Agrippa's Daughter (38 page)

“I had planned to wait another year—and by then this city would be a tomb, a charnel house of self-inflicted horror—but word from Rome changed my plans. My father there has staked his reputation as emperor upon a swift conclusion to the war in Judea, and he commands me to reduce the city immediately.

“I need not tell you that one keeps no secrets here. No sooner had I decided to proceed against the city than I received a message from one Shimeon Bargiora—who leads the largest party in Jerusalem, a combination of ultra-Zealots and Sicarii who number about twenty thousand. No one appears to know too much about this Bargiora—some say he is of the Sicarii and some say he is not—but all are agreed that he lives on the edge of madness, a huge, powerful man with a violent and terrible temper. Much is said about Roman cruelty, but I can tell you that for three days in a row, this Bargiora hanged from the wall a hundred men a day—men of the peace party.

“In his message, Bargiora claimed that he holds in chains in a prison cell in Jerusalem one Shimeon Bengamaliel, whom he also claims is your wedded husband as well as a grandson of that Rabbi Hillel whom Jews all over the world venerate so highly. I know that the name Hillel is not uncommon, but Bargiora states specifically that this is the grandson of that man whom Jews call the Hazaken, and who is spoken of among you as ‘the saint’ and also as ‘the blessed of the Almighty.’

“I know of your distaste for this Joseph Benmattathias Hacohen, who shed his allegiance to the war party once we had captured him. He has become a sort of Israelitish image of repugnance, but it is not my place to judge or moralize but only to bring the campaign here to a successful conclusion, that I may return my legions to Italy. Joseph has been invaluable as a translator, historian and encyclopedist of Jewish custom and usage. He is also a biographical dictionary of sorts, for he either knows or pretends to know every person of blood or importance in all the Jewish cities. I asked him about Shimeon Bengamaliel, and while Joseph grants that he is in all likelihood the grandson of Hillel the Good, he was distinctly dubious concerning Bargiora’s claim that this man is your husband. Mind you, my dear lady, I am striving to maintain an objective position—to help you if I can in any way. I find that when Joseph desires to be obscure, no one can be more obscure; when he desires to be devious, he is a master at the art, and I cannot obtain any assurance that this Shimeon Bengamaliel is not your husband, but neither will he offer an opinion to the effect that the man is wedded to you.

“In any case, Bargiora warns me that if I move to reduce the north wall of the city, he will put Bengamaliel to death—and there he makes a pointed reference to you, that the blood of a man you love will be on my hands. I cannot take such a threat lightly. Bargiora demands that you enter the city. If you do, he guarantees your safe conduct and pledges himself to allow you to talk freely with Shimeon Bengamaliel. I do not know exactly what he is up to; but I suspect that he desires to make some exchange of prisoners or something of the sort. If that is so, and if you desire me to, I will exert all my energies to gain the freedom of Bengamaliel, whether he be your husband or not. I do this out of regard for you—a regard, a love that is not returned but which is strong enough to endure.

“So I send you this message. I left in Tiberias two fast chariots with the best of my horses and drivers, and if you should desire to come to Jerusalem and accept Bargiora’s offer, they are at your disposal. I will make no move against Jerusalem until I hear from you concerning your plans.”

Tiberias to Jerusalem, by the Samaria Road, was eighty-five miles in a foot-by-foot and mile-by-mile measure. In actual distance measured by travel time, it was much further. Traveling south, the road was fairly level and good as far as Sythopolis, wretched between there and Jacob’s Well, passable to Bethel, and well kept under Roman repair between Bethel and Jerusalem. Grades varied; ruts varied; and the wheel quality was capable of tremendous variation: but even at best, travel in a Roman chariot was incredibly uncomfortable. Though the chariots were broad and spacious, drawn by two horses, they had no springs and no seats. The passenger could stand or crouch at the floor of the vehicle, where a few cushions supplied a minimum of comfort; but in either position the ragged jolting never ceased.

Berenice bore it grimly and silently; in the second chariot, Gabo whined and complained and cursed the Italian driver in Aramaic, and when they stopped to rest or eat, she pleaded with Berenice to give up the notion of going to Jerusalem. Gabo was aging too quickly; she was old and querulous; and if it were not that Berenice could not face the thought of some young and empty-headed slave girl being her companion, she would have left Gabo at home. For herself, it was comforting to listen to Gabo’s whimpering complaints. She could deal with that and become fretful and provoked with it, and thereby direct her thoughts away from what awaited her in Jerusalem.

It was too easy to think of Shimeon. First, for a whole year, she had thought only of Shimeon; day and night and night and day—and she lived for the few letters he sent her. But no one can go on like that, and presently there was the last letter, the last word by mouth, the last rumor—and then nothing. “What of Shimeon?” There was no answer to that question. Jerusalem had become a vast, silent prison—yet no prison is escapeproof. People escaped from Jerusalem, and all those who escaped came eventually to Tiberias. Each month that the unspeakable and cannibalistic warfare within Jerusalem continued, the population of Tiberias increased. In the space of a year it doubled, and thousands stood in line for the bread dole of Berenice. But when those who had escaped Jerusalem—men and women and children hidden months in cellars, in cisterns, in hollowed-out piles of rubble—when those were questioned by Berenice, they had no answers. “What of Shimeon Bengamaliel?” But how could they answer? They were hidden. By night, they let down a rope over the walls. Or else there were Sicarii who were corruptible within their corruption, and for a price, they let the fugitives out through a postern. That is—some they let out and others they murdered for their gold or silver or few hoarded shekels that would buy freedom.

And then, finally, the Romans put the city under siege and closed it off—and then no more refugees from Jerusalem came to Tiberias. The horror that Jerusalem had become was turned upon itself—and a terrible silence surrounded the screaming, pain-wracked city.

Since then, there had been no word at all of Shimeon. Elaezar Benananias was dead; that she had heard with certainty. Bargiora had hurled his body over the walls with a proclamation pinned to it: “Thus to all priests!” Other news too; it was the season for death in Jerusalem. The House of Hakedron had been burned to the ground. Phineas Hacohen, whom they called the Ba’as Hacohen, was dead—slain by the Sicarii. His cousin, Caleb Barhoreb, the last of the oldest bloodline in all Israel, was beheaded by order of Bargiora—his head displayed on a spike from the walls. Of the seventy members of the Great Sanhedrin, Berenice had heard the names of over forty who were murdered—but never the name of Shimeon. Then she had heard of a single act of mercy on the part of Shimeon Bargiora: he had allowed two hundred and forty-two children, orphaned by the murder of their parents, to leave Jerusalem, and eventually almost all of these children arrived in Tiberias—where Berenice and her brother made a palace available for them and provided food for them and people to take care of them. Presuming on the fact that Bargiora could at least have pity for children—although many said that he released the children to save food and to spare himself the blood curse of killing them—she sent a message to him, pleading that he give her some word of the fate of her husband. But whether this message ever reached Bargiora, she never knew. The Romans were already closing every road into Jerusalem—and soon after that, the Romans put the city under close siege.

After that, the months of silence, month after month while the memory of Shimeon grew ever dimmer—and then the Roman commander, Titus, came to Tiberias. She remembered the first time she saw him, not tall—so few of the Italians were tall—but well formed, like a Greek athlete, a short, straight nose, deep brown eyes, a wide, sensuous mouth, black, curly hair, close-cropped—twenty-eight years old and so strangely without arrogance, two vertical lines between his heavy, dark brows marking him with a sort of patient despair, as if all of his days were destined to be spent in hopelessness. He stood and looked at her, stared at her—until, provoked and embarrassed, she turned on her heel and left the room.

Afterward, her brother Agrippa said to her, “He’s in love with you—hopelessly, idiotically in love with you. I don’t like it. It’s an uneasy state of things.”

“It’s nonsense,” Berenice declared flatly. “How old is he? Twenty-eight—twenty-nine? I’ve passed my fortieth year. I am old enough to be his mother.”

“Well—hardly. You’d be an improbably young mother to have birthed him. Anyway, you are still a very beautiful woman. I doubt whether he knows how old you are.”

“Tell him. I have no intentions of conducting a love affair with a Roman. You might also tell him that I am married and that my husband is in Jerusalem.”

“Oh? No, sister—I will tell him nothing of the sort. For one thing, it is highly unlikely, even impossible that Shimeon should be alive. I loved him, honored him, respected him—and I leaned on him, so I certainly do not wish him dead. But no leader in his party remains alive. No, Shimeon is dead, God help him, and may he rest in peace. Will you at least be charming?”

“No,” Berenice said. “No, I will not. Also, I have my hands full, and a day is not time enough to do what I must do. Ask your Roman friend whether he will feed and shelter the homeless Jews he created?”

“The fact is, Berenice, that he’s been most un-Roman about the whole thing. He’s burned no houses and murdered no people. He’s a most peculiar Roman—”

“A most peculiar Roman,” Berenice said to herself now, crouched in the jolting chariot, her face covered that she might not breathe in the cloud of dust raised by the horses on the dry roads. “Peculiar Romans—peculiar Jews—in a peculiar and senseless world. And is Shimeon alive? Do I dare hope that he lives—or will the hope be as fruitless as all else? Yet why would Bargiora say he lives if he doesn’t? What point to a stupid, meaningless invention?” And then, again and again, the realization, “He is alive. He must be.”

Down from Galilee and into the lowlands of Samaria, and as Berenice looked at the rich and verdant countryside, it seemed almost inconceivable that only three years ago war had raged all through this area. Almost no signs of the war were left. The crops waved in the soft breeze; the peasants worked in the fields; and caravans of donkeys and camels moved goods through a peaceful countryside. Occasionally there were the ruins of a villa, burned to the ground, and most likely the owner dead and gone and no one to rebuild. And in a single instance, a walled town—Tabalee by name—reduced to a pile of shapeless ruins, clothed already in dust and overgrown with green weeds. But all in all, it was a prosperous and industrious land—southern Galilee and northern Samaria—the old hatred and strife between Jew and Samaritan washed away in the terrible purge that had swept over the land. Berenice remembered with pity how ten thousand Samaritans—binding old wounds and declaring themselves to be Jews—set out to lend their aid to Jerusalem. It was a foolish and childish gesture, yet strangely noble; and ill-armed as they were, strangers to war, the Romans cut them to pieces and wandering bands of Sicarii that had scourged the borders of Judea destroyed what was left of them.

It also occurred to Berenice that this prosperous and untouched condition of the land might in good part be due to the role Joseph Benmattathias had played. She had never known a man who perplexed her more than this Joseph. Still only thirty-three years old, his life and actions had become such a web of stratagems, falsehoods, plans, schemes, betrayal, and double betrayal that the man himself somehow disappeared behind the structure he was constantly erecting. With one foot in the war camp and the other in the peace camp, he had talked the war chiefs into giving him command of the Jewish forces in Galilee—where the Roman army first moved to halt the rebellion. Once in command, Joseph retreated, betrayed, escaped, dodged, threw victory away when the possibility of victory appeared, accepted defeat where there was no necessity for defeat, and finally entered into a suicide pact with forty desperate Zealots in a cave of the last defense. Somehow, the forty Zealots had carried out the pact—and Joseph had survived, to turn up as a special and privileged prisoner of the Romans, expert on all things Jewish and personal aide and adviser to the Roman command.

He was brilliant enough, Berenice admitted to herself, clever and adroit beyond belief—but to what end? Did he have a plan? Was there meaning or purpose in the endless structure of deceit that he erected? Why had he told Titus that there were doubts concerning her marriage with Shimeon? Was it already so in the history he purported to be writing?

These and other thoughts accompanied Berenice on the jolting, dusty ride to the borders of Judea. They stayed a night at Jacob’s Well, at the villa, of Joab Baromar Hacohen, a Samaritan olive grower of priestly blood, knit to the Hasmonean line by a thread of blood and memory—a friend of Agrippa and eager to please the royal house. He was a small, anxious man, unsuited for the times he lived in, and torn with worry each time his wife or one of his seven children stepped out of the house. Five times in the past seven years, his house had been attacked by the Sicarii. Each time he bought them off, and each time they thoughtfully refrained from burning his villa—on the simple proposition that one did not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

“At least,” he said to Berenice, “this will mean an end to the Sicarii—for we were coming to a point where there was no law in Palestine except the law of the Sicarii. I would be a prosperous man today—had they not bled me dry over the years. Well, I can endure it; they will take gold and oil from me and I survive, but from the peasant they take the last measure of meal, the last sack of barley—and then the peasant does not survive.”