The Kingdom of the Wicked

by Anthony Burgess

  The neatly bearded little monarch, in his fine black and gold thread, sat with his sister, recently groomed and coiffed in Alexandria, on little thrones set up on the procuratorial rostrum. It was a blue and gold day, and Bernice’s sharp little ears were concerned with analysing the components of the birdsong about them more than with attending to the harsh Greek of the procurator’s exordium.

  ‘We are met in order to clarify the issue yet again of the accusation brought by the Jewish people against the man Paul. The Roman law operates in the sphere of secular action. It is fitting that a monarch greatly experienced in the Jewish law should, of his graciousness, assist the Roman arm in the elucidation of the issue. King Herod Agrippa, here is the man.’ There indeed was chained Paul, bowing slightly in the direction of Hebraic royalty. ‘The Jews of Judaea have made suit to me, protesting that he must live no longer. I myself have found in him nothing worthy of death. He has requested appeal to the Emperor in Rome, and this has been granted. But the question is this: what must we write to Rome? Perhaps, at last, we shall find out. Let the prisoner speak.’

  The Jewish prosecution then clamoured to put their case in Aramaic, since probably the situation had not been made sufficiently clear in Greek, a pagan tongue, but Festus said that he was satisfied that the accused would make the accusation as clear as the defence. So Paul set sail on a wide sea of self-justification with an eloquence honed by enforced repetition. Marcus Julius Tranquillus listened with great care and, though he had made a Jewish marriage, his head swam with the Oriental subtlety of it all. That business of Paul’s having desecrated the Temple no longer seemed to come into it. He was being set upon by the Jews for preaching heretical doctrine, and the Jews hoped to bring the Romans into it by laying at his door the disruption of public order which they themselves, rejecting the logic of what was not at all heretical, had caused. Paul appeared to give an elegantly concise history of the Jewish nation, their hope of a redeemer, the fulfilment of that hope in a form which, since they had got used to hope and did not particularly want its fulfilment, they stubbornly rejected. Paul quoted massively, and names like Ezra, Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai and Zechariah evidently registered as mere uncouth noise with Festus, who stared stonily in a Roman intellectual sleep. Paul ended by saying:

  ‘I have taken my mission to Greece and to Asia, to Jew and Gentile alike. For this cause I was seized in the Temple and men made attempt to kill me. Having obtained the help that is from God, I stand to testify to all, small and great, saying that I have preached nothing but what Moses and the prophets said would surely come: how that the Christ must suffer and by his resurrection from the dead proclaim light to both the Jews and the Gentiles.’

  Both Festus and Herod Agrippa began to speak at the same time.

  ‘I beg your pardon—’

  ‘No, please—’

  ‘All I was going to say was that he’s mad. He’s read too much. Too much brooding on things makes a man go mad.’ Julius felt a reluctant sympathy. Life was hard enough without bringing Habakkuk into it. All the Romans wanted to do was to make life simpler for everyone: a sufficiency of meat and drink, the odd afternoon at the games, taxes, a few memorised tags from the classical authors, una nox dormienda. ‘Seen a lot of it in my time,’ Festus added, untruthfully. Paul, good-humoured, said:

  ‘I’m not mad. I speak the truth in all sobriety. The king here knows of these things. Nothing’s been hidden from him. Nothing of what has been done has been done in a corner. King Agrippa, you believe in the prophets. I say no more.’

  Herod Agrippa said: ‘If you’re right, and you preach the Jewish fulfilment, what have the Gentiles to do with it?’ Very shrewd, Julius thought.

  ‘Would you have the word caged?’ Paul answered. ‘Would you have a limitation on it? God made more than the Jews. He may even be said to have made the Romans.’

  Festus did not quite like his race to be bundled into the same creative arena as subject peoples, but he contented himself with muttering that Paul was mad. Agrippa grinned at Paul and said:

  ‘You’re persuasive enough to make me see the road if not to follow it. You’ve persuaded yourself into a particular situation and I can quite see how you’ve persuaded others.’

  ‘Yes. I would to God everybody could take the stand I take, standing here as I stand. Except, of course, for these chains.’ And he shook them. Julius laughed and Festus looked at him, wondering why.

  ‘I would say those chains should come off,’ Agrippa said. ‘If the defendant would be good enough to retire and have them removed, the procurator and I have a word to say to each other.’

  So Paul was rattled off, and Festus said to Agrippa:

  ‘It seems a lot of nonsense to me.’

  ‘Not Roman, you mean. No, it makes good enough sense. The point is that he’s done nothing wrong. He can be set at liberty.’

  ‘Then he’s torn to pieces. A pleasant start for my term of office. A Roman citizen torn to pieces, and then I have to have one of those massacres to quieten the tearers down, troops brought in from Syria, oh no. Besides, there’s the question of his appeal to Caesar. That’s gone through, that’s on record, that can’t be rescinded.’

  ‘If he hadn’t made the appeal you could have put him on a boat going to Corinth or somewhere. Now you have to send him to Rome. I have the feeling that he wants Rome more than he wants Caesar. A chance to spread the doctrine in the imperial capital. At Roman expense. The man’s no fool.’

  ‘Not mad, then?’

  ‘Far from it.’ Bernice now unexpectedly spoke. She had a lovely low voice, and both its trained resonance and the information she imparted reminded her brother that that school in Alexandria had been a good school. She said:

  ‘In Rome, of course, he’d be preaching a religio licita.’

  ‘A what?’ Festus said, as though he did not know Latin.

  ‘The Nazarene faith is permitted on Roman territory. Gallio established that precedent.’

  ‘Who is or was Gallio?’

  ‘Come, procurator,’ Herod Agrippa said, ‘he’s the brother of the Emperor’s tutor and speech writer. You know, Seneca.’

  ‘Spanish, aren’t they?’ He knew that Seneca was, it followed therefore that—

  ‘My sister’s right,’ Herod Agrippa said. ‘Of course, the priests won’t accept the precedent, and this man Paul knows it. What he’s after is imperial confirmation, which might make the Sanhedrin grumble but think twice about throwing stones. I think he might well get it. Rome takes kindly to new things. Anyway, my advice is that you get him aboard a ship as soon as you can. With a military escort, naturally. He’ll still officially be a prisoner. Then he ceases to be your responsibility. He belongs to Rome.’

  This seemed to imply that he, Porcius Festus, was not Rome. But he saw the point: real Rome.

  Tigellinus, so Nero had discovered, was a blunt and somewhat brutal man but not lacking in a philosophy. He listened to his imperial master expound the doctrine of art learnt from Gaius Petronius, who was still away in Greece, and he grunted and nodded, though in no gesture of affirmation, before saying: ‘I see the point – an image of reality and so on, but what do you want with an image when you, so to speak, are the reality?’

  ‘I don’t quite see the—’

  ‘Oh come, Caesar, art is for the impotent. Dreams of manipulation are dreams of power. Why dream when it’s more satisfactory to be awake? The reality is potestas.’

  ‘Of course, but potestas to create pulchritudo.’

  ‘The pulchritudo, as you term it, lies in the potestas. There’s nothing beyond that.’

  ‘How strange. Just what my mother said.’

  ‘In one of your dreams, Caesar?’

  ‘Don’t despise dreams, Tigellinus. Dreams are a fantastic way of putting things into focus, sharpening them, showing you what you’ve been thinking without really knowing it. I’ve had a lot of nightmares wit
h my mother in them. I wasn’t all that good a son, I suppose. But what happened only the other morning just before I woke was that my mother stood there, very beautiful as she always was, even when she was nagging at me, and smiling and saying: “Everything is right in the name of potestas. I forced that lesson on you, son, and became a martus to it.”’

  ‘Became a what?’

  ‘She meant a witness, I think, it’s a Greek word. Then I woke up and felt very well and no longer a bad son.’ He smiled in complacency and leant back on his cushions. The two were sitting together in a loggia that caught the dying light, sipping a drink that Tigellinus had imported: wine fortified with bitter herbs, a sharpener of the appetite. Tigellinus said:

  ‘You must clean up your life.’

  ‘Morally, you mean? You sound like Seneca.’

  ‘No, no, no. There’s too much of the last imperiate still hanging about. You can smell its stuffiness. And I don’t mean Seneca. Not yet.’

  ‘Will you invite us to dinner, Tigellinus?’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Oh, me and the Empress, and, yes, Seneca, and, of course, my stepbrother. Perhaps,’ he said bitterly, ‘he could be persuaded to sing for us.’

  ‘Swanlike.’ It was not a question. And then: ‘Honoured, naturally. At the villa, of course?’

  ‘Oh, none of them could tolerate the stink of the Suburra. You know this woman who lives there, Locusta?’

  ‘I’ll know her before the dinner takes place.’

  The villa was, as Nero had expected, somewhat vulgar in its opulence: the self-made rich man showing off. But dinner was served away from the clutter of ornaments in a paved court next to the piscina. On the table, which was heavily cluttered with flowers of a heavy sweetness, there was a real piscina or fishtank. In it swam little fishes. Tigellinus had served his bitter appetiser before dinner, but only his chief guest was drunk. Tigellinus was aware of the artist’s weakness in him: he had to be drunk for what was to come. The host, he was permitted to chatter away, saying:

  ‘Brought up by barge this morning from Ostia. I supervised the cooking myself. And there, you see, are some live fish. It is a pleasant sensation to feel them slide down your throat raw and alive. They nibble as they go down. Would Caesar like to essay the painful pleasure?’

  ‘Try it on old Seneca first. He needs pleasures. A man who’s lived a long life without them.’

  ‘I doubt that, Caesar,’ Tigellinus grinned. Seneca did not feel especially uncomfortable, though he ate little. His stoicism served him well. The butler brought in wine. The wine steamed. Nero said:

  ‘Our host has considerately remembered that the lord Britannicus was, on his British campaign, introduced to the comfort of mulled wine. Try some of this. You too, Seneca, cold fish as you are.’

  ‘This cold fish prefers cold water, Caesar.’

  ‘Oh, clever. Water’s a dangerous drink. Try this delicious hot brew, Britannicus. Garnished with rare herbs. Come, it’s a cool night. Oh, I see your problem. How terribly insulting. He fears the Emperor may poison him, Tigellinus. But Tigellinus has no such fear, see.’ And indeed their host took a few sips. ‘You see, harmless, wholesome. But perhaps you would prefer to wait a while, Britannicus. Tigellinus may be a kind of Socrates, and some poisons are slow to act.’ Without changing his tone he added: ‘Octavia, you’re an adulteress.’ There was shock. Octavia stammered:

  ‘I beg the Emperor’s pardon?’

  ‘That’s right, do beg it, not that you’ll get it. Closeted with old Seneca there, pretending to study philosophy. Scratch a Stoic and you find a lecher, isn’t that so, Tigellinus?’

  ‘That,’ Seneca said, ‘is a joke in very bad taste, sir.’

  ‘Bad taste? That sounds like an aesthetic judgement. Leave such judgements to an artist, Seneca, like your lord and master. Artifex, artifex. Very well, Octavia, I know you wouldn’t touch old Seneca with a ten-foot strigil. Hot in the blood calls for hot in the blood. I’ll find him out yet, never fear.’

  ‘Bbbbritannicus,’ Octavia stammered, ‘at least have the ccccourage to pppprotect your sister.’

  ‘Oh, that would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?’ Nero jeered. ‘That might offend the Emperor. The good kind Emperor who persuaded our kind host to prepare some mulled wine for the conqueror of the Britons. Taste it. Our host has done so and smiles unharmed.’

  Britannicus obeyed, rage trembling in his forearms. ‘Too hot.’

  ‘Easily put right. Add some cold water, somebody.’

  Tigellinus was quick to obey, using the blue jug by his plate. Britannicus drank more copiously, though with little pleasure. Tigellinus said: ‘Because you are neither hot nor cold but merely lukewarm you shall be vomited out of my mouth.’

  ‘That’s rather good,’ Nero said. ‘That’s very good. Who made that up?’

  ‘It’s attributed to the unkillable slave Chrestus. Around whom a cannibalistic cult now centres. They eat each other, you know. And they swive each other with no concern for lawful relationships. Sister with brother, mother with son, father with daughter—’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s a libel,’ Seneca said. ‘I know differently.’

  ‘You always do, don’t you,’ Nero jeered, ‘old Senna Pods? Whenever a thing sounds moderately interesting, as this Chrestus business does, you have to throw cold water on it.’ Britannicus retched. ‘What’s the matter, you sweet singer and lover of British boys? Is a little live fish nibbling your little grape? Heavens, not at all well.’ For Britannicus tried to speak, but could not. Tried to breathe, but could not. Tried to rise, but Tigellinus said:

  ‘Perhaps a little cold water?’

  ‘Too late. Choked on a fishbone. A shame. Not much of a singer but a fine soldier.’ Octavia and Seneca got up from their couches, their hands flapping in useless concern. Britannicus gasped like a landed sea bass, then stopped gasping. ‘Sit down, both of you. Seneca, I thought the Stoics took this sort of thing in their stride. Vomitorium on the left, I think,’ as Octavia blindly staggered. Tigellinus looked closely at Nero, though keeping his distance. He clicked fingers for one servant to clear the plates, four to remove the body. Nero, he thought, was acting well the part of the amoral monster. But he did not really have the stuff of the murderer in him. He would not sleep well tonight. He would have bad dreams. The artist’s hysteria without much artistic talent. But he, Tigellinus, would look after him.

  The wind blew fair at Caesarea. The sails bellied. The ship was a coastal vessel that had put in from Adramyttium, not far from the island of Lesbos. Commodious enough, but needed a lick of paint, some of its lines frayed. Cranes creaked as bales were hoisted aboard. Porcius Festus said: ‘You’ll be seeing Rome sooner than you thought.’

  ‘I’d be seeing it sooner if we waited for a ship bound straight.’

  The procurator, eyes slit to the sunlight, looked at the mob held off by the entire Caesarean garrison. ‘You’ll pick something up at Sidon. Or Cyprus. Or Myra.’ The owner-captain yelled at two new crew members in an obscure Greek dialect and cuffed the ship’s boy. ‘We have to get him out of here. I’m sick of stones being thrown and gibes about Roman friendship for heretics, whatever heretics are. I wish I understood what it was all about. Or perhaps I don’t. Whatever it is, it’s well – dirty, not Roman. You have that letter safely stowed?’ Marcus Julius Tranquillus tapped his breast. ‘My thanks for writing it. Of course, you understand these things better, what with having a Jew wife. You’ll be in bed with her soon. Well, not too soon, of course.’ More affable with his senior centurion, knowing that he was now rid of him. Transferred him, with permission from Syria, to the corps of couriers or frumentarii, but still in command of troops, also responsible for prisoners.

  Paul was already below. Luke was with him, gladly posing as a personal slave. That would make a difference. There were other prisoners, riff-raff but Roman citizens, a soldier who had attacked his decurion in drink, a captured deserter, a Tiberside murderer who had escaped to Syria, picked up in Damascus. Pau
l was an appellant, not a prisoner, but you could not expect the troops aboard to see the difference. Give him a slave going yes master no master and it might get into their thick heads that here was a bald and hooknosed gentleman. A gift of new robes had come through from Bernice in Neronias. He often impressed women of the higher class. The officer in charge, who had introduced himself as plain Julius, had allotted Paul and himself, Luke, a two-bunked cabin next to the one, privilege of rank, he occupied alone. This Julius had, unheard of deference but he made all clear, apologised to Paul for what looked like being a lengthy voyage. ‘I fear it’s very roundabout. Rome by way of little Asia.’

  ‘A mad voyage for a mad man. Not so mad a man, not so mad a voyage. The procurator was eager to get me away, but doesn’t seem so eager to get me to Rome. A procurator’s relations with Rome should be very simple – taxes delivered on time, nothing more. Now he has to get involved with the legal department. I’m afraid I’m an embarrassment to the procurator. I have a feeling that he’d be happier if we were shipwrecked somewhere.’