The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  “Oh, Basil, aren’t you hungry at all?” cried Agnes. She was on the point of tears because of his lack of appetite. “You must eat more. You will become ill, like me, if you don’t. And you know what you leave tonight will be sent up to you tomorrow, and it will be stale then and tasteless. I took such pains with your supper tonight!”

  He had been watching her with pity, noticing the hollows under her cheekbones and her unhealthy flush. She coughed continuously. To please her, he began to eat again.

  “Basil,” said the girl, hovering over him with a solicitude which was doubly unselfish in one so clearly in need of help herself, “you are very unhappy. I cry whenever I think of you. My poor Basil! I want to help you. And I can, if you will listen to me.” She shook her head with emphasis and then asked a question. “Do you know anything about angels?”

  “No,” he answered. “It is a new word. What does it mean?”

  “I didn’t think you knew. You are not a Jew. You are a Greek, and the Greeks know nothing of the truth.” She said this as a matter of course and with no intent to show superiority. “My father and mother were so poor they had to sell me as a slave. They were unhappy about it and my mother wept all the time before I left; but there would have been no food for the little brothers if they had not sold me. My mother told me many things I must always remember. She said I must never forget I am of the Jewish race and that the children of Israel are the chosen people of the great Jehovah. And she told me all about the angels.” She paused to press a stalk of onion into his hand. It was crisp and young and undoubtedly she had experienced some difficulty in keeping it for him. “My mother told me that angels are wonderful beings who sit beside the great Jehovah and do His bidding. She said she had seen them herself. They have beautiful faces and they have wings to carry them back and forth between heaven and earth. When I was leaving, she began to weep harder than ever and she said, ‘My poor little girl, always remember that Mefathiel is the angel to whom slaves pray. He is the Opener of Doors.’ ”

  Everything Basil had heard about the Jewish people and their strange faith had interested him, but this talk about angels transcended everything he had been told before. If there was only one God, as the Jews said, it was easy to think that He would need an army of assistants to carry out His orders. Basil found himself ready to accept the existence of these beautiful, winged creatures.

  “Agnes, there are doors which must be opened for me,” he said earnestly. “Do you think your Mefathiel would help me?”

  “Oh yes. Of course he would help you. He can open prisons. He can break down the sides of mountains. If you pray to him and he listens, he will open any door you want. Even”—she looked back at the entrance to the room before finishing—“even the door of this house.”

  Basil said to her: “Agnes, I shall pray to Mefathiel every night. Perhaps there are others who could help me also. Is there an angel of memory?”

  She nodded quickly, delighted that she was able to be of help to him. “Yes, that is Zachriel. He is a very great angel, because if people did not remember they would not remain true to the one God. The most important thing of all is to remember God and the Laws, and so Zachriel sits close to Jehovah. My mother said he is always at God’s right hand.”

  “Perhaps he would be too busy to listen if I prayed to him.”

  There seemed to be a doubt in her mind on this point. “He is a very busy angel,” she conceded. “But you can try.”

  “You had better go now,” he said, aware that time had been passing quickly. “The master’s wife will be angry because we have been talking.”

  “She will twist my arm to make me tell her what was said. But I won’t!” The child gave her head a defiant toss. “She has done it often, but I have never given in. She won’t get anything out of me.”

  That night, following the instructions the slave girl had given him before leaving, Basil went to the open window and sank down on his knees. He turned his eyes in the direction of the stars.

  “O Mefathiel,” he said, “I have no right to speak to you because you are an angel of the Jews and I am not a Jew. I am Greek. Because I am Greek you may not hear my voice. But if you do hear me, most kind of angels, I want to tell you that a door must be opened for me if I am not to fall into the hands of my worst enemy. The door must be opened for me at once or it will be too late. If you look down and see me as I am, you will think me unworthy of your help. But remember this, O Mefathiel: I am a slave and I wear the clothes in which I came two years ago. I have worn nothing else since, and you will think me no better than a beggar at the city gate. Am I worth saving? you may ask, O generous Opener of Doors. I do not know. All I can tell you is that I have a certain gift for making things with my hands, and this I promise: If the doors of my prison swing open, I shall work very hard and I shall always strive to keep this gift from tarnish.

  “And thou, O Zachriel,” he went on, “of whose greatness I have just been told, do this much for a man who has never prayed to thee before. Never let me forget, Angel of Memory, those who have been kind to me and those who have taken great risks to be of help when I needed help. This I beg of you, as I do not want to be guilty of ingratitude, which is a great fault but a very easy one to commit.”

  The rest of his prayer was delivered with an intensity that told how deeply he felt.

  “I beg that my memory will remain so clear that I shall forget none of the wrongs which have been done me. Keep the thought of my misfortunes so fresh in my mind that I may strive to undo the ill that has been done to me and to those who depended on me. Let my memory feed my resolution to be avenged on my enemies when the right day comes. This I beg of thee, Zachriel, Angel of Memory.”

  2

  It was three nights later. Sosthene and his wife had climbed to their tiny rooftop, where a hint of breeze, tainted with the smells of the city, reached them over the huddle of parapets. It was so dark when the caller came, asking for the master of the house, that Agnes could see nothing of him, save that he was old and had a very long beard.

  “You want the master?” she repeated. “Is it a matter to be talked over with him?”

  “Yes. It is a matter to be talked over.”

  “Is there, perhaps, something to be decided?”

  The visitor smiled, amused at her insistence. “There is something to be decided.”

  “Then,” declared the girl, “I had better ask the mistress to come down too. When there is something to be decided, she does the deciding.”

  The old man laughed at this and patted her head. “You are bright, my child. I can see you will be one to do the deciding yourself when you grow up and become a woman.”

  Agnes shook her head and sighed. “Oh no. I am not well and I am not going to grow up.”

  The visitor moved closer to her so that he could see her face by the light of the small lamp she was carrying. He studied her carefully and with an air as sad as her own. “It is true, my child, that you are not well,” he said. “You will not get better if you continue to live in a place as close and hot as this. You need much fresh air and rest and good food. And you need loving care, my good little child.”

  Agnes answered simply and without any intention of arousing his sympathies further, “I am a slave. A slave does not have these things. I must live here with my master and mistress.”

  The old man’s manner became even more depressed. “In this life there are many things which are wrong, and of them, I believe, slavery is the worst. Someday, my child, there will be a great change in the world. A shining figure will come down out of the sky and after that there will be no more wickedness or slavery or bodily ills. I hope it will come to pass soon; even in time to save you from—from all the troubles I foresee.”

  Eulalia led the way down the outside stairs, followed by a grumbling Sosthene. “Well, and what is it you want?” she demanded. “Is there something you wish to buy?”

  The visitor hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally. “I think I may tell you
there is something I want to buy. But we must not discuss it here. I feel there are ears in the darkness and that curiosity presses about us as closely as the heat of the night.”

  “Come inside,” said Eulalia, all graciousness now that she saw the possibility of a sale.

  She led the way into the shop on the ground floor and lighted a lamp suspended from the ceiling. By the limited illumination thus afforded it could be seen that the visitor was well advanced in years. He had a kind and understanding eye but with enough of an air of resolution to make it clear that he was not one to be imposed upon. For his part, he gave a quick glance about the small shop, noting the cheapness of most of the things for sale, the oriental masks, the daggers and bronze swords, the incense lamps, the jewel boxes from the desert country. Then he allowed his eyes to rest on the owner and his wife, studying them with great care.

  “I must ask some questions,” he said. “You have in your household one Basil, a worker in silver and gold. I understand he made himself, without aid or suggestion, a figure of Athena, which was sold to the Greek banker Jabez, who is a collector of works of art. This is true?”

  Sosthene was on the point of answering, but his wife’s sharp elbow nudged him into silence. “Yes,” she said. “He is a slave and our property. He made the figure.”

  “And the silver vase with the head of Theseus in relief, which one of the magistrates in the city is fortunate enough to possess?”

  “That also was of his fashioning.”

  “And the plaque with moonstones, which a Jewish merchant bought from you as a gift for his wife?”

  Eulalia nodded. “He designed the plaque. Is there something you want him to make for you? We can promise that you will be more than satisfied.”

  The visitor continued his study of them, one hand smoothing the strands of his long silky beard. “It is not the work of his hands I desire to buy from you,” he said finally. “It is his freedom. I come to offer you any reasonable amount you may name.”

  The woman of the house indulged in a cackling laugh. “The sum would be beyond your means, old man. My husband and I have our own idea of the value of this slave. It is high—very, very high.”

  There was a nod of agreement from the visitor. “The price might be fixed at a high figure if you had nothing in the future to consider. But what of tomorrow? Will it be high then, or the day after? You must be aware that—that this young man who is called Basil may have no value at all if you wait that long.”

  At this point Sosthene projected himself into the discussion. “The years have made you addled in the head,” he declared roughly. A sense of resentment took possession of him. “What is your purpose, dotard, in coming to us with such talk? Do you count us as stupid as the partridge that can be run down and clubbed to death? You are too well seasoned for such joking!”

  “I know the price you paid for the boy.” The visitor was speaking now in tones so low that no ears beyond the confines of the stiflingly hot room could have heard him. “Linus made it low purposely because it was his thought to put more shame on the victim of his plotting. He is sorry now that he sold the young man at any price. Why? Because he wants nothing so much as to have his victim removed from his path. He will never feel secure as long as Basil is alive. He is powerful and the law nods at his say-so.” There was a moment of silence. The visitor waited just long enough to let the full significance of what he had said sink deep into their selfish and acquisitive minds. “If the young man were killed tonight—or the day after—what compensation would Linus pay you? Would you dare go to law, thereby accusing him of murder? Or would you be wise enough to accept your loss and do nothing?”

  The silence remained unbroken. The old man was conscious of the deep breathing of his two auditors and the conflict of fear and cupidity in their eyes.

  “This may be stated as truth,” he went on. “If the boy remains within reach of the agents of Linus, he will not be alive a week from today.”

  “What knowledge do you have that you speak so boldly?” asked Eulalia in a whisper.

  “I am one who has no desire to see Linus succeed in his purpose. Need we probe any deeper?” The visitor glanced about him again and then took a seat at one end of the table where during the day most of the goods for sale were displayed. From somewhere in the folds of his spotless white tunic he produced a bottle of ink and a reed pen, then a sheet of parchment on which writing had been set down. “See,” he said, holding up the parchment. “An order on Jabez, the banker. It will be honored when you present it to him, even tonight if the need to have the money presses on your minds. It is for double the amount you paid to Linus for the young man.”

  The faces of the silversmith and his wife seemed in the semidarkness of the room as drawn and grotesque as the dance masks which hung on the walls. Their eyes had drawn in to pin points, as sharp as the sword blades standing upright in a corner rack.

  The visitor continued to speak quietly. “In an hour’s time, when sleep has taken sway over your neighbors and there are neither ears nor eyes in the dark, the boy and I will slip away. You will not see either of us again.”

  Sosthene drew his wife to one side and whispered to her in desperate haste. “We would be mad to listen to him. What will Linus do if he finds we have let the boy go?”

  His wife regarded him with fitting scorn. “Head of mutton! In the morning we go to the authorities and we say that a valuable slave has run away from us during the night. We demand aid of the law in finding him.”

  She had spoken in so low a tone that the visitor could not possibly have heard what was said. At this point, nevertheless, he interjected a comment that indicated he was aware of what had passed between them. “You will not dare go to the authorities with any such tale. You must sign a full release tonight, restoring to him his liberty without any restrictions. In the document I shall give you to sign, it will be stated that you relieve him of any obligations of obsequium and officium and that you will not oppose his restoration at once to the citizenship he enjoyed before.”

  Eulalia was too startled for several moments to make any move. Then she drew her husband aside and began to whisper in his ear. “This is what we must do. We must sign the paper and get our money. Then we shall go to Linus and say we were forced into it——”

  “Do you not know,” asked the old man, “that I can hear every word you say? Nay, I can do more. I can read the thoughts which enter your mind. My advice to you, false woman, is to cease for once your wicked conniving.”

  “You cannot frighten us!” she cried.

  “You think I cannot do what I say?” The visitor’s eyes held her, and she could neither avert her gaze from him nor move away. “This much I shall give you as a proof. You are thinking that when you have the money you will hide it in the bowl of brass at the bottom of the disused well in your cellar. The well so carefully covered that no one guesses its existence. You are thinking of the piece of land you will buy with the gold outside the city walls, the little farm of the Three Pear Trees.”

  Eulalia gasped in surprise and dismay. “Husband,” she cried, “let us sign and get our money! We must not go against this old man. I am afraid of him!”

  3

  Basil had closed the curtain in his small window to protect himself from the insects which hummed in the darkness without. The breeze had died down completely and the curtain hung without a trace of movement. The atmosphere of the room was like a baker’s oven when the fire is banked.

  He sat perfectly still on the wooden bench where he spent his long working hours. If his body was inactive, his mind was feverishly busy. He was wondering when Linus would strike and what he might do to save himself.

  “If he makes up his mind to have me killed,” he thought, “he will send his men up over the rooftops. They will cross the Street of the Sailmakers and take to the roofs above the Bazaar. They will come to this window.” He glanced about him in the darkness. “I might keep them from getting in if I had a weapon. It is a narrow s
pace.” After further thought he made up his mind to go downstairs when Sosthene was asleep and get the largest of the bronze swords. The swords had no trace of a cutting edge, but they were heavy.

  He was so concerned with the danger in which he conceived himself to stand that he did not perceive at first the small light cast on the opposite wall by someone appearing in the door with a hand-shaded candle. He did not know that he had a visitor, in fact, until a voice said, “May I enter, my son?”

  At first he thought this unexpected arrival had been sent by Linus and he sprang to his feet, fumbling in the dark for the largest of his knives that lay on the workbench.

  “I have startled you,” said the visitor. “I should have hailed you from the stairs as I climbed. I did not do so because it seemed wise not to rouse the neighbors.”

  Basil saw now that the newcomer was of venerable appearance. A multitude of fine lines had collected at the corners of his eyes, giving him a look of benevolence. There was something familiar about the face of the old man, and for a moment he believed this was because the miracle he had been hoping for had come to pass.

  “I know who you are,” he said eagerly. “You are the angel Mefathiel. You have come in answer to my prayers. You—you are the Opener of Doors.”

  A smile of great kindness lighted up the face of the visitor. “No, my son, I am not the angel Mefathiel. But I am happy to hear you have been making your prayers to him. It is well to pray when troubles perch on your back and your pillow is cheated of sleep. It is well to pray at all times, even when there are no troubles and no petitions to be made. But I am not an angel. I am a common man and my name will mean nothing to you. I am called Luke and I have some knowledge of herbs and the cure of sicknesses. Because of this some men speak of me as Luke the Physician.”

  Memory flooded back into Basil’s mind. This was the tall and kindly man who had stood at the side of the congregation when his real father had taken him to the synagogue at Ceratium. He had failed to recognize him at once because his beard, which had been a fiery red, was now as white as snow.