‘One should always know when to stop asking questions,’ Crispus said uneasily.
‘Then someone else will ask the questions, as Socrates said they would after he was dead. That’s in the Apology, I know. Killing him didn’t stop his kind of questions being asked, because they were half in people’s minds already. Because the things that were happening to people in Greece were making them ask that sort of question!’ Suddenly Beric realised that after all he had got something out of his Greek history lessons. ‘Christianity is only asking another set of questions—because things are different now, so they must be different questions, mustn’t they?—and killing all the Christians in Rome won’t stop their kind of questions being asked, either!’
‘But if all questions were allowed, nothing would be safe. We can question too much, just as we can eat and drink too much—or be too happy. We must not try to be gods. All the legends of the gods—not that one believes them, of course, but they were made up for our guidance by wise men—tell us that there are certain things which must not be touched or questioned or it will be the worse for everyone. We can ask questions about practical matters and about metaphysics, but if we start questioning the principles on which society is founded, then—then … My dear Beric, I am arguing with you as if you were my intellectual equal! Wait till you are my age. You will realise then the danger of these enthusiasms. These plausible enthusiasms. I wish your tutor had never let you read Plato; he is always a disturbing author. But I must say I never thought you were taking him in! When we are in the country you will have plenty of other things to think about. Hunting. Yes, nothing like a good day’s hunting to clear one’s head of ideas. You will enjoy hunting again, won’t you?’
‘Not if I know my friends here are being knocked about.’
‘What nonsense, Beric! You know quite well that I am not having the slaves whipped merely to amuse myself! I have to save them from this wretched business—in spite of themselves.’
‘Save them from Christianity?’
‘Yes, yes, quite.’
‘Or save them from Tigellinus?’
‘You seem to be implying that I might condone the Christianity if it was not officially condemned. But of course—naturally!—I should do nothing of the kind. No. In any case, they are my property, and I shall act as I think best, both for myself and for them.’
‘By thrashing them till they scream?’
‘My dear boy, you talk as if I did it myself!’
‘Well, it isn’t very different, is it—for them?’
‘It is an unfortunate necessity. The whole institution of slavery is bound to involve a certain amount of—well, possibly injustice. But only in a material sense. I grant you that in theory the essence of a slave’s soul may be as fine as his master’s; if so, he can disregard his bodily circumstances.’
‘I don’t think anyone can quite disregard being whipped by Felix. I couldn’t begin to myself.’
‘I wish I hadn’t sent you to see it. You took it quite the wrong way!’
‘It would have happened just the same if I hadn’t seen it. You know, I obeyed you. I didn’t talk to them—only a word or two to Argas the second time. But I’m going to talk to them now.’
It was quite obviously no use forbidding Caradoc’s son to do what he had said in that tone he was going to do. ‘If you insist on doing anything so foolish,’ Crispus said, ‘at least remember that anything you say will be overheard. And that rewards will no doubt be offered to informers later on.’
‘Thank you for letting me do it!’ said Beric embarrassingly grateful. ‘Can I have some money to get some of the others out of prison?’
‘I can’t have you going to that prison and—and getting involved,’ said Crispus, ‘getting your name taken for all I know!’
‘Then I’ll give the money to someone else. If you’ll let me have it.’
‘Oh, Beric, I wish you were a little older! This is all intolerably dangerous. Now, listen to me carefully. You know you are not a citizen. That means that you have no legal rights. If you were arrested there would be nothing to stop your being tortured or killed in any foul manner they chose to devise. I take it you are not being stupid enough to suppose that being the son of a king makes any difference. Your father was an enemy of Rome; your survival was the merest accident of the Imperial clemency. Your present position is equally the accident of my affection, and that again is partly due to the accident that my only son died as an infant—with his mother. You have taken advantage of these accidents. No. I am not blaming you, Beric, merely stating facts. But you have less rights—less legal existence—than if you were actually my property.’
Beric slipped over and knelt beside him. ‘I always supposed myself to be—in a way—yours—’
‘Then surely you might have realised how deeply—all this—would go against my wishes?’
‘It was part of something else. Oh, I’ve got into a tangle. Two different kinds of good. It never said in the books that they could go against one another!’
‘Metaphysics was never your best subject, Beric. Perhaps one never appreciates it until after one has had experience of life. Now, attend to me. I have forbidden the slaves to have any more to do with—what we have been discussing. And I have enforced this prohibition. I would be perfectly within my rights to enforce it on you in the same way. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘However, I shall not do so. I shall merely leave it to your good sense.’ Beric dropped his head down on the couch; this made it difficult. Clearly, he ought to go half way to meet this kindness, this reasonableness. But—He had seen the slaves whipped. The community of which he had been one also demanded his loyalty. The sense of the prayer. Was this being led into temptation? ‘Well?’ asked Crispus.
‘The ones in prison,’ said Beric, sticking to that at least, ‘it’s only a matter of money—just two or three of them anyhow—’
‘You are not to go to the prison yourself. But I will let you have a reasonable sum. I think you had better take it at once. Then you will be able to start fresh tomorrow. We will go along to my room now and find it. And the wedding tomorrow too! Really, it is all most awkward and annoying.’ He got up and so did Beric. ‘It is quite bad enough, my mother insisting that she is not well enough to come to the wedding. She ought to have come. After all, Candidus is her side of the family! And my cousins fussing and flapping at me. And now you, Beric.’
Beric took the money over to Eunice’s. She was crying a little, having been to the house since Phaon’s whipping. She told Beric that Niger had been fetched, that she herself had got Euphemia out, and that they were holding Rhodon. On the whole they were making a practice of keeping at least one member of each community in the prison. So that pressure could be put immediately. And if the police thought they could get anything definite on a man or woman, then they were not released either. And some of the slaves had not been claimed. Nobody quite knew when the trials were to be. If at all. ‘We’ll keep the money,’ Eunice said, ‘it’s sure to be needed later on. Oh, it is good of you, Beric!’
‘The least I can do,’ Beric muttered, not wanting to stay.
‘Those poor boys!’ Eunice said, ‘and little Persis, not much older than my Phaon. I wonder when they’ll be able to come to a meeting again.’
‘You know what Crispus said about that, Eunice.’
‘Oh yes, I know,’ she answered, rubbing her eyes. ‘It was bound to come sooner or later. They’ll depend on you now, dear. We’ll keep up the meetings here and by and by, when Crispus isn’t so angry … Unless we’re all arrested again before that. But you’ll be able to come.’
‘I’ve got to be away from Rome for a bit, in the country.’
Eunice looked dismayed. ‘We’ll miss you,’ she said.
He was just going away, when Lalage came in from the street. ‘Beric!’ she said, and held up the lantern to see his face, then, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘He’s brought us in some mone
y,’ Eunice said, ‘isn’t that nice of him! But I say keep it till we need it worse.’
‘What we’re going to need,’ Lalage said, ‘won’t be money, but courage and clear feeling—faith, that is. And nobody to stay with us who wants to go. Do you want to go, Beric?’
He did not answer at once, but Eunice said, ‘What ever can you be thinking of, Lalage, to ask that? Hasn’t he just brought us all this money?’
‘Money’s easy. If you can come by it at all. Eunice thinks it’s wonderful, all those silver pieces, because she only makes a little herself, don’t you, old duck? But I’ve done enough dancing in good houses to know about money. It was easy, wasn’t it, Beric?’
‘Yes,’ he said gloomily, ‘I suppose it was easy.’ She knew too much about it! ‘Easier than being whipped. But you won’t ever allow anything to be easy, will you, Lalage?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I like to know where I am. When the Kingdom comes it will be easy. Till then we have Jesus and one another. But everything else is against us.’
He spoke almost enviously. ‘You’re sticking it, Lalage.’
‘Of course. I’ve nothing else that’s worthwhile. That’s where the dirt scores.’
‘But supposing it gets stopped. Tigellinus intends to wipe it out completely, and he’s got the power, you know he has.’
‘Power to do that? Oh no! All he can do is torture us and kill us. He might catch every Christian in Rome and do that, but all the same the Kingdom would come. Ideas are like ships’ rats, Beric. At the last moment of the last agony they’ll jump from one mind to another. It’s quite astonishing how that happens. It was what happened between Stephen and Paul. And somebody has to be Stephen. It was what happened between Jesus and all of us. So, if we die, we are that much in His image. That is, if we die His way.’ And she made the sign on herself.
‘How?’
‘Fighting against the Thing and forgiving the people. Difficult, isn’t it? Poor Beric! But you’ll see for yourself. On us, I hope.’
‘Oh, Lalage!’ He caught her hands. ‘Don’t go and get killed on purpose!’
‘I don’t want to die,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to be alive if one’s a Christian. Isn’t it, Eunice? But if I’m needed to die, I shall. Now, Beric, go along. I’ve got to talk over some things with Eunice and I don’t want anyone outside us to hear.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked, hurt.
‘I don’t want you to hear anything that later on you might find it awkward to have heard. If you are still with us, but not of us.’
‘I asked to be baptised last night.’
‘And we’re not baptising you today. Never mind, Beric. If you’re to be part of it, your time will come.’
Beric went out, dismissed. Although he had wanted to go before Lalage came in, yet, when she told him to, he had wanted to stay. What had she seen wrong with him? Was it his talk with Crispus?—or was it killing Sotion? There had been so much to do and think about since then that he had hardly bothered about it, but now he began to remember that the man had cried for mercy, had invoked a name which should have made Beric very unwilling to murder. Nobody else knew that? But oughtn’t he to confess, to ask forgiveness? Christians don’t kill. But he could only get forgiveness from the others. From God through the others. Not from Sotion. Sotion was dead, finished, over, would never come to the feet-washing again. Having been alive, was dead. Was Sotion a ghost? Ought he to do something about it? He began vaguely to think about rites of propitiation, he began to be rather frightened, though he didn’t quite know what of.
In the hot attics under the sloping roof tiles, the slaves who were the property of Flavius Crispus slept on straw mattresses or hay infrequently changed and scratchy blankets. Hermeias had a cubby-hole to himself, near his master, but the others were overcrowded now, because of the cousins’ household. That was particularly unpleasant in hot weather; it meant more quarrels, more of the constant heavy stench from other people’s bodies, more bugs and cockroaches in the dark and flies as soon as it was light, and never any real quiet. In summer the quarrels were worse over love affairs and sleeping by the windows, less over blankets and candle ends, though the latter were useful for vermin. The women in their attics quarrelled too and stole one another’s things rather more than the men, and screamed and cried more; but most of them were at the far end of the house, from considerations of convenience and morality.
The dining-room slaves had claimed a bit of attic for themselves with a partition of sticks and blankets. Lamprion, who was rather older than the others and an expert carver, had the best place, by the window, and a locked box where he kept his things. He had an understanding with one of the house boys, a sallow little Illyrian, and paid him mostly in dining-room food. Mikkos liked a girl when he could get one. The other dining-room boys were a Spaniard who spoke very bad Greek, a thief when he got the chance, and a Coan, not much older than Phaon, who was always seeing ghosts. The others had spent the last hour or so cross-questioning the Christians, but now Lamprion was bored and had gone to sleep. The three had got out of answering on the grounds that they had been forbidden to say anything about it and weren’t going to risk their skins again, but it was sometimes possible to ask a question sufficiently irritating to make one of them snap something back. Phaon was crying because Pistos, the Coan, had been teasing him so much. Argas was crying a little, too; he couldn’t get into any kind of tolerably comfortable position, and he was trying to begin forgiving his master, but could not make the necessary mental effort.
It was being a difficult readjustment for the Christians. Always before there had been this thing between them, this clean, live hope and practice; now the others had got hold of it, were asking these horrible questions, not because they wanted to know, but because they wanted to hurt. And it would be worse for Josias and Dapyx. In another moment Manasses meant to pull himself together, get up and go to them; he had warned them not to answer, but it might have been too hard for them. Sannio and Mikkos were both in a way rather sympathetic, but it wouldn’t do to be serious. However, they had got hold of some oil and rags to cover the cuts and stop them getting flies on them and drying sore; they had laughed at the Christians, of course, but had handled them kindly. Sannio saw that the water was finished and took the jug to get some more; if he could sneak some wine to mix with it, so much the better; the water tasted rather foul in summer, and wasn’t cold.
He felt his way down the ladder and into the kitchen. There was someone there: the Briton. Sannio said ‘Were you looking for anything sir?’ And then, ‘I’m getting some water for Argas, sir. I was wondering if there was any wine left to mix.’
‘Of course there is,’ said Beric, glad to find something practical he could do. He had come in and had wanted to go to bed and forget about everything, but nothing let him—not the porter’s face, turned to watch him: not Hermeias hurrying past him with a book in a shocked way: not a small occasional sobbing from the direction of Flavia’s room that must be Persis. That was what did it finally; he wanted to go and stop Persis from crying. But it was too near Flavia’s room; she might come out and find him and—she was marrying Aelius Candidus tomorrow. So he had gone off with his lamp towards the kitchen, wondering where the others were; he did not know exactly where they slept; he had been glad to see Sannio and, when Sannio suggested that he might like to see Argas, he agreed eagerly and climbed the ladder after him.
For a moment the sickening slave smell and heat of the attic choked him, and he could not see who was where, only that his coming had hushed them all, breaking off sentences or sobs. Then Sannio pulled his arm and pointed to Argas, lying on his face, naked, his back dabbed with the oily rags. But now, among the slaves, there was nothing Beric could say. He did not even like to touch any of the three for fear of hurting them more. He knelt beside Argas and patted his head, clumsily, asked if they were all right. Argas didn’t respond at all—silly fool, Sannio thought. Manasses said they were getting along; no, there was nothi
ng he could do for them, but it was very kind of him to have thought of it. He went away again.
He sat down on the kitchen table, feeling wretched, trying to think it out; the cockroaches on the floor rustled about their business, no remoter, really, than the slaves had been in their underworld. Presently Manasses climbed slowly and painfully down the ladder; Beric went over and asked where he was going. He answered, to see Josias and Dapyx, and later, when he was sure everyone was asleep, Persis. ‘Better not,’ said Beric. ‘If you’re caught going to her you might be whipped again.’
‘But I’m the deacon,’ Manasses said. ‘I must comfort her if I can. And you,’ he added suddenly.
‘Me? Why?’
‘You need it, don’t you, son? You’re alone. You haven’t got the sense of Jesus or the sense of the community, not like we have. And Argas didn’t answer you just now. I expect that was because if he’d said anything he’d have said too much. But it was hard on you when you wanted to help.’
‘You’re a queer sort of bird, Manasses, thinking about me just now?’
‘But I’m the deacon,’ Manasses said again. ‘That means I’m the servant of you all, or it doesn’t mean anything. It means trying to be like Jesus, and I don’t often get the chance to be.’
‘Will you at least let me go and see Persis for you?’
Manasses hesitated, at last said, ‘Yes. Tell her I sent you. If you don’t mind saying that.’
So, after waiting another hour or two, reading, Beric went up towards the room where Flavia was lying in her last maiden sleep. He saw by the light of his lamp that Persis had cried herself out and now her eyes were shut, her hair tangled and plastered down on to her sticky cheeks. He wondered whether to wake her, but suddenly she stirred, saw him and cowered. He made the sign, and almost immediately she stopped thinking he was going to rape her and made the sign back. ‘Manasses sent me,’ he whispered and sat down beside her on the mattress.
The Blood of the Martyrs Page 24
