Mary Magdalen: A Chronicle. Saltus Edgar
she exclaimed. “To Machærus with him! You may believe in fate and mathematics; I believe in the axe.”
And questioningly Herodias looked at her husband, who avoided her look, yet signified his assent to the command she had given.
The din continued. From the tier beyond, Judas still gazed into the perils of Mary’s eyes.
“Dear God,” he muttered, in answer to an anterior thought, “it would be the birthday of my life.”
CHAPTER II
“O Prophet Iohanan, how fair you are!”
Iohanan was hideous. His ankles were in stocks, a chain about his waist was looped in a ring that hung from the wall. About his body were tattered furs, his hair was tangled, the face drawn and yellow. Vermin were visible on his person. His lips twitched, and his gums, discolored, were as those of a camel that has journeyed too far. A tooth projected, green as a fresh almond is; the chin projected too, and from it on one side a rill of saliva dripped upon the naked breast. On the terrace he was a blur, a nightmare in a garden.
“Ah, how fair!”
Tantalizing as temptation, Mary stood just beyond his reach. Her eyes were full of compliments, her body was bent, and, the folds of her gown held back, she swayed a little, in the attitude of one cajoling a tiger. She was quite at home and at her ease, and yet prepared for instant flight.
Iohanan, or John – surnamed, because of practices of his, the Baptist – beckoned her to approach. In his eyes was the innocence that oxen have.
“My body is chained, but my soul is free!”
Mary made a pirouette, and through the terrace of the citadel the rattles on her ankles rang.
It was appalling, this citadel; it dominated the entire land. Perched on a peak of basalt, it overhung an abyss in which Asphalitis, the Bitter Sea, lay, a stretch of sapphire to the sun. In the distance were the heights of Abraham, the crests of Gilead. Before it was the infinite, behind it the desert. At its base a hamlet crouched, and a path hewn in the rock crawled in zigzags to its gates. Irregular walls surrounded it, in some places a hundred cubits high, and in each of the many angles was a turret. Seen from below it was a threat in stone, but within was a caress, one of those rapturous palaces that only the Orientals build. It was called Machærus. Peopled with slaves and legends, it was a haunt of ghosts and fierce delights.
And now as Mary tripped before the prophet the walls alone repelled. The terrace was a garden in which were lilies and sentries. For entrance there was a portal of red porphyry, above which was a balcony hemmed by a balustrade of yellow Numidian stone.
Against it Antipas leaned. He had been eyeing the desert in tremulous surmise. The day before, he had caught the glitter of lances, therewith spirals of distant smoke, and he had become fearful lest Aretas, that king of Arabia Petræa whose daughter he had deserted, might be meditating attack. But now there was nothing, at most a triangular mass speeding westwards, of which only the edges moved, and which he knew to be a flight of cranes.
He took heart again and gazed in the valley below. It was the anniversary of his birth. To celebrate it he had invited the stewards of his lands, the notables of Galilee, the elect of Jerusalem, the procurator of Judæa, the emir of Tadmor, mountaineers and Pharisees, Scribes and herdsmen.
But in the valley only a few shepherds were visible. Along the ramparts soldiers paced. At the further end of the terrace a group of domestics was busy with hampers and luggage. The day was solemnly still, exquisitely clear; and between two hills came a glare of gold projected from the Temple of Jerusalem.
Through the silence rang the tinkle of the rattles that Mary wore. The prophet was beckoning her.
“And Martha?” the tetrarch heard him ask.
The pirouette ceased awkwardly. Mary’s eyes forgot their compliments.Her brows contracted, and, as though perplexed, she held her head a little to one side.
“There,” he added, “there, I know you well. It was at Bethany I saw you first. Yes, yes, I remember perfectly; you were leaving, and Martha was in tears. Only a little since I had speech with her. She spoke of you; she knew you were called the Magdalen. No,” he continued, for Mary had shrunk back, “no, I will not curse. There is another by whom you will be blessed.”
Mary laughed. “I am going to Rome. Tiberius will give me a palace. I shall sleep on the down the Teutons bring. I shall drink pearls dissolved in falernian. I shall sup on peacocks’ tongues.”
“No, Mary, Rome you will never see. The Eternal has you in His charge. Your shame will be washed away.”
“Shame to you,” she interrupted.“Shame and starvation too.” She made as though she were about to pirouette again. “Whom are you talking of?”
“One whose shoes I am unworthy to bear.”
For a moment he seemed to meditate; then, with the melancholy of one renounce ing some immense ambition, he murmured, half to himself, half to the sky, “For him to increase I must diminish.”
“As for that, you are not much to look at now. I must go. I must braid my hair; the emir’s eyes are eager.”
“Mary,” he hissed, and the sudden asperity of his voice coerced her as a bit might do, “you will go to Capharnahum, you will seek him, you will say Iohanan is descended into the tombs to announce the Son of David.”
Through the lateral entrance to the terrace a number of guests had entered. From the balcony above, Antipas leaned and listened. Some one touched him; it was Herodias.
“The procurator is coming,” she announced.“You should be at the gate.”
“Ah!”
He seemed indifferent. What Iohanan had said concerning the Son of David stirred him like the point of a sword. He felt that there could be no such person; his father had put a stop to all that. And yet, if there were!
His indifference surprised Herodias.
“What are you staring at?” she asked; and to assure herself she looked over the balustrade. “That carrion? You should – ”
Her hand drawn across her throat completed the sentence.
The tetrarch shook his head. There was no hurry. Then, too, the prophet was useful. He reviled Jerusalem, and that flattered Galilee. But there was another reason, which he kept to himself. Iohanan affected him as no one had done before.
He feared him, chained though he was, and into that fear something akin to admiration entered. In his heart he wished he had let him alone. No, there was no hurry. As he assured her of that the prophet looked up.
“Jezebel!”
The guests approached. Their number had increased. There were Greek merchants from Hippos and Sepphoris, Pharisees from Jericho, and Scribes from Jerusalem. Herodias clapped her hands. A negro, naked to the waist, appeared.
“Take him below.”
But the guests surrounded Iohanan. The Pharisees recognized him at once. He was the terror of the hierarchs.
As he cried out at Herodias he seemed as though he would rise and wrench his bonds and mount to where she was. His eyes had lost their pathos; they blazed.
“Woe unto you!” he shouted, “and woe unto your barren bed! Though you hid in the bowels of the earth, in the uttermost depths of a jungle, the stench of your incest would betray you. Woe unto you, I say; the swine will turn from you, the Eternal will rend you, and the heart of hell will vomit you back!”
Herodias shook with anger. She was livid. Murmurs circulated through the increasing throng.
The Pharisees edged nearer. On their foreheads were slips of vellum on which passages of the Law had been inscribed. About their left arms other slips extended spiralwise from the elbow to the end of the third finger. They were in white; where their garments had become soiled, the spots had been chalked.
To them the prophet showed his teeth.“And woe unto you too, race of vipers, bladders