The Blood of the Martyrs (35 page)

‘I'll do what I can, Lalage, I promise. But—supposing I'm in it myself?'

‘Is there a chance, Beric?'

‘Yes. Lalage, lean back on my arm. Lay your head down, dear. I may be with you yet.'

‘But because you're really thinking clear about it? Because of the Kingdom for all time? Not just because of a few people that happen to be living and dying in Rome now?'

‘I don't know, Lalage. I can't separate it up.' And he began stroking her cheek, pulling her round a little towards him, cupping his hand under her chin, then kissed her again.

The Deputy-Governor, making his rounds, walked up to them. ‘This is a prison, not a brothel,' he remarked coldly. Lalage had jumped to her feet, away from Beric; she knew the prison authorities—he didn't. She whispered to him sharply: ‘Don't interfere!' Aelius Candidus looked her up and down, considering vital spots, finally gave her a hard flip under the nose, jerking her head back and tears into her eyes. Beric was on his feet beside her, but her fingers gestured to him urgently. Perhaps she was forgiving Aelius Candidus; perhaps he mustn't spoil it. ‘Get back to your cell, you filthy little Christian whore,' said the Deputy-Governor. ‘Don't let me see you in the yard again today. You know what'll happen to you if I do. Now then, you—eh, it's my old friend, Mister Briton! What art
you
doing here? Trying to get it cheap, are you?—cheap and nasty!'

‘Is this how you always treat your prisoners, Candidus?' said Beric, his eyes narrowing.

‘I have very full powers,' said Candidus, slowly and heavily, ‘
very
full. You have no idea what I can do—yet. If any of my prisoners prove intractable, I have my methods. They have not failed so far.'

‘A damned dirty job!' said Beric.

‘I represent the State,' said Candidus, ‘and you had better remember that, Mister Briton. If it means anything to a creature like you, which I doubt. A little yelping savage picked out of the bucket like a half-drowned puppy—yes, we all know where you'd have been if Crispus hadn't pitied you, you little rat!'

‘You represent the State, do you!' said Beric, ‘and the Roman hearth and home too, no doubt. I hear Flavia's been seeing to that. Not so Roman as it was—is it?'

‘I'll get you for that!' said Candidus, his fists clenched, ‘and that little Christian tart of yours too. I'll make you both squeal, by God I will!' He turned on his heel. If he means that, thought Beric, and he probably does, I shall have to do anything I'm going to do rather quickly. I wish I could get
him too. He went back to Gallio's cell and sat down outside it, waiting for Crispus. It didn't seem possible now to avoid all the consequences of his actions, whatever they might be. Somehow he had got set towards death, unless he was more lucky than he could suppose anyone would be. Yet, sitting there, he still felt like a visitor from outside, not one of the doomed ones. Not yet. He hadn't got out of the habit of imagining himself to have a future as well as a past. He couldn't take things quite seriously. He liked having got in one on Candidus—after that supper party. It's nothing new anyway, he thought, if he and I hate one another!

Inside the women's cell, in the half dark and stink, Lalage was saying to Euphemia, ‘I will forgive him, I
will
!'

‘The dirty beast!' said Euphemia.

‘He thinks we're wicked,' said Lalage, twisting her hands with the difficulty of getting it out of herself, of standing apart from her own anger and injury and seeing her enemy in another light. ‘He thinks we're a kind of horrible Thing against Rome, and I suppose Rome is a kind of god for him. Because he hasn't seen anything better. When he hurts us he thinks he's being useful and good. I've got to start forgiving him. Jesus, show me, show me!' She stood quiet, with her eyes shut, and Euphemia prayed too. Her nose was still bleeding a little; the dark drops crawled down her chin, over her lips. She went on, ‘He doesn't think of us as separate people; that's making it so hard thinking of him as a person. He's sinned against us. But he didn't know, he didn't know…' She tore a piece off the edge of her dress and held it pushed up against her nose. ‘If only Beric didn't get angry.'

‘Was Beric really the son of one of those kings?' Euphemia asked. Lalage nodded. ‘There was another girl in my old patron's house, she always said she was some kind of a princess. A bit of a devil, she was. None of us didn't pay any attention to her. Must be nice in a kind of way, being someone. Even if she wasn't really. Unless it kept one away from Him. And from one another.'

‘It isn't keeping Beric away.'

‘He's ever such a nice boy. Wish you could have seen more of him, dear. He was just your sort.'

‘When I'm thinking about him,' Lalage said, ‘I can start on forgiving Aelius Candidus. Funny, isn't it?'

After a time, Euphemia said, ‘Lalage, I don't suppose—well, Claudia Acté isn't going to be able to help, is she?'

‘I saw her when I was out,' Lalage said. ‘We made a kind of agreement, me and her, that if they got me, as it looked like might happen, she wasn't to try and get me out. You see, Euphemia, I can take it. I know I can. And there's some that can't. That don't all get our blessings. Don't get strength. Well, those are the ones Claudia Acté ought to save, the weak ones, that wouldn't be any use as witnesses. Don't you think that's right, Euphemia?'

‘Yes, I do. Lalage, dear, you don't think I'm one of the weak ones, do you? What I mean is, I wouldn't like being. Only, if I was to let you down—'

‘You won't let us down. You'll be a witness. You know Euphemia, you might even be able to show the way to your daughter. Like you couldn't just in living.'

‘Oh, Lalage, wouldn't that be lovely! Now you say that, I can't help thinking—well, it's not pride is it, not wrong pride?—but I
do
think I'm one of the strong ones too.'

The other prison, in which Manasses had been before his transfer, was a smaller and nastier place, mainly underground; there was a double set of barred caves cut into the rock of one of the Seven Hills, with a gutter running between them. The caves nearest the outside got more light, and those who were able to pay the warders were put into them. The ones at the back were darker and dirtier, and the rats scuffled and bit more openly. At present they were mostly full of Christians, with a small proportion of ordinary criminals among them. Whatever happened at the Mamertine, it was quite certain that everyone in this prison was going to die within the next few days. They all knew exactly how, because one of the stage managers had been talking to the Governor and had taken no trouble not to be overheard. This particular batch was to be used during the firework display and chariot racing in the Imperial Gardens. There would be high posts at intervals along the route of the chariot race and on each post, roped or nailed, one Christian or other criminal wearing a tunic soaked in pitch. These would be set alight to at the beginning of the race, and the calm, star-filled September night would immediately burst into flames and hoof-beats and screams, speed and terror, galloping and punishing, and the ending of enemies. The stage manager wanted them in two batches, one for the first evening of the Games, then the other later. Nothing of the kind had ever been done on such a scale before.

Continuous consideration of this had driven the prisoners into a state of tension which led some of them into screaming fits and others to complete dumbness and despair, a kind of lethargy. Some had tried to recant, but it was not usually much use at this stage, unless with more money behind it
than most of them had. But a few of them were in a state of extreme preparedness and clarity; this was their chance. They were in the Will. Sometimes Phineas attained to such a clarity, but sometimes he was shaken and breathless with apprehension. When he was calm, Sapphira tried to be calm too, tried to slow down her breathing to his, to wear the right face for it, whatever was in her mind. But when he was in terror she rose beyond it; she was his mother and protector and builder of security; she pointed the way to the Kingdom. Then, in time, he recovered, and his recoveries were her triumph.

The only person who had seen them was the girl Megallis. It was safer for her—she was not a Christian, in fact she still thought some of it was nonsense, and, if her case had been taken up, it would have been found that her husband had actually denounced a Christian witch and poisoner. Not that she cared much at the moment whether she was safe or not; she was too angry and hurt—angry deep down, so that her husband was only just beginning to realise how serious it was. Eunice had asked her to go and see what was happening. She herself had gone over to the fish-shop the evening of the day Phineas was arrested, but already Sapphira was gone to the prison with food and clothes, and after Eunice had waited an hour or two, talking to the widow who was still lodging with them, and helping to get the babies to sleep, it had become only too plain that Sapphira must have been arrested too. Probably, thought Eunice, the prison guards had been having their fun with her first, most likely where her husband could see it all from behind the bars. That was just what they did. Oh, Father, why do they hate us so?

The next day, after Megallis had come back and told her how things were, Eunice made up her mind that she must go over and see Phineas's father. She was a bit shy about it, because the Jerusalem Christians were a bit different: kept themselves to themselves. Made you feel as if you didn't belong. She knocked and asked for Gedaliah-bar-Jorim; the Jewish slave who opened the door looked at her sideways and didn't give her a straight answer. Then she was let into a big room, with a woman cooking on a stove at one end, who must be the mother, and two girls
weaving carpets at the big looms; one of them she had seen once or twice at the fish-shop; she was the young sister Noumi, a quiet sort of girl, very strictly brought up. Wouldn't even speak to a Gentile! But Sapphira had talked about the family sometimes; Sapphira knew the rest of them didn't like her much.

The other girl must be Joanna, the sister-in-law, daughter of a weaving family, too. They went on with their work in quick, steady arm and body movements, but they kept watching her past the loom posts: made her feel all funny. Lovely carpets they were; Phineas used to say all the best houses in Rome had one of his father's carpets. The old man and the two younger brothers used to set up the webs and then the girls would get to work on them; neither of the slaves could weave—they were only kept for rough work.

Whatever the mother was cooking smelt good enough; Eunice wished they wouldn't keep her waiting too long; she had orders for almond cake and pastry shapes for the next day. One had to keep one's mind on the job, times like this. Then an old man came in, that must be the father Gedaliah: behind him two young men carrying bundles of fine dyed carpet yarn. A bit tremulous, Eunice gave the peace greeting and got it back, rather distantly, from the old man. His sons only murmured it; these Gentiles who called themselves Christians could never know the true meaning of the Messiah—how was it possible for those who had neither read the Books nor kept the Law?—and it was only by an extraordinary act of mercy, of which there could scarcely be certainty, that they might in the end be saved and even given a place in the Kingdom. But now the woman was speaking, telling them about their brother Phineas, the one who had left the trade he had been brought up to for his fish-shop and the woman without a family whom he had lusted for and married.

Eunice finished speaking; she felt them all looking at her—oh, not like brothers and sisters, not really! She could have cried. ‘Can you do anything for them?' she asked. ‘He is my son,' the old man answered her. But what did he mean by that? The mother had come over for her cooking-pots. ‘We will go,' she said, ‘and bring our grandsons home.'
Then to her daughter: ‘Noumi, my cloak!' Gedaliah-bar-Jorim thanked Eunice for bringing him the news, took her to the door, barred it after her and turned back to the family. What should they do?

The two girls had come into the group now, though they did not speak. Noumi, the youngest, was white with horror; she could only think of burning, of the pain in her hand when she had scalded it with boiling soup, spread all over. Why should being a Nazarene mean that? Could it mean that for any of
them
? Or was it only because Phineas had mixed with Gentiles? Or could he have sinned somehow? For a moment she held her long hands over her ears and eyes so as to shut out everything.

Phineas did not mean so much to Joanna; he had left the household before she had been married into it; she felt the excitement of horror, yet it was all part of the same excitement she always felt when the men were talking in the evenings, when the voices rose and swung and the texts hammered out of her father-in-law's mouth. The time was coming, was bound by all the prophets to come, when the daughters of Israel would rejoice. There would be no more weaving of carpets for Gentile money to buy and Gentile feet to trample, but instead you would leap and sing through the streets of Rome; you would be like a harlot, but yet right, yet envied and not despised! And so it would be wherever the People were, in Ephesus and Corinth and the Greek cities, in Alexandria, and all through Judaea, until the great final gathering in Jerusalem itself. But this which was happening now—was this the Coming, or was it only an accident, something that God had not intended? Was Nero Caesar truly not born of woman, but the anti-Christ who must rise up as the last form of the old world, before his final defeat? Phineas must be saved from the anti-Christ or their household would not be whole for the Coming. Joanna thought that, and her husband, young Jorim, said the same thing. But Sapphira who had only been a slave, who went willingly among the Gentiles and sat in the same room as Greek and Roman men, was she really part of their household? Even though she had borne sons to them, as Joanna had not done yet. Perhaps Sapphira had sinned and brought
down anti-Christ on to herself and her husband. Perhaps she had sinned before her marriage. The wheels of God grind slowly and you think you will escape them; but they have you in the end.

It would be difficult to get him out; it would mean money and courage; it was not certain if they could do it. But fortunately this was a small prison and the worse conditions also meant more likelihood that money would talk. Each of the guards would have to be bribed separately and there was more than a risk that Gedaliah and his sons might be arrested themselves—with the money. Hearing this, the women glanced at one another, but said nothing; it was for the men to decide. Amariah, the middle son, went out to borrow the money; it would take the household months of work to repay it; they would live that much worse. But Phineas must be with them again for the Coming, he and his sons.

Eunice shelled her almonds and measured out her honey and mixed and shaped the cakes and put them in to bake; it was no use thinking too much. Two or three customers came in; you've got to put a cheerful face on things, with customers. One of them kept on talking about the Games. In the evenings she did some spinning; that kept your mind off things, too. If only someone would have come in, like they always used in old days. She went on spinning till she was tired out. The next morning Beric came for the rolls. She didn't tell him about Sapphira; he'd got enough to think about with the ones in the Mamertine. Then later on, Hadassa, the widow who had been lodging at the fish-shop, came over, carrying her little boy astride her hip; she put him down to play in the corner by the kneading trough and looked round, in the way one did, before saying a word to Eunice. Then she said, ‘Their granny came for the two children yesterday. Poor lambs, they did take on. Well, I went round an hour ago with some things of theirs I'd been washing over, and do you know what they've been and done?'

‘Just you tell me, dear,' Eunice said; she couldn't even bear the ordinary give and take of women's talk now.

‘They've bought Phineas out—somehow—'

‘But not her?' Eunice crossed herself.

‘Not her. And now they've had to lock him into the store-room because he keeps on crying and screaming, and I don't blame him. But it seems he didn't understand at first, and then when he did, he started cursing them. Even his own father.'

‘I suppose they didn't have the money to save her. Let alone, you can't always do it. They won't take money at the Mamertine. And I've no more: not that sort of amount. Not even if I sold everything.'

‘I wonder if they wanted to get her out all that much; she was always a stranger somehow. Oh, well, I suppose it was him or her, and you'd be bound to take your own kin. Noumi told me they'd be more than a year working it off. There was her dowry money too. Still, she's young. And anyway, it looks like we could expect the Coming any day now.'

‘This isn't the Coming, Hadassa. It's only a tyrant doing what they always have done.'

‘But this is different, surely Eunice!'

‘It's not different. Only worse. Because they're cleverer and this is Rome. Oh Hadassa dear, don't you go thinking he's Satan! I almost wish he was. Why, Manasses was in the Palace all that time and he ought to know. Tell me, aren't the Jerusalem Church getting arrested as well as us?'

‘Not so bad. You see, Eunice, it's not so easy to tell who's in the old way and who's in the new, in our community. And the Empress, she favours the old way. No one would lay hands on them; if they did there'd be trouble everywhere, wouldn't there? Not only in Rome, I mean. So it's only the ones like Phineas that went to a Gentile Church that had their names taken. Of course, I didn't see it that way Eunice, but Gedaliah-bar-Jorim said to me that if his son had kept to his own people—well, there, he was angry and he didn't think it right to have his son cursing him.' Hadassa looked very unhappy; she didn't know who was right. Her people and her husband's had been Jews from Miletus—they'd only come to Rome after they were married. Somehow they'd never felt themselves so different
from their Gentile neighbours, who'd always treated them fair. They'd paid their Temple dues every year, but they'd never thought much about Jerusalem, and they hadn't lived in the Jewish Quarter in Rome, but in one of the tenements on the other bank. And it had been burnt. And if they'd lived in their own quarter she wouldn't have been a widow now … She didn't know what to think about it all.

There was a knock and Eunice went to the door; it was Beric, with Phaon behind him, carrying his cloak like a well-trained boy. Once inside, Phaon nodded at Hadassa, who had pulled her black veil round her, and gave her the peace greeting. So did Beric. It made Eunice feel proud, Beric being so nice. She remembered how he used to come round with that tutor of his when he was a boy: ever so fond of sweet things he was, and of course, she being Crispus's freedwoman, he took what he liked. A bit rough he was then, a bit too much of a young gentleman. And now—she could have kissed him! ‘I wanted to ask if I should see Sapphira,' he said.

‘You'd better tell them, Hadassa,' Eunice said, and began slowly grinding down some spices, while Hadassa, stammering on it rather, told what had happened. The whole room smelt of strong country herbs, as Eunice crumbled them fine, and then of imported cinnamon and nutmeg; she was careful of these; a little went a long way and she baked her spice bread once a week. You'd got to think of it like that, even if there wasn't going to be a next week for you.

When Hadassa had finished speaking, she picked up the child again, saying she must go. The other three said nothing for a little. Phaon sat on the edge of the table, frowning, pleating Beric's cloak between his fingers. ‘But to burn her,' said Beric at last. ‘I can't—I can't see why!'