The Queen's Handmaid (40 page)

He sighed heavily, as though the recitation had exhausted him. “And now, let the trial begin.”

Trial? What sort of mockery was this? In Herod’s palace rather than before the full Sanhedrin in the Hall of Hewn Stone, with no public hearing? And who would sit as judge?

As if in answer, Herod stood. “I shall serve as both the prosecution and the judge.”

Lydia gaped and looked to Alexandra. Surely something
could be done! But the woman’s face was stony, her gaze fixed straight ahead.

Herod was circling Mariamme, as he had done last night, the wild look in his eyes running up and down her body.

This morning she stood stoically, without emotion.

“The queen is accused of unfaithfulness to her husband.” He waved a hand and Mazal hustled out of the shadows. “As proof, we offer Mazal, cupbearer to the king, whose help she tried to procure for making a potion that would bind her lover to herself for all time.”

Mazal nodded energetically, but it did not appear any actual questions were to be directed toward him.

Herod waved him off.

Lydia watched the faces of the little court Herod had assembled. They were appropriately aghast, and the only sympathy seemed directed at the king himself.

“As for her lover, unfortunately he cannot appear before us to admit his wrongdoing as he was tragically overtaken by criminals early this morning and his life cut short.”

At this, Mariamme’s knees buckled.

Lydia pushed from the wall. But the queen was rallying.
That’s it, Mariamme. Show no weakness.

“Ah, you see by her reaction that she is overcome with grief over the loss of her lover.”

Herod returned to his throne and took his seat slowly. “The prosecution has ended its argument, and as there is no defense, I would ask that the court render its verdict, whether the queen is innocent or guilty of crimes to be paid for with her life.”

What? Lydia stepped across the slash of light at her feet. No defense? Not even a witness against her? The heads of Herod’s
supporters were bent to each other in mock deliberation. As though any of them would dare contradict the king.

“I will speak in my own defense, husband.”

Lydia silently cheered Mariamme.

Herod raised his eyebrows. “Speak, then. I would have the court hear your lies.”

She turned her head slightly to face the seated men. “I know of no such potion, for Mazal does not speak the truth. But even if there were such a thing, how does the king know it was not prepared for him?”

Herod’s face flushed. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, as though weighing his choices. He fixed his gaze on Mariamme, and the look was one of pain and betrayal. For all his cruelty and growing madness, his compulsive love for Mariamme still burned in his eyes—the look of a man so at the mercy of a woman who despised him, who wanted to somehow be free of him.

When he spoke, the words were measured and cold. “As the queen has refused to come to the king’s bed for nearly a year, this idea is preposterous.”

It cost him, this admission. To refuse a king in anything was a direct affront to his authority. The eyes of the men flicked between Herod and Mariamme.

And in that moment, she was condemned.

Whether she had taken Sohemus to herself or not, it mattered little. She had refused the king, and this was reason enough to call for her death.

Again, heads bent as if it were necessary. The head of the Sanhedrin stood and bowed his head briefly toward the king.

“My lord, the court has reached its verdict. The queen is declared guilty of these crimes and sentenced to death.”

Lydia felt her own limbs weaken. How could this be happening? She grabbed at the tapestry, twisted it between tight fingers.

Herod slumped against the back of his throne, and from behind Salome put a hand to his shoulder. He looked on his wife and his voice became pleading. “You see, Mariamme? You see? Even they are in agreement. You have done me wrong. Not been a proper wife to me.” His gaze flicked to Alexandra, who had not moved or spoken during the proceedings. “You and your mother have done nothing but conspire against me since we were wed.”

The words were angry, but Herod seemed to have no anger left. He sagged on his throne like a deflated wineskin, like a child whose tantrum has been successful but left him exhausted.

“I am a generous king, as you all know. The sentence of death shall be commuted to imprisonment.”

Lydia’s fingers loosened slightly on the tapestry and she found her breath again.

But Salome jolted forward, her face white. “Brother! Think what you are doing! This woman—and her mother—they are both determined to see you removed from power. As long as she lives, your life is in danger. Who knows but that this potion she was concocting was not actually a poison meant to kill you?”

Lydia huffed. Either Mariamme was unfaithful or she was a murderer—Salome could not have it both ways. But Herod seemed disinclined to think logically.

“She would tear this country apart, my brother. Incite the people to rise up against you. There will be riots! Riots and civil war!” Salome’s face was red with rage now. She gripped Herod’s shoulder like a vise. “She conspires with the zealotry, I have heard. Even here in your own palace there are traitors!”

Lydia’s body went cold. Would Salome condemn everyone Lydia loved in one morning?

Herod’s fatigue had fled, and his sister’s words were like a bellows to the fire of his rage. He sat forward on the throne, a look of fury thrown down on Mariamme. “Is this true? Do you work against my kingship?”

Grovel, Mariamme,
Lydia begged her silently, even as her eyes filled with tears because she knew her friend and cousin and sister well enough. She would not give Herod what he wanted. Not even to save her own life.

True to her noble birth and her family name, Mariamme raised her chin and looked Herod in the eye, a calm and settled dignity in the carriage of her shoulders.

“You have no kingship, Idumean. You are a Roman puppet, just as your father was before you. Those of us who truly belong to Israel”—she gave a pointed glance to the flatterers on his left—“those of us who know that the One God has given us this land as a possession forever, we also know that your reign will end.”

Lydia clutched at her robe with one hand, the other arm wrapped about her waist. She could do nothing, say nothing, to stop this now.

“I curse you, Herod the Idumean. In the name of the One God, Righteous and True, I curse you to die a painful death, removed of your pride, shamed before this nation. May your name ring out over the ages to come as a byword for cruelty and madness.”

Herod fell back once more, his arms resting limply on the arms of the throne. He was superstitious enough to find Mariamme’s curse the most frightening thing he’d ever heard.

Good. Let him suffer.

Salome was petting his shoulder now, a soothing motion, and whispering in his ear.

Herod nodded, then waved a weak hand without lifting his arm. “Take her to the gallows.”

Lydia was panting. She must keep her head.

“No!” She shot forward, past the still-silent Alexandra. “This is not justice! Mariamme has done nothing wrong! She has been faithful—”

Another whispered word from Salome, whose gaze pierced Lydia with a frightening hatred.

Herod sighed. “The court suspects both Mariamme’s mother and the Ptolemy Lydia of conspiring against the king as well—”

At this, Alexandra jumped to her feet with a shriek. “Lies! I have known nothing of her plots, my king!”

Lydia whirled on Alexandra, shock rendering her speechless.

The guards were grabbing at Mariamme, pulling her backward.

Coming for Alexandra. Coming for her.

Alexandra tore at her hair and turned on Mariamme. “You ungrateful wretch! Foul and traitorous!” She spit at her daughter’s feet. “You have treated our benefactor Herod in the vilest ways. Your punishment is just retribution!”

A stunned and heavy silence fell upon the chamber.

Mariamme was being prodded toward the door now. She paused for a long look at her mother but said not a word. And then she set her face for the door and led the soldiers out.

Herod was shaking his head at Salome. “Enough sentences for one day.” He rose, at which each of those seated also rose, then he crossed to the narrow door at the head of the throne room on heavy feet and disappeared.

Salome paused as she passed Lydia and leaned to hiss in her ear, “You are next, Egyptian.” And then they were gone.

The room erupted at once in the chatter that followed a shocking drama.

Lydia cast a look of disgust on Alexandra, but she would not stop to berate the odious woman now.

There was no time.

Thirty-Five

J
erusalem kept its gallows at the ready.

There was no telling when a public execution might be called for—to quell unrest, to rid the kingdom of agitators.

To hang a queen.

It seemed the entire palace followed in the wake of the soldiers. Lydia fought her way through the crowd that gathered citizens as it flowed through the street—citizens on their way to shops and markets who clotted the streets and alleys for a look at whatever traitor was being led to his death today.

Somewhere behind her, Simon and Jonah worked through the crowd, using their influence to keep the tenuous peace. There could easily be more bloodshed when the people realized it was their Hasmonean princess being led away. Simon had tried to hold Lydia back as well, but she left him to his important work and pushed through to her own.

Lydia shoved and jostled those ahead, taller than she. Dodged between shoulders and elbows to get a glimpse of Mariamme. She
could not think of Salome’s threat to herself. Not until she saved Mariamme.

Only the back of the queen’s head, with her honey-red hair flowing loose and uncovered down her back, appeared between the heads of the crowd.

The gallows loomed, weather-blackened and ominous. A rudely constructed platform, two poles and a crosspiece like an artificial doorway that led only to Hades. A twisted rope with a single loop barely wide enough to fit over a head.

Every part of Lydia’s body felt numb and on fire at once. She stumbled forward, fighting not to retch, ears ringing with the shouts of the crowd.

Did they cry for Mariamme’s blood or for her vindication?

Would no one speak for her innocence?

Up, up the stairs.

No, it was too soon.

Mariamme’s thin frame did not waver, her spine did not bend.

Lydia pushed forward, jammed her body between those who clamored for a better look at the spectacle. A woman about her age turned a nasty eye on her and scowled with blackened teeth.

“Stop this madness!”

Her scream was lost in the din.

The sun beat down on their heads from a cloudless, pitiless sky.

They were stretching that hideous loop around her head.

HaShem, have mercy.

She barely felt her chest heaving for breath, sucking in air, choking on sobs. “Mariamme!”

The queen’s gaze met hers at last. The first flicker of emotion Lydia had seen since the throne room passed over her face.

Mariamme nodded, wordless, to Lydia. All the love of the years they had spent together passed between them in that moment. Mariamme reached her right hand out across the open space of the platform.

Lydia shoved to the front of the crowd, to the base of the gallows and reached, reached for her friend, as though the reaching could save her, could connect them in ways that would span the afterlife, outlast death.

Her eyes were blinded with hot tears and Lydia shook them away. She would keep this fragile contact, not let it go. She was still reaching across the empty air when the floor beneath Mariamme released.

Her own breath ceased with the jolt of the platform. Her chest was stone, her lungs solid, her throat sealed.

Mariamme hung from the rope, her head tilted playfully. Had Lydia not seen her stand in the nursery doorway just so, her head inclined in mock disapproval of her children’s antics?

It was all a farce. It must be.

Herod loved Mariamme. Loved her obsessively. How could he have let it come to this?

Lydia clamored up the steps onto the platform, reaching for Mariamme’s dangling legs.

The executioner pulled her back.

The drop had rendered her unconscious, but strangulation took minutes.

There was still time.

She scrabbled for her legs, would have lain across that opening and forced Mariamme’s body upward if they would let her. But the grip of soldiers was so tight, it cut off the blood to her arms, and her screams went unheeded.

They were replacing the floorboard. Cutting her down.

The guards released Lydia at last, and she fell forward in time to catch Mariamme. Her body crumpled into Lydia’s arms, the neck horribly loose and rope-scraped.

The blue sky above the gallows wavered and grew dim. Blackness pushed in from the crowd. An undulating blackness that reached out for her.

Lydia’s body gave up its refusal to breathe, and she dragged in a harsh gulp of air that slashed at her throat and chest like it had teeth. That terrible suffocation, like a drowning in the Nile, that always clutched at her chest when she got too close, when love was ripped away. She sucked in a breath, then another and another and another.

But it was not enough. The water would take her too.

The sky and ground and crowd melted together and she fell across Mariamme’s body. Sisters in life, they would be so in death.

Thirty-Six

S
he became aware slowly. A bouncing rhythm and a beating heart.

Carried.

Her eyes fluttered open.

Simon’s stubbled jaw, set in an angry line, jutted across her vision. His arms braced beneath her back and knees. He angled her body, feet first, against the flow of the crowd.

“I can walk,” Lydia whispered, the sound jagged.

He did not acknowledge her words or even that she was conscious.