Agrippa's Daughter (11 page)

“I think both. Open your heart, Berenice. You have become a woman of great beauty and keen mind, and you are a queen of Israel. I think Israel has waited for a woman like yourself.”

“Why?” Berenice asked directly, irritated as always by poetic obscuration.

“I don’t know,” Philo replied slowly. “This is only something I feel.”

The Roman, Vibius Marsus, spoke flatly and his words were plain enough. He was the very opposite of Philo, a short, black-haired, dark-eyed and heavily muscled man of about fifty. His body was covered with thick, curling black hair, and, unlike a Greek or a Jew, he made no attempt to conceal this, either by shaving his limbs, or by long sleeves or high hose. He was one of those Romans who made a face and cult of simplicity, a brown, short-sleeved shirt, a leather kilt, and plain, heavy-duty army shoes. His hair was clipped short in the fashion of the time at Rome, and his shaved beard gave his broad face a blue sheen. His simple virtues did not, however, bespeak a Spartan existence, and he took for granted the banquet Agrippa served for him and the erotic dances by nude men and women that followed. He ate hugely, drank enough to get quite drunk, and in his drunkenness spun a parable for the edification of Agrippa and Berenice.

“A Jew, a Greek, a Roman, an Egyptian, and a Gaul were in a ship on the Mediterranean,” he told them thickly, “when a great storm arose. A very large storm, believe me. The Greek was the captain of the ship. The Jew was the supercargo. As captain, the Greek decided that the gods must be mollified and the ship lightened, and the Jew, even though he did not believe in the gods, agreed with the Greek. Knowing that a Roman recognizes his duty, the Greek pointed to the Roman, who shouted his praise of Caesar and leaped overboard. But still the ship was in danger, and now the Greek pointed to the Egyptian. Egyptians are exceedingly religious folk, with a great sense of justice. So the Egyptian cried out, Praise Pharaoh!—and overboard he went. Still the ship foundered, and now the Greek looked at the Gaul. The Gauls do proper reverence to the gods, and overboard he went, leaving just the Jew and the Greek. Well, now, the Greek cried out, the fools are dead. Let’s get this ship in to shore.”

Both Agrippa and Berenice laughed dutifully, but neither of them considered the story to be particularly funny.

“Jew and Greek,” muttered the proconsul. “I have governed Syria for a dozen years, but still I cannot afford parties like this one, food like this, girls like this—”

“Whatever girl you desire,” Agrippa said, “is yours. One girl or all of them—as your heart desires, Vibius Marsus.”

“I’m old enough to be your grandfather,” the proconsul said. “But you will give me girls, will you?”

“As you wish,” Agrippa nodded; but Vibius Marsus was staring at Berenice now. His stare, frank, sensual, and uninhibited, did not disturb her. Men had stared at her like that since her breasts budded, since the narrowing of her waist and the widening of her hips proclaimed the fact that she was becoming a woman, and she had survived the two or three post-puberty years of her life in contest and struggle with men. Blocked in so much of her relationship with men, she was driven by no compelling wants or desires; and most men, after their first reaction to her ruddy, green-eyed beauty, sensed the lack of warmth or desire. Vibius Marsus was too drunk to sense it now, and he told Agrippa plainly enough what he wanted.

The boy had to control himself and to struggle for such control, his dark face hardening and becoming like a Greek player’s mask over the somber holes of his eyes. That a Roman could fail to understand what it meant to bear the bloodlines of the Hasmonean and Herodian houses was possible, even natural; for in Berenice’s mind, the Romans were a mongrel race who substituted adoption for natural birth and wove out of the whole cloth a fiction of ancient family and descent that the whole world smiled at; but for a Roman diplomat to fail to realize what it meant to be a princess of the Jewish royal house, out of the oldest descent and people on earth—this was unforgivable. With anyone else, Agrippa’s dagger would have exacted proper payment, and he would have been justified; but no rules applied to the Romans—just as no custom or dignity was valued by them. Agrippa controlled himself, as so many other kings had controlled themselves when faced by Roman proconsuls; he ignored what was said; and he directed Marsus’ attention to one of the dancing girls.

“I spoke of your sister,” the Roman said.

“Did you?” Berenice asked in faultless Latin, her voice as sweet as honey and as cold as ice. “How very droll. You have an excellent sense of humor, Proconsul Marsus. I shall have an occasion soon to send a message to the Emperor Claudius, acknowledging his grief over my father’s death, and in that message I will be sure to convey the delicate and irreproachable sentiments with which you have honored me tonight. I am sure the emperor will be amused.” Berenice rose then and added, “And now I am quite tired. I am sure you will forgive me if I retire.”

The following morning, Vibius Marsus asked for an appointment with Berenice. He made his request through ordinary channels—that is, his secretary requested it of Berenice’s secretary, and his name was entered on the calendar of her day. At about an hour before noon he entered the room where she received people who sought her out. She sat at a table with paper and pen in front of her. She wore a green shift with an overdress of russet brown and, quite deliberately, sandals with an inch of heel. As the Roman entered, Berenice rose, ignoring his protests, came around the table, and greeted him with warmth and charm, as if nothing at all had happened the evening before. In her heels, she was a full three inches taller than the Roman, a tall, coolly possessed, and arresting figure of a woman, her clothes hanging splendidly from her wide shoulders, her hair gathered on her head in the Greek fashion, and her rather large, high-bridged nose and wide mouth accenting her manner of pleasant aloofness. That she was only sixteen years old appeared as impossible to the Roman as it had appeared to so many others—and like so many others, sober now, he was abashed in her presence.

“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 action 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?”