Warring Desires (The Herod Chronicles Book 3)

by Wanda Ann Thomas

  “Did you hear me?” Gabriel said louder.

  “Temple life is so dull,” Leonidas complained.

  Gabriel feared Leonidas would have a difficult time adjusting to life outside the army. Leonidas and Gabriel hadn’t returned or visited the army camp in the aftermath of the invasion and their father’s execution, but Leonidas’s heart remained with his soldier friends. Gabriel planned to have a long talk with him about that; he just prayed they wouldn’t be having the discussion in a dungeon.

  Herod stopped a short distance from Gabriel and flashed a white-toothed smile. “Happy wedding to you, priest.”

  Gabriel bit back a crude oath. The best way for Gabriel to honor his father was not with recriminations and hateful anger, but by acting on his father’s final wish. I want you and your sister and brothers and mother to live long, happy lives. That is the justice I desire.

  Gabriel gave Herod a direct look. “You have my vow...I won’t lift a sword against you. But if you try to harm my family I will be your worst enemy.”

  Herod winked at Shoshana. “You’ve got yourself quite the warrior.”

  Shoshana lifted her chin. “You taught him well.”

  Gabriel stepped between Shoshana and Herod. Not because she needed his protection, but because of his feral need to proclaim to Herod and every other man present that this vibrant, strong, beautiful woman was his.

  Herod laughed. “I don’t have any chance of luring you into the Sanhedrin, do I?”

  Gabriel had a taste of sympathy for the men in the cave who had jumped to their deaths rather than surrender to Herod. “Shoshana and I are moving to Galilee.”

  Herod shook his head and moved on. “You are a disappointment, priest.”

  “So are you, ‘King’ Herod,” Gabriel whispered.

  Leonidas squeezed Gabriel’s shoulder. “Herod honors brave, honest men such as you and Nathan.”

  Thankful to survive defying Herod when others had received no such mercy, Gabriel raised a brow. “I’m glad you understand how Herod’s mind works, because I don’t.”

  “Here comes your cousin,” Big Lev warned.

  James stalked past the money changers’ tables, his clean-shaven face and short hair still coming as a shock.

  “I feared you wouldn’t come,” Gabriel said in greeting.

  James’s guarded eyes met his. “I couldn’t deny your request when you’ve shown great patience with my many indiscretions.”

  The impassioned interlude Gabriel had interrupted between James and Elizabeth qualified as more than a minor mistake. But Gabriel had no heart to condemn them, chalking it up to the shock of war tearing away the cloak of decency people normally hid behind.

  No long-term harm had been done. Libi was on her way to Egypt, escorted by Andrew. The arranged marriage to the Jewish master builder wouldn’t have been Gabriel’s first choice for Libi, but he hoped she’d find an easier, happier life in Egypt.

  James’s proclamation that he was an apostate, though, had been utterly devastating. Gabriel grasped James’s arm and kissed both his naked cheeks. “I’m begging you to reconsider your decision to forsake the Lord and your heritage. Don’t allow your father’s hatefulness to separate you from your brethren.”

  The mottled scar on James’s cheek stood out on his pale, beardless face. “I didn’t sit Shiva for him. Some Pharisees, with bones as dry as his, took it upon themselves to pay for wailing women to mourn him. I bet even my kind-hearted sister Alexandra is secretly glad she couldn’t travel to Jerusalem in time for the burial.”

  Cousin Simeon had been dead for a week, but the harm the selfish man caused would ripple through the family for decades to come. Gabriel wasn’t above pleading. “I asked you to come the Temple hoping that stepping on holy ground would wake you to the seriousness of your actions. You are a priest of the Lord Most High. You are one of the chosen. Rejoice in that.”

  James’s gaze went flat. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Gabriel wanted to disagree, but James’s anger toward the Lord and his ordinances was foreign. Gabriel was disgusted and saddened by the corruption and the grasping for wealth and prominence among the leaders of Israel, but it didn’t diminish his love for the Lord and the Temple and His people.

  The move to Galilee would give Gabriel the space to heal from the pain of his father’s death. The distance was necessary for his inner and outer peace. He didn’t want to be ruled by the unbending bitterness and hatred he’d witnessed in the cliff caves. But his rejection of the corrupt leaders of the Sanhedrin didn’t mean he would forsake the Lord’s people.

  Gabriel wished he could shake some sense into James, but right now anything he said would fall on deaf ears.

  Gabriel embraced James and offered a path back. “No matter where you go or what you do, you will always find a welcome in my home.”

  “I don’t plan to return to Jerusalem,” James mumbled, pain deepening the lines around his eyes. Then he hurried away.

  CHAPTER 45

  The old, widowed servant woman who had helped Shoshana prepare for her wedding night stopped at the bedchamber door and smiled approvingly. “Master Gabriel will be well pleased. I will tell him you are ready.”

  The door clicked shut.

  Shoshana took a deep breath. Wed this morning with the approval and love of both families, Shoshana had enjoyed fussing over darling Helen in her pretty new tunic, and made every effort to comfort her mother-in-law for the loss of her husband and Elizabeth’s abrupt departure, and pull Naomi into conversations, since the simple woman was still intimidated by the Onias’s immense wealth.

  Gabriel’s family had welcomed Shoshana with open arms, with the exception of Andrew, who had remained standoffish during preparations to take Elizabeth to Egypt. Gabriel assured her Andrew would grow used to the idea. Elizabeth, or Libi, as her attentive, protective brothers called her, had taken Shoshana aside before leaving to tell her how happy she was for Gabriel and Shoshana and to wish them great joy.

  Shoshana’s family was jubilant. Grandfather, Jacob, and Isaac hadn’t stopped smiling during the wedding feast, while Leonidas regaled them with one amusing story after another. The strain lining Gabriel’s face for the past weeks and months had eased. Though he wasn’t yet laughing and jesting like Leonidas, Gabriel’s relaxed demeanor was a heavenly sight.

  She was as content as she could ever remember being, and there had been no time to feel self-conscious.

  She stroked her petal-soft robe. Oil lamps fragrant with wildflowers cast a soft glow over the large bed, spread with a plush, emerald-green cover and matching pillows. A room fit for a young prince.

  A gentle breeze caressed her bare legs and feet.

  She looked up at Gabriel standing in the doorway. Dressed in a simple but costly brown tunic, with a mane of brown hair and amber-flecked eyes, he truly did look like a prince. But he wasn’t the pampered, pompous fool she had thought the day he burst over the hill in his shiny purple robe. Under the finery and perfect features beat the heart of a good, kind man, a strong man who adhered to his principles.

  His powerful neck muscles flexed as he swallowed. “I knew the soft peach would look lovely with your auburn hair, but...my heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest.”

  A feathery shiver went through her, and her anxiety over the difference in their ages evaporated under the heat of his intense gaze.

  She rose on her knees and untied the belt holding her robe shut. The silky material slid over sensitized skin. Though she felt shy as a virgin, and though it had been many, many years since her body had known a man, and though she was still in awe that this beautiful man was her husband, she wouldn’t go to the wedding bed acting shy and hesitant. She wanted to be a full woman for Gabriel. She held out her arms. “Come warm me.”

  Gabriel crossed to her and his large, roughened hands skimmed her sides and cupped her bottom. “Mother of mercy, Shosha, are you trying to kill me?”

  She laughed, glorying in his raw male
strength. She nipped and nuzzled his neck. “Take me to bed now.”

  He crushed his mouth to hers. And his firm lips slipped and slid over hers, tasting like urgency and hunger and spiced wine. She pressed closer, buried her fingers in his hair, and kissed him back with equal fervor.

  He smelled of rich spices and dark desire. “I love you, Shosha,” he said against her lips. “I love you.”

  She nipped his lower lip. “Make me your woman.”

  He groaned and broke away. Fiery intensity burned in his eyes. “You are destroying my resolve.”

  “Resolve?” she asked, breathing hard.

  His finger traced over her jaw. “You're a treasure I want to cherish slowly and thoroughly.”

  Her insides contracted. “I’m a Samaritan mule train driver.”

  He drew her robe off her shoulders, and her long hair cascaded down her bare back. His knuckles skimmed her collarbone. “You are my beloved. My hands are not my own. They were created to serve and pleasure you.”

  Heat rushed through her and she reached for him. He caught her wrists and smiled. “Be patient.”

  “I’m not getting any younger,” she said, her gnawing need making her peevish.

  With a wolfish grin, he cuffed her wrist with one hand. “I plan to spend half the night proving you didn’t marry a boy-man, Shoshana Onias. Then spend the other half of the night showing you how much I love and want you.”

  Desire warred with joy. She was blessed to call Gabriel Onias husband. Not because he was rich and handsome, but because he loved her above himself and was ready to sacrifice his needs for hers. Just as she loved him above herself and was ready to sacrifice her needs for his.

  He laid her back on the bed. His eyes darkened and a delicious shiver went through her.

  CHAPTER 46

  Mules brayed and hawed outside Gabriel’s house. He took a last glance around the airy, floral-trimmed entryway, then pulled the door shut and jogged down the porch stairs to Shoshana and the waiting mules and wagons.

  Two months after marrying Shoshana and settling his affairs, Gabriel had no regrets about leaving Jerusalem for a life of farming and devotion to the Lord in Galilee.

  Curious neighbors peeked out their doors or stood on their porches, examining the travel party. They did make a strange sight. Like a miniature version of Moses’s exodus from Egypt, his mother and Helen and a few loyal servants occupied mule carts brimming with clothing and home goods. Meanwhile the Ehuds sat tall and noble on their mules, looking hardy and enduring as the desert.

  Shoshana smiled as she passed him a set of reins, her face aglow with the knowledge she carried their child. He wished she would sit in one of the carts, but she assured him riding a mule posed no danger to her and the babe.

  He squeezed her knee, then climbed onto Ahab’s sturdy back, and he and Shoshana led the procession through the narrows streets of the city.

  Leonidas trotted his mules up beside Gabriel’s when they passed the Temple complex. Young and old priests and Levites lined up under the shadow of the western wall. Gabriel wasn’t sure if the silent show of support was for his father, who’d been a well-liked and respected elder, or for him and Leonidas and the courage they’d shown when Cousin Simeon tampered with the drawing of the lots, and for standing up to ‘King’ Herod.

  The war finished and the rebellion suppressed, Herod ruled over Jerusalem dressed in regal robes and bedecked in a gold crown. But he continued to alienate those he ruled, first by bribing Mark Antony to behead High Priest Hasmond, and secondly by installing a lowly priest from Babylon as High Priest of Israel.

  The Baris loomed overhead. Gabriel peered up at the fortress guarding the Temple grounds and spotted Andrew watching them from the northwest tower. Gabriel and Leonidas waved. Andrew waved back, then moved out of sight.

  Gabriel and Leonidas had shared long talks with Andrew, who acknowledged the erroneous practices of the leaders of Israel, but his heart and mind were bound up in the daily rhythms of Temple life, and he’d chosen to give his allegiance to Herod. Gabriel suspected his father, if he’d been spared, would also have returned to a life of prayer and reading the scriptures at the synagogue, and sacrifice and worship at the Temple, and made excuses for not giving up the lucrative income he gained from supplying the sacred oil for the Temple.

  Gabriel liked to think his conscience would have eventually led him to forsake his pampered life and the riches gained at the expense of common priests, even if Cousin Simeon’s greedy ambitions and Talitha’s death hadn’t shaken him awake to the corrupt Temple practices.

  But Simeon had pushed too hard, and Gabriel had walked away from the Temple, and he had fallen in love with Shoshana. There was no going back to his old life. He would farm olives, but he would sell his oil and fruit at market as his cousin Alexandra and Nathan did. He would employ as many poor country priests as the farm would support and use his wealth to aid the needy and sick.

  Leonidas pushed his unruly hair out of his face and urged his mule ahead to the ancient Fish Gate. Outwardly Leonidas didn’t give any indication he was upset or unhappy that his injuries would keep him from serving at the Lord’s altar or that he would have to wear the black linen clothes reserved for disfigured priests. In truth he acted far more unsettled and unhappy over leaving Herod’s army behind. Restless with life in Jerusalem, Leonidas had volunteered to help the Ehud’s by taking Shoshana’s place and working as a mule train driver until he decided what to do next.

  The caravan passed through the Fish Gate and the rank smell of the fuller’s shops grew heavier. Merchants nodded and waved greetings at Noach and Big Lev, who had struck up many friendships among ordinary Jerusalemites during their time in the city.

  Noach had used the extra coins that came from owning the full interest of the mule train to purchase new sturdy tunics and warm cloaks for Big Lev, Naomi, Jacob, and Isaac. And Naomi had cried when Gabriel and Shoshana presented her with a new Shabbat lamp.

  Gabriel and Shoshana slowed, waiting for his mother’s cart to catch up. His mother smiled an assurance as she did every time he asked her if the move to Galilee would suit. She and Shoshana had spent hours talking over plans for the sitting garden Gabriel promised to build. His mother was as eager as Helen to spend a few nights eating and sleeping in the Ehud’s cave home, before journeying on to Galilee. Furthermore, his mother wanted to visit with Anina and his half-sisters Miriam and Ruth, hoping to put away past hurts.

  Helen put her arms out, and Gabriel lifted her onto his lap. She laughed her delight and patted Ahab’s bristly mane and hugged his neck. Then she settled back against him. He kissed her soft curls.

  The sun shone bright in the blue skies. Late season flowers lined the rocky road climbing the hills heading north. He and Shoshana shared a smile. He reached for her hand and she reached for his. Priest, rich man, soldier were part of him and would guide and help through his life. But his happiness and heart’s desire rested with Helen and the unborn babe. And with Shoshana.

  THE END

  ~ Historical Note ~

  The books in the Herod Chronicles series are a dramatization of historical events. My intentions are to stay true to the spirit of the time while writing an entertaining story.

  Warring Desires’ look into Gabriel Onias’s life allowed me to explore the day to day lives of the priests at the Temple as they ate, slept, and worked. The office of priest was inherited based on birth, so it was fun to explore the misadventures of James and Leonidas, whose dispositions and personalities weren’t suited to the serious, sedate nature of the work.

  Simeon Onias’s tampering with the lots is my invention. I didn’t come across any instances of foul play with the lots in my reading and research. But it wasn’t a stretch for me to conceive of a corrupt man like Simeon stooping to such blasphemous means. As to the lots themselves, the exact look and composition isn’t clear. Extra-biblical sources describe three types of lots—black and white pebbles, ones carved from wood (olive, nut, or cypre
ss wood), and pieces of paper with writing on them. I chose the paper lots for my purposes.

  Though the law forbids priests from marrying a divorced woman, extra-biblical sources suggest they did—specifically naming the proscribed punishment for priests marrying a divorced woman as stripes/flogging and proclaiming any sons conceived from the marriage were disallowed from serving as priests. I’m not surprised the law was broken or ignored. These men didn’t choose to be priest; they inherited the office by birth. I would be more surprised if none of them rebelled or acted up. As to Gabriel marrying a widow—with the exception of the High Priest, priest were allowed to marry widows.

  There was a historical family of High Priests named Onias, but Simeon, James, Gabriel, and Nehonya are a fictional branch of the family and wholly my creation.

  As I did with book one and two of the series, the character I call High Priest Hasmond was known to history as Antigonus. The change had more relevance in the first two books, where Herod’s father Antipater played a bigger part and presented the need to avoid confusion between similar sounding names.

  The time-line for this book covers nine months, while the actually events played out over two plus years. For the sake of the pace of the story I compressed events. I made other small changes for pacing reason too. The scene where Herod is almost crushed by the wall occurred in Jericho and not outside the walls of Jerusalem as I depicted it. Herod’s army fought many more battles than could I had room for in this book. I used the ones that I found the most interesting. I recommend the writings of Josephus for a more comprehensive review of the events.

  I’ll end with an interesting side note that wouldn’t fit neatly within the story. In book one of the series Herod is put on trial for executing the rebel Hezekiah. Only one man stands up to accuse Herod. Shemaiah, braving Herod’s outrage, warns in a prophecy that Herod will return one day to slay the Sanhedrin if they allow Herod to escape punishment. And true to the prophecy Herod does return and executes forty-five members of the Sanhedrin. But Herod spares Shemaiah, presumably out of respect for Shemaiah’s courage. This is a perfect example of what makes such a Herod fascinating, complex figure to write stories around.