Agrippa's Daughter (50 page)

“We have the queen—she’s safe!” one of the Praetorians was shouting.

Holding her up, Titus led her through the broken door, his arm like a rigid band of iron behind her and around her; and from the landing outside of her apartment, she looked down on an abattoir. The entire floor of the reception room was covered with blood and bodies, the men and women and children of the House of Barona—not a single one of them spared. (Berenice discovered afterward that a servant had escaped to give the alarm.) And with the Baronas, the bodies of a dozen of the assassins. Two of the assassins were held now by Praetorians; the others must have escaped.

“What have you got from them?” Titus demanded.

“Nothing yet.”

“Well, take them home with you—and see whether hot irons and cold tongs may not loosen their tongues. Don’t spare them. I want to know who is behind this, and I don’t care whether those bastards live or die. Only keep them conscious. I want them to plead for death.”

“Hasn’t there been enough death?” Berenice whispered.

“No—hardly, my dear. We balance such things on bitter scales, and I loved and treasured this old man Barona and his flesh and blood. It will take a while to balance the scales.”

But the assassins died, and the scales were not balanced; it was Titus’ decision that Berenice should go to a villa he owned in Cisalpine Gaul, where she would be safe, where twenty Praetorians would be detailed to guard her—while Titus dealt with the cabal in Rome, which had apparently begun its campaign against him with the decision to murder her. He was not alarmed about the plotters; every Imperator faced that when he took office, and he was certain that he could deal with them, given time. But he was alarmed about Berenice’s safety—and he was firm on the question of Gaul. No one would know where she was; the Praetorians would sell their lives, if need be, in her defense, and the moment this menace had been dealt with, he would bring her back to him.

She allowed herself to be convinced by his arguments. For herself, she would have preferred to return to Galilee, but she was no longer able to do what she desired or preferred. The spring, the mettle, the vibrancy had gone out of her. She wrote to her brother, Agrippa:

“Suddenly, I am old—if constant weariness means old age; and I feel so often that I have seen too much. A person is supposed to live a single life, and then return it to the Almighty when its time is over. But I feel that I have lived far more than one life, and perhaps this is my punishment. For I think I have sinned enough to warrant punishment. Agrippa, my brother, what am I to do? The dream of becoming Empress of Rome has worn very thin indeed—and if it ever does come to be, I think it will come without love. I no longer love Titus—if, indeed, I ever loved him—and that is something I do not know at all. But I did love David Barona Judaicus Purpureus—David the son of Ona, the Jew of the purple. How foolish these pompous Latin names sound when you translate them! I loved him because he was sweet and gentle and wise and practical in the ways of the world—oh, how many Jews like him have I known! And then to see him and his entire seed murdered so cruelly, on my account; as if I myself had wielded the steel that cut him down! That I will never forget. Every night since then I wake up moaning and in a cold sweat, living through that terrible incident once again. How strange that in spite of the fact that I was won over to the House of Hillel, I seem to have lived with nothing but violence, war, and murder and the death of those I loved most! And now the House of Barona is finished, its long and ancient line brought to an end. How sorrowful! So for this good old man, for the dream he cherished of our royal house and line joined to the Imperium of Rome—for this man and his hopes, I will do as Titus begs me to do and go to his country place in Gaul and wait there for him to send for me.

“It will not be an arduous trip, for Titus is providing me with a comfortable galley, which will not only take me to Gaul but will be anchored at the mouth of the River Arno for my use when I desire it—and he is supplying me with trusted body servants—now that poor Gabo is dead, and you must cherish her children always—who will supply my every want. I stress this because I must not give you the feeling that Titus has changed. No. The change is in me, not him; and he remains as gentle and wise as ever. Already, all Rome is talking about the golden age he has ushered in. There are reforms every day. He has released thousands of people unjustly imprisoned, and he very pointedly absents himself from the hideous gladiatorial games. I would guess that the great majority of the people adore him, and everyone says that never before has Rome had an emperor so fair and wise and level-headed. Of course I am deeply flattered that he not only considers me beautiful and desirable, but wise and judicious as well—but such flattery and self-adulation is poor meat and bread.

“Do you know what is most lacking in me? The spark of youth—and it seems to me that there is nothing in the world I desire more than to go back to Galilee and sit by the lake and listen to the songs of the fishermen as they plant their nets and watch their torches by night—oh, my soul aches simply to say it; for who knows that I will ever again see that beloved place. For so long, Israel was simply a word to me, an amorphous word overused by sentimental people. But now when I hear the word Israel, my eyes fill—

“So now I bid you farewell. I go to live for a while at least in a strange and distant land, where snow falls in the wintertime and where the inhabitants are little more than skin-clad barbarians who speak a tongue that is strange and rough and who have never heard the word Jew. Yet perhaps that is what I want now. Certainly, it is no joy for a Jew to live in a pagan land—where every pagan looks upon him with fear or ignorance or envy or hatred. So if I cannot go home, best that I go where Jews are neither known nor hated. I send you my love, brother. Think well of me.”

She lit the candles and made the blessing, thanking the Almighty who brings the Sabbath. By her reckoning it was the evening before the Sabbath, but how certain could she be that her reckoning was to be depended on? It always seemed to her that somewhere along the way she had lost track of the days—skipped a day here, forgotten a day there. And this was hardly surprising, since one day was precisely the same as another. Well, God would forgive her, and had not the saintly Hillel preached that the least of men was more important than the Sabbath, since the Sabbath was only a memory of God, whereas man was a living reminder of him?

So she lit the candles and spoke the words of the old blessing, noting that while she had always been reasonably pious in her behavior as a Jew, she had never been overly respectful of ritual. It was only now, with no other Jew within a hundred miles, no Jew to speak to, to exchange a word with, that she had come to depend upon the comfort of the ritual. Hillel had small praise for the ritual, but then Hillel was never alone.

And she was alone. Sometimes a whole day went by without her speaking a single word—except to the servants who took care of the operation of the villa. At least the servants and the Praetorians spoke Latin. The local population of skin-clad, long-haired, long-bearded natives, unwashed, unkempt, and rank with that strong, sour smell that was the common property of peasants everywhere, had a tongue of its own—not a single word of which was intelligible to her; and she was at least initially amused by the fact that she who was so fluent in Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Punic, and old Hebrew, and who could make herself understood in Egyptian and Arabic, should here be rendered mute by this barbarous, guttural speech.

The Praetorians were not unwilling to temper her loneliness. Did Titus imagine that they were not men—these soldiers who had been detailed to guard her? Their eyes spoke. Their whispered comments to each other spoke. Their talk to her spoke more than words. “Only give us a chance,” they intimated without ever saying it. “We’ll show you that the Imperator is not the only man. It’s a risk—a man’s life, but you are worth it, lady.” Or was this her imagination—her own new prayer for the preservation of her charm and beauty? So long as the Praetorians desired her, she could not be growing old. Or was the desire a product of her own imagination?

A letter from Titus said, “Only be patient, my beloved one—and it will be soon, I promise you that, much sooner than either of us had expected. I know that it is cruel to keep you penned up in so lonely a place, but almost anywhere else your life would be in danger from day to day. This way, at least I know that you are safe, and I console myself with the thought that soon, soon an empress will sit beside me so wise and gracious and lovely as Rome never knew before. I look for that moment from day to day now, and when it comes, I will send to you a centurion of the Praetorians named Lucillus Juvan. He is a man in whom I have great trust, and you must trust him and he will bring you back to my side.”

So the letter from Titus read, and after that weeks went by and there were six more letters and each of the six was much like the next—and the dispatch of Lucillus Juvan was predicted. The centurion in command at the villa said to her,

“I know you dine alone each day, my lady. If the loneliness bites too deep, I can offer myself as a dinner companion. With a circumspection, believe me, that my beloved master would entirely approve.”

She thanked him and declined; but had that been the entire sum of his meaning? Had he said no more than that? More and more poorly she slept, waking twice, three, four times in a night—lying sleepless for hours. In the morning, there were circles under her eyes, and the fretwork of tiny wrinkles was more pronounced. Of the four body servants Titus had sent with her, one was an expert masseuse and another had worked for years in a beauty salon. She had massage and cream treatment daily, but time would not stand still or retreat.

Almost daily there would be another white hair in her head. It did not gray gradually, as with most hair; instead, the fierce red color turned immediately to white. Day after day she plucked these white offenders forth—until one day she stopped in horror. Was her hair thinning—or was it her imagination? Quickly, frantically, she parted her tresses, her heart hammering with fear. But it was true, and now she recalled how more and more often her comb was tangled with hair. She had believed that the hair was breaking off, as it did when it was young and healthy. But how could she reject the evidence of her eyes? Her hair was thinning. And what now? Should she pluck out the white ones? The thought of it made her skin crawl with horror. She had seen bald women—

She who had never thought of beauty before was now obsessed with it. During the endless days of loneliness, she had somehow worked out the postulate that only through her beauty could she be rescued from this isolated and wretched place. Without her beauty, Titus would reject her—and condemn her to live and die here in this hated spot.

She awakened one night from a nightmare in which she was the murderer of Gabo. Then she wept for Gabo. In the morning, the servants came, and she exploded at them: “Get out of here! Leave me alone! I don’t want you—I want Gabo!” An hour later she was herself again, and she was apologizing profusely to her servants.

But how long, she asked herself, before she reached a point of no return? How long before her preceptions went awry—now that nightmares were becoming a regular occurrence? Less and less was she able to sleep. Outside her bedroom door there was a small garden, and she would take to going out there during her sleepless nights when the weather was mild. She would walk in endless circles, hoping to tire herself—and these would be the times for fantasy. Why doesn’t that centurion come here now, she would ask herself? Why doesn’t he find me here? Grasp me? Even attack me? It would mean that I am wanted, that I am a woman—that I still retain some vestiges of desirability and beauty. And what would I do? I don’t want him—or any man, so what would I do? And do I want Titus?

But everything has its termination, and one morning as she sat toying with her breakfast, one of the servants entered to announce that a man called Lucillus Juvan had arrived by chariot on the road from Rome, and he was waiting to see her.

Afterward, Berenice could not remember what this Lucillus Juvan looked like. He had no appearance in her memory, no face, no clothing to identify him, only a voice—very even, low-pitched voice which said, in answer to her excited demand—was he from Titus?—and her trembling, pleading expectancy:

“Yes, madam.”

“And what word does he send me?”

“No word, madam, for he sits among the gods, and the gods do not talk to mortal men. Titus Flavius is dead. Seven days ago he came down with a burning fever. A day later, he died—and knowing what you meant to him, knowing that he would want no other to bring you word, I took to the roads and raced here. I wish I came with better tidings—as I had always hoped to.”

By noon of that same day Berenice felt that she would be able to talk without fighting desperately for control of her voice and her senses. She went to her mirror to straighten her hair, and there she looked at a ravaged face. Could it be the result of only a few hours? The deep hollows under her cheekbones, the dark circles under her eyes, the quivering upper lip with the tiny wrinkles feeding down into it—and the eyes, the strange, wonderful green eyes that had now lost their luster and were framed in a network of lines—could all this be the result of something she had heard only a few hours ago? Did beauty flee in that manner? Was age and decay the matter of a moment?

“We are both dead, Titus,” she whispered—and the banality and cheap drama of the thought struck her like a blow, and she whispered, “Forgive me, my beloved—I am alive and you are dead—dead, my beloved and beautiful youth, my king of equity and justice; and where are the thrones where we would sit side by side and make a new Jerusalem that would be the whole world? Gone, all gone, and this life is a farce and a fraud, Titus Flavius, a game we play so briefly, and it has no sense or meaning, only a road coming from nowhere and going nowhere—and the gods—oh, I am so tired of the gods, my darling, just as the ants must be tired of the men who walk upon them and crunch out their lives without thought or reason—”