The Queen's Handmaid (8 page)

Fingers twined with his, kisses on his wet cheeks and his soft hair, wrenching sobs she fought to keep silent.

She would return. Somehow, someday—she swore by all the gods she knew—she would find her way back to this boy.

And then she tucked him into bed one last time, took up her dirty sack, and fled.

The tiny island known as Pharos at the end of the breakwater held little besides the majestic Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Temple of Isis. Jutting into the center of Alexandria’s double harbors, it signaled incoming ships that they neared land, and its soaring flame was said to be visible for three hundred
stadium
out to sea. Herodotus had claimed it in his writings four hundred years ago as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Lydia reached the square base of the lighthouse as the sun struggled to break, pinkish-gold, through the heavy clouds. She craned her neck to gaze all the way to the top. Her lungs burned and she pressed a hand against a cramp in her side. She had been running too long.

Running with her heavy sack, though it was lighter now than when she left the palace. After her good-byes there, she had one more task—another early-morning flight through the streets to the synagogue, where she found some of Samuel’s friends at morning prayers and told them of the night’s happenings. She made it through the telling without tears. Perhaps they were all spent at last. The distraught men tore at their clothes as was their custom. Who would pay for Samuel’s burial? They were poor scholars, all of them. She had pressed her pouch of money into one of their palms, shook her head at the objections, and run for the lighthouse.

Truly, she arrived here with little more than this assignment Samuel had given.

Was she too late?

A half-dozen boats bobbed along this side of the harbor, all of them empty.

But no, Herod was here, striding from the double doors at the base of the lighthouse, his retinue of slave girls and attendant boys hurrying behind. And two others: the Lighthouse Keeper and her husband. Lydia had never met them, only seen the woman, Sophia, and her Bellus, a retired Roman soldier, from a distance. They were friends of Samuel’s, and of some of the other Jews at the synagogue, like Sosigenes who was also a Museum scholar. There had been a time, many years ago, when Sophia had been Cleopatra’s tutor. But the two had parted ways.

Perhaps around the time Cleopatra started murdering her siblings.

Lydia stood alone at the end of the narrow land bridge, and the emerging group slowed as one when she was noted.

Herod’s gaze flicked over her in confusion, then recognition. But it was Sophia who strode forward, hands extended. “One of Samuel’s students, am I right?”

Lydia tried to smile. “Yes. Lydia.”

The woman caught her hands and squeezed.

Her warmth seeped into Lydia’s hands and into her soul, giving her courage. She looked to Herod. “Do you still want me, to serve your wife?”

Herod narrowed his eyes. “I am not certain if the spirit I witnessed last night would be an inspiration or a bad example to my Mariamme.”

Lydia lifted her chin. “Is the Lady Mariamme a woman like Cleopatra?”

Herod chuckled and glanced at his companions. “Your point is well taken. I should think I am in little danger. But what of you? Is your queen not searching for another throat to slit?”

“She is.”

Herod’s gaze flicked toward the palace. “Ah, I see. One more victory for me, should I take you along.”

“I will serve you well, you have my word.”

Sophia moved to place her arm around Lydia’s shivering frame, a gesture of such kindness, it felt as if they were old friends. “She is a good girl, Herod. Smart and dependable. You would do well to have her in your palace.”

Herod’s slow smile revealed his pleasure at Sophia’s reference. He had no palace yet, this money-strapped Galilean governor with an eye on the kingship.

Bellus was smiling at Sophia. “You’d do well to heed my wife, Herod. Smartest woman I know.”

“Very well. One more aboard.” He waved his attendants toward a merchant ship secured to the dock, then gave his thanks to Sophia and Bellus and followed.

Sophia released Lydia but turned to her. “I do not know what has happened, but I know Samuel trusts you. So I will tell you this—be strong, and brave, and smart. And believe all that your mentor has told you.”

Sophia glanced at Bellus, who smiled at her as if she were a queen herself, then back to Lydia. “In a world supposedly run by men, I can tell you that this advice has always served me well. You are all these things and more, I can see. May the One God hold you in His hand.”

Lydia caught up Sophia’s hand in her own and squeezed. The woman had placed more value on her in a fleeting moment than Cleopatra had in so many years. “Thank you.”

Sophia smiled and inclined her head toward the ship. “Go. Your future awaits.”

The sun had disappeared into the thick clouds by the time Lydia descended into the belly of the ship. She fought back the unreasoning panic. She had not been on a ship in more than seven years, not since that awful day. She took her place beside one of Herod’s servant boys who introduced himself cheerily as David.

The pitch and rock of the ship as it cleared the harbor and took to the open sea triggered not only sheer terror but waves of nausea. Thankfully, her belly was still empty.

Empty like the rest of her, for she was leaving everything that had ever been important on the disappearing shores of Egypt.

Seven

L
ydia sought the rail of the ship soon after they cleared the Alexandrian harbor. Here on the open sea, she was safely out of Cleopatra’s reach. And the hold below deck already stank of the ship’s previous journey and whatever cargo—alive or rotting, human or beast—it had once held. The wind caught her hair and the city disappeared into the fog. Besides Caesarion, and perhaps Banafrit, there was nothing, no one, who would miss her there for long. She looked northwest, toward Rome, and tried not to think of capsizing.

Twenty days.

Twenty days on board and they would reach that near-fabled city that sought to rival Alexandria in architecture and learning, but was filled with a warring class of men who understood little of Greek learning, Egyptian beauty, or Persian elegance.

At least, that was what Samuel had taught her.

Little wonder that Herod should seek out the patronage of Marc Antony and his troops to aid his bid for power in Judea. Where else but Rome would one go for military strength? Would
Antony come through for Herod when they reached the famed city? And then they would go on to Judea, where she could rid herself of the scrolls and figure out how to get back to Egypt while keeping safe from Cleopatra.

The boy, David, joined her at the rail and wrapped knobby hands around the cold metal. He was a boy becoming a man, perhaps twelve, with all the lanky awkwardness of his age—limbs grown longer than accustomed and a voice that pitched as erratically as the boat’s heave and plunge over waves. He said nothing, only smiled, then ducked his head when she smiled in return.

She watched the churning clouds on the horizon, a swirl of more hues of gray than she’d ever created on a palette. “Have you been with Herod long?”

“Almost three years.” He cleared his throat. “Since just before we were forced to flee Jerusalem.”

“And your parents, are they in service with the tetrarch as well?”

David drew himself upright and squared his shoulders. “My father raises sheep in Galilee. It is a poor living, and it was necessary for me to help with the family income.”

The words were delivered without resentment, but so young? He had known a bit of loneliness himself, then.

“Tell me of Jerusalem, David. I have never seen that part of the world.” Only through the eyes of Samuel and his teachings, but he had never seen the land of his fathers either.

“It is the City of God.” The simple statement was delivered with quiet passion.

The ship surged over a peaking wave and Lydia gripped the rail, sucking in a terrified breath. “And . . . and does Herod also worship the Jews’ One God?”

David huffed, then glanced over his shoulder at the sailors
shouting instructions about the mast to each other. “Herod worships himself alone. Yet he would be king over our people.”

“I know little of Judean politics.”

David turned and leaned his back against the rail, elbows propped, as if to appear unconcerned at the increasing waves. “It is complicated, and yet it is simple.” His voice had taken on the cadence of a rabbi in Samuel’s synagogue.

Lydia would have smiled, had she not been so focused on the waves.

“Antigonus has been king over Judea for many years and Hyrcanus has been High Priest. They are both Hasmoneans—direct descendants of the Maccabees who freed us more than a hundred years ago. When the Parthians invaded last year from the East, they supported Antigonus because he hates Rome as they do. They exiled the High Priest Hyrcanus to Babylon and cut off his ears.”

Lydia grimaced. The practice of mutilation was a common one. A man thus maimed could not serve in an official role. Still, it turned her stomach to think of it. Or was it the sway of the boat? She was feeling rather ill.

David was not finished with his brief history lesson. “The Parthians supported Antigonus and declared him both king and High Priest. But Herod’s father, Antipater, was supported by Rome, so the Romans put
him
in charge of Judea. He claims kingship, so there is civil war in Judea. Herod fled Jerusalem under attack by Antigonus. He hopes to bring back troops from Rome to establish his family’s rule.”

So, Jewish Antigonus and the Parthians against the Roman-backed Herod. Surely there was much more to all of it, but at least she understood why they undertook this trip to Rome.

As if an omen, lightning streaked across the horizon, piercing the sea like a spear thrown from heaven. A heavy crack of thunder snapped on its heels.

David eyed the swirling clouds. “We’d better go below.”

Lydia nodded in relief.

The other twenty or so who traveled with Herod were scattered across the large bowel of the ship, some seated on benches, others with their backs against the inner hull. Herod himself reclined on a low couch, attended by the same girl, Riva, who had been beside him in Cleopatra’s courtyard—a sharp-featured beauty a few years older than Lydia who followed Lydia’s entrance with David with narrowed eyes and tight lips.

Over the course of the long day, David tried to distract her from her nausea with tales of each of their shipmates—some slaves, some servants, and several advisers. But the variable swells and valleys that rocked the ship united them all—tetrarch and slave alike bent over pots to empty their bellies.

The day wore on, with the stench of salt and seawater, vomit and smoking oil, building in the hold. Waves crashed against the hull, and those below edged inward, as if the center were safe. In the oily torchlight, sweat-sheened faces, tinged green, shone in a ring of fear.

Two days later no one had eaten. Sailors cursed and screamed above deck. Servants cried and Herod whined. They lay half prostrate in a heap, often thrown against each other intimately. Lydia’s clammy skin crawled at the human touch and she tasted nothing but salt.

They would not reach Rome. Not in this weather. Already word had leaked downward from the crew that they had been blown off course in an easterly direction and now hoped only to
find land somewhere before the ship was torn to pieces. Cargo was jettisoned, two sailors were swept off the deck by waves, and all but one of the torches in the hold were extinguished.

Herod’s favorite servant girl, Riva, mopped his sweaty brow, but she looked as though she would soon be unconscious.

In the belly of the ship, Lydia lost her sense of time and place, tumbled backward into the black memory that always sucked away breath and hope, the cold and slimy pressure of river water wrapped around her little-girl body. She tore herself from the memory, back to the present, but it offered little hope.

She sat upon the sack that contained Samuel’s precious scrolls, but what good would it do anyone at the bottom of the sea? She would fail in the last task he had given, the only way that remained to honor his memory, to deliver these scrolls. Lydia owed him that much and more, and yet she would fail.

On the fourth day out from Alexandria, David began to sing.

It was a quiet, mournful tune in the language of his people. Lydia clung to the sweet, high voice and the words she did not understand, as if they were an anchor. She curled into a ball on the sticky floor, her possessions tucked against her belly, closed her eyes to all but the sound of his voice, and wished for death.

On the fifth day, they made landfall.

Herod’s entourage stumbled onto the deck and then to the dock—blinking in the light, filthy and stinking, clutching at rails, at ropes, at each other.

The island of Rhodes. A long way from Rome but solid ground.

The boat-strewn port hugged the edge of a jewel-like sea—sapphire and turquoise and diamond. The famed colossal bronze statue lay fallow beside the harbor, broken at the knees for nearly
two hundred years, a greenish shadow against the white stones of the harbor streets.