The Silver Chalice (13 page)

“It is the artist. I asked him to come in so he could study your features in repose.”

“I hope you will not think I have been presumptuous,” said Basil, beginning to gather his materials together. “It has been very helpful.”

He was summoned at the same hour for several days in succession and the work progressed rapidly, his acquaintance with Deborra keeping pace with it. On the fourth day, as he pressed with questing fingers around the line of the mouth, he realized that he had achieved a change of expression. He hastily withdrew his hands.

“It is finished,” he said after a moment.

Deborra dropped the parchment and ran over to stand at his shoulder. The white sleeve of her
palla
touched his arm. He was aware that she was breathing quickly.

“Yes, yes!” she exclaimed. “Lay not another finger on it, Basil, for fear it may change for the worse. It is perfect now.”

“Not as much as a fingertip.” He spoke happily. “It is finished and ready for casting.”

They had been speaking in excited tones. Joseph roused and sat up. “What is it?” he asked in the sharp tone he always used when first wakened. Basil had discovered that it meant nothing. The old man worshiped his granddaughter and thought her perfect in every respect.

“It is finished,” announced the proud artist. “May I show it to you?”

Joseph studied it with critical attention and then nodded his head. “I am well content,” he said. “Tomorrow Luke will be here, and then I shall have something to say to you.”

Basil was so delighted with the approval bestowed on his work that he
paid no attention at first to the news about his benefactor. Then he said: “I am happy that Luke will be here. I have missed him very much.”

“Paul and his followers reached Caesarea several days ago and stayed there in the house of Philip. They are now approaching Jerusalem and will arrive at some time during the evening. I have sent word entreating him to slip quietly into the city, but it may not be possible. I very much fear that those who oppose him are as well informed of his movements as I am. There may be trouble tonight.” Joseph’s eyes returned to the clay bust. “I agree now with my granddaughter. It is perfect.”

T
HAT AFTERNOON
Deborra paid a visit in his room on the top floor. She was accompanied by three women of the household and carried in her hand a large metal ring filled with keys. Pausing in the doorway, she held up the ring.

“I have messages for you. They could have been brought by a servant, of course. But I thought I would like to be in a position to judge of your comfort now by the evidence of my own eyes. And so,” smiling, “I decided on a tour of inspection as an excuse to come.”

“It is kind of you to take so much interest. As you see, I live in the greatest comfort and luxury.”

After a moment’s silence her eyes, which she had kept lowered, were raised to his face.

“I know all about you,” she said in a low tone. “I know how you were robbed of your inheritance and how badly you were treated. I think you were—very brave about everything.” Then, realizing that she was allowing herself to display too much emotional involvement, she went on, “Grandfather would like you to sup with us this evening. At five o’clock.”

Basil had been learning something of the ways of the household. He knew that Aaron dined at five each day and that he made it a point to collect about him a group of notabilities, Roman officials, other merchants of rank and wealth, members of the Sanhedrin, the great Jewish council. This he did, it was said, to offset the well-known fact that Joseph was a Christian. Aaron entertained on a lavish scale.

While the son of the house dined in state, his father and daughter supped together, quietly and happily, in an apartment adjoining the bedroom of Joseph.

“It will be an honor,” said Basil.

The girl hesitated again. “If you care to come with me now,” she said, “there is someone below who has information for you. He told me of it before I came up. He is one of Grandfather’s men. His name is Benjamin, but everyone calls him Benjie the Asker. You will soon understand why.”

Benjie the Asker was waiting for them in a dark cubicle in the warehouse wing. He was small and wiry, with owl-like hollows around his eyes. In his hand he held a cup of
sorbitio
, a barley water that was considered cooling in hot weather.

He took a sip of this tepid mixture, his sharp eye studying Basil over the rim.

“I know everything that goes on in Jerusalem,” he announced. “And that means a great deal in these times. It would take little to start a revolution in Jerusalem against Roman rule. Did you know that?”

“No. I am sorry to say I know little about such matters.”

“That is what I thought.”

“Benjamin is a gatherer of information,” explained Deborra.

“O Lady of the House, I am more than that,” exclaimed Benjie. He proceeded to display a degree of loquacity almost equal to that of Adam ben Asher. “I am also a disseminator of opinion. I am a harrier of Pharisees in open meeting, I am a thorn in the flesh of Sadducees. I burrow under surfaces, I dip into many curious sources of information. I am in the confidence of many of the leaders of the city, but at the same time I belong to clubs on the lowest level. Oh yes, there are such clubs, I assure you. They meet in dark cellars on Fish Street and in hot tenements under the walls of the Gymnasium. There is one which meets in a warehouse where the air reeks of oil and camphor. I hear revolution plotted by the Zealots. I am consulted in matters of religious strife. And this I may say without boasting: no door in Jerusalem is closed to me.”

Deborra smiled at the puzzled manner with which Basil was listening. “Now that you know about him,” she said, “he will give you the information he has for you.”

“You are like your grandfather,” grumbled Benjie. “You always want to come quickly to the point.” He shifted on his wooden stool and addressed himself directly to the artist. “It came to my attention—in fact, it is my business to know all such things—that you spend your
mornings wandering about the city and asking questions of everyone you can persuade to stop. One question, rather, and always the same. I decided, after consulting our lady here, to take your quest on my own shoulders and see what I could find about the elusive Kester.”

Basil asked eagerly, “And what have you found?”

“I have found everything that is known about him,” declared the little man in a pompous tone. “He came to Jerusalem seven years ago, being interested in army contracts. For three years he was quite active and was constantly in contact with the Roman officials in Castle Antonia. He became wealthy and in due course decided he should seek a wider field. He went to Rome.”

Basil’s interest was so intense that he found it hard to remain still. “Are you sure of this?” he asked. “I was almost ready to give up. I had not succeeded in finding anyone who had ever heard his name.”

“I am never in error, young man. There can be no doubt that your missing witness removed to Rome four years ago. He was still alive, still in Rome, and still active as recently as three months ago. At that time he wrote a letter to an old acquaintance here in Jerusalem. I,” importantly, “have seen the letter.”

“To whom was it sent?” Basil laid an importunate hand on the hairy wrist of the small man. “Will it be possible for me to see it?”

“I am sure I could get the consent of the man who received it. But would there be any satisfaction in seeing a few lines scrawled in a far from scholarly hand? All the note proves is that the man was alive at the time it was written.” Benjie paused for effect. “It was received here by one Dionysius of Samothrace. He also was interested in army contracts, and, if I am correct in the conclusions I draw from some references in the letter, he is still concerned in a small way in such matters. This Dionysius is as flabby as the sponges he ships in from his native island. But make no mistake in the man; he is in character a close relative of the devilfish.” The seeker of information nodded his head. “It would do no good to see the man. You would come away, I am sure, nauseated with him. My advice is: stay away. He might wheedle something of value out of you and send it on to Linus.”

Basil, clearly, was finding reason for discouragement in the picture drawn of Dionysius. “They were partners? What manner of man, then, is Kester of Zanthus?”

“All I can tell you,” answered Benjie, “is that he left a reputation
here for honesty; and that is an extraordinary thing for an army contractor to do.”

Basil drew a breath of relief. “My future,” he said, “is going to depend on how much of that honesty he has retained.”

He remained silent for a moment, and it was apparent that he was suffering from a sudden embarrassment. Benjie the Asker had of his own accord done him a very great service and was entitled to a reward. But how could a reward be paid out of empty pockets?

While this thought was running through his mind he became aware that something had been dropped into the palm of his hand. It was round and cold. He opened his fingers cautiously and glanced down. It was a coin and, moreover, of gold. Deborra was standing beside him, and it was apparent that she had transferred the piece of gold into his possession without letting either of them see what she was doing. She was looking purposely away, and he could not catch her eye to convey his gratitude.

“I shall be forever in your debt,” he said to the Asker, holding the coin. “Will you accept this from me?”

“Gold!” cried Benjie. Taking the money, he gave it an ecstatic spin in the air. “The rarest and finest of all material things in the world. It makes and unmakes empires. It is dangerous, it leads men into evil designs, it corrupts their souls. But at the same time,” he declared, “I confess that it has a most grateful feel on the palm. I accept with gratitude. And I hope that someday, if Kester’s honesty is equal to the test, you will sit in ease and great power, even as King Midas, with whole columns of this most wonderful of metals stacked about you. Columns as tall as the Temple that Herod carried up into the sky when the people of Jerusalem insisted he must build it on the foundations of the Temple of Solomon.”

“If that day comes,” said Basil, smiling, “there will be a column of it for you as well.”

“I shall be well content with one as high as a camel can raise its rear heel.” He nodded his head gratefully. “May you always eat off gold plate and say your prayers before a golden shrine. May you wear a sword of gold at your belt.”

Basil’s embarrassment returned when he left the room in the company of Deborra. “You were observant and very kind,” he said. “For two years now I have had no money in my possession. Since I was sold as a slave, my pockets have been empty.”

“Did not Luke have money for you when you left Antioch? My grandfather thought that plenty had been sent.”

“It cost him more than had been expected to purchase my freedom,” explained Basil. “My owner and his wife were a grasping pair and they held him to a hard bargain. He had nothing left when the transaction was completed except two copper coins.”

The girl’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “How then did you get to Aleppo to meet Adam?”

“Luke was not concerned. He said to me that the Lord would provide. And most truly He did. The first night we stopped at a small village and were directed to the house of a widow. My benefactor said to her, ‘Christ is risen,’ and she made an answer that seemed quite as strange but meant something to him——”

Deborra interrupted in a low voice, “I think what the widow said was, ‘He sits at the right hand of God.’ ”

“Those were the exact words. It seems that this established an understanding between them.”

“A complete understanding, I am sure.”

Basil did not ask any questions but went on with his account of the journey to Aleppo. “We stayed in the widow’s house that night. The same thing happened the following night when we went to the home of a maker of wheels, a humble man with a family of seven children. He gave us of his best nevertheless.”

They parted in the hall, Basil returning to his room. He was filled with gratitude for the generosity and tact she had shown, but other considerations soon drove all thought of her from his head. Kester of Zanthus was alive. He, Basil, must get to Rome as soon as possible. How could such a long journey be accomplished? It occurred to him that Joseph might be generous enough to send him on his way with letters to people in Rome. The only other course open would be to join the crew of a ship sailing for the capital of the world. This he would be most reluctant to do, knowing that the lot of a sailor was no better than a step above slavery. He would not willingly place his wrists in chains again.

It developed that Joseph was unable to partake of any food that evening, and a female relative took his place at the round table where supper was served. She was large and billowy, and it seemed to Basil that she was regarding him with a hostile eye.