Saul Of Tarsus Part 72

The master of horse backed away, but, catching Agrippa's smiling eye, turned his back, remembering his privilege, and hurried out, as if he expected an arrow between his shoulders.

The king shut down the lid of the s.h.i.+ttim-wood chest upon the priceless trifles still unpacked, locked it, and said the while to himself:

"The Essene hath heard of the Pharisee Saul's apostasy and hath come to demand his punishment of me. Behold me grant it, with kingly gravity.

It will attach the extremists to me all the more, for I hear the Sicarii are wanting the heretic's blood! And he fetches the little Lysimachus with him! Aha! En-Gadi hath lost--that which it never had, in truth."

He looked at his hands and at his garments.

"Nay, it will be just as well if the lady sees me looking my best!"

He slammed the door of his cabinet behind him, locked it and hurried away in the direction of the royal wardrobe.

In an hour he ascended the dais in robes of purple velvet with the Pharisee fringes in gold. Cypros, filled with pleasurable antic.i.p.ations, was beside him in the garments that Mariamne had worn.

The king cast an eye over the carpeting, the canopy and the gorgeous dressing of his throne and said to Cypros:

"Perpol! the place reeks with the smell of newness! But be not conscious of it! Perchance none will guess that the hands of the upholsterers are still warm on the fabric."

The genuflexions of the series of attendants at the archway and beyond marked the coming of Marsyas and Lydia. A Jewish chamberlain within the hall bent to the pavement and announced to the king that his visitors approached. Agrippa relaxed even more comfortably in his throne and let his scepter fall into his lap. But Cypros, more conscious of her debt to those who visited her now than of her state, smiled and moved forward and looked down the long chamber for the first glimpse of them.

But it was not the Marsyas and the Lydia she had expected to see. Even to one of her unready perceptions, the change upon the two was strangely marked.

They came side by side, both in the simple white garments of the ceremonially clean, but Marsyas' head was uncovered and Lydia's locks were wholly unbound, after the custom of Jewish brides. Within a few paces of the throne-dais they stopped. With all her former grace, Lydia sank to her knees, but Marsyas, after the oriental salaam, stood beside her.

Cypros, with her eyes s.h.i.+ning, and after an eager glance at her lord, arose and stepped to the edge of the dais. Then Agrippa got up, with his purple trailing effectively, and came down from his high seat, and approached his guests.

"It is the one pain of mine exaltation," he said as he extended his arms to Marsyas, "that mine old loves believe that they must approach me now with humility."

"Yet they no less expect that thou wilt raise them," Marsyas said, returning the king's embrace.

Agrippa lifted Lydia to her feet and kissed her.

"There, by my kingdom!" he exclaimed. "I rejoice at thy wedding for the privilege it gives me! May joy be thy portion, and peace and abundance and years be multiplied unto you both! Evoe! as the heathen say! But for your sanctified atmosphere, I would have the trumpeters blow you a fan-fare!"

He handed Lydia to Cypros, who waited almost tearfully.

"Go, let the queen congratulate thee that thou hast wedded an upright man in the beginning and saved thyself of the pain of making him one--as she had to do! Come up," he continued to Marsyas, "and sit at our feet. And tell us of yourselves."

With his arm over Marsyas' shoulder, he went back to his dais, and sitting, had Marsyas take the guest's chair at his side, while Cypros bestowed Lydia on a velvet cus.h.i.+on at her feet.

"So much, so long my story, that I falter at its beginning, as one beginning a day's journey at sunset," said Marsyas.

"Thou needest but to essay a beginning; let me lead thee," Agrippa observed. "Let me satisfy the questions in thee, ere I be entertained.

First, of Flaccus. I sent messengers to Caesar from Antioch detailing the high offenses of the proconsul, hinting treason against the government of the emperor and other charges which excite Caligula most, and ere I departed I had from Caesar's own hand the tidings that a centurion had been despatched to Alexandria to arrest Flaccus and bring him to Rome for trial. And the further news, which will raise thee, sweet Lydia, to calm content. The Jews are to be restored their rights, the prisoners freed, and better times a.s.sured to thy people."

Lydia clasped her hands, and her eyes filled with relief.

"And my father?" she asked in a low voice.

"Especially commended to Caesar's favor! The black days for the Alexandrian Jews are over, unless Caligula force upon them his pet madness that he is a G.o.d and amenable to wors.h.i.+p."

"Mad, at last!" Marsyas exclaimed.

"Never otherwise," Agrippa answered. "I hear that he has proclaimed Junia to be Athor, and hath set up a white cow in a temple to be propitiated in the wanton's name!"

Marsyas looked at the downcast lashes of Lydia and loved her for the silence she kept.

"Will she--be--empress?" Cypros faltered, in womanly fear of some unknown evil.

Agrippa laughed and dropped his hand meaningly on Marsyas' arm.

"If she should be, here is Marsyas yet to protect me!" he said. But Marsyas did not smile.

"What!" Agrippa cried; "still an Essene?"

"No," said Marsyas, "but the Lord forfend that the woman should ever become Augusta!"

"Never fear! She is too poor. Caligula, like any other mortal G.o.d, would prefer a dowry with his consort! And that, by Ja.n.u.s--ah--er--Jacob! brings me up to somewhat relative to our old fortune-seeking friend, Cla.s.sicus."

"But," Marsyas protested with a show of his old-time spirit, "I shall not agree that Cla.s.sicus sought Lydia for her riches alone!"

"The unhappiest remark, the crudest accusation thou didst ever force me to defend!" Agrippa exclaimed, glowering at Marsyas. "Now, how shall I convince thy sweet bride that I had not meant that any man could love her less than her dowry!"

But Lydia smiled, first at Marsyas and then at the king, and said: "Let us hear of Cla.s.sicus."

The king clapped his hands, and an attendant bowed to the floor in the archway.

"Bring hither the letter from Alexandria, which my scribe answereth,"

Agrippa said. In a moment a package was put into the king's hands.

He unfolded it carefully. "It is fragile," he said, "reed paper--papyrus, of his own curing, and written with a quill. Evil days for Cla.s.sicus; but observe, he hath not forgotten the latest fas.h.i.+on in folding it. Listen:

"To the Most High and Gracious Prince, Herod Agrippa, King of Judea, from his servant and subject, Justin Cla.s.sicus, the Alexandrian, greeting:

"That thou hast come unto thine own, that thou hast triumphed and the day of fulfillment hath dawned, that the Jews of the hallowed soil of Canaan have again a king from among them, I give thee congratulations and G.o.d-speed, and offer thanks to the G.o.d of our fathers.

"Would to that same G.o.d who hath magnified thee, that the sway of thy scepter extended unto us, here, in Alexandria.

"Our misfortunes are beyond words. Particularly am I most unfortunate.

Because of my friendliness to the alabarch, and subsequent turning upon Flaccus in thine own extremity, I am reduced to the utmost poverty, having neither food nor raiment beyond that which a faithful freedman supplies me out of his own little store.

"Since mine own people are imprisoned within a fourth of their territory, nor one permitted to come forth upon pain of dreadful death, I can not hope for help from them, much less from the Gentiles, who take particular delight in my humiliation.

"In thee I have hope. I pray thee number me among thy helpless ones and give me of thy bounty something to do to clothe and feed me, and sufficiently gentle that I may not be proscribed among my kind--"

Agrippa broke off and laughed aloud.

"Why read more? Is it not enough?"