"This is Marsyas of Nazareth, an Essene in distress, yet not so unfortunate that he is not willing to help us. What comfort canst thou offer him from thy housekeeping?"
The Essenes were the holy men of Israel; the large eyes filled with deference and she bowed.
"Welcome in G.o.d"s name. My lord has bread and a roof-tree. I pray thee share them freely with us."
Marsyas" formality so serviceable among the women of Nazareth suddenly seemed infelicitous here, but it was all he had for response to this different personage.
"The blessing of G.o.d be with thee; I give thee thanks."
She summoned the pretty waiting-woman.
"Let my lord and his guest be given food and drink; set wine and such meats as we have, and let the children come and greet their father."
The prince thrust the curtains aside and, motioning to Marsyas", waited until his princess and the young man had pa.s.sed within.
The apartment was a second recess larger than the first, shut in by hangings of sackcloth and furnished with rough seats and tables of unoiled cedar. It was a cheerless room, fit for the humblest man in Ptolemais, but the unconquered Herod and his lovely princess enn.o.bled it.
There was a scarf of damask thrown over one of the tables and two or three pieces of magnificent plate sat upon it.
"That," said Agrippa, pointing to the silver, "hath been my moneyer for years. I have lived a month on a flagon."
Cypros sighed, but three pretty children, a boy and two girls, rushed in from the rear of the house and engaged the prince"s attention.
Meanwhile, the attractive servant entered with plates for the table and Eutychus followed with a platter of food. As she pa.s.sed the young Essene she tripped on an unevenness in the floor and would have fallen, but Marsyas, with a quick movement, more instinctive than gallant, threw out a hand and stayed her.
She thanked him composedly and went about her work, but Marsyas, chancing to raise his eyes to Eutychus" face, caught a look from the servitor that was livid with hate. Shocked and astonished, Marsyas turned his back and wondered how he had crossed the creature.
Agrippa sat at the table, and, with Cypros at his left, bade Marsyas sit beside him. The children were carried protesting away.
The prince filled a goblet of silver with a pale wine, slightly effervescent and exhaling a bouquet peculiarly subtle and penetrating.
He raised the frosty cup between his fingers--drink, drinker and cup of a type--and looked at the strip of sky visible through the lattice.
"This to the G.o.ds," he said, "or whatever power hath fortune to give, and a heart to be won of libation. I yield you my soul for a laurel!"
The princess leaned her forehead against his arm and whispered:
"It is wicked--forbidden!"
"I poured but one gla.s.s: I make the prayer; I have not asked thee or our young friend to pray it with me. But my devices are exhausted. I make appeal now, haphazard, for I grope!"
"And didst thou fail in Jerusalem?"
"As I have failed from Rome to Idumea."
She drew in a little sobbing breath and hid her eyes against his sleeve. Marsyas sat silent. This first evidence of despair on the prince"s part was most unwelcome. His own fortunes were too much entangled with Agrippa"s for him to contemplate their fall. He felt the prince"s eyes upon him. The silver cup had been refilled and was extended to him.
Marsyas took it.
"This to success," he said, "not fortune!"
Cypros stirred. "Success is so deliberate!" she sighed.
Marsyas made no answer; would it be long before he should have his bitter wish?
"Thou seest Judea," Agrippa began, "thou heardest me aspire to it and thou didst abet me in mine ambition. But learn, for thy own comfort, Marsyas, the vagabond to whom thou hast attached thyself doth not grasp after another man"s portion. Judea is mine! And Rome must yield me mine inheritance!" The prince"s eyes glowed with youth"s ambition.
Marsyas listened intently.
"A Herod"s word is in disrepute," the prince continued. "Hence I am limited to action to prove myself. But look thou here, Marsyas. Judea is pillaged: so am I. Judea is despised: so am I! Judea weltereth in her own blood: am I not sprung from a murdered sire, who was son of a murdered mother--each dead by the same hand of father and husband?
Dear Lord, I am an offspring of the shambles, mother-marked with wounds!"
He shuddered and drew his hand across his forehead.
"Having thus suffered the same miseries which are Judea"s, is it not natural that I should relieve her when I, myself, am relieved? I should rule Judea as Judea would rule herself--"
He broke off with a gesture of impatience.
"How I hate the blatant vower of vows! Help me to mine opportunity, Marsyas."
As between Rome and Herod the Great as sovereign, there was no choice.
Though the Asmonean Slave, as the Jewish patriots named the capable fiend, gave Judea the most brilliant reign since the glories of Solomon and the most monstrous since Ahab, the nominal independence offered by his administration was absolutely submerged and lost in the terror of his absolutism and the devilish genius in him for oppression.
Herod and Abaddon were names synonymous in Judea, and the mildness of his sons or their inefficiency had not been able to set the reproach aside. No able Herod had arisen since the founder of the house, except, as Marsyas hopefully believed, this man before him. Herod Agrippa was the son of Aristobolus, who was murdered in his youth before his capabilities developed. The Herods, Philip and Antipas, had been mild because they were incapable. The recurrence of mental strength in the blood was an untried contingency. All this came to Marsyas, now, suggested by the implied self-defense in the prince"s words, and for a moment he wavered between concern for his people and anxiety for his own cause. Agrippa and Cypros watched him.
"Thou art a just youth," the prince went on in the winning voice that had already made its conquest over the Essene. "I can not prove myself until I am given trial, and judgment without trial is an abomination even unto the tyrant Rome!"
"I have not judged, lord," Marsyas protested.
"And thou wilt not until I have shown myself unworthy of thy confidence. Thou hast even now bespoken G.o.d"s favor for me--be then, His instrument! Thou art the first ray of light in a decade of darkness that has enveloped me and mine!"
Marsyas put out his hand to the prince. The peril in the Herod blood, in his calculations, had dropped out of sight.
"What dost thou say to me, my prince?" he said. "How is it that thou beseechest me--me, the suppliant, praying thy help for mine own ends?
But hear me! Thou aspirest to that place of which I have no knowledge, among peoples whose paths I never cross, into the calling of the great!
Yet, though most unequipped to yield thee support, I am thy substance.
Use me! Thou knowest my price."
Agrippa smiled.
"Though I die owing even mine embalmer, I shall pay thee that debt. I have said. And now to the process. What money hast thou?"
Agrippa was silent and Marsyas, watching his face, waited.
"I need," the prince said slowly, "twenty thousand."
Marsyas got upon his feet, and for a moment there was silence.
"I will get it for thee," he said.