The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  The High Priest’s nostrils were twitching angrily. “That may be true,” he said.

  “But,” went on Aaron, “we also have power. A different kind, but one to be reckoned with nonetheless. The power of wealth, the power of the mighty shekel. Our influence spreads far beyond the limits of the Diaspora. No trading house in Jerusalem could continue if we ordered otherwise. In considering our strength, think not only of what we could do; think also of what we could undo.”

  Ananias was now thoroughly angry. He had withdrawn his hands from the table and dropped them in his lap, but not before his visitor had seen that they trembled with the rage that possessed him. “An hour ago, Aaron ben Joseph,” he said, “I instructed Rub Samuel to have your house surrounded by his most zealous and willing men. They are at their stations now. No one will be allowed to enter or leave without being questioned and, if it seems necessary, searched. Even you, the son and future head of the house, will be stopped. We spoke of power. This is a demonstration of it.”

  “A ship from Troas is expected to dock at Joppa within the next few days,” countered Aaron. “It carries a valuable cargo. If Joseph of Arimathea decided that nothing was to be purchased here, there would be no buyers. The shipowners would suffer a grievous loss. They are all men of Jerusalem, and I recall that on the list is a man high in the Temple.” Having thus thrown down the gage of battle, Aaron seemed to be enjoying his role. “We spoke of power. This is another demonstration of it.”

  The furious temper that had caused the High Priest to order the assault on Paul in court flamed up in him again. He pounded on the table with both fists.

  “Thou stubborn son of an unregenerate father!” he cried.

  Aaron, recalling the scene in the Sanhedrin, rose and leaned over the table. “Thou whited wall!” he exclaimed.

  There was a moment of silence, and then Ananias threw himself back in his chair. He began to laugh. He laughed with so much gusto that his great mound of a stomach shook under the silver-fringed blue girdle about his waist. The bells on his tunic jingled loudly. “I have never liked you,” he said. “You seemed to me as poor in spirit as a tinker’s mule. But now I find myself conceiving an admiration for you. I have changed my opinion so much that I shall make a bargain with you. Listen.”

  He wiped away the tears that laughter had brought to his eyes. “The man who brought me the information about the Cup, for which I paid handsomely, had something else of importance for my ears. It concerns you, my friend with the temper that kindles slowly, you and the money you are to inherit. I shall tell you what it is if you, on the other hand, will make me this promise: that you will not in any way interfere with Rub Samuel’s men and that the instant your father’s eyes close in death you will call them in to guard the house while you search for the Cup. That you will promise, moreover, to tear down every partition in the house, if necessary, and raise every foot of flooring until you find it; and that you will then bring it to me.” The vigor with which he had spoken had brought a purple tinge to the High Priest’s cheeks. He stopped for several moments while struggling to regain his breath. “Is that a fair exchange between the stubborn son of an unregenerate father and a high priest who has twice been called to his face a whited wall? Is it a bargain? Is it agreed?”

  Aaron, somewhat aghast at the lengths to which he had allowed himself to go, had sunk back into his chair. Now, however, he discovered a sense of pride in having bandied insults and threats with the head of the Temple. He nodded his head.

  “It is agreed,” he said.

  “Listen, then. Your father is diverting a large share of your inheritance from you. He is too good a Jew to do this in his testamentary instructions, but for many years he has been depositing a portion of his profits with the banker Jabez in Antioch. These funds, which now amount to a very considerable sum, pass to your daughter on Joseph’s death. Your daughter is a convert to the Christian teachings and she understands that she is to serve in a sense as custodian of the money, and that some part of it at least is to be for the use of the Nazarene leaders. By this means your father will continue his support of the heresy after his death.”

  For perhaps the first time in his life Aaron’s face was a mirror of all the emotions that filled him. In his distended eyes, in the flush of his face, in the spasmodic opening and closing of his fingers could be read the anger aroused in him and the determination he had already conceived that no part of his inheritance would be taken from him.

  “Has your daughter passed the age of thirteen years and one day?” asked the High Priest.

  Aaron nodded. “She has had her fifteenth birthday.”

  “Then she is legally of age. I hoped she was still a minor and barred from receiving this inheritance, except in trust.” The priest looked somberly at his visitor. “I have some advice to give you. Your daughter, although of age, is still unmarried, and so she is under your guardianship. Have a trusted agent ready to leave as soon as your father dies. Send him to Antioch on the fastest ship you own or can charter. Give him written authority to claim the money in your name as father of the girl. Once you get the funds into your own hands, you will be in a position to control them so that not one half shekel will ever find its way into a Christian purse! You know what the law says, that a guardian may ‘buy, sell, build, demolish, hire out, plant, sow——’ You know what it says as well as I do.” Ananias leaned across the table and regarded his visitor with an insistent frown. “You must realize the importance of this. Above everything, see that the girl does not marry. Once she takes a husband, your rights come to an end and she passes under his tutelage. Aaron, she must not marry!”

  Aaron spoke through tightly locked lips. “I put no trust in agents,” he said. “I shall go to Antioch myself!”

  2

  Basil had no appetite that day for the meal brought to him at five o’clock. It was an unusually good one. There was even a slice of hot meat and a batter as rich as the keroshitha, that wonderful dish made of dates, raisins, figs, and almonds that was served once a year with the paschal lamb. He said to the servant who came to remove the dishes, “Eat it yourself, Eschol the Toad.” The servant, his eyes fixed greedily on the batter, answered, “I will cut off at the wrist any hand that tries to take as much as a mouthful from me!”

  Basil had been existing in a state of mounting discomfort and tension. The air in the room behind the meal sacks had grown more fetid with each day of his occupancy. The throbbing of his head made the light of the oil lamp intolerable, and he spent most of his time in darkness. This left him with his thoughts for company, and it disturbed him that the picture of Helena filled his mind continuously. He would envision her as she had appeared on the morning of his second visit to the House of Kaukben, looking so cool and lovely in her severe linen gown, with her feet bare and her luxuriant black tresses hanging down her back, or as she sat beside him in the empty Gymnasium, her head pressed against his shoulder.

  Although he allowed her to monopolize his thoughts, he was aware that his interest in her was both unwise and unhealthy. He had not failed to detect that her eyes, which were dark and soft and lovely, could also be hard and calculating. Her voice, gentle and enticing for the most part, had at times a different note. She had displayed an interest in him that caused his blood to tingle in recollection, but he was not convinced it went any deeper than self-concern. Yes, she could be cold and hard; but this, instead of leading him to a more sensible frame of mind, had the effect of stimulating his feeling for her.

  “It is a good thing that I am tied here so closely,” he said to himself many times. “If I dared venture out again, I would have gone at once to see her; and nothing but evil could have come of that.”

  As soon as silence settled down over the house, he ventured out from his place of concealment. His first visit was to the slave baths, where he laved himself thoroughly. The dull ache in his head left him with the first touch of the cold water on his brow. He felt so much stimulated that he said to himself, “Tomo
rrow I must work.” He wondered when Deborra would return, and for the moment her image left no room in his mind for the dusky enchantress. After completing his ablutions he decided to risk a visit to the Court of the Packers in order to get some exercise. In the daytime this open space was the scene of much activity, of sweating porters who came and went, of carpenters breaking open cases that had come from afar or nailing up goods to be sent out. He had gone there often in the still of night because it afforded a larger space for pacing and still more because he could always look up and see the stars, and find much comfort and satisfaction in that.

  His visit there this night suffered an interruption. As he paced up and down in the court, picking his way carefully among the wooden cases and the wicker hampers, giving the tool racks a wide berth, and setting his bare feet down with full regard for the danger of fallen nails, he became convinced that he was not alone. He heard sounds in the darkness, an occasional indrawing of breath, a stealthy rustling. He remained still, poising himself beside a tall basket that had come from the Far East and still had about it an exciting odor of spices and strange fruits.

  It became clear finally that the sounds came from the east side of the court. Here, he knew, there was a long room that had two doors giving on the court, doors that gaped open and were never used. Although this room seemed to lack occupancy, the hint of an earlier importance still clung about it. There were large pieces of furniture made of black and brown wood against the walls, and everywhere piles of moldering papers. Of all the apartments in the great house, this seemed to offer the least attraction for a midnight visitation. Nevertheless, after a long wait, Basil heard a scratching sound from that direction and then a light flared in an oil lamp. To his intense surprise he saw the intent face of Aaron above the flame.

  The son of the house was conducting a search. He moved stealthily about the room, holding the lamp up in front of him, his eyes darting nervously this way and that. Finally he approached the open door nearest the silent witness, and Basil then became aware that a bed had been placed immediately inside it and that the bed, moreover, had someone sleeping in it. The son of the house stood beside the bed for a long moment, looking down. Unable to see the face of the sleeper, Basil watched that of Aaron instead, reading a curious conflict of emotions there, anger and cupidity and, struggling feebly against the stronger feelings, pity and a hint of kindness.

  The cover of the bed stirred and a voice, the voice of Joseph of Arimathea, said, “Is it you, my son?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “What do you want?”

  Aaron responded by asking a question of his own. “What strange whim is this that has caused you to have your bed moved down here?”

  The dying man did not answer at once and, when he did, it was in a voice so thin that the trapped listener in the darkness of the court could hear only an occasional word. He heard enough, however, to learn that Joseph had been convinced he might live longer if he found some way to keep his mind occupied. This room he had used through all the years of his active life. He had been moved here to escape the torpor into which he had been falling in his quarters above.

  Aaron interrupted with a touch of impatience in his voice. “You have not set foot here for more than ten years. Not since you gave up full supervision.”

  “That is true. It was a—a grievous mistake to give things up as I did. I see now that ever since I have been doing little but—wait for death to come.”

  “Death is coming now. You must realize it, Father. What good can it do you to move to this hot corner? There is not a breath of air here. To stay will only hasten the end.”

  “No, my son. If I can keep my mind active, I can still live. A little longer; a week or two, perhaps. Long enough, I think, for the things I want to do.”

  “I hear,” declared Aaron, his tone cold and accusing, all trace of kindness banished from his eyes, “that you have been summoning members of the staff here. You are asking them questions, giving them orders. I hear also you have been demanding to see statements.”

  “I tell you that I am striving to keep my mind occupied.”

  “You must be losing your mind.”

  Basil was so much occupied now in this encounter between the great merchant and his son that he allowed himself to peer out from behind the empty spice basket. He noticed that Joseph had shifted his position in the bed and that it was now possible to see his face. It was shocking to discover how thin it had become. The eyes had fallen far back under the noble arch of the brow.

  There was a long pause before the sick man answered. “I am ill in body and in spirit,” he said. “But my mind is as clear as it ever was.”

  Basil could see that the eyes of the son of the house were never at rest. They darted about, peering into all parts of the room, always coming back to a furtive inspection of the pillows on which his father’s head rested.

  “In the morning,” declared Aaron, “I shall give orders to have you moved back.”

  Joseph answered immediately, his voice stronger and more alive. “Here I shall remain. Any orders you take it on yourself to give, my son, will be disregarded. Bear this in mind. Master I have always been in my own house, and master I shall remain until I have drawn my last breath.”

  “I think not. You are doing insane things, things I will not permit. I know about the steps you are taking, the base tricks you propose to play on your only son! Is it any wonder you cannot die in peace with such dishonesty on your conscience!”

  “I have much on my conscience, Aaron, my son. I am aware that I have sinned in the eyes of God and His beloved Son. I have failed in so many things! But where you are concerned, my conscience is clear. You will get your full due, perhaps more. You will be the most powerful merchant in the world. Does not that suffice?”

  Aaron was on the point of bursting out with direct accusations, but a sense of caution laid hold of his tongue in time. To let his father see that he knew of the cup in the house would serve only to put the aged man on his guard. It would be even more unwise to avow knowledge of the funds deposited in Antioch. He contented himself, therefore, with saying, “I have always known, Father, that you placed little confidence in me.”

  “Aaron, my son,” said Joseph sadly, “if I have sinned against you, it has been in failing to do anything for your immortal soul.”

  “My soul is my own concern. You must know that I incline to the Sadducees and have no faith in this existence after death of which you speak so much.”

  “My son, my son! Must I die and leave you in such utter darkness!”

  “There is one thing I must tell you,” said Aaron, drawing cautiously on the knowledge he had brought away from the house of the High Priest. “The men in the Temple have been buying information from a member of our staff. What it is they have learned, I leave you to guess. Today the result was seen. The Mar, as they are beginning to call Rub Samuel, has set men about the house, and no one may enter or leave without being stopped.”

  The wasted body on the bed stirred with agitation. “It is only because I am dying that he dares do this!”

  “Father,” said Aaron, “there have been great changes in this world since you withdrew yourself from it. If you were still young and at the height of your power, you would be unable to fight against this man and his organization. I am telling you this by way of warning. Do not attempt anything that will give them an excuse to take possession of the house.” His voice had ceased to carry any hint of compassion. “If you persist in your wrongdoing—if you attempt to rob me, your son and rightful heir—you will find me ready to fight with them in defense of my rights!”

  “I have lived too long!” There was a piteous note in the voice of Joseph. “I have lived to hear my own son threaten to join with my enemies!”

  Had Basil been forced into playing eavesdropper when Aaron talked to the High Priest instead of perching behind his wicker basket at this moment, he would have been spared much unnecessary agitation of mind. As it was, he reache
d the conclusion immediately that the Zealots had one purpose in watching the house, and that was to lay their hands on him. He fell into such a panic of speculation and the making of such hasty plans for escape that he did not hear anything more that was said between father and son. He was aware that they continued to talk, that Aaron’s voice was bitter and menacing, and that it was not until exhaustion made it impossible for Joseph to respond to the accusations of his son that the latter withdrew.

  Basil waited until the lamp in Aaron’s hands had receded down the passage leading to the residential wing. Then he made his way out of the Court of the Packers and slipped back through the darkness to his place of sanctuary. He was sure that it would remain sanctuary for a very few hours only. There was no way to leave the house; and if he did accomplish the seemingly impossible, where, then, could he go?

  For the first time since he had last seen Helena that disturbing figure played no part in his thoughts for the balance of a sleepless night.

  3

  Luke was surprised the next morning to find himself stopped on reaching the house of Joseph. At one moment the space in front of the entrance was empty; the next, two men were between him and the door. They had materialized from nothing, or so it seemed; and they were dark and unfriendly and fiercely terse.

  “Who are you?” demanded one, a man of short stature with the shoulders and arms of a gorilla. He spoke in Hebrew instead of Aramaic, and from this Luke judged him a Zealot. Most of the nationalist party had reverted to the use of the pure tongue of their forefathers, scorning what they called the mongrel language now used as the common means of communication throughout the East.

  Luke understood Hebrew but could not speak it. He responded in Aramaic, “I see no reason for answering.”

  “There is a good reason.” The short man glowered as he said this and produced a dagger of the kind known as a conchar from under his robe. After allowing the sunlight to glisten momentarily on the bright blade, he dropped it back out of sight. “That is the reason. A good one, my ancient friend, the very best of all. You will not be allowed to enter unless you convince us you have the right.”