The Blood of the Martyrs

by Naomi Mitchison

  ‘I cut your face open with a book.’

  ‘Well, you might feel bad if you did that tomorrow—not that I care, at least, not about getting my face cut, only—’

  ‘If I ever do it again, you can throw it back at me. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it, Argas?’

  ‘Just that. And that’s a bit of the Kingdom.’

  ‘Equality. That’s Stoic doctrine you know, Argas, only carried a bit further.’ He puzzled over it, talking half to himself. ‘The Stoics didn’t say anything about having to be poor; only that if you happened to be poor you could still be free and the equal of anyone. But Lalage said you Christians couldn’t be rich.’

  ‘I don’t see a Christian being rich,’ Argas said, ‘or if he started rich, he’d soon be poor, if he lived like a Christian, because he wouldn’t be able to keep anything for himself.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be able? You mean, you wouldn’t let him?’

  ‘He just wouldn’t want to. You’ll know if—if you do join us. Claudia Acté gives away all her money.’

  ‘Is she a Christian?’ said Beric, startled, then, ‘No, it’s all right, Argas, you haven’t made a mistake. I shan’t tell the police.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would, sir. Only—’

  ‘As soon as you get frightened, you start sir-ing me again. Idiot!’ said Beric amicably. ‘You’d better call me by my name. I suppose you’ve got a nickname for me, too?’

  ‘We didn’t have any nasty name for you—truly—only The Briton.’

  ‘What did you have for the others?’ asked Beric, amused and wanting to hear it all.

  But Argas suddenly realised that he must not hear the name for Flavia; that would hurt; that would interrupt. He said, ‘No. I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You’ve got to!’

  For a moment Argas was afraid again, with the Briton glaring at him, really annoyed; then he saw that he needn’t and mustn’t be. His fear was only something left over. ‘How are you going to make me tell you—now?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to do a thing more for you except of my own free will!’

  Beric suddenly began to laugh, threw himself back on to the cushions in fits of laughter. ‘Then I shall have to fill my own bath!’

  Argas was rather shocked; he said, ‘I shall go on doing my proper work. Because I choose. Can I go on telling you about our prayer, or are you going on laughing?’

  ‘It makes me feel like laughing,’ Beric said, ‘the whole thing. I like laughing. I laugh at things I like. I think I see what you’re after about this Kingdom, you and Lalage. And you think it’ll come?’

  ‘We know it’s coming. That’s the Will of God that we ask to be done. It’s—it’s reason, the Kingdom. It’s the only thing that makes sense of people being in the same world with one another. It isn’t sense, is it, some having all the money and powers and others slaves all their lives and never getting a chance of being real people?’

  ‘It’s always been like that,’ said Beric slowly. ‘I don’t know about being sense. I never thought about sense in the way people are arranged.’

  ‘That’s because you were on top. You didn’t have to. I’ve had to, and I know it’s nonsense as it is. It’s wasting people all the time. Men and women.’

  ‘You want a world then, where all are poor?’

  ‘Yes. Where money and power aren’t being used any longer to make nonsense of the way we live with one another. With making friends. A world where you and I can be friends.’

  ‘Can’t we be friends as it is?’

  ‘We’ll see. I—I wanted a lot to be friends with you ever since—well, ever since you bought me. I’ve read plenty of books and that. I’m not a fool. Only you never gave me a chance till now. You made nonsense of me wanting it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Argas,’ said Beric, not laughing any more.

  ‘Well then, God’s will must be reason: and that’s what the Kingdom is. That’s why we ask for the Will to be done, even when we don’t understand how it’s working. And when we ask for daily bread, that means security. Just knowing from day to day where we shall be. One can’t make the Kingdom without that much.’

  ‘I don’t think I want security,’ said Beric. ‘That’s a Roman thing. I want adventures.’

  ‘You’ve never not been secure,’ said Argas, ‘never been at anyone’s mercy for everything. Punished for what you hadn’t done. Yes—it wasn’t me that broke the wine jar last week! Oh, it doesn’t matter, truly, it doesn’t matter now! But they stole half my savings and nobody cared, and I had a book—and it was torn up, and… If you hadn’t bought me at the beginning of last year, my master would have taken me off to Gaul, away from the Church here and everything I cared about. That sort of thing happened twice before. But you were part of the Will. Don’t laugh, no, don’t laugh at me! It’s true. And then, after that, we remind ourselves to be always forgiving one another. And how we’re always doing things ourselves that need forgiveness. That’s important. And sometimes it’s difficult.’

  Beric thought about it, lying back on the couch, one knee up, the other crooked over it, swinging. ‘Not one’s enemies? You don’t mean you try to forgive them?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Argas. And then, ‘You could forgive Aelius Candidus if you tried.’

  Beric sat up sharply. ‘That’s none of your business!’ he said.

  But Argas wasn’t going to let himself be frightened now. ‘If I’m your friend, it is my business,’ he said. ‘We all saw and it’s no good pretending we didn’t. And we were all on your side. Though I knew you’d kick me if I said so.’

  ‘Hell,’ said Beric. ‘I would have. I know I would. And then you’d have had the job of forgiving me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Hell,’ said Beric again.

  ‘You see, it’s all in and out like that. People knocking up against one another. But it’s one thing forgiving friends and another forgiving enemies. That’s two different ways of doing it. Your friends take it, and as like as not they’ll need to forgive you too; it’s mostly six of one and half a dozen of the other. But with your enemies, perhaps they don’t accept it. But you’ve got to do it all the same.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s just part of how we all want to be. We call it the Way of Life. And if you forgive a person you stop being in his power; he can’t really hurt you any longer. And maybe you get to see why he’s doing it and then you can most likely stop him.’

  ‘But look here, Argas, if you forgive people you’ve got to forgive the Emperor and Rome and—and all the masters—and then you won’t want to destroy them any longer.’

  ‘I can forgive my own master,’ said Argas, frowning, thinking it out, ‘for what he does to me as a man, but forgiveness is between people, so I can’t forgive all the masters because I don’t know them. Together, they’re a thing, and I hate them and I want to destroy them. And we shall. And the rule of Rome is a thing, so I don’t forgive it. I don’t forgive what they did to the people in Epidauros and the people in Athens. And if you become a Christian, you will not be able to forgive the Roman rule that you have been part of yourself.’

  ‘I think I see,’ said Beric. ‘Did your Jesus forgive his enemies?’

  ‘He forgave the men who were killing him. But before that he hated the rich and the priests and the rule they had over His people; He never forgave their power.’

  ‘And he will be King of your Kingdom?’

  ‘He is in all of us,’ said Argas, ‘when we are trying for the Kingdom. And the next thing in the prayer is asking not to be led into temptation, but to be delivered from evil. Because we all want to be good.’

  ‘Do we?’ said Beric, and added, ‘I wonder if Tigellinus does.’

  ‘Perhaps people with a lot of power don’t. But ordinary people do if things aren’t being too much for them. Well, that’s what the prayer’s about.’ Argas suddenly looked tired—tired and defeated. ‘But it doesn’t mean a thing to you!’

  ‘Yes, yes, you stupid, it does
!’ said Beric, ‘and I’m glad it’s sense and not magic. But I want to sleep on it. And it’s late. Everyone else is asleep but us.’ He stood up.

  ‘I’ll bring you your lamp, sir,’ said Argas.

  ‘You will not,’ said Beric. ‘I shall get it for myself, and I shall actually carry it along to my own room myself! And we shall put out the lamps in here together.’ He began doing it. ‘And whether or not I have anything more to do with you Christians, I shall remember what you said, Argas, and if you come and wake me tomorrow morning—which you’ll probably be too sleepy to do—you shall tell me if you still want to be my friend.’

  Argas wanted to answer, but didn’t know what to say. Only he felt happier and less tired. It was queer and nice going round with the Briton, putting out the lamps. Suddenly Beric said, over his shoulder, ‘Who did break that wine jar?’

  ‘You don’t want to punish for it twice,’ said Argas, a little uncomfortably.

  ‘I thought you were lying,’ Beric said. He went over, close to Argas. ‘I sent you off to get a whipping. What happened?’

  ‘I got it,’ Argas answered casually.

  But Beric was thinking about it differently and with increasing trouble. ‘I never bothered—about it being a person. Someone like me. And you were only a slave. So they tied your hands’—he was speaking with a kind of horror now— ‘to the ring in the kitchen yard. What did they give you?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Cut you?’

  ‘No fear! Old Felix wouldn’t try that on me. After all, I’m not one of the kitchen slaves! Not like poor little Dapyx; he’s one of us, too.’

  ‘What did you think about while it was going on?’

  ‘You don’t think much while you’re being whipped. You just don’t squeal.’

  ‘And then he untied you.’

  Argas laughed. ‘Matter of fact, old Felix left me tied up for half an hour. He’d got me so that I could only stand on tiptoe. That hurt a bit.’

  ‘God!’ said Beric, ‘I’ll take it out of Felix!’

  ‘No you won’t,’ said Argas quickly. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. He had a bit of a down on me—that’s all. But I didn’t tell you as a master.’

  ‘What did you think about,’ Beric asked again, ‘while you were tied?’

  ‘I had my work cut out forgiving old Felix. But I did. That’s why you can’t touch him now—see?’

  ‘But it was me—I had you punished, Argas. For something you didn’t even do.’

  ‘Well, I forgave you, too. More or less. I knew she’d been at you. It’s all right. Don’t go getting upset about it!’

  ‘You were hurt and it was I who did it.’ Beric could hardly speak with misery and astonishment at what was having the power to make him miserable.

  ‘But I forgive you.’ Argas caught hold of the Briton’s hand and held it hard, with both of his. ‘Look—Beric—don’t go fussing about this, please! There are some houses where the slaves get it badly, and there are the mines, and… Oh, this was nothing! Good night and peace be with you—Beric.’

  CHAPTER V

  Lalage and Sophrosyne

  In the late afternoons those women who had to work at nights and sometimes into the morning, and who must mend their dresses and sleep in the heat of the day, those women who were registered at the aedile’s office, would come slipping out into the streets and do their shopping or go to the fortune-tellers or witches or temples. They were not made up for the evening and some of them looked plain and pale or downright ugly. It depended a good deal on how long they had been doing it and what their economic position was. It was not so bad for those that owned their own bodies, but most of them did not even do that. When they began to wear out they were looked after so long as they were any use, but when the cheaper clients no longer wanted them they were lucky if they were given some kind of food and shelter and allowed to do the housework. But the girl who was going, as she always did, to the little Temple of Isis, was still young and still so pretty that she must keep her veil close round her and hurry a little.

  She did not own her own body. She did not know if she had been born slave or free. She did not remember exactly when she had been a virgin. Things had been like this when she was a small child, and like that when she was an older child, and still otherwise when she was no longer a child. But always there was the same Madam, kind if you did what she said the way she wanted. Otherwise not so kind. There would be girl and boy children huddled into corners, waiting for the sharp pouncing fingers to pull them out, the fingers that made the blue marks on their arms, that took the whip out of the cupboard: frightened into an adult stillness and stealthiness, alone with their nightmares, afraid to cry.

  Sometimes there would be stray bits of kindness, from a customer or from some older woman, but not enough to break through the shell of fear. Once the child Lalage had got kindness from a boy dancer with whom she had had to do an act; it was a horrid act; she had cried afterwards; and then he was so kind to her, and he went on being kind for months till suddenly he was sold, and she never saw him any more. Much later on, remembering it, she knew that at first he must have hated her as she hated him, and that he must have acted with the deliberate kindness of someone who knows what kindness is worth: more than anything else in the world. Kindness of slave to slave.

  For the last few years Lalage had been making a little money; the Madam, of course, was paid for her services, but she usually got a little something too. There’d been one or two regular clients, young married men—she’d been quite gone on one of them for a bit, and he’d given her ever such a nice bracelet: real silver and amethysts—she always wore it. And she reckoned that perhaps in another two years she might be able to free herself. But two years was a long time; anything might happen in two years. She’d been unlucky once already; but there was a woman in the establishment who could usually work that if you went soon enough; it had hurt and she had been ill for days, but it had been worth it. You weren’t always lucky, though. Two years.

  Some of her own money had to be spent on little extras; she was careful. And usually a few coppers went in another way. Either she took flowers to Isis or she dropped the money in the little niche in the stone. That was the only money she really liked spending, the money she got something out of. She looked forward to going there. Sometimes one of the others came, and sometimes there’d be girls whom she knew by sight or whom she’d got to know a little, and then they’d go back together part of the way, gossiping.

  It was a very little temple, a shrine for the goddess, with a wooden door in front which stood open always, and a room behind for the priestess. She was an Egyptian, with a brown, wrinkled face; she seemed to speak all languages, for Lalage had heard her talking to girls from god knows where, the furthest places slaves come from, places you’d never even heard of, and talking to them so that they talked back and came alive again. Only women went to Isis; in Egypt, the priestess said, she had great temples and feasts and offerings, like any god. And there was another big temple over on the smart side of Rome. But here it was different. She was not only Isis; she was also Cleopatra-Isis and the face of the wooden statue was not an Egyptian face, but the face of a Macedonian princess. The priestess told them all about Cleopatra one day, talking quietly to a dozen little tarts who sat on the steps of the shrine in the spring sunshine, eating raisins and sometimes exclaiming or crying a little, for they laughed and cried easily.

  Cleopatra was a great Queen; she was Queen of Egypt and the East; she led her own ships and men into battle; she was wiser at statecraft than any man. She was too great a queen ever to love, but she had sons by the men who loved her, who were to rule all over the world. For, although she had no mercy on the rich or the strong, yet always she was compassionate as Isis herself, to the people. And so it was, in the end, that she had Rome against her, Rome which means naked power, Rome with the sword and the whip. She fought Rome for the thing which we all want, for the golden age of peace and joy and compassion,
when the common people shall at last be free. But Cleopatra was beaten by the Romans, as your fathers were, Salome, and yours, Iotapé, and yours, Gwinedda, and yours, Lalage. And Octavian Caesar whom the Romans call Augustus, he killed her sons who were to have taken her golden age across the whole world. And she was to have walked shamefully through Rome in Caesar’s triumph, but in the end she escaped him. For Re the sun himself, sent his messenger to Cleopatra: the asp who rears his head, which is death, from the crown of Egypt. And the asp took her and made her into a goddess, into her in whose image she had lived, as Queen. And with her, of their own free will, also to be taken up into the Divine likeness, went her two serving women, Charmian and Iras; and that is why beside the great statue, you will see two small statues. In the lap of the great statue is a little child, and this is Harpocrates, the Wise Child, whom Isis nursed, and it is also one of the children of Cleopatra. And at the foot of the statue is the dead body of a man, and this is the body of Osiris, who was murdered and torn by his enemies, but it is also the body of each one of her own murdered sons. So, because she suffered all, she is kind to all and welcomes all, but mostly women who are hurt and lonely, and mothers whose sons have died or been taken from them. And because she was a great Queen she does not ask for offerings; she is not a taker, but a giver.

  The girls on the steps sighed and wriggled and wondered what it was like to be a great queen. And one of them thought for a moment about a baby she’d had, only they’d taken him away, and what could she have done with him anyway. And Lalage said her prayer to Cleopatra-Isis, Star of the Sea, Looser of Prisoners, Strength of the Weak, Justice that is also Mercy, and asked to become a great dancer. It was more of a life if you were a dancer too; she practised now, an hour or two every day.

  She had been coming now for years, and she knew that the goddess turned her luck for her, often. Some girls were always getting caught. But she—just that one time, and then it was all right in the end. Well, that was luck. If she had a good evening, she knew who to thank for it. When other girls were knocked about and she not. Or that nice old Senator who only wanted to talk about what he’d suffered to someone who’d stay awake and look like they weren’t bored stiff: who always called her ‘my child’ and was ever so sweet really. And she’d found out a lot about Rome that way, and those emperors. That was luck, too. Only then he died, poor old dear, he hadn’t ever really got over having his sons killed under that Gaius Caesar. She wished she could tell him about Isis, only he was a man. Funny, having a family; it meant—new ways you could be hurt.