The Blood of the Martyrs (44 page)

The attack on the castle having successfully culminated in real flames, real burns, real pain and real death, it was time for lunch. As soon as the debris had been cleared away, the dancers came on, in groups and lines and singly, or displayed on slowly moving platforms. Dancing was more conducive to digestion than sudden death. Perfume sprayers dashed about in all directions; the smoke from the castle had a way of lingering unpleasantly, tainted now also with the roast meat smell. Sweet-sellers were busy too. During
the lunch interval the Emperor would be approachable and affable to his people, would read petitions and remedy injustices. Amidst thunders of applause, an old blind woman, defrauded by her stepson, had her little home given back to her, as well as a dozen gold pieces from the Imperial purse, charmingly presented by the Empress in person; and the wicked stepson was chased across the Circus by the fine fellow with the cat o' nine tails who set him dancing with a flick on the buttocks now and again, as which of us wouldn't like to see done to one of our dear little friends-oh!

But most of the better seats had retired for a peaceable luncheon at home. Very few of the dancers were quite up to standard from near by; the make-up was crude and the nudity distinctly fly-blown. They had no desire at all to take part in the raffle, when tickets were showered all over the upper blocks from catapultish mechanisms, and someone was quite sure to get hurt in the scramble. Balbus was particularly anxious to find Crispus and bring him along to the Circus if possible. He decided to walk over to his house, across the Forum; a walk was just what he needed. Felicio, following at a discreet secretarial distance, nodded, also discreetly, to a new acquaintance, one he had made at the wedding ceremony at Crispus's house, the Epicurean freedman Nausiphanes, who had been Beric's tutor. Nausiphanes was standing outside the Circus, getting into conversation with people, not however, in the way you would have imagined, as a pimp, but in order to spread certain doctrines directed against the State. Being middle-aged, Nausiphanes did this with care, knowing when to laugh and when to be very serious and decisive. Felicio followed his master away from the noises of the Circus, the continuous varied rustle and jar and babble of human voices, and the echoing, long, chromatic roarings of the hungry beasts.

But Nausiphanes stayed. The lunch interval was always a fruitful time. Out of two hundred thousand, an uncertain percentage had been disgusted or bored or were in some way prepared to see through this particular activity of the State. Some, again, might be interested in popular science—the mechanics of the Circus enabled one to start a conversation of this kind; and science, interpreted, left
very little of any of the gods, including the Divine Thing which was, strictly speaking, being worshipped in there to the accompaniment of torture and death, at the September Games, the Ludi Romani.

Nausiphanes saw the Christians who were to feature in the next part of the programme, being marched across to the cells under the tiers of seats. The man he had been engaging in conversation turned and ran over to look at them; so did most of the crowd. A good many had picked up things to throw. Nausiphanes followed, a little depressed; he suddenly wished he were back in Greece, where people were cruel on an impulse or by accident, but not in this heavy, unanimous, Roman way. But perhaps Greece was just as bad now; he didn't know; it was a long time since he had been there. He really knew very little about the Christian superstition; obviously most of what he had heard was nonsense: all these orgies and murders. But probably they were hysterical and irrationally worshipped some kind of god, believing blindly without proof, as all worshippers do, and sooner or later the god would become a symbol of power and exploitation, as all gods do. Yet at the same time they were being persecuted because they were against the Roman State; no Roman ever really bothered about a difference of gods; in religious matters they were profoundly tolerant because their own gods were not of the individual heart but only social inventions—or had become so. Yet politically they did and must persecute: and equally must be attacked by all who had the courage. He hoped these Christians had courage, in spite of the irrationality of their minds. Standing still and quiet among the yellers and throwers, Nausiphanes watched the faces for courage. And saw Manasses. And saw Beric.

Somebody threw a piece of jagged tile and Beric jerked up his arm as far as the chains would let him to protect his companion, whom Nausiphanes, pushing through, recognised as another of the dining-room boys. The prisoners were halted outside the Circus while official notes were interchanged. Beric was licking the new cut on his arm that the tile had made, just as he had done when he was a little boy out with his tutor and had tumbled over a stone.
He was not looking beyond his group at the outside world. Nausiphanes had to call his name twice, ‘Beric! Beric! Are you really one of them?'

Beric looked at Nausiphanes for a moment as though he did not recognise him, then nodded and spoke evenly, as though, in some way, he had expected to be asked. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘and now I can prove it.'

It sounded as though he had the courage all right, the courage that you needed to stand against Rome, yet Nausiphanes had to make sure, had to twist and bruise his heart into asking and watching. For a moment he couldn't think how to ask; he had been fond of the boy, and then, after his years of tutoring were over, had forgotten him rather, had been dealing with other, quicker brains. But none with more courage. He had taught him riding, too. He asked in a whisper at last, ‘Ready for the fence, Beric? And all of you?'

‘That's easy!' said Beric, and he tossed his head the old way, and Nausiphanes saw how bruised he was. ‘I should have made mistakes if I'd been living for it. I've only got to die for it now and nothing's going to stop me doing that. Don't look so down about it, Nausiphanes. I'm not. You wouldn't be if you were one of us.'

‘To save you when you were a child, Beric, and now—to do this to you. Oh, that's Rome.'

‘But it's this that'll smash Rome in the end. You'll see. Nausiphanes, we're winning just because everyone wants the Kingdom really, at the bottom of their minds. So it's bound to come. It's only the rule that stops them thinking they want it. Even the Emperor's bound to want what we want. And we'll show him!'

Now the bars were pulled back and the Christians were being shoved through into the dark. Beric and Argas were jerked forward, with only a look back at Nausiphanes. Some of them ahead were singing. A very few were crying. Euphemia turned to the guard next her and said, ‘Goodbye, brother. I saw you stop them poking sticks at me. I do thank you ever so much, I'm sure.'

‘Get on there!' said the guard; the hell of a brother he was being to them! Oh, you'd
got
to do it. But—this barmy lot of women—what
were
the Christians, anyhow?

‘Come in and watch us die,' said Lalage, looking at him as though she knew what he was thinking. ‘We aren't just crazy; we've got something to die for. And thank you, brother.'

And all along the line, here and there, some man or woman would be saying that, and after the last Christians were in and the bars up and the guards standing easy while the sergeant was getting his note countersigned, Nausiphanes said to the one who had been next to Beric, ‘I knew that lad, guard. What did you think of them?'

The man looked round. ‘Queer. That's what they are. Going like that to the beasts. 'Tisn't natural!'

Another guard said heavily, ‘It made me feel right bad. Getting thanked. I can't see what they done to deserve
that
.' The noise of the beasts, the yapping and roaring and howling, was very unpleasant from where they were. ‘Hope the poor bastards in there don't hear it,' the guard said, and suddenly turned in sharp anger on Nausiphanes, ‘Here, clear out, you! Nosing around—you one of them, hey?'

But Nausiphanes, expert by now at dodging and disappearing into a crowd, was gone. And this—this was being effective in shaking the primary roots of men's being. Once these are shaken, the reasonable mind, which is fed by such roots, can itself be approached. And this Kingdom of theirs was, Nausiphanes thought, the same as the Epicurean Garden, the place of love and equality and trust. So that was all right. But for Beric—his Beric— There were things you couldn't quite believe. Not at first. No doubt, since they were facts, you would come to believe them later.

The jumping horses again, were a spectacle for the upper seats, pretty enough when you saw them all together, but not so exciting. However, most of the audience were back for the net and trident fights. These were highly skilled and had the necessary element of strangeness and extra-humanity. The net and trident man had to fight a swordsman with armour and a far better weapon who could only be overcome when netted; then the comparatively useless, clumsy trident could be plunged into an unarmoured throat, as into a fine turbot or mullet. If the net cast short, its bearer must run, gathering it in behind
him, pursued by the swordsman, dodging amongst other couples, unlikely to escape. The eyes of the spectators were constantly busy. Many of the combatants were old friends, known by nicknames to thousands, shouted and encouraged or booed if they were thought to flinch. An old favourite had more chance if downed. Several were spared this time for future amusement.

Balbus had persuaded Crispus to come. Indeed, it was necessary, in view of the position, but Crispus was in no mood for it. He had got no satisfaction from the prison, only promises. He did not know if there would really be a chance of his interceding for Beric. Perhaps if he went straight to the Emperor—? It was just on the cards. If he did that and if by any chance he had some kind of success, then he must be out of the Piso conspiracy. It would be worth it. If he could save Beric he would never touch politics again. So far he had not even got all his slaves back; Mikkos and Sannio were still held on some excuse. However, Hermeias was with him again; the poor man had been somewhat shaken, but after a rest in the morning had insisted on accompanying his master in the afternoon; he and Balbus's Felicio sat on the floor behind their master's seats, getting a look round from time to time and noting bets. Balbus was insisting on Crispus betting with him; it would take his mind off anything else.

The big brothel scene was arranged on a series of raised stages, so that there should be an uninterrupted view from all parts of the Circus. Tigellinus was chaffing the Alexandrian Erasixenos about the habits of his home town. The main scene with the most amusing expertisms, was set in front of the Imperial Box; Nero was amused. Constant fanning and scent spraying and sprinkling of lily garlands had kept the box and its immediate neighbourhood in a highly civilised though somewhat unreal condition. But as the hot air, laden with other than floral scents, lifted towards the top blocks of hourly close and sweating thousands, the dream that they had come with and which was the reality of the Circus, had become more and more charged, breaking down all common barriers, so that men, and women as well, abruptly emitted spoken desires towards actions of
an extreme and final kind on human bodies opened and wriggling and twitching either in perhaps assumed pleasure or in certainly genuine terror and pain and death. Curious hootings of appreciation or impatience came down in waves from above. Nor did the more aristocratic seats always disdain to be carried away with the rest into the unanimity of the wolves which were the symbols of Rome.

It was into this blood dream that about sixty Christians were driven out of the dark cells to be torn to pieces and eaten by a considerably large number of carnivorous animals. They were marched round in groups and each group was preceded by a large written board saying: Christian Murderers: We Set Fire to Rome: Christian Baby-stealers: Christian Traitors: We Rape Priestesses: We Abuse the Home: Christian Poisoners: and so on. There had been some trouble about these notices; the original idea had been that they should be carried by members of each group, but it was found quite impossible to coerce them into doing so. That was the worst of dealing with people who knew they were going to be killed anyhow. As it was, they shouted out that the notices were all lies and called their own slogans instead. This did not matter very much though, because everyone yelled and pelted them if they could, and what the Christians were saying could only be heard in the best seats, whose occupants in any case, probably knew that these notices were not intended to be the exact truth. Naturally the best seats had the best views, again. Faces were quite distinct. There were those amongst the better class spectators who had to say to themselves firmly that these people were a danger to the State, to all that must be held sacred, that it was an unfortunate necessity, and anyhow, most of them were only slaves and foreigners and one had better not think too much about it.

Flavia, close to the front, suddenly in the middle of a group, had seen and been seen by. And as she looked away again, as she must,
must
look away, lips tight against gums, fingers tight against breasts, all there was for comfort was only Candidus revenging himself in a long stare. No mother, no father even, and what would Father think. Must pick oneself up, laugh, however that was done, the little noise in
the throat, ha-ha, yes, they had passed, everyone else was laughing and Flavia was oh, so afraid because she was not being able to laugh properly with the others, and Candidus was leaning cruelly towards her, and the King's son was going to die and she wouldn't be able to help seeing that and in a moment Father would know.

Lucan recognised the noble savage, about whom he had once nearly written a poem, and was taken very much aback. He then recognised a little dancer whom he had seen several times, yes, it must be the same, though she looked distinctly battered. This new infection of life appeared to be everywhere! Flavius Scaevinus recognised Crispus's Briton, and also, since he dined at the house less than twenty four hours before, one of the slaves who had been waiting on him; he half rose in his seat and then decided, no, all the more reason to maintain a Roman and Stoic calm, to be oneself, utterly unsuspected of dangerous thoughts.