A Pillar of Iron

by Taylor Caldwell

  Noë, suddenly gloomy, thought of Sulla and his gray dictatorship. It was, he decided, the prelude to tumult and tyranny. Why had Sulla delayed in declaring himself emperor? Dictators eventually made certain that they would continue, through their sons, through their brothers. Yet Sulla had established none of this. It was possible that some military virtue still living in him shrank from the final crime. But the culmination would not be delayed. There was, in man, a suicidal impulse that led inevitably to madness and death and fury when unrestrained by principle and rectitude. Sulla was apparently holding it back, as a charioteer holds back his plunging horses in the race. I do not despise Sulla, thought Noë. I pity him.

  Helvia smiled at Noë inquiringly, as if she had heard his thoughts, and then she sighed.

  Noë leaned toward her and bowed and touched the hem of her robe.

  He said, “‘A good wife is more precious than rubies, and all the things you can desire are not to be compared with her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold of her, and happy is everyone who retains her.’”

  Helvia was not a woman of sentimentality; nevertheless, her eyes were suddenly full of tears. She said, “That is most beautiful, and you are a poet, Noë, and I thank you.”

  “Do not praise me,” said Noë. “It was Solomon who spoke so of women, and I think it of you when I see you and remember you, Lady.”

  Helvia said, “Roman men do not think this of their women.”

  “Lady, Roman women have abdicated the throne of women, and that is a great sorrow for the world.”

  “Tell me of your wife, Noë.”

  Noë stared at the sky. “When Jewish men and women are married it is a holy thing in the sight of God, a sacrament. However, men frequently forget, and God is busy with an eternity of worlds. But Jewish women do not permit their husbands and their God to forget! They are very insistent upon their remembering.”

  Helvia laughed like a girl, and bit a woolen thread from the distaff. She regarded Noë merrily. “I take it that Leah reminds you,” she said.

  “Endlessly, Lady.”

  Noë sprawled his long length on the stool, yawned and stretched with content. His lean and slender face was golden from the sun; his light brown eyes shimmered; his wide mouth parted to show his fine teeth. His waving brown hair was ruffled by the wind, and his excellently shaped nose wrinkled as he inhaled the fine scents of wool and linen near him, and the fragrance of fruit and grass. His big ears appeared to have a life of their own. He wore a short tunic of yellow linen and a leather belt and sandals, as a concession to country life, and thought himself very rustic. However, to his attire, he had added golden armlets crusted with jewels and an Alexandrian dagger also gemmed.

  Helvia’s face slowly became grave. She hesitated. “Marcus does not speak to you as yet of serious matters, Noë?”

  “No, Lady. His wounds still bleed sorely. He talks to me of trivial affairs and comments on the weather only. He is grateful, he says, that I came here. He sometimes smiles at my jests, and for that we should be thankful.”

  He smiled at Helvia like an older son speaking of a younger. “He should marry. I doubt if he will forget that unfortunate girl, who died so monstrously. If he had married her it would have been tragic, for she was very strange. I have heard she was like wine and fire, and as enigmatic as the shapes of clouds. This is excellent in a mistress, but disconcerting in a wife. Men are poets and speak of nymphs and myrtle and the quicksilver of moonlight. But when they marry they prefer bread and cheese, on their tables. Such will it be for Marcus.”

  “But, he will not forget her.”

  “No. He will not forget. He will make Catilina remember and that will be an awful day.”

  “He saw the girl but four times in his life. I do not understand men. How can Marcus have become so enamored in so short a time?”

  “I have told you, Lady. Men are poets. That is why you find us so endearing.”

  Helvia laughed again, and the girls laughed with her.

  “I have two sons of my body,” she said. “Yet, when I married I acquired my first son—my husband.”

  Noë found Tullius somewhat tiresome, for all his goodness. He also found him ethereal. He had met many men in Jerusalem like Tullius, who sat in the gates and discussed God and philosophy endlessly while their wives struggled with households and kept the books and counted the silver and the bales of cloth and ordered the servants, and bore the children these delicate men absentmindedly begot in odd moments of the night. Noë thought of his mother, who so resembled Helvia, and he made a vow that never would he be a husband to Leah as his father was to his mother, and Tullius was to his wife. He had bought a house in Rome, and Leah was busily engaged in preparing it for her family. He would write her a letter and tell her that he would soon return. There was much to be said in favor of good bread and ripe cheese on a white wooden table. Contrary to the poets, they fed the soul too.

  “You will be returning to Rome soon, Lady Helvia?” he asked.

  “Yes. The days are drawing in; the nights are cold.”

  Noë stood up. “I shall try to persuade Marcus to return with me when I go. Life is calling to him, though he refuses to face it as yet. What a name he has acquired in Rome! there is none like him, but he does not know it in his modesty.” Noë paused. “I have not yet informed him. Lucius Sergius Catilina has married Aurelia Orestilla, though the cypress tree still stands at his door in mourning for Livia.”

  “What effrontery!” cried Helvia, aghast.

  Noë shrugged. “To an aristocrat, none of his desires is effrontery. By what measure, they ask, can lesser men judge them. Decencies and respectabilities are for dull creatures and the market place and the middle-class. Let those like Catilina beware.”

  “Of what, Noë?”

  “Of the wrath of God,” said Noë. Seeing Helvia’s sad and skeptical face, he added, “That is the fate of man, and his ultimate despair, that God does not forget.”

  Bowing to Helvia, he sauntered away, musing. He went down to the river. He saw Quintus at a distance, riding a spirited horse, and he shuddered. He thought of Quintus with indulgence and fondness. However, he preferred that a man did not sweat and did not smell of hay all the time, or of oiled iron.

  The river ran and sang in purple and silver and gold under the sun. Noë found Marcus sitting on a bank looking at the water, his hands folded on his bare knees. His profile was pale and still. Sorrow shadowed his face, darkened his mouth, made his chin and brow resemble bare bone. But when he saw Noë he smiled with pleasure. “Lazy one,” he said. “You keep the hours of the city in the country.”

  Noë sat on the grass beside him. “You rebuke me undeservedly. I have had a long and fruitful talk with your mother, whose conversation is as satisfying as an excellent meal. She reminds me of Leah.”

  “Whom you often forget exists,” said Marcus.

  “Who does not let me forget she exists,” said Noë. “That is my only objection to good women. They are always nearby. I prefer women who are more elusive.”

  “But who do not have ready coffers,” said Marcus.

  “I am not a bankrupt, Marcus. My profits from my plays in Judea were satisfactory. The Greeks appreciate art. So do the younger Jews.”

  “I did not mean to offend you, dear Noë.”

  “Certainly you did!” Noë laughed. “When will your next book of essays be ready?”

  Marcus moved restlessly, as if in sudden pain. “I do not know. I do not know if I shall ever write again. My publisher is impatient. I have discovered that publishers believe that writers and poets and essayists have no true existence apart from the business of publication. We are commodities, as are other goods to merchants.”

  “Without a publisher, Marcus, you could not afford this island, nor the other properties you have acquired.”

  “True,” said Marcus.
“But I should like my publisher to realize that I am of flesh and blood, and am not solely composed of paper and ink. Noë, I observed your good father’s advice. I bought land and farms and a villa or two, which are now very valuable.”

  “Which you would not possess without a publisher.”

  Marcus smiled, and then chuckled. “You see how inconsistency plagues us all. Still, I have received many fine gifts from clients, and three magnificent legacies recently from grateful former clients.”

  Noë coughed. “I did not tell you. I have had tremendous good fortune! The great actor, Roscius, has assented to appear in my next play. He is a scoundrel and a cheat, a mountebank and a posturer, a man without morals—it was inevitable that the ladies of Rome should adore him. My contract with him, gravely and duly annotated by the praetor, calls for a sum so enormous that I hesitate to mention it to you. But Rome is even now excited over the next exhibition of his artistry, and I confess to you, though I should not to him, that he is in all ways an artist. I adore actors, though I deplore them. They are at once gods and children, and full of malice and envy. Ah, Roscius!”

  Marcus was stirred from his apathy.

  “Roscius!” he exclaimed. “He can command his own fee!”

  “He did,” said Noë, ruefully. “And I, needing him greedily, agreed. He is as penurious as a Spartan. His sartorial splendor is paid for by unaware husbands; his jewels are incredibly magnificent, and had their origin in the dowries of wives. One lady whom charity forbids me to name has just bought him a villa high on the Palatine, itself. He has a farm in Sicily, another near Athens, olive groves without count and citron groves to match, statues, Alexandrian vases, crystals beyond compare, stocks and bonds to make a banker lick his lips, carpets to shame the patricians, chariots to suit his mood and horses for the races, slaves by the platoons, and idolatrous women by the multitude. He also owns several theatres of his own. I have rented one from him, so you will understand my position.

  “How can you afford such a prodigy?” asked Marcus with amusement.

  “It is true that I cannot,” said Noë. “What a face he has! He makes Apollo look like a cleaner of the Cloaca. He has but to stride along a street to have every vehicle stop instantly, a matter your dear friend, Julius Caesar, has not been able to accomplish in spite of his stringent traffic laws. By the way, it is possible that you do not know that our young Julius has forbidden the entry of all vehicular travel into the Forum and along the main streets during active business hours, and to give honor where honor is due this has been a law badly needed in Rome for a long time. But to return to Roscius. There is no actor, no athlete, no aristocrat in all Rome to compare with his appearance. I detest him. He has robbed me. As you know, Leah’s fortune is carefully managed by her father’s lawyers and bankers, and though she is generous to me—God preserve her—I find myself in a difficult position.”

  “In short,” said Marcus, showing increasing interest, “you cannot meet the terms you legally swore to meet.”

  “How discerning you are, my dear Marcus!” cried Noë. Then his long face became dejected. “I must have an additional forty thousand sesterces before my play opens in Rome. For that ravisher’s purse, and if I were not employing him I should heap on him some ancient curses I learned in Jerusalem.”

  “Forty thousand sesterces!” said Marcus, incredulously. “You are mad.”

  “Without the shadow of a doubt,” Noë agreed. “Do you remember that I said ‘additional?’”

  Marcus stared at him. “You are to give him more, besides?”

  “I have already given him twenty thousand.” Marcus’ mouth opened. He began to shake his head slowly from side to side.

  Noë became rhapsodic. He flung up his hands. “But I shall gain a profit of five times as much! I tell you, Marcus, I have written a stupendous play, and have engaged musicians who will cost a fortune in themselves. Roscius has already read it, or rather his scribe has read it to him for he disdains to read, he says. It is my belief that he is illiterate. He is as transported as I am over its grandeur. Ah, I have a copy with me for you to read here at your leisure.” Noë beamed at his friend.

  Marcus became apprehensive. He looked pointedly at Noë, Noë beamed with even more brightness at him. “It is in the Greek style, of course. A marvelous tragedy. But I will not spoil your pleasure by relating it to you now. I prefer that you read it.”

  Marcus seized his head in his hands and rocked it to and fro and groaned. “Never did I believe that a Ciceroni would be seduced into investing in a play!” he said. “In a vulgar theatre, for a vulgar mob.”

  “I have not asked you to invest in my play,” said Noë. “I am offering you one-third of my interest in Roscius. Why do you call plays vulgar? Socrates, himself, and Plato, and Aristotle, regarded them as the highest art.”

  “They never knew Roscius,” said Marcus, with a louder groan.

  “You will admit that it is impossible to buy tickets for his performances. It is a magnificent event in Rome, or in Athens, or in Alexandria, when he appears. It is a holiday.”

  “How much?” asked Marcus in a stifled voice.

  “Twenty thousand sesterces.”

  “Twenty thousand sesterces!”

  “Not a fortune,” said Noë. “It is only half of what I must pay that thief in the near future. For that modest sum you will own one-third of Roscius. Only to you, Marcus, would I make this offer. I have only to go to the bankers—”

  “Well, why have you not before this?”

  “I have already been to them,” said Noë, with a sigh. “They agree that my play will stun Romans, that Roscius is beyond compare and will drive the city mad with love and rapture. But, you know bankers.”

  “I do. I respect their perspicacity. I know of Roscius’ reputation. What is to prevent Roscius from declining to appear longer in the play than the first few performances?”

  “I have a contract: Give me credit for intelligence, Marcus! If he fails even one performance he forfeits a certain sum. Each failure to appear forfeits him more, and he is as avaricious as an Athenian shopkeeper.”

  “And as mendacious,” said Marcus.

  “A lady he greatly admires now owns another third of him,” said Noë, winking. “And her husband has a bad disposition, and her brother is one of Sulla’s generals. Marcus, this is an opportunity which will never come to you again!”

  “For which I devoutly thank the gods,” said Marcus, sighing.

  Noë ignored this. “You will not only receive the return of your money speedily, but you will then receive a certain amount—an astonishing amount—every week for so long as the play runs, and I expect it to be an astounding success. You will, after this fine fortune which is looming on your horizon now like a galleon loaded with gold, need to practice law only as a diversion.”

  “Sometimes I think I do,” said Marcus. “Noë, did you come to visit me for the purpose of attaching yourself to my purse? Ah, I have hurt you, dear friend. I only jest. I will write you a draft on my bank tonight.”

  “What it is to have a soul enamored of the theatre!” said Noë, with a blissful moan. “What a moment for the writer of a play when his characters appear on the stage and declaim his lines! He is transported. He is like Zeus, himself. He is a creator. I should have been an actor; I love them all, and execrate them all.”

  He jumped to his feet and tore off his tunic. “Let us swim in that delightful water. I tell you, I am in a fever of joy. The sun is still hot; the river is filled with water nymphs, singing out their little sweet hearts.”

  “The river is treacherous,” said Marcus. But Noë ran down the steep bank and with a cry flung himself into the waters and began to swim strongly. Marcus, remembering his dreadful experience, hesitated. Then he took off his tunic and more sedately joined his friend, and they frolicked together like young boys. But Marcus judiciously stayed close to the banks.

  Eventually, they rose dripping and shining from the river, and lay down on the warm gra
ss to dry themselves. Noë said critically, “Neither you nor I, Marcus, would ever be invited by a sculptor to pose for a statue of Hermes, nor even for a Senator. We have the bodies of scholars and are as wan as larvae, and our muscles are not notable. This would meet with the approval of the old men in Jerusalem, who despise beauty of body and prefer the beauty of soul, which is not discernible. I have told you that Jerusalem is a theocracy. Unfortunately, it is now no longer completely true, for the Pharisees, our lawyers and the guardians of our spiritual laws—and there are no others—are hair-splitters and grim as your Vulcan. Woe to our Messias, if and when He finally appears, if He deprecates one iota of the law as it is written!”

  “Do you still expect Him?” asked Marcus in a dull and wondering tone.

  “Hourly,” said Noë, beginning to chew on a long stalk of grass.

  “You believe He will be born?”

  Noë considered. “I am no theologian. For myself, I can say neither yes nor no. I can only tell you what I have learned and what I have read in the Sacred Books. ‘Who is she that looks forth as the bright morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?’”

  “Who is she?” asked Marcus, with returning interest.

  “The Mother of the Messias. And so the holy men and the Pharisees seek her face everywhere, and they declare that they will know her by her beauty and her majesty, this Virgin of virgins, this young Queen chosen by God, Himself. They also declare that they will know her by her ‘entourage’ but that surely is symbolism, for Solomon was a poet and not a lawyer who concerned himself merely with dry statements. Why should her Son need armies and banners and trumpets and the thunder of drums?”

  “How shall you know Him then?”