She was shaking now, with rage and something worse: fear. But she would not surrender so easily. She pulled him to herself, to the other side of the room, toward the bed surrounded by tightly woven tapestries and piled high with cushions. “Come, Herod, you know there is more at stake. I have Antony’s allegiance, and you would do well to make me your friend—”
Herod yanked her to his chest, his breath hot on her neck.
She could feel the pounding of both their hearts between them.
He inclined his head toward the bed. “And what allegiance of Antony’s would I have, should I take his place there?”
She tangled both hands in his wavy hair and pulled his mouth to hers. No man had ever refused her, and this grasping governor of an uncivilized province would not be the first.
He returned her kiss, but his was a kiss of anger, of hatred, of punishment. He wrenched her hands from his head, then pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I will give you ships for Rome”—she was grasping now, and hated herself for it—“you can enjoy the winter here in Alexandria—it is no time for sailing—and in the spring Antony will hear only good reports—”
“Stop!” His chest was heaving, but not from anger nor repressed
desire. No, he was laughing. Laughing! “Antony will hear reports, yes. But they will not be pleasant to his ears.”
He mocked her? He dared to mock the Queen of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt?
His refusal was like a plunge into the cold harbor waters, and it left her pulsing with fury. In this very room she had seduced Gaius Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in Rome. And this upstart Idumean who could not even gain the kingship of a tiny province would laugh at her?
She grabbed the nearest thing, a gracefully painted pot—one of that worthless Lydia’s creations—and heaved it at his head with a curse.
He dodged it easily and the pot smashed on the floor.
The guards were through the door in an instant.
“Ah yes, good.” Herod waved them in. “Please see the queen safely back to her chambers. We have nothing more to discuss.”
She resisted the urge to spit upon him as she passed. It would only make her seem weak. Instead, she stalked down the hall with his guards trailing.
No, she would find better ways to punish Herod. He could not be allowed to go to Rome with his poisonous words for Antony. She had seen already how Rome reacted to her alliance with Caesar. She could afford no ill will there. She must destroy him.
Inside her own chamber, she slammed the door on his guards and collapsed against it.
It would be a delicate business to destroy one of Antony’s closest friends without incurring her lover’s wrath.
But she had not ruled Egypt alone for nearly twelve years without learning how to make convenient deaths appear as accidents.
L
ydia pulled her mantle tighter around her shoulders. The weight of the woolen fabric she had chosen from the merchant who brought his goods directly to the palace served her well on cool nights, but even its heavy warmth could not calm her shaking chills.
Plunged into the dark labyrinth of the city streets, instead of watching it from a balcony above, one lost the perspective of all roads leading to distant places and the awe of grand old marble buildings. Here there was nothing but the stink of garbage and waste, the nighttime rattling of beggars searching for food in alleys, and stray cats prowling docks for the leavings of fishermen.
Why had Samuel not waited for her at the palace after they had been interrupted a second time? But she had searched and questioned, and no one had seen him. Now she scuttled through empty streets, away from the palace looming at her back, toward the nearby Delta—one of the five sectors of the city and the one dominated by Jewish people.
Samuel lived above a weaver’s shop, but its shutters were closed to traffic at this late hour. She had been here many times, learning pottery at the hands of Samuel’s wife. Until Abigail was taken from her, as those Lydia loved tended to be. Someday she would have a home of her own, and she would make it as lovely and inviting for those who belonged to her as Abigail had. But tonight, no lamplight glowed from the window above the weaver’s shop.
Lydia paused in the street, eyeing Samuel’s windows. If not here, then where? Would he be asleep when he had seemed so intent on speaking with her?
Another chill, this one full of evil omens, shuddered through her. She took the outer staircase to the second level, knocked only once while calling his name, and entered.
Moonlight filtered through the open window and fell upon a room in disarray.
She had taken her lessons in the palace of late. Had he let his possessions come to this?
A low moan at her right startled her.
“Thanks be to HaShem, He has brought you in time.”
“Samuel?”
“The lamp—in the back room.”
She dodged the obstacles strewn across the floor to reach the small doorway at the back of the room, where a faint light signaled a lamp still burning. She found the lamp on the floor, quickly trimmed the wick, and refilled its oil from a tiny jug, then hurried back to the front.
Samuel lay on his side, on a mat near the wall, half curled into himself.
“You are hurt!” She ran to tend him but tripped over a fallen
chair. A broken spindle scraped her leg as she fell. She cried out and braced a hand against the floor to protect the lamp. Her hand fell upon something soft, and she rolled, still holding the lamp aloft.
A man! She gasped in horror and pulled backward, waving the lamp over the prone form.
“He is dead.” Samuel’s voice was a croak from the mat. “I killed him.”
“Samuel! What has happened here?”
“They found me. I found it, but somehow, so soon, they found me.”
More cryptic words. She crawled to his side, set the lamp at his head, and examined him with a frantic eye. “Where are you hurt? Tell me what he has done to you.”
“Not this one. I got to him first. There was another.”
The mat on which Samuel lay had been ripped open. A jagged tear or perhaps a knife cut rent it from top to bottom, and the straw that spilled from it was stained red.
“You are bleeding!” She rolled him gently to his back and gasped at the wound. A gash through his tunic, across his chest, and down to his belly.
“He must have thought I kept it hidden under here.” Samuel coughed, then moaned with the pain. “He searched everywhere else.”
“Don’t speak. I must get something to bind the wound—”
He caught her arm before she moved to search. “You must listen, Lydia. It can wait no longer.”
“It can wait until we have stopped the bleeding and found a physician!”
“No.” His grip on her arm was strong, given his condition. He would bleed faster if she wrestled with him.
“Say it then, Samuel. Say what you must and then let me help you.”
“I . . . I have been training you these years with a purpose, Lydia.”
He wheezed with the effort, and she sat beside him, stroked the tousled hair from his forehead. A bit of blood specked his white beard and brought tears to her eyes.
“I have learned much from you, Samuel, and been grateful for all you have taught—”
“Yes, you have been a good student. But I have not taught you everything. You know the writings of the Prophets?”
She nodded. His people’s prophets had been largely misunderstood and tormented in their time, but their writings were sacred and she had learned of them.
“There is a group, for many generations, who have guarded a secret. Scrolls of the prophet Daniel, not to be opened until the fullness of time.”
She knitted her brows. She knew of no such writings. “Where are these scrolls?”
He gave his head a slight shake. “First, you must understand that what is written is sealed until that time, and we must only do our duty to keep it guarded, to keep it ready.”
“We?”
“This group—in the days of Daniel, in Babylon after the Medes and Persians came—a sect whom Daniel trained in the ways of the One God. To these he entrusted the sealed writings. Their descendants kept the scrolls hidden, guarded, cherished. Waiting. My grandfather was one of these, the Chakkiym.”
“Kahk—?”
He nodded. “Say ‘Kahk-keem.’ Yes. Aramaic. It was my
grandfather and his fellow Chakkiym who lost the scrolls, to their great devastation. Each of them was assigned a different part of the world, a different path to follow, to hunt for the stolen scrolls.”
He paused, breathing hard. A trembling hand fluttered near the wound, as if he wished to press away the pain.
Lydia’s heart pounded and she searched nearby for something to bind his chest.
But he was not finished. “Should any of them succeed in finding the scrolls, they had instructions on how to return them to the Chakkiym in Persia. My grandfather was sent here, to Alexandria, to search. At his death he passed his duty to my father, who passed it to me.”
“I do not understand, Samuel. What is it that these scrolls say?” A basket of clothing had been upended in the corner, but his grip on her hand did not allow her to retrieve anything there to wrap around his wound.
“We do not know. Only Daniel knew. And the angel who gave him the words to write—and instructed him to seal them. And the Holy One.” His words were growing more labored. “We only know the writings shall become vital at the end of days when Messiah will rise. Must be kept safe until then. A task in which we failed.”
“Is this why you were attacked? Someone was looking for the scrolls? Here?”
He gripped her hand in a spasm of pain.
“Please, Samuel. Allow me to find a physician! I fear—”
His hand clenched around hers with greater strength. “You cannot leave me without hearing it all. And he may return.”
“Speak quickly then, friend, I beg you.” Her tears were flowing now, and she pulled the mantle from her shoulders and began
to wrap it around his chest and belly, lifting his arms and rolling him as he spoke.
“No son to take up my duties. Trained many boys over the years, but none gained my confidence. The Holy One did not give me ease about any of them. Only you. You who cause everyone to rely upon you even as you refuse to need anyone yourself. Only about you did He say, ‘This one, Samuel ben Eliezar. This is the one.’ So you see, it is your destiny.”
A shudder ran through Lydia. “You want me to find the scrolls?”
“No, Lydia. I want you to return them to the Chakkiym.”
Her skin prickled. Samuel’s hand shook within hers.
“You have found them?”
He closed his eyes, a slow smile softening his features.
“Samuel! Stay with me. You have found the scrolls? Where?” She finished her binding and tucked the end of her mantle securely.
“If I live to see dawn you shall have that story. But now is the time to speak of what is next. You must know there are enemies. I sent Isaac—you remember Isaac from the synagogue? Sent him to Jerusalem, to look for the one who was to be waiting.” He paused for breath.
She held her tongue. It was useless to beg him to let her go. Better to let him finish his tale.
“All of us, all the ones spread across the world to search, we knew that if we should find the scrolls, there would always be a man in Jerusalem waiting. Waiting on the steps of the Temple, on the day of Yom HaKippurim, wearing a red-striped tallit with red and blue corded tassels. Say it after me, Lydia. Say how you will know him.”
It was unreal, what he was asking of her, but she repeated the
words to keep his story flowing. “On the steps of the Temple on Yom HaKippurim, red-striped tallit.”
“Red and blue—”
“With red and blue corded tassels.”
“So many generations had passed. How to be certain the charge had been passed down in Jerusalem as well? I sent Isaac. Not with the scrolls. Only with questions.”
“And what did he find?”
Samuel closed his eyes again, this time with a look of pain. “He did not return. Only these”—he jutted his chin toward the dead body behind her—“only these have come. If Isaac found the one waiting at the Temple, he must have also found our enemies.”
“Is that all of your story? May I go for the physician now?”
“Lydia! I must be certain you understand how important this is. How important
you
are.” He somehow found the strength to roll to his side and prop himself on an elbow to draw his face closer to hers. He cradled her cheek with his palm. “You will hold the sealed scrolls in your hand, and their destiny is your destiny. You have been chosen and marked for this purpose. Lydia, the battle will be physical”—he put a hand to his wound—“but spiritual as well. Powers of darkness will come against you, desperate to thwart the coming of the Messiah. But I promise you will be protected.”
The declaration seemed to cost him strength. He fell back onto the ripped mat and blood-soaked straw with a gasp.
Tears clouded Lydia’s eyes and she held his hand as it slipped from her cheek and kissed the palm. She could not lose him, not Samuel.
She bent to kiss his forehead. “Tell me what I need to know, then,” she whispered.
“Back there.” Only his eyes moved in the direction of the back
of the room. “Under the large amphora that lies broken in the corner. There is a box under the floorboard. Bring it.”
She scrambled to her feet and hurried to the corner. A chink between boards was the only hint that something might be secreted beneath. She used a shard of the broken pottery to pry the board loose. It splintered and popped, and she reached a hand into the dark alcove and felt her fingers brush the top of a dusty box, narrow and long as her forearm. A moment later she was at Samuel’s side.
“Open it.” His voice was weakening. There was little time left. “Tell no one, Lydia. You understand? You must never tell anyone what you hold.”
Inside lay three wax-sealed scrolls of deerskin, their edges crumbling but otherwise intact. She lifted them carefully and nodded to Samuel. Underneath was a necklace—an engraved pendant on a finely wrought gold chain. She set the scrolls aside, took up the necklace with one finger, and held it to the lamplight. “What is this, Samuel?”