Then she stood erect and proud as Herod the Great had stood before the Roman Senate many long years ago. The daughter of high priest and King, she would meet Fate face to face.
“Small chance I had to do Rome service, my Lord,” she said. “Your brave legions captured the prize before I could add my woman help.”
“But when my soldiers guessed that the woman who had broken through the ranks in the morning to enter my tent was the page boy first to enter the hole in the wall to the Temple court, they swore they would take the city to-night, or perish to a man. Think you my Romans would be less men than a weak little Princess?” That word “weak” with its commiseration of male strength for child woman smote her hopes in the face like an iron gauntlet. She had played an ancient game with an ancient pawn—and lost, as Eve lost in an ancient garden; and she knew now what brought defeat to woman; and she knew now if she had answered the true urge of her heart, how she could have turned defeat to victory and wielded greater power with unseen hands than all Rome’s strength. Man could slay, but only woman could give life.
“You were the wine to my men’s flagging courage, my little Princess,” he said. “What reward do you claim?”
“My Lord,” she said, hiding her defeat in his chivalry, “when the chariots enter the Triumphal Arch at Rome, the last of the Herod line would not pace behind in captive chains. Let them perish rather. They would ride with the conqueror.”
The conqueror did not answer at once. He was turning over that request in his shrewd soldier mind. He smiled slowly as a man might smile at a child playing with a sharp sword which he had snatched from its hand.
“And it was for that you risked your life, child?” He laughed; and then his face saddened. He did not see the hidden appeal of the dark eyes gazing into his, though the young Trajan laughed brusquely and King Agrippa turned his reddening face away. “It is not mine to grant your request. Rome glories not in the blood of any race. My father did not covet the Imperial throne; nor do I. I covet only peace and rest. We have chosen seven hundred of the fairest Jews to grace the triumph; and they shall not walk in chains. They fought too well. They shall all ride in the chariots of the pageants; but my father, the Emperor, and I shall walk humbly on foot divested of all war harness and make thank offering to the gods of peace rather than victory. Such humble rôle would suit not you, my little Princess; but Rome never forgets even a will to service. I’ll appoint your brother and sister Drusilla a royal villa with dower by the sea at Naples; and there if the gods favor me, and my young officers do not carry you off, I shall see you sometimes, Princess.”
He strode quickly away.
The Princess and her brother Agrippa stood by the turret window.
Was it for this she had risked her life? She had reached Titus and grasped the prize, and found it turn in her hands to Apples of Sodom and the salt tears of the Dead Sea. She had thrown love to the discard and was being told to play the wanton with underlings, whom her Herod pride scorned. She, the daughter of high priests, back to Aaron, was to eat the crumbs from Rome’s table, like the lapdogs, pets to be fondled, abused, discarded—and then the grave! And for this, she had rejected the children of love in the garden called Paradise; the wine of life drawn from a lover’s lips; the laughing glad voice of many waters from the River of Life; the golden light that was love—her spirit fell as it had fallen in her delirious sleep; and she broke in a storm of weeping in the arms of her weak brother, no longer King.