“Gratitude,” the Princess harshly laughed. “Gratitude, the sour-milk diet of weakling fools and coward hopes.” She drew back from her brother and screened her face by throwing her purple cloak over her shoulder as she spoke. “What would I do? I’d do what every high priest’s woman has had to do since Miriam, Aaron’s sister, beat the timbrels of victory on the Red Sea. I’d rule the man! I’d ride with the conqueror in his car beneath Rome’s Arch of Triumph! I’d turn a shadow kingdom into a real earth power ruled with iron grip though it were fleshed in woman. They call us—weak.” She laughed again.
“I’d send Drusilla with her dove-cooing love to her slave husband Felix on Naples Bay. I’d send the old drooling Queen Herodias to her doting failure of a spouse in Spain to waste their souls away in vain regrets; but I’d strike, and I’d strike now, straight at Titus’ heart for the throne of Rome. . . .”
“Not that—not that way, my Queen, my Sister,” her brother drew back in horror. “Know you what names the populace call you, my royal Sister?”
“A curse on these barking dogs! What care I for the curs of the gutter? He who fights curs, finds himself snarling in their gutter. We Herods have given Judea security for a hundred years. What have they given us? They have snapped hands that fed them royal bread, free. Let the Romans conquer and throw every Judean over the walls to the fires of Gehenna, or sell the seditious slaves to Egypt for the price of dogs. Think you, beloved Brother, that I have not sacrificed love for power? I left the only man that ever I loved in my life but you—my King, to break from the caravan to the Isles of Greece, and come to Titus, here. Yes, the Greek slave—Onesimus, from whom you parted me in the Gardens of Daphne long ago, now grown to man majestic as a gladiator! He offered me the shadow kingdom of his Christ, and my weak heart might have yielded to that love had I not seen the Emperor’s tent here when the mist rose; but I would not drop the real kingdom of Rome within our grasp for all shadow kingdoms of all the prophets since time began. What have the prophets done for us, Brother? Show me a kingdom I can grasp; and I’ll close my clutch on what I feel. I grasp not rainbows, my Agrippa!”
King Agrippa sank to his cot with his face in his hands.
“If you ride with the Emperor in his chariot under the Triumphal Arch, know you what Rome will say?”
“And what do I care what Rome says? Can Rome say worse than these Judeans have shrieked as we rode through the streets? What care I what Roman rabble bawls if I rule Rome? With the army in Titus’ strong hands, the Senate will eat from our hands, whipped curs. Where is Titus? Take me to him, Brother! We can save the last of Herod’s line.”
King Agrippa rose irresolute. The Princess had stung him to action; but one, who must be stung to action, must be kicked on by prods in action.
“That I cannot, Sister Bernice, though you were Queen of Heaven.” King Agrippa began pacing the tent. “We have a remnant of the Roman garrison secure in the three great Towers of Herod, whence the Zealots and Sicarii Sword Ruffians have been unable to drive them out—they are our old loyal garrison of a year ago; and they have ample water in the roof cistern, to hold out till we go in. That’s why our engines have avoided throwing rocks at the west Towers. With them are three of the Nazarenes who refused to be driven to revolt. Our spies tell us these Nazarenes have rescued all the sacred scrolls from the Ruffians now in the Temple to the east, and carried them for safe-keeping to Herod’s Towers by the secret Aqueduct that runs from beneath the Temple to Herod’s Palace on the west. You would be safe there; but I—cannot—take you there. The Overhead Bridge from the Temple to the Palace has been smashed by the great rocks we have been throwing over the walls, and the Aqueduct from the Altar to the Palace is filled with rotting dead and plunder—the rebel bands drove the high priests under, and cut their throats in the Aqueduct, and the Temple floor now swims in blood. . . .”
“And think you, Brother, my feet are so dainty they would spurn to wade in the blood of these dogs or trample the rotting bodies of high priests to gain our end? Have you forgotten how Herod the Great had strangled, beneath the baths of Machærus, his wife’s brother, who was High Priest, to gain his end; and how when his best loved wife taunted him with murder and turned from him in hate, though he loved her to madness, he slew her, too, and stopped at naught to make his throne secure? I am such a Herod daughter! Shall we let slip what he paid such price to gain?”