Agrippa's Daughter

by Fast, Howard

  “No, no, no,” Berenice begged her. “I manumitted you years ago.”

  “Then I made myself a slave. Did you ever thank me? I have children—”

  “But they are well taken care of, Gabo,” Berenice pleaded. “I shelter them in the palace in Tiberias and they are fed and clothed and schooled.”

  “Don’t I have feelings? Don’t I wish to see them?”

  Berenice threw her arms around Gabo. “Anything—of course, you must go to see them. And I will find a swift ship for you and money, and you will bring them wonderful gifts from here, dresses for the girls and fine tunics and shoes for the boys—”

  Now Gabo burst into tears and swore that she would die before she ever permitted herself to be separated from Berenice. And Berenice thanked her. “Oh, I am so lonely, Gabo. I am so lonely. I am so afraid here—”

  “Come home with me, mistress. We will go back to a Jewish land—to a place where the God Yaweh can look down on us and keep us. Does He even know that we exist here, with these dark and ugly Roman gods?”

  “Gabo, Gabo—there is only one God and He is everywhere.”

  “In Israel, yes, because Yaweh would destroy any other gods. Just as He destroyed the gods of Canaan in the olden times. But what can Yaweh do here?”

  Go home—it was a dream. She said to Barona, “I am so lonely for Israel—”

  “Because Titus is away? But that is only natural, my dear. Now listen to me—I know how long it has been—”

  “Can anyone know how long it has been?” Berenice asked him. “Once, when we had the mission to the Jewish captives and there was meaning in my life because so many thousands of poor people had to be saved—once it was different. But when that was over, time became like a river, and I floated on the river wishing half of the time that I could sink into it and drown.”

  “And yet you love Titus.”

  “Do I? I don’t know. Sometimes—it seems to me that I love him so much that I cannot face life without him. Other times I am simply indifferent and unable to comprehend my relationship to this young man.”

  “Isn’t that only natural?” Barona asked her. “Please, believe me, Berenice Basagrippa—and remain here with me only a little longer. Let me tell you what I have heard. I heard that Vespasian is mortally ill. They have had doctors from Greece and from Egypt, some of the most renowned physicians on earth, and they all agree that there is little or no chance for a recovery. In other words, the emperor is dying, and tomorrow or a month from now, as God wills, Titus will be Emperor of Rome. Has he not sworn that he will make you his empress?”

  “So he said,” Berenice agreed.

  The days and the weeks passed, and Vespasian still lived. Titus returned to Rome, but there was so much intrigue, so many problems surrounding the dying emperor that Berenice saw little of Titus. And when he did come, he was perturbed and distracted. As if a wall had come into being between them.

  “Do you want me to go away?” Berenice asked him. “Back to Galilee—because you must say so if you do. You must tell me. I cannot remain here without your love.”

  “If I could only tell you how much I love you.”

  “What then, Titus? What then?”

  “How can I tell you, Berenice? People hate me, fear me, envy me; it’s part of being what I am, and you don’t escape it. I have a brother, Domitian. I have cousins, stepbrothers, friends, enemies—and more who might be either one. Already, I am the Praetorian prefect. Two years ago, my father made me his colleague in the Imperium. A year ago, he gave me tribunician authority. I have power—too much power, and enemies, too many enemies. I have enemies who hate you even more than they hate me.”

  “Why should they hate me?”

  “Because I love you, and because you are a Jew. They hate me for loving a Jew—and they hate you for being a Jew. They hate me because I turned a deaf ear to all their pleading that I drive the Jews out of Rome and dispossess them of all their property in Italy. Our curse is wealth, my darling, and our sickness is a lust for it; and now we have the new sickness of lusting for the wealth of the Jews. Why not kill them? Why not destroy them?”

  “Yet you are Titus. They will never forget that.”

  Yet within three months after Vespasian died, they forgot that Titus was emperor—or hoped that as emperor he would ignore such things; and twenty armed men attacked the House of Barona. Berenice had just left her rooms to go down and join the family at their evening meal, when the assassins burst into the house. The entrance to her apartment was on a marble landing, about nine feet above the magnificent reception hall; so from where she stood, Berenice could look down the whole length of the reception hall to the front door, into the dining room on her right, and into passageways on her left that led to the kitchen. Gabo was coming from the kitchens with a bundle of Berenice’s clothes, which she had steamed over the great stove, and the assassin in the lead cut her down with a single stroke of his sword, almost severing her head from her body. At that moment, Barona’s daughter entered the room, leading her two children, one by each hand, and she paused and screamed. The second assassin ran her through, and two others ran after the children, cutting wildly at them. Brought by the screams, Barona and two of his sons ran into the reception hall, and they were murdered there on the spot. At the same time, half a dozen of the assassins raced down the length of the reception hall to the stairs to reach Berenice—who was apparently the focal point of their attack and the underlying reason for it. When she leaped back to the shelter of the door to her apartment, they flung swords and daggers at her, and though one of the swords skipped into the doorway, she was untouched. She slammed the door behind her and managed to throw the bar into place just as the body of the first of the assassins to mount the stairs hurtled against it. The door quivered but held. In a moment, all of them were fighting the door, hurling their weight against it and cutting at the panels with their swords. For the moment it held—but for how long? And if it did hold, how long before one of them exhibited intelligence and realized that there were other ways into the apartment—windows, balconies.

  When the door continued to hold up under their blows, they stopped—and now, too, the terrible screams from beyond the door had stopped, which could only mean that the members of the House of Barona were dead, unless some of them had escaped. Leaning against the wall next to the door, Berenice was sick with what she had seen. Her first reaction over, she felt that it made no difference whether she lived or died. If they broke down the door now, she knew that she would make no effort to escape—that she would accept whatever fate awaited her. She was past caring, and suddenly she felt so weary, so inexpressibly tired and exhausted that the effort of standing erect was too much for her. She sank down to the floor and crouched there, waiting for the assassins to make their way in through the windows or to devise some sort of battering ram that would smash in the door.

  She waited, and time passed, and suddenly there was a wild shout, a clash of iron against iron, more shouting, more sound of weapons, screams of pain, roars of rage, and then a metal-shod hand hammering at the door.

  “Berenice! Berenice—do you hear me?”

  It was the voice of Titus, and yet it could not be. He called to her again. Someone was attacking the door with an ax. Blow after blow, and it began to splinter. Berenice saw the axhead come through. Then a hole was made and enlarged, and a hand came through and flung the bar out of its socket. Titus leaped into the room, two Praetorians following with bared sword. He looked around him wildly for a moment, and then he saw Berenice—to whom it was all like a senseless dream. She watched him come to her and raise her up; only when his arms were securely about her did she begin to sob, deep, hard sobs that racked her whole body.

  “We have the queen—she’s safe!” one of the Praetorians was shouting.

  Holding her up, Titus led her through the broken door, his arm like a rigid band of iron behind her and around her; and from the landing outside of her apartment, she looked down on an abattoir.
The entire floor of the reception room was covered with blood and bodies, the men and women and children of the House of Barona—not a single one of them spared. (Berenice discovered afterward that a servant had escaped to give the alarm.) And with the Baronas, the bodies of a dozen of the assassins. Two of the assassins were held now by Praetorians; the others must have escaped.

  “What have you got from them?” Titus demanded.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Well, take them home with you—and see whether hot irons and cold tongs may not loosen their tongues. Don’t spare them. I want to know who is behind this, and I don’t care whether those bastards live or die. Only keep them conscious. I want them to plead for death.”

  “Hasn’t there been enough death?” Berenice whispered.

  “No—hardly, my dear. We balance such things on bitter scales, and I loved and treasured this old man Barona and his flesh and blood. It will take a while to balance the scales.”

  But the assassins died, and the scales were not balanced; it was Titus’ decision that Berenice should go to a villa he owned in Cisalpine Gaul, where she would be safe, where twenty Praetorians would be detailed to guard her—while Titus dealt with the cabal in Rome, which had apparently begun its campaign against him with the decision to murder her. He was not alarmed about the plotters; every Imperator faced that when he took office, and he was certain that he could deal with them, given time. But he was alarmed about Berenice’s safety—and he was firm on the question of Gaul. No one would know where she was; the Praetorians would sell their lives, if need be, in her defense, and the moment this menace had been dealt with, he would bring her back to him.

  She allowed herself to be convinced by his arguments. For herself, she would have preferred to return to Galilee, but she was no longer able to do what she desired or preferred. The spring, the mettle, the vibrancy had gone out of her. She wrote to her brother, Agrippa:

  “Suddenly, I am old—if constant weariness means old age; and I feel so often that I have seen too much. A person is supposed to live a single life, and then return it to the Almighty when its time is over. But I feel that I have lived far more than one life, and perhaps this is my punishment. For I think I have sinned enough to warrant punishment. Agrippa, my brother, what am I to do? The dream of becoming Empress of Rome has worn very thin indeed—and if it ever does come to be, I think it will come without love. I no longer love Titus—if, indeed, I ever loved him—and that is something I do not know at all. But I did love David Barona Judaicus Purpureus—David the son of Ona, the Jew of the purple. How foolish these pompous Latin names sound when you translate them! I loved him because he was sweet and gentle and wise and practical in the ways of the world—oh, how many Jews like him have I known! And then to see him and his entire seed murdered so cruelly, on my account; as if I myself had wielded the steel that cut him down! That I will never forget. Every night since then I wake up moaning and in a cold sweat, living through that terrible incident once again. How strange that in spite of the fact that I was won over to the House of Hillel, I seem to have lived with nothing but violence, war, and murder and the death of those I loved most! And now the House of Barona is finished, its long and ancient line brought to an end. How sorrowful! So for this good old man, for the dream he cherished of our royal house and line joined to the Imperium of Rome—for this man and his hopes, I will do as Titus begs me to do and go to his country place in Gaul and wait there for him to send for me.

  “It will not be an arduous trip, for Titus is providing me with a comfortable galley, which will not only take me to Gaul but will be anchored at the mouth of the River Arno for my use when I desire it—and he is supplying me with trusted body servants—now that poor Gabo is dead, and you must cherish her children always—who will supply my every want. I stress this because I must not give you the feeling that Titus has changed. No. The change is in me, not him; and he remains as gentle and wise as ever. Already, all Rome is talking about the golden age he has ushered in. There are reforms every day. He has released thousands of people unjustly imprisoned, and he very pointedly absents himself from the hideous gladiatorial games. I would guess that the great majority of the people adore him, and everyone says that never before has Rome had an emperor so fair and wise and level-headed. Of course I am deeply flattered that he not only considers me beautiful and desirable, but wise and judicious as well—but such flattery and self-adulation is poor meat and bread.

  “Do you know what is most lacking in me? The spark of youth—and it seems to me that there is nothing in the world I desire more than to go back to Galilee and sit by the lake and listen to the songs of the fishermen as they plant their nets and watch their torches by night—oh, my soul aches simply to say it; for who knows that I will ever again see that beloved place. For so long, Israel was simply a word to me, an amorphous word overused by sentimental people. But now when I hear the word Israel, my eyes fill—

  “So now I bid you farewell. I go to live for a while at least in a strange and distant land, where snow falls in the wintertime and where the inhabitants are little more than skin-clad barbarians who speak a tongue that is strange and rough and who have never heard the word Jew. Yet perhaps that is what I want now. Certainly, it is no joy for a Jew to live in a pagan land—where every pagan looks upon him with fear or ignorance or envy or hatred. So if I cannot go home, best that I go where Jews are neither known nor hated. I send you my love, brother. Think well of me.”

  She lit the candles and made the blessing, thanking the Almighty who brings the Sabbath. By her reckoning it was the evening before the Sabbath, but how certain could she be that her reckoning was to be depended on? It always seemed to her that somewhere along the way she had lost track of the days—skipped a day here, forgotten a day there. And this was hardly surprising, since one day was precisely the same as another. Well, God would forgive her, and had not the saintly Hillel preached that the least of men was more important than the Sabbath, since the Sabbath was only a memory of God, whereas man was a living reminder of him?

  So she lit the candles and spoke the words of the old blessing, noting that while she had always been reasonably pious in her behavior as a Jew, she had never been overly respectful of ritual. It was only now, with no other Jew within a hundred miles, no Jew to speak to, to exchange a word with, that she had come to depend upon the comfort of the ritual. Hillel had small praise for the ritual, but then Hillel was never alone.

  And she was alone. Sometimes a whole day went by without her speaking a single word—except to the servants who took care of the operation of the villa. At least the servants and the Praetorians spoke Latin. The local population of skin-clad, long-haired, long-bearded natives, unwashed, unkempt, and rank with that strong, sour smell that was the common property of peasants everywhere, had a tongue of its own—not a single word of which was intelligible to her; and she was at least initially amused by the fact that she who was so fluent in Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Punic, and old Hebrew, and who could make herself understood in Egyptian and Arabic, should here be rendered mute by this barbarous, guttural speech.

  The Praetorians were not unwilling to temper her loneliness. Did Titus imagine that they were not men—these soldiers who had been detailed to guard her? Their eyes spoke. Their whispered comments to each other spoke. Their talk to her spoke more than words. “Only give us a chance,” they intimated without ever saying it. “We’ll show you that the Imperator is not the only man. It’s a risk—a man’s life, but you are worth it, lady.” Or was this her imagination—her own new prayer for the preservation of her charm and beauty? So long as the Praetorians desired her, she could not be growing old. Or was the desire a product of her own imagination?

  A letter from Titus said, “Only be patient, my beloved one—and it will be soon, I promise you that, much sooner than either of us had expected. I know that it is cruel to keep you penned up in so lonely a place, but almost anywhere else your life would be in danger from day to day. This way, at
least I know that you are safe, and I console myself with the thought that soon, soon an empress will sit beside me so wise and gracious and lovely as Rome never knew before. I look for that moment from day to day now, and when it comes, I will send to you a centurion of the Praetorians named Lucillus Juvan. He is a man in whom I have great trust, and you must trust him and he will bring you back to my side.”

  So the letter from Titus read, and after that weeks went by and there were six more letters and each of the six was much like the next—and the dispatch of Lucillus Juvan was predicted. The centurion in command at the villa said to her,

  “I know you dine alone each day, my lady. If the loneliness bites too deep, I can offer myself as a dinner companion. With a circumspection, believe me, that my beloved master would entirely approve.”

  She thanked him and declined; but had that been the entire sum of his meaning? Had he said no more than that? More and more poorly she slept, waking twice, three, four times in a night—lying sleepless for hours. In the morning, there were circles under her eyes, and the fretwork of tiny wrinkles was more pronounced. Of the four body servants Titus had sent with her, one was an expert masseuse and another had worked for years in a beauty salon. She had massage and cream treatment daily, but time would not stand still or retreat.

  Almost daily there would be another white hair in her head. It did not gray gradually, as with most hair; instead, the fierce red color turned immediately to white. Day after day she plucked these white offenders forth—until one day she stopped in horror. Was her hair thinning—or was it her imagination? Quickly, frantically, she parted her tresses, her heart hammering with fear. But it was true, and now she recalled how more and more often her comb was tangled with hair. She had believed that the hair was breaking off, as it did when it was young and healthy. But how could she reject the evidence of her eyes? Her hair was thinning. And what now? Should she pluck out the white ones? The thought of it made her skin crawl with horror. She had seen bald women—