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rrified to listen or obey. Her piteous cries grew louder. Cleopatra's blank face had changed to a mask of rage.
She came towards the helpless woman, who stared at the naked bones in her hand and in her foot.
"She's only a servant girl," said the Earl, reaching out for Cleopatra's arm. She pivoted and slapped him, knocking him backwards so that he fell against the parrot's cage. As Malenka screamed in pure hysteria, the bird began to screech frantically, beating his wings against the bars.
Elliott tried to steady himself. The girl must stop screaming. This was a disaster. Cleopatra, looking from the screeching bird to the screaming woman, appeared on the verge of hysteria herself. Then she lunged at the woman, grabbing her by the throat and forcing her down on her knees as she had done to Henry only hours before.
"No, stop it." Elliott hurled himself at her. This time he could not let it happen, and once again he felt her powerful blow knocking him yards across the room. He fell against the wall, his hand up on the plaster. Then came that sound, that unspeakable sound. The girl was dead. Cleopatra had broken her neck.
The bird had ceased its screeching. It stared with one round senseless eye into the room. Malenka lay on her back on the carpet, her head wrenched to one side at an impossible angle, her brown eyes half-closed.
Cleopatra stood staring down at her. Thoughtfully she looked at the girl. Then she said in Latin:
"She is dead."
Elliott didn't answer. He gripped the edge of the marble-top cupboard and pulled himself to his feet. The throbbing in his chest meant nothing to him. Nothing could equal the pain in his soul.
"Why did you do it!" he whispered. Oh, but was he mad to ask such a question of this being? This thing whose brain was damaged, without doubt, as her body was damaged, beautiful though she was.
Almost innocently she stared at Elliott. Then she looked back at the dead woman.
"Tell me, Lord Rutherford, how did I come to be here!" Her eyes narrowed. She approached him. In fact, she reached out and effortlessly helped him to stand upright. She picked up the walking stick and put it in his left hand. "Where did I come from?" she asked. "Lord Rutherford!" She bent forward, her eyes growing wide and full of terror. "Lord Rutherford, was I dead?"
She didn't wait for him to answer; her scream came in pulses. He embraced her, and put his hand over her mouth.
"Ramses brought you here. Ramses! You called out to him. You saw him."
"Yes!" She stood still, not struggling, merely clutching his wrist. "Ramses was there. And when I ... when I called out to him, he ran from me. Like the woman, he ran from me! That same look in his eyes."
"He wanted to come back to you. Others stopped him. Now I must go to get him. Do you understand? You must stay here. You must wait for me." She stared past him. "Ramses has the medicine," he said. "I shall bring it back here."
"How long?"
"A few hours," he said. "It's midafternoon. I'll be back before dark."
She moaned again, and pressed her curved thumb to her teeth, staring at the floor. She looked like a child suddenly, a child wrestling with an enormous puzzle. "Ramses," she whispered. Clearly she was not certain who he was.
He patted her shoulder gently; then with the aid of his cane, he approached the body of the girl. What in the name of heaven was he to do with it? Let it lie here and rot as the hours passed? How could he bury it in the garden, when he could barely walk as it was? He closed his eyes and laughed to himself bitterly. It seemed a thousand years since he had seen his son, or Julie, or the civilized rooms of a common place like Shepheard's Hotel. It seemed a thousand years ago that he had done anything normal or loved anything normal; or believed in it; or made the sacrifices that normality required.
"Go, get the medicine," she said to him. She stepped between him and the dead woman. She reached down and lifted Malenka by her right arm. Effortlessly she dragged the woman across the carpet, past the clucking bird, which had the good fortune to be silent, and threw the corpse of the woman out into the yard as if it were a stuffed doll. The body landed on its face against the far wall.
Do not think now. Go to Ramses. Go!
"Three hours," he said to her, again using the two languages. "Bolt the door after me. You see the bolt?"
She turned and looked at the door. She nodded.
"Very well, Lord Rutherford," she said in Latin. "Before dark."
She did not bolt the door. She stood there, her hands on the bare wood, listening as he walked away. It would take him a long time to move out of sight.
And she must get out of this place! She must see where she was! This could not be Egypt. And she could not understand why she was here, or why she hungered so, and could not be satisfied, or why she felt this sharp, enervating desire to be in a man's arms. She would have forced Lord Rutherford again if she had not wanted him to go on his errand.
But the errand; it was not clear to her suddenly. He meant to get the medicine, but what was the medicine! How could she live with the great gaping wounds she had?
Yet only a moment ago she'd realized something about this, something to do with that dead woman, that shrieking slave girl whose neck she'd snapped.
Ah, but the thing to do was leave here, while Lord Rutherford was not here to scold her like a teacher and tell her to remain.
