Warring Desires (The Herod Chronicles Book 3)

by Wanda Ann Thomas

  The first thing Gabriel needed to do was get a message to James warning him he was dealing with a forked-tongued snake. At the same time he would enlist James to help set a trap for Rahm.

  As for James’s intention to poison Cousin Simeon… Gabriel scrubbed his face. Someone needed to shake some sense into James. In the past, Gabriel wouldn’t have hesitated to turn to his father. But he couldn’t be sure of his father’s loyalties. The one person James might heed was Elizabeth. Gabriel exhaled a heavy breath. There were no other good choices. Though he didn’t like the idea of involving his sister in a matter involving Cousin Simeon, he would send a missive to Elizabeth asking her to dissuade James from committing murder.

  CHAPTER 21

  Three weeks after leaving Jerusalem, Gabriel gripped the hilt of his sword and forced his mind to concentrate on Nathan’s instructions rather than the hulking Galilean fortress targeted for attack.

  The swirling snow was another distraction. The freakish storm had blown in while they set up camp, and showed no signs of abating. Gusts of wind and brief whiteout conditions compounded the anticipation and dread hammering inside Gabriel.

  Knee-deep in snow, Nathan once again demonstrated the proper method for using a shield for defense while striking out against the enemy with a sword.

  Leonidas nudged Gabriel. “How long do you think it would take to learn to be an archer?”

  Gabriel stared up at the gray stone ramparts. Soldiers with curved bows hunkered behind the walls, and his shoulders tightened. “A few weeks of battle training doesn’t feel adequate.”

  Leonidas shrugged. “It’s not as if you can practice killing people.”

  Gabriel laughed despite the grim nature of their mission. “Good point. Still...”

  Leonidas leaned closer. “I’m worried I will vomit or wet my loincloth the first time I strike a man with my sword.”

  “You too?”

  “What I can’t explain is why I’m excited...like I’m attending a wedding or a feast instead of going to war. It’s indecent.” Leonidas shoved his fingers through his unruly hair. “What if I enjoy killing?”

  “Joining Herod’s army has given me plenty of doubts,” Gabriel confessed, wondering if he hadn’t made the biggest mistake of his life. He was an aristocrat and a priest. Spilling the blood of lambs and bulls was a far cry from running a sword through a man. His friends, after a day spent reading the scriptures and prayer, would be leaving the serene confines of synagogue about now, while he stood knee-deep in snow, readying to scale the walls of an armed fortress. Mother of mercy, I must be insane.

  Nathan barged his way between Gabriel and Leonidas. Broad of shoulder and thick-necked, his warrior eyes glowed with fierceness. Called the Angel of Death behind his back by the veteran soldiers, his legendary valor was spoken of in hushed tones around blazing campfires. He knocked his booted toe against the shield resting at Gabriel’s feet. “What did I tell you was the most important thing to remember when entering battle?”

  Gabriel straightened. “Act. Don’t think.”

  “Hesitate and you will be dead,” Leonidas echoed.

  Nathan gave a curt nod. “You have to want to kill the enemy more than he wants to kill you. There’s no good or bad about it.”

  “Olive farmer!” Herod called, marching down the line. “I want you along while I confer with my commanders.”

  Commander Obodas, a veteran soldier from Idumea, whose neck was as thick as Gabriel’s thigh, stopped and grinned at Nathan. “Feels like old times.”

  Nathan smiled. “The king looks like he’s eaten bad dates every time he says my name.”

  Gabriel was just a youth when Herod marched on Jerusalem with an army and Nathan had ridden out to stop him. Gabriel didn’t know the particulars, only that Herod and Nathan hadn’t spoken in years.

  Commander Obodas shrugged. “He hates consulting with you, but he detests the thought of losing a battle even more.” Commander Obodas directed his amused gaze at Gabriel and Leonidas. “I thought the sun would fall from the sky before I saw Nathan rejoin the army or heard Herod speak two pleasant words to Nathan.”

  Nathan slapped Commander Obodas on the shoulder. “Pleasant? You’ve been keeping company with soldiers too long if you can’t tell King Herod spits my name out like a curse.” Continuing to swap friendly insults, the two men strode away.

  Leonidas stared in awe after the two towering warriors. “We are blessed to have Nathan here.”

  Gabriel, who couldn’t get used to hearing Herod called king, rubbed his gloved thumb over the sleek sword handle, envying Nathan’s boldness. “Are you still considering becoming an olive farmer after the war?”

  Leonidas grinned. “We should both go to live in Galilee and become olive farmers.”

  A frigid gust pulled at Gabriel’s leather breastplate. Snow snaked past the thick, woolen cloak, sending an icy lick down his spine. The coming battle ought to having him fearing for his life, but he was more terrified of making a mistake or failing Leonidas or Nathan or others of his company. “At this moment an olive farm sounds like paradise.”

  A commotion of voices behind Gabriel claimed his attention. The poor country priest Matthias lay on his side, entombed in the frozen snow, moaning and clutching his stomach. Deathly sick yesterday, the diminutive priest had felt better when he awoke, but standing the entire day in the wet and chill couldn’t have helped.

  Gabriel hurried to Matthias, crouched beside him, and turned to Jal, a veteran soldier acting as physician for the undersized contingent. The left half of Jal’s face was hideously scarred from a long ago battle. Though he looked brutish, Jal examined Matthias with surprising gentleness.

  Even so, Matthias’s groans grew louder.

  Gabriel wished he could do something to alleviate the small priest’s suffering.

  Jal frowned. “His fever is worse. He’s burning up, and his stomach is distended and overly tender. A rock-hard mass has formed.”

  Gabriel knelt in the cold, powdery snow and pillowed Matthias’s head in his lap. “Stay strong. We will move you to a warm, dry tent. And find something for the pain.”

  Matthias’s face screwed in agony. “I want to go home,” he choked out. “Will you take me home?”

  “Of course,” Gabriel promised.

  “Tell my father and mother I love them.”

  Gabriel’s grief doubled, remembering Matthias’s excitement and joy when his lot had been drawn to offer up the sacrifices the day Cousin Simeon made a mockery of the sacred rituals and Gabriel deserted Jerusalem to join Herod’s cause. Matthias had joined the army out of admiration for Gabriel. He squeezed Matthias’s shoulder. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “If anyone can bring lasting peace to the land, it’s Herod,” Matthias said through clenched teeth. “He forced the Parthian army to retreat to Syria. Now he has High Priest Hasmond’s northern army cornered. Once we crush them, we can turn south and concentrate on defeating Hasmond’s southern army. And you and I can return to the Temple and serve the Lord together. Imagine the stories we will be able to tell our fellow priests.”

  Jal shook his head, his meaning clear—the poor country priest wouldn’t be returning to Jerusalem—not in this lifetime.

  Gabriel regretted not taking the time to get to know Matthias better during training or in Jerusalem. There was no excuse. They belonged to the same course of priests, and so spent several weeks a year eating, sleeping, and working within the confines of the Temple. But Gabriel had been too wrapped up with his small group of friends and his own happiness to take notice of a rough-hewn country priest. Matthias was a simple man, but he had the heart and courage of a lion. Gabriel swallowed past the tightness in his throat. “When I swing my sword, I will think of you and the priesthood and what we are fighting for.”

  Matthias curled up with a groan.

  Jal scooped up Matthias and stood. “I’ll take him to his tent and mix up a pain remedy.”

  “I’ll go,” Gabriel offered, climbin
g to his feet.

  “Hold up, Gabriel” Nathan ordered, trudging up, fighting the wind and snow. “Herod has decided to put off the attack until morning in hopes this devilish storm will pass. We have the first watch.”

  With toes already numb for hours, now, Gabriel winced at the thought of the bitterly cold night ahead.

  The next hours proved as long and trying as he feared. After nearly freezing solid, and swinging between boredom from staring into dark nothingness and moments of stark terror over some suspicious noise, Gabriel was relieved when he received orders to get some sleep. But he found Matthias in worse health and spent the rest of the night by the feverish man’s side.

  The sound of the morning horn echoing through the camp came as a relief.

  “I’ll watch the boy while you go to the latrine,” Jal said, sitting up, rubbing his scarred face with the back of his meaty hand.

  Gabriel ducked out of the tent and blinked against the blinding ball of the sun glistening off the blanket of white covering the ground, rocks, and tents.

  Nathan trotted up beside him, his warrior face’s chapped red and his body radiating cold. “Obodas and I just returned from scouting out the enemy and found the fortress empty as a poor widow’s shelf.”

  Gabriel blinked. “Empty? They abandoned the fortress in the middle of a godforsaken blizzard?”

  “Herod isn’t pleased.”

  Jal emerged from the tent, lips a grim slash. “The boy has passed.”

  Elation and relief coursed through Gabriel’s blood. He and Leonidas wouldn’t have to lift their swords against the enemy today. What kind of coward did that make him? Rejoicing for himself even as Matthias’s body grew cold with death. Where were his grief and pity?

  Nathan patted Gabriel’s shoulder. “War is strange business. Exhausted and covered in blood after my first battle, I woke up the next day expecting to find the world had changed. But instead I found myself shoveling out the latrines because it was Friday, and that was my job every Friday.”

  Gabriel glanced around the camp. Cook fires smoked to life and soldiers gathered in small clusters, murmuring together. Slaves scurried about and war-horses pawed the ground in anticipation of their morning feed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”

  “You're doing fine,” Nathan said.

  Gabriel appreciated the kind encouragement. “What will be done about Matthias’s body?”

  “We will carry his body to his home on our way north.”

  “North?”

  “The majority of the soldiers who manned the fortress are locals who violently oppose Herod. They are fleeing to the protection of the caves on Mount Arbel.”

  Gabriel rubbed his nape in frustration. Moving north would take him farther from the battle to free Jerusalem, farther from Helen and his sister and mother, farther from Shoshana.

  CHAPTER 22

  The snow made for slow going, but by noon Gabriel, Nathan and Commander Obodas broke away from the main body of the army and entered the dilapidated village of Garis. People stared wide-eyed at Nathan and Commander Obodas mounted atop their spirited war-horses. Gabriel followed on his docile mule, leading another pack mule carrying Matthias ben Tobias’s lifeless body. Gabriel dreaded delivering the tragic news to the little priest’s parents.

  Garis looked much like many of the small towns they’d passed along the way. A smattering of fire-blackened window frames attested to the violence wrought by the war. The tumbledown walls surrounding the one-story mud-walled homes and shops hadn’t slowed the Parthian army down when they rolled through the country eighteen months ago. Gabriel’s stomach roiled every time he saw evidence of the invasion, recalling the screams and battle cries that had echoed through the streets of Jerusalem. And the shame and fear he’d felt at his helplessness.

  A bent-backed woman pointed them to a narrow alley. The horses and mules clopped to a stop beside a weathered door. Gabriel, Nathan, and Commander Obodas slid to the ground and beat the dirt off their cloaks.

  Commander Obodas pointed at Gabriel. “The news of Matthias’s death will come easier from a fellow priest.

  Gabriel shifted in place, embarrassed to admit he’d never spoken two words to Matthias’s father. He’d memorized a speech, but the words sounded hollow and trite to his ears.

  Nathan and Obodas lifted Matthias’s blanket-wrapped body.

  Gabriel knocked, and a moment later the door creaked open. Noisy chatter spilled out. A gaunt, cautious-eyed man stared out the dark doorway.

  Gabriel swallowed. “Tobias, please call for your wife.”

  Tobias’s face drained of color. A birdlike woman peeked around his shoulder. She gave a shrill cry, collapsed in a heap, and wailed pitifully. Tobias stumbled forward and held out his arms. “Give me my son.”

  “Allow us to help,” Commander Obodas said, his deep voice surprisingly gentle.

  Tobias gathered up his wife. Tears streaming down his face, the grief-stricken man led them into a low-ceilinged, windowless room. Tobias’s six other children, ranging from toddlers to youths, huddled together in a corner.

  Gabriel searched for a door to the bedchambers, but there were no other doors. He wiped his grit-covered face and re-examined the dwelling. Tidy shelves lined one wall. Worn reed sleeping mats hung from nails on the opposite wall. A well-used brazier and cook pots filled a corner. Nine people living a room half the size of his bedchamber. How did they manage?

  Nathan and Commander Obodas laid Matthias’s body on the hard-packed floor.

  Tobias and his wife knelt by their dead son, hugging each other and weeping.

  Gabriel waved the children forward. “Come.”

  Thin-faced and teary-eyed, they remained rooted in place, staring with apprehension at Nathan and Commander Obodas. Two heads taller than most men and dressed in heavy leather armor, Nathan and Obodas dominated the room. It was no surprise the children continued to quiver in the corner. There was no telling the horrors they’d witnessed during the Parthian invasion.

  Gabriel’s gut fisted with renewed disgust and loathing toward High Priest Hasmond and Cousin Simeon for joining with Parthia for their own selfish purposes, with no regard for the suffering of the defenseless and the poor.

  Gabriel and Nathan and Commander Obodas backed toward the door. “No one’s going to hurt you,” Gabriel said.

  The children raced to their mother and father.

  Gabriel cleared his throat. The prepared speech jumbled in his mind. “May the Lord console you among the other mourners of Zion.”

  Anger flashed in Tobias’s eyes. “My children are the only inheritance I will pass on, and now you rob me of Matthias.”

  Gabriel flinched. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy.”

  “I have suffered loss, too.”

  Tobias’s face flushed blood red. “What would an Onias know about suffering? You sit in your palace home, wear costly robes, and feast at banquets with no regard for anyone but yourself.”

  Stung by the depth of Tobias’s anger, defensive responses churned through Gabriel’s mind. But the suffocating poverty of this man’s surroundings shriveled Gabriel’s defenses and excuses. He was richly blessed. He knew that. He promised himself he would do better by the poor country priests in the future. “Your son asked me to pass on his love.”

  Tobias touched his hand to the blanket wrapped tight about his son, but continued to glare at Gabriel. “Matthias believed the war would wipe away the corrupt practices in the priesthood. But I have lived long enough to understand nothing will change. Go back to your plush couches and marble baths and leave us to our mourning. We don’t want you here.”

  “I want to put an end to the corruption, too.” Gabriel said.

  Tobias stabbed his finger at Gabriel. “Go!”

  Nathan patted Gabriel’s shoulder. “We’ve done everything we can.”

  Gabriel hesitated. “But—”

  Nathan and Commander Obodas clamped hold o
f his elbows and pulled him outside.

  The door slammed shut. Gabriel shook free. “I want to offer them coins.”

  A bull of a man, Commander Obodas blocked the way. “Now is not the time to assuage your guilt. Leave them to their mourning. If you want to worry, worry about flushing the remnants of Hasmond’s army from the caves of Mount Arbel. That’s a task made for nightmares.”

  Certain Obodas was exaggerating, Gabriel turned to Nathan.

  Nathan nodded, grim-faced. “Hellish doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  Gabriel looked back at the weathered door. Eaten up with shame and guilt, he didn’t want to admit how eager he was to put distance between himself and the crushing poverty and grief contained within the four walls of Tobias’s hovel.

  ***

  Late the next morning Gabriel, Nathan, and Commander Obodas journeyed through a patchwork of farm fields abutting the Sea of Galilee on their way to rejoin Herod’s army. Mount Arbel jutted like a beacon of destruction from the flat plains beside the waters of the large lake.

  It was a pleasant day with blue skies overhead, and the bright sun had wiped away any trace of the snow, but Gabriel couldn’t stop thinking about Matthias lying dead in the grave and Tobias’s impoverished circumstances.

  Gabriel couldn’t and wouldn’t turn his back on Tobias and his wife and children. Solutions tumbled through his mind. He could offer Tobias work at the farm. Gabriel had never visited the Galilean farm, but it was a prosperous venture. Or he could find a place for Tobias among his household as a gardener or doorkeeper.

  Commander Obodas flicked his reins and loped ahead.

  Nathan waited for Gabriel to catch up. A soldier through and through, Nathan sat on his war-horse like he’d been born in the saddle. “Don’t take what happened back there too hard. Tobias doesn’t know you. He has a general hatred for Sadducees.”

  Not cheered by Nathan’s attempt at consolation, Gabriel steered his mule around a large rut. “We have the Pharisees to thank for that. They poison the people’s minds against us. They say we follow Greek practices and tell everyone we live to eat, drink, and be merry.”