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

  I blew out a breath. “How can you think so?”

  “We have some water,” she said, “though we have to work for it. And we can always eat birds, rats, insects. And rabbits, if we can catch one.”

  “You can eat rats and insects and rabbits,” I countered. “We cannot, for they are unclean.”

  “Why does HaShem forbid you to eat the food that is most plentiful in this place where you are starving?”

  I watched her pull another squeaking rat from the trap she had fashioned. “I don’t know.”

  I have to admit—sometimes my stomach growled in envy as I watched Kissa eat her roasted rats and grasshoppers. I would have eaten them too, if not for the Law and the dozens of watchful eyes around me.

  And we did have water, though the spring of Gihon was always crowded and difficult to reach due to the crowd. We could roast pigeons and other small birds, if we were fortunate enough to capture them.

  But we were not accustomed to working so hard for so little.

  Years later, when faced with decisions that would impact lives other than my own, I would remember our suffering in the days of the siege. During that time I learned how it feels to be hungry and thirsty. I learned about the frustration and anger of helplessness, and I saw how desperate people can easily set aside their most devoutly held beliefs in order to survive.

  One afternoon, while Kissa roasted a rat and observed the expression on my face, she silently offered me a mouthful and I ate it.

  Later I begged HaShem to forgive me for breaking His Law, and there too I learned a lesson: nothing could taste as good as being forgiven felt.

  On the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month, my mother announced that the day of Judgment had come. It was Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year, when HaShem sat on His throne and determined the destiny of each individual in the next twelve months.

  “May HaShem determine that I die in peace,” she murmured, closing her eyes as she lay beneath the wagon with me, Alena, and Kissa.

  “Do not say so,” Alena said and fanned herself with part of a palm branch. Now thin and sharp-featured, she looked nothing like the soft, pretty woman who had led us away from the high priest’s house. “HaShem may feed us with manna and water us with rain. Or John will relent and let us back into the city.”

  “Why should he relent now when we are nearly dead?” Mother glanced at Alena. “Be realistic, Alena. Do not encourage those with foolish hopes.”

  On the tenth day of Tishrei, the day of Yom Kippur, I wondered if our high priest was thinking of us as he entered the Holy of Holies. When he killed the goat and bull for the sacrifices, when he ate the priestly meal, did he think of his starving family outside the gate?

  “I think,” I said to Kissa, “my uncle must have a heart of stone.”

  She bit her lip, then moved closer. “I have heard a story,” she whispered, “and it concerns your uncle. It may help you understand him.”

  I moved closer, eager to hear. “What story?”

  Kissa shook her head. “Not here.”

  I nodded and made a turning motion. Kissa rolled out from under the wagon, and I crawled after her. Without a glance behind me, I followed her away from our group, desperate to hear what she could not share in front of the others.

  Kissa waited until we stood in the shadow of the city wall, far from any listening ears. “I have the story straight from the cook,” she said, lifting her chin as though I might challenge her. “She was traveling with your uncle’s men before he became high priest, so she was witness to all I am about to say.”

  I nodded, silently urging her to continue.

  “I shall put it in simple words,” she said. “She told me that for years the kings of other nations have wanted to kill the remaining Maccabees. You are a kinswoman of the Maccabees, are you not?”

  The question caught me off guard. I had never thought of myself as such, but would I be living with the high priest if I were not part of his family?

  I nodded again.

  “Well.” Kissa leaned closer. “After Mattathias and his sons made Israel an enemy to be feared, Jonathan and Simon led the country. Both of them conquered lands that used to be ruled by the Seleucids and the Ptolemies of Egypt. The kings of those nations vowed to destroy any remaining Maccabees—or, as they say now, any of the Hasmoneans.”

  “They wanted to kill my uncle?”

  “They wanted to kill him, his father, his brothers, and his children—if he had any. Last year, the Seleucids and Ptolemy, Simon’s son-in-law, conspired to kill him and his children, too. They murdered Simon and his two oldest sons, but your uncle escaped. The enemy kept Morit, Simon’s wife, and put her in prison.”

  “I have heard some of that story,” I whispered. “But I did not know about Uncle’s mother.”

  Kissa’s eyes went dark and grave. “Your uncle hurried back to Jerusalem, where the Sanhedrin proclaimed him high priest and ruler. They poured holy oil on his head, and the next thing he did was assemble an army and ride for the fortress where his mother was being held.” Kissa paused. “I am not sure I ought to tell you more. You are still so young.”

  I crossed my arms and strengthened my stance to show her I was not afraid. “If I am part of this family, I need to know what happened.”

  Kissa pressed her lips together, then drew a deep breath and nodded. “The fortress stood on a mountaintop, and your uncle’s army couldn’t reach it with arrows or catapults. John Hyrcanus ordered his men to climb the cliffs. But then Ptolemy brought out your uncle’s mother and began to”—she shook her head—“torture her. And though the woman cried out in agony, she called down to her son and begged him not to be moved by her screams. She told him to let her die, because death at the traitor’s hand was better than a long life, so long as her son avenged the wrongs that had been done to their family.”

  I felt sorrow like a huge, painful knot inside my chest. I did not know the people in this story, but I knew Uncle, and I had a mother. And I could not imagine what I would do if someone took my mother and hurt her, killing her little by little in front of me . . .

  I met Kissa’s troubled gaze.

  “Have I said too much?” she asked, her face grim. “I should not have told the story to one so young.”

  I looked away and swallowed hard. “I do not want to think about it,” I said. “Thinking about Uncle’s mother makes my chest hurt.”

  “Then I was wrong—”

  “You were not wrong. If this happened to my family, I ought to know about it. If it happened to my uncle, I need to understand. He is my guardian. Now, tell me—what happened after that?”

  Kissa hesitated, then continued. “Your uncle spent days at the foot of the mountain, listening to his mother scream. While he waited for a miracle, he received word that the Seleucid army, under Antiochus Sidetes, was marching toward Judea. He’d been caught in a trap much like this one. Sidetes meant to draw your uncle and his men out of the city so that Jerusalem could be captured.”

  I frowned. “But Jerusalem wasn’t captured.”

  “No.” Kissa’s eyes filled with tears. “Because your uncle left his mother to die alone. He led his army back to Jerusalem, placing duty before family. And that”—her voice lowered to a whisper—“is the sort of man your uncle is.”

  After hearing Kissa’s story, I understood why Uncle was allowing the old and the very young to die outside the gates of the Holy City. He was not unfeeling, but he placed the security of Jerusalem above everything else, including family obligations.

  As, I supposed, a ruler should.

  On the fifteenth day of Tishrei, the first day of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, we stirred as the gates of the city grumbled amid the clanking of chains. We sat up, unable to believe our eyes, as Judean soldiers rode out on horseback with a white flag of truce. We watched with hope in our hearts as the procession approached the enemy line, which parted so the emissaries from John Hyrcanus, our high priest, could speak to Sidetes.

&nb
sp; By the time the sun began to drop toward the west, the leaders had finished their talking and we were preparing to reenter Jerusalem. Not only were we allowed to return to our homes, but Sidetes, a pagan, sent several wagons ahead of us, each carrying a bull with gilded horns. A gift, he said, for our festival. Cups of gold and silver accompanied the wagons, each of them filled with spices for the sacrifice.

  “Who could know?” Mother asked aloud, “that an enemy could be pious toward HaShem?”

  We could see that the enemy forces had stopped battering our gates and launching stones at our walls. The Seleucids had called a halt to warfare and feasted to honor our festival.

  “This pagan is not like Antiochus Epiphanes,” Alena said as she slipped her arm around Mother’s shoulder. “That one killed a swine upon our altar and sprinkled pigs’ blood around the Temple. But this one—perhaps we should call him Antiochus the Pious.”

  A few moments after the delegation from Antiochus had passed into Jerusalem, dozens of carts came out of the city, those manned by soldiers and physicians who had been sent to provide help for the weak and dying. They offered water and shade to those in the worst condition and took them straightway back into the city.

  The household of John Hyrcanus had suffered like the others, but we had been more fortunate than most, because we had enjoyed an abundance of food and comfort before the siege began. As we joined the flood of people reentering the city, I looked around and spotted Uncle standing on a watchtower. He wore a look of grim satisfaction, and he was not alone. With him were the three men I had met at his banquet—the three he had sent to Rome.

  Not until years later did I learn that those men had returned with a letter from the Roman Senate, a letter intended to remind the Seleucid king of Rome’s alliance and friendship with the Jewish people. That reminder was enough to convince Sidetes that peace would be a far better choice than continued war, which would eventually involve sending the Roman military to Judea.

  Yet the war did not end with the Sukkot celebration. The Roman proclamation vanquished Sidetes’s dreams of conquering Judea, yet the antagonist was determined to appear victorious. He and my uncle spent several days negotiating a peace.

  Antiochus Sidetes asked for the return of the port city of Joppa and other towns Simon had captured from Seleucia, and the placement of a Seleucid garrison in Jerusalem. My uncle refused to allow the garrison. Instead, he offered three hundred hostages and five hundred talents. Sidetes accepted, but countered with a demand for the demolition of Jerusalem’s walls, a treaty of military alliance, and a payment of tribute.

  My uncle accepted the Seleucid king’s offer but found himself impoverished. After debating the matter, he decided he had no choice and ordered his men to plunder King David’s tomb. Though this sacrilege greatly disturbed the citizens of Jerusalem, it was a small price to pay for ending the war. Furthermore, my uncle recovered more than enough treasure to pay Sidetes’s tribute and hire a mercenary army to protect Jerusalem in the future.

  The priestly warriors of my family had become leaders through bloodshed, and Uncle must have known that bloodshed would continue to be a necessary and regrettable part of his life.

  But as Kissa and I climbed the stone staircase to return to my comfortable and much-missed bedchamber, I knew only that we had been hungry and thirsty, that people around us had died, and Sukkot would always be the happiest of holy days for me.

  And as I climbed into my bed after a bath and a light supper, I realized I had learned one other thing: that no man who led a nation could win without also suffering losses.

  Chapter Eleven

  Shelamzion

  The next year finally brought peace and safety to Jerusalem. For the most part, John Hyrcanus remained at home with his wife, and I admired her more than ever. To me, Alena was the most beautiful, intelligent, and capable woman alive. Uncle did more than love her—he respected her and frequently asked her opinion about how to handle situations that arose with foreign dignitaries. It was unlikely, however, that he sought her guidance on matters dealing with the Temple. And while members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Sadducees, were more than willing to share their learned opinions, many times at dinner Uncle would ask Alena for advice on how to handle the quarrelsome merchants of Jerusalem, the disgruntled envoy from Egypt, and unruly Samaritan traders.

  My mother did not seem to think much of Alena during the siege, but in the end, Alena was proved right—Uncle did open the doors and let us return once he knew Jerusalem would be safe. So while I did my best to honor my mother as the Torah commanded, when Kissa began to bleed, I took her to Alena for an explanation. There we received instruction on what happens to a girl when she becomes old enough to consider marriage and her future children.

  “You may have noticed that sometimes I am not at dinner or present in other rooms of the palace,” she said. “That is because once a woman begins to bleed, for the next seven days she should remain in her room lest she defile the house. Neither can she go to the Temple but should remain in one place, with her own bed and her own chair. These are the laws of niddah.”

  My head swarmed with questions, then one escaped: “Why?”

  Alena laughed softly. “Because the Torah tells us that life is in the blood. Blood is sacred, not to be treated as if it were of no importance. Blood is what must be shed to atone for our sins. Blood is what the high priest carries into the Holy of Holies and sprinkles on the altar. So as long as a woman is bleeding, she should be thoughtful enough to confine her bleeding to one place so that others in the house are not made unclean, as well.”

  Alena had changed over the past months, her belly swelling like a ripe apple beneath her tunic. When I asked what had happened to her, she smiled and told me she was expecting a child.

  “One day this bleeding will happen to you, Shelamzion,” Alena said, dropping her hand to my shoulder. “And when it does, we will find you a suitable husband so you can have children, too. The high priest has already given much thought to your future.”

  I frowned, unable to imagine how any future could be better than the life I enjoyed at the high priest’s house. I had Alena to admire, Kissa for companionship, and freedom to roam and explore.

  Alena’s hand rose to my cheek. “One day you will be an important woman, Salome Alexandra. You are a Hasmonean. Because your ancestors are greatly respected and highly honored, people will expect great things from you.” She paused and smiled. “I think the time has come for you to have a tutor.”

  I blinked. Sons had tutors, not daughters. Sons learned at their fathers’ knees and then went to school to study Torah. When they were old enough, they were apprenticed to a trade. But I had never heard of a girl being taught anything other than how to cook, sew, weave, and keep a house.

  “Yes, a tutor,” Alena repeated, as if reassuring herself. “I will ask my husband tonight, and we will find the perfect teacher for you.”

  “What will I learn? I already know how to grind wheat and fetch water—”

  Alena laughed. “You will learn far more important things than that, dear one. You will learn how to speak proper Greek, how to add numbers, and how to identify the stars in the sky. You know how to read, but you must learn how to write. You will also learn how to buy and sell, and how to conduct business for a household.”

  I looked at Kissa in bewilderment. “My head is not big enough to contain all that knowledge.”

  Alena brought her fingertips to my chin and turned my face toward hers. “Your head is more than big enough. You are a bright girl, Shelamzion, and you will do well. Never doubt it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kissa

  Though I was no Jew, and though they did not stop me from eating what I pleased during the siege, Alena insisted that when I was a niddah, or unclean, I would have to remain in one place. Fortunately, Shelamzion was kind enough to insist that I pass my seven days in her room, on the mattress where I slept. Since touching anything I touched made her unclean
as well, she insisted that we be unclean together.

  I did not mind. Only one thing concerned me during those days: when we went to see Alena about my bleeding, she had hugged Shelamzion and promised that one day they would find her a husband, but she did not say the same thing to me.

  I knew why, of course. Slaves were property, and while I saw several who had clearly formed an attachment to another, slaves did not officially marry unless their master first freed them. So I would not marry, and given that I spent most of my hours with my mistress, neither was I likely to find a match among the other slaves.

  Since I had never known love, save that of my parents, I was not greatly troubled by this realization. Still, I considered it when I compared my life to my mistress’s. Like me, she had lost her father, and though she still had a mother, Sipporah remained so aloof from her daughter that I barely counted her as a loving influence. Both my mistress and I benefited from life in the high priest’s palace, and Shelamzion shared so freely with me that I could not be jealous of her.

  When I was bleeding, Alena had one of the servants deliver our food on a tray and leave it at the door, and for one week out of every four my mistress and I were free to avoid work and laze about in our bedchamber. During those restful weeks we talked, laughed, and told each other stories, some true, some invented.

  I told her about growing up in Egypt. About how our king and queen were not really Egyptian, but Greek, and how they lived in Alexandria, a city less Egyptian than any other in the kingdom. I told her about our gods and goddesses and about the legends associated with each. I told her about the stone statues of our gods and how some of them would travel by boat up and down the Nile, visiting the farming villages each year. About how the priests would clothe the idols of the gods on special occasions, and about how the idols were fed sumptuous meals three times a day—delicious dinners no one else could touch because they had been dedicated to the god.