Thorns of Glory, page 22
Herod finally died of a prolonged, gruesome, and painful disease described in detail by Josephus. Some have diagnosed the illness as gonorrhea. In contrast, a 2002 review of Josephus’s narrative concluded that his affliction was a combination of chronic kidney disease and a rare infection of the male genitalia known as Fournier’s gangrene (see Bijal P. Trivedi, “What Killed Herod the Great,” National Geographic Today, Jan. 28, 2002).
In his will, Herod divided his kingdom between three sons and one sister. Roman Emperor Augustus initially honored this will and made Herod’s son Archelaus, ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. Augustus later removed Archelaus, judging his leadership incompetent, and combined his three provinces into one under the Syrian procurator. Herod’s son Philip was made tetrarch of territories north and east of the Jordan, while Antipas was made tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. Herod’s sister, Salomé I, was given a toparchy including the cities of Jabneh, Ashdod, and Phasaelis.
In Chapter 7 we are introduced to a granddaughter of Herod the Great named Salomé. By tradition, Salomé is the name of the daughter of Herod’s son Herod II (who was stricken from his father’s will) and of Herod’s sister, Salomé I, named Berenice. This would make Salomé King Herod’s niece and granddaughter. A marriage between such close relatives might be considered scandalous today, but it was a common method of preserving royal bloodlines even into the twentieth century.
The real scandal associated with Herodias, as recorded in the New Testament and further elucidated by Josephus (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, 5.4), was her divorce from the disinherited Herod II and subsequent marriage to his brother Herod Antipas, while her first husband still lived. Such a union was illegal and immoral under Jewish law. Many would keep any expressions of distaste behind closed doors; few would have dared to openly point fingers. A notable exception was John the Baptist, who roundly and publicly condemned the marriage (see Mark 6:18; Matthew 14:4) and by so doing set in motion events leading to his own arrest and execution.
For a full account of proceedings surrounding Salomé; her stepfather, Herod Antipas; and her mother, Herodias, that occurred shortly before the events dramatized in this novel, the reader is directed to Mark ٦:١٦–٢٩ and Matthew ١٤:١–١١. It should be noted that the New Testament identifies Herodias’s first husband as Philip, possibly Herod’s other son Philip the Tetrarch. Most scholars, however, believe this is an error and rely upon extra-Biblical sources that name Herod II as Herodias’s first husband. It has also been suggested that Herod II was actually called Herod Philip, explaining why Herod’s other son named Philip is not known to have placed the surname Herod before his cognomen.
The name Salomé is never directly ascribed to the damsel in the New Testament who danced before her stepfather, Herod Antipas, at his birthday party. This figure is only identified as the daughter of Herodias. Longstanding tradition names her Salomé. Hence, this name has been forever associated with the terrible consequences precipitated by the damsel’s seductive performance referred to in literature as the Dance of the Seven Veils.
Unlike the gospels of Matthew and Mark, Josephus specifically names Salomé as the daughter of Herodias. Josephus also mentions Herodias’s forbidden marriage to her husband’s brother Antipas, but he does not connect Salomé with John the Baptist or Antipas’s birthday celebration at Machaerus. The Jewish historian reports that Salomé eventually marries her uncle Philip the Tetrarch, and when Philip dies childless, she marries another uncle and son of Herod the Great, Aristobulus, brother of Herod Agrippa.
It’s noteworthy that in the time of Christ, the female name of Salomé—a somewhat Hellenized version of the Hebrew name Shelomit (peace)—was nearly as common as Miriam (Mary). Mary, the mother of the Lord, is said to have had a sister (or half sister) named Mary Salomé, who may (or may not) be the same person as the mother of Apostles James and John. Tradition also ascribes the name of Salomé to a half sister of Jesus (i.e., one of the three daughters of Joseph and Mary).
Chapter 8
Mary
I am Mary, daughter of Symeon, granddaughter of Cleophas, who was a brother of Joseph and brother-in-law of Mary, the earthly father and the mother of Jesus, the Savior of the world.
I had not set foot in my homeland for more than five years. No matter. Its people are dispersed and its Temple destroyed by the legions of Rome. My mother died of illness in Pella of the Decapolis when I was fifteen. My father was crucified in Greece along with other believers when I was eighteen. I was enslaved in Athens and rescued by a young man named Harry Hawkins, with whom I fell in love.
Together Harry and I had faced many harrowing events, separated by the sword of ruination, cheated from death by the grace of God, only to be reunited in relief and joy. Like my loyalty to God, my loyalty to Harry had never wavered, although we were not yet betrothed. I was now in my twenty-first year. When I left the community of Pella, my older sister was the age I was now, already married and nursing a child. My eldest sister had married at thirteen. She had birthed four little ones before I departed, although two had been taken home to God. Such was not the custom in the world of Harry Hawkins, where a man might not wed a woman until her child-bearing years had nearly expired. I found it very strange, but such were the ways of the man I loved.
It was understood by all that one day Harrison and I would wed, but as of yet, he had not formally requested my hand. Circumstances had not been right, and now I wondered, amidst the chaos of war in Cumorah, if they would ever be right.
On that morning when we reached the headquarters of Commander Mormon, our original company of three blossomed to seven. Joining us was our faithful companion Jesse, an orphan from my homeland of Judea, now in his sixteenth or seventeenth year. The young warrior had been badly wounded in the shoulder and left in the hands of the able surgeons of Mormon, but that was before these same headquarters were overwhelmed by casualties of battle. Jacobah, a Lamanite from the regions of Tikal, had insisted that before we climbed the slopes of Cumorah to meet Harry’s uncle Garth, niece Rebecca, sister Meagan, and Apollus the Roman, we must first recover the injured Jesse, even if he had to be carried the entire distance. Jacobah’s determination was firm, as if fulfilling a private oath. Harry agreed to aid him, and I refused to be separated from Harry. I sensed Jacobah disapproved, fearing I might slow their progress. Harry might have disapproved too, perhaps concerned for my safety, but I cared equally for Jesse’s well-being—perhaps more—and I believed that, if they allowed me to, I could aid in their success.
At Mormon’s headquarters we took on a liability far more formidable than my own presence in the group. Mormon’s son, Moroni, implored us to take his wife, Ammara, and two of his children, Tashlín and Lehi, to the presumed safety at Cumorah’s summit. I might have chafed at that. Unlike with my case, Harry and Jacobah unhesitatingly agreed, for they believed Moroni to be a prophet of God. In truth, I was grateful for the prospect of another woman’s company. And who would express any protest at a chance to rescue children? The presence of Moroni’s family members, I felt, would temper any impetuousness in Harry and Jacobah and encourage greater caution and care.
At the start of our journey, however, caution and care were placed largely in the hands of our youngest companion, nine-year-old Lehi. His father gave him scrupulous instructions to lead our company to the top of Cumorah by way of a specific route he described as “the slot.” The very term evoked fear in young Lehi’s eyes. He tried to convince his father this pathway was fraught with too many obstacles, was steeper, and would take far longer, but Moroni gazed intently at his son and urged him to rely upon his faith in Jesus Christ, adding, “Give no credence to pagan superstitions.”
This statement took me aback. It seemed an odd non sequitur, for although I gave no credence to pagan superstitions, I did give credence to the mystical forces of sorcery, and in particular to the ghosts of Gadianton. That look in Lehi’s eyes suggested this pathway of Moroni and the presence of these Gadianton specters might converge at this point. But his father’s admonition of faith was unyielding and, at least for the moment, reassuring to me.
Minutes later we were traveling northward across the encampment of Zenephi, which was precisely the opposite direction of the ongoing battle. Jacobah carried Jesse on his shoulders. For the most part the orphan was unconscious, crying out occasionally as Jacobah stepped awkwardly and strained Jesse’s injury but otherwise slipping back into delirium. I ached for him. He had done so much to defend our company, and now it was possible that even if he survived his fevers and the hazards of this journey, he would never again have the full use of his right arm—his fighting arm.
To our relief, Zenephi’s populace took little interest in the seven of us as we passed their shelters. The eyes of all Nephites who could not participate in combat were directed southward as the tar-filled moat belched endless smoke while the shrieks and clamors of violence seemed to amplify. Women clutched small children to their breast, and though many hid beneath the canopies of their tents, I could easily distinguish the whites of their eyes, glistening in abject terror in the shadows. I heard one mother singing to her brood of three, all under the age of five. The tune was unfamiliar but lovely and consoling. The words, I think, were inspired by the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come for my sweet little ones. In heaven thy names will be blessed. Our deliverance from evil and darkness is all but assured. Our sins and misdeeds will be forgotten as the white winds. And the mountains of fire will breathe fire no more.”
That’s all I heard. In the Nephite language, the couplets undoubtedly rhymed, but the song’s translation in my mind was no less beautiful. A lump swelled in my throat for these trembling, innocent children who possessed no understanding of what was happening and utterly no comprehension of the wickedness of men. I also listened to old men as they discussed the sturdiness of the fortifications.
“I carried lumber and stones to those walls until my back broke and I could carry no more,” said one. “Four long years. We all carried them!”
Another old man with thick silver hair, puffing on a pipe nearly as long as his arm, concurred, with vigorous nodding. “They will hold. The enemy cannot penetrate. Not with a hundred thousand. Not with a million.”
I heard one aged Nephite tell his frail wife, “Be at peace. They will not harm us.”
Between these occasional statements of reassurance, the encampments were mostly silent. As the sun crept higher and the din of war became more frantic, their doubts weighed on them heavier and heavier.
Ammara must have noticed the sparkle of tears in my eyes as we neared a neighborhood of Zenephi more beset by poverty and squalor than most. She smiled at me bravely, but her cheeks were also moist as she held the hand of her teenage daughter.
“Your name is Mary, is it not?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I said.
Her daughter, Tashlín, eager to catch up with Lehi, used this distraction to break away from Ammara. Ammara looked after her fretfully, then decided her fretting was pointless and directed her attention back at me.
“Named for the Messiah’s mother?”
“Indeed,” I replied, a little breathless because of our pace. “It’s a family name.”
“Ah,” she said. “It is not often applied here in my country.”
Her tone did not sound disapproving, but I felt I had to verify this by looking at her. I guessed the name might have been regarded as sacred among the Nephites, and not suitable for common use. In Judea and Galilee it was so common I could not have counted all the women I knew who possessed it. Ammara was not passing judgment. My features clearly betrayed that I was from a faraway place, though how far away she could not have guessed.
“Are you betrothed, Mary?” she asked.
I glanced at Harry, who had also heard the question and glanced at us, his expression inscrutable. He turned to Jacobah and took several steps closer to him, farther out of hearing, and indicated Jesse. “Would you like me to take a turn?”
Jacobah shook his head, although the sweat on his brow was more profuse than that of any of the rest of us.
Ammara had noted all of this and felt she had interpreted the situation. “I see. So you are.”
I looked at my feet. “We are not betrothed.”
Ammara sensed her intrusion on a sensitive subject. After a time, she said, “Well, in the midst of all this . . . A better time will come.”
I was tempted to reply, In the midst of all this, what time could be better? But I refrained. As a woman she certainly understood that such vows would carry great meaning in these dire circumstances. A feeling of hope. Something about the future worth believing in. She dropped the topic and said no more.
The stench was suddenly oppressive, so pungent I tried to filter it with my skirt. We’d arrived at a brook that had been abused by the area’s poorer residents by dumping human waste. The flow was clogged in countless places, creating pools of frothing filth. In some of the encampments, every occupant was lying on their backs or bent over with illness. Considering what they were drinking, this was not a surprise. Waste wasn’t the only source of stench. Flies buzzed furiously in and around some of the shelters, convincing me that some of its occupants had already passed away but that the others were too sick to care. Again my heart ached, as if pierced by a scalding iron. But what could be done? As far as I could fathom, nothing at all.
We had nearly reached the northern edge of the settlement. The slope of the bowl bent sharply upward as the brook gurgled down from unseen elevations. Above us, I discerned several cramped ledges where determined families had laid claim and pitched their tents, but the path was narrow and treacherous, especially for Jacobah and his burden.
I noticed Jesse was now awake and seemingly alert, at least enough to notice the rugged trail up the cliff that would soon transform into winding switchbacks.
Harry insisted to Jacobah, “I will take over for a while.”
“No.” The scratchy voice was Jesse’s. “Set me down. I will . . . try to walk.”
“It’s hardly a ‘walk,’” said Harry. “It’s nearly a vertical climb. You’re in no condi—”
“I will try,” said Jesse curtly.
Jacobah was winded and drenched in sweat. Harry helped him place Jesse on the ground, if for no other reason than that it was an opportunity to take a break.
Jesse struggled to sit upright, aided by Harry and Lehi. Every part of Jesse’s body seemed to wince in agony.
I knelt and gripped Jesse’s left hand. “Are you sure?”
He focused on my face and finally recognized me. “Yes, Mary.” He nodded toward his right shoulder, his arm in a splint and bound to his chest. The bandages showed signs of fresh blood. The strain of the journey had partially opened his wound. Or perhaps such bleeding was inevitable. “My . . . head is clear. Clearer. I think the medicine . . . the painkiller . . . has worn off mostly.” He glanced at Harry’s swollen nose and looked worried.
Harry rolled his eyes, weary of explaining what looked far worse than it apparently felt to him. He waved off the bruises. “Practicing to be a circus clown. It’s nothing.”
Jesse nodded, unconvinced, or perhaps confused by Harry’s comparison. He said raggedly, “Help me stand. Do we have water?”
Jacobah put a flask to Jesse’s lips. Ammara had had the foresight to bring a hefty number of corn tortillas. They must have been warm and fresh when stacked, because they had congealed into a heavy lump that was difficult for Ammara to tear into pieces. Tashlín produced a small knife, cut various chunks, and passed them around.
I was astonished how quickly our supply of food attracted beggars. Several groups of children had apparently been watching us the whole time, awaiting just such a moment to move in. Four or five of them, aged as old as six and as young as three—possibly two!—surrounded us, one hand stretched forward, the other patting their mouths. All were caked so thickly in dirt that if they’d shaken their hair, it would have raised a dust cloud. Except for the oldest boy wearing a basic loincloth, all were naked. A girl of about four years could not extend her hand very long without vigorously scratching her scalp. The reason was obvious. So many of Zenephi’s inhabitants were crawling with lice.
Ammara started weeping. She could not resist cutting off a piece for each of them. As they gulped down what was probably their first meal in days, tiny hands immediately outstretched again. Many were not ashamed to press themselves into line a second time in hopes that Ammara may have forgotten they’d already received a portion.
“We cannot spare more,” said Ammara, voice unsteady.
An older boy struck like a scorpion and stripped food from two smaller children, then dashed off, swift as a fox. The victims, including a toddler of two years—began to wail, but only for an instant before turning back to Ammara and Tashlín, eyes pleading. Harry angrily clenched his jaw, tempted to pursue the thief, but additional pieces were already being cut and distributed.
“Eat quickly,” I instructed the little ones, knowing they were vulnerable until each piece was consumed.
“Uh-oh,” said Harry, gazing back down at the settlement.
More children had appeared. Dozens. They’d noticed the bounty in the hands of the thief. After confirming that we were the miraculous source of the sustenance, they started rushing toward us full tilt.
