The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  The magician seated himself at the table, but after one mouthful of the mutton stew gave over the effort to eat. “My mind is on higher things than filling my stomach,” he declared. “After it is over I shall eat. And drink. I demand, my kind Helena, that there be plenty of wine for me when I have emulated the angels of the Lord, for I shall have a thirst on me like a traveler from the desert.”

  Helena had seated herself across the table from him. At this she leaned over, the better to scrutinize the expression he wore.

  “You keep speaking of flying like the angels. What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that I—that I will fly as they do, even though I lack their wings. I will fly”—he indulged in an inebriated gesture—“far out over Rome. Everyone in the city will see me and they will cry, ‘There is Simon, to whom the gods have given invisible wings, the great Simon of Gitta!’ ”

  “You will not fly farther from the top of the tower than fifteen feet,” declared Helena.

  “There will be astonished people in Rome today,” said Simon with a sudden blaze in his eyes. “And none more than you, my zadeeda.”

  There were two assistants at the table, Idbash sitting on her right, and the impudent trickster who had visited Simon that morning on her left. Helena withdrew her eyes from Simon’s face and addressed herself to them.

  “You see, he is drunk! But that is not a serious matter; I have seen him give a full performance with a belly rumbling of wine. What disturbs me is that—that I am becoming certain he is out of his mind. It may be necessary to keep him here by force. I could go up and fly in his place.”

  “You cannot be serious!” cried Idbash. His small eyes, which were so much like black currants, were filled with astonishment.

  “I am serious about it. I am of a mind to go to the Emperor and tell him that this change of plan is necessary.”

  Simon had been listening with fire growing in his eyes. He stood up and glared across the table at them. His hands took a grip on the side of the trestle. Suddenly he jerked it up and thrust it against them, sending all three to the floor, together with the tureen of mutton, the platter of fish, and all the different varieties of fruit. Before they could extricate themselves and scramble to their feet, he had mounted the stairs. They heard him drop the trap door behind him with a loud crash and then drag lumber and other heavy objects upon it to prevent them from following. They could hear him laughing.

  “I will go alone to the top of the tower,” he called down to them. “I will have no assistants turning a wheel for me. I shall fly of my own efforts as the angels do; and all the world will wonder. Yes, my Helena, all the world will wonder at Simon of Gitta.”

  “He has gone completely mad!” cried Helena, getting to her feet and looking with a furious dismay at the food stains on the new robe of blue and gold in which she had arrayed herself for this momentous day. “I am going to the palace. He must be stopped. You must see to that.”

  The assistant had climbed the stairs and was endeavoring to force his way up through the trap. They could hear Simon piling more obstructions on top of it and laughing with a hint of maniacal delight.

  “Get ladders!” she ordered in a breathless haste. “There are open spaces above. You can climb through and follow him to the top. Hurry, if you put any value on your skins! The punishment of Nero will fall on us if we don’t stop this drunken fool in time.”

  Nero’s gesture to the public had resulted in an immense influx of people. They were now packed tightly about the tower, and the palace grounds were filled all the way back to the walls. Every tree was black with spectators and every rooftop on the Palatine Hill was filled. The roads to the hill were crowded with disappointed people who could get no closer.

  Helena, emerging from the door of the tower, saw that the path to the palace had been overrun in spite of the efforts of the Praetorian Guard to keep it clear. She plunged desperately into the mob, crying at the top of her voice: “Let me through! I must get to the palace. Let me through!”

  As she struggled to open a path for herself, she heard someone cry, “There he is!” Other voices took it up. “Yes, there he is!” “He’s climbing the stairs!” “Look, he’s all in white.”

  3

  Nero and his immediate circle sat in a small enclosed garden in front of the palace. This was a most suitable location, for it not only afforded them a clear view of the tower but it gave the throngs in the garden a chance to see the laurel-crowned head of the young Emperor. There were continuous cries of “Hail, Caesar!” At intervals Nero would respond by bowing.

  Despite the gratification he took from this evidence that his popularity had not died, the Emperor was not in a happy mood. The uneasiness aroused in him by the charge of a conspiracy in his household still clung to him. His eyes darted suspiciously in all directions, and twice he gestured to the guards to come closer to his person.

  “They have been dangerously silent, these Christians,” he said to Tigellinus. “Why do you suppose we have heard nothing from them? What are they plotting against me now?”

  “They are doing nothing at the moment,” declared his political henchman. “The promptness with which we acted has had its effect. Even if they had designs before, they have none now. They are too frightened to raise their heads. The extermination of those slaves has been a lesson they will never forget.”

  Nero rubbed his plump white hands over his beardless chin. “I trust you are right, Tigellinus,” he said. Then a different grievance took possession of his poorly balanced mind. He turned in the other direction and tugged at the plain linen sleeve of Petronius. “I am most unhappy, my friend,” he whispered.

  “Unhappiness, O Caesar,” said Petronius, “is the penalty of genius. Only men of mediocre quality can enjoy peace of mind.”

  “Then I must be a great genius!” cried the Emperor. “My capacity for unhappiness has no bounds. I was too hasty in destroying all the busts he made of me, Petronius. I am realizing now that they were as good as I thought at first. It was mad of me to break them. It was a pleasure to look at them. I would sit and study them and say to myself, ‘Here is Caesar, Caesar as he looked to those about him, Caesar preserved for posterity!’ And now they are all broken and thrown out on rubbish heaps!”

  “The man who made them is still alive,” said Petronius. “I did not think quite as highly of his work as you did, O Caesar, but there is no denying his gift. He is meretricious, tricky perhaps; but unmistakably clever.”

  “Petronius, Petronius, there is genius in him! I become more certain of it all the time.”

  “Then pardon him publicly and summon him back,” advised the arbiter in a tone that indicated he considered the matter of small importance. “He would be happy to return, having sampled once the sweetness of royal preference. I presume he is hiding somewhere in Rome and that he would emerge at once on your invitation.”

  But Nero shook his head. “No, Petronius, I cannot bring him back. I had a great liking for him. We were much of an age.” His lips, which had a blubberly suggestion about them, quivered with unhappiness. “I was not allowed friends as a boy. In spite of his impudence in facing me with such an abominable confession, I still think of him at times with an affection I cannot forget.”

  “All you have to do is lift a finger to bring him back.”

  “No, Petronius, mentor and friend, I would fall into a rage if I saw him again and I would send him to the same death as the dancer. Besides, he affronted me publicly. He said to my face, ‘I am a Christian.’ I could not pardon him because it would shatter my dignity. No, no, I must not try to bring him back.” He was silent for several moments, while conflicting emotions showed on his face. “Sometimes I hope Tigellinus will find him so I can decide on the tortures to which he is to be put before he dies. But sometimes I find myself hoping he will escape.”

  The crowds had been getting thicker in the imperial gardens as more people managed to squeeze past the sentries at the gates. There was more noise, more ex
cited talk, more laughter. The cries of “Hail, Caesar!” were louder and were interspersed now with demands that the magician lose no more time in attempting his feat in the air.

  Suddenly there were loud and excited shouts of “There he is!” Nero sat up straight in his ivory chair so that his head no longer lolled against the golden eagle on the back. He glanced in the direction of the tower and then shouted as eagerly as anyone, “There he is!”

  The sides of the tower were not cased in, and it was possible to see that upright ladders led from one platform to another. A figure in white was climbing with dignity and calm. A ladder had been placed against the side, and the impudent assistant was hurrying up it.

  Helena had succeeded finally in fighting her way to the royal enclosure, where two guards stood like guardian angels with drawn swords. “I must see the Emperor,” she said to them. “It is a matter of—of life and death! I implore you, let me through!”

  “Stand back!” said one of the guards gruffly. “No one is allowed to see the Emperor today.”

  “I must see him!” she cried. “I must see him at once.” As the guard’s only response was to give her a far from gentle shove backward, she raised her voice. “Caesar! O Caesar! I must see you. I have a message for your ears.”

  “This is the woman who helps the magician,” said the second guard uneasily.

  Nero heard the outcry and took his eyes from the white figure progressing up the ladders long enough to look in her direction. He recognized her with a frown.

  “It is that woman again,” he said to Tigellinus. “Why is she making such a disturbance? Go to her, Tigellinus, and find what she desires to tell me.”

  The head of the police made his way to the garden entrance. The two guards stepped back a pace to allow him to face the insistent visitor.

  “What is it this time? Have you more rumors to destroy the peace of the Emperor? Say what you have to say in a few words. I have small patience with you.”

  Helena told him what had happened, adding: “He has gone mad. If he is not stopped, it will be a great victory for the Christians.”

  The intimation of a Christian triumph persuaded Tigellinus that his master should be told. Nero’s hands pawed nervously at his shaven chin as he listened.

  “He must be stopped!” cried the Emperor. “He must not be allowed to die of his folly in the sight of all Rome.”

  Simon was now close to the top and was moving more slowly, as though the long climb had stiffened his muscles. Thousands of eyes watched in a silence that seemed strange after the turbulence with which his arrival had been awaited.

  “It is too late to stop him,” declared Tigellinus. “I could order the guards to shoot arrows at him when he reaches the top. But they might have to shoot many in trying to get him—and an arrow that goes up must come down. They would fall like hail on the good citizens of Rome on the other side of the gardens.”

  “I am tempted to give the order,” declared Nero.

  Petronius, who had been listening, said hurriedly: “You must not, O Caesar. Rome would not take well to such careless murder of her citizens.”

  The upper section of the tower had been closed in for the mysterious device. On reaching this point, Simon disappeared for a few moments and then stepped out calmly on the bare platform above. For a brief space he scanned the crowded gardens beneath him and then, folding his arms across his chest, gazed out over the myriad housetops of the city. This was done with dignity and ease, as though divinity were looking with tolerance on the tawdry handiwork of men.

  “An artist to the end,” commented Petronius.

  Nero’s doubts seemed to leave him as he looked up at the tall spare figure in white. “I think he is going to fly!” he exclaimed. “I feel it in my bones.” He made it clear immediately, however, that he had not abandoned his doubts entirely, for he turned to Tigellinus and ordered him to see that the woman did not get away.

  The feeling that had permeated the broad framework of the imperial bones had been at fault. There was to be no proof of superhuman qualities that day.

  Simon the Magician, Simon of Gitta, the greatest performer of magic tricks the world had ever seen, stepped to the edge of the platform. He turned in the direction of the palace and raised both arms in the air as a salute to the majesty of the throne. A series of bows to the dense throngs followed. The raised arms made a final gesture as a signal that he was ready. For a moment he stood poised on the tips of his toes, then without any hint of hesitation Simon Magus cast himself forward into space.

  For the briefest interval of time the white-robed body seemed to maintain itself, then there was a panicky agitation of the limbs and the figure jerked over in the air like an acrobat doing a somersault. Again it performed a complete turn, then began to fall. It gained momentum every second as it plunged down headfirst to the ground.

  A great shout, combined of excitement and horror, rose from the crowd. Around the base of the tower people were struggling frantically to get away before the body could descend on them. It came hurtling down, and there was a dull thud as it struck the ground, an unmistakable thud that told all Rome that Simon the Magician had not fared well.

  “He has broken his neck most thoroughly,” said Petronius. Then he added, “And most artistically.”

  4

  Nero listened to the bedlam of sound from the crowded gardens. He was frowning and there was a flush of anger on his cheeks.

  “This has been a bad thing,” he muttered. “What will the people of Rome say? Will they think better of the Christians?”

  “They could be guided in their thinking,” hinted Tigellinus. “It can be given out that the Christian leaders called on evil powers to paralyze his body when he sprang into space.”

  Nero had been looking into the wild confusion of the grounds where members of the Guard had formed a ring around the prone body and were forcing the sensation-mad people to stand back. He turned to Tigellinus on hearing this suggestion. “You think the Christians could be blamed? If they are said to be at fault, they can be punished. We must give it some thought, Tigellinus. Ways must be found to make them pay for the death of this fellow.”

  An officer of the Guard made his way into the enclosure and bowed before Nero. “The man is dead,” he announced.

  Tigellinus began to issue orders. “Remove the body at once. We will decide what is to be done with it later. Get it out of sight as quickly as possible.” He turned to whisper in his master’s ear. “It can be given out also that Simon was the victim of treachery among his own people. They had been quarreling. There was some kind of a struggle before he started to climb the tower.”

  “Are any of them Christians?”

  “I do not think so. But it can be announced that they are.”

  The failure of Simon’s effort to fly had been such a disappointment to Nero that he was left with a furious desire for some kind of retaliation. The words of Tigellinus offered him a way.

  “Make prisoners of all of them,” he commanded. “The people of Rome have been robbed of the spectacle they came out to see, and we must not let them go home in a grumbling mood. Give them something more to watch, Tigellinus. Take these ungrateful servants of the magician to the top of the tower and cast them off.” He glanced about his immediate circle with wildly excited eyes. “It will be a just punishment. Lose no time, Tigellinus. It must be done while the excitement runs high.”

  “What of the woman?”

  “Keep her until the last so the people can feast their eyes on her while she waits to die.”

  Helena had been standing at the entrance of the royal enclosure while Simon completed his climb and through the moments of horror that followed. Realizing her danger, she decided then that it would be wise to get as far away as possible from the royal eye. At the first move she made, however, the hand of one of the guards fell on her shoulder with a heavy finality.

  “Stay where you are,” he ordered gruffly. “How do I know what orders will be coming?”<
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  Accordingly she was there when the order came. The two guards trussed her arms with violent speed and skill and placed her between them. She was taller than Juli-Juli, but there was a similarity of position that would have occurred to anyone who had seen the dancer led from the banqueting hall. It might have occurred to some also that the finger of fate had intervened and a debt was being paid.

  Helena accepted her lot with courage. She did not struggle or weep. She made no effort to appeal to the only power from which release could have come. Knowing the uselessness of an appeal, she did not look in Nero’s direction.

  “What will they do with me?” she asked in a low voice.

  One of the tall soldiers made a gesture to indicate the top of the tower. “You are to be taken up there.”

  Helena shrank back. “No!” she cried. “No, not that! I am not afraid to die, but I—I have such a dread of heights!”

  “It will be quick,” said the soldier in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Simon’s assistants had sensed the probability of trouble as soon as the tragedy occurred, and so the officers sent by Tigellinus came back with one only. It was Idbash, who had fallen a victim to his own lack of expedition in getting himself out of harm’s way; a thoroughly frightened Idbash who struggled and dragged his feet and proclaimed his innocence with piercing violence. They brought him only as far as the entrance to the enclosure and held him there while waiting for orders. His fears increased when he saw that Helena also was a prisoner.

  “Mistress, gentle lady!” he cried. “I have done no wrong. Tell them I am just a servant. I did not know anything. Please, kind mistress, tell them this is a mistake, that I have done nothing.”

  Helena’s face was white and her limbs were trembling, but she answered him in an even voice: “No one has done anything wrong. But we are going to be punished.”