Salome (4 page)

Tonight, listening to Herodias although I pretended not to, I gathered a new idea about why she’d been discontent with my father. Since I was a young child, it had seemed obvious to me that my mother had a right to be unhappy with her marriage. When my father was home, which wasn’t often, he was cold and critical. And he was so much older than his niece-wife.

But now I understood her real complaint. It wasn’t only my father who’d been deeply disappointed when old King Herod had changed his mind about the succession. As Herod Junior’s wife, Herodias had expected to become queen of Greater Judea.

Before his death, Herod had accused Antipater of plotting against him and had him executed. He didn’t execute my father, but he left him out of his final will entirely. Instead, Herod gave the best half of his kingdom, Judea and Samaria, to another son, Archelaus. The other half was divided between Antipas and Philip. Antipas received a quarter of the original kingdom, Galilee and Perea, while Philip received the poorest section, Gaulanitis.

None of the brothers was completely happy with this arrangement, but obviously Junior had the most to be unhappy about. He complained to his friends at the court of the Emperor Augustus, who had the final authority to confirm or discard the will of a client king. But it turned out that Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip had more powerful friends at court. So Herodias’s husband would not become ruler of Greater Judea or of anything else except the estates in eastern Anatolia that he already owned. And Herodias would not become queen.

“If
I
had been old Herod’s son,” said Herodias, “I would have spent more time at my father’s court in Judea and less time at the chariot races.”

As the slaves cleared the platters from the dinner table, the doorkeeper appeared. Someone was outside: a litter from the Temple of Diana, an escort for Miss Salome.

FOUR

CALLED BY THE GODDESS?

I was so surprised that I said my first words of the evening, “For me?”

“Oh!—it’s the full moon,” said Herodias. “I forgot; I told the priestess that you could sleep at the Temple overnight to see if the goddess would give a sign. Well, I suppose you might as well go.”

“I don’t want to,” I said. At that moment, I would have argued about anything Herodias told me to do.

“There’s no point in offending the Temple, Salome.” My mother spoke sharply, but then she went on in a persuasive tone, “It’s only one night, sweet girl. Just make sure that in the morning, you tell the priestess that the goddess gave
no
sign. Don’t tell her any dream of yours, even something trifling like eating honey cakes. The priestess of Diana is clever, and you don’t want to give her an excuse to say you have a calling. She’d be delighted to have a Herod in the cult.”

So I went with the escort, sullenly. A short while later, I spread my pallet out in the darkened sanctuary of the Temple. I didn’t fall asleep right away, though. There was a knot of anger in my chest. I was angry at Antipas for taking my mother, and I was angry at my father for treating me as an unwanted child.

But most of all, I was angry at my mother. She was the one who’d truly betrayed me. She’d tricked me into believing that we were best friends. What she really cared about was being a queen, or at least living like one.

A few days ago, I remembered, Antipas had taken her to the seagoing port of Puteoli to inspect the ship that would carry him to Judea. “Antipas is having the
Ceres
completely refitted!” she’d reported to me. “It’ll be a floating palace.” I’d wondered why she was so enthusiastic about the ship, and now I knew: it would be
her
floating palace. Queen Herodias.

Lying alone in the Temple, I missed the soothing sound of Gundi’s breathing. She’d slept in the same room with me since I was a baby. I turned on my back and gazed up at the great statue of Diana. The moon, sacred to the goddess, shone through the columns of the portico and into the sanctuary. Diana, dressed in a short tunic, was striding forward. With one hand she reached toward the quiver on her back for an arrow, while the other hand held her bow in a relaxed grip. The hint of a smile softened her noble face.

Such a powerful, free being, this goddess. Suppose she did want me to serve her? A daring thought came to me, just the opposite of what my mother had instructed. If I wanted to serve Diana and stay in Rome, I could. I could say in the morning that the goddess had summoned me. Who would know?

Somehow this thought led to a new view of Herodias, as if I were standing on top of the roof and looking down at a small figure. Until now, she’d filled up the foreground of my life so that I couldn’t see her whole. I’d been like a little child who sees only her nurse’s skirt and feet.

It was a shock, like jumping from the steam room at the baths into the cold pool. Wildly mixed feelings swirled around in my head. I was thrilled with my new sense of power. But I also felt sad and anxious; shouldn’t I protect that small Herodias, who didn’t even know how weak she was?

Later I fell asleep, dreaming that I knelt before the statue of Diana. My chest hurt with a terrible longing.
Help me,
I begged her.

Gazing at me tenderly, Diana dropped her hand from the quiver and reached out. I took her hand, which was not stone cold, but warm and strong. I climbed up beside her—and we strode forward together.

In the morning I remembered the dream. The goddess had favored me, Salome! For a moment I lay basking in the memory.

Then my daring thought of last night returned, only now it seemed like something I could really choose to do. I felt dizzy with excitement.

Maybe it didn’t matter that Herodias had gone off on her own path.
My
path opened up before me, and it didn’t depend on Herodias. I was frightened but delighted, as if I were standing on the roof of the Temple—and realized that I had wings.

I told my dream to the priestess, stammering as I saw how deeply she was moved. Her eyes shone wetly. “Salome, my dear,” she said, “you have the true calling. You will follow me as priestess of this Temple. We will make the arrangements with your family.”

So I had done it. I would not go to Judea with Herodias and Antipas as they planned. Yes,
I
had chosen the shape of my life. Why was I terrified? This was what I wanted: to move into the Temple compound, to devote myself to dancing and performing the sacred rites. At the next feast day of Diana, I would make the vows of a priestess.

How could I be fearful when the goddess was leading me? Guiltily I remembered Gundi and my promise to her, but the priestess reassured me: I could bring a personal slave with me to the Temple. Entering the service of Diana was like entering into a marriage, and my family would furnish a dowry.

And so I thought it was settled, and my fears faded. At home, I found Herodias supervising the slaves as they packed trunks. She hardly listened to my breathless announcement. But then, taking in what I’d said, she turned on me.

“What is the matter with you?” Herodias shook me by the shoulders. “I thought I made it plain that I was sending you to the Temple only to go through the motions. Why did you tell the priestess that dream? Why didn’t you at least talk to me first?”

“It—it was a dream from the goddess,” I stammered. I knew my mother wasn’t pious—either about the Greek and Roman gods or about the Jewish faith—but I was shocked that my dream seemed to mean nothing to her. “Diana chose me for her own.”

Herodias made a scornful noise. “The priestess put the idea for that dream into your head, you silly girl. Didn’t I warn you? And what an old-fashioned idea.” She laughed, a musical sound. “No one really believes in Diana anymore.”

For a moment I doubted myself, but then I felt angry that Herodias wouldn’t honor my dream.
My
dream, not a dream that the priestess had slipped into my head. “The goddess has called me,” I said in a loud voice, “and I must join the Temple.”

“Salome.” Calming herself, Herodias pulled me down beside her on a chest. “You don’t understand what you want to throw away. Perhaps for another girl in your class, it would be an honor to take the vows at the Temple. But you are something more, much more, than a Roman girl of good family. You are a Herod, of the ruling family of the Jews.”

I wouldn’t look at her. “Diana herself called me to walk with her,” I said.

“In fact, you are of royal blood, of a line of Jewish rulers even older than the Herods. Through your great-grandmother Mariamne, you are descended from Queen Salome Alexandra of the proud Hasmonean dynasty.”

Of royal blood…Perhaps if my mother had spoken these words before Uncle Antipas came to Rome, I would have been thrilled. But now I was sure she was bringing up my royal blood only to get me to go along quietly. Twisting a strand of my hair, I stared blankly at the pile of colored silks on the couch.

“Stop that!” Herodias slapped at my fingers. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,
Herodias,
” I said.

Giving a deep sigh, Herodias changed her tack. “Don’t talk about leaving me.” She sounded as if her heart would break. “Salome, you’re my dearest friend. How could I possibly travel to the ends of the earth without you?” She laid her hand on the side of my face. “My sweet girl! Men are a necessary evil, but my own…”

Herodias, for all her beauty and charm, needed me more than anyone else! I melted like a lump of butter in the sun. Herodias picked up my hand, and it seemed that she was displacing Diana’s hand. Last night’s dream, so real at the moment I awoke, turned pale and thin. And I was relieved, to tell the truth.

On the way to the baths that afternoon, I told Gundi about my dream of Diana and my plan to take my old nurse to the Temple with me. I thought Gundi would be grateful that I’d remembered her wish. But my main point was how much my mother loved me, so much that she’d struggled with the goddess for me.

Gundi, however, had a different view. “I could have told you they wouldn’t let you do that.” She sniffed. “I heard them talking, before she announced the divorce.” By “them” Gundi meant my mother and Antipas. They’d been discussing how my father would react to his wife’s leaving him for his half brother.

According to Gundi, Antipas had asked my mother, “Will Junior let her go?” (Gundi imitated the Tetrarch’s deep, smooth voice, with her northern barbarian accent on top of it—it would have been funny, except for what she was saying.) “Sometimes,” Antipas told Herodias, “I don’t believe he thinks of anything but the chariot races. But he must know that a bride’s worth many times the value of her dowry as a bond in a political alliance.”

“No, he’s hopeless,” Herodias had said. “It’s better that we don’t say anything about Salome. It would be just like Junior to insist on keeping her for spite.”

It made me sick to imagine my mother talking about me that way to her lover. “Shut your mouth, barbarian drudge.” I almost slapped her again, but then I remembered how bad I’d felt the last time.

Later, floating in the warm pool, I told myself that Gundi was making it up. I was no longer a little child, to be frightened by her stories about the evil Herods.

At the wedding, Herodias was radiant in the blond wig she wore on special occasions. There were many important guests to see how the fair hair set off her wide dark eyes. The marriage of Herodias to Antipas was a big social event in Rome, with Roman nobles and foreign dignitaries as well as Antipas’s own courtiers among the guests.

At the wedding banquet, I was seated at a table for older children. I didn’t know any of them, and I wasn’t in a mood to make friends. Anyway, we were leaving for Judea in a few days. I slumped on my dining couch, fingering the gold bracelet that the happy couple had given me. Its shape, a snake with two heads and no tail, was supposed to mean long life. To me, it looked more like an image of my mother and stepfather.

FIVE

HOW SHALL I LIVE?

The first day of the voyage, leaning over the side to watch the coastline slide by, I unthinkingly twisted the gold bracelet on my wrist. This bracelet Antipas and Herodias had given me was finely wrought, the most costly piece of jewelry I’d ever owned. I shouldn’t have been wearing it on an ordinary day, I suppose.

I swear I didn’t know the bracelet was falling off until the instant it slid over my knuckles. Before I could even grab for it, it flashed through the air and disappeared, hidden by the glare on the water. At first I was horrified. Herodias and Antipas would be so angry.

Then I thought,
I’m
the one who’s angry. I’m stuck on this ship so I can’t even get away from being ignored. I have to sit here and watch Herodias and her Bull, like watching a very boring and annoying play called
The Happy Couple.
Why can’t Herodias think about me for a change instead of gazing into that man’s eyes as if only the two of them were on board?

I was angrier than I’d realized. I thought, Let the bracelet be a sacrifice to Poseidon, god of the sea. Maybe he’ll send a storm to wreck our ship.

No—no—no! “Lord of the sea”—I hastily made a substitute petition—“accept my offering and bring our ship safely to Caesarea.”

By the second day, I felt so restless I almost wished for a shipwreck again. “If only I could go to the baths and swim,” I complained to Gundi. “If only I could be at the Temple of Diana for a few hours, dancing…If only I could have stayed at the Temple forever!”

“Past is past,” said Gundi briskly. “Forget about Diana. Aphrodite will be your protector now.” Every night Gundi said charms over me, and she claimed that Antipas’s courtiers could hardly take their eyes off me. With meaningful glances at my newly curved body, she reminded me that Aphrodite was supposed to have been born from the sea.

I’d noticed the men stealing glances at me, but I thought they were probably wondering how I could be so awkward. My body was indeed changing, but the main result seemed to be that I was even clumsier. Being at sea didn’t help, either. The ship plunged down into the troughs of the waves and up over the crests; it wallowed from side to side; it rocked back and forth.

I suppose Herodias did think of me a little, because she came up with an idea to keep me occupied during the voyage. On the third day aboard the
Ceres,
she proposed that Leander should give me lessons to improve my Greek. “My secretary?” said Antipas with a frown at me. “Leander is a highly educated philosophy scholar. I can hardly order him to work as a peda-gogue, tutoring a young girl.”

Herodias glanced at him from under her eyelashes. “Oh,” she said. “My prince, I beg your pardon. I thought you could order anyone to do…anything you wanted.” She gave one of her mischievous giggles. “But not with our Socrates, I guess.”

Herodias had her way. Beginning on the bright, brisk April day that we left Syracuse, Leander met with me every fair afternoon. Gundi, of course, sat in on my lessons as chaperone.

I was embarrassed at first that Leander was forced to tutor me. But he was patient and polite—I gathered that he felt rather sorry for me. At the end of the first lesson, I asked him to show me which direction Rome lay in. He explained how to find northwest from the position of the sun or stars.

“And your city, Alexandria?” I asked. “What direction is Alexandria?”

Leander smiled wistfully. “Ah, Alexandria. My city lies southeast—exactly the opposite direction.”

The
Ceres
wallowed through the waves day by day, and each afternoon the three of us met in the shelter of the striped mainsail. Gundi always brought wool and a spindle to spin thread. She hummed a spinning song to herself, even while Leander was declaiming poetry.

After a few days, Leander and I got into the habit of playing a game of checkers after the lesson. Gundi spun her thread as always and gave advice (mostly bad) on moves. The simple game didn’t take much concentration, and we chatted as we played. I found out about his father’s last request: it had to do with Leander’s three sisters. They were depending on him to send home money for their dowries.

If it weren’t for his mother and sisters, Leander would have stayed in Alexandria to continue his philosophy studies. But after his father died suddenly last fall and his business was sold to pay debts, it was up to Leander to provide for the family. Just as he was wondering how to do that, the Tetrarch of Galilee had stopped in Alexandria on his way to Rome.

Leander had heard that Antipas was looking for a new secretary and that the Tetrarch of Galilee paid well—very well. So Leander had joined Antipas’s court and come to Rome.

“It doesn’t seem fitting for a philosopher to work as a secretary,” I said.

Leander gave me a wry smile. “I thought there would be…compensations. I imagined that with Prince Antipas as my patron, I’d have the chance to visit some fine private libraries. I’d read rare books and talk with learned scholars.”

Most of the times I’d seen him, Leander had been moping around our atrium while Antipas visited Herodias. “What does a secretary actually do?” I asked. “Do you write letters?”

Leander nodded. “Mainly letters, mainly to Chuza, the Tetrarch’s steward in Galilee. Also, the Tetrarch has me take notes on all his business and political dealings.” He shrugged. “I can’t object; I knew I’d be doing that kind of work for Prince Antipas. It’s only that I thought the company would be rather different.”

I asked what he meant, “different.” Leander looked embarrassed as he explained. “You see, the Jews I know in Alexandria belong to the school of the philosopher Philo. Even though I don’t share their faith, I respect their devotion to their Law. They are true seekers of the path of virtue, men with noble minds.”

“So you expected Antipas and his court to be like Philo and his school?” I asked.

“I suppose I did.” Leander’s face reddened. “At least a little.”

I felt sorry for him, making such a foolish mistake. Antipas, a man with a noble mind!

We were a week into the voyage before Leander told me what he hated most about serving the Tetrarch. It was taking dictation from Antipas while he composed his journal entries. “The Tetrarch fancies himself a philosopher-prince,” said Leander with a pained expression. “That’s why he hired me instead of an ordinary scribe—he wanted a secretary who understood Deep Thoughts.”

“Antipas has Deep Thoughts?” I asked in amazement. “What are they like?”

“Drivel,” groaned Leander.

Day followed day, sometimes so bright that my eyes ached from the glare, sometimes so stormy that everyone but the sailors stayed in the cabins. At night I often lay awake, turning restlessly and making up stories for myself. My favorite was a story that began, What if, through no fault of mine, our ship was wrecked? And what if Leander and I were the only survivors?

I shivered at my own daring. I had to keep reassuring myself that no one could know my private stories. I imagined Leander and me lounging on the shore of our private island. All alone with no chaperone, no mother or stepfather, no rules about whom to marry. We’d recite Greek poetry to each other, and our eyes would meet, and then our lips, and…

Somehow, even though it was my made-up story, drowned bodies began washing up on the imaginary beach. What a monster I was, to wish for a shipwreck! Gundi didn’t deserve to die, and neither did the crew. I didn’t really want even Herodias and Antipas to drown. Squirming into a fresh position on my bed, I started the story over again without killing anyone: What if the goddess Aphrodite magically transported Leander and me to an undiscovered island?

The one thing I looked forward to on the
Ceres
was my Greek lesson. I was always taken aback, though, that the Leander who taught me Greek wasn’t the Leander of my dreams. He
looked
like the dream Leander, with curly hair hanging over his forehead and deep-set hazel eyes. But the real Leander, instead of murmuring in my ear, kept correcting my pronunciation.

The day before we stopped at Crete for fresh water, Herodias finally seemed to remember me. She came up to me that overcast morning as I stood at the ship’s railing. I was still angry but almost ready to make up, if Herodias seemed really sorry.

“The captain says the sea can be rough in April,” remarked Herodias, “but so far the sailing hasn’t been bad.”

I gazed steadily in the direction of Rome. The gray-green sea stretched in every direction, but I could tell northwest by the position of the sun, only half hidden by clouds.

“And dolphins are following the ship,” continued Herodias. “That’s supposed to be lucky.”

“I’d feel
lucky,
” I said, “if we were on our way to Rome and the Temple of Diana.” Didn’t she realize that she owed me an apology? The wind blew a strand of hair across my face, and I caught it and twined it in my fingers.

Herodias made an impatient noise. “If you’re so devoted to the goddess, you can worship her just as well in Tiberias as in Rome. I’m sure they have shrines to Diana in Tiberias. Or if they don’t, Antipas will build one.”

“What good will that do me?” I asked, still staring across the sea. “I won’t be staying in Tiberias for long.” In a sharper voice I added, “I’ll be married off as the glue in some political alliance.”

“Oh, Salome. My own child.” I was startled by the heartfelt tone in Herodias’s voice. “My little one, this is our fate. You have to understand that a woman
must
marry, and a woman of a royal family
must
marry to advance the fortunes of the dynasty.”

I felt a brief surge of pity for the child-bride Herodias, married off to my cold, neglectful father. Then my anger at her returned, and I answered, “Oh, I thought that some women—at least, one—married to advance their own fortunes.”

Pulling back from me, Herodias laughed the light, musical laugh that she used for ridicule. “My, what a sulk we’re in. No one’s making you marry right this minute. Meanwhile, you can still enjoy your daydreams about the handsome Greek secretary. But try to be more discreet.”

My face burned with shame. How could she know my secret thoughts about Leander? How dare she mention them?

“But my dear chick,” she went on, “I would never consent to betroth you to anyone distasteful. I pledge before Diana, my precious daughter will not suffer the same fate that I did.”

That was the last straw, swearing by Diana. “What a mighty pledge!” I said. “Only the other day, you told me no one believed in Diana anymore.”

I waited for her to deny it, but Herodias merely shrugged and walked away.

Shortly after we left Crete, something happened to take my mind off my own fate. Simon, the youngest of the Tetrarch’s courtiers, disappeared.

I found out about this early on a foggy morning, when Antipas called the passengers together at the stern of the ship. According to the guards, he explained, Simon had stayed up late the night before, drinking wine and throwing dice with the captain of the guards. Afterward, he must have stumbled on his way to bed and fallen overboard, unnoticed by the sailors on watch.

That’s strange, I thought. It didn’t seem like Simon to drink and gamble with the captain of the guards. That wasn’t the way to advance his career. I glanced around the group to see if any of the others seemed surprised.

The expressions of Antipas’s courtiers and their servants were as blank as the scene around the ship. The fog this morning was so thick and chill and the sea so calm that the
Ceres
hardly appeared to move. The ship seemed to float on the fog, rather than on the water. I wondered if it was like this on the river Styx, the stream that separated the land of the living from the land of the dead.

Antipas gave a long, flowery speech about what a talented, delightful young man Simon had been, with a bright future ahead of him. Antipas would never forgive himself, he said, for his untimely death. Then Antipas pronounced the prayers for the departed. He dropped into the sea two silver denarii, the coins that ordinarily would have been placed on Simon’s eyes so he could pay for the ferry over the Styx. Then Antipas said, “I must retire to grieve and compose a letter of condolence to Simon’s mother.”

That afternoon Leander was very quiet, and he seemed to have a hard time paying attention to the lesson. When I recited an ode for him, he didn’t even notice that I’d finished at first. Then he pulled his gaze back from the horizon and said absently, “Well done, Miss Salome. You had the accent and the feeling there.”

“It’s a beautiful poem,” I said, puzzled by his praise. I might have had the feeling, but I knew my accent still wasn’t right.

“Yes, the words are beautiful.” He paused, then burst out, “Beauty isn’t enough, is it? What about justice?”

On a hunch, I asked the question on my mind. “Do you know what happened to Simon?”

Leander looked alarmed. He glanced around to see if anyone was listening, but the only one within earshot was Gundi. My chaperone sat dozing on a coil of rope with her mouth open, her scarf pulled forward to shade her eyes.