The Silver Chalice (43 page)

The House of Suspended Judgment was so large that no one there had any conception of its limits. Those who inhabited it seemed no different from human beings. They were of all shapes and sizes and they wore normal clothes, being allowed complete latitude in that respect. All the colors known on earth were to be seen, and rumors had reached his ears that in the regions beyond, about which there was continual awe-struck speculation, there were other wonderful colors on which human eyes had never rested, glorious shades that would blind any mortal.

But, declared Ignatius, one was conscious always of great forces, of strange and wonderful regions that might be reached later, of the grinding about them of the mills of fate. There was, in particular, the Wing of the Future, in which no denizen of the House of Suspended Judgment was allowed. He himself, by an error that had been corrected almost immediately, had been permitted to get inside. His stay had been for no more than the time consumed in the winking of an eye, but he had seen this much: a huge panorama of space through which gray clouds raced. On the face of the moving clouds the scroll of the future was being shown. There had been a multitude of souls, whose duty called them there, studying the pictures with intent eyes.

This brought Ignatius to the reason for his second entry into the dreamworld of his adopted son. He, Basil, was behaving with neither good sense nor sound judgment. He had a wife with all the best virtues and who, moreover, loved him as a wife should. Was it his purpose to throw away a second fortune? There was still time for him to redeem himself and settle down to a normal and happy life. Whatever he did, he must make his home in Antioch and under no circumstances was he to return to Jerusalem.

At this point Ignatius began to draw on what he had seen during the winking of an eye while he stood in the Wing of the Future. He became incoherent. Words poured from his lips: blood, fire, struggle, death. If the words seemed to lack form, they left one impression, that he had glimpsed on the racing clouds a picture of war and destruction in the city of David.

This dream faded away suddenly and another took its place. This time
a very definite warning was delivered and it came from Zimiscies, the aged owner of the khan outside Aleppo. Basil, who had seen him on two occasions, had no difficulty in recognizing him now. He seemed a perfect symbol of impending tragedy, a stooped figure and a huge hooked nose in a face with wasted cheeks. “Come back!” he kept repeating, beckoning with his arms. “Did I not give you warning of the Arab raiders? You will ride into danger if you keep on. Turn your camels back east if you set any value on your lives!”

The message was conveyed with such conviction that Basil came back to consciousness charged with a sense of urgency. He returned to a clear, still night; so clear that the eye could see as far as in daylight, and so still that it seemed certain they would hear any sound made in the world, from the delving of a mole to the clomp of a gold-shod heel on Parnassus.

Basil told hurriedly of his second dream but elicited no comment from Chimham other than the conviction that Zimiscies was a chronic spreader of rumors. “Never have I been to Aleppo without having that old weeping Jeremiah tell me it would be unsafe to continue. He wants all travelers to stay and pay him rent for space in that flea-infested inn of his.”

Basil was peering ahead and listening. “Do you hear a sound coming from up there in the north?” he asked. “It seems to me like the hoofbeat of horses.”

Chimham turned his head in that direction and listened also. After a moment he shook his head. “I hear nothing. I think we are the only people awake tonight.”

T
HE MAIN CARAVAN
had been proceeding in the meantime at a more normal gait, traveling at night and camping during the heat of the day. Although they had fallen far behind, they had done as well as could have been expected of a train of such size (the old prince being still with them and more satellites having been acquired as they went along), and it was a tired company that set up its tents beside a small stream a day’s journey south of Aleppo.

Adam ben Asher paused at the entrance of Deborra’s tent to say: “Three more days of this. You look tired, but that is to be expected. It has been a hard journey. Never before have I ridden through such heat!”

She had been leaning against the tent pole with closed eyes and she opened them now with every evidence of extreme weariness. From where she stood, she could see the eastern horizon flooded with the warm lights of dawn.

“What word is there of Basil and his companion?” she asked.

Adam said, “None,” and made a sweeping gesture of his arm to call attention to the emptiness of the space where they had chosen to camp. “No human eye seems to have rested on them since we got that report south of Hamath. When they are as far ahead of us as three days, it is harder to get definite word. We shall hear nothing of them today unless the birds bring us news.” He stopped and gazed intently into the west. “This I did not expect. Someone is coming our way.”

A mere dot on a side path turned into a man afoot, and the man afoot became in a very few minutes a shepherd, a young shepherd walking to brisk good purpose. He turned aside to pay them a visit, swinging his long gnarled crook by way of greeting. In spite of his obvious youth, he had a
matted beard that covered all of his throat and much of his chest. It seemed likely that he had been tending his flock in the cluster of low hills to the west and was now on his way home.

“Peace be with you, friend, and may your flocks increase and multiply,” said Adam when the visitor had entered the circle of their tents.

“Peace be with you, strangers.”

“Saw you aught of two men traveling north and alone by camel some days ago?”

“There has been much traffic to Aleppo.” The young shepherd’s eyes studied the trail reflectively and then came back to rest first on his interrogator and then on Deborra. “As it chanced, I spoke to two such men at this same hour and very nearly this exact spot. They had ridden all night and they were pausing here to feed their camels and replenish the water bags. We spoke a few words only and then they were off.”

“What do you recall of them?”

“One was very knowing in the life of the trails. He was thickset and he had a wagging tongue. The other was younger. He was beardless and he had little to say.”

Luke had joined them, walking stiffly after the long hours they had spent in the saddle. He nodded to the shepherd. “It is clear that it was our friends you saw. When was it you met them?”

The shepherd began to calculate by a backward method. “Yesterday there came to the hills the Roman collectors of the tax”—he paused and spat his contempt of them—“and found Horgan the Hittite and Diklah the Moabite, who had hidden themselves in the hope to escape paying. The collectors took them away, and I fear it will go hard with them because it is getting to be a habit to run away. Horgan and Diklah had been no more than a day in hiding. They told me when they arrived that the Romans had reached their village the day previous to that, with their clerks and their staves and their accursed lists. Now I am on sure ground in this matter of time because I recall it was still a day earlier that I saw the two men of whom you ask. They told me the tax collectors were at work in Emesa when they passed through. This came back into my mind when I learned that the filthy locusts had settled on this district. Let us then count the days which had elapsed.” He began to do so with the help of his fingers. “Four. Yes, it was four days ago that I spoke to them.”

“Four days!” Luke’s eyes lighted up with pride. “They have done nobly. They have truly ridden as hard as Joshua’s men in pursuit of the army of the five kings!”

It was contrary to custom for a woman to speak in a company of men that included a stranger, but Deborra could not contain herself any longer. “How were they?” she asked. “Did they seem to you very weary?”

The shepherd bent over and picked up a dried faggot of wood that lay in the dust. He snapped it into two pieces with a loud cracking sound. “The younger of them, the beardless one, was just like that. A touch, a word, and he would fly into pieces. They told me they were on their way to Antioch. The young one will be lucky if he gets that far.” The shaggy head nodded briskly by way of emphasis. “Even the other one, who seemed to me as tough as old leather, was doubled over in his saddle and his face was as gray as the dust of this road.”

Adam led the visitor away to share the meal that was in course of preparation. Luke seated himself at the entrance of Deborra’s tent.

“You are consumed with fears,” he said. “Come, my child, there is no reason to feel that way. They are in Antioch now. At this very moment, when I read in your eyes the anxiety that is feeding on you, they are sleeping on soft couches while about them the great city is beginning to awaken. Yes, they have completed their journey and are resting from their efforts.”

“But you heard what the shepherd said.”

Luke nodded reassuringly. “They are not only in Antioch but the decision has, perhaps, already been made. I am sure they have seen the banker and have told him their story. He has in his hands the documents they carried to identify themselves to him.”

Deborra became more calm. “I have prayed to Jehovah a hundred times a day,” she declared, “to watch over them and show forbearance.”

“Such faith will bring its own reward. I am sure that Jehovah has listened.”

The three sat down to supper together in the cool of the evening. Work on the dismantling of the camp had been begun and in another half hour they would be on their way.

They were rested and relaxed. The kind, strong fingers of Sarah had kneaded the tired flesh of her mistress’s face and throat and had applied sparingly a little color from the contents of the toilet box. The young bride had regained her spirits and was disposed once more to look on the bright side.

“Antioch is a beautiful city, I have been told,” she said. “It will be a pleasure to see it.”

“I am a prejudiced witness to its many merits,” declared Luke. “It is my home. I love it and regard it as the greatest city in the world. Of course,” he felt impelled to add, “I have not seen Rome.”

“But you have seen Jerusalem!” cried Adam. “How, then, can you call Antioch the greatest city?” He paused and then went on in almost breathless partisanship: “There is no place to be compared with Jerusalem. The Temple is there, and all the true grandeur and glory of the world are in the Temple.”

Luke nodded in understanding. “It is true that God gave Jerusalem to His people. But, Adam, I was thinking of material things; of wealth and population, of beautiful buildings, of wide streets and spacious gardens, and of fair breezes blowing across harbors filled with tall ships. And there is something I must tell you, something that disturbs me very much. I had a most strange feeling about Jerusalem this time. It seemed to me old and weighed down by a sense of tragic destiny. I almost believed that its end was near at hand—that it was waiting as Jesus waited on the Mount of Olives. I would not have been surprised when we left if we had found a great stone rolled against the Damascus Gate, and angels with flaming swords on guard.”

“You are letting your imagination lead you, Luke the Scribe!” cried Adam indignantly. “Do you mean that Jerusalem seems to you like a city of the dead? Let me tell you this: the city of David will stand in all its greatness after the memory of Rome has been lost and Antioch has been buried under an avalanche of rock from the hills about it.”

“My hope is that you are right,” said Luke. “It is dreadful to feel that destruction hovers over those ancient stone walls and broods above Mount Moriah. Your opinion is as good as mine, Adam. I spoke only as a man—a man of faulty vision. I am not a prophet.”

The resentment Adam felt over what had been said manifested itself first in a long silence and then in an outburst because of what seemed to him a personal slight.

“I am the one who has made it possible to get the Cup—this Cup by which you set so much store—safely out of the hands of the High Priest and the Zealots. I have done much of the planning and I am risking my savings in this journey—not to mention my skin, which I value. Yet I was not taken into your confidence about the Cup, and it was only by accident that I learned of its existence in the first place. I do not like being disregarded, Luke the Physician, and I am speaking out to let you know.”

Luke looked distressed. “There is justice in your reproaches. We have
accepted your aid. We have benefited by your courage and farsightedness as well as by your generosity. I can see now, though we have always appreciated what you are doing, that we have not made you aware of it.” He paused to give his head a shake of self-reproach. “The fault is mine, my good friend Adam, and I am truly contrite.”

“I have not seen this Cup for which all of us have risked so much,” grumbled Adam.

Luke glanced over his shoulder at the work going on about them. All the tents were down save that of Deborra. He raised a hand and called, “Let it stand for a few minutes.” Then he nodded to Adam. “Come, our brave and generous friend, let us repair this oversight at once. Let us show you the Cup that Jesus held and then passed to His disciples on that night so many years ago.”