The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  Hiram of Silenus was as unsatisfactory as a witness as the secretary had predicted. He remembered little, and everything he said was hostile to the son’s claim. The brass scales had not been struck by the ingot of lead and so he was certain that the transaction he witnessed had not been an adoption. Acquaintances of the dead Ignatius testified that he had made no effort to put authority of any kind in the hands of the man who claimed to be his adopted son and that the position of the latter had seemed to be that of a beneficiary being supported while he developed his talents. Men in trade reported their impressions of the relationship, always unfavorable to Basil. Persis had not been allowed to attend and, when Quintus Annius did not appear, Basil’s hopes expired. The young Roman, it seemed, had preferred at the last to consult his own interests.

  Basil knew that his father had intended to summon a panel of witnesses and to acknowledge before them that he, Basil, was his adopted son. Because Ignatius had died too soon, it was now necessary to stand in court in front of a corrupt judge and listen to an unctuous statement of the decision.

  He reached the street, where the sun blazed down on the white walls of the great buildings. “This is a world of cruelty and dishonesty,” he said to himself, staring tautly at the crowds which passed along the Colonnade. “I, who should have been the richest man in Antioch, am now a slave. I own nothing and I have no rights in life.”

  Persis had dressed herself in the expectation of a rightful verdict. Over the intimate undergarment, which was white and sleeveless and of cool linen, she had draped her gayest palla. It was of Tyrian purple, the most prized of colors and the only one which aided her fading charms. Her hair had been curled and plaited and she wore a wreath of gold with precious stones in each leaf, the last gift of her uxorious husband.

  But when she trailed her long draperies across the marble floor of her room to meet Basil on his return, her attire had fallen into sad disorder. Her hair hung on her forehead in straight, damp wisps. Her face looked wrinkled and thin.

  “My poor boy, my poor boy!” she whispered, pressing her clenched knuckles to her lips. “What will become of you now? What—what will become of me?”

  “I would have been a failure, Mother, as the head of the family.” Basil paused and achieved a feeble smile. “I must not call you that again. The court has ruled I am not your son.”

  “You are my son!” She seemed to have taken fire at last. Her eyes lost their listlessness; she reached out to place a possessive hand on his shoulder. It was no more than a passing phase, and almost immediately she lapsed again into a mood of resignation. “He always resented you,” she said in a low voice, as though afraid of being heard by other ears. “I could see it in his face. He intended to do this from the very first. Prying into the books and bribing the servants!” Her eyes were now filled with tears of self-pity. “He hated me because I complained to my husband of him once. Basil, Basil, is there nothing you can do to help us both?”

  The dispossessed heir looked down at her with burning eyes. “Not immediately, Mother. Linus has won. He will be master here.” His hands were so tightly clenched at his sides that he could feel the nails cut into his skin. “But I haven’t given up hope, Mother. I am going to fight him. There is still one chance. I shall go on fighting him if—if they kill me for it!”

  Persis was weeping loudly now. “Oh, why did my husband leave things like this? He was so careful about everything else. Ignatius, come back to your distracted wife and the son who has been robbed of his rights, and tell us what we should do!”

  Basil was conscious of eyes on his back as he descended the stairs to the main floor and of anxious faces peering at him from around corners and out of darkened doorways. The silence of intense fear hung over the slave quarters. Castor met him in the lower hall, resentment in every line of his squat figure.

  “He has come, stamping on his heels as though he owned everything,” he said. “It was different once! He would come to me then and whisper out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Help me in this, Castor,’ or ‘Get me those papers which came from the warehouses today when my brother is through with them.’ He was like a cat with butter on his paws. When he came in just now, he stared at me and gave that grunt of his. ‘You will be taking my orders, O once mighty Castor,’ he said. ‘Put away that whip because I am going to rule by the bastinado. How sensitive are the soles of your feet, my Castor?’ ” The major-domo stopped abruptly, as though realizing the danger to which he might be exposing himself with his frankness. He nodded to Basil in as friendly a manner as he dared assume. “You are wanted at once.”

  The new head of the gens was sitting in his brother’s chair when the dispossessed heir entered the circular room. His head, which had once been covered with a thatch of tight-curling reddish hair, had been shaved as a sign of mourning, and it had something of the look of a ripe squash. Because of the heat of the day he had drawn the skirt of his tunic up around his hips, and his fat bare legs were spread out in front of him. There was a triumphant and malicious glitter in his pinkish-red eyes.

  “You have been sold,” he announced. “To Sosthene of Tarsus, the silversmith.”

  Basil had been expecting some such announcement and he was not much disturbed. Being sent back to the Ward of the Trades might be better than remaining here. He could detect sounds of activity in the room back of him, which the secretary occupied. “Quintus has lost no time in changing sides,” he thought. “I wish him joy of his new master.” He was fully aware, nevertheless, that the fault did not rest on the shoulders of that capable young Roman but on his own.

  “This knack of yours”—there was a slighting edge to the voice of Linus —“gave you some small value. I drove as good a bargain as I could, but in spite of that I got little enough for you. You will go to your master at once. I don’t want you here a moment longer than is necessary, so be on your way, my once proud Ambrose, son of the laziest seller of pens in all Antioch.”

  “The Romans would crucify me if I killed him now,” said Basil to himself. “I must swallow everything he says—and wait.”

  “You understand, don’t you, that you have no possessions now? Take nothing with you but the clothes you wear. I would strip you to the skin and send you on your way in sackcloth, but if I did there would be people to find fault with me. The tools you used and the trinkets you made are no longer yours. They belong here. They have been collected and put away.”

  “They are mine!” Basil looked up at the new master of the household for the first time. “I know something of the law and I can prove——”

  Linus threw back his head and let out a loud guffaw. “So you want more of the law, do you? More of Marius Antonius? You stupid ox, get yourself gone before I invoke the law myself. A slave has no rights in a Roman court. I think your stupidity exceeds your pride.” He raised one broad sleeve of his tunic and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “I give you a word of warning. You are not to see any members of this family. Most particularly, you are not to talk to the lady Persis. You must not communicate with her in any way. Is that clear in your mind, slave? If you come here on any excuse, I shall have you beaten and driven away like a thief!”

  BOOK ONE

  CHAPTER I

  1

  FOR TWO YEARS the Great Colonnade, with its four rows of pillars like Roman soldiers on parade, had cut Basil off from everything that seemed worth while in life. He lived in the Street of the Silversmiths, which was narrow and turgid and filled at all hours with chaffering and expostulation. Here he sat at a rear window, in a sweltering hole under the roof, working through the hours of day and often into the night, with his hammers and chasing tools, his pots of wax and his soldering wicks. He was subject to the sullen humors of his master, who was called Sosthene of Tarsus, and the tinderlike temper of his mistress, who kept him under pressure to produce more and more.

  From his window he could see the tops of the Colonnade columns and even a segment of parapet that he believed to be part of the house
, once the property of Ignatius and now rightfully his.

  Sosthene was small and black and at his trade he was quick and skillful. In the beginning he had been helpful. He would watch Basil at work and then suddenly he would shake his head and take the tools out of the boy’s hands.

  “No, no!” he would say with a rising intonation that made his voice seem to screech. “Not that way. By Zeus, by Apollo, by Pan! By Men! By all the gods! See, stupid one. Do it thus. And thus.”

  In spite of his great skill with the tools, the little man had no sense of beauty, and what he produced was dull and uninspired. It brought small prices in the shop below. The results were different when Basil had learned the tricks of the trade, for then everything he did glowed with beauty. Using the sketches he had made on the aliyyah, he produced busts and figurines that began to satisfy him in an increasing degree; but never completely, for he remained fiercely self-critical. They pleased the customers of the shop. Everything he made was sold, quickly and at good prices.

  He never went out. This was due to a disinclination to meet old friends while wearing the cloth of servitude, but as time went on a more tangible reason had developed for remaining out of sight. He realized that his safety depended on not being seen. Linus knew that public opinion had been against him and that all Antioch was convinced he had robbed his brother’s rightful heir. It required no special knowledge of the way that evil mind worked to be sure he would never be at rest as long as Basil remained a reproach to his possession.

  Linus was not only increasing the wealth Ignatius had left but he was already a force in politics. He was hand in glove with the Roman authorities. It was being told around that he had great plans; that he was buying ships and organizing more and more camel trains; that he was setting up his personal agents everywhere. He would soon be in a position to enforce his desires.

  Basil lived in fear of Linus from the day that a note reached him in the Street of the Silversmiths. A stranger slipped it into the hand of Agnes, the small Jewish girl, a slave like himself, who did such household work as was needed. The stranger had said in a hasty whisper, “Put this into the hand of Basil, son of Ignatius.” Agnes had willingly risked the beating she would have received had her part in the transaction become known. She was a tiny wisp of a girl, flat-chested and thin, with unnatural spots of color in her cheeks. She waited until the time came to sweep out his room at the end of the working day. It was dark then and Basil was sitting at the open window. He was in a mood of the deepest dejection and paid no attention to her until she said in a whisper, holding out her broom of sturdy willow withes, “See, it is for you.”

  A piece of parchment was stuck in the osiers. He reached down quickly and took it. It proved to be an unsigned note, written in Koine, and in an unfamiliar hand.

  The head of the usurper lies uneasy on the pillow and he dreams of means to rid himself of the one he has wronged. Go not out on the streets. Have no speech with strangers. You will not be safe as long as you remain in Antioch.

  Basil did not know who had sent him the warning. He was certain it had not come from his adopted mother. It was reported that her health was increasingly bad and, in any event, she lacked the energy for a step of such daring. He concluded finally that the note had come from Quintus Annius, who would be in the best position to know the designs of Linus. Perhaps the young Roman’s conscience had prompted him to this one effort in his behalf. Whatever the motive had been, Basil believed the danger to be real. If he desired to live (sometimes he did not care), he must find some means of getting away.

  Sosthene’s wife brought him his meals. She was called Eulalia, which means fair of speech and was, therefore, the least suitable of all names for the double-tongued woman who bore it. She was the real head of the household, ruling her husband as rigidly as she did the two slaves. She never failed to be in the shop when a customer called, and it required an iron will to get away from her without making a purchase. All money went immediately into her hands, and it was one of the jokes in the Ward of the Trades that Sosthene never had as much as a half shekel or even a mite in his possession from one year’s end to another.

  There were two meals in this household of extreme frugality, the first at ten in the morning, the second at five in the evening. Eulalia would carry a battered tray up to Basil to save the time he would waste in walking up and down the stairs that were on the outside of the house. She would stand by and watch while he finished his meal, her eyes following each morsel of food from the dish to his mouth as though begrudging it. The fare was always of the plainest kind. Meat was provided twice a week only, and the usual dishes were vegetables, cheese, fruit, and coarse black bread. The wine was thin and sour, and of this he was allowed no more in a week than three and a half pints.

  “The reward of diligence,” she would invariably say as she picked up the tray. “Such bounteous meals will be forthcoming only if you stay close to your work.”

  On the day after the receipt of the warning he stopped her with a question before she reached the door with the empty tray.

  “Do you sell all the things I make?”

  Eulalia had stretched out an arm, so thin and withered that it resembled the stalk of a sunflower when the frosts are ready to cut it down, to open the door. She drew back at once.

  “Is it concern of yours?” she demanded harshly.

  Basil nodded. He had never been afraid of her and had won on that account a grudging measure of respect. “It is concern of mine. Would you like to make much more money out of the work I do?” He waited a moment before adding, “There is a way.”

  She placed the tray on the floor with a jolt that spilled what was left of the goat’s milk, and walked back to confront him, hands on hips, her black eyes fixed as implacably on his as those of a hawk that sights below the slow beating of a victim’s wings.

  “What do you mean by that?” she demanded. “You are a slave. Everything you do belongs to us—to me, because I am the holder of the purse. Have you not been doing your best work? Is that what you are telling me?”

  Basil shook his head. “No. I do the best I can. Always.” He held out his hands, palms turned upward. They had changed from the soft white of the easy days when slaves had tended him, laving them with great care and rubbing them with costly unguents. They were now soiled with acids and callused from continuous work. He was finding it impossible to remove the grime with the niggardly fragment of soap allowed him. “There is so much these hands must learn. If I had the means of instruction, I am sure I could produce work such as has never before been seen in Antioch. Do you believe me? If not, ask the rich men to whom you are selling what I make now. They will open your eyes.” He let his hands drop to his lap. “I can learn no more here. If I stay, I shall not be capable of doing much better than I do now.”

  “Your master shows you everything——” she began.

  Basil brushed aside the suggestion of learning more from Sosthene of Tarsus. “He cannot show me the things I must know. I have already passed beyond him. He knows it, and so do you, as well as I do. Send me to one of the great silversmiths in Athens or Rome. Make an agreement with me that within a certain period I am to be a free man but that for as long as I live I am to pay you a share, a large share, of everything I earn. This I promise you: I will make you rich beyond any dream of wealth you may have in your head at this moment.”

  It was clear from the expression on the passionately acquisitive face of the woman that she grasped the possibilities in his proposal. She breathed heavily as she thought it over. But in the end she shook her head, bitterly reluctant to give up such a prospect, but too convinced of the drawbacks to consent.

  “Such a risk!” she cried. “If we let you go, we might never see you again. No, no, no! How can I tell what schemes you are hatching in that mind of yours? You are a clever one. You are as sly as a fox. You are trying to get away, that is all. I can read things in your face. No, no, no! I must not listen to your schemes.” It was clear she was wo
rking herself up into one of her rages over her inability to accept an idea that promised such rich rewards. “We are not getting good prices for what we sell. You may think so, but it is not true.” She shook her head at him, fiercely, angrily. “I shall see to it, slave, that we do better out of you from now on. It is clear to me you have not been doing your best. There will be no shirking. You must get these notions out of your head or I will have my husband beat them out of you.” She laughed shrilly. “You want to go to Rome, do you? Let me tell you, they know how to treat presumptuous slaves in Rome. They crucify them. They nail them to the cross upside down.”

  She whisked up the tray with an angry motion, spilling the milk on the floor, and stamped out.

  Never in the two years that he had existed in the house of Sosthene had the bitter shrew who ruled it been unable to carry his meals to him. Yet it came about that the very day after this talk she was visited by a malady which chained her to her bed. The tray in the evening had to be taken up by Agnes. The latter came in proudly, carrying it above her head. She began to talk in cautious tones as soon as the food had been deposited on the workbench beside him.

  “I think the mistress is possessed of a new devil, a ruah ra’ah,” she said. “She tosses about and moans and I think her voice is different. Perhaps it is the ruah ra’ah which talks. Of course she has always had a devil in her. It may be the same one and that it is getting worse.” She was silent for a moment and watched him as he munched on a piece of goat’s-milk cheese. “Do you want to know what I think about this devil? I think she walked into the shadow of the moon under an acacia tree. That is where the ruah ra’ah always stays. As soon as she came there, the devil jumped right down her throat. If it stays inside her, she will be more cruel to us than ever.”

  Basil was more interested in her talk, he found, than in the food. He pushed the tray, which still contained most of his supper, to one side.