The Queen's Handmaid (10 page)

A moment later they were no longer alone.

Riva clutched his arm. “Your poetry has everyone inspired. What was your name again?”

He dipped his head. “I would be pleased to have you call me Varius.”

He did not owe Riva any courtesy—an artist of his standing speaking with a foreign servant. He did himself credit to treat her thus.

Riva’s gaze shot to Lydia and soured. “But why do you hover at the wall with the slaves? You must join us on the couches.”

Varius glanced at Lydia, his expression surprised at Riva’s false identification of her as a slave.

Riva leaned in before Lydia could correct the insult. “I have just been speaking to Herod about you.”

Lydia’s stomach twisted.

“Antony’s new wife, Octavia, is in need of a handmaid, as her last one has gotten herself with child.” Riva laughed, including Varius in the joke. “She must have pleased Antony more than she pleased his wife.” Her cunning look returned to Lydia. “Herod seems to agree that the gift of a new handmaid would garner much of Antony’s favor.” She smiled, a false smile of friendship. “Since you are so highly regarded as a lady’s maid, that is.”

She took Varius’s arm and pulled him toward the couch she had shared with Herod. “Just be certain you focus on pleasing
Octavia
.” Her laughter trailed behind, and Varius followed her to the couch like an obedient pet.

Once seated, however, his gaze strayed more than once to where Lydia braced herself against the back wall.

Rome had its attractions, to be sure.

Would Samuel understand if she were to find herself needed, wanted, here in the majestic city of the seven hills?

Nine

M
ay I brush out your hair, mistress?” Lydia fiddled with ivory combs scattered across a black-veined marble table beside Octavia’s gridded window.

True to her word, Riva convinced Herod that Marc Antony would be pleased if his new wife was attended by Lydia, at least while the entourage stayed in Rome. She must make certain it was no longer. The woman seemed very difficult to please.

Octavia sighed and did not stir from where she reclined on a cushioned couch. Her black hair, thick with curls and unbound, tangled about her head like a thicket. “Perhaps I should make a sacrifice.”

Lydia crossed to the couch, knelt beside it, and attempted to unravel her knotted hair. Octavia didn’t resist.

“Yes, mistress, a temple visit might be just the thing to cheer you.”

How many times had Lydia seen Cleopatra carried in her litter to the Temple of Isis when she was distraught over some matter of state? Although Octavia’s sadness seemed born of something far more personal.

“Cheer me?” Octavia turned her head from Lydia. “What purpose is there in being cheered?”

“For your children, mistress, if not for yourself. Would not Marc Antony be pleased to see his children—?”

Octavia snorted and swung her legs over the side of the couch. “Marc Antony? Foolish girl. They are not his children.”

Lydia rocked back on her heels, comb suspended. The rumors here in Rome of Antony’s wanton behavior with women had been more than rumors in Alexandria—Lydia had witnessed his meeting with Cleopatra two years ago, and the precious twins who were the result, even while he was known to be married to Fulvia. But to hear that Octavia had also been unfaithful—it was not proper, even for a Roman woman.

Octavia crossed to the marble table and retrieved a small comb to secure her hair.

Lydia scrambled to join her, took the comb, and expertly twisted half of Octavia’s hair atop her head in the Roman style, then secured it with the comb.

“Antony is my second husband. We have been married less than a year. My brother gave me to him after his third wife, Fulvia, died. I bore the three children to Marcellus.”

Second husband, fourth wife. Roman marriage alliances worked much as Ptolemaic, then. Octavia did not look older than thirty years, and yet there was an air of resignation about her, the knowledge that her life had been chosen for her without her consent.

“Not that I believe he is truly my husband.” Octavia fluttered her hand with a practiced nonchalance. “While in Rome he attends my handmaidens, and while in Egypt—” She turned on Lydia and clutched her arm. “Tell me of the queen Cleopatra. Is she so much more beautiful than I?”

Lydia clasped her hand over Octavia’s. “Shall we go to a temple?”

Octavia allowed herself to be led but did not forget her question. “She is powerful. Perhaps that is what he sees in her—all that power. It is said she would kill any person who stood against her for the throne, her own family, even. Is this true?”

They passed from Octavia’s private chamber into the wide peristyle that surrounded Marc Antony’s leafy courtyard.

“She is very determined to lead Egypt well.”

Octavia gave her a half smile. “You are loyal to your former mistress. I admire that. And already I can see why she chose you to serve her personally. You are like clean air in this stale place.”

“I would see you happy, my lady.”

Octavia’s gaze drifted to the courtyard, torch lit in the darkness but deserted. “You are good to wish it.”

The commendation warmed her. For the long months in Rhodes and aboard ship, Lydia had not been needed by anyone. Feeling worthless these months had worn her spirit raw, and she welcomed Octavia’s appreciation of her skills.

“But my happiness matters little. Perhaps soon it will be of no consequence at all.”

Lydia glanced sideways at the woman. What did such hopeless words mean?

A thick-necked slave stood at the entrance to the home, head lowered and hands clasped. He had an Egyptian look about him and the connection made her smile, but he did not smile in return. Lydia whispered to him of his mistress’s desire to visit the nearest temple, and he disappeared without a word into the darkness beyond the front door.

“Is it far, my lady? Will they bring a chariot or a litter, or will you walk?”

“The Temple of Cybele is here on the Palatine, but he will bring a litter all the same. Antony would not appreciate his wife walking the streets at night.”

Octavia insisted that Lydia remain with her, and so she followed the litter away from the house, as she had followed Herod’s entrance that afternoon. It was strange, this feeling of having been passed from Cleopatra’s children, to Herod’s future wife, to Marc Antony’s second. But it would not be permanent. How long must they remain in Rome before Herod would have the promises he needed and they could sail again? In the meantime, she would do her best to make herself useful here in Rome.

Perhaps learn some poetry.

The Temple of Cybele sat high on the western slope of the Palatine Hill, overlooking the Circus Maximus and opposite the Temple of Ceres on the Aventine Hill beyond. They took a long flight of steps upward to her altar, at the foot of the statue of Cybele, with her crown and two chained lions. The temple was as lofty as Egyptian temples, if not as beautiful.

Where Egyptian architecture was voluptuous curves, Roman was straight lines. The lotus-flowered capitals atop fat-bellied columns in Egypt, carved in deep relief with the wondrous colors of the hieroglyphic language, were replaced with fluted white marble, capped with austere scrolls that seemed to frown down upon Lydia as they wandered into the first court.

But any temple at night, with its shadows weaving between columns and reaching out from hidden recesses, had a beauty that was, at best, sinister. Lydia followed in Octavia’s wake toward an open-air altar already glowing with embers. From the warm shadows of the portico, a priestly whispered chant seemed to reach out
and surround them. The smell of burning flesh and smoke and incense burned her eyes.

“Do you feel it, Lydia? The darkness? Always darkness. This shall perhaps be my final sacrifice.”

“You will disavow the goddess, my lady?”

“She has disavowed me.” Octavia’s face was like stone. “I can only pray that other gods will accept my soul.”

Lydia sucked in a breath. The woman’s sadness ran dangerously deep, a heaviness of the heart that transferred to Lydia. Could she somehow help this woman at the end of herself?

Lydia stood unmoving through the rites, through the water poured over Octavia’s outstretched hands, through the slit throat of the glassy-eyed, unsuspecting bird and its blood dripping into a golden bowl. Cybele was “Great Mother,” conscripted from the Greeks, and her worship was more restrained and refined than that of Isis. The way she leashed the lions showed a control over nature that contrasted with the Egyptians’ more rapturous oneness with it.

When Octavia began to chant the prayers in a low monotone, Lydia compared the words to Isis’s prayers, and even those of Samuel’s God.
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One . . .”

She had avoided Cleopatra’s religious rites for years, in deference to Samuel and his disapproval of all other gods—his insistence that they were false and their worship angered the One God. What would Samuel think of her eagerness to please the Idumean Herod with his Greek ways, or of her desire to be needed by this Roman consul’s wife?

And which worship was right? With all these different deities, was it even possible to know the gods at all? Perhaps there really was only One, and He had somehow been fragmented into many.
Would someday people return to the worship of only One? She must ask David about it.

The hour was late when they returned, and after the day of travel and all she had seen of Rome, a bed would be most welcome. She had been handed to Octavia after the meal and not been shown where she would sleep. Should she ask her temporary mistress?

But in the courtyard, the sound of laughter, low and feminine, drifted from between the darkened ferns. Riva.

An encounter with the Judean girl was always unpleasant, but Riva would know where she was to bed down.

“My lady.” Lydia slowed Octavia’s walk along the peristyle. “May I attend you in a few minutes to prepare you for the night? I have a question for one of my fellow travelers.”

Octavia still moved with the quiet hush of the temple. She lifted one shoulder slightly. “Do not tarry long.”

Lydia bowed her head. “Yes, mistress.”

The laughter had ceased when they entered the house, but Lydia circled the courtyard, passing along the columned walkway to where the ferns and palms grew thick in a private bower.

“Lydia.” Riva’s voice emerged from the darkness, her face half-hidden, half-glowing in reflected torchlight. “You are wandering late.”

Riva was not alone. The poet Varius leaned one shoulder against the wall at her side, his ruby-red tunic matching the deepred paint, and the white of his toga in stark contrast.

“I accompanied Octavia to the Temple of Cybele.”

“Ah, always faithful, our Lydia.”

The condescension brought a flush to her cheeks. Did Varius see it in the darkness?

A slave hurried along the walkway toward them, one of their
own brought from Judea. “Riva!” His voice was sharp with reprimand. “Herod is calling for you.”

Riva’s face went dark for a passing moment, then cleared, the look replaced with a false smile. “Then I must leave him to you, Lydia.” She ran a hand along Varius’s arm, and her smile for him was most sincere. “Do not forget me by tomorrow.”

Varius bowed once. “Impossible, I assure you.”

Riva was gone a moment later, her hair swinging behind her shoulders as she walked. Lydia had forgotten to ask her about where they were to sleep. And it would appear Riva did not have to concern herself with the question.

She swallowed once, twice, and did not turn to face Varius, who stood silent behind her.

“Perhaps you would like to walk around the courtyard?”

No.
Yes
.

He held a hand to her as she joined him. “Honey cake? Riva brought it to me from the kitchens, but I have had enough.”

Lydia took the sticky golden morsel from his hand and tasted a small bite. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Besides”—he smiled and cocked his head as they walked—“now that you are here, I have all the sweetness I need.”

She tried to smile at the words, but they fluttered in her chest and stole her breath. She finished the honey cake and licked her fingers. What clever thing would Riva say at such a moment? Or perhaps Riva was beautiful enough that she did not need words to charm.

“I . . . I enjoyed your poetry.” Had she told him that already?
Stupid
girl.

But he smiled and bowed his head at the compliment as though it were the first time he’d heard it. “I am afraid my
comments afterward to Marc Antony were less well received. I should stick to my recitations, perhaps.”

“Oh no, I admired that as well! The way you are unafraid to speak your mind, even if it causes others to think less of you—” What was she saying? She licked sticky fingers again, more to quiet her mouth than because of remaining honey.

Varius chuckled. “Yes, that has always been a fault, I fear. One of these days it will probably earn me a dagger in the belly. Or worse, they will nail me to one of their infernal Roman crosses.”

It might be true, but still she admired him. The artist within her connected with his creativity, but she would never have his boldness.

They had come full circle around the courtyard now, but Varius continued as though he did not wish to end their conversation. She should return to Octavia. Already Lydia had been too long, and the woman’s desperation frightened her. She followed Varius, only a step behind.

He slowed until she caught up with him. “And while I seem to often enrage those around me, I should think everyone finds you quite pleasing.”

She smiled and shrugged. “Riva is the one whom everyone—”

“That is not what I meant.” His gaze drifted to where Riva had disappeared into the shadows. “Riva is entertaining, perhaps, but she is like a vapor.” He circled Lydia’s arm with cool fingers and squeezed. “There is something far more—solid—about you.”

Lydia laughed, the tight anxiety in her chest loosening a bit, in spite of his touch on her arm. “Solid. Yes, that is what every woman wants to be called.”