Agrippa's Daughter (7 page)

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. In 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.

“It is possible,” Berenice smiled.

“I can hardly credit it. You will forgive me if I do not stress the matter of condolences. I don’t imagine that you were too upset when the king died.”

“He was my father,” Berenice replied evenly.

“Of course. Of course. And I would be the last to belittle the bonds of blood. Nevertheless—”

He smiled and mopped his bare skull with a kerchief. His face was round and innocent as a child’s, his dark eyes open and frank.

“Nevertheless—we attempt to understand each other.”

“I always attempt to understand any representative of Rome’s first citizen.”

“Very nicely put, that,” Latus nodded. “Hot here—I don’t know how you Galileans stand the heat of these coastal places. I much prefer your green hills.”

“Thank you,” Berenice smiled. “I too prefer the hills of Galilee to the coastal plain. But my father was here—”

“And where he was, his loyal daughter was,” Latus nodded.

“If you wish to think of it in that way.”

“Ah—yes, I suppose that I do. Your Latin is excellent, Queen Berenice.”

“That’s hardly surprising, since I spent a year in Rome as a child. Not that I remember too much, but the language is formed. I also had a Latin tutor as well as a Greek tutor.”

“Amazing,” Latus nodded, clasping his hands around his fat, protruding stomach. “Utterly amazing—the more so to such an ignoramus as myself. How many languages do you have, my dear?”

“Latin and Greek,” Berenice replied dutifully, “and of course my native tongue, Aramaic. I also speak a little Egyptian—the patois—and naturally Hebrew, our holy tongue, in which our sacred books are written.”

“Five languages,” the Roman said, shaking his head in admiration. “A most astonishing woman, my dear. You don’t mind if I address you as ‘my dear.’ I do hope you don’t mind. I am fully aware of your rank as queen of Chalcis and as the first princess of the ancient Hasmonean blood, but I am also fifty-three years old, and it is difficult for me not to think of a young girl of sixteen as my daughter. I have three daughters, you know.”

“And I have a husband your age, as you also know,” Berenice said engagingly. “So I do feel very comfortable with you, and I don’t mind at all if you call me ‘my dear,’ or any other term that might strike your fancy.”

“As I would a daughter.”

“Naturally,” Berenice nodded.

“And I talk to you as I would to a daughter. You see, if you were my daughter, I would have to ask you why you disposed of the beaker of wine so quickly? It might have provided an interesting test.”

“An accident.” Berenice brushed the matter aside, as of no importance.

“Oh, no, no, no. Hardly an accident, my dear. Do you really think that I murdered your father?”

“The whole idea is monstrous,” Berenice replied. “However, the captain of my father’s guard, Enoch Benaron, has a short temper and an even shorter store of intelligence. He prefers action, as most stupid men do—and—”

“And a Roman legate might have been mistakenly killed. That would have been unfortunate.”

“God help us, yes,” Berenice whispered.

“But to you, my dear,” Latus went on, “why should it mean anything to you, the queen of Chalcis? Rome would have punished this place. The legions would come and Roman justice would have come with them. But what skin off your back, if I may ask?”

“You forget that I am a Jew,” Berenice said quietly.

“No. Oh no. That is something I never forget. No Jew allows anyone else ever to forget who he is.”

“And a Hasmonean,” Berenice added, nettled and trying to put down the Roman without revealing her irritation.

“Of course—but a moment ago, I reminded you of that. I am becoming quite an expert at Gentile-Jewish diplomacy, don’t you think?”

“I hardly think one has to be an expert. We are plain folk.”

“Oh no!” Latus burst into laughter. “Plain folk indeed, my dear! Never. You are frauds. Plain—no, you are complex to the point of bewilderment. You are all romantics, filled with illusions, and quite as dangerous as people with illusions can be. You worship a God who does not exist but who dwells in a temple that is empty, and you make virtue out of what is unpleasant and sin out of what is pleasant—and sages out of sixteen-year-old children who bear an international reputation for immorality and wantonness and proceed to behave like combinations of vestal virgins and Latin tribunes, and so help me, you do confuse a simple Italian peasant like myself. You confuse me no end. But I am beginning to adore you, and that is quite a dreadful thing when it happens to a fat, bald man in his fifties. Perhaps because I am a Roman, and thereby a little warier than your husband, I intend to discourage this tendency in myself. Do you hate me because you believe that I killed your father?”