Salome by Beatrice Gormley Read Free Book Online

He
looked
like the dream Leander, with curly hair hanging over his forehead and deep-set hazel eyes. But the real Leander, instead of murmuring in my ear, kept correcting my pronunciation.
    The day before we stopped at Crete for fresh water, Herodias finally seemed to remember me. She came up to me that overcast morning as I stood at the ship’s railing. I was still angry but almost ready to make up, if Herodias seemed really sorry.
    “The captain says the sea can be rough in April,” remarked Herodias, “but so far the sailing hasn’t been bad.”
    I gazed steadily in the direction of Rome. The gray-green sea stretched in every direction, but I could tell northwest by the position of the sun, only half hidden by clouds.
    “And dolphins are following the ship,” continued Herodias. “That’s supposed to be lucky.”
    “I’d feel
lucky,
” I said, “if we were on our way to Rome and the Temple of Diana.” Didn’t she realize that she owed me an apology? The wind blew a strand of hair across my face, and I caught it and twined it in my fingers.
    Herodias made an impatient noise. “If you’re so devoted to the goddess, you can worship her just as well in Tiberias as in Rome. I’m sure they have shrines to Diana in Tiberias. Or if they don’t, Antipas will build one.”
    “What good will that do me?” I asked, still staring across the sea. “I won’t be staying in Tiberias for long.” In a sharper voice I added, “I’ll be married off as the glue in some political alliance.”
    “Oh, Salome. My own child.” I was startled by the heartfelt tone in Herodias’s voice. “My little one, this is our fate. You have to understand that a woman
must
marry, and a woman of a royal family
must
marry to advance the fortunes of the dynasty.”
    I felt a brief surge of pity for the child-bride Herodias, married off to my cold, neglectful father. Then my anger at her returned, and I answered, “Oh, I thought that some women—at least, one—married to advance their own fortunes.”
    Pulling back from me, Herodias laughed the light, musical laugh that she used for ridicule. “My, what a sulk we’re in. No one’s making you marry right this minute. Meanwhile, you can still enjoy your daydreams about the handsome Greek secretary. But try to be more discreet.”
    My face burned with shame. How could she know my secret thoughts about Leander? How dare she mention them?
    “But my dear chick,” she went on, “I would never consent to betroth you to anyone distasteful. I pledge before Diana, my precious daughter will not suffer the same fate that I did.”
    That was the last straw, swearing by Diana. “What a mighty pledge!” I said. “Only the other day, you told me no one believed in Diana anymore.”
    I waited for her to deny it, but Herodias merely shrugged and walked away.
    Shortly after we left Crete, something happened to take my mind off my own fate. Simon, the youngest of the Tetrarch’s courtiers, disappeared.
    I found out about this early on a foggy morning, when Antipas called the passengers together at the stern of the ship. According to the guards, he explained, Simon had stayed up late the night before, drinking wine and throwing dice with the captain of the guards. Afterward, he must have stumbled on his way to bed and fallen overboard, unnoticed by the sailors on watch.
    That’s strange, I thought. It didn’t seem like Simon to drink and gamble with the captain of the guards. That wasn’t the way to advance his career. I glanced around the group to see if any of the others seemed surprised.
    The expressions of Antipas’s courtiers and their servants were as blank as the scene around the ship. The fog this morning was so thick and chill and the sea so calm that the
Ceres
hardly appeared to move. The ship seemed to float on the fog, rather than on the water. I wondered if it was like this on the river Styx, the stream that separated the land of the living from the land of the dead.
    Antipas gave