Agrippa's Daughter (23 page)

Out on the lake, the fishermen were at work with torches. The light of their torches glittered on the lake, and faintly came the sound of their voices.

“—but you’re not listening.”

“I was watching the fishermen, Berenice.” He took her by her shoulders, turned her to him, and gently lifted her face to his. She found herself thinking of how odd it was that a man should be so much taller than she, but otherwise had no reaction. He was staring at her, and she looked up into his eyes; but when he tried to draw her toward him and kiss her, she tensed and pulled away. His arms tightened. She struggled and then struck him across the cheek with all her strength.

“Poor thing—why are you so afraid?” he asked gently. Then he let go of her, and she sank down on the warm stone of the landing. He knelt on one knee next to her, but she would not look at him, covering her face with her hands.

“Are you always afraid?” he asked her.

She nodded, screaming inside of herself for him to go away, “Leave me, leave me, leave me!” But this silently.

“Always afraid—of course.”

“Go away,” she whispered, pleading with him, begging him. “Go away and leave me alone.”

“And then, Berenice? What then? A whole life as empty as a dry gourd?”

“It was always empty.”

“That doesn’t mean it always will be empty. Take your hands away from your face, Berenice. Uncover it.” Her hands fell, and then he reached out and drew her to her feet, rising himself and then standing before her. “Do I mean you harm? Hurt?”

“You have a wife,” she pleaded, feeling her own inner defenses crumble, feeling panic beat at her heart in compulsive and frightful waves.

“I have no wife,” Shimeon answered. “I was married once, Berenice. My wife died. I was a physician, and I couldn’t save her. I have no wife. I am twenty-eight years old now—four years since my wife died, and I have kissed no other woman and loved no other woman. I love you, Berenice. I love you with all my heart, and when I close my eyes, I see you as clearly as when they are open.”

“You fool, you fool,” she found herself whimpering. “Don’t you know who I am? I am the abomination of Israel—the whore of Herod—”

“I think I know you better than you know yourself.”

“I am no good for any man—”

“Let me decide,” he said softly, drawing her to him, and after resisting a moment, she buried her face in the coarse linen of his coat, savoring the smell of him, the hard, firm front of him, the rocklike strength of him. The waves of panic beat more slowly now. His arms around her were like two walls. She took shelter there, and then slowly, fearfully, she raised her face to look at him. Then he kissed her. The fear was not yet gone, but she could control it, master it, and know the strange, hot, wonderful fact of a man’s kisses on her face. It was the first time.

Vibius Marsus, proconsul of Syria, came down from Damascus, bringing with him Achon Baravrim, a withered, tight-mouthed Jew who was grain engrosser for the whole of Syria and possessed of very considerable power. By prearrangement, Ventidius Cumanus, the new procurator of Judea, was at Tiberias to meet him. They met together with King Agrippa.

It was always a tense time in Tiberias when one or another of the Roman governors came there to visit. Not only was Tiberias even more Jewish than Jerusalem, having been built by Jews where there was no city before, but on any day its streets would be host to ten or ten hundred Zealots, angry, well-armed devotees of the House of Shammai. The Roman guards who accompanied the governors moved carefully through the streets of Tiberias, never a legionary alone but always three or four or ten of them clustered warily together. Today they were even warier than usual, and there were no smiles for them in the streets. Ventidius Cumanus, the new procurator, was a gross, self-indulgent, and stupid man, with a large belly, a pimpled face, and the conviction—born out of ignorance and belief in the current anti-Semitic mores of the time—that the Jews worshiped nothing and were rejected of all the gods. In a matter of months he had made himself the most hated procurator in the history of the Roman occupation; and the fact that he had arrived in Tiberias to meet with Vibius Marsus and the grain engrosser did nothing to soften his reputation. All grain engrossers, partially because they were so influential in fixing the price of the crop and partially because they worked hand in glove with the Romans, were feared and hated by the people. Whatever Rome conquered was added to her rapacious, insatiable, and expanding breadbasket, and grain was the blood flow of the Empire.

The meeting took place in Agrippa’s throne room, and in addition to the two Romans and the grain engrosser, Bendavid and Bensimon were present, and Anat Beradin too, the wool merchant who had become very close to the young king. Agrippa spared no effort to make his Roman guests at home, the best food, the best fruit, the best wine, ices and sweetmeats and various appetizing delicacies brought from places as far away as China. The meeting went well, but he could not keep his sister out of it, and finally the Romans demanded that she be present. Agrippa sent for her.

Anticipating that she would be sent for, Berenice had dressed carefully, an overdress of green silk to set off her incredible eyes and a net of sewn pearls and tiny bits of jade for her hot auburn hair. The hair was braided and gathered in a bun at the base of her neck; and she came into the room where they were with such poise and assurance that even the Romans were taken aback; and before anyone spoke, she said to Vibius Marsus,

“Last week, I sent a letter to your emperor, may he know many good days, and I told him of your earnestness. I also told him that I measured every action by his image—”

That it was a lie Vibius Marsus took for granted; but no one was ever certain that Berenice was lying, and even when certain, men thought twice before challenging her. Marsus noticed a difference about her—but he could not put his finger on it. What gossip had he heard?—that she had taken to the House of Hillel or was in the process of an affair with some scion of the house? As many years as he had spent in Jewish lands, Vibius Marsus was still confused by the intricate schematics of their class structure and nobility—the Gen Hacohen, the House of David, the line of Mattathias Hacohen, the House of Mattathias, the line of Hasmonea, the Gen Halevi, the House of Herod, the line of Elisha, the Gen Hagershon—one could go on and on, but unless one were born a Jew, one could never unravel or make sense of their relationships—yet it was still inconceivable that there could be a union between the House of Herod and the House of Hillel. Although in all truth, this Agrippa was as un-Herodian as any human being could be.

“My dear,” Agrippa said, appreciative of her gentle manner of taking the wind out of their sails, “this is Achon Baravrim—may there be peace between our houses—of Damascus, who is grain engrosser there.”

Berenice nodded at Ventidius Cumanus and smiled at Anat Beradin. The tight, dried-up Achon Baravrim was conscious of her snub but undisturbed by it. He was a grain engrosser, a Samaritan-Israelite by ancestry, and the grandson of a slave; and thereby he was used to snubs, expected them from royalty and nobility, expected and received respect from crowned rulers of cities and states, was very rich and quite satisfied to be by birth the lowest of the low.

“Our city is honored by your presence,” Berenice said to all of them.

“We are honored by your beauty,” Ventidius Cumanus replied. He was attempting manners. Romans were intensely conscious of a lack of manners on their part, and of late they had gone in for polite phraseology, which ill became them. It was un-Roman. Vibius Marsus frowned and made it plain that he bore no love for his fellow citizen and would grovel to no one to ape a despised Easterner, and he said to Berenice,

“Queen Berenice, suppose we come to the point. There is no need to preface our language with a study of politics. We are all well versed, and I don’t have to expound on the relationship between Roman power and bread.”

“I like your clear and sensible approach to things,” Berenice acknowledged, smiling. “But I can’t believe that a convocation on this level and of this importance was called simply because I decided to give bread to the hungry of Tiberias.”

“Of all Galilee is nearer the truth,” the grain engrosser snapped.

“To whomsoever is hungry,” Berenice shrugged. “I do not inquire for his home, his house, his place of birth or his birth, If he desires bread, he may have bread. And whose affair is that, may I ask? I buy the bread. I pay for it with my own money.”

“Bread is always Rome’s affair,” Marsus said reasonably.

“And in Rome do the hungry die of their hunger? Or are they given bread?”

“That is the Roman way.”

“It is also the Jewish way,” Berenice countered, smiling.

“Sister,” said Agrippa, “I am here as a neutral, so to speak. I never questioned your decision to give bread to the hungry. I neither agreed nor disagreed. Not long ago, you were sick; now you are well—and that is enough for me. If you desire to give bread away—”

“Who can afford to give bread away?” the grain engrosser cried.

“Little man,” Berenice said ominously, “don’t interrupt my brother when he speaks. My brother is king—and you are here purely by sufferance, as any other Samaritan would be. So take heed.”

He bristled and spluttered, but Agrippa calmed him. “My sister can afford it,” Agrippa said. “She is a very rich woman—possibly the richest woman in Israel, so have no qualms about what she can afford.”

“It corrupts the people!” Baravrim said.

“Starvation corrupts more stringently, believe me,” Berenice said.

“Why not to the point?” Vibius Marsus demanded. “And the point is simply this—is this Rome’s bread that you are buying for your dole, Queen Berenice?”

“Is there a shortage of bread in Rome?”

“That is neither here nor there. I understand that you approached Baravrim here for grain, and that he refused to sell—because to sell would have cut into supplies earmarked for Roman consumption—”

“He lies,” Berenice said indifferently. “He’s a dirty little swine, you know—”

“I will not stand this!” Baravrim cried shrilly. “I will not be insulted by this Jezebel! I will not—”

“—and he was perfectly willing to sell me all the grain I required at twice the price the Parthians were paying him—”

Suddenly Baravrim was quiet, and the quiet enveloped the room, and all Berenice heard was the hoarse breathing of the men, and then the voice of Marsus, almost offhand, “Is that true, Baravrim?”

“Lies, lies, lies,” whimpered the little man.

“I will find out, for course.”

“A few bushels a month—”

“Nearer twenty thousand bushels a month,” Berenice said.

Agrippa pointed to the guards at the door and then to the grain engrosser. “Take him away,” he said, and then began an apology to Vibius Marsus. “I don’t want to hear it,” the Roman said. “You knew it as little as I did.” Berenice watched him inquiringly, and Marsus said, “All right—do as you please.”

“Will you sell me grain in Damascus?”

“We will sell you grain in Damascus,” Marsus sighed.

But now Berenice lived in a lopsided world that no longer smacked of reason or familiarity. A long stone house was built outside of Tiberias for the milling of flour, and in the bakers’ quarter of Tiberias the ovens were never cold. Such was the activity of the ovens that where there had been one charcoal burner before, now there were three, and where there had been one baker, now there were half a dozen. The prosperity of the city increased, and the hungry were fed, and although she never advertised it, the knowledge of Berenice’s role spread about. There was no hunger in Galilee because Berenice fed the hungry, and even in Samaria, where the crops had been poor, the word was spoken, and skinny, half-starving Samaritans dared the roads of Galilee and the hatred of the Zealots to share in the bread that was baked in Tiberias. That the people have short memories and fickle emotions was not a surprise to Berenice; yesterday, she had been the whore of the ages, the abomination of abominations, the shameful bitch of the House of Herod. A mouthful of well-baked bread disposed of the Herodian side of her ancestry, and now she became Berenice the Hasmonean, the good queen of mercy.

And outside of the gates of Tiberias, the Romans crucified the grain engrosser, Achon Baravrim. When the court was convened, Agrippa, as king of Galilee and Chalcis, had to preside and sit in judgment, but Vibius Marsus made it plain what the verdict must be. In the whole world, Rome had only one military enemy. There was only one nation contemptuous enough to defy Rome, adroit enough to baffle Rome, and nimble enough to bring disaster to every Roman army sent against it—and that was Parthia, with its thousands of marvelous horsemen; and as he sat in judgment Agrippa remembered how he and Berenice had whispered of the possibility of uniting Parthia and Israel—and wiping out the power of Rome forever. They were scarcely more than children then, and childlike they were mouthing his father’s dream. Today Agrippa sent Baravrim to his death; and seeing the little man hanging from the crucifix, Berenice was suddenly sickened, nauseated by the whole spectacle and her part in it as well. She shared none of the joy of the population of Tiberias, who came to the crucifix and spat at the grain engrosser, symbol of all they hated and feared, and when they cheered her as she passed through the gate, she felt a sense of shame—or rather a confusion of shame.

She had given the people bread because she felt, for the first time in her life, an irresistible compulsion to give. She was full and flowing over with her fullness, and she had to share it and let it pour out of her. She had no desire to be the good queen of mercy, and she took no great satisfaction from it. The gesture she made had been a small one and no great effort—to issue orders that grain should be milled and bread baked.

She had also killed a man, indirectly yet deliberately; and with equal deliberation and indirectness, she had sat in judgment upon him. Even though he was a hated grain engrosser, she slept less well. Lying awake in the dark, she was moved to ask the Almighty for forgiveness. It was the first time in her life that Berenice had pleaded for anything.