The Silver Chalice (24 page)

“There is a young man below. He wishes to see you.”

“What is his name?” she asked.

“He gave no name. All he would tell me was that he came from Antioch.”

Simon looked up quickly. He had found Helena in Antioch under circumstances that made the place eternally suspect. “Send him away,” he ordered.

“This is my concern,” declared the girl sharply. “We cannot send him
away without learning anything about him or what his errand may be. He may have a message for me.” To the servant she said, “Tell him to come up.”

The latter disappeared promptly down the stairway, glad to take himself out of such dangerous company.

Helena rose to her feet, her mind occupied with her appearance. “I shall see him alone,” she said.

“The hour is late.” The end of Simon’s nose began to quiver with resentment. “I intend to remain.”

The girl fitted her feet back into the sandals. She crossed to the couch where the conjurer’s cloak lay and reached into one of the pockets for a mirror. Immediately she drew back from it with an exclamation of fear and disgust.

“That snake!” she cried. “It is still in the coat. You promised me the last time——”

“I am sorry. I forgot about him again. But why are you frightened of a snake without fangs? He is the most obedient and humble snake I have ever used.”

“You know how much I dread them. Get me the mirror. I won’t go near it again.” When the glass had been handed to her, she proceeded to comb her hair with hasty strokes. “It is my wish that you take your snake and go away at once.”

The scene had changed when Basil reached the rooftop. Simon the Magician had gone, taking all the tools of his trade with him. A single light flickered rather feebly under a canopy. Helena was reclining on her couch, the merest tip of a sandaled foot showing under the graceful folds of her skirt, her eyes soft and luminous.

She sat up in surprise when she recognized Basil. “You!” she cried. “It never occurred to me that it could be you. I heard you had been sold as a slave by your father’s brother.”

“My freedom was purchased for me.”

Basil found himself with a sudden distaste for his errand. He advanced slowly, conscious of the steady regard of her disturbing eyes. Seen thus at close range, she was much more lovely than he had thought.

Helena had a sudden flash of comprehension. “You are the artist!” she
exclaimed. “The one who left the statue in the Temple. I have heard much talk about it.”

He regretted that he had come. He had broken his promises in doing so and, now that the magician’s lovely assistant had connected him with the events in the Temple, there might be serious complications. He did not take the easy way, however, of entering a denial.

Helena gave him a reassuring smile. “Your secret is safe with me,” she said. “If Simon knew, he would run with it at once to the High Priest, so I shall keep it to myself.” After a moment she added, “It was wise of you not to give your name.”

“I had that much discretion at least.” He paused, finding himself reluctant to proceed with his explanation. “You are wondering why I came,” he said finally. “And why I came at such an hour. I have heard that Simon casts out evil spirits and I—I seem to be possessed of one.”

She was watching him with the liveliest personal interest, saying to herself that she would have recognized him under any circumstance. The sensitive features of the boy she had known had lengthened with maturity, but they had the same distinct line. His eyes were unmistakable.

“Simon casts out evil spirits,” she said. “His fee is very high. Is that a consideration?”

Basil conceded that it was indeed a consideration. He had not yet been paid for any of the work he had done, and his pocket was empty.

“Why do you think you need the aid of Simon?”

He hesitated over the explanation. “I have ceased to act in a normal way,” he began. “My mind is filled with dark thoughts. I do things suddenly without realizing that I am going to do them. I am sure these actions are prompted by this—this evil spirit.”

“What kind of dark thoughts?” she asked.

“I think constantly of revenge for the wrongs done me. I try to stop but find that I have no control over my mind. The thoughts keep coming back. I am sure I have been placed under some kind of spell.”

“The desire for revenge is the most natural thing in the world,” declared Helena. The softness had deserted her eyes, leaving them hard and speculative. “I never forget a wrong or forgive an enemy. Is there a devil in me also that should be cast out?” She laughed. “If there is, it is a different kind of devil. My thoughts are my own and I am not ashamed of them.”

Then she began to ask questions. “Did your master treat you badly? Did he beat you as Castor used to beat me?”

“No. But I was allowed no freedom. I did not leave the house once in two years. I gave all my time to work.”

“Was your mistress—well, partial to you?”

Basil shook his head. “She thought only of the money they were making out of me.”

She smiled knowingly. “It is certain then that your mistress was quite old. It is customary for wives to be
very
partial to young and handsome slaves. And you are quite handsome, my Basil. Do you remember I told you that first night that you were a pretty boy?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on with her questions. “What happened to Castor and the other slaves when Linus became the master?”

“They were all sold or sent to the warehouses. Linus wanted servants of his own choosing. The only member of the staff he kept was Quintus Annius. That was because Quintus knew so much about my father’s affairs.”

“I hope Castor was sold to a cruel master.”

“He was sent to the warehouses, and one day his skull was crushed by a falling mast. Some thought it was by design and not by accident.”

A deep satisfaction showed itself in the girl’s eyes. “I am sure he was killed on purpose. How I hated him!”

Helena had been careful up to this point to appear impersonal. She had seen to it that the skirt of her
palla
remained in graceful folds across her knees. No more than the tip of the toe had been allowed to show itself. Except for brief reactions to mood, her eyes had been cool and unruffled, and darkly lovely. Now she held out a hand to him for assistance in rising, and the pressure of her fingers remained on his for a fraction of time longer than was necessary. She smiled at him as they stood close together. Being taller than most women, her eyes were almost on a level with his.

“You were kind to me,” she said in a voice little above a whisper. “When you came into the house that first night you smiled at me. It was the first time I had been noticed by anyone I waited upon. It is not an easy thing to wait on people who never look at you, who try to make it seem you do not exist. Perhaps you learned that for yourself. And now I am going to pay you for that smile. Simon will do what he can for you. He will recite his incantations over you and perhaps he will succeed so well that the evil spirit will leave you and kick over the pan of water as he goes. Do you know about that? Well, you will find out later. And, Basil, it will cost you nothing. If you ever learn the fee that Simon
charges, you will realize how much I value that smile you gave me.”

“When shall I come?”

There was warmth now in her eyes, a personal note in her smile, which said that they were friends and that she was glad. “Soon,” she said in the low tone of an established confidence. “I will speak to Simon about it at once. But it will be necessary to take the greatest care. He must not find out who you are.” She placed a finger to her lips, and he noticed that it was white and well tended. “We will say you are a student from Antioch, your name—Alexander? You are the son of a rich trader in Eastern goods. You are moody and quarrelsome and you have seriously injured a slave in a moment of passion. Yes, we must draw a rather black picture of you, my Basil. It is because of this passion that you desire to have the demon in you exorcised.”

“But will he not know that all this is a fiction? A man with his strange powers——”

“Simon is not a reader of minds,” said Helena. “He will have no reason to disbelieve the story. You had better come the day after tomorrow. I am not sure how long we remain in Jerusalem, and so it will be wise not to waste any time.” She touched his arm with her hand. It was for a moment only, but the blood in his veins responded to the brief contact. “To see you again and to find that she can be of help means a great deal to the poor little slave girl who was so very bold.”

“Will I see you when I come again?”

“Oh yes. I assist Simon in everything and I shall be present when he labors to rid you of this demon of yours. And now you must go. The suspicion must not be allowed to enter Simon’s mind that I have known you before and that—that we are friends.”

They were early risers at the House of Kaukben. The porters broke their fast as the first light of dawn appeared in the sky. An hour later the three clerks brushed sleep from their eyes. They would be through with their frugal repast and ready for the labors of the day by the time Kaukben himself would summon them to prayers. He was a man of small originality and always began his exhortation in the same way. “O Lord, for thou art our Lord as well as theirs, teach us to be patient, show our feet the path of prudence——”

Simon and Helena enjoyed their breakfast a full hour after Kaukben and his family. Simon, smacking his lips over a dish of fresh fruit, said: “There is nothing to compare with the plums of Samaria. When you get a tough pomegranate or a dried fig, you can be sure it was grown on the rocky slopes of Judea or in the steaming country around Jericho.”

The first rock of the day rattled against the sign and a clear, boyish voice cried: “Samaritans! May all the beads of sweat on your bodies turn to boils! May you pass stones when you cover your feet!”

Helena was eating bread and honey. “There are some magic powers in which I still believe,” she said. “There is, for instance, the love potion.”

“It is the most potent of all,” said Simon, giving his head an affirming wag.

“Can you make one?”

Simon drew deeply on his powers of exaggeration. “I can make a love potion,” he declared, “that would cause the Sphinx to raise its head in a mating call,” and then threw back his own head with an approving roar of laughter.

Without raising her eyes she said, “I desire that you prepare one for me.”

Simon’s exuberance faded at once. He squinted across the table at her. “I know you too well,” he said, “to think it is my affections you aim to stimulate.”

“That is right. It has nothing to do with you.”

The magician’s face flamed with sudden anger. “You ask me to accomplish my own undoing? To place in your hands—your cruel, white hands, my fair
zadeeda
—the power to win the love of someone else?”

“Take any meaning from it you will.” Helena spoke in a completely matter-of-fact tone. “But understand this, Simon of Gitta. I want the potion. I want it for use within twenty-four hours. And it must be properly concocted so it will have the desired effect. If you wish me to remain with you and to assist in your work, you will see to this.”

Simon wrestled with this problem for several moments in brooding silence. “Do you want the effect of this potion to last?” he asked finally. “Or is it a temporary conquest you have in mind?”

Helena did not give him an immediate response. “I am not sure,” she said.

After another long period of sullen consideration the magician threw both hands in the air. “So be it.”

He left the room and returned in a short time with a box of new
white wood in his hands. It contained a powder of grayish color. This he held out to her with an ungracious air.

“Listen to my instructions closely,” he said. “Certain words are to be written in honey on the inside of the cup. These I shall write myself, as I will not trust the knowledge of them to anyone, least of all to you, my
zadeeda
. The cup will then be filled to the brim with a sweet wine, and in it you will sprinkle the dust. Enough to cover the eyelid of a newborn child, no more and no less. I shall measure it out for you myself. This powder is ground-up bone from the left side of the red toad that lives under briars and brambles, and it has been buried for seven days. I have treated it to a sweet fumigation by burning a mixture of saffron, ambergris, fruit of the laurel and musk, saying as I did so,
It blazes on the hilltops, it sweeps the valleys, it burns in the blood, thy blood, O beloved one!
”

It was quite apparent that he was doing her bidding with the utmost reluctance. His manner was impatient and he watched her with a look that said he would enjoy taking her handsome throat in his hands and squeezing it until she cried out.

“Now attend, my Helena, my gentle and unselfish little one,” he went on. “Dress yourself in linen only, even to your shoes. There must be no knots in your clothing. Loose your hair so that no two threads may be tangled together, and allow it to hang down your back. Then you will wave a wand over the cup—this one which I give you, it is made of virgin hazel—and you will say seven times some words which I shall teach you.”

Helena looked curiously at the gray powder. A question rose to her lips. “How much of the potion must he drink?”

Simon gestured impatiently. “If he takes no more than a sip, he will still fly to you like metal parings to a magnet. A full swallow and his heart will be in your hands. If he swallows the complete contents of the cup, he will be willing to kiss the dirty hem of your skirt when you are hobbling on crutches.” He then added in an angry grumble: “Is this not like loading a camel with salt on a journey to the salt sea? What manner of man is he that a glance at you will not suffice? You are a love potion yourself, my Helena.”

She smiled at this. “I am vain enough to enjoy hearing you say so. But”—she became sober of mood again and gave her head a determined shake—“in this case I must be sure.”

“Who is it you wish to captivate? Is it Ananias, that prime example of impotence? Lysias, that stolid soldier with muscles of leather and heart
of ice?” Then he added, as though he had come to a reluctant acceptance of her wish, “You should understand that this potion has one special quality. It acts with great speed.”