Palace of Darkness (33 page)

But if she could believe there was One God who truly loved her . . . If the followers of the Way were right and Jesus was the Messiah for all people, who had come as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for mankind, then this was a love that changed everything.
Everything.

Cassia felt the need to move, to walk. Something churned inside her and made it impossible to remain still. She climbed to her feet, careful not to put weight on her wrist, though the fire in it had banked.

With the fingertips of her good hand tracing the stone wall, she walked carefully along the length of the cell until she reached the corner, then turned and continued. The cell was not large, and she had mastered the circuit after twice around.

Her steps became automatic and her thoughts returned to what she was beginning to know was truth.

She could not say how she knew this, really. Was it the dream of Jesus beside the river? She had wished for a vision like Malik’s friend Paul. But she was not a person to change her life based on a dream. Was it Malik and his joyful teaching of the One True God and the redemption he offered? Or Julian, always studying and learning and pursuing this God of his?

Her memory played over the faces of the believers, and she saw their smiling eyes as they sang together in the flickering lamplight, as they listened to the reading of letters from those who had gone before.

Yes, it was all of this, and it was the witness of her own heart as well, for once she opened herself to the One she had met by the river, a flood of assurance rushed in.

She lost count of how many times she had circled the cell, for her thoughts were racing down a path toward something better.

Jesus was the sacrifice for her. God wanted to love her, wanted a relationship with her, enough to do this marvelous thing. And she could be secure in that love, strong because of it. She could love others—from strength, not from need.

Warmth spread through her at the thought. To love others in the way she had always enjoyed, to understand their hurts, to help heal their pain, but to do it without wrapping tight fingers around the response and crushing the life from it—this would be true freedom!

Cassia slowed in her pace around the cell, turned a corner, and stopped. She lifted her face, eyes closed, to the roof above her, but felt as though she could see past it to the very heavens.

Jesus. My Redeemer.

She lifted her hands, her heart, her very self to the One who had come to set her free, who had died to give her life, and who lived even now to love her forever.

The warmth grew like an embrace, like she was beside the river once more, held by eternal arms. Silent tears flowed, and with them she let go of all that need, all the desperation that had been hers since her parents had given her up.

She had a Father.

And brothers and sisters!
She smiled, then laughed aloud.

Oh, how she wished to see Julian! To tell him she had found his Jesus. Or had been found by Him. Her heart still ached for the pain she had caused him.

She leaned her back against the wall and wondered if she would have a chance to tell him anything, if she would ever be embraced by her new family. If she would ever hold Alexander in her arms.

All of it was important, so important. And yet she felt a deeper
peace underlying the concerns, a peace that whispered,
All is well
, no matter what happened.

Sometime later, the slap of footsteps drifted down to her underground hole. She had been dozing against the wall, but now she sat upright, straining to detect whether it was a man or woman, friend or enemy.

A strange light played along the back wall of her cell, revealing jagged cracks in stones set haphazardly. Torchlight soon filled the cell, and Cassia blinked at a harsh yellow flame and smelled the bitumen that burned. Unaccustomed to the brightness, she could not at first make out who held the light.

But then it drew closer, until it was just on the other side of the narrow gate in the wall, and the face followed behind it, eyes peering into the cell, searching.

“Bethea!” Cassia stood and pressed her back against the wall. Had the girl been sent to finish her? Strange executioner, if so. Cassia had been expecting Hagiru herself. But perhaps that had been arrogant of her, to think the queen would bother to deal personally with someone as insignificant as she.

You are loved.

The words had come from somewhere both within and without, and she half smiled, even as Bethea’s dark gaze roamed her face.

“She is going to have you killed.”

Cassia sighed. “I am surprised she has not already.”

“She has other pressing matters to attend to.”

The Romans? Cassia remembered the soldier she had discovered in the storage room at the back of the palace.

Bethea looked over her shoulder, then brought a fearful glance back to Cassia. What was the girl doing here?

“You must get him out.” Bethea gripped the bar of the gate with her free hand.

Had she found the Roman as well? How could Cassia possibly help? She squinted at the girl’s haunted gaze. “I don’t understand.”

“I cannot do it. I . . . I am too afraid of her.” Bethea swallowed hard. “I am not strong like you.” The admission seemed to cost her something. Her vulnerability called out to Cassia. She read Bethea’s heart as though it were written in clay tablets, and the hurt there was one Cassia knew well—that desperation to belong, to be loved.

She went to the cell gate and laid her hand over Bethea’s. “Tell me what is happening.”

Bethea looked down at Cassia’s hand on her own, then lifted hungry eyes to her. “Rabbel is dead.”

The news sent a wave of shock through Cassia and she dropped her hand.

Bethea continued, her words coming in a rush. “I had thought that when she heard, the queen would forget her plan for the festival, but now she seems more fearful than ever that without a king in Petra, the Romans will attack. She is desperate to put Obadas on the throne with herself as regent, but fearful the people will object because of Alexander.”

Cassia fought to focus, to hold on to each detail, though she ached to think only of Alexander. But at the mention of his name, Bethea’s whole countenance softened, and Cassia knew.

Bethea had come to love her son. How could she not?

“What can we do?” Cassia breathed deeply, trying to free her lungs from the crushing pressure.

A tear slid from the corner of Bethea’s eye. “She is intent on going through with the sacrifice tomorrow night. She says that when the sun sets on Petra on the first day of the Festival of Grain, a human sacrifice to Dushara will ensure the Nabataean kingdom remains free of Rome.”

If Rome does not come in and slaughter the entire royal family before that.
Cassia kept the thought to herself. The girl was already terrified. “Has word gotten out that Rabbel is dead?”

Bethea shook her head. “Only those closest to him know.” She shifted the torch to her other hand and fumbled at the gate’s latch. The heavy beam that lay across the door and extended down the wall could not be lifted from the inside, and even from the outside, Bethea struggled with it.

“Let me hold the torch.” Cassia reached her hand through the gate. Bethea passed it off, then used both hands to lift the beam. It took a succession of passing the torch between them to get the bar lifted past it, but in a moment Bethea swung the cell gate open and Cassia was free.

Her thoughts tumbled and she tried to formulate a plan.

“You must get him far from here before the sun sets tomorrow,” Bethea said.

Cassia nodded, but her mind rebelled. What could she do that had not already been tried? She could not break Alexander out of the palace alone, nor with the help of her friends. It would take an army to get him out of this place.

An army.

“Bethea, I have need of two more things from you.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. “First, you must help me get out of this palace unseen.” The girl nodded, eyes wide. Cassia touched her face, overcome suddenly with empathy for this woman who had been Aretas’s victim even before her. And it was a love that came not from a place of need within her, but from a place of strength.

“And then you must find me a water pot.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

C
ASSIA FOLLOWED
B
ETHEA THROUGH THE BACK HALLS
, staying close to the girl and to the wall. She led Cassia through tiny rooms with doors on the other side, down steps and through dark corridors, then back into the light and through narrow halls. Had Bethea done nothing in her years in the palace but explore all of its crannies? Perhaps she had made an art out of remaining unseen.

Cassia was breathless by the time they reached an underground chamber where sunlight outlined a tiny door on the far wall. Bethea crossed the room, sure-footed, then bent and shoved the door open.

“Quickly,” she whispered, but Cassia held back.

“I can’t fit through there!”

Bethea waved her over. “You are smaller than I, and I’ve done it many times.”

Again, Cassia wondered at the life Bethea had led here in the palace. “Why did you stay, Bethea? All these years since Aretas left?”

The girl hesitated, then sighed. “Aretas always thought he had a better way to do everything, even rule the kingdom.”

This, I know.

Bethea pushed Cassia toward the small door. “It was such a small disagreement he had with Rabbel. I always believed he would return.” She dropped her chin. “I would have given up long ago if I had known he had you.”

Cassia paused only a moment to give Bethea a quick embrace. “You remember what I need?”

“Yes, yes. Now go!”

“I will see you behind the palace.”

Bethea nodded, her eyes full, but Cassia was unsure whether she wept over Alexander or because Cassia had embraced her. How long had it been since anyone had shown her love?

She bent to the narrow opening, pushed one arm out, then her right shoulder and her head. A moment later she was wriggling onto the sandy ground on the back side of the palace, away from the street. Her wrist gave her some pain, but not much.

The door closed behind her without a word from Bethea, and she was alone.

From the sun she guessed it was late afternoon. Not much time before nightfall to accomplish her plan. Scanning the ground that rose slightly behind her, she saw no one. The Temple of al-‘Uzza to her left would be busy at this time of day, as people finished their workday, but from here she should go unnoticed, even in her dirty and torn palace-servant robes. She straightened and tried to look as though she belonged behind the palace.

It seemed an age since she had entered not far from where she now stood, sneaking past Hozai to find Marta and Tabatha inside. Her heart thudded with a dull ache at the memory of Marta on the throne room floor.

How long would it take Bethea to retrace her steps through the palace? It would have been simpler for the girl to have come out with
Cassia and enter through the back, but she was not willing to risk being seen outside with Cassia.

She walked along the back wall, still trying to appear nonchalant, until she reached the back entrance of the palace where she had broken through so many hours ago. It was not safe to venture farther, but she was loathe to remain still.

She watched the sun with some anxiety and tried to speed Bethea with her thoughts.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

She had heard Malik read those words from one of the accounts of Jesus’ life with His disciples. It was Jesus who said it, she remembered, to His faithful ones. Were the words also for her, even today?

A harsh whisper caught her attention. Bethea stood at the back entrance, Talya’s colorfully striped pouch in her hands.

Cassia rushed to her, took the pouch, and embraced her once again. “Thank you, Bethea.”

The girl nodded, stark fear in her roaming glances.

“Tell Alexander I love him. Tell him I am coming soon.”

Bethea gripped her arms one last time. “Be sure you do.”

And then Cassia was off, strapping the pouch over her head and shoulder to secure it and thinking through the route she must now take.

Down the main market street of shops, past the grand Nymphaeum where she had first met Julian. Past the houses of friends built into naturally occurring terraces or cut into the sandstone cliffs. She would have to pass the tomb work site, where her fellow workers would be toiling. Would Julian be there? She could not allow him to see her. If he didn’t stop her, he would no doubt follow her, which would bring disaster on him.

She would have to sneak under Zeta’s home, past the amphitheatre where Yehosef was probably training his gladiators.

As her feet carried her through the city, she realized how many people had grown dear to her in Petra.

If she made it out of the city now, she might be able to save them all. If things did not go well on the other side of the Siq, she might not return. The thought quickened her steps. She kept her head down and stayed in the crowded parts of the street.

The familiar landmarks passed behind her, and when she cleared the amphitheatre, she felt some relief. There should be no one to recognize her between here and the Siq.