Thorns of Glory, page 35
She was practically breathless. “Please, mistress! Don’t hurt—”
A pair of Salomé’s white-robed henchmen arrived on the scene. They’d overheard my outburst and reflexively entered to defend the Princess, unaware that she’d already slipped away through another exit. Seeing only me and Gessica, their stances eased.
I unleashed my rage at them. “What is happening?!”
“Forgive us, Your Highness. We heard your voice—”
I grimaced, then became more enraged. “I am nobody’s ‘Highness!’ Where is the Princess?”
The eunuchs crinkled their eyebrows and glanced at one another. It hit me. Oh my! They thought I was her!
“I am not Salomé! I demand to know where the Princess has disappeared.”
Their puzzlement intensified. The larger one muttered, “Your Highness, we—”
I turned to Gessica. “Tell them I am not Salomé! Tell them!”
She looked as uncertain as the bodyguards, then stuttered, “Sh-she—”
I’d had quite enough. I stormed through the same doorway where Salomé had disappeared through, presumably into the most private of private chambers of the Princess and other royalty.
Nobody stopped me. The eunuchs—er, henchmen—seemed to interpret my tantrum as classic behavior of their notoriously tempestuous princess. When Salomé, daughter of the Queen, was in the throes of a tantrum, she was clearly dangerous. They were terrified of her—everyone!—as if a single unfavorable word from her lips could provoke dismissal or torture. Possibly execution!
I proceeded without fear. Maybe I should have felt trepidation. Caution might have been wiser. I should have grasped that such recklessness might cost me my freedom—my life!
I did not reach Salomé’s bedchamber. Nor anyone else’s private quarters. As I rounded a corner, I collided with the chest of the elderly clerk from the antechamber of the Queen’s throne room. Old Saul? Wasn’t that what Salomé had called him? I looked up. When we’d first met, he’d been scrunched behind a table. Old Saul was taller than I’d imagined, towering a full hand above me, which for Jerusalemites was unusual.
He studied me a moment, cocking an eyebrow as if admiring my royal transformation. Old Saul was not fooled. I suspected someone had forewarned him. He pronounced my name awkwardly.
“Ham-eera. Isn’t that your name?”
My indignation redoubled. “Where is Salomé? I cannot find my things!”
“To what ‘things’ are you referring?”
“My . . . my things! My clothing. My belt!”
He shook his head. “I do not know the answer to that. I have been asked to escort you to the feast.”
“Why? I mean why you? Where is—?”
“The Princess will join us by-and-by.”
Seconds later Old Saul was flanked by four eunuch/henchmen/bodyguards. Unlike the two white-cloaked men I’d confronted a moment ago, I recognized several of these as the very same henchmen who’d escorted Salomé and me through the palace halls. In other words, these men knew I was not the Princess, that my appearance was a sham. Several of them repressed smirks, seemingly as impressed as the Queen and others by the remarkable likeness I had to their benefactor.
As the guards positioned themselves on every side, I mumbled, “This wasn’t the plan. She promised. She said everyone would be there.”
“Everyone is there,” Old Saul confirmed, his tone jovial but calculating.
A henchman gently nudged me from behind.
Old Saul confirmed the henchman’s “invitation” to follow him with a wag of his chin. “Come, Princess.” He gave this word no affectation. For him the “performance” had already begun.
“Not the plan,” I repeated under my breath. Not the plan. Yet I sensed strongly that a plan was, indeed, unfolding.
I just wasn’t privy to what it was.
* * *
Joshua
Not a sound. Not a peep. Not an echo.
No quiver of movement penetrated the heavy wooden door of the basement quarters where Melody and I sat imprisoned. Oh, and be assured, we did listen. Since hearing the feeble cry of a babe a half hour earlier, we’d hardly spoken a word. We merely perked our ears for some signal, some hint of life from the outer hallway. It was as if the palace of King Herod Antipas (Melody had told me his full name) had been all but abandoned. As if we were the only two souls left in this colossal edifice. Even the natural creaks and squeaks from settling foundation stones or scurrying rats inside ventilation ducts had gone silent.
At some point—I don’t quite remember when—I arose and started pacing anew. For no particular reason, I slammed my fists against the wooden door, just to interrupt the silence.
“This’ll drive me crazy!” I exclaimed. “What are they doing? How long will they make us wait?”
“Wait for what?” asked Melody.
“Exactly,” I replied. “Wait for what? Waiting for what? Even in the dungeons of Akish I was occasionally given food and water. Is it their intention to torture us with thirst and hunger?” I started to raise my voice. “What’s the strategy?! Wha—?!” My voice cracked and choked. I went back to massaging my blistered throat.
“Don’t push it, Joshua,” Melody advised me. “Don’t talk at all. Let your voice rest.” She sat at the edge of the opposite couch, ready to spring to my aid. What did she think she might do? Grab my lips and force them shut to stop me from talking?
My eyes darted about the room, settling upon the small table with its fancy brass basin. In a scratchy whisper I said, “I don’t need my voice for this.”
Melody watched, curiosity piqued, as I grabbed the basin, whose value might’ve fed an average Jewish family for weeks, and flung it at the door. The sound pealed like a gong. An unseemly dent deformed the basin’s brass edge, shattering a layer of delicate mosaics encircling it. Why hadn’t this occurred to me earlier? If any guards were pacing within a hundred yards, the sound was bound to attract attention.
Melody stood. “Joshua, don’t—!”
Too late. I’d already lifted the table by one of its four legs and hefted it over my right shoulder like a baseball bat. As Melody’s voice registered in my ears, it was already impossible to curb the momentum. Not that her outrage was particularly convincing. I swore a part of her had no objection to my actions.
My blood must’ve surged with adrenaline ’cause that table was by no means light, constructed of dark, heavy wood. I slammed it against that door with what felt like superhuman strength. The centuries-old piece of furniture shattered. The shockwave was much louder than the basin’s gong.
Oh, but I wasn’t finished. Retrieving the dented basin and the biggest chunk of table that survived—a leg with a partially attached board—I started hammering, alternating swings with each arm, like a heavyweight boxer delivering body blow after body blow.
What a racket! The whole palace had surely heard. The door started splintering. Well, its veneer anyway. A pale undercoat appeared beneath the mocha-colored surface. The basin was beginning to resemble an aluminum can crushed by human fingers; the table leg kept busting into shorter and shorter segments. Melody said nothing. As I suspected, she secretly approved.
I abandoned the table leg—only a stub now—and put all my energies into smashing the door with the twisted piece of brass. Still swinging, I appraised the couch on the right. If I could lift the table, why not hoist that couch and use it as a battering ram?
Melody spoke, but for several seconds, her words made no sense. “The door! They’re trying to open it! Someone’s there! Stop, Joshua! Stop!”
The violence had pulled me into a kind of trance. Someone’s there? They’re trying to open the door? Who needed ’em? I wholeheartedly believed I could bust outta here by myself.
I registered a muffled voice—female—on the opposite side. “Fools! You’ve jammed it! Stop pounding! Give me a chance to unlatch the bolt!”
I stopped, cocking an eyebrow at Melody.
“Hamira?” she inquired.
I furrowed my brow in puzzlement.
Melody didn’t wait for me to offer confirmation. “Hamira!” she shouted. “Is that you?”
“Yes!” Her volume was more suppressed. “No more noise. Please!”
We listened as she tried to jimmy the lock on the other side.
My expression must’ve still looked quizzical, because Melody asked, “It is Hamira, right?”
The tone of voice seemed right. The words were . . . I wasn’t sure. Considering the racket I’d been raising, why lower her voice? Feminine intuition? If Herod’s guards throughout the palace hadn’t been alerted by now, what difference would whispering make?
Momentarily, the same muffled voice announced, “Almost got it!”
I recalled two or three thick doorjambs set in iron hasps. Examining the base of the door, I suspected I’d knocked a few of them loose. I heard several exasperated feminine grunts.
Heart racing, physical momentum still surging, I said, “I think I can use a couch in here like a battering ram!”
“No!” the voice shouted back. Then whispering, “I almost—just give me—”
Her grunting and straining paid off. I heard a clatter that could only mean the lowest of the doorjambs had been tossed aside. I dug my nails between the edge and the panel and yanked it inward. The wood nearly smacked Melody in the chin, but she’d stepped back instinctively.
Hamira stood before us, gawking, a sheen of sweat on her cheeks. The lamplight in our room made it brighter than the hallway, and she shone like an angel: That was my first thought. She was alone. I wanted to take her in my arms, plant another kiss on those gorgeous lips, as I’d done in the cavern. Who cared if Melody saw it? I was nearly in the act of leaping forward.
Then I stopped. What made me stop? Must’ve been Hamira’s face. She wore an expression I’d never seen. Had she worn it before? I didn’t think so. Anyway, I wouldn’t have expected to see it on an occasion like this, the very instant she’d set us free. She looked uncertain. Fearful. Not of rampaging palace guards who might charge from either end of the hall. She seemed to fear . . . us?
Melody wasn’t as hesitant. No, that’s not true. She hesitated for a beat, perhaps thinking I had some sort of first-hug dibs. When she saw me halt, she filled the void by throwing her arms around Hamira’s neck, feverishly asking, “How did you get here? What’s happening?”
Hamira’s eyes were locked onto mine throughout Melody’s embrace, that same look of trepidation and . . . What? Alarm? If I didn’t know better, I might’ve thought she was seeing me for the first time.
She seemed to snap back to reality. “Follow me! We haven’t much time!”
She reached past Melody and grabbed my arm. Then she maneuvered it into place until she managed to grasp my hand. We fled swiftly up the hallway in the opposite direction from the way we’d arrived.
“Where are we going?” asked Melody.
“Keep your voice low!” she whispered curtly. “This is the palace of Herod Antipas!”
“So we gathered,” I replied.
Her pace faltered as she studied me with that same tentative expression. “The residents are all in the north portico. A religious feast.”
Melody nodded. “The pre-seder. We know.”
“Yes,” said Hamira. “Passover does not often precede the Shabbat. Tonight is very special. That’s why the guards are not at their posts.”
Impressive. Hamira had apparently learned a thing or two about local culture and royal protocol. But from who? How long had Hamira been in Jerusalem? So many questions. More than any other tidbit, I wanted to know the identity of her “friend” in the royal palanquin. Who was it? How did they meet? Why did Hamira go to her after fleeing Bethany? Funny. Why did I think of this stranger as a her? Could’ve just as easily been a him.
No, that palanquin was feminine. The son of Herod the Great must’ve had a fleet of carriages in his “garage,” or whatever was the palace equivalent. The “model” Hamira had gone inside wasn’t masculine. Okay, maybe I wasn’t the best judge of such things. Maybe the King or Prince or Duke or whoever’d invited Hamira to enter, was a bit more . . . stylish. Considering the plethora of critical questions, the comment I ultimately uttered was remarkably lame.
“Nice nails,” I said.
It was impossible, as she gripped my hand, not to notice her new shimmering red talons as we passed beneath the glow of a half dozen lamps. A fork in the hallway caused her to pause. She looked at me, then at her nails. “I would have scraped it off. So gaudy. They insisted. I must look horrid.”
Her lips were also bright red. It was the first time I’d seen Hamira wearing any kind of make-up. Even her hair was different. Blue-streaked strands. Lots of detail and fuss. She must’ve been assailed by beauticians since we’d last laid eyes on her. She did, however, wear the same frayed garments.
“It looks . . . good.” The remark was convincing. My tone likely came off as puerile.
She used her sleeve in an effort to wipe the mascara from her eyes, only managing to smear the colors. “Ignore it,” she said. “All of it.”
“Who insisted?” Melody asked.
She answered tentatively. “The Princess. Others. The Queen.”
Melody was incredulous. “You met the royal family? Do you know them?”
“My brother, Nimrah—he knows them.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Melody.
She waved it off as inconsequential. “It all involves my brother. Too much to explain. Your relatives are here. We must find them!”
Melody seized Hamira’s shoulder. “Sabrina and Baby Gid? Then it’s true?”
“Yes! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! They’re inside one of these rooms!”
“Which one?” I demanded.
She looked up and down the hall. “I can’t—”
Melody began hollering. “Sabrina!”
Hamira protested. “You can’t just shout like a village crier!”
My cousin ignored her, taking the hallway’s right fork. “SABRINA!”
There was a faint reply, emanating from a room to the left, near the end: “Melody!”
“That’s her!” my cousin said breathlessly. “That’s her voice!”
She sprinted toward the doorway, bellowing Sabrina’s name twice more.
I looked at Hamira, aghast. “Was this your plan all along?”
“Plan?”
“Bringing us together? Reuniting us all—using that?” I pointed at the charcoal-colored Finder on her belt: the notorious Oracle of Cohor.
“Of course!” she said unashamedly. “Didn’t you trust me, Joshua?”
It was a peculiar pronunciation of my name. Something weird was going on. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I wanted to demand what she’d done with the Liahona, but Melody interrupted.
“This one!” She pointed toward a heavily barred door at the far end.
Hamira again grabbed my hand, and we rushed toward her. Melody desperately tossed aside wooden boards. Could it be true? Was it finally happening? Was it possible that my Aunt Sabrina and young cousin Gid were behind that door?
The last plank was flung aside. I stepped up to help as Melody positioned herself to call through the crack.
“Stand back!” she cried. Sound advice, considering Sabrina might’ve been holding a child.
We shoved and the door burst open. A woman’s face appeared, clutching a baby to her chest in . . . some kind of support carrier with . . . Eeyore the donkey? We stood speechless for several interminable seconds, drinking in the moment, the joy.
Melody squealed; tears popped from her eyes. She threw her arms around her stepmother’s neck. “Mom! Sabrina! I was so terrified!”
“I thought I’d never see your face again!” Sabrina wept.
I hadn’t moved. This was my aunt, Uncle Jim’s wife, whom I’d always loved. She hadn’t changed a bit. Gid was . . . so tiny. Not sure what I’d expected. I guess I just thought he’d look older. He was certainly bigger than the last time I’d seen him, but not by much. Last time he’d been—what?—six or seven weeks? He might’ve been twice that now. Still, for me that was . . . half a lifetime ago.
I’d been reunited now with several people, loved ones who’d aged much less than I had. My dad. Mom. Melody. Gidgiddonihah. Somehow, as I gazed into Baby Gid’s tiny blue eyes, things sorta crashed around me—er, in my mind—harder than ever before. It was just how time had frozen. For everyone. Except me.
“How did you find me?” asked Sabrina. “How did you know where—?”
She locked eyes with Hamira. Sabrina broke away from Melody’s embrace. “You’re Hamira. You’re his sister.” Her expression soured as if she’d chomped into something putrid.
Hamira nodded. “Yes.”
A biting chill resonated in Sabrina’s voice, but there was no guilt at all in Hamira’s. Infant Gid seemed to recognize Hamira too; he began to wail. Whatever memory he’d retained of Nimrah’s sister, it was not a pleasant one.
Sabrina pointed at Hamira angrily. “Why is she here?”
“She brought us here,” Melody defended. “She’s helping us rescue you.”
Sabrina narrowed her eyes. “It’s a double cross. She took Gid from my arms. She wrenched my baby from my own arms!”
“You have him back, don’t you?” snapped Hamira. “Who do you think made that possible?”
“I was told the King’s daughter—the Princess—made that happen,” said Sabrina. “Not you.”
Hamira seemed taken aback. She quickly recovered. “That’s a lie. I made that happen. Through my brother! With this.”
She gripped the Oracle of Cohor. I glared at Hamira. I’d never heard her speak so defensively. Veritably seething! What was she thinking? After everything we’d said in condemnation of that device, how could she still think it was acceptable to connect it to anything positive we were experiencing?
