György Spiró - Captivity

There was no Dea Dei shrine anywhere; Iustus just could not understand. Uri said nothing. The Dea Dei shrine lay to the northwest, on the road to Ostia, not on the Appian Way. Iustus’s hearing must not be too sharp; he was no good even as an eavesdropper.

It was still morning when they halted at the first reasonably inviting inn and Agrippa clambered down from his coach. All the others also stopped, with the horsemen dismounting and Philo’s group also getting down. Agrippa stretched his back and puffed and blew. Uri got close enough to examine him. Two years ago, when Uri had seen him taken away by litter from the alabarch’s palace that early morning August, he had already been corpulent, but he had put on even more weight since then. He was corpulent because he was a king; the wonder was that Caligula had not put on any weight so far.

This being an unplanned break, the inn had received no prior notification of the king’s arrival, so seven or eight tables were quickly pulled together to form one long table.

Agrippa sat at the head of the table with his counselors sitting next to him on either side, then Philo and the alabarch’s sons, then the Praetorian Guards, the Jewish bodyguards, and, at the far end of the table, Iustus and Uri, who could not see as far as the king. It must be humiliating for Philo’s party, the malicious thought struck him, that former slave freedmen had precedence over them, the wealthiest Jews in the world, who even now were supplying the king with money. It then occurred to him that it was unlikely Agrippa had given his blessing to Marcus marrying his daughter, otherwise he would have sat Marcus next to him. They reclined at the table while they waited for food and drink; the quiet buzz of conversation was audible as the bodyguards chatted with one another in subdued voices, the Jewish ones with Jews, the Romans with Romans.

“My sweet Marsyas!” cried the king from the head of the table. “Do excuse me, but please change places with my dear son Marcus!”

A hush fell and one of the counselors, obviously Marsyas, stood up, while Marcus stood up next to Philo. For a brief while they both stood, undecided as to what to do, before Marcus set off toward the king and Marsyas passed behind the king’s back to slip into the place that Marcus had vacated. Marcus took up the place on the right of the king.

The king applauded in delight like a child. Fortunatus or Stoicheus seated directly on his left then began to clap, at which the bodyguards also joined in; although they had no idea what they were applauding. Iustus applauded and even Uri struck his hands together.

“What was that about?” Iustus asked quietly.

“I have no idea,” said Uri.

“Why did he ask him to swap places?”

“No idea.”

“But calling him to take a place right next to him! Why was that?”

Uri found this tedious.

“Because he is going to marry his daughter,” he tossed in.

He immediately regretted doing so.

Iustus eyes rounded. There were deep, blue-veined pits under his eyes, his gaunt features slashed by premature wrinkles.

“Marcus? Which daughter? Berenice? Mariamne? Drusilla is too young as yet… Which of them? It’s Berenice, isn’t it?”

Uri said nothing.

“When?”

“I don’t know… I was only joking…”

“Bring us some wine!” the king shouted.

Servants scuttled over with wineskins and mixing dishes.

The king drank greedily, emptying this and the next cup to Marcus, his future son-in-law. Everyone applauded. Marcus in return toasted the king, his future father-in-law, and he in turn was loudly applauded.

Iustus asked in a whisper how much Marcus was due to receive, and whether Agrippa was going to share the kingship with him. It was totally futile for Uri to keep asserting that he did not know because Iustus took it for granted that Uri was privy to everything. Iustus changed tack and began gossiping in a well-informed manner about the wrangling which went on among the Jewish elders of Rome, whereas Uri’s head grew heavier as he was drinking on an empty stomach and was soon unable to follow what was being said.

They ate and drank into the evening. Iustus was the only one who attacked his food less than wholeheartedly because he was uncertain if in this place the cooking was ritually clean; the others were not in the least concerned. Iustus, however, asked about each and every item on the menu to determine whether or not he was allowed to eat it, whereas Uri could not repeat often enough that it was permissible.

“I was told in Judaea that nothing the Lord created can be unclean,” Uri said.

Iustus was aghast on hearing such dreadful heresy.

Tija popped up beside Uri, holding a long quill feather in one hand.

“Make the king vomit,” he instructed Uri.

“Who, me?”

“You’re the lowest in rank here!” snapped Tija in a stifled voice.

Uri flushed red, took the feather, unsteadily got to his feet and made his way to the head of the table, stopping on the right-hand side of puce-headed, virtually bald Agrippa and bending forward. The king looked up at him; his eyes were raging.

“What do you want?” he choked.

Uri indicated the feather.

“About time!” muttered the king.

Uri pulled across a mixing dish, knelt, grasped the feather with his right hand, and used his left to cradle the king’s hot, sweating head. The king opened his mouth wide and Uri cautiously poked in the plume.

The king vomited prodigiously. Uri closed his eyes and took a deep breath to suppress his own nausea but even so he retched at the horrible, acrid stink. He opened his eyes. No one was looking that their way; they were gorging unconcernedly.

“Thank you,” the king gasped as he pushed away the hand holding the feather once he had freed himself of the encumbrance.

Uri tossed the feather into the steaming mess, the unchewed morsels swimming about in the foul-smelling liquid, and picked up the dish.

The king looked up in gratitude and broke into a smile.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” he said.

“Yes, your majesty… I gave you a drink of water in Alexandria.”

“Really?”

The king knitted his eyebrows.

“Your majesty,” Uri quickly interjected. “Two hundred thousand sesterces… You still owe that much! I don’t mind paying the interest on it but there is no way that I shall be able to pay back the capital… It was five years this February…”

The king nodded.

“I remember it now,” he beamed, proud of his mental capacity. “I remember; it was in Rome! The bankers through a silk merchant!”

He looked at Uri.

“But I already returned the favor!” he said. “I used my influence to get your son into the delegation taking the ritual tax to Jerusalem! I repaid the debt right away! That was what was agreed, don’t you recall? I kept my end of the bargain!”

Uri stumbled as he took the dish full of vomit out into the yard.

There he washed his hands and face at length in the cistern before raising his eyes to the firmament. It was evening by then, with dots of indefinite outline twinkling up above.

The king mistook me for my father.

It was no use Iustus heaping him with questions, Uri was absorbed in his thoughts and did not even hear them.

I’ve aged fast: I need a pond or slow stream that will allow me to take a look at myself.

Was it then me rather than my son in whom my father was reborn? Have I become my father?

Agrippa had discharged the loan if that really was the agreement, and it may well have been.

I squandered the fortune that he entrusted to me; I did all the wrong things. My father put the capital in my own hands, but I did not invest it well.

This was a new point of view: he would have to think everything through.