Fifth Gospel(41)

Not one for exerting himself unduly, he would have given up on the entire idea had he not become enamoured of a certain other advantage. He cast a glance at Herodias’ daughter, Salome, a child of sixteen. All the characteristics that had assumed a misshapen proportion in her mother had combined differently in the daughter so that her black eyes were clear and deep and shaped like almonds, and her hair was the colour of a raven’s neck and fell in thick looms over the fine curvature of her pale form, over the perfect proportion of her breasts, over the rounded belly shaped in a design to nourish the eye of desire.

While Herodias tantalised him with the wiles of her magic, just one look from Salome enticed the blood to his manhood in long painful throbs, whose intensity was wanton and incautious. He felt himself caught between the hammer and the anvil! Kept on a tight leash of hope one moment and craving the next - as compliant as a faithful dog that must-needs please its master’s every wish and whim. For how could a man who thought himself mystical and sensuous resist a union   that promised both the pleasures of the spirit and the flesh?

The Baptiser was well respected among the people of his province, even the Sanhedrin feared his power over them. If Herod could coax this man to ratify his marriage to Herodias, he would march into the Sanhedrin and demand the priests follow his example. But he had a secondary reason, which he did not like to think on.

At about the same time he met Herodias, he also made a visit to Caesar to contest his father’s will. In Caesar’s house he had a dream in which he ventured to a place, a gloom-laden blank expanse of nothingness, a naught of naughts, an eternal null and void, where all was disappointment and despair. In the midst of this dimness he could hear screams and he saw a man chained to a rock, with a bird-like shadow gnawing at his liver. When he looked more closely he realised that it was his father! The last thing he remembered was his father’s laughter ringing in his ears and the words:

Now he is yours!

On waking, the memory of the creature had not diminish and in time it grew into a real thing, a great black bird that came and went, announcing its arrivals with a flapping of its dark and ominous wings and its departures with a foul stench of stagnant air.

In moments of despair he told himself,

It is my father’s demon of madness, come to eat away my soul!

Herodias could not help him for although she was skilled in the magic of herbs and metals and the forces that can manipulate births, she did not yet possess the power to harness demons, or control the forces of death.

He hoped John bar Zacharias would help him.

But his thoughts were interrupted. His entourage was paused before a throng of people headed for the baptismal bend in the Jordan and his mind, like a weak flame in a breeze, was bent to those scores and scores of old and young, poor and rich alike that were walking the rough road. His guards shoved and pushed the crowds with their pikes to make them move out of the way and to his chagrin, they only gave the slightest acknowledgement to his royal person. As he stared at them a new emotion battled lust and fear for chief position in his heart.

Envy.

His father had overlooked him! His brother Archelaus had stolen the throne from him! Now this upstart was taking what little he had left, if he had ever had it – the love of his people.

By the time Herod and his entourage arrived at the place of meeting, he had already calculated how he would get what he wanted from the man before doing away with him.

A number of crude, rush-covered huts encircled a small space, a natural court in the middle of which stood a rock. The cavalcade dismounted and rolled out an assortment of opulent carpets, food and wine, for Herod and his women. They waited beneath the canopy of a tree near half a day.

When John the Baptist finally appeared it was sun down. He was tall and muscular and his face was as ancient and dry as the dirt of Judea. He entered the enclosure surrounded by a swarm of students. He saw Herod but his face did not speak of it, it remained as it was. He whispered something to his pupils and they dispersed, one by one, and he took himself to the rock and sat down, as if he were a king and Herod a subject who must pay homage to him.

More vexation heated Herod’s cheeks. Herodias rasped in his ear. She told him that John the Baptist was making a mockery of him. But Herod weighed his vexation and humiliation against his need to know the power of the man, and found to his surprise, that his curiosity was greater than his self-esteem. This was another strange realisation in a day full of portents and it did not bother him particularly. He took a sip of wine and waited for John to speak.

He waited, but the other man had a patience that was beyond his own.

‘You are come, finally, John bar Zacharias,’ Herod said, in Aramaic, using his friendship-making voice, ‘we have waited long.’