THE REQUITAL
On the third day after his arrival in Jerusalem, Herod the king was in
his privy cabinet arranging, with his own hands, the graven gems and
articles of virtu, prizes brought from his trip to Antioch. The door
was dubiously opened, and Agrippa, without turning his head, knew who
stood there, for only one in the palace had been commanded to enter the
king's presence without announcement.
"Well, Silas?" Agrippa said, contemplating the elusive tints of a jade
goblet.
The old man pulled at the gorgeous uniform of master of horse, that
hung from the peasant shoulders and answered:
"A friend of thy unfortunate days is without."
Agrippa's brows lifted and drew toward each other in a manner
half-amused, half-vexed.
"The friends of my unfortunate days are the friends of my fortunate
days; wherefore, they would liefer be known as friends of Agrippa the
king, than of Agrippa the bankrupt. Give them their due and call them
the king's companions. And Silas?"
"Yes, lord."
"The king would as lief forget that he ever had a misfortune."
Silas looked perplexed and rubbed his forehead.
"But who is it that stands without?" Agrippa continued.
"The Essene."
"What! Marsyas? By the Nymphae--beshrew me! By the beard of Balaam,
I shall be glad to see him! Fetch him hither!"
Silas nodded in lieu of a bow.
"Lord, there is one with him; shall she enter also?"
"Who?"
"The alabarch's daughter."
"Nay! The little Athene! Terpsichore's best! Not so; though, by
Bacch--Balaam! she would be a fit jewel for this place. It shall be an
audience hour. Go, summon the queen, and have the Essene and his
priestess come to us in our hall!"
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 shittim-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
anticipations, 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 shining, 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 cushion 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 assured 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 god and amenable to worship."
"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 god,
would prefer a dowry with his consort! And that, by
Janus--ah--er--Jacob! brings me up to somewhat relative to our old
fortune-seeking friend, Classicus."
"But," Marsyas protested with a show of his old-time spirit, "I shall
not agree that Classicus 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 Classicus."
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 Classicus; but observe, he hath not forgotten the latest fashion in
folding it. Listen:
"To the Most High and Gracious Prince, Herod Agrippa, King of Judea,
from his servant and subject, Justin Classicus, 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 God-speed, and offer thanks to the God of our fathers.
"Would to that same God 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?"
"Enough," Marsyas said slowly. "But by thy leave, lord, we would know
what thou wilt say to him."
"A just demand; for thou and not I didst suffer at his hands. I shall
tell him that I laid the matter before thee and that thou---"
"Nay, then, lord," Marsyas broke in earnestly, "if thou carest in all
earnestness for my suggestion, pray let me make it!"
"But I believe that I anticipated it and commanded the answer so to be
written."
There was a little regretful silence, and Agrippa leaned toward Marsyas.
"What abideth there, Marsyas?" he asked, touching the young man's
forehead.
After a pause, Marsyas raised his head.
"The full length of mine own story leadeth up to the answer," he said.
"Nay, then, speak!"
Asking permission of Cypros with her eyes, Lydia arose from her place
on her cushion, and came to Marsyas' side. He put his arm about her
and held her hand, and so she stood while he told his story.
Agrippa and Cypros listened with ordinary interest until he began to
tell of his ride across the desert in pursuit of Saul. Then Agrippa's
excitement-loving instincts stirred, and he sat up and contemplated
Marsyas with arrested attention.
At the sighting of the Pharisee far down the road beyond Caucabe, the
king's eyes sparkled; when Marsyas rode upon the party at the pool,
Agrippa's hand on the arm of his throne had clenched. At Marsyas'
dismounting and approach, the king muttered under his breath.
"But at that instant," the narrator went on, showing the effects of his
own story, "a light, such as never before descended upon the earth and
will not come again until the Prince of Light cometh, stood among us;
at which we all fell to the ground as though stricken by a thunderbolt!"
Agrippa's brows knitted.
"While we lay, thus unable to move or cry out, Saul spoke and said unto
the Presence: 'Who art Thou, Lord!' but we heard no answer. And again
Saul spoke, as if he had been answered, saying: 'Lord, what is it that
Thou wouldst have me to do?' And yet there was silence. But when we
took courage and arose, Saul lay on the ground, helpless, blind and
bereft of speech!"
Agrippa's face showed impatience and astonishment. This, from the lips
of so sane a Jew as Marsyas!
"We took him up," Marsyas continued, after a moment's reflection, "and
led him unto Damascus, and to Judas, the Pharisee, who dwelleth in
Straight Street. And there Saul lay for three days. Throughout that
time, I sought for Lydia, and at the end of the third day, I found her."
He touched his lips to Lydia's hand.
"Under the same roof with her I found Saul of Tarsus, broken and
supplicating, changed, heart and soul, as was I. But he was not in
ignorance of the fount of our transfiguration as I was. From Lydia's
lips, I learned that he had been visited by the Lord; but from Saul, I
learned its meaning. If there is change upon my face, lord, I have
told thee whence came it!"
Agrippa's eyes were no longer on Marsyas; he had turned his head and
was looking at Cypros, as if curious to see if so impossible a tale
would find credence in the mind of the simple queen. She looked
disturbed and awe-struck, and Agrippa's nostrils fluttered with a
soundless laugh.
"_Quantum mutatus ab illo!_" he said, turning to Marsyas. "That I can
swear under a dread oath. And perchance, were I an Essene and more
than an adopted Pharisee, I could have been visited and borne witness
to miracles, also. But thou'lt remember, Marsyas, that this Saul
consented unto the death of thy Stephen?"
"I remember, lord; neither hath he forgotten!" answered Marsyas.
"And that through him, great numbers of innocent people fled Judea,
among them one Marsyas, that this same Saul might not have their lives;
that he pursued thee even unto thy refuge, put thy sweet bride in
jeopardy, stained the whole world with persecution, and made an end by
bringing up in heresy, after he had begun a journey to Damascus with
the avowed purpose of extending his persecutions--even unto the death
of thy Lydia! Thou hast not forgotten these things?"
"They are not to be forgotten!"
"And on a certain night, while yet Stephen was unburied, thou camest
upon this Saul of Tarsus in Bezetha, and swore to accomplish vengeance
upon him; and that same night in the cubiculum in the Praetorium thou
didst make me swear to help thee to that revenge, if he should stumble
in the Law!"
Marsyas took his arm from about Lydia and arose.
"I am here, O King," he said, "to crave the fulfilment of that oath."
Agrippa smiled, in spite of the serene gravity on Marsyas' face.
"Ask thy boon, Marsyas," he answered.
Marsyas knelt at the king's footstool, and put up his hands as
supplicants do before a throne.
"Thou hast remembered thine oath unto me, my King; thou hast published
thyself as ready to fulfil thy promise, and hast yielded unto me the
choice of the manner of my requital! Thus assured and believing I make
my prayer. Lift not thy hand against Saul of Tarsus!"
Agrippa's brows dropped suddenly; his face was no less displeased than
startled. He had meant to have a jest at Marsyas' expense, to try the
young man's claim to a change in heart, to bring to the surface human
nature through its envelope of religion; but he had not looked for this
thing! To behold so strange a perversion of the ancient spirit in a
man like Marsyas, and to submit to its demands against his own
inclinations weighed heavily on Agrippa's patience. Saul's lapse into
apostasy gave him an opportunity to attach to him the loyalty of that
fierce party in Judea, which were better propitiated than fought--the
Sicarii, anarchists, who would demand the putting away of the heretic.
Marsyas had asked him to sacrifice a potent piece of state-craft.
He glanced at Cypros, and saw resentfully that she was urging him with
her eyes to submit. Marsyas' face began to show an expression that
compelled him, while it irritated the more. The young man wore the
face of one who does not expect defeat, denies it so confidently that
it hesitates to exist. Agrippa shifted in his throne, frowned more,
wavered, and finally said shortly:
"As Caesar forgot me to mine own safety, I will forget Saul!"
Marsyas' hands dropped softly on the king's, a token of brotherhood.
"Death intervened," he whispered, "to save thee from Caesar!"
Agrippa started and drew his hands away with a prescient terror in the
movement.
"I will not pursue the man," he said; "I will not search for him!"
"Thou hast kept thy word, lord," Marsyas said, "and I go hence carrying
trust in one more fellow man in my heart. May my God supply all thy
need according to His riches in glory, by Jesus Christ!"
Agrippa's eyes which had all this time rested in fascination on
Marsyas' face, flashed now with understanding. Marsyas was a Nazarene!
The admission reassured him; set aside the astonishment at the young
man's unusual behavior; and lessened the fear he had felt in the
suggestion that drew a parallel between Caesar's end and his own, to
come. But Lydia was now kneeling before him, with glistening eyes, to
kiss his hand, and Cypros was speaking.
"But thou gatherest peril yet about thee, Marsyas," she insisted. "Is
the hazardous life, then, so inviting that thou hadst liefer be wrong
than be safe?"
"No, lady; peace is no sweeter to my brethren, the Essenes, than it is
to me. So I have put out my hand and possessed it. Think of us,
henceforth, as the children of peace, not peril."
Agrippa shook his head.
"It hath consumed two years to establish it," he said conclusively,
"and not until the last moment is it revealed that thou art a dreamer,
Marsyas. Thou hast been an Essene, which is too strait an ambition to
be practicable; thou didst cherish a love for a man, so deep that its
bereavement engendered a hate that no man should feel, unless a woman
were won from him or a fortune destroyed; thou wast urged by it into
extreme acts--into selling thyself, into following me to the end of the
world, into putting thyself between me and death--that I might help
thee satisfy that hate! And now, the hour fallen, a new fancy hath
engulfed thee, heart, head and soul--which bids thee forget thy rancor,
defend thine enemy, and live in perpetual peril of destruction! Thou
art a dreamer--though thy front be Jovian and thy steps like Mars!"
Marsyas laid his hand on Lydia's head, as she still knelt beside him.
"In substance, I so accused her once, and Stephen. Perhaps, if thou
followest me insomuch, my King, thou wilt walk even as I have
walked--into the light at last!"
Agrippa made a motion of dissent.
"I doubt, now, that thou couldst safely govern that pretty little city
I had meant to make thee prefect over, here in Judea," he declared.
"Thou hast said! For me there is a new earth, and a new Law, and I go
hence to Alexandria to begin a new life, which will make me a lover of
all mankind."
"Nay, sweet Lydia!" Herod exclaimed, once more restored to himself.
"Thou shouldst demand that he be less indiscriminate with his loves!
But put off thy travel a space, and let us celebrate thy marriage with
festivity!"
"Thou art most kind to us, King Agrippa," Lydia answered. "But my
father is alone and uncomforted in Alexandria; even thou canst not tell
me of a surety that evil hath not befallen him ere thy punishment of
Flaccus could intervene. My heart is consumed with impatience and
suspense. We can not tarry, though thy hospitality be most
grateful--to us--who have found the world of late an untender place!"
So, since they would not be stayed, Agrippa summoned two stalwart
palace servants to go with them, and calling his treasurer, ordered him
to give into the hands of the servants six talents, five of which he
owed to Lysimachus for Cypros, and one as a marriage largess. And when
Marsyas and Lydia had kissed the hands of the royal pair, they went out
and found, at the palace wall, a camel which should bear them in a
white howdah to Ptolemais.
Marsyas lifted Lydia and set her under the canopy, but, before he went
up himself, he saw borne past him, in a chair, a rabbi. He was a great
man, grave, calm and preoccupied. Three students of the College
attended him reverently. Marsyas caught his eye, and between the two
passed a flash that was both understanding and congratulatory. But
they saluted each other gravely, and Eleazer passed on to his own place.
Before they departed Herod sent out a chamberlain, who bowed low and
handed a wax tablet to Marsyas, on which was written:
"Since Classicus would be in Alexandria to harass thee, and thy wits
are meshed in love and religion, I have bidden my scribe write him to
come hither, where I can kill him conveniently, if he need it. If thou
have any enemies here in Jerusalem thou hast forgotten to bless, thou
canst perhaps repair the misfortune by naming thy sons after them.
"My love goes with thee--mine and the queen's,
"HEROD."
So, with their faces alight with content and love and hopefulness,
Marsyas and Lydia took up the long journey unto Alexandria.