The Blood of the Martyrs (45 page)

Crispus, having been to some extent distracted by the gladiators, and having sat through the next act with some impatience, had decided to leave. He knew it was possible that he might see one of his own slaves among the condemned. Though very unlikely, of course. Besides—But Balbus had pressed him to stay. And, even to his oldest friend, he could not exactly say why he had so very much rather be away. Intolerable to find oneself in a position where one must prevaricate to this extent! When the poor wretches were marched in, he decided not to look. And suddenly Balbus, who had been chaffing him in a friendly way, became exceedingly intent that he should continue not looking. Nor would he have, but for Hermeias behind him, who saw Manasses first of all and completely lost his head and pointed, with, ‘Oh, sir, there!' And then realised that he was also pointing at Beric.

‘Cover your face!' whispered Balbus urgently, leaning across, one arm round Crispus, the other pulling at a loose fold of his toga. ‘Keep still. Felicio,
hold him
! No, no, my dear friend, I understand, but don't—remember where we are! Crispus, don't look, you can do nothing, none of us can, it will be over—Gods, he's seen you!' And what would Crispus do then, how could Balbus
save his old friend from some completely disastrous action?

It was Beric who did that, waving and smiling. You couldn't hear what he said, only saw the head up and the smile. ‘Hell,' said Balbus, ‘that boy's good!' And Crispus, having seen that too, allowed the slaves to pull him down, allowed his friend to cover his eyes and ears. The louder sound of the beasts as the gates of the cages were opened, came to him dulled as part of darkness and nightmare. Yet it was very certain that he would ask afterwards how it had been. So Balbus, who would now also much rather not have watched, yet being a friend and a Stoic, did watch for him.

Felicio, his hands on the old man's arm, watched too. Hell, I would have liked to see him again. We might have had fun with one another. And now the bloody fool goes and gets himself killed. That night. And it never went on. I'd hoped it would. God, I liked him. God, he is brave standing there. All of them. The women too. Supposing they've got hold of the right end of the stick after all? If none of them scream that's what they've done. And that's a bet. Right. I'm taking that on. Now. Now. When the wolves. They're saying things, to us. You can't hear over the din. God, I love him. If he doesn't scream. Now. He did not scream. He shouted. Not to me. None of them screamed. I have lost my bet: or very possibly won it. That remains to be seen.

Clinog had been enjoying himself thoroughly; there hadn't been a dull moment. How they'd laughed and shouted, he and Calvinus. Did you good, that. And now they were going to see these famous beasts, including the lions from the Emperor's menagerie. Well, it was a fine way of discouraging criminals. There would not be many Christians left in Rome after this, no!

Now the criminals were being marched in. There were a great many women among them. Well, it might be Calvinus was right, women could certainly be as dangerous as men, and indeed more so, because of witchcraft, although these ones were not his idea of witches. Now they were being tied up in groups all round the Circus so that there should be a good view for everyone. It was a pity they were not
actually to fight the beasts, there was always more sport in a fight. ‘But most of these wretches wouldn't put up a show,' Calvinus said. ‘They don't even come from the country. They're a bloodless, gutless lot out of the gutters of the big cities: bred there like sewer rats. Just a product of overcrowding, this Christianity.'

‘All the same,' said Clinog regretfully, ‘there are a few who look to my eye as if they could be made to fight.'

‘What, that fair one down on the left? Looks a bit like one of your countrymen, Clinog, what!'

‘Indeed, he might be. Calvinus, he looks—'

‘What on earth is it? What's taken you? Sit down, man! Here come the lions, you're getting in everyone's light!'

But Clinog was shouting at the top of his voice, shouting—fortunately no doubt—incomprehensible words in a foreign language. And down on the sand, the fair, tall one had shouted back. As the wolf leapt. And Calvinus and several others had got hold of Clinog and were pulling him down, and he was throwing them off, fighting, as the men on the sand were
not
fighting. Had to be tied, kicked, trampled on before he was quiet. And by that time the act was practically over. One of the police agents came up and whispered to Papinius Calvinus, but the latter, being a Provincial citizen, without the proper feelings of respect that a pure Roman would have had, told the agent to get to hell out of there.

There had also been a disturbance in one of the upper blocks, some way farther along. A young woman had recognised someone she knew down there. No, she hadn't screamed, but she had begun in a loud voice explaining just how good the woman had been to her and how these Christians were really kind and decent and truthful and honest and all the things you had been told they weren't. Her husband had managed to shut her up at last, but he seemed a bit uncomfortable himself, and what the girl had said sounded
true
, somehow. And if all those Christians weren't the set of wicked murderers they were made out to be, well—well, then it was like
you
murdering
them
. Down there on the sand.

One way and another, in fact, there was considerable disturbance. Tigellinus did not like it; the thing was not working out quite as he had intended. It was not his fault, nor his stage manager's fault. It was the fault of these Christians not looking like the criminals they were. Looking too respectable, blast them! He'd change that next time. Sew up the next lot in beast skins and have them chased by wild dogs! That was an idea. But this lot—they'd hardly run at all. It was as if—as if they wanted to die. So that hundreds of these fools who were too stupid to see past what was exactly under their noses, would start disbelieving what had been told them, shifting the blame for everything they happened not to like off the Christians and onto—the Master of the World and his friends. Defeating the ends of justice. But all the same, thousands had taken it the right way and were now shouting for more. Thousands. Well, they should have it! The others … it didn't matter. He'd get it under. See it didn't spread. After all, if a few hundred boneheads did take it the wrong way, even so, they wouldn't dare to
do
anything … not after this.

There, now everything was being cleared up again, clean sand spread for the torch race. Tigellinus didn't believe much in torch races and all that himself; but Nero had insisted. It didn't seem that this was going to be quite what the crowd wanted, either. He listened closely to the shouting, then whispered an order and set one of his men running. Put on another show of dancers first, just a taste of them. Went better with blood. There was a good old stink now! Even in the Imperial Box. It was one of the smells you weren't quite sure about. Went to the head. And to the stomach. Made you feel. If he could get hold of Flavia and— You wouldn't get rid of that smell now for the rest of the evening. Not for any of those thousands. It was loosed into the dream until tomorrow and past tomorrow.

During the torch race Crispus uncovered his face and sat stonily. Balbus watched him, but could find nothing to say. Before the acrobats came on, Crispus rose to go out. Balbus and the two slaves followed. A little way from the exit, beyond the talking, glancing crowd, Flavius Scaevinus
was waiting. ‘Come to my house, Crispus, old friend,' he said. But Crispus shook his head.

‘If you are going home, we shall go with you,' said Balbus. They walked on together, silently, their slaves behind them, and each of the slaves, also, had his own thoughts about these things which had happened. At their backs, the sounds of the Circus died out; they were in the decent Roman streets again. At a corner Crispus checked. He had seen Nausiphanes, and Nausiphanes had looked back at him very blackly.

Crispus held out his hand. ‘Nausiphanes,' he said, ‘come here.' And then, ‘Beric. You know…' And his voice broke.

‘Yes,' said Nausiphanes levelly. ‘I know.' But he was not yet saying to his old master that he had seen his pupil once again.

‘If he had got himself into such a position,' Crispus said, with a great effort controlling his voice and stiffening his hand, ‘into a position from which there was no way out, why did he have to do this—public thing? Could he not have killed himself? They would have allowed that in the prison—to a person of education. To someone in his relationship towards me. Why did he have to die like a slave? Was all our teaching without effect?'

‘Killing himself would not have done what he wanted to do,' Nausiphanes said. ‘He had got beyond the old ideas of decency. He had to be a witness for this brotherhood of his.'

Crispus stared back at the Greek blindly. ‘Come with me,' he said, with a jerk of his head, and Nausiphanes, as became a good freedman in the presence of his patron, followed a little behind. He and Felicio did not speak to one another; if either had spoken just then he might have said too much. A now indefinitely great need for caution held them.

Before he came to his house, Crispus stopped and then turned down a small street, and stopped again by a door that had a loaf of bread painted upon it to show that it was a bakery. Felicio also knew that door but said nothing. Crispus said to his friends, ‘Go on to my house if you will. Hermeias will escort you and see that you
have everything.' Then, to his freedman, ‘Nausiphanes, stay.'

‘What are you going to do, Crispus?' Balbus asked, more than a little anxiously.

‘The boy—he came here—when he was a child, to eat cakes. With Nausiphanes, who was his tutor. Yes, he came here.' But Crispus did not say that Eunice had come to him that morning; he did not say that he wanted to tell her that all was still well with
her
son. He did not know what else he wanted to say to Eunice, nor did he know why he thought that in the little bakery and with the man and woman who had been his slaves, he would be able at last to weep.

Flavia was waiting alone in a long, narrow, empty corridor sloping gradually up to a curve at the end round which she could neither see nor guess; anything might come round that corner, and the light was none too good. A seat ran all along the side, heaped with soft cushions, but she did not feel easy or secure enough to lean back; her maid had been told to wait in an outer room from which another corridor had opened, then this one. She looked up. It was very high, arched at the top and painted with clusters of small winged objects, flying tables and beds and wine jars, and cupids carrying necklaces. You could hear nothing. She began to hum to herself, defiantly, then couldn't go on.

Someone was turning the corner and she jumped to her feet, just in case—but then sat down again, fidgeting with the pendant on the end of her necklace and pinching up a curl that might have grown lax with warmth and waiting. For it was only two women. She did not know who they were; they were speaking Greek. There was too much Greek spoken in the Palace. Both of them glanced at her, then one, with a light inclination of head and neck, passed on, and the other came and sat down beside her. Flavia stiffened; she still did not know who this woman was, and she was less sure of herself than she had hoped she would be. The woman said, ‘I know you and I am very sorry for you.'

Flavia moved sharply away and then hesitated. Was it, oh, was it possible that there was a trap somewhere, that the message had not really been from the Emperor, that Tigellinus—oh, this woman must know something terrible! ‘Why do you say that?' she asked, trying to speak evenly, ‘and who are you?'

‘I am Claudia Acté,' said the woman, ‘and people tell me things. I was told how you betrayed your foster-brother, who was afterwards killed in the Circus. You must feel very badly about that now.'

Flavia gasped and for a moment could say nothing. Anger and the sudden misery that she had to choke, both made her dumb. ‘How dare you!' she whispered at last. ‘Oh—saying things like that! I only did what was right. He was Christian. It was a Christian murder plot!'

‘Do you really believe that?' Acté asked.

‘You've no right to ask me and of course I do!' Acté said nothing, only sat there. Nobody else came. Flavia knew quite well who Acté was, and knew it would be very unwise to order her away or be rude to her. Why did the Emperor like her so much? She wasn't really pretty, not striking anyhow, and she certainly wasn't young. Sitting close to her, like this, you could see the lines round her eyes and mouth. Then what was it—magic? Yes, that must be it. Oh, it would be exciting to learn what magic Claudia Acté used on the Emperor! Cautiously Flavia said, ‘It
was
a murder plot, you know. The police found evidence. Ample evidence. Why are you looking at me like that, Claudia Acté? Don't you believe me?'

‘I don't think I believe in evidence got under torture. Do you? When they tortured Beric, Caradoc's son—'

‘Oh—
that
wasn't my fault! Besides, they wouldn't have if he hadn't been a Christian.'

‘So Christians ought to be tortured. Is that it, Flavia?'

‘They ought to be punished. They're a danger to all of us. They don't believe in anything.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Everyone knows that. Didn't you?'

‘I've heard it. But, you see, I've known some Christians and they were kind and honourable and only wanted a chance for everyone to be happy—blessed they called it. In a state of goodness towards one another. Do you understand that, Flavia?'

‘You don't mean—magic?' Perhaps that was it, thought Flavia.

‘No. Just what's in all of us. Being fully ourselves towards
one another: that is, letting what is of God become free of what men do to other men out of pride and greed.'

Flavia regarded this woman, this Greek, and suddenly she remembered Beric saying that he wanted her to be fond of her slave girls or some nonsense—this kind of nonsense, anyhow! And she said at a venture, ‘So you're a Christian, too!'

‘Yes,' said Claudia Acté.

‘Does—does everyone know?'

‘I expect Tigellinus knows,' said Acté. ‘So you think I ought to be tortured for it, like Beric?'

‘Beric was a murderer,' said Flavia harshly. She was not going to let herself be got at over that!

‘That was before he understood,' Acté said. ‘By the end he must have forgiven even Tigellinus.'

‘That's what
you
say! All I know is, he tried to murder him, and if I hadn't happened to be there—'

‘
Happened
?'

‘You shan't insult me, you wretched little Christian!' said Flavia, and slapped Acté's face. It might be rash or even dangerous, but Flavia was the daughter of a Roman Senator and she was not going to be spoken to like that by a Greek freedwoman!—not even in the Palace. And her fingers had left a red mark on Acté's cheek and Acté just did nothing, she took it like the slave she'd been, she even turned her face slowly, so that Flavia had a view of the unslapped cheek.

‘Go on if you want to,' Acté said.

‘I wouldn't dream of touching you again!' said Flavia. ‘I don't care to dirty my hand. Some of you Christians are murderers and some of you haven't even the courage to stop anyone hitting you!'

‘Is that how it all looks to you?' Acté asked, with a funny sadness in her voice.

‘Yes! Yes and yes!' Flavia stamped. ‘And I'll thank you to get out of my sight because I'm not going to look at it or you one moment longer!'

Acté hesitated, then stood up. ‘I'm still sorry for you,' she said. ‘Truly I am. And if ever—'

‘Get out of my sight!' said Flavia.

So Acté went away down the corridor and out of her sight. Something went wrong there, Acté said to herself; I didn't handle her right, God wasn't speaking through me. She's had the shock, surely, the thing that should have twisted her roots and made her able to see the world in the new way. But it has not worked out this time. Perhaps just because Beric did kill and try to kill. This might be the punishment for that, and even his death in the Arena could not put it right. Or perhaps Flavia is so much, so deeply, one of the rich, that nothing can shake her. And the end for her must be the hardening, the loneliness, the slow death.

But Flavia was flaming and shaking with anger, digging her nails into the soft cushions. No, the past was past and she would not be trapped into thinking of it! And some day she would find a way to get this woman down, this woman who had tried to shame her! And now she wasn't going to let herself be bothered by anything; she had all the future before her. And she would be admitted to the Presence. He would be alone. Waiting for her. With only the emerald-set fillet round his curls to show that he was Emperor. But one would know, would sense it. And then, how would it be—would she kneel and cover her face—and he raise her, drawing the hands away—or how?

Along past the curve in the corridor, and across the courtyard with the new marble basin and the new walls which the masons were busily facing with coloured marbles in meander and rounds, and past the guards, and through a smaller courtyard where a dozen charming little deer, in the charge of as many pretty boys, came trotting to be fed or stroked, and up a flight of porphyry steps, there was a double-arched balcony room especially favoured by the Emperor. He and the Empress sat there, studying an astronomical chart; Poppaea was pregnant again; this time it was to be the Divine Son. What had the stars to say to him?

Tigellinus came in and Poppaea yawned; she knew what he was going to say and she had heard it all before. It was boring; but then, what Tigellinus wanted was a boring world. Where nothing unexpected could ever happen. She picked the chart up to look at more carefully. How fascinating the
Egyptian names were, written in red between the stars, strange, shivery names, half bestial … no wonder that God, Jahveh, the Highest of All, could not bear them, just trample on them and hate them! Tigellinus was talking about the Christians again. ‘It may have been a mistake, Majesty,' he said, ‘to do it so publicly. There were always fools to be sorry for them.'

‘But they were a sacrifice,' the Emperor said, ‘to Rome, to the great Thing—'

‘And to the Master of Rome,' said Tigellinus, ‘but it wasn't everyone saw it that way.'

‘There are always some who fail to appreciate one. As they did with my Olympic Games. You didn't appreciate them yourself. No, don't start telling lies, I know it! But these scenes in the Games—I was almost satisfied myself. The beauty of a dozen lions leaping together!'

‘There was some didn't see it that way,' Tigellinus repeated solidly. ‘And these damn Christians—they didn't look bad enough, somehow. Next time we'll execute them in private.'

‘You're wrong, you're wrong,' said Nero. ‘If we do that, people will call us tyrants. Even though we do it for the common good! I will not be called a tyrant. I am above that!'

‘They'll call us names, anyway. But then they'll forget. The way we've done it this time they don't forget. They keep on talking about the Christians. That's not how to get it under.'

‘Well,' said Nero. ‘Tell me how you think it should be done, you great bull!' He stroked a finger down Tigellinus's golden breast plate, in and out of the wriggles, fascinated by the thickness and toughness, mental and physical, of the man inside it.

‘I could put down anything,' said Tigellinus, ‘if I had all the means I'd need for it. You see, Majesty, it's just a matter of that. There's the Praetorians and the police; well and good. But I'd want to be sure there was no one being protected. Nor protecting others.' He paused to see if Nero was taking that in, but the Emperor was apparently looking at his own reflection in the breast plate. ‘And I'd get up a good hate against them. Well, I've got that already. But
I'd see it wasn't interfered with by any of this sympathy and nonsense, and so I'd stop these public executions, or anyway pick my public.'

‘Just you and me,' said Nero dreamily.

‘Oh, well Majesty, we could do better than that! More, I mean: not better. There's plenty who feel themselves braced and purified, so to speak, by being present at an execution. And I'd see that the little children at school were taught to hate the Christians and I'd frighten the women of them, properly. You can do anything and stop anything if you're efficient about it.'

‘And then?'

‘Then, Majesty? Well, then they'd be stamped right out.'

‘And we would have all the trouble of finding other men equally hateful if we ever again needed … to deflect attention.'

‘Don't say that, Majesty! You know, just as well as I do, that these Christians couldn't be tolerated any longer in the community. They were a bad influence on everyone. Measures had to be taken. They won't dare to raise their heads again, even if a few are left here and there.'

‘I wonder what they really believe in!' said Poppaea abruptly, raising her long dark lashes, one finger still on the chart.

‘They don't believe in anything,' said Tigellinus. ‘That's what I keep on saying. That's what's wrong with them.'

‘Nonsense,' said Poppaea. ‘They believe in something they call the Kingdom, which is a form of love. Possibly a low form, but the same Eros, the Binder-Together. Eros who was before Aphrodite and all the gods. Eros who is Jahveh.'

‘I can't follow you into all that!' said Tigellinus sulkily.

‘I didn't think you could, dear Tigellinus,' said Poppaea. ‘But the need for love is universal, in all hearts. To be loved by all. Not to be afraid. There is the meaning of the Golden Age. Did you ever think of that, Tigellinus? Ah, you should read the poets: our own Virgil first of all.' Tigellinus stood, looking hot and cross; he
had
read Virgil of course—when he first began to think of making a
real first-class career for himself. But it was only poetry; it wasn't about anything. Damn these women, anyway!

But Nero had been listening. ‘Not to be afraid!' he said, half aloud, and for a moment his hand strayed to the amulet round his neck, the little luck-girl with the thin rolled strip of writing embedded in her, the magic luck-girl who kept away plots and conspiracies. ‘But the Divine must always be alone. Without Love. Without beautiful Love. The Leader must be alone. The Artist must be alone.'

Tigellinus fidgeted; such remarks were neither here nor there; what he wanted was to finish the Christian clean-up. ‘From what my agents report, Majesty,' he said, ‘we've got it under in Rome. But, of course, we've still got to tackle the Provinces.'

‘That will mean a vast number of tedious letters,' said Nero unenthusiastically.

‘Only signing them, Majesty. But we've got to get things the same all through the Empire, or else something of the kind will crop up again. Christianity or worse. People setting themselves up against the State.'

‘We must take care,' said Nero, ‘to avoid religious persecution, or even sameness. The Gods have many forms. All should be worshipped.'

‘Perhaps they are all the same God,' Poppaea said, turning over on her elbow, so that the shoulder-gathered pleats of her dress slipped a little on the lovely cream-brown of her skin. Her husband looked at her with soft intensity.

‘Of course,' said Tigellinus. ‘But these Christians and Epicureans don't believe in the gods. Whatever her Majesty is pleased to say they
do
believe in. And what's more they don't believe in you. Or in her. So I'm going to protect you both from them. That's me, the old watch-dog! And I'll do it with all means. Or all the means you'll let me have.'

‘I'm sure I let you have plenty of means,' Nero said. ‘Why, if these wretched Christians only knew what they cost the Treasury, they'd all die of swollen heads! Sometimes I think you take them too seriously, Tigellinus. After all, they've served their turn. One would think you believed yourself that they'd set the Circus on fire.'