Читать книгу The Blood Of The Martyrs - Naomi Mitchison - Страница 15

All that summer there was nothing to eat but beans and chick-peas and vetches and sometimes porridge made out of the sourest sort of meal; the children went hunting for wild berries and roots, but came home so hungry that it was worse than if they’d stayed still. It was the same everywhere; little Argas and his friends were always talking about food. Sometimes they went into the rich quarter of the town and stole from the shops, but it was getting more and more difficult. And sometimes there was something to be got by hanging around the Temples. There had been bad weeks before when father couldn’t get work. He was a skilled mason, but nobody was building houses and they were even skimping their tombstones. Sometimes one of the citizens who was still tolerably well off would distribute some grain or have an ox roasted, but what you got was hardly worth standing a couple of hours for. But this year the bad time just went on and on. The last baby had been exposed, of course; everybody had to do that. But the older children were so thin; they weren’t growing; they looked better than they were because they were all sunburnt, but they got tired as easily as old people.

There had been a time when Epidauros was prosperous and full of life. But now Hellas was dying. They were a Province, and if there was any blood in it, Rome sucked the blood. The Achaean League still went on; some people took it seriously, dressed up, talked about freedom and honour and all that. Who cared? The Romans let them; they knew they had only to say the word and the whole thing would crumble. And little Argas and the rest of the boys threw chestnut burrs at the processions. But even the chestnuts did badly that year. It didn’t do to think what winter would be like. But winter came and mother got ill; she just hadn’t had enough to eat for a long time. When fathers are out of work, mothers usually give the food to the others and make do themselves on the smell of the cooking-pots and a joke or two, and it was the same in Epidauros. But father went out with Argas one day, and came back without Argas, but with enough meal and dried fish for a month. And when mother cried he said that at least Argas was going to be fed now.

That was what Argas remembered about the first week of his slavery, crying and eating at the same time. And then being taken away, to Corinth perhaps, and sold again. For quite a long time he was a house slave in Athens; they were an old family, not so well off as they had been, always treating their servants well. At New Year they always used to give Argas a little present of money and stuff for a tunic, and when he wasn’t well, the old mistress looked after him herself. Some day, he thought, he would buy himself out and go back to Epidauros, but it was no good if he was to go back penniless. With enough to eat, he grew up into a tall, handsome boy; his master had him taught to read and write, and also some Latin, as there were often Roman visitors at the house. Sometimes Metronax, his master, used to talk to him, mostly about the old days, when Athens had been the centre of the world, and his own city, Epidauros, had been something to be proud of, too. Those were the days when a single person, a statesman or a soldier, could change the destinies of a people: wild and heroic times. But now all power was in one place, now everything was ordered and you knew from year to year more or less what taxes you had to pay, and nothing could be done without the leave of the Roman Governor. And if the Romans wanted anything, they took it, and you had to stand by and say nothing.

There was a statue that was taken out of one of the Temples, carefully and efficiently packed, and shipped to Rome; apparently the Emperor loved anything Hellenic … A good many Athenians went to see that being done; from time to time they were elbowed out of the way by a Roman official. Metronax came home and sat down and cried about it. Young Argas, kneeling beside him, very bothered, tried to understand. The statue was a goddess, the special goddess of Athens. But Metronax didn’t believe in the old gods and goddesses; Argas knew that. His master only believed in some kind of very remote god or gods who had really nothing to do with people, only with sun and stars and the progress of the years and justice and virtue and things like that. So why was he crying? Argas couldn’t make out; he himself didn’t believe in the gods of Olympos either; they were all a fairy-tale, for rich people, and even they didn’t believe in them now. He, Argas, didn’t believe in anything, except perhaps luck. It was better not to do anything that was generally supposed to be unlucky; and you could alter the course of things by going to a witch; but that cost money. He thought for a moment about love philtres and one of the maids, a girl called Lykainis. But that could wait. He brought his master a cup of wine; if only he would drink and say something dry and hard, anything except just sit there looking so miserable! Argas began singing; sometimes his master liked that and if he didn’t—well, it would be something if Metronax would even look up and scold him. His voice had broken and was now very deep; he sang the old-fashioned songs that his master liked, not the tuney ones he liked best himself. For a minute or two Metronax cried more painfully, and then he straightened himself up and wiped his eyes, sipped at the wine and laid a hand affectionately on the shoulder of his young Hellenic slave. ‘Can you understand, Argas,’ he said, ‘that this statue meant something that people thought worth living for and worth dying for? It was part of a value in people’s minds and now we have all had to see that this value is finished. There is nothing for us worth living for or dying for any longer. Not for an Athenian.’

Argas thought he did understand. ‘It’s nice to be proud of something,’ he said shyly.

‘Athens was a very proud city, a very great and beautiful city,’ his master said, ‘and then the gods closed their hands on us. Because we did the things which men do carelessly and wickedly in their pride, but yet justice must in time be made manifest. But the justice of the gods is very hard to bear for us who are not immortal, but in the flux of time.’ And he wiped his eyes again.

‘But then,’ said Argas hopefully, ‘if the gods are really just, Rome will fall one day! And we shall get everything back.’

‘Perhaps in the gods’ time,’ said Metronax, ‘but not in mine, and hardly in yours, lad.’

‘Oh, no—in your time—it might be—’ Argas said quickly. He couldn’t bear Metronax talking as though he might die any minute! ‘Master, you’ll have years and years still!’

Metronax patted his arm and laughed. ‘Well, we’ll see. In your time, let’s say. You won’t be a slave all your days, Argas. Save up like a sensible boy, and you’ll go home, and perhaps you’ll be able to help your own city to be a place worth living and dying for again.’

‘I will,’ said Argas, and bent quickly and shyly and kissed his master’s knee.

Argas was happy that year; Lykainis was lovely and smiled at him and let him carry the water jugs for her when she went to the well. In the evenings she would lean against a pillar, spinning, with an easy, steady movement of her hands and arms, and he would sit at her feet and sing to her, sometimes making up the words himself, and when he tore his tunic it was she who mended it for him. But then Metronax died suddenly, and most of the slaves cried like children and mourned after his body and came back to the house wondering who the heir was, for there were no sons living and the old lady was very frail. It turned out after some days that the heir was a son-in-law who had been living in Corinth, a merchant-shipper and a very different kind of man from his father-in-law, whom he had always rather despised. He opened the will, which had been made years before; according to it, some of the older slaves were to be freed, but there was nothing said about the younger and newer ones. Then it became clear that the house was going to be sold and the old lady taken to live with her daughter. And the slaves?

It began to dawn on Argas that he was almost certainly going to be sold again, into another household, perhaps not even in Athens, and there was no certainty or even likelihood that Lykainis would be sold to the same owner. Terribly upset, he went to one of the older slaves, who gave him no hope. This was what you had to expect. And by the end of the week it was quite definite that all the household effects, including the slaves, were to be sold at once. The old lady gave Argas a present, a little money and one of his old master’s poetry books; he promised to treasure it and said goodbye very shakenly; she was crying too, poor old dear, not wanting to be uprooted any more than they did. But Argas and Lykainis never even managed to say goodbye to each other; they were taken off separately to be stripped and sold. Argas went to a purchaser with an odd accent who turned out to be the overseer to a travelling Roman official. So Argas was bundled into a big household, friendless, bewildered, missing his old master and mistress, expected to know where to go and what to do, and kicked when he didn’t know. In a little it became apparent that he was even to leave Hellas, perhaps for ever; they were all bound for Italy.

It was in the close quarters on shipboard that some of his fellow slaves found his bundle, undid it, and got hold of the book. Seeing him anxious about it, they began to tease him, snatching it away and pretending to read it aloud, making dirty jokes about it; suddenly he went wild and began to fight them, struggling for his book. He got hold of one end, but someone grabbed it and tore it right across—the next moment it had been tossed out to sea. Argas went, furious and miserable, to complain to the overseer, who only said, ‘Book? What do you want a book for?’ And turned his back. It was altogether a wretched business, for Argas got on badly with all his fellow slaves; half his money was stolen, and again he could get no help from the overseer.

This then, was a slave’s life: this utter insecurity, dependence on accident. Not worth living. One could, perhaps, kill oneself; there was always that way out. And yet, obviously, he had never had a really bad time, as some of his fellow slaves had; they talked endlessly and sickeningly about things that had been done to them or their women. Sometimes Argas thought he would be almost happy if he could at least know that Lykainis was back in something like the old life, even if someone else were singing to her and carrying her water jug. But he couldn’t even know that. Never.

For some time the household was at Ariminum in North Italy. Argas did his work fairly well and only got into trouble over fighting with the others. Then the overseer would threaten to send him to the mines and tell the cook to put him on bread and water. He didn’t mind much, but there was just nothing worthwhile from day to day. He was a dining-room slave, and sometimes helped the secretaries, but his master never spoke to him. He was not allowed to read any of the books, even though nobody else seemed to want to. Sometimes he got time off in the afternoon and went swimming by himself in the warm, shallow sea-water, thinking that this same sea went on and on till it touched the beaches of Hellas.

Ariminum was full of temples and shrines; sometimes there would be a big sacrifice and processions going on, and his master would wear his official robes and go. People in a small way went to the little shrines with little offerings. Argas did not go. He thought it would take more than that to change his luck. There were one or two temples to foreign gods and goddesses, Isis and Serapis and some very queer ones indeed from Asia; all of them had their priests ready to put you right with the gods—if you were ready to pay. At least, that was how it seemed to Argas.

One day he was in the kitchen having dinner with the rest, the usual black bread and stew with sour slaves ‘wine to wash it down. Nobody spoke to him and he spoke to nobody. Then he caught one of the under cooks staring at him, a little old man with a pointed beard, some kind of an Asiatic, Vono his name was, or something of that sort. ’Well?’ said Argas angrily.

Vono grinned at him disarmingly and came over, sat beside him, so close that Argas could see a louse walking round his neck. ‘Things going badly, friend?’ said Vono in his bad Greek.

‘What the hell is that to you?’ said Argas, and swallowed a big mouthful of stew and choked.

But Vono was still grinning at him. He said, ‘We been watching you—some of us. And they tell me to say this—there is a way out.’

For a moment Argas was on the point of throwing the remains of the stew in Vono’s face. Then he grunted, ‘Way out? Why don’t you take it, then?’

‘I have taken it,’ said Vono. He went on, apologetic: ‘True, I do look like dog’s dinner! But I’m all right—inside.’

‘Well,’ said Argas, wondering if the old man were a little mad, ‘Spit it out.’

‘There is hope,’ said Vono, ‘for us who get done down now. The poor. The slaves. Suppose, some day, we was to have a kingdom of our own, all over the world, what would you say?’

‘I’d say you’d had a knock on the head,’ said Argas.

‘But it is true. Our Leader said so.’

Argas looked more interested. ‘Got a leader, have you?’

‘Yes. Jesus Christ. He said so. He said I was to come to you. To ask how could we help you.’

Argas puzzled for a minute. ‘I think I’ve heard of him,’ he said, ‘some kind of a prophet—rebel—’

‘He was the Son of God.’

‘They all say that. Whatever he was, the Romans smashed him up, didn’t they?’

‘They crucified Him.’

‘And you ask me to believe what he said!’

‘We ask you, first, be friends with us. Don’t believe till you see. We got something to give you. To make it—all right, being alive. You come this evening when all sleeping. Will you?’

Argas thought a moment. Why not? ‘I’ll come,’ he said.

Little old Vono came for him in the dark and they went together to the stables and up into the loft. There were five men there, and two women. They were mostly from the household, and one was Rufus, a secretary whom he had worked for occasionally. Argas wondered why, if any of them wanted to get hold of him, it hadn’t been Rufus. But apparently they left it to the feelings of the individual, and it was Vono who had felt called to bring him in. And perhaps that was right, thought Argas; if it had been Rufus, I’d have thought he was trying to trap me into something.

They began to tell him about this Jesus Christ of theirs and what He had taught and how He had lived, and about this idea of a kingdom of the poor and oppressed. It was new. It didn’t fit in with any of the old gods. And it didn’t seem to cost anything. You weren’t asked to give a beast to be sacrificed; there weren’t any priests sitting on top of it. And—well, it was the first time since Athens that he’d been treated as a person. Someone with a mind. He said he wouldn’t mind if he did join. Yes, he would like to stay for their eating together, and he would take what oath they liked to say nothing about it. They did not bind themselves with oaths? Well, then, he would promise. There were certain rites which he could not share yet, not till he had become a full member. Yes, he understood. He would wait while he was on trial for them to see what they thought of him. But in the meantime he could come to the meetings and ask questions. Or if he was ever alone in the library with Rufus … Yes. Yes.

He went back to bed and slept on it. The whole thing seemed good sense, this idea of a chance and a hope for the ones underneath. The ones—he suddenly thought—that there were more of. And always had been. It took a prophet to think of that. Or a Son of God? Well, the way he remembered, the gods were always having sons.

Things went pretty well for a few weeks. It was grand to go swimming with Rufus, as he did a couple of times, talking about all that out at sea, the sun hot in their faces as they floated. And now when he saw old Vono in the kitchen he winked at him, and Vono dug him in the ribs or made a queer sign at him if they were alone. Once when he went out on some errand, he saw one of the women, with her big basket, marketing, and wondered if she’d ball him out, seeing it wasn’t at a meeting—and took a chance—and spoke to her, a free woman, and she called him brother, and they bargained together for the chicken and carrots. He felt himself a living person again, a man, and it seemed to him that everyone recognised it, not only the brothers. There was a kind of friendliness about all sorts of people who had been just hateful before. Perhaps it only was that he was no longer immediately hating himself, but that was how it looked to him. Grand.

He heard a good deal more about what they believed and what they did. He learnt the signs. He thought he would like to do everything with them, to belong really, to take what they had to give. To be reborn. It would be fine to throw off all the thoughts and hates that had been getting him down all this time, to have them washed away. He would like to be good. He would fast for two days and then they would baptise him and he would be able to share in everything.

And then, of course, the same thing happened. His master’s brother was going to Rome and wanted a few extra slaves to take with him. Casually looking round the dining-room slaves for his choice, he jerked a thumb at Argas and said he would take him.

There were five days to go before they left, but Argas bitterly refused to be baptised. Again he was betrayed and hating everyone, half hating even Rufus and Vono and the others who were for the moment secure. For after all, nothing was altered. Life had turned back its devilish face on to him. Nothing counted but luck, and he, being a slave, had bad luck. Rufus tried to talk to him; Argas knocked him down and blacked his eye. The others caught Argas and held his arms. Rufus, who was, after all, one of the secretaries and someone of a certain importance in the household, sat up dizzily and said to Argas that it was quite all right, they were still friends, he forgave him. ‘The hell you do!’ yelled Argas and broke away from the others and ran off. The next day Rufus met him and tried to say the same thing, but again Argas bolted; why couldn’t Rufus have had him whipped while he was about it? That would have been the ordinary thing and made the bad luck complete.

As they left, someone pushed a bundle of food into his hand; when he opened it at their midday halt, he found that one roll of bread had been split and inside, in Rufus’s handwriting, was a note giving him the name of a woman in Rome and the street she lived in. If there had been any more nonsense about forgiveness, Argas would have torn it up. As it was, he shrugged his shoulders and kept it. And they went on and up and over the hills for days, and down through dust and thunder, past market carts yoked to white oxen, and ugly little houses, and vegetable fields stinking of city manure, and so to the gates of Rome.

The new household was much like the old. Argas lived in it suspiciously and angrily, working no more than he had to. After a time he thought of the note with the woman’s name and address and decided to try and find it. He didn’t know what it would be, a witch or a brothel or anything. It was winter now, and cold, and he had no thick cloak or tunic; his master had gone out and he had the evening—at least if he wasn’t wanted before he got back. He hurried across Rome, staring about him a bit, but mostly at the shops; he would have liked to steal something—anything almost. He came to the street and asked, and was at once told to go to the bakery, which he had spotted already by the good smell. He knocked and a woman opened. ‘Are you Eunice, daughter of Hermas?’ he asked roughly. The woman said yes, and asked him to come in. When the door was shut she said kindly, ‘Who are you?’ He blinked at the bright edge of fire under the oven door and answered his name and his master’s name. ‘But who sent you?’ she went on. ‘Have you come to buy bread—cake? No? But someone must have sent you, surely?’

For a moment he didn’t want to answer. But if he didn’t answer he would be turned out of the warm room. He muttered that he had come from Ariminum and again said the household. For a moment the woman seemed puzzled, then her face lit up and she put her hands on to his shoulders. ‘From the brothers?’ she asked. He nodded. He wished he hadn’t come. She pulled his head down by the ears and kissed him. She was old enough to be his mother and she had a round brown face with little veins showing, and smelt of dough. ‘Come and sit in the warm by the oven,’ she said, ‘and tell me about them.’ She pulled him over and sat him down on a stool and gave him a big slab of warm, sticky pastry. ‘Eat that up first, son,’ she said, looking at him. It was nice to be in the warm, to have one’s mouth full of the sweet stuff. She began to tell him that one of the women in the church at Ariminum was her sister. ‘She was all right,’ said Argas, relieved at not having anything more difficult to talk about, ‘only she had twin boys last May. Did you know?’

‘Fancy that—twins!’ said Eunice. ‘Did you see them?’

‘No. I—I wasn’t there long.’

Eunice looked at him quickly. ‘Are you baptised?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No fear! It’s all lies.’

Eunice opened the door of the oven to see her batch of bread; a sweet hot air came out at him. After a minute she said gravely, ‘Then why did you come to me?’

Uncomfortably and angrily he answered, ‘I didn’t know you were one. If you are! Anyway, I’m going.’

He felt he oughtn’t to have eaten the pastry. Well, she gave it him—it was her look out! ‘Do you want to go?’ she asked. ‘It’s cold out.’

‘Got to get back,’ he mumbled; he knew it would be cold.

She said, ‘Don’t you want me to lend you a warm cloak?’

He turned at the door. ‘Forgiving me, are you?’ he said. ‘Rufus started doing that and I knocked him out!’

‘Did that stop him?’ asked Eunice.

Argas came a step nearer. ‘What do you think you’ll get out of all this forgiving? I tell you, I won’t be baptised!’

‘If poor people can’t do that for one another,’ said Eunice, ‘there isn’t much left for them that’s worth doing.’ Then she said, ‘Why don’t you stop, now you are here, and give me a hand with the dough for tomorrow?’

Well, that wouldn’t hurt. It would make up for the pastry he’d eaten. ‘Well, where is it?’ he said.

She taught him how to knead properly and thoroughly; he had never done it before. It amused him to be doing something, not because he’d been made to, but because he’d been asked to, and with an accompaniment of bad jokes from Eunice, who had dropped all that about Christians. And a good job too. He finished it off, while she saw to the bread that was baking and then mended a boy’s tunic. Once or twice customers came; she seemed to be on good terms with them, and they paid cash down. When the dough. was thoroughly kneaded Eunice gave him some delicious ends of fresh white bread—masters’ stuff. Then she said he must take the warm cloak and come back another evening and do some more kneading for her. He looked at her sideways: was she trying to get at him? Well, if he thought she was when he got home, he’d keep the cloak and never come back!

However, he did come back a week or so later. It would be nice, he said to himself, to have some more pastry, and he didn’t mind if he did do some more kneading for the old lady. When he came this time there was someone else sitting by the oven, a metal-worker called Rhodon, a skilled man from Asia. At first Argas thought he was free or at least a freedman, but by and by found he was a slave too, but getting a small wage; he would be able to buy himself out some time. He was tired out and Eunice had made him a hot drink. When he left, Argas said to Eunice, ‘He one of you Christians?’

Eunice said quite gravely, ‘You mustn’t ask questions.’

Argas felt hurt, or thought he did. ‘So you believe I’m going to give you away!’

Eunice said, ‘We have to be careful.’

‘Then you don’t trust me,’ said Argas, and went on kneading angrily.

After a time Eunice said, ‘I’m not sure if you know just how badly we Christians are looked on in Rome. We might have the police on us any time. They say we’re atheists. Not respectable, that means! And not respectful, either. Not of their things. And you might even get a reward for putting the police on to me.’

‘Catch me going to the police!’ said Argas contemptuously.

‘It might be a big reward,’ said Eunice. ‘Big enough to—help you get free.’

‘Oh, come off it!’ said Argas, moving along the kneading trough, suddenly aware how very much he would like that reward—if it really—if she wasn’t—but, anyway, he wasn’t that sort! Out of the blue there came at him the image of his old master, Metronax, talking about honour and justice, things that were in the care of the remote gods, but yet existed, and existed alike for master and slave. In Athens. His hands were all doughy, but he rubbed his upper arm over his face, so that she shouldn’t catch him crying. Eunice had begun shaping little rolls; she said nothing. After a bit Argas said, ‘Then—could it be really dangerous—being a Christian?’

‘Yes,’ said Eunice, ‘we’re all right so long as things go tolerably well with Rome. But if things looked dirty—well, they might want to take it out of us—see?’

‘I don’t mind if I join,’ said Argas.

Eunice answered slowly, ‘But I’m not sure if we want you, Argas.’

‘Oh, all right!’ said Argas fiercely.

‘Don’t knead so hard. The bread won’t rise even, and I’m not going to lose my reputation for your temper.’ She went over to him, and took on the dough herself; then, ‘If you still want to be one of us in another ten days, come back.’

It was more than ten days before Argas came back, but he did as soon as he had a chance. It was another bitterly cold night, and the warmth of the bakery made him almost dumb again. He was strictly determined on what he was going to do, even though he knew it meant being forgiven. After all, it was sense what they’d told him at Ariminum. Nothing altered that. Eunice came to him quickly. ‘Come in, son,’ she said. He sat and warmed his hands and feet by the oven. She offered him a bit of pastry, but he refused it.

At last he said, ‘Here I am, if I’m wanted.’

Eunice said, ‘Some of the others will be round later. We’ll talk to them about it. And then, if you know what you’re doing, we’ll think about letting you have the baptism.’

Argas said, ‘I want it now—tonight.’

‘But, my dear, you can’t,’ said Eunice, ‘you’ve got to understand what it’s about, and then you must fast for two days.’

‘I do understand,’ said Argas, ‘and I have fasted.’ He looked at the floor and trembled a little. ‘When it looked like a chance of me getting out tonight, I started. I’ve had nothing but water for a couple of days. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘Have you prayed?’ asked Eunice.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, low. ‘I prayed right enough.’ He still wouldn’t look at her. He added, ‘You see, at Ariminum I was taught everything. What it was about. The Way of Life. It looked like sense to me, even then. Only everything went wrong.’ He sat there, shivering, his eyes shut; by and by he whispered a little more of what had happened to Eunice; he felt a bit sick. After a time he heard Eunice talking in a low voice to a boy. He did not even look at the boy. He was intent on something which might elude him, something deep in him and yet infinitely elsewhere. He shut all the doors of his senses. He only woke, with a jump that sent his heart pounding into his throat and stomach, when somebody laid a hand on his shoulder and said his name; he saw that the room was half full of people. He didn’t know who any of them were, except Rhodon the metal-worker. He only knew that this must be the congregation.

Eunice said, ‘I have told them.’ He stood and they looked at him; it was like being put up to be sold; their eyes were stripping him. One of them, a young man rather older than he was, began asking him questions; he knew the answers. They had been in his mind since summer; they were sense. He knew the Words. When he was through, a woman in a long cloak of good stuff and wearing fur shoes, asked him other questions, putting things a different way; he answered her too. Now they were whispering to one another. He thought he must do the hardest part now; he collected his mind and steadied it. He asked: ‘Are you the congregation that I am—going to join?’

‘Yes,’ said the young man Manasses.

Argas went down on his knees and said, ‘Forgive me, then, for I know that I have done wrong and I know that I have been angry and stupid and I know I have no right to ask it. Only—out of mercy …’

He could not go on speaking; the steadiness had all gone. But Manasses was kneeling beside him. ‘What have you done?’ he asked.

Argas whispered as loud as he could, ‘At Ariminum—I wouldn’t come in—I knew it was right, but—and I hurt Rufus and he forgave me and I wouldn’t take his forgiveness—’

‘You can take it now, from us,’ said Manasses.

‘I have been angry—I have hurt people—I have lied—I have stolen—once I went to a witch—and then, oh, this is all worse!—I have denied Jesus and His teaching—’ Argas was shaking all over with the difficulty of getting it out.

Manasses said, ‘He has taken you all the same. Even though you denied Him. You are forgiven. Do you also forgive?’

‘Who should I forgive?’ asked Argas, puzzled. Now that he had said what he had it seemed to him that there had been a great weight on him and now it was off and he felt queer and light and a little dizzy.

‘All of us,’ said Manasses.

And Eunice came to him. ‘You need to forgive me, anyway, son,’ she said, ‘for I made you angry.’

‘It wasn’t you,’ said Argas, ‘it was my own sin turning on me. But I forgive you if you like. And if ever I get angry again—’

‘Well then, we forgive one another again, and that’s all there is to it.’ She said to the congregation, ‘Well, what shall we do?’

They began talking it over. Argas was now clinging on to Manasses, beginning to remember all the times in his life when he had not done the right and decent thing, seeing all his thoughts and actions lying like a dirty rag in the gutter, wanting to disown them. He could not bear to wait any longer for the hour when he could start fresh. Manasses was afraid he was going to get into real hysterics and knew that some of it was probably due to the fast and the sleepless night of praying. He knew also that if the boy went too far he would feel ashamed afterwards instead of glad. So he began praying for Argas, using soothing and complicated words. Argas became calmer. Manasses left him kneeling in the middle of the floor with his hands over his face, and the tears of repentance, which none of them would have dared to laugh at, dripping between his fingers, ‘I think we should do it,’ said Manasses.

‘It’s out of order,’ said Rhodon, ‘let him wait the ordinary time. Like I had to.’

‘I don’t want to take the risk of refusing him,’ said Manasses. ‘He’s like someone starving. What do you think, Lalage?’

‘I wish he hadn’t chosen such a cold night, but I’m quite sure we’d better go down to the river with him. We don’t often have a soul tearing its way through the body to us like this. Remember, Rhodon, he went through the ordinary waiting time with the brothers at Ariminum.’

‘And denied them! And denied Jesus Christ and His Father. Isn’t he to have any punishment for that?’

‘Look at him, Rhodon. No, look at him as if it was you yourself. You don’t cry like that for fun. Do you want to hurt him any more?’

‘It isn’t that,’ said Rhodon. ‘I’ve nothing against the lad. But I hate favouritism. But, of course, if you’ve all made up your minds—’

‘Favouritism, nonsense!’ said Lalage. ‘Now, Eunice, you’re the one that knows him. What do you say?’

‘I think we ought to,’ said Eunice, ‘leave the leaven too long, and you spoil the whole batch. But who’ll baptise him? I would if he was a girl, but—’

‘You aren’t going to get yourself wet tonight, mother!’ said Josias. ‘Tiber’s frozen over at the edges. Maybe we ought to get someone older from the other Church.’

‘We must have a deacon,’ said Rhodon. ‘I never saw a man baptised unless there was someone in authority doing it. It wouldn’t be in order.’

‘I think it can be done by anyone through whom the Spirit moves,’ said Lalage, ‘that’s all. It can’t matter what a man’s called. Not with us!’

‘Well,’ said Eunice, ‘are any of you moved to be the one to baptise this man?’ She went and stood by him; he was not crying now, but listening.

At last Manasses said, ‘If you would all give me leave—I know I am young, but I think—I have tried to live as a Christian should, and a deacon can’t do more than that. I will go down into the river with Argas and make him one of us.’

After a little they all agreed. Eunice said she would stand surety for him, and the others said that was all right if she didn’t go into the water over her ankles, but they weren’t going to let her catch cold. Then they all put on their cloaks and Eunice found blankets for the ones who hadn’t got them. Phaon lighted a lantern and they all went out into the biting night, and locked and bolted the door of the bakery behind them. It was some way to the nearest part of the Tiber from where they were. They wrapped their cloaks tight and walked quickly, no one saying much. Sometimes they had to stand aside for a litter with torches, and once a drunk barged into them. At last they came to the street leading down to Tiber. Phaon went ahead with the lantern. ‘It’s in flood,’ he said.

They all gathered round the edge and the two young men, the Jew and the Greek, stripped; Josias took their tunics over his arm and Phaon held the lantern out as far as he could reach over the water. Here the flooded river was running too quick to freeze, but the steps were slippery and they gasped with cold as they went in, holding on to one another. They looked white and thin in the lantern light, stepping down into that tearing bubble and stick-streaked water, opaquely dark with mud. Josias watched anxiously as Manasses, leading, went down waist-deep. The steps ended and they were on mud and the river tore at them and they were almost out of the circle of lantern light, out of reach of the others. As the icy water bit on his loins and stomach it seemed to Argas that it was indeed the river of death and defeat; he could have flung himself down on to it, arms at sides, not swimming. He did not know what Manasses was saying to him. He only felt worthless, sick with himself; there was nothing right about him. They were breast-deep now, staggering in the current, He felt Manasses’s hands on his shoulders, weighing on him like sin; his feet sunk into the sucking mud. He heard Manasses saying ‘into the name of Jesus.’ And, with that name in his mind, he went down into the water, dark, choking, over his head and tear-hot face; he struggled up, towards the name of Jesus; three times Manasses ducked him; three times he felt the cold and darkness of death and each time his body seemed to die a little, until as he came up the third time he felt nothing, but was only aware of the name that had been with him under the water, and heard his own voice shouting it. And then Manasses was pushing him back, out of the mud, out of the pull on legs and body of the black, drowning water. And he was going up, up, into lantern light and among faces, and the water streamed off him, out of his hair and ears and nostrils, taking away with it everything that he had finished with.

Eunice was rubbing him with a blanket, and Josias was rubbing Manasses, who was shaking all over with cold. Gradually Argas began to be aware that he had a body still, that blood was racing in it, that someone had pulled a tunic over his head, that he felt a marvellous warmth coming, even under his wet hair, even in his feet on the wet stones. People kept on taking his hands or kissing him; he could say nothing because the name was still ringing in his head, still filling him, he belonged with it now and it with him. Eunice said to Manasses, ‘You had the Spirit with you.’ Manasses nodded; he did not say that he had also had a moment of terror when he thought he had lost hold of the man he was baptising, when he thought the river had got them both; he could not swim and he did not know that Argas could.

As they walked back, Argas gradually began to reinhabit his body, to like the movement of his legs walking, the touch of his neighbours on each side. Two or three times he laughed out loud. They came again to the bakery, unlocked the door and lighted the lamp. Manasses and Eunice gave him bread and salt. The grains of coarse salt were each separate beings; the texture of the bread was beautiful. For a moment he did not want to eat; what did this new person he had become want with eating? And then suddenly it became so lovely to take food from the hands of friends that he bit into the good bread, which the others then ate with him, and so, in the space of two hours, he got three things: repentance, baptism and the breaking of bread.

He was late getting back, but the old porter let him in and thought, by the way he looked, that he had been sleeping with a woman for the first time and so, sympathetically shaking his head, did not even scold him. And he did his work without grumbling and while he stood, still as a statue, behind his master’s couch at dinner, he had something filling his mind all the time, making the mere business of being alive worthwhile. Soon spring was beginning and there was almond in light blossom in the courtyards. And then the same thing happened. His master was going to take up a position somewhere in Gaul. Nobody told Argas till a few days before the move.

He told them at the next meeting at Eunice’s house, trying not to be angry all the time, trying to let the Will be done on him. Eunice and Manasses put their heads together and Manasses went straight out, saying he thought he might be able to do something. He came back in half an hour; most of them had left, but Argas was staying on, wondering desperately whether he would ever see this room again, trying to pray. He saw that Manasses was not alone, that there was someone with him, not one of them, one of the masters. Eunice and Phaon stood up and so did Argas; Eunice whispered to him it was the Briton, and he knew that it must be the young master from Manasses’s household. He saw someone about his own age, with queer blue eyes and a fair, long-shaped head, and the eyes were looking at him as masters ‘eyes mostly looked: remotely and appraisingly. He heard Manasses explaining that this was the dining-room slave whom he had spoken about—whose master was leaving Rome—he was sure he was for sale. And he, Manasses, would guarantee that he was satisfactory. ‘That him?’ said the Briton. ‘Looks a bit young.’ Argas came forward a couple of steps, aware that his destiny was in this man’s hands, not knowing what to say. Eunice spoke for him too. ‘Boyfriend of yours, Eunice?’ the Briton asked, and laughed. He walked over to Argas and began to handle him, looking at eyes and teeth. Obediently, Argas stripped; there was nothing wrong with him. He confirmed that he could read and write, was well trained, could do anything about the house. ‘You take him,’ said Eunice, ‘he wants to come. Knows a good master when he sees one.’ The Briton said, ‘Well, if we can get him reasonably cheap, I don’t mind taking him.’ He turned his back on Manasses and ate one of Eunice’s little cakes. The next day Argas was in the new household, trying to show that he had been a good bargain.

He wanted most of all to show the young master, the Briton. But, although Beric was quite pleasant to him, often had a word or two with him, and had never lost his temper with him at all badly, he could never speak to his master as he wanted. Never as though they were just two young men living in the same house. There was a barrier between them that nothing could break down. And, after the Scratch Cat began her tricks on the Briton, there was less chance than ever. Beric’s temper began to fray; he was sometimes unjust, sometimes accused or threatened the slaves for things they hadn’t done, or actually punished instead of only threatening. Once he had thrown a roll-book at Argas, cut Argas’s cheek with the spike on the end and torn the book. Argas hated to see a book torn; it reminded him of his book. He caught himself wanting terribly to tell the Briton about that book. Fool, he wouldn’t care! But all the same, he used to like to be the one to wait on the Briton, to wake him in the morning or carry a lamp for him or fill his bath. But now nobody liked that; the Briton might be in any kind of temper. And they all knew why!

Argas had wanted desperately to say something at dinner that day. If only the Briton hadn’t been so far! And then afterwards, when he came in with the bucket of water, at first he had not understood, only he felt that something was happening, and he had to start it by speaking to Lalage. And then the barrier between him and Beric began to crumble; for the first time they looked at each other as one man to another. Some day he would be able to help the Briton, to do something for him, give him something—

After they had all said the Words together, and while Manasses was still praying quietly to himself, Beric looked at Argas as though something had amused him a lot and said, ‘Well, I’ve said your words. What are they going to do to me? Going to turn me into a fish?’

That made Argas feel rather uncomfortable, but he saw that the Briton had thought they were magic, so he said, ‘It’s not what they do with you, it’s what you do with them. They aren’t a spell; they only say what we want.’

‘A kingdom?’

‘Oh, it’s not like you think, sir! Can I tell you?’

‘You’d better,’ said Beric. It was really Manasses’s place to tell the Briton, since he was by now the deacon and leader of the Church in Crispus’s household, but he saw that the Spirit had come to Argas; so he and Phaon finished mopping up quickly, and took out the bucket and rags, leaving the other two. Manasses knew, just as Lalage, for instance, knew, that there were many ways in which the prayer could be interpreted, but Argas would probably explain it one way only. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was the one who had been called to do it. Beric sat down on the couch and motioned to Argas to sit beside him. ‘This is a mad day,’ he said. ‘Well, come on, tell me what it’s all about.’ Argas was shy, sitting on the same couch as his master, in this equality he had wanted so much. He tried to remember Athens, but by now he’d had too much Rome, and still for a moment he could not speak. Beric, suddenly wanting to help him, said, ‘Argas, were you ever free?’

‘Yes,’ said Argas quickly, ‘when I was a boy in Epidauros! My father was a mason, but there wasn’t any work. He had to sell me to get food for the others. That’s how it was, sir.’

‘Rotten luck—brother,’ said Beric.

Then the Spirit came again to Argas; he said, ‘The prayer is first, to the Father, who is also, Justice and Honour and Freedom and Love. That is, He is for everyone, because these things are the same in Rome and Athens and Alexandria and away in Parthia and Thrace and Gaul—’

‘Even in Britain,’ said Beric, a little ironically, but Argas didn’t notice that.

‘And we ask Him, first, and tell ourselves every day, that what we want is the Kingdom of Heaven. And that’s to be the time when everyone is without fear and without shame and without hatred, when there aren’t any more rich and poor, masters and slaves—’ He suddenly stopped, wondering what the Briton thought. He had spoken of it before only to other slaves or those who had been slaves.

Beric said, ‘That means the end of things as they are, doesn’t it? And that can’t come by just wanting it. Only —by making it happen. For instance, here, you could only make it happen by killing Crispus and me and—the others.’ He didn’t want to say her name.

‘No!’ said Argas. ‘If we did that it wouldn’t come. Because we mustn’t ever do anything wrong to hurry it. We don’t murder, we Christians. We don’t steal. We—we want not even to hate or envy. And often we don’t.’

‘Clever chaps!’ said Beric, and then, ‘But how are you going to get your Kingdom if you don’t mean to kill?’

‘Well,’ said Argas, daring, ‘You didn’t want the Kingdom an hour ago, and now you do. Though you are my master.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘You called me brother,’ said Argas haltingly, ‘and now it’s going to be difficult for you, ordering me about and all—not, I don’t mean, that you’ve ever been hard on me, I don’t mean that—’

‘I cut your face open with a book.’

‘Well, you might feel bad if you did that tomorrow—not that I care, at least, not about getting my face cut, only—’

‘If I ever do it again, you can throw it back at me. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it, Argas?’

‘Just that. And that’s a bit of the Kingdom.’

‘Equality. That’s Stoic doctrine you know, Argas, only carried a bit further.’ He puzzled over it, talking half to himself. ‘The Stoics didn’t say anything about having to be poor; only that if you happened to be poor you could still be free and the equal of anyone. But Lalage said you Christians couldn’t be rich.’

‘I don’t see a Christian being rich,’ Argas said, ‘or if he started rich, he’d soon be poor, if he lived like a Christian, because he wouldn’t be able to keep anything for himself.’

‘Wouldn’t be able? You mean, you wouldn’t let him?’

‘He just wouldn’t want to. You’ll know if—if you do join us. Claudia Acté gives away all her money.’

‘Is she a Christian?’ said Beric, startled, then, ‘No, it’s all right, Argas, you haven’t made a mistake. I shan’t tell the police.’

‘I didn’t think you would, sir. Only—’

‘As soon as you get frightened, you start sir-ing me again. Idiot!’ said Beric amicably. ‘You’d better call me by my name. I suppose you’ve got a nickname for me, too?’

‘We didn’t have any nasty name for you—truly—only The Briton.’

‘What did you have for the others?’ asked Beric, amused and wanting to hear it all.

But Argas suddenly realised that he must not hear the name for Flavia; that would hurt; that would interrupt. He said, ‘No. I can’t tell you.’

‘You’ve got to!’

For a moment Argas was afraid again, with the Briton glaring at him, really annoyed; then he saw that he needn’t and mustn’t be. His fear was only something left over. ‘How are you going to make me tell you—now?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to do a thing more for you except of my own free will!’

Beric suddenly began to laugh, threw himself back on to the cushions in fits of laughter. ‘Then I shall have to fill my own bath!’

Argas was rather shocked; he said, ‘I shall go on doing my proper work. Because I choose. Can I go on telling you about our prayer, or are you going on laughing?’

‘It makes me feel like laughing,’ Beric said, ‘the whole thing. I like laughing. I laugh at things I like. I think I see what you’re after about this Kingdom, you and Lalage. And you think it’ll come?’

‘We know it’s coming. That’s the Will of God that we ask to be done. It’s—it’s reason, the Kingdom. It’s the only thing that makes sense of people being in the same world with one another. It isn’t sense, is it, some having all the money and powers and others slaves all their lives and never getting a chance of being real people?’

‘It’s always been like that,’ said Beric slowly. ‘I don’t know about being sense. I never thought about sense in the way people are arranged.’

‘That’s because you were on top. You didn’t have to. I’ve had to, and I know it’s nonsense as it is. It’s wasting people all the time. Men and women.’

‘You want a world then, where all are poor?’

‘Yes. Where money and power aren’t being used any longer to make nonsense of the way we live with one another. With making friends. A world where you and I can be friends.’

‘Can’t we be friends as it is?’

‘We’ll see. I—I wanted a lot to be friends with you ever since—well, ever since you bought me. I’ve read plenty of books and that. I’m not a fool. Only you never gave me a chance till now. You made nonsense of me wanting it.’

‘I’m sorry, Argas,’ said Beric, not laughing any more.

‘Well then, God’s will must be reason: and that’s what the Kingdom is. That’s why we ask for the Will to be done, even when we don’t understand how it’s working. And when we ask for daily bread, that means security. Just knowing from day to day where we shall be. One can’t make the Kingdom without that much.’

‘I don’t think I want security,’ said Beric. ‘That’s a Roman thing. I want adventures.’

‘You’ve never not been secure,’ said Argas, ‘never been at anyone’s mercy for everything. Punished for what you hadn’t done. Yes—it wasn’t me that broke the wine jar last week! Oh, it doesn’t matter, truly, it doesn’t matter now! But they stole half my savings and nobody cared, and I had a book—and it was torn up, and… If you hadn’t bought me at the beginning of last year, my master would have taken me off to Gaul, away from the Church here and everything I cared about. That sort of thing happened twice before. But you were part of the Will. Don’t laugh, no, don’t laugh at me! It’s true. And then, after that, we remind ourselves to be always forgiving one another. And how we’re always doing things ourselves that need forgiveness. That’s important. And sometimes it’s difficult.’

Beric thought about it, lying back on the couch, one knee up, the other crooked over it, swinging. ‘Not one’s enemies? You don’t mean you try to forgive them?’

‘Yes,’ said Argas. And then, ‘You could forgive Aelius Candidus if you tried.’

Beric sat up sharply. ‘That’s none of your business!’ he said.

But Argas wasn’t going to let himself be frightened now. ‘If I’m your friend, it is my business,’ he said. ‘We all saw and it’s no good pretending we didn’t. And we were all on your side. Though I knew you’d kick me if I said so.’

‘Hell,’ said Beric. ‘I would have. I know I would. And then you’d have had the job of forgiving me.’

‘Of course.’

‘Hell,’ said Beric again.

‘You see, it’s all in and out like that. People knocking up against one another. But it’s one thing forgiving friends and another forgiving enemies. That’s two different ways of doing it. Your friends take it, and as like as not they’ll need to forgive you too; it’s mostly six of one and half a dozen of the other. But with your enemies, perhaps they don’t accept it. But you’ve got to do it all the same.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s just part of how we all want to be. We call it the Way of Life. And if you forgive a person you stop being in his power; he can’t really hurt you any longer. And maybe you get to see why he’s doing it and then you can most likely stop him.’

‘But look here, Argas, if you forgive people you’ve got to forgive the Emperor and Rome and—and all the masters—and then you won’t want to destroy them any longer.’

‘I can forgive my own master,’ said Argas, frowning, thinking it out, ‘for what he does to me as a man, but forgiveness is between people, so I can’t forgive all the masters because I don’t know them. Together, they’re a thing, and I hate them and I want to destroy them. And we shall. And the rule of Rome is a thing, so I don’t forgive it. I don’t forgive what they did to the people in Epidauros and the people in Athens. And if you become a Christian, you will not be able to forgive the Roman rule that you have been part of yourself.’

‘I think I see,’ said Beric. ‘Did your Jesus forgive his enemies?’

‘He forgave the men who were killing him. But before that he hated the rich and the priests and the rule they had over His people; He never forgave their power.’

‘And he will be King of your Kingdom?’

‘He is in all of us,’ said Argas, ‘when we are trying for the Kingdom. And the next thing in the prayer is asking not to be led into temptation, but to be delivered from evil. Because we all want to be good.’

‘Do we?’ said Beric, and added, ‘I wonder if Tigellinus does.’

‘Perhaps people with a lot of power don’t. But ordinary people do if things aren’t being too much for them. Well, that’s what the prayer’s about.’ Argas suddenly looked tired—tired and defeated. ‘But it doesn’t mean a thing to you!’

‘Yes, yes, you stupid, it does!’ said Beric, ‘and I’m glad it’s sense and not magic. But I want to sleep on it. And it’s late. Everyone else is asleep but us.’ He stood up.

‘I’ll bring you your lamp, sir,’ said Argas.

‘You will not,’ said Beric. ‘I shall get it for myself, and I shall actually carry it along to my own room myself! And we shall put out the lamps in here together.’ He began doing it. ‘And whether or not I have anything more to do with you Christians, I shall remember what you said, Argas, and if you come and wake me tomorrow morning—which you’ll probably be too sleepy to do—you shall tell me if you still want to be my friend.’

Argas wanted to answer, but didn’t know what to say. Only he felt happier and less tired. It was queer and nice going round with the Briton, putting out the lamps. Suddenly Beric said, over his shoulder, ‘Who did break that wine jar?’

‘You don’t want to punish for it twice,’ said Argas, a little uncomfortably.

‘I thought you were lying,’ Beric said. He went over, close to Argas. ‘I sent you off to get a whipping. What happened?’

‘I got it,’ Argas answered casually.

But Beric was thinking about it differently and with increasing trouble. ‘I never bothered—about it being a person. Someone like me. And you were only a slave. So they tied your hands’—he was speaking with a kind of horror now— ‘to the ring in the kitchen yard. What did they give you?’

‘Ten.’

‘Cut you?’

‘No fear! Old Felix wouldn’t try that on me. After all, I’m not one of the kitchen slaves! Not like poor little Dapyx; he’s one of us, too.’

‘What did you think about while it was going on?’

‘You don’t think much while you’re being whipped. You just don’t squeal.’

‘And then he untied you.’

Argas laughed. ‘Matter of fact, old Felix left me tied up for half an hour. He’d got me so that I could only stand on tiptoe. That hurt a bit.’

‘God!’ said Beric, ‘I’ll take it out of Felix!’

‘No you won’t,’ said Argas quickly. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. He had a bit of a down on me—that’s all. But I didn’t tell you as a master.’

‘What did you think about,’ Beric asked again, ‘while you were tied?’

‘I had my work cut out forgiving old Felix. But I did. That’s why you can’t touch him now—see?’

‘But it was me—I had you punished, Argas. For something you didn’t even do.’

‘Well, I forgave you, too. More or less. I knew she’d been at you. It’s all right. Don’t go getting upset about it!’

‘You were hurt and it was I who did it.’ Beric could hardly speak with misery and astonishment at what was having the power to make him miserable.

‘But I forgive you.’ Argas caught hold of the Briton’s hand and held it hard, with both of his. ‘Look—Beric—don’t go fussing about this, please! There are some houses where the slaves get it badly, and there are the mines, and… Oh, this was nothing! Good night and peace be with you—Beric.’