A sharp knocking on the door interrupted her.
“By the gods, Neaera, it must be the Tetrarch, and I’m not ready. Tell Strabo to seat him in the peristylium and pour him wine and say that I shall be ready soon.”
But the visitor was not the Tetrarch of Galilee. Strabo announced that the Emperor’s stepdaughter was in the atrium.
“Claudia! How wonderful! Show her into the solarium, and tell her I’ll join her in a minute. Neaera, hurry and fetch me my robe. We can sit and talk while you do my hair.”
“I can’t stay for more than a few minutes,” the Emperor’s stepdaughter announced when, a moment later, Herodias greeted her in the solarium. “Longinus is going to take me out to the chariot races, and he may be waiting for me right now. But I wanted to tell you, Herodias....” She paused, her expression suddenly questioning. “Bona Dea, I’ll bet that the Tetrarch is taking you there, too, and I’ve caught you in the middle of getting dressed.”
“Yes, you’re right, but there’s no hurry, Claudia. I can finish quickly. And if I’m not ready when he comes, he can wait.”
“So,” Claudia laughed, “you already have the Tetrarch so entranced that he will wait patiently while you dress.”
“Not patiently, perhaps, but he’ll wait ... without protesting.”
“Then it won’t be long before you’ll be marrying him and leaving for Palestine.” She said it teasingly, but immediately her expression changed to reveal concern. “But, Herodias, when you do, what will his present wife say; how will she take it? And his subjects in Galilee? Doesn’t the Jewish religion forbid a man’s having more than one living wife?”
“The daughter of King Aretas will resent his bringing another wife to Tiberias, no doubt”—Herodias smiled coyly—“if I do marry him. And as for the religion of the Jews, well, my dear, you must know that neither Antipas nor I follow its tenets too closely.”