The Queen's Handmaid (7 page)

He did not answer.

“Samuel!” She patted his cheek gently, then harder. “Samuel!”

His eyes fluttered and his unfocused gaze finally settled on the necklace. “You found it.”

She dropped the chain back into the box, set all of it aside, and got to her knees. “All of that can wait. I am going to fetch—”

“It was your mother’s.” His voice had softened to a dreamy, half-awake murmur. “She brought it from Cyprus.”

“What? The necklace?”

His lips were moving, and Lydia had to bend to catch the words. “She was very beautiful. Like you. I promised I would give it to you someday. But it was too dangerous. Too dangerous for you to ever know.”

“Samuel, you knew my mother? You know who I am?” The strength went out of her limbs and astonishment drove away all other thoughts. Not stolen away, then, as in her childhood fancies. Given up, abandoned. “Why did you never—?”

“You must let yourself love, Lydia. Despite what we have done. Let yourself need others.”

“Samuel, my mother—”

But he was sucking in a great, gasping breath, his eyes suddenly large and unseeing, as though he stared past the roof, past the stars even, to something unknown. “Yes, Lord!” The words were nearly a shout, so strange after the weakening of his voice.

And then his body seemed to collapse, to deflate, and he fell back against the mat, still and unbreathing.

No. No, it was not happening. Could not happen.

This man, this mentor and teacher and friend, was the only father she had known.

“Samuel!” She shook his shoulders, bent an ear to his chest, put her fingers to his lips to check for breath.

Nothing.

“No!” The word erupted like a scream, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders once more. “Do not leave me alone!”

She had never said the words, never told him.

“I love you!” She bent her tear-streaked face to his, pressed her wet cheek to his bearded one, called the words into his ear as if they could follow him to wherever he had gone. “I love you, Samuel.”

Her body shook now, trembled with grief and fear, with a shock like a limb had been torn from her body. Her fingers dug into the loose straw that lay under them, and she grabbed up handfuls of the bloodstained bedding, lifted it to her head,
and released it to fall over her hair and her shoulders like ashes of mourning. It settled in her hair and stuck to her tears and her lips and she did not care. Again and again she released the bloody straw over her head. Let Samuel’s attacker return and take her too.

She had spent her life alone, abandoned by her parents like some unwanted rubbish, unworthy of love.

Yet she had always had Samuel.

No longer. Now she was truly alone.

Alone with a destiny she neither wanted nor understood.

Finally, cradling the scrolls and with the strange necklace wound around her fingers, Lydia lay beside the still-warm body of Samuel and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Six

S
omewhere in the early morning hours, Lydia crawled from the torn sleeping mat in Samuel’s house, past the body of his enemy and hers, and forced her numb legs to stand.

The lamp had long since gone out, and in the half-light of dawn, she found the slender wooden box and replaced the three deerskin scrolls with icy fingers.

The necklace she lifted over her head and let it settle around her throat, the pendant dangling to hide under her robe.

And then she left.

Stumbling down the outer staircase with the box, she looked neither right nor left, though Samuel would have wanted her to be wary.

With the box tucked under her arm and her mantle missing, still wrapped around Samuel’s body, she felt exposed and vulnerable, and too stunned to care.

It would be a stormy day from the looks of the low-hanging clouds that churned above like gray woolen tunics in dirty wash water.

She plodded toward the palace, with only a few stray thoughts of what might come next. Samuel was dead, and Andromeda was dead. She had this strange box worth killing over, and even Cleopatra surely wanted to see Lydia’s throat slit, for reasons more sound than stolen writings and a secret order.

The docks were quieter than usual, perhaps because of the weather. Lydia avoided the street-side palace entrance and arch and chose to trudge around the perimeter to the harbor entrance of the palace, where her arrival might go unseen.

At the base of the wide stone steps leading down to the harbor, near the colossal sphinx where Samuel had first begun to speak of her new destiny, a well-dressed man argued with a cluster of sailors, his upraised arm punctuating angry words she could not make out from this distance.

Herod?

She drew closer, slowed, and listened.

He was trying to arrange passage out of Alexandria. These sailors were part of the crew that had brought him. Didn’t he arrive on his own grand ship as she had imagined? The sailors were refusing to put out to sea so quickly.

“You are a madman to ask us to sail in this weather!” The brawny sailor wore no shirt in spite of the chill. “And we have only just arrived. No time to make repairs, to reload cargo that would make the trip to Rome worthwhile!”

Herod’s back was to Lydia and his next words were lost to her, but it was clear he was angry.

The sailor waved a dismissive hand. “Go to the lighthouse, then. Ask the Keeper to arrange passage for you. She has connections and boats of her own.” He and his companions returned to their rigging.

At this, Herod shot a glance at the pinnacle of the lighthouse, its night fires burning still in the gloom of the morning, then stalked away in the direction of the Pharos.

In that moment, Lydia saw with clarity what must happen next.

She must leave with Herod.

She pushed away the panic that the thought of sailing brought, for with the certainty flowed something else, an icy surge through her veins that lifted her chin and tightened her arm around the wooden box and propelled her toward the palace steps. Anger.

None of this should have happened. If Andromeda had kept quiet, perhaps Lydia would not have spoken so foolishly. If Samuel had let the secret writings be the stuff of family lore and legend, he would not lay cold in his house.

She stalked across the outer courtyard, past the line of carved, fat-bottomed columns whose lotus flower capitals still lay in darkness far above.

If Cleopatra was not such a monster, Lydia would not be running toward a civil war.

But no, it did little good to blame. For if she were merely running, she could run anywhere.

It was the box under her arm that drove her east, toward the homeland Samuel had never seen, toward a man in a red-striped tallit.

Only a few servants crisscrossed halls and courtyard at this hour—secret liaisons, and those tasked with the nightly maintenance of the fires and the early morning food preparation. Banafrit would still be in bed, as would Caesarion. But Lydia would not leave without saying good-bye to these two.

At the thought of leaving Caesarion, her heart lurched against
her chest. No choice. She had no choice. If she stayed for his sake, she would share Andromeda’s fate and be no more good to him than if she ran.

How long did she have before Herod secured passage out of Alexandria? It must not have gone well for him after she left him with Cleopatra in his chamber last night. Sailors preferred to put out early. Would he wait until tomorrow, or did Cleopatra’s wrath burn as brightly toward him as it did toward Lydia herself?

In the room she shared with five other servant girls, now sleeping, Lydia quietly threw her belongings into a stained sack used for carrying clothes for washing in the basins near the kitchens. She had few items that concerned her—some spare tunics, a few tiny scrolls Samuel had given her during their lessons, which she put into the box with the others. A few tools and brushes for her pottery. Only a single mantle besides the one she’d left with Samuel, and this she would wear. She reached under her sleeping mat, to the carefully concealed pocket she’d sewn there, and found the pouch of money. Was it only last night she had tucked it away, worrying about Andromeda spilling her secret?

The money she placed under the scrolls, then positioned the box at the bottom of the sack under the rest, flung the mantle around her shoulders, and gave a glance of good-bye to the room.

It had been home for nearly eighteen years, and she would not miss it for a day. How could a person not belong in the only place she ever lived?

With the sack in stiff fingers, she slid from the room, toward the larger chamber off the kitchens that Banafrit’s status afforded her.

The woman’s snoring covered the sound of Lydia’s entrance, and she stood over Banafrit for several moments, letting the memories wash over her. She had never been what one might call
“mothering,” but at least Banafrit had given her a place here as a child and duties to occupy her time and make her useful. It had been a gift, though until this moment, Lydia had not felt truly grateful. She wished she could take Banafrit with her, but if Lydia stole her favorite cook, Cleopatra would certainly hunt her down.

She rested the sack on the floor beside Banafrit’s mat and dropped to her knees. “Banafrit.” She whispered the name and gently shook the large woman’s arm.

“Wh-what is it? Have they found her?” Banafrit shot up, clutched Lydia’s shoulder.

“No, no, shh.” Lydia smiled and took Banafrit’s hand in her own.

“Child, you’re alive.” Banafrit dragged her into an uncharacteristic embrace. “She had guards searching for you. I thought . . . I thought . . .”

No time to waste, then. Even if Herod’s hasty departure were not her only chance to provide for herself and fulfill Samuel’s instructions, staying in the palace was impossible.

Banafrit’s glance, misty and dark, shifted to the sack, then back to Lydia. “Where will you go?”

Lydia shook her head. “It is best if you can say you do not know. But I will be safe.”

“I have family in the city—”

“No, Banafrit. I am leaving Egypt.”

Another embrace, this one bringing fresh tears to Lydia. Were they not all spent over Samuel’s body? She would not tell the woman of Samuel. Let her learn of it later, when Lydia was gone.

“Send word if you can,” the older woman whispered.

Lydia nodded, though they both knew it was impossible.

“I must say good-bye to Caesarion.”

Banafrit gave her a sad smile and touched her cheek. They both knew how difficult the next good-bye would be.

“Watch over him for me, Banafrit. Find another to love him well.”

“I will. I promise.”

One more embrace and Lydia was gone, drifting through the quiet halls once more, to the narrow stairs at the back of the palace, then along the corridor to the nursery.

She took a great chance. Caesarion’s door was always protected at night, and if Cleopatra already had guards looking for her . . .

But as she hoped, it was Panhsj who stood sentry this morning. Panhsj, who always had a self-conscious smile and a nod for Lydia, who smiled at the honey cakes she secretly brought him as his duty ended each morning.

He had no smile for her today, only a look of alarm at her approach. “She—”

Lydia held up a hand. “I know. She is not inside, is she?”

He shook his head but glanced beyond Lydia to the empty hall, his jaw tight.

“I must go in, only for a few moments, Panhsj.”

He stepped aside at once, even opened the door for her. “Listen for my voice.” He pulled the door gently closed. “I will warn you if she comes.”

Dear Panhsj. Why did everyone suddenly seem so precious this morning?

She slipped to the boy’s bedside, watched his gentle breathing, the way his wavy light-brown hair fell across the cushions under his head.

For all Samuel’s teaching of his One God, she had never
offered a prayer to Him, but she prayed now, that his God would give her the strength to leave this boy she loved so dearly.

Yes, loved, and that was her failure.

“Caesarion.” As she had done with Banafrit, she bent over his prone form and touched his arm.

He blinked sleepy eyes and smiled at her, then closed his eyes again.

“Caesarion, you must wake up. I need to tell you a secret.”

At this, his eyes fluttered open. The boy loved games. “What secret, Lydia?”

She drew him into her arms, his body still warm and heavy with sleep. “I am going on a secret journey. But you must tell no one that I have left.”

He pulled away. “I want to come!”

“No, no, this journey is only for me. I need you to stay here and keep my secret safe. Can you do that?”

“When will you return?”

Like a blow to the chest, his question stole her breath.

“I . . . I am not sure, Caesarion. But it is time for you to have a tutor, perhaps. Someone who will teach you wonderful—”

“I don’t want a tutor!” His arms wrapped around her, hugging fiercely. “I want to go on a journey with you!”

She panted with the effort to stay strong, to stay upright and do what she must.

“I know. I know. But I will think of you often and you will think of me, and in that way we will still be together until I return.” Hollow, foolish words.

How had she let this happen? How had she let herself get so close? First Samuel, now the boy. Like the ripping of two limbs from her body, and she would never be whole again.

More tears, like a flood, like an anointing over the boy, and at her tears he seemed to sense the finality of the good-bye. His own eyes filled and his chin trembled. At his cries, a sob tore from her chest and she clutched him to herself.

Her body felt so heavy, so unbearably heavy, as if she were weighted to this time and place and this boy with iron chains.

She pulled away, tried to loosen the chains, but he clung to her, weeping.

“Lydia, no, no, no. Do not leave me.” His fingers tore at her clothes.

Just like Samuel. Just like the words she had screamed out to the old man as he lay dying. As he was taken from her, just as Caesarion now must be.

She was going to be sick. Her stomach roiled and rebelled, but she had not eaten in many hours.