
“I’m going to enter quietly through a side entrance, trying hard not to attract the attention of a harbor master.”
She nodded, interrupting. “And there should only be one in the lighthouse at night, just so that he can tend to the fire. It should be fairly easy to evade him.”
I nodded in agreement. “After I’m in, I will try to stay in the shadows as I locat
e Pothinus. And after that… I’ll play it by ear.”
She sighed long and loud.
“I wish I could go with you. I don’t feel right sending you alone.” She stared wistfully at the door, probably picturing the guards stationed on either side of it. They would certainly notice Queen Cleopatra sneaking out in peasant’s clothing.
“It’s alright, Cleopatra. I’ll be fine. Iras didn’t know what we were sending her into. But I do- and I’ll be careful.”
A twinge of guilt stirred within me. Poor Iras. She’d had no idea and in hindsight, I should have given her some sort of warning about the danger. But I would do my best to make it right.
Cleopatra hugged me quickly, her musky scent enveloping us.
“Come back to me safely, Charmian,” she commanded queenly, but her warm eyes were those of a friend, not a pharaoh.
“I will, my queen,” I replied softly, stealing out of her room quietly. I definitely fully intended to, that was for sure.
I ignored the curious stares of the guards as I made my way past them dressed in my peasant’s garb. I could feel their intense gazes burning into my back as I walked quickly down the hall. They were probably pondering what to make of it and I wondered if Cleopatra would offer them some sort of explanation. I doubted it- the queen was above questioning. She didn’t answer to anyone.
I steered clear of the hallway leading to my quarters as I made my way to the ground floor of the palace. I felt fairly confident that Hasani was waiting for me in my bedchamber. I uttered a quick prayer that I was able to return to him later tonight unscathed. If I didn’t return, he would be sure to sound the alarm.
I opted to make my way quietly through the gardens behind the palace rather than stay on the stone walkways, hoping that I would run into fewer people. Anyone I ran into while I was still on the palace grounds would be sure to wonder why a peasant girl was so close to the palace and might even call to have me removed, which would draw unwanted attention.
Every Last Kiss, Final Copy, June 30, 2011 Page 11