Poisoned Honey Read online

  “We’ll have to give up our seats in the synagogue,” my brother went on. “We’ll have to let the servants go.” A note of impatience came into his voice. “You must see the wisdom of my choice for you? This marriage will save everything. It will save the honor of the family.”

  I remembered something Imma had said, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Aren’t you going to mention the fine marriage Eleazar promised you, to his cousin Thomas’s daughter?”

  “That’s only as it should be!” exclaimed Alexandros. “You seem to forget who I am: the firstborn, the only son, the head of the family.”

  My heart hardened and blasphemous thoughts entered it. Why not just send me to the Temple in Jerusalem and let me be sacrificed with the lambs and the doves? It amounted to the same thing. “No! Never!”

  Alexandros’s face hardened, too. He stalked away, muttering, “Foolish to think she would listen.”

  No one spoke much during the evening meal, and I felt that they were all trying not to look at me. Afterward, when I carried the leftovers down to the kitchen, Yael was waiting for me. She took the pot from me and set it aside. “Wait, Miss Mari.” She seized my hand and kissed it. “Have pity on me!”

  “What in the world is the matter?” I tried to pull my hand away.

  “Oh, young mistress, if this family falls upon bad times, I’ll be turned out into the street! What will become of me?” A sob burst out of her mouth with the words. “It was only by your father’s kindness that I escaped the brothels.” She sobbed more violently. “I swear, I’ll hang a millstone around my neck first, and throw myself into the lake!”

  That was almost exactly what I’d said to Imma. But I’d worked myself up into a frenzy, trying to sound even more desperate than I was. Yael truly meant what she said. Imagining her trudging into the lake with her millstone, I felt a queasy dread.

  “Please, leave me alone.” I pulled away my hand, which was wet with Yael’s tears, and wiped it on my tunic.

  That night, I lay on my bed in a strange state of mind. I don’t know whether I was dreaming or awake, or somewhere in between. I was gazing at the dark sky, where one star shone brighter and brighter as it neared me.

  Behold Queen Esther, the star.

  I smelled perfume, and I heard the rustle of silk. Then a young woman stood before me, dressed in a foreign style. Her robes were stiff with embroidery, encrusted with gold ornaments. Her earrings were woven from gold wire and hung with tiny gold bells, and she wore a gold crown on her oiled curls.

  Mariamne, she said. Mariamne, you know my story. I, too, was afraid of marriage to an older stranger—I, too, shrank from my destiny—but I chose to save my people. Think of your people, Mariamne. You can save your people, too.

  The vision of Queen Esther faded, but her message sank in. There was no longer any mystery about what I should do next, or why. This must truly be the rocky path intended for me: to become a heroine like Esther.

  Eleazar was eager to marry as soon as possible, and I was almost fourteen. So my family agreed that the wedding could take place after a thirty-day mourning period for my father, instead of our waiting the usual year after a parent’s death. They applied to the council of the synagogue, and (with Elder Thomas’s influence) an exception was made. Also, my family agreed to skip the preliminary meeting and go straight to the betrothal.

  When Eleazar entered our courtyard with his family, my heart sank. But I tried not to show my feelings, partly because I felt sorry for him. He seemed in high spirits as he exchanged courtesies with Alexandros and Uncle Reuben. I thought it would be cruel to let him see I was unwilling. I told myself, “You can see he’s pleased with you. Surely he’ll be a kind husband, and what more could you expect?”

  As Eleazar and I drank from the same cup, I kept my eyes cast down. I tried not to remember Nicolaos’s clear eyes and sweet breath, and especially not the disturbing, delightful glow that Nicolaos had caused in me. Eleazar still had most of his teeth, unlike many old men. True, his eyelids reminded me of a lizard’s. His tongue flicked out like a lizard’s, too, at the end of every other sentence.

  After the ceremony, I was presented to Eleazar’s various relatives, including his important cousin, Elder Thomas; his unimportant half brother, Hiram, who lived with his wife and children in Eleazar’s compound; and his widowed daughter-in-law, Chava, who was also Eleazar’s housekeeper. Chava gave me the expected kiss on the cheek. “Welcome to our family, Mariamne,” she said without smiling.

  After the guests had left, I sat down beside my grandmother and leaned my head against hers. “Oh, Safta! I’m confused…. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “I know.” There was an odd tone in her voice, almost as if she were talking in her sleep, and I pulled back to look at her. Her eyes were fixed on the livestock shed across the courtyard. “Your father is absolutely against this match. For one thing, no good will come of the business connection with Herod Antipas’s city, Tiberias.”

  “You mean my father was against this match,” I corrected her gently. “Did Abba tell you he didn’t want me to marry Eleazar?” I thought she meant that my father had discussed the matter with her the previous year.

  “Oh yes.” Safta nodded several times. “Only this morning, he came to me as I was picking over the lentils.”

  The back of my neck tingled, and I stared at my grandmother. “You saw him … today?”

  As if I hadn’t spoken, she went on, “Tobias said, ‘I’m very displeased, Imma. This isn’t the marriage I imagined for my darling Mari.’ And I said, ‘I know, Tobias, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Perhaps you could speak to them.’”

  At the thought that my father was still trying to protect me, tears stung my eyes. I ached for him to be with us again, a shield between bad fortune and me. But I also saw a ray of hope. If Abba appeared to Alexandros, too, he might frighten my brother into obeying him. “Did he say he would speak to Alexandros?”

  “Mm … did he?” said Safta vaguely. “I can’t say that he did. He wanted me to tell him the old story of Miryam’s Well.” She smiled fondly. “Tobias loves to listen to my stories.”

  During the weeks before the fever, my wedding to Nicolaos had glided toward me like a sailboat. Now my wedding to Eleazar rushed at me like a boulder bouncing down the cliffs of Mount Arbel. The thought of my wedding day made me feel like screaming and running out the gate. I wondered if Esther in the story had felt like this as her cousin Mordecai delivered her to the king of Persia’s palace.

  The only thing that steadied me was the way my family treated me now. They didn’t speak directly of the sacrifice I was making, but they were respectful and gentle with me.

  The night before the wedding, my mother took me aside. “Do you understand, Mariamne, that you must submit to your husband?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said, looking at the floor. “I won’t argue with him. I’ll control myself.”

  Imma sighed. “Pay attention,” she said sharply. “This is important. I’m talking about the marriage bed. A wife must not refuse her husband, whatever he wishes to do.”

  The strange tone in Imma’s voice made me look at her. She seemed distressed, as if she were commanding me to jump off a cliff. “What will he do?” I asked. That was a willfully ignorant question; after all, I’d had a good idea what Nicolaos would have done.

  “It will be unpleasant,” Imma went on without really answering me. “Try to think of it as bitter medicine. When we had the fever, Safta gave us medicine, and we drank it down, didn’t we?”

  I nodded. I remembered the vile taste of that herbal brew, even though I’d been delirious at the time.

  “Yes,” said Imma. “So just remember that you’re doing your duty as a wife, and surely the Lord will reward you. As the saying goes, ‘A good wife makes a good husband.’” The tender tone in her voice made me tremble. If my mother felt sorry for me, my sacrifice was even greater than I’d thought.

  NINE

  BITTER MEDICINE

  Th
e morning of the wedding, Susannah came to take part in the preparations. She and Imma, Safta, and Chloe all helped me dress. I sat numbly on a stool while my grandmother combed my hair over my shoulders. The locks hung down to my waist.

  “Look how Mari’s hair shines!” exclaimed Susannah. “It’s like polished acacia wood against the white robe.”

  “Yes, how proud we are of our bride!” said Safta. “She’s as beautiful as Queen Esther.”

  My mother set the pointed headdress on my head. “Mari is a good, good daughter,” she said, “and that makes her beautiful in my eyes.”

  Chloe lifted a veil bordered with flowers over my headdress. “Wear this with my loving wishes, sister.” She looked at me with awe, as if I were indeed a queen and she my grateful subject.

  “There, now,” said my mother, pushing bangles onto my wrists and ankles. “The wedding litter is waiting in the courtyard.”

  At her words, something roused in me, and I clutched the stool with both hands. No. No! I felt as if I’d been sleepwalking and awakened to find myself teetering at the edge of a cliff.

  “Mariamne,” said my mother. “Come … it’s time to go.”

  “No!” I burst out. I would not, could not marry that hideous, smelly old man. “Don’t make me go!”

  “You have to go.” Imma grabbed my arms and pulled me off the stool. “You are betrothed in the sight of the Lord. Think of your family’s honor. Do you want your mother to be ashamed that she ever bore such a willful, wicked daughter? Do you want to dishonor your dead father, may he rest in peace?”

  I collapsed at Imma’s feet, hugging her ankles. “I love my family!” I sobbed. “Just let me stay—even as a servant in this house! As a slave!”

  “Oh, Mari,” said Chloe in a shocked tone. Susannah stared with one hand over her mouth.

  My mother glared down at me for a moment, but then she said briskly, “Talk is useless. She needs something to calm her down.” Prying my hands away, she went into the kitchen shed.

  But Safta stooped beside me and laid her cool hands on my cheeks. “Mari, Mari, Mari. Shh, little lamb. It’s a terrible shame, but try to see the bright side. I predict that this marriage will be only the hard shell of a sweet almond for you.”

  Surprised, I lifted my tear-streaked face. “What do you mean, Safta?” Was she hinting that I’d come to love Eleazar bar Yohannes?

  “What I mean,” said my grandmother cheerily, “is that old men don’t live forever. Did you know that my own sister’s first husband was older than our father? He died before they even had children.”

  “Mother-in-law!” exclaimed my mother, reappearing with a cup of dark liquid. “What kind of talk is this?” She held the cup to my lips.

  I sipped cautiously. It was strong and sweet, and I drank it down.

  Ignoring Imma, my grandmother went on, “She was left with her bride-gift, and then she married a younger man, someone almost as nice as your father.”

  At the mention of my father, my eyes filled with tears again. Abba! How could he have died and left me to pull the family out of debt and disgrace?

  Safta squeezed my hand with both of hers. “Take heart, Mari.”

  Gulping a last sob, I nodded and stood up. As the honeyed wine rose to my head, it seemed that perhaps Imma was right. The honor of my family was at stake. Eleazar could be worse. And perhaps Safta was right, too. Maybe I wouldn’t have to put up with my old husband for long. But aside from that, how could I have forgotten my higher purpose? Like Queen Esther, I was saving my people from disaster.

  They wiped my face and straightened my crumpled robes. I left my family’s house with my bridal jewelry jingling.

  On my wedding night, I didn’t sleep well. You may think I mean because of my husband’s attentions, and indeed that was unpleasant. I tried to take my mother’s advice. Lying with this stranger, this old man, I told myself, was only a cup of bitter medicine.

  But the worst part was afterward, when Eleazar fell asleep and I lay awake. I longed to creep out of my husband’s bed and somehow find myself back in my cot next to Chloe.

  Eleazar’s bedchamber felt strange, even in the dark. His snores echoed from the walls, and the stuffing in his mattress smelled—not bad, exactly, but different from mine. I couldn’t sink into sleep the way I used to at home, as if I were sinking right through the bed into the dream world. I lay on the surface, trying not to wiggle and wake my husband.

  Thinking again about my mother’s advice, something disturbed me. My mother had spoken as if the wedding night would naturally be “bitter medicine” for the bride. Did that mean that she, too, had lain sleepless and miserable on her wedding night? Could lying with my father have been bitter medicine for her?

  I’d known, of course, that my father was several years older than my mother, but I’d never wondered what she’d thought of that. Now I remembered her remark, after my first mikvah, about young love—she hadn’t been talking about my father. Somehow, it made me feel even worse, the possibility that young Tabitha, my imma, had been as unhappy about marrying Abba as I was about marrying Eleazar.

  The next morning, I did my best to find my place in Eleazar’s household. I helped him dress; I followed him downstairs, intending to set breakfast before him. As I peered into the unfamiliar pantry, Chava appeared at my elbow.

  “Good morning, Daughter-in-law,” I said politely. Strictly speaking, Chava was only my husband’s daughter-in-law, not mine, but it seemed friendlier to greet her that way.

  Chava squinted at me as if she couldn’t imagine whom I was talking to. Then she replied, “Good morning, Father-in-law’s wife.” Reaching past me into the shed, she nudged me out of the way, filled a plate with bread and olives, and took it to Eleazar.

  Eleazar didn’t seem to care, or even notice, who brought him his breakfast. He ate quickly and went out the gate, leaving me to wonder why Chava was so unfriendly to me. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t be willing to do my part in the household work? To show her that I was, I followed her around the house, watching her polish brass and swat flies and cut up meat for a stew. But each time I tried to help, Chava waved me away.

  So it went until noontime, when Eleazar returned. Of course I knew that the master’s feet must be washed, but I expected that one of the serving women would do it, as Yael did in our household. Then, when Eleazar sat down on a bench, I realized that none of the servants were in the courtyard; Chava had managed to send them away just as Eleazar walked through the gate.

  I supposed then that Chava would wash Eleazar’s feet, since she’d been taking chores away from me all morning. But after greeting Eleazar, she busied herself with something in the kitchen shed.

  Eleazar looked at me as if he was trying to be patient. “Wife, bring the basin,” he said. I opened my mouth to answer that I didn’t know where it was kept, but Chava handed it to me. With a prim expression, she also gave me a pitcher of water and hung a towel over my arm.

  I knelt in front of Eleazar and untied his sandals and set them aside. The sandals smelled as if he’d been walking in the gutter. As I placed the basin under his feet and poured the water, I tried not to stare at his toenails. They were as yellow as chicken feet. I poured more water over his hands, offered the towel to dry them, and dried his feet.

  Chava then stepped forward to serve Eleazar his midday dinner of stew and bread. He looked pleased, and as he ate, he said, “Wife, listen to Chava. She knows how the household should be run.”

  After all had eaten and taken midday naps, Eleazar left again. Chava brought out a handloom and began to thread it. The other women of the family appeared in the courtyard. The wife of Hiram, Eleazar’s half brother, came out with her two smaller children and a nursemaid. And there were two women I had only glimpsed at the wedding: Eleazar’s widowed cousin and her slow-witted daughter, who was carrying a spindle and a basket of wool.

  This felt a little more comfortable to me. In my family, too, the women gathered in the courtyard in the afternoons to d
o handwork and chat. I fetched my embroidery basket and took out a partly worked scarf. As I stitched, I gazed around the compound. Two smaller dwellings formed the second and third sides of Eleazar’s courtyard, and the private mikvah and the livestock shed made the fourth.

  The women began to gossip among themselves. At first, I asked a question or made a remark now and then. But each time I spoke, the slow-witted girl laughed. Chava raised her eyebrows, looking at us as if we were two of a kind. She exchanged knowing smiles with Hiram’s wife and the cousin. Following Chava’s lead, the other women ignored me or replied in an off-putting way.

  I gave up on trying to join the conversation. Poking my embroidery needle back and forth, I ached to be in my family’s courtyard with Chloe and our grandmother. I was no more part of this family, I thought, than was the lizard on the courtyard wall. Even the slow-witted girl seemed to be at home here, busily spinning her wool. I noticed glumly what a nice, even thread she was able to spin, though her mouth hung open and she breathed noisily.

  It dawned on me that Chava might have told the other women something to make them dislike me. Recalling how I’d come here thinking of myself as Queen Esther, I felt hot with anger and shame. Instead of the queen in Eleazar’s house, it seemed, I was the new hen in a flock of chickens. Chava, the chief hen, led the others in pecking me.

  That was my first day in the house of Eleazar bar Yohannes. Each day that week went on in much the same way, except that one afternoon Chava’s niece, Daphne, came to visit. As Chava and her niece embraced, their sheeplike faces looked almost attractive.

  The other women smiled at Daphne and included her in their chatter, and I wished for some friendly company of my own. Why didn’t Chloe visit? When it was Nicolaos I was going to marry, she’d been so eager.

  The afternoon before the Sabbath, Hiram’s wife brought news from the market about a storm on the lake the previous night: “They say several fishing boats went down.” Forgetting to ignore me, she asked a direct question. “Did your family lose any boats, Mariamne?”