Warring Desires (The Herod Chronicles Book 3)

by Wanda Ann Thomas

  Rahm’s fat lips curved with the hideous smile she’d learned to loathe. “You haven’t even heard what I want.”

  Refusing to participate in his cat and mouse games, she glared back. “You want riches. You always want more riches.”

  “I don’t understand what Gabriel sees in you. His first wife was young and beautiful, a gem of the highest quality.” Rahm gave her a pitying look. “He will tire of you quickly. Where will you be then, Shoshana?”

  Her breath backed up in her lungs.

  Rahm tucked the parchment away and strolled down the alley whistling. He paused at the end of the lane and sneered at her over his shoulder. “I always win. Always.” Then he disappeared around the corner.

  She slid to the ground and buried her face against her knees, fighting despair. “I will find a way to win against Rahm. I will.”

  CHAPTER 27

  One week after setting up camp atop the rocky plateau of Mount Arbel, Gabriel stood on the edge of the north bluff. The glittering Sea of Galilee stretched off into the distance to his right. Farms, homes, and shops dotted the land, looking like toys strewn across a checkered floor. Below a stream trickled toward the city of Migdal tucked between the sea and the mountain.

  He’d heard the names and places, but they were not what he’d imagined. The Sea of Galilee turned out to be nothing more than a big lake, and the city of Migdal was actually a sleepy village, and Mount Arbel wasn’t much of a mountain. But the cliff caves and sheer drop to the valley were as impressive and daunting and dizzying as promised.

  The beauty was ruined, however, by soldiers readying pole baskets for the knee-weakening descent to the limestone caves. He peered over the precipice and marveled at the desperation that drove men to live for months and years in caves accessible only by rope ladders. Stocking the caves with food and wood for fires had to be a grueling task.

  “Do I have any volunteers?” Herod called.

  Leonidas, of course, was the first in line. “I’ll go.”

  Uneasy at the prospect, but not about to allow Leonidas to face the danger without him, Gabriel stepped up.

  Eight men answered the call. Working in pairs, they would be lowered two at a time in the twin contraptions devised by Herod, who had remarked more than once on the impossible nature of the mission.

  Grim-faced, Herod shoved a long-handled pike into Gabriel’s hand, a copy of the one Leonidas grasped. “Show no mercy.”

  Dread curling along his spine, Gabriel studied the blade-tipped hook. “Even if they want to surrender?”

  Herod’s black eyes went flat. “They won’t. They would rather die than see me rule as king.”

  Gabriel recalled Tobias’s anger and bitterness when he received his son’s lifeless body. How did Herod live with the hatred of thousands? “How many caves do we have to clear?”

  “You don’t want to know. But once we finish here, I’m going to pay a visit to my mother and my betrothed wife in Samaria. Help take these caves, priest, and I will invite you to travel with me. And you can pay a visit to your friends.” He nudged Gabriel’s elbow with his. “Or should I say, with a certain lovely mule train driver?”

  Gabriel’s muscled tightened. “I won’t allow you or anyone else to speak disrespectfully or disparagingly of her.”

  Herod smiled. “She really is in your blood.”

  Gabriel narrowed his eyes in warning.

  “I understand,” Herod said, sobering. “I would kill any man foolish enough to do anything to dishonor Mariamne. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “I don’t have any secrets to keep.”

  “Everyone has secrets.”

  Gabriel’s conscience kicked. He hadn't told Herod that Rahm was a double spy, and still wasn’t sure whether it was a mistake.

  Nathan gave the all-ready signal from his position beside the baskets.

  Annoyed that every conversation with Herod left him exhausted and off kilter, Gabriel made a show of righting his tunic. “Time to go prove priests have more than lint under their loincloths.”

  Herod threw his head back and laughed. “I could grow to like you, priest.”

  Gabriel stalked to Nathan’s side. Leonidas had already taken his place in the thigh-high pole basket suspended above the valley floor. Gabriel eyed his chariot with disfavor. “When you said chests, I had something more substantial in mind than a platform with a railing.”

  Nathan greeted him with a tight nod. “Pretend you are on a one-story house and it won’t seem so bad.”

  “Don’t look down,” Jal said from his position by the capstan constructed to lower and raise the basket.

  More advice followed, offered by the soldiers who would put their muscle into cranking the heavy wooden spokes of the capstan. They meant well, but their better-you-than-me expressions didn’t help.

  Herod joined them and ran his hand over the dried saplings. “We needed to keep the baskets light as possible. I can send someone else down with your brother on the first run.”

  “I said I’d go.” Gabriel gripped the pike in a stranglehold.

  Nathan and Jal held the floating platform steady. Gabriel glanced over at Leonidas, who was leaning over the railing, more interested in the view far below than Commander Obodas’s final words of guidance.

  “Mother of mercy,” Gabriel muttered clambering over the side of the chest. Eyes averted from the sheer drop to the valley floor, he propped the pike in one corner, grasped the braided rope overhead, and braced his feet against the rippled pole floor.

  Nathan tucked a small shield into one corner. “Give us the word when you’re ready.”

  Gaze directed at the gray cliff wall, Gabriel nodded. “Go.”

  The chest swayed underfoot. “Whoa...steady now,” he said, feeling like he was trying to keep his seat on a bucking mule. The platform bumped downward.

  “The ride will smooth once you clear the lip of the mountain,” Nathan said. “Hold on tight until then.”

  His hands were already white-knuckled. “At this rate, my palms will be branded with a permanent braid pattern from the rope.”

  The men laughed. A moment later Nathan’s smile slipped from view and the basket swung free of the cliff. “Holy heavens!” Gabriel said on a gasp. He reminded himself he was in capable hands. Repeatedly. The men who constructed the capstan and chest had trained under the Romans in the art of building war engines. As had Herod. The integrity of the winches had been tested yesterday using loads of rocks.

  The basket descended at a slow, steady rate.

  “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” Leonidas called out.

  Gabriel glanced over the railing at the rocky stream below, and imagined the ropes giving way and the pole platform plunging, smashing into the ground, and his bones shattering. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed away the nausea. “Why am I not surprised you enjoy this?”

  “I could ride on this flying platform all day long. I wish Father and Andrew were here to see us fly.”

  Gabriel missed his father and brother, but they would surely think Gabriel and Leonidas had lost their minds if they could see them now.

  Gabriel peeked over the edge of the platform. “Just be careful—”

  An updraft of wind slammed into the baskets. Gabriel sat back, and the platform tipped at a precarious angle. Overcompensating, he leaned too far forward, and found nothing but blue sky between him and the ground below. He grabbed the pike and shield before they fell out, plopped down onto his backside, and hitched backward. The basket leveled. Praise the heavens! And the swaying slowed.

  “Great recovery,” Leonidas called encouragingly. “You had me worried for a moment.”

  Gabriel brushed his sleeve across the cold sweat dampening his brow. “How far to the first cave?”

  “We’re almost there. Maybe you should sit the rest of the way.”

  Gabriel gritted his teeth and climbed to his feet on unsteady legs. “Don’t do anything foolish. We’re too far apart to come to each other’s
rescue.”

  The pole baskets slid lower and lower. The black maw of a cave came into view.

  A man peered around the craggy opening and fired a dart. The projectile bounced off the bottom of Leonidas’s basket.

  “Ho!” Gabriel shouted and both platforms jerked to a halt, flanking the cave.

  “That wasn’t even close,” Leonidas said laughing down at the man.

  An older man stood at the right corner hefting a jagged rock.

  “Get your shield up,” Gabriel ordered Leonidas. “And don’t antagonize them.”

  Leonidas retrieved his shield and pike. “They must only have one bow.”

  “One bolt through the heart or head is all it takes,” Gabriel said, releasing his death grip on the braided rope. Movements slow and careful, he reached for his shield.

  “What are you waiting for, Idumean dogs!” the younger man yelled in a jeering voice. Though not much older than Gabriel, the man’s hair was already completely silver. Stranger still, he had a pure streak of white down the middle of his brown beard.

  The older man had snowy white hair and a matching fluffy beard. Gabriel’s heart sank. He recalled seeing a father and son with these distinctive manes at the Temple, and accepting grain offerings from them during one of his weeks of service as priest.

  “Idumeans?” Leonidas said indignant. “We are Judean priests.”

  The son spit in disdain.

  The father gave them a pitying look. “Then you are traitors to your God and His people.”

  Gabriel did not want to kill these men. “Surrender peacefully, and I will do my best to convince Herod to spare your lives,” he offered, despite Herod’s orders to show no mercy. “We have influence. We belong to the family Onias.”

  “I know who you are,” the father said. “You rich young rulers are a disgrace, dressing in silk robes and feasting at banquets, never giving any thought to the poor and needy.”

  Sick at heart, Gabriel regretted never taking the time to speak to men outside his circle. “I understand your contempt, but—”

  “But you aren’t satisfied with owning more wealth than we could dream of,” the son accused. “You want more and more, and have joined with Satan.” He picked up a rock and heaved it. The missile tumbled harmlessly into the abyss.

  Leonidas pointed his pike at the cliffs overhead. “Herod only seems frightening until you get to know him.”

  The son’s nose wrinkled. “You will rot in hell beside Herod if I have any say.”

  “What’s the situation?” Commander Obodas called down.

  The situation stank like a cesspool. Gabriel rolled his knotted shoulders and held out his hand in invitation. “I beg you to give up peaceably.”

  Face calm, the white-haired father shook his head. “My son and I would rather die than bend the knee to Herod.”

  Gabriel searched for persuasive words. “Herod isn’t the—”

  “Are you ever going to shut your mouth and come close enough for me to kill you?” the son spat, retrieving an iron-tipped dart for the bow.

  Gabriel’s temples throbbed. “Lower away!” he called out. And the baskets crept down.

  A bolt flew toward him. He deflected it with his shield. He heard a rock bang against Leonidas’s shield. The floor of the cave came into view. “Ho!” he shouted, and the basket stilled.

  Rocks thumped against his shield. Leonidas was nearer to the silver-haired son. “Get your pike on him before he reloads the bow,” Gabriel yelled.

  “He ducked out of sight!” Leonidas answered.

  Gabriel peered around the edge of his shield. The father slashed out with a short dagger.

  Gabriel directed his pike toward the man’s ankles. A stone swished past his ear. He leaned away, rocking the basket. He crouched and rocks crashed off his shield.

  “I can push your man back,” Leonidas said, breathing heavily. Then he gave a sharp cry. “My leg!”

  Alarmed, Gabriel sprang up and ignored the damnable men trying to kill them. “How bad is it?”

  Bolt buried deep in his thigh and struggling to stay on his feet, Leonidas grimaced and held his hand over the injury. Red rivulets streaked his leg. “It burns...like someone stuck me with a hot poker.”

  The father heaved a rock at Leonidas, striking him in the mouth. Blood gushing from his lip, Leonidas tumbled backward, and his head struck the rail, knocking him unconscious.

  A roar welling from his gut, Gabriel swung the pike with all his might. The hook snagged in the father’s tunic, dragging him forward and over the edge, yanking the pike out of Gabriel’s grasp.

  The man’s scream echoed off the sheer cliff wall. The son cried out in agony. Eyes brimming with hate, he took aim with the bow at Leonidas. Limbs askew and sprawled on his back, Leonidas was a defenseless target.

  Cold fear gripped Gabriel. He threw aside his shield and backed to the edge of the platform. Getting a running start, he leaped across the open expanse of the chasm and into the cave. Landing awkwardly, his ankle twisted and buckled, and he fell headlong at the son’s feet.

  The bow swung his way, and Gabriel flipped onto his back. Everything blurred except the tip staring him in the eye. He rolled away, and the bolt slammed into the cave floor a fraction from his nose. Gabriel sat up, spitting dirt.

  The silver-haired son heaved the bow at him. The heavy wooden weapon struck Gabriel’s chest and chin, making his ears ring. The son lunged for a dagger resting upright against a pile of rocks.

  Gabriel plucked up the bow and surged to his feet. A sharp lance of pain from his ankle brought tears to his eyes. The man scooped up the dagger and turned to face Gabriel.

  Ankle on fire and breath burning in his lungs, Gabriel limped backward. “I don’t want to kill you.”

  “I won’t surrender, and I will not stop until I kill you and send you crashing to the rocks below.”

  Gabriel glanced at Leonidas’s still form. Despair and rage collided and curdled. Using the bow as a shield, he charged at the man, blocked a blow, and tackled his foe to the ground. Gabriel rolled left, pinning the man’s arm before he could raise the dagger. Shifting his weight, he rammed his right elbow into the man’s windpipe. The dagger clanked against the stone floor. The man gasped and gurgled and struggled to sit up.

  Gabriel grabbed up the weapon and clobbered the man in the side of the head with the wooden hilt, knocking him out cold. Gabriel scrambled to his feet and stood over the silver-haired man waiting for him to rouse. Blood trickled paths across the man’s grimy forehead. His chest moved up and down beneath his dirt-stained tunic.

  “Are you alive, Gabriel?” Nathan called down, his voice barely penetrating Gabriel’s harsh breaths.

  Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and saw Leonidas’s basket whisk upward. Panic clawing at his chest, he rushed to the cave entrance, and leaned out, straining to catch a glimpse of Leonidas. “He’s alive!” he called to the men overhead.

  “We’ll take good care of him,” Nathan yelled down. “Are you injured? Do you need help?”

  Warm drafts buffeted Gabriel’s face. His ankle throbbed. “Give me a moment,” he said, and ducked back into the cool confines of the cave.

  The silver-haired man hadn’t roused. Gabriel pondered what to do with him. Getting back into the basket with his twisted ankle would be tricky enough without trying to carry a limp body. And if the man woke up on the ride to the top and resumed fighting? Gabriel cringed. He could leave the man for dead. But if the man survived, it would mean a fellow soldier would need to revisit the cave and finishing Gabriel’s assigned task.

  The dagger weighed heavy in his hand. Stabbing a motionless body felt cowardly. The sound of Commander Obodas calling out orders for the handling of Leonidas’s basket drifted down and settled next to the cave entrance. The urge to be on his way gripped Gabriel.

  Acting quickly, before he could change his mind, Gabriel holstered the dagger under his belt, grabbed the man under the arms, dragged him to the lip of the cave, and roll
ed him off the edge.

  Cries arose as the body plummeted, reminding him the gruesome task of clearing the caves had only just begun.

  He took one last look around the desolate cave and expelled a grim breath. And hoping his ankle wouldn’t fail him, he leaped onto the platform. “Ready!” he shouted, before the basket stopped swaying.

  The ropes creaked to life and the platform rose. Fallow fields stretched into the distance. Shadows reigned over the sheer cliff walls. “May the One who creates kinship on high bring peace to us, and all Israel,” he whispered, saying the prayer for the men trapped in the caves, and for the father and son dead on the valley floor, and for himself.

  Herod was waiting for him when the platform came even with the cliff edge. “Well done, priest.” Others offered congratulations and admiration.

  Uncomfortable with the praise, Gabriel brushed past Herod. “Where did they take Leonidas?”

  “Jal is seeing to the wound,” Herod said following.

  Gabriel put his head down and plowed through soldiers who patted him on the back in passing.

  “Hold up,” Herod said when they reached Jal’s tent.

  Gabriel halted. Impatient to be at Leonidas’s side, he scrubbed his wind burned face. “Can this wait?”

  Herod grinned. “It’s good to see you have some fire left in your belly. I thought this last bit of fighting might have changed your mind about soldiering.” His black eyes glittered in challenge.

  Legs ready to give out from exhaustion, Gabriel stared back. Herod was testing him, but his reasons went beyond the battlefield. He was measuring Gabriel’s loyalty. Herod was a bloody, determined man. But the hate on the faces of the men in the cave proved Herod’s enemies were equally bloody and determined. Gabriel stood taller and squared his shoulders. “I’m not leaving the fight, so you can stop asking.”

  “You and I will go far,” Herod said, and he clapped Gabriel on the back. “Get some food and rest. There are more caves to clear, and you will want to be at your best for the trip to Samaria.”

  Scraped raw inside and out, Gabriel longed to gaze upon Shoshana’s beautiful face.