Agrippa's Daughter (13 page)

This morning, just at the rising of the dawn, my son Hyrcanus died. He was not yet four years old, and he was my first-born. It is now seven weeks since his father, Herod, went to his death, and eleven weeks since I lost my other son, Berenicianus, who had not yet reached his third year. Was ever a mother so bereft as I? Here I have not yet reached my twenty-first year, and all the issue of my blood has perished.

He was sleeping in my bed last night, and I think the heat of his poor, fever-wracked little body awakened me. When I awoke, it appeared to be in the full darkness of the night, but when I drew back the bed curtains, I saw that the gray breath of dawn was on the world. I reached out to touch my son and to feel of his fever, and my first reaction was that the fever had broken and that his skin was cooling naturally under my touch. But only for a moment did I have that good hope; then the awful fear entered me. I touched him, but he did not respond. I raised his eyelid, and it remained up. Oh, was there ever so sorry a woman as I!

I screamed out in my fear and agony, and immediately all sorts of these cursed servants who surround me came running, my handmaidens, my body maidens, and Gabo of course, and the seneschals who hover all over the place and even sleep with an ear to the door, as the saying has it—and of course the physicians. God’s anger take these physicians for the rotten, lying, and ignorant crew that they are! But they preen themselves even more than the priests do, and this Avram Benrubin pushed to the bed to touch and handle my son—may he rest in peace, poor withered little thing that he was—and said in those pious, unctuous tones they assume,

“The bad humors hath overtaken him and consumed him, and thus his soul is fled, O my lady.”

“You have consumed him with your ignorance!” I shouted out, for I have such a temper, as well you know. “There is death in your touch, you lousy, lying physician who is no physician at all!”

They have grown bold, my brother. They all grow bold and they feel confident; for now they speak of me that I am Herod the Great come to life again, not in greatness but in the monstrousness of my actions; and they are certain to make my actions to fit. They will have it that I murdered my husband, Herod, even though every doctor who came by his side saw how the evil tumor within him swelled out his belly, until it was so huge he could barely walk, as if he was with some devil’s child. Night after night, he lay awake in such pain that even my own hate for him and for his actions against me was quelled, and truly I pitied him; but still they would have it that I was the cause of his death. And then, to plunge the knife even deeper into my heart, they began the gossip that I had destroyed my own son Berenicianus, that precious and beautiful child—that I had wrung his neck, so that my first-born, Hyrcanus, would have no one to challenge his claim to the throne of Chalcis. Fools with small and evil minds! A thousand thrones like this wretched seat of Chalcis would I give to spare either of my children a moment of pain—yet such is the talk that goes about of me; and with such talk they grow bold.

This physician, Avram Benrubin, he dared to face me over my child’s body, and gesturing and posturing, he cried out that this was God’s judgment upon me for my wickedness. Yet I did nothing to him for saying this incredible thing—and of course it is all over the city now, that the God of the Jews struck down the first-born child of the Jew queen. As much as you may chafe, my brother, over the smallness of your place there in Galilee, at least it is a Jewish city that you rule; so if you are hated for being of the House of Herod, you are not additionally hated for being a Jew.

But I must go back to my sorrows and my loss this morning. They took away the body of my son to prepare it for burial, and then Gabo helped me to dress. She desired me to eat, but I could not think of food or touch food, and I went instead to that lovely room in the palace, which you have admired, and which we call the music room, since when the wandering singers come to Chalcis, we gather there to hear them. I went there because it has that mosaic wall of Abraham preparing to sacrifice his first-born son to the Lord God, and I thought that the picture would comfort me. Here in Chalcis, it is easier to have pictures on the walls than in a city like Tiberias, where every Pharisee considers it his duty to denounce an image as an abomination.

I sat in the music room on a bench, and my grief lay upon me like a robe heavier than my shoulders could bear—and the more I sat there, the more it seemed to me that I was guilty of doing awful harm to my son.

About a week ago, when Hyrcanus first took sick and the fever first came upon him, there came to the palace a Rabbi Ezra, who is known in Chalcis for his laying on of hands. I know that this laying on of hands is all over the country and that the ignorant believe in it, but when this Rabbi Ezra said that he could cure my son, I had him driven away. How can I explain why? To me there was something dreadful in this dirty, mumbling old man telling me that he could cure my child, and I told myself that never, so long as I lived, would he lay hands upon my child.

Now my child is dead.

I have paused in my writing, my brother, and night has fallen. I called for light, and now by the light of lamps, I continue—and I try to find the thread and lament of my thoughts; hard, indeed, so many are the lamentations that fill my heart. I have a picture constantly before my eyes—of that mosaic wall in the music room, Abraham with his knife poised above the prone and bound body of his son, Isaac. But God stayed his hand—

I do not know how I have lived through today, my brother. On a day of my life when above all things I need a little love, a feeling of warmth from even a single human being—on such a day there was nothing but the hatred and suspicion and contempt that surrounds me.

And in the very midst of all this, there came a message from the Emperor Claudius in Rome. I am sure that by now a similar message has been conveyed to you. The emperor greets me and consoles me for the loss of my husband. Evidently, the loss of my son has not been brought to the attention of the emperor—or perhaps in Rome they do not brood over such matters. In any case, the emperor states that out of love and respect for the House of Herod, he is presenting the city of Chalcis to you, my brother. Let me make two things clear. Firstly, you know of my love for you. You are the only person in our family who has not shown hatred and contempt for me. Even on her deathbed, my mother did not ask for me, but only for my sisters, who are married to heathens, and those same sisters add fuel to the fires of falsehood circulated about me. So I must stress how precious you are to me, and I can only take joy in the enlargement of your realm. Secondly, I have no desire to be queen here in Chalcis. This place is hateful to me, and the only pleasure I found in the royal title was that it afforded me a certain dignity and protection. But now that is taken from me, and I am only the king’s sister. This I do not resent, but neither do I desire to live on here in my loneliness.

Please, dear brother, I beg you to send for me and to invite me to live with you in Tiberias. For all that I have lived only twenty years, I nevertheless feel the burden of them and the weight of time. I ask nothing now but to be allowed to live in peace in Tiberias, where there are at least a few memories that I cherish.

I await your reply,

your sister, B
ERENICE.

Agrippa, Tetrarch of Galilee and King of Tiberias and Chalcis: to his sister Berenice:

I greet you and console you. Who is to know the ways of the Lord God? He giveth and He taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord. Yet I would have gutted that physician. I trust none of that whole fraternity, and as for the laying on of hands, I would forbid it were it not for the way the ignorant have embraced it. I had a doctor in to examine pains in my rectum, and after he had given me three powders intended to cure me but which only plagued me worse, I had thirty stripes applied to his back—the better for him to understand his art.

My heart goes out to you, my sister. What can I say to ease your suffering? Yet when you tell me that you must come here to me at Tiberias, I must warn you that you would not be well advised. The wells of hatred and malice do not only deepen at Chalcis. They look at me and ask, “Why has he not taken a wife?” And others say, “It is unnatural in the House of Herod for a prince to live like an Essene. Therefore, this Agrippa practices his abominations in secret.”

A deputation of three came to me from Jerusalem, two of them priests and the third one of those cursed Pharisees from the Sanhedrin, and they wanted to know why I consort with my sister, as a man does with his wife, and why I called down the wrath of God?

I managed to stifle my anger and point out to them that while I was here in Tiberias, my sister Berenice was far away in Chalcis.

“So how do I consort with her?” I demanded of them.

“By going secretly to Chalcis.”

“I have not gone to Chalcis these many years. You know of the bitter feeling that existed between myself and my uncle, Herod of Chalcis. Unless I went there in great force to make war upon him, I would not leave there alive. So how do you tell me that I go secretly to Chalcis?”

“So we have been told.”

“By whom? Who tells these tales?”

“And Herod of Chalcis is dead.”

“Yes—and my sister’s heart is also dead, for she has not taken off the veils of mourning for even a day.”

“Yet it is told that you consort with her.”

“Lies!”

“Truth or lies, this is an abomination and we bring you warning. These are not the days of your ancestor, Herod the Great. If you call down the wrath of God upon Israel, then that wrath will consume you.”

It was a very thinly disguised warning, my sister. What am I to do? They are making a religion out of hatred of the House of Herod, and believe me, the Emperor Claudius will encourage it and give me no sustenance whatsoever. It has always been the way of Rome to split a land and then play one part of a people against another. And there are so many plots and counterplots around me that my head spins.

This act of Claudius of making me king of Chalcis as well as this, my own city, was calculated in that same Roman manner. He makes me king now over a city of the heathen, where they have no love for a Jew and have had a bellyful of Herod and the House of Herod. He knows that sooner or later, I will have trouble in Chalcis, and that this will weaken me in terms of Israel.

So, my sister, I beg you to remain in Chalcis for the time being, but to know that Tiberias is your home always. Your palace stands untouched. I think you would be wise to send here from Chalcis gold and jewels for your security, but to remain there yourself until we put to rest these cursed slanders that are spoken of us.

A
GRIPPA,
K
ING OF
T
IBERIAS.

From Berenice, widow of the King of Chalcis, to my brother, Agrippa, King of Tiberias and Chalcis:

I greet you and salute you—and for this long silence of mine, I tender my apology. It is five weeks since I received your letter, but during those five weeks, I lived with despair and misery. I saw no one but my stewards and my maid, Gabo; I sat in my rooms and I walked in my garden. I am afraid that I ate too little, for my flesh has fallen away, and when I look into my mirror and see the flesh stretched so tightly over the bones of my face, I am not quick to recognize myself.

I was in a condition where I had neither interest nor excitement in anything the world held. I existed in a sort of torpor, from which nothing seemed able to arouse me. Then, two days ago, there came to the palace two Persian magicians who said they had heard of the queen’s misery and heartsickness, and that they possessed spells and amulets which would raise up her soul and bring her great happiness and forgetfulness of her miseries. Ordinarily, I would have had them scourged away, for I despise those practitioners in magic who bring only promises and never fulfillment. But now I was too sunk in my sorrows to take any action against them, and when my seneschal urged me to see them, I made no protest. They were two men of middle age with fat stomachs and long hair and beards, their pride, combed and brushed and preened constantly, egotistical and strutting fat men who first elicited from me a promise to pay them one hundred shekels of gold—and then proceeded to make their spells and conjurations. Of course, it was to no point or purpose, and I had them seized. They screamed and pleaded and reminded me of my promise to pay them. So I had the gold measured out for them, and then I brought in barbers and had them both shaved, not only their hair and beards and eyebrows, but I had them stripped to nakedness and shaved as clean as newborn babes around their maleness. Then, still naked, their hands full of the money paid to them, they were ejected from the palace and told not to halt until they were beyond the gates of Chalcis.

I was cruel to them, brother, for indeed the sight of these two naked, shaven, big-bellied magicians, with their fat pink rumps, and their money clutched against their breasts set me to laughing as I have not laughed for years—truly, I became weak with laughter, which shows that even the most fraudulent magic will work if only one gives it full opportunity.

I have a letter from the Emperor Claudius, inviting me to Rome—but I have no desire to go. Truth be told, I am tired to death of living among the heathen, and my heart longs for my own people and for the green hills of Galilee. Tell me that I can come back to Israel and to Tiberias, and I will be forever indebted to you.

Your sister, B
ERENICE.

King Agrippa, to his sister Berenice:

I have been discussing our problem with my two seneschals, Joseph Bendavid and Oman Bensimon. Knowing you, my sister, and your attitude toward those who cling to courts and fawn on kings and abase themselves that they may creep into positions of power, I am sure that you will despise the advice of these men, as as you do the men. But I cannot carry on alone. I sometimes wonder why men like our grandfather fought and killed and lied and murdered to cling to this crown; but power must have been a disease with them—as it surely was with our Jewish kings for a thousand years now. When I read in the Scriptures of the history of our bloodline, I am past surprise or awe at the murderous passions of men. Our sister Drusilla, only sixteen now and married to Epiphanes, hired three men to discuss with them the possibility of poisoning me—or such was the story that one of the three sold to Bensimon, or such is Bensimon’s declaration to me. Who is to be believed? I put the man to death, and then for three nights I could not sleep. Can you be a king and not take life? But what if you cannot take life and sleep too? So, you see, I must have advisers—I must have people to help me.