Palace of Darkness

by Tracy L. Higley

  “He did not travel with you?” Malik’s eyes were kind. He already knew the answer, she could see.

  “He was killed fourteen days ago.”

  “What was his name?” Talya asked. “Perhaps we were playmates.”

  “Aretas.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I knew an Aretas. Six or seven of them, I would guess.”

  Cassia sighed and set her empty plate aside.

  “His parents?” Malik asked. “Do you know of them?”

  “I know his mother’s name only. Gamilath.”

  Malik shook his head. “Another common name, I fear. Have you nothing else?”

  Cassia leaned back against her cushions and searched her memory. Aretas had told her so little of his life before they met. Snatches here and there, but nothing that could be pieced together to create a picture.

  “He told me something once about his home.” She tried to call up the memory from the dark corridors of her mind. “About where it was located. Beside the Temple of al-‘Uzza.”

  Malik’s head lifted sharply.

  “He told me that from the outer corridor of his home he could look straight into the first courtyard of the temple. He seemed to despise both the temple and its goddess, though I never understood . . .” Malik looked at her so strangely. “What is it?”

  “Aretas, son of Gamilath? And his home lay beside the Temple of al-‘Uzza?”

  She nodded, fear clutching at her heart with cold fingers.

  Malik looked to the two women, and Cassia saw eyebrows raised, mouths open. “What is it?”

  But Malik did not answer. He stood quickly, snatched the oil lamp from the niche gouged into the stone wall, and strode across the room to where Alexander lay, still asleep.

  Cassia swung her legs from the bed, stood, and was at his side before the two women could react. “What are you doing?”

  Malik had bent to her son’s side and held the lamp close enough for the light to play across his beautiful face. He slept with lips parted, his thick eyelashes sweeping his cheeks like raven feathers.

  The two women appeared beside them and studied Alexander as well. Malik turned to Zeta, the older of the two. “How did we not see it?”

  She shook her head. “He is the very image of Aretas.”

  Their words struck Cassia with fresh hope, tinged with alarm. “You knew him.” She clutched Malik’s arm. “You knew Aretas as a boy.”

  Malik turned to her. “You must rest still.” He guided her back to the blankets.

  She did not resist. “Tell me. Tell me who he was.”

  When they had restored her to her place of ease, the three ringed the bed.

  Malik spoke. “As I said, your husband’s name, his mother’s name, are both used by many parents because they are royal names.”

  Cassia looked to Alexander. Aretas had indeed insisted they name him after greatness.

  “But this is not why your Aretas had this name.”

  Cassia’s breath came a bit shorter, and she waited in silence.

  “Your Aretas was the royal house.”

  “I . . . I do not understand.”

  “You know of the Nabataean king, Rabbel, no doubt?”

  Cassia nodded, willing him to speak quickly.

  “Gamilath was his first wife. She died many years ago. They had only one son, heir to the throne. That son was your Aretas.”

  That man comes from money. It’s written all over him. Magdala’s words.

  Cassia fell back on the cushions. The revelation was like falling into a cold river on a hot day. First the shock, then a welcome refreshment. Aretas, royalty! His family were not bandits like he was, nor struggling in poverty as she. But then, like the coldness of river water, the news sank deep into her. The prince of Nabataea! How could she ever approach them? A tremor shook her and her teeth chattered.

  “Rest now.” Zeta pulled blankets over her body, all the way to her chin. “You have had a shock. More than one today, as it were. There will be time enough to think of how to breach the palace tomorrow.”

  She meant to comfort, Cassia knew, but her words brought no consolation. Breach the palace? As though she were a hostile, invading army?

  She sank down into the bedding, and the three moved away, taking the tiny lamp with them and leaving her in shadows.

  She would sleep, yes. But then what?

  EIGHT

  MORNING DAWNED WITH LIGHT POURING IN THROUGH a gap in the heavy cloths that formed the fourth wall of the home, the room where Cassia lay.

  She pulled herself to sitting, again marveling at the absence of pain in her shoulder, and surveyed the room.

  She had been correct in the night—she did lie in a room cut into the red stone cliffs. It extended behind her into shadow, and the side exposed to the open air was hung with blankets. She glanced at Alexander, saw he still slept, then crept to a gap in the fabric and nudged it open with one finger.

  The sight stole her breath.

  The city lay beneath her, as though she were a bird nesting in a cleft of the rock wall. All of Petra was contained in the narrow, curving valley, and she saw houses and temples, gardens and fountains, and above all of it: dozens of openings in the cliff wall, many elaborately carved. The floor dropped away on the other side of the blankets, a frightening fall no one could survive.

  How do they get up here?

  A noise behind her drew her back into the safety of the room.

  Zeta brought a steaming bowl, and Alexander stretched his thin brown arms and blinked away the night. He fixed his eyes on her and smiled. She held out her arms, then retreated from the flimsy wall when he jumped from his bed and ran to her.

  “You are well, Mama?”

  “I am well, shekel.”

  Talya set a bowl of fruit and yoghurt on the table. “Malik left in the night. I am to tell you he will help you in whatever way he can.”

  Cassia smiled. “I am not sure how anyone can help me. I must gain the favor of the king, when even his own son could not.”

  Talya shook her head. “I was too young to know what happened when Aretas left Petra. It is not spoken of. But it was so long ago. Perhaps . . .”

  Cassia shrugged and pulled Alexander to the table. “Resentment and bitterness can live longer than even memory at times.”

  They ate of the fruit, and Zeta brought more—platters of dates and honeyed bread, warm and sweet. Malik appeared, pushing through the blanket wall as though he had flown above the city and alighted in their nest. And then others came. Men and women went through the morning, asking questions of Cassia and visiting with each other. Cassia could not determine who any of them were. They seemed to be an extended family, and yet they did not arrive as smaller family groups nor address each other with family names.

  They were all curious about Cassia, however. And about Alexander even more so. Cassia heard the phrase “heir to the throne” more than once, and the words both thrilled and terrified. She tried to distract Alex from their talk. He would learn soon enough of the great change that might take place in his life.

  And it was far from certain. Aretas had left this place on terms that were not good, though no one spoke of it this morning. What would his father say when she and Alexander appeared in his palace?

  Cassia stood finally, drawing the attention and then the silence of the chattering group.

  “We must go.” She nodded to Zeta and Talya. “Thank you for everything. You have been most gracious. Please give Malik my thanks as well.” She took Alexander’s hand. “Now, if someone could tell me how to get down from this rock.”

  The room erupted with laughter.

  Within minutes Cassia and Alexander were picking their way down narrow steps carved into the rock face. The staircase, if the niches could be called such, would be nearly invisible from the street, blending as they did with the variegated rock colors.

  She wished she could study the city, but the descent required all her concentration, between placing her own feet on the narr
ow steps and watching Alex’s. The boy would have skipped down to the street level if she had let him, his fearlessness at climbing exceeding his ability.

  Finally they were safely on the ground, and Cassia took the time to orient herself to the fascinating city of Petra.

  The narrow gorge they’d traversed yesterday had led them only to a preview of the city’s grandeur. The astonishing facade she’d seen carved into the stone wall when they emerged from the crack in the mountains was now repeated, with variation, along the facing red cliffs that formed the natural city walls. Dark recesses like rectangular eyes dotted the rock walls from above head level all the way up to dizzying heights similar to that which she had descended. Some of these recesses were mere holes cut into the sandstone, a blank face that could be tomb or home.

  But others were grand in size and elaborately carved, like the one she saw yesterday, with columns and plinths, carved urns and figures of Isis and Dionysius, pedestal tops above the openings and ornamental friezes sculpted with vines. The combined art of Egypt, Greece, and even Rome had found a home in the walls of Petra. The effect was stunning.

  To their left, Cassia could see the half circle of the amphitheatre, sweeping away from the street—the last place she remembered seeing before awakening in Zeta’s home.

  The street was crowded with the press of townspeople and the combined traffic of camels, mules, and carts. She and Alex were forced to flatten themselves against the rock wall to avoid the traffic.

  At a break in the crowd, she pulled on Alexander. “Come!” They dashed across the open street to the other side, where the smaller mud-brick shops and homes left space for walking before the rock wall rose behind them.

  Cassia walked slowly in the direction of the palace. Zeta had pointed to it before they had left her home and assured them they would not miss it. Directly beside the Temple of al-‘Uzza. Ah yes.

  She was enchanted with the city. After the open sandy plains of Damascus, this hidden city, tucked into the cliffs, felt like a shelter from a lifelong storm. As though it embraced her with its rock-strong arms and promised security. She dared to hope that Petra would be home now with family to care for them.

  But such dreaming would have to wait until after she had approached the king. Cassia’s knees felt a bit weak. Here she was, thinking of a secure future in Petra, when she still must walk into the palace of the Nabataean king and claim rights for her son, the son of the outcast prince.

  The city smelled of crowds and spice and dung, typical city smells, but to Cassia somehow it all mingled and pleased. The heat, the color, even the music that wafted from homes and market stalls, wove together into a tapestry of the senses and brought a smile.

  They passed people of the town, Nabataeans most certainly, but also some of darker skin than she had ever seen, perhaps from Nubia or Persia. And light skin as well. She knew not where such light skin may have come from. Some dressed as merchants and travelers, but others as though they lived here in Petra, and Cassia wondered at the complexity of this place.

  Alex tugged on her hand and pointed. “Look at the camels, Mama!”

  Indeed, the field of resting camels to their left was a wonder, too many to count. They had traveled from places too distant to imagine, no doubt, and must rest before returning with new goods from other lands.

  Petra had only one main street, really, running between the rock cliffs and bending to the left as they walked. After the bend, the ground leveled off to their right, with the cliff face continuing away from the city, and a man-made wall had been erected here, the only one needed in this naturally protected place. As the road bent south, it followed the streambed of the Wadi Musa, the stream that fed all of Petra, and was diverted into reservoirs and channels she had seen as they entered the city.

  They left the section of homes and tombs and market stalls behind as they walked, and the road opened wider ahead, a paved street that led to the upper-class part of town, where the temples and palace and Nymphaeum would be found.

  They came to the Nymphaeum first. A crowd had gathered near the city’s main fountain area, where most would come to collect the day’s water. It must be a slow-flowing water supply to have caused such a wait for the townspeople to fill their jars. But the crowd had the hushed expectancy of people watching an event, so she walked on, head turned to see what everyone seemed to be studying.

  “Is it another theatre, Mama?”

  “I do not know. Strange place for it, if so.” She let go of his hand to let him squeeze through the crowd ahead of her. Her height never allowed her to see much from the back of a group, and she felt no compunction about moving to the front, as no one would have difficulty seeing over her head.

  It was not a theatre, but only the Nymphaeum as she thought. Not surprisingly it had been created of the same red stone that comprised all of Petra, though it had been reinforced with granite. The face of the fountain house stood as high as six men and was also elaborately carved with columns and figures of the water nymphs it honored. High above, a statue of Cyrene stood in a carved recess, and water trickled from her tipped stone urn to fall to a wide circular pool in the courtyard of the building. It trickled only, not enough to keep the pool full, certainly.

  And then Cassia saw what held the crowd’s attention. Something had blocked the flow of the water from Cyrene’s urn. Perhaps a chunk of sandstone. It was impossible to tell. But up the face of the Nymphaeum a man climbed, scaling the wall with fingers and toes wedged into tiny holds, as though he were a grasshopper scrambling up an acacia tree.

  Halfway up, he paused in his climb, his hand scrabbling for a hold. At that moment his right foot slipped from its perch and sent crumbling sandstone to the ground. The crowd gasped as one. But he found another toehold, turned his head to the crowd, and gave a small salute with his free hand.

  Sighs of relief and titters of amusement rippled through the people. Cassia herself felt her lips twitch into the beginning of a smile. He reminded her of a monkey she had seen in Damascus once, trained by its owner to perform tricks and then grin for the audience.

  They watched breathlessly as he climbed higher, until he reached a stone ledge that ran the width of the building and took him to the base of Cyrene and her slow-flowing urn. It should only take him a moment to clear the blockage.

  But it would appear he had not yet received enough of the crowd’s attention. He turned a tight circle on the ledge, until he was facing outward. Glancing at the nymph pouring her water, he struck a pose quite similar to hers and stood like stone himself.

  The crowd laughed, and one man yelled, “You are almost as beautiful as the goddess!” at which the people roared. Cassia shook her head but smiled. She had seen this type of man before, hungry for attention with the charm and wit to earn it. Aretas had been such a man, and it was those qualities that drew her to him so many years ago. Did Alex see the similarity? She looked around her to see his reaction.

  Alarm jolted her. Alexander, where are you?

  She pushed through the crowd, all of them still focused on the antics above. “Alexander?” The boy’s propensity for wandering off never ceased to frighten her.

  Faces turned toward hers, then away in disinterest. She twisted through the glut of people, her stomach churning. Where would he go?

  And then she knew. She jerked her head to the face of the Nymphaeum, and her fear was confirmed. Alex had already found enough toe- and handholds to scale to the first ledge, about four cubits below the ledge that held the performer.

  Cassia nearly cried out his name but did not want to startle him. His attention was fixed on the ledge above, and his head turned back and forth, searching for a hold. She shoved through the crowd, into the courtyard.

  Above Alexander, oblivious to the boy, the climber reached into the blocked urn. His arm disappeared to the elbow, then reappeared with a handful of something. The water flowed after his hand, cascading to the pool below. The water hit the stone floor of the pool and sprayed outward, s
oaking Cassia.

  The water restorer raised a triumphant arm in the same moment the crowd noticed Alexander. At the lack of the cheers the man no doubt expected, he put his hands to his hips—then seemed to realize the people’s attention was fixed below him. He leaned forward slightly. The crowd cried out its collective concern.

  Cassia watched in horror, unable to retrieve her son. “Alexander, you must come down now.”

  If he heard her, he showed no sign. She repeated herself, her voice raised against the murmurs of the crowd. But his back was to her, and his fingers traveled the face of the building, searching for deep cracks between the stones. He seemed to find a place, for he suddenly lifted himself above the surface of the ledge, connected only to the wall. The people gasped as one, and Cassia felt she might be sick.

  Above Alexander, the performer must have begun to resent the loss of attention. He edged along the lip of stone, then pivoted at the end, bent to grip the ledge with his fingers, and swung his feet away.

  Again, the crowd reacted, entertained by the danger. Cassia positioned herself under Alex. If he fell, she hoped to break his fall enough to keep him safe. The spraying water from the fountain pool soaked her through, but she barely noticed. Fear chilled her and set her shivering. “Alexander! Come down at once!”

  And then the climber was balanced on Alex’s ledge, cubits away from the boy. “Where are you climbing to, son?”

  The man’s voice, quiet and smooth, was, Cassia guessed, audible to no one but herself and Alexander.

  Alex’s mouth fell open. He looked above his perch, then back at the climber. “I wanted to climb up to the water lady, like you.”

  The man edged closer to Alex with slow and deliberate caution. Cassia took a step backward, her fingers twisted in her wet tunic.

  “Ah.” His voice was grave. “Well, I’ve been to see the water lady already, and do you want to hear a secret?”

  Alexander held still, except for a tiny nod.

  The man leaned closer and mock-whispered, “She’s really quite ugly up close!”