The Coming of the King

II: Jerusalem, Early Summer, AD 66
Chapter Twenty

Jerusalem was old: older than Alexandria, older than Rome, older possibly than Athens or Corinth.

Riding in at dawn with Kleopatra slack as a corpse before her saddle, Hypatia had caught the ripe scent of a dunghill and noted it — Caesarea had no dunghills — but she had not yet been struck by the differences between the city of David, scarred by war, built and rebuilt over and over by the pride and blood of the Hebrew nation, and Caesarea, youthful city of Herod, whose grandson sat on the throne, whose mason marks were still sharp on the buildings, whose carpenters still used the tools their grandfathers had held when they built it.

She saw it now with the morning sun hard on each detail. Where Caesarea was young, bright, shining, with wide streets of white stone, with cleansing sewers the height of a man that carried ordure and storm water equally into the ocean’s depths, Jerusalem was… wizened, wise, balanced on the shoulders of forested hills, with dry wadis all about and steep valleys cutting through her heart. Her crooked, arthritic streets crabbed along valley sides, up slopes, twisting, knotted; sore, yes, but with her history written in every angled stone, and such a history…

Where Herod’s city, named for a Roman emperor, claimed to be the Roman capital of Judaea, and boasted a temple to the deified Augustus, Jerusalem, named for peace, was the Hebrew capital, sanctified by Solomon, by David, by the Hasmonean monarchs who had last held her free; here was the Temple sacred to the heart of every God-fearing Semite across the empire.

Here also was Herod’s palace, four storeys high, built in the Greek style and set on the westerly wall, where the king might enjoy the fruits of his labours and yet not overlook the Temple and the sacred works performed therein.

Hypatia stood now on its steps, and looked east across the city to the Temple and the fortress of the Antonia. She breathed in the scents of the Upper Market just below her; of saffron and garlic, of olives and oil and wine and fresh meat and dried fish, and began the slow process of knowing in the way she might, in other times and other places, have come to know a lover; slowly, over time, and fully.

In that coming-to-know, she had another task: the finding of herbs for Kleopatra’s head. She was not a healer of headaches in fourteen-year-old girls and had said so several times in the sleepless morning that followed their arrival. Nevertheless, she had trained to her vocation in the company of healers whose skills had cheated Anubis of far more certain souls than Kleopatra’s and she did have a reasonable grasp of what herbs and poultices might prove effective.

Sadly, Herod’s magnificent, many-storeyed palace, while being larger, more stately and possessed of far more intriguing layers and corridors than its counterpart at Caesarea, had proved to be shockingly poorly provisioned. Hypatia had lost half the morning searching through cold stone kitchens, cluttered, dustrimed storerooms and an unused infirmary on the fourth floor of the western side before one of the permanent under-stewards who staffed the lower levels thought to tell her that the High Priest preferred prayer to the use of herbs and she was unlikely to find what she sought anywhere in the palace.

Thus it was that in the worst heat of the day, when every other member of the royal household from servants to king had retired to bed to sleep off the effects of the ride, Hypatia petitioned a drowsily amiable Polyphemos for a new, anonymous tunic to replace the green silk of the night’s ride and, minimally refreshed, left the palace for the undying heat of a Jerusalem afternoon.

She looked out across the Upper Market, which grew as a riotous, many-coloured fungus below the steps, almost to the palace walls. It sold silk, evidently: colours exploded from every stall; cerise, midnight blue, turquoise, searing yellow, spring-leaf greens. She thought she saw a herb-seller somewhere behind the flagrant colours and set off to find her.

‘Wait!’

Kleopatra stood, flushed, on the wide marbled porch. She, too, had abandoned her theatre silks for an undistinguished tunic, belted with rope. She was barefoot and her hair was caught up under a boy’s cap. From a distance — even close up — it was impossible to be sure of her gender. She ran down the steps, clumsily.

‘Kleopatra, go back. You’re not fit-’

‘I am your princess. It’s not for you to say whether I’m fit or not.’

‘Really?’ Hypatia turned fully round and arched one brow. ‘Tell me, when did you gain rule over Isis? I must have missed it in the night.’

Grown men — governors, princes, kings — had withered before that look and that tone. Kleopatra of Caesarea halted, balanced between one step and the next. She looked mildly discomfited; hot.

‘You’re barely conscious and the sun’s at its height. Even if you don’t still have a headache, it would give you a new one,’ Hypatia said reasonably. ‘I’m going to look for valerian and monkwort or whatever I can find in the market that will take away the pain in your head. I’ll bring it back as soon as I can. You’ll be far more comfortable if you stay here.’

Kleopatra shook her head. ‘You’ll need a guide to find what you need.’

‘I doubt it. I have travelled in other cities; I can find my way to-’

‘Jerusalem is different. The streets wind and bend up and down like a maze. You could be lost here and not even know it.’

‘Then I’ll find a guide I can trust. Thank you for your advice.’

‘I’ll be your guide. You can’t trust anyone else.’ Kleopatra came closer, a step at a time, punctuating each short, sure phrase. ‘I was born here. I’ve spent half my life exploring the Jerusalem markets. And I know where the herbs are sold. There isn’t anything you want in the Upper Market, you need to go into the lower city. I can show you the way.’

It was still possible to send her back. The Chosen of Isis had had command of armies in the past, and of their commanders in the nearer times, but… but… There are days in life where each moment passes and is remarkable in its own right, but not particular. Then, occasionally, there comes a day when a particular moment holds the key to different futures, and the gods hold their breath upon its turning.

Hypatia studied the girl who stood before her, whose dark hair mirrored her own, whose high, smooth brow was exactly that of the queen, whose stormy eyes belonged to nobody but herself. The black dots at their centres were small now, and of equal diameter, which they had not been in the night.

And so a choice was made. ‘Come then,’ said Hypatia, and the gods breathed again. ‘Keep close to me. Your family’s not well liked and news of Caesarea’s riots will have spread with the dawn. If the merchants come to know who you are…’

‘They won’t.’

‘To be certain, we will say that I am a Greek woman seeking herbs for her husband and you are my niece. Speak Greek unless I say otherwise. Lead me to the herb-sellers, but not directly. Saulos will have set someone to follow us.’