Eunice thought Acté’s dress was just lovely; it was made of a very fine, grey-green wool, and showed her figure where the veil had slipped as Noumi’s hands pulled imploringly at its edge. Most likely, thought Eunice, she wears one of those fine muslin shifts under it, the ones made of imported stuff. Her sandals were white leather with gilt buckles and little gilt curlywigs over the middle toe. She had long ear-rings that set off her neck and shoulders ever so well. It would be nice to know who she got them from. But if one had thought about her the way Noumi had thought, from above as it were—well then, it must feel very queer indeed to be kneeling at her feet, it must hurt, oh it must be a rotten feeling! You’d only be able to do it if something very strong was getting at you.
Acté said, ‘You see dear, the stage managers ask for a certain number; if we manage to get your brother’s wife away, someone else will be taken from that prison or another.’
‘Oh no!’
‘I’m afraid it’s certain.’
‘Then—oh, what am I going to say to my brother, Lady Acté?’
Acté said nothing for a minute, then, ‘I think perhaps I see one very small chance, and it means waiting till the last moment.’
‘Oh, tell me!’
‘If I can get one of the under-managers to put her somewhere at the end where the crowds haven’t come yet—and rope her instead of nailing her—no, child, you must listen!—and then at the last minute before the torch, take her down and put a bundle of straw there, so that by the time the people are along they won’t know if it was a person at all … My dear, it’s not much of a chance, and it means that you and I will both have to see things which we’d give anything not to see. You’ll never be able to forget them. Noumi, dear; they’ll … No. Shall we try it, Noumi?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Noumi, and kissed Acté’s hands and stood up.
They had to wait a little; it was no use doing anything yet; now the prisoners would be being pulled and kicked out of their cells, given to the stage managers, forced into the pitch-soaked stiff tunics. In the little house on the edge of the Palace grounds, the three women ate together, but none of them could swallow much. Eunice was coming too; it was only sense. They might have to carry Sapphira. If they got her at all. Neither Acté nor Eunice was really very hopeful. There was also the possibility of getting arrested themselves; but Noumi hardly realised that. At last Acté said it was time; dusk was beginning; it would be a fine night; not even a chance of rain. They walked along the street a little way, and then Acté let them through the Palace wall by a narrow door of which she had the key.
When they came out about an hour later it was really night. Behind them the fireworks were flaring and shooting up, and there were other blazes, yellow, throbbing horrors on the lovely darkness. And there was continuous screaming, getting fainter as they left it, but even after the house door was shut, only too audible to those who could not help listening. Acté called rather sharply for wine, but when the slave brought it and knelt in front of her, she spoke to him with a kind of abashed, shaken kindness, laying her hand on his shoulder and calling him brother. He was a big, tawny-eyed, North Greek, with a silver-gilt collar on his neck, a present from Nero; he smiled a little at his mistress, but he too, knew what was happening; he had not been long enough in Rome to have any friends among the people who were being killed; he only wished it wasn’t happening because it made her so bothered and unhappy. He offered the wine to Eunice who felt rather embarrassed, but took two cups for herself and Sapphira, who lay along the couch, her eyelids half-shut, the whites showing a little, dropping her rope-bruised arms and wrists over the cushions. Noumi refused the wine, even though Acté urged her to take it. It was as the Greek woman had said; she was remembering all too well everything she had seen and heard in that devilish garden; Acté drank off her wine and the watching slave refilled the cup at once before she could speak; as he knelt by her with the jug she rubbed her hand, gently, in his hair and over the back of his neck. He had, of course, been made safe as a lady’s slave, before he was given to her. The curtain over the doorway swung a little and the thin screaming was still going on. He had screamed then, too. As soon as possible the woman must get the cutting, pitch-soaked tunic off Sapphira. Abruptly Acté jumped up and left them, to find a dress of her own to put on to her.
The screaming had dropped out of the night; the blazes that were not torchlight nor yet firework flares, had died down. Eunice, Sapphira and Noumi left the house and walked back across Rome. Acté turned away into that pretty supper-room with the light-coloured hangings and cushions, the smiling marble child in the niche, and the elegant tall wine jug of flecked glass. The pitch-soaked tunic still lay stiffly on the floor. Acté picked up the jug and drank off one cup of wine after another; at last the pictures in her head began to swim and blur. In a little the tawny-eyed slave came in and saw his mistress lying asleep on the couch, her mouth desolately half-open, her hand dropping over the edge; he put her arm back on the couch and covered her with a light rug. Then he picked up the pitch-soaked tunic and took it away to burn; better not to have that kind of evidence in the house.
The others walked slowly; Sapphira was still very weak; she clung on to Noumi and the girl guided her along with an arm round her waist. It was only when they were over the bridge and into the Jewish Quarter again that Sapphira spoke. She looked up and round her and said, ‘My babies?’
‘They are well,’ said Noumi, ‘at our house; you will see them soon.’
‘Am I going to your house?’ Sapphira asked dazedly, ‘to your father’s house?’
‘You are going there, Sapphira,’ Noumi said.
‘But they don’t want me,’ Sapphira said, ‘they never liked me. They said I should not have married him. They said I had sinned.’
‘I want you, sister,’ Noumi said, ‘even if you had sinned all the sins in all the books. We have all sinned who have not given ourselves for others.’
They came to the house; it was her father who answered the knock at the door and took them both in his arms. And the babies were safe and asleep in soft blankets and the younger brothers ran to unlock the store-room and tell Phineas. Young Noumi said to Joanna, ‘Will you bring me a lamp, please? I want to go on with my carpet. We must hurry with our weaving and pay the debt.’ And she sat down behind her loom, hoping it would shelter her again.
Eunice had left them at the corner of their street and gone back to the bakery; she could smell at once that the bread was burnt. The bread. Bread doesn’t scream. Nor is bread ever terribly, horribly brave: silent or calling a Name: as the pitch flares and crackles. They had made themselves into bread: the bread of life. She prayed for a time, then got into bed and was nearly asleep when again there was a sharp knock, breaking through the beginnings of her nightmares. She jumped out of bed and ran to open, her hair tousled and a blanket snatched round her. Of all people, it was Mikkos. What did he want? He pushed past her and put his lantern down on the table. ‘See here, mother,’ he said, and then hesitated.
He was a decent sort of boy. Phaon liked him. Had something happened to Phaon? ‘What is it?’ she asked urgently.
Mikkos said, ‘The Briton’s been arrested. Thought you’d want to know, somehow.’
‘He can’t have been,’ Eunice said, her hand at her throat, ‘not Beric! Whatever for?’
‘Tried to kill the Praefect of the Praetorians. Bloody near pulled it off, so I hear. And—he won’t be the only arrest. They’ll get some of us. Damn him.’
‘What for? To give evidence against him?’
‘Yes. All that. Slaves’ evidence—torture, see? And I was on his working party! Oh hell. See here, mother, they’ll get the others who were in prison before. Your kid and all. Put ’em through it proper, this time, they will. Make them say he was a Christian. Is he?’
‘No,’ said Eunice, ‘no. No. Oh, I can’t seem to believe it! Christians don’t kill.’
‘I’ve heard they was all a pack of murderers. Isn’t that so?
You know all about it, Eunice, don’t you now?’
‘Mikkos,’ she said, ‘if you think that, do you still think all Christians are murderers?’
‘Well, I’m not squealing anyway,’ said Mikkos, ‘not on you nor yet on the Briton.’
‘Is anyone at the house arrested yet?’
‘No. Not had time. I’d best get back. You come round in the morning, Eunice, and ask to see the old man. Then you’ll know. But when you come round—oh don’t have anything silly on you! In case the guards are there. ’Night, mother.’
Mikkos took his lantern and went out again, and Eunice on her knees began to wrestle with her own fear and her own temptation. Phaon, Phaon, Phaon.
CHAPTER V
Difficulties of a United Front
Flavius Crispus was having a small and quite intimate supper party with his cousin Flavius Scaevinus and his old friend Aelius Balbus. They had all been at the Games, but none of them, naturally, would go to the evening display. There was to be no elaborate dancing, but Phaon would sing two or three serious songs during the roast. Crispus had asked Beric to have his supper in his own room, or out with a friend; as things stood now, he would not have minded in the least if Beric had been present, but it might have embarrassed the others. Beric said yes, he would have a tray in his room, and read. It was funny, but he didn’t want now to see any of his old friends: even to say goodbye. The self they had been friends with was not at the moment inhabiting his body. Was unlikely ever to do so again. He looked at the book-shelves, fingering the tops of a few rolls; there were books which had interested him and which he had not finished reading. But he could no longer want to finish them. Not even that book by the Epicurean author Catius, which he had borrowed from his tutor, badly written on cheap parchment, full of jibes and jabs at an imaginary Asiatic State which was obviously Rome. If he had luck, very great luck, he might yet finish Catius and talk it over with Nausiphanes, and do a number of other things which he could not now clearly envisage since they were beyond some boundary in his mind. Beyond some tomorrow which might have nothing at all to do with one Beric, son of King Caradoc of East Britain.
His brother Clinog had said he was going to try and get down to Rome for the Games. He’d like to see old Clinog again, but that too, was past the barrier. He opened his chest and took out a dagger which he had sharpened himself to a beautiful point. It was about three inches longer than the little knife which had got Sotion out of the way so satisfactorily. Argas came in with his supper-tray and looked at the dagger. ‘Don’t,’ he said.
‘I saw Tigellinus today,’ Beric said. ‘He’ll be there tonight. Enjoying it. Laughing at it. Decent, innocent men and women, and he—’
‘This will pass,’ Argas said, ‘and the Kingdom will go on.’
‘But not for them.’
‘They will be part of it forever. Oh, Beric, I’m not saying this without meaning it! It may be me any day.’
‘I know. And I want to stop it being you. Funny, I wouldn’t have cared two months ago if you’d been killed. No more than if you’d been—oh, one of the dining-room vases smashed!’
‘I wouldn’t have minded about you either. Yes, I would, though. But I’d have thought it served you right for being part of the Thing.’ He put the tray down on the end of the chest and spread the napkin and poured out the wine, carefully, as he had been taught.
‘They’ll be having supper at the palace,’ Beric said, ‘and looking forward to all this.’
‘Tigellinus,’ said Argas, ‘will be looking forward to something else. I saw Persis today and she told me her master would be at—the Gardens—and Tigellinus would be slipping back to have his spot of fun. He’d get more kick out of it after seeing women—oh God!’ He covered his face with his hands; he didn’t want Beric to see that at this moment he couldn’t do any forgiving. Sapphira there, and men and women from other Churches, hands he’d held in his. The Kingdom would be forever. So that there would be an end of people hurting one another.
‘Interesting,’ said Beric. He took up a piece of bread from the tray, broke it and gave half to Argas. ‘Remember when we did this before? During the fire?’
Argas took it. ‘Beric,’ he said, ‘I’d mind like hell if you got killed now.’
‘Perhaps none of us will get killed, after all,’ Beric said.
Niger was waiting in the kitchen yard with his master’s litter. They’d had some food brought out to them and were munching it. The Briton came out of the house; he nodded at Niger, and Niger smiled a very little. Then the Briton went out of the yard by the back door into the street behind. The new Cappadocian looked at him wonderingly; he would ask Niger about him in the night. He slept next to Niger and sometimes, when he was lucky, Niger used to tell him stories about Someone who had done magic and extraordinary things—but things which also fitted on to life as he knew it. On to work and pain. Niger wouldn’t tell him the name of the Person, but it wasn’t a king or a chief nor yet really a magician, but apparently a wood-worker. The Cappadocian thought about this Person and these stories whenever there was a gap, and Niger had promised, some night, to tell him the name.
When supper was cleared away, Crispus sent the slaves out of the room. The wine and nuts and sweets were handy on the little table between him and his guests. They were discussing their Emperor, whom they had all seen that day at the Games, first in the chariot at the head of the procession, then in the Imperial box, watching the races. Was there any alternative to what they were intending to do? And, again, how much support could they count on from the masses? Had these shows of his bought over the people on to his side? ‘There’s a new song that’s going round,’ said Balbus, ‘all about this marvellous Emperor of ours and all he’s done for us! Seems to be catching on. Got a good tune—they’ll be singing it at us from the cheap seats every blessed day of these Games. For what that means.’
‘Young Lucan has written a very fine poem about freedom,’ Scaevinus said. ‘Very fine indeed. Dignified. But, of course, it doesn’t go to a tune.’
‘I suppose he can be trusted?’ Balbus said. ‘Never quite know about poets. Nervy devils, some of them.’
‘Seneca says we can trust him absolutely. And his own uncle ought to know.’
‘What I ask myself,’ Scaevinus said, ‘is what safeguards we can devise to stop this happening again. Supposing we put one of ourselves at the head of things. After all, the divine Julius made all kinds of promises, and apparently intended to keep them. But perhaps Brutus saw more clearly than the man he assassinated.’
‘It should be possible to avoid a tyranny,’ Crispus said, ‘if there is an aristocracy which chooses to serve the State and to understand what it is doing. They can share both powers and responsibilities, evenly. But with a democracy it’s not possible. Most of the common people are too lazy to take responsibility, so they’ll shove it all on to a leader if they can.’
‘What do you call us—the Senate and People of Rome— aristocracy or democracy or what?’
‘We’re something that would have made old Aristotle shut his eyes and think again! Fact is, Crispus, we’ve spent our lives serving the kind of State no decent man ought to serve. And we’re old enough now to see what we’ve done.’
‘It’s very hard,’ said Crispus. ‘The wise man should no doubt keep aloof as far as possible, as Chrysippus himself advised, but that has never been found possible in Rome, at least, in our class. Philosophy, although such a necessary part of one’s life, does not always provide a positive guide for action, even when it shows us the causes of things. And I am sadly afraid, my dear Balbus, that none of us have lived up to our ideals.’
‘At least we’ve been able to stand things without allowing them to affect our souls,’ Balbus said sharply. Was he thinking about Flavia, Crispus worried to himself, or about more general disasters and disturbances?
‘And we have a way out if tyranny becomes intolerable,’ Crispus went on, the wine slightly affecting him towards pomposity. ‘I
f it reaches a point where it is bound to affect the soul. We must all of us have in mind the noble example of the younger Cato. I am proud to be sure that any of us three would open a vein sooner than submit to be forced into an unworthy action.’
‘Yes, I take it we’d slip out by the old back door,’ Scaevinus said. ‘But that’s all it is, in spite of the philosophers. And we have singularly little idea of what’s on the other side … if that matters. Now, I’ll tell you how it is, Crispus. Let’s take the thing historically. Go back to the Republic.’
‘I wish we could,’ said Crispus, sighing.
Balbus added, ‘Those were the days. A man was a man then. There wasn’t any of this modern corruption.’ He jammed a walnut between his teeth and cracked it viciously.
‘No,’ said Scaevinus, half to himself, slowly, ‘go back three generations further. To the Punic Wars. Why did we have to destroy Carthage?’
‘Carthage was our enemy,’ Balbus said. ‘It had to be done.’
‘You say that, Balbus—’
‘Most certainly I do. And what the devil, my dear Scaevinus, has Carthage three centuries ago to do with Rome now?’
‘A great deal, I think,’ Scaevinus answered. ‘You know, Balbus, I’ve been thinking about this. Started off I suppose, the year I had my Province.’ He laughed to himself a little, annoying Balbus; but the memories were by no means unpleasant. ‘I amused myself finding out what was going on in the Procurator’s office. A Governor has to have his relaxations, and there was one of the secretaries, quite the Praxiteles type, those rather heavy eyes … yes, yes, he had most of the accounts through his hands. And I began to realise how much my side of things, administration and justice, was being influenced, without my knowing it, by their side: the Imperial taxes. I was shocked at the time to discover how powerful money was and how much it altered people’s lives. I found out a little too much about the Imperial accounts, and as you know, I was recalled. That score won’t be wiped out till we do our clean-up of the Treasury—afterwards. But it made me think. Since then I’ve had to look up old decisions of the Senate from time to time in the course of my duties. And I know that the destruction of Carthage was necessary to our forefathers for reasons of money rather than of honour. There was an Empire shaping and it was going to be ours; we weren’t going to allow anyone else to go about in it, making money without our leave—or our taxing of it.’
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