The Queen's Handmaid

by Tracy Higley

  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.

  Chapter 7

  Lydia 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.

  The ship had limped into port, wind-torn and leaking. It would not put out again anytime soon. Herod was once again a refugee, without funds or army and now without a means to secure either one.

  The group found shelter in a dimly lit tavern while Herod sought out friends. From what Lydia heard, the man had friends everywhere. She had seen little of his reputed charm, save the one night in Cleopatra’s courtyard, but the days at sea had not been a good indication of anyone’s character.

  They washed, were given bread and wine, and reclined on benches and couches for several contented hours. When Herod returned it was with good news. He had already convinced supporters in Rhodes to raise the money to build him a ship that would take them to Rome. In the meantime, they would be housed by one of the leading citizens of Rhodes and treated well.

  Lydia sighed and turned her head toward the tavern wall. She had set out for Jerusalem by way of Rome, learned that Jerusalem was held by Herod’s enemies, detoured to Rhodes, and now would have to await the building of a new ship. The errand Samuel had given seemed as far as the horizon, and just as unreachable.

  Would she be in Jerusalem by autumn, when the day of Yom HaKippurim would allow her to finally deliver the scrolls?

  Chapter 8

  Lydia stood with David at the rail, watching the warm, sun-washed shores of Rome sharpen across an expanse as smooth as blue-green glass. The weather for sailing in the month of April was far better than January had been, and the months spent on the island of Rhodes had strengthened them all for the journey. But their earlier passage from Alexandria had heightened Lydia’s great fear of ships, and she rose every day to eye the horizon with anxiety.

  “And what shall Rome bring to us, do you think?”

  David snorted. “Harder work, I imagine.” He ran a hand through his sun-lightened brown hair and laughed. “We have all grown quite spoiled, I fear.” He jutted his chin across the deck where Herod lounged in luxury, his servant girls attending. “And none more spoiled than Riva.”

  As if she heard her name even from this distance, the girl looked up with a sly smile and, with a swing of her head, swept her hair over one shoulder. She never missed an opportunity to be at Herod’s side, making herself essential—more often at night than during the day.

  Herod was a man aware of his own allure, and he enjoyed making Lydia uncomfortable with the brush of a shoulder or touch of a hand on her arm. Always their conversation was about Mariamme, how Lydia would serve her well when they finally reached Judea and rescued her and his family from the fortress where they held off Antigonus’s men. Riva had hovered around their exchanges, narrow-eyed and suspicious. Did she wish Herod to herself, or was it Lydia’s future position with Mariamme that caused her envy?

  Riva had proven no friend to Lydia in these last months, taking every opportunity to criticize her to Herod, but the girl was much like Andromeda, and the likeness somehow softened Lydia’s heart toward her.

  But David, dear David . . . She had tried with all her strength to resist his friendship. He was like young Caesarion and wise teacher Samuel, both of whom she missed desperately, rolled into one. Friendship with David was far too easy, and therefore far too dangerous. She fought a losing battle. Already she relied on him; already she needed him more than he needed her.

  They put into port a half day’s journey southwest of Rome and switched to a barge that carried them the fifteen miles up the River Tiberis, which flowed through the heart of Rome. Every one of them clutched the rails now, watching the wonders of Rome revealed.

  David had warned her, though he had never seen Rome, only garnered stories from every source he could. The city was a forest of columns, a sea of tenements. It was pocked with vast expanses of open forums and stadiums. It could swallow a person whole.

  She had a task awaiting her in Jerusalem, but somehow it seemed she would fall into Rome and never emerge.

  As if he understood her concern, David patted her shoulder as the barge’s ropes were thrown to the quay and dockworkers hauled it forward to tie off on the iron cleat. The brotherly gesture compressed the air in her chest. She must not get too close to yet another who could be snatched away.

  A small crowd had gathered on the dock, and it gave way to a man striding through it with confidence, an easy smile, and an upraised hand.

  From the prow of the barge, Herod shouted his greeting. “Antony, my friend! It is good to see your face!”

  Marc Antony grinned. “What a time you had getting here, eh? Well, come ashore and let us show you how Rome treats its guests.”

  Lydia gathered up the sack that had been her constant companion since leaving Alexandria and filed behind David and the others to disembark. She wore the pendant at all times, now strung on a leather cord beneath her tunic, and the box of scrolls weighted the bottom of the sack, pulling the fabric taut in her hands.

  Three months since she left Alexandria. Five months remaining to reach Jerusalem, still held by Herod’s enemy Antigonus, before Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement.

  The feeling that Rome would devour her followed her from the barge, along the planking, to the waiting crowd, like a needling prick at her thoughts.

  “I hope you like it here.” Riva’s voice at her shoulder was unfriendly. She pushed past Lydia, narrow hips swaying as she caught up with Herod.

  How long would it take Herod to convince Mark Antony to lend troops for the war against Antigonus? Lydia needed to get out of Rome before Riva’s unfounded jealousy did more damage.

  The procession climbed from the murky River Tiberis toward the tree-lined summit of one of Rome’s seven hills, the Palatine. Marc Antony, as expansive and outgoing as Lydia remembered from his time in Egypt, ordered a wide litter for himself and Herod to be transported up the cobbled road. Lydia and the others followed, trailing between lofty umbrella pines that sharpened the air with their spicy scent, welcome after the stench of sea travel.

  Lydia took in every detail of the city as they climbed. The immense Roman Forum stretched at the base of the hill on their left, its lofty temple columns and administrative buildings peeking white from between the pines, visible even from this distance. In the valley to their right, an elongated oval stadium matched the length of the Palatine. Would they see chariot races even tonight, be able to witness the action from this height?

  But it was the hill itself that demanded attention, with its magnificent white-stoned estates spread under the cloudless blue sky, housing the elite of Roman society. The breeze on the hill contained no whiff of city odors. Lydia lifted her head to the dark wings of a bird, wheeling lazily over a two-storied estate, and despite all, she smiled.

  Laughter rang out from the litter ah
ead, and the eight straight-backed litter bearers slowed as one. The curtains were thrust aside and Herod’s head appeared.

  “Riva!” He scanned the cluster of those following the litter until he found the girl, already hurrying forward. “Come.”

  Riva bumped a shoulder against Lydia’s arm as she passed, then tossed a superior smile over her shoulder. The dark-skinned men who bore the litter lowered it nearly to the ground, and Riva climbed onto the cushioned bench, disappearing from view. Now heavier with three occupants, the men grunted and heaved as one as they lifted the litter to their shoulders and continued.

  The procession wound past several estates and stopped at a midsized house with two stories and a peristyled garden in front, its portico columns circled with glossy vines.

  Inside, the staff was taken to separate men’s and women’s quarters, given jugs of water with which to wash, loaves of hard bread, and mats where they might rest. When the room was empty, Lydia took care to hide the scrolls in an unused urn in the corner.

  They were all to be included in the reception Marc Antony had planned for his younger friend that evening. Where Herod was all quiet, Eastern intensity and studied charm, Antony was the hard-drinking reprobate who loved to spend money on a party.

  The reception proved to rival any Cleopatra had given, if not in scale at least in quality. Lydia hovered with a few other servants near the frescoed wall of the large dining hall. Others of the party—Herod’s advisers, plus Riva and a few other women—reclined on three couches set around a massive square table.

  The reds and yellows of the fresco at Lydia’s back were warm and inviting, and the spread of food magnificent. Plump green olives and creamy white cheeses, jeweled cups of wine and steaming platters of roasted pheasant. Her mouth watered at the delectable scent of the meat. There had been no cooked foods aboard the ship from Rhodes. She must be content to wait, though Riva’s hard smile as she tore apart of bit of seasoned meat made the delay grueling.