The Queen's Handmaid (32 page)

In the silence of David’s leaving, Lydia wrapped her arms around herself. She and Simon had not been alone since last night, when things were almost said, were nearly admitted.

But now there was no need. There would be no parting.

She felt a strange disappointment, not with the canceled escape, but at the words that would not be said. “I should get Mariamme prepared for the journey.”

Simon sniffed and cleared his throat. “I will take the queen home. But you should not return.”

“I go where the queen goes!”

He turned on her, his eyes intense, pained. “Lydia, you forget that I saw Salome in the storerooms with you. Heard what she said. You are in as much danger as Mariamme ever was, and that has not changed.”

Lydia huffed and looked northward, to where David had disappeared. “It is ludicrous. I am nothing more than a lady’s maid. She has no reason to see me as an enemy.”

“Salome is evil, Lydia. And you are not.” He took up her hand in his own. “She sees your goodness, that you bring it wherever you go. And it angers her.”

Lydia shook her head. “I have done nothing—”

“I did not say it makes sense. But I know what I saw. And you are not safe in that palace.”

She thought of telling him about the scrolls. Of the “destiny” Samuel had prophesied over her. But Simon would think her deluded or self-important. And he was a man more committed to action than prophecy.

She smiled up at him, a smile of gratitude for his concern. “I
am coming to believe that the One God will keep me safe, Simon, if that is what He wills. But I will not leave the queen.”

Painful as it was to disturb Mariamme and the baby from their cocoon of safety and warmth, within the hour the wagon was reloaded, soft bedding placed in the back, and mother and child ensconced in as much warmth as they could manage. Hannah heated oil and filled bladders to be tucked around them.

Lydia had been given ample funds to repay Hannah and Naomi for their efforts, which the two women accepted gratefully, but neither one was pleased with the hasty departure. Wise enough to ask no questions, they simply wished the traveling party well and waved a good-bye as the wagon set off for Jerusalem.

The two-hour ride back to the palace was as cold, rutted, and fearful as their escape the night before. Simon urged the horses as quickly as he dared with the precious cargo in the back, and none of them spoke much. They reached the city gate at midmorning, with Mariamme covered again in the back of the wagon. She had exchanged her royal robes for a plain tunic donated by Hannah, but her face might still be recognized.

Simon got them through the gates without incident, to the kitchen entrance of the palace, in a strange reversal of last night’s flight.

David waited at the door, nodded once, and beckoned them inward.

Lydia helped Mariamme as best she could to struggle from the wagon and walk slowly into the palace and down the steps to the storeroom chambers.

Once on the lower level, she took the baby from Mariamme. Simon swept Mariamme into his arms and carried her through
the storerooms, then up the staircase that opened into the courtyard. David ran ahead, then returned to signal.

It had taken only minutes, and it did not appear that they had been spotted by anyone, miraculously.

They entered Mariamme’s bedchamber as a group.

Alexandra jumped from a chair, rushed forward, and laid a hand on Mariamme’s pale cheek. “Oh, my daughter, what a terrible time you have had.” And then her attention was all for the baby.

Mariamme was set up in the bed, the baby returned to her arms, and the conspirators stood back and breathed.

Had they really accomplished it?

Marc Antony had sent Herod back from Syria with nothing more than a shrug and a grin. The Roman had ordered the death of members of his own family—it was an expedient way to handle power, he said. Why should he interfere when Herod did the same?

In the days that followed, Herod seemed taken only with the appearance of his son, and no whispered gossip betrayed them. Alexandra’s vague promise that she was working to accomplish Herod’s death was not mentioned among them.

Mariamme wanted to name the baby Aristobulus. Herod would not even consider it. Perhaps he feared what sort of loyalty the little namesake might provoke among the people, coming so soon after the drowning of the young High Priest.

No, he was to be Alexander, like his father and greatgrandfather before him.

Lydia saw little of Salome, but the woman seemed particularly displeased with the turn of events. A Hasmonean son was not good news.

Within a week, somehow Herod learned of Joseph’s slip—that he had told Mariamme of Herod’s lethal instructions. Perhaps emboldened by Marc Antony’s apathy over the death of Aristobulus, Herod seemed to think it prudent to have old Joseph executed. And Alexandra was to be kept under stricter guard—a house arrest for the queen’s scheming mother.

News of the royal family hanging still buzzed in the streets the morning Lydia finally ventured into the city again to find Phineas and Ephraim, the old rabbis she had met in the synagogue, and ask them about the Chakkiym.

After a few well-placed questions, she found them in the Valley Gate, still arguing and discussing the Law. She took a seat among their listeners.

Their current conversation was about Hyrcanus, Alexandra’s father and the former High Priest who had been given duties by a placating Herod but whose infirmities made him a mockery in the Temple. The rabbis seemed angry, but from what she had seen, she felt only pity for the old man.

She waited through the morning until most had drifted away before inching closer and venturing her first question about the writings of Daniel.

They seemed surprised at such a question from a woman and gave her vague and general answers. Yes, the writings were sacred with prophecies for the end of days and the Messiah to come. When would He come? It would be soon. The prophesied era was upon them, the years decreed from the end of exile until Messiah’s appearance had all but elapsed. They looked for Him to appear any day now and free them from tyranny.

Did they have all of Daniel’s writings intact, she asked, or were some sealed and then lost? Well, perhaps. Perhaps not.

Lydia sighed with frustration, then blurted out the question she had planned to make more subtle. “And what of the Chakkiym? Charged to guard the sealed writings of Daniel until the end?”

At this, heads jerked her direction, eyes narrowed, shoulders hunched.

“What does a servant girl know of such things?” Ephraim asked.

“I am only trying to learn as much as I can. I would very much like to speak with one of these—”

“Foolish tales.” Ephraim fluttered his fingers in dismissal. “Told by fanciful old women to their sons in hopes that some secret knowledge will be our deliverance. There is nothing to these tales.”

Lydia eyed Phineas, and though he did not appear to agree with Ephraim, nevertheless his eyes were hard and angry. She would learn nothing there.

She returned to the palace on slow feet. Where to go from here? Would she have no other recourse but to wait another six months for the next Yom HaKippurim?

The idea offered some measure of relief. She was tired. Tired of trying and of waiting and of feeling this constant pressure to live up to the expectations of a man no longer alive. What would it be like to simply forget the scrolls for months and then only do her duty on that one day each year?

She trudged through the palace’s great arch into the central courtyard, humming with servants crisscrossing its mosaic floors and tending to the myriad flowers and trees. Was there more activity than usual?

She stopped a young slave, a Gaul, if she remembered correctly. “Are we to have important visitors?”

He nodded, eyes wide. “Visitors from Egypt. Cleopatra is coming!”

The smaller of the palace courtyards, used exclusively for private family gatherings, was empty at this late hour, but the enormous iron brazier in the center still blazed, its flames only beginning to settle to black-orange embers under the chips of fuel.

Lydia leaned against the coolness of a nearby marble column, warmed enough by the fire to remain in spite of the winter air. She had wrapped a woolen mantle around her shoulders to stave off the chill. She needed to be alone.

Her eyes fluttered and closed in the drowsy warmth of the brazier, and her mind floated over facts and feelings like a butterfly flitting over a multitude of blooms.

Cleopatra would arrive by morning. Would she remember her anger toward Lydia? Would she remember Lydia at all? Most important, would Caesarion be with her?

The scrolls remained hidden in her chamber. Did she have any further responsibility to seek out the Chakkiym between the yearly holidays? Would HaShem protect her still from Salome when Lydia had done nothing for Him? Passages from Samuel’s teachings returned to her. Of a God who would be her refuge and fortress, her Father. She had never had a father, and she sorely needed a refuge.

“You are exhausted.”

She lifted her head from the column and searched the shadows of the courtyard for the familiar voice.

Simon emerged with a smile that looked more like pity.

“You have been attending the queen and her son at all hours. Why do you not leave it to the nursemaid?”

Lydia turned back to the fire and rested her head against the column again. “I need to be useful.”

He laughed and came to stand in front of the fire, warming his hands. “This I know.” He turned to her. “But it’s more than fatigue. There is something else. Something around your eyes.” He took a step closer. “Is it Cleopatra? Are you worried about her arrival?”

Lydia shrugged. “I did not leave under the best of circumstances. But it has been five years. She may not even remember me.”

“Oh, I doubt that. You are somewhat unforgettable.”

The compliment warmed her from the inside and she smiled.

“Even your smile is sad, Lydia. Tell me what is hurting you tonight.”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Dark memories of the past, I suppose. Thoughts of the future, which is not much brighter.”

He was beside her now, leaning one shoulder against her column, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. “Why not? What is it you want for your future that you cannot have?”

“To be needed. To belong.”

“Do you not have both here in the palace?”

“Yes. Yes, you are right. I am just being—”

“No, you are not. But you are not telling the entire truth, Lydia. You want to be needed. You feel worthless unless people value you for what you can do for them. You try to remain distant, but no one can help loving you. And despite what you think, you are wonderfully able to love others. You want others to need you, but you refuse to need anyone else. Why?”

“Because it never lasts. People leave.”

“What people?”

“Everyone. My parents. Before they even had a chance to
know me, they discarded me. Samuel. Caesarion. And—” The words choked in her throat.

“Who, Lydia? Who else?” He didn’t touch her, didn’t come any closer, but it felt as though he were inside her mind. “The one who drowned?”

The breath rushed out of her lungs, and her body sagged against the stone.

Simon’s words were a whisper in the night air. “Tell me of him. Please.”

She pushed herself away from the column and crossed to a bench on the other side of the brazier, still close enough to keep warm.

He joined her on the bench. “I know what it is to have lost, Lydia.” He stared into the fire. “There was someone—a woman—once.”

Lydia held her breath, wanting to hear it, yet not wanting to.

“I loved her. That love, it took my focus from the fight, the importance of our cause. She thought she could stand against Herod with only the strength of her convictions, and I was too distracted to see what was happening. When Herod came through Galilee years ago, she was cut down like nothing more than field grass.” His voice thickened, and he said no more.

“And that was when you joined Herod, to work against him from within?” She kept her voice low, glancing to the shadows.

“We needed someone who could get information. I volunteered. And I promised not to forget, not to be a fool again. That is why it is so hard . . .” But he left off and looked away.