The Queen's Handmaid (27 page)

“Lydia? Where are you going? You are needed in the main dining room.”

Lydia paused in her exit from the palace’s front arch and turned to Simon. “I have something I need to do this morning.”

He crossed to the massive arch. “In the city?”

“Yes.”

At her lack of explanation, he cocked his head. “A secret meeting with a merchant, perhaps? Some young trader who came through the palace and caught your eye?”

He was teasing, but the implication stung. She drew herself upright. “I am going to the synagogue.”

Whatever he had been expecting, it must not have been that. His mouth opened slightly and his eyebrows arched. “I did not realize you were so—”

“Jewish?”

He chuckled. “I will go with you. It is past time for me to meet the locals.”

Lydia bit her lip. A chance to spend time with Simon outside the prying eyes of the palace, plus the safety of an escort through the city would be a good thing. But how could she freely ask her questions with him around? Ah well, she only intended to search out a few experts this morning, men she could later visit with inquiries.

“But you do not attend the daily prayers. I assumed you had no interest.”

His face darkened for a moment. “I have an interest in anything that concerns Israel. But it will not be prayers that throw off the bondage of our oppressors.”

Lydia pulled him toward the arch. The Antonia palace was not the place for such talk.

He fell into step beside her in the wide courtyard in front of the palace. The morning was fresh and cold, the winter air free
of dampness today and the sun bright on the paving stones. “And what is your errand in the
beit
knesset
?”

He used the Hebrew term, even in the midst of the Greek he always used with her. In Egypt, all houses of prayer had used the Greek “synagogue.” Here in Judea, Greek was the second language, though the Greek-loving Herod did not want to hear Hebrew or Aramaic in his palace.

“In Egypt I often went to synagogue with an old rabbi friend of mine, Samuel. He instructed me in the Torah. I miss it.”

She felt Simon’s gaze on her as they walked into the heart of the city. It was an unusual story, she knew. A servant of unknown parentage, living in Egypt, instructed in the Torah, and a woman.

“And did the old men of the synagogues in Alexandria argue like fishwives as they do in Judea?”

She laughed. “Sometimes. But they were often, I don’t know, sad, I think. Perhaps they wished they were here in Jerusalem.”

“No doubt.”

“Do they argue about the interpretation of the Torah?”

Simon shrugged and stepped around a pile of garbage on the corner. “That, and about politics. The Pharisees believe if they keep enough of the Law—and not simply the Torah, but also the oral law of their traditions—they will bring about the redemption of mankind and justice in the land.”

“I assume you disagree. But you are not of the Sadducees.”

“Why? Because I am not from an aristocratic family? Much too common to be part of the rich elites who would turn us all into Greek speakers?”

Lydia frowned. “Samuel taught me only of these two political divisions of the people. But you seem to be neither.”

He grabbed her elbow and turned her to him in the street.
“That is because I am something else, Lydia. Because I believe something else. That the day is coming when it will not be the Pharisees’ observance of the Law or the Sadducees’ obsession with the Temple and its rites that brings about our redemption.”

“What, then?”

He leaned against her ear, still grasping her arm. “We must fight.”

Her blood went cold and she pulled back. She had seen enough of battle, both at Masada and when Herod took Jerusalem two years ago, to last a lifetime.

“Do you not see, Lydia? It is the only way to make things right.”

Yes, that was his passion, was it not? He was born to be a fighter, whether in the palace or in the streets.

“And now that I am here in Jerusalem, I will join with those who share my zeal to see a free Israel. Nothing else matters until this is accomplished. I have learned that the hard way.” He continued down the narrow street, shaded by the tight-fitting houses hugging the gutter.

She watched his back. So that was why he had come. To connect with others of his kind.

Zealot.
It was a word she had heard Samuel use, but there had been none in Alexandria. Now she understood. And understood that Simon was not safe.

She hurried to catch up. “And what is it you hope to accomplish?”

“That is why I seek out the others. Until recently, there was a plan in place. Those two feuding brothers, Mariamme’s two grandfathers, were each backed by Pharisees or Sadducees. The Pharisees abandoned Hyrcanus, though, and asked Pompey of Rome to intervene and restore the old priesthood. Abolish
the kingship of the Hasmoneans. Instead, Pompey defiled the Temple, a judgment on the Sadducees who protect it, and stripped Hyrcanus of all authority, giving it instead to Herod’s father.”

Lydia huffed. “Poor Hyrcanus. Since his return from Babylon, he wanders without seeming to understand what has happened. And those ears.” She shuddered.

“I’ve seen him, trying in vain to attend in the Temple. I think his mind is retreating from the truth. After he was exiled, Mariamme’s uncle Antigonus went after both the kingship and the High Priesthood. It’s been a bloody, muddled mess.” Simon’s hands curled into fists. “The only solution was to restore what the Maccabees gave us when they first revolted—the Hasmoneans.”

“Aristobulus.”

“Yes, he was to be king. Plans to overthrow Herod were under way. But we did not take enough care, did not realize that Herod would suspect so soon.”

He slowed and glanced at Lydia, as if judging her reaction. “But we shall not speak of Aristobulus. I know it saddens you to remember him, and to remember the other one, who came before.”

How had Simon come to know her so well, so quickly? She would not speak of that night, thirteen years ago. Not now, nor ever.

They reached the synagogue in time for morning prayers. An old rabbi frowned at Simon’s lack of head covering and pulled a spare from some little niche.

Lydia broke away to sit on the women’s benches. She soaked in the graying columns and the graying men, missing Samuel with a terrible ache, loving the familiar crinkle of the Torah parchment, the dim and cool interior that felt like a sacred space, even the
arguments between the men on interpretation of the Law, arguments that Samuel had explained brought man closer to HaShem as he made an effort to understand His Law. But this morning was different than Alexandria. Was it being in Jerusalem? Being in the city with Simon? Or the scrolls entrusted to her? Whatever the reason, she felt the difference from the teachings of her youth, when she had cared only for the intellectual pursuit of it all.

She had seen that Simon was not devout, that he cared only for the physical, political promises of his God. But did she know the One God any better? She had tried to please Him. Was that the same as
knowing
Him? But who was she to think He would look on her, see her?

I
am
the
One
who
knows
your
name.

She sucked in a breath and glanced at Simon across the dim synagogue. The words had seemed almost audible. But his attention was on the teaching. Who had spoken?

I
am
the
One
who
knows
your
name.

A warmth bloomed in her chest and diffused to the rest of her body, flushing her skin as though she had been embraced. She studied her hands in her lap and breathed slowly, lifting a part of her heart heavenward as she had never done before. She had wondered often if she had a true name, a name given at birth. Did the One God know this name, as He knew her?

Twenty-Four

S
imon watched Lydia’s expression, the way she soaked in the teaching, the glow of her eyes as she lifted them in prayer. She was more of a Jew than he was. The realization stung.

How had he come so far from the faith of his fathers? He had been a toddler when Pompey brought the blight of Rome to Israel, and somehow the poverty and destruction had wormed themselves into his core, forged him into a man of anger and passion, with no room for quiet faith. And yet there was space, for he felt the lack of it like an empty hole inside.

When the readings and prayers were finished, he took Lydia’s arm and guided her into the street. “Come. I have someone I want you to meet.”

The home of Jonah and his wife, Esther, lay at the end of a narrow street, its tiny windows opening to a guttered alley. His friend lived in better accommodations in the years he had served in Herod’s army.

Lydia hurried beside him. “You know the city already when you have only just arrived?”

“I grew up here.” He did not say more, and thankfully she did not ask. The years in Jerusalem, before he pledged himself to the cause, were like another life. Days when he had wanted only to be a merchant, to have a wife and children and a home like Jonah’s, however poor.

Jonah welcomed him at the door with a hug to crush the bones, then pulled them both into the house with a yell to Esther.

“He has come again already? Has he brought the supplies?” Esther appeared from a back room with a wide smile for Simon and raised eyebrows at his companion.

Simon gave Esther a little shake of the head, hoping she’d understand that Lydia knew nothing of his secret errands.

Like water gushing from an opened fountain, children poured from behind Esther.

Lydia laughed. “Do you have the whole city’s children here?”

Simon pulled Lydia farther into the front room of the sparse house. “Lydia, this is my friend Jonah and his wife, Esther.”

Lydia nodded to Jonah. “We met at Masada, I believe.”

Jonah slapped Simon on the back and gave him a dramatic wink. “Ah yes. I remember.”

“Ignore him, Lydia. It is the lovely Esther I wanted you to meet. She is a potter, like you.”

Lydia turned to the woman and met her warm smile with one of her own.

Esther held out her hands in greeting, which Lydia grasped as though desperate for a like-minded friend.

To Simon, it appeared as if two sisters had found each other.

They were enveloped into the unnaturally large family at once, and Simon explained that the children were orphans of the war between Herod and Antigonus, taken in by Jonah and Esther
to raise as their own. He fought to keep the fury from his voice. He hoped for a better Israel for these children, and they should not grow up filled with the hatred that had shaped him.

Lydia’s eyes widened and she touched the faces and heads of a few of the children closest to her. “But how can you feed so many mouths?”

A boy of about eight tugged on her robe. “Uncle Simon brings us palace food!”

So much for secrecy. Simon glanced at Lydia, tried to judge her reaction.

Her eyes lifted to his in confusion, then understanding. And then a small smile of amusement and even approval that lit a fire in his chest.

Lydia was so kind, so beautiful. She would be a queen’s handmaid for many years to come, and he would always be a soldier. But there were days, like today, when he wished they could pretend to be Jonah and Esther, with a house full of children.

They stayed the afternoon, with Jonah reporting on the progress of those who worked in the back alleys and the marketplace to solidify the coming rebellion. They spoke with angry curses of the desperate poverty of the people, with hopeful certainty that a deliverer was on the horizon, with fearful dread at the sense of outrage bubbling over the people like a pot about to boil.

All of this he allowed Lydia to hear, for she must know the state of things for her own protection. But perhaps all of the disheartening news was lost to her, for she and Esther had attached to each other over their shared art and shared hearts.

When the afternoon waned, Lydia leaned over to whisper to Simon. “I should return. Mariamme’s birth pains could begin at any time. I do not want to be far when that happens.”

They took leave of the huge family, Esther and Lydia hugging with promises of more visits and the children reminding Simon to bring them fruit very soon.

The walk back to the palace was slow and silent. Simon could not say what Lydia was thinking about the poverty-born generosity of his friends, nor the newest subversive activities she had discovered about him. He only knew that seeing her with his friends, with the children, had threatened all the resolve he had brought with him from Jericho.

The baby did not come, not that day or the next, and Lydia kept busy with the palace renovations, checking only occasionally on the queen and being scolded out of the room to return to her work.

A week had passed and she had not gotten a chance to seek out the learned men of the synagogue whom she had identified during her visit, nor had Mariamme mentioned the pendant again. But Esther had come to the palace once, ostensibly to bring pottery that Simon had ordered, but the two women had gotten a chance to sneak away for conversation.