“ ‘Let me try,’ I said, kneeling beside his pallet. ‘I have learned so much since I left you! Let me use my new powers and abilities, the knowledge I have gained, to make you well.’ I have never been one to weep, but at the sight of his emaciated body, my tears flowed like the Nile.
“ ‘No, beloved,’ he said to me. ‘I feel the wings of Thanatos beating the air—can you not hear them? He has come for me. It is my time, and it would be ungrateful of me—ungrateful to Hera who watched over my birth, to Hades who is waiting to welcome me into the land where all must go—to ask for more. Place obols on my tongue and over my eyes so I can pay Charon. Put a biscuit in my hand so I can placate Cerberus. In my other hand put a sprig of olive flowers so I can present them to Queen Persephone. And let me go.’
“Three days and nights I did not leave his side, but sang to him and slept beside him. On the third night, he crossed the river over which no mortal returns. I had lost my beloved.”
Ayesha grew silent. There was no sound in the room, until Catherine heard a sniff. It was Beatrice, her eyes swimming with tears. She took out a dainty linen handkerchief and wiped her nose with it. Clarence reached over and held her gloved hand. Vincey was still looking down at the floor. Holly took another of the crescent pastries and poured himself a second cup of coffee. He was barely paying attention, as though he had heard this story before—as no doubt he had.
After a moment, Ayesha continued. “What did I have left but my studies? I returned to them. Finally they led me to Delphi, where in a storage chamber, still intact among the ruins of the ancient temple of Apollo, I found a manuscript written by the priestess Themistoclea, who had been the teacher of Pythagoras. It was her writing that allowed me to unravel the final mystery of extended—perhaps eternal—life. I took that manuscript and placed it in the library of Alexandria, where I hoped it would remain safe. But Aurelian set fire to the library in order to defeat Queen Zenobia, and spread, once again, the power of Rome. Then came Constantine, convert to the new religion, and Theodosius, who destroyed the temples of the old gods. By then, I was almost five hundred years old. I had lived as a wanderer, a healer traveling from village to village of the Roman Empire, applying my skills, teaching where I could. But the world was changing around me. The government in Rome was growing more corrupt. Faith and fanaticism had replaced philosophy and science. Ignorance and superstition were spreading throughout the civilized world—when I healed, the villagers called me a witch. Outside it, Germanic tribes were waiting to break through the gates. I could stand it no longer, so I returned to Egypt, now simply another Roman province. Even there, I saw the disintegration of all that had been. The temple of Isis was deserted—no one practiced the healing arts in those halls anymore. Only the descendants of the temple cats remained. I saw one sleeping in the stone chair where Queen Tera had once sat with her black cat curled in her lap, welcoming me to the temple. Sick at heart in a way even I could not heal, I traveled south. For the first time since I had left my father’s house, I went home to Meroë. The city had been sacked by King Ezana of Aksum, and was a shadow of its former self. That was when I determined I would no longer live among men.
“I continued southward, into the kingdom of Aksum, and then beyond kingdoms. At last I came to the banks of the Zambezi River. It reminded me of my own river, the Nile. From the tribes along the riverbank, I heard stories of an ancient civilization that had flourished inland, in a mountainous country. I followed these threads of story, traveling from tribe to tribe. At last I reached the tribal lands of the Amahaggar. It was the chief himself who led me to the entrance of that kingdom within the mountain. ‘We do not go here anymore,’ he told me. ‘We do not wish to disturb our ancestors’ ghosts. But you, priestess of the River Goddess’—for that is how they understood my description of Isis, who resembled their goddess of the Zambezi—‘for you it may be the home you seek.’ And so it was. Among those silent halls I found, not papyrus scrolls, but stone tablets filled with ancient wisdom, for the Kôrites had their own philosophy, their own alchemy. They had been great miners, and I studied their knowledge of the Earth, of minerals and rocks. The stones of the Earth have their own energic powers, which modern civilizations are beginning to understand. That is why, after millennia, the British came, and the Belgians, and the Germans—those savage tribes, the Gauls and Franks and Goths, now in Africa to ravage an ancient world they did not understand. And one day, they brought me Leo and Holly.”
“I had been asked to go by the British East Africa Company,” said Professor Holly in his deep voice. He looked down into his coffee cup as though it contained something of import, but Catherine could see that it was empty, except for the dregs of his coffee. “They had stumbled upon some of the ruins of Kôr among the foothills, including the tomb of a Kôrite queen. On her head was a crown made of gold, with rough diamonds in it as large as those found in the mines of South Africa. They hoped that if they could translate some of the texts in the tomb, they would find information about ancient mines—particularly of gold and diamonds. I am a linguist—they had heard of my work deciphering the languages of the ancient world. So they paid for me to take a leave of absence from Cambridge and travel to Africa. I brought Leo, who had been my ward since he was a child. He had been the son of my best friend, who died, alas, too young. Leo was no scholar—indeed, if I had not continually urged him to attend to his studies, I believe he would have spent all his time on the cricket fields or sculling along the Cam.”
Leo Vincey smiled—the first genuine smile Catherine had seen on his face. For the first time since she had met him in the Café New York, when she and Mary had tried to warn him and Horace Holly about Professor Van Helsing’s dastardly plans, he looked human and likeable.
“Poor Horace,” he said. “I was such a disappointment to you. I could never concentrate on learning my Greek declensions—and when you wanted me to study Sanskrit! No, there was only one thing that interested me at university, besides sports.…”
“What was that, Mr. Vincey?” asked Beatrice.
Girls, thought Catherine. I bet that’s what he’s going to say. He looks just the type.
“Geology, Miss Rappaccini. Even as a boy, I had been fascinated by the theories of Charles Lyell. I had climbed all over the rock formations around Cambridge, studying strata. Our housekeeper had to dust around my collection of rocks. I took my degree in geology, much to Horace’s chagrin. He would rather I had been a sedentary scholar, like himself, but I preferred to climb things. I was working for a mining company in Wales when he was offered the opportunity to travel to East Africa. I immediately threw up my job and offered to accompany him. It was my fault we were captured by the Amahaggar, but I wanted to explore the caves of Kôr without the interference of the East Africa Company representative, who was interested only in prospecting. He did not give a damn about the history or geology of the region except to the extent there was gold or diamonds involved. So at my insistence, we rode into the hills by ourselves, with only a pair of sturdy ponies—directly into an ambush!”
“The Amahaggar initially welcomed the British,” said Ayesha, frowning at him—but Catherine thought it was an affectionate frown. “They had an ancient tradition of hospitality. But when they realized that their forests were being burned for coffee plantations, that the animals on which they depended for food were being shot by big game hunters who would cut off trophies and leave the meat rotting in the fields, they became significantly less welcoming. They started fighting back. They were right to capture you,” she said. “You were encroaching on their land.”