The Silver Chalice (30 page)

All doubt had left his face. His eyes had lighted up with a sense of confidence. The weariness that had been so noticeable when he arrived at the house of Joseph had gone; and this was not strange, for he was certain that he and his companion had been selected for a proof of divine guidance. “Tell me where this room is and I shall take it there. Without any hesitation I shall place it out where all eyes may see it, where any hand may reach out and touch it. I know that what we are doing is right.”

A
t noon on the following day Basil was roused from his uneasy musings by an outburst of shouting in the house. It came first from the slave quarters and then spread to other parts, increasing in volume all the time. His first thought was that the men of Rub Samuel had broken in, but on second consideration he discarded this explanation. There was a note to the tumult that had nothing to do with conflict; a triumphant note like the song of warriors returning from victory.

After it had continued for several minutes without showing any signs of abating, he found himself unable to remain any longer in concealment. Venturing out cautiously, he discovered that the warehouse wing was completely deserted. The shouting now came from the front section of the house. He proceeded in that direction along deserted corridors, becoming aware as he did so of a miracle that had been happening that morning. Into the heat and the haze and the dust of the city had come a breeze. It was not a great wind, it blew lightly and fitfully from the hills of the north; but small though it was, it was like a cool hand placed on a fevered brow. To the people of Jerusalem it would seem a benediction straight from Jehovah. The wide stone halls in the house of Joseph, raised high on their black pillars of basalt, had been opened to receive it. The hangings on the walls and the patterned curtains that masked the heavy doors swayed and billowed at its touch.

Finally he found himself in the close proximity of the main courtyard, and here a strange spectacle greeted his eye. The slaves were parading about the court and the adjacent halls. They marched three abreast and they were singing loudly, their heads thrown back as they sang, their eyes filled with exultation. Ebenezer was in the lead, capering the steps
of the Dance of David, his arms crossed behind his bent back and his fingers twitching in imitation of the orders he received from his master.

Basil recognized the song they were singing. It was known as the Unchaining.

Basil had been told that this was the oldest of all chants, that it had been sung for the first time when the children of Israel crossed the sands of the Red Sea. Having heard the story of the Crossing from Deborra, he realized that the Unchaining could not have been sung at that early day. The Israelites had been held in Egypt in a state of perpetual slavery, and it had not been necessary then, as it was now, for a life slave to have awl-pierced ears; nor had the year of Jubilee been conceived, the recurring seventh year when all slaves of Jewish birth received their freedom. Ancient the song was, however, and Basil found himself humming in concert as he watched the marchers. He could appreciate how they felt.

“This is what Deborra promised them that day,” he said to himself. “Joseph has freed his slaves!”

He became aware then of the face of Aaron staring down into the court from an upper window. It did not require more than one glance at the bleak and antagonistic expression of the latter to realize that the son of the house was bitterly opposed to the step his father had taken.

Among the spectators was Adam ben Asher. He stood beside Luke and seemed almost as much out of sympathy with the spectacle as Aaron himself. He glowered at the antics of Ebenezer and said in an impatient mutter: “And now what will they do? Will they expect to find work in a city where half the people starve for bread? Soon they will come back, begging for their chains, offering their ears to the piercing of the awl.”

And then something occurred that seemed to Basil a second miracle. Deborra appeared in the front entrance, which had been opened to catch the vagrant breeze. She was accompanied by a train of dusty, weary servants. Some had arms filled with bundles of clothing. One, a brawny black boy with a good-natured face under a red turban, was carrying the
kinnor
of his young mistress, an instrument of many strings made of beautifully carved
algum
wood. Another held over her head a cover made of woven reeds as a protection against the fierce assault of the midday sun. Hovering
on the edge of the group were an intent pair who, clearly, were there on Rub Samuel’s orders.

Over a white linen tunic Deborra was wearing an outer garment of yellow silk with black embroidered bands. Her turban, puffed out on both sides to provide protection against the heat, was of a somewhat deeper shade of yellow with a rich tinge of the orange. The effect was completely becoming and, in spite of the weariness of the long journey that manifested itself in shadows about her eyes, she suggested the freshness of a daffodil. There was no consciousness of this in her manner. She was looking about her with the most intense anxiety. When her eyes rested on Luke and Adam advancing to greet her she questioned them in a whisper of passionate supplication.

“Am I in time? Is my grandfather still alive?”

Luke answered with a grave nod. “He is alive. But you must be reconciled to this: that he has clung to existence only in the hope of seeing you again and that now his hold is weak. We must be honest with you, my child. It is—a matter of hours.”

“Let me go to him at once.”

Basil watched her as she followed Luke down the hall toward the room where Joseph had elected to spend his last days. She looked neither to right nor left, and it was clear that she had one thought only in her mind. He followed at a safe distance when she had passed and saw her pause at the door to ask, “Why is he here?”

“It was his wish.”

It became apparent then that the clarity of mind that Joseph had exacted of himself had now deserted him. Through the open door they could hear him talking in a feverish monotone. He had slipped away from the safe moorings of the present and had reached the choppy waters of the past. “ ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.’ Even as I, Zaccheus, even as I; though truly not to the extent of half, for I have been wise in trade and much profit have I made. Generously have I given of what I earned, even though I
followed afar off
. Did I err in not coming to the fire and sitting myself down there as Peter, Peter of the high heart, did?” The voice fell off into more incoherence at this, and they could hear him muttering of Peter and John and Paul and Andrew. He kept coming back to the thought that seemed to weigh on his mind, the part he had played in the great drama. “It was not fear. I did not hold back because of that. Is it not known to all men that I went to Pontius Pilate and asked of him the body of Jesus? What hands were they that touched
the holes in His feet and the great wound in His side? Mine, for I took the body down from the cross. It was in my sepulcher that the body lay. It was from my sepulcher, which was hewn in stone, that Jesus came forth. It was stone of mine that was rolled away, and it was there that the two men in shining garments stood. It was not vouchsafed me to see Him, but truly I wrought so that what He had prophesied might come to pass.”

“Grandfather!” said Deborra.

The sick voice stopped. There was a moment of silence and then Joseph said: “Deborra! It is you! You have come back.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I thank thee, O Lord, for granting me this wish of my heart. Now I am happy and at peace. I knew you would come, my child, if I—if I did not give in. It has been hard. I had to be firm with this angel who sits beside me and keeps saying that I have been expected long since. But now you are here, my Deborra, and I may say to the angel, ‘Have your way at last. Lead on, I am ready.’ ”

Adam ben Asher dropped a hand on the shoulder of Benjie the Asker, who had been a witness to Deborra’s return. “You will come with me,” he said.

He led the way to a small room not far from the Court of the Packers that served him as a personal office. It was filled with a curious collection of articles. In addition to many dusty rolls on which trade records were kept, there were maps of the camel trails and the routes of sea navigation, enough of them to fill all the wall space. The floor was so littered with camel equipment that it was hard for Benjie to find standing room.

“I heard today,” said Adam, “that someone had been selling information to Ananias, and then I remembered passing the house of the High Priest and seeing one of our men come out. This happened a few days ago, and I thought at the time it was strange. Now I think it highly suspicious. Who was it I saw, Benjie the Asker? It was you.”

“I was there,” declared Benjie easily. “I was making a call on some of the servants of Ananias. In quest of information.”

He was wearing a shirt of black linen and over this a rust-colored garment. Adam made a sudden pounce at him and raised the shirt from around his waist. This revealed a hairy expanse of body and a wide belt
to which a flat leather purse was attached. Despite squeals of protest from its owner, Adam opened the purse and found it well stuffed with coins.

“Gold!” he cried. “It is as I thought. The gold of Ananias the High Priest.
Heu-heu!
Benjie the Asker has become Benjie the Babbler, Benjie the Teller, Benjie the Two-faced!” He thumped with both fists on the puny shoulders of the Asker. “This is the traitor. This is the base-born one who sells everything he knows to the man in the Temple! You have received much more than thirty pieces of silver, thou betrayer of friends, thou seller of secrets not thy own.”

Benjie tried to wriggle free of the hold on his shoulders. “I have taken pay in both hands instead of one,” he acknowledged sulkily. “Can a poor man earn enough with one hand in Jerusalem to feed a large family? Joseph has paid me in one, Ananias in the other. Is it a crime?”

Adam proceeded to manhandle the unrepentant seller of information. He slapped him on each cheek, he poked knuckles into his eyes, he beat him vigorously on the chest with a sound like the strident rat-tat of the
tof
, the frame drum of the Jews. Then he took him by both shoulders and shook him until the knees of the miscreant went limp and his teeth chattered.

“Is it a crime?” cried Adam. “It is the worst of crimes. You, the jackal with twenty pairs of ears and a hundred eyes, told the High Priest that it was Deborra who threw the stone at the Roman——”

“No, no!” exclaimed Benjie. “I told him nothing about the little lady of the house. I could never do anything to hurt her. That I swear to you by the feet of all the prophets, by the ashes of the Red Heifer!”

Adam’s grip on his shoulders loosened a trifle. “If I could believe that, I might be persuaded to spare your life. But I declare to you now that I shall squeeze your throat until your face turns black and your breath stops if any harm comes to her.”

“Adam, have pity on me!” cried Benjie. “I cannot resist the feel of gold on the palms of my hands. It has such a sweet touch. I have broken faith because of it. I have sold my friends. I shall never see the face of my Master. Adam, Adam, I cannot sleep at night through thinking of it!”

Adam looked at him with a hint of understanding in his flat gray eyes. “There can be no excuse for what you have done, but I can feel sorry for you, O Benjamin who deserves to wear a coat of one color only, the deep scarlet of shame.” As he spoke he continued to administer sharp physical attentions, a vigorous rumpling of the hair, a kneading of knuckles in the hollow of the neck, a succession of slaps with the flat of the hand. “Yes, I
feel a great deal of compassion for you.” The ribs of his victim resounded to the tattoo he proceeded to play on them.

Benjie cried breathlessly: “I do not wish to die because of your pity.”

“I must have from you,” declared Adam, “a full record of the information you have sold to Ananias. If you will do this, and so make it possible for us to protect ourselves, I shall spare you the full punishment I had intended for you. Are you prepared to tell me everything?”

“Yes!” affirmed the Asker eagerly. “I am ready to tell you every piece of news I took to that man in the Temple with the big belly and the frog eyes.” He cringed away from the great callused hands of the caravan leader. “I will do more than that. I will tell you something that you should know at once if you are to avert a great calamity.”

“Heu-heu!”
exclaimed Adam. “Now we have cracked the shell and come to the rich kernel of the nut.”

“The instant my old master dies,” said Benjie, dropping his voice, “Aaron will give a signal from the window of his room and the men of the Mar will break into the house. They will let no one leave until they have found the Cup! Aaron did not agree to this at first. He made other promises, but Ananias was not satisfied, so Aaron has given in and they will have a free hand.”