The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

And so there was that memory; that long-ago judgment of verdant, untamed landscapes; that longing for the clean simplicity of the desert coast. Could she hold on to it? Could she capture this memory, and others like it, in her fist?

Standing against the wall opposite the windows, three other immortals. All pale-skinned blue-eyed men who seemed to hail from this land called Britain. More of his children, no doubt. Was this the entire lot of them, the two who held her in chains and the three who watched her every move warily?

"Eat," her captor said.

Could she? There was silverware before her, and her arms and hands were free. Within easy reach, a platter piled with small cooked birds.

She tore the first bird apart with her bare hands, pulled the meat from its tiny bones with her teeth.

Her captor observed her display coolly. Was her refusal to use a clumsy modern knife and fork an insult? his gaze seemed to ask.

She had no desire to answer. She just ate. Her captor ate as well, but without once looking to his food. There was incredible patience in this man. A steadiness that frightened her as much as the callousness with which he'd almost tossed her to his dogs. But he ate with the ceaseless appetite of an immortal.

I know that I have charmed many men, she thought. I know that I have charmed rulers of Rome. I cannot remember how, exactly, but the history books tell me I have done it and so I must be able to do it again.

But this man was no ruler of Rome. Rather, there was an absence of emotion in him which made him seem not quite human.

"And so you faked your death," the man said suddenly. "The tale of the serpent. Your suicide. Another of Plutarch's lies?"

She said nothing. What would happen if she let this man know her death had, in fact, taken place, that she'd been brought back from it two thousand years later? Had he been made in this way? If he knew she had not been, would he see her as inferior, deserving of more torture?

"I wish to know your story," he said.

"And I wish to know yours."

"Let us begin with what we do know of each other, then. You are lucky to have survived the events of the day. Our abduction of you, it spared you from slaughter."

"What do you mean by this?"

"A poison was unleashed at the engagement party for Julie Stratford and Mr. Ramsey. A poison that works only on immortals. Which can reduce them to ash."

He gave her a moment to absorb this. She found herself chewing more slowly. Her hands shook. Poison that could kill immortals? Ramses had never alluded to the existence of such a substance in all the years they'd spent together.

"I take it you didn't know there was such a thing?" he asked.

"Did you know?"

He sipped wine from his silver goblet.

"How were you spared?" she asked.

"I didn't attend this party."

"I see."

"What is it you see, Cleopatra?"

"You unleashed this poison."

"Why would you say this?" He seemed intrigued.

"You have heard tales of Mr. Ramsey. Tales of the tomb that was discovered right before his sudden appearance in London. You recognized in these tales the presence of an immortal you didn't know. And you had no desire to share the world with him. So you sought to poison him. To restore that which you define as order."

These thoughts had tumbled from her, but once she'd said them, once she'd thought of Ramses poisoned, a wave of sadness rose in her. Sadness that rivaled the grief she felt, not for her son, but for her very memories of a son.

Could the cruelty of these people awaken her old love for Ramses? Would such a result be worse than a broken spirit or merely the product of one?

"If your story is true," he said, "and I merely sought to poison Mr. Ramsey, how do you explain the trap into which you stumbled by mistake?"