Saul Of Tarsus Part 10

At another time, Agrippa might have found amus.e.m.e.nt in the young man's earnestness, but the cause was now his own.

"Thou tongue of my desires!" he exclaimed. "I have sworn! Being a Herod, mine oaths are not idle. I have sworn!"

"Then, let us bargain together," Marsyas said rapidly. "I have told thee my story: thou heardest my vow to-night! For my fealty, yield me thy word! As I help thee into power, help me to revenge! Promise!"

"Promise! By the beard of Abraham, I will conquer or kill anything thou markest; yield thee my last crust, and carry thee upon my back, so thou help me to Alexandria!"

"Swear it!"

Agrippa raised his right hand and swore.

The legionary roused and growled at the two to be quiet. Marsyas fell back on the straw and lay still. Agrippa made signs and urged for more discussion, but the Essene, masterful in his silence, refused to speak.

Presently the Herod lay down and slept from sheer inability to engage his mind to profit otherwise.

A little after dawn the following morning, the Essene and the Herod were conducted into the vestibule of Herod the Great, for a hearing before Vitellius and Herrenius Capito. But Marsyas' offense against a Roman citizen was held in abeyance; it was Agrippa's debt to Caesar which engaged the attention of the judges.

Vitellius was in a precarious temper and Capito looked as grim as querulous old age may. Agrippa's nonchalance was only a surface air overlaying doubts and no little trepidation. But Marsyas, white and sternly intent, was the most resolute of the four.

Capito stirred in his chair and prepared to speak, but Vitellius cut in with a point-blank demand on the young Essene.

"Dost thou know this man?" he asked, indicating Agrippa.

"I do, lord," Marsyas answered, turning his somber eyes on the legate.

"He owes three hundred thousand drachmae to Caesar; he says that thou canst help him pay it; is it so?"

"It is, lord."

Agrippa's eyes were perfectly steady; it would not do to show amazement now.

"How?" was the next demand flung at the Essene.

"I can place him in the way of certain wealth," was the a.s.sured reply.

"How?"

"The n.o.ble Roman's pardon, but there are certain things an Essene may not divulge."

Agrippa's well-bred brows lifted. Was this evader and collected schemer the innocent Essene he had met on the slopes of Olivet the previous evening?

"Answer! Dost thou promise to provide the Herod with three hundred thousand drachmae which shall be paid unto Caesar's treasury?"

"I promise to place the prince where he will provide himself with three hundred thousand drachmae. If he pay it not unto Caesar, the fault shall be his, not mine."

"Will the Essenes do it?"

"It shall be done," Marsyas replied, his composure unshaken by the menace implied in the questioning.

"Capito, what thinkest thou?" Vitellius demanded.

The old collector shuffled his slippered feet, and his antique treble took on an argumentative tone.

"Caesar wants his money, not a slave; I want the emperor's commendation, not his blame. But let us bind this young Jew to this."

Vitellius motioned to an orderly. "Send hither a notary; and let us take down this Jew's promise. Now, Herod, speak up. There are no rules of an order to bind you. Where shall you get this money?"

"Of two sources," Agrippa declared, unblus.h.i.+ng. "From the young man himself and from the Essenes."

"If you had so many moneyers, why have you not paid your debt long ago?"

"I had not the indors.e.m.e.nt of this young Essenic doctor to validate my note, O Vitellius," the Herod responded with equanimity.

The two Romans frowned; the clerk finished his transcription.

"Sign!" Vitellius ordered Marsyas threateningly.

Marsyas calmly wrote his name in Greek under the voucher. After him Agrippa signed the doc.u.ment.

"Now, listen," Vitellius began conclusively. "I believe neither of you. But for the fact that Caesar would be burdened with a useless chattel I should let Capito foreclose upon you, Agrippa. But there is a chance that this rigid youth may be telling the truth; if he is not--" the legate closed his thin lips and let the menace of his hard eyes complete the sentence. Marsyas contemplated him, unmoved, undismayed, no less inflexible and determined.

"The punishment for his offense against you, Agrippa, is remitted. Get you gone. Capito! Follow them!"

Totally undisturbed by this sudden entanglement in a supposedly clear skein, Agrippa waved his hand and smiled.

"Many thanks, Vitellius," he said. "Would I could get my debts paid if only to deserve thy respect once more. But thy hospitality must be a little longer strained. The wolves of Jonathan wait without to lay hands on this young man. He must be pa.s.sed the gates in disguise. I provided for that last night. Admit my servants, I pray thee."

"Have your way, Herod, and fortune go with you, curse you for a winsome knave," Vitellius growled.

Agrippa laughed, but there was no laughter in his eyes.

The two were led through a second hall instinct with barbaric splendors, to a small apartment where they were presently attended by two servants.

One was a slow, stolid Jew of middle-age, with stubbornness and honesty the chief characteristics of his face. The other would have won more interest from the casual observer. He was young, well-formed, but of uncertain nationality. His head was like a cocoanut set on its smaller end, and covered with thick, stiff, l.u.s.terless black hair, cut close and growing in a rounded point on his forehead. One eye was smaller than the other and the lid drooped. The fault might have given him a roguish look but for the ill-natured cut of his mouth. Both wore the brown garments of the serving-cla.s.s.

When Agrippa and Marsyas stood up from the ministrations of these two, they were fit figures for a procession of patricians on the Palatine Hill. Marsyas' soiled white garments had been put off for a tunic and mantle of fine umber wool, embroidered with silver. A tallith of silk of the same color was bound with a silver cord about his forehead.

Agrippa's garments were only a short white tunic of extraordinary fineness belted with woven gold, and a toga of white, edged with purple. But the prince examined Marsyas with an interested eye.

"By Kypris!" he said aloud, "and thou art to entomb thyself in En-Gadi!"

But Marsyas did not understand.

Capito awaited them when they emerged, and announced himself ready to proceed. Procedure was to be an elaborate thing. A squad of soldiery had been detailed as escort, and stood prepared in marching order; the collector's personal array of apparitors was a.s.sembled; his baggage sent forth to his pack-horses,--himself, duly arrayed after the fas.h.i.+on of a conventional old Roman afraid of color.

Agrippa placed himself beside the collector with an equanimity that was almost disconcerting. The old man signed his apparitors to proceed and followed with his two virtual prisoners.

Through the envelope of grief and rancor, the grave difficulties of his predicament reached Marsyas. Unless he could be rid of the surveillance of Capito, both he and the Herod were in sore straits.

But Agrippa's amiable temper presaged something, and Marsyas merged the new distress with the burden of misery which bowed him.