The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  “There is also this,” went on Jehoahaz. “You are a Roman citizen and you broke no law by acknowledging yourself a Christian. Inasmuch as no evidence developed of a conspiracy in the imperial household, there are no possible grounds for disturbing you here. It is my opinion that you may safely apply for another hearing.”

  If Basil had been in a position to hear Nero say to Petronius, “Sometimes I find myself hoping he will escape,” he would have made his decision with fewer qualms. As it was, he said: “It is worth the risk to have it established that Linus had no right to sell me as a slave. Will you, Jehoahaz, take the necessary steps in my behalf?”

  A week later Jehoahaz reported to him in a state of self-congratulation. “You are to be allowed another hearing. What is more, it has been set for a week from today. It helped me a great deal that the magistrate who heard it the first time has been recalled to Rome because he had become so barefaced in his dishonesty.”

  The lawyer began at once to find witnesses who were willing to testify, for the most part merchants who had known Ignatius and had been in his confidence. He paid a visit also to the grimy stone building where the head of the Roman forces in Antioch made his headquarters, and returned with more good news.

  “The commandant has received the copy of Kester’s deposition,” he declared. “He expresses his willingness to turn it over to the magistrate who will hear the case.” The lawyer paused and winked broadly. “The magistrate is above reproach, a stern custodian of the principles of justice and honesty who has never accepted a bribe. We can depend on the utmost impartiality, which will make this hearing far different from the first.”

  “How is Linus taking things?”

  “With a degree of passivity that rather surprises me,” answered Jehoahaz. “What is the man trying to do? It is certain that he is making no effort to buy himself a second decision. Why not? I think it is because he lacks the money for the purpose. The city is full of rumors about him. He has made some disastrous gambles and he has lost two ships filled with goods from the South and East.” His voice fell to a confident whisper. “A better time could not have been found for the hearing. Linus is beset with difficulties. He will fight, of course, but he will not carry matters off again with such a high hand.”

  On the evening before the hearing Basil paid a visit to the room where the Chalice was on view. Visitors were still arriving, and Luke, who had been on duty at the front gate, welcomed him with a tired smile.

  “Tomorrow night,” he said, “we turn the Chalice over to the presbyters. It will be a relief in a sense when it is in their hands. I shall be able to rest again.” He added after a moment’s pause, “I start for Caesarea in two days.”

  Basil felt a sudden sinking of the heart. “So soon?” he asked. “What are we to do without you?”

  “There has been another message from Paul. He is pressing to be sent to Rome.” Luke’s eyes, which had been on the Chalice, came to rest with an unhappy intentness on Basil’s face. “None of us will return. We are old men and the sands are running out fast.”

  “You are needed here,” protested Basil. “More than in Rome. They depend on you in everything. And you know what the situation is in Rome. Should you involve yourself unnecessarily in the troubles there?”

  “Paul needs me,” said Luke simply. “He is a sick and lonely man. He must not be allowed to make that long sea voyage alone. My place is at his side.”

  A woman who had been standing in front of the Chalice burst into loud lamentations at this point. She beat her breast and wept so bitterly that her companions had to lead her away.

  “It is hard not to be overcome when standing here,” said Luke. “The poor woman is thinking of the shameful death the Saviour died. And yet, my son, it seems to me that tears are a selfish manifestation. Whenever I yield to the impulse, I know it is for myself that I lament. It is true that Jesus wept on many occasions, but it was because of His pity for us. I never see a hint of moisture in the eyes of Paul. That great man of logical mind knows it is weakness to cry out for those who have passed on to a better life.

  “We are weak creatures,” he continued after a moment, “and we repine for what we have lost. I am telling you this, my son, because I must say farewell to you so soon. I shall miss you; I shall miss you most bitterly. The unhappiness on your face tells me that you will feel unhappy also. Smooth the trouble from your brow, my boy. You have a fine wife and before long you will have a family of fine children. You will enjoy a full and useful life. Always keep me in your memory; the stranger who came to you that night in the Ward of the Trades when your spirits had fallen to such a low ebb. I smile still when I recall that you thought me the angel Mefathiel. It is one of the gems in my crown; if you can call the tiny chaplet I may have earned by such a name.” He leaned over and placed an arm on Basil’s shoulder. “There must be no tears when we part. Nothing but smiles and heads held high—even though we know it will be a last farewell.”

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  1

  BASIL was conscious of the scowl of Linus as soon as he entered the courtroom. The usurper sat on the other side, surrounded by a group of witnesses and men of the law. He was sprawled in a low chair with his feet planted wide apart and a belligerent look on his face; an obese figure, a little bent, more coarse of face than ever. He continued to scowl in Basil’s direction and to mutter sullenly to those about him.

  “He is in an angry mood,” commented Jehoahaz. The man of law was confident and cheerful. “It will do him small good. One thing is certain, he has not bribed the dyspeptic Brutus up there on the bench. T. Orestes Flaminius is a young man of extreme rectitude and the custodian of the shortest temper I have ever encountered. We must tread warily and so avoid his wrath. But I suspect that he and Linus will soon be at each other’s throats.”

  Basil looked at the magistrate with mingled feelings. T. Orestes Flaminius was noticeably young for such a post; thin, prematurely bald and obviously shortsighted, for he was squinting impatiently at the documents in front of him. He would be impartial, that was certain, but also he would be testy and difficult.

  On the occasion of the first trial Basil had felt that he stood alone. No one had spoken to him. His father’s old friends, knowing him the certain loser, had avoided his eye. The atmosphere of the court was now quite different. Eyes met his with friendliness. People smiled at him and nodded. It had been a dark and threatening day when he tasted the bitterness of defeat; now the sun came triumphantly through the windows of the court and glistened on the polished breastplates of the Roman soldiers standing at each end of the magisterial bench.

  Everything was different, but Basil did not find himself reflecting the cheerfulness of Jehoahaz. Deborra had found it impossible to accompany him. That morning she had risen at the same time he did, but she had been slow at her ablutions. “I am finding it hard to be cheerful,” she had said. And then, suddenly, she had seated herself and was looking at him with a white face. “Basil, I feel badly,” she said. “I—I am very much afraid I am going to be ill. Do not look so disturbed about it, dear heart. I am sure it is just the—the usual symptoms.”

  As he sat in court now and waited for the hearing to begin, his mind was not on the case. He was thinking of the white face of his bride and fearing that she had held something back from him. She had been so pathetically limp and it had been so hard for her to smile when she said good-by.

  Inevitably, however, his mind went on to more cheerful matters and he thought of the son who would arrive after all the customary symptoms had been lived through, the son who would proudly wear the fine clothes the old prince had left for him and frighten other boys by swaggering about in the conjurer’s mask.

  “It is certain that Linus is in financial difficulties,” whispered the man of law. “It is the one thing I am concerned about. Are we fighting over a dead carcass?”

  The sharp voice of the young magistrate was raised. “Let us begin,” he said.

  Jehoahaz pawed thr
ough the documents in front of him and found the deposition of Kester of Zanthus. He rose to his feet. “Learned Judge,” he said, “I have a paper I desire to lay before you. It is a statement made by one of the five witnesses who was not heard from at the first hearing. His name is Kester of Zanthus and he is a dealer in army contracts, residing in Rome. This statement was given by Kester to the plaintiff when the latter was in Rome.”

  Linus roused himself from his sprawling position and stared at the lawyer with startled eyes. Clearly he was hearing for the first time of the statement supplied by the missing witness. “Now he will begin to rant and roar,” thought Basil. But the man who had won the first legal battle said nothing. There was a flush on his flabby cheeks, and it could be seen that the hirsute hand with which he grasped the arm of his chair was twitching spasmodically.

  “I have a copy of the evidence of this man, Christopher of Zanthus,” declared the magistrate, lifting a document in front of him. “It has been supplied to me by the commandant of the imperial forces in this district, to whom it had been sent by the witness himself. There is, I understand, an acquaintance of long standing between them.”

  The legal aides seated about Linus went into action at this point, arguing bitterly about points of law. There was a loud babble of voices for some minutes, and much raising of vehement fists in the air, and then the magistrate cut the discussion off with an impatient thump of his hand on the bench.

  “Enough!” he said. “I need no instruction in the meaning of the Twelve Tables. This deposition, copies of which have reached the court now from two sources, is admissible as evidence.” He turned in the direction of Jehoahaz. “What witnesses have you?”

  The witnesses who went up one by one, to stand briefly in the fierce light of the magisterial eye, were merchants for the most part, men who had known Ignatius well and who testified that they had heard him speak of Basil as his adopted son and his heir. Flaminius allowed no interference with them. He asked the questions himself, sharp, pointed, conclusive. It took no more than a few minutes in each case, and then a wave of the nervous hand of authority would send the witness back to his seat.

  While this went on Basil was watching the man he had hated so deeply and for so long and realizing that none of that feeling was left in him. He was conscious, in fact, of a trace of pity for the usurper. Linus was a sick man and a frightened one. Basil no longer felt any desire to tear his opponent down and exult in his fall.

  2

  It was clear from the beginning of the defense case that it would rest on the evidence of Hiram of Silenus. Basil remembered him as a fat and oily specimen with great yellow freckles on his face. Hiram was both fatter and oilier now and the freckles had multiplied to the density of stars in a constellation. It was quite apparent from the moment he entered the room that he would have preferred not to testify a second time and that he had come under pressure of the law.

  The magistrate summoned the witness to a position directly beneath the seat of authority and proceeded to go over his previous evidence step by step. Hiram, perspiring freely and sometimes turning to dart apprehensive glances at Linus and his little circle of advisers, affirmed under this close examination that the evidence he had given at the first hearing had been true. He was still of the belief that the ceremony he had witnessed had not been one of adoption. He did not remember any striking of the gong with the ingot of lead, no affirmation on the part of Ignatius that he was taking the boy as his son.

  The magistrate then picked up the statement of Kester of Zanthus and read it aloud. What did Hiram of Silenus have to say about this?

  That the memory of Kester of Zanthus was at fault.

  Had the father of the boy offered his son for sale three times as prescribed by law?

  Yes, but not for adoption.

  Had there been a meal afterward of five courses and had five of the finest wines been served as asserted?

  He had no recollection of a meal of any kind.

  Was it true that Ignatius had given to each of the five witnesses a belt buckle of silver?

  He had received no gift of any kind from Ignatius.

  Did he have in his possession a silver buckle of the kind described by Christopher of Zanthus?

  No, he had no such buckle.

  At this point in the examination Basil sat up very straight on the bench he was sharing with his legal adviser, his attention roused to a keener point. There had been something about the appearance of Hiram when he first entered the room that had tantalized him with a hint of familiarity. Could it have been the buckle on his belt?

  He got to his feet and made his way through the crowded space in front of the magisterial dais until he stood close to the unwilling and now harried witness. His eyes settled on the buckle of the man’s belt. It was of silver and it had five points; it was, in fact, identical in every way with the one Kester of Zanthus had worn.

  “This lag-witted ox, this accepter of bribes!” said Basil to himself. “He has been guilty of the stupidity of wearing into court the evidence that will prove him to be lying.”

  What would be the most effective way of calling the buckle to the attention of the young magistrate with his keen wits and his eyes as sharp as camel-prods? Basil examined the perspiring bulk of the reluctant witness and saw that the leather of his belt was showing the strain of spanning a stomach that had become too wide for it. The belt had worn thin at the back.

  Basil carried one of his knives in his own belt and this he now produced, touching a finger lightly to the blade. It was keen and sharp. He edged his way behind Hiram and gave the most frayed part of the leather a quick, deft slash. The leather parted and the belt fell to the floor.

  Before the startled Hiram could do anything about retrieving the belt, Basil had it in his hands. He glanced at the inside of the buckle, which was tarnished from long use, and saw that two names and a date had been inscribed upon it. Stepping close to the dais, he held it up in the air.

  “Here, Learned Judge, is proof that this witness has not told you the truth,” he declared. “This is the buckle which was given him by my father, Ignatius; the same gift which the other four witnesses received.”

  The magistrate held out a peremptory hand. “Give it to me.”

  The belt was handed up to him and he examined the inscriptions with an eye that had become cold and accusing. Then he leaned forward and held the article out to the witness.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I do not remember. I have had it for many years.”

  “Do you deny receiving this from Ignatius on the occasion under discussion?”

  “I do not recall receiving a present of any kind.”

  “What explanation do you give of the inscriptions on the back?”

  “I was not aware there were any inscriptions.”

  “And yet you tell me that you have owned this belt for many years? Do you still deny any knowledge of the nature of the inscriptions?”

  “Yes.”

  “I call to your attention that the buckle is inscribed with the name of Ignatius and the name he was giving the boy, together with the date of the ceremony.”

  The witness had nothing to say. He was now perspiring so profusely that he seemed on the point of melting away like tallow under the rays of the sun.

  The magistrate raised a hand for silence. All mutter of conversation in the court ceased. There was no sound even of rustling garments or the scuffing of sandals on the floor.

  “It will not be necessary to hear anything further,” said the magistrate.

  No doubt was left as to what the verdict would be. Basil looked at Linus. The mouth of the usurper had fallen open and his face had become as white as candle wax. Basil said to himself: “Luke was right. There is no satisfaction in revenge. This man deserves no pity and yet I find that I am sorry for him. I have won but I must strive to be generous.”

  3

  Basil noticed differences in the house on the Colonnade as soon as he was ad
mitted. The halls had not been sufficiently aired and his nostrils encountered a thicker mustiness than he had ever detected in the halls of Nero. It surprised him still more, however, that he had been met by Quintus Annius.

  The Roman clerk bowed to him solemnly and ceremoniously. “I knew you would come,” he said. “As he came the other time.”

  “Is my haste unseemly?”

  Quintus Annius shook his head. “Not at all. The others have been arriving. You are the last.”

  Basil looked his surprise. “What others?”

  The Roman clerk made a gesture with his hands that suggested resignation. “The creditors,” he said.

  This brought other questions at once to the tongue of the restored owner. “Creditors? What I have heard is true then? Linus has been having losses?”

  A morose nod of the head provided the answer. Basil’s heart sank very low. Had he won back his inheritance to have it snatched away again in the moment of victory? Did this mean that his hope of security and independence was to be no more than a dream?

  He became unpleasantly aware of the silence and emptiness of the halls. Most of the furnishings had been removed, and so far he had seen no trace of servants.

  “Where are the slaves?” he asked.

  “There was a commotion when word of the decision reached us. I ordered them confined to their quarters.”

  “What kind of commotion?”

  “Linus was a hard master and had made himself hated. When we heard you had been restored to your inheritance there were demonstrations of joy. For a time they got quite out of hand.”

  Basil smiled without any sense of mirth or pleasure. “I begin to get a sense of welcome after all. But any real satisfaction I might have taken is gone because my mother is not here to share in it.”

  Quintus Annius nodded gravely. “It is much to be regretted that she could not have lived two months longer. She was very kind, particularly near the end. We had many talks and she was always certain that you would be restored to your rights. The last time I saw her she said it would be soon but that she would not be here to see it. How true that was!” He sighed deeply. “As long as she lived we were able to keep up a semblance of order. It was after her death that the place fell into such shameful neglect. I even found myself wishing at times that Linus had a wife.”