The Queen's Handmaid

by Tracy L. Higley

  Mariamme did not seem to notice. She sat at her dressing table, fiddling with her cosmetics. The room was one of elegance and comfort. From the frescoed walls to decorative pottery and luxurious bedcoverings, Lydia had spared no effort in making Mariamme’s chamber the finest in the palace.

  The brazier in the corner had mercifully died down to embers. The room was overly warm. Without the brazier’s light, only a single lamp dispelled the evening gloom. Lydia moved about the chamber, straightening cushions, clearing cups and platters from earlier in the day, running a damp cloth over the marble furniture and bases of the green-and-gold-painted columns. Her stomach churned with an evening meal that did not sit well, and her thoughts were far from her duties.

  Their sudden departure from Jericho in the wake of Aristobulus’s death—his murder—had been necessary but painful, if she were to admit it. While her friendship with David had been a balm since leaving Caesarion in Egypt, the beginning of the friendship with Simon had been something altogether different. The way he comforted her after the drowning . . .

  She shook off the dark thoughts and folded the jumble of waiting baby clothes from a woven basket. She was back in Jerusalem now, and if the High Priest’s death had done nothing else, it had served to solidify her decision to take the matter of the scrolls into her own hands and find the Chakkiym before the next Yom HaKippurim. Before Salome realized they were hidden in her own palace.

  Lydia moved from the baby clothes to examine a new dress that had been sent up for Mariamme earlier in the day. She would add some gold stitching at the shoulders and waist, but the Tyrian purple dye was still so pungent, it watered her eyes.

  Salome.

  Lydia’s shoulders convulsed in a little chill, a reminder of the encounter. She had been nearly oblivious to Salome and her dark obsessions all these years. What bearing did any such thing have on her?

  And yet in Salome’s chamber, there had been something—a feeling, a pressure—upon her that had been very personal. She had fallen under the scrutiny of Herod’s sister in the baths. Salome was angry that Lydia repeated the threat against Aristobulus and helped the women get a letter out of the palace. But the animosity Lydia felt in the woman’s chamber was something more.

  “You are protected. Not from within. From without.”

  What did it mean? Was it Samuel’s promise that his God would protect her? She had done nothing to earn it, though she was trying to learn and sometimes sent a few coins with David for sacrifice at the Temple, as Samuel had done in Alexandria. At the thought of her old friend, an unexpected jolt of anger coursed through her. Why had he given her this task that seemed to draw darkness to her—forces she did not understand? She needed to get rid of those scrolls.

  “Lydia, come and brush my hair. It is nearly time for the dinner.”

  She took up the brush and ran it through Mariamme’s heavy red hair mechanically. The passing chatter of a cluster of servant girls in the hall grated against her nerves.

  “You have been quiet tonight, Lydia.”

  “Apologies, my lady.”

  Mariamme shook her head slightly under the brush. “No need. I am merely concerned. But then, you have been somber since Jericho.”

  Images of Aristobulus’s blue body floated in her memory.

  “We all have.”

  Mariamme fell silent and her head lowered as if too heavy to hold upright.

  Lydia paused in her brushing and put a hand to Mariamme’s shoulder. “I am sorry again, my lady. I did not mean to remind you—”

  “As if I could forget.” Mariamme sniffed, lifted her head, and indicated Lydia should continue brushing. “But I am trying.” She half turned with a smile. “I thought perhaps your sadness arose from leaving behind that palace manager—Simon, is it?”

  Had Mariamme learned to read her so well? The distance from Jerusalem to Jericho seemed vast and hopeless.

  The brush hit a tangle and caught. Lydia jerked it downward.

  Mariamme squeaked in protest. “Oh my. I was only teasing, but perhaps there is too much truth.” She turned, forcing Lydia to stop brushing. “You know staff liaisons are considered inappropriate. I’m well aware that it goes on all the time downstairs, but it cannot be public.” She returned to facing her bronze mirror. “Besides, you are far too valuable as my maidservant to lose you to a foolish flirtation. Are you not happy with me?”

  “Of course, my lady. You are very good to me.” A coldness had crept through her limbs, despite the warm room.

  “And I will keep Salome away from you, I promise. You must not pay any mind to her ravings.”

  Lydia put her fingertips to the pendant under her tunic. “My lady . . .” She hesitated, her usual reticence to share anything private seizing the words in her throat.

  “What is it, Lydia? There is something else tonight, I can feel it.”

  Lydia rocked on the edge of indecision for the space of two heartbeats. Was it not better to remain silent? A flush of fear swept her. But curiosity won out. She pulled the pendant from under her clothing.

  “I have never shown you this. It was . . . it was my mother’s, and is all I have of her.”

  Mariamme smiled, a smile warm with sympathy, and leaned toward the pendant. “You know so little of her, I am glad you have something to—”

  The words hung unsaid, and even in the light of the single lamp, the sudden paleness of Mariamme’s face was startling. Much like Salome’s reaction.

  “Where did you get it, Lydia?”

  The chill across her skin grew, and the pendant seemed like ice in her fingers. “Salome saw it. She accused me of stealing it. But, as I told you, the pendant was my mother’s.”

  Mariamme was standing now, and she looped a finger around the leather cord, then grabbed Lydia’s arm with her other hand and pulled her toward the lamp. She held the pendant closer to her eye.

  “It is the same.” Her words were a whisper. “I am certain it is the same.”

  A foreboding hammered in Lydia’s chest. “I did not steal it.”

  Mariamme dropped the necklace and peered into Lydia’s eyes. “Of course not.” She eyed the silent hallway, then took up Lydia’s arm again. “Come. Everyone will have gone down to dinner. Now is the best time.”

  Lydia followed Mariamme from the chamber. Her eunuchguard, Leodes, straightened at the door. Eunuchs were standard for the protection of royal women, but gentle, good-humored Leodes was an unlikely choice. Herod’s persistent jealousy would not allow for anyone who might tempt Mariamme’s affections.

  He stepped to Mariamme’s side at once.

  “We are only going down the hall, Leodes. Stay here at my door.”

  He smiled and gave a quick nod.

  Lydia glided silently behind her mistress, who seemed to take care to stay close to the wall of the corridor and keep her sandals from clacking against the stone floor.

  How was it possible she had worn the pendant for all these years, when every day its secret could have been illuminated if only Lydia had shared it with Mariamme? Stupid, foolish girl. And yet, at the same time, had she made a mistake? Revealed too much?

  Mariamme paused in the upper corridor, listening. Lydia slowed behind her.

  Apparently satisfied, Mariamme continued a few steps and disappeared into a bedchamber.

  Alexandra’s bedchamber.

  Like Mariamme’s room, it was lit with only a single lamp while its mistress was gone and was empty of servants. Empty of adornment as well, in sharp contrast to Mariamme’s room.

  Mariamme crossed the chamber on sure feet, directly to her mother’s dressing table. A squat box of cedar sat in its center and she picked up the box, brought it to the lamp on a side table, and set it down. “Come, Lydia. Come closer.”

  Lydia pressed damp hands against her robes and took a shaky breath.

  Mariamme did not seem to notice her discomfort. She was rummaging through her mother’s things—mostly jewelry, it would appear. “Here. Here they are.”
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  The queen pulled two objects from the small box and held them to the light. She glanced at Lydia. “What are you still doing over there? Come here.”

  Lydia crossed the space and willed herself to look at Mariamme’s find.

  Mariamme placed them both in her own palm, faceup, and pulled Lydia’s pendant from under her tunic once more. “You see? They are the same.”

  Lydia’s legs were trembling and her breath came short and shallow. How could this be?

  Her own pendant had a loop of iron forged to its metal disc where the leather cord was strung. The two in Mariamme’s palm did not. But there was no mistaking the embossed designs. Identical, all three.

  “Wh-what are they?” Her voice sounded scraped from within her chest.

  Mariamme shook her head. “I don’t know. I used to play with Mother’s jewelry when I was a young girl and saw them here often. But I never asked.” She looked at Lydia’s face, then replaced the discs in the box and snapped it closed. “Do not have any fear, Lydia. Obviously you did not steal it, and I will tell no one you have it.”

  “Salome knows.”

  Mariamme’s brow furrowed. “I will ask my mother about these two.”

  At Lydia’s intake of breath she placed a comforting hand around her arm. “Discreetly. Do not worry. She will not know why I ask.”

  Voices in the corridor drew their attention.

  “I must go to dinner.” Mariamme squeezed her arm. “You go to bed. I can get a slave girl to attend me this evening.” She moved from the room as quickly as her overburdened belly would allow.

  Lydia followed, then nodded to the queen and took the corridor in the opposite direction.

  Go to bed? She might never sleep again.

  Lydia descended the back stairs of the palace and passed through the kitchens, busy with the serving of the evening meal. A familiar laugh, seductive and playful, came from the corner.

  Riva shouldered up to a serving boy, five years her junior at least, laughing at his shy discomfort.

  Lydia looked away. Riva made a fool of herself. Did the woman even understand discretion?

  On the far side of the kitchens, a narrow set of stone steps climbed to the second level of the palace, and then another to the third. Lydia emerged into the night air and sucked in great gulps of it, as if it would clear the muddle of her mind.

  The roofline of the palace stretched ahead of her, a half wall of protection between its floor and the open air. The city of Jerusalem lay at her feet, vast and glittering with yellow torchlight under the colder sparkle of the stars. She walked the edge, listening to the night. In front of the Temple only a few torches flared, and the Mount of Olives was a wavy purple line across the sky.

  “Lydia?” A silhouetted figure perched on the half wall shifted toward her.

  “David! What are you doing out here?”

  He turned back to the city with a shrug. “Nothing.”

  He had been like this since Jericho. At odds with himself and the world.

  Lydia walked to him, stood alongside for a moment, then impulsively climbed to the wall and sat, legs dangling over the edge as his did.

  David glanced at her seated position, then up to her face, a glint of his old self in his eyes, but the light soon went out.

  They sat in silence except for the lonely roll of cart wheels against stone somewhere below, and the snorts of animals in some distant pen.

  “Cold and beautiful, isn’t it?” David’s voice sounded empty, hopeless.

  “Are you still working in the gardens?” She would try to distract him from his dark thoughts.

  He snorted. “Pulling weeds and picking flowers like a slave. Is this what I have worked for all these years?”

  “Were you so much happier as Aristobulus’s manservant?”

  “At least I had the respect of those downstairs. But I cannot blame them for tossing me out into the gardens. I did nothing to save him.”

  Lydia covered David’s hand with her own. “You bear no guilt.”

  She had said nothing to David of what she overheard between Salome and Cypros. He was so angry over what he believed to be an accident. If he knew the truth, there was no telling what he might do. But if anyone bore guilt, it was her.

  She braced her hands against the hard stone and studied the tan roofs beneath the black sky. Would not think about blue skin, nor muddy Nile water.

  “If they are going to keep me in the gardens, perhaps I should simply go home to Nazareth. Become a shepherd.”

  “Is that what you want, David?”

  “No, it is not what I want! I want to build things.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, laughing. “Build things?”

  He sighed, as though a secret had been let out. “With stone. I want to build things with stone. I have so many ideas. Drawings—” He broke off and looked away.

  “David, do not be ashamed of it! It’s a wonderful thing to create something of beauty with your hands.”

  “Well, it will never happen. I should have been apprenticed years ago. Instead, I am here. And rather than building something that would improve our land, I am serving the man who would consume it for his own pleasure. And wondering if there is to be any justice anywhere, whether we will ever be anything but Roman chattel.”

  A breeze lifted Lydia’s hair and carried the odors of the city with it, animal dung and cooking smoke. Familiar, homey smells and yet here above the city, they were both so far removed from anything like family. They had only each other.

  She swung her legs out over the open space, and a desire to tell him secrets of her own built in her heart.

  What was happening to her? First her revelation to Mariamme of the pendant, and now the scrolls?

  But something was stirring, she could feel it. Her vow in Jericho. The discovery of Alexandra’s matching discs, the frightening threats of Salome. A danger, a shift in what was to come. Words invaded her thoughts like a prophecy.

  “You will need your friends.”

  She had long believed herself friendless. Why did she resist opening herself to people? She could never believe anyone truly cared to listen to her thoughts or see her heart. Now, for the second time tonight, she felt the inner push, like someone’s hands on her shoulders prodding her over the roof ledge, the terrifying urge to leap.

  “There is something I want to tell you.”

  He was barely listening, his attention on the city below where neither belonged.

  “David, it is important.”

  He turned dull eyes on her.

  She clasped his cold hands.

  His expression grew troubled. “What is it, Lydia? Has something happened?”

  Yes, too many things. Where to start?

  She focused on their joined hands. Began with Egypt. With Samuel and his furtive teaching of a young, abandoned servant girl growing up in the palace without a family.

  And she told of the night of his death, in halting, emotion-choked words, and of the scrolls, even now hidden in her bedchamber, that told of a Messiah who would come to reign over Israel forever. Of the Chakkiym, who never appeared on the Day of Atonement, despite her faithful waiting. She told it all, her gaze never leaving their hands.

  He did not say a word through the telling.

  When she had finished and raised her head, she found him openmouthed, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Lydia.” One whispered word, but in it all the hope of a nation.

  A chill stole over her, raising the hair on her arms, the back of her neck.

  She shook her head. “I do not know why I was chosen to play this role. It would have been better if it had been someone like you—”

  “No. No, HaShem, blessed be He, knows exactly whom He chooses and why. This is your destiny, Lydia, from the time Samuel found you and began your teaching. What other Egyptian orphan had such training in the ways of the Jews?”

  She pulled her hands from his, suddenly too chilled to remain on the wall, and stood.
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br />   “I will help you, Lydia.”

  She smiled, her own eyes clouding.

  He swung his legs over the wall and joined her. “We will find the Chakkiym together. We will deliver the scrolls that will save Israel.”

  He was so important to her. Too valued. And his youthful confidence restored some of her own. She took a deep breath and nodded.

  The grate of a cart rolling to a stop outside the palace doors drifted up to them. David peered over the edge, then took a step closer to lean farther.

  “Isn’t that—?” He inclined his head and waved Lydia forward.

  A man had alighted from the cart and was directing two slaves to remove crates from the back.

  David glanced at her. “Isn’t that the manager of the Jericho palace, Simon?”

  What? Lydia looked over the edge, heart stuttering.

  As though he sensed himself being watched, the man lifted his head toward the roofline.

  Even from three stories above, Lydia recognized the angular jaw, the set of his shoulders, the smile. He raised one hand in greeting.

  Her own hand rose in response.

  Simon had come to Jerusalem.

  Twenty-Three

  Lydia forced herself to a slow walk from the darkened roof to the street level of the palace. By the time she and David reached the leafy front courtyard, Simon stood inside the atrium, commanding slaves to work faster bringing cases and crates through to the kitchen in the back of the palace.

  He stopped in mid-instruction when he saw Lydia and broke into a smile.

  Warmth spread through her.

  He nodded to them both. “David. Lydia. I trust you are both well.”

  Lydia crossed the tiled courtyard and clasped his hands. “What are you doing here?”

  “I sent for him.” Mariamme strolled from the smaller of the palace’s two dining chambers. She caught Lydia’s eye and winked.

  Lydia pulled back from the friendly greeting. Why had the queen said nothing earlier? It was no wonder that Mariamme had given her the mild warning, however, if she knew Simon was already en route from Jericho.

  Mariamme gave Simon a polite bow of the head. “Welcome, Simon.” She turned to Lydia and David. “When I saw the way Simon ran the palace staff in Jericho, I knew his talents were being wasted in a palace where we only visit. I sent for him to manage the palace here in Jerusalem.”