The Blood of the Martyrs (5 page)

But already the harsh aching voice was quivering and dropping. He let the knife go, and, as it dropped with a little clatter, he turned and saw Lalage. In the moment before his
anger, she spoke, gently: ‘But it wouldn't have been any good, you know, even if you had done it then.'

‘It would have been!' said Beric. ‘Now—now—oh, she said I was dirt and I'd got to get used to it!'

‘Who said that?'

‘Flavia.'

‘Was she—your Flavia?'

‘I thought she was. I don't know. Oh, I don't know anything now! It's all gone!' He made a wild gesture. ‘All my life now—Romans are going to be able to treat me like that—like dirt! She said—'

‘I know,' said Lalage soothingly, and now you can remember all the things you didn't say to her. Poor king's son!'

‘King's son!' he said; ‘yes, and then—dirt. Impudent native. She'd have me whipped. And now I'm blubbering about it to a dancing girl!'

‘Why not?' said Lalage, ‘I'm dirt, too.' And she smiled at him.

Suddenly he grabbed at her, pulled her down beside him. ‘Listen!' he said, ‘I've never thought about it before—hardly ever—but it's all true. I
am
dirt. I'm nothing. I'm only here by the accident of Claudius Caesar being soft! My father's dead. It's all just a mistake that I'm not a chained slave. And it's a mistake they might take back. Then I'd be a slave really.'

‘And couldn't you bear it?'

‘No.
No!
I thought I was happy and now I know it's all lost.'

‘All lost. But that's the best time in life. No, look at me, Beric, son of Caradoc, listen. When everything is lost you can be born again.'

‘I wish I could! As a Roman. The equal of anyone. Instead of dirt!'

‘Dirt? You?' She shook him; he felt in her hands and arms that she was strong, a dancer at the top of her physical powers, and he listened, feeling an increasing strangeness and excitement. ‘Look at you; you're wearing a clean tunic. I expect you've got a dozen more put away. You've got gold pins at your shoulders. You're not hungry. You're not in pain. You've only been hit once. If it comes to dirt, I'm
more like the real thing. I used to belong to an old woman who hired me out. To anyone. That makes you feel properly dirty. Coming back dirty in the mornings and knowing it was all going to happen again. Well, I made enough to pay her off and start on my own. And even now—you saw for yourself what I have to put up with: and look as if I liked it. But I don't feel as if I was dirt. All that had to happen to me just so as to give me a chance to become myself—to be reborn as my real self.'

She stopped. Beric wanted her to go on. ‘How?' he said; ‘tell me some more!' But Lalage made a funny movement with her right hand, touching her forehead and chest in a queer way. She was silent for a minute, looking away from him, and all at once he became wildly impatient: ‘Go on!' he half shouted at her.

Lalage turned to him again, speaking very firmly: ‘This is only the beginning. You're going to have His help. Even I can see that.'

Now Beric was completely bewildered. ‘
Whose
help?'

‘The help of One who lived for us who've lost hope and found it again and been reborn. Who promised that He would feed the hungry and give their turn to the humble and meek. Who will see there is equal justice at last, not one scale weighted. Not Romans and natives, Beric. Not masters and servants. Not ladies and whores.'

He thought he was beginning to understand. ‘Is it—a leader? Against Rome?' Rome had killed King Cymbeline his grandfather and King Caradoc his father and Togodumnus his uncle—and the Queen of the Iceni—and oh, everywhere, the King of the Parthians, the Queen of Egypt, the King of the Jews … But Lalage was speaking again and he wanted to listen.

‘He's not the kind of leader you're thinking of still. He's not a king. But yet He's stronger than all the rich and all the power they've got. He's the strength of the poor. My strength. I would like to tell you about Him,' she went on, slowly and softly.

Beric found he was wanting to put himself into her hands. ‘I promise—' he began, and then wondered what he had meant to promise.

She seemed to accept it though; she took a deep breath and began to explain. ‘You see, the whole thing has to come from us. The dirt. People can't be reborn if they're all mixed with owning things. Thinking about the things they own. The lucky ones are allowed to start from the very bottom, without possessions, without power, without love.'

‘I don't understand,' said Beric; ‘how can a man be lucky when he's penniless and helpless and alone?'

‘Not alone any more,' said Lalage. ‘He's with us. He lived among us, among poor people, and women like me. And in the end He got the whip on His back and the nails in His hands and feet. He had to be crucified, because that's the worst, filthiest kind of death. Nothing worse than that happens to the lowest of the dirt. He couldn't have helped us if He hadn't taken on our life and died our death.'

‘But then He's dead. Crucified. Like a slave. Do you mean your leader is dead, Lalage?'

‘He had to suffer everything before He became our leader. Life and death.'

Beric considered all this. There obviously was a leader, alive or dead. Lalage wasn't making it up. He thought he had heard about leaders who came back … But it was too puzzling to talk about any more. Instead he asked, ‘Lalage, what was that you did with your hands just now?'

‘That? Oh, that's His sign, the sign of the poor and the hurt and the ones who are kind to one another. The brothers. See if you can make it.' She guided his hands into the sign of the cross; it was a kind of magic; he felt dazed and rather happy. He sat quite quiet and she sat quiet too.

The slaves came in. ‘Will it be all right if we clear, sir?' asked Argas, and Beric nodded. They began to clear up, talking to one another in whispers. Sannio and Mikkos took out the cups and dishes to wash up. Manasses and Phaon were tidying the couches. Suddenly Phaon began shaking the cushions violently and sobbing again: they were the cushions Tigellinus had been lying on. ‘Steady on, kid,' said Manasses, ‘you'll have the stuffing out.'

‘Wish I had
his
stuffing out!' said Phaon.

Manasses said low: ‘Don't be a fool. You'll be lucky if you don't get worse done to you than that before you're much older. There's some houses—'

‘You've told me that already!' said Phaon, and his voice rose to a squeak. ‘But I won't stand it! Not always.'

Argas looked up, frowning, from his bucket and rags, and Manasses caught the boy by the wrist and said very quietly, ‘It won't go on always. We know that.'

Phaon choked and swallowed. ‘Yes,' he whispered. ‘Yes. We are not to be oppressed. He shall fill the hungry with good things.'

Manasses whispered back the answer, ‘And the rich He shall send empty away.'

But Argas was watching Beric and Lalage, scrubbing towards them. Half aloud, he said to Lalage, ‘Got your pay yet?'

Lalage answered rather oddly, ‘I think I am being paid now.'

Beric was disturbed by her speaking. He looked up and saw Argas, but he did not seem to mind now that Argas had seen the spilled wine and the blow. Perhaps Argas, also, had once been free and proud and then lost everything—what was it?—lost power, lost possessions, lost love. He had never thought of Argas that way before; he had been one of the slaves, just one of the slaves. Now their glances met, fumbling, and he heard Lalage saying into his ear, ‘Make the sign, Beric, son of Caradoc the king, the way I showed you.'

Uncertainly he made the sign, and Argas, sitting back on his heels in the dirty water, answered him quick with the same sign, and Manasses and Phaon came slipping round from the other couch and made it too. Manasses whispered urgently to Lalage, ‘Does he know the Words, too?'

‘The words?' said Beric, bewildered. ‘I don't know what you're all talking about! I don't even know the name of the one you follow.'

Manasses, behind, whispered, ‘Take care!'

But Argas, watching him steadily, said, ‘We follow Jesus, the Christ, who died for us.'

Something in Beric gave a sickening jump. He said in horror: ‘Then you're—Christians?' And he looked from one to the other; he was in a trap. Somehow the slaves had got him down, tangled him, like Flavia had. Only it was Lalage this time!

She answered him. ‘Yes, friend.' And the others nodded.

He broke out, increasingly upset, ‘You, Manasses. You poured me out my wine this evening. And you were a Christian all the time!'

He clenched his fists, he wanted to hurt Manasses. If only Manasses hadn't stayed so quiet. If Manasses hadn't smiled and said, ‘Do I look as if I wanted to poison you?'

‘But,' said Beric, ‘Christians are—'

‘Dirt,' said Lalage. ‘So we are. I told you.'

‘But you dance in all the best houses, Lalage!' said Beric desperately. ‘And Manasses … Argas … little Phaon … I can't understand it. In this house! And you look just the same as you always did!'

‘Do we?' said Argas.

Beric stood up, looked from him to Manasses, went over to Phaon and tilted up his face and stared at it. ‘No,' he said, ‘you don't. No. You don't look like slaves. You look like men. So that's what it does.'

Manasses said, ‘We've been reborn. We've been like this ever since, but you've only just seen it. Friend.'

‘Why are you calling me friend?' Beric asked. He only wanted to know, but Manasses and the other slaves took it as a rebuke and stood silent and uncomfortable.

It was Lalage who answered. ‘Because you made our sign. After that none of us could help calling you friend. Don't you like him to say it? Isn't it a good word?'

‘I—I think I like it,' said Beric.

Suddenly Phaon said, ‘She laughed at you—I saw her. They
do
laugh. When one of us is hurt. They don't think of us as people. We're only people when—when
He's
with us.'

Beric flushed, for a moment hating that anyone should speak of that. Of her laughing. And of him and the slaves in the same breath, the same thought! Young Argas was watching him; a slave has to know what the masters are thinking. He said, ‘I'm a man, aren't I? As it might
be—your brother.' Beric did not answer. Argas said humbly, ‘You don't like to think that?' What was going to happen? What was their master going to make happen?

Argas was still kneeling in the dirty water. He had been doing the dirty work all evening while Beric lay on a couch among the gentlemen. While Tigellinus had been pulling Phaon and Lalage about, treating them like animals, like things. And he, Beric—he hadn't noticed that they were people. He had been thinking about himself, sorry for himself, wrapped up in himself like a snail in its stupid shell. Now he had looked out and seen the others. ‘I don't mind—brother,' he said.

Eleazar the son of Esrom and Nathan the son of Berechiah took their instructions and set out together, northward through Galilee, barefoot, without money or even a change of clothes. That was nothing. They were both of them brave and simple men, who had been convinced that a certain course of action was right and obviously right; if others could be convinced of it, well and good. But if they were not open to conviction, then the two would go on. According to the country, much of which was very hilly and difficult, and according to how long they stopped in any village or group of houses, they would cover anything from three to twenty miles in a day. But sometimes they would stop for several days in a village, talking about the new way of life, and healing the sick and casting out fear of devils and evil spirits.

These two men were convinced that there was a kind of relationship between people, which was attainable, as they knew from their own experience, and which was worth everything else in life. When people were in this relationship, they loved and trusted and understood each other without too many words; they were no longer separated by fear and suspicion and competition and class. In this relationship men and women could at last meet without each thinking the other was hoping to do some evil. When the relationship happened, those who experienced it were very happy; they did not any longer want power and glory and possessions. If everybody in the world could have it, then nobody would want these things and there would be no more tyranny and hatred and privilege and oppression of the poor by the rich. In the meantime it was not possible for the rich to enter into this relationship, because their possessions put
up a barrier of envy and greed between them and their neighbours; they could not have this happiness, which was blessing, unless they separated themselves from their possessions, and indeed some of them did so, because they wanted to come into the Kingdom of Heaven so much more than they had ever in their lives wanted anything else.

Eleazar and Nathan were so confident about all this, as indeed they had every reason to be, that people were constantly asking them for help. So few men walked about the world with that look of certainty about them, that look of being removed from ordinary human insecurity and fear, that it seemed as though they could deal with all difficulties. When men and women came to them with pains and terrors, they could usually take them away, and they themselves were not in the least afraid of darkness and wild beasts and all those things that ordinarily send village folk flying to shelter. But when they spoke about the Kingdom of Heaven, some people were always frightened, because this was an idea which contradicted everything that they had been brought up to believe in. It meant that people would no longer care about making money or having a grand position, and would not any more respect and honour those who had done so. It meant that women would be the equals of their fathers and husbands, and that parents could have no right to the labour of their sons. So, although the doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven was plain and obvious sense, yet there were many who hated it and who tried to hurt the two who were carrying it about. Yet they always escaped, for there were always some to help them, and they did not think evil of those who persecuted them; they were only sorry for them and sometimes puzzled.

They thought it was very probable that some of those who were carrying the doctrine might be caught and killed, and above all they thought that Jesus-bar-Joseph, from whom they had taken their instructions, might Himself be killed, for He was a man who always spoke His mind, and, although He was very clever and could make those who argued against Him look fools and worse, yet sooner or later He would fall into the hands of His enemies. And indeed He had said Himself that this might happen, but all the
same the Kingdom was to grow and flourish until it spread over all Judaea. Then there would be no more Kings in one palace and Governors in another, no more High Priests and rich merchants who ate up the lives and happiness of the Am Harez, the common people. And a nation which had become one in trust and amity and comradeship would be able to stand even against Rome.

So after a time they heard that Jesus-bar-Joseph had gone to Jerusalem for Passover, to teach the new way of life to the Passover pilgrims, and the rich had caught Him at last and crucified Him; and they were very sad, but they knew that the Kingdom must go on and that the things which had convinced them the year before were still true. And a few months later they heard that this same Jesus, whose disciples they were, had been seen again, alive, after His death and burial. This did not surprise them, because they had always supposed that He was of such a kind that this sort of thing might happen, and they hoped that they too might one day see Him again. They did not speak about this rising again in their teaching. Why should they? The plain facts of the Kingdom of Heaven were nothing to do with such happenings.

Usually they were given food at the village where they came in the evening; sometimes they worked for it. Nathan had been a shepherd and he would go out and watch the flocks on the hills with the other shepherds and talk to them; Eleazar had been a fisherman, and whenever they came to a village by a river where they did netting, he could at least mend nets in the evening. Both of them tried to stay over the Sabbath in whatever village or town they happened to be in, but if they had either to walk or to work on that day, they did not worry about it very much. But they kept the Law as far as they could, and, though they wandered away north into Phoenicia, they only preached in the Jewish villages or streets. They never thought of preaching to the Gentiles.

By and by Nathan died suddenly, in the sun by the roadside, smiling, and Eleazar went on alone. But he was beginning to get more easily tired, and his beard was streaked with white; often he saw angels and other strange
beings both by day and night. Sometimes he came back to villages where they had taught earlier, and people remembered them and welcomed him, but, so strong is the force of habit and every day, that few had changed their way of life much. If they had done so, they would usually form a little community rather apart from the rest of the village where they lived. So it was that Eleazar came back to a village in the hills near Beth Zanita and found just such a community; he was tired, and when they asked him to stay he said he would for a time, and then it seemed as though one of the angels gave him leave to stay for always. So he stayed.

There were about twelve families in the community and most of the land had belonged to two or three of them, but now they held it all in common and all worked on it, digging, sowing, leading the water in little channels to the roots of the crops and then shutting it off, gathering fruit or grain. The boys herded the goats and sheep of the community and the women spun and wove and made pots, and once a week they all met and said the prayer and talked about what had to be done, and Eleazar or another spoke about the Kingdom; but mostly they asked him to tell them stories about Jesus-bar-Joseph, how He had looked and what He had said and, above all, what He had done in love or anger or doubt or eagerness. The children were dipped in running water for their purifying and rebirth, as soon as they were old enough to want it, and so were any adults who joined them. There was little money used, except what they needed for paying the yearly taxes.

They were only ten miles or so from the sea, but it was out of sight behind the hills, and even when you got there the fishermen of Achzib were not friendly. So they got little news of the outside world. But one year all the villages heard something terrible. The Emperor of the Romans had decreed that his statue was to be set up and worshipped in Jerusalem, perhaps in the Temple, and two legions had been landed to force this thing on the people. It was the time of the autumn sowing, but no one could work; those who had swords brought them out and sharpened them; others had axes or metal-pointed hoes which would make spears; the
streets were full of the crying of women. In the community they talked this way and that; it was the first time there had been very hard words and even blows, for some said that even this must be forgiven, and others said that the forgiving of enemies meant the enemies of one's own village or at least nation, and that it never could have been said of the Gentiles. In the end nothing came of it, and the Emperor was killed in Rome and went to the everlasting fire and the Temple was safe, and in the community they went on saying the prayer, but it meant different things to some and to others.

Things were unsettled after that, in Judaea and all about the coasts. Now and again some man would get followers and arm them and call himself King, and those who hated the Romans would follow him, and it would be weeks or even months before the legions could put down the rebellion. The flocks and the crops would suffer and it was bad for everyone. It was a difficult Province, and whenever anything went wrong there, the Jews in Alexandria and Asia Minor sent letters or deputations to Rome, for they never forgot their country. There were armed brigands, too, who frightened the small villages into giving them food, and sometimes raided them and even carried away women and children.

One band of these brigands was often in the hills above Beth Zanita, and one winter they raided the community and carried off five children. There was no money to ransom them, and they were taken up the coast to Tyre. Two of them were girls, for whom there was always a market; they were sold at once. The other three were boys. Josias was a husky twelve year old who had fought them till he was beaten and tied down; he still seemed quite intractable, so he was sold to a dye-works where they could do with plenty of cheap boy-labour; he would last a year or two. Melchi was a strong boy too, and more easily frightened; he was sold as a house servant. The third, Manasses, was rather younger, a lovely little creature; he had not fought. At first he had cried a great deal, and then something out of the prayer had come back into his head, and he had really tried to forgive his enemies. They knew they could sell him well, and they
kept him till they could get his price. The three boys promised one another, sobbing, that they would try to keep in touch. They would all say the prayer at the first and last light and think of one another, and perhaps … After the other two were sold, little Manasses spent some bad days. He remembered the community and tried now to think why it really was that his father and mother and the others were trying to live a different kind of life from the rest of the village. He thought of the stories old Eleazar used to tell and he turned them over in his mind. He wondered whether it had made any difference, his trying to forgive the brigands who had carried him off and hurt him; perhaps they had been kinder to the other two. Or perhaps it just hadn't made any difference, but yet it was a good thing to do. Perhaps it made him, even by himself, nearer to the Kingdom. Though he felt far enough from it now, with no one in all Tyre to be his equal in trust and amity.

He went on thinking about the Kingdom and never speaking about it for months and months, and twice a day he said the prayer and remembered the other two. He had been bought by a dealer who prepared slaves for a better market, and here he was taught miming and dancing, as well as Greek. They were quite kind to him and he learnt docilely; he was fond of music, though it often made him cry, even when he was moving in time to it. He had better food and no more fleas than at home; he was not allowed out in case he should run away, but he was not beaten or knocked about, because his body was very saleable. But they wanted him cheerful and at last someone asked him what would stop his moping; he told them he had two brothers and two sisters—in the community they were always brother and sister to one another—somewhere in Tyre, and he wanted to see them. But he did not know the names of the masters to whom the two little girls and Melchi had been sold, and no one was going to take much trouble about tracing them. He did know the name of the dye-works where Josias was, and one day his master went over and bought what seemed to him a very wretched, coughing, limping piece of cheap human material, its hands and face covered with the sores they mostly got in the Tyrian dye-works.

Manasses fell on his master's neck with an enthusiastic gratitude which made the old man feel quite silly, and set to work washing Josias's sore hands and face; the sores healed in time, but left him slightly scarred, and he was always rather lame where a truck had gone over his foot. He would never be worth much and could only be used for rough work, but most of the fight had been knocked out of him. Lying in the straw at night with Manasses's arms round him, Josias told about those months at the factory where a new boy was at everyone's mercy, where it was no good trusting anyone or anything, where one was burnt with hot irons and splashed with hot acid of the dye-base, and worse—much worse—things he wouldn't ever tell Manasses—things that no Jew—and he shuddered all over with the horror of it, poor little country boy who had not even heard much evil as a child.

After a time Josias got well and strong enough to want to run away, but each boy was told what penalties that would involve for the other, and they were never allowed out together. There was more and stricter mime training for Manasses, and sometimes now he did his dancing to an audience. He might be sent out for an evening, petted and given sweets by Tyrian merchants, and sometimes by their wives, for he was young enough to be allowed in and out of the harems. Sometimes he was petted more than he liked, and once all the women in a harem stripped him and dressed him up in girls' clothes and did his hair, which was now in long dark tresses, and painted his face like a bride's, and everyone said things which made him stamp and scream with rage. It was not until a long time afterwards that he could forgive those fat, stupid, cruel women, jeering at him, holding him with sharp nails, touching him all over, till he couldn't bear to be touched, even by Josias, for days afterwards. There were little henna marks all over his skin from the women's fingers.