The Queen's Handmaid (24 page)

Salome chewed her lip. “We must find out what the women have reported to him. Whether he has reason to believe it was anything but an accident.”

“Mariamme’s seven days of mourning have just ended.”

“Then I believe I know where to find her.”

The women’s baths on the lower level of the Antonia palace were as fine as any in a Roman villa. Salome’s hunch had been correct. Mariamme was out of her torn
shiva
robes at last, submerged to her collarbone in the steaming water. Her pale little Egyptian girl sat on the edge of the bath, scooping water and pouring it over the queen’s tilted head.

They both turned at Salome’s entrance.

She stopped at the entrance to the
calidarium
and leaned against the doorway. Condensation slicked the stone and dripped from the ceiling. She scowled through the steamy air at her sister-in-law. “I hope you are pleased.”

Mariamme’s head lifted and she blinked. She did not look well. Puffy eyes and an air of fatigue about her.

“What is it, Salome?” Even her voice was weary.

Salome entered the baths, passing the brazier with its heated stones and running a hand along the frescoed wall of soothing blues and greens. “Enjoying your bath while your husband waits for Rome’s condemnation?”

At this, Mariamme’s eyes flicked open a bit wider, and the servant girl’s ladling paused in midair and then resumed.

But before Mariamme framed a defense, the sudden hiss of water poured over the brazier stones drew their attention.

Alexandra.

The queen’s mother replaced the jug beside the brazier, slid past Salome to sit on the lip of the bath beside the servant, and crossed one long leg over the other, her widow’s robe trailing over the damp floor.

Ah, now Salome had both conspirators together. She should have brought an incantation.

“My daughter is enjoying a bath after a long week, Salome. The heat eases the pain in her back. Late pregnancy can be such a strain, as you know.” Alexandra tilted her head. “Or as you’ve
heard
.”

Salome ground her teeth together but would not show her irritation.

She had tried every spell and incantation she could find, pleading with the goddess to give her a girl child. There was no use having a boy—he would never rule. But a girl whom she could marry to Herod’s son by the commoner Doris—that would be a marriage to solidify their family’s claims to the throne, and Salome’s daughter would be queen. Her pleas and spells had been ineffective. At thirty-four she was beginning to despair.

“I am sure your week of mourning your dead brother and son has been most difficult.”

Alexandra started up from the bath, hatred burning away the clouded air between them, but a quiet word from Mariamme restrained her. Instead, Alexandra lifted her chin, straightened her shoulder as if
she
were queen, and gave Salome a cold smile. “It would seem you may soon understand Mariamme’s pain. The pain of losing a brother.”

Salome’s muscles tensed and she took two steps forward.

The servant girl stood and stepped between them as if her skinny frame could protect the queen.

“You sent one of your vile letters again, didn’t you?” Salome’s
blood ran hot through her veins, and her fingers itched to strike the smug smile from Alexandra’s face. “What false accusations did you feed the Egyptian tramp?”

Mariamme’s shoulders lifted above the water, wet hair streaming against her pale skin. Her blue-green eyes were like ice chips above the steam. “False? You dare to deny that you and Herod plotted to murder my brother?”

Salome looked from mother to daughter. What did they know? “Antony will never believe you. He loves Herod.”

“Ha!” Alexandra’s mockery bounced off the dripping walls and ceiling. “Marc Antony does what is best for himself. If that is Herod as king of Judea, so be it. If not”—her dark eyebrows waggled above narrowed eyes—“then your family’s fraudulent reign is finished.”

It would serve no purpose to attack Alexandra. But oh, how she wished to place her hands around that wrinkled neck, to push her backward into the bath, to show her exactly how her son had died, lungs gasping, eyes bulging . . .

“Fraudulent reign? Fraudulent! We have fought and scrabbled for everything we have gained in this miserable land, from the day your forefather Jacob stole the birthright from our forefather Esau, to the day your great-grandfather conquered Idumea and put us to the sword if we did not convert. Now at last we are given a chance to govern what should have always been ours, and you dare to call us false? It is you who have worked falsely to push Herod from his rightful throne in favor of Aristobulus!”

Mariamme rose from the water, and the servant wrapped a robe around her dripping body. “And it is you who have plotted to kill him. Do not deny it, Salome.” Mariamme inclined her head to the Egyptian girl. “Lydia heard you and Cypros.”

Salome focused on the girl for the first time. “Lydia. And I suppose it was Lydia who ensured that your letter would reach her former mistress, Cleopatra?” She peered into the girl’s eyes, tried to get the measure of her. She had sensed an unwelcome strength about this girl before. “Perhaps you have been here on Cleopatra’s behalf all these years? Spying on us, sending your lies to Egypt?”

Lydia met her gaze. “I am no friend to Cleopatra. And neither do I lie. But I know what I heard.”

The impudent little thing. Salome would deal with her later.

Right now there was the more immediate double crisis. Herod’s execution might be ordered by Marc Antony, and Mariamme could drop a son into the world at any moment, a son who would be hailed as the logical replacement for both Aristobulus and Herod. And if named king, the boy would have his mother as coregent, with the grandmother backing them both.

And where would that leave Salome?

A direct attack on Mariamme would likely only result in the child’s healthy birth. It was too late for another try with her herbs and potions. Besides, the child might be a girl and not named king at all. Better to wait and see before taking the risk.

“My daughter is in need of rest now, Salome.” Alexandra put an arm around Mariamme’s shoulders. “You will excuse us.”

No, she would not excuse them for anything. But she would let them go.

For now.

Salome gripped the rail of her private balcony and watched Herod’s entourage roll away from the Antonia palace, north toward Syria and Herod’s fate.

There had been no tears at their good-bye. They were not that sort of family. But Herod’s nod toward her held all the final words needed.
Watch
over
my
kingdom
until
I
return. Do not let them take it from us.

Would he return?

She would hope for the best and plan for the worst. Herod’s young son, sequestered away with the divorced commoner Doris, would need to be protected. Mariamme’s child, if a son, would need to be eliminated.

And Salome needed a daughter.

She turned from the balcony and startled. “Joseph! Why must you always be so quiet, sneaking up on me?”

Her husband leaned over the rail. “Have they gone?”

She shoved past him into her chamber. “He will return. Antony loves him.”

“I am to keep guard over the queen while he is away.”

Salome whirled on him. “Oh, you will enjoy that, won’t you?” At his quick flush, she laughed, though the truth still grated. “I have seen the way you look at her, old man. But Herod might as well have left a eunuch in charge, eh?”

Joseph looked away, focused on her table of goddess-worship accoutrements.

So Herod had left her husband to watch his wife. Not his friend and captain of the guard. Interesting. Had he too seen the exchanged glances between Mariamme and Sohemus? Salome had noticed for months but said nothing. Better to save the information for when it was most useful.

Joseph fiddled with the figurine of Al-Uzzá on her table.

She crossed to him and smacked his hand away.

His shoulders drooped. “Herod believes he will not return.”

She straightened her sacred beads and sacrificial knives. “Do not speak foolishness.”

“He gave me instructions if he should not.”

She turned a wary gaze on him. “What sort of instructions?”

He shook his head. “Sometimes I believe the boy has a madness in him.”

Joseph’s reference to Herod as a “boy” when her brother was nearly forty only highlighted how very old her husband was.

“He says that if Mariamme is not to belong to him in life, then she is to belong to him in death, and to no one else.”

Salome’s heart raced. “What are you saying?”

“He gave me orders that if we receive news of his execution, it should be followed swiftly by Mariamme’s death.”

Oh, this was too delicious.

Salome twirled a knife in her hand. How best to use this information?

If Herod were executed and if Mariamme died before birthing a son, their family’s reign through Doris’s son was still assured. But it was too many ifs. Herod might still return.

She sighed mournfully. “Poor Mariamme. Herod loves her so dearly and yet she believes that he cares nothing for her.”

“How can that be? He is so devoted—”

“She wants more, I suppose. You know these Jews. They are never satisfied with what they have.”

Joseph’s gaze drifted to the open balcony where Herod had disappeared, but his thoughts seemed elsewhere.

It was enough for now.

“On your way out, husband, tell my maid to fetch me Mariamme’s maid, Lydia.”

He nodded once and shuffled to the door.

She did not have long to prepare.

She moved on silent feet about the chamber, drawing the heavy drapes at the windows and balcony, assembling her instruments on the marble table near her bedside. All the while communing with the fertility goddess in mind and spirit, seeking Al-Uzzá’s dark wisdom and strengthening power.

A voice came from the hall. “You sent for me?”

No address of respect. No “mistress” or “my lady.” The girl seemed to think herself equal with the queen by nature of Mariamme’s reliance on her.

“Come in, Lydia. Close the door.”

The girl hesitated, but what could she do but comply?

With the door shut and no lamps lit, the chamber fell into a weighty darkness, velvety and cool against Salome’s skin. Her eyes fluttered briefly and she felt the pleasure of the goddess on her.

“You must find this land strange, Lydia. With its One God and all His many requirements.”

The girl stood straight and composed. “I am a long way from home.”

“And were you a worshipper of Isis back in Egypt?”

“I . . . I had a variety of religious influences in the palace.”

Salome tried to read the level of devotion in the girl’s heart. “Hmm. Yes, I’m sure.” Strangely, she could see nothing. Did the girl have no faith of any kind? “And since coming to Judea? Have you taken hold of the One God?”

“Was this why you wanted to see me, my lady?”

Salome lowered herself to the chair placed at an angle before her bedside table and ran a light hand over her instruments. “I am only trying to discern where your loyalty lies. I would hate to
think you still favored the queen of your youth over the queen you currently serve.”

“Mariamme has my full devotion, I assure you.”

Salome picked up a hooked blade, squeezed its solid bone handle within her fist, and closed her eyes. Though a physical tool, in the right hands the blade could be used to dig knowledge from the soul of another, or even to hollow out that very soul. She turned it slowly in the air, tiny motions like the scraping of a strigil. She would extract whatever the girl knew, then leave her powerless and open to future probing.

But the blade seemed only capable of chafing the air.

A flicker of fear chased along Salome’s veins.

She turned on Lydia, used razor-sharp thoughts to bring all the power the goddess had granted down on the girl, blanketing her with a suffocating darkness.

And then the blanket evaporated like mist.

Confused, she rose from the table and circled the girl. Had she underestimated her? Perhaps she was a sorceress and had brought the power of Isis with her from her ancient temples and pyramids.

Lydia’s feet remained fixed, but she followed Salome’s slow circle with her gaze, as though perplexed. Her face remained clear, guileless. Not the face of a sorceress wielding power.

“How are you doing this?” Salome’s voice came out as a hiss, more frightened than threatening.

“My lady?”

“How are you hindering me?”

The girl frowned—a quick, puzzled look that gave away nothing.

Salome grabbed Lydia’s arm. A jolt like summer lightning
shot up her fingers and into her chest. She jerked away. The girl’s skin was on fire!

The shock ran through her, down to her feet, and left her woozy. She put one hand out to empty air to steady herself and another to her nauseated belly.

Lydia faced her and her lips were moving.

Salome heard nothing but the
whoosh, whoosh
of blood in her ears. She swayed and thrust one hand between herself and the loathsome girl.