The Blood of the Martyrs

by Naomi Mitchison

  And then one day she came as usual, and the door across the shrine was shut. So she waited. And by and by some of the others came. They all wondered why and talked about it, and then one of them tried the door, and it wasn’t bolted or anything, and they all went in together, in a bunch, whispering, and there was the priestess lying on the floor at the foot of the statue. She was dead. You could tell at once, for her arms and all were stiff and she was quite cold, and none of them knew what to do. So then another woman came, and fetched someone from the big Temple of Isis, where the rich women went, and men came with a bier and took the priestess away and shut up the little temple.

  And, though Lalage came back often after that, the little temple never seemed to be open again, and she didn’t like going to the big one. It was different; it made her feel shy; it wasn’t for slaves; it wasn’t her own Cleopatra-Isis, the hurt one, but a grand, far-off goddess to whom you had to give expensive offerings. Most of the rich women, too, were initiates and went to special services, and the priests and priestesses always recognised them and gave them a particular welcome and the best seats. And Lalage couldn’t begin to afford the initiation fees. So now she was alone again with no one and nothing to bring her luck or stop the bad spirits from coming to her in dreams.

  Once or twice she went to a fortune-teller, but she could only afford the cheap ones, and they weren’t much good. You didn’t believe them, not really, not the next day. She moped quite a bit, and the only thing that kept her going was the hours of dancing practice that she put in, whenever she could get anyone to play, or even without music. Then one day she was sent over to the Palace; she didn’t know what for, not at first; then, when she was waiting, someone told her. And she knew her luck was right out.

  At first she had tried dancing to Pallas; but he was bored, there were plenty of dancers in the Palace. And plenty of the other thing as well; he only wanted someone new. But she just couldn’t. She did what she’d hardly ever done, she fought him. And then he got her down, and there was some kicking, and she didn’t know anything more for a bit; and then she began to feel the pain here and there, and she opened her eyes and saw a kind face, a woman. And she knew it was Claudia Acté. And then she began to be frightened and tried to get up in spite of the pain, but Claudia Acté laid a hand on her head and spoke to her powerfully, and she went to sleep, wondering in a muddled way how she had got back to the shrine, because the hands that were so kind and powerful were surely the hands of Acté-Isis.

  When she woke again there was a Jew-boy who was kind too, who said that everything was all right, that Acté had taken charge of her, and she must sleep. And in two days she was quite well, only a little stiff and dizzy and very puzzled. Every now and then she felt in her dress to see that the money, which she always had sewn into it, was there quite safe; that was reassuring somehow, and she still had her bracelet on.

  Claudia Acté came in and sat on the mattress beside her, as though they’d just been two girls together. Lalage didn’t know what to say or do; she wondered what her hair was looking like; she hadn’t been able to comb it, even. Acté said, ‘Well now, what are we going to do with you?’

  ‘I’ve got to go back, Lady Acté,’ she said, ‘or my Madam’ll be after me. I hear you’ve been so kind as to make it up for now.’

  ‘It seems a pity to go back, doesn’t it?’ said Acté, ‘or were you all right there?’

  Lalage raised herself a little and spoke in a whisper, though there was no one to overhear them. ‘I’ve got a bit saved up, Lady Acté. In another year, perhaps, I’ll buy myself out. If things don’t go wrong.’

  ‘And then, my dear?’

  ‘Then—I can dance a bit, you know. I was meaning to work that side of it up. I like dancing.’

  Acté said, ‘Suppose I make up what you’ve got to what you need? We’ll call it a loan, but you needn’t pay me back till you’ve got it to spare. Then you can stay here till you’re well, and perhaps have a few extra dancing lessons. I’ll see you started with a little room somewhere.’

  ‘A little room,’ said Lalage, ‘for me …’ And she began to cry weakly and seized Acté’s hand and kissed it. ‘What makes you so kind?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you think people ought to be kind to one another, Lalage?’ said Acté, and smoothed her hair back out of her eyes. ‘I’m not doing very much, you know. After all, I’ve been a slave myself, as everyone knows. And now I’ve got some money and it’s a pity not to use it.’

  ‘But lots of people have got money,’ said Lalage blubbering, ‘and nobody else ever thought of spending it on me. You’re like Isis, Lady Acté. You’re One who Knows what is Wanted. You are Isis.’

  ‘No, no!’ said Acté quickly, ‘you mustn’t say that. Do you go to Isis, Lalage?’

  ‘I used to go, but now the little temple is shut, and the big one’s not for the likes of me.’

  ‘I could tell you of somewhere else to go,’ Acté said.

  ‘Somewhere that would bring me luck?’

  ‘Luck. I’m not sure that I believe in luck. We’re responsible for ourselves. I expect you’ve had to believe in it, Lalage, but when you’re free, you’ll have to look after yourself. Even your own soul. Tell me, did you ever hear of the Christians?’

  ‘They’re the ones that don’t believe in anything, aren’t they?’

  ‘Hardly that. They believe in other people—for one thing. No, don’t look so puzzled, Lalage. I’ll tell you something about them one day if you’re a good girl and get well quickly. Meantime we’ll see what your Madam wants for you.’

  Now there were comings and goings, in the course of which Lalage got her bundle of clothes and things back. Acté bought her from her Madam and then she bought herself back and was properly and legally manumitted and became Acté‘s freedwoman. She showed Acté her best dancing, but Acté was non-committal. A few days later she found she was to have lessons from Paris himself. He raged and stormed at her, but taught her more than she had ever known. And in the afternoons she went over to Acté’s rooms and listened to reading aloud from Greek plays. The first few days she was only interested in the story, and, as they were mostly tragedies—Acté had a taste for Euripedes especially—she was always dissolving into tears. But later she began to hear the poetry, and then, almost at once, began to think of the stories as things which could be danced. She wondered if Acté would tell her more about the Christians, and one day she took her courage in both hands and asked.

  Acté told her, and Lalage took to it at once. This was what she wanted. She wouldn’t be lonely any more. It was lovely. It was new and yet, she thought, it was what she had always expected; it brought back all the times when people had been kind. The boy dancer and the old Senator and the priestess of Isis. And now Acté.

  Acté rubbed it into her that she must be very careful: must never speak about it except to the brothers and sisters. ‘But you spoke to me,’ said Lalage, ‘Yes, but I’m an old hand. Some day, Lalage, you’ll get to be able to tell when people are ready for it. But not at first.’

  For some weeks, Lalage came to the meetings, but went out before certain of the rites. The Jew-boy, Manasses, did so too for a short time, since he had much to relearn, and he and Lalage became very good friends. Lalage had her little room now, a top room in a tenement right under the roof, hot—and, of course, there were bound to be bugs in summer, if you minded that sort of thing—but her own. If she’d wanted to she could have sat there all day, just sat and wondered, or anything else she liked, and nobody could have made her do anything else! But she was an industrious girl, and she began at once to try and build up a clientele. Acté had a party for her and recommended her to several friends; she did her very best; at that time plenty of respectable gentlemen were glad to do any little favours for Claudia Acté. And Pallas went into retirement on his country estate.

  Then came the time when the meeting agreed that she was ready for everything; she was to be baptised and become completely one of them. She had be
en nervous at first when she heard about it, wondering whether it would mean paying something, but now she had realised that it was free, and that struck her almost more than anything. A religion that nobody was making anything out of. Each Church had a fund of its own and you put into it what you could afford, or, if you couldn’t afford anything, you didn’t put anything in, and nobody sniffed at you. But you knew exactly what happened to the money; the meeting discussed that—down to the last penny. Sometimes, later on, Lalage used to watch Claudia Acté fidgeting with boredom while that went on; but all the same it was important and Acté knew it. Some day, when the Kingdom had come, for all time, there would be no need for that. Everyone would be equal. There would be no more use for money. Everything would be given, from everyone according to what he or she could make or do or grow, to everyone according to their needs. In the meanwhile the needs were there and must be met. Many members of the church were slaves, sometimes with no money at all, nothing to meet age and sickness except the uncertain charity of masters who, in Rome, might hardly know they existed. And an overseer was harder on the sick and old than a master, any day. And some were free of freedmen living very precariously. In spite of all the luxury in Rome, things weren’t always too good for the workers. Food prices were high; that didn’t matter to the rich, but it did matter to the poor, especially when they had no storage space, even for flour or meal. So there were always plenty of hands to dip into the bag, and nobody thought any the worse of you for asking.

  The time came when Lalage fasted and prayed, and so did Manasses, who stood surety for her, and Claudia Acté, who took her down in the early morning before people were about and dipped her in the Tiber. They came back very happily: it seemed to Lalage as though none of the things that had happened to her were true, or rather as if they had not, after all, been horrible and wounding. There was nothing now that she hated to remember. And when she came in to the breaking of bread, there was a lightness in the air, a kind of swelling happiness. Was it in her or in the others or in everyone?

  For several years she used to go to the Church in Caesar’s household. According to how many could get away to the meetings, there would be anything from ten to thirty members. Very often there would be someone there from one of the smaller Churches in Rome, usually asking for instructions about something. From time to time a letter would go from one city to another; supposing, for instance, a Christian slave or freedman went with his master on an official journey to one of the Provinces, that would be the moment to send a letter. And when a letter arrived, it would be read out in the meeting, talked over thoroughly and prayed about. Sometimes there was action to be taken, sometimes something that had puzzled them was answered, or sometimes it was they who were questioned. Or they would disagree with something that was said, and then they had to draw up a letter to go back, giving their side of it.

  From time to time some small groups would get hold of a bright new idea, and perhaps a whole Church would take it up. It might be something harmless like vegetarianism, but sometimes visions and practices would turn up from the border-world of ghosts and spirits and propitiations. There were those who wanted to be re-baptised, to have the mysterious change made in them over and over again; that way lay magic. There was too much magic about in the world as it was, and magic was evil because it was against reason, black streaks cutting across the white light of sense that they themselves had come into. If you believed in magic then there wasn’t any real security that the Kingdom would come. It had just gone back to being a battle, where the wrong side could win. But you knew now that this wasn’t how things were; so you wouldn’t have anything more to do with bribing or cheating or getting power over the other side. Being a Christian, you had another way. Besides, you could always tell that magic was evil because of the kind of people who did it and the kind of ends for which they did it: and the pay they got. No Christian could have anything to do with that.

  There were others who came in and then got the whole thing wrong some other way. They thought that, once reborn, they could do nothing wrong, but might follow all impulses. They didn’t see that you’d got to guard and watch the flame in you, which was always being attacked by the outside world and the way you’d most of you got to live. Besides all that, there was often jealousy between Jews and Gentiles. Or someone would have a special revelation, and it was up to the older members of the Church to try and decide whether it was from God or just a mistake.

  And always there were different interpretations of the many-sided life and teaching of Jesus. Which were right? It was on a matter of interpretation that Lalage was first moved to speak. She had always sat quiet before, but now she felt she could make clear something which was bothering everyone else. After that she spoke from time to time and was always listened to. Usually this happened after the eating together and feeling together, after the first prayers, when a tide of mutual understanding seemed to flood over the men and women who had met together in the half darkness—for they had usually to meet at night when workers and slaves could get away. This was the time when someone here or there would confess a wrong-doing, on their knees in the shadows, and the others would know how nearly they themselves had done the same thing, how well they understood the doing of it; and they would forgive, sometimes with tears. And they would perhaps be able to show the forgiven person some action he or she might take to make up for what had been done. And in Jesus’ name the action would be taken.

  Sometimes there would be such happiness and understanding, such acute temporary experience of the Kingdom, that one or another must stand up and sing or dance—only they had to be careful not to make too much noise or they might have been overheard by those who wished them ill. And sometimes several, or all, would be dancing, moving in joy, filled, body as well as soul, with ecstasy, not knowing what they did, only that it was good. Sometimes someone would speak with tongues, and all would listen with a queer kind of sympathy, till the taut throat and breast had ceased vibrating and the upstretched, unconscious face was again the face of every day. Men and women would kiss one another, and often Lalage would throw herself down beside some man, holding to him in heavy delight, and sometimes when it had ebbed away she would wonder how it was that they could have lain in one another’s arms so strangely, without the delight ever localising or becoming the other thing which she knew so well. But so it always was. The kindness they felt towards one another was always of constant life, not of the little death that comes from the flesh.

  Once Lalage had met one of the brothers, a Syrian kitchen slave, oldish and ugly and scarred, in the small market near her room. And, seeing him look at her once openly and hungrily before he looked away, she was suddenly aware that he had not had a woman for months, perhaps for years, would never be allowed by his master to marry, did not even have the pennies for one of those worn-out, cellar-haunting things that had been women once. So she asked him back to her room and gave him what he needed, besides food, and what little wine she had by her. And she got one of her neighbours to mend his sandals. She thought nothing of it; she was so sorry for him that she thought of him afterwards kindly. But the next week he confessed it all at the meeting.

  Acté and Herodion, the deacons, asked Lalage what she had to say. She answered that what she had done was in charity: not a sin, but a healing. But she wished she hadn’t had to say that, because it made the man feel ashamed, undid the good she had done him. She did not ask for forgiveness, because there was nothing to forgive, either way. What did the meeting think? Most of the women thought she was right, and no action was taken against her. But it was a frightening thing to have done, and the Syrian seemed to hate her, until, after a few weeks, his shame eased itself off and there was no more to it.

  Lalage was unhappy all that meeting, for the man himself and also because although she had not sinned she had made a mistake. Acté walking back with her, said, ‘Be a little careful, my dear. Perhaps you were right, but it hasn’t turned out the way you meant.’


  ‘If only he hadn’t felt bad about it!’ Lalage said, ‘then there wouldn’t have been all this silly talk; there’d just have been that much more love and joy in the world. Why did he have to take it the wrong way?’

  ‘Some people are weak,’ Acté said, and then, ‘He must have thought of you, Lalage, not as a person, but as a thing: a temptation. So it all went bad on him.’

  ‘You don’t think he was any temptation to me, do you, Acté?’ Lalage asked, worried.

  ‘No, my dear!’ Acté said, and smiled. ‘But you’re a strong one. And people from different countries, who have had different things whispered to them in their cradles, will always interpret the same saying in another way.’

  And indeed Acté was right. Manasses, for one, was terribly upset, and, though he had forgiven what happened, and, in a way, had understood it, yet he could not forget it or look Lalage in the face for months afterwards. But just a few weeks later he was sold into the new household, and he gradually got over it. Others, too, were angry or hurt, and it seemed to make the meetings uncomfortable for a time. So Lalage saw that she mustn’t just trust to being moved by the Spirit, but must always take care of the weaker brethren, the ones who are easily scandalised and upset, easily diverted from the main thing to little, personal things. And it was also the first time that Lalage realised that she herself was strong. For she began to ask herself, instead of only asking others, what is the meaning of kindness and brotherhood and this joy that we have? And why did Jesus have to die as He did? And why does it make the whole thing more valid because He did die? And why do I feel as I do? And, if I feel like this for such and such reasons, why is it not the same for everyone?