The Silver Chalice (66 page)

Finally the smoldering imperial eye came to rest on the oasis where Simon the Magician sat in silent solitude. An idea took possession of him.

“Simon Magus!” he called.

Simon rose from his seat and bowed slowly three times from the waist.

The company that filled the central part of the banqueting hall had lapsed at once into silence, but to overcome the sounds of revelry from the far parts the royal voice had to be raised to make itself heard.

“Have you any more tricks to show us, O man of dark wiles and diabolic skills?”

The days of study and consultation in the house on the Nova Via, the steady practicing with new assistants, the making of mysterious props had all been in preparation for two occasions; and this was one of them, a preliminary to the great display with which the Bad Samaritan planned to astound the world. Conscious of the hovering of destiny above him, the great magician took a few steps forward.

“O Caesar,” he said, “I have words in mind rather than deeds. There is a discourse that should be addressed to your learned ear and to all these who sit about you. I desire to demolish certain misconceptions that are held on the subject of what is called magic. If I have your august permission to speak, I shall strive to say what must be said in a few words. And as I talk perhaps my hands will not forget their trade but will perform certain new and ingenious feats and conceits for your amusement.”

His right hand had been extended in front of him in a rhetorical gesture. It was empty, as all those who sat close about him were in a position to know. But at this moment they saw a lighted candle suddenly appear on his open palm. Simon lowered his arm and looked at the flickering flame as though he himself was as much surprised as any of them. He glanced about him until his eyes settled on a corpulent senator who was in the act of lifting a wine cup to his mouth. With a gesture of unconcern the magician dropped the candle into the wine, where it was extinguished with a single flutter and hiss of sound.

He had chosen his victim well. The senator spluttered at the indignity he had suffered but subsided when the whole room broke into laughter. Nero, startled, indulged in a slight chortle. Then he coughed and chortled again, this time on a higher note. His enjoyment continued to mount and expressed itself in a crescendo of sounds. Finally he threw back his head
and gave way entirely to relish of the trick, exploding into a high neighing hysteria.

Simon took a few more steps forward. “O Caesar,” he said, “it is believed that magic is all a matter of dexterity of the hand and of certain aids that the magician conceals about his person. What I shall speak of is a far different kind of magic, the dread powers that fall into the hands of any who dare break the seals of the sable books. I would speak of secrets that can be learned by probing into the high vaults of the unknown and of the strange divinity that enters the veins of the initiate.”

He raised his arm in a gesture, and again a lighted candle appeared on the extended palm. A second time he simulated surprise and then crushed out the flame on the bare back of a female slave who was passing with empty dishes. The startled girl emitted a scream and dropped her burden on the floor. Again Nero went through the preliminary starts of choking sound and stammers of delight, rising into another outburst of uncontrolled laughter.

“I spare her the hundred lashes she deserves for her clumsiness,” he said when speech was possible to him, “because she has made me laugh on an evening that has been barren of amusement.”

Six times the lighted candles appeared from nowhere while the voice of the magician continued its discourse. He found ways to dispose of them that caused laughter. Between the outbursts the hall possessed itself in silence, all eyes fixed on the thin fingers of the Samaritan where the candles sprouted so mysteriously.

A middle-aged man sat at Nero’s right hand. The top of his head was bald and as white as newly quarried marble. He had an intelligent dark eye in a plump face and he was attired with fastidious care.

“He is a vile fellow, this Simon,” said the middle-aged man at this point, leaning closer to Nero, who was still nursing his amusement. “He is so very ugly that he makes my flesh creep. But this must be said for him: he is an artist.”

“An artist?” The Emperor’s voice showed that this point of view came to him as a surprise. “Come, Petronius, you are leading up to one of your quips. A paradox, perhaps. You do not believe this fellow to be an artist. Can there be artistry in as low a trade as the making of magic?”

“There is artistry,” declared Petronius, watching the thin streak of light in the green cymophane ring he was wearing, “in the building of a dry wall, in the flexing of a bow, in the concoction of a double-faced tart
to tickle the palate of a Caesar and smear the cheeks of his greedy henchmen.” The leader of the party of sybarites raised his eyes to look across the floor at the magician. “Observe, O Caesar! Have you ever seen anything more like the black birds of death than this creature from the East in his severe robe and his face powdered to look like the bare bones of a skull? Everything he does, every movement of his body, has been carefully planned and timed. Consider how deftly he leads you first to wonder and then to laughter.”

While Petronius whispered Simon continued to talk, but he had lost the attention of the Emperor. “He can put dread in your heart by the way he walks. His feet move like the feet of cruel, mythical birds, stalking, slinking, stealing up on you. There is a suggestion of evil in the way he curls up his toes. And see how he moves his arms. They are like shafts of tempered metal, and his hands are like the heads of serpents, poised and ready to strike.”

“Yes, yes, Petronius,” said Nero, who was now watching Simon with eyes that had discovered in him new fascination. “As always, my Petronius, you are right. It amazes me how infallibly you detect these things.”

What followed immediately made it seem possible that Simon had heard what they were saying. He changed his tactics and ceased to startle and amuse them with lighted candles. His hands, which had seemed to Petronius like the heads of serpents, justified the comparison by reaching out with the speed of a fang and whisking away the flowers that stood in the center of one of the tables. A snake with a coral band bound round its neck had been coiled beneath the bouquet. It raised itself and hissed at the startled occupants of the table. Simon pointed a finger at it, and the snake shriveled and disappeared. A moment later he stopped a waiter who was hurrying by with a covered dish. With a quick movement of his arm the Samaritan drew off the cover, and it was found that the dish contained not a Janus tart of rich plums or a cluster of sweetmeats, but the same snake with its identifying coral band and its flattened head darting viciously over the rim.

Continuing his discourse, Simon paced about the floor, throwing guests into paroxysms of terror by discovering the snake in the folds of robes, under chairs, and once in the horn of a musician. Finally he came to the climax of the evening’s amusement by raising his eyes to a pillar, at the base of which sat a self-important politician and his fat wife. Following the direction of his glance, the company saw that the snake was
beginning to slither down the pillar, its head thrusting out this way and that as it slowly writhed its way down.

The pair below were unaware of what was going on and continued with what they had been doing, the husband drinking wine and the wife eating a bunch of grapes with exaggerated good manners. Every eye in the room was fixed on them by this time in delighted anticipation.

Hearing a rustling sound finally, the wife looked up to find the head of the serpent directly above her. Her lips opened and she emitted a sound like a cork being drawn from a bottle. Then she toppled over, sprawling on the floor in a dead faint.

Each time the snake had appeared Nero had gone through the process of mounting hysteria, culminating in wild peals of laughter, but at this point his sides heaved and he rolled on his couch in a perfect orgy of delight.

Simon waited for the laughter to subside. After a glance at the figure of the woman lying unnoticed on the floor, her face pressed into the squashed grapes, he raised both hands in the air to compel the giggling, guffawing revelers to silence. Then he walked forward until he stood directly in front of the breathless Emperor.

“O Caesar,” he said, “I offer a suggestion for your august consideration, in due humility but with a conviction that much good would come of it. There is a test I desire to make.”

“What is this test, Simon Magus?” asked Nero.

The magician raised both of his arms in a passionate gesture. His face, carefully powdered as the observant eyes of Petronius had detected, turned even whiter. There was a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

“A test of power, O Caesar!” he cried. “Match me against the Christians like gladiators in the Arena. I, Simon of Gitta, called the Magician, against these men who prate of humility but who say they can perform even as Jesus of Nazareth.”

Nero leaned forward, his interest sharply aroused. “A match against the Christians?” he cried. “But how, how? What would be the nature of this match?”

“Summon us before you to show what we can do. I have certain wonders to perform. Let them do these miracles of which we hear so much. You, O Caesar, to be the judge between us. I am weary of the din they raise. Wherever I go they say to me, ‘You, Simon, you are bold to stand up and make magic where Jesus of Nazareth performed His miracles. What great conceit is this you have of yourself,’ they ask. They call me
the Bad Samaritan and they make mock of me. I shall not rest until I have proven to all mankind that Simon of Samaria can perform greater miracles even than their master who died on a cross at Jerusalem.”

The Emperor’s fingers plucked at his chin as though he missed the auburn beard he had sacrificed to the shears of tradition a short time before. He turned an eye in the direction of Petronius.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Do you favor, my Petronius, this contest he desires so fiercely?”

The sybarite did not seem much impressed. “It might prove amusing, O Caesar,” he said indifferently.

A squat, black-browed man, even more vainly attired than Petronius and loaded with jewelry, appeared at the Emperor’s left side and began to speak in his ear.

“We can make good use of this plan, O Caesar,” he whispered. “It may drag the leaders of this troublesome sect out of their holes. You know how numerous they are becoming and how secretly they spread their nets.”

“You are right, Tigellinus.” Nero continued to press his nervous fingers on the bare expanse of his chin. “They are all around us. They delve in the ground like moles. They frighten me because I do not know what they want. Yes, let us bring them out of their holes. Question this fellow, Tigellinus, as to how he wants to have his test.”

The captain of the Praetorian Guard stepped forward and faced the magician. “Simon of Gitta,” he said in a tone of authority, “tell us who these leaders of the Christians are.”

“Their acknowledged leader is here, a man of Galilee, a poor fisherman. His name is Simon, but he is called Peter. It is said of him that wherever his shadow falls the sick become well and the lame walk. They say he raised a woman named Dorcas from the grave at Lydda. He is a humble man, but he has a bold plan in his head: to make Rome the center of the Christian church. Summon this Simon called Peter to appear before Caesar and give proof of these powers he claims to have. Challenge him to raise the dead.”

The close-set eyes of Tigellinus were fixed on him with deep calculation. “And what can you do, Simon of Gitta? Can you also raise the dead?”

Simon lifted his arms again. “This I declare before Caesar and all those who sit at his feet. No man can bring the dead back to life. I, Simon of Gitta, cannot do it. I defy this boastful man Peter to come forward and perform this feat.”

“What, then, do you propose to do?”

Simon made his answer directly to the Emperor. “Can men fly like the birds of the air? The Jews have belief in a band of spirits they call angels. These angels are of great strength and they appear and disappear in the sky. They have wings more powerful than those of the strongest eagle. It may be that there are angels and that they can fly. But can men fly?”

Nero turned to Petronius on his left. “Tell me, Petronius, have men ever flown?”

The leader of the party of sophistication seemed to take small interest in the matter. “Stories have been told of men flying, but I don’t believe them to be true. It is certain that no one has ever seen them fly.”

“I will fly!” cried Simon. “This is what I propose. I shall build a tower, a tower higher than any building in Rome. I will build it wherever is deemed best. If Caesar gives his august consent, I should like to place it in the imperial gardens so that the ruler of all the world could watch what I shall do without any trouble. From the top of this high tower I shall launch my body into space and fly out over Rome.” He paused and looked about him with glittering eyes. “I defy Simon called Peter to fly as I shall fly, in the sight of all Rome, high up in the sky with no wings to support me and naught but the divine spirit that animates my body.”

The young Emperor had listened to this discussion with every evidence of excitement. He was leaning forward to watch Simon, his eyes seeming to protrude from his face more than ever, his hands gripping his knees tightly.

“Build your tower, Simon Magus!” he cried. “Build it here in the gardens of my palace and do it quickly. I shall wait for this contest with the greatest impatience.”

Still busy at his task, Basil became aware that the behavior of Caesar’s guests was getting progressively worse. Incredible things were happening throughout the banqueting hall, actions and caresses that none save the most hardened could contemplate without shame. It became impossible for him to concentrate on his work in such an unhealthy atmosphere. Collecting everything into the blue cloth, he made his way out. After several false starts he found his way back to the hall that led to his room.