The Blood of the Martyrs (6 page)

The boys wondered whether these merchants made their money, and kept their wives, out of dye-factories: most likely. There was plenty of luxury industry of all kinds in Tyre, as well as shipping, and most of the big merchants had interests in other cities as well. They looked very fine,
great, bearded, dark merchant-adventurers, with gold rings in their ears and gold bracelets on their arms, striding about the docks or across the market squares of Tyre, men who could laugh at Emperors and legions, who would not bow to a Roman Governor or to any travelling king, descendants of the men who had defied Alexander. But that did not make them any nicer to deal with or any easier to forgive if you were a dancing boy hired from your master for an evening's entertainment.

But one day Manasses was made to dance during the morning for someone he had never seen, and then handled and priced, and told he was now going to Rome. He said gently that he would kill himself if Josias was not bought with him, for he knew that if Josias was left behind he would probably be sold back into the factory. After some grumbling, his purchasers agreed, and a few days later the two were on board ship, for the first time in their lives, sailing west.

During the next few years they were bought and sold several times, but were only separated once, and then Manasses found Josias again in the Jewish Quarter of Rome, where he had been kindly treated. Of course, Josias was always sold rather cheap, because of his limp and scars, but he was quiet and strong and didn't grumble so long as Manasses was treated properly. Sometimes they both asked in the Jewish Quarter whether anyone had a slave called Melchi, but they never found him; they wondered how long he had gone on saying the prayer.

In the meantime Manasses went on learning; sometimes he was one of a dozen or more dancers, but he did not make friends much. The rest were usually Greeks, and somehow he still did not care for the smell and touch of Gentiles. It was difficult to keep the Law; often they lost count of the days and never knew when it was Sabbath for weeks at a time, until they met another Jew who knew; but they tried not to eat forbidden food. Ordinarily, slaves got very little meat, but, of course, a dancer was different; he might be as valuable as a racehorse and had to have his oats! Manasses was gradually saving up a little bag of money, but he knew it would cost him a lot to buy his freedom. He learnt to
speak bad Latin, but Greek was almost a second language in Rome.

Rome was a great and horrible city; you could not think of the Kingdom there; it had become impossible, something not even to be hoped for. They usually said the prayer still, once a day at least, but mostly it meant no more than, say, touching an amulet. They did not talk any more about Jesus-bar-Joseph.

They were aware of large and evil forces moving over their heads, of masters not all-powerful, but themselves terrified. There was a time when Manasses was about fifteen. It was a big household; his master was a senator, a thin, nervous man with an odd habit of jerking his head about. Manasses was to dance Ariadne to the Bacchus of a rather older boy, a Greek. He was making up, darkening his eyes and powdering his cheeks and arms, while one of the others tied back his hair with a woman's fillet and Josias massaged his legs, pushing up the long, flame-coloured girl's tunic, that would swirl about in the dance. ‘Who's going to be there?' he asked, but the overseer put a finger to his lips. ‘Don't you ask tonight, boy.'

That made him all the more curious, and when he went in he wondered who was the handsome, rather soft-looking young man, with only the beginnings of a beard, to whom everyone was paying so much attention. It was fairly obvious that it was this young man who was to be danced to and glanced at, and Manasses did his best. In the end the young man beckoned him up, gave him a piece of gold and then explained very seriously that in one movement he had not interpreted the music as he should have. To Manasses's great surprise, the young man rose, throwing aside a most beautiful purple cloak, clapped his hands for the musicians and proceeded to give his own interpretation of the passage. He certainly danced well for an amateur, allowing himself to be clasped in the most realistic way by the Bacchus, who was overacting through sheer nervousness, and everyone applauded tremendously, including Manasses.

Walking back to the couch, the young man stopped and fondled the kneeling Manasses, who thought he had the usual Gentile or Roman smell of overeating. ‘I hope the
boy is being seriously trained,' he said. Someone else said, ‘Not so well as he would be at the Palace!' And then the host began, ‘Oh—allow me—if I might offer him as a small gift—the honour would be mine—' It only then occurred to Manasses that the young man was Nero Caesar, the new Emperor.

Manasses did not mind being given to Nero, so long as Josias was included, and they were sent off to the Palace, where, as a matter of fact, he only saw the Emperor half a dozen times. He was one of several hundred slaves, many of whom were dancers, actors, acrobats or musicians. Sometimes he was part of the background for the great dancer Paris, who did him the honour of kicking him one day. Usually he had to entertain the more important slaves or freedmen; he trusted no one and was sometimes nasty to Josias, who, in turn, grew sullen. And he got to know some useful things about poisons. Also he got to know by sight the Emperor's mistress, beautiful, discreet Claudia Acté, the Greek freedwoman, a little older than the boy Nero, approved of by his friends but not by his mother.

One evening there was a row. Old Pallas, the financial secretary, was beating up a girl who didn't want to sleep with him, and, if you knew what he was like, you couldn't blame her, but still she'd been sent in by her Madam, and she was a slave, so she didn't have any choice. But she kept on screaming that she was a dancer and not a whore, and he kept on answering the way that sort of man answers that sort of woman, and at last he got in a kick that knocked her out, and there she lay, bleeding a little, and Pallas stalked out. Some of the slaves had been watching behind the curtains, but they weren't going to interfere. The girl groaned a bit and flopped her hands, but it was none of their business to pick her up. It was a kind of passage room, that you went through if you didn't want to go through the public courts, and by and by Claudia Acté slipped in, with a veil over her head and shoulders. She saw the girl on the floor and went straight and knelt beside her and lifted her head, and spoke to her in Greek. Then she looked up and saw the slaves in the doorway and called sharply, ‘Here, one of you, come and help me!'

Most of them just dissolved away, for they were more afraid of Pallas than of Acté, and anyhow why should they help? But it came to Manasses that he was a Jew and therefore braver than these Greeks and Bithynians, and besides he had once believed in the Kingdom and all that went with it, so he came. Acté asked him where the girl could be put safely, and Manasses thought of an attic where there would probably be an old mattress; they carried her there between them and for the moment he did not care if Pallas was told. Then he got water and some rags to wash her. When he came back, Acté was holding the girl's hand and praying, her eyes shut. Manasses listened and heard words of the kind he knew and a name he used to know very well, by virtue of which Acté meant to put calm and healing into the hurt girl on the mattress. He said nothing, but bathed her head, and soon she opened her eyes and smiled at Acté; there was a cut on the corner of her mouth that kept on bleeding a little, but it was not deep and would not scar her. Then the girl began to twitch and look frightened, and tried to get up. Acté stopped her and said, ‘He will not get you. Keep quiet.'

‘But when they hear—' said the girl, her voice sticky with fear of her Madam.

Acté said, ‘I will see to it. You know who I am.'

‘Yes, Claudia Acté, we all know,' said the girl simply, and Acté blushed and looked a little troubled, but after a time the girl began to fidget and cry again, though there were no bones broken.

Acté laid one hand on her forehead and the other on her twitching fingers. ‘In the name of Jesus, rest,' she said. And, as Acté bent over her, still and intent, the girl calmed down and shut her eyes. But Manasses, looking at Acté thought of her not as a Gentile woman, but as someone in the Kingdom, and he became full of excitement and a hot desire of worship, with her and towards her. He began under his breath to say the words, ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name …' and for the first time for many months they began to mean something again. He was saying them aloud now and Claudia Acté joined in, saying them almost the same and at the end she looked very
happy and said, ‘I did not know you were one of us, brother. What is your name?'

Manasses told her and said, ‘But I did not know that the Kingdom could happen in Rome. How did you come to it, Claudia Acté, seeing that you are a Greek?'

‘But many Christians are Greeks,' said Acté, ‘and a few, even, are Romans. Did you think it was only for the Jews? Are you from the Church at Jerusalem?'

‘No,' said Manasses, ‘I have never been as far as Jerusalem'—for Jerusalem had seemed a very long way from Beth Zanita when he was a child— ‘and why do you say
Christians?
'

‘Because Jesus was the Christ,' she said, ‘the Redeemer. Surely you know that?'

‘I know that the things He said were the truth,' Manasses answered slowly, ‘and that He lived to show the truth.'

‘And died to show the truth.'

‘Because the rich would not let Him live. Because the things He said were against the rich and powerful.'

‘Because He had to die the slave's death to show that He was our brother as well as the Christ.'

‘But what is it to you, Claudia Acté? He was one of us; we have always had prophets. But the Gentiles never heeded them.'

‘He spoke for the world, for all who would take what He said. Why should you try to keep Him from me? Paul of Tarsus made it clear that He was for all!'

‘Who is Paul of Tarsus?'

‘He is a Jew, and it was he and Luke, who is a doctor and a Greek like me, who have been telling the rest of us what you would have kept for yourself, greedy boy.'

‘I—I am sorry, Claudia Acté; I never thought the Kingdom could be for the Gentiles, and I have heard nothing since we were in Rome: Josias and I. But if you can heal and if—if—I mean, when you called me brother, Claudia Acté—then you are in the Kingdom and it was only that I did not understand.'

Acté said, ‘Tomorrow is the Eighth Day and the breaking of bread. Will you come?' Manasses only looked puzzled. She smiled and said, ‘Surely you know about the breaking
of bread? No? Well then, you have not yet had real knowledge of the Kingdom. You have heard only half, Manasses. Are you baptised?'

‘I was purified in running water when I was a child,' said Manasses, and then he thought about all that had happened since and above all about the last months in the Palace and some of the things he had done or had done to him, and how he had not even minded, and he began to cry and said, ‘But now I am dirty again and full of sins, and I have not been able to keep the Law, and I have forgotten about everything and I did not know that Jesus was the Christ! I want to be purified again and born again, Claudia Acté!'

She looked at him very pitifully and said, ‘I think that can be done, Manasses, for you were only half baptised. Now, will you look after this girl for me?'

‘Yes,' he said, ‘I will do anything for you. But what am I to say if Pallas asks?'

‘Pallas will not be here much longer,' said Acté, and her face hardened. ‘I know that. Lie to him and tell the others they are to lie, or Acté will be very angry. We shall get Pallas out very soon.'

‘But the Empress—' said Manasses astonished, knowing that Pallas and the Empress Agrippina had acted together in the past, and now knew too much about one another ever to quarrel.

‘That account may be closed too,' said Acté, ‘but keep your mouth shut. Get the name of this girl's Madam, and go to her in the morning with this'—and she took a purse out of the fold of her dress and gave it to him— ‘and say that Acté needed the girl.' Watching him, she added, ‘It is good to know that I can trust you. I will send you word about the breaking of bread.'

He knelt in front of her as he had done as a child with Eleazer and said, ‘Give me a blessing.'

She laid her hands on his head and gave it and he forgot that she was a Gentile woman and only felt the blessing and the trust again, and knew that the teaching of Jesus was not in vain.

That was the beginning of many things, including his friendship with Lalage, the hurt girl. He and Josias came
to the breaking of bread and they learnt how in the love-feast all those eating together could be sure of the temporary experience of the Kingdom and got from it enough faith to go on in a world which seemed utterly against them. But even in Caesar's household and even under the protection of Claudia Acté, it was necessary to be very secret. Because the Kingdom of Heaven could only come—and this was plain to everybody—after the overthrow of the world of success, of Emperors and Governors, of priesthoods and Senate, of the rich and strong: the world of Rome. And the only thing worth asking for and living for was the coming of the Kingdom.

After a while they had one of the periodical siftings out of the Palace, and once more Manasses and Josias were sold, this time to a very respectable household, where Manasses was expected to do other things besides dance. Actually, his dancing did not improve at all after he was sixteen. He grew too tall and solid for the boy parts, and fortunately for him nobody had chosen to take effective physical measures to keep him young; it was not done quite so often to Jew boys because they made such a fuss and sometimes killed themselves. After a time he was allowed to cut his long curly hair; it curled still, but close over his head.