The Silver Chalice (62 page)

The assistant’s eyes began to glow with mingled feelings of importance and gratification. Although there was no one else in the long high room, and no echo of footsteps from the stone-flagged hall, he glanced about him with an extravagant air of caution. Then he put the tip of a forefinger to his lips and winked at Basil.

“The man in there thought of it,” he whispered. “It was given out that new shields were needed for the legions in Britain after the terrible time they had fighting those painted barbarians and the wild women who dressed themselves in black and fought harder than the men. Contractors buzzed about these buildings like flies. He”—motioning again with his thumb—“sat in there alone for two days and thought about it. No one was allowed to see him. He roared at me with rage if I put my head inside the door. And then”—the clerk’s eyes began to gleam—“he came forth with an idea. Young man, it was nothing short of genius. He said to the government buyers, ‘What you must do is make these new shields a means of adding to the pride of the troops.’ ”

Basil looked his surprise. “I thought that Roman soldiers were superior in every way to all others.”

The bald-headed man shook an accusatory finger in his face. “They are! Make no mistake about that. But do you know that they are always fighting against odds? That they are always outnumbered? It is the rule to have no more than two legions in any one theater of war. Twelve thousand men, and sometimes they face armies of one hundred thousand.
They have to be the greatest soldiers in the world, but also they must have confidence in themselves. Is that clear to you?”

“You have made it very clear.”

The assistant nodded his head several times. “The man in there came forth with two ideas, in fact. The first was that the shields should be given a more rounded form so that loaded javelins could be carried in the hollow. Do you know about this new loaded javelin? No, I was certain you would not know. Well, they were first tried in the Illyricum campaigns and were so successful that it was decided to make them stock equipment. They weigh ten pounds and are sure death to an opponent at any distance within thirty yards. Five of them can be carried in the hollow of these new shields.

“But,” he went on excitedly, “his second idea was even better. Build up the pride of the individual soldier by having a different color for each company of a hundred and have the name of each man printed on the shield he will carry.”

“A remarkable idea indeed.”

Basil’s tone had carried enough sincerity to satisfy the pride of the assistant. The forefinger the latter speared at the visitor expressed triumph. “The result of these ideas hatched in the mind of the man in there,” he cried, “was that we received the whole order. Twelve thousand shields to be delivered within three months. The colors have already been selected for each century. One hundred and twenty different shades, think of that! The names are to be lettered as fast as the lists can be sent to us. More orders will come to us later because they are bound to want the same results in all the theaters of war.”

“Send him in,” called a deep and reverberating voice from behind the inner door.

The owner of the deep and reverberating voice proved to be a man of no particular size at all, except for his head, which was very large. If the head of Kester of Zanthus had been used as a boulder and shot out from one of the siege machines that he had on occasion sold for use by Roman armies, it would, without any doubt, have made a crack in any wall. It was, moreover, equipped with a broad and intelligent brow and it was surrounded with a thatch of reddish hair peppered with gray. On one
side of the table behind which he sat was a platter with broken bits of bread and meat, on the other side a huge charger with every kind of fruit.

“Who are you?” he demanded in a tone that suggested the rumble of an approaching storm.

“My name is Basil, son of the deceased Ignatius of Antioch.”

“Basil, son of Ignatius,” repeated the contractor. “Ignatius was once my best friend. I was a witness at your adoption, young man. But wait a moment; there was a story I heard about that.” He paused and then burst out with a roar like a beating of cymbals and drums. “That sniveling, slavering Hiram of Silenus, for whom I never had anything but contempt, lied about your adoption in court after Ignatius died. His testimony was accepted by a magistrate of the same base caliber, and you were denied your rightful inheritance.”

Basil nodded to confirm this. “I was declared a slave and sold to a silversmith.”

“That, too, I heard. I intended to take some action at the time. But”—his voice died down to a low bass mutter, as though the storm were receding—“I was very busy and it happened so far away. The result was that I did nothing. And so you are the young man who was treated so badly.”

“Yes, worthy Christopher. My freedom was purchased three months ago and I have been reinstated as a citizen. My freedom I owed to Joseph of Arimathea, and I am now married to his granddaughter.”

A look of keen interest had taken possession of the face of Kester of Zanthus. His burdensomely large head gave a nod. “It is gratifying to learn that your fortunes have taken a turn for the better. You have come to me, perhaps, with the thought of getting evidence for a new hearing?”

“That is my purpose in coming.”

The triangular-shaped eyes of the contractor studied him still more intently. After several moments of this he suddenly threw back his head and cried out “Maximus! Maximus! I know you are listening with your ear to the door. Come in at once, Pry-eye. I have need of you.”

When the bald-headed man obeyed the summons by coming in breathlessly as testimony to his haste, the contractor instructed him to get parchment and pen.

“Set down what I am going to say,” he ordered. “I shall want four copies. One for myself. One for this youth. One to be sent to the military
commander in Antioch, who is a very close friend of mine. The fourth is to be for use here in Rome. Perhaps to be laid before the Senate. Are you ready?

When the bald-headed man had withdrawn to make the copies of the statement, Kester of Zanthus interested himself in the food in front of him, helping himself to a luscious pear.

“You were not at your own ceremony of adoption,” he remarked. “Nothing was said about it at the time, but I wondered.”

“I ran away,” explained Basil. “I loved my real father and did not want to leave him, even to become the son of a rich man. Of course I soon came to love my adopted father also.”

“It does you credit,” declared Kester, engulfing the pulpy side of the pear with one bite. “Your real father was a man of intelligence. It was not his fault that the selling of pens was such an unrewarding occupation. Where did you go when you ran away?”

“I went to the waterfront and hid myself in a warehouse cellar under a pile of coal.”

“I think,” said the contractor, “that under the circumstances I might have done the same.”

Basil returned to Subura in a mood of great jubilation. His copy of the statement crackled under his tunic, and this was all the assurance he needed that he would soon be restored to his proper station in life. His head was packed with rosy-tinted dreams. He would persuade Deborra to move to the white palace on the Colonnade where he had been raised. He would summon back Chimham and make a place for him, a post befitting so able a trader and the husband of so many wives. He might form an alliance of some kind with Adam ben Asher.

“How pleased Deborra will be!” he thought. “I will no longer be an ex-slave. It will be legally established that I never was a slave. Not”—with an affectionate smile—“that she ever showed any concern about my standing.”

After he had passed through the confusion and noise and stenches of Subura and had turned into the winding road that led up toward the inn, he became aware that Cephas was climbing the steep grade ahead of him, leaning on the arm of a younger man than himself.

Cephas had not been seen about the inn for two days. When Basil had asked Old Hannibal about him the latter had been, he thought, somewhat evasive. “He comes. He goes. He is not here now.”

“You say he goes. Where does he go? I do not understand this.”

The proprietor had seemed very much disturbed at being thus pressed for information. “Do you not see that there is always danger?” he asked “There has been another man here. Asking questions. Looking around It seems that even we are under suspicion now and we thought we would
be free of it. Steps must be taken because it is the same all over the city. The Christians know that danger hangs over them.” His wrinkled face reflected a state almost of panic. “This I may tell you. Cephas should not have gone away at this time because it is best for those who ask questions to think he is here all the time. But he felt it his duty.” His eyes met Basil’s and he nodded vigorously. “You do not know what a wonderful man he is. He wants to serve those about him. Sometimes I have risen before dawn and found him sleeping against the wall, and in his bed someone who had come asking for shelter. Half of the time he gives his food to beggars and goes without himself. He says he does not need food. Whenever he goes away I am filled with fear because sometime he will go away and not come back.” The proprietor looked about him anxiously to be sure that no one was within hearing distance. “Cephas is not what he seems. That much I may tell you. He is here for—a purpose. I do not like to see him work so hard, but he insists. He likes to serve; and also he believes that he should play his part here naturally.”

Basil hurried his steps and came abreast of Cephas and his companion.

“I have just seen my missing witness,” he said. “It was a most satisfactory talk I had with him.”

Cephas knew enough of his story to understand what he meant. He stopped and smiled. “That is good, my son. You will tell me about it later.” He turned to his companion. “Mark,” he said, “this is the artist from Antioch of whom I have spoken. He is the one who took a lump of clay and in an hour turned it into such a likeness of old Cephas that you might have expected it to open its mouth and speak in the dialect of the Galilee.”

Basil’s interest had been aroused by the mention of the stranger’s name. “Mark!” he said to himself. “This must be the Mark I have already put into the Chalice.” Luke had given him a description that had seemed adequate.

The companion of Cephas was a short and powerfully built man of middle years, and there was about him a distinct hint of rusticity. This may have been due to the roundness of his head and face and the shortness of his creased and pugnacious nose. He walked with a slight stoop of the back, and one shoulder was so much higher than the other that Basil recalled something he had been told by Luke, that Mark had been a water carrier.

Basil said to himself, “There can be no mistake. Now that I see him I can tell what a discerning report of him I had from Luke. But there are
things I must change. His face is shorter than I made it, and I gave his beard too much length. I got his nose perfectly, but the eyes, no. I must give him that slight droop of the lid. It is a good face; I could make it from memory.”

“I sometimes speak of Mark as my son,” said Cephas. “He has been with me much of recent years and I have found him a sturdy staff on which to lean.”

When they reached the
insula
Cephas bade farewell to Mark with an affectionate warmth. “God go with you, my son. We shall see each other again soon.”

After the old man had vanished within, Mark turned a troubled pair of eyes on Basil. It was clear that he felt some apprehension about Cephas and that he wanted to speak of it. If such had been his intention, however, he changed his mind. Giving his peasant-like head a nod that seemed abrupt and almost unfriendly, he turned on his heel and walked briskly down the hill. Basil recalled what Luke had told him of Mark. “He is much as Peter was in his younger years, a fighter with the heart of a lion. But he lacks Peter’s affability and great ease in winning the good will of men.”

As he turned to follow Cephas inside, Basil found himself wondering about the old man. “He is regarded as a leader. That much is clear enough. Can it be that he is Peter?” He pondered this possibility but finally dismissed it with a shake of the head. “Why would Peter, who is the recognized leader of the Christians and the vicar of Jesus, be staying in this poor inn? Why would he be acting as servant to travelers who come and go? No, it cannot be Peter.” He gave his head another shake. “I promised not to ask questions. But I would like to learn more of this strange old man.”