Salome (17 page)

“Your son says, don’t sell any of his boys,” I told her. “Wait till he gets out of prison.”

“Easy for him to say,” she mumbled. “How will I feed the children? The last time we had money was when the Tetrarch returned to Tiberias and scattered alms. Nikos here”—she pointed to the oldest boy—“managed to grab one of the coins.”

“Someone stepped on my hand, but I didn’t let go,” said the boy. He was as serious and dignified as a rabbi, in spite of his patched tunic and the freckles on his nose.

As I looked at the boy, I remembered the evening when I’d entered Tiberias for the first time. That day, the beggars in the square had been only background to Antipas and the important people (especially me) in his entourage. Now one of those beggar children stood before me, and I understood that Nikos was the truly important person in that scene. Antipas’s only purpose in tossing coins to the crowd was to feel powerful and generous. Nikos, diving after the coins, aimed to save himself and his family from starving.

When I asked why the father was in prison, the grandmother explained that he’d foolishly lent money to a neighbor. Instead of repaying the debt, the neighbor had reported the father to Antipas’s guards for bribing a palace official. Nothing had been proven, but they kept him in prison.

So I promised to see what I could do to get the father released. Meanwhile, I left another silver bangle with the grandmother.

On my way back to the palace, I stopped in the market and bought several simple bracelets and rings. The jeweler tried to sell me more expensive pieces, assuring me that my credit at the palace was good for gold and precious stones. “Princess Herodias (may she live long and prosper!) wishes to see her daughter properly attired.” But I wanted only small items that could easily be bartered for food and clothes by common people.

This kind of thing went on for several days. Every time I thought I was through with pretending to be Joanna, I discovered more work to be done. For instance, I sent Gundi to the courthouse to inquire about the prisoner accused of painting MURDERER on the shrine to Diana.

Gundi reported back that the man in prison was almost certainly the one who’d painted the treasonous sign. (In spite of what he’d told me, he could read and write well enough to copy a few letters.) But whether he was innocent or guilty, the quickest way to get him released from prison was to bribe a judge. For that matter, the quickest way to get the father accused of bribery released was also to bribe a judge.

Had Joanna gone that far, breaking the law in order to do justice? I couldn’t ask her, so I would have to decide for myself. And right or wrong, I had to admit it was a pleasure to break the laws of Herod Antipas.

TWENTY-FOUR

JOANNA REAPPEARS

One afternoon I stood on the lower terrace, looking out over Lake Tiberias. It had been several days, I realized, since I’d thought of drowning myself in the lake. There were many other things to think about now. For instance, I needed to go back to the jeweler and buy a really handsome piece, maybe a gold tiara. You couldn’t expect a judge to release a prisoner for a mere silver bangle.

Footsteps crunched on the sandy path, and I turned to see Leander. I expected him to flinch at the sight of me and hurry off the terrace. Instead, he approached me and bowed. “Good afternoon, Miss Salome.”

“Good afternoon,” I said, wondering why he was speaking to me now. “What is it?”

As I waited for him to speak, Leander glanced aside, embarrassed. “Miss Salome,” he said, “I have been most discourteous. It was some time ago that my sister and mother sent you their heartfelt thanks for your gracious gift. Please believe that they are grateful.”

“Gift?” For a moment, I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Oh! The bronze lamp.” It seemed like a lifetime ago that a girl named Salome had bought that wedding present in the market. “I’m happy that they liked it.” I waited, because he seemed to be working himself up to say something else.

Leander finally spoke, haltingly, as if the words pained him. “I wish to beg Miss Salome’s pardon for…for what I said the last time we spoke. It was wrong of me and rude. My only excuse, perhaps, is that I didn’t want to admit how deeply I’ve betrayed my own standards.”

“You mean working for Antipas?” I asked in surprise. “But you’re stuck. You have to earn your sisters’ dowries.”

“Not by serving an evil master,” said Leander. He sighed. “I made one feeble attempt to get away—I asked Tetrarch Philip, before he left, to hire me as his secretary. But it seems that Philip can’t afford a secretary. Besides, he writes his own letters, and he doesn’t have any Deep Thoughts.”

“That’s what I liked about Philip,” I said, daring to smile at Leander.

“I too.” An answering smile twitched his mouth. “By the way, I thought you might want to know that you have the Tetrarch worried.”

“Worried?” As far as I could tell, Antipas had put me out of his mind entirely. He didn’t seem to see me when we passed in the halls or even on the rare occasions when I dined with him and Herodias.

“Actually, he
thinks
he’s worried about Lady Joanna. Although she no longer lives in Tiberias, Antipas hears reports that she magically appears here and there, comforting the Tetrarch’s prisoners and helping the poor.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Your secret is safe with me,” said Leander. “I won’t tell anyone that you’ve repented.” Bowing again, he left the terrace.

I hadn’t repented, of course. I was only a murderer who’d somehow gotten caught up in doing the kinds of things Joanna used to do. Still, I was glad to be on speaking terms with Leander, even under false pretenses. It brightened my days just to know that I might run into him in the library or gardens and exchange a few friendly words.

Herodias, on the other hand, had gotten out of the habit of confiding in me now that she and Antipas were in such harmony. I was surprised one morning when Iris brought a message from Herodias: she’d ordered a carriage to take us up into the hills, “just the two of us with a picnic lunch.”

So just the two of us (plus a large basket of delicacies, a table, chairs, and awning, Iris and Gundi to wait on us, the carriage driver, and a dozen guards in case of bandits) drove up to the highest point above the city. Sitting under the striped awning, I gazed down on a fish pool–sized Lake Tiberias. From here, it didn’t look big enough to drown in. Anyway, I thought with a smile, it was just as well I’d given up planning to drown myself. It wasn’t a practical plan—I was too good a swimmer.

“My daughter”—Herodias’s voice broke into my thoughts—“the time for dallying is done. You must make up your mind to be married, for your own security as well as mine.”

I looked at her in alarm. “I
won’t
marry the Nabatean prince.”

“Who said anything about the Nabatean prince?” (
She
had, the last time she mentioned my marriage plans. But never mind.) “I’m talking, of course, about Philip of Gaulanitis. He was a bit put off by your behavior, it’s true, but I’m doing my best to mend that bridge. I sent him your portrait.”

I stared at her. “What portrait? What are you talking about?”

It turned out that Herodias had found the picture of a nymph who looked exactly like me in a storage room. “I suspected that Antipas wouldn’t want to actually destroy that expensive painting.” She’d had the picture wrapped and sent to Philip with a perfumed note. “It can’t hurt to remind Philip how pretty you are. Now if you’ll follow up with a friendly letter…”

Was Herodias stark raving mad? While I was struggling for words, she put a finger up to her lips. “Listen, daughter, before you speak. I’ve made a dreadful discovery.”

My first thought was that she’d found out about my visits to the prison or about how I was channeling Antipas’s money into jewelry only to give it away. But those things were foolish rather than “dreadful,” at least from Herodias’s point of view.

“If it’s true,” Herodias went on, “I am not safe in Tiberias, and neither are you. You must go, marry, and make another home for yourself. Then, if worst comes to worst, you can offer me refuge.”

“Refuge from
what
?”

“Perhaps it isn’t true—how could it be true, after all? And yet, how could there be more than one such demon of a man?”

It dawned on me that what she was saying was somehow connected with John. “You mean—”

“The new preacher, Yeshua, the one Joanna went to follow. Chuza tells Antipas that they say he’s”—her voice sank to a whisper—“John the Baptizer come back to life.”

“What!” My heart started pounding as if I’d hiked all the way up the hill from the palace.

“Of course this couldn’t be true,” Herodias hurried on, “because it seems he’s the Baptizer’s cousin. To be exact, Chuza says Yeshua’s mother and John’s mother are cousins. But if he
is
the Baptizer, that would explain a great deal: the strange fascination this man has for Antipas. Joanna’s magical powers—how she’s able to appear at will in Tiberias, for instance, even through prison walls.”

Herodias talked on and on, but I hardly heard anything else she said during our outing. I couldn’t wait to get back to the palace and think by myself.
John the Baptizer come back to life.
The words repeated themselves in my head, like a resounding gong.

Later, back at the palace, I felt a strange mixture of fear and hope. If John the Baptizer had come back to life, then I wasn’t really a murderer, was I? Then there was no tragedy.

“Gundi,” I said, stopping suddenly on the grand staircase. “Go to the docks; get us a place on a boat tomorrow.”

“One of the Tetrarch’s fleet?” she asked. “I don’t have the authority—”

“No, not a palace boat.” I didn’t want to let anyone know where I was going. “It doesn’t matter what kind of boat as long as it’s sailing to a place where I can find the new preacher. You’ve heard his name? Yeshua.”

Gundi went off protesting about proper behavior (although how could I behave any more improperly than I already had?) and grumbling about having to traipse all the way down to the waterfront. But I thought she was a bit curious to see this new preacher herself.

The next morning, I dressed in Gundi’s spare tunic and shawl, and she and I walked past the palace guards and down through the city to the public docks. At the lakeside, the breeze carried the pungent odor of the fishing nets spread over the pebbly shore.

Stopping in front of a fishing boat, Gundi turned to me. “Here we are, Miss Salome.” She looked satisfied. It was the expression she wore when she’d followed my orders but was sure I wouldn’t like the result.

Certainly this boat was no pleasure barge. It was a grubby fishing boat, already half full of peasants. “Are you sure they’re following the new preacher?” I asked Gundi.

Not quite trusting her, I also asked the boatman, who was helping an elderly man into the boat. The boatman spoke Aramaic with a sprinkling of common Greek, and I could barely understand him. But when I said, “Yeshua bar Joseph?” he nodded vigorously and took the coins I held out.

I’d been rather proud of my disguise as a commoner. But now that I was surrounded by Galilean peasants, I could see that I didn’t look anything like them. I was taller than all the women and girls, taller even than many of the men. My chambermaid’s tunic and shawl, which had looked shabby in the palace, were still of finer cloth and cleaner than these people’s clothes. I was cleaner, too. The people in the boat wouldn’t even be allowed in the public baths if they tried to go there.

I caught part of a discussion behind me about who the “Greek girl” and the woman with her might be. Servants of a noble house, they agreed. I had to admit that was a good guess.

Our boat was full. The boatman’s helper cast off, and the sail filled with the warm, moist breeze. The city of Tiberias shrank behind us. As the boatman steered the craft up the middle of the lake, a town at the northern tip came in sight.

“Bethsaida,” called the boatman, pointing. He assured the passengers that Rabbi Yeshua had been seen here just the day before. “He fed a whole crowd of people.”

The hull of the boat scraped the pebbly bottom, and the passengers scrambled off. As I waded ashore, I thought, Soon I’ll stand before the preacher. My heart beat faster. If he’s John come back to life, I’ll know. But surely he’ll know who I am, too. Would he strike me dead on the spot? He must be a man of great power, this preacher who’d healed Joanna after many skilled physicians had failed.

“The Rabbi isn’t here any longer!” It was the first man off the boat, running back from the town. “They say he left for Capernaum.”

“Capernaum!” They all turned back to the boat, clamoring to be taken across the lake. The boatman could have demanded more money for taking them farther, but he smiled and shrugged. “That Rabbi Yeshua, he’s a slippery fish.”

As I waded back to the boat, I was relieved, but also disappointed, that my moment to meet the preacher hadn’t yet come. A while later, watching the town of Capernaum draw closer and closer, I remembered something Joanna had told me the last time I saw her. She’d said that John the Baptizer would be buried here. I raised my eyes beyond the docks and the clusters of houses, past the Jewish assembly hall, to the hills. His tomb would be among the rocks up there.

At the thought, the grisly image I’d pushed out of my mind since Antipas’s banquet came back, more vivid than life. The platter seemed to float in front of me, offering its gray-faced head. Then I imagined a tomb opening up in the hills, the great round stone rolling away from the mouth by itself. My hands felt clammy, and I wiped them on my shawl.

By the time we docked at Capernaum, fear was on me like an illness. I could hardly make myself leave the boat. But with the other passengers, I climbed the steep streets to join a crowd below the assembly building. The town was shabby, but the assembly hall was a fine basalt structure with gray marble columns.

Gundi kept her arm locked in mine as the crowd pushed us this way and that. I craned my neck, wondering if Joanna was here, hoping and fearing to meet her. I did see from a distance a woman I recognized, but it was the banquet dancer, holding a little girl. She looked younger without all the paint on her face. I felt a stab of regret—if only
she
had danced at the banquet!

Murmurs ran through the crowd: the Rabbi was in the assembly hall, teaching. Soon he would come out and give us all bread. Gazing up the broad white steps, I watched the Jewish men step out of the shade of the building into the sunlight. I looked at each one and wondered, Is this the Rabbi? What about this one? I suppose I expected to see a man in camel-hair cloth, like John the Baptizer.

Whether Rabbi Yeshua was John or not, I thought, if he was a prophet, he’d know who I was as soon as he caught sight of me. Maybe he’d call down lightning from the sky to consume me with fire, like a sacrificed calf. And maybe that would be a fitting end to the tragedy of Salome.

As we waited, I heard two men arguing behind me. “How could Rabbi Yeshua be John the Baptizer come back to life?” demanded one of them. “He didn’t appear out of nowhere—he grew up in Nazareth, after all.” The second man claimed that John’s spirit might have fallen upon Yeshua. “Just the way the spirit of the prophet Elijah came upon his disciple Elisha, after Elijah was taken up in the chariot of fire.”

I didn’t know this Jewish legend, and I wondered what the rest of it was. But then disappointing news rippled through the crowd: Rabbi Yeshua had left the assembly hall by the back way and gone to a friend’s house. He wouldn’t speak to the people again today.

“I could have told you this would happen,” said Gundi. I was too let down to be angry with her. I couldn’t believe this was the end of my day of hope and fear. I couldn’t even whirl on my heel and stalk back to the docks, because the crowd was so tightly packed.