Free Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley Page B

stood paralyzed with horror, looking down upon the raw wound where the corpse’s heart should have been. The queen had been in possession of a weapon of some kind, the doctors concluded. An exceedingly sharp though strangely rough-edged knife.
    Nicolaus feared that he knew better.
    He’d never understood why he, lowly tutor to the queen’s children, had been the one chosen to seek and then to translate the summoning spell, but he’d done it eagerly, nurturing some small thoughts of finding a deeper favor with Cleopatra, even as the city seemed poised to fall.
    Before all this had happened, he’d been convinced that she would rise again, regain power over Egypt and perhaps other territories as well, and that when she did, he would rise with her. The queen’s historian. The queen’s lover, yes, say it, was what he most desired, and the summoning had been too tempting a project to resist. The opportunity to be near her, to meet with her in secret. He’d loved paging through the motheaten and worm-bitten records, catching the scents of ancient herbs, running his fingers across the brilliant colors of the hieroglyphs. At last, a crackling scroll of papyrus bound in a red cord. As he spread it out to view, parts of it disintegrated in his hands.
    The scroll depicted a summoning, a pharaoh kneeling over an altar, making cuts in his hands. The goddess herself was unmistakable, with her lioness head and the sun disc balanced over it, with her voluptuous female body. Nicolaus made a deep if somewhat rushed study into the elements of the spell, the snake skins and venoms, the honey, the herbs, the pigments and proper designs. The most important thing was, of course, the blood sacrifice. He made some guesses as to what else the spell might contain, some conclusions based on instinct, thinking of it as an academic exercise.
    He’d never imagined it could go this far.
    Nicolaus was a historian, after all, not a magician. He’d come most recently from Jerusalem, where he was employed as King Herod’s personal philosopher, following a dream of greater stature. Cleopatra and Antony seemed like the rulers who would eventually be remembered, while Herod seemed a waning force.
    Nicolaus cursed his ambition now. He’d been a fool. His actions had left him one choice: Flee Alexandria or die, and he had no plans to die here, at the beginning of his career.
    Nicolaus turned away from the shuttered palace windows and walked into the night, heading for the port. He’d find a ship and leave.
    He could never see Cleopatra again, he knew that much. Not if he valued his life.
    If she returned to power, he’d be executed. And if the spell had worked, as he feared it had, who knew what had been unleashed?
    He would not stay in Alexandria to find out.

11
    T he fools thought they had sealed her away from any weapons, but the palace was her home, and she knew every stone. Behind them, beneath them, concealed everywhere were knives and relics. She slashed her palms and watched as the wounds opened and then closed again, bloodless, like gills on a fish. She couldn’t summon the goddess back, not the way she’d originally summoned her.
    All she could do was listen to the whispers that filled her mind.
    You are mine. You belong to me.
    â€œI must speak to Nicolaus,” she ordered Charmian. “You must find him and bring him to me.”
    Drink.
    â€œHe’s left the city, lady,” the girl told her hours later. “No one can tell me where he’s gone.”
    I hunger.
    She’d executed the only other scholar who might have helped her, the Egyptian. She saw his face now, his admonitions against the summoning. Forbidden, he’d said. Forbidden.
    The bird quenched her thirst for only a few hours. With Charmian, she had to will herself not to act. Her teeth were razors in her mouth. She clasped her arms about her knees and shook, pressing her spine into the corner of her