“I don’t know about that, my dear Tetrarchess. What would be the difference anyway, except in titles? Wouldn’t it be best to let well enough...?”
“And spend the rest of our lives in an out-of-the-way poor district of illiterate fishermen and grape growers! Never!” she stormed. “Would you be willing for me never to occupy a station higher than Salome, by all the gods?” She studied him, her contempt plainly revealed. “I do believe you would. Well, I’m not willing. I’ll leave you first ... and go back to Rome!” She was silent for a moment and when he made no retort, continued. “This is what we’ll do,” she said, her tone even now. “We’ll return to Tiberias and begin to assemble choice presents for the Emperor, and most important, for Sejanus. And you will increase the revenue going to the Prefect. The gifts will please and flatter him, and the increased revenues from Galilee and Peraea may suggest to him that if you were governing the whole province the increase in taxes would be substantial. And we won’t send them to Rome, the gifts, I mean, but we’ll take them ourselves, and then we can personally petition Sejanus to make you king over the entire province.”
Herod Antipas shook his grizzled head slowly, and his countenance was troubled. “But I foresee only disaster if....”
“I don’t care what you foresee or how agitated you may become,” she said, with a defiant toss of her head, “we are going to Rome to ask the Prefect to make you king, and I’m either coming back to Palestine as queen or I’m not coming back at all!”
54
As Claudia and her maid entered the anteroom adjacent to the Procurator’s great chamber in the southwestern tower of Antonia, two men of serious mien, well-dressed and with beards oiled and carefully braided, emerged from Pilate’s room and walked quickly into the corridor.
Claudia motioned Tullia to a seat and without pausing strode past the attendant through the still unclosed doorway.
Pilate stood before one of the windows facing westward. His long shadow reached out to her feet across the high-domed room; soon now the sun would be dropping beneath the wall of the ancient city, and the solemnity of the Jewish Sabbath would still the Passover festivities. He turned to face his wife, and she saw that his expression was deadly serious. She questioned him with a lift of her head. “Those men who just went out?”
“Wealthy Jews,” he replied. “One of them anyway, a merchant from Arimathea. Both of them members of the Sanhedrin. They came to petition me.” He saw that she was still not satisfied. “A small matter; they asked for the body of one of the men crucified today. They want to bury him.” He advanced toward her and managed a thin smile. “Here, my dear Claudia,” he pointed, “have this chair.” His smile warmed. “To what am I indebted for the honor of your visit?”
“This man whose body they wished,” she asked, ignoring his question, “could it be that he was the Galilean mystic?”