Agrippa's Daughter

by Fast, Howard

  Had this not been a command performance, with Claudius’ reputation on stage, Berenice would have departed after a few minutes of the tedious nonsense. As it was, Agrippa had given orders that all gates to the theater be closed, and the audience, most of whom were not even provided with parasols against the sun, were forced to sit and endure—a situation to which only a minority objected. The others had come for a holiday and were ready to enjoy anything on the stage. They had brought baskets of food and bottles of wine, and they ate and drank and cheered the players and mocked them and screamed with applause or hissed with hatred—and became drunk and happy and occasionally violent, with no Jews present except the handful of quality in the pavilions—no Jews to look down their noses and despise the simple pleasures of plain people and thereby spoil their fun and fulfillment. The Syrians and Levantine Greeks and Egyptians and half-breed Philistines and Moabites and polyglot combinations of Persian, Parthian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Jebusites, Samaritans, Italians, and even a sprinkling of Gauls, Spaniards, and Germans, Phoenician seamen, Edomite longshoremen—and so many others that a listing would be endless, Caesarea being perhaps the most cosmopolitan of all seaports—all of them rocked with pleasure, belched and farted at the actors, interrupted them, pelted them, and generally took advantage of what they sensed, even if they had not the taste to measure—that this was a bad and tedious play and that the Jewish noblemen in their gay pavilions would not interfere, so long as the horseplay remained within the bounds of semi-order, which meant anything less than a full-scale riot.

  The heat increased as the play went on and with it Berenice’s irritation. Were it not for the fact that Gabo appeared to be absolutely enthralled as the story unfolded, Berenice would have defied her father and forced her way out through the guards. But she knew how long and eagerly Gabo had looked forward to this, and she decided to endure it to the end—a determination that made her glow with a sort of virtuous self-approval.

  Her brother, wiping his brow, observed that while he perished of thirst, those Italian louts were drowning themselves in iced wine. He did not like Latus, whose low birth and business career—which had brought him to his present position, that of a very wealthy knight—he now recalled. “Trust his kind to have ice here,” he said angrily—and Berenice felt, at that moment, a sense of annoyance. She might have articulated it by specifying that if one desired to be as much of a snob as her brother was, he should arm himself with more wit. Young Agrippa had qualities, but he was not clever.

  Staring at Germanicus Latus, Berenice caught his eye. He smiled at her. He had that Italian gift of honoring a beautiful woman—or, more to the point, of being able to make a sixteen-year-old girl aware of the fact that she was beautiful and very much a woman. He made motions to show how devastated he was at the distance that separated them, and Berenice, in response, made motions of great thirst. She did not have to repeat the suggestion. He spread his arms in pseudo-tragic apology and issued quick orders to his servants. Meanwhile, King Agrippa’s attention had been attracted, and Latus now made signs to beg his forgiveness. Now Berenice saw that her father had provided his own cool liquid refreshment. Only she and her brother, apparently, were not equipped to deal with their thirst.

  Her brother sent Joseph Bennoch, the page, for the wine, which was in a glass beaker set in a wooden bucket of ice. The beaker was very large, holding at least a quart of liquid, and with the bucket and the ice made a weight under which the page staggered. As he brought it to their pavilion, Berenice’s father watched, and Germanicus Latus made signs that the king was to have the first drink. “Ice? Isn’t that ice in it? I thought I saw ice.”

  Berenice dipped into the bucket, found a piece of ice, and held it dripping. Several of the guests in the pavilion gathered around, for ice was no common thing here in Caesarea in the heat, and some of them had never seen a chunk of ice before. Ice was cut during the winter months on the high lakes in Lebanon and then packed in sawdust, to be sold through the hot months at fantastic prices, so much so that it was called, in the Aramaic, the language of Palestine, the gold that melts.

  “Throw it here, child,” Agrippa called in great good humor, his friends and advisers around him, and feeling more and more superior as he watched the Emperor Claudius’ inept play unfold. For many years, he had been a close friend of the emperor, and there is a particular satisfaction in observing the literary cropper of a close friend.

  The people around Berenice stood aside, and she threw the piece of ice to her father, who caught it deftly, grinning across the seats at Latus. “Old devil! Trust you to find ice! No ice in Caesarea for the king, but let a Roman set up court there, and there’s ice and anything else he sets his mind to!”

  Agrippa said this in Latin, a tongue he used as easily and readily as his native Aramaic, and the high-pitched, commanding tone of his voice drew the attention of the audience. The players paused in their scene, out of deference to the king, and Germanicus Latus shouted back,

  “Which explains why we rule the earth, Your Majesty. I will find ice in Caesarea, water in the desert, and women of easy virtue in Jerusalem! Only command it!” The jest was not terribly witty, but it found its mark in the audience, sending those who understood Latin into peals of laughter and those who did not into a flurry of inquiry. King Agrippa smiled in appreciation. He did not think it worth the laughter, and in his present phase he had no desire to exhibit appreciation over a backhanded slur on Jerusalem.

  Meanwhile, the king’s beautifully wrought silver cup had been handed to his son, young Agrippa, who had poured about a third of the beaker of wine into it.

  Afterward, Berenice was able to recall much of the history of the king’s goblet during the next few moments. Out of the corner of her eye, she observed Agrippa the younger pouring the wine. He then handed the cup to the priest, Phineas, who started across the row of seats, only to be stopped by the king’s seneschal, Herod-Kophas by name, and a fourth or fifth cousin in the royal family. The seneschal did a complete turn, hiding the cup for a moment, and then passed it to a scribe, who handed it to one of the young women who sat alongside of Agrippa the king. She made as to drink from it, but with mock severity, Agrippa clutched her wrist, took the cup, and, forgetting in the excitement and pleasure of the moment the function and duty of his royal taster, drained half the cup in one great swallow.

  Berenice was watching her father. She remembered being suddenly thirsty at that moment and half reaching out to touch her brother’s arm and ask him to pour a cup of the wine for her, perhaps mixing it with some ice and water. But her gesture was halted midway, for suddenly her father rose to his feet, holding the silver cup of wine in front of him in one trembling hand. A hoarse, wordless cry came from his throat, choked out, gasped out—and then a shriller, louder cry of rage and pain, and then the heavy silver cup dropped with a crash from his hand, the hand remaining outstretched, the fingers curled.

  The two girls with him began to scream. The play had stopped, and players and audience were staring at the stricken king. Voices stilled; conversation halted; smiles and laughter disappeared. Here and there, people in the audience were rising to their feet—that they might see better.

  The king was swaying, a thick, branchless oak uprooted. People rushed toward him, but with a sweep of his arms he thrust them away. He tried to speak, but his throat tightened and closed around the words, and then he fell down. A few minutes later he was dead.

  In the turmoil that followed Berenice remained strangely cool, collected, and aloof. While others reacted with panic, fear, total confusion, or the desperation of self-preservation, she kept her wits and prevented the singular tragedy of the king’s death from turning into a much larger tragedy of riot and massacre. The role she played was a surprise, not only to others but to herself as well.

  While a crowd quickly collected around the king’s body, Berenice remained with her brother. She did not require confirmation of the fact that her father had been poisoned and was now dead. I
n such areas, her own experience and knowledge was conclusive; she had seen others die of the same poison, and she was not at this moment burdened with either grief or regret. Her brother was crouched rigidly over the bucket of wine and ice; horror, fear, and surprise held him, as it held the page, little Joseph Bennoch. As her brother straightened to move, Berenice had already removed the wine from the bucket. She dropped it, as by accident, and the glass beaker splintered as it crashed on the marble floor, sending the purple wine across the bright cushions and white stone. Her brother stared at her, his mouth forming the question, “Why? Why?” To which she replied in a sibilant whisper, “Listen to me, now. What would you? If there was poison in the bottle, it was the hand of Rome? Or do you think Bennoch did it—a child? No, if there was poison there, it was Rome.”

  “But we’ll never know now,” he protested.

  “Better never to know.”

  The audience was milling all over the theater now. Enoch Benaron, the captain of the king’s guard, was in front of Agrippa now, informing him in an official sense that his father was dead. Others gathered behind Benaron, priests, seneschals, stewards—and the Jewish noblemen who were forcing their way from their own pavilions toward the royal box. Agrippa stared at them in bewilderment as Berenice whispered into his ear,

  “Now you are king, brother. In the name of God, pull yourself together.”

  Enoch Benaron, a young Galilean with the hillman’s hatred of pagans, told Agrippa that he had his men at every entrance to the theater, two thousand men, the king’s men.

  “Just give me the word,” he begged Agrippa, “and I will teach this pagan filth to weep for a king’s death. I will let them know how it feels when the king of the Jews is murdered. Just give me the word.” He was choking with anger and sorrow; he had feelings about the dead Agrippa. The live Agrippa remained speechless, but Berenice cried,

  “No! Have you lost your senses, Benaron? Now, I tell you this—if anything of the kind happens here in this theater or anywhere in Caesarea today, then we will hold you responsible. Do you understand, Benaron? Anything—street riots, massacres—any kind of bloodletting between Jews and pagans—you hear me?”

  Her voice was shrill, high, and imperious, and Benaron nodded. She stared at him, and he faced up to her for a moment, and then bowed his head and then went down on one knee before her and her brother.

  “Oh, get up,” Berenice snapped. “Get up and keep order here and use your common sense. He died of poisoned wine—in a cup that was handed to him. They”—sweeping her arm at the audience—“did not kill him. Someone here in his own pavilion did, and whoever he is, God’s finger will point to him. Now do what you have to do.”

  The sun was setting by the time they were back in the palace, the seventeen-year-old Agrippa alone finally with his sixteen-year-old sister, Berenice, both of them exhausted from the pressure of events, the chaos that surrounds the death of a king, the near panic, the confusion and excitement, the hundred details thrust upon them suddenly—each a decision:

  “The body—where shall we take the body?”

  “Do we want embalmers? In this heat—”

  “He desired to be buried in Galilee.”

  “His wife. The noble Cypros must be told.”

  “Have you informed Jerusalem?”

  “His wife—”

  “Will you send messages to Jerusalem?”

  “Should there be a procession? If there is a procession, it must pass through Jerusalem.”

  Agrippa—the young Agrippa—was king. So everyone presumed, yet they addressed themselves to Berenice. Agrippa did not mind. Himself, he had no notion of what should or should not be done. Still dazed, he was taken to look at his father.

  “Bear the body to the palace, of course,” Berenice told them. Herod-Kophas was whimpering about litters—it would take so long to find a litter of proper size and dignity. “Oh, improvise something,” Berenice said. “Can’t any of you do anything?” At her elbow then was Germanicus Latus, the Roman: “I am yours to command,” he whispered. “What a tragic day! What can I do to ease your suffering?” She shook her head hopelessly, while they continued to mill about her and about the body of the dead king.

  She had to confront her mother alone. Her brother would not come with her, saying, “She will believe that I did it.” “Of all the things to say!” Berenice burst out. “Never say that again—never suggest it! Never!” But she went alone to her mother’s bedside and stood stiff and unmoved over the weeping Cypros, thinking to herself with abstract curiosity, “This woman loved him. She actually loved him.”

  “He was so good,” Cypros said to her. “No one knew truly how good he was, how kind he was. He was misunderstood. He was so lonely and so misunderstood—”

  There was nothing Berenice could say, so she stood woodenly and listened, without disagreeing.

  “We will take his body to Jerusalem,” Cypros whispered. “There must be a great procession—to do him honor.”

  “In this heat?” Berenice exclaimed.

  “How dare you speak of heat!” Cypros cried out, suddenly regal and alive, pressing herself up from her bed. “Have the embalmers lay out his sweet body with pungent spices in a cedar coffin. Make the arrangements—” The effort exhausted her. White as a ghost, she lay back on her bed, staring at her daughter. “Ungrateful—ungrateful—he loved you.”

  Berenice could not tolerate another moment of it, and calling back the women in attendance, she left her mother and went to Agrippa. It was twilight. She and her brother stood alone in the long, open chamber where breakfast had been served that morning, only a few hours before, and they looked at each other, and finally Agrippa asked her how it had gone with his mother.

  “As you might expect—”

  “She took it poorly.”

  “I think she’s dying,” Berenice said flatly. “I don’t think this will matter very much.”

  “How can you be so cold about it all?” Agrippa demanded.

  “Cold? I’m neither warm nor cold,” Berenice said testily. “I am trying to do what has to be done. I didn’t love him, and I can’t mourn him.”

  “He was the king,” Agrippa said. “He had the power of life and death. He could have crushed us—he could have done what he willed with us—”

  “He’s dead,” Berenice said sharply. “Pull yourself together. You are king now—with Rome’s will. That’s the point—how the Emperor Claudius will take this. I never quite understood how it was between him and father. Now Claudius and you—”

  “I am the king,” Agrippa nodded. “Strange. I try to feel it. There should be a difference—”

  “If Claudius wills it,” Berenice nodded.

  “Still, I am king. I am king now.” Agrippa cast about him, trying to pierce the gathering shadows. “Why don’t they bring light?” He cried out for the lamp bearers, who came running, setting the flickering lights in their places around the room. Now the mourners were gathering in front of the palace, to bewail the passing of a king of the Jews who was like a saint. Berenice could hear their keening—and she knew that it would go on all night long.

  “The least I can do is avenge him,” Agrippa said.

  “On whom?” Berenice asked.

  “You spoke of the finger of God. Do you believe—”

  “The finger of God, I have found,” Berenice said, “moves in its own good time. What will it profit us to find the murderer?”

  “What will it profit us?” Agrippa cried, aghast at her cold and practical attitude. “Is there no such thing as justice? Does a man murder a king and go unpunished? Does our own flesh and blood need no vengeance?”

  “Our own flesh and blood is the last thing I am concerned about at this moment,” Berenice said gently. “Think this through, brother. Try to see what we are getting into, before we step into it. Who could have poisoned the king? Think!”

  “Any number of people,” Agrippa replied.

  “Hardly. I’ll tell you who could have done it
. Firstly, the Roman, Germanicus Latus—do we accuse him, break with Rome, kill a legate? And then what—war with Rome?”

  “Why would Latus do it?”

  “Hold on now,” Berenice warned him. “I did not say that he did it. I said he could have. So could Joseph Bennoch. Do you suspect him? A child?”

  “Not him,” Agrippa agreed.

  “So much if the poison was in the bottle. But if it was dropped into the cup, we have more possibilities—the priest, Phineas, the seneschal, Herod-Kophas, our cousin, the scribe, Joash, and that noble whore, Zipporah Basomen. Each of them held the cup for a moment; each of them had the opportunity. Well, whom do we accuse? Herod-Kophas? Why? What reason? Fifty others must die before he is in line for the throne. And if we accuse him, then we confess to the world that we murder each other. Who else? The scribe, Joash? He’s a Pharisee—we accuse him and split the nation in two again, Pharisees on one side, Sadducees on the other? And why? What would it profit him? Or the girl. Do we accuse her and set a large and powerful family of Jews against us? But where is her motive? And lastly—the priest, Phineas, whom we both despise. He’s lost his protector, his home, his hopes, his cushy post, and the bag of food he devours each day. Yes, we could find him and crucify him, and no one would complain very much—although I am sure he’s halfway to Jerusalem by now, whipping some poor horse to death. No, he had no motive.”

  “Then who had a motive?” Agrippa asked.

  “Only one of them,” Berenice said. “The Roman.”

  “Surely you’re not serious.”

  “Surely I am,” Berenice said. “It neither profits nor hinders him to have the king dead, but he sent us the wine, and he serves his master, Claudius.”

  “Father’s friend?”

  “You think father had friends?” Berenice smiled.

  The following day, just before the funerary procession left for Jerusalem, Germanicus Latus payed a formal call on Berenice, explaining that circumstances did not permit his making the journey to Jerusalem, much as he desired to. “For the king was my dear and beloved friend—as he was of all Romans—a brilliant and interesting man.” Then Latus went on to say that he did not find the king’s daughter less interesting or unusual. “They say you are only sixteen. Is this possible?” he asked Berenice.