Jerusalem's Queen--A Novel of Salome Alexandra

by Angela Hunt

  I walked toward the kitchen but slowed my step when the front gates opened and a group of men entered, led by the master’s foreman. The four men behind him were bound together with chains and rope. They had the look of Egyptians. I watched, clenching my hand until my nails bit into my palm.

  Dropping into a well of memory, I saw myself in a similar line of slaves, hungry, stumbling forward, staring numbly at my surroundings. Until the day I was tied to another girl and led away, Egypt had been my world, my home, yet now it seemed nothing more than a collection of hazy images that ebbed and flowed like the Nile.

  My gaze ran over the four new slaves. The first three were adults, strong and in the prime of life, while the fourth man was bent and had grizzled short hair. I squinted to bring him into better focus—the man was old. Had he been sold into slavery as an old man, or had he spent his life in service to someone else? If the latter, he must have done something to greatly offend his master.

  My attention shifted to his skeletal shoulders and arms, then . . . his chest. A single eye stared back at me, an elongated eye with a narrow brow and a black pupil. The all-seeing eye of Horus.

  I breathed deep and felt a jolt of memory, an image from my past life. My father had worn the eye of Horus on his chest.

  I ran toward the new slaves, my heart racing as I approached the older man. I peered into his face and struggled to speak, but I could barely remember any of the words I had used as a child. “You—” I stammered, pointing at him. “Where from?” My gestures and baby talk elicited no response. “Me,” I said, frantically tapping my own chest. “Kissa. I am Kissa.”

  Again, no response. The man only glanced at me, then lowered his gaze and continued trudging behind the others.

  Engulfed by a wave of weariness and despair, I stopped walking and let them go. I was behaving like a crazy person. What were the odds that an enslaved father would end up in the same house as his daughter? The eye of Horus was a common image in Egypt; thousands of men tattooed it on their chests. That man could not be my father. The slave was far too old, and surely my name would have elicited some spark of recognition if I had once been his daughter . . .

  I took a deep breath and felt a dozen emotions collide, chief among them jealousy of my mistress. Her father was dead, but she knew what had happened to him and she knew he had loved her. He had not sold her into slavery and disappeared, leaving her to wonder about him for the rest of her life.

  I wandered to a shaded corner behind the house, leaned against a stone wall, and went thoroughly to pieces.

  After washing my face, I adopted the blank expression of a slave and went into the house. The murmur of voices from upstairs told me that Shelamzion was still studying with her tutor, so I cast about for some work to do.

  I knew I had been wrong to be jealous of Shelamzion, for despite the differences in our station, we had much in common. We were both fatherless girls, both helpless to control our situations, and both indebted to the high priest. Now that we were approaching maturity, the five-year age difference mattered less with every passing day.

  I thought I would see if I could serve my mistress by serving her mother. I found Sipporah sitting on the floor in her bedchamber, surrounded by mounds of fine linen. She was carefully pulling threads from an edge of raw fabric. I didn’t understand what she was doing, but she looked like she needed help.

  I entered the room and bowed. “Can I be of assistance, mistress?”

  She glanced at me, then shook her head. “Ketura needs a chiton,” she said. “John Hyrcanus is hosting important people at a banquet, and my daughter needs a new gown.”

  “You mean Shelamzion,” I said, folding my hands. “I am sure she would appreciate a—”

  “Not her,” Sipporah snapped, glaring at me. “Shelamzion has more than enough, while Ketura gets nothing! And she is the one who deserves more.”

  I should have quietly backed out of the room. I should have left the woman to her solitary undertaking and said nothing. But for so many years I had watched the woman belittle, ignore, and demean my young mistress, and in that moment I forgot my station.

  “What is wrong with you?” I said, hissing the words through clenched teeth. “Why can’t you see the value of the daughter who lives upstairs? She is a good girl, a clever girl, and the high priest adores her! More than that, he respects her, or are you so blind you cannot see it?”

  Outside the house, a horse whickered, a child shouted, and water splashed in the fountain. Those sounds rushed to fill the astonished silence as Sipporah lowered the fabric and gaped at me like a woman who had just been knocked over by a charging ram.

  I closed my eyes and prayed—to any god who would hear me—that she would not have me beaten.

  “What did you say?” Her voice had gone soft with disbelief.

  I adjusted my tone to sound more conciliatory. “Shelamzion is a good girl, a daughter you should be proud of. Yet you seem to ignore her at every opportunity.”

  The woman’s hands began to tremble, and her eyes went damp with pain. “Shelamzion,” she whispered, not looking at me, “was a mistake.”

  I stepped closer to better hear her. “What did you say?”

  Sipporah’s expression changed, memory making her eyes hard and her mouth tight. “I will tell you,” she said firmly, “and then you will understand.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Shelamzion

  Come in, Salome.”

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside Alena’s chamber. The new mother, as lovely as ever, sat in her bed, a swaddled infant in her arms. On the floor, six-year-old Judah Aristobulus and three-year-old Antigonus played with a set of wooden blocks.

  As I walked past the older boys, the memory of my mother’s suggestion that I marry Aristobulus made me groan. The boy had just stolen a block from his brother, and Antigonus was searching for it. In a moment he would scream.

  “Come closer.” Alena beckoned me with a smile. “See? Isn’t he perfect?”

  I stepped closer to the bed and leaned forward, trying to imagine those pinched features in an older child’s face. The baby—what I could see of him beneath the wrappings—was as red as a rose, with small bumps on his forehead and a sharply pointed nose.

  “Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “He’s a good baby,” Alena volunteered. “Hardly cries at all—unlike those two over there. I think they cried for the first three months of their lives. But this one just sleeps and smiles. And eats. My, how he loves to eat.”

  I looked at the infant’s little lips, which quivered in apparent anticipation of another meal. “Have you thought of a name?” I asked.

  “Alexander Jannaeus,” Alena answered. “Alexander, which is Greek for ‘defender of man.’ And Jannaeus, Hebrew for ‘gift of God.’”

  “And what will you call him, since he has such powerful names?”

  Alena laughed. “Whichever name he likes best.”

  The baby lifted his pink eyelids, and his eyes seemed to focus on me. While Alena and I watched, his lips curved in a smile. Or was it a yawn?

  “He likes you,” Alena said and reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “I think he’s going to love playing with his cousin Salome.”

  I bit my lip, unable to understand when I would ever have an occasion to play with this baby. I was fourteen, old enough to be married, and Uncle would soon send me to Antioch. This baby would probably grow up without knowing me at all.

  But I was not so poorly mannered as to contradict Uncle’s wife. So I smiled and patted Alena’s hand. “If HaShem wills, perhaps we will become good friends.”

  In the summer of my sixteenth year, I awakened to find a smear of blood between my legs. I released a choked, desperate laugh at the sight—no longer could I argue that I was not ready to be married. I was no longer a girl but would soon be expected to marry and bear children.

  I stepped over my sleeping handmaid and wet a piece of linen, then sat on a stool and sighed
as I washed my thigh. I knew I should tell Mother. She would tell Alena, who would tell Uncle, and he would make Cleopatra Thea aware that the promised fruit had finally ripened. Even if I said nothing, they would all figure it out when I did not go to dinner or join them in the garden. I would have to remain in my chamber for the next seven days, the time when I would be unclean.

  Kissa woke when she heard me stirring. She sat up in the dim light of early dawn, and sympathy filled her eyes when she realized what I was doing. She took the soiled cloth from me, then pulled a basket from a trunk and showed me what she had prepared—short wooden sticks, not quite as long as my little finger, tightly wound with soft bits of lint and cotton fabric.

  “Some women use pads made of wool,” she said, her voice gentle as she handed me one of the sticks. “But Greek women wear these inside their bodies—I think you will prefer them.”

  I studied the item she placed in my hand. “Do you—?”

  She nodded.

  That morning I ruefully accepted my status as a mature woman. I spent the day studying in my chamber, then sent word that I would not be joining Uncle, Alena, and Mother for dinner for the next several nights. The women would understand why, and they would explain things to Uncle.

  He would send a letter to Cleopatra Thea, discreetly telling her that I was ready to accept my promised husband.

  A few months later, my stomach clenched when a caravan from Antioch passed through the gates of the high priest’s palace. The riders at the fore carried the Seleucid royal standard, so they might be bringing representatives from Cleopatra Thea . . . or even the queen herself.

  And this visit might concern me.

  I had been betrothed for three years, and I had not wasted those months. In addition to my regular studies, I asked Josu to find scrolls about Seleucia. I became an avid student of the empire’s history, though what I read often horrified me. I learned that Seleucus, founder of the empire that bore his name, had been one of Alexander the Great’s generals. Seleucus founded his capital city by ritual: a pagan priest gave an eagle, the bird of Zeus, a bite of sacrificial meat and set it free. The priests followed the flying eagle and established the capital at the point where the bird landed to eat.

  I could not imagine living in a city founded on the whim of a bird.

  Worse by far were the actions of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid king who had invaded Jerusalem, killed thousands of men, women, and children, and sacrificed a pig to Zeus. Not satisfied with defiling our Temple and the holy altar, he then commanded that we Jews could no longer refrain from eating pork, circumcise our children, or observe the Sabbath. He wanted us to become Greek—speak Greek, worship like Greeks, and even think like Greeks.

  Would Grypus expect that of me if we were married?

  Kissa knew of my misgivings and would often try to comfort me by appealing to my appreciation for creature comforts. “Think of the fine garments you will have as queen,” she would say while doing my hair. “Think of living in that wonderful palace! You will have more than one handmaid; you can have as many as you want.”

  “What would I do with more than one? And how many tunics and himations does a woman need?”

  “Princess Salome,” she said, teasing me. “Queen Salome. You should get used to that name.”

  “Hush,” I said. “That is not useful.”

  I knew Uncle had written the queen to say I was ready for marriage. We had heard no response, unless this caravan brought her reply. Had she sent courtiers to escort me to Antioch?

  I gripped Kissa’s hand and bade her sit with me until we knew something certain. Until then I would have to wait until Uncle welcomed the riders, saw to their comfort, and entertained them in an official audience. Then he might send for me, or he might wait until the next morning when his head would be clearer and his thoughts untainted from wine.

  While we waited, I looked through my belongings and considered which things I should take with me to Antioch and which I should leave behind. I would take all my scrolls, for I did not think I would find any Hebrew writings in Cleopatra Thea’s palace. I would leave my tunics, for they were not fine enough for a prince’s wife. I would give the few pieces of jewelry I owned to my mother. And I would take Kissa, for I could not imagine life in a strange land without a friend by my side.

  We did not hear anything from my uncle that night or the next day. I spent hours pacing in my chamber and sent Kissa to wait outside the reception hall in hopes that she might overhear some news. Every hour I’d send for her, only to hear that she had heard nothing about the representatives from Antioch.

  My mother was nearly as tense as me. During our years of waiting she had resurrected the hopes she cherished for Ketura. The weight of them now rested on my head, and the burden made me uncomfortable.

  My unease shifted to a different kind of anxiety when Kissa and I watched the Seleucid riders depart, presumably traveling back to Antioch. What had transpired, and why hadn’t my uncle kept me informed? I was betrothed to the prince, yet I had not heard a single word from my guardian.

  An hour after the Seleucid contingent departed, a slave came to invite Mother and me to dinner with Uncle and Alena. The formal invitation made my heart congeal into a small lump of terror. I dressed carefully and tried to remain calm beneath Kissa’s ministering hands.

  As we reclined at dinner, my knees trembling beneath my tunic, Uncle cleared his throat and announced that Demetrius of Seleucia was dead. Cleopatra Thea now ruled the empire as a widow.

  “She intends to remain unmarried,” Uncle said, looking directly at me. “She has named her son as her co-ruler.”

  I stared at the food on the table and tried to sort through my jumbled thoughts. Seleucia no longer had a king? The kingdom that had once dominated and terrorized Judea would be ruled by a woman?

  I saw bewilderment in my mother’s eyes and knew she longed to ask the question uppermost in my mind. “What happened to the king?” I asked, knowing I would be forgiven the blunt query.

  Uncle gave Alena a pointed look, then drew a deep breath. “After returning to Cleopatra Thea, Demetrius announced his intention to invade Egypt, overthrow his queen’s family, and become pharaoh.” He gave me a rueful smile. “The sordid tale is not fit for your young ears, but the king was killed in his foolish effort. The queen sent emissaries to apprise me of the situation, along with a message. In short, she said she was no longer willing to be handed from one man to another. She will rule without a husband, and she believes the people will support her.”

  “Why did she make her son a co-ruler?” Mother asked, her voice unusually shrill. “She doesn’t intend to marry him, does she?”

  Uncle blew out a breath. “I have heard of such strange marriages in other lands, but no, she does not intend to marry her son. Yet a pretender to the throne, one called Zabinas, tried to instigate a revolt, and she knew some of her people would demand a king who could fight if necessary. So she named Grypus co-regent, aware that he was skilled enough to pick up a sword and satisfy her people.”

  “I have heard,” Alena said, reaching for bread as a servant offered a tray, “that Egypt is ruled by a queen, her brother-husband, and their daughter.”

  Uncle nodded. “The woman you mentioned is Cleopatra Thea’s mother, and the daughter is Cleopatra Thea’s sister. That sort of union is unprecedented, even for Egypt. Such marriages would never be allowed in Judea.”

  “Tripartite,” I murmured.

  Uncle arched his brow. “What did you say?”

  I felt a blush heat my cheeks. “Tripartite—three parts. It’s something I learned.”

  “Indeed.” Uncle cleared his throat again. “Which brings me to other news, Salome Alexandra.”

  His use of my full name set off alarm bells in my head. I glanced at Mother and saw that her hand had risen to her throat.

  “In order to improve relations with her Egyptian family,” Uncle said, folding his hands, “Cleopatra Thea arranged for her niece to marry G
rypus. Part of the marriage contract included much-needed military support for the queen’s defense against Zabinas. Apparently it was a successful bargain, for Cleopatra Thea is secure and Zabinas is dead. It seems the hook-nose prince has poisoned him.”

  I stared into empty space. The prince . . . my prince had married an Egyptian princess. She would be his queen, not me. I didn’t know whether to shout for joy or weep with my mother.

  “What about the other son?” Mother asked. “The elder son, Seleucus?”

  Uncle’s expression went grim. “Dead.”

  Mother gasped. “How?”

  “The courtiers did not say this, but I have heard rumors. They say the queen killed him because he was conspiring against her.”

  Mother sank back to her couch, her face darkening with unreadable emotions.

  “So you are free, my dear.” Alena reached out to pat my shoulder. “We will soon find you a better husband.”

  I swallowed the lump that had lodged in my throat. “I am not disappointed.” I looked up to assure her. “I did want to please all of you, but I did not like him, and I could not see how the marriage would bring honor to HaShem. But did he not want to marry me?” My voice rose in an unflattering squeak. “Did he find some fault in me?”

  “No, child,” Alena said. “Not at all.”

  “She is not beautiful,” Mother said. “Ketura was far more suited—”

  “Ketura is not here,” Uncle interrupted, his voice curt. “HaShem called her to be with Him, and then He blessed Salome Alexandra with beauty, cleverness, and a heart that seeks after righteousness. Do not question the sovereign plans of Adonai.”

  Mother snapped her mouth shut and lowered her gaze.

  “The fault does not lie in you, Salome,” Uncle said, turning to me. “The fault lies in those who cannot be happy with the territory HaShem has allotted them. Ambition and power poison their minds, and they will do anything to attain more—even break an honorable betrothal.”