Read Agrippa's Daughter for Free Online

was beginning to shake with rage, and Cypros said soothingly, “I did not say that you were a fool, Agrippa. I know that you think about problems very brilliantly. In fact, you are the wisest man I know. But sometimes—well, I mean that if you are so upset over whether Berenice is a virgin or not, why not have the physicians to attend her—”
    “And have it all over Tiberias the next day and all over Israel in a week? Have you ever met a doctor you can trust to keep his mouth shut? They are worse gossips than old women.”
    “Then what will you do?”
    “Just leave it to me. I’ll think of something.”
    He did. He summoned Berenice to his great, formal audience chamber and ordered them to be left alone. There was only one seat in the audience chamber, a polished wooden chair on a raised dais—where the king sat. He sat there now, clad—as he thought—simply in a white linen robe embroidered with gold thread, and on his head a golden skullcap—spun gold and silk—rather than a crown. He preferred it lately to a crown, and it was good for the street singers who cried his praise to let it be known that the king wore a skullcap as did any other Jew. In his years of piety he still allowed himself gold trappings—as a sign of royalty—but wore almost only white and on most occasions. In the face of that, and quite deliberately, Berenice wore a shift of lavender and an overdress of flaming orange. A slight smile of defiance on her face, she stood facing her father.
    “Why do you dress like that?” he demanded. “To defy me?”
    “To honor you,” Berenice said softly.
    “By dressing like a whore?”
    “Does a whore dress this way?” Berenice sighed. “Then whores are wealthy. This is the most expensive dress I have ever owned.”
    “You are an abomination before my eyes!” Agrippa cried. “A stench unto my nostrils!”
    His righteousness was growing in clichés. It bored Berenice. She was frightened, but she was also bored, and she asked Agrippa whether that was why he had called her in to him. “But it can’t be,” she added, looking about the big, empty chamber. “Why did you send them away?”
    “I share my shame with no one.”
    Berenice yawned, and her father cried,
    “God’s curse on you! Yawn! Laugh! Sing! I wash my hands of it—of all of it. I am finished. Let another apologize for Berenice. I have given your hand in marriage.” He flung his arms apart to signify the conclusion he had stated so firmly.
    Berenice stared at him. Suddenly, her heart was like a lead weight—for she had expected nothing like this, and now she was afraid. And afraid, she whispered,
    “Who? Who is my husband?”
    “My brother,” Agrippa said. “My brother, Herod, king of Chalcis.”
    Silence and no response at first, as Berenice attempted to recreate the words her father had just spoken, to put them together and make sense and reason out of them. Then she said,
    “No. This is a ghastly joke. I deserve it. I know that I do. I’m sorry, my father, my king, my liege lord—I am sorry, I apologize, I abase myself. Forgive me.” She came a step closer to Agrippa. “A joke? Humor? Should I laugh?”
    “If you wish to laugh, laugh,” Agrippa said.
    “And you were not—”
    “Of course. What I said I said. I have given you in marriage to my brother, Herod. Can you deserve better? He’s a widower, a substantial and mature man—and king of Chalcis. He will treat you firmly but well—”
    “An old man,” Berenice whispered.
    “Old? Come, daughter, you praise me poorly. He’s a year younger than I am—and am I an old man? Hardly. In any case, he will be your husband and you will be his wife—”
    She had never pleaded before, never begged before, never abased herself before, but now she was pleading that she was only fifteen years old—
    “You’re old enough to dance a jig and make the music too,” Agrippa said sourly.
    Now, on the day Agrippa was to die, a year after the two of them together in the