“My grandfather, who was wise in all things,” said Deborra, “used to say that the future of Christianity would not rest with the old men. He said they were hairsplitters and quiddlers. The cause, he was sure, would be won by the young men who were ready to fight and die for their faith.”
4
The new house was like a conjurer’s bag because it had many surprises to offer, and the most surprising of all was Deborra’s bed. In the first place, it was quite enormous, being large enough to accommodate several people of her size. It stood high off the floor and had to be climbed into with some care. It was embellished with ivory decorations and had sheets that were elaborately embroidered. Most important of all, it was made of citrus wood, which came from Africa and was so much valued that wealthy men in Rome paid huge prices for a single piece. It was told of Petronius, a courtier whose opinion was much valued by Nero, that he had sold fifty slaves in order to purchase a plank of the best citrus wood and that, moreover, he was in the habit of pointing it out to guests and running an affectionate hand over its beautifully grained surface. He was reported to have said that it was well worth the price he had paid. All in all, therefore, Deborra’s bed was a very grand one indeed.
She sat on one side of it while Sarah made her ready for the night. First of all, the maidservant released her hair and allowed it to fall in unrestrained abundance over her shoulders, leaving no more than a few curls on the forehead and a quite small one in front of each ear.
“I think, mistress,” said Sarah, her fingers busy at undoing the loops of bound silk that fastened the tunic in the back, “that this is a house made for happiness and peace. I hope the mistress’s husband will be happy here too.”
“We must see that he is comfortable,” said Deborra, keeping her tone entirely matter-of-fact. “His windows must be kept open so the cool breezes from the sea will reach him. We must learn about his likes in food and his favorite wines.” She nodded her head and smiled. “He is still much of a stranger to all of us, Sarah.”
When the serving-maid had retired, the young bride settled herself in bed. It was infinitely soft, for the mattress was stuffed with sheep’s wool, and she sighed with pleasure. Then she reached out an arm and extinguished the light. This did not leave the room in darkness, for the moon was well up over the horizon. It was flooding the groves with a silvery glow, as though curious to discover what might be happening in those mysterious thickets, and it still had enough curiosity left over to reach into every corner of the airy bedchamber.
This invasion of her privacy was not the reason that she failed to get to sleep. She raised herself on one elbow. “Tonight,” she thought, “he may come and say to me the things I must hear from him. Surely he will come tonight!”
It was evident that Basil had not yet sought the comfort of his couch. His footsteps could be heard at intervals in the adjoining room and occasionally the scraping of a chair. “Can it be,” she wondered, “that he has gone back to his work?” For the first time she was prepared to believe that there were things as important as the completion of the Chalice.
An hour passed. An occasional sound reached her from the other room to let her know that he was still awake. Her hopes dwindled slowly, but by the end of the hour she had been convinced that he had no intention of paying her a visit. A lump came into her throat.
“At the least,” she thought, “he might have come to the door to bid me good night.”
It occurred to her then that he might as readily have expected this of her. She had laid down the conditions of their marriage. If they were to be relaxed, should she not be the one to take the first step? She rose and slipped into a wrap of green velvety material that Sarah had left on a chair near the bed. It had a scarf at the neck that could be wound around the throat once and then tied in front. Her fingers were unsteady as they performed this task.
The opening of the door between the two rooms revealed Basil at a worktable under one of the windows. His head was bent and he had tools in each hand, a hammer and a chisel. Two oil lamps had been lighted and placed on each side of him.
She stood silently in the doorway, one hand nervously grasping the knob. “I am beginning to believe,” she said to herself, “that he thinks of nothing but his work.”
Conscious finally that he was being watched, Basil dropped the chisel on the table and turned to look over his shoulder.
“I have come,” said Deborra, “to wish you good night. And to warn you that you should not be working so late.”
Basil shifted his position, and the light from one of the lamps made it possible for her to see that his face was deeply lined with fatigue.
“Have I worked long?” he asked. “It seemed to me a few moments only. There is so much to be done!”
She walked slowly into the room, the hem of the green garment sweeping the floor, one hand holding the scarf in place at her neck.
“I hoped——” she began. Then she became aware that he had not fully withdrawn his attention from his work, that he was only partly conscious of what she was saying. She checked the words of guarded invitation that had been on the tip of her tongue. Instead she asked, “Would it disturb you if I sat here for a while and watched you?”
He turned completely around then and ran a hand across his eyes. “No,” he answered. “But I am sure you will find it dull. You see, I have made a clay replica of the Cup and I am fitting the framework around it. It is slow work and not at all interesting to watch.”
“I cannot get to sleep.” She drew up a chair and perched herself on top of it, with her knees drawn up under her chin, her hands clasping her bare ankles. “I like to know everything you do about the Chalice. Please do not shut me out. Can you talk about it while you work?” She studied the frame that already covered the replica of the Cup. “You have done a great deal to it since I saw it last.”
“Yes, a great deal. I have introduced symbols into the pattern—doves and lambs and helix shells. Right now I am soldering it together.” He turned to her and smiled. “Does your interest extend that far? If I talk about it, your eyelids will become as heavy as the lead I am using and you will fall asleep in your chair. You see, I consider it necessary to use the very finest solder. I make it with one ounce of pure silver, two ounces of purified copper, and three ounces of lead. Then I pour in a little finely ground sulphur—— Are you still listening?”
“Yes, I am still listening. And I understand what you are saying.” To herself she added: “Oh, Basil, Basil, do you not see that every word you toss me so carelessly thrills me to the core of my being? Do you not understand that everything you do, even to the mixing of solder, excites me? But of course you do not see these things because you do not know how much I love you; and because you, my husband, do not love me.”
Basil went on with his explanations: “The figures are going to be so very small that I must surround them with devices to assist in identifying them. Around the figure of Jesus I will show the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. Above Him will be the Star of the Nativity.”
He was speaking in a reflective tone and, after the first few minutes, he kept his eyes exclusively on his work. Once he broke out into a bitter tirade at himself because his fingers had fallen into error. This made her certain that he had forgotten she was there.
“Will he never see how much I love him?” she asked herself. “Must I go on like this, keeping all my thoughts to myself, making no effort to win him to me? Oh, Basil, Basil, look at me once again as you did that day when I threw the stone at the Romans!”
Inevitably the need for sleep overtook her. Her eyelids became heavy and several times she caught herself nodding. She sighed then and lowered her feet to the floor, the nicely shaped white feet she had refused to use as a means of winning his interest. It did not occur to her, because the action had been so natural, that he could have seen her whole foot and even more had he been noticing.
“It is very late,” she said. “You should stop now. You must be very tired.
”
His eyes were still preoccupied when he turned to look at her. “I must finish what I am doing while the solder remains fluid.” He studied the frame that was now solidly clamped around the clay model. “There is still a full hour’s work. You had better not stay up any longer, Deborra. Your voice tells me that you are tired.”
“Solder!” she said. “We seem to have talked more about solder than anything else. It is, of course, a subject of deep interest.”
She stood up. Her feet vanished from sight as the folds of the green wrap fell into place. The scarf was gathered so closely about her that very little of her throat was visible. This did not matter because he had already turned to his work. Her eyes, fixed on the back of his head, were rebellious. “The smallest detail of what he is doing is more important to him than I am,” she thought.
She asked as she turned toward the door, “Can I get you some food or a cup of wine?”
He shook his head. He was too absorbed to take any interest in food or wine, let alone to understand the emotional strain that showed in her voice.
“There is nothing I want,” he said.
Deborra walked slowly to her room. “He looked at me but he did not see me. He has no interest in me at all. If I asked him to accept my love, he would say the same thing, ‘There is nothing I want.’ ”
“Good night, Basil,” she said at the door.
There was a barely perceptible pause before he answered. “Good night, Deborra.”
She closed the door softly behind her and climbed into the stately bed of scented citrus wood. She began to sob passionately. “There is nothing more I can do,” she said to herself in the darkness.
CHAPTER XXII
1
FOR TWO WEEKS Basil worked with unabated concentration. The sense of urgency that had filled him during the ride from Jerusalem had not entirely subsided and, in addition, he was thinking constantly of the need to reach Rome. He sat at his worktable all through the day and sometimes far into the night. At meals he had little to say, being absorbed in his thoughts. His appetite was small and he had to be urged to partake of the fine dishes spread before him.
Only once in the two weeks did he venture from the house, and that was to pay a visit to his former home on the Colonnade in the hope of seeing his mother. He was refused admittance.
Understanding the fever that possessed him, Deborra made few efforts to break through the wall of his silence. Sometimes she sat beside him and watched his hands at work, not disturbing him with talk. Many times a day she would pause in the doorway of his room, to watch for a few moments and then pass on with an air of unhappiness.
Once, when she was playing in the second court with her newly acquired dog, she looked up and saw to her surprise that he had left his bench and was watching from the upper balustrade. She walked over and raised her head.
“Why am I so honored?” she asked.
“I am in great trouble,” he said with a sigh or weariness. “It is hard to transfer a likeness when you must work in such minute proportions. I wish the Chalice could be twice the size. The head of Luke gave me great difficulty, perhaps because I was anxious to do him well. And now Paul is being stubborn. He seems almost to take a pleasure in eluding me.”
His eyes moved to the dog, which had squatted down beside his mistress. “That is an odd-looking fellow. He has the clumsiest feet I have ever seen.”
“What you need is rest,” said Deborra. “Forget about your difficulties with Luke and the stubbornness of Paul. Come down here with me. We will sit in the shade and talk. I have so much to tell you.” She added after a moment’s pause, “He is a very fine dog.”
“I cannot spare the time yet.” Basil lifted his hands from the stone railing and disappeared inside.
The frame for the Chalice began finally to reach the stage of completion. There were still empty spaces, and these would be filled in due course with the heads of Jesus, John, and Peter. Basil looked at his work and knew that it was good, that the Chalice when finished would be a thing of great beauty. This gave him no sense of satisfaction and no happiness, because the feeling of urgency refused him any peace.
One morning he went out for a stroll and found himself by accident among the tents of P’ing-li. The latter was seated in a folding chair and was gazing straight into the east with a suggestion of longing on his wrinkled face and in the stoop of his back. He looked up when he heard Basil’s step.
“This is happy meeting, honorable young artist,” he said. “I have questions which I make bold to ask. Why must the feet of connubial bliss travel with leaden soles? Why do not these difficulties become settled?” He paused and then chirped an order to a servant who hovered in the background. The latter vanished, to return later with a satin-wrapped bundle, which he placed in his master’s lap. “These are gifts. They are to be left with my good friend, Luke the Healer, and presented to the pretty bride and her honorable young husband as soon as the imminence of an heir is announced. Pretty bride knows of this but has not seen gifts, which are to be kept a secret. It is the earnest hope of humble giver that they will please both parents of forthcoming child.”
“We are unworthy of such very great kindness,” said Basil.
The old man gave his head a brisk shake. “But keep the condition firmly in mind, honorable young husband. Is it an incentive to a more romantic attitude that at your age this now ancient sojourner had three wives and four male children?”
“The comparison is not entirely fair, Illustrious Prince,” Basil pointed out. “In the Christian following one wife is deemed sufficient.”
“A wise rule in many respects. It does not seem likely that any of my wives would have made me sufficiently happy and content, but it must be borne in mind that our standards are different. No, none of the eight would have sufficed.” The eyes of P’ing-li took on a reminiscent gleam. “It is my belief, honorable young friend, that I might have found among my concubines some capable of keeping me happy.”
There was something incongruous about talk of this kind falling from the lips of such a tiny rack of skin and bones, and Basil found it hard to keep a sober countenance when he asked, “Did Illustrious Prince have many concubines?”
The old man broke into a pleased cackle. “A very great many. A long time would be needed to recall and count them all.” His mood became severe and he scrutinized his visitor’s face with shrewd attention. “It is my humble wish that honorable young artist will prove quick to accept a hint.”
The next morning Basil’s feet took him in that direction again and he found the prince sitting in the same location and with the same absorbed interest in the eastern horizon. The old man gave his head a nod of dignified pride. “The total, honorable young artist,” he stated, “was fifty-nine.”
Basil looked puzzled at first, having forgotten the point on which their conversation had reached its conclusion the previous day. Then his memory returned and he smiled. “Fifty-nine concubines?” he asked. “It seems a goodly number.”
P’ing-li nodded with a reminiscent relish. “I counted them last night before I fell asleep. It took several hours, but I enjoyed it very much. Some of them were lovely. They came from all parts of my country; almond-eyed beauties from the south, plump little chicks from the north, girls brought all the way from Tartary——” He broke off and then resumed with many enthusiastic nods. “Those who came from Tartary were always favorites.”
He checked his rhapsodies at this point and fell into a more reflective mood. “Yes, honorable young artist, I had much happiness with all my bustling little hen pheasants. But now, when I look at pretty wife of honorable friend, I think perhaps it better to have one wife only and no concubines at all. It is one of many lessons I have learned.” His eyes acquired a calculating light. “Honorable artist and pretty wife will find the presents much to their taste.”
2
When visitors began to come to the house, Deborra stood between them and the hard-pressed artist. She attended to
them with a coolness and dispatch which demonstrated how very much she took after her grandfather.
The first of the visitors arrived with a great deal of noise and confusion. Half a dozen or more chariots clattered up the steep incline from the city road, a trumpeter in the first one blowing furiously for the way to be cleared. A swarm of boys followed them, shouting with excitement.
The chariots halted along the wall. Linus stepped down from one of them, throwing an order over his shoulder that the juvenile element should be driven off with whips. He swung open the front door without waiting to announce himself. A reluctant Quintus Annius, with documents under his arm, followed a few steps behind.
If the purpose of the usurper had been to impress the household, he had achieved a complete success, for the crunch of wheels and the stamping of the horses had brought the face of a domestic to every window.
“I desire speech with the head of the house,” said Linus to the servant who met him inside the front door.
It was Deborra, however, who came to receive him in the first courtyard. It was an affront to meet him there, for guests of importance were taken to the second court, which was reserved for the use of the family.
Linus recognized this, and the scowl on his brow grew deeper. He was looking hot and dusty, to begin with. His neck was as thick and red as a butcher’s, and the long leggings of leather that covered his shins could not conceal the hairiness and crooked contour of his limbs. He stared at her with every evidence of ill will.
“I came to see Basil, once a slave in my household,” he said.
“I am his wife.”
“I already know that. But I have nothing to say to you.”
“My husband is busy. He cannot see you today. If you prefer me to speak with full candor, I must tell you that I hope he will never see you. I will deliver to him any message you may care to leave.”
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