For general inspiration, she had used only the loosest bits of actual Egyptian history. For her mythical queen, Aktepshan, Sibyl had blended the more dramatic tales surrounding Cleopatra and Hatshepsut, even though thousands of years separated them.
She had long given up on trying to make her books historically accurate. The fights with her editor that resulted were too grueling.
Readers want stories, Sibyl. Not history lessons!
She didn't believe this, not for a second. But she'd lost the energy to argue, and most of the history in her novels was a melting pot's brew of ancient and Ptolemaic history, with, as she sometimes wryly noted to herself, the names changed to protect the truly interesting. And in some sense, it was a bit of a blessing. Being freed from the burden of historical accuracy had allowed her to let her own childhood dreams of Egypt, with all their strange abstraction, reign as queen over her creative process.
She had written so many novels that sometimes the plots ran together in her head. But for some reason, The Wrath of Anubis stood out from the others. Perhaps this was a function of the single dream that inspired it.
She delayed the rest of her afternoon walk and returned to where the man sat reading her book.
His wife had joined him now.
Sibyl wasn't sure what she was hoping to gain by sitting so close to them. She wondered if her newfound strength might lead her to extend her hand and introduce herself as the author. There was no photograph or illustration of her in most of the editions. She hadn't told anyone aboard of her profession and had yet to be recognized. Instead, she pretended to be enamored with the sea, every now and then casting a sidelong glance in their direction.
"Huh," the man finally said and shut the book with a thud. "I dare say this Sibyl Parker is a bit of a socialist."
"How's that, darling?" his wife asked, sounding thoroughly indifferent.
"It's a cracking good tale for the most part. But then there's a lecture right here in the middle I could have certainly lived without."
"A lecture? Of what sort?"
"You've got an Egyptian queen who falls madly in love with an immortal man who, it turns out, once ruled Egypt himself. They have all sorts of adventures together, and then, one night, he meets her in her chambers dressed as a commoner and demands that she do the same, all so they can walk through her own city without being recognized. As ordinary folk, you see."
And there it was!
Even the arch disdain of the man recounting her fictional re-creation of it could do little to dilute her dream's potency and power. She'd had it ever since she was a little girl, the sense that she had been an Egyptian queen and that an immortal companion had led her in common garb through the alleyways and streets of some royal city she couldn't identify. Perhaps it had been Alexandria. Perhaps it had been Thebes. She could never be sure. The specifics were too vague.
The dream was not so much a visual experience, but more a kind of knowledge that would settle upon her in her sleep. In the midst of it, she would know things with that magical certainty one can only seem to achieve in dreams: she knew the man walking beside her, her hand in his, was immortal; she knew that she was queen of Egypt. She knew that his love for her had taken the form of this tour through her own kingdom, as seen through the eyes of her subjects. But these were bits of knowledge with scant images to accompany them. And so the dream felt vague and incomplete. She'd never seen the face of the man next to her, and when she'd had to describe it in the book, she'd stolen the features of one of Chicago's most handsome stage actors.
"Seems a bit of a walk from there to socialism, dear," the man's wife muttered.
"Can you imagine the king dressing up as a beggar and wandering through the streets of London?"
"Perhaps," the man's wife answered. "But I can't imagine him learning much from it."
"And why should he? Filth is filth. It's to be overcome and nothing more. He's to engage only in that which makes for an effective ruler. Playacting at being a beggar would do nothing of the sort!"
And here it came yet again, her newfound strength, and before she realized it, Sibyl was addressing the man, her tone confident and steady. "And perhaps it's not possible for a king who does not truly know his people, all of his people, to be an effective ruler of any kind."
The man stared at her blankly. He tossed the book aside and rose to his feet.
"Darling?" his wife asked, clearly amused. "Have you no response?"
His back to Sibyl, the man said, "Those to whom I have not spoken should expect no response when they speak to me."
And with that, he trotted off, but not before grumbling something under his breath about idealistic Americans.
His wife gave Sibyl a piteous smile and rose to follow him. "Do forgive my husband. He can barely stand to be questioned by other men. It'll be years before he's comfortable being questioned by a woman, if ever."
But Sibyl was unfazed by the man's rudeness; it was his choice of parting words that had startled her, and after the wife left, she rose and walked to the deck rail.
Those to whom I have not spoken should expect no response when they speak to me.
She had tried many times since the Mauretania left New York Harbor to open the connection between herself and this Cleopatra woman, and each time, she had screwed her eyes shut, reached for some deep, invisible place within herself. And every attempt had been like trying to find her way through a dark and silent room with no senses to guide her.
And yes, she had called out to the woman in her mind, silently, occasionally with a whisper. But to truly speak to this woman, it had to be done during one of their rare moments of connection. Until then, how could she possibly hope to expect a response?