The representatives of the Arabian king were formally polite, rigidly reserved.
“It is no pleasant mission on which we have been sent here, O Tetrarch Herod,” the spokesman of the visiting Arabians announced, once they had been presented to Antipas, “and we regret that we must speak as we have been ordered to speak, Sire, and particularly that ears other than the Tetrarch’s will hear the message we have been commanded to bring you from His Majesty, King Aretas. But the Tetrarch has so ordered it, and we must obey.” He paused, and from the fold of his robe pulled forth a rolled document.
“Go on, speak,” Antipas told him. “The Tetrarch wishes on his birthday”—he affected a grim smile—“that nothing be withheld from his beloved wife and his guests. The Tetrarch is prepared to hear the King’s message.”
The man nodded, and unrolled the document. “Sire, I have here the King’s message to the Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. But would not the Tetrarch prefer to have it read to him privately and then later, if the Tetrarch might still wish it, have it read to this assembled group?”
“Read it, now. Go on with it. Let us all hear the King’s message.”
“Very well, Sire.” He bowed and then, shifting his position so that the light from the wall lamps fell more directly on the parchment, held it out from him and began to read. But when the stiffly formal greeting was concluded, he raised his eyes questioningly.
“Continue,” said the Tetrarch.
The man nodded, and once more his eyes returned to the out-held document. “‘King Aretas declares that the Tetrarch Herod Antipas in sending his faithful wife, the King’s beloved daughter, a bill of divorcement, after having deprived her of the honors and privileges of the Tetrarchess of Galilee and Peraea, which honors and privileges without right he conferred upon her successor, has grievously injured and insulted the King’s daughter, his royal house, and the person of the King himself.’”
Claudia gently squeezed Longinus’ hand beside hers on the couch, but she dared venture no whisper. Slyly, though, they both glanced toward Herodias who sat eying the Arabian, a malevolent, frozen smile on her plainly flushed face.
The reader looked up again, but only for an instant, and then resumed his reading of the Arabian ruler’s grievances. “‘Now, therefore’”—he cleared his throat—“‘King Aretas demands that the Tetrarch Herod Antipas seek to make what amends he can by providing certain reparations to King Aretas, the terms of which shall be agreed upon in conference of the Tetrarch and his ministers with the King’s ministers who bear this message. But King Aretas further demands that before such negotiations are entered into, the Tetrarch Herod Antipas must put away or reduce to second wife the woman he now calls Tetrarchess and restore to her rightful place as Tetrarchess and first wife the King’s beloved daughter. He further demands....’”