Salome Read Online Free Page A

except for Leander, the secretary. The Greek sat hunched on a bench by himself, leaning away from the splashing water as he read a scroll.
    What could be in the scroll to make him forget everything around him? “What are you reading, secretary?”
    Startled, Leander looked up. His deep-set eyes focused on me as I sat down on the other end of the bench. He half got up, as if I were a lady, then seemed to decide that I was a child and sat down again. It made me smile, it was so clear what was going through his mind.
    “I’m reading Plato, miss. About the death of Socrates in Athens. Socrates was a—” He frowned, seeming to wonder if maybe I was a young lady after all. “Shouldn’t your chaperone be with you?”
    It was fun, teasing the Greek a little. I shrugged, as if to say I didn’t really need a chaperone. “Yes, but I didn’t want to bother her. Are you from Athens?”
    No, answered Leander, he was from Alexandria, in Egypt, where many Greeks had settled. “If it weren’t for my dying father’s request, I’d still be in Alexandria.” A note of homesickness crept into his voice as he stared into the gloomy corners of the atrium. “The sun would be shining…. I’d be sitting in the courtyard of the
gymnasion,
arguing with the other students, or we’d be listening to our teacher….”
    “What was your dying father’s request?” I asked. This was the most interesting conversation I’d had with anyone for months.
    But Leander glanced uneasily at the courtiers on the other side of the pool. “Really, miss—” He stood up and bowed. “I am sure your chaperone is looking for you.”
    I didn’t want to worry him too much, and I knew he’d be blamed if Herodias saw us talking alone. But then I thought of something important he could answer for me. “Just one more question—please?” I stood up, too, clasping my hands. “Do you know how much longer Uncle Antipas will stay in Rome?”
    Leander looked surprised that I seemed to care so much. “How much longer? Well, the winter’s more or less over, and the Tetrarch’s business here is almost done. He’s waiting mainly for the ship he hired to be refitted. It’s a cargo ship, meant to transport grain. So they’re building cabins on it, and then they’ll stock it with supplies for all of us.” He nodded around the atrium at the guards and courtiers. “That’ll take another week or so, I suppose.”
    What good news! “Thank you.” Giving him a big smile, I skipped out of the atrium.
    Only a week or so and Antipas would be gone! Then Herodias would spend time with me again. I’d share all the little things I’d been saving up to tell her, and she’d do an imitation of Antipas to make me laugh. The charmed circle would close around the two of us again.
    I expected that since Antipas was leaving Rome so soon, my mother would want to spend every moment with him. To my surprise, that very day she began to plan one of her elaborate drama afternoons.
    “Our last production, on my birthday, was such a great success,” said Herodias. She beamed at me. “The ladies said you danced like a nymph.”
    I felt warm with pride, but I said modestly, “Of course they liked the story of Demeter and Persephone. They’re all mothers.” The heroine of that myth is the devoted mother Demeter, goddess of grain and the harvest. Demeter is heartbroken when her daughter, Persephone, is stolen away by Pluto, god of the underworld.
    Acting out the myth, Herodias played the part of Demeter, wearing a
stola
as blue as the summer sky. She had me play the part of Persephone, while Gundi, wearing a black cloak and a frightening mask, played Pluto. Iris and the other servants stood in back by the musicians, chorusing, “Beware!” or, “Woe!” at the right times.
    The guests shed tears when Pluto dragged me off to the nether regions and my grieving mother searched the four corners of the earth for me. “Alas, the sky is gray,” chorused the maids. “Alas, the