The Silver Chalice (45 page)

T
HE CITY OF ANTIOCH
, viewed from the approaches to the Iron Gate, was as magnificent as Luke had promised. Behind the seemingly endless wall with its four hundred towers it was the embodiment of all the legends of the East. Here, it seemed, turbaned potentates must rule in resplendent despotism, here princes wander in disguise to find adventure and romance, here behind ivory walls the veiled houris must abound and dread demons exercise their evil powers. Deborra felt a stirring of interest as her eyes rested on the marble grandeur of the city, but the mood was of brief duration; no more, in fact, than a single moment, for she sighed immediately and fell back into the unhappy speculations that had occupied her since they turned west at Aleppo.

Adam, who was riding beside her and striving to divert her attention by reciting a story, noticed her lack of interest. This ruffled his pride. He had fallen into the habit of telling anecdotes from the holy writings with his own interpretations and in his own words, assisting the narrative with intervals of furious piping on the
ugab
he carried by his saddle, and even lapsing at times into song. He was accustomed to attentive audiences.

He was giving his own particular version of the story of Jonah and had reached the point where the self-willed prophet found himself in the belly of the whale.

“Now this Jonah,” he said, “was surprised to find that the belly of a whale was not a large place after all. He had always believed it must be able to accommodate a fishing boat or two and a whole company of men like himself, but now he discovered he could not stand up straight. He could see quite well because this soft
ganoofa
of a whale had sludged up a lot of weeds from the bottom of the ocean that gave off a kind of light.
He saw that there were small porpoises around him that would never sport around again on the surface of the water, and large jellyfish that had once been red but were now dead white from fear, and shrimps that were making a great noise by clicking their claws together. Jonah did not like the look of the place, nor the smell of it for that matter, and he began to jump around and shout: ‘I am a man and a prophet and I have still a lot of prophesying to do for the Lord. It is not meet that I should perish in the belly of a whale.’ At this all the fishes raised their heads and began to chant together:

Adam came to an abrupt stop and looked accusingly at her. “You are not listening,” he charged.

Deborra shook her head. “You are holding something back from me,” she said. “I have been sure of it ever since we left Aleppo. What is it? If you have bad news, I should be told. I am not a child.”

Luke was riding on the other side. The journey from Aleppo, which had been accomplished without a stop for sleep, had left him in an exhausted state. Weariness showed in the tones of his voice.

“It is true,” he said. “We have been keeping something from you. It did not seem either wise or fair, dear child, to disturb you with—with the rumors we had heard.”

She turned and looked at him beseechingly. “What is it? Tell me, I beg you. I cannot stand this uncertainty any longer.”

Luke looked ahead down the road and could see the Roman eagles above the Iron Gate. The telling could not be put off any longer. Adam, strapping the
ugab
in place with a somewhat sulky air, gave him a nod of assent.

“It is considered kind,” began Luke, “to tell of bad fortune by indirection and by slow degrees. I am not sure this is a kindness. In any event, I am lacking in the art of dissimulation. Deborra, my dear child, we have reason to fear that there will be sad word waiting for us when we reach that—that forbidding gate ahead of us. It may take the form of the absence of those who should be there to greet us.”

Deborra did not speak. She kept her eyes down. Her hands, grasping the pommel of the saddle, were white with strain.

“There was trouble on the road from Aleppo. Arab raiders attacked a small party riding through the night from Aleppo. Later one of the bandits rode into Aleppo and boasted openly of their success. He was captured, and it was found that he had Jewish coins in his purse. Also, he was riding one of the stolen camels, a rangy brown male with jade bells——”

Adam looked up with sudden intensity. “Where did you hear that?” he demanded.

“I was so depressed that I neglected to say anything. Zimiscies followed us out from the khan and told me about the stolen camel.”

Adam astonished them by beginning to laugh. He not only indulged in a loud burst of mirth, but he gave his thigh a resounding slap. “ ‘A rangy brown male,’ he says, ‘with jade bells.’ It is true that the camels I sold him had jade bells. But—a
brown
one? Luke, my good friend, the ones I sold were not brown. They were white! As white as the belly of an underbaked fish, as white as the wattles of old Zimiscies himself, as white even as that small bit of fleece up there above us in the sky!”

Deborra’s eyes caught fire. “Adam, Adam, what are you telling us? That—that they are safe, after all?”

“That is what I am telling you. It must have been another pair of travelers who were attacked at night and robbed by the bandits.”

Deborra stretched out her arms on either side and pressed her fingers into their proffered hands. They rode thus linked for several moments in the silence of an intense relief.

“My friends!” she breathed. “My kind, good friends! I shall love you all the days of my life.”

The contentment that Adam shared with the others was of short duration. He began quickly to frown, to mutter and shake his head. When they reached the stage of the road where all the different routes converged in front of the Iron Gate, he brought his camel to a stop.

“What right have we to be so confident?” he demanded to know, staring unhappily at his two companions. “We should have been met before this. I have no liking for this lack of attention. It is the advance rider of misfortune.”

Deborra’s confidence was easily shaken, perhaps because her previous despair had been so deep. She looked at him with worried eyes. “Adam!” she exclaimed. “You are rolling the stone back against my heart. Do you think we jumped too easily to a conclusion?”

“Perhaps,” he muttered. “But that is not all.”

Adam brought his whole caravan to a halt, and the dense traffic had to divide back of them and roll by on each side of the road. This interruption was not well received. The sun-browned men, compelled to execute this maneuver, shouted insults at them as they passed. They were moving slowly because the way here became, under the best conditions, like the neck of a bottle; and now the cork had become wedged in the neck. They passed at a snail’s pace, a thicket of colored turbans nodding high above the plumed heads of the camels. Their eyes expressed anger and contempt, their lips gave forth the picturesque abuse of the East; camel men, merchants, priests, soldiers, beggars, thieves.

“Speak to no one,” counseled Adam, leaning over toward Deborra. “Keep your hand on your purse and your eyes open, even as you listen to me. I am afraid I have been guilty of a great carelessness. I assumed we would be allowed to enter the city without any question. I never gave a thought to the possibility that your father might arrive first and win over the police. We should have halted outside and sent someone to spy out the land. It would have meant a delay, but we would have been spared any danger.

“Your grandfather has arranged everything according to the letter of the law,” went on Adam. “Of that we can be sure. He had the profits deposited in Antioch because that removed the transaction from the control of Jewish law. Here Roman law prevails, the code of the Twelve Tables. I think we can be equally certain that the provisions of the bequest are as sound and ironbound as a centurion’s breastplate. If no one else had known of the funds stored here, Jabez could have turned the money over to Deborra without taking any other steps. But as the bequest is being contested, he will have to go into court and obtain an
addictio
. We know that magistrates can be bribed. There has been one recent case of
that
. Suppose your father has already arrived and has found that he is being forestalled. It is reasonable that he would try to enter into an arrangement—a conspiracy, rather—with Jabez and the magistrate by which he would pay them to give the decision to him. It would turn his soul inside out to do it, he would suffer, he would cry out in his anguish; but he would come to the necessity in the end. And then what would happen to us?”

“There is sense in what you say,” declared Deborra with a serious nod of the head. “I have had an uneasy feeling about what may happen.”

“It is a simple matter to bribe officials in Antioch,” said Adam. “Particularly
the police. I have done it myself. With a little silver and a friendly smile. Now, if your father has been spreading a little baksheesh, the police will be waiting to pick us off one by one like grapes from a bunch. It seems probable that our two young men got through safely, but they are not here to meet us. Why? I think it likely they are watching rats scamper across their feet in a city prison. If that is where they are, the rest of us may join them. The easiest way to win a decision in court is to prevent your opponents from appearing.”

Adam continued to shake his head doubtfully. “And why is no one here from the banker to meet us? It is a courtesy he would not overlook if he still had an open mind. I do not like the smell of this at all. We shall be scooped in as we pass the gate. You, my little Deborra, may never see as much as a dinar of all that great fortune, and I may lose my camels and equipment. Nothing that the police of Antioch get into their fists is ever given up. It is an amiable trait of theirs. I know of it from long experience.”

There was much confusion and noise ahead of them at the gate, where a squad of custodians sweated over the task of inspecting the long files of anxious travelers. They were reversing the practice of Cerberus by paying small heed to those who were leaving but regarding with suspicion all who sought to get in.

The confusion caused by the stopping of the caravan brought one argus-eyed official down the road. He planted himself in front of Adam and barked at him furiously. “Why do you stand here? Have your brains a palsy as well as your legs, you morsel of fresh dung blown in on the hot wind of the desert?”

Adam glowered back. “It could be,” he said, “that the great lady who rides with us has changed her mind and does not desire to enter this thrice-accursed city.”

The custodian squinted sharply at Deborra. “Great lady?” he said. “Is it the great lady we have been watching for? Comes she from Jerusalem?”

“It is as I feared,” whispered Adam to Deborra. “There is trouble ahead for us.”

“Great lady or not, move on inside the gate!” cried the guard with renewed exasperation. “We will ask our questions within. You cannot stand here.”

“We have a prince with us, a very powerful and wealthy prince who comes from Seen. Do you treat princes as you would one of your own flap-gutted olive merchants?”

“A prince?” The official laughed scornfully. “If Sargon, king of kings, were alive today and riding in to Antioch, we would not allow him to squat on his royal behind at this part of the road. A mere prince, say you? Don’t prate to me of princes. Get your prince, and your great lady too, inside that gate as fast as you can.”

Adam did not need any further evidence. “The word has been passed down the line,” he muttered. “It has even reached this mangy user of puny power and has turned him unfriendly. We may as well prepare ourselves for the worst.”

They fell into the slow pace of the ingoing stream and in the course of minutes drew close to the imposing arch of the Iron Gate. A man with a face as round as a melon stood just outside the arch and called something in a monotonous singsong. As they approached closer they realized that he was repeating perfunctorily: “Adam ben Asher! Adam ben Asher!”

Adam swung his camel off to that side and stopped in front of the caller. “I am Adam ben Asher,” he said.

“Good!” cried the man in a tone of intense relief. “My voice was on the point of giving out. It may be ruined beyond all hope of repair.”

“Am I interested in the condition to which your voice has been reduced?” snorted Adam impatiently.

“I have messages for you,” said the stranger with offended dignity. “And greetings from my master, Jabez. I have stood here for three days and called out your name. Never have I left my post from the moment the gate opened in the morning until it was closed at night. My voice——” Adam interrupted with a violent gesture. “Did your master instruct you not to stir from the cool shadows of the gate? Is it not known to you that the custom is to ride out and convey greetings some considerable distance down the road? That the newcomers are then pleasantly regaled with wine and told what they should know of what is transpiring inside the walls? Did it enter that great head of yours, which I suspect is filled with seeds rather than brains, that your failure to appear in the appointed way might give rise to serious misapprehensions?” Having thus vented his displeasure, Adam gave the stranger a sound buffet on the shoulder by way of compensation. “There! It shall be reported to your master that you
labored at your appointed task with a diligence that merits reward. And now for the messages.”

The rest of the party had passed in under the arch and had been motioned into a compound to the right. They were told they might as well dismount as there would be delay in the questioning. Deborra, having obeyed these instructions, glanced about her in great distress of mind, thinking of what Adam had said. Whether or not Basil and his companion had escaped the attention of the bandits or whether, having emerged safely from this danger, they had been seized by the Antioch police, the fact remained that they were not here to greet her. This was proof enough that things had gone wrong. She stared unseeingly over the whitewashed walls of the compound and gave not a single thought to the other problems that faced them. It was stiflingly hot in this airless corner packed with anxious humanity, and she was barely aware that her maid had come to her side and was vigorously plying a fan over her head.