The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  The long confinement had done more than blacken his hands. It had put hollows under his cheekbones. There was the hint of a stoop in his shoulders owing to the low ceiling of the room. He looked weary of body and depressed in spirits. Luke studied him thoughtfully.

  “There seems small need for concealment now,” said the latter after a moment. “It will be safe for you to return to the room you used before, and I will see there is plenty of hot water for you. While you bathe I will find what can be done about suitable clothes.”

  “I have only the colobium in addition to what I wear. I should not speak of it with disrespect, for it is the badge of my freedom.”

  “But a somewhat meager garment,” amended Luke, measuring him with his eyes. “And the material is of the plainest. I think we shall have to get something better.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  1

  LUKE AND HIS YOUNG PROTÉGÉ, on their way to the room the latter had occupied before, visited the dining hall of the servants. They found it, to their surprise, the scene of considerable activity. The former slaves, who seemed content to remain in the house in the capacity of free servants, were decorating the walls with midsummer flowers, the red of poppies, the yellow of the ranunculus, the white of the earliest wild cyclamen that were being found around the edges of the Mount of Olives and in the Valley of Hinnom. Candelabra of many branches had been placed in the corners and were being stocked with the fat candles of bees-wax which the Romans had introduced into the country. At one end the women were erecting a canopy with rolls of white ribbon and were achieving something that bore a resemblance to a pond lily.

  The two men did not pause to speculate on the meaning of these preparations. Their eyes went anxiously to the wall where the drinking cups were kept in full view.

  “It is there,” said Luke. “In the exact position where I placed it. No one has touched it. Is it not strange that now it looks no different from the others?”

  Half an hour later Basil emerged from a steaming bath. He was refreshed in body and somewhat more composed in spirit. His hands were white from vigorous and sustained scrubbing. He looked at them with satisfaction and said to himself, “Now I may feel some pride in myself again.”

  Slipping the thin colobium over his shoulders, he walked to a window and looked out into the glare of early afternoon. Immediately beneath him he could see the spot where he had stood with Deborra after their mad scramble through the Valley of the Cheesemakers.

  “I knew I was falling in love with her,” he said to himself. “From the moment she threw the stone I began to see her in a new light. She was no longer just a young girl in the house with a ring of keys in her hands. She had shown a high spirit. No wood sprite ever ran with more grace. As we faced each other, her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed, she was lovely and eager and very sweet.” A conviction took form in his mind. “If I had declared myself then, she would have said yes to me.”

  But almost immediately after that had come his meetings with Helena, and now he was utterly confused and unhappy. Why could he not banish the dark eyes of the magician’s assistant from his mind as thoroughly as he had rid himself of his belief that the evil in him was due to the presence of an alien spirit? It should not be difficult, because he saw matters in a clear enough light to realize that there was something furtive in his concern for the slave girl who had run away from the house of Ignatius. He was ashamed of the desires she roused in him, but they persisted nevertheless.

  “It’s as though I had been drugged with a love potion,” he thought. This brought up a memory of the cup of wine he had imbibed so freely before Simon appeared on the scene and which had affected him in curious ways; but he dismissed immediately the possibility that it had any connection with the present state of his feelings. “I must not pamper my conscience a second time. The evil in me is not due to outside influences. I must be honest; it is a part of myself.”

  Perhaps Deborra had found reason to forget that memorable moment when they had paused on the lip of the valley. She had thought only of her grandfather on her return an hour before. That, however, was natural enough; for grief is a consuming emotion, great enough to banish all others, because it is concerned with the irrevocable. Not a single glance had she cast about her in search of him as she came through the open door and traversed the long hall.

  Luke returned to the room with a bundle of clothing, which he placed on the bed.

  “I hope they will fit you,” he said. “Try them at once, for time presses on us. There is much to be done while Joseph still lives.”

  Basil lifted the clothing. “This is handsome,” he said, feeling in his hands the cool linen of the tunic.

  “I will explain about this raiment as you dress. There was a time when Joseph was certain he would never be blessed with a child.” In his youth Luke had been a teller of stories in the market places of Antioch, and he fell readily again into the tricks of his old trade. “He had no children, and the Lord Jehovah did not seem disposed to bless Gael, his wife, with fruitfulness. So he began to look about him for a son to adopt, even as your father did. His choice fell finally on Stephen, the son of Shaphat, a dealer in leather and a poor man. Stephen was fifteen, a tall youth with a light in his eye, a skilled finger on the strings of the harp, a voice sweet and full; a young David, as you see, with some of the promise of the shepherd boy Samuel selected from among the sons of Jesse. Joseph never acted on impulse, and he had seen much of the boy before he made his choice and he had come to love him. He began to lay away gifts against the day of the legal adoption. There was the kinnor that Deborra uses, thinking it her very own and not knowing it had been intended for someone else. The merchant who sold it to Joseph swore by all his heathen gods that the strings had known no touch save the fingers of a king long since dead, in the East. There were also clothes of a rare fineness.

  “But Shaphat had known days of adversity and had found it necessary to raise his family in Beth-Jeshimoth, which is called the Place of the Desert. Here it is so hot that the sap of life burns out early. Stephen had never recovered from this, and there was always a flush in his cheeks and he was as taut of spirit as the strings of the kinnor. Before the day of the adoption he was dead. Joseph mourned for him sadly and long; and it was then that the Lord, Who is above everything a just God, relented and saw to it that a new life stirred in the womb of Gael. Aaron was born, and his coming brought peace of mind to Joseph. But he never forgot the tall Stephen who might have been his son, and he laid away the clothes in camphor and he saw to it that they were watched and kept in perfect preservation. He never spoke of Stephen thereafter, and I do not think that either Aaron or Deborra has known anything of him. But before his last illness closed on him Joseph told me that, inasmuch as you were a son by adoption also, and because you stirred in his mind some memories of the fine young Stephen, he wished you to have the clothes, so that finally they would serve some part at least of the purpose for which they had been made.

  “And so,” concluded Luke, “they are yours. I think it desirable that you wear them today.”

  Basil put on the white linen tunic and over that the middle garment, which was a marvelous garment indeed. It was made of the finest and heaviest of silk and it was in two parts. The upper part was a jacket that fitted snugly over the shoulders and arms and was embroidered on the breast in gold thread with an eagle clutching a serpent in its mouth, the sign of the tribe of Dan, to which Shaphat had belonged. The lower part was a skirt, bound tightly at the waist and falling just below the knees, and made of the rarest of all colors, blue. It was a color hard to obtain with the dyes in use, and so people had to content themselves with purples, reds, and yellows; but the skilled hands that had woven this piece of material had caught by some happy chance the very finest shade, a blue darker than the deepest tones of the sky and richer than the cornflower or lupine. Along the hem was a fringe of golden thread.

  The sandals were attached to long pads of leather that had been of th
e same shade of blue originally. These extended to the knee and were enriched with embossed threads of gold carrying in miniature the design of the eagle and serpent. The leather had mellowed to a soft haze of color throughout the years. Strapping the pads about his calves, Basil ran his fingers with a feeling almost of reverence over the soft leather, being strongly drawn always to things of beauty.

  It might have been expected that, attired in such splendor, he would exhibit some traits of pride. But the cool of the linen on his skin and a consciousness of the fineness of the outer garments gave him instead a feeling of humility. In donning the clothes he seemed to have become a part of the family of Joseph and to have taken on obligations that would have belonged to the Stephen for whom they had been designed. He felt very clearly a responsibility in the matter of Deborra. Stephen would have protected her. He would have made himself a buckler between her and all evil.

  “Now you see yourself with an open eye,” he thought. “You are not worthy of her. You have evil in you that you seem incapable of controlling.”

  “The clothes fit you well,” declared Luke, nodding his head with satisfaction.

  “I wish,” said Basil, “that they did not make me so well aware of my shortcomings.”

  2

  On their way to the airy corner of the great house where Deborra’s rooms were located, they passed a door before which Ebenezer was standing guard. He gave them a reassuring nod of his bald and yellowed head. “He is deep in documents and has no suspicions as yet. A few moments ago he did come to the door and say, ‘Is not the house very quiet?’ I answered him, ‘All are mourning the inevitable.’ ‘Why are you here? Are you not a free man?’ I answered, ‘Yes, I am a free man, but I am also a man of habit. Have you commands for me?’ He shook his head and frowned. ‘I shall never have commands for you.’ And then he went back and closed the door.”

  The main room in Deborra’s quarters was filled with maidservants who were bustling about with great heaps of clothing in their arms and so much excitement in their minds that an elderly woman, clutching a piece of parchment importantly, had to keep admonishing them. “Sarah, come hither!” she would say. Or, “Marianne, have your feet gone to sleep? Hurry, child!”

  To spare them the discomfort of all this confusion, the two visitors were shown into a smaller room, which contained the bed of the lady of the house. It was a small bed and it looked cool and virginal in the modesty of a corner. Basil, feeling that more than a single glance would be a profanation, turned his back and looked out a window that afforded him a full view of the white splendor of the Temple. He heard Luke leave, but he did not know that Deborra had entered until she spoke.

  “Basil! I—I am back from the exile into which I was sent because of my folly.”

  He turned slowly. Deborra, he saw, had been yielding to her feelings, because there was a hint of redness about her eyes. She had striven to repair the ravages of grief, however, and she even had a smile for him as they faced each other.

  She was in a snow-white simplicity of raiment that did not suggest readiness for immediate travel. This surprised him, particularly when he noticed that her hair was hanging freely on her shoulders. Although the dress was modest, it allowed her arms to show. They were white and rounded with the sweetness of youth. Her sandals were thin, with delicate bands of silk as white as the feet they clasped.

  “You look well,” she said when he failed to find the words of greeting he sought. “Such a beautiful blue you are wearing! I envy you. I have been told I look well in blue, but I have never worn anything so fine as that.”

  She was carrying a cloth bag in one hand, tied rather daintily with yellow ribbon. This she now held out to him. When he took it from her he knew from the feel and the weight of it that it was filled with money.

  “Grandfather kept it under his pillow,” she said. “It is to pay for the making of the Chalice.”

  He could tell that the bag contained enough to pay for his travels and leave him an ample reward as well. Such a feeling of exultation swept over him that he wanted to toss it into the air.

  “This is the first money I have had in over two years,” he said. “I cannot tell you what a new sense of freedom it gives me. I am indeed my own man now.”

  She seemed to forget her grief for a moment and even to share his mood. A smile lighted up her eyes. It was for a few moments only, however. A look of intense gravity succeeded. Yielding then to an emotion that could be nothing but panic, she covered her face with her hands.

  “Basil, Basil, how am I to say it!”

  “What is it you wish to say?”

  She raised her eyes with a suggestion of almost desperate courage. “I think it would be kind if you—if you would turn your back. That would make it easier for me.” When he had complied with her wish by turning around so completely that she could see nothing but the back of his head and the gold-fringed blue outer cloak, she still hesitated. “I cannot find the words. Have you any idea of what I must say to you? No, you could not know. It was promised that you would be given no hint.” Then she caught her breath like a swimmer before plunging into cold water. “Basil, will you be my husband?”

  For a moment he was incapable of any reaction save one of surprise. Then he was assailed by a feeling of alarm, of fear for the ambitious plans that had filled his head since his last talk with Helena. If he married Deborra and settled down in Jerusalem, or wherever she might prefer, what chance would he have to make a place for himself in the world of art? Would it be possible for him to develop still further the perceptiveness of his mind and the skill of his hands?

  Following this hasty reaction came other thoughts. He was torn by conflicting loyalties. He owed so much to Deborra and her family that he could never pay the debt. To them he owed his liberty and his selection to make the Chalice. To Deborra he was indebted in less tangible ways; for her immediate sympathy, her understanding, her comradeship. He had liked her from the first moment, and this had been tending inevitably to love. When they stood together on the crest of the valley after their escape from the Roman officers, it had seemed to both of them that love had come, that thenceforward their feet would tread the same path.

  Then he had seen Helena and had become aware of two things, that his feelings were not so far committed that he could be unaware of all other women, and that he was deeply obligated to her also. The service she had rendered him in sending the note of warning could not be overlooked, nor could he forget the picture she had spread before him of what life in Rome could be. She had conceived plans for him in which she expected to play some part. He had promised to meet her in Rome. Here, then, was another loyalty to be considered.

  These thoughts, which take so long in setting down, consumed the briefest possible time in passing through his mind. They had caused him to pause, nonetheless; and in such a situation the shortest delay can be cause for doubt and distress. Basil was perhaps unaware that his decision was not an instant one, that he had delayed on the brink to look back. His decision, however, was the only thinkable one in view of his ties to the family of Joseph and the relationship that had grown up between himself and Deborra.

  “May I turn now?” he asked.

  “Yes.” A change could be noted in Deborra’s voice. Something had gone out of it. Some of the spontaneity. She had not failed to notice his hesitation and she was wondering, with a dismay that was frightening because unexpected, what had caused it. “Yes, Basil. I—I have managed to say it. And now we must talk.”

  He turned about. Her eyes had been fixed on the floor, but she raised them at once and studied his face. Why? they asked. Why did you hesitate? Have I been taking too much for granted?

  “I am—I am deeply honored,” he said. His voice was quiet, even formal. There was another pause, an almost imperceptible one. Was it because some of his doubts still persisted? “I have not been in a position to propose marriage to you. It is doubtful if I ever would be. And so I am happy that you have spoken.”

&nbs
p; She seemed to stand on tiptoe in her desire to look closely into his eyes. Her head was tilted upward and her hands were clasped tightly together. “Oh, Basil, Basil!” she said. “Are you sure? Are you quite sure?”

  He took her closely interlocked fingers in his hands and smiled down at her. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “Yes, I am quite sure.” But the intensity of her eyes caused him to stop. Could he be anything but completely honest? His smile changed to a puzzled frown.

  “We are deciding the whole course of our lives,” she said. “We must be so very sure.”

  His frown deepened until a crease appeared between his dark brows. “I am at a loss,” he declared. “The Christian code is very strict. I do not understand it fully. If I obeyed it, as I am desirous of doing, would it be necessary for me to tell you everything that is in my mind?”

  Her eyes filled with troubled thought and she allowed them to fall. “Because what I have done is so unusual, so unnatural, I am doubly sensitive. And when you hesitated, I did not know what to think—— Are there things you should tell me?”

  “Perhaps,” he said unhappily. “But I am not sure. It is very strict, this code of yours. I think it is good, but I do not know what it demands of me.”

  Deborra began to speak slowly and with obvious reluctance. “I, too, am at a loss. Doubts that I do not understand have come up between us. Perhaps I should speak of something I had intended to keep locked up in my own heart.” She drew back and clasped her hands tightly together again. “As soon as I arrived back, there was a meeting to decide what steps should be taken. The advisability of an immediate marriage for me was agreed upon. I said that I—would speak to you.”