The Queen's Handmaid (9 page)

The ship had limped into port, wind-torn and leaking. It would not put out again anytime soon. Herod was once again a refugee, without funds or army and now without a means to secure either one.

The group found shelter in a dimly lit tavern while Herod sought out friends. From what Lydia heard, the man had friends everywhere. She had seen little of his reputed charm, save the one night in Cleopatra’s courtyard, but the days at sea had not been a good indication of anyone’s character.

They washed, were given bread and wine, and reclined on benches and couches for several contented hours. When Herod returned it was with good news. He had already convinced supporters in Rhodes to raise the money to build him a ship that would take them to Rome. In the meantime, they would be housed by one of the leading citizens of Rhodes and treated well.

Lydia sighed and turned her head toward the tavern wall. She had set out for Jerusalem by way of Rome, learned that Jerusalem was held by Herod’s enemies, detoured to Rhodes, and now would have to await the building of a new ship. The errand Samuel had given seemed as far as the horizon, and just as unreachable.

Would she be in Jerusalem by autumn, when the day of Yom HaKippurim would allow her to finally deliver the scrolls?

Eight

L
ydia stood with David at the rail, watching the warm, sunwashed shores of Rome sharpen across an expanse as smooth as blue-green glass. The weather for sailing in the month of April was far better than January had been, and the months spent on the island of Rhodes had strengthened them all for the journey. But their earlier passage from Alexandria had heightened Lydia’s great fear of ships, and she rose every day to eye the horizon with anxiety.

“And what shall Rome bring to us, do you think?”

David snorted. “Harder work, I imagine.” He ran a hand through his sun-lightened brown hair and laughed. “We have all grown quite spoiled, I fear.” He jutted his chin across the deck where Herod lounged in luxury, his servant girls attending. “And none more spoiled than Riva.”

As if she heard her name even from this distance, the girl looked up with a sly smile and, with a swing of her head, swept her hair over one shoulder. She never missed an opportunity to be at Herod’s side, making herself essential—more often at night than during the day.

Herod was a man aware of his own allure, and he enjoyed making Lydia uncomfortable with the brush of a shoulder or touch of a hand on her arm. Always their conversation was about Mariamme, how Lydia would serve her well when they finally reached Judea and rescued her and his family from the fortress where they held off Antigonus’s men. Riva had hovered around their exchanges, narrow-eyed and suspicious. Did she wish Herod to herself, or was it Lydia’s future position with Mariamme that caused her envy?

Riva had proven no friend to Lydia in these last months, taking every opportunity to criticize her to Herod, but the girl was much like Andromeda, and the likeness somehow softened Lydia’s heart toward her.

But David, dear David . . . She had tried with all her strength to resist his friendship. He was like young Caesarion and wise teacher Samuel, both of whom she missed desperately, rolled into one. Friendship with David was far too easy, and therefore far too dangerous. She fought a losing battle. Already she relied on him; already she needed him more than he needed her.

They put into port a half day’s journey southwest of Rome and switched to a barge that carried them the fifteen miles up the River Tiberis, which flowed through the heart of Rome. Every one of them clutched the rails now, watching the wonders of Rome revealed.

David had warned her, though he had never seen Rome, only garnered stories from every source he could. The city was a forest of columns, a sea of tenements. It was pocked with vast expanses of open forums and stadiums. It could swallow a person whole.

She had a task awaiting her in Jerusalem, but somehow it seemed she would fall into Rome and never emerge.

As if he understood her concern, David patted her shoulder as the barge’s ropes were thrown to the quay and dockworkers hauled it forward to tie off on the iron cleat. The brotherly gesture compressed the air in her chest. She must not get too close to yet another who could be snatched away.

A small crowd had gathered on the dock, and it gave way to a man striding through it with confidence, an easy smile, and an upraised hand.

From the prow of the barge, Herod shouted his greeting. “Antony, my friend! It is good to see your face!”

Marc Antony grinned. “What a time you had getting here, eh? Well, come ashore and let us show you how Rome treats its guests.”

Lydia gathered up the sack that had been her constant companion since leaving Alexandria and filed behind David and the others to disembark. She wore the pendant at all times, now strung on a leather cord beneath her tunic, and the box of scrolls weighted the bottom of the sack, pulling the fabric taut in her hands.

Three months since she left Alexandria. Five months remaining to reach Jerusalem, still held by Herod’s enemy Antigonus, before Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement.

The feeling that Rome would devour her followed her from the barge, along the planking, to the waiting crowd, like a needling prick at her thoughts.

“I hope you like it here.” Riva’s voice at her shoulder was unfriendly. She pushed past Lydia, narrow hips swaying as she caught up with Herod.

How long would it take Herod to convince Mark Antony to lend troops for the war against Antigonus? Lydia needed to get out of Rome before Riva’s unfounded jealousy did more damage.

The procession climbed from the murky River Tiberis toward the tree-lined summit of one of Rome’s seven hills, the Palatine. Marc Antony, as expansive and outgoing as Lydia remembered from his time in Egypt, ordered a wide litter for himself and Herod to be transported up the cobbled road. Lydia and the others followed, trailing between lofty umbrella pines that sharpened the air with their spicy scent, welcome after the stench of sea travel.

Lydia took in every detail of the city as they climbed. The immense Roman Forum stretched at the base of the hill on their left, its lofty temple columns and administrative buildings peeking white from between the pines, visible even from this distance. In the valley to their right, an elongated oval stadium matched the length of the Palatine. Would they see chariot races even tonight, be able to witness the action from this height?

But it was the hill itself that demanded attention, with its magnificent white-stoned estates spread under the cloudless blue sky, housing the elite of Roman society. The breeze on the hill contained no whiff of city odors. Lydia lifted her head to the dark wings of a bird, wheeling lazily over a two-storied estate, and despite all, she smiled.

Laughter rang out from the litter ahead, and the eight straightbacked litter bearers slowed as one. The curtains were thrust aside and Herod’s head appeared.

“Riva!” He scanned the cluster of those following the litter until he found the girl, already hurrying forward. “Come.”

Riva bumped a shoulder against Lydia’s arm as she passed, then tossed a superior smile over her shoulder. The dark-skinned men who bore the litter lowered it nearly to the ground, and Riva climbed onto the cushioned bench, disappearing from view. Now
heavier with three occupants, the men grunted and heaved as one as they lifted the litter to their shoulders and continued.

The procession wound past several estates and stopped at a midsized house with two stories and a peristyled garden in front, its portico columns circled with glossy vines.

Inside, the staff was taken to separate men’s and women’s quarters, given jugs of water with which to wash, loaves of hard bread, and mats where they might rest. When the room was empty, Lydia took care to hide the scrolls in an unused urn in the corner.

They were all to be included in the reception Marc Antony had planned for his younger friend that evening. Where Herod was all quiet, Eastern intensity and studied charm, Antony was the hard-drinking reprobate who loved to spend money on a party.

The reception proved to rival any Cleopatra had given, if not in scale at least in quality. Lydia hovered with a few other servants near the frescoed wall of the large dining hall. Others of the party—Herod’s advisers, plus Riva and a few other women—reclined on three couches set around a massive square table.

The reds and yellows of the fresco at Lydia’s back were warm and inviting, and the spread of food magnificent. Plump green olives and creamy white cheeses, jeweled cups of wine and steaming platters of roasted pheasant. Her mouth watered at the delectable scent of the meat. There had been no cooked foods aboard the ship from Rhodes. She must be content to wait, though Riva’s hard smile as she tore apart of bit of seasoned meat made the delay grueling.

Herod reclined on the couch opposite Antony and stuffed his mouth with a large grape, chewing while speaking. “So when am I to meet the young man who so captured Julius Caesar’s affections that it gained him a fortune, a claim to power, and an enemy as formidable as you?”

Antony’s face darkened briefly. “Octavian and I have come to an agreement. There is no enmity here.”

“Ha!” Herod spit the grape seed to the mosaic floor. “You have, what, twenty years on the boy? And yet all I hear in Judea is Octavian, Octavian.” His voice was mocking. “Octavian adopted by Caesar and named heir in his will. Octavian forces Marc Antony to flee to Gaul. Octavian made senator, given
imperium
, given a consularship—”

“Enough!” Antony slapped the table.

Lydia jumped and her shoulder struck the wall.

His usual good humor seemed spent. “Our alliance with Lepidus has made the Second Triumvirate official—something Caesar never had. There are plenty of Roman holdings for the three of us. Lepidus has Africa, the East is mine. I am content to leave Italia and its neighbors to Octavian.”

“Hmm.” Herod’s gaze grew hard and calculating, as she had seen in his sparring with Cleopatra. “It is that very East I have come to speak with you about.”

Antony raised a hand and shook his head. “Later. Tonight is for enjoyment only.” He waved in a group from the doorway, where they had apparently been waiting for a signal.

Musicians with drums, lyres, double-reed mouth pipes, and a large cithara filed in with solemnity, set up quickly in the front of the room, and began to play a slow and steady drumbeat accompanying a minor-keyed tune.

But it was the man who entered at the start of the music who captured Lydia’s attention. Tall and narrowly built, with a straight Roman nose and full lips. Expressive eyes that roamed the room grazed her quickly, then returned for a second look. She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat and looked away.

A slave paused in front of Lydia with a platter of fruits, but she shook her head at the offer and returned her attention to the new arrival. Without looking, she could feel that Riva’s gaze turned that way as well.

“Ah, here he is.” Antony grinned and nodded toward Herod. “Our premier poet, Lucius Varius Rufus.”

Lucius
Varius
Rufus.
Lydia repeated the name in her mind and it echoed against her heart.

“You will love this, Herod. Nothing like it in your dusty Galilee, I am quite certain. My wife adores him.”

Herod frowned. “Your wife? I didn’t want to mention her. I was told that Fulvia—”

“Fulvia is dead. Yes.” Antony’s casual attention on the poet seemed strained. “I have remarried. Octavia.”

“Ho!” Herod’s sharp laugh overmatched the music. “Octavian has given you his sister! And where is the lovely Octavia tonight if her favorite poet is here?”

“She is unwell, I fear. And her favorite handmaid has recently run off, leaving her with no one to dress her. You will meet her tomorrow. When you meet her brother.”

Herod smiled appreciatively and raised his cup to Antony. “I have underestimated you, my old friend. Alliance, indeed!”

Antony said nothing, and the poet began his recitation.

The words poured from him, lovely and heart-wrenching and lyrical. The lines seemed torn from an epic poem praising the hardwon battles of Rome in a far-off land—couplets that transformed bloodshed and war into something both tragic and beautiful.

Lydia leaned into the recitation, heart racing and lips parted. She had been in Cleopatra’s palace all her life, and yet this night, with its sensual food and smoking torches and the plaintive cry of
the cithara’s strings, all as a backdrop to the enrapturing voice of Lucius Varius Rufus, was like nothing she had experienced.

When it ended, Lydia breathed again.

Others in the room snapped fingers and thumbs in approval, and Antony called out, “When are you going to write such a poem about
my
victories, boy?”

The poet lifted his chin and returned Antony’s casual look with one far more intense. “When you achieve a victory worth immortalizing, my lord.”

A nervous laughter circled the room, but Antony apparently chose to ignore the slight and dismissed the man with an incline of his head.

But instead of departing, the poet circled the perimeter of the room toward the back.

Lydia watched him come, palms flat against her thighs. Where was he going?

And then he was there at her side. She kept her gaze trained on the nobility on the couches but could feel him studying her.

When he spoke, his voice was low in her ear, as if they were the only two in the room. “I believe of all those present, you were the only one truly listening.”

She took a shallow breath. “It . . . it was so beautiful.”

“You are very beautiful.”

She looked up at him, and his gaze was traveling over her as it had done when he first entered the room, not a crude leer as she had seen on the faces of many men in Cleopatra’s palace. More like the appreciative touch she would give an especially fine piece of pottery. Like the cool water poured over her after their long journey.

She laughed, a clipped, nervous sound, then lowered her head. The room had grown warm with torches and food and bodies, and her tunic felt damp against her back.