The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

*

Once Samir was gone, Julie turned her gaze on him. It was the first time in weeks she'd seemed so disturbed. Ramses hated the sight. Hated that their dreamlike journey across countries and continents had been brought to such an abrupt end.

Or had it? For she seemed more troubled by his mood than the knowledge that Cleopatra lived and breathed.

"Do you believe we should fear her, Ramses?"

"She threatened to snap your neck like a reed. Those were her exact words."

"Well, she can't now. And besides, she said this only moments after she failed to do it. She was alone with me then for a good length of time, if you remember, and all she made were threats."

"Yes, but you were interrupted, were you not? Do you truly believe she had a change of heart?"

"It's impossible to say for sure."

"Then I will say this," said Ramses. "It was shame that drove her from the opera house. Shame and rage at me for allowing Marc Antony to be defeated all those years ago. She was overcome. It's why she lost control and drove onto those train tracks. She had never wanted the elixir, you see. I offered it to her when she was queen, and she refused it. Only when her lover, her compatriot, was poised for defeat did she ask for it, and even then, she wanted it for him and him alone. For some mad dream of an immortal army."

"And you were right not to give it to her, Ramses. Think of how the world might have been terribly changed as a result. Sometimes death is the only thing that can free us from a despot. Should that divine hand be removed from those in power...Well, I fairly shudder at the thought."

"I don't know," he said. His voice had fallen to a whisper. "True, she was a queen, but she would have outlived her despotism. I was a king and I outlived mine; I withdrew from the chambers of power. I don't know. I'll never know. I know she lives now and she kills without hesitation or regret. And I am responsible for this--who she is now, in these times. And I fear she is far more dangerous now than she might ever have been in those ancient days."

Julie did not respond. He looked at her. She had taken a seat again at the table, and was gazing up at him with such sadness.

"I don't love her, my dear," he said. "This is not longing for her that you hear. This is remorse for what I did in awakening her."

He drew close and dropped to one knee in front of Julie. He saw patience in her eyes and the deepest affection.

"You are my love and my only love," he said. "Ours is a true partnership of mind, body, and spirit, of two immortals. But now her shadow falls across our path again, this creature that I have admitted to our paradise."

Julie urged him to his feet, and turned to face him as he sat across the table from her. "It's two months since her terrible accident," said Julie. "If she seeks revenge still, she is most certainly taking her time."

"One more reason why I'm coming to believe she wants no contact with us at all."

"Is there anything you want to say to me?" asked Julie. "Ramses, don't fear schoolgirl jealousy on my part for this creature. Whatever she is, I'm equal to her now in strength and in invulnerability."

"I know," he said.

"And I believe, as I did in the past, that she is not the real Cleopatra."

"Julie, who else can she be?"

"Ramses, she cannot have Cleopatra's soul in her. She simply cannot. And I believe we all possess souls. Now, where those souls go when we die, I don't know, but surely they do not rest inside our corpses in the earth or in a museum for centuries."

He reached out and caressed her face. How radiant and quick she was, how fearless, and bold.

Souls. What did any of us know of souls?

There were so many things moving through his mind, so many ancient prayers, so many chants. He saw the faces of ancient priests. He felt in one dark flash the burden of duty that had been his for so many long years as king, in which he'd participated in rituals at dawn and at dusk and at noon. He had gone down into the new tomb being prepared for him during his reign and asked that the endless inscriptions on the walls be read aloud to him. His soul was to travel through the heavens after his earthly death. But where was it now? Inside of him, of course.

It was too much. He knew that creature was Cleopatra! Julie might speak of the impossibility of it, call it a revenant, a monster, and speak of Christian realms to which souls flew on invisible wings. But he knew that thing he had raised in the Cairo Museum was Cleopatra.

"Come," Julie said. "Let us walk. We are in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and we have no need for sleep. If we are soon to return to London, let us walk these streets without fear of pickpockets, accidents, or Cleopatra herself."

With a delighted laugh, he allowed her to pull him to his feet with a strength she had not possessed months before.

6

Julie had feared rivers once.