The Silver Chalice (7 page)

“I must ask some questions,” he said. “You have in your household one Basil, a worker in silver and gold. I understand he made himself, without aid or suggestion, a figure of Athena, which was sold to the Greek banker Jabez, who is a collector of works of art. This is true?”

Sosthene was on the point of answering, but his wife’s sharp elbow nudged him into silence. “Yes,” she said. “He is a slave and our property. He made the figure.”

“And the silver vase with the head of Theseus in relief, which one of the magistrates in the city is fortunate enough to possess?”

“That also was of his fashioning.”

“And the plaque with moonstones, which a Jewish merchant bought from you as a gift for his wife?”

Eulalia nodded. “He designed the plaque. Is there something you want him to make for you? We can promise that you will be more than satisfied.”

The visitor continued his study of them, one hand smoothing the strands of his long silky beard. “It is not the work of his hands I desire to
buy from you,” he said finally. “It is his freedom. I come to offer you any reasonable amount you may name.”

The woman of the house indulged in a cackling laugh. “The sum would be beyond your means, old man. My husband and I have our own idea of the value of this slave. It is high—very, very high.”

There was a nod of agreement from the visitor. “The price might be fixed at a high figure if you had nothing in the future to consider. But what of tomorrow? Will it be high then, or the day after? You must be aware that—that this young man who is called Basil may have no value at all if you wait that long.”

At this point Sosthene projected himself into the discussion. “The years have made you addled in the head,” he declared roughly. A sense of resentment took possession of him. “What is your purpose, dotard, in coming to us with such talk? Do you count us as stupid as the partridge that can be run down and clubbed to death? You are too well seasoned for such joking!”

“I know the price you paid for the boy.” The visitor was speaking now in tones so low that no ears beyond the confines of the stiflingly hot room could have heard him. “Linus made it low purposely because it was his thought to put more shame on the victim of his plotting. He is sorry now that he sold the young man at any price. Why? Because he wants nothing so much as to have his victim removed from his path. He will never feel secure as long as Basil is alive. He is powerful and the law nods at his say-so.” There was a moment of silence. The visitor waited just long enough to let the full significance of what he had said sink deep into their selfish and acquisitive minds. “If the young man were killed tonight—or the day after—what compensation would Linus pay you? Would you dare go to law, thereby accusing him of murder? Or would you be wise enough to accept your loss and do nothing?”

The silence remained unbroken. The old man was conscious of the deep breathing of his two auditors and the conflict of fear and cupidity in their eyes.

“This may be stated as truth,” he went on. “If the boy remains within reach of the agents of Linus, he will not be alive a week from today.”

“What knowledge do you have that you speak so boldly?” asked Eulalia in a whisper.

“I am one who has no desire to see Linus succeed in his purpose. Need we probe any deeper?” The visitor glanced about him again and then took a seat at one end of the table where during the day most of the goods for
sale were displayed. From somewhere in the folds of his spotless white tunic he produced a bottle of ink and a reed pen, then a sheet of parchment on which writing had been set down. “See,” he said, holding up the parchment. “An order on Jabez, the banker. It will be honored when you present it to him, even tonight if the need to have the money presses on your minds. It is for double the amount you paid to Linus for the young man.”

The faces of the silversmith and his wife seemed in the semidarkness of the room as drawn and grotesque as the dance masks which hung on the walls. Their eyes had drawn in to pin points, as sharp as the sword blades standing upright in a corner rack.

The visitor continued to speak quietly. “In an hour’s time, when sleep has taken sway over your neighbors and there are neither ears nor eyes in the dark, the boy and I will slip away. You will not see either of us again.”

Sosthene drew his wife to one side and whispered to her in desperate haste. “We would be mad to listen to him. What will Linus do if he finds we have let the boy go?”

His wife regarded him with fitting scorn. “Head of mutton! In the morning we go to the authorities and we say that a valuable slave has run away from us during the night. We demand aid of the law in finding him.”

She had spoken in so low a tone that the visitor could not possibly have heard what was said. At this point, nevertheless, he interjected a comment that indicated he was aware of what had passed between them. “You will not dare go to the authorities with any such tale. You must sign a full release tonight, restoring to him his liberty without any restrictions. In the document I shall give you to sign, it will be stated that you relieve him of any obligations of
obsequium
and
officium
and that you will not oppose his restoration at once to the citizenship he enjoyed before.”

Eulalia was too startled for several moments to make any move. Then she drew her husband aside and began to whisper in his ear. “This is what we must do. We must sign the paper and get our money. Then we shall go to Linus and say we were forced into it——”

“Do you not know,” asked the old man, “that I can hear every word you say? Nay, I can do more. I can read the thoughts which enter your mind. My advice to you, false woman, is to cease for once your wicked conniving.”

“You cannot frighten us!” she cried.

“You think I cannot do what I say?” The visitor’s eyes held her, and she could neither avert her gaze from him nor move away. “This much I shall give you as a proof. You are thinking that when you have the money you will hide it in the bowl of brass at the bottom of the disused well in your cellar. The well so carefully covered that no one guesses its existence. You are thinking of the piece of land you will buy with the gold outside the city walls, the little farm of the Three Pear Trees.”

Eulalia gasped in surprise and dismay. “Husband,” she cried, “let us sign and get our money! We must not go against this old man. I am afraid of him!”

Basil had closed the curtain in his small window to protect himself from the insects which hummed in the darkness without. The breeze had died down completely and the curtain hung without a trace of movement. The atmosphere of the room was like a baker’s oven when the fire is banked.

He sat perfectly still on the wooden bench where he spent his long working hours. If his body was inactive, his mind was feverishly busy. He was wondering when Linus would strike and what he might do to save himself.

“If he makes up his mind to have me killed,” he thought, “he will send his men up over the rooftops. They will cross the Street of the Sailmakers and take to the roofs above the Bazaar. They will come to this window.” He glanced about him in the darkness. “I might keep them from getting in if I had a weapon. It is a narrow space.” After further thought he made up his mind to go downstairs when Sosthene was asleep and get the largest of the bronze swords. The swords had no trace of a cutting edge, but they were heavy.

He was so concerned with the danger in which he conceived himself to stand that he did not perceive at first the small light cast on the opposite wall by someone appearing in the door with a hand-shaded candle. He did not know that he had a visitor, in fact, until a voice said, “May I enter, my son?”

At first he thought this unexpected arrival had been sent by Linus and he sprang to his feet, fumbling in the dark for the largest of his knives that lay on the workbench.

“I have startled you,” said the visitor. “I should have hailed you from the stairs as I climbed. I did not do so because it seemed wise not to rouse the neighbors.”

Basil saw now that the newcomer was of venerable appearance. A multitude of fine lines had collected at the corners of his eyes, giving him a look of benevolence. There was something familiar about the face of the old man, and for a moment he believed this was because the miracle he had been hoping for had come to pass.

“I know who you are,” he said eagerly. “You are the angel Mefathiel. You have come in answer to my prayers. You—you are the Opener of Doors.”

A smile of great kindness lighted up the face of the visitor. “No, my son, I am not the angel Mefathiel. But I am happy to hear you have been making your prayers to him. It is well to pray when troubles perch on your back and your pillow is cheated of sleep. It is well to pray at all times, even when there are no troubles and no petitions to be made. But I am not an angel. I am a common man and my name will mean nothing to you. I am called Luke and I have some knowledge of herbs and the cure of sicknesses. Because of this some men speak of me as Luke the Physician.”

Memory flooded back into Basil’s mind. This was the tall and kindly man who had stood at the side of the congregation when his real father had taken him to the synagogue at Ceratium. He had failed to recognize him at once because his beard, which had been a fiery red, was now as white as snow.

“You are a Christian,” said Basil. “I saw you once, many years ago. My father, my real father, whose name was Theron and who sold pens, took me to a beautiful temple to hear a man named Paul of Tarsus preach to the people. I could not have been more than seven years old at the time. But I have always remembered how you looked.”

“Yes, I am a Christian.” The visitor came into the room and placed the candle on the workbench. “You have been expecting a miracle. I am not a worker of miracles, my son. Sometimes, when I am about the work of, my Master, I hear words spoken in my mind which I know to be instructions, but in what follows I am no more than an instrument. I am a plain man and my chief duty is to write about what other men, much greater men than I, are doing to spread the truth. I do not speak to the multitudes. I have no power of healing in my hands. The flame has never appeared above my head, nor have I been given the gift of tongues. Men in whose
honesty I have every faith have told me of seeing angels, and so I have always believed them. But I must be honest with you and say that I, Luke the Physician, have never seen an angel with my own eyes.”

He seated himself on the bench and motioned to Basil to do the same. Placing a reassuring hand on the boy’s arm, he went on: “But it may be that we have played our parts in a miracle tonight. How do I know that my visit is not the result of the prayers you have addressed to the angel Mefathiel? I thought the plan had been conceived in my own mind, but the angel may have put the thought there in the first place. That, my son, is how most miracles come about. It is not necessary to have a bolt of fire from the sky or the sound of a heavenly Voice. Miracles are happening all the time, at all hours of the day and night; and they come about quietly, just like this, with two men talking together, perhaps, in a darkened room and the world asleep outside. This, at any rate, I may tell you: I have come tonight to take you away.”

“Then you are the angel!” cried Basil, his spirits leaping for joy. “You are Mefathiel in disguise. You say it is not so, but I am sure of it. You are the Opener of Doors.”

“I have no wings on my shoulders.” Luke smiled so warmly that the boy felt his heart go out to him. All sense of fear and distress left his mind. For the first time since he had received the warning note he had a feeling of security. “There is no time to tell you everything,” continued Luke, “but this much you should know. There is a man of great wealth, and of great years, whose granddaughter is the apple of his eye. Before he dies this fine old man desires that a likeness be made of him in silver for her to keep. Knowing that the arts flourish in Antioch, he sent word to Luke the Physician that he desired the best artificer in silver who could be obtained. I had heard of you and tonight I saw your master. I bought your freedom from him, so that you could go to do the bidding of this fondest of grandsires. Here is the document that restores to you your freedom.”

Basil could scarcely believe that this had happened to him, that not only was he free again but that his escape from the power of Linus had been provided.

They had been conversing in Koine, the commercial Greek which was used very largely in Antioch. Luke now asked if he knew any other language and Basil answered that he spoke Aramaic. He had done some reading in the Greek classics and had a small smattering of Latin. “Very small,” he added with a smile.

“It is the Aramaic you will use where you are to go,” said Luke. “It is fortunate you can speak it.”

“Before you came, my benefactor,” declared Basil, “I was certain I would never see the outside again. But now I have no fear. I think I would risk walking into that circular room, where my father used to sit and which Linus now occupies in his place, and telling him to do his worst.” His spirits had risen so high he found it impossible to remain still. He wanted to go out into the darkness of the rooftops and shout to the world that he was free and that the path to fame and fortune lay at his feet. “I will work hard to justify your choice of me,” he went on. “And I shall be grateful to you all my life for putting this chance in my hands.” He paused, aware that he must not weary this new friend with protestations, but conscious of a great curiosity as to the nature of the task ahead of him. “May I ask one question?”

“You want to know where you are being sent. It is to Jerusalem.”

“Jerusalem!” Excitement boiled up again in Basil’s veins. The name of Jerusalem was a potent one. Not Antioch the beautiful, not Rome the all-powerful, exerted the hold on the imaginations of men which this old city on the hills of Israel had gained. Apart from this, however, the boy had another reason for being glad he was to visit the city that clustered about the golden dome of the Temple of the One God. It was to Jerusalem that Kester of Zanthus had gone when he left Antioch, the missing witness who might enable him to have the verdict that deprived him of his fortune set aside.