The Silver Chalice (26 page)

“I can only stay a short time,” she said, still in the lowest of tones. “You must have seen how jealous Simon is. He watches me all the time. If I had tried to leave the house earlier, he would have known. When I go out in the daytime, he has me followed. And that is not all. Those long-nosed clerks watch me. I am conscious all the time that their eyes are on me. They are sly and dangerous, one of them in particular. This one has a nose longer than the others and his eyes have more daring in them. I am so frightened of him that I had a lock put on the door of my room. Last night I heard steps outside and hands pawing at the lock. It was the daring one, I am sure. It would not have surprised me if he had been lurking about when I left my room to come here, but fortunately he wasn’t. I think I got away without being seen. But I must not expect too much good fortune, I must return very soon.… I came to tell you that we are leaving Jerusalem in two days.”

“So soon!” Basil found himself dismayed at the prospect of her early departure.

“Simon has made arrangements to appear in many cities. We go to Joppa first and then to Caesarea. I am not sure where else, but I expect we shall go to Antioch again and then to Tarsus and Ephesus. Finally we shall go to Rome.”

“I am going to Rome.”

“How very fortunate it would be,” she said, “if we could be in Rome at the same time! Can it not be arranged that way? Our stay there will be a long one, because Simon thinks it will be the pinnacle of his career. He is to appear before Nero.”

Basil indulged in some calculations. “I think it certain that I shall reach Rome before you leave,” he said.

“And you will come to see me?”

He turned and found himself looking at close range into the deep pools of her eyes. “Yes,” he said in a tense whisper. “Yes, I will see you when I am there.”

She was the first to withdraw her eyes from such close and dangerous contact and, after a moment, she began to speak in a more normal tone of voice. “You are going to be a great artist, Basil. Simon thought well of the work you were doing in Antioch. He knew about you and he went out of his way to examine some of the pieces you made. Simon is more than a magician, he is a very clever and discerning man. He saw the promise of genius in you.” She indulged in a light laugh. “How would it affect his opinion, I wonder, if he knew that the young man who came to have an evil spirit cast out was none other than the dispossessed son of Ignatius?”

“He has no suspicions?”

“None at all.” Her manner changed again and became even more matter-of-fact. “I am ambitious, Basil. And so are you. Does it not seem to you that we could be helpful to each other? That we could even—do some of our climbing together? Simon is only a steppingstone to me. I want to go much higher, to climb, climb, climb!”

She began then to ask questions and to discuss the future in a way that indicated she had been giving much thought to the possibilities of an alliance between them. Did he remember very clearly when she ran away from the house of Ignatius? Had he followed her movements afterward? There seemed to be considerable relief in her manner when he replied that he had tried to get news of her but had failed. There had been a year, she explained then, before she attracted the notice of Simon, and it had been a most difficult time for her. Life had become much easier since meeting him. They had been in Antioch most of the time, and he had both friends and influence there.

“I was in the courtroom,” she said, “when your case was heard. I did not dare speak to you because Simon would have heard of it, and that would have been most unwise. All I could do was to sit in a back seat and suffer for you. Ah, Basil, Basil, you were so badly treated! I knew from the very first what the verdict would be.”

“I was unprepared,” he said. “Linus acted so suddenly.”

“Basil,” she asked, “did you receive a note later, when you had been sold as a slave, warning you of Linus?”

The question was so unexpected that he studied her for several moments in a surprised silence. “Yes, I received a note,” he said finally. “How is it that you happen to know?”

“I sent it.”

“You! Helena, I had no idea it came from you. All I could do was
guess, of course, but I was quite sure an old friend in the household had sent it.”

“Simon knew Linus very well. One night when he was drunk Linus dropped a hint about his feelings toward you. Simon repeated it to me. It was then I sent you the note. I had learned to read and write by that time, being so very ambitious, as I have told you. When I heard a little later that you had left Antioch, I was so happy about it! I wanted to see you, but that, of course, was impossible. I was happy because I knew that the danger you faced there was very great indeed.”

“If I had not received your note,” declared Basil fervently, “I would never have been able to get away. I shall always be in your debt.”

They were sitting very close together, and at this point she allowed her head to rest against his arm. “Basil, Basil, need there be any talk of debts between us? I sent you the note because you were in danger. Perhaps you face another danger now; of quite a different kind. You may fail to live the kind of life you should, to climb up where you belong. I might be of help again.” Her head was still pressed against his shoulder, but her voice had become less dreamy and more assured. “Let us talk sensibly about the future. Your future. What do you know about Nero?”

“All I have heard is that he tries to act and sing in public and that the people of Rome are beginning to think him a fool and a buffoon.”

Her head moved in a positive shake of dissent. “I have never been in Rome, but I am certain of one thing: the Emperor has a more serious side to him. He may be a buffoon, but he is not a fool; he is dangerous. But what should interest us is that he takes a great interest in all the arts. He looks to Greece and dreams of creating the same glory in Rome. You would be in the best position to win his favor, being neither a poet nor an actor and so not a competitor. You, a maker of beautiful things in gold and silver, might capture Nero’s good will easily. If that should happen, every rich man in Rome would be running to your door. You would become rich yourself and famous.”

It was an alluring prospect she was holding out. While he kept it in his mind, turning it over and over and liking it more all the time, Helena went on to tell him what she had heard about the court of the Roman Emperor, its magnificence and extravagance, its absurdities, its dangers. “You spoke of repaying me,” she said at the finish. “There will be opportunities in Rome. Go and try your fortune at the court of Nero. At first there could not be any open alliance between us. But later—who knows?
I am not talking this way because I have become moon-struck sitting out here with you. I thought of this years ago—when I first saw the little figures you used to make out of wood at your father’s house. That will make you think me a most calculating woman. Perhaps I am. At any rate, I can see that only a man may climb in this world and that a woman’s calculations must be built around a man.”

They sat in silence then for several moments, looking out over the torn sod of the arena and the ghostly emptiness of the rows of seats. Basil’s mind was in a turmoil. What was happening to him? How far could he commit himself to this bright future she was painting for him? Did he want to continue this relationship, which had begun under such curious circumstances and which threatened now to disturb what had seemed to him his certain future, one of a happier and more serene kind? What disturbed him most was his concern for Deborra. She had been first in his mind, and now Helena seemed certain to usurp a large part of his thoughts.

Helena sighed. She pressed his arm and looked up into his eyes with a final smile before dropping the veil over her face. She rose to her feet. “Simon may have discovered I have left the house. Or that snooping clerk who makes my blood run cold.” She raised a hand in warning. “No, you cannot go with me. I shall return as I came and I must return alone. Stay here until I have had time to cross the square. And, Basil, remember everything I have said.”

She began to make her way back along the echoing emptiness of the seats, her dark robe drawn closely about her slender figure. A whisper came back to him:

“We will meet in Rome.”

A
ARON WORE A DEEP FURROW
of preoccupation between his eyes when he arrived at the house of Ananias. Compared to the great palace of Joseph, the home of the High Priest seemed small, a white structure of two stories. He was too concerned with his thoughts to notice that two men standing near the entrance nodded to each other as he passed.

The house might seem small, but it had taken on distinction since the induction of Ananias into the high office. A servant with a deep band of blue on his robe motioned Aaron toward the stairs. Above him as he climbed was the life-sized figure of a golden angel on the landing wall. Another servant with the identical blue band stood outside the door of the room where the High Priest received his visitors. Back as far as the memories of men went, this room had been maintained in a traditional austerity, as sparsely furnished as a prison cell and dedicated to the hard labors of Temple administration. Ananias had been a sybarite in his earlier years, before unlimited indulgence had coarsened him, and this stage was reflected in the artistic appointments with which he had surrounded himself. There were fine old tapestries on the walls and in a corner a cabinet containing many beautiful figurines in Parian marble. There was much brown leather and gold leaf on the table and a beautiful pen with a jeweled handle.

“You are prompt,” said Ananias, looking up with a quick and not too cordial nod.

“I came as soon as your messenger conveyed your invitation.”

The High Priest was a sensual figure, his stomach grossly rounded, his face harsh and cruel. He was, it was clear, a vain man. Not content with the plain blue tunic of everyday wear, he had donned the ephod, an elaborately
embroidered robe that was generally reserved for ceremonial use. The ephod was rarely seen except with the priestly breastplate on which Urim and Thummin and the accompanying precious stones were mounted, but his vanity had not led him to this breach of established custom. On his fingers, white and cruel, were many rings.

“It is reported,” said Ananias, “that your father is in a seriously weakened condition.”

“The physicians gave him a few hours to live on their last visit,” answered Aaron. “That was three days ago. He is still alive. It begins to verge on the miraculous.”

“We are not sentimentalists, you and I,” said the High Priest, his close-set eyes studying the face of his visitor. “And we are alone. May I speak, then, with full candor and say that it will be a good thing for all of us when the venerable Joseph is laid away in the grave of his fathers?”

A glimpse into the cold recesses of Aaron’s mind would have made it clear that he shared this view. The passing of the years had raised an ever-increasing impatience for the day when he would have full control over the great trade empire his father had created. It was not in his nature, however, to meet such a challenge as this with equal frankness.

“I must reconcile myself,” he said, “to the separation that faces us.”

The thick lips of Ananias parted in a scornful smile. “It seems I assumed too much,” he said. The disease that had fastened itself on his bloated body had thinned his beard. He began to run his fingers through the unhealthy gray scraggle that was left and his eyes twinkled maliciously. “We have some decisions to make that call for frankness of approach, but in deference to the hypocrisy that so often obscures the relationship between father and son—and of which you seem to have a full share—we shall choose our words with regard to these little niceties and reservations.”

He lifted a bell and shook it. A soft and silvery note was given forth, in keeping with the sacred nature of the duties performed in this room.

Aaron had watched Ananias in the Sanhedrin several days before when Paul had been brought in by a guard of Roman soldiers for a hearing before that stern tribunal. It had been with a sense of shock that he had observed the violence of the High Priest’s methods. As soon as the apostle had started to speak with his accustomed vigor, Ananias had ordered a guard to strike him in the face. With blood streaming down his cheeks, Paul had retorted with a verbal blast that had chilled and frightened the members of the Sanhedrin because addressed to the head of the Temple.
They had been carried away later, however, by the eloquence of the plea he had proceeded to make. They had wrangled for hours, in fact, after he was taken back to Castle Antonia, although it had been clear to all of them that the fate of the outspoken apostle no longer lay with them but would have to be decided in Rome.

A sense of dissatisfaction with the High Priest now filled Aaron’s mind. “A man like this,” he said to himself, “does more to drive people to the Christian faith than all the gold my father has wasted on it.”

In answer to the summons of the bell a servant brought in the clay head of Paul that Basil had left in the Court of the Gentiles. It was deposited on a corner of the table at which Ananias sat, and by chance it faced him with the same air of defiance that the original had displayed before the Sanhedrin. The High Priest reached out and turned it around with a flourish. He was proud of his hands and used them always with a certain ostentation, as though anxious to demonstrate that some part of him retained a degree of fleshly elegance.