The Mummy or Ramses the Damned

7

DAWN. THE great endless rosy sky spread out beyond the dim shadows of the pyramids and the roughened, disfigured Sphinx, with his paws sprawled on the yellow sand before him.

The dim shape of the Mena House lay still and quiet with only a few tiny lights in its rear rooms.

Only a solitary man, draped in black, rode his ugly camel across the horizon. Somewhere a steam train gave its deep, throbbing whistle.

Ramses walked through the sand, his garments blown back by the cold wind, until he came to the giant Sphinx and stood between its feet looking up at the ruined face, which in his time had been beautiful still, covered over in a fine casing of shining limestone.

"But you stand here still," he whispered in the ancient tongue, surveying this ruin.

In the cool still morning, he let himself remember a time when all answers had seemed to him to be so simple; when he the brave King had taken life with a swift blow of his sword or his cudgel. When he'd struck down the priestess in her cave so no one else would possess the great secret.

A thousand times he'd wondered if that had not been his first and most terrible sin-to kill the innocent crone whose laughter still echoed in his ears.

I am not fool enough to drink it.

Was he truly damned for that? A wanderer on the face of the earth like the biblical Cain, marked by this great eternal vigor which separated him from all humankind forever?

He did not know. He knew only that he could not bear to be the only one any longer. He had blundered, he would blunder again. It was a certainty now.

Yet what if his isolation was meant? And every attempt would end in such disaster?

He laid his hand on the hard rough stone of the Sphinx's paw. The sand was deep and soft here, and the wind stirred it as it ruffled his robes, and tore at his eyes cruelly.

Again he looked up at the disfigured face. He thought back to the age when he had come here in pilgrimage and in procession. He heard the flutes, the drums. He smelled the incense again and heard the soft, rhythmic incantations.

He made his own prayer now, but it was in the language and the manner of those times which gave him some sweet childish comfort.

"God of my fathers; of my land. Look down on me with forgiveness. Teach me the way; teach me what I must do to give back to nature what I have taken. Or do I walk away in all humility, crying that I have blundered enough? I am no god. I know nothing of creation. And little of justice.

"But one thing is certain. Those who made us all know little of justice either. Or what they do know, great Sphinx, is like your wisdom. A very great secret."

* * *

The great grey shadow of Shepheard's Hotel grew darker and ever more solid in the rising light as Samir and Ramses approached it-two robed figures moving swiftly and silently together.

A cumbersome black truck, rocking on its four wheels, pulled into the front drive before they reached it. Newspapers in tightly bound bundles were thrown down upon the pavement.

Samir removed one quickly from the first bundle as the bellboys came out to collect the others. He felt in his pocket for a coin and gave it to one of the boys, who took little heed of it.

ROBBERY AND MURDER IN DRESS SHOP

Ramses read the headline over his shoulder. The two men looked at each other.

Then they walked away from the sleeping hotel, in search of some early morning cafe where they might sit and think and read this evil news, and ponder what to do about it.

* * *

Her eyes were open when the first rays of the sun pierced the thin curtains. How beautiful it looked to her, the great arms of the god, reaching out to touch her.

How stupid the Greeks had been to think the mighty disk the chariot of a deity, driven wildly over the horizon.

Her ancestors had known: the sun was the god Ra. The giver of life. The one and only god before all gods, without whom all gods were nothing.

The sun struck the mirror; and a great golden glare filled the room, blinding her for an instant. She sat up in the bed, her hand resting lightly on the shoulder of her lover. A dizziness overcame her. It seemed her head was teeming suddenly.

"Ramses!" she whispered.

The warm sun fell silently over her face, her knotted brows and her closed eyelids. She felt it on her breasts and on her outstretched arm.

Tingling; warmth; a sudden great breath of well-being.

She rose from the bed, and moved on swift feet across the deep green carpet. Softer than grass, it ate the sound of her steps completely.

She stood in the window looking out over the square, looking out again to the great silver glare of the river. With the back of her hand, she touched her own warm cheek.

A deep ripple of sensation passed through her. It was as if a wind had caught her hair and lifted it lightly off her neck; a hot desert wind, stealing over the sands, slipping into the palace halls, and creeping over her, and somehow into her, and through her.

Her hair made a soft zinging sound as if being stroked by a hairbrush.

In the catacombs it had begun! The old priest had told the tale, and they all laughed at supper. An immortal slumbering in a deep rock tomb, Ramses the Damned, counsel to dynasties past, who had gone to sleep in the dark in the time of her great-great-grandfathers .

And when she'd awakened, she'd called for him.

"It is an old legend. My father's father told it to him, though he did not believe it. But I have seen him with my own eyes, the sleeping King. Yet you must be aware of the danger."

Thirteen years old. She did not believe in such a thing as danger; not in the ordinary sense; there had always been danger.

They walked together through the rough-cut stone passage. Dust fell from the loose ceiling above. The priest carried the torch before them.

"What danger? These catacombs are the danger. They may cave in on us!"

Several rocks had fallen at her feet.

"I tell you I don't like this, old man."

The priest had pushed on. A thin baldheaded man with stooped shoulders.

"The legend says that once awakened, he cannot easily be dispatched. He is no mindless thing, but an immortal man with a will of his own. He will counsel the King or Queen of Egypt, as he has done in the past, but he will do as he pleases as well."

"My father knew of this? "

"He was told. He did not believe. Neither did your father's father, or his father. Ah, but King Ptolemy, in the time of Alexander, he knew, and he called Ramses forth saying the words: 'Rise, Ramses the Great, a King of Egypt needs your counsel.' "

"And he returned, this Ramses, to his darkened chamber? Leaving only the priests with the secret?"

"So I have been told, as my father was told, and that I should come to the sovereign of my time and tell the story.''

It was hot, suffocating, in this place. No coolness of the deep earth here. She did not like to go any further. She did not like the flickering of the torch; the evil light on the rounded ceiling. Here and mere were marks on the walls, scribbles in the ancient picture language. She could not read them; who could? It made her afraid, and she loathed being afraid.

And they had taken so many twists and turns that she could never find her own way out now.

"Yes, tell the Queen of your time the tale," she said, "while she is young enough and fool enough to listen."

"Young enough to have faith. That is what you have; faith and dreams. Wisdom is not always the gift of old age, Majesty. Rather, it is sometimes the curse."

"And so we go to this ancient one?" She had laughed.

"Courage, Majesty. He lies there, beyond those doors."

She'd peered ahead. There were a pair of doors-enormous doors! Layered over with dust, and covered beneath the dust with inscriptions. Her heart had quickened.

"Take me into this chamber."

"Yes, Majesty. But remember the caution. Once waked he cannot be sent away. He is a powerful immortal."

"I don't care! I want to see this!"

She'd gone ahead of the old man. In the dancing glow from his torch she'd read the Greek aloud:

"Here lies Ramses the Immortal. Called by himself Ramses the Damned, for he cannot die. And sleeps eternally, waiting the call of the Kings and Queens of Egypt.''

She'd stepped back.

"Open the doors! Hurry!"

Behind her, he had touched some secret place in the wall. With a great grinding the doors had slid back slowly, revealing a vast unadorned chamber.

The priest had raised the torch high as he entered beside her. Dust, the clean pale yellow dust of a cave unknown to the wild beasts or the poor wanderers and haunters of hills and caves and tombs.

And there on the altar, a gaunt shriveled being, withered limbs crossed on his breasts; brown hair wisps about his skull.

"You poor fool. He's dead. The dry air here preserves him."

"No, Majesty. See the shutter high above, and the chains hanging from it. It must be opened now."

He had given her the torch, and with both hands tugged upon the chains. Again, the grinding, the creaking; dust filling the air, stinging her eyes, but then high above a great iron-bound shutter had opened. Like an eye into the blue heavens.

The hot summer sun poured down upon the sleeping man. Her eyes had grown wide; what words were there to describe what she had seen, the body filling out; reviving. The brown hair flowing from the scalp, and then the eyelids, shuddering, eyelashes curling.

"He lives. It's true."

She'd thrown aside the torch and run to the altar. She'd bent over him, as far as she dared not to shade him from the sun.

And the brilliant blue eyes had opened!

*' Ramses the Great, rise! A Queen of Egypt needs your counsel."

Motionless, silent, staring up at her.

"So beautiful," he had whispered.

She stared out at the square before Shepheard's Hotel. She saw the city of Cairo coming to life. The carts, the motor cars, moved noisily through the clean paved streets; birds sang in the neatly trimmed trees. Barges moved on the smooth river water.

The words of Elliott Rutherford came back to her. "Many centuries have passed . . . modern times . . . Egypt has had many conquerors . . . wonders such as you cannot imagine."

Ramses stood before her in the Bedouin robes, weeping, begging her to listen.

In the dark place of glinting glass and statues and coffins on end, she'd risen up, in pain, her arms out, crying his name!

The blood had poured down his shirt where they'd wounded him. Yet he'd staggered towards her. Then the second shot had struck his arm. Same evil pain that the one called Henry had given to her, same blood and pain, and in the murky morning light, she'd seen them drag him away.

I can't die now. Isn't that right?

Ramses had stood at the door of her bedchamber. She'd been crying, a young queen in torment. "But for how many years?"

"I don't know. I only know you cannot give up all this now. You don't know the meaning of what I offer you. So let me go. Use the knowledge I've given you. I'll return. Be sure of it. I'll return when you most have need of me, and then perhaps you will have had your lovers and had your wars and had your grief, and you will welcome me."

"But I love you."

The bedroom of Shepheard's Hotel was awash in blinding light; the furnishings vanished in the pulsing glow. The soft curtains touched her face as they blew out past her. She leaned forward over the windowsill, drowsing; her head swimming.

"Ramses, I remember!"

In the dress shop, die look on the woman's face! The serving girl screaming. And the young man, the poor young man who had looked down and seen the bone!

Ye gods, what have you done to me!

She turned, staggering away from the light, but it was all around her. The mirror was ablaze. She went down on her knees, her hands on the warm green rug. She lay down, tossing, turning, trying to push away the fierce power that penetrated her brain; that penetrated her heart. A great pulsing vibration had caught her entire form. She floated in space. And finally lay still in the great vibrating drift, the hot light blanketing her skin, an orange fire against her eyelids.

* * *

Elliott sat alone on the deep veranda. The empty bottle sparkled in the light of the morning sun. He dozed as he lay against the cushioned back of the chair, mind now and then wandering. Fasting, drinking, the long sleepless night, all had sharpened him and left him slightly mad; it seemed the light itself was a miracle streaking the sky; it seemed the great glossy silver car rumbling up the drive was a joke of sorts; and so was the sunny gray-haired man who climbed down off the high seat and came towards him.

"I've been with Winthrop all night." "You have my sympathies."

"Old man, we have an appointment at ten-thirty to clear everything up. Can you manage it?"

"Yes. I shall manage it. You may depend upon me. And Ramsey can be there if ... if ... you've obtained full immunity."

"Full and complete as long as he'll sign a sworn statement against Stratford. You know of course he struck again last night, robbed a shop-woman was in there with a full drawer of cash. He took everything.''

"Hmmmmm. Bastard," Elliott whispered. "Old man, it's very important you get up out of this chair, have a good bath and a good shave and be there. ..."

"Gerald, on my word. I shall. Ten-thirty, the governor's palace."

Blessed quiet. The ugly car had gone away. The boy came again. "Breakfast, my lord?"

"Bring a little something, and some orange juice with it. And ring my son's room again. And check the desk. Surely he's left a message!"

* * *

It was late morning before her young lord finally awoke.

Rome had fallen. And two thousand years had passed.

For hours she'd sat at the window, dressed in a "fine blue frock," watching the modern city. All the bits and pieces of what she'd seen and heard were now a complete tapestry. Yet there was so much to know, to understand.

She'd feasted, and had the servants take away the evidence; she did not want anyone to see the bestial manner in which she'd consumed so much food.

Now his small banquet waited for him. And when he came towards her out of the bedroom, "So beautiful," she said under her breath.

"What is it, Your Highness?" He bent to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his naked chest.

"Take your breakfast, young lord," she said. "There are so many things I must discover. So many things I must see."

He seated himself at the small draped table. He lighted the candles with the "matches."

"Aren't you joining me?"

"I've already feasted, my love. Can you show me the modern city? Can you show me the palaces of the British who rule this land?"

"I'll show you everything, Your Highness," he said, with the same unguarded gentleness.

She sat across from him.

"You're very simply the strangest person I've ever met," he said, and again there was no mockery or meanness in it. "In fact, you remind me of someone I know, a very enigmatic man ... but that doesn't matter. Why are you smiling at me like that? What are you thinking?''

"So beautiful," she whispered again. "You and all of life, my young lord. It is everything and nothing. So beautiful."

He blushed like a girl and then laid down the silver tools and leaned across the table and once again kissed her.

"You're crying," he said.

"Yes. But I am happy. Stay with me, young lord. Do not leave me just now."

He appeared startled, then transfixed. She combed the past slowly; had she ever known anyone so gentle? Perhaps in childhood, when she'd been too stupid to know what it meant.

"I don't want to leave you for the world, Your Highness," he said. He appeared sad again for a second, half disbelieving. And then at a loss.

"And the opera tonight, my lord, shall we go together? Shall we dance at the opera ball?''

Lovely the light that came to his eyes. "That would be heaven," he whispered.

She gestured to the plates before him. "Your food, my lord."

He picked at it in mortal fashion. Then lifted a bundle from beside his plate, which she had taken no notice of before. He tore off the wrapping and opened what appeared to be a thick manuscript covered over with tiny writing.

"Tell me what this is."

"Why, a newspaper," he said, half laughing. He glanced at it. "And awful news, too."

"Read aloud."

"You wouldn't really want to hear it. Some poor woman in a dress shop, with her neck broken like all the rest. And they've got a picture of Rarasey with Julie. What a disaster!"

Ramses ?

"It's the talk of Cairo, Your Highness. You may as well know now. My friends have been involved in a fair bit of trouble, but that's just it, they've nothing to do with it. They've only been associated with it. There . . . you see this man?"

Ramses. They are friends of Lawrence Stratford, the archaeologist, the one who dug up the mummy of Ramses the Damned.

' 'He's a dear friend of my father and of me. They're searching for him. Some foolishness about stealing a mummy from the Cairo Museum. It's all hogwash. It will soon blow over." He broke off. "Your Highness? Don't let this story frighten you. There's nothing to it, really."

She stared at this "picture," not a drawing like the rest but a dense image, rather like a painting, yet it was all done in ink, undoubtedly. The ink even rubbed off on her fingers. And there he stood. Ramses, beside a camel and a camel driver, dressed in the curious heavy clothes of this age. The print beneath said "Valley of the Kings."

She almost laughed aloud; yet she did not move or say a word. It seemed the moment stretched into eternity. The young lord was talking, but she couldn't hear him. Was he saying that he must call his father, that his father must need him now?

In a trance, she watched him move away from her. He had laid the paper down. The picture. She looked at him. He was picking up a strange instrument from the table. He was talking into it. Asking for Lord Rutherford.

At once she was on her feet. Gently she took the thing away from him. She set it down.

"Don't leave me now, young lord," she said. "Your father can wait for you. I need you now."

Baffled, he looked at her; he made no move to stop her as she embraced him.

"Don't bring the world to us just yet," she whispered in his ear, kissing him. "Let us have this time together."

So completely he gave in. So quickly came the fire.

"Don't be timid," she whispered. "Caress me; let your hands do what they will as they did last night."

Once again he belonged to her, enslaving her with his kisses, stroking her breasts through the blue frock.

"Have you come to me by magic?" he whispered. "Just when I thought . . . when I thought ..." And then he was kissing her again, and she led him towards the bed.

She picked up the newspaper as they went into the bedroom. As they sank down on the sheets together, she showed it to him, just as he removed the robe.

"Tell me," she said, pointing to the little group of figures standing by the camel in the sun. "Who is that woman beside him?"

"Julie, Julie Stratford," he said.

Then there were no words, only their frantic, hurried and delicious embraces; his hips grinding against her; his sex pumping into her again.

When it was all over, and he lay still, she ran her fingers through his hair.

"This woman; does he care for her?"

"Yes," he said sleepily. "And she loves him. But that doesn't matter now.''

"Why do you say this?"

"Because I have you," he said.

* * *

Ramsey was at his best, evincing that easy charm mat had subdued everyone on the voyage out; he sat back, spotless and carelessly fashionable in the white linen suit, his hair tousled, blue eyes sparkling with a near boyish vigor,

"I tried to reason with him. When he broke the case and removed the mummy, I realized it was hopeless. I tried to get out on my own, but the guards, well, you know the story."

"But they said they shot you, they-"

"Sir, these men are not the soldiers of ancient Egypt. They're hirelings who barely know how to fire their guns. They would not have beaten the Hittites."

Winthrop laughed in spite of himself. Even Gerald was charmed. Elliott glanced at Samir, who dared not crack the smallest smile.

"Well, if only we could find Henry," Miles said.

"No doubt his creditors are looking for him, too," Ramsey said quickly.

"Well, let's get back to this question of the jail. It seems there was a doctor there when you-'' Gerald finally intervened:

"Winthrop," he said, "you know very well that this man's innocent. It's Henry. It's been Henry all along. Everything points to it. He broke into the Cairo Museum, stole the mummy, sold it for profit, went on a drunken rampage with the money. You found the wrappings in the belly dancer's house. Henry's name was found in the loan shark's book in London." "But the whole story is so . . ." Elliott motioned for silence.

"Ramsey has been subjected to enough, and so have we. He's already made the crucial statement that Henry confessed to the murder of his uncle. *'

"He made this very plain to me," Ramsey said dryly. "I want our passports returned immediately," Elliott said. "But the British Museum . . ." "Young man," Gerald began.

"Lawrence Stratford gave a fortune to the British Museum," Elliott declared. Finally he could take no more. He had reached his limit with this farce. "Listen, Miles," he said, leaning forward. "You clear this up, and now, unless you intend to become a social recluse. For I assure you that if my party, including Reginald Ramsey, is not on the noon train tomorrow for Port Said, you will never be received again by any family in Cairo or London which hopes to receive the seventeenth Earl of Rutherford. Do I make myself clear? "

Silence in the office. The young man blanched. This was excruciating.

"Yes, my lord," he answered under his breath. At once he opened the desk drawer and produced the passports one by one, laying them down on the blotter before him.

Elliott managed to scoop them up with a neat quick gesture before Gerald could do it.

"I find this as disagreeable as you do," he said. "I've never said such words before to any human being in my life, but I want my son released so he can go back to England. Then I'll stay in mis bloody place as long as you want me here. I'll answer any question you like."

"Yes, my lord, if I can tell the governor that you will stay - - •"

"I just told you that, didn't I? Do you want a blood oath?" Enough said. He felt Gerald's hand on his arm. He had what he wanted.

Samir helped him to his feet. They led the party out of the anteroom, through the hallway and onto the front veranda.

"Well done, Gerald," he said. "I'll call you if I need you. I appreciate your notifying Randolph about this. It's a little more than I can bear at the moment. But I'll write a long letter soon. ..."

"I'll soften everything. No need at all for him to know the details. When Henry's arrested, it's going to be dreadful enough."

"Let's worry about that when it happens."

Ramsey was clearly impatient. He started down the steps towards the waiting car. Elliott shook Gerald's hand and then followed.

"Are we quite finished with this little performance?" Ramsey said. "I am wasting valuable time here!"

"Well, you have a lot of time, don't you?" Elliott said with a polite smile. He was a little light-headed suddenly. They had won. The children could get out. "It's imperative that you come back to the hotel now," he said, "that you be seen there."

"Foolishness! And the idea of the opera tonight is positively ludicrous."

"Expediency!" said Elliott, climbing into the backseat of the car first. "Get in," he said.

Ramsey stood there, angry, dejected.

"Sue, what can we do until we have some further evidence of where she might be?" Samir asked. "On our own, we cannot find her."

* * *

This time the little room that moved did not scare her. She knew what it was, and that it was to serve the people of these times, as the railroad served them and the motor cars, and all the strange devices that had seemed to her earlier as instruments of horror, things exquisitely capable of bringing suffering and death.

They didn't torture people by packing them into the little room and making them travel up and down. They didn't drive the big locomotives into advancing armies. How strange that she had interpreted things in terms of their most malicious uses.

And he was explaining things to her now, freely and easily- hi fact, he had been talking for hours. It wasn't important to ask him specific questions, except occasionally; he liked telling her all about the mummy of Ramses the Damned, and how Julie Stratford was a modern woman; and how Britain ran its great empire, and so forth and so on. That he had loved Julie Stratford was obvious; Ramsey had "stolen" her, but again, it didn't matter. Not at all. What he'd thought was love wasn't love but something paler, more convenient, and altogether too easy. But did she really want to hear about his family? No, talk of history, then, and Cairo, and Egypt, and the world. . . .

It had been a great chore to keep him from calling his father. He felt guilty. But she had used all her persuasion and all her wiles. He did not require fresh garments; his shirt and jacket looked every bit as fine as they had last night.

And so off they were going now through the crowded lobby of Shepheard's, to drive in his Rolls-Royce, to see the Mamluke tombs and all the "history" mat she had asked about; and the tapestry was becoming fuller and fuller.

But he'd remarked more than once on how changed she seemed from last night, when she had been almost playful. And that made her faintly afraid. How strong her affection was for him.

"And do you like this?" she asked as they moved towards the front doors.

He paused. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time. It was so simple to smile at him; he deserved one's tenderest smile. "You're the loveliest, most wonderful thing that's ever come into my life," he said. "I wish I could put into words the effect you have upon me. You are . . ."

They stood amid the crowds of the lobby, lost in each other's gaze.

"Like a ghost?" she suggested. "A visitant from another realm?"

"No, you're much too . . . too real for that!" He laughed softly. "You're altogether vivid and warm!"

They crossed the veranda together. His car was waiting, just as he'd said it would be. A long black saloon, he'd called it, with deep velvet seats and a roof. They would still feel the wind through the windows.

"Wait, let me just leave word at the desk for my father, that we'll see him tonight."

"I can do that for you, my lord," said the servant who held the door for them.

"Oh, thank you, I do appreciate it," Alex said politely, that same generosity evinced for the lowest underling. As he gave the man a small gratuity, he looked him directly in the eye. "Tonight, I shall see him at the opera-if you please."

She admired the subtle grace with which he did the smallest things. She took his arm as they went down the steps.

"And tell me," she said as he helped her into the front seat, "about this Julie Stratford. What is a modem woman?"

* * *

Ramsey was still arguing as the car pulled into the drive before Shepheard's.

"We will do everything society expects of us," Elliott said. "You have the rest of eternity to search for your lost Queen."

"But what puzzles me is this," Ramsey insisted. He opened the door carelessly, almost wrenching one of the hinges. ' 'If her cousin is wanted for high crimes, how can Julie dance at a ball as if this thing is not happening?''

"Under English law, my friend, a man is innocent until proved guilty," Elliott explained, accepting Ramsey's helping hand. "And publicly we presume Henry is innocent; and we know nothing of these atrocities, so in private we have done our duty as citizens of the Crown."

"Yes, you definitely should have been an adviser to a King," Ramsey said.

"Good Lord, look at that."

"What?"

"Just my son driving off with a woman. At a time like this!"

"Ah, but perhaps he is doing what society expects of him!" Ramsey said contemptuously, leading the way up the steps.

"Lord Rutherford, excuse me-your son said to tell you that he would see you tonight, at the opera.''

"Thank you," Elliott said, with a short ironic laugh.

* * *

Elliott wanted only to sleep as he entered the sitting room of his suite. Some drunk he was going to be; he was already thoroughly bored with being inebriated. He wanted a clear head, though he understood the dangers.

Ramsey helped him to a chair.

He suddenly realized that they were alone. Samir had gone on to his own room; and Walter for the moment was nowhere about.

Elliott sat there, trying to collect his strength.

"And what do you do now, my lord?" Ramsey asked. He stood in the center of the room, studying Elliott. "You go back home to England after your precious opera ball, as if none of this ever happened?''

"Your secret's safe. It always was. No one would believe what I've seen. And I wish only to forget it, though I never will."

"And the lust for immortality has burnt itself out?"

Elliott thought for a moment. Then he answered in unhurried fashion, rather relieved himself at the resignation in his voice.

"Perhaps in death, I'll find what I seek, rather than what I deserve. There's always the chance of that." He smiled up at Ramsey, who appeared completely surprised by the response. "Now and then," Elliott continued, "I picture heaven as a vast library, with unlimited volumes to read. And paintings and statues to examine galore. I picture it as a great doorway to learning. Do you think the hereafter could be like that? Rather than one great dull answer to all our questions?''

Ramsey gave him a sad wondering smile.

"A heaven of man-made things. Like our ancient Egyptian heaven."

"Yes, I suppose so. A great museum. And a failure of the imagination."

"I think not."

"Oh, there are so many things I wanted to discuss with you, so much I wanted to know."

Ramsey didn't answer him. The man just stood there, looking at him; and Elliott had the weirdest sense of being listened to, studied. It made him aware of how inattentive most human beings were in general.

"But it's too late for all that." Elliott sighed. "My son Alex is the only immortality that matters to me now."

' 'You're a wise man. I knew that when I first looked into your eyes. And by the way, you are bad at treachery. You told me where you were keeping Cleopatra when you told me she'd slain Henry and his mistress. It had to have been the belly dancer's house. I played out your game with you. I wanted to see how far you'd go with it. But you gave yourself away. You are not so good at such things."

"Well, my brief career at them is over. Unless you want me to remain here when the children go home. But I don't see how a crippled, prematurely old man can help you. Do you?

Ramsey seemed perplexed. "Why weren't you afraid of her when you saw her in the museum?" he asked.

"I was afraid of her. I was horrified."

"But you sheltered her. It couldn't have been merely for your own ends."

"Ends? No. I don't think so. I found her irresistible; as I found you irresistible. It was the mystery. I wanted to s612* it-Move into it. Besides ..."

"Yes."

"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 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 this 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.