The Blood of the Martyrs

by Naomi Mitchison

  Eprius had lived an ordinary life. He came from the poorest citizen class and he thought it a bit of luck getting into the City Guards; he was proud of his Detachment. He’d had enough money for drink and women; sometimes he’d gambled away half his pay, but he won almost as often as he lost. He’d taken part in official religious ceremonies with a certain feeling of awe and satisfaction; on private matters he had consulted an astrologer. He had not heard of the Christians until the time of the fire. When it came out that they were to be publicly disposed of at the Games in the Circus Maximus, he thought it was only just and right; that was where they’d started the fire. He’d been on sentry duty at one of the prisons and had been one of the squad detailed to take a batch of them across Rome to the Circus. So he was beside them, close to them for quite a bit. And instead of being real criminals, the kind it was a pleasure to poke a spear into the behind of, they were a lot of decent-looking old women, and children even, and ordinary folk. That made several of the guards feel bad, as if they’d been cheated, though they didn’t quite know what of. And as for Eprius himself, the lid had been put properly on it when one of the women turned and thanked him. As if she’d meant it. And you couldn’t get out of it by saying they were mad. She just wasn’t mad. Or if she was then everyone was!

  ‘So later on that afternoon it was their turn,’ Eprius said, his voice getting more and more choked, ‘and we knew because of the row the beasts were making. And then the row stopped. And I couldn’t speak. Dumb I went. Like I’d been hit on the head. And when the bugle went for fall-out, I couldn’t seem to want to go anywhere nor do anything. Some of my mates, they wanted a drink bad. But I wanted something more and I says to myself, what? But there wasn’t a thing I could do then, not a thing. Oh friends, you don’t know what it was like those next days. You can’t ever know. I kept on—dreaming. You see friends, before, when I’d been on prison duty, I’d not taken notice and I’d knocked one or two about that happened to be in my way, and then in the street— But it wasn’t only me. Friends, you’re all one Church here and what happens to all happens to each of you in a manner of speaking. And it’s all my Detachment I keep on thinking about: what we did to them, among us. To the girls and all. Not giving it a thought. And now—now—it’s burning me—’

  ‘You shall be cooled in the water that washes away sin,’ Phaon said. ‘And if any of your mates get to feeling the same—later on, maybe—you’ll know what to do about it.’

  Eprius, on his knees, caught at the edge of young Phaon’s tunic. ‘Oh, we did sin bad! And then they called us brothers. She did, that woman with the bandage round her head. I don’t see how what we did gets forgiven.’

  ‘You don’t know how,’ said Phaon, ‘but you do know why. She forgave you. We forgive you. Don’t we do that, brothers and sisters?’

  ‘In Jesus’ name, yes,’ said Phineas, and the others repeated it, some of them coming over to Eprius and touching him, and he, looking from face to face, began to believe it. Then one after the other questioned him, to see that he understood the Way of Life and the meaning of prayer and the intention of fasting and why the Christ had died.

  Felicio listened and was suddenly aware that it was his own turn. He took a step or two, hesitating, into the middle of the group. What was there to be afraid of? He knew them all. But it wasn’t that. It was something beyond any of them. Because of which, you had to go down on your knees in a need to worship stronger than any other of the body’s needs. What was it?—oh, let me catch it, let it be plain, why do I want the Will of the universe to be done more than my own will? It is not that I want a father or a master—nothing as simple as that—not merely that I am lonely, I was that before—not merely that our world is obviously not just a chance scattering together of particles that may by chance equally be scattered apart—it is behind all that and yet nearer, yet in me, oh, I have nearly found it— ‘Brother,’ said Niger, ‘don’t you be afraid now. Just you speak to us.’

  And he must speak. He must leave whatever it was un-caught, perhaps because it was uncatchable. Yes, he was on his knees and they were all round. ‘Brothers and sisters,’ he said, ‘I thought I could live without this. Forgive me.’

  Eunice kept on thinking of others who’d come for their baptism, most of all young Argas. He was a sweet boy, the nicest of all maybe. But now they’d decided it was safest not to baptise in Tiber. You’d got to take some risks, agreed, but this wasn’t one of the necessary ones. It would have meant half the night, getting far enough beyond the city to be certain you were out of sight; that wasn’t fair on the slaves who’d have to be back or they’d catch it. Besides, you’d got to pass out of the gate and that meant being seen by the guards, and you never quite knew— Well, there were some Churches that managed with a rainwater cistern; they were full now after the October rains and plenty of them all over Rome, but there wasn’t one near Eunice’s and you couldn’t use the well. But you could draw water from it, and so Eunice did, while the questioning went on; herself, she didn’t want to ask Felicio anything; she didn’t doubt about his being all right. Noumi came and helped her; it took a good few bucketsful to make much impression on the big kneading trough. How her arms and back had ached over that trough, to be sure, working methodically and evenly through the dough, every two or three days, according to what orders she was getting: good bread, Eunice’s, as good as any in Rome.

  The questioning was over now; the cold water, dark and swingy from the last pouring, three quarters filled the kneading trough. The young women moved away a little, into the farthest end of the room. The two who were standing surety, and the others, came to the trough; a naked man was no special treat to old Eunice now. Phaon stood, thinking about the confessions, and the sins which were to be wiped out by this. There was so much that he hadn’t experienced at all himself. Could he know enough about it to forgive? He’d never even slept with a woman, though he and Persis had held one another very closely and kindly that time in the pitch-dark cellar, waiting and wondering and trying to be brave. But sin? I’ve got that to come, he thought grimly, unless I’m very lucky. Unless by the help of Jesus I can keep single-hearted. And I don’t believe my life’s likely to be that easy. You might keep single-hearted if you lived in the middle of a desert, but in Rome—? I’m sure to be tempted soon and sometimes one doesn’t see it’s a temptation till too late. We’ve all got the capacity for making the wrong choice, for sin; that’s why it’s so exciting to be a Christian, and be aware of that capacity, and of what means to take so as to deal with it, and then it’s possible to be different—or if one fails, to get forgiveness. But they were waiting for him. He had now to become the channel between those two and their salvation.

  He signed to them to take their tunics off, and noticed casually, the hard, jutting body muscles on Eprius, and how he shivered all over from moment to moment. He took Eprius first; there was just room for him to kneel, crouching down in the cold water of the trough. He got into it as far as he could and Phaon took a jug and poured the water three times over his head; the man’s dark, rather curly hair straightened down into wet rats’ tails and he stayed very still and his eyes seemed to look at nothing. Felicio, watching him, thought, in a minute I too, am going to do this fantastic thing! I, too, am going to squat ludicrously in a trough of cold water like a boys’ game of forfeits. I shall have these words said over me by young Phaon, and all of us will understand them differently—. And now Eprius had been half lifted out by the others and stood on the floor smiling and dripping; someone was drying him with an end of blanket that had been hanging by the oven, helping him into his tunic again, surrounding him with brotherly help and friendship. And Phaon had signed for Felicio to step into the trough.

  On the edge of the water Felicio noticed a little dusty scum of flour. The sudden cold which he must not dissipate by any natural movement, stopped him from noticing what was happening for a moment. Then there was water on his head, cold again but not cold enough to get through to the racing thoug
hts in the brain underneath, tucked in there, sheltering itself behind the senses, only making human contact through them, never directly. And the rite was over, he had deliberately accepted danger and superstition, yes, but he had already weighed that up, had made up his mind, and now old Niger had him by the arm, was helping him out, looking no end happy, poor devil, smiling with those white teeth of his. Still wet, Felicio kissed him; it was the obvious thing to do.

  Then he and Eprius and Phaon were given bread to end their fast, and milk and a little honey, to show how sweet forgiveness and acceptance were. Everyone was talking a bit, feeling release and happiness. Then Eunice asked two of the men to help her empty the trough. It didn’t do to leave anything about—anything that might look queer. So, after lightening it by a few pailsful, they carried it out and poured the baptismal water away into the gutter and then tipped the trough up near the warmth of the oven, to dry out, ready for the next batch of dough.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ Megallis said abruptly, and stood up.

  Eunice went over to her and took her hand. ‘What does your man think of you going out so late at night, dear? Does he—know at all?’

  ‘He ought to know if he’s not daft,’ Megallis said.

  ‘But suppose he tried to stop you?’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Or—well, there’s the police.

  ‘He’d not do that again,’ Megallis answered, low and sombrely. ‘He’s never so much as asked me where I’m going. Keeps off it like. Sometimes he’ll try giving me a present, a comb, it might be, or some beads. Trying to get back to where we was. But it can’t be done, not now. Not unless he comes right over—to us—and I don’t see him doing that.’

  ‘Everything’s possible,’ Eunice said earnestly. ‘You must believe that, dear. I’ve been praying for him to see—oh, ever since. I do hope you’re praying too. And it might happen. Oh, how happy we’d all be if he did!’

  Megallis rubbed her eyes with her hand. ‘Oh well, I’ll pray. Yes, I’d be happy all right. I’d be that happy I wouldn’t know what to do. Well, good night all, and peace with you.’

  Niger stood up. ‘I’ll walk your way, sister.’

  ‘All right,’ said Felicio, ‘and then back to the house? I’ll be looking out for you by the door.’

  ‘You are a size, Niger!’ said Megallis, a bit more cheerfully. ‘I feel ever so safe with you!’

  ‘Peace, brothers and sisters,’ said Niger, and the two of them went out together.

  Then Phineas helped his wife and sister to wrap their veils thickly round themselves, and all three left. Then Mikkos got up. ‘Coming, young Phaon?’

  ‘In a minute,’ said the deacon, ‘you go on.’

  Sannio got up stiffly. ‘You’d better let me rub that knee of yours, son,’ Eunice said. ‘Just you come on over tomorrow.’ Mikkos, Sannio and Persis all said good night and peace, and went out.

  Phaon was still talking to Eprius, but at last the elder man said he must be going back to his barracks. ‘Are you happy now, brother?’ Phaon asked.

  ‘I am,’ said Eprius. ‘I feel like an honest man again. I’ll be back next week, that’s sure. Give me a blessing now.’ He knelt for Phaon’s blessing, then went out, steadily and joyfully. Eunice blew out one of the lamps; you couldn’t go wasting oil. Phaon picked up some breadcrumbs and ate them; he was rather hungry still. He drew a fish with his finger in the flour dust on the table between the new loaves. Felicio thought he must be going, but he didn’t seem to want to go. His hair was damp still; he rubbed his fingers through it. Anyone would have thought he’d been out in the rain, instead of—where he had been.

  Then there was a knock on the door, not their own special knock. All looked up, surprised, because it was so late now, and well, one didn’t know, these days. Phaon brushed his hand across the fish, rubbing it out. Eunice went to the door and saw who it was. ‘Why, come in!’ she said, and brought Nausiphanes over to the warm oven and the light of the one lamp. Nausiphanes said, ‘I watched the lot of you coming out. Lucky I’m not a police spy Eunice! Well, have you done it?’ He motioned with his head towards Felicio.

  ‘It is done,’ Feliocio said, ‘I am a Christian now, for all my life.’

  Nausiphanes said nothing for a time, then, ‘I meant never to speak to you again. That’s stupid perhaps. However great an intellectual disappointment may have been, there should still be the possibility of friendship. And so you have gone through this rite, Felicio. Do you feel different now?’

  It was difficult to answer. Difficult to get back into this other world. Felicio made an attempt to regard himself scientifically, but somehow could not get that focus. Phaon said, ‘It is not always the one who is changed that sees the change clearest, Nausiphanes.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Nausiphanes, ‘I want to know what Felicio himself thinks.’

  Felicio could only be truthful. He said, ‘No, I don’t feel changed. Eprius, the guard who was baptised with me was, I think. But—if anything sudden did happen to me, if it wasn’t just slowly getting to think that the whole thing was too good to be out of, then the change came at the moment that Beric was killed.’

  None of them spoke for a little. Nausiphanes sat down besides the oven, stretching out his cold feet in cheap sandals towards the warmth that remained in the bricks. At last he said, ‘And you others—do you accept that?’

  ‘There’s no holding nor binding the Spirit,’ Eunice said. ‘It’s always coming unexpected, from behind the outside look of things, if you see what I mean, Nausiphanes.’

  ‘Phaon?’

  ‘It’s not magic, our baptism; we don’t any of us suppose it to be that. It’s a sign. It’s the accepting of a kind of question and answer, a new kind. It’s difficult to find words, Nausiphanes, though I’ll need to find them sooner or later.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s too soon for any words,’ Felicio said. ‘We can’t just explain the thing which we are in the middle of experiencing. Words come later.’

  ‘Whatever else there is going to be in the world,’ Phaon said, ‘this will have happened.’

  Again nobody spoke for a time. Niger will be waiting, Felicio thought, my new brother. And when he sees me he will feel suddenly happy. I have done that at least. ‘If I thought it was you Christians,’ Nausiphanes said, abruptly yet slowly, ‘who could break the power and rule of Rome, I might think differently of you. But it is an irrational power and rule; it is the Platonic State gone bad—as everything does when it comes to Rome. How can it be attacked except by reason?’

  ‘People don’t listen to reason,’ Felicio said. ‘That has been tried. They aren’t made that way—not yet. We don’t understand our own minds; only we know they do not work predictably, as machines work.’

  ‘If only they did!’ Nausiphanes cried out, suddenly so tired of arguing all the year round in the streets of a great city, with fools.

  ‘Then there’d be no need for us to pray,’ Eunice said.

  ‘We’ve all got to go the best way we can,’ Phaon said, troubled. ‘But if we can get help, like mother and Felicio and I have got it—’

  ‘Yes?’ asked Nausiphanes.

  ‘We can bear pain and death better,’ Felicio answered for Phaon.

  ‘And somehow we don’t get so tired,’ Eunice said. She’d had a long day of it, what with the kneading and the baking and the customers, and the housework, and the meeting at the end of it.

  And her son had fasted for two days, but he didn’t show a thing! And there was Felicio who could read and write and do regular accounts and all that, and he’d fasted too, but he didn’t show it either. And there’d been the others who were dead now after having been witnesses. And she did somehow like Nausiphanes, for all he wasn’t one of them. She looked round at the three men, still sitting there, still wanting to talk. If only you could be kind to everyone in the world like you could be to your neighbours. I’ll cut one of my cakes for them, she thought, I can’t really afford to I suppose, but there, what�
��s the use of saving up these days. And maybe I can make them a hot drink, too.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The Piso conspiracy, in which several of the people in this

  book were involved, gathered supporters and strength for

  another few months. Then it was betrayed by a freedman

  of Flavius Scaevinus, on the very night before the day

  fixed for Nero’s assassination. Those who were first

  denounced, including Scaevinus himself, and Lucan,

  were tortured into giving other names. Nero and his

  advisers insisted on a thorough purge. Seneca was ordered

  to kill himself, and did so. Others were exiled. It was the

  final breach between Nero and the old aristocracy.

  Tigellinus and his secret police were given a free

  hand. A year later Gallio, who had been