stood as straight as he was able, apparently quite unafraid. He was a young man, not more than twenty years of age, and very handsome. He had fine dark eyes of an unusual clarity, and neatly-shaped eyebrows. He never looked at his would-be tormentors or answered their gibes; instead, he alternated his gaze between the two women seated on either side of the Magician King who sat in judgment upon him. He looked long and hard at Herodias, and he looked longer and harder at Salome; to them and to them alone did he present the argument of his eyes.
Although it might not have been his intention, what John the Prophet’s eyes said to Salome was: I am a better man than any you have ever seen before, and were you to dance with me, we might discover a sweeter rhythm than any you have ever felt before.
And although it certainly was not his intention, what John the Prophet’s eyes said to Herodias was: Here is an opportunity to serve your own ends, by persuading Salome to loathe her father-husband.
* * * *
When the great debate drew to its close, Herod promised to think upon the matters brought to his attention, and to deliver his verdict the next day. The purpose of this delay was to allow the rumor of what had occurred to spread to every nook and cranny of the city streets, and to take wing even beyond its walls. Thus, everyone who cared to do so might have the leisure to discuss the justice of the case and the deliciously particular cruelties of all the methods of execution that had been proposed.
During the night, however, Herodias tricked one of Salome’s half-blind slave-girls into carrying a letter to her, representing it as a message from John the Prophet.
The substance of the message was this: You are the most beautiful woman in the world. It is not permitted to me to love you, nor can I recant a single word of what I have preached. I am doomed to die for what I believe, but the hours of life which remain to me would be immeasurably enriched by one more sight of your wondrous face. My one regret is that I will never see you dance.
Herodias was careful to express these sentiments as artlessly as she could, in the cause of authenticity. She trusted to the logic of the situation to ensure that Salome, in spite of her own extraordinary artistry, would not see through the deception.
* * * *
Salome was not allowed to leave her chambers unsupervised, but it was an easy matter for one of her abilities to dupe her half-blind guardians and the soldiers who stood watch over the prison where John the Prophet was held. She entered his cell without difficulty, and woke him up.
“I can save you,” she said to him. “Only do as I instruct, and you will win free of the castle, the city and the nation.”
“The truth dare not flee from persecution,” John the Prophet told her, “else men would know it for falsehood.”
“Do you prefer to die?” she asked him.
“I do,” he told her. “Only by dying for his beliefs can a man hope to persuade others that they are worth dying for.”
“You can say that,” Salome marveled, “even though you have looked upon my face, and found it the most beautiful in the world? Can you really refuse to love me, now that I am with you?”
“Certainly,” said John the Prophet. “I am a virtuous man, and must remain so if I am to persuade others that the highest rewards of all are reserved for the virtuous.”
“You will not think so highly of virtue,” Salome promised, lewdly, “when you have seen me dance.”
There and then, she danced for him.
She danced upon the floor of his cell, despite that it was moist with stinking excrement. The cell was narrow, with walls of filthy stone, and it was illuminated only by the light of a single tallow candle, but Salome did not need a huge space or a polished floor or a bright light in order to display her art. She was full to overflowing with enchantment, and magic radiated from her body as soon as she began to move.
She lost herself in her dance, and was carried away by the tide of its bewitchment; she was as much its captive as she intended him to be, and it held her in perfect thrall as its rhythms thundered in her eager blood.
When it was over, she said to him: “Will you refuse to love me now?”
“I cannot refuse to love you,” admitted John the Prophet, not entirely unhappily. “But still I must die, for the sake of what I preach. Even though my soul has been sullied by affection for a witch, I must be a martyr to my cause. My flesh might betray my heart, but my lips cannot betray the truth.”
During the hour that she danced for John the Prophet, Salome had ceased to be a child, but she was no wiser now than she had been before. She did not know the real reason why Herod was determined to kill John the Prophet, and could not tell him that the acceptance of his “truth” by the common people was what Herod most devoutly desired.
Even if she had been able to tell him, it might not have changed his mind; he was, after his own silly fashion, an extraordinarily sincere and virtuous man.
“You are a fool,” Salome told him, “but that will not prevent my loving you, as you love me.”
* * * *
On the next day, with his entire court assembled before a crowd equal to that of the previous day, Herod pronounced judgment upon John the Prophet. He found him guilty of sedition, and announced the following plan for his execution: first, his tongue was to be cut out and he was to be castrated with shears; then, he was to be trussed from shoulder to ankle and placed breast-deep in a great urn full of oil, which would be slowly heated to boiling point; then, his head was to be struck from his neck and placed on a spike atop the city gate, so that passers-by might judge from the expression on his face whether or not he had really gone to a more pleasant place.
“Better to be boiled alive,” John the Prophet said, before they cut out his tongue, “than to burn in Hell for all eternity.”
Salome watched while her lover was ungently castrated, knowing that what he was sacrificing was nothing that he needed. She watched slaves wind the ropes tightly about his body, and lower him into the huge bronze urn whose broad belly was filled with cooking-oil. Only his beautiful head projected from the narrow neck. She listened to the macabre music of his attempted screams, which rose to an ecstatic pitch as the oil, warmed by a roaring fire set beneath the oil, came gradually to its boiling-point. She watched them detach his head from his body, carefully studying the unspeakably horrid expression which agony had graven upon his features. Then she rose from her place, and went down to take the head from the man who held it; he was too astonished to refuse to part with it.
Herod was also taken by surprise, but when he saw Salome take the head of John the Prophet from the soldier he came swiftly to his feet and ordered her to return to her place.
She ignored him.
Instead of obeying, she began to dance.
* * * *
Whenever Salome the enchantress danced, she enraptured all those who watched; it made no difference that thousands watched her now instead of a few. She made them instantly drunk with the sight of her; each and every one—man or woman—was captive to her art.
Her courtly attire was modest enough, although sewn from silken and golden threads, but as she whirled and cavorted across the arena, passing the head of John the Prophet from one hand to the other and back again, she shed her cloak to reveal a filmy chemise decorated with a thousand crystal shards, which glittered in the light of the morning sun like the scales of many-colored serpents.
Her flowing movements held the whole vast crowd in thrall. No one moved once the dance had begun; only the expressions on the watchers’ faces changed.
In the beginning, Herod’s eyes were wide with alarm and wrath, and his mouth was wide open in protest; but as the dance continued, the alarm and the wrath faded from his eyes, and his lips came together in a curiously wistful smile.
In the beginning, Herodias bared her teeth as she permitted herself a mockingly triumphant laugh, and leaned forward in anticipation