Agrippa's Daughter (44 page)

“And we have?” Benharmish snorted.

“I think so,” Beradin nodded. “Don’t you, Jacobar?”

“It’s not easy,” the banker said. “Just don’t believe that it’s easy—or that there isn’t many a wealthy Jew who won’t see those poor devils in hell before he’ll part with a shekel.”

“I’ll part with everything I have!” Berenice cried. “Surely my wealth is a thousand talents!”

“Indeed, Queen Berenice,” the banker agreed, “and much more, I am sure. But your wealth is not in talents of precious metal—is it?”

“I have palaces, land, jewels—and gold too.”

“But is there a market for palaces at this moment? A quick sale means a poor price—or no price at all. Someone who desires to sell a palace must be prepared to wait a year or five years for a buyer—or to give it away.”

“Then what?” Agrippa asked bewilderedly. “I had often thought that my wealth is enormous, but when you state the practical and immediate need of three thousand talents—I just don’t know. I always keep two or three talents of gold at hand—you know, you can hire ten thousand mercenaries for at least three months with that much gold. And immediate—just how immediate?”

“Now,” said Benharmish. “Now. That’s how immediate.”

“Now look here,” Jacobar told them, “there is no need for panic on the part of anyone—because we will raise the money.” And turning to Berenice, “And as for you, my dear, may the Almighty bless you. We will not sell your houses and your land. But if you wish, we will mortgage them.”

“Mortgage them?”

“Yes—by that, I mean that I can put them up as security. Let us suppose that you have a palace worth twenty talents. I will go to a certain friend of mine and say to him, lend me ten talents and I will secure the loan with a palace belonging to the Queen Berenice—a palace worth twice what I lend you.”

“But if you should fail him, and I can’t sell the palace for ten talents?”

“Then you will mortgage it to someone else. No need to sell it ever. The value is locked into it—and you can mortgage it again and again, paying off one with another, providing you have the cost of the mortgage itself. But what of you?”—turning to Benharmish. “Surely the great House of Shlomo can raise a thousand talents.”

“Of fish, yes—of gold, no,” Benharmish growled. “You don’t mortgage ships, because no one will lend you a shekel on that kind of security. Yes—yes, I could raise a thousand talents—give me a year to do it. And let me tell you this, Jacobar—Croesus himself could not go into his treasure house and weigh out a thousand talents. Nor could Vespasian, the emperor. Nor could Titus. Nor can this particular Jew. I can do something—give me thirty days, and I will pledge you two hundred talents, give me sixty days, and I will pledge you five hundred.”

“A moment ago, you said now. Immediately—now.”

“I said it.”

“What can you do now?”

“I will have a hundred talents of bar and money tomorrow—perhaps a hundred and fifty. Our house in Tarsus and Chalcis will send another hundred—enough to buy a kingdom.”

“Or twelve thousand Jewish slaves, maybe fifteen thousand. What about you, Beradin?”

“Now?”

“Tomorrow—the next day—a week?”

“I am a merchant. I don’t accumulate gold, I use it.”

“We all use it. How much do you have on deposit—five hundred talents?”

“Two hundred—three hundred if you include silver and property. But it’s spread among fifty cities between here and Nicaea—over three thousand miles of camel road.”

“Then borrow.”

“With what security?” Beradin demanded. “I have no palaces or plantations—”

“You have your good name.”

“Thank you,” Beradin said caustically. “So I will borrow ten talents on my good name—no, no, we are going about this the wrong way, Jacobar. I can recall no occasion where the speedy raising of such a sum was required—and we sit here, a handful of Jews, and attempt to think it into being. No. This must be an effort of all the Jews the world over, Italy and Spain and Greece and Egypt, not to mention Anatolia. And let me tell you something else, if you will. There is no market for a hundred and fifty thousand slaves; and who is to say that there are not two hundred thousand of them? No market. If they are worth three thousand talents at a depressed price—where is that money to come from to go into the slave market? You don’t buy slaves with promissory notes. You need gold or silver coinage—and there is no such amount of coinage available—if indeed in circulation. We sit here as rich men and estimate our wealth. I have no faith in Jacobar’s proposition for mortgaging property. Who will lend on such property? Jews. So we take it out of one pocket and put it into another. Do you know what I think?”

“All right,” the banker snapped. “What do you think?”

“I think that as soon as the major slave dealers—the really big commission merchants—can come to some agreement among themselves, they will fix a price and a number. I mean that if they set a price of seven hundred sesterces, then—to grasp at a figure—they will propose a market of fifty thousand souls. This will give them an opportunity to select the very best specimens, and all the rest will be slaughtered, crucified, sold in the games, put to death for the edification of the crowds.”

The others shook their heads.

“No?” Beradin asked. “I think you had best face it. Who ever heard of a hundred and fifty thousand slaves in the market? Did they ever do it with the Germans or the Gauls or the Spanish—and who is to say that they love the Jews more? No, I am afraid we are very much the hated ones. Yes—yes, I agree that eventually we can put our hands on a sum of money to add up to three thousand talents—and it will mean that every Jewish community in the world must be involved. But meanwhile, either we act or we will never need the money.”

In the silence that followed Beradin looked from face to face. Only Berenice responded, and she nodded and said, “I know what you mean.”

“I am not intruding or gossiping when I say that I know he loves you. This does not impugn you. No secret has been made of it.”

“I know.”

“Or that you do not love him.”

“I will do what I can,” Berenice said. “What I can—because I am not like a servant of myself, and I don’t know what I can do.”

“The important thing is for him to stay his hand—give us time.”

“Time for what?” Berenice asked.

“To reach the big slave dealers—to make our agreements with them and to set the whole process into motion. We talk about it glibly, but I think that the redemption of these captives will be the biggest thing that our people have ever undertaken. We are old men, we three, and soon we will go away from here, and I for one would like to make something like this to be remembered by. It would not be the worst thing a man could do.”

Titus came to Tiberias. He came with four hundred legionaries, leaving his main force at Jerusalem, where there was work to be done. A city is not turned into a graveyard easily. The dead must be buried and the living taken away. The walls must be leveled, and there were miles of walls in Jerusalem. The ashes of the Temple had to be sifted, literally mined, for the gold and silver that had melted in the flames and for the precious jewels. Certain important tokens of victory, such as the great Menorah and various significant costumes, manuscripts, and ornaments had to be catalogued and packed for transshipment to Rome—and in this the co-operation of Joseph Benmattathias was invaluable; which provided Titus with a reason for not bringing Joseph with him to Tiberias. There was also a vast amount of loot that had to be itemized and distributed—and enormous payments to be made to the chandlers who had kept the Roman army provided with food, wine, and cloth and metal during the years of war in Palestine. So great were these costs that it was questionable whether the army would have any profit to speak of after the reduction of Jerusalem. The financial situation was quite desperate, and Titus, who had no understanding of finance, no head for figures, and a mistrust of all matters relating to money, was happy to leave these matters to his aides and go on to Galilee and Berenice.

For Berenice, the beginning of this period was a sort of muted nightmare. She swore an oath to herself that she would do what was necessary, whatever had to be done. If it saved one life, she was repaid. She thought about these matters for endless hours and finally came to the conclusion that it was no privilege of hers to choose how or why. What was needed was needed.

A banquet was needed—a banquet to welcome Titus, the son of the Emperor of Rome, the conqueror of Judea and Jerusalem, the commander of the army; and for seven hours Berenice performed the role of hostess at this banquet. Then there was a water procession, ten great barges on the lake, a chorus of young girls to sing, nets of flowers trailing in the water, handsome young men to draw the oars, and a thousand torches to light their path as darkness fell. She sat beside Titus and answered his questions and spoke gently and politely. There was entertainment in the great hall of the palace. And in the streets, self-styled prophets spoke with voices, screamed of the day of judgment, and denounced Berenice as the whore of ages, her brother as the immortal enemy of God.

The display of wealth and pleasure bored Titus as much as it bored Berenice, and finally he said to her, “Berenice, you are a Jew, and an exceedingly sensitive one. Why are you doing all this?”

“Because eventually, I will make a request of you.”

“Then make it now and enough of all this. Whatever reputation we Romans have for overeating and overcelebrating and overdrinking, rest assured that there are a good many of us who find it tedious beyond description. As a matter of fact, I eat very little—only one meal a day, in the Greek manner—and mostly I am quite satisfied with a little bread, a few olives, and some wine. There is nothing that gets on my nerves more than one of these endless, wretched banquets—unless it is a display of dancing girls or some such similar idiocy. I am a very powerful man, Berenice—after my father, the most powerful in Rome—yet I sit transfixed and speared by these merciless entertainments. So go ahead and make your request, I beg you.”

“You took a great many slaves in Jerusalem.”

“Yes—almost two hundred thousand. But some are very sick, very weak, and many of these will die.”

“Where are the slaves?”

“They are being transported to Caesarea, where they will be penned.”

“I am told that perhaps half of them or more will be slain to keep the price up.”

“So I understand. I am not too familiar with these things.”

“I ask only that you order the dealers not to kill any slaves for ninety days.”

“Berenice, we have contracts with the dealers. I can’t interfere.”

“You can interfere with anything on earth,” Berenice said. “You know that.”

“You were told to make this request of me?” Titus inquired.

“Asked—not told. Asked, because people believe that you feel something for me and would not deny me so small a matter as this.”

“And what do you feel for me, Berenice?”

“It would do no good to lie, would it?”

“No.”

“Then don’t force my hand—”

“Yet you force mine.”

“Not that way,” Berenice said. “You call me a Jew—so I ask this as a Jew.”

Titus shook his head. “You amaze me—I mean, I never meet a Jew who does not fail to amaze me. All right, Berenice—not as man to woman, but as Roman to Jew, I agree. There will be no killing of prisoners for ninety days—except what is necessary as some token of punishment in Rome. We have taken Shimeon Bargiora and the men around him. They will die.”

“You would have to be an extraordinary man to allow them to live.”

“Don’t cozen me, Berenice,” he said, smiling. “I have none of your powers of forgiveness, neither do I worship your god, Hillel.”

“He is no god, only a plain man who died a good many years ago.”

“Whatever he was or is, I am not of his persuasion. I granted your request, Berenice. Now, please—no more banquets.”

He kept his word and better, for the following day there came to him a delegation from Alexandria, pleading for the right to expel the Jewish population of that city, and to seize all Jewish property—and for Roman troops to expedite the matter. Angrily, Titus replied that if the Jewish population of that or any other city was in any way molested, he would raze the city to the ground if he had to, to find those guilty and to punish them.

In spite of the very important and pressing matters that demanded his presence in Rome, Titus remained in Tiberias; and Berenice, who knew that he remained there only to see her, to be with her, left the city early one morning and returned to the House of Hillel. Her brother-in-law said to her, “This is as much your home as mine, Berenice, but when all is said and done, it is only a house in Galilee and in itself no answer. I have known you many years now—and I know you by my own judgment. You are an unusual and a great woman—and a very beautiful woman, and you cannot hide here. We are too bereft in Israel, and we have too few great people left to us.”

“I am tired,” Berenice said. “I want only to rest.”

“Yes, this is a good place to rest, but I think it is more than weariness. You know that he will follow you here.”

“When he talks to me,” Berenice said, “I don’t hear his voice. I hear a wail of pain out of the South that drowns out every noise and murmur in the universe.”

“Jerusalem is something that Titus will bear for eternity—regardless of how you judge him. Let the Almighty judge him. Do you think that it would have been any different with Jerusalem had there been no Titus? Is it a virtue when Jew kills Jew?—because I can tell you this, Bargiora’s hands are dyed redder than Titus’.”

“This is our country and they came here—”

“They are conquerors. We have played that game in the past, and there is no joy or reward out of it. There are always conquerors—for so long as the sword is the ultimate law, the world is a jungle. At least the Romans make it less of a jungle.”

“And you are ready to forgive?” Berenice demanded.

“Berenice, Berenice,” he said, “when Shimeon died, I became the head of the House of Hillel. What is our way? Do we condemn or forgive? Do we sit in judgment? Do we choose the Zealots above the Romans—because the Zealots are Jewish? The Zealots murdered my brother, Shimeon, and believe me, I loved him deeply—yet right now eight Zealots are hidden here on our place, where we shelter them and feed them. And let me tell you this—that if the Zealots had triumphed, and fleeing Romans came to us for shelter, we would not have turned them away.”