The Silver Chalice (53 page)

F
OR TWO WEEKS
Basil worked with unabated concentration. The sense of urgency that had filled him during the ride from Jerusalem had not entirely subsided and, in addition, he was thinking constantly of the need to reach Rome. He sat at his worktable all through the day and sometimes far into the night. At meals he had little to say, being absorbed in his thoughts. His appetite was small and he had to be urged to partake of the fine dishes spread before him.

Only once in the two weeks did he venture from the house, and that was to pay a visit to his former home on the Colonnade in the hope of seeing his mother. He was refused admittance.

Understanding the fever that possessed him, Deborra made few efforts to break through the wall of his silence. Sometimes she sat beside him and watched his hands at work, not disturbing him with talk. Many times a day she would pause in the doorway of his room, to watch for a few moments and then pass on with an air of unhappiness.

Once, when she was playing in the second court with her newly acquired dog, she looked up and saw to her surprise that he had left his bench and was watching from the upper balustrade. She walked over and raised her head.

“Why am I so honored?” she asked.

“I am in great trouble,” he said with a sigh or weariness. “It is hard to transfer a likeness when you must work in such minute proportions. I wish the Chalice could be twice the size. The head of Luke gave me great difficulty, perhaps because I was anxious to do him well. And now Paul is being stubborn. He seems almost to take a pleasure in eluding me.”

His eyes moved to the dog, which had squatted down beside his
mistress. “That is an odd-looking fellow. He has the clumsiest feet I have ever seen.”

“What you need is rest,” said Deborra. “Forget about your difficulties with Luke and the stubbornness of Paul. Come down here with me. We will sit in the shade and talk. I have so much to tell you.” She added after a moment’s pause, “He is a very fine dog.”

“I cannot spare the time yet.” Basil lifted his hands from the stone railing and disappeared inside.

The frame for the Chalice began finally to reach the stage of completion. There were still empty spaces, and these would be filled in due course with the heads of Jesus, John, and Peter. Basil looked at his work and knew that it was good, that the Chalice when finished would be a thing of great beauty. This gave him no sense of satisfaction and no happiness, because the feeling of urgency refused him any peace.

One morning he went out for a stroll and found himself by accident among the tents of P’ing-li. The latter was seated in a folding chair and was gazing straight into the east with a suggestion of longing on his wrinkled face and in the stoop of his back. He looked up when he heard Basil’s step.

“This is happy meeting, honorable young artist,” he said. “I have questions which I make bold to ask. Why must the feet of connubial bliss travel with leaden soles? Why do not these difficulties become settled?” He paused and then chirped an order to a servant who hovered in the background. The latter vanished, to return later with a satin-wrapped bundle, which he placed in his master’s lap. “These are gifts. They are to be left with my good friend, Luke the Healer, and presented to the pretty bride and her honorable young husband as soon as the imminence of an heir is announced. Pretty bride knows of this but has not seen gifts, which are to be kept a secret. It is the earnest hope of humble giver that they will please both parents of forthcoming child.”

“We are unworthy of such very great kindness,” said Basil.

The old man gave his head a brisk shake. “But keep the condition firmly in mind, honorable young husband. Is it an incentive to a more romantic attitude that at your age this now ancient sojourner had three wives and four male children?”

“The comparison is not entirely fair, Illustrious Prince,” Basil pointed out. “In the Christian following one wife is deemed sufficient.”

“A wise rule in many respects. It does not seem likely that any of my wives would have made me sufficiently happy and content, but it must be
borne in mind that our standards are different. No, none of the eight would have sufficed.” The eyes of P’ing-li took on a reminiscent gleam. “It is my belief, honorable young friend, that I might have found among my concubines some capable of keeping me happy.”

There was something incongruous about talk of this kind falling from the lips of such a tiny rack of skin and bones, and Basil found it hard to keep a sober countenance when he asked, “Did Illustrious Prince have many concubines?”

The old man broke into a pleased cackle. “A very great many. A long time would be needed to recall and count them all.” His mood became severe and he scrutinized his visitor’s face with shrewd attention. “It is my humble wish that honorable young artist will prove quick to accept a hint.”

The next morning Basil’s feet took him in that direction again and he found the prince sitting in the same location and with the same absorbed interest in the eastern horizon. The old man gave his head a nod of dignified pride. “The total, honorable young artist,” he stated, “was fifty-nine.”

Basil looked puzzled at first, having forgotten the point on which their conversation had reached its conclusion the previous day. Then his memory returned and he smiled. “Fifty-nine concubines?” he asked. “It seems a goodly number.”

P’ing-li nodded with a reminiscent relish. “I counted them last night before I fell asleep. It took several hours, but I enjoyed it very much. Some of them were lovely. They came from all parts of my country; almond-eyed beauties from the south, plump little chicks from the north, girls brought all the way from Tartary——” He broke off and then resumed with many enthusiastic nods. “Those who came from Tartary were always favorites.”

He checked his rhapsodies at this point and fell into a more reflective mood. “Yes, honorable young artist, I had much happiness with all my bustling little hen pheasants. But now, when I look at pretty wife of honorable friend, I think perhaps it better to have one wife only and no concubines at all. It is one of many lessons I have learned.” His eyes acquired a calculating light. “Honorable artist and pretty wife will find the presents much to their taste.”

When visitors began to come to the house, Deborra stood between them and the hard-pressed artist. She attended to them with a coolness and dispatch which demonstrated how very much she took after her grandfather.

The first of the visitors arrived with a great deal of noise and confusion. Half a dozen or more chariots clattered up the steep incline from the city road, a trumpeter in the first one blowing furiously for the way to be cleared. A swarm of boys followed them, shouting with excitement.

The chariots halted along the wall. Linus stepped down from one of them, throwing an order over his shoulder that the juvenile element should be driven off with whips. He swung open the front door without waiting to announce himself. A reluctant Quintus Annius, with documents under his arm, followed a few steps behind.

If the purpose of the usurper had been to impress the household, he had achieved a complete success, for the crunch of wheels and the stamping of the horses had brought the face of a domestic to every window.

“I desire speech with the head of the house,” said Linus to the servant who met him inside the front door.

It was Deborra, however, who came to receive him in the first courtyard. It was an affront to meet him there, for guests of importance were taken to the second court, which was reserved for the use of the family.

Linus recognized this, and the scowl on his brow grew deeper. He was looking hot and dusty, to begin with. His neck was as thick and red as a butcher’s, and the long leggings of leather that covered his shins could not conceal the hairiness and crooked contour of his limbs. He stared at her with every evidence of ill will.

“I came to see Basil, once a slave in my household,” he said.

“I am his wife.”

“I already know that. But I have nothing to say to you.”

“My husband is busy. He cannot see you today. If you prefer me to speak with full candor, I must tell you that I hope he will never see you. I will deliver to him any message you may care to leave.”

“I am a direct man. I do not like dealing with go-betweens, even when they are wives.” Linus was becoming angry. “I came to give a warning to this man whose wife you have become.”

Deborra remained perfectly cool and self-possessed. “Your likes in the matter do not count. Tell me about this warning and I will convey it to my husband. May I add that we have been expecting a visit from you, with no feeling of pleasure but also with no sense of apprehension?”

“Some days ago,” declared Linus, his small eyes sultry with resentment, “he called at my house. He was refused admittance. I want him to understand once and for all that he must never try this again. A second attempt will bring a violent reprisal.”

“He went to see his mother. He is very fond of her, and it had come to his ears that she was not in good health.”

Linus snorted loudly. “She is no kin of his. The courts so decided.”

“No matter what a corrupt and well-paid magistrate may have decided,” said Deborra, “my husband considers her his mother. It is his intention to make another call.” She looked at him with a steadiness that caused him to drop his eyes. “You will not close your doors on him a second time.”

“I have plenty to say to him,” declared Linus. “Since you insist on it, I will tell you. He has been at his tricks again. Worming his way into the household of a rich man and insinuating himself into the good graces of the women. He did it here with my brother’s wife, persuading her to support him in his claim to being an adopted son.”

“That is a lie.”

The usurper went on with increased truculence: “He failed here. So he went to Jerusalem and had better success. He seems to have talked himself into your affections. I saw your father before he returned to Jerusalem, and he told me the whole story. This ex-slave seems to have been clever and completely unscrupulous. It will avail him nothing in the end. Your father will take the matter into the courts when he gets back. You lacked his consent, and that will cost you dear. This most persistent of conspirators——”

“Have you said what you came to say?”

“Not all. I hear the pair of you are planning to make your home here. I will not tolerate it. His presence would be an affront. I am giving warning that you must leave.”

“We will stay here in spite of you.”

Linus waved a hand in the direction of Quintus Annius, who had remained some distance in the rear. “Do you see those documents he holds? They are notes of the story your father told me. How this man played on the senility of your grandfather and then took advantage of you, a girl of
tender years. It is not a pretty story at all. I shall know how to use it.” He scowled directly at Deborra for the first time. “You will do well to heed my warning. I have power in Antioch. Great power, if I care to make use of it. If you stay, you and your ex-slave, you will receive a second proof of the power I hold.”

“You seem to have delivered your message, so I will see that the servants show you to the door.”

Linus, his face an angry red, turned on his heel. “I shall lose no time,” he threatened. “You and your upstart husband shall feel the full weight of the influence I can bring against you.”

“Permit me to correct you. You
had
power and influence in Antioch. You no longer have. At some time in the near future my husband will pay another visit to the house on the Colonnade;
his
house, if you please. And when he does, the power will be in his hands.”

The usurper turned and left the courtyard without another word. The chariots departed with less ostentation than they had displayed on arriving.

Deborra had kept up a bold front, but secretly her confidence had been somewhat shaken. She gave her head a shake. “I do not care about the property. But can Father succeed in having our marriage annulled? That is the only thing that counts.”

More visitors put in an appearance on the following day, first a man with thin shoulders and a stooped back and a woman who gazed about her with truculence and who tossed her head angrily when the servant at the door demanded to know who they were. It was the woman who answered.

“Never mind who we are,” she said, her hands on her hips. “We will give our names to the magistrate if it is necessary. We have come to claim a runaway slave.”

“There is none such here,” said the servant.

The woman brushed past him and stalked into the first court. She threw back her head and began to screech. “Come down, you Basil! Come down, slave! We are your owners and we have come to claim you!”

Deborra came hastily into the court when this clamor began. She had been engaged in household duties and was wearing a plain red robe with
her hair bound in a light turban known as a
tsaniph
. She looked disturbed, as well she might, having no idea who they were or the reason for their coming.

“What is it?” she demanded. “Why are you here?”

The woman drew herself up with an attempt at dignity, although her eyes were already beginning to glitter furiously.

“You must be the woman he married,” she said. “If you are, I feel sorry for you; but I have nothing to say to you. I am here to claim my property.” She threw back her head again and allowed her voice to rise to a shrill pitch. “Come down, slave! We have found you out and it will do no good to hide, wherever you are.”

The man took it on himself to explain at this point: “I am the owner of a slave who ran away from my house some months ago. We know that he is here.”

Deborra turned to look at him. He was very dark and so small that there was something almost comic about his attempt to assert himself. “I begin to understand,” she said. “Are you Sosthene of Tarsus?”

“Yes, I am Sosthene.” He had intended to say more, for his mouth remained open. His wife intervened, however, giving him an impatient shove with one of her skinny arms.