Jerusalem's Queen--A Novel of Salome Alexandra Read online

  She hiccupped again. “Yes.”

  “Then what is your desire, miss?”

  I heard nothing but pebbly sounds from a wagon in the courtyard. Then Shelamzion shifted to face me. “I want to have two babies and love them both the same.”

  I laughed. “That is not a secret—you have said that many times.”

  “Then I want . . . to matter. To be important to someone. Maybe lots of someones.”

  “You are important to your mother.”

  I heard the brush of her hair against her tunic as she shook her head. “Not really.”

  “You are important to your uncle. He brought you here, didn’t he?”

  “He barely knows me, so how could I matter to him?”

  I pulled away from her. “I do not know what you are talking about, but if you wish it, then may it be so.” I slid off her bed and landed on my pallet. “All right then. You are talking nonsense, so I am going to sleep. Good night, little mistress.”

  “Good night.” I heard the rustle of her blanket as she lay back down, and the sound filled me with peace. What an odd child she was! Perhaps it came from being born into a family of priests.

  But no matter. Her little game had worked—we were no longer thinking about war and danger, and we were both ready to sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Shelamzion

  War is hard for everyone, but it is particularly hard on mothers, children, and animals. Even those of us in the high priest’s palace suffered as Jerusalem entered a time of starvation. We had more food than most families, but we also had more mouths to feed: animals, servants, guards, and family members.

  Antiochus Sidetes and his men surrounded Jerusalem completely, establishing seven different camps. The pagan king ordered some of his soldiers to dig a deep trench around the city while others built siege towers, each as tall as three houses stacked atop one another. Groups of soldiers dragged heavy battering rams to the entrances to the city, where they pounded on our gates for hours. “Oh, my aching head,” Mother cried nearly every afternoon. “It throbs with every thump of those battering rams!”

  Though Uncle had made sure our home was provided for, we did not eat as well as we had before the siege. Servants brought us fewer foods, and we ate smaller portions. Mother told me that outside the city, our enemy feasted on grains, vegetables, fruits, and animals stolen from the fields of Judea. Inside the city, people scrambled for bread and shriveled fruit that before the siege would have been fit only for animals.

  If not for Kissa, I would have been unaware of how the ordinary people were faring. Every day she spent time with the other slaves, who frequently ventured out and told her what things were like outside our gates. She shared this news with me, though I suspected she spared me the worst reports.

  “The elderly and the very young are dying,” she told me one afternoon. “They are unable to search for food, so they grow sick and die. They say the streets are crowded with carts carrying the bodies of old people and children.”

  I gasped. “Where do they take them?”

  Kissa blew out her cheeks. “To burial grounds outside the city walls.”

  “But the enemy is outside the wall!”

  She shook her head. “The enemy is not that close or our soldiers would be able to drop stones on their heads or kill them with spears. The enemy remains far enough away that we cannot harass them.”

  But we were doing our best to bedevil the enemy. One night at dinner Alena told us that Uncle was sending out raiding parties in the dead of night. His raiders had one objective: destroy the wooden towers and battering rams. “John told them to inflict as much damage as they could,” she said. “And they are doing their best.”

  Those reports cheered us, but burned and broken catapults could not ease our hunger and thirst. We ran short on food and water, and the heat sapped our remaining strength. A haunting silence replaced the happy gurgle of the huge fountain in the courtyard. Kissa and I did not spend our days playing or exploring, but instead lay side by side on the tile floor in Mother’s house, seeking coolness wherever we could find it.

  One afternoon in late summer, a dark cloud blew in and blocked the sun. Wondering if this might be some sort of sign, I went out to the courtyard with Kissa. We stood with lifted gazes until lightning cracked the clouds and thunder answered. A sudden downpour dropped from heaven, drenching us and making water dance in the tiled fountain. We twirled in the rain, and I looked up to see Alena smiling at us from her open window.

  “See?” I told Kissa. I opened my mouth to catch raindrops on my tongue. As water ran down my cheeks, I grinned at her. “I told you HaShem answers our prayers!” Though the rain was a welcome respite, the siege continued on.

  We did not see Uncle often during those days, but he did come home to visit his wife. Another afternoon at the end of summer, Kissa and I heard angry voices from an open window. I shuddered at the sound, because any sort of arguing made me uneasy.

  “The master is angry,” Kissa said, stating the obvious.

  “Alena is upset, too,” I added. “What could he have done to displease her so?”

  We learned the answer the next day. Mother came into the house, her face flushed and her brows lowered.

  “What’s wrong, Ima?”

  “We have to leave.” Her wide eyes met mine. “Your uncle has issued an order: in ten days, anyone in the city who is not a soldier must go. Anyone who is not . . . useful.”

  I stared at her, unable to believe what I was hearing. “But we are his family. Why would he make us leave?”

  Mother released a bitter laugh. “He is not making us leave. Alena says we must go. She insists that if other women and children have to leave their homes, then she will go, too. She is already packing a wagon.”

  I looked at Kissa, who had squinched her face into an expression of horror.

  Mother looked angry enough to beat Alena with a switch. “Where will we go?” I asked.

  “Back to Modein,” she said, walking toward her room. “And we are never coming back here.”

  With John Hyrcanus and his commanders safely sequestered in the Baris fortress, Alena led the members of the high priest’s household through the palace gates and onto the street. Though she could have ignored the plight of the common people, she draped her himation over her hair and ventured out on foot, leading the way for the rest of us.

  As I followed, I couldn’t decide whether or not I still admired her.

  I could not see the point in leaving a safe, comfortable place simply to be like almost everyone else in Jerusalem. To further complicate matters, Mother seemed set on going back to Modein, where people ate on the floor instead of a proper dining couch. I did not like Alena for making us leave the palace, but I disliked Mother’s idea of Modein even more.

  Mother clung to my hand and wept as she walked. Beside me, Kissa carried a basket of dried meat and bread. On her head she wore a turban that could suffice if we needed a blanket. Behind us, Alena’s servants led an ox-drawn wagon and stepped gingerly through the rutted streets, visibly shying away from travelers in soiled garments or with open sores.

  “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I heard Alena tell a woman who walked near her. “Once we get out into the country, we can glean the fields and orchards. We might even find a stray lamb or calf.”

  “If we need meat, we’ll butcher your ox,” the woman said, eyeing the animal and the wagon. “Because you can’t possibly believe the enemy left any livestock for us. As for crops, the harvest ended weeks ago, so anything still in the field has been rotted by the rain.”

  My uncle’s edict had tossed the wealthy, poor, old, and young alike into the streets. The clamoring, complaining throng passed through the gates of Jerusalem and spilled into the open area between the walls of Jerusalem and the Seleucid army. By the time the sun stood directly above our group, we were within sight of the enemy camps and the line of warriors defending them.

  I tugged on Mother’s sleeve. “Will
they let us pass? Will they make a way for us to move through?”

  Mother didn’t answer, but Alena did. “Of course they will,” she said, tossing me a confident smile. “Only a little while and we will be past the army and on the open road. Then we will be fine.”

  “Perhaps we can find an inn,” Mother suggested, her tone cool. “Or you could come with us to Modein, if you think you can walk that far.”

  As my young head filled with images of sleeping under a cozy blanket in our old house, I realized we were barely moving. Finally we halted.

  “Why did we stop?” Kissa whispered.

  Murmurs rippled through the crowd like a snake. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, growing increasingly uncomfortable in the heat and the press of so many bodies. At last I sank to the ground, choosing to risk being trampled rather than continue standing in the oppressive heat.

  Then the answer came to us in a wave of anguished shouts. They will not let us pass.

  “Wh-what?” Mother stammered in surprised horror.

  “How dare they!” Alena lifted her chin. “How can they keep us here, trapped like cattle? We are not animals.”

  “They mean to starve us,” Mother said, her voice strangely flat. “The enemy will not let us pass because they mean to pressure the high priest. When we begin to die, he will have to surrender.”

  Alena shook her head, but what could she say? We were caught like wasps in a web, each of us pressed against her neighbor. The longer we waited, the more people poured out of the city and into what had become a corral for us all. We could move neither forward nor backward.

  “Whatever made you think they would let us through?” Mother asked Alena, her voice sharp with scorn.

  Alena peered toward the enemy lines, her face a study in frustration and fear. “We are not soldiers,” she said. “We are women, children, and old men.”

  “Bah!” Mother lifted her hand as if she would smack our benefactor’s wife, but then she moved closer to the wagon and crossed her arms.

  I lay down on the earth, wedging my shoulders between Mother’s legs and a stranger’s. But when Mother shifted, she stepped on my shoulder. “Shelamzion!” she snapped, glaring down at me. “Get to your feet this instant.”

  “But I’m tired.”

  “We’re all tired. Still, we’re going to stand here until someone has mercy and lets us move forward.”

  Grumbling, I pulled myself upright, then let my forehead drop to Kissa’s shoulder. She bore the extra weight without complaint, but from the look in her eyes I could tell she wasn’t happy, either.

  Especially not with me.

  Chapter Nine

  Kissa

  I knew it would happen—I only wondered about when and how, and if people would start fighting in the midst of it.

  Fortunately, Alena did not resist when a group of men approached our wagon and eyed the ox. I think the poor animal had been even more miserable in the heat than we were, and he could not forage with so many people about. Alena had been keeping her eye on the beast, and I was certain she regretted bringing the animal out of the city. But who could have foretold that we would be trapped like flies in a bottle?

  I think Alena was relieved when the men asked for the ox. She agreed to hand him over, and they cut the poor creature’s throat immediately after freeing him from the harness. As hot blood steamed on the sand, one of the men took charge and slit the animal from chest to tail, then pulled out the stomach bag and other parts. As Shelamzion squealed and hid her eyes, I observed quietly. This was no worse than what I had seen many times when I went to Egyptian temples with my parents.

  After gutting the animal and leaving the entrails for the buzzards, the butcher began to hack off pieces of meat and give them to eager groups of people. Right away I could see that the process was unfair. For those at the front of the line received generous portions, while those coming from a greater distance would receive little. But at least some of us would eat.

  As for Alena, she received a large hunk of meat from the flank, which she quickly wrapped in cloth and hid under a blanket. “For later,” she said, glancing at Shelamzion’s mother. “Once the crowd has dispersed.”

  I looked at the cloudless sky, where the sun shimmered in a wide bowl of blue. The Jews were highly religious, as were most Egyptians, but their devotion to one God only seemed irrational to me. When things were bad, as they were now, who could you blame? In Egypt, if one god disappointed, you could always appeal to another, or go to yet another for help. But with the Jews, all things, good and bad, came from the hand of HaShem, and they had no other source of aid.

  I considered my mistress, who lay faceup beneath the wagon, staring at the rough boards above her. She must have felt the pressure of my gaze, for after a moment she turned and looked at me. “What?”

  I inclined my head toward an open area some distance away. Understanding, she crawled out from under the wagon and walked with me.

  When Alena or other adults were nearby, I rarely spoke, for slaves were supposed to serve, not converse. Though Shelamzion and I had talked freely since our first day together, we had learned to keep our conversations private.

  Once we were far enough away that the others could not hear us, I said to her, “What I want to know is why you are not furious with your HaShem.”

  Shock flickered over my young mistress’s face. “Why would I be furious?”

  “Don’t you pray every day?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t you ask your God to keep you safe?”

  Another nod.

  “Then why isn’t he answering your prayers?”

  She ran a hand through her damp hair and sat down, radiating puzzlement. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment.

  “Don’t any of your people get angry with your God?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you have to do to convince him to act on your behalf? In Egypt, we give our gods sacrifices. What do you give yours?”

  “We give sacrifices, too,” she replied, her voice small and uncertain. “And sometimes we do other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . we obey Him. That pleases Him.”

  I crossed my arms. “I don’t understand your HaShem. And if he keeps us out here much longer, I don’t think I want to.”

  Shelamzion didn’t respond but instead propped her chin on her hand and looked at me as if I were a puzzle she needed to figure out. I sat with her, glad that we weren’t sitting under the wagon in a puddle of ox blood.

  “I don’t know the answers,” Shelamzion finally said, “but I will find the answers and explain everything to you. My father said all the answers can be found in the Torah.”

  Having spent my ire, I lifted my gaze to the heavens. “When you have solved all the mysteries of the universe, come to me and explain all.”

  “I will,” she said, assuming a pose of mock solemnity. “If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the next day. And if not that day, then the day after that—”

  “Enough.” I playfully swatted her shoulder. “I suppose it is enough that you are willing to listen to my questions.”

  Chapter Ten

  Shelamzion

  And so began a season of suffering unlike anything I had ever experienced. Years later I would dream of that horrific event—of sliding through the crowd of those evicted from Jerusalem, searching for a morsel of bread, a green leaf, a puddle at the base of a rock. In my dreams I am thin and weak and my skin is so burned I cannot stand to touch or be touched. My mother, Alena, Kissa, Gaia, and the other servants have made a rough camp by the side of the road, and we are all starving. Alena tries to console me by saying that at least we are aiding the high priest in his effort to save our Holy City, but what good is a city if all of its citizens are dead?

  Our wagonload of supplies, meant to feed us for at least a week, lasted only an hour. The trouble began when Kissa opened her basket and gave me a piece of dried
beef. Almost at once we were surrounded by grasping hands and open mouths. Kissa tried to turn and hide, but Alena commanded her to share what she had brought. When Kissa’s basket had emptied, Alena instructed her servants to unload the wagon, so that everyone in the vicinity could receive a cup of water and a handful of food.

  Confident that the stalemate would end in a few hours, Alena climbed onto her wagon and waited beneath a curtain Gaia had stretched over her head.

  But it did not end. And the men came for the ox, which might have fed us for a long time.

  I tried not to complain as the days stretched on, for everyone suffered alike—master and slave, adult and child, Jew and Gentile. We were caught between two armies and completely without supplies. Hunger and thirst waited for us like patient birds of prey, ready to swoop down and take the weakest among us. Most of the time we were so depleted we could not even spit. Our tongues stuck to the roofs of our mouths, and speech became difficult. Our lips cracked, and our voices, when we could use them at all, were hoarse and brittle.

  Sleep, when it came, brought nothing but nightmares. I dreamed of my father lying dead on the ground and saw Ketura’s lifeless eyes staring at me from a purpled, mangled face. “I was the pretty one,” she said, her voice breaking in a rattling gurgle. “I was the one who would bring honor to the family.”

  I was not the only one who suffered from nightmares. Kissa cried out in her sleep, and when I woke her and asked what she dreamed of, she would not look at me.

  “I was marching with the slave caravan again,” she whispered. “You cannot know what it was like. I was stumbling forward, my eyes glazed over, my ears filled with wind. My feet cracked and bled. Sand blew into my nose and ears, scraped the skin of my feet, and irritated the flesh beneath my tunic.” She offered a small smile. “Compared to that, this is not so bad.”