Palace of Darkness by Tracy L. Higley Page B

Alexander while she slept? Cassia thought she should perhaps feel concern again, but there was nothing left but gratitude.
    “Thank you.” She studied her plate. She had uttered that phrase too many times. They must want something in return.
    Malik seemed to sense her concern. “It is a special joy of ours. To feed and to care for the sick and strangers, even for the least of them. A special joy.”
    Cassia looked into his eyes, and she believed him.
    “Finish your bread.” He smiled.
    While she ate, the women fussed around her, bringing dampcloths to wash her face and arms, and the older applying some kind of ointment from a tiny jar onto Cassia’s scrapes. Zeta and Talya, she discovered, were mother and daughter, though Talya must have been born late in Zeta’s childbearing years. This was their home, and Malik was their friend.
    Friend . The word made her think of Magdala back in Damascus, and she felt all the more bereft.
    Again, as though he could read her thoughts, Malik spoke. “You are alone here in Petra?”
    She shrugged one shoulder. Still no pain. “Alexander and I have come to find family. His father was born here.”
    “He did not travel with you?” Malik’s eyes were kind. He already knew the answer, she could see.
    “He was killed fourteen days ago.”
    “What was his name?” Talya asked. “Perhaps we were playmates.”
    “Aretas.”
    She smiled. “Yes, I knew an Aretas. Six or seven of them, I would guess.”
    Cassia sighed and set her empty plate aside.
    “His parents?” Malik asked. “Do you know of them?”
    “I know his mother’s name only. Gamilath.”
    Malik shook his head. “Another common name, I fear. Have you nothing else?”
    Cassia leaned back against her cushions and searched her memory. Aretas had told her so little of his life before they met. Snatches here and there, but nothing that could be pieced together to create a picture.
    “He told me something once about his home.” She tried to call up the memory from the dark corridors of her mind. “About where it was located. Beside the Temple of al-‘Uzza.”
    Malik’s head lifted sharply.
    “He told me that from the outer corridor of his home he could look straight into the first courtyard of the temple. He seemed to despise both the temple and its goddess, though I never understood . . .” Malik looked at her so strangely. “What is it?”
    “Aretas, son of Gamilath? And his home lay beside the Temple of al-‘Uzza?”
    She nodded, fear clutching at her heart with cold fingers.
    Malik looked to the two women, and Cassia saw eyebrows raised, mouths open. “What is it?”
    But Malik did not answer. He stood quickly, snatched the oil lamp from the niche gouged into the stone wall, and strode across the room to where Alexander lay, still asleep.
    Cassia swung her legs from the bed, stood, and was at his side before the two women could react. “What are you doing?”
    Malik had bent to her son’s side and held the lamp close enough for the light to play across his beautiful face. He slept with lips parted, his thick eyelashes sweeping his cheeks like raven feathers.
    The two women appeared beside them and studied Alexander as well. Malik turned to Zeta, the older of the two. “How did we not see it?”
    She shook her head. “He is the very image of Aretas.”
    Their words struck Cassia with fresh hope, tinged with alarm. “You knew him.” She clutched Malik’s arm. “You knew Aretas as a boy.”
    Malik turned to her. “You must rest still.” He guided her back to the blankets.
    She did not resist. “Tell me. Tell me who he was.”
    When they had restored her to her place of ease, the three ringed the bed.
    Malik spoke. “As I said, your husband’s name, his mother’s name, are both used by many parents because they are royal names.”
    Cassia looked to Alexander. Aretas had indeed insisted they name him after greatness.
    “But this is not why your Aretas had this name.”
    Cassia’s breath came a bit