The Queen's Handmaid (41 page)

She closed her eyes and let it be.

She felt the change in atmosphere, from the street, through the palace arch. Across the fountained courtyard. Through shadowy corridors.

When he laid her on a bed, she opened her eyes, expecting her own chamber. But the room was unfamiliar.

He closed the door, poured water from a jug, and brought it to the bedside.

She struggled to sit. “Where—what is this?”

“I brought you to my bedchamber.”

She was too far spent to even feel a jolt at the inappropriateness. She sipped the water obediently, as though water could quench the sting.

Simon perched on the edge of the bed and brushed the hair from her eyes. “Salome is hunting you. You must remain here until we can get you out of the city.”

“She is dead.” The words dropped like stones from her lips.

Simon laid a warm hand on her cheek. “I know. I am so sorry.”

“He killed her.”

“Yes.”

“I did not think he ever would. Not really. He loved her.”

Simon smiled sadly. “That was not love, Lydia.
You
loved her.”

His words brought a fresh wave of grief, rising in her chest and spilling from her eyes. “I did love her, Simon. She was my family.”

He pulled her into an embrace, but she pushed him away. “But what purpose did it serve, my love for her? Did it save her? Did it save any of them? What use was I to any of them? Ptolemy. Samuel. Aristobulus.” The overwhelming sadness pressed in on her like a crushing weight, and she dropped her head into her hands. “Caesarion.”

Was this how it would always be? Those she was foolish enough to love would be taken from her, leave her bereft and trampled?

Simon had backed away and was pacing, hands braced against his hips. His empathy was giving way to righteous anger. “And how many will die before the battle is won? How many more will I fail to protect?”

Lydia set the cup aside and curled herself on the bed. “You could not have stopped him, Simon. It was not your fault.”

“Nor yours.”

She nodded, her tears dampening the pillow. “I know. But I see now that it is hopeless to try to love, for life is the enemy of love.”

“Not true.” Simon was at her side again, kneeling beside the bed. “Not true, Lydia. You must not let this loss erase what you have learned. You put too much of yourself into the value others place on you. When they are taken, you think there is nothing of you left. But you are more than your skills or your talent or your kindness. You have value apart from all that.”

She tried to smile. “You sound like Samuel. He always said that the One God’s love for me gave me worth, even if I was rejected and abandoned by all others.”

He took her hand in his. “I know too little of HaShem, I fear. I have spent many years angry that He has not freed His people from tyranny. But I suspect your Samuel was right. If you could see your value as the One God sees, you would find a solid foundation on which to build your life. On which to build love.”

“And you, Simon? Was it not you who told me that love and the fight could not coexist? Can’t you see that the fight will never be finished? If there is ever to be love, it must happen alongside the fight.”

His face was so close to hers, but he looked away. “I—the last time—my distraction led only to pain—”

She nodded. There was no need to repeat the pain that the failure to keep her heart closed had brought.

Simon took several deep breaths, then seemed to come to a decision. He squeezed her fingers. “I am taking you from here. I do not understand Salome’s hatred, but she has ordered guards to seize you on sight, to bring you for trial and certain execution.”

“It appears I have become completely worthless, then.”

“As a political tool, perhaps, and that is a blessing. But as a woman—” His words caught in his throat. “I know I have no right to ask you to trust my protection—”

“I would trust no one more than you, Simon.”

He brought her hand to his lips. “Thank you for that.”

“But I cannot leave Jerusalem.”

He exhaled. “I will not argue with you now. But at least we are leaving the palace. And we are not coming back.”

She pushed herself to sitting, swung her legs over the side of the bed. “What about your position here? You have worked long and hard to gain favor so you could give information to those who would—”

“My work here is finished.”

She shook her head. “You have done nothing to bring Herod’s wrath on you, Simon. You can still fight—”

“Lydia.” His eyes were on hers, the barriers of status and position forgotten. “The only fight I care about now is keeping you safe.”

That he would find her worth this sacrifice, the giving up of everything he had struggled to gain, was like a healing ointment applied to her raw heart.

“And I will keep you safe, Lydia. Not only from Salome, but from gossip. Wherever we go, nothing of impropriety shall reach the ears of Rome. If Marcus Agrippa will still have you—”

“There is no Agrippa, Simon.” She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “There is only you.”

He clutched at her hand, still against his face, and closed his eyes. “I would take you out of this city, out of this country, even, if it would keep you safe.”

She smiled, the cold grief of Mariamme’s death thawing in
the warmth of Simon’s words, but also in the fire of the battle that she still needed to wage, one that Simon knew nothing of. “There is fighting still to be done, Simon.” She breathed in courage. “Stay here. I have something to show you.”

He shook his head. “There is no time. We must leave at once while the palace is still in chaos.”

“I must gather my things.”

“It is not safe to be about the palace. We can purchase—”

She touched his arm. “There is something I cannot leave behind.” She wore her mother’s pendant. Only the scrolls were necessary. She started for the door, but he caught her arm and pulled her back.

His left arm went around her waist and his right hand tipped her chin. His kiss was urgent, determined.

She responded, but only for a moment. There would be time later.

“Hurry.” He whispered the word at her back as she left the room.

How many hiding places had the scrolls seen in the ten years since Samuel’s death?

Lydia gathered a few clothes for their escape from the servant Tikva’s room—plain tunics and robes that did not bespeak royalty. They would not be leaving the city, only hiding, and they could get more if needed. If Simon had money, that is.

In a dark storeroom, she slid a shelf from its position, pried up a large floor tile usually pinned by one of its legs, and reached into the dark hole she had painstakingly dug into the dirt below.

Her fingers closed around its squared edges and she brought
it into the light, then sat back on her heels and brushed the dust from its lid, as she had done when she pulled it from the hole in the corner of Samuel’s house.

Samuel. Would he approve of what she was about to do? Simon was not a rabbi, not a priest. But he could be trusted, just as she had trusted David with the knowledge of the scrolls years ago, though they had made a pact not to speak of them.

Simon would give up his fight for her sake. She could risk the opening of her secrets, to show him why that fight must continue.

She reached into the hole once more, pulled out the familiar sack, dingier and more ragged than it had been years ago but still serviceable. She thrust the wooden box to the bottom and piled in the few articles of clothing she had taken.

She would not even go to her own bedchamber. It was not her home. She had no home. Not yet.

A trickle of doubt slid into her thoughts. How could she leave without completing Samuel’s task for her? But she had failed to find the Chakkiym, regardless of her efforts. How would leaving the palace make any difference? Perhaps Simon would have a better plan.

She hurried back the way she had come, to Simon’s chamber on the lower level. She tapped on the door, then pushed it open.

Simon had a wooden crate set on the bed and was tossing possessions into it. He exhaled at her return and eyed the dirty sack. “This was so important?”

She held up her treasure. “Yes, this is everything. Simon, I—there is something I must tell you, show you—”

He nodded but continued his packing. “There will be time for talking soon, Lydia. I must get you out of here without delay.”

Her fingers tightened around the sack. Yes, perhaps it would
be better to wait until they were in hiding. It was a long story, after all.

She set the sack by the door and crossed to his bed. “Can I help?”

“I am nearly finished.” He bent to a chest along the wall and drew a folded piece of cloth from the bottom. Sharp creases and faded colors marked it as both old and long unused. He ran light fingers over the fabric and sighed. “It has been many years since I even thought of this.”

She bent for a closer look. It was white with red stripes.

He shook it out.

The folds fell away. Red and blue tassels quivered at the corners.

Lydia sucked in a disbelieving breath and a tremor passed through her, as though angels had run their fingers down her spine.

Simon glanced at her, then turned fully, his lips parting in concern. “What is it, Lydia? You are so pale!”

“Wh—Is that . . . is that a tallit?”

He held it up. “A family heirloom, you could say. Passed down from my father—Lydia, you are shaking!”

“Finish. Finish, Simon. Why did your father give you this covering?”

He hung his head. “Another failure on my part, I’m afraid. My father came to Jerusalem when he was only a boy, with his father who had been a scholar in Persia. My grandfather, and then my father, went every year to the Temple in a fruitless tradition that left them disappointed every year.”

“Waiting on the steps of the Temple. Waiting for one who never came.”

His eyes flickered with confusion. “You know of their duty?”

But she could not speak more, not until she heard it all.

He swallowed, still watching her face. “When my father died, I was a very young man. At first I too went every year. But as the years passed, I grew to disbelieve that any answers were to be found there. If Judea and our people were to be free, it would be in the strength of our fighting arm, not the scribblings of an old prophet.” He exhaled and shook his head. “Lydia, I—you must tell me—”

In answer, she stumbled to the door, picked up her sack, and returned. With trembling hands she reached in and pulled the wooden box from under the jumble of clothing.

Simon’s gaze was on the box, but without recognition.

She dropped the sack of clothing at their feet. Lifted the tiny latch on the box and opened the lid.

The unmarred wax seemed to glow where it sealed the scrolls.

“What are they?” Simon’s words sounded reverent, as if he somehow sensed the truth.

Lydia found her voice at last. “The scribblings of an old prophet.”

His eyes went to hers, then back to the scrolls. “I do not understand.”

“Every year on the Day of Atonement, Samuel told me. Just before he died. Wait on the steps of the Temple for the one who will come wearing a red-striped tallit with red and blue corded tassels.” She took a shallow breath. “Wait for the Chakkiym.”

Simon’s jaw was slack, his eyes glassy. He eased the box from her hands, then sank onto the edge of his bed. “And were you there, all these years?”

She swallowed, her throat dry. “Except when I could not be. I would never have missed, except that I thought it was hopeless. I
thought perhaps he—you—had been killed when Herod took the city on Yom HaKippurim all those years ago.”

Simon ran a light finger over the surface of the scrolls, and when he looked up, tears were in his eyes. “How I wish my father and grandfather were here to see this day.”

She nodded, smiling through her own tears. “Samuel too. He spent his life searching. Gave his life protecting them.”

At this reminder, she inhaled sharply. “Simon, do not ask me to explain now, but it was Salome who sent the men who killed Samuel in Alexandria. She knows now that I have the scrolls.”

He jumped to his feet, closed the box, and returned it to her, then pointed to her sack. “We are leaving.”

She twisted the sack between her fingers, the box hidden once more.

Simon took up his crate and headed for the door. He paused and turned, looking over the crate at her. “Everything is changed now, Lydia.”

“I know.”

“You have done your duty. Delivered the scrolls. From here, there is no need for you to incur more danger. And if you leave with me, you will likely never be known as a Hasmonean, nor a Ptolemy, again. I know what it means to you, to have discovered your birthright. I cannot ask you to give it up—”

“My life, my identity, is not built upon my birthright, Simon. It matters little who my parents were, nor even if they willingly gave me up, or had me snatched from them, or died protecting me. I am a child of the One God, and that is all that matters. And I will stay with you, whether in Jerusalem, or Judea, or farther.”

He smiled over the crate. “Then farther we shall go.”