Salome (16 page)

TWENTY-THREE

JOANNA DISAPPEARS

Now that I had no friends, I spent more time reading. At first I went to the palace library looking for my old favorites, Greek novels. But those romantic stories didn’t hold my attention anymore. Then I tried to read Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher Leander admired, but I found his writings dry.

What suited me these days were the Jewish Scriptures. Not the psalms that Joanna loved, but the stories of times when this god had destroyed wicked people. Once he’d caused the earth to open and swallow up a clan who disobeyed him. Another time, he’d flooded the whole world in order to cleanse it and start over.

I especially liked the story of Samson. Samson was a hero of olden times, betrayed to the Philistines by the woman he loved and trusted. His enemies blinded him, imprisoned him, and made him grind grain like a donkey. When the Philistines were all gathered in their temple, celebrating their triumph over Samson, they brought him out to laugh at him. But Samson stood between the pillars that held up the temple and prayed to the Lord for strength to destroy his enemies. And he brought down the temple, burying himself along with thousands of Philistines.

What if John the Baptizer had done the same in the Tetrarch’s scarlet-pillared audience hall? I imagined the walls of Antipas’s marble palace cracking and crumbling and the gold-leaf roof shattering on top of the pile. Antipas’s expensive paintings and statues and mosaics, his carefully tended gardens—all crushed down into the prisons, the torture chambers, and the dungeons. The Tetrarch, his wife, and his stepdaughter would be smashed in the rubble like slugs.

While I dreamed of destruction, the time of the Jewish harvest festival, the Feast of Booths, came around. Although Antipas seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for observing the Jewish customs, it was still important for him to be seen in Jerusalem at the high festival. So he’d take his court south for the celebration, as he had in past years. Only Steward Chuza would stay behind to manage things.

At first I was determined to stay behind, too. Why would I want to spend two days in the carriage each way with Herodias? On the other hand, there was nothing much to keep me in Tiberias. Besides, I felt drawn to see such a great gathering of the Jewish faithful. Supposedly we Herods were Jews, ruling over Jews, but I knew almost nothing about this ancient faith. I would go to Jerusalem and see.

During the journey, Herodias went on at length about how Antipas (not any of his brothers and certainly not Pontius Pilate) was the rightful ruler of Judea, including Jerusalem. When we reached Jerusalem, she pointed out a tower looming over the compound of the Great Temple. “That’s the Castle of Antonia, the palace rebuilt by my grandfather King Herod. In justice, the castle should be our residence in Jerusalem. But of course it’s been taken over by the Romans.”

A massive outer wall protected the Temple grounds. We passed through a tunnel-like gate in the wall and came out into the Court of the Gentiles. This was like an enormous marketplace, thronged with tens of thousands of people. “Make way for the Tetrarch of Galilee,” shouted Antipas’s guards, and the crowds parted to let us cross the court.

A gate in the inner wall led to the Women’s Court. From there, Antipas and his entourage climbed a set of semicircular steps and disappeared through the gate into the Men’s Court.

The moment I stepped into the Women’s Court, where no non-Jews were allowed, I felt the holiness of the place. There was wonder and joy on the faces around me, and I saw a woman kneeling to kiss the pavement.

Herodias and I, with our attendants, went up into the women’s gallery for a better view. The Levite priests appeared on the semicircular steps and sang psalms. Great golden lamps shone around the outer court, and trumpets blared as the priests poured libations from golden pitchers.

The woman next to me was a stranger, but she beamed at me as if I were her niece. “Is this your first Feast of Booths, my dear? It’s a great blessing to be here, isn’t it?”

I smiled and nodded to return her kindness. But I thought, It
would
be a great blessing, if only I belonged here. I gazed around at the other women crowding the gallery, lifting children up to see. There was joy on their faces, too.

I glanced at Herodias, who was buffing her fingernails. She didn’t belong here, either, but she didn’t care. Anyway, it was no comfort to be like my mother. I felt so lonely that my throat ached. I wished for the Feast of Booths to be over so that we could leave Jerusalem.

Journeying back to Tiberias, we entered the city late one afternoon. As our procession stopped at the palace steps, I looked up to see Steward Chuza in the portico. Of course he would be there, to welcome the Tetrarch home. But the strange thing was, he was
sitting
at the top of the steps. “Is the man ill?” asked Herodias, stepping out of the carriage.

No—Chuza was drunk. We could see that much when he tried to stand up.

Antipas was angry, then worried. He questioned his steward, who tried awkwardly to distract him by asking about the Tetrarch’s journey. Finally it came out: Chuza was distraught because his wife, Joanna, had gone off to follow the new preacher.

Just like that! It took my breath away.

The courtiers were breathless, too. They crowded the portico around the steward, who stood wavering in front of Antipas.

“Didn’t you forbid her?” demanded Antipas.

“Joanna didn’t ask my permission, my lord,” said Chuza miserably. “She left before dawn. When I woke up, there was only a letter. She said the Rabbi had healed her, and she was going to follow him as a disciple.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Antipas. “A woman can’t be a disciple. And wives can’t just do as they please.”

Wives can’t do as they please? I glanced at Herodias. Chuza stared at Antipas, too drunk to conceal his amazement. The Tetrarch scowled, cleared his throat, and changed the subject. “I thought it was the mineral baths that were healing your wife.”

“Undoubtedly it was, my prince.” Chuza bowed un-steadily. “Our gratitude toward my lord is boundless,” he added in a mumble.

Antipas gave a disgusted snort. “Never mind. Tell me what you’ve found out about the new preacher.”

Making an effort to pull himself together, the steward reported what his information gatherers had told him. “His name is Yeshua bar Joseph, my prince, from Nazareth. He goes around among the Jewish towns, often on the lake—Bethsaida, Magdala, Capernaum. He draws large crowds. He
may
have been in Jerusalem part of the time you were there, during the Feast of Booths. According to our contacts among the Temple leaders, there was a Galilean preacher named Yeshua in Jerusalem, stirring up the people. The Temple leaders nearly arrested him but changed their minds at the last moment. But of course Yeshua is a common Jewish name, and there are many preachers.”

Antipas waved a hand, as he often did when Chuza was giving him too many little facts. “Does he preach against me?”

“Not exactly.” The steward, who usually plodded methodically from one fact to another, looked dismayed. He must have come to a fact he’d rather not report. The courtiers pressed closer to hear.

“Well?” Antipas leaned toward him. “Cough it up.”

“One source reported that he referred to my prince as ‘that fox.’”

I raised my hand to hide a smile. Chuza wouldn’t have said that if he were sober. Antipas liked to think of himself as a mighty bull.

“Does he preach treason?” asked Antipas in a sharper tone.

“Not exactly,” said Chuza again. “He tells the people, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ That could mean many things.”

Antipas’s eyebrows drew together. “Whatever it means, have our men watch him closely. Report everything he says.”

I hadn’t seen Joanna since the day after the Baptizer’s death, and I had no reason to think that she’d ever want to speak to me again. Still, knowing that she was gone made Tiberias seem like a truly hopeless place. I hated the airy rooms and marble colonnades of the palace, the gardens with flowering vines and singing birds. As though I were a scuttling night creature, something was pulling me toward the darkness underneath Antipas’s magnificent halls.

One afternoon, when most of the palace was dozing, I wrapped myself in a shawl and pulled it forward to hide my face. Pushing a few extra bangles onto my wrist, I sneaked out of the women’s quarters.

I wasn’t sure where the entrance to the prison was, but I thought it must be beyond the kitchens, which were beyond the far end of the great dining hall. The soldiers’ barracks and the stables were on that side of the palace, I knew.

As I passed through the doorway from the dining hall, I had the sense of peering behind the scenery in a theater. In the corridor leading past the kitchens, there were no Greek statues, no sumptuous wall hangings, no gilded lamp stands. The kitchen slaves, sweating in their drab tunics, looked up briefly as I passed.

The corridor ended in a gate to the soldiers’ courtyard. The gate was guarded, but the guards dozed in the midday heat. I slipped past them. In the deep archway a small, iron-bound door hid a stairway. The guard at this doorway was awake, and I was afraid he would question me. But he took the bangle I silently offered as though taking bribes was a regular part of his job.

I had to pick my way carefully down the rough steps in the feeble light from a lamp here and there on the walls. At the bottom of the steps there was a corridor with a row of cells. The jailer was leaning against the bars of the first cell, chatting with the prisoner inside.

“My lady,” the jailer greeted me. Of course, he knew from my clothes that I wasn’t someone’s maid. But I had the feeling he knew who I was—or maybe he only thought he knew? “Did you wish to visit—” He gestured at the prisoner.

I tried to disguise my voice at least with a sort of hoarse growl. “No, I want to see…Show me the place where the Baptizer died.” I held out a bangle.

The jailer looked at the bangle longingly, but he shook his head. Thinking he wanted more, I pulled off another bangle, but he held up his hand. “Keep your silver, lady. I’ll show you.” Taking a torch from the wall, he led me down the corridor.

I held a corner of my shawl over my nose and mouth to filter the foul air. Some of the prisoners slumped listlessly in a corner; others groaned. Some of them stared at me as if they were seeing a vision.

The jailer stopped before the last cell, holding up his torch. He nodded at me. “The holy man was in here.” There was nothing in the cell except a brown stain on the stone floor. “I was going to clean this up, soon as I had a chance,” said the jailer.

Grim as it was, this was not the dark, cramped place I’d expected. “Wasn’t the Baptizer kept in a dungeon?”

“Ah—yes, he was, when he first came here. Of course that wasn’t where he died, but if my lady would like to take a look—” The jailer led me down another set of steps to a pit in the rock, covered with an iron grate.

I gazed and gazed into the black hole. Why had I come here? I’d had some hazy idea of finding a place ugly and evil enough for me. I’d found it, all right. This foul pit was a true and fitting monument to the reign of the Herods.

“My lady?” The jailer’s voice, puzzled, broke into my thoughts. “There’s not much more to see. No prisoner down there at the moment.”

What had I thought I was going to do—crawl into the dungeon? I could hardly expect the jailer to let me do that. Pulling myself together with an effort, I climbed the steps back to the row of cells.

Now the prisoners were expecting me, and the able-bodied ones jumped up and called through the bars. “Lady Joanna,” begged the nearest prisoner, “take a message to my old mother?”

I turned around, as if Joanna could be standing behind me. Oh! The prisoner thought
I
was Joanna. “I’m sorry—I’m not—”

“A blanket, please, kind Lady Joanna,” called another man. “My friend is sick, and it’s so cold down here.”

“Don’t let them hurt me, Lady Joanna,” pleaded still another. “I wasn’t the one who wrote ‘Murderer,’ I swear; how could I, gracious lady? I can’t write!”

Their pleas came at me like a shower of pebbles. I looked helplessly at the jailer.

“I’ve told you and told you,” he growled at the prisoners, “
don’t
say my lady’s name!”

They all, including the jailer, thought I was Joanna. They didn’t understand that I was an evil person who belonged in the black pit below. Well, I supposed I could pretend to be Joanna long enough to do a few things for them.

“Here,” I said to the jailer. I pulled a bangle off my wrist again. “This will buy fresh bread, watered wine, and blankets for them. You must really use the silver for that, or—”

I didn’t know quite what to threaten the jailer with, but he nodded. “Don’t worry, lady. I’ll do as you say. I’ve repented.” He shook his head wonderingly. “One thing leads to another.”

The jailer was so right: one thing leads to another. For the prisoner with the old mother, I took a message to the slum outside the city. I found the woman in a lean-to with four little boys. She wasn’t so old—no older than Herodias, probably—but she’d lost most of her teeth, and her hair was gray.