Claudia motioned to a seat; she sat down and Cornelius sat facing her. She summoned Tertius to bring wine and wafers. “And now, Centurion,” she said, “what is the message you fetch me from Tiberias?”
“They are inviting you and the Procurator to go with them down to Machaerus to spend a holiday season there. And if the Procurator’s duties will not permit his leaving his post, the Tetrarchess hopes that you will join them anyway, together with your servants and any guests you may wish to bring.”
“To Machaerus? That’s the fortress castle on the other side of the Dead Sea, isn’t it, on the southern border of Peraea?”
“Yes, it’s on a high plateau overlooking the Dead Sea, some way south of Mount Nebo.”
“A wild and desolate country, isn’t it? I’ve never been there.”
“I understand so; I’ve never been there myself. A good place, they say in Tiberias, for the sort of holiday the Tetrarch particularly enjoys ... wild, uninhibited, like himself.”
Claudia laughed appreciatively. “It promises to be interesting at any rate. But”—her face clouded perceptibly—“I know that Pilate won’t go. In the first place, he loathes Antipas—and I do, too, as a matter of fact—and in the second place, he wouldn’t venture that far from provincial headquarters. But he might let me go. And it would be a change from this dreary existence.” She brightened. “When are they planning to make this holiday excursion?”
“As a matter of fact, they’ve probably already started. They sent me on ahead in the hope that you might agree to join them; if you should, I’m to escort you and your party to the Jordan, where they plan to meet us. They were to start this morning from Tiberias. If we could leave by tomorrow morning, we would be able to reach the Jordan at about the same time they do. From there we would continue down the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea and around its eastern shore at the foot of Mount Nebo to Machaerus.”
“How long do they plan to be there?”
“A week or longer, probably longer”—Cornelius smiled glumly—“if the Tetrarch has to recover from one of his usual drunken orgies. But if you should wish to leave earlier, I’d be glad to escort you back to Caesarea. And we’ll see that you don’t ran afoul of Bar Abbas or any of those other zealot cutthroats.”