Everybody's got a mother-in-law. Even Herod. All the time he was plotting with letters back and forth to Anthony in Rome, the shvig was planning how to kill him with Cleopatra in Egypt. But when it came time, Cleopatra summoned them both to Anthony's base camp in Leodicia--in Turkey where Cleopatra can quietly order some deaths without any eunich cuck at court to spread it around.
You gotta give the bitch credit, Alexandra's loyal as shit and her friends always get paid. Not even Anthony makes that much money for his partners. There's been half a dozen kings and civil wars, and through it all a steady supply of Judean fruit and grain would disappear every night and reappear three weeks later in Egypt's capital. Every year, we harvest 14% less grain than people claim we make, and nobody knows where it goes....
But obviously Herod's no schmendrik either. He knows he's either leaving Cleopatra a king or a corpse, but however good a friend to Anthony, Cleopatra needed him dead because he could always just halt any harvest shipments whose roads pass through Idumea: the only place in Judea where everybody's working with him not against him. So he's not coming out of that meeting unless he gives something more valuable to Cleopatra than all that fruit and grain: not just the usual jewels and raiment, but something that keeps Egypt secure forever. There's only one thing Cleopatra wants more than our crops, it's the palm trees in Jericho.
The second he saw Cleopatra in Laodocia, he gave her a notarized deed to all Jericho's balsam, forever and binding. He made no claim to the flowers or the essential oils, just a daily transit of balsam to the Egyptian capital, pre-pressed in a hundred vats.
But just in case that plum humiliation wasn't enough, he had one other insurance premium. He put Alexandra's daughter, Mariamne, under the charge of that thug of an oaf or a yutz: Joseph. That's right: my husband. If any word reaches Joseph that Herod was executed, he told Joseph to murder Mariamne without wasting a rega.
I'm sure Herod would find it a shame. She's a sweet girl and Herod loves her, but all he could console himself with is the thought that she could be his again in the great sheol to come.
Now Alexandra thought she was the real queen of Judah. She says outright, no Phillistine can ever be the legit king of Judah, and I understand why she thinks that. She's lost her father, father-in-law, brother-in-law, husband and son. She wants vengeance and who can blame her? But she thinks the people of Judea will welcome her. Who's gonna welcome her? We killed all her supporters!
Still, she can bet on the fact that it's only a matter of time before the Jews rise up against the Palestinian occupation, and if they have enough will to violence, all Herod's friends will eventually turn into his enemies. Rome doesn't care who dominates who, they just want stability. Alexandra's only real friend is Cleopatra, but Cleopatra only rules because Rome lets her. The minute Anthony gets tired of her, Rome gets tired of her. Sheol, the rest of Rome already is! So Cleopatra needs real allies, and her only real ally is Alexandra Maccabee.
So it's obvious. Cleopatra was appointed by Augustus to judge whether Herod came in. Clearly Augustus is tired of Herod. Augustus wanted him to be a fair ruler and obviously Herod's not, so Augustus planned to kill him and swallowed his contempt for the shiteatress to conspire with her. Even though Cleopatra would obviously rule in favor of Alexandra, they planned to poison Herod. Gahennim, Herod has so many enemies that Anthony would never be completely certain it was them. It could just as easily be Augustus, and let's face it, it was probably all three.
And of course Herod had his insurance plan, but still, he's Herod: murderer, tyrant, gangster, khameruk. What guarantee can Herod now make that anyone would believe? Cleopatra may or may not have believed he would give her the balsam. She probably thought she could strashen whoever followed him into it.
Herod told me a year later that as a formality, Cleopatra delayed the ruling for an hour to consult her oracle. And as Alexandra stood there with Herod, that godfather of beitz showed her what tyranny really is. Herod left his wife, her daughter Mariamne under the auspices of my hideous schtik drek Joseph. Herod's fingers point to whoever he wants killed, and Joseph's hands turn him into a cadaver. Her sweet little daughter, Mariamne, so much younger her paskudnyak spouse, will never outlive him. She's a dead woman. She was told as a child that she'd be Judea's next imperatress and every day she walks this palatial monstrosity as prisoner.
All Alexandra could do was rescind her claim.
At the time I didn't know what she was doing at our house, though I knew it could be nothing good. Mariamne's the queen, a good queen, a nice queen. It's terrible, but the only reason Judea never overthrew Herod is probably because everybody loves her. Everybody around her is vipers. Herod, Joseph, me too.
But the one who really wanted to change was Joseph. He always liked her, maybe even he loved her, but if he loved her, his could have easily..., you know... and after years of Herod, what would she have done to fight him off? Joseph's a murderer, but even she will learn that I'm much more evil. I don't like it, I don't want to be, but you try staying alive in all this. It is not my responsibility to stop shtupping men and shlogging slaves to impress a Queen whose story can only end with Herod ordering her death. All my life, people told me I am everything Jewish women are accused of: spoiled, manipulative, shrewish. She's a woman of valour: worthy of the Matriarchs. I'm the cast off woman of evil: Lilith, Hagar, Potiphar's wife, the one in thirty-seven women who gives Jews a bad name.
Women hate Mariamne because she is better at being a woman than us in every conceivable way: more beautiful, kinder, more virtuous, more forgiving. She's been ravished by the worst man in the world every day for seventeen years but she still she seems virginal. She must suffer like nobody else but she gives every appearance of joy. Always smiling, always greeting subjects, always going out among the people. Ministering to the poor: washing their feet, distributing food, building them shelters out of her allowances. She's everything we all should be, and we all hate her for it.
But nobody suffers more than Joseph. I don't get it. He's killed, I don't know how many he's killed. Half the days of the year he comes home covered in blood. His hands tremble, his eyes tic, and I seem to be the only person who notices because he never looks anybody in the eye. He comes home, barely acknowledges anybody, and practically jogs into his room to daven on his knees, or so the servants I pay to watch him tell me. But I would know anyway because every day we hear him shouting the prayers, beating his breast and crying. He takes three quarters of the water into his room and uses every bit every day to wash the blood off. He never talks about it but he screams every night in his sleep with the names of all kinds of people who've disappeared: priests, rabbis, rich Sadducees, even family members. I'm sure Herod sleeps soundly every night after fucking everyone from Mariamne to homeless whores. I can't help wondering every day, he kills everybody else, why doesn't he kill Herod?
I can only guess it's because of Mariamne. He's constantly tonguetied around her, staring at her when he isn't looking down. Making sure to have the best food when she and Herod come over, getting them gifts more expensive than anything he gets me.
And there she is, sipping tea on our public balcony. For the first time ever, they talk. They really talk. Not just the usual formalities. It goes on for a week, a whole week, all day every day, and on shabbos I suddenly hear him crying.
Right away I hide outside the balcony window and try to inch closer. I only hear snatches, but it lasts hours. It seems to last all day. He must have confessed to everything he did. Literally everything. Who knows if he could remember it all but there might have been things he imagined he did too. The murders, the rapes, the abuses, the thefts, the enslavements, and all the lies. I'm sure he even told the instruction to not let her outlive Herod, but Joseph must have told her all his evil deeds, all of Herod's evil deeds, all the evil deeds they're still planning.
I heard Mariamne say nothing until I clearly heard her say two distinct words:
"I know."
When I saw him in a few minutes, nothing ever disturbed me like what I saw from Joseph. For the first time he didn't look like a hulking murderer or a tortured crybaby, he looked at peace. He was looking up rather than down, his eyes were like kind saucers. No blinking, no trembling, walking slowly and confidently, answering me calmly when I yelled at him. This is not Joseph.
This is Mariamne. She has that effect on people. Everybody but Herod. They all want to be cleaner, better, kinder; all that stuff. They all probably want to repent. It's not even a sexual thing. It's holiness.
I hate it. Every holy person I've ever met gets killed. Good riddance.
Once I hear the 'I know' I move closer, as close to the door as I can get without them seeing me, and I hear:
MARIAMNE:
Go into hiding with me.
JOSEPH:
I don't deserve your forgiveness. .
Then I hear silence. I can't take it anymore and I look at them. Fortunately Mariamne was facing me, not my husband.
But what do I find? Mariamne placing Joseph's hand on her heart. Tears falling from her eyes.
He says back:
"I don't dare."
"Yahweh forgives."
"Not me."
"It's not too late."
"No. It is."
"Put the knife down. Make peace."
But it was at this moment that a servant came in to say that he could see Alexandra's caravan riding in the distance. Suddenly he gets up, shouts to Mariamne:
"Your mother's here! Herod is dead. Herod's guards will be here in a minute to see if I carried it out the order to kill you, but run to the Egyptian embassy and you might be free in moments. Your only chance is to run now. RUN!
And Mariamne ran.
Immediately I run in and scream:
"She's supposed to be dead! Herod's dead and you're going to keep her alive! You're gonna kill me and take Mariamne as a better wife!
I beat his breasts, claw at his face. Usually Joseph just takes it like a servant. Looking down with his hands at his sides. This time he grips my wrists in one giant hand and squeezes. He's perfectly calm and he looks me in the eye.
"You don't deserve to die. You're too evil."
It was Alexandra's sigil alright. And then out steps Herod,
Alexandra would never believe that Joseph tried to save her life, but she could go to the Egyptian embassy and bring her daughter back if she wanted. She pulls up right to my house and gets out of the carpentum with a smile so painted on she looks like an Idumian harlot.
And out steps Herod.
He grips her hand and holds it up in the air.
I was the only person ready for this. I shouted out "Mariamne's run away after being unfaithful to you with my husband!"
Herod slaps me.
"Quiet witch."
"NO. Search the palace! We saw Alexandra's sigil, not yours, we thought you were dead! Mariamne's not here. I heard my husband scream at her run right away."
"Joseph I honestly should make you the high priest. The best service you ever did me is taking the Whore of Babylon as your wife."
"He told her to go to the Egyptian embassy."
"Egypt is Rome and Rome is me. So long as I'm alive, everybody in Judea does what I want.
"But they thought you were dead!"
"There's no way they thought I was dead! Joseph, I never thought you'd actually have to kill her. How can anybody think I wouldn't be able to persuade Cleopatra whom I've persuaded so many times in situations exactly like this?"
"You literally instructed them that in case of your dea..."
"...I was never going to die."
"How were we supposed to know that?"
"Slut do you think your brother is so unloved by his friends that they'd stoop to kill him?"
"Tov, Joseph send one of your valets to the embassy to get Mariamne... IF she's even there, and there's no way she is."
At that moment, Mariamne shows up with a combination of Roman and Egyptian guards."
Without even a rega, Herod slit Joseph's throat.
All three of us screamed and were reduced to tears: me, Alexandra and Mariamne. And Herod exclaimed:
"SLAVES!"
Six of Joseph's slaves immediately appeared.
"Clean up the blood of your master and dump his body into the Valley of Gahennim."
SOLDIERS!
Six Roman soldiers immediately appeared.
"Three of you escort Mariamne back to the Royal Palace, and three of you escort Alexandra to Praetorium Prison where she'll be for the forseeable future!"
Much like Mariamne and me, Alexandra was too in shock to protest.
I was still crying and Herod started said to me with no raise in his voice but a little nastiness
"Listen whore, I don't know if what you say is true. What I do know is that if Joseph told Mariamne of my plan, if he even told you, even if he even told someone who told you, he's capable of everything you said. If I ever find out what you're capable of, you will join your ex-husband in Gahennim even more quickly than Joseph did. Word will go out tomorrow that Joseph was executed for trying to rape Mariamne, and a million people around the world will celebrate his death."
And here's the real irony: you're going to be named 'protectress of Jerusalem' in his place. You, who can't even run a palace chamber, will have to learn to defend Jerusalem. You'll have to inspect his troop, you'll have to get the aquducts clean, you'll have to keep track of the supply of grain and fruit, you'll have to mediate temple disputes. You always wanted to help out here. Hell, you probably want to be Queen, now we'll see what kind of ruler you are.
Herod left. I was still weeping.
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