The Queen's Handmaid (18 page)

Alexandra’s face slap was swift and unexpected.

Mariamme fell backward, hand against her stinging cheek, breathing hard.

Alexandra’s eyes were aflame. “The boy will be king someday, have no doubt. But we must bide our time. And you must do your duty to bridge the gap.”

Mariamme turned away. The argument was useless, but still she rebelled. How could she marry a man such as Herod? Give him children? She tried to stifle the shudder that passed through her body. Mother would only see it as weakness.

“And do not underestimate Salome, my girl. She gains some kind of power from her wicked spells and idolatrous worship of her pagan gods. Sometimes I believe she has the very demons ready to do her bidding.”

A voice at the doorway drew them both. “My lady?”

Alexandra sighed at the servant girl’s interruption. “Yes? What is it?”

A shrieking sound echoed through the courtyard beyond the doorway.

“What in heaven—?” Alexandra’s hands went to her hips.

“That is what I was coming to tell you.” The girl inclined her head toward the courtyard. “Salome is searching for you and in a singular rant. She has heard that you turned away the silk merchant without letting her make a purchase.”

“Ach! The greedy little hyena would have us all eating cattle feed for the sake of her wardrobe. Run off, girl, and tell her I’ve gone out. I can’t abide dealing with her this morning.” Alexandra rubbed at her temples. “I have a headache.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The girl passed another on her way out. Aristobulus, her dear younger brother.

At fourteen, he was quickly becoming a man, though the famed beauty of his childhood still rested on his perfect features. Tawny hair, deep-set brown eyes, and full lips. Every young girl who set eyes on him fell in love, and every old woman wanted him for a pet.

He lingered in the doorway, his gaze scanning his mother standing over his sister.

Alexandra’s arms widened to an open embrace. “My son. Come. Have something to eat.”

Aristobulus’s gaze shifted to Mariamme, the question in his eyes obvious. Was it not a day of fasting?

Mariamme gave him a small nod and a tiny shrug of one shoulder, and he shook his head and sighed. Despite their five-year age difference, they were always able to communicate with few words. Perhaps it was all the hours spent together, hiding from their mother’s moods. No sister and brother could be closer.

“No, thank you, Mother.” Aristobulus leaned against the doorway. “I am not hungry.”

Alexandra gave an exasperated snort. “You and your sister. Two of a kind.”

He would not even mention the day. Aristobulus was no stronger than she when it came to confronting Alexandra.

Ari handed their mother a sealed scroll. “A letter, Mother.
Just arrived with a soldier from Jericho—Herod’s new favorite, Simon.”

“Jericho!” Alexandra tore at the waxy seal. “What is he doing there?”

Mariamme’s pulse hammered in her throat. Herod sent letters only when there was significant progress in his battle against Antigonus. And to send Simon—did it mean Herod was coming to claim his bride? “Read it aloud, Mother.”

She waved a hand in Mariamme’s direction, her attention already fixed on the letter, scanning its lines as though she would lift only the critical content from the papyrus. A moment later she raised stricken eyes and nodded. “He begins with greetings for all of us. Cypros and Salome first, of course. That man has an unnatural affection for his mother and sister—”

“The letter, Mother!”

She shrugged. “He greets me, then you and your brother. Then tells of his progress since he visited here in the spring. ‘Antony sent two legions and a thousand cavalry to my aid in Galilee under that snake of a general Macherus. We were to assault Jerusalem together. Macherus thought himself worthy of a bribe by Antigonus instead, but Antigonus refused him. Macherus returned to me, slaughtering every Jew he met along the way, including many of my own supporters.’ ”

Mariamme gasped. These Romans were dogs, as Mother had said.

Alexandra continued reading. “ ‘Your husband’s brother Antigonus is a fool, but nevertheless the people favor him too well because of his lineage. Even the Pharisees have joined with their rival Sadducees to back him. With your father Hyrcanus in Babylon, all the hopes of the people are focused on him. And
so it is time for Rome to make good on her promise to make me king.’ ”

This would be it, then. The news worth writing about. Mariamme hardened herself for whatever was to come.

Alexandra lowered herself to a couch, her finger running over the lines.

“ ‘I left Joseph in Judea with orders not to quarrel with Macherus while I myself pushed forward to Syria to intercept Antony where he was fighting the Parthians. He finally made good on the troops he should have given a year ago, and the general Sosius and I traveled south with legions. It was here in Antioch that I had a most terrible dream, my love.’ ” Alexandra stumbled over the word and lifted her eyes to Mariamme.

Herod’s letter had been written to her mother, as was proper, but clearly he had Mariamme in mind as he penned it, accidentally addressing her. The oft-repeated endearment was always delivered with a sickening flattery. Why, when she had given him no encouragement, did he seem to dote on her?

“Continue, Mother.”

“ ‘A terrible dream. You know how I am severely troubled by them at times, and how the gods seem to speak to me through them. I dreamed that my brother was dead. I will not horrify you with the details of the dream, but the next day when I awoke, I learned that Joseph had disregarded my instructions and led troops against Antigonus. He is dead, my love. His head flaunted in grotesque display before the people, even when our brother Pheroras offered to redeem it.’ ”

Mariamme closed her eyes, heart heavy. She had spent a year in the fortress of Masada with Joseph and his men there in protection. He had been a decent man.

“ ‘That is not the worst of it, I fear. News of his death spread quickly. The nationalists have tasted blood and want more. Revolts are flaring all over the lands we hold in Galilee and Idumea. Prominent supporters are being drowned in the sea. I must urge you to take care there in Samaria, for I believe Antigonus’s general—the brute Pappas who severed the head of my brother with his own sword—is on his way to take Samaria as well.’ ”

Alexandra’s voice faltered, the only sign that Herod’s news struck fear into her as it did Mariamme.

“ ‘As for myself, there is nothing for me but to push forward despite the coming winter rains. We have marched to Jericho, and from here will advance on Pappas’s troops. But you must be strong, all of you gentle and dear women of my heart, and keep yourselves safe until he is dealt with. We have the might of Rome behind us now, and we cannot fail. I shall see us all in the palace of Jerusalem by spring, I have no doubt.’ ”

Alexandra let the letter flutter to the cushion.

Mariamme snatched it up, searched its lines for anything more. But there was nothing.

Her mother and brother drifted from the room, lost to their own thoughts, it seemed. Lydia appeared soon after and began clearing the uneaten food. Her hands shook. Had she heard the news directly from Simon?

The girl had become indispensable here in Samaria. What would she have done without Lydia when Herod’s sister, Salome, needled her with cruel remarks, or Mother chastised her for being too cold, too quiet, too everything?

Yes, the gift of her handmaid was the only good thing Herod had ever done for her. Lydia knew when to speak and when to be silent, and everywhere she moved she left some touch of beauty
in her wake. In the year they’d been together, Lydia had grown in confidence and in talent. Often Mariamme envied the girl’s freedom. No one would force her into a marriage of alliance. But Lydia had been morose all day. It could not be the words of the letter that left her sad.

“It seems we are to be attacked, Lydia.”

The girl’s gaze flicked sideways, then back to her work. “Bad news, then, my lady?”

“Perhaps you had an omen. You have been so glum today.”

“It is Yom HaKippurim, my lady. A day to reflect on one’s guilt.”

Mariamme tilted her head and examined Lydia. “But you are Egyptian. What do you care about a Judean holiday?”

Lydia swept crumbs into the palm of her hand and deposited them on a tray. “I have reason to believe my mother was Jewish.”

Mariamme sat upright. “Reason to believe? Do you not know who your mother was?”

Lydia shook her head but continued her clearing of utensils.

“Well then, I shall consider you my Jewish sister.” How had she never heard this? “Perhaps we should go to synagogue together for the closing prayers today. It is a good day to pray. We are in need of both forgiveness and protection.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Perhaps HaShem heard their prayers, for as the autumn leaves fell and the winter rains descended, the nationalist Pappas’s army was besieged by the Roman Macherus’s legions and never came closer than a Roman mile from the Herodian family home where the women waited daily in anxious expectation of attack. The news came sporadically—Herod had defeated rebels in Galilee in a night attack; he had been wounded in Jericho. The story came
of a house collapsing only minutes after Herod and his prominent guests had left, a good omen in Herod’s mind. Then a series of savage raids in which Herod captured five towns and put more than two thousand captives to the sword in vengeance for his brother’s death. He was gaining support; his ranks were swelling with those who hated Antigonus and those who would throw their allegiance behind whomever was succeeding.

And success was being parceled out to Herod. After an ambush set like highway robbers, Pappas’s nationalist force was annihilated and Pappas himself killed, his head cut off and sent to Pheroras in just recompense for their brother Joseph’s death. It had been a massively bloody battle, and only a blizzard prevented Herod from turning at once on Jerusalem, where Antigonus was nearly ready to surrender.

Herod had predicted they would be in Jerusalem by spring, and when the countryside greened with new growth and the damp air freshened with the scent of almond blossoms, another letter arrived with news that was expected.

The women gathered in the columned courtyard to hear it, and Mariamme listened to the reading with head high. She would not cry, not let her mother see the terror the words brought. It was her familial duty.

Herod’s troops had been besieging Jerusalem for a month. He was confident the city would soon be his. As a show of confidence, he was coming to Samaria. Their five-year betrothal would finally be consummated. The wedding would show the entire country that he was to be their new king, married to the Hasmonean princess who united both lines of the feuding brothers in her blood.

Mariamme put a hand to a green-and-gold-painted column
to steady the dizziness that swept her vision and tumbled in her head. She felt like she was falling from the blood-red cliffs of Masada, still in the air, still intact, but watching the merciless ground rush up to claim her.

“Prepare,” his letter instructed the four women living in constant hostility.

“I am coming for my wife.”

Seventeen

I
t must be today.

Lydia tightened the leather straps that held the precious scrolls to her chest, then shrugged into a stained tunic. She threw a mantle of drab brown around her shoulders and over her hair. Would she blend into the terrified city? One more girl combing the bloodied streets in search of crumbs for her family?

Herod had taken Mariamme for his wife in Samaria, but he had brought them all here to Jerusalem, including his sister, Salome, and her new handmaid, Riva, to watch the siege that he and the Roman commander Sosius directed from their encampment outside the northern walls. Herod boasted that he attacked the city from the north where it was unprotected by ravines, in the same manner as Pompey some twenty-five years earlier. He would be equally successful, he declared.

Lydia slipped from the tent before Mariamme awoke and called for her. David had his instructions and would provide her excuse. He had protested when she whispered her plan to “see the fighting firsthand” the night before.

“They say the city will fall tomorrow, Lydia! After five months of siege, why must you get closer
now
?”

Did she still not trust him with her secret? Had he not proven himself in nearly three years? He was a man of fifteen now, the uneven voice and gangly frame swallowed by depth and muscles. And she was a woman of twenty-one. Still with no husband or children.

“Do not press me, David.” She turned away, disappeared into the tent where she slept on a mat outside Mariamme’s enclosure when Herod was in the field.

This morning she ran, half bent, with darting glances between the shadows of the encampment. It was all so reminiscent of the first Yom HaKippurim in Judea, two years ago, when she had failed to reach the Temple.

She would not fail again.

It was a gift of Samuel’s God that Herod would take the city today, the Day of Atonement. She would follow on the heels of his soldiers, all the way to the Temple steps where she would finally be delivered of the scrolls that burned the flesh of her chest with their unknown messages of the future.

Once clear of the camp, it was all open field. Every tree for miles had been savaged to erect siege towers or bundled into fascines—the large rolls of logs bridging ditches so battering rams could roll ever closer to the crumbling walls that Herod’s father, Antipater, raised years ago.

The second, outer wall had fallen soon after Herod returned from Samaria, gleefully announcing his marriage to the Hasmonean princess, as if the wedding would convince the Jews within the city that he was their legitimate king. Perhaps some who had been on the fence fell to his side, but the Nationalist
party dug in their heels, screaming that the Arab pig would never have their throne.

Another few weeks and the first wall fell. But still the Temple and the Upper City held out, determined never to yield.