The Warrior (The Herod Chronicles Book 1)

by Wanda Ann Thomas

  “I promised to get Lydia back, and I will.” Nathan worked to keep his voice calm. “And even if I wanted to lead your army, I couldn’t. I promised my father I would not take up a sword again. That aside, I’m begging you to reconsider. Going to war against Antipater is a mistake.”

  “No. You are the one who needs to think again.” Simeon pointed a bony finger at him. “Refuse to cooperate and you won’t see another shekel of Alexandra’s dowry. Hear me, Farmer. Say no to me, and I will beggar you and your family.”

  “Keep your money,” Nathan bellowed. He surged to his feet, loosened the straps of his sandals, took them off, and slapped the heels against his palm. “Hear me, you old snake. I will walk naked through the streets of Jerusalem before I accept a crumb from you.” He threw the sandals at his father-in-law’s chest, repaying insult with insult. Simeon nearly toppled over backward, setting off a chorus of surprised cries.

  Disgusted with himself for allowing his hateful father-in-law to get under his skin, Nathan did an about-face and marched out of the tent.

  CHAPTER 19

  Alexandra watched the only happiness she’d ever known disappear with Nathan as he stormed out of the tent. She would gladly sacrifice ten lifetimes’ worth of joy to save Nathan and his family from her father’s schemes. His promise to beggar Nathan’s family was not an empty threat.

  Her father truly believed he should be high priest. Over the years, he had frequently discussed intrigue and strategy with influential men regarding how best to take his rightful place. He’d met secretly, a time or two, with Antipater, but had come away sorely disappointed.

  Leave it to her father to take the drastic action of raising his own army. Rigid and single-minded in his purity practices, he would seek the office of high priest with equal passion. If she believed for one moment that her father was acting for the sake of the Lord and the Holy Scriptures, he might have gained her sympathy. But she knew all too well that he was motivated by his overblown pride.

  Alexandra rose to her feet to go after Nathan.

  “Daughter.” The sound of her father’s voice chilled like a blast of frost from the mouth of God. She sat back on her heels and forced herself to look at her father.

  His gray eyes sat like lumps of wet charcoal in his face. “I am disappointed in your husband. I had great hopes for him.”

  Her face heated. “Nathan is a good, honest man.”

  Joseph, Rhoda, Mary, Timothy, and Sapphira joined her in defending Nathan.

  “Hold your tongues and listen,” Father ordered. The full weight of his contempt landed back on her. “The olive farmer didn’t hear me out. I have another offer to make. It concerns his marriage to you.”

  She lifted her hand to her constricted throat. Please, please, Lord, she begged don’t let him say what I’m afraid he is going to say.

  Her father’s mouth turned down. “I’d rather have my own man heading my army. But I have other options. My brother is ready to leave Egypt and throw his money and influence my way.”

  Alexandra groaned. Uncle Jacob made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem every few years. Every bit as pompous as her father, Jacob had a huge potbelly. She blurted out her disbelief, “You want Nathan to divorce me, so you can give me in marriage to Uncle Jacob? I thought you despised the idea of uncles and nieces marrying?”

  James laughed harshly. “How is that for throwing away one’s beliefs? Aren’t you proud to call such a man Father?”

  Alexandra winced. The barb was as sharp as it was apt. Everyone in Judea knew Simeon Onias had left the Sadducees to join the Pharisees and thereafter railed loudly against the Sadducees’ corrupt ways. He was among the chief critics of the Sadducees’ practice of intermarriage between uncles and nieces, a cold-blooded tactic for keeping wealth and power in the hands of the few. It made the marriage he was proposing that much more hypocritical.

  Lightheaded, Alexandra clutched her stomach. “Nathan won’t divorce me.”

  Her father plucked at his beard. “He will if he knows what’s good for him.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You aren’t with child, are you?” He read the despondency in her eyes. “No? Good. Good,” he said with satisfaction. “Jacob wants to try to get sons on you. Sarah just delivered daughter number eight. I imagine my brother probably wants to jump off a cliff about now.”

  Lex licked her parched lips. “Jacob is going to divorce Sarah?”

  Her father made a sound of disgust. “No. My brother claims he is fond of the old carp. You will be Jacob’s second wife.”

  Her father turned and addressed Joseph. “If you and your son want to be rid of me, all Nathan has to do is divorce Alexandra. I will give you a generous settlement and leave your family to live in peace.”

  “Nathan doesn’t want to divorce Alexandra,” Mary protested, her voice rife with confusion.

  Lex wished the problem was so simple. Oh, she knew Nathan would kick hard against divorcing her. But, in the end, what choice would he have? He couldn’t let his family come to ruin. She wouldn’t let it happen. Hugging herself, she rocked in place, already mourning the loss of her beautiful, kind husband.

  ***

  The meal over and the tent put to rights, Alexandra went searching for Nathan. She found him at the far end of the orchard, climbing an old, twisted olive tree. The ancient tree boasted a knobby trunk half as wide as it was tall, capped with a mushroom-shaped canopy of bright, white flowers.

  Nathan leaned out over a craggy limb and hacked at a flower-lined bough with a short hooked blade. The spindly branch tumbled to the ground. “I’m sorry for deserting you,” he said by way of greeting her. “I let my temper get the best of me.”

  She picked up a cast-off sprig loaded with blossoms. “Should you be trimming the trees in your present...ah, mood? Look at all the flowers.”

  Nathan reached over his head, snapped off a white bud, and twirled it between his fingers. “One olive is born for every twenty flowers that bloom. It goes against sense, but by cutting away branches and making openings for the sun, I’ll get more olives. The old women hereabouts tell the tale of the olive tree that talked to its farmer and told him, ‘keep my brother away from me and take his share from me.’ My father has a saying, too. ‘One branch allowed access to full sunlight will produce more fruit than two that touch.’” Tossing the flower away, he scanned the branches over his head. “The best time for pruning is right after the harvest. But I was too busy to get to it this year.”

  Nathan sliced another limb free. The bough twirled in small circles as it fell and came to rest at her feet. She toyed at it with her sandal. “It’s because my family’s woes distracted you from your work. And now my father is threatening you. And I don’t see any way out of this mess.”

  Nathan jumped to the ground and stood before her. “I plan to plant more trees. But it will take eight or ten years for new trees to bear fruit. We will have to live frugally until then.” Shadow and light played over the sharp planes of his concerned face.

  Her throat tightened. “You can’t believe I would mind?”

  “I mind. You having to live poor wasn’t in the contract I made with your father.”

  She hid her face in her hands. “Father says he will give you a generous settlement if you divorce me.”

  “He what? Why?” Nathan fingers circled her wrists and he gently pulled her hands into his. “Never mind, I’ve seen how his mind works. He uses his children like game pieces. He wants to marry you off to someone else, doesn’t he?”

  “My uncle.” A shudder went through her. “It might be for the best.”

  “Not for me. And certainly not for you.”

  “What about your family. What about Timothy and Mary?”

  His hands squeezed hers. “They’ll fare just fine. Rhoda will be unhappy about losing Sapphira. We’ll have to send the slave maiden home if we can’t work out some other agreement with her father.” He smiled and winked. “I don’t expect you will miss Sapphira overmuch, will you?”

 
Alexandra’s face warmed.

  Nathan turned grave. “It will mean more work for you.”

  “I don’t mind.” She moved closer to him. “I despise what my father is doing to you.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I know how to be poor.” His eyes softened. “Trying to learn to live without you...now, that would ruin me.” He wrapped his arms around her and buried his mouth in her hair. “I love you, Lex. Tell me you are happy to throw in your lot with a poor farmer.”

  He actually believed she would choose riches over him? She ran her hands over his arms and back, memorizing the lines and angles of his well-formed body. Then she tried to imagine herself returning to the stifling confines of her life in Jerusalem. “Nathan, I will live in a tent for the rest of my life, and count myself blessed above all women if you are there with me.” She swallowed back tears. “I love you. And I adore your family. And I love this farm...well maybe not the goats and Jezebel, but everything else.”

  She felt Nathan’s lips curve with a smile. “We could serve goat tonight for dinner and wish Jezebel and your father both to Hades.”

  “Jezebel deserves better,” she protested half-heartedly. Her voice fell to a whisper. “I wouldn’t regret the loss of the money one bit, except it had the virtue of making up for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”

  Nathan leaned back and looked her in the eyes. “Your father’s money means nothing to me.” He traced his finger along her jaw and then over her heart. “You, and you alone, are my prize.”

  Her husband valued her. The thought amazed and warmed her. But, she couldn’t fully enjoy it. “Father won’t be happy with us.”

  Nathan turned grim. “Simeon Onias can’t return home soon enough to please me.”

  ***

  That night Lex and Nathan moved into the large tent, leaving the small tent to James, Elizabeth, and Father.

  Her head pillowed on her arm, Lex lay facing Nathan. Beyond his shoulder, dim shadows cast by oil lamps wavered ghost-like across the tent’s weathered walls. Rhoda and Joseph lay on their backs, side by side, holding hands and talking over the day’s events. Timothy, Mary, and Sapphira were stretched out on their stomachs, facing one another, playing at a guessing game.

  Lex imagined the mood in the small tent was dismal.

  Her family and Nathan’s couldn’t be more different. “Your father’s stoicism would put the patience of Job to shame,” she said, marveling at her father-in-law’s serene demeanor in the face of her father’s ferocious, foul mood.

  Nathan’s warm laugh ruffled her hair. “I made my father angry enough once that he actually swore.”

  “No.”

  “It shocked me contrite. For a day or two, anyway.” Nathan’s smile dimmed. “A few hours in your father’s company has given me new respect for you. It’s amazing he has any friends, or that he ever speaks to women, given his attitude.”

  “Father is highly respected among his peers.” She grinned at the sour face Nathan made. “You and your father are the strange ones. I’ve never seen men treat women with as much esteem as you two. Mary is blessed to have you as her brother.”

  “Don’t praise me for doing what is right. Besides, I had a good example. My father never speaks disparagingly to women. Or of them, for that matter.” He lifted his hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve listened to the elders read the story of Eve tempting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit dozens of times. And, I’ve considered, at length, the teaching that all women are evil seductresses, ready to commit adultery or fornication, but I couldn’t find it in the scriptures. My father and I have debated the matter at synagogue with the elders, but our view gets little consideration.”

  Lex could only blink. He kissed her on the nose. “I know. It’s very presumptuous of olive farmers to argue with the teachers of Israel over the Law of Moses.” He shrugged. “Weren’t Abraham and King David shepherds? I don’t believe the Lord holds my lowly status against me.”

  She found her tongue. “My father would turn purple if you said such things in his hearing.”

  Nathan snickered. “Your father is highly learned. I’m sure he’d talk circles around me.”

  She covered his mouth with her fingers. “You mistake me. I would enjoy hearing you argue scripture with my father.”

  He blew a puff of air through his lips, tickling her palm, then tugged her hand down. “Lord forbid. I learned not to waste my breath on men like him.”

  She snuggled closer to Nathan. “I’m glad you are here to warm me. The nights have been long and cold without you.”

  “Lex?” She could hear the need in his voice. “Remember what I said about wanting to pitch the tent in the orchard?”

  Desire spiraled through her. “We don’t need a tent. Tents are for the old.”

  “Amen,” Rhoda said loudly.

  Nathan laughed. “I think we’re being invited to leave.”

  “God bless you, children,” Joseph called after them as they scooped up their blankets and tumbled out of the tent.

  Hands clasped, they raced across the field, laughing and whooping like a pair of demented hyenas. They barely made it past the first row of trees when Nathan dragged her to a stop. She looped her arms around his neck and practically inhaled him whole, kissing his lips, chin, and neck. Nathan’s hands and mouth were everywhere. Limbs hopelessly entwined, they toppled over.

  Nathan rolled on top of her, pinned her to the ground, and kissed her breathless.

  She pushed at his chest. “Wait...wait,” she was laughing so hard her sides ached. “Let’s go deeper into the orchard, before...before...”

  He shifted his weight to his elbow and peered down at her. “You are too tempting to resist, my lovely wife. I see you and I want you.” The light of the rising moon highlighted the bold lines of his face. His warm breaths purled against her ear. The ends of his dark, curly hair brushed over her cheeks.

  A shiver went through her. “Come, my husband. Come have your fill of me.”

  ***

  The moon stood high above the tops of the trees by the time Alexandra and Nathan spread their blankets out in the heart of the orchard. Nathan drew the covers over them and wrapped his body around hers. Warm for the first time in weeks, she fell into a deep sleep.

  Hours later she woke up shivering.

  Nathan awoke with a start. “No!” he cried, jumping to his feet. He slipped and almost fell.

  Alexandra sat up. The white puffs of her breath clung to her mouth like the bands of a death shroud. A thick layer of icy white frost coated the ground, rocks, and trees. Olive blossoms twinkled like costly diamonds against the frigid blue sky. Eerie silence had replaced the birdsong.

  The icy cold sliced to the quick as she realized what she was looking at.

  A killer frost.

  CHAPTER 20

  Nathan reached up and snapped off a frozen bud from the gnarled tree. He held the delicate blossom out on his open palm and watched the ice melt away. The edges of the white flower were curled and browned. His eyes told him what his heart already knew—this year’s olive crop was a total loss. He threw the dead flower back at the tree. “Lord, why?” he groaned. “Why this year?”

  Lex hugged him from behind. “Nathan, you’re frightening me.”

  He turned into his wife’s embrace, wrapped his arms around her, and laid his face on her head. “Forgive me. I’m frustrated. We’ll have to rethink where we go from here.” He pulled back and looked at Lex. “I won’t change my mind about your father’s offer.”

  “Of course not. But...but, I feel guilty you and your family will have to suffer. When you could solve all your problems by divorcing—”

  He kissed her, pressing and pressing until she surrendered and kissed him back. Satisfied he had her attention, he released her. “No more talk of divorce. Are we agreed?”

  Eyes gray and large as a pair of plump doves, she nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “As long as we’re together, everything else will wor
k itself out.” He took hold of her hand. “Let’s go break the bad news to the others.”

  ***

  Later that day Nathan steered Royal to the right, ceding the center of the narrow dirt road to the noisy donkey caravan kicking up a trail of dust on its weekly trek between the Galilean capital of Sepphoris and the small towns and villages lining the Sea of Galilee. His father had sent him out, ostensibly to assess the reach of the killing frost—the damage appeared limited to a swath of valleys north and south of his farm—but Nathan’s real purpose was to have a word with Herod about Simeon Onias’s damnable plan to form an army.

  Nathan waved a greeting to the last of the traders and licked his lips, savoring the sour, salty remains of the pickled fish he’d purchased during a quick foray into Magdala to ask after Herod’s whereabouts. The newly minted governor split his time between a small outpost on the Sea of Galilee and a run-down fortress to the west, in Sepphoris. Herod was currently in Sepphoris. The nominal capital of Galilee, it was the only sizable city in the region, numbering around eight thousand people.

  A few miles short of his destination, Nathan rode past the watchful eyes of the inhabitants of Nazareth. He pulled Royal to a stop at the sight of a tall, blond-headed man ducking out the door of a low-slung house. “Kadar,” Nathan called out to Antipater’s oversized bodyguard. “You are the last person in the world I’d expect to find in Nazareth.”

  The giant man walked toward Nathan, mischief shining in his pale blue eyes. “All hail the mighty olive farmer.”

  Nathan made a face.

  Kadar’s rumbling laugh scared off the group of curious children trailing after the giant soldier. The big man gave a bronze coin to a boy bravely holding the reins to his midnight-black stallion, Satan. Kadar led the horse over to Nathan. “Herod sent me down here to hire some of the local craftsmen to make furniture and pottery and baskets and any other items the town can supply to keep a working fortress going.”