Free Channeling Cleopatra by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Page B

fame had succumbed to
Caesar, Mark Antony, and the asp, in that order. Exactly who the
culprits were who destroyed the library was a matter of debate, but
that was long ago and not in her jurisdiction. Maybe if she had
found a bit of an ancient library card catalog inscribed on one of
the few remaining stones, she would have felt more impressed.
    The catacombs had seemed more promising—dead
people were, after all, Leda's thing—but although it might have
been fun to compare the DNA of the ancient skeletal remains to that
of contemporary Alexandrites—no, that was the
stone—Alexandrians—she wasn't working that particular corner
either. And the paintings on the walls reminded her of graffiti
pretending to be pictographs. She almost expected to see a Mickey
Mouse hieroglyphic among the ones that were so very un-Egyptian,
while pretending to follow the ancient style.
    Gabriella picked up on her lack of
enthusiasm. "It isn't really terribly impressive, is it?" she said,
making a wry face.
    "I'm just tired and really, it's a little
recent for me. I've always been more into the earlier dynasties.
And Greece up to and including Alexander but not so much
after."
    "No, no, I understand
perfectly. If not for Alexander, poor Alex would not exist, and if
not for Cleopatra, it would have little to boast of except the soap
opera family histories of the Ptolemys before Cleopatra the
Seventh. Our Cleopatra. She would have agreed with you, too, that the
fascination with Egypt lay in earlier times."
    "No kidding?"
    "Oh, yes, I don't know how much you know
about her . . ."
    "I started to read up on her but got
distracted a lot back at Nucore. Chimera was always wanting me to
look at something new and amazing through a microscope. Most of
what I know about her is from the movies."
    "She was a genius! A heroine as well and a
warrior in the only way she could be. Had she been a man, we would
have heard only about her intellect and scholarship and what a
great pharaoh she was, preserving Egypt as a political entity
thirty years beyond when it should have fallen. Since she was
female and had to capitalize on every possible asset, her use of
her femininity to preserve her kingdom caused her to be vilified
and perhaps worse, cheapened, by the history written by the
conquerors. She loved all of Egypt and was considered the
embodiment of Isis by the people."
    "But she was a Ptolemy, a Macedonian Greek,
right?"
    Gabriella shrugged. "Officially, yes. She
was born a Ptolemy and yet, who can say which alliances had been
made within that bloodline before Alexander came to Egypt?" Her
voice dropped in register and was vibrant with emotion now.
"Perhaps some descendant of an Egyptian princess was captured or
married for political reasons into the Macedonian royal family
before ever Alexander set foot here. Or perhaps the spirits of the
pharaohs really did possess living people at times . . ."
    "Dr. Faruk! How unscientific of you! Have
you been hiding Steven King novels behind the covers of your
professional journals?"
    "No, no! I am quite serious. What else,
after all, is Chimera's process but scientifically induced
possession?"
    "Well, it's not quite that cut and dried.
The imported person doesn't always dominate—"
    Gabriella waved that aside, and Leda looked
around her, relieved to see they were still quite alone. Gabriella
shot her a considering look that said she had been aware of their
solitude and would not have spoken so freely otherwise.
    "Anyway, you must read more about her. She
was a fascinating person and a very great woman, much
misinterpreted. She loved Egypt more deeply than she cared for
either of the men with whom her name is so often linked, and
probably more than their children. However, once she was gone, the
looting of the country began, and it has not stopped to this
day."
    "But it's illegal now to remove antiquities,
isn't it? Bodies are reburied, that sort of thing?"
    "Yes, though it is, as a professor of mine
from Texas used to