‘I told you I was not a Christian,’ Beric said: he was tired of all this.
‘You have obviously had some connections with them,’ Candidus said, but still in quite a reasonable voice. ‘After all—you have been seen with them. With this notorious woman Lalage. Of course, I am not classing you with them. Especially if you can help me to clear your patron’s name.’ He paused invitingly.
And Beric suddenly felt that it was quite impossible for him to be in any kind of fellowship with this man, in the world of gentlemen, outside of which slaves were tortured. ‘Candidus,’ he said, ‘I was quite certainly not a Christian last night. But just as certainly I have become one since. And I am a Christian now.’
The Deputy-Governor stood up, and he was all at once looking just like he had looked in the night. But Beric was not afraid of him now, not even in the body. The Deputy-Governor took a step forward. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If that is the case, then back to the Christians you go. There will be no concessions. You will die with them—publicly—in the Arena. Your body, such as is left of it, will not receive burial. I shall arrange for you to die in some manner which will be thoroughly amusing for the cheap seats.’
Then he picked up a metal-studded glove which was lying on the table and hit Beric across the face. Then he shouted for the guards and had Beric marched out of his office. As they came out into the yard he gave Beric the hell of a kick, and Beric, not unnaturally, stumbled, lost his balance, threw up his arms but had them jerked down by the chains, and fell over on to his face. One of the guards kicked him up. People were watching from all over the yard, and especially Lalage, Manasses, Euphemia and Argas. When he went down Lalage began to pray hard and quietly. Then Beric came over to them; his face and arm were both grazed and bleeding again. But it was apparent that he was not paying any attention to that.
Beric was with them again; he had not been fit for baptism; he had been deeply ashamed before them; he had failed; he had been one of the rich. Now he was no longer ashamed. He had said he was a Christian; he knew he was; clearly he was in the Kingdom with them. Since he had said what he was, things had been done to him which should have made him wild with fury and frustration. They had not done so. He had been hurt, yes, but only on top of an excitement which blanketed that pain from penetrating to anywhere it could harm him.
‘What happened to you in there, brother?’ Lalage asked, with a kind of respect in her voice which was new to him.
‘He wanted me to talk,’ Beric said. ‘He tried a clever new trick on me. But I said I had not been one of you yesterday; and I said I was one of you now. And I am!’
The four looked at one another and up at him, standing chained and sore and happy in front of them. Then Euphemia got up and went over to the well and let down the bucket to draw some water. Here in the prison it could not be running water; it could not even be clean water; it had to be prison water. But it would do for baptism.
Paul said to her, ‘I see he is back. What does he say now? Will he accept his redemption?’
‘I am drawing the water for his baptism, Paul,’ Euphemia said.
‘Has he repented, then? Of everything?’
‘He is one of us, Paul.’ She had hauled the bucket up, and now rested it for a moment on the edge of the well. It had strained her hurt arm a bit.
‘Good,’ said Paul. ‘I knew he would come. I knew he would listen to me. I will baptise him.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Euphemia, ‘and, of course, it’s not for the likes of me to say, but I do somehow think Paul, that he’d sooner it was us.’ She picked up the bucket and took it over, hobbling rather, and letting it down to the ground once or twice. She had been in longer than the others and the bad food was telling on her, as well as everything else.
As she said that, the sudden darkening in Paul’s mind that his immediate anger made, warned him not to answer. He stood looking down into the well, accepting what had been said to him, certainly with innocence by this woman, accepting the lesson in the spirit of the fellowship they were in together. Yes, he had been proud and he had been rebuked. He had in him this terrible capacity for work and pride; they went with one another. He could see through people, he could see their weaknesses, he must guard against using his own power. Yet were we not all means towards the one overwhelming end? Yes, but each must be so in his or her own way—one way for the Greek and another for the Jew. Not only Paul’s way. Ah, if one way only were possible, then how easy for the shepherd, then indeed no need for any shepherd, all could be in the one flock. God did not allow any such easiness, putting us above the animals. So Paul of Tarsus, God’s shepherd, must never rest, never until death. Nor must he complain when men, not being sheep, went tortuously or must be lured round barriers of prejudice and old wrongs and ideas out of a past world.
But now the pride and darkness had cleared out of his mind. He crossed the yard, on the way stopping to speak to two prisoners who were quarrelling bitterly over a few sour-smelling beans, letting their poor, half-starved bodies get the better of them, until they were stopped and reminded of the great thing which they carried in them, the Christ. Would there become, Paul asked himself, a tradition of suffering for Christians, before the end and the judgment and the establishment of the Kingdom? It was easier for men to act by help of a tradition, above all in suffering; being one of a race which had suffered much, he understood that: although here was something beyond what any of the Prophets had known. And the future?
He came to the others. Manasses was on his feet now, but seeing Paul, he hesitated. ‘Do you want to question him, Paul?’ he asked.
Paul said to Beric, ‘Are you surely repenting of what you were?’
‘Yes,’ said Beric. ‘I was one of the rich. But I am forgiven for that by my friends.’ And he knelt in front of Manasses, and Argas and Lalage, being sureties for him and having known his temptations and his tests, knelt one on each side.
‘I’ve got to do it with my left hand,’ Manasses said, ‘but I don’t think it matters.’ Euphemia held the bucket for him. For a minute they all stayed quiet, waiting and aware, in the grip of the validity of what they were doing. Others had gathered round, forgetting their pain and hunger and lice, and they too, were very quiet, or whispered the word Jesus, the one word which did not break their love for one another, but was part of it. Then Manasses took water in the palm of his hand and spilled it, three times, over Beric’s head. ‘Beric,’ he said, ‘with this water I baptise you into the Name of Jesus.’
‘And into the fellowship of Jesus,’ Lalage said.
Then Beric bent and kissed the feet of the man who had baptised him, who had been a slave in the same house where he had been a master, and as he did so a few drops of blood and water ran down his cheek and rested on Manasses’s instep. But none of them noticed that.
He stood up again. It had not been magic nor childish. He was not suddenly changed. It was only a sign that marked a change which had been happening and which was now complete. Lalage slowly got to her feet beside him, holding on to his arm. But at the other side Argas still knelt, half doubled up, head against the side of his knee. Beric’s hand reached down to his hair and neck and bruised shoulders, alive still and warm, an object of affection and respect and brotherhood, so soon and stupidly to be destroyed. And Beric smiled across at Paul of Tarsus, the older man, rather outside their group. Paul had these other notions about what it was all for; that didn’t matter; Beric didn’t need to think about them, there was no longer time for thought, only for action. Paul had been preaching the Kingdom all these years, founding Churches in one place after another, away overseas, and whatever he might have said, these Churches had made their own image of the Kingdom and all its implications, not out of cobwebs, but out of the way men and women were acting by one another; and so it would go on living. Queer to think that Paul had organised all this, seen all those separate people, lighted all those flames, keeping a purpose in front of him through all the long, tedious years of middle ag
e, the years none of the rest of them were going to have. Beric said to his friends, ‘The Deputy-Governor says I am to die with you. And probably today. I shall be a witness too; I shall be some use.’
‘I wonder how long they’ll go on killing us,’ Manasses said.
‘Until they see they can’t win,’ Lalage said. ‘But then they’ll try and stop us some other way. They’ll try and change us back into ordinary people, under their rule, obeying and worshipping them. When they find they can’t do it by frightening us, they’ll try something else. I hope we’ll always be strong. As strong as we five are now.’ She crossed herself.
Manasses said, ‘Perhaps they’ll try and tempt them that are in our place, so to speak, by offering them money or power. Trying to make the Churches into part of their rule perhaps. Do you think that would be possible Lalage?’
‘I hope not. It would be so terribly difficult to resist that. If they’re offered all the kingdoms of the earth in return for—giving up our Kingdom. Or changing it. Oh, Manasses, we’re lucky to be now, when the temptations are so easy to see and resist, when we need only be brave and steadfast for a little time. And that’s a thing that any slave can be, or any poor girl who can’t read or write.’
‘Those’ll be the ones that’ll go on remembering us, Lalage,’ Euphemia said.
Argas said, ‘It’ll be hard for all them that are coming after us. They’ll need more strength than us really. They’ll need to learn to be cunning, to see round everything. But maybe there’ll be others in it then, not just us slaves, but free men and women, who’ve had a proper education so they can understand and not let themselves be tempted. Folks like you, Beric. Would you rather be then?’
‘No,’ said Beric, ‘I’d rather be now. With all of you. But we shall need courage. We’re sure of ourselves, brothers and sisters, aren’t we?’
‘I think so,’ Euphemia said. ‘You see dear, if those gladiators could die well—I used to look on, you know, in old days, when my patron took me—then it stands to reason we can. And just think of all the people we’ll be bearing witness to! Hundreds and thousands, I dare say. It isn’t like being beaten up all alone.’
‘Most of them are going to laugh and yell at us Euphemia, and throw things, too,’ Beric said, remembering what Candidus had been saying.
‘There’ll be some that won’t,’ Euphemia said.
‘What’s more,’ Lalage said, ‘there’ll be some of the ones that do who’ll go home, and later on in the night, it might be, they’ll wake up and remember us. And they’ll wish they hadn’t laughed and made our deaths harder; they’ll feel bad about that; they’ll feel, well, maybe they ought to do something about it. You see, we’ll have looked at them with love Beric, because they’re our brothers and sisters, though they’re separate from us now because they haven’t understood yet. They’re going to understand, though: through Jesus and us. But we won’t know which they are, not yet; they won’t look different; they won’t know themselves that they’ve been had by the Spirit, not till they feel the new thing moving in them that they’ve got to bring to birth.’
‘There’ll be plenty that we can’t move,’ Argas said. ‘The ones who want all this to happen.’
‘Yes, there’s some that no one could change, not even Jesus; like He couldn’t change all those rich men who were running things in Jerusalem in His time. They’d refuse the Kingdom even if they were shown it; they’re turned the other way—on purpose. They don’t see the point of love and freedom and justice. But there’s more of the others, the ones who may see the Kingdom yet. And we’ll be loving them; we’ll look at them so they’ll remember it always, won’t we Euphemia?—and it’ll give a bit of a twist to their minds, so that the world won’t ever be quite the same for them. They’ll begin to look new ways and feel about for something they can’t exactly lay a name to. And then, under God, they’ll begin to get to know the Kingdom.’
Argas said, ‘If Crispus is there, I’ll try to look at him— that way.’
‘Yes,’ said Beric. ‘He’ll be there. I hadn’t thought of that.’ He rubbed his hand across his face; his eyes were suddenly stabbing him again.
Manasses was watching him. ‘Why do you mind, Beric?’
‘We were there together so often. I was watching the races with him … yesterday, I suppose it was! We were enjoying them, in spite of everything. He kept on turning round, talking to me. And now he’ll be watching and I’ll be down on the sand and I won’t even be able to tell him to look away. He’ll be up there alone, with the ghost of me sitting beside him, in the best seats. And between me and my ghost there’ll be just a few yards of sand and a wooden barrier that the lions can’t jump over. But that’ll be enough.’
‘Are you afraid of the lions, Beric?’ Manasses asked.
‘One likes to die at one’s own moment, not at a beast’s.’
Manasses shook his head. ‘We’ve never had time of our own, we slaves, have we Argas? It’s been all a master’s time. And might be a beast’s that way, as like as not. You haven’t been used to being wasted by someone else, nor to being hurt, the way poor folk and slaves are; it’s something with us, pain is, day to day, so we need to get able to bear it. You haven’t ever been used to be handed about at someone else’s will and pleasure. It’s hard for you, son.’
‘Not really,’ Beric said. ‘I’m glad I’m in this. It’s the only thing that matters that’s happening in the world. I’m glad I found it in time. I’m glad you took me.’
Euphemia looked up and asked suddenly, ‘Your father really was a king, wasn’t he dear?’
‘He was a king all right, Euphemia,’ Beric said, ‘and made people fight for him and get themselves killed.’ And then he added, ‘And my brother was coming to Rome for the Games! I’d forgotten. He may be there, too.’
‘You will be bearing witness to many, brother,’ Lalage said. She was sitting on the bench again, her back to the wall. If only one could go to sleep in the sun and not wake up for a long time, stop being a hurt piece of flesh, gather one’s strength. ‘Jesus,’ she whispered, ‘Jesus.’ She fixed her mind on to that wood-worker who had taught the poor how to live and die, who had also taught such of the rich as would take His teachings. Beric. The pain stood away from her a little as she thought of how he had come to them at last and in time.
But he was saying, ‘I remember now Clinog telling me that most of our people, the British fighting men who’d been taken prisoner during that war of my father’s, were made to fight one another in the Arena. I hadn’t thought of it from that day to this. I was only a kid; I didn’t know what it meant. Clinog must have known because he was so angry. I suppose our people were too tough to be slaves. It was a way of getting rid of them.’
‘I bet they fought well—your people, Beric,’ Argas said.
‘But they were got rid of,’ Beric said, ‘so that even I, who was their king’s son, had forgotten them. But we shan’t be. No one’s going to be able to get rid of the Kingdom.’
Now it became apparent that something was happening in the yard. Here and there came a thud and a scream, and raised voices. A rather fat woman, running stumblingly in terror, her hands clutched over her breasts, cannoned into Euphemia. ‘They’ve come!’ she cried, ‘to take us to the beasts! Oh, I can’t!’ And she bolted through into the darkness of the cells, to escape for another three or four days, perhaps. Manasses saw a sergeant pointing to their group, and the guards coming, with their hide whips ready. He stood up with his Church round him. ‘It’s time,’ he said, ‘come, children. We are set to die for all people now.’ Beric helped Argas to his feet; they were in every way equals at this time; and all the way to the Arena, in the streets, with the cabbage stalks and bits of tile being thrown at them, Beric had his arm round Argas, as far as the chains would allow, helping him to walk.
As they were being marched through the prison, Paul was standing there, blessing them all, his face tense. When he saw the worst need, he would walk by someone or some group, u
rging them to courage and faith and above all remembrance of their love for one another, pulling it up into their minds past the terror and pain; they had known all along in the love-feasts and the crossing of the threshold that happened there, how this put them for ever beyond death! And the hungry, frightened eyes were on him the whole time, and the hands clutching and slipping, and the souls slipping and rocking too, that had to be brought to the pitch of crucifixion. And he must, oh, by giving all the strength that was in him, he must succeed in getting across to these men and women, his brothers and sisters, what would keep their hearts and heads high for those last hours that faced them. And after that it was in God’s hands. But when any passed him who looked as Manasses and Lalage and their Church looked, then he got strength himself to help the weak. Then he knew that the Kingdom was present and actual.
Gallio walked by Beric for a minute, the guard respectfully not hurrying him. ‘Goodbye, Beric,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Crispus.’
‘Thank him from me,’ Beric said. ‘He’ll know for what.’
The Blood of the Martyrs Page 40