The Queen's Handmaid

by Tracy Higley

  Mariamme’s plea to her younger brother was silent now, just a tearful biting of her lip. She kept one hand on her swollen belly, as if to remind him that more Hasmoneans were to come, that he must do this for the sake of their family, if not their nation.

  Aristobulus smiled sadly and touched Mariamme’s reddish-brown hair, a gesture that spoke of nostalgia and a profound sadness at their parting. He blinked away the emotion and dropped his hand.

  They were a matched pair in age to David and her, these two. While she had spent the years attending to Mariamme, David had served the brother. It was David who had helped them get past Alexandra’s guard and even now did his best to delay their discovery.

  She felt Ari’s repugnance. To crawl alive into a coffin somehow seemed a worse fate than simply hiding under woven blankets or within a chicken cage. But it was their best chance. Few Jews would insist the coffins be opened for examination upon leaving the city.

  Alexandra had been subdued since slipping from her chamber, but she climbed into her box with her usual muttering venom. “The filthy Idumean thinks he can control my family. We shall see. We shall see.”

  Aristobulus took to his coffin without a word, only a final nod to Mariamme.

  The driver lowered the lids over both, ran a hand through his greasy hair, and shrugged. “That ought to do it.”

  Mariamme started forward. “You know where—”

  “Aye, mistress. I’ll get ’em there.”

  There had been no good-byes, no embraces.

  Lydia stood at Mariamme’s side in the cold morning air as the cart rolled into the darkness, with all the hopes of the Hasmonean dynasty interred within.

  Mariamme spoke without turning. “You served Cleopatra, Lydia. You’ve met Marc Antony. Do you think she can convince him?”

  Lydia did not answer at once. It was a difficult question. “Your mother’s first letter was effective. Cleopatra persuaded Marc Antony to invite Aristobulus to Egypt.”

  In truth, it had been quite the scandal. Antigonus had been declared both king and High Priest by his supporting Parthians. When Herod took the throne, he would have loved to become High Priest as well. But he was not a Jew. He would never be permitted by the Sanhedrin to take the priestly office. Instead, he recalled the aging Hyrcanus, Mariamme’s grandfather, from his exile in Babylon and restored him to his Temple duties. The poor man’s mutilated ears prevented him from having the title, so Herod appointed his friend Ananel to be High Priest—a man with no claim to royal blood, who would not be a danger.

  In a fury at her son’s being passed over, Alexandra wrote a letter to Cleopatra, along with portraits of her son and daughter to show to Marc Antony, urging her to persuade Antony to favor Aristobulus. Such a beautiful person was surely destined for greatness. And perhaps Antony would be interested in Mariamme?

  Antony requested that Aristobulus come to Egypt and Herod panicked. The boy was the age Herod had been when Antony first became enamored of him. Would Aristobulus steal the Roman’s favor, convince Antony that he should rule Judea?

  Herod refused Antony’s request. The boy was too popular in the city. It would cause riots if he were to leave. To keep Aristobulus in Judea and away from Antony, Herod made him High Priest, deposing Ananel, who had been appointed for life. His Jewish subjects now hated him all the more.

  But their animosity did not extend to Aristobulus. No, everyone loved the boy. And the two women were counting on Antony’s agreement in the matter. Three women, if Lydia included herself.

  “I still do not know how your mother got that second letter out to Cleopatra while under Herod’s strict guard. Sohemus takes his role as captain of Herod’s guard very seriously.”

  Mariamme said nothing.

  “But now they are on their way. And she will help you if she finds it in her best interest.”

  The two turned back toward the stable, Mariamme walking slowly. She had picked up a piece of straw and twisted it in her fingers as she walked.

  Lydia glanced again at the purpling sky as they entered the stable. She needed to be on the Temple steps by dawn, fruitless as it might be.

  “How has it come to this, Lydia?” They took the silent tunnels slowly now. “My two grandfathers—brothers—squabbling over the throne thirty years ago. Did they not see that their rivalry left a foothold for Roman intervention? Once Rome tasted Judea, how soon it became occupation and then domination. And now—now we have Herod, a king who would murder forty-five Sanhedrin members with all the cold-bloodedness of a lizard.”

  The Sanhedrin purge after Herod took the throne had been a dreadful thing. Only twenty-six members were spared, those who declared loyalty to Herod. Those who still claimed ties to Antigonus, even though he had been tortured and beheaded by Marc Antony, found themselves with the same fate as their former king.

  “You must have faith, my lady. Faith that your One God holds the future of Israel in His hand.”

  Or perhaps strapped to her chest.

  Mariamme sighed. “How oddly you speak, Lydia. After all this time, I still cannot determine whether you think of yourself as a Jew or not.”

  Lydia’s hand strayed to the cord around her neck that hid the pendant under her tunic. “Nor can I.”

  “But it is the Day of Atonement, and I know you have your strange and secret tradition. I will let you go to it.”

  A surge of warmth for Mariamme, who had grown so dear to her, brought a smile in the darkness. “Thank you, my lady.”

  Minutes later Lydia was hurrying out of the south end of the Antonia palace. It had been Baris when Antigonus ruled, but Herod had wisely renamed it during its extensive renovations, and now the royal residence and fortress of Antonia was a grateful salute to the man who had helped Herod gain the throne. The lavish palace was Herod’s primary residence, though he had been constructing another in Jericho and was even somehow building something grand on the cliffs of Masada.

  In her two years in Jerusalem, Lydia had seen little more than the palace, which, though staffed with Jewish servants, was entirely Greek in its culture to please its king.

  It was still early. There was still time. She wrapped her mantle tightly against the morning chill and headed for the Temple steps for the third year of waiting. Since Rome, she had given up fretting that those who had come after the scrolls and killed Samuel would find her. She was alone in this, for better or worse.

  That first Yom HaKippurim, when the smoke rose thick from the city and the bodies lay even thicker in the streets, she had known the Chakkiym would not come. One year ago she had come again. Perhaps a replacement would have been found. But no one had come.

  This year she expected nothing.

  She reached the outer steps, outside the Temple enclosure walls, and found her usual spot. She still could not be certain if the appointed place was these steps or those within the courtyard, but if she watched every person who came and went, she could not miss him.

  The sun rose on another Day of Atonement. Mariamme and her mother had chosen this unlikely day for the escape, for they feared the people’s acclaim of Aristobulus during his duties would result in some kind of attack in the crowd, contrived by Herod. But the two would need to be well away before the High Priest was missed.

  Mariamme’s earlier observation returned to Lydia. Was she a Jew or was she not? The mysterious pendant proved nothing. But if she were a Jew, she would have cause to worry. The One God demanded this yearly sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people. He had many requirements and laws, some of which were in the written Law and some added over time by the Pharisees, who sought to please Him with their whole lives. She could understand this desire. If pleasing God were the goal, then it only made sense to work as hard as one could to please Him better. What would it mean for the High Priest to be missing on this holiest of days?

  She longed to close her eyes against the unending flow of people. To examine each one as they passed was exhausting, and the warmth of the early autumn day made he
r drowsy. An old woman picked her way toward the Temple, leaning heavily on a stick. Her slow, steady tread was like a soft heartbeat, lulling Lydia to sleep.

  Would she come every year? Probably. But only out of duty. Not because she believed the Chakkiym would ever appear.

  She would be an old woman someday too. Still sitting on these steps, hunched and bent and waiting.

  And would that old woman have a family? Anyone who loved her? Or would she still be in service to Mariamme? An aging queen and her aging servant.

  Her thoughts strayed to Simon as they often did, despite their short acquaintance. To the fiery national fervor in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw. Since the victory in Jerusalem two years ago, she heard that Herod had made Simon the manager of his newly constructed winter palace in Jericho. No doubt he ran it better than the Jerusalem palace, which always seemed to be lacking something.

  From commissary soldier to palace manager, Simon’s fortunes were increasing while she remained in the same position of lady’s maid to the queen and, at twenty-three, quickly grew too old to be marriageable.

  She returned to the palace slowly that night, the weight of the coming years, empty and purposeless, pressing against her lungs as firmly as the undelivered scrolls.

  The palace was not a refuge, however. A furtive buzz of servants and angry shouts from the throne room greeted her entrance.

  A passing kitchen slave saw her enter and could not wait to share the gossip.

  The queen’s mother and brother had been caught sneaking from the palace.

  And Herod was in a rant.

  Lydia ran for the throne room, her heart keeping time with her pounding sandals.

  Chapter 19

  Lydia slid into the crowded throne room and took a quick measure of the uproar. Did Herod know who was involved in the attempted escape?

  He paced the head of the room, punctuating angry words with furious gestures. His dark, oiled curls swung with each upraised fist, and torchlight reflected from the gold band across his forehead like a third eye. Salome stood alongside, arms folded over her narrow body and her dark features pulled into a contemptuous scowl.

  What Herod’s throne room lacked in the colorful carved beauty of Cleopatra’s palace, it made up for in severity. He copied the Greek- and Roman-style pillars, with their sharp fluting of marble that shot upward to a lofty ceiling lost in darkness at this hour. On the north side of the chamber, the coppery fabric at open windows snapped in the evening breeze like the crack of a whip over the gathered crowd. Torches blazed at fixed intervals in sockets along the wall, their scarlet flames bending in obeisance to Herod’s rage.

  Lydia sought out Mariamme, where she stood near the throne. Best to keep her distance. No need to let Herod put all the faces together of those who had been complicit.

  Alexandra was on her knees before Herod. Aristobulus stood straight backed, with all the defiance of a youth before a tyrant. Good man.

  “And I must hear it from a eunuch!” Herod’s face purpled and he jabbed a forefinger into the wine-colored tunic of a nearby servant.

  Mazal, the eunuch who had apparently spoiled their plot, bore a satisfied smirk. He had been a stableman in the palace since Lydia arrived. But there were whispers that he had once been cupbearer to Herod’s father, until Antipater was poisoned to death and the pall of suspicion had fallen on Mazal. He had the slight build and unusual height typical to his situation. Perhaps it was his height, but he seemed always to be leaning toward Herod, as though trying to bow and scrape his way back into the family’s favor. It would appear he had found a way.

  David emerged from the shadows to stand beside her, and she gave him a sideways glance. He was taller than she now, handsome and strong, and his sharp-cut features were fixed, focused on the drama.

  She pressed an arm against his, silent communication of the anxiety they must share. Would Herod learn of all who had helped in the botched escape? The salty smell of a fearful crowd invaded her senses. Perhaps they all wondered if blame would fall on the guilty and the innocent.

  But Herod’s wrath poured toward Mariamme. “You were part of this!”

  She shrank away, eyes wide but lips silent, covering her belly with a bare forearm.

  Herod stalked at her, closing the gap. “You think he should have my place, yes? Rule over Judea?” He leaned in. “Always the Jew, always the Hasmonean, never my wife!” His voice dropped, but the intensity, laced with a note of pain, carried it across the crowd. “Where is your loyalty? Have I not loved you better than anyone?”

  She dropped her gaze to his feet, still silent.

  “Bah! You and your precious bloodline.” He waved a hand at the mother and son, then in the direction of the palace’s courtyard beyond the throne room. “Building your ridiculous booths to hide in, still clutching at the traditions of the past, as though something new has not come.”

  The harvest’s Feast of Tabernacles was upon them tomorrow, and all week palace servants had been constructing the traditional stalls to commemorate the booths that had sheltered their people when God had brought them out of slavery in Egypt.

  Aristobulus spit at Herod’s feet. “Scoff at our customs if you must, Herod. But leave us to them.”

  Do not go too far, Ari. It is not safe.

  Herod’s face contorted, but perhaps he sensed that in matters of religion, he was outnumbered even in his own palace. He tried to take Mariamme’s arm gently, but she pulled away. He dismissed the crowd with a harsh curse and a rude gesture, and all who had gathered fled the throne room.

  Lydia breathed her relief as Mariamme and Alexandra hurried Ari away.

  Lydia kept busy with holiday preparations, and when the Feast of Tabernacles drew to a close seven days later, the people of Jerusalem who gathered in the Temple courts for the final sacrifice would never have known what animosity the king bore toward the new High Priest. Smiling and waving at his subjects and surrounded by advisers, Herod entered the Temple enclosure from the palace side, weaving his way through the crowd. A tittering drumbeat from unseen musicians accompanied his entrance.

  Lydia assembled with the rest of the palace staff, lined along the outer gate. Riva stood at her side, still trying to gain Herod’s attention. Did he still call for the girl, even though his heart seemed only to belong to Mariamme? Lydia did not want to know.

  Herod ascended the steps to the first doors to the Temple courts, then turned to smile over the crowd, but their attention had already shifted.

  From the south side of the hill, a row of priests in white tunics ascended, appearing over the rise and followed by the High Priest, Aristobulus.

  A hush fell over the crowd to see the tall young man. He was already so striking without his robes, but now he was arrayed in the garments of glory and beauty, the pride of Israel. Smiles and wide eyes greeted his appearance. The linen ephod, woven in threads of gold and blue, purple and scarlet, hugged his muscled chest, and the jeweled breastplate with its grid of twelve stones shone with the inner light of emerald and sapphire, diamond and amethyst, turquoise and onyx—twelve stones, each engraved with the name of one of the tribes so the people would ever be before HaShem when the High Priest entered the Holy Place. Beneath the ephod a blue robe hung past his knees, and the tinkling of golden bells stitched to its hem played over the hill.

  Lydia’s heart soared to see him so exalted. He should have the scrolls. The thought came unbidden, but was it not right? As High Priest and hopefully their future king, would he not be the perfect one to entrust with her secret? The One God she was beginning to know through David’s patient teaching had given her two younger brothers to fill the void in her heart left by Caesarion. Was it not fitting that one of them be the answer to her prayers over the scrolls?

  The silent awe of the crowd at Aristobulus’s resplendence broke, replaced with wild shouts of admiration and upraised arms and fists. The masses parted, allowing him entry through the mob like Moses through the Sea of Reeds. To his credit, Aristo
bulus accepted their frenzied praise with a mature smile and a dip of his head, and the engraved gold plate fastened to his turbaned mitre winked in the morning light.

  Lydia pulled her gaze from Aristobulus to his brother-in-law, the king, still standing upon the steps before the wooden doors with his sister beside him, both with a hatred so pure, it seemed to swallow the light that radiated from the High Priest.

  In a flash, the drumbeat sounded more like a funeral dirge. The acrid scent of burning sacrifice coated Lydia’s tongue and the pressing flesh of the crowd grew claustrophobic. When Salome leaned to speak into Herod’s ear, Lydia could almost hear the hiss of her whispered malice.

  Aristobulus’s gold-plated mitre and jewels continued to wink over the riot of the crowd, as if passing a traitorous message to those who cheered. On the other side of Herod, Mariamme’s gaze went from husband to brother. She saw it too. The dangerous acclaim.

  Lydia’s pulse skipped over a drumbeat. A darkness fell over the crowd.

  No, it only surrounded Salome and Herod, as though they had shadowed in the glory of Ari.

  Lydia frowned, glanced left and right to see others’ reactions to the strange shifting of light.

  But though the crowd watched the royal family, no one seemed to notice anything amiss. She blinked. Was it only a trick of her eyes? And yet, she felt the darkness more than she saw it—felt it pressing and growing from the brother and sister, reaching, clawlike, toward Ari.

  And in that moment, Salome’s gaze jumped to Lydia. The darkness shot into Lydia’s eyes and all grew dim. She blinked again, returned Salome’s stare, and the strangeness lifted.

  “Powers of darkness will come against you . . .”

  She had not thought of Samuel’s warning in years. She looked to Herod, chilled at the danger to Aristobulus.

  But already Herod’s expression was clearing. A passive smile fixed itself to his face, no less frightening for its blandness.