The Book of Longings(34)

I sought his rodent eyes. “I will not allow my face to be in your mosaic.”

“You will not allow? I’m your tetrarch. One day I will be called King, as my father was. I can force you, if I wish.”

Phasaelis stepped between us. “If you force her, you’ll offend her father and her betrothed. But that’s for you to decide. You are the tetrarch.” I saw she was practiced at managing his caprices.

He pressed his fingers together, seeming to consider what she’d said. In that brief interim, I wondered if I was to become visible in the world not through my writings, but through pieces of broken glass and marble. Could the vision I’d had of my face inside the tiny sun refer to a mosaic in Antipas’s palace?

As I gripped the edge of the bench, an idea came to me. I didn’t stop to consider how it might turn into something unforeseen, even dangerous. I took a measured breath. “You may have my face for your mosaic, but on one condition. You must release my brother, Judas.”

He let loose a laugh that bounded off the walls. I glimpsed Phasaelis tuck her chin and grin.

“You think I should release a criminal who plots against me only for the pleasure of seeing your face on the floor of my baths?”

I smiled. “Yes, I do. My brother will be grateful and cease his rebellions. My parents will bless you, and the people themselves will call you blessed.”

It was those last words that snared him. He was a man despised by his people. He craved to be named King of the Jews, a title that had belonged to his father, who’d ruled Galilee, Peraea, and all of Judea. Antipas had been bitterly disappointed when his father carved up his kingdom into three portions for his sons and gave him a lesser part. Failing to get his father’s blessing, he spent his days seeking the approval of Rome and the adoration of his people. He’d found neither.

Phasaelis said, “She could be right, Antipas. Think of it. You could say that your clemency is a gesture of mercy for your people. It could turn their hearts. They will heap praise upon you.”

From my mother I’d learned the skills of deception. I’d secreted my womanhood, hidden my incantation bowl, buried my writings, and feigned reasons to meet Jesus in the cave, but it was Father who’d shown me how to strike a despicable bargain.

Antipas was nodding. “Setting him free would be a magnanimous act on my part. It would be unexpected, a shock perhaps, and that would draw even more attention to it.” He turned to me. “I’ll make the proclamation on the first day of the week, and the next day you will commence to sit for my artisan.”

“I will sit for him when I’ve seen Judas with my own eyes, and only then.”





xxvii.


Judas was delivered to our door twelve days after my visit to the palace. He arrived gaunt and dirty with a sunken stomach, grime-matted hair, and pus-infested lash marks. His left eye was swollen into a slit, but his right eye contained a flame that hadn’t been there before. Mother fell upon him, sniveling. Father stood apart, arms crossed over his chest. I waited for Mother’s frantic attentions to cease and then took his hand. “Brother,” I said.

“You have your sister to thank for your release,” Mother said.

I’d had no choice but to tell my parents about the scheme I’d devised with the tetrarch—I knew Antipas would speak of it to Father—but Judas had no need to be informed. I’d begged my parents to keep it from him.

Father had shown little reaction to my arrangement with Antipas—he desired only to keep the tetrarch happy—but Mother had been predictably jubilant. It was Yaltha, dear Yaltha, who’d kissed my cheeks and thought to worry about me. “I fear for you, child,” she’d said. “Take care around Antipas. He’s dangerous. Tell no one about the mosaic. It could be used against you.”

Judas stared at me with his one blinking eye while Mother expounded on the whole perverse story.

“You would have your face mounted on the floor of a Roman bath for Herod Antipas and his cohorts to leer at?” he said. “I would rather you’d let me rot in Machaerus.”

The next day, Herod Antipas sent for me.



* * *



? ? ?

I WAS MADE TO SIT on a low tripod stool in the frigidarium. The artisan used a string and a Phoenician measure to mark off a large circle at least three paces across, then set to work sketching my face on the floor with a finely sharpened stick of charcoal. He worked on his knees, his back hunched, painstakingly creating his pattern, sometimes wiping away the lines and starting again. He admonished me when I moved or sighed or shifted my eyes. Behind him, his workers hammered disks of glass into even-edged tesserae—red, brown, gold, and white, each one the size of a baby’s thumbnail.

The artisan was young, but I saw his talent. He filled the borders with braided leaves and here and there a pomegranate. He would sit back and tilt his head to study his work so that his cheek lay nearly on his shoulder, and when he drew my head, it tilted, too, but slightly. He sketched a garland of leaves in my hair and drop pearl earrings at my ears, none of which I was wearing. A chimera of a smile played on my lips. My eyes bore the faint suggestion of something sensual.

For three days he worked while I sat, hours and hours, while all around us the endless tap, tap, tapping of mallets. On the fourth day, he sent a servant to inform Herod Antipas the sketch was completed. When the tetrarch arrived to inspect it, the hammering ceased and the workers shrank against the wall. The artisan, racked with nerves, sweating and fidgety, awaited judgment. Antipas circled the sketch with his fingers laced behind his back, looking from the sketch to me as if judging the likeness.