“Oh?” He reached for my hand and stroked it lightly, which gave me pause, for I didn’t want his touch.
“Of course they will learn,” I said. “You’ll send me to Aretas, who may well kill me, but not before I explain to him why he must immediately inform Rome of your betrayal.”
I saw the hesitation in his eyes.
“Aretas stands to gain if he tells Rome of your failure to take Rami’s offer to them,” I continued. “That offer will be useless by then, because Aretas will have time to defend against the threat, and this will only infuriate Rome more.”
It was clear by his look that he had underestimated me.
It was also clear that he wasn’t terribly bothered about that. There was something else that played on his mind. What was he hiding?
Another thought occurred to me.
“You might also think that killing me this very night and letting my offer die with me will save you,” I said. “But again, you would be wrong.”
“By the heavens, you have thought of everything, haven’t you? Then tell me how I would be wrong?”
“First you will tell me what else you are hiding,” I said, running my hand across his thigh. “You are too intelligent to ignore such an opportunity for gain.”
“The only gain that interests me now is love,” he said.
In the space of one breath, I knew what he was hiding. Herod had his eyes on another woman. Not me, but someone he already knew. I was only a distraction.
The king of Galilee was in love with another woman.
Only Phasa stood in his way, for any betrayal of her would be a betrayal of Aretas. He was trying to win favor from Aretas in the event he sent Phasa back to Petra. It was the only thing that made sense to me.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Who?”
“The woman you love.”
His eyes shifted from mine, confirming my suspicions. I had stumbled upon a terrible secret. I could not afford to antagonize him.
“It doesn’t matter what her name is,” I said. “You’re a king; this is your prerogative. And as you said, for a man to be king but not be loved is a terrible thing. I can see the distance between you and Phasa.”
Herod stared at the candles without speaking.
“Is it wrong, then, to seek the love that a king deserves?”
His eyes moistened, surely aided by the wine. When he spoke, he did so as a man smitten, not as a king.
“Who can know what it’s like for a king to live so long with a woman out of obligation? To be starved of love is like death for me.”
I didn’t tell him that most marriages among the Bedu, as well as in Palestine, had nothing to do with sentiment. As a man of privilege he apparently expected love.
And who was I to blame him? His obligations to Rome and Nabataea, and, indeed, to his own heritage, had imprisoned him. I knew something about such obligations. Herod might well be a monster, but one I then pitied.
“Then starve yourself of love no longer. I would think Phasa is as much a prisoner to this marriage as you.”
Herod settled, undone now by the baring of his true heart.
“During my years in Rome, I learned to see a woman in ways most among my people do not,” he said. “Too many rabbis, indeed the whole of the Jew, now embrace the teachings of Ben Sirach. He claims that a woman, indeed a daughter, is nothing more than a constant source of shame.”
He knew that Rami had sent me into slavery, so he knew that he was pulling at my heart. My mind returned to my conversation with Judah and Saba about how women were treated in Palestine.
“ ‘Do not sit down with women,’ he writes. ‘A woman’s spite is preferable to a woman’s kindness, for women give rise to shame and reproach.’ ”
Herod took a deep breath.
“But there was once a king named Solomon whose heart I share.” He looked at me with cheerless eyes. “Phasa is a good woman, Maviah. I wish her no harm.”
“No. No, of course you don’t.”
“But I feel nothing for her.”
Herod lay back on the cushions and rested the back of his hand over his eyes, reduced to sorrow. I thought of my father, a ruler without his tongue, and here Herod, a ruler without the woman he longed for.
So, then, what good was it to be king if what you craved, either power or love, was out of reach?
Still, Herod was slipping away and had not yet agreed to take me to Rome. So I rose and sat beside him, stroking his hair with my fingers. In that moment I felt like a mother to him. But one with her own mind.
“Listen to me, my lord. You must not send me to Petra.”
A tear slipped past his temple. I had not envisioned such an outpouring of emotion from such a powerful man.
Unless, I thought, he was hiding something else.