Chapter 2

Then would come the dramatic moment when the sun itself would mount regally into the open, stripping the clouds of their gold and arraying them with silver. The slanting sails of the little fishing boats would flash brightly. The tall tower of the Roman fort, a mile to the north, and the squat dome of the Jewish synagogue, a mile further in the heart of Capernaum, would be flatteringly high-lighted. The untidy clutter of fishermen’s shacks and wharves on the lake-shore would seem less ugly than picturesque. And the ruler of Galilee, suffused with a sense of well-being, would send for his breakfast.

Only one thing was lacking, congenial company. And on this eighteenth day of Adar that want was supplied. The arrival of Mark Varus was not a surprise, though Antipas had not expected him so soon. He had promised to come in mid-summer. Attended by half a dozen servants from home and a pack-train of baggage which had been disembarked at Caesarea, Mark had turned up in the late afternoon, warm, dusty, and noisy with his approval of all these impressive building operations. Antipas hugged him with fervour, then picked him up and threw him headlong into the pool, where he wriggled himself out of most of his clothing, his host following along the ledge with a pike-staff, fishing out the discarded garments as they accumulated in the water.

Presently, refreshed and clad, Mark joined his friend, who, sprawled at full length on an ornamented lectus, was in conversation with the butler concerning the arrival of a courier from Jerusalem.

‘Make him comfortable,’ the Prince was saying, ‘and tell him we will see him in an hour or two.’

‘He says it is urgent, sire.’

‘Nothing is urgent—in Tiberias,’ drawled Antipas.

‘”Tiberias”?’ queried Mark lazily, from the adjacent loggia. ‘Name of your new villa?’

‘Name of my new city!’ declared Antipas. ‘One of the most beautiful cities in all the world. All of it—every building in it—great and small—to be of white marble. You’re planning to build your villa of white marble, aren’t you?’

‘Apparently,’ chuckled Mark; ‘though I hadn’t thought much about it.’

‘Are you ready now for a tankard of wine?’

‘I’ve been ready this half-hour.’

Antipas clapped his hands and the wine arrived. They drank earnestly and their tongues were loosened. Mark was besought for the latest news of Rome. He shook his head dourly. Rome had quite lost her charm: many changes—and all of them for the worse. He did not bother to explain that his eminent father’s disastrous defeat at the hands of the barbarous Germanic tribes had done the Varus family no good socially; Antipas could—and did—form his own conclusions about that. Mark would be glad enough, he went on, to change his residence. Rome was filling up with vulgar upstarts, rich nobodies busy with business; a strange crowd now at all court festivities. Old Augustus had his faults, to be sure, but he had some dignity. Tiberius had brought in an entirely new breed of favourites. He had made Rome the dullest place on earth. He hated games; considered them a waste of public funds. He was going in for all manner of economies, as if the Empire was on the verge of bankruptcy.