Warring Desires (The Herod Chronicles Book 3)

by Wanda Ann Thomas

  He touched her sleeve. “Don’t say that. Your happiness means the—”

  “Look, a blemished priest,” a young boy’s voice called.

  She tensed. A family of five walked past the house, headed by one of the strictest religious men in the city. Barnabas smoothed his braided beard and stared up at them with hard eyes.

  Tempted to flee, she rubbed her chilled arms. “What sort of punishment will you face when you return to the Temple?”

  James drew her back into the shadowed recess of the porch. “Don’t worry. Barnabas always looks like he’s swallowed a pucker bush.”

  “You don’t have to put a brave face on for my sake.”

  “Me brave? I’m a coward.”

  “Don’t say that. Your sacrifice on my behalf when your father threatened to send me away was the noblest act I’ve ever witnessed.”

  He ducked his head. “It was nothing.”

  She stepped closer to him and peered up into sorrowful black eyes. “It was everything,” she whispered.

  A sad smile curved his lips and he tapped her nose. “All that proves is that you haven’t seen much of the world.”

  “Why do you always put yourself down?”

  He traced the jagged, horizontal scar showing through his black beard. “We both know the truth. You are the brave one.”

  Elizabeth and James had been abducted by bandits when she was thirteen and he was fourteen. She remembered he’d been terrified, and she’d tried to comfort him, but what stayed with her most was how young and vulnerable they’d been. “The bandits cut your face open. You had every reason to be afraid.”

  Haunted eyes stared back at her. “You didn’t curl up into a ball and cry like a baby.”

  “If anyone has reason to be ashamed of what happened then, it’s your father. He shouldn’t have taken you and your sisters to Galilee or involved you in his foolish dealings with the bandits.”

  James stared ahead unseeing. “My father constantly blames me. As if I begged the outlaws to flay me open to thwart his plans to make me High Priest after him. I hope my father’s new wife gives him a healthy, perfect son soon. Maybe I’ll be able to find some peace.”

  She was mistaken about James. Behind the sullenness and sour remarks was a vulnerable, tortured man. Heart aching for him, she rose on tiptoes and brushed her thumb over the puckered scar. “It hardly shows anymore.”

  “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “So you keep pointing out,” she said with mock peevishness.

  He smiled. “The distracting nature of this ugly goat pelt stuck to my face ...” he tugged on his beard “...is its sole redeeming quality.”

  She tried not to laugh, but failed. “It’s a fine beard.”

  “Liar.”

  She slapped his arm. “You tease worse than my brothers.”

  A frigid gust swirled between them. Her thick woolen shawl slapped against her back. James’s bare feet were bright red from the cold. His thin black linen priest’s clothes offered no protection from the cold. “You ought to have a cloak on,” she said.

  Priest’s clothes. He was wearing priest’s clothes. Her head spun dizzyingly. She clutched her stomach and backed against the icy walls of the house. “You...you are defiled. I forgot about my flow of blood. I touched you. You can’t return to the Temple until tomorrow.”

  How could she have forgotten the curse? The unceasing flow of blood that had arrived her thirteenth year, the flow of blood that barred her from the Women’s Court of the Temple to offer sacrifices to the Lord. The reason others shunned her. Her touch defiled the clothes she wore, the furniture she sat on, the very air she breathed. Living in a house with a father and brothers who were priests exacerbated the problem, a constant reminder she was zavah—continually, ritually, impure.

  “Shh...” James soothed, moving closer.

  “Don’t,” she begged. “I can’t...I can’t breathe.”

  He lifted his hand toward her face. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Shut your mouth...what do you know about it anyway?”

  Dark danger flared in his black eyes, and he cupped her chin. “Don’t fight me.”

  She shoved his chest, but couldn’t budge him. Frustrated, she kicked him.

  “Damnation, woman, settle down.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.” She stamped her sandaled foot on his naked toes.

  He howled and hopped on one foot. She leapt forward. He caught her around the waist, hauled her back against the house’s stone wall, and trapped her in place with his lean, powerful body. His heavy breath raked her cheek. “Settle down before you get hurt.”

  Heart pounding double time, she pushed his hands away. “Leave me alone.”

  “Vexing woman, listen to me. I do know what you suffer. I feel it every time I put on these cursed black clothes. Every time I look in a mirror. Every time my father shakes his head in disgust.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Why do you care?”

  “I can’t be made whole, but you could. I want to help.”

  She stilled. “My father has paid for physicians and medicines, and offered sacrifices and prayers, and gone to great...” She rested her head back against the roughened stone wall. “Nothing can be done.”

  “I don’t believe it. I’ll search from here to Rome for a cure.”

  “James, please don’t. I can’t do that...not anymore.”

  Warm hands circled her frozen fingers. “I know about disappointment. And not wanting to get your hopes up. So I will do the hoping and believing for you.”

  Touched by the depth of his kindness and goodness, she stared at him through hot tears. “I forget I am zavah when I’m with you.”

  He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. His thumb skimmed the shell of her ear. “I touched your sleeve.”

  A shiver went through her. “My sleeve? What? I don’t under—”

  “I touched your sleeve and tapped your nose before you...” he pointed to puckered scar she’d brushed with her thumb, and his lips thinned to a grim slash. “I put my paws on you first. If there’s any blame, it’s mine, not yours. As usual, I’m at fault.”

  She saw his grimace for what it was. He was desperately unhappy. She rose on tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “You have good heart.” The taste of his salty skin filled her with unfamiliar hunger. She pressed closer to the heat radiating off his body and skimmed her lips over the raised scar.

  James groaned and cupped her bottom, pulling her up against his hips. Callused fingers slid over the sensitive skin behind her ear and stroked the length of her neck.

  Her insides heated. “James,” she whispered, her mouth sliding toward his. Their lips brushed and their breaths mingled. Burning need rushed through her.

  “Libi,” James said against her mouth.

  No one but immediate family called her Libi. Claws coming out like a deranged cat, she fought her way out of his hold and scrambled for the safety of the carved-wooden door. She clasped the brass latch and pulled and pulled, but nothing happened.

  “Libi,” James said, his breath labored, lunging for her.

  She hugged the door. A hoar-frost chilled her from the inside out. “This is wrong. I’m your stepmother.”

  James imprisoned her with his arms without touching her. “Libi, talk to me.”

  She clapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying,” she insisted, denying the fat drops rolling down her cheeks.

  “Where does this leave us...Elizabeth?”

  Her cheeks flamed at the thought of the shame and embarrassment she’d bring down on her family if anyone had caught them kissing. “We could be stoned to death.”

  “I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt you,” he said, his eyes earnest and solemn.

  “You are maddeningly calm.”

  He released his hold on the door frame and pried her hands from the uncooperative latch. “We could fors
ake Jerusalem for Rome...and marry.”

  She shouldn’t allow him to hold her hands. “This is something you’ve thought about before?”

  “You’re the only reason I’m still on this side of the Great Sea.”

  She couldn’t believe they were having this discussion. “I was your father’s wife.”

  He shrugged.

  She studied him more closely. Did James know? Had he found out her marriage to his father had never been consummated? She hadn’t breathed a word of the truth to anybody, and had assumed Simeon Onias kept equally quiet. Running away with James sounded so tempting. But it was wrong. It had to be wrong. And she had her darling niece and mother to consider. She couldn’t desert them.

  Her conviction wavering, she yanked her hands free, fisted them in her tunic, and summoned up the courage to do what was best for both of them. “Don’t ever speak to me again of marriage. Do you understand?”

  He reached for her. “Consider it before—”

  “Don’t touch me,” she said in a calm, icy voice, determined to stamp out the fiery lust they’d ignited.

  The color drained from his face. “Libi...”

  Her stomach sick, she pointed to the darkening streets. “Leave.”

  James turned and fled down the stairs. But instead of heading in the direction of the Temple or his father’s home, he raced south, toward the Hinnom Valley. She didn’t know where he was going, but was certain his destination would end in no good.

  She wanted to run after him and apologize, and soothe away his wounded look. Leaning heavily against the wooden door, she slid down onto the bitterly cold porch stones. For both their sakes, she planned to stay far, far away from James Onias.

  CHAPTER 9

  Leaden clouds hung over Jerusalem. Dingy homes and shops lined the tired, drab-colored wall holding Herod’s army at bay. Dust-covered stonecutters chiseled ashlar blocks, making repairs to a crumbling section of outer wall. James pounded his hammer onto the splayed head of the chisel, but the steady chink, chink, chink didn’t offer the usual comfort.

  What had possessed him to put his hands on Elizabeth? She’d asked him to back away, but he’d pushed himself on her. For a few moments, she softened and relented, and he’d deluded himself into thinking they could have a future together. Temporary madness, that’s what it was.

  He couldn’t escape fast enough from her yesterday. Jerusalem didn’t offer much in the way of the typical distractions found in cities, but James was well acquainted with the few dark nooks that did exist. The attentions of an experienced whore like Morta and pitchers of vinegary wine and gambling away his coins hadn’t dulled the pain. Hammering stone thickened the calluses on his hands and made his muscles sing, but it didn’t soften the blow of Elizabeth’s rejection.

  The head stonecutter tapped James’s shoulder. James lowered his chisel and turned around. A dozen Temple guardsmen marched toward him, accompanied by two tall priests.

  Armored in hostility, the Temple guard halted a short distance from the rock-strewn work site.

  Twin priests named Benjamin and Banna stepped forward. A year younger than James, the lanky pair had grown up next door to him.

  James wiped his grimy sleeve across his sweat-drenched forehead. “My escort,” he said flippantly, not relishing the idea of answering to his father for deserting his Temple post or explaining away his night of debauchery.

  “Your father wants to murder you,” Banna growled. Identical in appearance to his brother, if Banna didn’t always part his stringy hair on the side, James would never be able to tell the two apart.

  The stonecutters gathered around James. “Do you need assistance?” the head stonecutter asked, casting a dark look at the guardsmen and the twin brothers.

  Hating the disappointment and disapproval showing on the faces of Benjamin and Banna, James shook his head. “I don’t want to drag you into my troubles. I am in the wrong. I can’t put off seeing my father any longer.”

  James thanked the stonecutters for sharing their tools, and placed the hammer and chisel back into an old wooden crate. He ran his thumb over the hammer’s worn handle. A priest by birth, he’d studied the building trade under the best teachers Rome had to offer. Ideally he could have served as a priest and been a master builder, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. James had relinquished his dreams to protect Elizabeth. He’d also promised to abandon his sinful ways.

  He exhaled heavily, turned his back on the stonecutters, and surrendered to the guard and Benjamin and Banna.

  Jerusalemites of all stripes stopped and stared during the long, bleak walk from the dung gate to the Temple compound. James was glad he’d followed Morta’s advice and discarded his priest’s clothes. He might look a disreputable sight in the dirty, over-big, borrowed tunic, but it was better than being stoned to death for the blasphemy of defiling the holy garments.

  The guardsmen took turns insulting him throughout the walk to the Temple. Shame for his misspent night set in, and James wanted to get his punishment over with and then crawl into hiding.

  The Temple complex loomed large. The guardsmen came to a halt outside a ritual bath frequented by the pilgrims who flocked to Jerusalem for the feasts.

  Benjamin and Banna shoved him through the entryway.

  James stumbled over the threshold. “Easy, fellows.”

  Banna cuffed him. “Shut your mouth before we do worse.”

  Eyes adjusting to the dark, James didn’t have time to pick out any details of the antechamber before he was hustled into the suffocating confines of the rock-lined bathing chamber.

  Eager to the preserve what was left his dignity, James dug in his heels. “I don’t require your assistance from here.”

  “Be quiet,” Banna bellowed, anger flaming brighter than the oil lamps clinging to the dank walls.

  The brothers dragged him to the edge of steep stairs descending into a closet-sized tank hewn from bedrock. James bent to unlatch his sandals. Rough hands grabbed him by the elbows and propelled him down the stairs. Immersion in the ritual baths was never a leisurely affair, but his clothes would hardly have time to get wet at this rate.

  “What’s your hurry? Did my—” A foot tripped him and a hand pushed him from behind, sending him tumbling head over heels into the neck-high water.

  He came up coughing. Fingers fisted in his hair, dragged him back, and held him underwater. He kicked and bucked, and though he was bigger and stronger than the twins, they worked together to hold him under.

  James had expected to receive the usual punishment for dereliction of duty. A couple of clubs to the head with a staff. His tunic burned off his back. Not pleasant, but survivable. But Benjamin and Banna were doing their best to kill him.

  His lungs burned and swirling darkness took over. He recalled the three of them as wide-eyed little boys listening to the twins’ elderly grandfather relate stories of priests acting valiantly on behalf of the Lord and his Temple. One tale involved fiery young priests pummeling one of their peers to death with axes after the man had carelessly defiled the holy vessels. A lesson Benjamin and Banna appeared to have taken to heart.

  Dragged to the surface by his elbows, James sucked in big gulps of air. “Have mercy,” he begged. A spasm of coughs racked his body. He thought better about asking what absurd thinking had led the twins to conclude leaving the Temple in priestly clothes was so much worse than drowning someone in water used to absolve impurities.

  Banna banged his back. “We want to remain your friend, James, we truly do, but your bad behavior makes it difficult.”

  Breath ragged, James sloshed in place and wiped his water-logged hair away from his face. “I’ve been trying to behave, but you have to admit yesterday morning’s proceedings were out of the usual. Did my father bribe you to remain silent about his tampering with the lots?”

  Struggling against the heavy, costly robes threatening to drag them under, Benjamin and Banna displayed identical pained frowns. “Your father tried to press coins into
our hands for our silence,” Benjamin said. “But our loyalty belongs to the Lord and his Holy Commandments.”

  Banna squeezed James’s shoulder. “We half drowned you to get your attention. You are on the road to destruction. We know your father is a selfish, greedy man who has made your life difficult. Drunkenness and rebelliousness aren’t the answer. We want to help. What can we do?”

  Though soaked to the bone in purified water, James felt filthier than he ever had because he was standing in the presence of truly good men. A part of him wanted to be righteous and godly. They were offering him a path back to fellowship with the brotherhood of priests. But a life revolving around the Temple and the priesthood didn’t suit him. He longed to be a master builder. The only time he felt content and at home was when he was at a construction site, working alongside the stonecutters and other artisans.

  He curled his toes against chiseled ridges covering the pool floor. Though it chafed, the time had come to put aside his own desires. He’d made a promise on Elizabeth’s behalf. If he could do only one worthy thing with his life, he wanted above all to keep his promise to Libi.

  Linen tunic twisted in a knot around his body, James tugged it back into place. “I appreciate your offer of help, and for half drowning me, and for reminding me of my duty.”

  “Your troubles aren’t over yet,” Banna said. “The Sanhedrin is awaiting your arrival. We were sent to find you and deliver you to the court for judgment.”

  Benjamin blew out his breath. “Abandoning your post was irresponsible, but witnesses have come forward claiming you defiled your priestly garment.”

  James sat back in the bath, allowing the water to rise over his loathsome beard. “Father won’t allow the Sanhedrin to put me to death or excommunicate me, not while I’m his only male heir, not while he lusts to be the patriarch of the next generation of High Priests.”

  Benjamin made a face. “We know what your father is up to, and we plan to do everything in our power to prevent him from stealing the office of High Priest.”