by Fast, Howard
“About last night—” he began.
“We have both forgotten about last night, have we not, Vibius Marsus?” she said smilingly. “Whatever I said, it was certainly more foolish than anything you said—so let us agree that nothing was said.”
“That is very kind of you,” the Roman nodded.
“And charitable of you. Pray, sit down—please?” She took his hand quite naturally, leading him to a chair, where he seated himself. But he never took his eyes off her.
“It’s true,” he nodded.
“What is true, Proconsul?”
“What they say of you.”
“And what do they say of me, Proconsul?”
“That you were never a child and that your years are many times sixteen. Are you a witch, lady?”
“Oh, hardly, Vibius Marsus,” Berenice laughed. “And I can see that you don’t know the meaning of that word among our people, or you would not have asked me what no Jew would dare to ask me.”
“If I have offended you again—”
“No. No. It is a confusion in words. To the Roman, the Latin word saga means simply a woman who practices the art of magicus—or as you would call such a man, a magus. But to us, to the Jews, the same word would mean a temple prostitute, one who serves the mother-god, Ashtoreth—there is a temple in Rome to her honor, but there she is called Astarte—and such worship is the giving of herself to all men who come, so that even if she is a princess, any can lie with her—of any race or age, so long as they would serve the mother. To us, this is an abomination and a horror, a debasement, and in our holy scroll of the Law, which we call the Torah, it is written, ‘Thou shalt not allow a witch to live.’ So you see, when you call me a witch, I am not flattered.”
“Then I humbly apologize. But I have seen these temples of Ashtoreth in the mountains of Phoenicia, only a few miles to the north of here.”
“And gone to them too,” Berenice said to herself, “for there never was an Italian wouldn’t go half a hundred miles out of his way to lie with the witches.” But aloud, shrugging slightly, she said, “The Phoenicians make much of what they call live-and-let-live. They are a tired people, obsessed by their ancient greatness and tolerant of their present wretchedness. Their ignorant peasants support the temples and send their daughters to whore for their mother-god, and their noblemen send gifts to our Temple in Jerusalem and journey there to do homage to the only true God. But even so, they can stand only in the court of the Gentiles, for though they are circumcised, they remain unclean. They are tolerant. I don’t think Romans approve of tolerance, and we Jews are hardly what you would call a tolerant people.”
“I agree with that,” the Roman nodded.
“Then perhaps we have some common ground, Proconsul, in spite of all the fingers pointed at our differences.”
“Perhaps. And may I ask, my lady, how it is that you and your brother talk Latin as if you were born to it? Greek I would understand, for you Jews make a fetish of the Greek tongue, but you hate and despise Latin as much as you hate and fear Romans, in spite of our common intolerance.”
“You are quite a man, Proconsul,” Berenice nodded. “I would not want you for an enemy. May we stop fencing and be friends?”
“You are fencing, my dear. I am only defending myself in my poor, cloddish Italian manner. I shall be delighted to be your friend, and if I were twenty years young, I would see half the world in flames before I surrendered the right to be your lover. But Antony went through all that—and unlike the Egyptians, the Jews will not permit a woman to reign over them. Rome can be thankful for that. And you have not answered my question.”
“My brother and I lived in Rome when we were children. I don’t remember the moment, but I have been told that your emperor held me on his knee. I was very small then, and he was not yet emperor.”
“Indeed. Yes, the emperor loves your house—and I am sure that he loved you, as he did your noble father.”
“Did he indeed, Proconsul,” Berenice said quietly. “I am curious to know why, if he loved Agrippa, my father, he had him murdered?”
“By all the gods,” the Roman burst out, “you have a damned loose way of speech, my lady!”
“And I have been told only that Romans were practical people, frank, forthright, and realistic in all their approaches. But these walls have no ears, Vibius Marsus. And see how this chamber is built, so vast in size, with rich hangings on every wall to muffle the sound. Who can hear us? And who can approach to hearing distance without being seen by us? I do not speak in hatred or out of need for vengeance. It is surely no secret to you that I did not love my father, and that he in turn shed few tears over my own sorrows. As a matter of fact, I was aware from the very beginning that Germanicus Latus put the poison in the wine that he sent to my father to drink. It was not a clever assassination—not subtle or well thought out—and only a series of accidents in the transmission of the wine caused the suspicion to be directed elsewhere, to myself among others.”
“I was informed that a Jewish priest confessed to the murder and was appropriately hanged by your brother,” the Roman said evenly.
“Oh, come, Proconsul. You know that there is nothing so unsettling to a people as an unpunished crime. Crime and punishment, the two arms on the scale of society. Balance them, and the society persists in good order. Unbalance them, and you have confusion.”
“You grow on me, my Jewish princess,” Marsus said coldly and evenly. “I constantly underestimate you. I keep recollecting that you are only sixteen years old. Tell me, how old was Cleopatra when she first ensnared Caesar?”
“Possibly my age,” Berenice yawned. “I never admired her. Like most Egyptians, I think she was stupid. Also, Proconsul, I have no intentions of even attempting to ensnare you. I watched my father’s murder. I am not guessing as to who was responsible. I know. I am only trying to understand why—if the Emperor Claudius loved him.”
“He loved him, and, mind you, I agree with nothing you have said except that. How well did you know your father?”
“Not well. Even the child who loves his father knows him poorly, and I did not love Agrippa.”
“You are cold as ice, aren’t you?” the Roman observed. “I was told Jews burned hotly.”
“I don’t burn at all, and as for what was between my father and me—I don’t think that is pertinent to our conversation, Proconsul. Say I did know him, in your sense.”
“Then you did not know his ambitions.”
“I knew what he wanted.”
“Yes?”
“Money.”
“Oh? Is it as simple as that, Princess? Let me tell you this. Your father and Claudius were very close, as close as two men can be, and just between us, the emperor owed him a good deal. Agrippa’s support during the few critical hours before and after Claudius became emperor was not to be dismissed. It was in return for this that the emperor gave your father suzerainty over such an area as no Jewish king ruled since the days of your King Solomon. He was more than a king then, your father. Ruling from Chalcis in the north to Idumea in the south, he held sway over enough nations and cities to be thought of as some eastern emperor. In return—what?”
His voice had hardened, and suddenly Berenice saw and understood the whole pattern of his being there, of the concretization of his role into the drunken bout of the night before, and now of his decision to talk with her rather than with Agrippa.
Slowly Berenice said, “My father was a good king. He kept the Law. The people loved him—” Strangely, she had no sense of lying or pretending. Too late—and with the knowledge that it is always too late—she had a sense of her father and herself and the interconnected meaning of both of them on the stage of the world. And because she was Berenice, she was also able to sense the grandeur of the process of their downfall. She waited as the Roman snapped,
“Loved him indeed! I tell you, lady, the Jewish mind is one no normal person can ever cope with. Claudius gave your father an empire, and Agrippa’s first ac
tion was to rebuild the outer walls of Jerusalem. I traveled down from Damascus to watch what he was doing, and then I wrote to the emperor and told him that Agrippa was making Jerusalem impregnable. Against whom?”
Berenice sat silently, watching him.
“Against whom?” the Roman shouted.
“I hear you, Proconsul.”
“Claudius ordered him to stop. He disobeyed the emperor. Then I was instructed to inform him personally that if he laid one more stone on that damned wall it would mean war with Rome. Then he stopped, full of smiles and humble apologies. He was fortifying the wall against the Parthians, as he put it, in case it should enter their heads to travel a thousand miles and attack Jerusalem. He was building a bulwark for Rome. Lies. Pretenses. Everything except the truth—that he was no sooner king than he began to build for the day when he could challenge Rome. The Jewish disease, my dear lady—or is it the Jewish insanity?”
“That was almost four years ago,” Berenice replied evenly.
“Yes. And when one thing failed, another was attempted. Your father had an agile mind. A year or so ago I was informed that twelve princes and kings were either on their way to Tiberias or here already—twelve, every petty monarch in the area, the king of Seleucia and the prince of Antioch and the king of Sidon and the king of Cappadocia and the two supposed royal brothers of Sparta, who still pretend that they are a people and a nation and all the rest of your petty lords—here and with their noses in a heady Jewish brew they were cooking up. I came here alone. They were meeting here—in this room where we are sitting, and I pushed your guards aside and walked through that door and faced them and told them to go home. I came with no legions, no guards, just myself—and I told them there would be no conspiracies, no alliances against Rome. I told them to go home, and like whipped dogs, they went.”
Berenice sat in silence now.
“It was almost six months before I could go to Rome and discuss these matters with the emperor. While I was there, another matter came to my attention, and I brought it before the emperor. Your father, Agrippa, was hoarding money, hoarding it and collecting it and making loans wherever there was a Jewish community—from one end of the earth to the other. And do you know why?”
“He always loved money,” Berenice whispered.
“How wrong you are, my dear. He despised money. He spent millions in his youth. Money ran through his fingers like water. Do you know why he became a miser? Because he had decided to hire one hundred thousand mercenary troops for his war with Rome. He was a remarkable man. Single-minded. Give me a good man who gains power and becomes evil. That is both natural and inevitable, and it can be dealt with. But save me from the sinner who gains power and becomes a saint! The emperor and I discussed the matter, and it was his opinion that your father had overstepped the bounds of both wisdom and gratitude. But then he died, and the problem was solved.”
“What do you intend for my brother?” Berenice asked softly.
“The emperor is not ungenerous, and he remembers your father with warmth. Your brother will continue to be king over this city of Tiberias, and his domain will include a few hundred square miles of Galilee, roughly an area within ten miles of the lake. If he fulfills his duties loyally, the emperor will perhaps reward him additionally in the future. But so far as the Jews are concerned, the emperor is determined that your father shall be remembered as the last king. There will be no more Jewish kings over what you people call Israel and what we call Palestine. As far as that is concerned, the House of Herod and the House of Mattathias can look only to the past. Instead, the emperor has appointed a procurator over Judea. His name is Cuspius Fadus. He traveled with me from Rome, and he is now in Caesarea, organizing his government before he proceeds to Jerusalem.”
Somber, rigid, her green eyes hooded and withdrawn, Berenice sat without speaking. She was cold and numb inside, and her thoughts were slow, sluggish, and weary.
“It will take a little time to get used to this,” the Roman nodded. “I imagine it means a great disappointment for you—and even more so for your brother. But you are still the queen of Chalcis and Agrippa is still king—even if only of a small part of his father’s domain. Tiberias is a rich and beautiful city, and the countryside here is fertile and productive. Not all of us can be emperors. I advise you and your brother to make the best of what you have, and to consider yourselves fortunate. Honor Rome—and Rome will honor you.”
Berenice and Agrippa ate their dinner alone, the two of them silent for the most part. When they spoke, it was to no great point, and only once did Agrippa even mention the possibility of a difference with Rome’s opinion.
“War with Rome?” Berenice said. “But those who go to war with Rome are destroyed—”
“I know.” Miserably.
“We were told that our father was a saint. You and I—”
“I know.”
“We are not saints.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“In fact,” said Berenice, “I am not sure that anyone cares a great deal about us. There would be no great mourning in Israel if we were dead.”
Agrippa nodded.
“War? No one would go to war for us. Let’s face that, brother. That’s the plain truth of it. The fact of it is that a couple of enterprising Jews would just as soon put a knife in our backs and sell the remains to Rome. That makes more sense than war, and there’s a profit in it.”
“Still, I was king for a while—twenty-three days to be exact.”
“You are still king of Tiberias.”
Agrippa smiled plaintively. “You know the old man, Isaac Benabram?”
“The archon of the city?”
“Yes. I asked him whether he needed help. He smiled at me as if I was some sort of half-wit. I asked about a royal court. Don’t trouble yourself, my son, he said to me.”
“Still, it’s better than Chalcis,” Berenice said.
“Will you go back to Chalcis now?”
“What else can I do?” Berenice said. “Brother—the plain, rotten truth of it is that I am pregnant. And it’s his child—the child of that fat lout, sitting in his tent alongside the city. Where else do I go? I thought once that power and glory would solve everything. But the Roman removed our power and glory, and a war between Tiberias and Chalcis would not even be entertaining, much less plausible. I’ll go back to Chalcis, brother.”
Berenice sent for her husband. Instead of Herod’s response in person, a messenger from him appeared, bearing a note which said, “My loyal and faithful wife: I am here in my tent, and I shall await your arrival with pleasure and eagerness. If you are not here in twenty-four hours, a messenger will go to Chalcis, with orders for my entire army to join me here. The army of Chalcis is neither very large nor particularly frightening, but I believe it is sufficient to cope with Tiberias. And since more of my soldiers are not Jewish than Jewish, they will no doubt take pleasure in spelling out, on the streets, buildings, and people of Tiberias, an understandable resentment and envy which they display toward Jews. This would be regrettable to us, who as Jews should express no desire for a massacre of our own people; but hardly regrettable to my good friends and allies, the Romans. Vibius Marsus, who was kind enough to repeat to me the substance of his instructions to you, has already indicated that if I were forced to undertake a just attack upon Tiberias, in defense of my rights and honor, he would be pleased to supply me with sufficient siege engines to break down your walls. So, my good wife, knowing your reputation for clear thinking and logical action, I shall expect you at my tent. And soon.”
Berenice showed the message to Agrippa, who began to tremble with anger as he read it. “The bastard!” he cried. “The lousy, rotten, degraded bastard! Some day I will gut him! By the Holy Name of God, I swear that! I’ll cut open that fat belly of his while he’s alive and feeling and pull out his guts with my own hands—”
“Easy, brother—easy,” Berenice begged him. “He is merely displaying a proper Herodian attitude—”
“What will you do?”
“Do I have a choice? I will go to him, of course.”
“Suppose we called his bluff. Would he dare? Would he actually attack Tiberias?”
“He would—and the proconsul would help him.”
“And no one would come to our aid?”
“Who? Who, brother? They would say, Let the Herodian dogs destroy each other. And they would be right. Anyway, the days are gone when nations went to war over a woman’s desire to avoid her husband. This is not Troy, and my glutton of a husband is no Agamemnon, and Jews do not make war unless their pride or their religion is offended. No, Agrippa. I will go.”
And with that, Berenice sought out Gabo and put her to packing the three enormous chests that held her wardrobe. A few hours later, she was ready to leave. Tiberias was not a large city, and word had already gotten around that Berenice was returning to the fat Herod of Chalcis. It was also commonly known by now that the Emperor Claudius had shattered the great Jewish kingdom and reconstituted it as a group of minor Roman provinces. A new procurator was on his way to Judea in the south, and as for Agrippa Benagrippa, their seventeen-year-old monarch, he was king of Tiberias and no more than that. So when Berenice emerged from the palace, followed by Gabo, a dozen men of arms assigned by her brother to accompany her, and slaves bearing her great clothes chests, the streets were crowded with men, women, and children; for there is nothing more delightful than to see the mighty come a cropper. Some were silent out of a decent respect for the daughter of the dead Agrippa; but others could not resist the temptation to hoot, whistle, and spit in contempt. As one old woman put it, “Whore—go to your husband instead of your brother!” If they could have devised a worse charge than incest, they would have hurled it at her. Some did, considering patricide the deadlier of the two sins. But there were others who watched her silently as she walked by—she would not be carried in a litter or hide her face—and said to themselves that never before had a woman of such beauty or such grace walked on the soil of old Israel.
Herod, her husband, waited for her inside his tent. He stood there, enveloped head to foot in a long robe of white and gold, his face murderously grim, nor did he say anything as she entered and faced him. He had rehearsed his response a hundred times, and he knew that if she made one single, simple gesture of contrition, his anger would melt away. But she did not. She only regarded him silently and steadily, her green eyes fixed on his face, her mouth moving in the slightest gesture of contempt—yet enough to explode his hair-trigger wrath.