The Kingdom of the Wicked (12 page)

       'That the word of God is as good in Greek as it is in Hebrew.'

       So Philip and Stephen went out into the hot noon and walked two streets to the house that had formerly belonged to Matthias but was now, in place of the upper room that had smelt of betrayal, the headquarters of the twelve. They kept the premises, the fastidious Philip noticed, in a state of dust and disorder; unlike their master they feared the distractive presence of women. It was old Thomas who was bringing a dish of beans, sliced onions, olives, oil and vinegar to the table as the two Greeks entered. Bartholomew, the two Jameses, Matthew and Peter were seated at the greasesmeared board; Little James was carving a loaf so stale it required much of his muscle. 'Come to eat, have ye?' Thomas beetled at them. 'Good Galilean fodder, none of your Greek fripperies. Come on, get seated.'

       'Beans,' Bartholomew said, shaking his head sadly. 'A terrible maker of wind.'

       'An Aeolus among vegetables,' Stephen flippantly said, putting his leg over the bench. 'May we discuss an important matter while we eat?' He addressed Peter. Peter said:

       'It's about the widows, is it?'

       'So you heard.'

       'Hard not to, with you Greeks jabbering away about injustice. All right, such things are bound to happen, though I'll be the first to say that it's wrong.'

       'Bound to happen,' Philip, fingering the beans and finding them underboiled, said, 'because you Palestine Jews think that we people of the dispersion are a race set apart and inferior. I'd remind you — What's that out of Genesis, Stephen?'

       ' "God shall give beauty to Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." '

       'Meaning?' Thomas asked.

       'It's up to you to tell us what it means,' Philip boldly said. 'You're the great explicators of the word. But I'll do your work for you. The language of Japheth is not like the language of Shem, but if we read the word of God in it God blesses us as much if not more than he does you when you read it in Aramaic. In other words the Hellenized Jews, as you people call us, are not inferior in rights to the Jews of Palestine. But this is daily flouted in the handings-out to orphans and widows. We want matters put right.'

       'What ye mean,' Thomas said, 'is that the Hebrews are favouring the Hebrews.'

       'He's right, God knows,' Peter sighed, letting a sliver of onion blow out on to his beard. 'And there's only one solution. Let's see how you Greek Jews get on with the day's handreaching. I'll wager all the complaints will come now from the other side. Besides, the twelve have other things to do than serve tables.'

       He spoke Aramaic. Philip said: 'What's that phrase?'

       'Diakonein trapezais.'

       'He means,' Thomas said, 'that we're spending too much time dishing out bread to the poor and clanking down bits of hard money. We've other things to do than be, to speak your own language, what do you call them, diakonoi.'

       'So the Greeks become the deacons?' Stephen said.

       'Put it that way if you like,' Peter said. 'If a diakonos if that's the right word is a servant, then we're all servants or deacons, but you can be this special sort of deacon. So now there'll be no more trouble from the Greeks.'

       'How many of us?' Philip asked.

       'Well, not twelve, but there are other holy numbers, seven, for instance. Can you name seven?'

       'Yes,' Philip said. 'Myself and Stephen here. Then Prochorus, Timon, Parmenas, Nicanor, Nicolaus.'

       'They're very outlandish names,' Little James said. 'They don't sound a bit Jewish.'

       'That ought to mean something,' Stephen said. Peter said:

       'Yes, it means the Greek Jews look after the money and the Hebrew Jews look after the gospel.'

       'Doesn't it really mean,' Stephen said, 'that Greek and Jew and Hebrew have no more meaning? That we're all united in the Christ and forget what we used to be? That the gospel is ready to be heard by men and women with names more outlandish than ours?'

       'We're not ready for that yet,' Peter said.

       'The Samaritans are ready,' Philip said. 'The Romans have been teaching them the gospel of suffering. The next stage is to teach them the meaning of suffering.'

       'That will come in time,' Peter said. 'The Samaritans are a sort of Jews, and they're entitled to hear the word  —’

       'And this Greek is a sort of Jew,' Stephen smiled. 'Ready to go to the Greek islands and speak the word in Greek.'

       'Not yet,' Peter said. 'If you want to preach, preach in the synagogues here. Go to that synagogue where the Libertines go  —’ 'Libertines?' Philip frowned. 'Fleshly sinners?'

       'No no no no. I don't know why they're called Libertines.'

       'A libertinus,' Bartholomew said, 'is a freedman or the son of one. They like to keep together. They're from Alexandria and Cilicia and such places. You can talk to them in Greek.'

       'Cilicia,' Matthew said. 'That's where Saul comes from.'

       'There you are,' Peter said. 'Try and convert this Saul. You'll have your work cut out, I can tell you. Ah, gentlemen,' he said, rising, 'brothers. You're heartily welcome.' To the surprise of Stephen and Philip two men in priestly garb walked in. 'Forgive the clutter of the table here. We're humble men who have to fend for ourselves.'

       'We'll go,' Philip said, 'giving thanks for what you've granted.'

       'Bring the others here tomorrow,' Peter said. 'We have to perform a little ceremony. You'll have the hands of blessing laid on you in the sight of a houseful of the faithful, and then you'll know you are officially what you are. God be with you. Sit, brothers.' The two priests, astonishingly to the two Greeks, bowed to Peter before sitting. Conversion of the enemy? Well, these priests were poor men by the look of them, ready to give up what little they had in the Lord's name. It would be different with men like Annas and Caiaphas. Still, the new faith had breached the stone wall of the orthodox. Miracles, less spectacular than giving sight to the blind perhaps, but miracles none the less were proceeding quietly in the realm of the spirit. Yet Stephen felt a prick of unease. The faith was being kept in the family whose house was the Temple. Surely it had been intended that it should be part of a ship's lading, breathe new air. The Temple sat complacently at eternal anchor.

Tiberius had spoken of starting for Rome in a day or so, but the preparations for the imperial journey took more than three weeks, time enough for the fretful princeps to change his mind thrice and once again. At last, on a glorious day with the sea and sky mirrors of each other's serenity, the trireme sent from the mainland weighed anchor to return thither, the huge eagled mainsail bellying due east in the warm wind and assisting the labour of the three banks of slave rowers who, in their illsmelling dark with its brutal whipwielders and timekeeping drummers, heard the bucina up there in the world of the living signal the boarding of Tiberius and his entourage. There was a considerable staff, including three physicians, for the Emperor was far from well, though his running sores had been cleansed and his cheeks farded into a semblance of health. Gaius was insincerely solicitous. Herod Agrippa, to whom even the calmest of seas was prides of toothy lions, kept to his cabin and wondered all the time whether the Emperor designate would keep to his promise: he thought not. Not numbered in the ship's company were the minnows of the imperial piscina, nor the young schooled perverts of the venerean grots. These stood silently upon the beach and the headlands to watch the vessel leave, knowing their future more clearly than Herod Agrippa knew his: fresh slavery, their youth abused till bones broke or youth passed. The more innocent dreamed of a manumission kindly bestowed by the new Emperor as one of a number of acts of justice and clemency proper to a new reign. Those who had caught sight of Gaius rejoicing in the bumping and trundling of maimed bodies down the cliffside hoped for nothing.

       The voyage to the mainland was brief. Puteoli, the port adjacent to Neapolis, was normally crammed with shipping, but all had been sent out to hover in the roads that the imperial trireme be unencumbered. As it put in, festive music of horns, trumpets, drums and cymbals erupted on the quayside. It made Tiberius's head throb, but Gaius greeted it with waves and smiles. Dockmen caught flung hawsers and drew the ship into the wharf, making fast their lines to stone bollards. Others rushed with a gangway empurpled and gilded and eagled with tacked cloth, others again with Alexandrian carpeting that should soften the brief imperial walk from ship to waiting litter with its tall and brawny German slave bearers. From a great height near the godowns the statue of Tiberius looked down on the arrival, its heroic cast bronze mocking solemnly its all too frail original. The Praetorian Guard saluted to braying brass and thumping drums, and Tiberius raised a feeble arm in answer. Under the dutiful cheers he could sense the undertone of satisfaction that he was sicker and had aged more than most had thought. For the son of the loved Germanicus the greetings were without doubt more robust. He, Tiberius, should not have come back. He had come back once before, many years ago, then merely to sail up the Tiber and view the city walls from a distance, troops stationed along the banks to warn off the populace, and then swiftly departed back to Capri. Now he was committed to a slow and solemn progress up the Appian Way, a noisy entrance into the city, ceremonies, addresses, banquets. He could not do it; he was a dying man, seventy-seven years old; he had earned his peace. No, he had not; hence he had elected this final suffering. No meanest slave sweeping the quay could be more wretched.

       He was carried in procession then along the leafy Appian Way, the ornate cushioned litter swinging gently like a cradle. On his left arm his pet snake Columba slept: it was torpid, perhaps made sick by the voyage. 'My beloved,' he crooned, 'hiss your love for me,' but it coiled loosely in lethargy. At the seventh milestone he ordered a stop. He pulled the curtains aside in time to see Gaius whipping a slave who had dropped the roped impedimenta he had been entrusted to carry into the road's dust. 'Nursing a viper for the Roman people. Who said that, Columba?' The consuls Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus and Gaius Pontius Nigrinus appeared at the little window. Tiberius said: 'I will go no further today.'

       'As Caesar wishes,' Pontius Nigrinus said. 'We are close to the villa of Pomponius Naso. Caesar may wish to repose the night there.'

       'Is Pomponius in residence?'

       Proculus looked strangely. 'Pomponius Naso was executed five years ago. On your imperial majesty's orders.'

       'Is there — some other place?'

       'A mile back. The former hunting lodge of the late Sejanus.' Tiberius trembled as with ague. 'Pomponius's villa will do. Will all be ready for me there?'

       'The imperial household anticipated your imperial majesty's wishes.'

       'What do you know of my wishes?' he said with sudden anger. 'What do any of you know of my needs?'

       There was a crowd of people, mostly rustic folk who gaped at the trembling lord of the world, standing near the gates of the villa. A bearded man in gooseturd homespun, carrying a wand, boldly spoke out as Tiberius alighted from his litter:

       'Beware the power of the mob, Caesar.' Then, schooled in needful agility, he ran away before a lictor's whip could reach him. Tiberius went straight to a bed that had been warmed with hot stones wrapped in wool. He asked for gruel. Then he slept, and he dreamed an old dream, one that had maimed the drunken repose of his last birthday. The gigantic statue of Apollo of Temenos, which he had had brought from Syracuse to erect in the library of the new temple to the deified Augustus, spoke to him from a mobile mouth:

       'You, sir, will never dedicate me.'

       He woke to thunder in the middle of the night. He feared lightning. He called feebly and asked that he be given a laurel wreath. A slave at length brought one (there were several in his baggage), and the Emperor tremulously donned it in wretched and pitiable apotropaic defiance. The lightning did not strike him; the trick had always been efficacious.

       He woke finally at dawn to find that his pet snake Columba was not coiled on his arm but lying stiff on the floor. Not all of it; at least half had been eaten by ants. He screamed at the tiny milling army and stamped on it with his bare foot. Beware the power of the mob, Caesar. He called: 'We are going back to Capri! Cancel the journey to Rome!'

       So the cortege turned about and snakeless Caesar went back to Campania. At Astura he fell very ill with bellycramps and dry vomitings. His chief physician Charicles gave him a posset of wine and milk and opium. He slept three days and awoke feeling stronger. Caesar was well. Caesar would show his recovered health at the garrison games of Circeii. Cheers but some murmurs for Caesar as he took his place in the hastily rigged imperial box. A wild boar was let loose in the arena, horrent and snorting. Give me a javelin. A javelin, Caesar? A javelin, curse you. And, to demonstrate his recovery, he hurled the proffered weapon at the beast, missed, hurled another, another, while some of the garrison cheered. Then: 'Aaaargh.' He had twisted the muscles in his side and seemed to bow grotesquely to the tiered assembly. He sweated with the pain and the brief exertion, then a cold wind started up and chilled him. 'Let us go,' he said hoarsely.

       The party moved on the next day to Misenum, where a banquet was prepared. He knew few of the faces but smiled on all. It was a false rumour; see, Caesar is well. Another slice of the roast boar. Some of this gilded wheatloaf. Fill the cup to the brim; see, friends, I pledge you. Charicles the physician said: 'Caesar, I must go to tend the potion in its crucible. Permit me to leave.' Charicles took Caesar's hand to kiss it. Tiberius whispered:

       'It's my pulse, isn't it? You're feeling my pulse because I do not look well. Stay here with me, Charicles. Tell me, Charicles, tell the truth: am I well, do I seem well to you, can I last this evening out without collapsing?'