King's Shadow: A Novel of King Herod's Court

by Angela Hunt

  I felt my stomach drop and the empty place fill with a horrifying hollowness. “Every boy?” I whispered. “Every boy in Bethlehem?”

  Herod nodded.

  I felt the wings of calamity brush past me, stirring the air and lifting the hair on my forearms. I staggered toward the stairs and somehow made my way back to my apartment where not even Alexas could convince me that Herod had only done what was necessary for a king.

  For three days I remained in my chamber with the windows shuttered and a sheet drawn over my head. Alexas stayed away out of respect for my dark mood, and Uru had learned enough to know not to disturb me.

  In the past I defended Herod’s hard actions because I understood how precarious his position was. But his position was no longer uncertain; he enjoyed the full support of Augustus, and while the people of Judea did not love him, their hatred had cooled to a point where they were not on the verge of revolt. Many grudgingly appreciated the things he had done for them—the buildings, the improved aqueducts, the restoration of the Temple, the relief from taxes during famine, his provision after the earthquake. A king did not have to be so generous, but Herod had done such things in an effort to win the hearts of his people.

  And whether he wanted to admit it or not, Herod was nearing the end of his life. His health was not good, and he had outlived all his brothers. Why did he still feel the need to assert his authority with an iron fist?

  When I woke on the fourth morning, I knew I could not spend the rest of my life in hiding. If Adonai had some purpose for me, it certainly was not to warm a mattress in Herod’s palace while my brother veered from depression to madness in the winter of his life.

  I got out of bed, rang for Uru, and squinted toward the light fringing my shuttered window. When the handmaid appeared, I told her I needed to look my best, for I was going to see the king.

  Once my handmaid had finished dressing me, applying cosmetics, and arranging my hair, I stood before the looking brass to check my reflection one last time. Like Herod, I had also entered the final season of life, and I suspected that no meeting with the king had ever been as important as the one I would have today. For the first time in my sixty years, I was going to tell him the truth about his firstborn son.

  Though Herod’s disavowal of Pheroras had shaken me, his late change of heart had reinforced my opinion of his best quality—Herod had always been as faithful as a dog. He had remained loyal to Mark Antony, to Augustus, and he had always respected Hyrcanus, even when he had to execute the man for treason.

  So perhaps he would remain loyal to me when I brought news he would not want to hear.

  I found him in his chamber and did not let myself appear surprised to find him still in bed. His physician sat in a corner of the room, reading a scroll, while Nicolaus of Damascus sat in another corner, hard at work on Herod’s biography, a work he had begun several months before.

  I ignored the writer and the physician, just as I had ignored all signs of Herod’s illness for the past few months. “Good morning, my king.” I bowed before him.

  With an effort, Herod pushed himself upright, propping himself on pillows. “What brings you here so early?”

  “The truth.” I rose and folded my hands. “May I sit?”

  Herod nodded at an empty chair near his bed. I sat, grateful for something to support my quivering knees. “This brings me no pleasure, brother, but I feel I must tell you the truth about your firstborn.”

  I told him all I knew about Antipater and about how I had abetted him in the early years due to a vow I made our mother. I told him that Antipater had become close with Pheroras and had confided to our brother that he hated his father and complained that Herod was living too long, keeping him from power while devoting too much time and attention on younger sons who were not destined to be king.

  I told him what Pheroras had told me about Antipater procuring a poison disguised as a love potion, and how he intended to give it to Herod. Pheroras had taken custody of the potion, and when he became ill, he was so touched by Herod’s concern for his health that he destroyed the poison.

  “Furthermore,” I finished, “Doris has been advocating for her son, working behind the scenes to advance him to the detriment of your other sons. You were gracious to bring her back to court, and she has used your graciousness against you. The young man and his mother have been false-faced since they returned to Jerusalem. Even now, as Antipater is in Rome, I am certain he is working against you.”

  I stopped, having run out of things to say. The effort of unburdening had exhausted me, but when I looked over at Herod, I realized my words had a far different effect on him. His face had gone the color of a thundercloud, and the veins in his neck were throbbing. Had I gone too far?

  “Herod—” I began.

  “Enough, Salome. You were right to come to me. Now go, for I must speak to my physician.”

  Swallowing my protests and my regrets, I stood, bowed, and quietly left the room.

  I did not see Herod for several days after my meeting with him. He remained in his room with his biographer and his physician. When I asked a servant if he had any other visitors, the man nodded. “He has been speaking with many servants from Peraea. And people from Jerusalem, as well.”

  I lifted a brow as understanding dawned. Herod was investigating, diligently confirming everything I and others had told him. Perhaps he had heard rumors of Antipater’s activities before I unburdened myself, and my words had fanned the flames of his suspicion.

  Herod wrote his firstborn a friendly letter, urging him to return to Judea at once, advising him to make haste in case his health should worsen and leave the throne vacant. Smelling victory, Antipater boarded a fast ship and arrived at Caesarea, where he was not greeted with the pomp due the heir presumptive but made to wait while his father greeted Quintilius Varus, who had arrived on the same ship. Varus, Antipater was shocked to learn, was the new Roman governor of Syria and would head the tribunal convened to conduct his trial.

  The next day Herod assembled the tribunal. Before Herod’s associates, informers who had been promised immunity for their part in Antipater’s machinations told their stories of conspiracy, deceit, and bribery. In the end, Antipater was charged with parricide and engineering the execution of Mariamne’s innocent sons.

  I found the trial difficult to watch, yet the experience was akin to torture for my brother, as the trial was an indictment of his fatherhood. How could he have been so wrong, so blind to what was good and what was deceitful? Though he knew what the testimonies would involve, he was so grieved by the hard truth that he broke down and wept bitter tears. Unable to continue in the role of accuser, Herod stepped aside and Nicolaus of Damascus stepped into his place, charging Antipater with planning “such a sort of uncommon parricide as the world never yet saw.”

  The final condemnation came from Quintilius Varus after one of Pheroras’s servants stated that he had not destroyed the poison meant to kill Herod but had hidden it. When he produced the flask, Antipater insisted it was a love potion. Then Nicolaus of Damascus commanded that the potion be given to a condemned criminal. The criminal was brought forth and forced to drink from the bottle. For a brief instant I wondered if Antipater had spoken the truth, but then the prisoner collapsed and died on the floor.

  After his death sentence was pronounced and written, Antipater was taken to prison. The official record was sent to Augustus by messenger.

  We could do nothing but wait for the emperor’s approval.

  Chapter Sixty

  Salome

  In tremendous pain, suffering from fever, itching, agony in the colon, swollen feet, lung disease, convulsions, and eye problems, Herod sought relief with a paring knife. He tried to cut his wrists when his cousin Achiab, who was with him, wrestled the knife from his hand. My brother roared with pain and frustration, and that scream—thought to be beyond what a dying man could produce—echoed through the palace.

  I heard it. The sound jolted me from sleep and p
ropelled my feet to the floor. I flew to Herod’s chamber, where a crowd had gathered outside the door. I walked past the guards, servants, wives and children, and entered to find my brother weeping on the floor, covered only by a thin blanket.

  I told Achiab to help the king get back into bed, then instructed the physician to give him more pain-killing herbs.

  I did not know that the sound of the king’s scream had also traveled to the detention chamber, where Antipater was being held prisoner. Upon hearing the scream, followed by rushing footsteps and a general outcry, Antipater assumed the king had died. He leapt to his feet and called the guard to his door, offering the man a bribe if he would release him at once.

  The jailer did not reply but turned and strode to the king’s chamber, where I was helping Herod settle in his bed. Both of us listened to the jailer’s report, and then Herod ordered Antipater’s immediate execution. He would not wait for Augustus’s permission.

  Afterward, my brother rewrote his will yet again. While he wrote, I begged him to go to the palace in Jericho where the warm springs might ease the pain of the lesions on his skin. Once he had finished the revisions on his will, Herod agreed.

  Later I learned that trouble of another sort was brewing at the Temple.

  As news of the king’s imminent death spread through Jerusalem, Matthias the son of Margalus, and Judas the son of Sepphoraeus, both Torah teachers, told their students that the hour had come to rid the Temple of the one object that profaned it—a great golden eagle that had hung over Agrippa’s Gate for more than twenty years. The Law of Israel, they said, forbade likenesses of living things, and even if the students should die for their action, they should pull it down.

  At midday, in front of great crowds in the streets, the students climbed up to the roof, lowered themselves by ropes, and hacked off the golden eagle. Forty students, along with their teachers, were promptly arrested by Temple guards. They were taken to Jericho to stand before the king.

  Though he was weak and in terrible pain, Herod sat on his throne in the reception hall, where he accused the Temple students and raged against them for their ingratitude. Did he not restore the Temple to greatness? Had he not made Jerusalem the center of the world? Why were the people not grateful for his brilliant construction and improvements?

  When the students did not answer, he separated the teachers from the students. The students were to be executed by the sword, but the leaders—Herod winced as his tunic brushed the inflamed skin on his arm—were to be burned alive.

  I closed my eyes, horrified by the severe sentence, which would be carried out immediately. As the Torah teachers were dragged from the hall to be immolated, Herod stood and staggered toward me. “If I must suffer this agony,” he said, his face twisting, “so must they.”

  I gently took his arm and helped him to the baths, where I hoped the waters of the spring would ease his suffering.

  As we walked I could not help seeing the eagle as a portent of things to come. No one had complained about the eagle in years, but because Herod was near death, rebellion had reared its head. What sort of traitorous displays would we see once Herod was gone?

  The next day, my brother called me to his bedchamber. I thought he might want to assure me that he was ready to pass into the next life, but instead he gave me an order: I was to gather Jericho’s elite Jews and hold them in the hippodrome. “Once you have all of them, particularly the leaders,” he rasped, “have the guards close the gates. Have the people wait until they hear the news.”

  “What news, brother?”

  The corner of his mouth went up in a half smile. “The news that I have died.” His eyelids drooped, half closing. “Then you command the guards to kill them all.”

  “Why?” Once again my slippery tongue betrayed me. “Why, brother, would you kill so many of your people?”

  His eyes closed, but he was not sleeping. “Let all of Judea and every household weep for me . . . whether they will or not.”

  I turned to Alexas, horrified by the order, but as long as Herod lived, I had no choice but to obey him. The captain of the guard had heard the command and already left the room, probably to send his men throughout the city. Before sunset, they would take the men, women, and children from their homes and herd them toward the hippodrome, the only structure large enough to hold so many people.

  What was their crime? Not adoring their king?

  Now I understood why the Jews had never loved him as he wanted to be loved—they loved HaShem above all. To love anyone more than their God was idolatry, and while Herod did not mind being a lesser power than Antony or Augustus, he had always wanted to be first in the hearts of his people.

  My heart constricted in pity for my dying brother. Had anyone ever loved him enough?

  “Brother.” I moved closer to his bed, lifted his hand, and pressed it to my lips. “I have always loved you.”

  Then Alexas and I turned and left him with his courtiers.

  “How is he?”

  Alexas looked at me and shook his head. “He breathes still, but he has not spoken in several hours.”

  For two days I had been sitting on an upper row of the hippodrome, staring at the Jews waiting on the field of competition. The people had brought nothing with them, so at sunset of the first day I commanded the guards to bring them bread, water, and blankets. But now the children were crying, the adults frightened, and I had no answers to offer them.

  Herod would have thought me silly, feeding and comforting condemned Jews, yet the people below me had done nothing wrong. Occasionally they shaded their eyes and stared up at me, and I hoped the distance was too great for them to see my expression.

  I would not have them see the dread and fear on my face.

  The captain of the guard had placed armed soldiers along the front row of seats; they faced the Jews on the field. I could not know what the guards were thinking, if they were pleased or indifferent to the prospect of killing so many innocents only to mark a king’s death.

  I did not know many people in Jericho, but women like Zara were surely among the group on the field. Men like Ravid. Torah teachers and students like the ones who perished for ridding the Temple of a desecration. People who believed in something, in someone higher than themselves. Higher than an earthly king.

  I turned to Alexas, who had been studying me for several minutes. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I am thinking,” I said slowly, “how I have spent a lifetime protecting, defending, and pleasing my brother.”

  “No one can dispute that.”

  “Years ago, Joseph refused to carry out an oath he had sworn to the king. I told Herod that if I had sworn an oath to do something after his death, I would most certainly carry it out.”

  Alexas picked up my hand and gently held it. “Every situation is different.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I cleared my clotted throat. “Perhaps it is time I began to please someone else.”

  “The next king?”

  “No—HaShem.”

  “Your brother is not yet dead.” Alexas’s voice held a warning note.

  “I know. But now, in this moment, I have the power to right one of his wrongs.” With resolve I pulled my hand from Alexas’s and faced the captain of the guard. “Release those people at once—all of them.”

  The captain sucked at the inside of his cheek for a moment. Then he struck his breastplate with a fist and shouted to his men, “Release the prisoners at once!”

  I looked out over the playing field, where the assembled families began to embrace each other and shout praise to HaShem. Did they know how close they had come to death? Surely some of them suspected. Why else would a dying king force so many into one place?

  Herod had never understood his people. He had craved their love and loyalty, but he never received more than grudging gratitude on the few occasions he opened his purse and fed the hungry.

  At least they would remember him for the Temple. For hundreds of years
, he predicted, people would admire it and think of him.

  Epilogue

  Five days after he executed his firstborn, and four days after he executed the Temple teachers and students, Herod the Great died in Jericho in the year 4 BCE. He was sixty-nine years old.

  His last will stipulated that nineteen-year-old Archelaus would be king of Judea. Antipas, at seventeen, was to rule Samaria, Galilee, and Peraea. Sixteen-year-old Philip was to be tetrarch of several territories north and northeast of the Sea of Galilee. Those stipulations, however, had to be approved by Augustus.

  Before Augustus could confirm the terms of Herod’s will, the Herodians began to fight among themselves. Finally they all appeared before Augustus, who decided to approve Herod’s will but with certain modifications:

  Archelaus would rule Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, but he would be ethnarch, not a king, until he had proved he deserved a crown.

  Antipas would be a tetrarch and would govern Galilee and Peraea.

  Philip would be tetrarch of Batanaea and Trachonitis, as well as the Golan Heights.

  Salome would receive the cities of Jamnia, Azotas, and Phaesalis. Augustus also gave her a royal palace in the town of Ashkelon, and cash from the financial gift Herod had bequeathed to Augustus.

  Archelaus, who ruled Judea, never received a crown. When unrest threatened the peace, he responded with mass slaughter, causing both the Jews and the Samaritans to complain to the emperor. Augustus called him to Rome to explain himself, then exiled Archelaus to Gaul, where he lived out the rest of his life.

  After Augustus vacated Archelaus’s position, Judea was given a procurator, Coponius, who claimed Caesarea, not Jerusalem, as his official residence. He was the first of several procurators, which eventually included Pontius Pilate, who presided over the trial and execution of Jesus Christ.

  In 10 AD, Salome died at age seventy-five.

  In 2007, Israeli archeologist Ehud Netzer uncovered and verified the location of Herod’s fortress tomb, where he had been buried with great ceremony.