The Silver Chalice (72 page)

Petronius was not prepared to give way. He approached Nero and said to him in a low tone of voice: “What you propose will be extremely unpopular with the people. Your leniency in the past has made you much loved, and those who admire you for it will not understand. They will be shocked and horrified and they will say, ‘What has come over the master we have loved so well?’ Think carefully before you commit yourself to this course.”

“O Caesar!”

A woman’s voice had been raised from the body of the hall. When all eyes were turned in the direction from which the sound had come, it was seen that Helena had left her couch and was approaching the open space at the foot of the steps. Her face was pale and wore a look of inflexible determination.

“Caesar may well be disturbed over the spread of this religion,” she declared, coming to a stop where the two forgotten gladiators still stood with their drawn swords. “Does he know the extent to which it has penetrated into his own household? Is he aware that it is growing all the time, that converts are added almost every day? This much he should know, that many of the high officers of his household are Christians and that they stand together in everything.”

“What proofs have you of what you are saying?” demanded Nero.

“The truth of what I say is known to every guest who sits here tonight,” declared Helena. “I have dared to speak. Perhaps now there are others who will come forward and say that they know the situation to be a serious one.”

“Are you charging that there is a conspiracy in my household?” Caesar’s voice showed how seriously disturbed he was. “Do you think they plan to—to use violence as in the case of Quintus Clarius? Is this
what you are trying to tell me? Speak up, woman. You need not have any fear of consequences.”

“There is plotting going on, Caesar. To what end I cannot say.”

Nero had been taken by surprise. His face, after turning an angry red, had become pale, and there was a suggestion of panic in his protuberant eyes. He looked at the faces about him as though fearing to find in them confirmation of the alarming hint that a conspiracy was being hatched against him in his own household.

“Tigellinus!” he cried. “Tigellinus, can this be true? If such desperate things are afoot, I should be told, I should be protected! Why have you not placed guards about me? Why is an attack on my person made so easy for these conniving traitors?”

“Caesar need feel no alarm,” said Tigellinus, who was watching Helena as though gauging her value as an instrument. “The necessary steps are taken at all times to protect your sacred person, O master. I am well aware that there are many Christians among your servants. A few may hold posts of responsibility, but most of them are slaves; it seems to be a faith best suited to those who exist in slavery. As to this talk of a conspiracy, it shall be investigated, quickly and thoroughly, but I am not prepared to believe yet that there has been any actual plotting against the person of our beloved ruler.”

“We must be sure, we must not be overconfident!” cried Nero. He turned and pointed a finger in the direction of Helena. “We must have names. You have brought a serious charge and now you must support it by giving the names of those involved. I insist on knowing everything.”

“It is not hard to give you names, O Caesar.”

Helena glanced about her, and her eyes came deliberately to rest on Juli-Juli, who had betaken herself to one side and was now seated on the floor.

“Question this slave who has just danced for your amusement.”

Juli-Juli had been unbuckling the straps of the sandals. When she heard this, her fingers became stiff and cold and could not continue with their task.

The assurances of Tigellinus had not served to dispel Nero’s alarm. He seized upon this first piece of tangible information. “Tigellinus!” he cried. “Question this girl. We must get at the truth. We must not wait. A moment’s delay may defeat us.”

The captain of the Guard looked down gruffly at the small figure in yellow and green sitting on the floor. “You have heard what has been
said,” he declared. “Stand up and answer. Be quick about it. I want you facing me.”

Septimus, sitting beside Basil, had been giving him a whispered report of what was happening. The latter watched Juli-Juli with the deepest apprehension. He found himself shaping a desperate appeal in his mind. “O Jehovah!” he prayed silently. “Do not let this brave little child suffer. Look down on her, O Lord, and protect her from this evil.”

The dancer rose slowly to her feet and stood facing her questioner, a sandal in each hand. All the brightness with which she had danced had gone out of her, but she showed no signs of fear. She looked steadily into the eyes of Tigellinus.

“You heard me ask if you are a member of the Christian sect. Is it true?”

The girl answered in a clear high voice that carried no suggestion of hesitation or unwillingness. “I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus died on the cross that men might be saved. I believe in the everlasting life.”

A blaze of red took possession again of the broad face of Nero. He pointed at the royal sandals with a finger that trembled in fury. “Take them from her!” he cried. “They have been profaned. Everything this girl touched has been profaned. Tigellinus, see that it is all destroyed. Have a fire here in the full sight of everyone.” His voice rose to as high a note as any he achieved in his singing. “The dignity of the throne must be protected. Do as I bid you, Tigellinus.”

The captain of the Guard proceeded to carry out this order. He yanked the sandals from her without ceremony, then he turned her about and tore the wings from her shoulders. An order in the meantime had sent his morose assistant to collecting the articles the guests had loaned, unwillingly in some cases, for the dance. The matron flinched when her cap was demanded, crying: “You must not take my pin. It is very valuable. It cost many thousand sesterces. Take your hands from it, do you hear!” Her husband said between gritted teeth, “Make no scene, you fool; let them have the cap, stick and all.” The gauzy scarf and the senator’s wreath caught fire as soon as a light was applied to the heap on the marble floor. The citrus wood of the sandals began to burn, and an aromatic odor filled the room. Everyone knew that from this moment forward it would be highly unsafe to make any reference to the Dance of the Sandals of Caesar.

“May the taint in my household be removed as easily and as thoroughly!” cried Nero. He turned again to Tigellinus. “Have this girl put
into the wall bracelets. A night spent in them——” He faced about, and it could be seen that his nose was twitching and that the grip of his anger had brought out splotches of purple on his brow and cheeks. “A whole night of it will prepare her to talk in the morning. She will be only too glad to tell you all she knows about this conspiracy then, this secret plotting and conniving. Remember this, Tigellinus. We must have names. Do you hear me? We must have them all. None of the guilty is to escape us.”

Tigellinus summoned two officers to take Juli-Juli in charge. They bound her arms behind her back with rough hands and then led her down the marble steps she had climbed in her dance with so much gaiety and abandon. It was not until she was seen between the two burly guards that the company realized how small she was. She walked with her head raised, her eyes fixed on the lofty arch of the ceiling. Where the rest of the company saw nothing but the dark shadows, the blackness of the dusty stone, she was aware of a great light breaking through, and of music, high and clear and celestial.

“She will tell us all we need to know after a night in the bracelets,” promised Tigellinus. “If she does not talk willingly, we will know how to make her.”

“Yes!” cried Nero. “We must have names, Tigellinus. All the names.”

“O Caesar!”

It was Helena again. She had remained where she was and now she took a step forward and rested one foot on the lowest of the steps.

“As you desire names, I have one more to offer. Ask the artist who did these models of you, O Caesar; this sculptor who has come from Antioch on an undisclosed mission. Ask him why he is here. Ask him if he is a Christian.”

There was a long pause. Nero looked startled and thoroughly dismayed. Then he said in a hurt tone: “No, no! Not this man for whom I have done so much! Not my own discovery, my little genius!”

“Question him, O Caesar.”

Septimus explained to his companion in a desperate whisper, “She has named you!” When he heard this Basil was certain that his heart had stopped beating. He was conscious at first of nothing but a great fear, a panic that took possession of him and urged that he run from the hall, that he never stop until he had put the court of Nero far behind him. Then he became afraid of his own lack of resolution and he said to himself: “I am going to play the coward. I am going to lie to save my life. I lack the courage of that poor little dancer.”

Nero was staring into the corner where the man he had discovered and honored was sitting. He pointed a forefinger.

“You have heard!” he cried. “Stand forth and give us your answer!”

A miracle happened then in the heart of the young sculptor. A sudden surge of exultation swept over him, carrying away all his fears and uncertainties. He knew then that his belief in the teachings of Jesus had ceased to be a detached conviction, as cold and considered as a mathematical problem. He believed with his heart, and he was happy in his belief. He now felt the same ecstatic joy that he had seen so often in the eyes of others.

It seemed to him that his spirit had moved far away to a place where he heard calm voices speak, and there was a consciousness all about him of the forces that ruled destiny. The life he was living and the world in which he lived it shrank to the smallness of the vanished hours of a single futile day; and the fears growing out of this transitory existence were emotional phases that dissolved as easily as the scurrying minutes.

When he brought his mind back, it seemed to him that the hall was flooded with a great light, a brighter illumination than the sun had ever supplied.

He rose to his feet and, as he did so, he could hear the words of Cephas:
“In the stress of such a moment your eyes will be opened. The tinder in your heart will take fire.… You will cry out what you believe and you will want everyone to hear!”

It had come about as Cephas had promised. His heart had taken fire. He wanted to cry out before the court of Nero so that everyone would hear.

He heard himself saying in a voice that was calm in spite of the spiritual excitement that filled him: “I am a Christian, O Caesar. I believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Few people in the hall understood the words, but the meaning was clear to them all. There was a moment of silence. Then Nero coughed and gave the familiar nervous catch of his breath that grew until it had become a torrent of almost insane laughter. At the peak of this outburst, however, he checked himself with startling abruptness. Silence again fell on the room. He turned his eyes to the row of clay models.

“I have made a grievous error!” he cried. “I have deceived myself and in doing so have deceived the world. I thought this man had genius in him. I praised his work. But now my eyes are opened and I see that all this”—he pointed an angry hand at the row of models—“is part of a conspiracy.
Observe! He has made me less than a divinity; he has made me no more than a man. I can see his purpose clearly now. Ah, how sly he has been, how cleverly he has shown weaknesses in me, making me look covetous and angry and—and
weak!
It has been deliberately done, a scheme to belittle me in the eyes of my subjects, to destroy me for posterity!”

He turned with sudden ferocity and seized the nearest of the models. Raising it above his head, he dashed it to the ground, where it broke into small fragments.

Basil said to himself: “This is the end. I will be sent down to stand in the bracelets with the little dancer. Tomorrow we will both die.” He was not conscious of any fear. Before him stretched a few of the scurrying hours that would so quickly become a part of the past. They would be hard hours, filled with agony perhaps, but after them would come eternity, and the peace and joy he had glimpsed.

No one was looking at him. Every eye was fixed with a fascinated interest on the gesticulating figure of Nero. Septimus touched his arm and pointed down the marble steps behind them. There, back of a row of pillars, the four slaves had stationed themselves with the pastry cage.

“Get into the cage!” whispered Septimus.

Basil glanced about him. No one yet had eyes for anything but the scene being enacted at the royal table. He stole down the steps on cautious feet and ensconced himself in the cage. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then one of the slaves closed the pastry door. He found himself in darkness. There was another hesitation, a sound of whispering among the carriers. Then he felt them raise the conveyance. They moved slowly, casually.

Basil could hear Nero pouring forth his anger and bafflement in a continuing torrent of words. There was a crashing sound that meant that another of the models had been dashed to the ground. A third crash followed. Caesar did not intend to leave anything tangible as a reminder of his grievous error.

The easy, unhurried progress of the carriers continued unchecked. Basil heard the swinging doors move as he was carried through. And then the four slaves picked up their heels and ran as fast as their legs would carry them along the halls, the crust of the cage flaking down on the tense occupant and threatening a collapse of the pastry walls, the canaries too frightened to make a sound, the candles snuffing out in the rush of air, the candy bells breaking off and rolling in all directions on the dirty marble floor.