“But, Sire....”
Longinus said no more, for Claudia had suddenly grasped his arm. He turned and stared toward the doorway through which, a moment before the centurion’s arrival, the two palace guardsmen had disappeared. Now the two were returning. They advanced straight toward the Tetrarch. One man was carrying, chest high and at arms’ length, a large silver tray of the type used by servants at Machaerus for serving food. On the tray was a rounded, gory mass.
“But that can’t be for me, surely,” Longinus whispered to her. “It looks like raw meat, bloody.... Great Jove!” The man bearing the tray had come close enough for them to see his ghastly offering. “By all the great and little gods!” He twisted to face the girl, his expression suddenly aghast. His voice, when at last he spoke, was hoarse and unbelieving. “The Wilderness prophet?”
She nodded. “Yes, the Tetrarch had him beheaded ... just a moment ago, perhaps even after you arrived here.” She turned her head to look away from the guardsman’s horrifying burden.
But Longinus saw. The prophet’s head, with blood dripping from the stump of the severed neck, lay on one ear in the tangled, gore-smeared mat of his long, black hair. His beard, too, was blood-streaked, and his face and forehead were smeared; blood had run down into the corners of his eyes. Wide-open and set in staring rigidity, the eyes seemed to be trying to communicate with him.
“Sire,” the guardsmen said, as he reached the table and held out the profaned tray, “the Tetrarch’s orders have been carried out. The head of the desert preacher....”
“No! No!” screamed Antipas, as he held up his right hand before his eyes and pointed with the other toward his wife and her daughter. “Not here! It’s ... it’s theirs! Put it there!”
The guardsman set the tray down in front of Salome, who glanced at it idly and then lowered her head. Herodias stared unabashed at the pitiful profanation before them, and then after a moment she, too, looked away.
Now the Tetrarch lowered his shielding hand and calmly turned to his left to face Herodias and his stepdaughter. His demeanor, Longinus saw, was suddenly changed. When he spoke his voice was calm, modulated. “The Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea does not dishonor a promise made,” he said. “My daughter, you have the reward you sought. Now what will you do with it?”
The girl turned to stare an instant at her questioner. Then she glanced again toward the head on the tray. Shock, nausea, sudden fear, horror curdled her countenance, and she threw up a protecting hand to shut out the fearful sight. “Give it to Mother!” she cried out, her voice shrill, and tense. Jumping to her feet, she fled from the great chamber.