The Implacable Hunter

GERALD KERSH

For Ann Petrina Madsen

Contents

1. Title Page

2. Dedication

3. Preface to the 2013 Edition

4. Prologue

5. 1

6. 2

7. 3

8. 4

9. 5

10. 6

11. 7

12. 8

13. 9

14. Epilogue

15. Copyright

Preface to the 2013 Edition

At his death in 1968 Kersh had left us with a dazzling gallery of criminals and artists, characters filled with love and loathing, and carrying the seeds of their own destruction. It’s a mystery that he is not regarded as a great British writer of the twentieth century.

Christopher Fowler, Independent on Sunday, 18 September 2011

Forty-five years after he left us Gerald Kersh still suffers from little better than the ‘large, vague renown’ Orwell famously ascribed to Thomas Carlyle. He is remembered chiefly for Night and the City (1938), one of the great novels of London’s Soho, driven by its shabby anti-hero Harry Fabian. Jules Dassin’s 1950 film version starring Richard Widmark has certainly helped that book to endure. But Kersh’s novel lives on by itself because it teems with adroitly observed forms of (low) life, and it still feels like the real thing. Readers who come newly to Kersh usually sense quite soon from his salty, word-rich presence on the page that this was a writer who lived fully, and who never missed a trick. Evidently all he saw was of interest to him, not to say fair game.

Kersh does have his notable and steadfast champions today: Harlan Ellison has vigorously sought to promote awareness of a man whose talent he considered ‘immense and compelling’; Michael Moorcock is the ‘sometime executor’ of the Kersh estate and has kindly made possible Faber Finds’ reissues of a selection of Kersh’s finest works; while cinema-book specialist Paul Duncan has also been an avid advocate for Kersh, and is understood to have been at work awhile on a biography. What general readers may know of Kersh for the moment is largely down to the information these men have placed in the public domain.

Kersh was born in Teddington on 26 August 1911. Writing as a meaningful pastime came quickly to him, such that he soon sniffed a vocation. He quit schooling early, and raced through a succession of jobs as if seeking to go one better on Hemingway’s maxim that a novelist ought to have a friend in every occupation. In 1934 he published a roman-à-clef, Jews without Jehovah, but it wasn’t on sale for very long, since three uncles and a cousin of Kersh’s made out unflattering renderings of themselves within its pages, and sought legal redress – apparently a lasting source of tension at Kersh family occasions.

Following the outbreak of war Kersh joined the Coldstream Guards in 1940 and seems to have been rated a decent soldier. His first stint of leave was during the Luftwaffe’s Blitz, whereupon he narrowly escaped fatal injury but was thereafter reassigned to desk duties. In 1941 he drew on his Guardsman experience to write They Die with Their Boots Clean, a classic fictional account of basic training, and he enjoyed a surprise bestseller with a work that is richly illustrative of his gift for refining into print things you can well imagine he actually heard. (Finds offers the book, bound up with its sequel The Nine Lives of Bill Nelson, under the title given this pairing by their US publisher: Sergeant Nelson of the Guards.)

Thereafter Kersh would be phenomenally productive: a writer not merely of novels and stories but of journalism, sketches and columns, radio and documentary film scripts. After the war he settled in the US and there made himself a fixture in popular magazines that paid well for stories and brought him to huge readerships: the Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, Collier’s, Playboy. Kersh’s stories are the most accessible demonstration of his protean gifts: the strange and fantastical tales are especially cherished, and may be sampled in Finds’ reissues of The Horrible Dummy and Other Stories as well as a broader selection chosen by Simon Raven entitled The Best of Gerald Kersh. At the height of this productivity came three of his most admired novels: Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1947), The Song of the Flea (1948), and The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small (1950).

Kersh wrote so much, his printed output was so compendious, that one might suppose he never had time to blot a line. And yet his sentence-making is remarkably strong. He was both a singular talent and a hard grafter: a crafter of sentences, spinner of yarns, scholar of human follies. His living by the pen, however, seems to have been rarely better than precarious, for a variety of reasons: he had money troubles, personal troubles, health troubles, and over time these tended to come at him in battalions. Amid this turmoil he could still produce Fowler’s End (1958), judged by Anthony Burgess as ‘one of the best comic novels of the century’. Burgess was also a champion of The Implacable Hunter (1961); and The Angel and the Cuckoo (1966) earned Kersh more high praise. But by then he was very nearly through: he died in New York on 5 November 1968, aged fifty-seven. He remains one of those writers perpetually in need of revival, admired by near enough all who read him, awaiting still his golden hour of evangelism. The reader, if not already a convert, is warmly invited to start here.

As the second most formidable figure in the New Testament Saint Paul is of obvious interest to writers of all stripes, despite (or because of?) the fact that scriptural accounts are the only sources we have by which to know him. Yet the literary worth of his Epistles, above all in their King James rendering, is so great that attempts to attain a psychological insight into his character are only natural. For a novelist the challenge has an obvious savour to it, and yet it’s one that has been rarely taken up.

Paul does make a memorable fantasy cameo in the celebrated final act of Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation (1954), as the former ‘bloodthirsty Saul’, ‘a squat, fat hunchback, still young, but bald’, whose zeal to preach of his conversion to Christianity is briefly derailed when he runs into an ageing Jesus of Nazareth who insists that he never died on the cross. Still, after a brow-furrowed pause Paul presses on regardless, more or less threatening the Messiah that he will finish the job himself if needs be. Kazantzakis’ Paul is ‘like a famished wolf, running to eat up the world’: he goes forth in his evangelising mission already anticipating the ‘joy’ of being ‘shunned, beaten, thrown in deep pits and killed’.

In The Implacable Hunter Gerald Kersh follows a more rugged, thorny path towards an understanding of Paul. Not for him the biblical years in which the narrative line is tolerably clear: Kersh concerns himself with that bloodthirsty period in which Saul of Tarsus was the vigilant and diligent scourge of Nazarene Christians. (And Kersh’s Saul bears two names within these pages, just as a Jewish native of Tarsus who was also a Roman citizen would have done: Saul a natural choice in memory of Israel’s first king, Paulus equally obvious for a Roman.)

Kersh tells the tale from the vantage of Diomed, Roman prefect in Tarsus, who makes himself a mentor to young Saul, only to be much amazed by what follows. The path takes Kersh and his readers all the way to the famous Damascene conversion where a peculiar vision (or ‘episode’) causes scales to fall from Saul’s eyes. But the purpose of the journey is really to examine how this Pharisee, who took the Torah as divine law and policed the hard barriers between Jew and Gentile, turned into the man who could write ‘For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.’ (Galatians 2:19) To this end Kersh occupies Paul’s mind on the page in ways that stimulate and fascinate. We are quickly made aware of his obvious abhorrence of the notion that a crucified criminal could possibly be ‘the light of the world’; and yet in his mission to purge the Roman-occupied lands of the Christ cult Saul/Paulus confronts sights that unnerve his conviction – none more forcefully than the stoning of Stephen, which Kersh re-imagines from the Book of Acts with great skill.

Along the route there are other insights into a mind ill at ease: scholars have assumed Paul never married, but Kersh endows him with a beautiful wife. This good fortune, however, doesn’t prevent Kersh’s Paul from expounding anti-female opinions of a disturbing virulence to his friend Diomed – views a good deal stronger, even, than those expressed in the Epistles that have given Paul such a bad reputation for misogyny, and which accordingly received close attention from revisionist scholars. Elsewhere, though we know little of Paul’s parentage, his father is accorded a significant place in Kersh’s narrative – in such a way as to make us ponder the possible reasons why a Jew who was the son of a Roman citizen might first have done murderous service to Rome, only to remake himself as a subversive antagonist of both the Pharisees and the Emperor. By the time Kersh’s magisterial novel closes – returning to the Neronian court where it begins – these great mysteries have been both deepened and elucidated.

Richard T. Kelly

Editor, Faber Finds

July 2013

Prologue

PAINTED as I was with a savage’s pattern of inlaid red dust mixed with sweat that filled the countless folds and wrinkles in my battered face, and mounted on a lame clay horse, my old friend Marcus Flaminius did not know me until I called him by name in the courtyard of his pretty villa on the outskirts of Antium.

‘Diomed!’ he said, and caught me as I dismounted, for I was stiff in every muscle and sore in every bone from the long ride. ‘Diomed, old friend, where have you sprung from?’

‘Home,’ I said.

‘You seem to have come in a devil of a hurry.’

‘I did.’

‘Come in, come in! You have spoiled a good horse there.’

‘Yes. And left a better one dead on the road,’ I told him.

‘Not the mare Daphne?’

‘Yes. She burst her heart thirty miles back.’

‘Aie-aie! Then you are in a hurry indeed, Diomed! First drink some wine. Then tell me who’s after you. This is not much of a place to hide in, but we’ll see what we can do.’

‘I’m not hiding, my dear Flaminius. But if I might beg a bath, the loan of your barber, something to eat, and leave to rest a couple of hours, one or other of my men will catch me up, bringing fresh clothes.’

‘You know very well that my house is yours. How long have you been in the saddle?’

Gratefully drinking, I replied: ‘A hundred miles or so. If you love me, give me another pillow – I am not the man I was forty years ago.’

‘You always were made of iron. We are of an age, I think, give or take a year. What are you, sixty-nine? And look at you: iron, bronze, rock. “A hundred miles or so” – just like that! If I rode twenty I’d drop dead. It is as much as I can do to travel a day’s journey in my chair.’

‘I rather think I’ll trouble you for a loan of that same chair, when I go to pay my visit,’ I said.

‘And who are you visiting so urgently at Antium?’ he asked.

‘Nero.’

He raised his brows. ‘By Hermes and by Aphrodite, you choose a pretty time to visit that one!’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Oh, he’ll spare me a quarter of an hour from his falsetto singers and his Greek bugger-boys,’ I said. ‘I’m bringing him a gift’ – I tapped with my knuckles a narrow box which I had been holding on my knees.

Marcus Flaminius said: ‘There is something strange about this. Diomed is not in the habit of burning up the road and killing blood mares riding through the night, to bring gifts to Caesar.’

‘I have a favour to ask of him.’

‘Out of character again, and an unpropitious time.’

‘The gift, I hope, will make the time propitious,’ I said.

‘What is it?’ Flaminius asked.

‘A sword,’ I said; and the consternation on his face would have made me laugh if I had not been so tired.

‘Now look here, Diomed – you put me in a very queer position here, you know! I protest, I’m too old and weak, now, for such games. It is not as if I had been made privy to any plan, or anything. You’re my friend, and I’ll stand by you; but under protest! Leave the young fool alone, I say, and he’ll kill himself. He’s well on the way to doing it already. Insurrection in Gaul, they tell me; Vindex showing his teeth. Galba growling in Spain. Britain in turmoil, and the Londinium garrison wiped out. Pompeii gone with a whuff – dust and ashes. Rome in chaos. Have sense, man! But here you, Diomed of all created men, here you come riding like a madman out of the night with a sword for Caesar!’

‘Oh, be quiet!’ I said. ‘Do you think I’d ride Daphne to death for a flea-bite of an assassination? I say, I have a favour to ask.’

‘For the moment I thought you were going to –’ Flaminius drew a finger across his throat.

‘No, I want him to spare me a man’s life.’

‘Well, but why the sword?’

‘Because he’ll like it. It is the sword of the Great Alexander, taken from the King of Persia’s tent; the same sword Alexander killed Hephaestion with. Complete with scabbard, attested history, affirmed pedigree, and all. It was one of the gems of Barbatus’s collection. Look and see.’

I opened the box and showed my friend the sword.

‘Aie!’ cried Flaminius. ‘Nero would give you anybody’s life you like, for a thing like that. He’s got Alexander’s shield already; or thinks he has. Whose life d’you want?’ he asked, in his pouncing way.

‘A Tarsian Roman. A Jewish Nazarene,’ I answered.

‘But the Nazarenes are in terribly bad odour, you know – they brought down the wrath of the gods on Rome in the form of heavier taxation, and what not…. Well, so long as the sword is simply a gift … even so, I’d choose my little speech very carefully before I offered a sword to Nero at this moment, my friend. But, gods! What a beauty! Let me hold it once again. What steel! … By the bye, Diomed, did you remember to bring side-arms – if I may use the expression – under your clothes?’

‘Was I born yesterday?’ I asked; and showed him a number of little bags of gold coins fastened to a sling over my shoulder.

‘I was going to say; if not, my purse is yours.’

‘Thanks. Let me bathe and be shaved, and sleep just two hours, and when my men come up I’ll dress and take my chance.’

‘The Officer in Waiting today is one Leitus Rufus. Mention my name … and give him fifty gold pieces…. What is this man to you, anyway?’

‘My friend. What would you think of me if you were under a death sentence, and I didn’t put myself to some little inconvenience for your sake?’

‘Alas, Diomed; we are the last of the old breed, are we not? Friendship was a sacred thing, in our day.’

‘Yes. And now, for pity’s sake let me be rubbed with oil, for I swear by all the gods that I feel, all at once, every ache and pain and fatigue I have endured this past seventy years, back to the very bruises of birth!’

So, my servants having come at last, flogging their jaded horses, and I shaved and trimmed and anointed, dressed with appropriately discreet richness, and went to Nero.

My name, it appeared, was not unknown. I was received without much delay, and conducted into a large, cool marble room pierced with great windows, through which came the sight and smell of the sea.

He was fidgeting in an ivory chair, in a litter of scrolls: a large young man with red-gold curls, the face of a pretty child debauched, and the body of one of those correctly-muscled men that sculptors like to use as models for athletes but blurred in its definition, curiously pasty. Yes, take some second-rate marble Apollo, give it a perfectly even coat of tallow as thick as your thumb, and there you have Nero.

‘State your business,’ he said, as from an immeasurable distance. ‘What is that you are carrying? Speak.’

I said: ‘Caesar, you have heard of Barbatus, whose eye for the rare and the beautiful was comparable only with your own?’

‘Yes, of course I have heard of Barbatus – he had some exquisite pieces, some of which have come my way. Is that one of them?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is Alexander the Great’s own sword, which he took from the Persian Darius. It is the sword with which Alexander slew his friend Hephaestion. Here are the documents to prove it’ – I offered him a golden scroll-case and a letter.

‘The sword, the sword, let me see the sword,’ he said, petulant as a pampered child.

And he beckoned to two soldiers, who stood very close behind me while I unwrapped the box. Making no sudden movements, I took out the sheathed sword and placed it in his hands. Nero looked at the jewelled hilt for a long time, and then from it to the great rings on his fingers: their bezels gripped more jewels but the hilt of that sword made the gems with which it was adorned live and glow.

He saw this, and pursed his rosy mouth thoughtfully. At last, he drew the blade, very slowly – and if true beauty lies in perfect function, that piece of steel was one of the wonders of the world.

I said: ‘Take care, Caesar – it will sever a hair at a touch.’

At this, he called: ‘A hair! Get me a hair!’

A naked boy, tressed like a girl, plucked from his head a long, curling, black hair, and offered it to Nero. He holding it at arm’s length between thumb and forefinger, touched the edge of the sword to it. There was an almost inaudible twang, and the hair was cut. Nero sheathed the sword and caressed it. He fondled the hilt, and ran his soft fingers over the carvings on the scabbard, smiling an odiously shy and voluptuous little smile.

‘They say that it is unlucky to accept a gift of a sword without shedding a little blood with it,’ he said.

I bared my right arm, boldly, and held it forward.

‘Shed, Caesar!’ I said.

But he tickled my arm with his fingertip; my spine tingled with revulsion. ‘Oh, see what an arm he has!’ cried Nero. ‘The sinews! The thews! An arm of bronze – the aged Hercules!’

‘At your service,’ I said.

‘No. It would be a pity to cut such a fine arm. I need such arms, the gods know! … But perhaps this sword is not a gift?’ he asked, in a womanish, worried voice. ‘Perhaps you want to sell it?’

I was throwing my dice with my eyes shut, now; here was my strategy. I said: ‘If Nero is willing to pay the price I ask for it.’

‘I could take it, darling, for nothing, you know.’

‘Yes, but that would bring bad luck.’

‘What did you say your name was? Diomed? You are a brave man, Diomed, the bravest of the bravest of the brave! There now, I like you. Name your price. Anything you want – there!’

I pointed to a gold lyre by the window, and said in the Greek language which I knew he loved: ‘If Nero will improvise for me Alexander’s Lament for Hephaestion, I go home and die happy. That is my price.’

To my everlasting disgust, Nero leapt up and kissed me, smearing my mouth with paint. ‘The elegiac?’ he asked.

‘Yes, the hexameter-pentameter –’ I had been informed that this was one of his favourite poetic forms ‘– but not Ovidian. Ovid? Who was Ovid? In Asia it is Nero who is worshipped as the incarnation of Apollo.’ He was jealous of the fame of Ovid.

‘Great grief, but kingly grief!’ cried Nero. ‘Diomed you inspire me!’

‘Nero,’ I said, ‘Alexander’s sword has been in my possession these thirty years. Was I fit to draw it? No. I thought of Tiberius. No. Then Caligula. Certainly not. Claudius? Questionable. But in a dream a voice told me, Nero. I killed the finest horse in Italy to bring it to you forthwith for these are troubled times, Nero, and you must be our Alexander.’

Possibly one of the silliest speeches even I have ever made, but he fell upon my neck again, and shouted: ‘Wine, more wine! I cannot improvise without wine, white wine, lots and lots of cold white wine; sparkling, spuming, icy, white, white wine!’

Then he called in secretaries and soldiers to listen, and he made me lie on a couch hip-deep in sensuous cushions and sickly with strong perfumes, while the black-haired boy served me with wine. He put one foot on a stool, arranged the lyre on his knee, threw back his foolish golden head and, in a tremendous tenor voice, soullessly accurate and tallowy like his form, began to sing, shoving harsh handfuls of hastily-plucked notes into every halting ellipsis as one might hastily caulk a leaky boat in mid-stream with torn sacking.

‘Little Lucius!’ I thought. ‘It is Little Lucius! This is not Now and I am not Here…. It was all a dream, a devious and uneasy dream! …’

But it was not a dream, and I was here and in anguish for my friend; we being the last two left alive of Soxias’s guests.

‘Alas, alas!’ I thought. ‘There is no such thing as a dream!’

Nero was Nero, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch, and I was crafty old Diomed, a monolith of bygone days, and full of the facts of life if one knew how to read the runes of my lined face, and construe the cuneiform of my scars.

So, disciplined man that I am, while Nero sang and sang, and twanged and strummed, stopping my ears from within against his stridencies and his plangencies, I made myself remember why I was here …

1

AFTER dinner with Soxias, such of his guests as were sober enough to link sentence to sentence, or too replete to amuse themselves with the acrobats and the dancers, generally wound up a loose hour or two in scabrous gossip or in warming up stale tales of natural and unnatural love. All such smut is older than Egypt.

Now, Little Lucius – so called, because he was ridiculously corpulent – got up reeling to declaim, for the thousandth time, his rhyme about Sappho and the Mermaid. His voice was naturally sibilant and effeminate; now he forced it into two tones, one husky and passionate and the other coy and sniggering, accompanying his song with vibrant notes which he struck with his long finger-nails out of a gold goblet.

‘Your undivided attention, please,

To the fleshy tale of a fishy tail,

To the warm tale of a cold tail,

To the tale of an undivided tail,

And a hopeless love in the summer seas –’

he began.

His versifying was deliberately, exaggeratedly execrable: Lucius was grit between the teeth and alum in the mouth, and he rejoiced in the fact, after the manner of his kind. He had the power to irritate, to inspire ecstasies of revulsion and arouse agonies of disgust; and he exercised this power in order to excite violence, Thrashed, he cried: ‘More –!’ with a giggle. He exulted in the spectacle of exhausted rage.

So, in his own way, did Soxias, that connoisseur of breaking-points. That is why he usually let Little Lucius sing the entire three hundred staggering lines of his song, night after night; Soxias closed his ears and watched his guests with a small, sleepy smile.

And I watched Soxias.

Cneius Afranius said to me, looking towards Lucius: ‘His is the only kind of muck, Diomed, that Time cannot refine nor usage sanctify.’

I replied: ‘There are only two sexes, and the human body is capable of only a limited number of contortions and sensations. And take my word for it, Afranius – most of these contortions and sensations are much more painful than enjoyable.’

‘I take your word, Diomed,’ said Afranius. ‘You should know.’

‘Ask Melanion, then,’ I said.

The physician, Melanion of Cos, who had been listening, nodded, and said: ‘Diomed is right. Most sensation is unhealthy.’

‘Eating when you are hungry? Drinking when you are thirsty?’ asked Afranius.

‘Very mild enjoyments, to a healthy man,’ said Melanion. ‘Eating when you are famished and drinking when you are parched are a kind of agony. You try it and see. Only a well-nourished man can linger over the sensation of taste. When a man picks and chooses his food, he does not need it. If he does not need it, it is not doing him any good. Hence, it is superfluous. Ergo, it is unhealthy.’

‘Oh come,’ Afranius protested, ‘there is a kind of spiritual comfort in a little civilised superfluity.’

‘There is a kind of indigestion in it,’ said Melanion. ‘There is a kind of constipation in it. Find spiritual comfort in a belly full of the thirty-two winds, a mouth full of vinegar, and a liver like a penned goose’s.’

‘Ai, ai, ai! And the act of love?’ Afranius asked.

‘Sir,’ said the physician, ‘as a reasonably healthy man who has been young in his time, I can tell you that ecstasy in the act of love, as you call it, exists only in anticipation or in gaudy retrospect. It is, in fact, a figment of the imagination. Eh, Diomed?’

I said: ‘As a reasonably healthy man who is still far from old, I will agree that the sexual act is never what you expect it to be, and never what you think it has been and may be again. It’s a necessity of the body, a relief. You never really remember it.’

‘An itch and a scratch,’ said Melanion.

Continuing, I said: ‘– And even if you could, as a reasonably competent and entirely devoted officer of police, I say that Memory is the most inveterate liar in or out of Court.’

‘And where love is concerned, the most confounded bore,’ said Melanion. ‘Like pain. No man can remember pain. No woman, either. No bore like a lover – except an invalid.’

‘Pain,’ said Afranius, thoughtfully. ‘No, one cannot recall pain, Tortures – flogging, burning, flaying, and so forth – hurt the spectators more than the victims.’

I disagreed. ‘No. They love it. I know a kind-hearted old woman who sells honey-cakes. She doesn’t even brush the flies off her cakes for fear of hurting them. She never misses a crucifixion; goes to sell her cakes to the onlookers, but being unable to take her eyes off the men on the nails, she is invariably robbed. I asked her why she didn’t keep a better look-out for her goods, then.

‘She said: “I can’t help it, my lord. I look up and I see the poor fellow hanging up there bleeding and crying, and something seems to go out of me, like, near where I sit down, my lord; and my feet seem to leave the ground, and I can feel myself hanging up there on the nails; and then I heave a sigh, and I’m not up there, I’m down here, and so happy to be alive I don’t begrudge the few cakes the boys have stolen, but I give away some more. I mean, my lord, if we all got what we deserve, where should we be – saving your honour? And it’s as if that poor fellow dies in my place; and I feel like a young girl again, and my new-married husband putting out the lamp.”

‘Only a few of the mob jeer and throw dead cats. They hate the executioners, but in general they like the thieves. “Might be you or me,” they say. They are engrossed. I remember one crucifixion, for example: a bandit named Calchas tore one hand loose from its nail in his last struggles. And what did he do with it? He tried to cover his nakedness. And there was not a man in the crowd that did not drop a hand to his own groin.’

At this point, Soxias, in his twanging, husky voice that always reminded me of some primitive musical instrument made of dry gourd and stretched gut, called across the table: ‘Lucius, be quiet.’

Lucius, having drawn a deep breath, was beginning to change his metre to tell what happens to mermaid and mortal:

‘– When the prurient mulch laps the succulent ooze –’ or some such unappetising anapæst; and, enjoying himself, pretended not to hear.

But Soxias’s voice had a numbing quality. It forced most people to stop what they were saying or doing and listen to him, whether they understood him or not; and they did not always understand him at first. He spoke Greek with a sing-song of Aramaic, lisped Persian with a Dacian titter, muttered Armenian with an indrawn African hiss, and was fluent in Latin but with that indescribable big-tongued bubbling accent which has given us the word ‘Barbarian’. Listening to Soxias, one received the impression that he was drinking the language scalding hot and relishing every sip of it, to the sensitive hearer’s discomfiture.

He said again: ‘Lucius, be quiet! Compose a fresh song, or I think perhaps I will send you to Ptalep in Alexandria.’

‘What a name!’ Lucius giggled. ‘Like spitting out a pomegranate-seed. I’d love to meet Ptalep! Is he a poet?’

‘No,’ said Soxias,’ ‘a taxidermist. I will have you stuffed and mounted.’ As Lucius laughed, he went on, in an easy and confidential tone. ‘The skin comes off more easily when the subject is alive.’

‘Oh, but I’d love –’ Little Lucius began. Then, bold as he was, he stopped, and sat.

Soxias was a queer man to joke with. There were uneasy little stories current about him in Tarsus. For example: Two men met in hell. One asked the other: ‘Why, Decius, what brings you here so young?’ ‘Alas, Nonus! I laughed when I thought Soxias was jesting. He was not. And you?’ ‘Alas, Decius! I did not laugh when I thought Soxias was serious. He was jesting.’

For Soxias liked to be feared, and he knew that nothing is so frightening as the unpredictable, to all those who still cling to life and hope. So the gods are feared; and this strange, dangerous old man, having gnawed his way out of nobody knew what dark rat-holes in his unrecorded youth, and fought and bought his tortuous upward path, now sat among the gods, licked sleek if not clean and perfumed to drown the stench of a dozen drains. But the gods, as I read their histories, are nothing much more than over-indulged, bored children, hugely enlarged; and such, on the surface, was Soxias.

When the humour was on him he would squander fortunes on such follies as labyrinths leading nowhere, or marble staircases which at the touch of a lever became smooth inclines; and it was said of him that if a fly annoyed him he would have that fly’s life if it cost a million. He was at once grossly blatant and infinitely secretive, disguising a certain swift and tricky tortuousness under an appearance of transparency, just like a child; and, again like a child, possessed with that frantic curiosity which cannot examine without destroying, and that tedious humour which cannot jest without teasing. He loved to see people falling suddenly on their backsides. ‘The arse is the seat of all humour,’ he used to say; and went to fantastic lengths to demonstrate this.

Yet all the time Soxias grew richer and richer, by virtue of what appeared to be nothing but brutal cunning and a child’s (or a god’s) sublime disregard for the feelings of those upon whom he trod, coupled with a kind of prescience which was said to be magical. But I know something of the value of what appears to be nothing but brutal cunning and the fact of the matter is, that Soxias had his spies in every corner of the world; paid them generously, was astute in evaluating their reports, and swift to act. So I could guess that – since his mind was running on somebody in Alexandria – Soxias had had some news from Egypt, and that next year, or the year after that, there might be a rise or a fall in the price of grain.

Even while he was talking to Little Lucius, I caught the glint of his flat black eye as he looked sideways at me without turning his head. No doubt he was saying to himself, in whatever language he thought with: ‘Aha! The policeman’s nose twitches. Diomed has sniffed out Egypt. But Diomed knows that Soxias doesn’t drop loose words so he will say to himself: “If Soxias hints at the east, look to the west; probably there is trouble in Britain.”’

But No Doubt is one of Truth’s commonest enemies.

One thing was certain, now: that Soxias was determined to be amused; therefore, someone must suffer.

He turned to Paulus and asked: ‘What do you say? Shall I send Lucius to be stuffed?’

With a gesture that included the great table and Lucius’s preposterous belly, Paulus replied: ‘Why waste labour and money? You have already stuffed Lucius more generously than Ptalep ever could.’ Everyone laughed; nobody liked Little Lucius.

Soxias said: ‘Point of interest, Paulus – what would your god-in-the-box have to say to a stuffed Lucius?’

Paulus had a certain boxer’s knack of turning an enemy’s tactics to his own advantage. He was a master of the feigned miscalculation. His retreat was circular – a calculated kind of attack; and he was a born adept in the delicate art of making an opponent underestimate him by letting it be felt that he was underestimating his opponent. So the other man would, apparently negligent, leave a vital spot unguarded for a moment, to invite a blow that must miss and lay Paulus open to a smashing right hand: he was always surprised to find that he had been playing Paulus’s game, that his counter-stroke missed, that he was caught on one foot, off-balance, and at the quicker man’s mercy.

For this, among other good soldierly qualities, I had an affection for the man; and I said to myself: ‘Oho, Soxias! You have started the game, but I’ll wager a horse to a hen that I know who will finish it!’

‘Speak up, speak up,’ said Lucius.

Paulus said: ‘Why, Soxias, there would be nothing to say to a stuffed Lucius. Let out the squeal and the guts, and what is Lucius? A hide. You deal in leather, Soxias, among other things. Sell Lucius to a cobbler.’ Before Soxias could speak, he added, quickly: ‘But all the world knows that Lucius has a skin, a very thick skin. The mystery is, where does he keep his bones?’

A poor little joke, but young Paulus made it sound almost funny, he spoke with such earnestness, and looked about him with an air of shrewd inquiry. It was good enough to make Soxias laugh, and that was enough.

Ambassador to an unknown kingdom, governor of a sullen and insecure province, general of a mutinous army: somewhere in Paulus slept the seed of a clever handler of men. I thought that he had danced like a bullfighter between the horns of a threatening conversation. (At my table, I ban religion and politics.)

But Little Lucius, with honey in his voice and hate in his eyes, was at it again. ‘Soxias,’ he said, ‘I will write you a new song on a sacred theme – I have a Greek translation, from the Hebrew, of a delicious bit of erotica written by a Jewish king who fell in love with a black slut out of Africa. It is esteemed as holy by the Jews, my dear! I think I shall paraphrase it in Latin dactyls, like:

Careful King Solomon numbered his concubines

Counting the tits and dividing by two

– or perhaps I shouldn’t? Paulus’s god might not like it, eh, Paulus?’

Afranius said: ‘Leave the gods out of it.’

‘Eh, Paulus?’ Lucius persisted.

Paulus raised a hand as if he was about to speak, but he said nothing; he simply gazed, unblinking, at Lucius. Awaiting his reply, we were silent, and this sudden silence was curiously oppressive: it was as if everyone was holding his breath.

He rose, without haste – always gazing at Lucius – and went and stood over him. Then he stooped, and dipped a forefinger into Lucius’s cup. One lazy drop of the heavy dark wine hung at Paulus’s finger-tip. It seemed to hang there for a long time; Paulus’s hand was motionless, only the winedrop trembled and then fell with an inaudible splash on Lucius’s right wrist.

In a strange voice, soft yet strong with authority, gentle but exactly incisive, so that his words seemed, as it were, to punch little holes in the air, Paulus said: ‘You will not write your paraphrase, Lucius. Tonight you will sleep, and tomorrow when you arise your right hand will be palsied.’ Then he returned to his seat.

Lucius blinked, smiling crookedly, rubbing his wrist very hard with a napkin; and Melanion whispered to me, with a grim smile: ‘By the gods, Diomed, what a merchant they will make of this little Pharisee! And what a physician will be lost!’

‘Or soldier,’ I said.

And Lucius was now rubbing his wrist against his thigh, while Soxias, delighted with the atmosphere of consternation which Paulus contrived to spread – and being, I fancied, somehow namelessly afraid himself – laughed hoarsely; and sent over his cup, a great goblet of gold set with emeralds, crying: ‘Keep it for Solomon’s sake! … Serve you right, Lucius – every man for his own gods and devils! … Eh, Diomed?’

‘It is the policy of Rome –’ I began.

‘– Look out, gentlemen!’ cried Soxias. ‘Here comes Diomed the Manhunter! –’ he was amusing himself with me, now ‘– The names they call him in Tarsus! All cold-blooded, too: a turtle to snap, a crab to grip, a squid with eight arms to catch you and a bellyful of black ink to hide behind, an eel to slither away, a limpet to cling, an unopenable oyster –’

As he paused for an instant to think, Paulus said: ‘– Garlic?’

‘What garlic?’ asked Soxias.

‘Garlic, saffron, spices and salt. Stew Diomed with these, and he would be a fish dish, fit for a king’s table.’

‘First catch me,’ said I.

‘I don’t feel well,’ said Lucius, suddenly. ‘My fingers tingle.’

‘I have eaten man,’ said Soxias, watching the company from under his eyebrows. ‘The chest and the haunch are the best cuts. But having paunched your man, you must let him hang three days; and then seethe him for twenty minutes in water before roasting … Oh, but that brings us to the subject of gods again.’

Lucius staggered to his feet. Beckoning two slaves, Soxias said: ‘Take my lord Lucius to the vomitorium.’

‘What is the connection between roast man and gods?’ asked Tibullus, a shy little plump gentleman who had spent the past thirty years in scholarly retirement, writing a History of Asia.

Afranius said: ‘Don’t you know? Everything is god that comes to Soxias’s pantheon. He worships them all, and believes in none.’

‘No, no,’ said Soxias, with a certain gravity. ‘I believe in all of ’em, my boy, all of ’em. Don’t you mock. Everything is a god that is believed in. What connection between roast man and gods, asks Tibullus. Well, I dined once with some man-eating black men who worshipped quite a potent little god made of ebony. It was when I was young and poor and carefree. I got hold of a ship and went to Africa.’

‘Young and poor and carefree – you simply got hold of a ship?’ I said.

‘That’s right. And a cargo of wine and stuff. I cruised down the coast of Africa, where the forest grows down to the sea and the sea runs into the rivers. Nobody has ever scratched Africa yet, to this day. The people came out to meet us with clubs and spears, but after a few drinks of wine and a length or two of coloured cloth I had their king eating out of my hand – he loved me like a brother – big strong fellow, a Hercules.’

‘He showed me this wooden god of his: a badly carved image of a hermaphrodite, with a backside like a pumpkin and breasts like cucumbers, black as coal. As nearly as I can pronounce it, they called it ’Ngo; and to this thing they sacrificed boys and girls whom they afterwards cooked and ate. Our priests do likewise, only ours eat beef and mutton.

‘Well, the king of this rancid mob told me that whoever touched this ’Ngo would be struck dead. To prove it, he got a prisoner out of the fattening-pen and had him pushed forward at spear-point to touch the idol. Man was grey with fright, but what had he to lose? He touched the god, turned a back-somersault, and fell dead. King asked me, now did I believe in the power of his god –?’

‘Did you?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Soxias, wiping his mouth.

‘So you touched it?’ asked Afranius.

‘A business-man takes no unnecessary chances, my friend – oh no. I sent to the ship for a man who hadn’t seen what had been going on, and I said to him: “Go and get me that image, will you?” He went and tucked this ’Ngo under his arm, and dropped it at my feet. So I picked it up. It was only wood.’

‘But you had been prepared to believe in it,’ I said.

‘I am a broad-minded man,’ said Soxias. ‘Where was the evidence that ’Ngo was not the God of All Gods? Africa is full of surprises. The long and short of it was, the king wanted his god back. I said: “Uh-uh! First, comes a little matter of ransom.”

‘The rivers there are full of gold: the common people keep the gold dust, and the king keeps the larger pieces. Also, they have elephants like we have mice. I came home with gold in ballast, and ivory, as much as I could carry. And a few of the biggest and strongest men, and the prettiest girls for slaves.’

‘And the king got his god back?’ asked Paulus.

‘Why, no. I kept ’Ngo for luck; nailed him – or her, or it – up for a figurehead. It brought me good fortune.’

‘But not the king,’ said Paulus.

‘I don’t know. I sold him to an elderly widow in Sicily. I suppose she fed him pretty well. His wife went to a Greek dealer…. But to return to my point: that wooden god really did have the power to strike a man dead.’

‘The man’s belief in it struck him dead,’ said Melanion.

Soxias said, brightly: ‘Yes! And ’Ngo struck me lucky because, you see, I believe in only the good-natured side of the gods.’ And then, looking at me, he closed one eye in a slow and malevolent wink. ‘Graven images,’ he said, smiling at Paulus, ‘I have a little graven image here in my house which would bring the proudest of you sprawling before her on the floor for my amusement!’

‘Technically,’ I said, ‘strictly technically, it might be construed as an offence not to show respect for, say, any image of the deified Augustus –’

‘Stamped on a coin, for instance?’ said Soxias. ‘I don’t mean that; although you know and I know that for a sufficient number of bits of gold, stamped with the image of a pig’s arse, even, there’s not one man or woman in ten thousand that wouldn’t grovel. No, no. I am referring not to a coin, or any number of coins, either gold or silver, but to exactly what I said: a little graven image – of a goddess, to be exact.’ His eyes were twinkling now at Cassius Barbatus, sometimes called Poor-Rich Barbatus: rich, because he had spent a great fortune amassing one of the most extensive and exquisite collections of rare gems in the world; poor, because he so passionately loved beauty for its own sake that he could not bear to be separated from any part of it.

Barbatus lived quite blissfully, calm and unruffled, in a subtle world of facets and colours and curves too refined for my comprehension; a kindly, courtly, harmless old gentleman, very proud of his lineage. In his fine house, guarded by six strong slaves and surrounded with treasures, he ate mutton broth out of an earthenware dish and drank sour wine; but, two or three times a week, he dined sumptuously at the houses of rich friends where he was always welcome.

If, in a dispute concerning the origin or the value of some work of art, you said: ‘Barbatus says …’ there was an end of discussion. And he carried with him an infection of serenity. It was good to see him, at ease in his almost threadbare robe, wearing on his thumbs and forefingers rings that Caesar himself might have kept in a locked cabinet.

‘I would like Barbatus’s opinion,’ said Soxias, slowly, ‘of a little something I picked up the other day.’

‘Most happy!’ cried Barbatus. ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure.’

‘Something rather special,’ said Soxias.

‘You were speaking,’ I said, ‘of graven images?’

‘Everything in its proper order,’ said Soxias.

Lucius came back, leaning heavily upon his attendants, who helped him to his place. His great face, palely glistening and veined all over with red, was like one of those roots farmers preserve as curiosities because they appear more animal than vegetable. He blubbered: ‘Soxias, you must make that fellow unsay what he said…. He has the Evil Eye…. He will enchant, bewitch …’ Then furiously, to Paulus: ‘You must call your spirits off, do you hear? Otherwise …’

Melanion said to Soxias, with his lowering smile: ‘Better send Lucius home to bed. There is not much fun left in him now, I think.’

Soxias ordered: ‘Take him home, take him home.’ Then he said to his secretary, a swarthy bearded man who never spoke and whose name nobody knew: ‘Fetch the black shagreen box that the Persian brought.’

The secretary bowed and went away while Lucius, crying: ‘He will bewitch, he will fascinate!’ was carried from the table.

‘This thing of which I speak,’ Soxias went on, ‘nobody knows who made it or how – perhaps Barbatus will know. Naming no names, I had it off a Persian who stole it from a Greek who got it from a Sidonian character who beat about the Euxine river-mouths. It is, I am told, a true image of Eurynome who, I am told for a fact –’ he smiled at Paulus ‘– created the world. Did she, Barbatus?’

‘So we are informed by reliable authorities,’ said Barbatus, gravely, looking eagerly towards the dark secretary who was slowly returning, carrying with infinite care a square black box bound with silver, ‘for in the beginning, the world was without form and all elements were intermingled in Chaos, and thus without order. From this Chaos, Eurynome sprang, naked and beautiful, dancing.

‘She divided the heavens from the earth and the waters, and made the light which she wore in her hair and, whirling in her dance, scattered about the firmament in the form of the sun and the moon and the stars. She was the mother of all created things in their order: from the lowest in the depths of the waters to the highest, which is Man, who alone can stand upright and turn his head to look at the stars. For, with a clap of her beautiful hands, she made the wild north wind which she twisted into the great Serpent, out of whose love for her Eurynome produced the universal Egg, which the Serpent cracked in his mighty grip, releasing all the forces of Being.’

‘Now where,’ asked Soxias, unfastening the box, ‘have we heard this story before? Eh, Paulus? I thought it was Moses who brought it away, together with a few articles of jewellery, from the Egyptians! Well, here is Eurynome –’

Paulus’s reply, if he made any, must have been lost in a general cry of wonder at the object that stood revealed in the soft light of the perfumed lamps.

Even I caught myself exclaiming: ‘Aie! It is alive!’ and indeed the figure of Eurynome really was moving. She swayed ever so gently and then turned slowly in a full circle. I could see, at a second glance, that she was standing on the tip of one toe upon a perfect polished ball of some gem-stone of various shades: at the bottom it was black as jet, the black changed to deep blue, the deep blue to lighter blue which, in its turn, merged into a limpid rose colour, the whole seeming to imprison a straining radiance, so that one felt that if by some chance this ball should break, there would be a letting loose of light to dazzle the world.

Nobody could ever know what love and inspired toil had been dedicated to the making of this thing. Between Eurynome’s toe and the top of the ball was a little space of crystal so pure that she appeared to be separated from the ball of light by nothing but a clear spark of this light itself. She stood, so exquisitely balanced as to rock and pirouette in obedience to every breath, only to return ineluctably to her poised uprightness.

The stone of her body was of all the colours in heaven and earth, but her long swirling hair was of a red that was almost black where it began, fading through innumerable subtle shades to a translucent yellow where it ended. Twined about her body was a black snake whose head, neither reptilian nor human, she caressed with her left hand while she held it at arm’s length. Her right, straining high, supported the bowl of a cup – the heavens – thin as beaten gold, but cut out of the living crystal, all angry red and smoky black. And from the black rim of the cup of heaven to the black bottom of the ball of the world, this marvel measured about twice the length of a man’s hand.

We were all silent, then, for as long as it takes to draw a fresh breath – all but Soxias, and he said, in his best merchant’s voice: ‘The remarkable thing about it, really, is that it is all carved out of the one piece. There couldn’t have been two such bits of stone. And what balance! Just blow and she spins like a feather in a drain!’ He leered at Barbatus who stood, frozen with awe.

Afranius muttered: ‘Does he want to sell her? A man would give –’

Melanion interrupted him. ‘– Hush! Soxias is about to have his fun.’

Barbatus, who had been momentarily smitten dumb, said: ‘Yes. Here is, indeed, the First and the Last! Oh, Soxias, if I were the millionaire I once was, I would say: “Take everything, Soxias; take my money and my lands and my houses, but give me this Eurynome!”’

Then, to our bewildered embarrassment, this stately old gentleman covered his face and bowed his head as if he were weeping in silence. Only Soxias was unmoved by this.

He said: ‘What’s the matter, Barbatus? You are quite right to like this piece – I knew you would. That’s why I showed it to you. I’m not the man to keep a pretty thing locked in a box. I don’t blame you for what you say; I don’t mind telling you I paid a pretty penny for this item. Still, why talk of money? I don’t want money, I’ve got money. If I took gold by the handful and chucked it into the river, a handful every minute, I shouldn’t live long enough to get to the bottom of my coffers. Ask Melanion … eh, Melanion?’

In a surly voice, Melanion said: ‘It’d be a damned silly question. Of course you wouldn’t, because before you’d thrown out a third of what you keep, the return on what you’ve got put out at interest would fill your strong-boxes up again.’

‘So; you see?’ said Soxias. ‘Money means nothing to me. I only value it for what it will buy. Such as this little cup, you might say? Wrong! I’m no connoisseur. To me, a cup is a cup, a figurine is a figurine. I like that carving, that Eurynome, as you call her, because the lives of men must have gone into making her. For the same reason, I might make a bid for the tombs of the Pharaohs, if I could get any fun out of them…. But you, Barbatus, you worship what you call Beauty. You’re refined. Money aside, what have you got that you’d give me for this unique little statue, or cup, or whatever it is?’

‘Half my collection,’ said Barbatus.

Soxias shook his head, while the rest of us exchanged astonished glances. ‘No,’ he said.

Barbatus picked up the cup of Eurynome and looked at it for a long time. Then he set it down with infinite care and said: ‘Soxias, I will give you my whole collection for this Eurynome: that is to say, my life – all I ever had and all that I ever loved!’

There was a magnificence about old Barbatus as he stood there, with folded arms. But Soxias shook his head.

‘Your life? But you’ve spent it,’ he said. ‘Your collection? What’ll I do with it, sell it? What for, money? I told you, I don’t want money. What then should I do with your collection? Save it? To me it would be unrealised assets. No.’ Soxias was in his glory.

‘Then,’ said Barbatus, with his kind smile, having fully recovered his dignity, ‘I have nothing more to offer and can only beg you, Soxias, out of your kindness, to let me come and look at this wonder of the world sometimes.’

‘Oh, welcome, welcome,’ said Soxias. ‘But, wait, wait, Barbatus – not so fast! To look and admire is one thing, to have is another. Otherwise a labouring man might come home and say: “I want no supper, wife; I have seen a turnip. Now lift your skirt and let me gaze, and I can sleep in peace.” No, Barbatus, to look at what you desire and not to touch it is only torment. The pleasure a lover takes in just looking at the object of his affection is all very fine in poetry. Actually it’s only misery in fancy dress. Confess, now, Barbatus; doesn’t your true heart say: “Better to smash this Eurynome to pieces or throw her into the deepest part of the sea where no man will ever touch her again?” Eh?’

Barbatus said: ‘I have already said that I would give all I have for her. This not being sufficient, I shall still be for ever grateful to Soxias for having allowed me to see her, if only once.’

This seemed to displease Soxias. ‘And go home with a heartache?’ he said, with a sneer.

‘Yes, but the divine artist who fashioned this Eurynome will have given my vague longing its perfect form, and now my heart will know why it aches, and for what. I thank you, Soxias.’

‘So,’ said Soxias. He took the Eurynome cup and placed it carefully on the marble floor. It swayed in its graceful motions for a long time before it at last stood still. ‘So! You want her, Barbatus? Then you must play for her. Will you gamble your patrician dignity against my Eurynome?’

‘But how?’ asked Barbatus.

‘Simply like this. Stand on this floor with the big toe of one foot just touching the ball under the goddess’s foot.’ Barbatus did this, and Soxias went on. ‘Now measure, stepping backwards exactly four times the length of your foot.’

‘It is done,’ said Barbatus. ‘And now?’

‘Why,’ said Soxias, easily, ‘now all you have to do is, clasp your hands behind your head, and, standing on one foot, reach forward with the other; touch Eurynome’s toe very lightly, and come back to your original position. Do this, without taking your hands from your neck, without touching the floor with your engaged foot, and without pushing the ball so hard that the rim of the cup swings to the floor –’

‘And what then?’ asked Barbatus.

‘Why, then,’ said Soxias, with a gust of laughter, ‘then you must fall on your backside with your legs in the air, and Little Lucius shall make a song about Barbatus’s Bouncing Bottom that’ll be sung from here to Joppa. But if you succeed, the cup is yours to keep. Well?’

‘Oh, unkind!’ Afranius protested.

‘Unfair,’ said I. ‘That is a trick to play on a young man, and a supple one, at that.’

Barbatus was silent, considering; his cheeks were red with outraged dignity, but he wanted the cup so much, and the distance seemed so short.

‘I have seen a dancer pull a thigh muscle playing that game,’ said Melanion. ‘Diomed is right.’

‘Who asked Diomed to interfere?’ cried Soxias. ‘Unless, of course, he would like to have a try at the Eurynome for the honour of the Roman infantry? Eh, Diomed?’

I replied: ‘I am not here as your clown, Soxias. I do not want your cup. And watch your jokes.’

Paulus interrupted, smooth as oil: ‘Oh, but Diomed, why should Soxias watch his jokes? He can afford any kind of joke. And as for fair play – how foolish you are, Diomed, and you a police officer! Fair play is for children, don’t you understand? Could Soxias be where Soxias is if Soxias played like a perfect little gentleman? Soxias is Soxias because he is a perfect scoundrel. That’s what I like about Soxias – you know where you are with him.’

There was nothing offensive in the way he said this. His tone was serious, admonitory, and he made ‘perfect scoundrel’ sound like a rare kind of compliment.

‘Oho!’ exclaimed Soxias. ‘Sound the shawms, blow the bombards, wind the ram’s horn trumpets, smash the cymbals! Here comes the champion of the I AM! Way for the little Pharisee in the name of the God of the Jews! I dare you to gamble your Pharisaic pride, Paulus, at the risk of bumping your consecrated backside and exposing your sacred circumcision!’

Barbarus said: ‘I will not play this game, Soxias. I cannot win, and my dignity is mine alone to lose. I have looked; I am grateful. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go home.’

‘Wait, Barbatus,’ said Paulus, ‘I think I will play for this cup.’

And he measured the four foot-lengths from the shining ball and clasped his hands, interlocked, at the back of his head. ‘Here, Soxias,’ he said, ‘I am adding an extra half-foot for good measure.’

He stretched out his right leg, with the foot arched and extended; then, without noticeable effort, he sat on his left haunch, balancing himself upon the ball of his left foot, and touched Eurynome’s toe with the tip of his right sandal, so lightly that the balanced cup revolved at ever so slight an angle. He drew back his foot, and did not put it to the floor until he was standing upright.

‘Well done!’ we cried, looking at Soxias.

He, nodding placidly and blinking his veiled eyes, said: ‘The cup is yours, Paulus. But admit, now, that I made you bow your knee to a graven image!’

‘Why, no,’ said Paulus, taking up his prize. ‘That is a highly debatable point. If, for example, I took you by the throat and knelt on your belly to beat your brains out on the floor, could it be said that in so doing I was bowing the knee to Soxias?’

Soxias laughed, and said: ‘Ay, ay! And if I get to my feet to empty my bladder, does Soxias stand in honour of the pisspot? And so on…. There’s no knowing where to catch this one! You must be very strong in the legs.’

‘I am,’ said Paulus, ‘but that trick – why, I learned it as a child. We used to play it with empty eggshells, for sweets.’

‘And it has won you a graven image,’ said Soxias.

‘Oh,’ said Paulus, ‘but I have not taken the image unto myself, you know – I am offering it to Barbatus as a gift.’

And he handed the Eurynome cup to the old gentleman who took it, speechless with inexpressible emotion. A dramatist might have chosen this moment to end a scene, with young Paulus triumphant and old Soxias out of countenance.

But it was not like that.

Soxias held the stage by suddenly yawning voluptuously, and without pretence – an enjoyable yawn; he smacked his lips after it. There was an awfulness about his overwhelming indifference. It would have made any expression of feeling by us, now, seem small as the squeak of a bat in an Egyptian tomb. Before I could stop myself I yawned too.

‘So ends another amusing and instructive night,’ said Soxias, ‘and here comes another cool and refreshing dawn.’ He spoke, of course, with irony.

As we prepared to leave, he said to Paulus: ‘Pray tell your venerable father – after you have purified yourself of the pollution of my house – that Soxias is most pleased with his young son Saul, or Paul, or Paulus. That Soxias says, although he fears the father of so astute a son, nevertheless Soxias invites him to his house tomorrow or the next day to conclude certain business that he wants news of.’

Paulus bowed.

‘We’ll draw up a contract in the Roman style,’ said Soxias, ‘and not lay our hands on each other’s genitals in the style of the Jewish patriarchs, of course.’

‘I am sure that a written contract will be quite acceptable to both parties,’ said Paulus.

But for the first time that night he blushed. Paulus’s triumph was dust and ashes.

Soxias’s evening was complete.

2

PAULUS, who was close at my heels when I went into the courtyard, lingered, waiting for me to say something. Much of what he did, at that time, was done with half an eye on me.

I said: ‘I shall walk to my house to stretch my legs. Then a shave, a massage, and to business.’

‘No sleep, Diomed?’

‘Later, perhaps. An old soldier learns to sleep or wake at will. Go home and rest.’

‘I made Barbatus happy,’ said Paulus.

‘So?’ I answered. ‘What is Barbatus to you?’

‘Nothing, but I didn’t want to see him try, and fail,’ he said. ‘I hated to see Soxias playing with him.’

I laughed and said: ‘Soxias was playing with you, Paulus, and not with Barbatus.’

‘I won the cup.’

‘What does Soxias care for a cup?’

‘It is worth a fortune!’

‘And you gave it to Barbatus, for a gesture. Vanity, my dear Paulus, as your Solomon would have called it! And Soxias knows that in your heart you are biting your nails, and is amused – he made you give that cup to Barbatus! But never mind,’ I added, to console him, knowing that my words had hurt him, although his face did not change expression, ‘you are still one of the very few who have pleased Soxias and still kept their dignity; and done good business for your father at the same time. You have made a tremendous impression all round. Everybody is happy, except you; and you are learning very fast, my boy.’

‘Thank you, Diomed. May I come to your house this evening?’

‘Do,’ I said. ‘Meanwhile, work out what you would have said if your foot had slipped.’

So he left; and Afranius came out, arm in arm with little Tibullus, and followed by old Melanion.

Tibullus was saying: ‘The difficulties encountered by the conscientious historian, Afranius, are innumerable. At times, I fear they are almost insuperable. Often I am tempted –’

‘Ah, Diomed!’ cried Afranius. ‘You are walking? I’ll walk with you, if I may.’

‘So will I,’ said Melanion. ‘It is unhealthy to stay too long in one position. I am reminded –’

‘The difficulties encountered –’ Tibullus began again.

‘The air mixes well with Soxias’s wine,’ said Afranius. ‘Oh – and Soxias has played another little joke. You know, Hylas fell asleep in the arms of a little golden-haired girl?’

‘The one he kept describing as a rosebud dipped in honey and almond cream?’ I asked.

‘That one. Well, Soxias had her taken away, and put in her place an old hunchbacked dwarf with no teeth.’

‘I ordered Soxias to rest,’ said Melanion growling.

‘Soxias merely told his steward to give the dwarf her orders,’ said Afranius. ‘She is to pursue Hylas in the open street and scream that he is the father of her child.’ He roared with laughter.

‘The difficulties encountered by –’

Afranius interrupted Tibullus again, saying: ‘You would have thought that young Paulus really did lay a curse upon Lucius, would you not, Melanion?’

‘So he did,’ said Melanion.

‘A real curse?’ asked Afranius.

‘Yes,’ the physician said.

‘He has very penetrating eyes,’ Afranius said, thoughtfully.

‘Penetrating eyes your grandmother!’ Melanion frowned a smile, as one might say – squeezing it out of his mouth with the weight of his forehead. ‘He has a woman’s feeling for a weak spot, and a juggler’s sense of timing. I, too, could lay a curse on Lucius with a winedrop and a word; only coming from me it would strike from a different angle. It would be the same curse, however.’

I said: ‘Shame, shame, Melanion! Silly talk, that, from a physician, and a surgeon too. I am only a soldier, but I can tell you – a common boxer, wrestler, or gladiator could tell you – that the angle makes all the difference. The difference between up under the ribs or down over the ribs is often the difference between death and life. You mean, in effect, that you could strike Lucius with a curse, but it would be a different curse.’

‘I am at fault,’ said Melanion. ‘I deluded myself into a false belief that I was not speaking with fools. Forgive me. … You will concede, Diomed, that there are numerous ways of stabbing a man’s heart with the same dagger?’

‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘and I see what you are driving at, Melanion. A stab to the heart, from the front or from the back, with the same dagger is the same killing, you are going to say – only the angle is different, you argue.’

‘Well, then?’

‘You are wrong. It is the same dagger, thrust with the same result. But the killing is a different kind of killing.’

‘To hell with your metaphysics!’ said Afranius. ‘Return to Lucius and Paulus.’

Melanion nodded. ‘To hell with metaphysics indeed. Take Lucius first – he is a deeply religious man.’

‘Oh, come now!’ cried Afranius.

‘Why not?’ said Melanion. ‘Only a man who believes in the gods can find the thrill of wickedness in constantly and obscenely blaspheming them. And Little Lucius really believes that he is being wicked. The more frantically he blasphemes, the more he believes. His private fear of the gods is in inverse proportion to his public mockery of them. … Is this metaphysical enough for you, Diomed?’

‘Nothing metaphysical about it,’ I said. ‘By the same token, the more openly devout some men are, the smuttier their private lives turn out to be. Remember the scandal of Martius, the one called the Ascetic, and his nephew? The child died of internal injuries –’

‘May I proceed? I have your permission? Thank you. Concerning Lucius: deep in his soul he is very much afraid of the gods. And I’ll wager that when he’s alone he sends up quite elaborate excuses to them on the smoke of lavish sacrifices, saying something like this: “Dear gods, let me make my position clear once again. You will not fail to perceive that in blaspheming you I am serving you, in that I often shock lukewarm believers into warm protest and generous sacrifice to you …” and so on, and so forth.’

‘As I might call Diomed, say, a pederast and the son of a bitch, safe in the assumption that he would know I was only joking,’ said Afranius.

‘Something like that,’ said Melanion. ‘Now this evening while Little Lucius was approaching the most lurid part of his foolish poem, where Neptune comes in, Soxias cut him short. This put him out of countenance. Lucius fell into one of those empty depths of misery that only the professional clown can reach.’

‘Well put,’ said I.

‘Be silent,’ said Melanion. ‘At this point Paulus raised a laugh. Lucius went into one of those ecstasies of impotent spite that only the professional clown can achieve when an outsider steals his audience. There is philosophy among wild beast men, resignation among thieves condemned to fight to the death, and sportsmanship among maimed swordsmen – but among clowns there are none of these things. They know a desperation and a hopelessness nobody else knows. Thus, in his despair, poor Little Lucius turned to blaspheme a god without a statue, one he couldn’t sacrifice to. And in that second, when one laugh would have given him strength again – in that one second – Paulus played his tomfoolery with the drop of wine and Lucius’s hand; and by the gods I honour him for it!’

‘But the curse, the curse!’ cried Afranius.

‘Here is where I honour Paulus,’ Melanion said. ‘Because what I might have done out of calculation and long experience, he did with the wisdom of an instant. There was the calculation, yes; there was the diagnostic perception, yes; but it all came to his mind in a flash, and what is more, in that flash the boy acted! Lucius, in spite of all the wine he has drunk, will be unable to sleep. He will toss and turn, and think of his hand; he will pray to all the gods; he will drink a lot more wine; he will vomit. Then he will swallow some strong Indian opiate such as he probably takes normally to give himself strange and pleasant dreams. But he will have bad dreams this time. When he wakes up, his hands will be trembling, as they always must. This time they will be trembling more than ever, and his right hand will tremble more than the left. He won’t be able to hold a cup, let alone a stylus. And this evening he will go weeping to Paulus, saying: “Take off the curse, take off the curse!”’

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘And you would have cursed him as a physician, no doubt, in the name of Aesculapius, and might perhaps placate him with sacrifices of chickens, or whatever your god prefers, and so persuaded him out of the curse. The point is, that Paulus cursed Lucius without a god at all! He caught him with the right word and the right gesture at the exactly critical moment –’

‘I, too, can tell a man to be sick or well, and sick or well he will be,’ said Melanion.

‘But you are a great physician, and a kind of god in yourself, since so many have faith in you,’ I said. ‘Paulus is the son of a merchant manufacturer of tents and, to Lucius, nobody. Your curse, therefore, would be different from Paulus’s, Melanion.’

‘Oh, idle speculation, idle speculation,’ growled Melanion. ‘I am forbidden by oath, and by ethic, to curse, or to hurt except to heal. Diomed, invite us in and give us all cold fruit-juices and water.’

The sun had risen, and it was pleasant on my shady terrace. Not forgetting that in Tarsus, in times like these, even the most absurd occasion for a mob to gather might have grave consequences, I excused myself and went to speak to Sergius, my sergeant.

‘Nothing, Pugnax?’ I called him, affectionately, by his nickname.

‘No, sir.’

‘You know Hylas.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘He’s at Soxias’s house. In the course of the morning he will be pursued by a negro dwarf who will scream that he is the father of her child. It will be very funny.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have her put in a sack and delivered to Soxias’s secretary with my compliments.’

‘Yes, sir. Any special kind of sack, sir?’

‘A large sack, old friend.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Then I joined my guests, who were sipping the cool drinks. Only the writer of history, Tibullus, seemed slightly ill at ease: he was sleepy, but would not go home for fear of missing something. Missing what? Tibullus did not know.

His plump face always wore an expression of mild irritation, as of one who, in the middle of a long journey, suddenly feels that he has left something behind; he cannot recall what it is he may have forgotten; it is on the tip of his memory, and when at last he does remember, it will be too late. In any case, it is of no consequence.

To cheer him I said: ‘Ah, Tibullus, the difficulties encountered by the historian are numerous, are they not?’

Brightening at once, he replied: ‘Sometimes I fear, Diomed, that they may be almost insuperable.’

‘More than “almost”, I imagine,’ said Afranius. ‘I have read the historians, right up to Livy, and it still seems to me that history is only a matter of opinion. The fables and the poems and the old wives’ tales have taught me more.’

‘If a hundred Livys wrote for a hundred years they could never write the true history of one man, let alone a people,’ said Melanion.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that is because it is easier to know what ten thousand people have done as a body than what one man has done as an individual.’

‘And it is the individual who makes the history of the ten thousand,’ said Melanion.

‘But it is also argued that the circumstances bring forth that individual,’ said Tibullus.

‘The individual having brought forth the circumstances,’ said Afranius.

‘Not in the beginning,’ said Tibullus, somewhat weakly.

‘How do you know? Were you there?’ asked Afranius.

‘Unfair, Afranius!’ I cried. ‘I have taken part in two or three battles, and my account of them would be quite valueless. Interesting to someone whom such matters interest, perhaps; but poor pickings for a searcher after truth as a whole –’

‘Which can never possibly be uncovered,’ muttered Melanion. ‘In such a discussion you end with your head down your throat.’

‘And I have heard men who had fought at my right hand and at my left discussing these self-same actions,’ I continued, ‘and if I had not known beforehand what they were talking about, I should have had to ask them in what battles they had been engaged. He’s a poor historian who starts by saying: “I was there at the time.”’

‘What!’ cried Afranius, ‘Diomed of all people doesn’t trust eye-witnesses?’

‘Not unless their independent testimonies happen to fit the established fact. Independent, mind; uninfluenced and dispassionate. And I trust a hundred witnesses a hundred times less than I’d trust one. But my business is, to keep the peace, and leave judgment to the judges.’

‘The testimony of an educated man –’ Tibullus began. Poor fellow he was destined seldom to finish an observation.

Melanion completed it for him: ‘– is the testimony of a man with preconceived opinions. What you call education is nothing but a ring in your nose to lead you by.’

‘If Melanion wants an argument,’ I said firmly, ‘he can’t have one this morning. We were speaking generally about history and eye-witnesses, and so on. I was about to give you a case in point. You have heard of one Jesus Christ, who, if he has not made history, has certainly made a great deal of trouble –’

‘Same thing,’ said Melanion.

‘Well. Naturally, one is professionally interested to know what kind of fellow this was, who roused such a persistent rabble, shook the Temple, and has managed to flog up a whole mad-doggery of fanatics simply by repeating a few stale and perfectly harmless aphorisms, fables and injunctions. Now this man preached to thousands who, hanging on his words, must have looked at his face. He was a demagogue, a prominent figure. He was cheered in the streets. His public trial was overcrowded. His execution was exceptionally well attended – in fact, I have it on report that there might have been a riot, if he hadn’t sworn his supporters to non-violence. There must be, let us say, a way of making a composite picture of the various descriptions of the man, for the sake of identification?

‘I questioned fourteen people who had seen and heard Jesus Christ, concerning his personal characteristics. Six said he was tall, five said he was neither tall nor short, and two said he was short. That, roughly, should make his height average. Now, as to colouring: one, a Macedonian, swore Jesus Christ had grey eyes and fair hair; seven, who were Jews, said they had never seen his hair, because his head was always covered, but that he had a magnificent jet-black curly beard, very large black eyes, and a rosy complexion; two Romans said he was pallid and swarthy, with a high forehead and a very thin beard and small, prominent eyes; a Dacian said he had a healthily bronzed face, narrow dark eyes, and a broad, low forehead; and three others said, simply, that he did not look very well. Eight swore that he had a tremendous, resonant voice – the voice is very important, remember – a voice like a gong; but five were quite sure that he had such a little, quiet voice, that he had to use one of his followers for a mouthpiece whenever he addressed a moderately large meeting; and one was equally certain that Jesus Christ screamed somewhat like a passionate woman.

‘Eye-witnesses, all of them, who would have put their hands in the fire to swear to the accuracy of the evidence of their senses!’

Afranius said: ‘I didn’t know you were interested.’

‘I’m not; it is a matter of professional curiosity. His own case is closed. But the mopping up is far from over.’

‘If you’re interested,’ said Afranius, ‘I saw him.’

‘You describe him, then,’ I said, ‘for you have a good eye, I think, and a healthy kind of general curiosity.’

‘Thanks. I was in Jerusalem on business and got caught in the crowd at the execution. I don’t enjoy such spectacles, but it was easier to wait a little than to get out of it – my fellows didn’t like the temper of part of the crowd. Three went up that day on the hill – two bandits and Jesus Christ. One of the bandits had Habet tattooed on his –’

‘Jesus, Jesus, what about Jesus?’ I asked.

‘He came last. He was in a pretty bad way. The priests must have paid the executioners to lay the scourge on hard; his back was pulp, and still dripping when they stripped him. They had wrapped a wreath of thorns about his head, and that was dripping too. Also, the crowd had been at him. Somebody had torn out a handful of his beard, which, by the bye, would probably have washed out to a rusty-black sort of colour, and there was a bleeding patch on his jaw where some skin had come with it. He had a black eye. The open one was bright – feverish, of course – but it’d most likely cool down to a clear brown, I should say. They had smashed his nose, but by the way it was broken it was most likely one of those thin, bony noses: the thicker, fleshier ones swell up much more. I don’t imagine he could ever have been very much to look at, in point of stature or physique. He wasn’t looking at his best, needless to say – it was hard to tell where the hair ended and the blood-clots began. He was going bald, but his hair was long at the back and sides – black, streaked with some grey. I remember an old Jew saying to a young one: “You see what comes of breaking the Sabbath, Jacob?” A woman said to another: “So where’s the miracle-maker already? A genuine miracle-maker wouldn’t be in such a position.” A man with them said: “Leave the poor bastard be – he’s got enough.” Then the soldiers nailed him up.

‘One of Jesus Christ’s rich followers – and he had plenty of them, surprising as it may seem – must have slipped the executioners a good bribe, because I noticed they drove the nails in at the heel of the hand with the points slightly back, to cut the big veins in the wrists. The bandits got it through the bones of the palms, and that way one can hang alive for hours. The record, I believe, is two and a half days. But Jesus Christ started to bleed at once. You were asking about his appearance. That is all I can tell you, except that his belly stuck out – but so does everybody’s, as you know, when the cross jolts into position. I think that right up to the end, some of his supporters really expected him to work a miracle and step down. I saw one of them who had been weeping suddenly shake his fist and spit out of sheer disillusionment.

‘His voice I heard only once. He cried out that he had been forsaken, I think. It sounded thin and hoarse – but so would yours or mine in the circumstances, I fancy. The bandits tried to die game, and exchanged dirty badinage, to the delight of the crowd – until the cramps nipped them, and then they howled as they all do in the end. Jesus Christ was past that. He just hung limp and died fast. I was sorry for him. I never saw a man more alone in the world. His mother and some others were waiting at the foot of the cross. I threw her a few coins. She didn’t pick them up. So the Jews dispersed to celebrate their deliverance, and I went about my business. His mother had very fine brown eyes, incidentally: perhaps he resembled her. What do I know?’

‘Unsatisfactory,’ I said. ‘And were the heavens darkened?’

‘Darkened?’ said Afranius. ‘Not particularly. It was heavy weather, but what do you expect in Jerusalem at that time of the year?’

‘Everybody agrees that the heavens were darkened,’ I said.

‘No more than they would have been otherwise. What do you expect of people? A man will say, portentously: “The night when I was born, believe it or not, Vesuvius smoked!”’ Afranius said: ‘But there was an unpleasant atmosphere in the city. The Nazarenes didn’t dare to mourn their leader openly, especially while all the Orthodoxy was holding high festival. There was therefore a tension in the air. The Nazarenes are also Jews, remember – they would have pulled knives first and argued after. So Diomed would have put out double and triple patrols …

‘And there is all I can tell you about the individual who influenced history to this extent – that now, hundreds of miles away, an orthodox Jew spits in the beard of an unorthodox one for kindling fire to cook his porridge on the Jewish sabbath; whereupon, in the name of Peace the dissenter throws boiling porridge into the orthodox one’s face; and Diomed, coming with soldiers to keep the Peace of Rome is hit in the eye with a rotten fig hurled by a child still raw from his circumcision. And somebody sends a report to Rome, (a) Diomed is keeping the peace, (b) Diomed is persecuting the Jews. Isn’t that the way it goes, Diomed?’

‘Something like that,’ I said; and I suppose I managed to keep a certain irritation out of my tone, because Afranius’s chatter was received with a laugh.

Melanion grumbled: ‘Bah! Gods! … Once upon a time a traveller, passing through the Land of the Cat-worshippers, stopped to watch the people flaying alive a miserable wretch in the market-place. He asked a bystander: “What has this man done?” “Why, he is guilty of the most unpardonable blasphemy, sir!” the bystander replied. The traveller asked: “What? Does he worship dogs, then?” “Nothing so trivial,” the bystander told him, “we worship Egyptian cats – this misbegotten son of a filthy mother worships Persian cats.” Gods! Bah!’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Afranius, ‘I have had conversation with one or two perfectly reasonable people who took kindly to the Nazarene school of thought.’

‘Oh, as for that,’ said Melanion, ‘granting certain premises, anything you fancy is reasonable … granting certain premises. One of the most reasonable men I ever met died of apoplexy because he had himself wrapped in three layers of lambs’ wool to travel across Arabia in the summer. He was convinced that he was made of blown glass, and might get broken if dropped. And he never ate very hot food on a cold day, for fear he might crack. What could be more reasonable – granting certain premises? Only he was not made of glass, and his pure reason was pure madness.’

‘Enough, Melanion, enough!’ I said. ‘This is as bad as the blind beggar-woman of the Black River.’

‘Who is she?’ asked Tibullus.

I said: ‘Oh, another seer, or prophet, or whatever you like to call her; only she has caused no riots. I saw her once in Damascus. Her eyes are white and her hair hangs to the ground. She has an interminable song, which her disciples say has been sung since the beginning of the world. It has to be sung without pausing, so when she stops to eat or drink, one of her disciples takes up the refrain, and the moment she dies someone else will continue, all in the same unearthly monotone:

‘“… The womb is a lonely room where you wait sleeping until you must pass through a dark passage into a light that is blindness because it is too strong to see by; dazzled you must wander weeping yourself to sleep until you must pass through a dark passage into a lonely room where you must wait sleeping until you must pass …”

*

– and so on, and so on, to drive you mad. It is believed that when the song works itself out to its logical conclusion, the world will end in a glorious light and everything will be purified.’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Melanion. ‘And soon I must go and look at my Soxias, and then sleep an hour or two.’

Afranius said: ‘I fancy, today, Soxias will be rather angry with himself for letting young Paulus win his Eurynome. Eh, Diomed?’

I said: ‘It is a very beautiful piece of work.’

‘Soxias is not much of a one for vain regrets,’ said Melanion. ‘He’d better not be. The only one who will tear his hair when the story gets out – it’ll be all over Tarsus by tonight – will be Paulus’s father. The worth of Barbatus’s collection gone just like that!’

I had thought of this earlier; in considering the actions of a man like Soxias, every motive must be taken into account, but I feigned surprise. ‘It was Paulus’s cup, to dispose of as he pleased,’ I said, thinking: ‘Who are we to suppose that Paulus loves his father as much as, in obedience to the Law of Moses, he is required to honour him? Perhaps Paulus, in his heart, also wanted to bedevil his father? Anyway, Paulus has the gold and emerald goblet, and that’s worth a pretty penny.’

‘Let the old extortioner tear his hair!’ said Afranius. ‘Let him tear it out by the roots.’

I said: ‘The old gentleman keeps the peace, pays his taxes, doesn’t bend the law beyond breaking-point as far as I know, gives alms to the poor and is highly co-operative with the authorities. I have nothing against him.’

‘If I hadn’t known you all my life, Diomed,’ said Afranius, ‘I’d call you a damned hypocrite. Yes, I’d say: “Diomed publicly defends Paulus’s father, and is guide, philosopher and friend to that man’s son, because it is worth his while.” I’d say –’

I stopped Afranius. ‘But you don’t say, and you have known me all your life. Therefore, go home!’

Afranius said: ‘Oh well, old fellow! I don’t call you a damned hypocrite; but, if I did, it would be because I’d know that you would know I never meant it – which would be a terrible presumption upon the good-will that goes with friendship; in other words, discourtesy and loose manners, which is a crime against humanity. You are not a hypocrite any more than a swordsman is, who makes a double pass … But I tell you this: if Jesus Christ weren’t so disgustingly pitiable, I’d salute his memory, if only for the reason that he spoke against the Pharisees!’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now go home.’

Melanion, who could leap sideways and make new tracks quicker than a hare for the sake of an argument, was saying to Tibullus: ‘That which is, is right. Confess this, or deny the propriety of the law!’

‘Here we come to the definition of terms,’ said Tibullus, ‘to the application of Truth. Every right-thinking man knows what is right and what is wrong. It is the law’s business to synthesise the difference. Law should be Truth made practicable.’

‘Now let us assume that the Truth happens to be illegal,’ said Melanion. ‘That Truth is wrong –’

‘No, you don’t,’ said I, interrupting. ‘Away with you, my friends; until the next time!’

Tibullus yawned, and surreptitiously made a sign against the evil eye in front of his open mouth.

Melanion caught the gesture and said: ‘Well done, Tibullus. The beginning of all the evil in the world was, when the first man yawned and said to the second man: “And now, what?” … Come!’

So they went, and I sat alone in the cool, savouring a light, untroubled fatigue and enjoying my own company; for I have the old soldier’s knack of unbuckling my spirit and laying aside my troubles with my armour. My father taught me this, without difficulty, for it always came naturally to me.

He would make me pace up and down with pebbles in my sandals while I committed to memory a hundred lines of Homer, or walk a mile over uneven ground carrying a bowl filled to the brim with water, not one drop of which must be spilt. This was to concentrate the mind. He was of the hard school, the school that bred the great men who made Rome. An indomitable soldier and a fine gentleman, he would have risen to great rank under Augustus if it had not been for his harsh tongue and his unyielding spirit, which would not let him reconcile his republican ideals to the world as it had to be.

From him I learned how the greatest glory of man is in proud servitude and reasoned discipline; while from my much-beloved mother I inherited a trace of that warmth of soul and quickness of understanding which, tempering a will of steel, made her a woman who could command the adoration even of my father. I do not compare myself with these people, whose equals, as it seems to me, the world may never see again – I mention myself in the same breath only because I am their son.

The relaxed wakefulness of a man with a calm mind is better than the deep sleep of a man in trouble. I picked up a rare copy of Xiphophilus And His Conquest of Nowhere, a tale by the Cynic, Diogenes, which Melanion had lent me. It is said that Diogenes wrote it as a satire against Alexander the Great, who is supposed to have suppressed it. It was not like Alexander to suppress a book; but it was not like Alexander to destroy Persepolis; it was not like Alexander to get raving drunk. What was ‘like Alexander’?

In Diogenes’s little book the hero, Xiphophilus, having conquered all the world, sets out to invade Nowhere: that is, the land beyond Thule, where they say the world ends in ice. The cold of ice being the universal preservative, says Diogenes, there is no death or corruption beyond Thule, where all people are icily transparent. Xiphophilus brings death and decay to this clean place; and the rottenness brings forth our kind of life, which brings forth vice, and so on. One can see the glum, cantankerous face of Diogenes glowering out of every other line. In satirising the conqueror of the world, the philosopher damned mankind.

Sergius came in, and I asked him: ‘What’s new?’

He said: ‘As per instructions, sir, black dwarf returned to Soxias in a sack. No message, sir. Barbatus sent for the jeweller Abbas, sir.’

‘Oh, did he?’

‘Yes, sir. Barbatus’s porter says he happened to hear that one of the slaves overheard some sort of transaction, sir. It seems Barbatus is selling some of his jewels for six hundred thousand, sir.’ All Tarsus knew that Barbatus owed nearly two hundred thousand to Rabat the Money-Changer, and almost twice as much to Joseph the Tent-maker.

Sergius continued: ‘Barbatus has also sent for Joseph the Tent-maker, and Rabat, sir.’

‘It is none of our business, Pugnax.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Leave Barbatus alone. How did you hear what his porter happened to hear that the slave overheard?’

‘From Nicoteles, sir.’

‘Which Nicoteles?’

‘Matthias the Perfumer’s book-keeper, sir.’

‘Pugnax, you are making a report, not evading an inquiry. You are the hard-mouthed son of an unwilling bitch.’

‘Yes, sir. Barbatus’s porter came to Matthias to request presentation of an old account for immediate payment this morning, and to order a quantity of the highest quality sandalwood oil, and some myrrh and frankincense, sir.’

‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘Barbatus is preparing a considerable sacrifice to the gods, no doubt.’

‘Returning thanks for his luck, sir, perhaps.’

‘What luck?’

‘Barbatus won a very valuable cup from Soxias, sir.’

‘And who told you that?’

‘The black dwarf in the sack, sir. They say Barbatus was crying like a child when he returned to his house, sir.’

‘Who is “they”?’

‘A beggar called Bolo, sir, who pretends to be blind. He was drunk as a lord, and jingling money. I asked him where he got it, and he said Barbatus gave it to him – a handful of silver, sir. He saw Barbatus crying, sir, he said.’

‘Grit in the eye. If Barbatus had to weep, do you think he’d do so in a public place?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, tell them I’ll be shaved and take my bath now. Tomorrow you and I will wrestle a few falls. Or are you getting too stiff?’

‘A little, sir. I have to use both hands to throw you now.’

‘The gods willing,’ I said, laughing; for I had been wrestling with Sergius for the past twenty years and more, and seldom won more than one fall out of three, although I was the younger man by ten years. Stolid and methodical as he seemed, he was a hundred-handed Briaraeus in action.

My father’s freed-man, he had watched over me when I was a child, tutored me in the rougher arts, and followed me as a soldier. Afranius sometimes called me ‘Pugnax’s Little Eagle’ – partly with allusion to my profile, but mainly on account of Sergius’s almost religious devotion to me. He had covered me with his body, once, when we were both wounded, in a ring of spears in the western forests; and once I had taken in the hip a sword-stab aimed at his belly. We were held together by a strong bond.

He seemed to become warm and animate only when I spoke to him, and for my part, I was never completely comfortable unless I was in some way aware of his proximity. There were between us memories of certain evil occasions when hope was running thin and cold and the light was dying, when Sergius and I had been secret custodians of each other’s courage. Each owed the other a little of his pride.

‘Go now,’ I said. ‘And tell Dionë I want her to rub my back. Make it sound as if I said to you in confidence that nobody can rub my back like Dionë.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He saluted, and left.

Now, although I am not given to sudden changes of mood, premonitory depressions, or causeless womanish anxieties, I found myself in a state of nervous gloom. There was a nameless sinking of the heart; and then came that unpleasant condition of mind in which, touching your own flesh, you feel it as something alien; you become uncomfortably aware of your teeth, which seem to protest that the muscles in your jaws which are pressing them together do not belong to you – they were left behind by a strong, angry visitor after a stormy interview.

Meanwhile familiar, harmless objects assume menacing outlines, and omens may be read in the petals of a flower. ‘If that bird flies away before I count three,’ you think, ‘something dreadful will happen.’ Nothing happens; your anxiety redoubles. Everything hangs by a thread. There is an eternity of indecision in a tremulous drop of water, and in its fall ruin absolute and ultimate. Your humour feeds itself by forcing you to think of whatever happens, at the moment, to be particularly distasteful to you. Nothing helps; the bouquet of a fine wine is destroyed by a thought of the sweaty feet that trod the grapes; a fore-knowledge of the dung that nourished it mars the scent of the rose. There is death in such moods.

Thus, the handles of an inoffensive earthenware amphora made me think of Little Lucius’s prominent red ears. Bored with hating Lucius, I began to think of the Pharisee Joseph of the Tent-makers, Paulus’s father – he would not be pleased that Barbatus paid his debt in full, because he had known that while the interest came in regularly the principal was always secure. So, in giving Barbatus the cup, my little Paulus had wounded his father in two ways; and this was a comforting thought. For although Joseph was everything I had said he was, and one of the most righteous Jews in Tarsus into the bargain, he was an easy man to hate.

He gave to the poor; but there was not a pauper who did not feel somehow poorer for having taken Joseph’s coppers. It being against his Law to lend money at interest to a fellow-Jew, he never lent a fellow-Jew money. But he frequently went into a ‘brotherly partnership’ with a Jewish merchant who wanted ready cash – bought the business for a song, and kept the merchant as his servant. He had a ‘sanatorium’ for sick slaves, whom he bought very cheap, patched to a semblance of health, and sold abroad for a good price. He transacted no business on the Sabbath; but he kept a Roman steward, with whom he had a tacit agreement. Two hours before the Sabbath he ceremoniously dismissed this steward; two hours after the Sabbath he ceremoniously reinstated him, and so they balanced the books.

And if some ragged Elijah had asked him: ‘Why do you condone your son Saul’s transgressions, letting him come and go as a heathen Roman or Greek, shaving his beard and eating unclean food at unblessed tables?’ Joseph would have replied: ‘My friend, under Caesar our hands are tied. Under Caesar we have no power to cleanse Israel in our own way and by our own means. If we exterminate our own heretics, Caesar says this is riot, and we pay dearly. Now Saul is our ambassador, our key. Who breaks a door when he can pick a lock? Let Caesar think he rules. Is it not to my credit that I give my own son to eat pig for the greater glory of Israel, so that Rome may be our digger of drains and our public hangman?’

The idea made me smile, the smile made me mellow again, and I felt like a wise old father overhearing the tiny plots of little boys playing conspirators. I remembered that variation of the riddle of Oedipus:

‘Who starts life a Master, lives Slave and dies Master?’ The answer is, of course, Everyone – everyone is served in his helplessness as a baby; spends his mature strength in service; and is served again in his helplessness as an old man.

‘He who will not serve may not be served,’ I said, to the image of Joseph – and I must have spoken the thought aloud, for there was Dionë at my elbow, kneeling in graceful humility, and saying:

‘In what way have I failed to serve you, my lord?’

She had come in so silently that I had not heard her. Only half a minute earlier I might have been startled into a sharp answer; which would have sent her, red-eyed and tragically mourning, into a three-day spell of secret weeping.

But luckily for me I was relaxed again. ‘I was talking to myself, Dionë,’ I said.

She said, with a half-stifled sigh: ‘I know I fail to please you.’

‘Nonsense, Dionë, nonsense.’

‘You have not come close to me for three weeks and two days.’

‘And how many minutes and hours?’ I asked.

‘Now you are laughing at me, my lord Diomed. Well, that is better than not seeing or hearing me.’

‘There, there, my dear.’ I caressed her head.

‘That is right,’ she said. ‘Pat me like a dog. If I were a dog you would love me a little, perhaps. It would be good if I could turn myself into a dog. I would not mind even if you would beat me – I would lick your hand and then you would stroke my ears. But I am not a dog. I am only a woman. You are right to turn your head away from me. I am old and ugly and my body stinks.’

‘Dionë,’ I said, ‘you are twenty-five years old, and at the height of your beauty; and you are sweeter than a flower.’ All this was true, but Dionë would not let me forget how I had once wrinkled my nose at some musky-smelling perfume with which she had sprinkled herself.

‘No. It is ten years since you bought me. I was fifteen then,’ she said.

‘This much arithmetic even I know, Dionë. And I was twenty-eight. And now I am thirty-eight, and feel fifty-eight. So?’

‘You looked like a young king then, and now you look like a king of kings, my lord Diomed. Ah, but you would not buy me now,’ she said.

‘If you are not a good girl, I will sell you.’

‘But who would buy me?’

This, as she knew, was empty talk. I am to a certain extent a practising Stoic, and do not keep slaves. The ethical aspect aside: if a man takes kindly to slavery he is demoralised from the start; if he takes slavery hard, he ought to have fought it to the death in the first place. ‘A living dog is better than a dead lion,’ the Jews say – but dogs also die. I do not like slaves: they invented slavery.

Soon after I had bought Dionë in the open market ten years earlier, I formally freed her. She was little more than a child then, and slender for an Armenian girl – it was I who changed her name to Dionë from Kheherahadj – and the dealer told me that the blood of Artavazd the King of Kings ran in her veins. But it was not for this that I paid his price. Royal blood must be commoner than, say, the blood of a good blacksmith; for a king on the march scatters seed like a dandelion. Dionë’s beauty was of a lost, lonely, forlorn kind, and it touched my heart at the time.

I said: ‘Dionë, I have a lot to think about, and you are talking like a little fool. You know that you are free to come or go. And if you want to return to your own people, I will send you home with a handsome present. I keep no slaves, and you know it.’

‘It is you who are talking like a fool,’ she replied. ‘You are my people, and where you are there my home is. And if I love you, how could I be free, even if you hated me? And as for not keeping slaves, you say what isn’t true – you keep more slaves than any man in Tarsus!’

‘Is this some new Armenian riddle?’ I asked. ‘I keep five servants, all free men.’

‘No, they are slaves, because they love you. You could not drive them away with a stick!’

‘In that case, they are the masters and I am the slave; and if I ran away they would have me brought back and crucified,’ I said. There was grim truth, I felt, in this jest.

‘But you would not run away.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I would not run away. And now for pity’s sake let me wash and be shaved, and you shall rub my back.’

Dionë clapped her hands with pleasure. ‘Yes, I shall rub your neck and your back, and sing you a quiet little song, and make you go to sleep on my breast.’

For sleeping, I prefer a hard, flat bed, but I said no more; I was afraid that I might hurt Dionë’s feelings.

It is good to be beloved. But occasionally I thought that I might feel more my own man if Dionë loved me a little less.

When I rose, much refreshed, two or three hours later, Dionë said: ‘My lord, a messenger from Melanion the Physician has been waiting to speak to you.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me up, then?’ I asked.

‘Because you were asleep.’

There are three things against which only a fool argues: an earthquake, a thunderbolt and the logic of a woman in love.

I went out. Melanion’s messenger, a white-faced man who had the appearance of a professional mourner, said: ‘My master Melanion has ordered me to beg you to come to his house without delay. My master has told me to assure you that he would not dare to trouble you unless the matter were of some importance. My master offers –’

‘Tell your master Melanion that I am coming immediately.’

‘… his most humble apologies for –’

‘Go and tell him that I am on my way.’

He went. Preparing myself for the streets, I said to Sergius: ‘I smell trouble, Pugnax.’

‘All right, sir,’ he said.

3

MELANION sat in his library, in a litter of scrolls and tablets, grim diagrams, tortuous instruments of steel and ivory, and pallid things that floated in jars. He lived in an atmosphere of pungent herbs macerated in spirits of wine, of aromatic gums and strong vinegar. From an adjoining room came a biting odour of hot metal mixed with sulphur and something that might have been stale blood. At his feet sat a mighty, yellow-eyed wolf-hound, black as night, wearing a collar of five gold chains hung with a hundred tinkling charms and amulets.

This was Hector, better known as Melanion’s Devil Dog. Although he was a free-thinking man who despised superstition, and as honest as a rich physician may be, Melanion was not above letting it be believed that this dog – wearing his collar; that was essential – had certain God-given powers of healing.

There was no more intelligent-appearing, murderous-looking beast outside the Circus; and none more stupidly good-natured. He liked to lick people, and out of this affectionate predilection his master made capital. Melanion really did believe that the fresh saliva of any healthy dog has a quality that helps to heal raw wounds and cleanse unhealthy skin; so, in certain cases, he put Hector to work with his lapping tongue. The appearance of Hector alone, Melanion said, stimulated the natural curative principle in the human blood. In order not to cheapen the dog, who would have licked the face of every beggar in the street if he had been let loose, Melanion let him be taken out only in a litter mysteriously curtained with black silk. Thus, rich men had travelled from outlying districts and paid heavily to be licked by Hector. He was supposed to have cured an Assyrian potentate’s daughter of acne.

Seeing the dog there with his collar on, I said: ‘Beg pardon, Melanion – are you two healers in consultation?’

‘No,’ said Melanion, caressing Hector’s ears, ‘but we might be called in. I hope not. Actually, it is more likely to be a matter for your attention than for mine. So I asked you to be good enough to come here. Forewarned is forearmed.’

‘My dear Melanion, why waste time in preamble? What’s the matter?’

‘Well, very simply; things occurred exactly as I predicted,’ said Melanion. ‘Little Lucius awoke a short while ago, and as I told you, he was shaky. And of course, his right hand was shakier than his left. Naturally, the memory of last night came to him like a slap in the face with something wet and cold. He was sick as a cat that has swallowed feathers. From the depths of his revolting being he was sick! He produced fruits out of season – wild strawberries – aïe, aïe, aïe!’

Melanion was enjoying himself. I asked: ‘Were you there, then?’

‘No, I wasn’t; and that’s where the trouble begins. Of course, a bad morning after a heavy night is no novelty to a pig like Lucius. He vomits on rising as you or I yawn. It was the memory of Paulus’s so-called “curse” that struck him prostrate. His symptoms were precisely according to my prognosis. My messenger had them in detail from Lucius’s body-servant.’

‘So he sent for you?’

‘No, he sent for Paulus. And Paulus sent back word that he was otherwise engaged – urgently engaged.’

‘Please go on, Melanion.’

‘Well, then, Lucius sent for me. But I was with Soxias, and could not come. In any case, Lucius’s physician is that fool Mnesicles – not that Mnesicles could have helped – but Lucius ought to have sent for him in the first place. I would not trust Mnesicles to worm my dog. Still … However, by this time, Lucius had got it firmly into his head that he had been smitten by the wrath of Jehovah, and that only one of Jehovah’s hand-picked people could help him. So, instead of sending for Mnesicles, he sent for Parnach the Jew.

‘Parnach came, with some reluctance, and Lucius poured out the entire story of last night. Parnach told him that the whole affair was foolish; that, in effect, Paulus was not qualified to curse anyone. Then he gave Lucius a purge and an emetic. Lucius raved all the more. Parnach put leeches on his temples and wrists. Lucius started screaming that the Jews had sent worms to devour him alive. Parnach had hot stones put on his belly and cold compresses on his forehead. Lucius howled that the Jews were burning him to death and freezing his brain. Parnach gave him a terrific dose of valerian; it worked in reverse, and Lucius had the horrors.

‘So Parnach fled the house, and soon after Mnesicles came in. That jackass washed out Lucius’s stomach with hot milk; dosed him – of all things! – with hemp and with foxglove; and gave him a steam bath. Naturally, Lucius got worse. Equally naturally, Mnesicles blamed it all on Parnach, and Jewish sorcery in general, while Lucius lay there crying piteously for Paulus to come and lift the palsy that had fallen upon him.’

‘Damn that Paulus!’ I said.

‘Oh, damn him by all means, my friend. He’s your pup, in a manner of speaking: you’re his arbiter, his mentor, his Soldier’s Handbook, his –’

‘Well, well, go on. You did not bring me here to chatter, friend Melanion, if I know you.’

‘No, I didn’t. And as for damning Paulus – admit that when he played that game with Lucius last night you were proud of the boy! Yet you, of all people, Diomed, might have foreseen some of the consequences at least.’

‘Whatever I might have foreseen, could I have made that winedrop fly back?’ I asked, impatiently. ‘What consequences do you mean, anyway?’

‘Don’t pretend to be more of a fool than the gods made you. Paulus having laid the “curse” on Lucius, only Paulus can take it off, and Paulus –’

‘Paulus is inaccessible,’ I said, interrupting. ‘And Mnesicles is the biggest mischief-maker in Tarsus, and he hates the Jews in general and Parnach in particular. Right? And so by nightfall there will be riotous mobs in the Jewish quarter, yelling “Death to Parnach, and death to all Jewish sorcerers!” Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ said Melanion.

‘And so will I use my influence upon Paulus to restore Lucius to his normal state, and so avert trouble in the city? Eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘The root of the potential evil being, in fact, the mischievous physician Mnesicles, eh?’ I said.

‘He is an inveterate gossip, and Paranach is his rival, it’s true,’ said Melanion.

‘So that I might really be acting in the interest of law and order if I suggested to Mnesicles that he might be well advised to leave the city for a while, eh, Melanion?’

‘It’s possible. Mnesicles doesn’t interest me.’

‘No, no. Only, next to you, he is the most popular physician in the city. That would in no way influence your public spirit, would it, Melanion?’

‘Now look here, Diomed – this fragment of information is, I know, useful to you, and since I got it before you did I passed it on to you without delay –’

‘You being so little interested in Mnesicles that you keep spies to watch his movements. I understand, and I am grateful for the information, old friend, upon my word I am!’

Melanion growled: ‘I deny your implications, and beg only to point out that if my information is of service to Rome, my private motives – if any – are none of your damned business.’

‘You are a public benefactor, and let it rest at that,’ I said, and we parted cordially.

I told Sergius: ‘Double patrol from sunset to sunrise.’

‘Yes, sir. Trouble, sir?’

‘Why trouble? Do you wait until you stink before you wash yourself?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Very well, then.’

I went, now, to the house of Mnesicles, a solemnly opulent establishment furnished with well-executed statues of all the gods and decorated with charts of the heavens. Mnesicles stopped pretending to read a great scroll and said:

‘I am delighted to see you, but I thought that my esteemed fellow-healer Melanion was your physician? However, I shall be happy to help you, most happy. The physicians of Cos are very well indeed in their way, but between you and me –’

‘I am in perfect health, Mnesicles,’ I said, ‘and have no physician at all.’

‘Ah, but you very prudently desire to be examined. Most proper! Many diseases lie hidden, gathering force to strike. No chimera like the illusion of perfect health, and only the gods know where they will be tomorrow. Diseases are cunning: they lull us into a feeling of security so that they have us on our backs in agony before we can lift a finger to defend ourselves. If there were more like you, we doctors should have a hard time of it, believe me! Nothing ails you, you say? We’ll see about that.’

I said: ‘I was about to say, I have no physician at present. As for Melanion, well, it is my business to associate with all sorts and conditions of people.’

‘Too true, too true!’

‘I came to see you concerning Lucius.’

‘Oh, unlucky gentleman to be cursed by one Jew and poisoned by another! Oh merciful laws, that permit a Parnach to practise medicine … or a Melanion, for that matter!’

‘Melanion has a certain tendency, perhaps, to play upon people’s credulity,’ I said, ‘and I thank you for bringing me so gently but so unerringly to my point. Otherwise I might have wasted some of your time beating about the bush – for I am only a rough old soldier, and clumsy with words – and your hours are more precious than gold. Melanion told me, while we were talking of other things, that Lucius was sick and you were treating him.’

‘He said no good of me, I will wager,’ said Mnesicles.

‘Oh, who regards the tongue of envy? You are treating Lucius?’

‘Lucius is sick of a Jew’s curse and a Jewish doctor’s criminal mistreatment of the case. I am treating him as a victim of these misfortunes.’

I said: ‘Lucky Lucius! He could not be in the hands of a wiser or more discreet doctor than Mnesicles.’

‘A compliment from Diomed is a compliment indeed!’

‘No, no! Who knows when I may need a physician? In my profession one must look ahead. And to whom should I turn, in that case, but Mnesicles?’

‘I humbly admit,’ said this conceited little fellow, ‘that you might go farther and fare worse.’

‘So, in passing, it occurred to me to ask myself: “How can I be sure that Mnesicles will remain in good health here in Tarsus?” I asked myself this question purely for selfish considerations.’

‘I do not think I quite understand, my dear sir. My health is perfect, and I have no reason to leave this fair city.’

‘No chimera like the illusion of perfect health; and only the gods know where they will be tomorrow…. You see, if some distorted story of Jewish sorcery and Jewish poisoning began to be whispered in the market-place – well, you know how it is; two people attract a third, three is a crowd, a crowd becomes a mob, and then there is a riot. “Death to Parnach!” is as good a rabble-shout as any other. So a mob storms Parnach’s house, kills Parnach, rapes his women, and steals his money.’

‘Deplorable!’ said Mnesicles, pinching out the smoulder of a smile and looking grave.

‘I agree,’ I said, earnestly. ‘It is not that I care a curse for Parnach. But he is not a very rich man like you – he doesn’t deserve to be. So. Having rifled his house, the mob, still dissatisfied, turns on the houses of other Jews and generally unpopular characters, and the riot becomes general. Now I have only a handful of men with which to keep order in the city, and I’d find myself short-handed, you see. So that when – as somebody inevitably would – some trouble-maker shouted: “Mnesicles treated Lucius last!” the mob would turn its attention to you. A drunken mob is undiscriminating as fire or flood, you see; and your house is well worth looting.’

Mnesicles said nothing. His face was grey. I went on: ‘A man as good as you cannot have many enemies, but what does a mob care about that? Even a man as wicked as Parnach must have some friends, and they have only to give a man with a loud voice a couple of silver coins to shout: “Mnesicles! Burn Mnesicles!” at a certain moment, and the mischief would be done. And, don’t you see, my hands being full, I shouldn’t be able to do much to protect you, my dear friend.’

‘But –’ Mnesicles began.

‘Of course, the mob might not burn you,’ I continued. ‘A mob is unpredictable. They might, for no apparent reason, suddenly decide – the gods forbid! – that you were their hero, their idol; in which case I’d give you about three years to live, with a constant and perfectly trustworthy bodyguard. But I want Mnesicles alive, as Mnesicles: the world needs Mnesicles. So I came to urge you to be absolutely discreet in the matter of this affair of Lucius’s so-called “curse”. Go out and about, denying any rumours that might have got loose. And don’t say too much against Paulus, because it happens that he is now a close friend of Soxias.’

‘I did not know this,’ Mnesicles said, biting his pale lips.

‘Last night Soxias gave him an emerald-studded goblet, and another priceless cup. But you would not be the kind of man who spreads malicious gossip! Otherwise, I shouldn’t be talking to you in friendship, and giving you valuable advice. It is true, as I have said, that my motives are partly selfish, but there you are. My opinion is – I was at Soxias’s house last night, you know – that Lucius is simply over-stimulated. Young Paulus was simply joking with him over the wine. Go to Lucius tonight, and I will wager any sum within reason that you will find him peacefully asleep, your wonderfully perceptive treatment having worked to perfection, as usual.’

Armoured in his vanity, this Mnesicles was impervious to irony, but he was not insensitive to fear. Now, I judged that, without unnecessary exercise of authority, I had frightened him no more and no less than enough to make him move promptly but without hurry – just as I wished him to act.

I added: ‘To make assurance doubly sure, my dear Mnesicles, if you happen to meet Parnach when you go out, which I see you are prudently determined to do – show your magnanimity, greet him kindly, walk arm-in-arm with him for a few paces. A good doctor puts his hands into excrement without getting dirty, eh?’

‘I will do just as you advise, my kind friend Diomed,’ said Mnesicles. ‘I have not breathed a word, of course, but I know how people talk, and it is my one aim in life: to keep the peace.’

‘Good. I hear that the contractor Khuzis has pains in the bladder. I will advise him to call on you.’

‘I shall be eternally grateful! Your friends are my friends,’ cried Mnesicles.

Khuzis was not my friend; I disliked Khuzis. There was no legal way of punishing him for his misdeeds – his bribes went high over my head – but Mnesicles would be, to him, something like an African torturer and a Sidonian extortioner combined.

Now I went to Parnach’s house. He was one of the sack-cloth-and-ashes school, and when he saw the glint of the sunlight on Sergius’s armour, and caught sight of me, he fell into that irritatingly equivocal attitude of body and expression of face which says, at the same time: ‘That’s right – murder me because I am a Jew! But why do you want to murder me just because I am a Jew? It is a Jew’s honour and privilege to be murdered because he is a Jew. I shall be delighted to be murdered because I am a Jew, this being part of my proud heritage. But why should a fine young fellow like you want to risk the wrath of the Almighty by murdering an abject old wretch like me, just because I am a Jew? Murder me, by all means … but first let us talk things over …’

I came to the point quickly.

‘You treated Lucius, I think,’ I said, politely.

There came the usual torrent of rhetorical questions in reply: ‘Is it my fault if a gentleman sends to demand my services? Did I want to go to Mnesicles’s patient? Should I be held responsible if a gentleman drinks a cup or two too much on top of too much rich food? Did I curse Lucius? Am I Paulus? Do I send my sons out to eat unclean things at gentlemen’s tables and get drunk and curse people? Did I mistreat Lucius or did Lucius mistreat himself? Was it for me to say to Lucius: “Stop drinking unmixed wine”? And for the follies of a Pharisee, should all Israel be persecuted? Should you not rather go with your soldiers to Paulus’s father with swords?’

‘Oh, please! I have come only to help you, Parnach,’ I said.

‘Don’t I do my duty? Don’t I pay my taxes? Don’t I –?’

‘Listen. Go for a walk. Take the air. And if you meet Mnesicles in the market-place, as you almost certainly will, don’t be surprised if he comes up to you and talks cordially. Don’t run to the other side of the street. Talk to him like a friend. Take his arm and walk with him. I tell you this for your own advantage.’

‘Mnesicles would take my arm? He would spit in my face.’

‘Confidentially, he has hinted to me that he is wounded at the way you avoid him. You are fellow physicians, he says; and between doctors, what is a slight difference in religion, I ask.’

Parnach’s professional gravity and dignity came back to him in an instant. ‘Very well, I will allow Mnesicles to take my arm. It is, as you say, just as well for physicians to be friends.’ Suddenly, he had become almost condescending.

‘Congratulate him on having cured Lucius,’ I said.

‘Oh really, my dear sir! My professional integrity –’

‘Oh, a great physician must be something of a philosopher, too, Parnach; he must pander a little to the vanity of his fellows, for the sake of peace and quiet. Think of the encouragement your gesture will give Mnesicles!’

‘Well …’

‘And above all, my dear Parnach, think of peace and quiet. It will be diplomatic on your part, to appear to be Mnesicles’s admirer and friend. In public, mind – positively in public!’

‘I will look for Mnesicles, as it were, casually.’

‘Do so immediately, won’t you? And on no account mention my name in this connection.’

He nodded, and took from a cupboard a heavy little bag. ‘Something for you to bestow in charity upon your poor?’ he said, with a sidelong smile.

I replied, rather curtly: ‘Such generosity has ruined better men than you, Parnach. Keep your money. You may perhaps need it for your journey.’

‘My journey? Where?’

‘To another town, with luck, if you’re not careful. Now do as you were told.’

‘Did I say something wrong?’

‘Yes. Good day to you.’

He ran after me, crying: ‘Forgive me – I meant no harm! – your visit upset me!’

‘If you have a clear conscience, it ought to have reassured you.’

‘My conscience is clear, but …’ he stopped, embarrassed.

How could I be angry with him for assuming that I was to be kept sweet with money? It was a safe enough thing to take for granted in dealing with peace officers, especially in Asia.

‘But nobody has told you yet,’ I said, ‘that if you were a guilty party and Diomed had a just cause, good evidence, and a free hand, he’d have you up for questioning if you were his own brother and he had to dig you out of a mountain of money. I have nothing against you, so rest easy, Parnach. Good day.’

I tried to be in a good humour when I came to Paulus’s house, but I was never at my ease there, although I was received with all the friendly deference in the world. I always went away with an uneasy feeling of having soiled something. Paulus’s wife Jaël made me sit, and with her own pretty hands, which seemed too light for the jewels they wore, offered me fruit, sweetmeats, and a cup of sweet wine.

I recognised the cup – it was a specially ornate one of silver inlaid with gold – and I will swear that it was reserved, like the dishes, for my use only; that it was kept in a special place, and that, having touched it, Jaël would afterwards purify her hands by washing them seven times seven times in running water. And I could not help thinking of her namesake, who received Sisera with such hospitality that she lured him into slumber; whereupon she drove a spike into his head, thereby becoming an immortal heroine among the Jews.

Paulus’s Jaël cast her glance down, in modesty, incidentally revealing luxuriant lashes. Her expression was shyly secretive and demurely sensual, as if she had a great deal to say, but only in a whisper to a girl friend; her red lips were slightly parted in a dreamy half-smile, and moistened as if in anticipation of some pleasantly intimate shock of surprise. The late sun caught the bloom on her cheeks and ringed her face with a warm golden radiance; a shadow of dark down accentuated the affectionate curve of her rich mouth.

‘Ah, wicked Prefect!’ she said. ‘You take my husband away from his home all the time.’

‘Ah, beautiful lady!’ I replied. ‘It is a wicked world. But if every man had a wife only half as beautiful as you, all the world would stay at home, and everything would be perfect.’

My compliments, at least, were kosher; but I think if every such word had been a suckling pig, Jaël would have devoured it. She was beautiful, and she knew it. King David knew what he was doing when he brought several such girls into his bed to warm him in his old age; although, I thought, one such would have been quite enough for him in his prime.

‘Such beauty as yours compels a husband to strict fidelity,’ I said, ‘and is therefore a great power for good in the world.’

This, of course, was a damned lie; but she liked it.

Then Paulus came in. Ignoring Jaël, he cried: ‘Diomed!’

‘I was about to explain to the most exquisite lady in Tarsus,’ I said, ‘that I’d sooner cut my arm off before I’d disturb the peace of her delightful house for anything but a little matter in which I need your assistance.’

‘At once!’ said Paulus. ‘Jaël, please leave us.’

She went, reluctantly, as if Paulus had abruptly stopped the playing of some soothing melody – which, I suppose, he had.

When we were alone, I said to Paulus: ‘Come on, you! Out of it!’

‘Where to?’

‘To Little Lucius’s, you damned nuisance.’

‘He sent for me earlier. I told the messenger to go to hell.’

‘I know. Come.’

‘Strange day!’ said he. ‘Look at what Barbatus sent me –’ he held out his right hand, on the forefinger of which shone a great blue jewel ‘– it is a sapphire. But see what happens when you hold it to the light.’

He showed me. As the sapphire came into a sunbeam, there sprang from its heart a perfect, four-rayed star. He went on: ‘With it, a letter, saying that I was not to reply; that he could not express his gratitude to me here in Tarsus, but would do so in another place, which he did not name; that he was going on a journey, and hoped to meet me in due course. Post scriptum: this ring was given by Solomon to Sheba.’

‘Was that when he sent your father the money he owed?’

‘You know about that, too? Yes.’

‘Well, Barbatus is grateful to you, and so he ought to be,’ I said. ‘Give it to Jaël.’

‘She can have it if she likes,’ he said indifferently.

We were on our way, now, to that eunuch’s vision in rose marble which Little Lucius called a house. I told Paulus: ‘You are to take that idiotic “curse” off Lucius.’

‘You don’t seriously imagine, Diomed, that I laid one on?’

‘Oh, never mind about that! If you caught Lucius at the right moment and said: “Next time you hear an ass bray you will have diarrhœa,” so it would be. Do as I say. Dip your finger in wine as you did last night, let a drop fall where the drop fell last night, and say: “Curse, curse, go away,” or anything you like.’

‘Why should I? I hate that blasphemous pig.’

‘Never mind your hates or your loves. You are going to do what I tell you, blasphemy or no blasphemy. And if it comes to that, as a dispassionate observer, I don’t see why Lucius shouldn’t laugh at Solomon howling after a bit of dark meat. Melanion, for instance, is of the opinion that between your Ruth and Naomi there was a certain relationship of a distinctly unhealthy nature. Do not arrogate to yourself alone the right to mock at strange gods, Paulus. I, also, have read your holy books, among others. And your little joke of last night might end in blood and fire this evening, the gods aside!’

‘How?’

I told him. ‘How could I have foreseen?’ he asked.

‘You could have foreseen that no harm could come of your keeping still.’

‘Lucius made me angry.’

‘Then Lucius defeated you.’

‘Is a man to watch every step and every word?’

‘That’s the way he learns to walk and talk,’ I said. ‘Have you ever considered how much forethought and discipline goes even into putting your shirt on?’ I slapped his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, my boy. You have all the little devils that go to make a proper man. They only need breaking to harness. No man ever won a race with a team of wild horses.’

‘I am going to do what you tell me, Diomed. Just for once, spare me the truisms.’

‘I beg pardon.’

‘No, I’m more happy than you know, that you took me away just now. I was only waiting for a decent hour to come and see you as we said last night. I feel as if I had been buried under a heap of ashes …’

‘Or banked, perhaps, like a slow fire?’

‘Ashes.’

We said no more until we were in Lucius’s house. There he lay, yellow-white and half-naked, almost buried in a heap of purple, green and red cushions, squirming slightly so that he made me think of a titanic maggot in a stupendous putrescence. Near-by his valet, a person of ambiguous sex named Daphnis, anxiously waved over him a fan of perfumed peacock feathers.

Seeing me, Lucius started up, crying: ‘Diomed! Diomed! The Jew has cursed me! I hereby complain! I will protest! Black magic and Jewish sorceries! I will write a letter –’

‘You will write a letter, Lucius?’ said Paulus, stepping out of the scented shadow behind me.

‘No, no!’ screamed Lucius, pitifully holding up his right hand, which was jerking like a hooked fish. ‘I cannot! Paulus, Paulus, my hand, my hand! For pity’s sake, Paulus, heal me! I will make sacrifice to your gods! I will humiliate myself, mortify myself! I will offer! I apologise, I beg pardon! I will pour dust on my head and eat filth! Take away that curse – oh, take it away!’

Paulus said to Daphnis: ‘Bring a cup of Falernian wine.’

‘Yes!’ cried Lucius. ‘I never thought of it before – we were drinking Falernian. Falernian, Daphnis – bring Falernian, you bitch!’

Daphnis brought the cup of wine. Paulus dipped a finger into it, and said: ‘Lucius, do you see this winedrop?’

‘I see it.’

Paulus took Lucius by the right hand and raised it. The drop fell on Lucius’s wrist. Lucius started, and shrieked.

‘Take the cup in your right hand,’ said Paulus.

Like a man in a dream, Lucius took it, his hand shaking only slightly. ‘I can hold it!’ he exclaimed.

‘Swear that you will write no more blasphemous songs,’ said Paulus.

‘I swear! I swear!’

‘Now drink.’

Lucius drank, threw down the cup, felt his right hand with his left, and began to weep and laugh at the same time. ‘I am cured!’ he managed to say. ‘Paulus! Thanks, thanks!’

‘Yes,’ said Paulus. ‘Good day.’

He went to where a stream of clear water spouted out of a dolphin’s mouth into a marble basin, and washed his hands again and again. While he was doing this I said to Lucius: ‘All right, Lucius. There’s an end of this nonsense. And if one stone – only one stone, mind – is thrown in Tarsus because of Jewish sorceries and curses, I’ll see to it that –’

There was no need to put a threat into words. Lucius whispered: ‘If ever I cross that man again, may I –’ and he had no need to complete that oath.

On our way to my house I asked Paulus: ‘What did your father say when Barbatus sent him his money?’

‘Nothing. He sent his grateful thanks. He looked at me, and sighed. But he said nothing.’

‘Had he yet been to see Soxias?’

‘Yes.’

‘His business went well, I hope?’

Paulus said, with some irritation: ‘Why do you ask me? If you choose, you can know anybody’s business in Tarsus in an hour. I did not know that my father had any business on hand with Soxias, until last night. Did you think I was sitting at Soxias’s table on a matter of dirty commerce, Diomed? I was invited; I went. Why were you there?’

‘I was invited; I went. I generally do. One can always learn something new at Soxias’s table. Besides, Soxias is the most useful man in the world, if he happens to like you. He knows vastly more of what goes on than I do. Soxias has an eye at every hole and an ear at every door in the world. That’s the way I would have things, if I could. But with a different purpose from his…. However; your father’s business went well, I was hoping?’

‘I was angry with my father. I said that I was not playing the jester and eating dirt to make the merchants fat,’ said Paulus.

‘To which he doubtless replied: “Saul, can a starving man fight? Is a hungry bear strong? Is an unarmed man stronger than a man in armour with a sword? Money buys pontiffs, governors, generals. Money is not money. Money is strength. Can weaklings break chains? No. Are paupers strong? No. Gold is our spear, Saul, silver is our shield, Saul – money is liberty!” … Correct me if I’m wrong.’

‘You do not like my father,’ he said, without emotion.

‘It is not my business to like or dislike anybody,’ I said.

‘You cannot like my father, Diomed.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know him so well.’

‘Hold hard! I was merely following a line of reasoning, putting myself in your father’s position, Paulus. According to your argument, then, to know a man is to dislike that man. Not necessarily so! Following your reasoning, I might say: “Paulus does not love his father, since he feels that, knowing him, Diomed cannot like him.” Do you love your father, Paulus?’

He shrugged that question away, and said: ‘You were asking about his business with Soxias. Was it satisfactory to my father? I think so. And what does it involve? I believe, copper ore and timber. I tell you because if it suits you to find out, you will find out.’

I said: ‘Employ arithmetic. Copper plus timber connotes – what?’

‘Building?’ Paulus suggested.

‘True. But what else comes from the East? Hemp and pitch? Copper plus timber plus hemp plus pitch suggests –?’

‘Ships.’

‘To carry what?’

‘Cargoes. Grain, soldiers, anything.’

‘From where to where?’

‘From as far east as, say, Egypt – to as far west as Britain, perhaps.’

‘Bringing back what from Britain in ballast?’

‘Iron, and tin.’

‘With which we make what?’

‘Swords, axes, tools, knives –’

‘Fools, are we not? To pay good gold and silver for a few sticks of wood and lumps of ore?’

‘Why are you talking to me like this?’ asked Paulus.

‘A mood,’ I said. ‘To proceed; why pay when we can take?’

‘Why fight when it is cheaper to buy?’ Paulus replied, with a laugh.

‘A smooth answer,’ I said, laughing with him and leading him into my house. ‘But one of these days I hope to make you see the noble ideal of the Pax Romana.’

‘I am a Roman citizen,’ he said. ‘Never mock the power of gold and silver, Diomed.’

He had me there, he thought.

To avoid argument, I said: ‘True, Paulus, Roman citizenship is a costly thing to buy. Some men even pay for it with their blood. Your respected father must have thought it well worth whatever it cost him, or he’d never have bought it. Now it remains for you to earn it…. So long as you don’t eat dirt and play the jester merely to make the merchants fat.’

Then my secretary brought me a parcel, long and heavy and wrapped in silk, carefully sealed. ‘From Barbatus,’ he said, ‘to be delivered into your hands. It was brought two hours ago.’

I broke the seals. The silk covered a narrow box, in which lay a short curved sword. The scabbard and hilt were of ivory, alive with carvings of hunting-scenes, and extravagantly bejewelled. The blade was beautiful, keen as a razor for all its evident antiquity, and finely balanced: it was a pity, I thought, to waste such a blade on a hilt so valuable that fear of spoiling it might spoil one’s swordplay.

There was a little gold scroll-case, too, and a letter from Barbatus addressing me as his ‘beloved and most honoured friend’. It said:

Do not send thanks for this parting gift, for I am called away upon a journey with one companion, and would not have you with us yet awhile. This was the hunting-sword of King Darius. Alexander the Great took it at Issus, and often wore it. It was with this sword that Alexander slew his friend Hephaestion. A true history of the sword is drawn out on the accompanying scroll.

Barbatus.

And there was one of Barbatus’s inevitable postscripts:

You will remark the pommel of this sword. It is what the Indians call an elephant’s pearl. Once in many generations, as a reward for outstanding virtue, one of the elephants is presented with a mark of the Elephant-God’s approval in the form of a pearl of ivory, which it wears embedded in the heart of its right tusk, this most sagacious and powerful of beasts being too modest to wear it displayed. The possessor of such a pearl is a King among elephants. These pearls are extremely rare. I have seen only one other, and that was spoiled by the saw of the workman who cut the tusk. It is believed to confer upon the human owner of it, immense strength, great endurance, keen foresight, good hearing, and a remarkable memory, all of which attributes Alexander undoubtedly possessed.

B.

I said: ‘This makes twice in the day that I have had occasion to be reminded of Alexander. These things go in threes.’

‘My cup seems to be making everyone rich,’ said Paulus.

‘You have known me for a while, now, Paulus, and ought to have watched me. What does it mean when a man like me talks like an old woman about “things going by threes”?’

‘I should say that although you never look like anything but a bronze statue of a gladiator in repose, broken nose and scars and all, you are nervous. What about, I don’t know. Neither do you, I think, or you would not be nervous about it.’

‘Good. Let us eat and drink. It is time for my daily meal. I hope we finish it.’

I sat facing the north. Whatever was going to happen would happen there, because when I turned to the south I felt an uneasy tingling at the nape of my neck. I have come to rely on this sign, or presentiment – ignored it only once, when I was young, and will carry to my grave a dent in my skull to remind me how wrong I was.

4

LOOKING at my simple table Paulus said: ‘Diomed, I am honoured.’

I knew what he meant. I put out a variety of dishes only for strangers. When I dine alone, or with an intimate friend, I eat plainly, in the old fashion. Egg to apple – given a fish or a fowl, a roast of meat, some fruit and a piece of cheese, together with good wine – what more does a man require for his complete enjoyment? Show me a refiner of honest appetites, and I will show you a man on his way down. In the beginning man ate dirt because he could get nothing better. And he progressed through eleven hundred ways of cooking a pig – to what? Raw goldfish, a paste of unborn mice with honey and caraway seeds, and maggots begotten of creamy cheese soaked in sweet wine? Bah! When you make luxury of what the jackals eat – I mean, when you step out of your way to acquire a taste and need nausea for a relish – you are making sophistication out of decent disgust, and are going home to the cloaca and the rats. Honest hunger is the best sauce.

This evening we had a dish of eggs, a fish and a young lamb. I said to Paulus: ‘You’ll eat worse than this before you die, if you want to be a soldier. I say nothing of dead horses and fresh dogs: once, in the swamps, I fought a water-hen for a clutch of nearly-hatched eggs. I hadn’t the strength to catch the bird. The chicks were pulsating, but I ate them all but two, which I brought back to Sergius; and so he and I rallied the men, and we all had a supper of beef that night. And here I am.’

‘I like plain food,’ said Paulus.

‘Anchovies so salty they cut your throat and bread that breaks your teeth, washed down with sad water flavoured with sour wine, warm from your hip – these things you will learn to relish at the end of a long hard day,’ I said. ‘How many ways of dishing up a fish does your father’s cook know?’

‘I don’t know. You lead every conversation back to my father, Diomed. What do you want to know about him?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I only asked you, before, whether you loved him. You told me that you did not.’

‘Excuse me; I did not say so.’

‘If you can remember our recent conversation, Paulus, you must realise that you have said everything.’ I went on, in gentle admonition: ‘If you have nothing to say, better say nothing.’

But now Dionë began to sing in another room; some sad Cilician song of the forlorn love of a child of the Captivity alone among strangers. Whoever first made that song sang it drop by uncontrollable drop in tears to an outlandish twilight. And whoever picked it up let it out again, not from the heart but from the vulva. There is not much difference between the spirit that is refreshed by artificial woe, and the backside of Little Lucius that is titillated by a delicate bundle of twigs.

Yet: ‘How sweetly Dionë sings!’ said Paulus.

I said: ‘Yes, she has a pleasant voice. But I cannot say that I am very much in sympathy with such songs. Translated, she is howling:

Oh pity me, pity me, pity me, pity me,

Outcast and forlorn, oh forlorn,

Naked and hungry, yea, hungry and thirsty,

Far, far, far – oh far from my love!

Which is silly; as when, if you will excuse me, your Jaël, plucking a little harp, says that she hangs it on a tree and, with a winning smile, asks how she can sing the Lord’s song in a strange land…. Twang!’

‘Dionë is extremely beautiful,’ said Paulus, ‘if you will allow me to say so.’

‘She is not a bad-looking girl. But Jaël, surely, is infinitely more beautiful?’ I said.

‘Oh, I grant you, Jaël is beautiful, certainly.’

‘But what?’ I asked.

‘But nothing,’ he said.

‘Pardon. I thought you had something to add. You say: “Oh, I grant you, Jaël is beautiful, certainly,” and there is a kind of shrug in your voice – somewhat as if I were trying to sell Jaël and you were anxious to buy her, but thinking fast to find a fault in her so as to lower the price,’ I said. ‘How long have you been married?’

‘We were betrothed when she was seven years old and I was nine. We were married when Jaël was seventeen and I was nineteen.’

‘A year ago.’

‘Eleven months. You see, sometimes family marries family, fortunes marries fortune, clan marries clan.’

‘Which makes for a certain locking of shields,’ I suggested, ‘a certain stability in defence and attack. A strong family is a very fine thing.’

‘Yes. Now my mother and Jaël’s father are very distantly related. Jaël’s parental grandfather’s sister was my mother’s cousin twice removed. Work out the relationship if you like,’ said Paulus.

‘It is remote enough,’ I said.

‘Oh yes. There is a genealogy. We trace our descent to the House of David, my dear sir.’

‘For that matter,’ I said, ‘it seems that one can’t spit around here without splashing the foot of somebody who’d be a prince in Asia Minor if the truth were but known.’ I was thinking of Dionë and her Artavazd, King of Kings. ‘But you are wise to keep such legends for strictly private conversation, my boy. Our friend Jesus of Nazareth had some such notion, I think – and much good it did him!’ Paulus did not like to be mentioned in the same breath with Jesus Christ – I hastened to soothe him: ‘Look at me! Stick a pin in me and the blood of Quirinus himself would squirt! In our family we regard Marcus Porcius Cato as little more than a zealous kind of civil servant! We have survived simply because we have taken good care to say nothing at all about it. Wild mares get with foal by the wind, as they say, and we are all sons of the same father. But I was interrupting, my dear Paulus.’

‘Concerning Jaël, and what you were pleased to call my ‘shrugging a but’. You have sharp eyes, Diomed. Have you never observed how closely Jaël resembles my mother?’

‘There is a resemblance. Only a slight resemblance. But your mother is one of the most beautiful women in Tarsus.’

‘And my sisters?’

‘The resemblance is stronger there, of course – but they are your mother’s daughters, so why should they not resemble her? Also consider this: your mother is not only a beautiful woman, she is a fascinating woman, she has the power to charm; she is a strong woman, and she can command obedience because she can compel many people to say to themselves: “I wish I were like Paulus’s mother.” There is much more to a resemblance than a physical similarity. If you love and admire someone – especially when you are young – you cannot help imitating that person in the intonation of your voice, in your gestures, in your dress, in your postures, and even in your way of feeling. Whoever is loved and admired founds a school and forms a fashion in spite of himself.’

‘Whoever is loved and admired; exactly,’ said Paulus. ‘Well, my mother has created Jaël in her own image. Thus, my mother loves Jaël, Jaël loves my mother, and my father and my sisters worship them both. However, when I bring myself to approach Jaël as my wife I am overcome with a feeling that not only am I about to perpetrate some nameless abomination with my entire family – I am going to lie with four women all of whom I find somehow repulsive.’

I said: ‘You speak with little respect of your mother, Paulus.’

‘Do I? Then I express myself badly, or you pretend not to understand me. I have the deepest respect for my mother, and I honour her according to the Law.’

‘According to the Law,’ I said. ‘Save us from your Law! Such honour has too many loopholes…. And your father?’

‘My father is my mother’s husband,’ Paulus said, impatiently. Then he began to talk to me almost in the tone of an elderly gentleman with all his follies behind him, made wise by suffering and hardened in his opinions by a long series of disillusionments. It is at the same time comical and sad, when a softly-nurtured youth talks like this to a man whose cheek felt the edge of a sword before it knew the razor, as mine did; and who has mourned dead father, mother, brothers, wife and son, as I had before my twenty-fifth year.

But I managed to keep a straight face as Paulus said: ‘Diomed! Beware of women! They will stop at nothing to gain power. They are sensual and greedy to the soul. They are all dangerous, devious, treacherous and lustful. There is no such thing as a truly virtuous woman. All their love is fleshly. Even good women use their purity only for vain and selfish purposes. They cannot help it – they are made so. Their youthful beauty is a delusion; and there is nothing so sickening as the hideousness of an old woman, because she is Woman unmasked. Woman is a quagmire – it is her nature to suck indiscriminately down into herself. She caresses in order to crush and crushes in order to swallow, having first bathed you in her saliva – like the Serpent, who found her, of all created creatures in Eden, the one that was open to his wicked counsel. Open, open, open! She is always open, like a pitfall. She gives birth to something small only to take it back again when it is large. She must squeeze flowers to disguise the fact that she stinks like a slaughterhouse. She is the Cow of Egypt with an obscene belly. She is the crocodile of the Nile in her tears – she cries only to lure the pitiful within reach of her sepulchral mouth. Tears! Offend her – and your every word offends her if it is not her word too – and she will weep you to distraction. Say nothing, do nothing, and she will ask: “What have I done wrong?” until you go away; when she will weep you back to beg forgiveness for having made her cry. Diomed, she contaminates you with hypocrisy and deceit. It is impossible to be honest with a woman and live in peace with her. She drives you into hiding in the coldest caves of your echoing heart. Woe to the house that is ruled by a woman! And woe to the council in which any woman has a voice, for it is weakness that votes her there!’

I said: ‘By which I infer – since we had been speaking of your father – that your mother rules your father’s house, and your father acts on your mother’s advice.’ I had known this long before; and I knew, also, that there is a certain rottenness in a man who can so consistently act in accordance with evil advice. If he knows no better, he is wrong; if he knows better but is constantly prevailed upon, he is wrong. A bad adviser is not necessarily always to be blamed for a wrong course of action. ‘Still, you honour your father.’

‘According to the Law.’

‘There is no law, however, which can command you to love, I believe.’

‘Diomed, I swear to you that when I was a child I had for my mother a love almost unholy in its intensity! But when I became a man –’

‘A man according to your Law, I take it?’

‘If you like. When I became a man, as it were overnight, I began to shrink from my mother’s touch.’

‘So that, not having your face buried in her bosom, your eyes were free to see her and your mind to consider her?’

‘Yes! It was like that with you?’

‘No. Go on.’

‘Why, then I began to worship my father.’

‘Until you observed that he worshipped and obeyed your mother, eh?’

‘True, more or less. Very well then, Diomed – what happened to me after that?’

‘You found yourself utterly alone in a world of women.’

‘It must have happened to you!’ cried Paulus.

‘No. Yours is a woman-dominated people, Paulus, and has been ever since Abraham’s wife Sarah drove the unhappy girl Hagar into the wilderness with Ishmael. I’ll wager that if anyone had remonstrated with Abraham about this treatment of his concubine and his first-born son, he would have said: “God told me to let Sarah have her way.” God being Sarah…. No, no such things happened to me. I loved my mother and my father. A child should be his mother’s for the first seven years; but the father should be fit to command the mother; both parents being, in the finest sense of the term, friends. They should love and respect each other, and the child should be judiciously ruled by both in equilibrium. But we were old-fashioned people. There was only one emotional outburst in our house,’ I said.

‘How was that?’ asked Paulus.

‘When the news came of my brother’s death. It happened one evening. We were standing on the terrace when the messenger came. Marcus was dead in the German forests. We did not say a word until my father said: “How did he die?” The messenger said: “Last but three of his company, and in a ring of German dead, with eleven wounds, all in front.” My father said: “Good lad!” The messenger said: “He had stooped to disengage his sword when his dying enemy struck upwards into his bowels. Marcus fell forward.” “Good lad!” my father said again. Then my mother cried: “Oh Marcus, my son!” and covered her face. My father said to her: “Thank the gods, rather, that he died like a Roman. If it had only been me! And I must die in my bed!” I begged permission to leave, went where nobody could see me, and threw myself on the ground, and wept; for Marcus was my hero. Soon, young Sergius – old Pugnax, that is now – found me and said: “Get up, young sir; your father’s coming, and you’d better not let him catch you crying.” So I did. We were quite a well-regulated family.’

‘You resemble your father, I imagine,’ said Paulus.

‘A little. But I am a pup by the side of him.’

‘Do lions have pups? … But which of my parents am I?’ Paulus asked, falling into the Jewish rhetorical style.

Answer such a question and you find yourself knee-deep in metaphysical quicksand. Actually, when he was at his most vivacious, when he was brightest and sharpest, when his company was most worth having – as, for example, at Soxias’s table – Paulus was remarkably like his mother when she was drawing on her considerable reserves of charm and wit to fascinate strangers. But I did not want to spoil his self-revelatory, confidential mood by telling him this; and since I, too, can play rabbinical Cat’s Cradle, I said: ‘A man is his own father and mother. He must fill his own skin.’

‘No, but I mean in point of actual resemblance.’

‘As I believe I said just now, a man resembles most the one he most desires to resemble.’

‘And what if I say “I would be like Diomed if I could”?’

‘I should ask why.’

‘I should reply: “Because Diomed is a whole man.”’

‘What is that?’ I asked.

He began to count on his fingers: ‘Calm of spirit, strong of mind, great of heart, sure of purpose, clear of vision …’ He paused.

‘Start on the other hand,’ I said, smiling.

‘Clever but honest, meticulous without womanishness, alert but steady, far-sighted in detail, tortuous yet direct like a mountain path –’

‘Enough,’ I said. ‘You have no more fingers.’

‘Learned without pedantry, cool to refresh but not to freeze, warm to thaw but not to burn, bright to illuminate but not to bedazzle …’ He stopped to think.

‘You might find all these qualities in your diametric opposite and your deadliest enemy,’ I said.

‘How could I find such qualities in him and still consider him my deadliest enemy?’

‘I said, you might find them. Only you would not look for them. You would say, first of all: “This is my enemy,” and act accordingly. And if you stumbled over his virtues, you’d turn them into dirt to throw at him – they’d strengthen your fear of him, and your determination to exterminate him – they would make him all the more dangerous. So you’d find some way of saying to yourself: “In my case, these qualities are virtuous, but in my enemy they are vicious.” Besides, in your little catalogue of manly virtues, haven’t you merely served the bone without the marrow?’

‘Have I?’ Paulus asked.

‘In one way or another, to what does man aspire? Shall I say, not to become god-like, but to become one with God, if you will?’

‘For the sake of argument, yes. Ultimately, yes.’

‘There is no argument. Forgetting, for the moment, your six hundred and thirteen articles of Law, each, I dare say, with its six hundred and thirteen by-laws – what does man, ultimately, ask of God?’

‘Mercy.’

‘Then what is this “whole man” of yours without a little kindness? And how can he be kind without understanding? And how can he understand without humility? And I do not mean what your ragged prophets call humility, when they wear their own excrement as arrogantly as a millionaire’s favourite whore wears her paint, and nurture their lice as lap-dogs or jewelled monkeys, and boast that they are dust – God’s chosen dust. I mean the humility that must come to any honest man whose courage is strong enough to let him read his own heart.’

‘Yes, I should not have forgotten modesty,’ said Paulus.

‘Modesty? Who said modesty?’ I asked. ‘I said humility, not modesty. Modesty is an affectation of humility. Modesty is a hypocrite. Modesty is sackcloth fashionably draped, and with a silk lining. Modesty sprinkles herself with costly perfume, saying: “Oh, this is nothing but some stuff out of squashed old dead flowers.” Modesty bows her head to show off her neck. Modesty is a beggar; humility never begs. Modesty is flagrant. Humility is a thing of the spirit – a private matter between a man and his gods. Modesty is for slaves, sly whores and common politicians. Humility is a noble quality of the free –’

I caught myself on the edge of eloquence, and silenced myself with a draught of wine.

‘But not in excesss,’ said Paulus.

‘How is it possible for a noble quality to exist in excess? In excess it ceases to be noble – it upsets the balance of the spirit…. Drink a little wine, Paulus, and tell me why, when we left Soxias’s, you wanted to come here?’

‘Suddenly I was lonely,’ said Paulus.

‘Suddenly?’ I asked.

‘No, not suddenly.’

‘Lonely, with the loneliness that wants company?’

‘No.’

‘With the loneliness that needs love?’

‘No.’

‘The loneliness, then, that yearns not to be beloved, but to love?’

‘It is possible. What do I know? How can I know?’

‘But over all, a feeling of being as yet only half-born? A stifled craving to be your self alone and entire, your own man, free and with a whole heart to give away?’

Paulus shrugged a shoulder towards his chin, or nodded ambiguously towards his shoulder. ‘And what then?’ he asked.

‘If that is so it is good for you,’ I said. ‘Other kinds of loneliness are whimperings and bellyaches. Yours is the true growing-pain. Cheer up, old fellow – a healthy man soon gets over being young!’

‘I am no longer a child, Diomed.’

‘I didn’t say you were. Paulus, there are two kinds of torment you must suffer – the first, when you must squeeze yourself into a space too small for you; and the second, when you must force yourself to be great enough to fill a space too large for you. You are undergoing both at the same time. Happy is the man who finds and fits his space in the world! But you never will, you know …’

This did not displease him. He said: ‘Happiness is something I don’t take into consideration. But what space shall I fit? Am I to be too big or too little?’

‘Both,’ I said. ‘Too great for today, and too small for tomorrow.’

‘That,’ said Paulus, slowly, ‘could mean a man of power, or an unborn babe, or it could mean a big plant in a little pot.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

So it was, and so it is right: ‘Too great for today, and too small for tomorrow’ holds good for every man in the throes of growing; every man, every beast, every tree. A safe syllogism, this one. But one may learn something of a person by the way he accepts it as applied to himself. If he takes it as a compliment, he is a plain fool; if he takes it as an insult, he is a vainglorious fool; but if he sees through the membrane with which he covers his poor pride and perceives the meaning of the statement, he is not a fool at all.

And Paulus was a proud and ambitious young man, and a hard-grained one; for he is a brave and implacable man who dares to hunt himself down, and come to handgrips with himself, and still keep hold of his self-respect – which is what Paulus was so stoutly trying to do. Not many men have the will to try it, and of these few escape whole from their own black lairs. Paulus would.

‘I said: ‘You will be a man of power. Your roots will burst the pot of –’ I stopped myself.

‘Of?’

I had almost said ‘of Israel’, but I changed it to: ‘Of your family. You’ll feel your way through the dirt in a thousand different directions and suck up strength from the world at large. Meanwhile, be patient with yourself. Forgive yourself for being young. You still have a lot to unlearn.’

‘I am a Jew, Diomed. How far can a Jew go in a Roman world?’

‘Far,’ I said. This was not the time to say to him that Judaea was a dunghill, a useless fuming ferment alone in a heap, but potent to sweeten and be sweetened if it were spread and mixed with the other muck of the world. I said: ‘Far and wide, deep and high.’

A Melanion would have asked how far a Jew could go in a Jewish world; and he would have contended, citing chapter and verse from their own holy writings, that the Jews had nobody but themselves to blame for whatever slight inconveniences they had suffered, that they had been suffered to clamour so long in their strip of territory only by the charity of their several conquerors; that their very patriarchs were mostly rascals who deceived their dying father in order to swindle their brothers, who got swinishly drunk and copulated with their daughters, who grew rich by profiteering in grain during famines … and so on, indefinitely. But I said: ‘It takes a broad mind to rule a wide world, Paulus, and Rome has a broad mind. Also, she knows what is good for her, and she has given provinces to less likely men than you.’

‘Jews?’

‘Now I ask you,’ I said, ‘would it be sane policy to put the peace and prosperity of a province into the hands of someone to whom its inhabitants were by holy law filthy and abominable?’

He shook his head.

I said: ‘A somewhat corrupt governor – perhaps. A somewhat brutal governor – quite possibly. But an idol-smashing governor? Unthinkable. We smash gods only as a punitive measure, never as a matter of religious principle. We are a practical people – we know that it pays to be tolerant. Furthermore, we are a strong people; we keep our gods in their place, with all due respect, of course – no priest rules Rome. Jealous little bloody-minded tribal deities, like the comic travesty of the Soul of the Universe that the Jews worship, don’t suit us at all. They foment discord, where we want a strong state of balanced calm. It seems to be that only bafflement and bewilderment born of ungratified vanity mixed with an ingrained slavish cowardice can breed the secretive, dreamy, hungry arrogance that characterises the average Jew … I hope I do not offend you by these generalisations?’

Paulus smiled, and said: ‘Go on, go on! I know my Diomed. He is something like a bear – when he is at his clumsiest, then he is most dangerous. You are coming to something short, sharp and deadly. Continue; crush my bones!’

‘I said: ‘Oh, I was only talking. You asked how far a Jew could go in a Roman world, and I was trying to answer in a general kind of way over a friendly cup of good wine from my own vineyards, which always makes me feel easy and conversational….’ I spoke easily, lazily, as a man talks when he is comfortable with a good dinner. ‘Talking around and around the point you raised, it seems to me that the Jews derive a certain acid pleasure from hearing the word “jew” used as an opprobrious epithet. It sharpens their exquisite sense of uniqueness. Similarly, they have taken to relishing their various “captivities” – much as you or I sometimes enjoy being scrubbed with a rough brush after a sweaty day – as a kind of regimen of purifying punishments. It is true, I think, that left alone the Jews would have annihilated themselves completely by now, in an endless series of tribal wars of extermination over differences in points of doctrine. No, no, a country, however small, cannot be ruled from a temple or a college of priests. So, as a force to be reckoned with, Judaea existed only for a few years – and precariously at that – under David and Solomon. But they were great kings. Oh, the blood is there, the blood is there!’

‘So?’ said Paulus, watching me.

‘So, nothing. The pity of it is, that the Jews have never been able to keep the peace among themselves; for with all their insistence on the oneness of their god. they split him into as many different little Jehovahs as they have dissenting sects – worship the same god in a different way, and you pray to a different god. How many sects have the Jews?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Paulus, with an impatient shrug.

‘Neither do I. But your people are always casting each other out and hunting each other down: as, for example, you are at present doing, quite competently, with the Nazarenes. I say, “quite competently” – for a beginner, that is, and with a strictly local range; nicely, very nicely.’

‘Do I ask for a restricted range, Diomed?’ Paulus asked. I had spoken with calculated condescension, and was gratified to observe that he answered in perfectly even tones. ‘Slip my leash, Diomed; give me authority.’

‘It isn’t mine to give, but we’ll talk about that later, perhaps. Do take more wine. I’ve upset you. This is the hour for digestion and general conversation. What was I saying? Oh yes. The difficulties encountered by the man who would govern the Jews would, as old Tibullus would say, be well-nigh insuperable. And where would one look to find him? A man who would be acceptable both to the Jews and to Rome, an honest man but a true ruler, strong and steady enough to hold the balance? Clever enough to strengthen Judaea without weakening Rome? Do you know, such a man might rule half Asia! He must be a Jew, necessarily. But what Jew? One of the Herods? A bad stock at best, and seeded out, at that…. Let us think, now … who could be King of the Jews?’

If I was a kind of bear, well, now, in the second while Paulus was framing a ‘Who knows?’ – left paw, right paw, claws out – bearlike, I closed.

‘You!’ I said, striking the table.

If he had started, or laughed out loud, or told me not to be foolish, I should have been disappointed. But he simply looked me in the eyes quite calmly, although his heart must have made a great leap, for all the colour went out of his cheeks. His hand was firm as he took a sip of wine – still gazing steadily at me – and I was disconcerted, as if in some strange dream I had carelessly opened a familiar door and found myself blinking at the white heart of a furnace. Every man has his very secret dream. Know it, and you know the man. Idly fumbling, I had touched a secret spring and the mad vision of Paulus blazed naked for a moment, too hot for my eyes.

The memory of that night always brings with itself a sense of trapped heat and an image of soaring fire.

Paulus said: ‘Was Saul born to the purple?’ – in such a fashion that, with a shift of emphasis, his words might be construed in four different ways.

‘What is birth?’ I said, for the sake of talking. ‘If my cat has kittens in the oven, do I call them cakes? No, Saul was not; and he was the first King of the Jews. Absalom was; and he died hanging on a tree –’

‘Absalom was a fool,’ said Paulus.

‘Life was too easy for him. The best kings come out of chaos – like Eurynome. True kings are makers.’

‘Perhaps I might have done better to keep that cup,’ said Paulus, half to himself. Then: ‘Judaea is a chaos.’

‘And by what name would you be crowned?’ I asked. ‘Saul the Second?’

‘No. Paul.’

He gave full mouth to the diphthong, so that the name had the sound of a war-cry. The door was closing now.

‘There is no harm in such jokes, between friends, after dinner,’ he said. ‘By ‘king’, one naturally means ‘fit to be king’. And it is better to be a plain gentleman who is fit to be a king than to be a king whose crown is too large for his head and too heavy for his neck.’ The fire was hidden again.

‘Oh, absolutely,’ I said.

But something that had puzzled me for the past six months was suddenly explained. I had wondered, sometimes, at the furiousness of Paulus’s hatred for the Nazarenes: they seemed too little for such a bitterly concentrated hate, in a great world where there were so many big things worth hating if one were that way inclined. I had thought, at first: ‘The Nazarenes are simply something on which this untried hunter uses his little skill and his great energy, burning up the drippings of a rich but half-cooked imagination while he chases the hare and makes believe that he is hunting the lion.’

Then, when I knew him better, I said: “No, he is a servant of the spirit of the hunt, but reason tempers his zeal: he would not be hunting if he were not driven by a conviction that the death of the poor little hare is somehow necessary to him. He will hate that hare, therefore, as long as it lives. It is in his way. He wants to prove both to Rome and to Jerusalem that he is a necessary man, and so he will kill that Nazarene hare if he bursts his heart in the chase. So Rome will say: “You have helped to keep our peace”, and Jerusalem will say: “You have helped to cleanse our house”. In a nutshell, Paulus is ambitious.’

Now I understand something more. It had come into my mind when I said that Absalom was the son of a king, and had died hanging from a tree. The rumour persisted that Jesus Christ was of the blood royal. Pilate, splenetic by nature, and at his most pointlessly spiteful when he was in a jocular mood, had pinned over that filthy and degraded carcass on the cross, a sign saying: ‘This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ After all, if Jesus had not made this claim, he never denied it. This was more than Paulus could bear. He might have forgiven the Nazarenes their heresies. He would never forgive them their Jesus. He loathed Jesus, in his heart of hearts, as a kind of ghostly usurper of his private throne, an interloper coming between himself and his hopeless, magnificent dream. And now every Nazarene was a little Jesus, and his personal enemy.

And here, too, was the origin of Paulus’s ‘loneliness’.

Poor young man! He could take your love for granted, but he felt that he would never know anyone big enough to receive his own. Unrolled, the love of Paulus – vain man! – was great enough to spread over a kingdom; it would suffocate anything less.

Perhaps one day some philosopher will synthesise my proposition; that our most abrupt, unpredicted and mad actions have been the longest in secret premeditation. They are old, imprisoned dreams bursting the seals. If they burst in the right direction and at the right time, you are a great man. If they do not, you are a madman.

I said: ‘Well, well, there is a kingly quality in any true soldier. In battle he feels in him a certain greatness, once his first fear is gone. He has been drilled to know that he is only a part of his company, yes. But when the critical moment comes, he feels that his company is only a part of himself…. And touching the matter of that, do you know that there has been a stink of The Fish in the Damascus garrison?’

It may be remembered by the likes of Tibullus that the secret symbol of the first Nazarenes was the Sign of the Fish, thus:

It could be made, as it were accidentally, as I did while I was talking, in three movements of a wet wine-cup. Some said that it had been evolved by one or other of Jesus Christ’s disciples, one of the Galilean fishermen whom Jesus had promised to make a fisher of men. Others, that it was brought in by Sidonians who used to worship the fish-god, Dagon. Others again said that the Fish symbolised everlasting life, resurgence, the death and resurrection of the body – that, in short, it was nothing but the eternally erect penis of the old god Priapus, borrowed for the sake of convenience. There was talk, also, of Poseidon, or Neptune; however this may be, for a little while we referred to Nazarene influence as ‘A stink of The Fish’.

‘Among Roman soldiers?’ Paulus asked.

‘Why not? If there is one thing the Nazarenes are not, it’s exclusive. They are astonishingly catholic. A large proportion of them are Jews, of course, it being a Jewish cult. But there are no fees, no mysteries, nothing. All you have to do is say you believe; and be you circumcised or otherwise, black African, blue Briton, dog-faced Scythian, they wash you in water and your past is gone and forgotten, and you are with Jesus from then on. So, one fine morning, while the officer was inspecting his company on parade, two legionaries stepped out of the ranks, dropped shield and spear, drew their swords, and offered them hilt first to the amazed centurion in the name of King Jesus, the Son of God! Non-violence, as you know, is one of their tenets.’

‘I know about their apish tenets,’ said Paulus. ‘But what happened?’

‘Oh, I imagine the men were flogged to death without much delay, in the presence of all the rest. But the matter gives one food for thought. A sect like that could be truly dangerous – the slave laughs at the whip, the criminal laughs at the judge, the soldier offers his sword to the enemy, crying: “King Jesus! King Jesus! King Jesus!”’ I watched Paulus; his mouth tightened a little. ‘King Jesus is all very well, so long as his kingdom is not of this world, as I am told he said. But when we come around to obstruction and passive mutiny, it seems to me that his followers are acting with a distinctly temporal as well as spiritual effect.’

‘Will Rome tolerate this?’ asked Paulus.

‘It remains to be seen how long our patience will last. I’ll tell you one thing, though – it is regarded as very unlucky, just now, for a soldier to hold up his sword with the hilt pointing away from him; and civilians are regarded as suspect, out Damascus way, who wear their knives or daggers in that fashion or even cross their fingers to avert bad luck. Such things are well worth noticing, Paulus. The sword reversed is the universal sign of submission, surrender, non-resistance, self-immolation if you like, and it is the easiest sign in the world to make – with a finger dipped in wine, with two sticks, with anything you like; the sign of the gallows, so:

– convenient, useful, in fact unavoidable in architecture, bridge-building, the making of domestic furniture, arms; and even in arithmetic, because you can’t calculate without the use of the X, which is the same figure with a short arm turned sideways. If I were a Nazarene organiser, I’d adopt that sign; everybody has it. And if I were you, I’d watch for its being made out of place; because the Nazarenes are already a kind of secret society, and they must have a quick, easy sign, and a countersign. For all these little things you will keep a sharp eye open, because as soon as real pressure is brought to bear on them, the Nazarenes will go underground.’

‘Yes, they would not fight,’ said Paulus bitterly.

‘Why should they? Fight, and be exterminated for armed revolt, and they a scattered handful? Fanatics they may be, but they aren’t complete fools. Besides, they are pacifists, and if they die for their faith, why, there is waiting for them Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, King of the Jews, in whose bosom there is eternal bliss. They are one with the Oneness of things.’

‘And yet they shall fight,’ said Paulus, through his teeth.

I pretended to sigh. ‘Such a lot of trouble out of such a little village! Nazareth. Mud huts! But what was Rome, once upon a time?’

‘Does Diomed mention Nazareth and Rome in the same breath?’ asked Paulus.

‘Why not? Believe me, my boy, concerning mud – the gods play with any clay that keeps their hands occupied. “Nazarene” is as good a stamp as any. Theirs is a faith for slaves, and most men in the world are slaves.’

‘Under Rome,’ said Paulus, spreading his hands like a shopkeeper and bowing his head in mock humility.

I said: ‘You know what happened when the razor tried to sharpen itself at the expense of the file? It ruined itself. Only fools try to split meanings in order to be clever. I was about to say, every man is a slave who has a hunger, be it for bread or love or power or peace; and the Nazarene was a hungry man’s prophet. He can take on something of the colour of his surroundings, therefore. So he is the helpful fallen log that turns out to be a crocodile, the patch of shade in the desert that becomes a lion, the bright green grass that is a quicksand. He dresses himself in your immediate need. He is sweet flesh for the leper, a new sensation for Little Lucius, a fresh speculation for Soxias – and a stepping-stone for high-climbing Paulus. Eh?’

Thoughtfully tracing little crosses with his finger-tip, Paulus said: ‘If you offer the hilt, you get the point. If the Nazarenes submit, they perish; if they resist, they perish. But I think they will resist. And oh, then …!’ He drew a hissing breath.

I said: ‘I hope they do, just a little, for your sake.’ And I thought: ‘If you imagine that I am to let you whip up an important insurrection, so that you may have the glory of putting it down, my dear young friend, you are mistaken.’

He read my thought, and said: ‘It is a bad doctor who lets the wound heal before the pus is drained. They are a mixed lot, as you say; and surely some of them must draw iron. The slave concept is very pretty in the preaching, but can a wolf turn into a lamb overnight?’

‘If not overnight, then never,’ I said. ‘The lamb was there all the time; when the wolf’s skin wore thin, the lamb came out … or vice versa. I know men who have changed heart overnight.’

He saw that I was hinting at what he had told me about himself and his mother, for he darted a sharp glance at me, and then looked away. I went on: ‘A little provocation is sometimes necessary, judiciously applied. Your analogy of the doctor is apt; but sometimes the life of the patient comes out with the pus. The body has its own ways of healing itself, and these the good doctor must know – ask Melanion. Did Rome wipe out Judaea because a few orthodox fanatics took up arms?’

‘No, but –’

‘There is no but. Where we are sending you, you will behave with disciplined moderation in your temporary capacity as acting peace officer and magistrate on circuit.’

‘You are sending me? Where, Diomed, where?’

‘To Jerusalem and Damascus, to begin with. It pleases Rome, for the time being, to support your Temple in its suppressive action against the Nazarene agitators.’

‘Oh, Diomed!’

‘Yes, I know, I know,’ I said. ‘It is “Oh, Diomed” and “Oh, Diomed”, and this is what you have been praying for, and all that. But this is not a holiday, and an affair for kicking up the legs. It is a very serious matter, like a man’s first battle. It is a mission, and you must accomplish it almost alone. By this I shall learn what you are worth. Success or failure depends upon your cool judgment and your correct conduct.’

‘I am proud,’ said Paulus, ‘I am very proud to have been chosen.’

‘So you ought to be,’ I said. ‘It is a matter of life or death for you. I don’t mean that it is at all dangerous; only if you fail us, well, you might as well resign yourself to selling hides and lending money to the farmers for the rest of your life – and that would be death to my friend Paulus, I think.’

‘It would!’ He appeared cool enough now; but a pulse had begun to beat in his throat.

‘Several names were considered. All were eliminated but two – yours and one Lazar of Lachish.’

‘Son of Isaac of Lachish – woollen cloth, fine leather, and parchment – a weakling,’ said Paulus, blowing away an imaginary feather.

‘Very likely. I had a voice in the matter, and my vote went to you. Keep still, keep still – the fact that I regard you as a sort of very young brother, or, if you like, half-grown son, had nothing to do with it. I voted, as I think, wisely. And for the first time in my life I believe I shall have had the good fortune to please everybody in the course of duty. When you were last in Jerusalem your father’s friends liked you for what they called – believe me or not – your “learning, zeal, piety, and pleasing demeanour”. And your father has almost as many friends as he has enemies – he knows how to make them, in the right quarters. But your father’s enemies agreed with his friends on this occasion, saying among themselves: “Pride goes before a fall. Give that haughty little fastidious Pharisee his head, and he will make a perfect fool of himself. He is too young, too hot-headed, and too inexperienced for such a mission. He will come back in disgrace, and that pious old fraud Joseph will never hold his head high again.” Such Romans as know you say: “Really, for a Jew, Paulus is almost half civilised. A Jew isn’t necessarily a bad sort, once he has learned white men’s ways. Send little Paulus to purge the Nazarenes, by all means – an educated Jew hates wild Jews as a dog hates wolves”…. Something like that.’

He showed no emotion. I continued: ‘You will take these points of view for what they are worth, which isn’t much. You will force your passion to serve the work in hand. I will have no fine frenzies, no smitings hip-and-thigh. You will handle the Sanhedrin with the utmost discretion: you must seem to obey them in everything, while at the same time you enforce the will of Rome. This, in itself, is a game at which older and wiser men than you have failed miserably. They will want blood. But you will kill only where killing will so some good; that is to say, with extreme discrimination. You will take plenty of prisoners, though, but try and get them young and strong; we want men for the mines, the roads and the circuses. A sturdy fisherman generally makes a good net-and-trident man, if you catch him young, and there is a shortage of retiarii in Rome…. But there is plenty of time for your instructions in detail.’

His jaw dropped. ‘Plenty of time? When am I to go, then?’

‘In a week, let us say.’

‘And what is my rank or official position?’

‘You haven’t got one. This appointment is a special civil one. Your present ambiguous position of Tax Examiner gives you latitude enough.’

‘Do I go in armour on this occasion?’

‘No. Better dress as usual in some rich but plain manner, with a judicative touch about it. But if I were you I’d wear helmet and body armour and a good sword on the road. The passes are dangerous. But you will ride with an escort this time – one of the younger officers and ten soldiers – and an Unofficial Observer.’

‘What is that?’

‘Someone who will bring me a dispassionate, unbiased report of the affair, apart from your own official statement. I think I shall send Afranius. He has nothing better to do, and his eye is clearer than most. Besides, he likes you.’

‘I like Afranius,’ said Paulus, pursing his lips and nodding gravely; he was the cool administrator, now, in counsel with his peers. ‘Yes, Afranius is not a fool, and I think he is an honest man.’

‘I am sure Afranius would be flattered,’ I said. ‘Now there is one other thing I particularly desire you to do, Paulus. It is in the nature of a secret inquiry, or, perhaps, a confidential errand.’

‘You know you can trust me, Diomed.’

‘I know I can. It is confidential and secret because I cannot yet make it official. I can give you only some broken threads to follow, some smeared tracks, and by these you will try and find me a certain man, and bring him back alive.’

‘Name him and I will find him,’ said Paulus.

‘This is no part of your official duty, Paulus.’

‘That is all the better – name the man!’

‘Jesus of Nazareth, so-called King of the Jews,’ I said.

5

HE paused, then laughed. ‘What with the good wine and the good news, Diomed, the blood must be a little thick in my head, and my ears are playing me tricks. Do you know, I could almost swear I heard you say “Jesus of Nazareth”!’

‘That is what I said.’

‘But you said “a man”.’

‘Quite right.’

‘Oh, I think I understand. You were speaking figuratively. You meant, the man who has inherited this Jesus’s mantle, so to speak?’

‘You don’t. I wasn’t. I didn’t. I meant exactly what I said. I want you to bring back Jesus of Nazareth.’

‘But he is dead!’

‘Then bring me his corpse,’ I said, smiling.

‘Diomed,’ said Paulus, tapping his words out steadily and carefully, as goldsmiths do with gold-dust when they shake it out of a horn spoon on to a balance, ‘if you speak to me again as to a wanton child who must be kept quiet with mockery and riddles, upon my honour I leave your house, and we are no longer friends! I’ll gather taxes, I’ll sell hides, I’ll finance ventures, I’ll ride with the caravans – you go too far, you presume too much!’ He leapt up, his hands clenched and his face set, struck to the heart with a sense of pathos.

‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘I was not playing with you. Even if I had been, you should have kept still.’ Sudden exaltation is a tricky thing; a young man is no more fit to hold his balance on a freshly-realised hope than a fledgling is to fly. A breath may send him spinning, a thought may turn him.’

‘Pardon,’ said Paulus, sitting again.

‘Granted. Jesus Christ is dead, you say, is he not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your evidence, please.’

‘Evidence? Firstly, he was tried and sentenced in a Roman court. Secondly, the sentence of death was carried out. Thirdly, he was pronounced dead, and was buried.’

‘Pronounced dead. By whom?’

‘He was sentenced to die on the cross.’

‘Let that pass for the moment. Buried. Where?’

‘I understand that his friends obtained permission to bury him in a private tomb, like a person of quality.’

‘Correct. Then where is his body?’

‘In the tomb, no doubt.’

‘Well, it is not. What do you make of that?’

Paulus said: ‘Nothing much. His followers being blasphemers and fanatics, no doubt they wanted to make some kind of holy place, or shrine, of the spot where their “king” was to lie. The Egyptians worship dung-beetles and filthy ibises and desert dogs; the Indians pray to cows and monkeys; then why should the Nazarenes not say their prayers to a carrion carpenter? They carried away their Christ’s carcass to nuzzle his rotten bones in peace and quiet in some hole in a hill.’

‘Plausible,’ I said, ‘only it appears they did nothing of the sort. Some angels came and carried Jesus up to heaven like Elijah.’

‘You don’t believe that?’ cried Paulus.

‘Of course I don’t. Angels do not bother to pack your clothes for you when they carry you away, as they seem to have done in the case of Jesus Christ. They remembered to include a quantity of linen bandages and some ointments, too – for which, I trust, we shall have no further use in the other world.’

‘Then who stole the corpse of Jesus?’

‘Nobody. Considering the matter, in idle moments, I have arrived at a half-formed conclusion that there never was any corpse of Jesus to steal.’

‘You mean, it was laid in some other burying-place?’

‘No. I am considering the matter solely as a police officer now. The religious aspect of the matter does not concern me. If Jesus Christ is dead, so be it – leave him to the gods – Hades holds court beyond my jurisdiction. It is my conjecture that he is alive.’

‘Your evidence, please?’ said Paulus.

‘What kind of evidence would you like? General grounds for a particular belief, as in metaphysics? Or eye-witnesses’ statements that tend to establish the point, as in law?’

He thought a moment, and said: ‘From you, Diomed, your general grounds for belief. Diomed’s considered conjecture carries more weight with me than a judge’s summing up. How many times have you demonstrated to me the fallibility of the eye-witness?’

‘Yes,’ I said, pleased with his sincere vehemence, ‘multiply the witnesses, and you divide the truth. I have, for example, questioned witnesses who swore most solemnly – having nothing to gain and possibly something to lose by so swearing – that they, and hundreds of others, saw Jesus Christ being carried into the sky over Jerusalem, in the arms of two or three angels. He was lying like a man asleep, and his mangled hands hung down. Some of them had drops of his blood on their head-dresses to prove it – neat, star-shaped splashes that couldn’t have fallen from higher than a man’s nose; and any clodhopper who has been sprinkled with blood from a stricken bird will tell you that such drops must make a narrow, pear-shaped splash, never a round one. But still they swore; and when one witness said: “It seemed to me his hands were folded”, half a dozen others were ready to tear him to pieces. There is a point worth remembering, incidentally – their sect is not half formed, and they are already letting the image of their Christ come between themselves and what he preached.’

‘This I know,’ said Paulus. ‘But you were coming to your evidence, not theirs. You have an eye in your mind which is worth a cart-load of the jelly they keep in their skulls.’

‘That was only a case in point. Let us come to the subject of Jesus himself. What are the known facts about this person? There are very few. His birth was registered at Bethlehem. His parents came from Nazareth, a small town. One of Jesus’s brothers, or stepbrothers, is still conducting the old carpenter’s shop where our Nazarene grew up, I hear. Many people know the family. Joseph, the putative father of Jesus, is still alive – or was, when last I heard of him – a sour old man, crippled in the joints, and with a face like the claw of a crab, as I am told. Those who knew his family best hate Jesus the most, not for personal reasons, but because it simply does not make sense that the boy who used to sweep up the shavings and carry bags of sawdust to the meat-smoker should be a Redeemer, a Prophet. As you know, every Jewish wife hopes to give birth to the Messiah, and all good Jews pray for his coming – but they are not at all likely to believe in him if he happens to be born to a next-door neighbour.

‘If our little Jesus had risen high in the rabbinate through the orthodox channels, no doubt the townspeople would be proud of him. But his immediate origins are too familiarly low. They don’t like that. What is more, it appears that Jesus was an infant prodigy. That is an awkward thing for a boy to be, in a town like Nazareth. A woman may scold her boy, screaming: “Come out of the dirt, ruffian! Does Joseph’s little Jesus play with mud?” But in her heart she hates Mary for having borne the unfortunate brat, and hopes that he will come to a bad end. And rest assured that the other boys don’t like Jesus; he is a target for their spitefullest tricks and dirtiest jokes. Joseph’s other sons detest him. Even Joseph would show his distaste for him, if he dared. Referring to him, he always says to his wife: “Your son”, with a kind of querulous irony.’

Paulus said: ‘No doubt. The woman had a shady reputation. She was already with child when she married this fatuous stool-maker.’

‘So I have heard. If so, she wasn’t the first girl that made a fool of herself, and she won’t be the last. If she had been the whore the Jews say she was, and had not wanted to be with child, why, any midwife could have rid her of it at three months with a pinch of rye-grain smut and a peeled twig. But even if she was that same whore – what, then? Why does your common harlot sometimes choose to bear a child, which can be nothing but a clog and embarrassment to her? To have a brat to beg with? No. They are to be rented by the day or week. Then why? Because it is the high doom of the womb that it shall fructify, and so there comes a moment when the prostitute tenderly opens herself, and the father of her child is a hazy composite of a thousand faces – a dream, my friend, a dream! – and so it happens that even the son of a whore may be begotten upon a virgin by a god. But wait! The same is true of the pure girl betrayed. Let her have a dozen children, the child of her secret grief and trouble is the one that is most entirely her own. Oh, moderate your moralities, my boy! As you live you will learn that many men born in wedlock are the fruit of fantasy, of spiritual adultery; or why do mothers love to call their children by strange names? Many a gritty charcoal-burner has been Apollo, if he only knew it, one night when there was no moon; and little does more than one plucked, pious matron know that she has conceived in the form of some cat-eyed slut her husband caught a whiff of when she brushed him in the street.’

Paulus said: ‘We will assume that in fact, however, this Jesus was the child of some stranger.’

‘Excuse me. Why should we assume that Jesus’s father was a stranger to his mother? Let us say, some person unknown. Why did Joseph marry her? Because he was a middle-aged widower and she was pretty? There is no shortage of presentable virgins among the Jews; girls with dowries, too. It may be surmised that the girl was of some respectable family whom she might disgrace, who paid Joseph well to marry her and take her away. We don’t know, and it is not material. We know that as soon as he was old enough, Jesus ran away. He simply disappeared, and there is no record of his movements. Why should there be? A carpenter’s son in a growing family leaves home. He appears to have joined the crowd that followed a prophet called John, who baptized his people in the Mithraic style and preached the coming of the Messiah as foretold by Isaiah. Herod put a stop to John, and the record goes blank. Actually, between the birth of Jesus and his appearance as a dissenting rabbi, there is an almost complete lacuna of about thirty years.

‘Then – pssst! – out of the desert comes Jesus, the voice of God, the very seed of God, the only begotten son of God, God, at the head of a rag-tag and bobtail of disciples and a riff-raff mob of worshippers weeping with ecstasy! And he is hailed as that Messiah who was to be born of a virgin and redeem the world. Some call him King.’

‘King!’ said Paulus.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘he was absolutely without fear, he knew exactly what he wanted to say, and he could find words to say this in a manner to excite popular enthusiasm. And, my boy, if you are a swineherd and have these gifts alone, you will carry yourself like a king by your own virtue – you will inspire faith, the people will look to you for guidance, and they will follow you. And at this point, you had better watch your back.’

Paulus protested: ‘He knew what he wanted to say, he said what he wanted to say! What did he say?’

‘Very little, and there was the genius of it. He made eloquent the tiny vocabulary of incoherence. The poor love great words, but not to pray with when they are in earnest. The poor like to worship a fine fat god, but it irritates them a little to see his priests get too gross when they are hungry. He sweated their god down to the sinew in the flesh while he filled the sky with him in the vapour. The poor are humble, but they don’t like to be made ashamed; they feel awkward in the presence of a god who says to the copper-miner: “You have a green face”, or to the iron-smelter: “You have black hands”. He said: “Spin them fast enough and all colours are white. Rinse your hands and come just as you are.”’

‘A faith for a rabble,’ said Paulus, contemptuously.

‘Absolutely. And so it caught on. But let me continue …’ I suppose I sighed; Paulus was no company, just now, for a man in a mellow, discursive mood. I was willing to discuss the nature and character of Jesus, as one of those strange men whom love of God destroys. I think I understand why some Jewish chroniclers sometimes imagine God coming out of nowhere and spinning the dead dust into a singing trumpet. Jesus was one of those to whom the trumpet sang in the emptiness of the desert. It sucked him in, spun him to its still heart, twirled him out, and sent him staggering away drunk with revelation down the crooked roads of the world, to spread the news that God was here and he was a part of him. It happens to all kinds of men everywhere. ‘I am God, and so are you, fellow dust-mote!’ they cry. ‘Ride with me to the place where the light sleeps when the lamp dies and the music goes when the harp is broken!’

Fevered imagination? Not so. Your Jesus sees his god’s countenance and reads his purposes as clearly as your Paulus sees a column of tax figures and reads their ineluctable sum total. If anything, the god-poisoned visionary is even deficient in imagination. To him, the men of the world are the dreamers. Only the Noumenon, the invisible, intangible Essence is the fact. For example, it takes a most unimaginative man to stand up and speak to a gathered audience, and expect them to go away satisfied with a hundred plain words of unsupported statement. But the divine authority is in this man if he can send that audience away satisfied, as Jesus did, no matter what he says.

I went on: ‘This Jesus said little because he believed that he was speaking literally with the voice of God, and giving voice to ultimate truths that needed no elaboration. He was a man of learning, competent to split hairs with the rabbinical analysts and interpreters, but he reduced his vocabulary to a couple of hundred words. He wrote nothing, because he felt that there was neither time nor need to write. His sedentary life was over, and he was a man in a hurry, on the road, always on the road – he was God’s own courier, the Messiah – the liberation of the world was at hand!

‘And his message delivered, he had to die like the Messiah in order that the Prophecy might be fulfilled. For if you believe in your Isaiah, you will bend your present to suit his future. It was necessary for Jesus to be betrayed, dragged through the streets, mocked, spat upon, humiliated, flogged, and hanged.

‘This was arranged in all its details, even to the difficult affair of the betrayal. Here comes a paradox: whom can a man trust to betray him? The betrayal of Jesus evidently had to be entrusted to a man who not only loved him, but who at the same time understood and worshipped him, upon whose discretion Jesus could absolutely rely. It was a delicate business, this betrayal. Rome didn’t want Jesus – if she had, she would have known exactly when and where to find him, but he was breaking none of our laws. His followers were quite orderly in their public demonstrations. The Temple couldn’t provoke anything like a satisfactory Nazarene riot. They could bring Jesus before the Sanhedrin, but at the most they could only try him on a fairly trivial religious charge, and even then their case would not be open and shut; he wasn’t an easy man to argue Law with, as they well knew. Now if they could only get him into the Procurator’s court on some such charge as sedition, and pack that court with a hand-picked rabble of their own just before the Passover festival, they might sway Pilate and get Jesus lawfully and permanently out of the way. They would base their charge, of course, on the fact that Jesus had let the people hail him as king.

‘This Jesus knew. So he sends his beloved friend and spiritual brother, Judas of Karioth, to lay information before the priests that on such-and-such a night, at such-and-such a time, Jesus will be found at a certain garden, where he may be arrested without the slightest trouble – for if he were to be apprehended in the streets, not even his exhortations could prevent the cobblestones and tiles from flying.

‘So the priests call the Roman patrol, and march out, and Jesus is arrested – ostensibly, to be questioned concerning such little matters as sabbath violation, and the like. But the High Priest has his questions carefully framed. Throwing up his hands in righteous alarm, he gives Jesus over to the Roman authorities on political grounds – the fellow is a pretender to the throne, and therefore a menace to our Peace in Judaea.

‘The only one I pity here is poor Judas. He was, when you consider it, one of the true heroes – for the love of his master he let himself be condemned not to mere torture and death, but to the disgust of everyone who loved Jesus. They say that Judas sold Jesus for thirty silver denarii. Nobody stops to think that Judas’s father, Simon ish Karioth, who loved his gentle little mystical son, would have filled his hands with gold any time the boy chose to ask. Perhaps you know of the old man?’

Paulus shrugged. ‘I think my father has had some dealings with Simon of Karioth. I seem to remember that it had something to do with wine. But please go on.’

‘It may be that Judas did take the few pieces of money in order to maintain his rôle of informer. The story goes that after Jesus’s arraignment, Judas came back to the priests and threw the blood-money in their faces. Whatever really happened, at this point poor Judas passes out of our field of vision, the one and only truly tragic figure in this pathetic little history – a gentleman of high courage. And Jesus is arraigned before the High Priest, who rattles off a few leading questions and rushes him before Pilate. It was smoothly managed. The mob is well handled; its temper is ugly, and the priests are resolute. Jesus is crucified with the bandits – and there is the beginning of the story.’

‘If you say so,’ said Paulus. ‘The beginning, if you say so.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now we must pause here to consider another very curious character, who is on record as the one who claimed and received delivery of Jesus’s body. I refer to a merchant out of Arimathea, a wealthy man named Joseph, nicknamed Amygdal, or Amygdalus, because he was in the almond trade.’

Paulus said: ‘Joseph Amygdal of Arimathea – I know something of that one, and he is a damned rogue.’

‘I find him interesting as a type. I know that if and when he comes back from Egypt we may have a few questions to ask him concerning certain discrepancies between his stated profits and his paid-up taxes, but that doesn’t concern us at this moment. I know that they say of him “a thorn bush grew out of an almond”. He began by selling some horses that belonged to his uncle in order to put down earnest-money for a large shipment of almond oil. This he sold quickly at a lower price than he was to pay for it, to get ready cash to buy grazing lands and herds dirt cheap, having bribed a certain Roman official and an engineer to confirm a rumour that a river was to be diverted and a valley thereby sentenced to death by drought. Then, having sold the land at a staggering profit, he paid for the horses and the oil – to the delight and gratitude of the men he had swindled. But the oil-presser, his chief creditor, was attacked by bandits on his way home, robbed, murdered, and thrown into a river. Our Joseph publicly mourned him as a friend. A little later he was seen wearing a diamond which was recognised as one which had been noticed on the oil-presser’s finger after he left Joseph’s house. But Joseph the Almond produced four reputable witnesses to confirm his statement that his cook had found the ring in the belly of a large fish while cleaning it; the cook being a slave, any property of his was the property of his master. He also swore that this unlikely story was true – so should I have sworn, if I had been Joseph’s slave. “The slave and the fish both being mine, so is the diamond,” said Joseph. “Besides, what proof is there that this was my poor friend’s diamond? One diamond is very like another diamond.” And while the dead man’s heirs were arguing de jure and de facto with Joseph’s lawyer, the diamond got lost in transit, somehow or other.

‘He is quite a character, this Joseph. He has made cinnamon out of birch bark; and a huge consignment of peppercorns, examined, sealed in boxes, and paid for on purchase, miraculously turned into little balls of clay after the boxes had been delivered and accepted and their seals broken. He organised a lottery on the Antioch chariot-races, with an “accumulative system” of computing the winnings so full of quantities, magnitudes and the relationship of forms, that Archimedes himself might have broken his head over it; the entire profits to be devoted to the building of a hospital for lepers. The profits, counted after Joseph’s expenses were deducted, were so small that the hospital was abandoned, and Joseph was regarded in some quarters even as a kind of martyr. I suppose a few lepers did get a few parcels of food and old clothes which they wouldn’t otherwise have got. As for Joseph, in spite of his “irretrievable loss” he was very anxious to start a new lottery, “bigger, simpler and better”, only a more influential philanthropist got in first.

‘But the poor always get a little out of Joseph the Almond, especially after he has done something more than usually wicked. He is one of those contrivers who have a daemon of cleverness on their backs which forces them to be dishonest as other men’s daemons might compel them to write poetry. But after the writing comes the reading; and then even Ovid squirms. When Joseph’s conscience growls like an empty belly, there is black bread and meat for the beggars and white bread and incense and doves for Jehovah, and he is a lucky man who wants a favour and catches Joseph in one of his hours of contrition. This doesn’t last, you know. Today, tomorrow, Joseph is possessed by a new scheme – the last scheme, the scheme to end the need for scheming – and off he goes again, leaving his conscience at home like a toothless old house-dog to welcome him when he returns, while he goes poaching with his yellow lurchers.

‘However, when the inevitable repentance sets in, his is no mere form of apology to a god. He is truly sorry; incense and doves aside, he wants to demonstrate this. So – haven’t you ever noticed it in this type? – he wants to do something dangerous for a friend. He wants to angle Destiny with himself for bait. Yesterday, every aspect of business that might expose himself to the slightest jeopardy was covered and double covered. Now, when there is nothing to be got for himself, he wants to dangle naked in the teeth of Chance; this is something he owes to the Eternal. Furthermore – and possibly first and foremost – he is one of those desperate characters who crave excitement, and cannot get the flavour of a thing unless it is salted with risk. He would rather lose on long odds than be safe on even money; let him hedge his bets as he will he gambles against himself. Only he likes to think of his gambling as an act of faith.’

Paulus said, scornfully: ‘I have heard players praying to the rolling dice. Gamblers are superstitious. Joseph of Arimathea bought Jesus’s body for a mascot, as another might buy a baby’s caul or a hare’s foot.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I think you are wrong. Like many of Joseph’s stripe, he held the likes of Jesus Christ in awe, and felt that he could somehow be helpful to him. I can imagine him begging Jesus: “Have a background! Get in the right line! Put out roots, make headquarters, know the right people! I don’t ask you to be anything but yourself, your very own self – I believe in you just as you are – but you’ve got to make the right friends!” Jesus laughs him away. Joseph is hurt, and says: “All right, laugh at me. So I’ve pulled one or two funny deals – I’m not in your class, and I know it – I’m an uneducated man. I can’t read books – only men. But I admire education all the more in others, Rabbi, and I believe in you, strike me blind I do! I know people inside out and I can find capital. Don’t forget I’m on the Council. God forbid anything should happen to you…. But if it does, mark my words old Josef Mygdal could turn out to be a friend in need, believe me, Rabbi!”’

I had dropped into a nasal, drawling, comic-stage Jewish dialect. Paulus said: ‘Yes, I dare say he does speak something like that. But –’

‘Wait. Joseph the Almond was a day’s ride out of Jeusalem when he heard the news of Jesus’s sentence. He dropped whatever business he was engaged in, and came hot-foot into the city, having neither eaten nor drunk, followed by a few confidential strong men, and personally armed with a purseful of hard cash, good scrip and credentials. He was too late. Jesus was due to die. It was the eve of the Passover festival, and the Temple was not to be gainsaid. If money could have saved Jesus then, Jesus would have been saved. But Joseph knew when he was beaten. Like the skilled guerilla that he was, he shifted his tactics in mid-stride, and went after the lesser officials. He worked smoothly. You must know that he could not have got the body of a crucified felon for honourable burial without Pilate’s permission – which involved some swift politics and costly bribery. Afranius, who saw the execution, says the nails probably went into the arteries for a quick death. I make bold to think otherwise. The calendar was in Joseph’s favour. No corpses could hang to pollute the air of the Passover, so the condemned men were taken down after they had been hanging only a few hours. Most men can survive a few hours of what I will call a light crucifixion, with the nails only in the flesh – let alone a wiry, dried-out young desert rat accustomed to hunger and thirst and hardened by twenty years on the roads.

‘At sunset, the two bandits were still alive and howling. So, when they were taken down, their legs were broken with the back of a hatchet and they were buried alive. You see, there are several cases on record of men crucified and buried in shallow graves in that dry ground who have kicked and gnawed their way to the surface. Jesus’s legs were not broken. A group of people gathered, shouting: “He’s dead, he’s dead!” So he was taken down gently and hurried to Joseph’s sepulchre where there were people waiting with ointments, bandages, and, I suppose, hot soup.

‘The mouth of this sepulchre was covered with a stone, and an armed guard was mounted outside. Inside, the women and a physician went to work. They must have cleaned and dressed the wounds, and given him something to make him sweat and sleep, feeding him constantly with strong broth, just a little at a time, squeezed into his mouth out of a sponge. It is an old wives’ remedy, and as good as any for whatever ails you. And there was nothing much the matter with Jesus. What are a few flesh wounds in the extremities? I have seen a man crawl three miles with his bowels in his hands – we sewed him up with twine, and he still lives to boast about it.

‘Now. Three days later, or thereabouts, the mourners go to fetch the body. There is some cock-and-bull story of a band of muscular angels all dressed in white, who frightened the guards and then, putting beefy shoulders to the stone, rolled it away from the mouth of the sepulchre. But we will disregard the superstitious balderdash, if you please, and confine ourselves to the innocent, earthy touches which make for evidence in the mind of an unbiased observer. The only one who went into the sepulchre was the ex-prostitute, Mary of Magdala. She went in weeping and saw that Jesus was not there. There were only two “angels”, one of whom said to her, in very earthly accents: “What’s the matter, lady?” At this, the meek and penitent follower of the pacific Nazarene was jostled aside by the tousled, hennaed Magdalene harlot, spitting fury and with her nails out, shrieking: “Where’s Jesus? Tell me what you’ve done with my Jesus, or I’ll tear your eyes out!”

‘And just then somebody touches her on the shoulder: “Mary, Mary!” She turns and sees a man, shabbily dressed, whom she believes to be the gardener. She starts to cry again in the hysterical way these girls have and begs him: “Please tell me where they’ve hidden my Jesus. I want to take him away.” Now the man talks to her in her own rough Aramaic, and she recognises him and falls to her knees. But he picks her up and tells her to find where his disciples are hiding. He is coming to visit them, he says, before going on his way elsewhere.

‘And Jesus found out his disciples. He showed them his wounds, and, as I gather, he stayed with them, gathering his strength for about two weeks. He even refreshed himself by going out fishing by night on the sea of Tiberias – it is these homely touches that tell with me, and to hell with the angels! – and it would seem that they had many a comfortable breakfast of bread and broiled fish at dawn on the beach. I am informed that the disciples were anxious to get their hands on poor Judas. He told them that Judas was none of their business. Then, saying that he was going to his Father, Jesus wrapped himself in his gardener’s cloak and limped away down the dusty road and so vanished. If poor Joseph of Arimathea had had his way, I dare say Jesus would not have awakened until he was out to sea on a ship bound for Africa or Spain. But this was not to be. Jesus went away into the wilderness from which he had so suddenly appeared “to be with his Father”. But his Father was God, and God is anywhere and everywhere. This is something we Stoics are bound to accept, whether we like it or not. So this Jesus may be with his Father, brooding among goats on a hill – or in a hut in Endor, or a cellar in a blind alley in Damascus, or in a garden in Joppa. Who knows?

‘But I will wager a horse to a hen that he is still alive in the flesh. Therefore, Paulus, it is possible that in your wanderings you may find him. If so, bring him back alive.’

Paulus said, slowly: ‘Of course, if he is alive as you say, then according to the Law he is an escaped felon. He was sentenced to death on the cross. In that case, we would crucify him again?’

I said: ‘Oh no, no! I would have him pardoned and exhibited as a curiosity. In death, having died at the right time, he lives as the spirit of a creed. Alive, he is dead indeed. … Joseph of Arimathea put his foot in it that time!’

‘If it could be proved, of course,’ said Paulus, ‘Joseph is guilty of a conspiracy –’

‘Oh, that is nothing. He could wriggle off that hook without the slightest difficulty. What I mean is, that with all the good intentions in the world, Joseph broke Jesus’s heart – he didn’t let him die at the appointed time. And so, if Jesus believed Elijah, as there is no reason to doubt that he did, the Prophecy was yet to be fulfilled; the Kingdom of God wasn’t at hand after all. Perhaps he tried to believe, for a moment, that between the time his senses left him on the cross, and the moment when he awoke in the sepulchre, he really had been dead? But then the pain must have convinced him that he was still alive and in the flesh, and his spiritual anguish must have been terrible indeed.’

‘A pitiful charlatan!’ said Paulus.

I said: ‘No. An honest man and a brave one. A charlatan would have slunk away under a veil of mystery, waited a few years, and then returned in glory. Jesus went straight to his men as soon as he could hobble, and said: “Here are my scarred hands, here are my scarred feet – feel me – I am wounded, but alive.” And after that he went away alone. No charlatanry there. He went to look for his death elsewhere. That is all. It is my guess that the unhappy man is still on his strange journey, seeking this death. Perhaps Judas went with him – he never went home to Karioth – but this is the sheerest conjecture. Rumour has it that Judas hanged himself. I don’t believe that; he was too strict a Jew to commit suicide; he’s about somewhere. You will hunt where the tracks lead you.’

‘I will do whatever you tell me to do,’ said Paulus, looking me in the eyes. ‘I think I read you, Diomed. A prophecy should never be fulfilled in the prophet’s lifetime: a Jesus returned is a Jesus with the virtue gone out of him. He can never be as great as the shadow he cast with the light behind him. A dream come true is no dream at all – it is beautiful only in its own world. Am I right?’

‘You are. That was well put.’

He asked, abruptly: ‘Is it true that Tiberius is dying?’

‘I don’t know. He is very old.’

‘Who will succeed?’

‘Lap of the gods! Tiberius himself was an accident.’

‘But there will be changes in the world?’

‘The world is constantly changing. If you mean perceptible alterations in the existing order of things – why, there always are when Caesar dies. But by “the world”, I take it that you mean Asia Minor.’

‘Well?’

‘Well, there must be re-shuffles, readjustments, new appointments and a period of indeterminate flux.’

‘Riot? Revolt?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘In your mind, Diomed, is it conceivable that the rabble might clamour for a King Jesus while the Temple demand a Herod?’

‘In my mind, anything is conceivable.’

‘Then, just imagining this to be the case…?’

‘Then we should have to offer a third alternative of course, to keep order. In fact we might be compelled to impose such an alternative. Some popular man, preferably of a highly-placed family, in favour with the priests, in accord with the merchants, attractive to the mob, and in sympathy with Rome.’

After a short silence he asked: ‘In such a turmoil would my Diomed be lost?’

I laughed, and said: ‘Oh no. I grow deep rather than high. I tend outwards rather than upwards. I am not tall enough to fell, and I might make too big a hole in the landscape if I were uprooted.’

‘I will do whatever you advise,’ said Paulus, and paused for a moment to listen. Dionë was singing again. ‘A pretty song,’ he said.

I told him: ‘It is an Armenian children’s dance. They do it with gestures. The words go:

‘May the worms of blow-flies

Fill the holes that held your eyes,

May the rats devour your tongue,

And your mouth be stuffed with dung …’

It is addressed to someone who has broken a girl’s water-pot. They are a sensitive and a poetic people. You ought to hear the one they sing about Caesar.’

‘Caesar is very old,’ said Paulus, sighing, ‘and who can tell –’

But then my secretary came in. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘it is Ariaios.’

‘At this time of night?’

‘He said that he was obeying Barbatus’s orders. Barbatus said that he was to come precisely at this hour.’

‘Which Ariaios is this?’ I asked. ‘Ariaios the Greek?’

‘No, the lawyer, the Persian – the one they call Alexander Ariaios.’

‘Well,’ I said, with a foolish sensation as of a weight lifted off my chest, ‘that’s my third Alexander today, and I can rest in peace. Let him come in.’

‘Tarsus is full of Alexanders,’ Paulus remarked.

‘I told you that sometimes I am an old woman,’ I said; and still my neck tingled when I looked away from the north. ‘I never knew this Ariaios to bring good news yet.’

The face of Ariaios might, indeed, have been designed by some clever mask-maker to be worn by a harbinger of misfortune in a tragedy; it was of a dull, greenish pallor, with a sunken leaden mouth set in a deathly rictus that showed yellow teeth and grey gums. His voice had a certain hollow, hopeless sound, such as might come to the ears of a man dying of thirst when he drops a stone into a well and hears, after a breathless silence, the echo of a dry thud. He took a mouthful of wine with resignation, like hemlock, and swallowed it as if it had been a mouthful of gravel. He was nervous; he would have talked rapidly, if he could, and he, too, kept glancing over the terrace to the north as he handed me a packet of documents, while with his free hand he made a pantomime of squeezing the juice out of something.

‘From the noble Barbatus,’ he said. ‘Certain documents relative to the disposal of certain of his properties. Conveyanced and engrossed by me, and signed and sealed by the noble Barbatus in the presence of –’

‘Never mind the names and conditions of the witnesses,’ I said.

‘Also, this letter addressed to the noble Diomed,’ said the lawyer. ‘If the noble Diomed will read the letter now? The substance of the content of the rest I can tell the noble Diomed in a word; the detail may be read at your leisure, sir. The noble Barbatus has freed all his slaves, bestowing upon each a certain sum of money. And he has given to his three free servants each a sum of money which, in the event of his will being disputed, has been paid before the noble Barbatus’s death; that is to say, this evening –’

‘What the devil!’ I cried, and broke open the letter, and read:

Having given the matter due consideration, with a clear and contented mind and a grateful heart, I intend to leave this world tonight, taking with me that in which all my desires and dreams are now most sublimely and marvellously embodied. I refer, of course, to the divine Eurynome. Her I take in my breast. By the time you read this, dear Diomed, I shall be asleep on my pyre, with Charon’s piece under my tongue. With Eurynome in my arms, how can Hades, who left even hell for love of Persephone, deny us courtesy? Then rejoice for me, Diomed, for now I am one with Perfection. I cling to so elusive a thing in this my old age, and if I let myself live on in this place I should be forced to submit to the ignominy of the vulgar fear of death. And what impious hands might, after mine, caress Eurynome? My blessing upon the inspired Paulus, for whose everlasting happiness I will not fail to solicit the gods with all the eloquence of which my gratitude must make me capable.

B.

And even to this, Barbatus must add an antiquarian postscript:

I have chosen for Charon a coin of great beauty. It is a silver piece of Akragas, still unhandled as mere money, engraved on the obverse by Myron with the chariot of Helios, and on the reverse, by that master Polykrates, with a charming composition of eagles stooping to seize a hare: Infinitely more graceful than the blatant Athenian. Even that surly ferryman should be pleased. I think ten drachmæ not too little, and not too much, and the coin does not distend the mouth.

B.

‘I wish Soxias had kept his damned cup for a spittoon,’ I said, showing the letter to Paulus.

He read, and shrugged. ‘Barbatus was out of his wits.’

‘Ah, so I feared,’ said Ariaios, ‘but –’

‘Oh, you did, did you?’ I said. ‘You feared so, but! So you feared Barbatus was insane, but you followed his instructions, but you took his fee, and his business is here duly conveyed. Enough!’

‘But,’ said Ariaios, inexorably, ‘the noble Barbatus was perfectly composed, not at all demented, and it was not for me to question a gentleman’s right to dispose of his life or part of his personal property.’

‘The whole of his personal property,’ I corrected him.

‘In law, yes. Morally, perhaps. But in effect, noble Diomed, in effect?’

‘Legally, morally, and in effect,’ I said firmly, although I knew better.

Ariaios said: ‘Sir, sir – Barbatus’s pyre is in his walled park, and if the breeze changes, surely the house must catch, and a prince’s ransom will go to the flames with him! Oh sir, I have done my duty as a man of law – let me now do my duty as a citizen in warning you! There will be time to save the house.’

I had already called for my armour, and I contented myself with a contemptuous flap of the hand towards Ariaios by way of reply. I was well aware that a gentleman is as free to leave this world as he is free to come into it. In the matter of coming and going, the world keeps open house. But nobody worth regarding comes here out of the night, makes free for a lifetime, and then drifts off into the night again without leaving a little something, if only in courtesy. Even if he is carried away unexpectedly, his family, in common decency and respect, must assume that he has not forgotten Caesar – who may choose to exercise a paternal trusteeship on Grounds of Intention. Anyone who by negligence, let us say, allows a rich man’s valuables to be lost, stolen, or destroyed is – as may be, and will be, argued – responsible as an accessory to that loss or theft.

In a word: Barbatus’s family would have a great deal to say in Rome in the way of excuse; and good heads had rolled for less than the worth of the least of Barbatus’s gems.

‘Look!’ said Paulus, pointing to the north.

There was a redness in the sky. ‘Here we go,’ I said, cheerfully; the prospect of action generally invigorates me. ‘Ahoy, Pugnax! My guard!’

‘May I come with you?’ Paulus asked.

‘No. Go directly home.’

I left, buckling my sword, but Ariaios followed on my heels. In sheer fear he had broken out in a dew, like a rancid cheese, and he smelled like one.

‘I must be there, I must be there,’ he chattered. ‘I have a legal right, I have a legal right!’

‘Oh, come and get a split head, and be damned!’ I told him over my shoulder.

And he came. There were rewards to be got from Barbatus’s heirs. Love will make a doe rabbit fight a wildcat, despair will send a rat at the throat of a hound; and I have seen a nesting crow, wild with love for his mate, tear the eyes out of a hungry eagle. But save me from the frantic, dogged courage of shameless avarice!

The streets were already full of people, running. Barbatus’s pyre was burning white-and-gold, now, and I could smell the scent of the sweet oils, the sandalwood and the cedarwood and the essences in the drifting smoke.

I said to Pugnax: ‘If the breeze holds easterly, the house is more or less safe.’

‘From fire, sir, yes, maybe sir.’

‘Mob out for pickings, of course,’ I said.

‘As far as that goes, yes sir. But that bastard Iscamyl is coming with a crowd from the wine-shops, sir.’

‘Not Barbatus’s watchman?’ I said.

‘Yes sir. Big Iscamyl. Drunk. Persian Smoke, sir –’

Persian Smoke comes out of hemp-leaves, smouldering in a pot with a long spout: you suck in this smoke, and then asses sing, pigeons roar, bricks talk, trees walk, flowers whistle, and there is no difference between Up and Down.

‘And Iscamyl knows Barbatus’s house both inside and out, sir,’ said Pugnax.

We were almost there. The crowd was not yet out of order; it clustered, shouting, at the main gate behind which Barbatus’s pyre was roaring to heaven and coming down again in large, vacillating flakes of flame. The people were pleased: all the world loves a good hot holocaust.

Evidently, no rumour had yet escaped of treasure to be salvaged, and the patrolmen at the gate were using their sticks more through force of habit than necessity.

I ordered: ‘From the fish-pond to the roof – buckets, helmets, syringes, pots, anything that will hold water!’

And if it had not been for the smoke-drunk watchman Iscamyl, Barbatus would have departed with his Eurynome without further incident. But just then there was tumult on the other side of the house. Roaring like a wild beast at the head of a score or more of the scum of Tarsus, all mad with Persian Smoke or strong wine, Iscamyl was attacking the courtyard. He smashed through the crowd like a galley through a bank of oars. On their way, they must have overthrown and broken a statue of Augustus: he was brandishing a bronze right arm for a club, gripping it at the wrist – a bull of a man, foaming red in the light of the fire.

I learned later that he was driving towards a hidden door to which he had access, and that once he had locked himself inside with some of his followers he proposed to make a treaty with me; I was to let him go with half of the treasure, or he would destroy everything. So sang the genius of the Persian Smoke in his crazed head.

Pugnax leapt to my left side, and to my right a young officer named Pasion. With six other men I made the curved formation called the Greek Omicron, which can on occasion be so useful in street fighting. This was done in as long as it takes to make two signals. Then I took my Omicron forward, very smoothly and swiftly but resolutely, avoiding any appearance of haste. In such affairs I usually manage to achieve a matter-of-fact and coolly business-like air, with a trace of bored but good-humoured resignation, like a man who is going through an over-familiar but necessary routine towards an inevitable conclusion.

But then the quality of the crowd changed; all in a moment it congealed, it hardened. Iscamyl’s rush was pressing it compact about us, and it was squeezing my formation out of shape as ice crushes a boat. Still I should have had no difficulty in doing what I intended; I was going to knock Iscamyl on the head, together with such of his followers as came handy, and scatter the rest, to be picked up at my leisure.

However, as I strode confidently forward with this end clearly in view, a heave of the crowd threw out a huge fat man who, helpless as a log on a wave, fell with all his weight upon Pasion; and Pasion crashed into me while, with that perfection of timing and placing that comes only by accident, the fat man’s walking-stick flew neatly between my feet. I went sprawling. Pasion’s shield struck Pugnax under the chin, and the Omicron was divided in two.

Thus, in a second, I was on my knees, covering my head with my shield, unguarded on either side, while Iscamyl came at me with his fantastic bronze club. Rising, I cut at his knee, but missed, and turned his first stroke with my shield. The force of that blow was so tremendous that the shield bent, ringing like an alarm-gong; my left arm went numb to the shoulder; and I was beaten down again.

But in that instant someone leapt lightly over me, and I heard a familiar mallet-and-punch voice saying, coolly and scornfully: ‘You, Iscamyl, what is the meaning of this?’ It was Paulus.

Rising, I saw him standing erect – his head came to the level of the watchman’s chin – and pointing to the upraised club. ‘You blasphemous dog!’ he said. ‘How dare you go about with three arms when God meant you to have only two?’ And he laughed.

Iscamyl hesitated for a moment to stare at him; what time Pasion reached past Paulus and thrust his sword into the big man’s stomach. It must have seemed, to most of them who saw him fall, that Iscamyl went grovelling on his face before the power of Paulus’s bare finger, for there was an uneasy murmur and a clatter of dropped weapons. So we re-formed, and put an end to the incident.

Three decades of slavery, three hours of freedom, three minutes of esctasy, and so to the worms: that was the history of Iscamyl.

I said to Paulus: ‘I told you to go home.’

‘Yes, I am going now,’ he said.

I knew he had saved my life, and he knew that I knew. But we said no more; simply shook hands and parted.

The prisoners were taken away. Iscamyl was the lucky one, if he but knew it. I placed a guard with the triumphant Ariaios in Barbatus’s house, and went away.

Once home, I let myself remember that I was weary. I bathed, and let Dionë stroke my bruised shield-arm.

She asked: ‘Is it true that Paulus is a wizard?’

‘He thinks and acts at the same time. That is wizardry, I suppose.’

‘Yes, but is it true that he can paralyse people?’

‘Yes, by saying the right word at the right moment.’

‘Some magic word?’ she asked, avidly.

‘All words are magic words, if you use them at the right moment.’

‘But what is the right moment?’

‘The one that happens to fit the right word.’

‘But what is –?’

‘Be quiet, or I will send you away.’

‘I know some magic words. My mother taught me them.’

‘What will they do?’

‘They will make a woman conceive and bear a son.’

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘bear me a son and I will marry you.’

‘You are mocking me,’ she said, soberly.

‘Am I?’ I thought. ‘No.’ I said, ‘I am not mocking you, Dionë.’

‘You would not deceive poor Dionë? I am too foolish to be worth deceiving.’

‘Why should I trouble to deceive you?’ I asked.

‘You will marry me if I bear you a son?’

‘Upon my honour.’

She began to weep. ‘Your friends will say: “Diomed is out of his mind – he has married a beastly little slave girl, her flesh is greasy, and her body stinks.”’

‘Very well then – I won’t marry you.’

She pressed my feet to her bosom. ‘Marry me or not as you will, if my lord Diomed wants a son he shall have a son.’ she said.

Her magic words were an Armenian charm, to be uttered at the climax of the act of love, Az-zadahed-zaz-hazazad! – to be repeated three times rapidly in one breath without error, and in the next breath to be pronounced backwards, Dazazah-zaz-dehadaz-za! The charm was rendered infallible if the woman ate, before going to bed, a paste made of the testicles of a live goat boiled with Greek honey, mushrooms, shellfish, cocks’ combs and doves’ tongues.

She had long been practising the charm in private, she told me. I asked her if her mother had tried it. ‘Constantly,’ said Dionë.

‘Then why have you no brothers?’

Her eyes filled with tears. ‘We were too poor to buy the right kind of honey,’ she said. ‘Besides, my mother stuttered.’

I was forced to tell her to desist, saying that I would as soon couple with a wasps’ nest.

But she bore a son, notwithstanding, and I married her gladly. We made each other happy. Dionë may be likened to a long story, charmingly told, consisting in a succession of diverting incidents, and given a semblance of continuity only by the vividness of one delightful central character. You are not sorry when you have come to the end of it because you look forward, with such keen pleasure, to reading it again and again.

She wanted me to name the boy Artavazd, after her mythical ancestor. I swore by all the gods that this was a little too much to ask. But she pleaded so winningly that I made a compromise, and named him Julius Artavius.

And him I tried to form in my father’s image.

6

IF poor Afranius had been looking for frivolous adventure and diverting conversation in Paulus’s company, he was destined to some disappointment. Several weeks later a messenger from Jerusalem brought, among other documents, a bulky letter from my old friend. Generally, I enjoyed Afranius’s rare absences, for when he was away he would write to me, and his letters seldom failed to evoke all that was most agreeable in his pleasantly easy conversation, leaving his mannerisms – elided vowels, drawled emphases, mimic gestures and changes of accent – to my affectionate recollection.

But this letter was not light-hearted. For once in his life, Afranius was not able to make himself comfortable; and he was a man with a glorious capacity for enjoying himself in any circumstances.

A divine gift, this; but its efficacy depends to a great extent upon self-abandonment. An honest hedonist cannot be self-conscious. And it appeared that my little Paulus possessed a peculiar power to make Afranius feel uneasy, when they were alone together. He awoke some watch-dog in Afranius’s head. ‘He sets twanging some note that I can feel but not hear – a sort of vibration that stiffens the backs of my legs.’ he wrote.

And I smiled as I imagined them, the horses walking like the ghosts of horses in the powdery dust, the men’s faces veiled so that only their eyes were visible; Afranius riding as if he were taking his ease in a cushioned chair, while Paulus perched like a marmoset on his great black stallion. Afranius tried to make free and easy conversation:

‘Here,’ he said, of the melancholy spaces through which they were travelling, ‘here is immensity without size and matter without form. Nothing for a man to measure himself against. What?’

Paulus said: ‘What then? Why measure, Afranius? Measure what? How measure? In a palace, a man feels safe and small. Safety is vanity, and small is too large for a man to feel, as himself. Now here, a man knows that he is nothing. At the same time, he is one with everything. Here, he is his right size.’

Afranius had several answers on the tip of his tongue: that he had known the deserts before Paulus was born or thought of, and found that their only magnitude was in area, for the desert had neither height nor depth; that man was more aware of the height of the heavens when, measuring himself against a soaring column, he looked up at the twilight roof of a temple, than when he star-gazed in the sand … and so forth. That as for ‘right size’, it was not in the nature of matter that any created thing could possibly be the wrong size; that ‘size’ was to be measured only in terms of presumptuousness, and ‘wrong’ as applied to ‘size’ to be considered only in terms of situation – that is, a gnat was a roaring whirlwind if it got into your ear, a monster of presumption! Therefore it got crushed.

The littler things were, the more prone were they to offend the gods by forgetting their place, and so magnifying themselves by force of obtrusion, and getting themselves killed: gnats acting whirlwinds in ears, midges making mountains of themselves in eyes, flies bathing like Cleopatra in your milk, fleas taking liberties with your wife’s pudenda, and undersized barbarian boys on horseback laying down the law to a gentleman of the world.

So thought Afranius, and – which is remarkable – so that easiest and kindest of men felt strongly tempted to say, then and there. And with the temptation came a certain awe of the boy who with a mere metaphysical finger-snap, could so irritate him; and with his vague awe, a dislike that defied analysis.

‘One does not wonder,’ he wrote, ‘that all Tarsus believes he paralysed Lucius with a touch and cured him with another, and sent huge Iscamyl sprawling with a mysterious gesture.’ So Afranius changed the subject, and talked of the cities he had seen, and the men and women he had known – especially the women.

One cannot talk of women for long in Asia without touching on King Solomon and his thousand wives. ‘From which I infer,’ said Afranius, ‘that Solomon did not like women, but was in general indifferent to them.’

‘How so?’ asked Paulus, interested.

‘In fact it is possible that while he needed women physically, he had in his heart a deep disdain for them,’ said Afranius, glad to have captured Paulus’s eager attention at last.

‘Explain, my dear Afranius!’

‘Why, one wife and a couple of mistresses is a love nest. A thousand wives is a convent. Consider, my dear Paulus: if you were a horse-lover, would you keep a personal stable of a thousand horses for nobody’s riding but your own? Or would you keep four or five?’

‘Four or five – if I loved horses.’

‘And if you loved dogs, would you keep a kennel of a thousand dogs?’

‘I would rather keep none. Two dogs are enough. Dogs must be loved, or they break their hearts.’

‘And women?’ asked Afranius. Paulus shrugged. Afranius said: ‘Putting love aside for the moment; I take it that, like other men, you need a woman to go to bed with – I talk now like a brutal Roman, you see – and you know that a sound young woman, for her health’s sake, needs the regular embraces of an appropriate man. And I will assume that, young as you are, there have been times when you would have preferred to sleep, but have made love, as one might say, more in compassion than passion, for the satisfaction of seeing a woman made happy.’

Paulus said: ‘Proceed,’ and what Afranius could see of his face was red.

Afranius hastened to say: ‘Excuse me; I know that among Asiatics it is sometimes considered bad form to –’

‘No, no, we were talking of Solomon,’ said Paulus.

‘And I was coming to the point. What man with any kindness for women could keep a thousand for himself? Assume the unlikely: that Solomon took a different wife to bed every night; unlikely, because he was a ruler, a man of affairs, a judge, a diplomat, and a writer, and he sometimes needed to sleep – and you may believe me when I assure you that it is twenty times more exhausting to make love once to a different woman every night for five nights, than to make love twenty times in that period to the same woman. This is a matter of which I well know the arithmetic. But we will assume that Solomon was so constituted that he paid equal attention to all his wives in turn –’

‘An appalling thought,’ said Paulus.

‘Appalling indeed! For, just before dawn, Solomon says to the wife at present in use: “Go now, Number So-and-so, and I’ll send for you again about three years from now.” And he must have chuckled to himself, Go, sweat, dream and itch, bitch! Oh, how he must have hated women, that Solomon! The sort of man who says of the act of love: “It is a messy business,” and must have plenty of strong perfume and napkins to hand.’

‘A great king,’ said Paulus.

‘You know, of course, how he overcame Sheba?’ Afranius asked.

Paulus shook his head, and Afranius told him, with a wealth of detail, I dare say, how the proud Queen of Sheba would not come to Solomon’s bed. Dignity forbade his going to hers, so the wisest of kings devised a plan. At supper one night he ordered none but highly spiced and salted dishes to be served. Then he had all the water-vessels removed from all the palace chambers except his own. Sheba, in the middle of the night, tormented by a raging thirst, went from room to room looking for water; and so, at last, she came to Solomon.

To me, Afranius confided: ‘… I have no doubt that when it was all over, Sheba got up and yawned, and said: “The water, at least, was hard,” and walked out nonchalantly, with scorn. I read bafflement in Solomon’s Song …’ But he did not say this to Paulus who, he wrote, began at once to analyse the anecdote in the Rabbinical style – for the nearer they approached to Jerusalem, the more contentiously Jewish Paulus seemed to become – saying that Solomon had dreams of a vast empire in Africa, and explaining how Sheba coming to Solomon’s bedchamber for water symbolised a parched and naked Ethiopia’s burning thirst for the spiritual fountains of Judaea.

With unwonted bitterness, Afranius commented: ‘One of the outstanding characteristics of the Jew is, his lack of the sense of humour and his inability therefore to assess the real value of a fact …’

The Jew, Afranius said, must create an illusion of significance: he is a blower-up of bladders, a maker of illusory magnitudes. He will dig a hole merely for the love of depth. Peace and the good straight road are not for the Jew – he must contend, deviously. His only joy is in suffering; without suffering, the Jew falls into a sort of lassitude – if he feels no pain, he will go and sit on a nail. He washes without cleansing himself, scarifies without refreshing, and is a critic without alternatives. He loves punishment for its own sake, and law for the sake of litigation; for him the truths of the world are juggler’s balls to play tricks with. He asks questions, not to learn the answers, but to breed further questions. There is no arguing with a Jew, for he concedes to no man the right to differ. And there is no such thing as one Jew, for he has no individual character. A Jew alone is a dead Jew: he must run in a pack. Even their God does not regard them, except in groups of ten – and this same God was a demented twist of Amenhotep’s, brought to them by their only lawgiver, an Egyptian ….

So wrote Afranius to me. But, dauntless conversationalist that he was, he tried Paulus again, with another legend of Solomon.

‘Business finished in Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘we go on to Damascus. Now on that road, which I have travelled two or three times before, to my cost, we must go through a pass which is sometimes called Benaiah’s Pass, or The Pass of Solomon’s Worm. Did you ever hear of Solomon’s Worm?’

‘No,’ said Paulus. ‘But why to your cost?’

‘Oh, apart from the fact that it is a dreary, hellish kind of place, I never went that way but I had some misfortune. Once I lost my favourite horse. Another time my party was attacked by bandits, and I got an arrow in the arm.’

‘Bandits?’

‘That countryside is a terrible place for all kinds of outlaws. Why doesn’t Rome stamp them out, you may ask? Try getting the lice out of a beggar’s rags.’

‘But why is it called Benaiah’s Pass?’ Paulus asked. ‘And what worm, Afranius?’

Trust a damned Pharisee, Afranius wrote, to be versed in everything but simple old stories such as might interest the likes of us!

But he talked on, and I wish I might have been there to hear him. When Solomon drew the plans for the great Temple in Jerusalem, he vowed that no war-like metal should touch the stones of Jehovah’s peaceful dwelling-place. Thus the problem arose: how to quarry the stone and hew it? Without the use of metal, it was said, this was impossible. However, Solomon knew that somewhere in Creation existed a certain worm called the Shamir, which had the miraculous property of splitting the hardest rock at a touch. No man knew where this worm was hidden. No man; but Solomon was possessed of a certain Seal, upon which was engraved the Unpronounceable Name of God, and this Seal gave him power over all the demons of earth, air and water.

So, alone in his chamber, with the aid of the Seal, Solomon summoned Beelzebub, who is the demon in charge of all insects, and one of the most powerful of all the Princes of the Air. ‘Bring me the Shamir Worm,’ Solomon commanded. But Beelzebub said: ‘Master, I cannot. Only Ashmodai, the King of all the demons, knows where the Shamir is hidden.’ Solomon then told Beelzebub to fetch Ashmodai, but not even the dread of the Seal could make Beelzebub do this. ‘Ashmodai,’ he said, ‘will come for Solomon when Solomon’s time has come. Meanwhile, Solomon must go to Ashmodai.’

With this cryptic remark, Beelzebub vanished, and Solomon sat deep in thought. But nothing could for long baffle that tremendous mind. Soon, he sent for the renowned Benaiah, Captain of the Guard, a mighty warrior who had killed a lioness with his bare hands, like Samson, and had also caught by the feet a flying gryphon with which he wrestled for a day and a night – he would have brought it home too, only the Sabbath commenced and so he had to let it go. To Benaiah, Solomon gave exact instructions, and so he rode off, taking with him a pack-horse carrying a bale of the best sponges and twenty skins of the strongest sweet wine.

So Benaiah made his laborious way to the Dark Mountain, many months’ journey away, and an account of this expedition alone and of the strange monsters he encountered and overcame would fill a book; but nothing could harm him for he carried about his neck the Seal of Solomon. He climbed the Dark Mountain, and found at the summit, as Solomon had told him, a well of pure water – for Ashmodai, who went about his business by night, sick and disgusted by the muck of the world, always paused at the top of the Dark Mountain on his way back to the peace and quiet of Hell, and cleansed his mouth with that pure water one hour before dawn.

Ashmodai took the sponges, and with them took all the water from the well and squeezed it away. Then he refilled the well with the strong sweet wine, and lay down behind a rock and waited. Punctually, one hour before dawn, Ashmodai came out of the night on his huge bat-wings, with the bad taste of Man in his mouth, and threw himself down at the well and drank until the well was empty. Then – for Solomon’s fortified wine was strong as the devil – he found himself overcome with a desire to sleep. He lay back, and slept, therefore. Now Benaiah came out of hiding, and bound Ashmodai hand and foot, and sealed the knots with Solomon’s Seal.

When Ashmodai awoke, his wrath was terrible, but with all his power, that Seal even he could not break. Thus, he agreed to accompany Benaiah back to Solomon in Jerusalem; and the wonders he showed his captor on the way, by themselves would fill another book … Afranius had many hours to kill …

But when Solomon demanded the Shamir Worm of Ashmodai, the King of the demons laughed. ‘Oh Solomon,’ he said, ‘not even your wit and magic will get you the Shamir Worm. For it was not created, as other creatures were. When your God had finished what you call the Universe, and before he rested on the seventh day, he found himself with a crumb of Original Matter left. For some reason best known to himself – for even I cannot fathom all of your God’s motives – he did not take this Something back, but left it on earth in charge of the thing called the Shamir Bird, which God made of little fragments of other living creatures. This Bird is neither male nor female. It has the wings of an eagle and the head of a fox, and out of the middle of its belly grows one little hand without nails. Under its left wing is a pouch, and in this pouch your God hid the Shamir Worm.’

‘Where does this Bird live, Ashmodai, and what are its habits?’ Solomon asked.

‘It lives in a nest in the Lonesome Tree, on the Twilight Shore that is by the Silent Sea. But between it and all creation is a thin wall of Nothing, so that neither man nor demon may touch the Shamir Bird. It was created with an unfledged young one, which may never grow older and must always be hungry; so the Shamir Bird leaves its nest at dawn and returns at dusk with food, for such is its doom. And always, obedient to your God’s ineluctable command, the Shamir Bird carries the Worm in its pouch. You ask in vain, Solomon, for the Shamir Worm! Not even your Seal may break the skin of Nothing!’

So saying, Ashmodai took his leave, and Solomon sat in thought again until, as usual, everything suddenly became clear to him. He called Benaiah again, and this time, having told him what he was to do, he gave him a thick leaden box lined with lamb’s-wool and a plate of pure rock crystal.

And the bold Benaiah went away, and travelled many weary months until, at last, he came to the awful Silent Sea that surrounds the world; and there was the Twilight Shore that is between Here and Hereafter, and growing on the Twilight Shore was the melancholy Lonesome Tree that is set apart from all other trees; and in its uppermost branches rested the Shamir’s Nest, brooded over by the untouchable Shamir, and inhabited by the Shamir’s nestling which is always hungry but never satisfied, and damned to eternal infancy.

Now Benaiah hid in the sand until dawn, when the Shamir Bird flew away for food to feed its nestling, and then, always obedient to his master’s orders, climbed the Lonesome Tree and covered the Shamir’s Nest with the plate of rock crystal; and after that he lay and waited. Exactly at dusk the Shamir Bird returned, carrying in its mouth the entrails of a goat. It flew directly to the nest, but encountered a mysterious transparent obstacle, at which it flapped and scratched and beat in vain. It could not penetrate the rock crystal, and the cries of its nestling were becoming more and more piteous.

At last, in desperation, the Shamir Bird put its little hand into the sacred pouch under its left wing, and took out the Shamir Worm which glowed in the dark. It touched the crystal with the Worm. The crystal flew to pieces. But before the Shamir Bird could put the Worm back in its pouch, Benaiah leapt up with a yell that could be heard fifty miles away, at the same time making a terrible clangour with his helmet against his shield.

The Shamir Bird, startled, dropped the Shamir Worm. Benaiah caught it as it fell, and put it into the leaden box lined with lamb’s-wool, and hurried away.

He was in great haste. Between Damascus and Jerusalem, in those days, there stood a mountain. Benaiah took out the Shamir Worm and touched the rock; the mountain fell apart with a thunderclap, and broke into huge boulders that lined a path, through which Benaiah passed in triumph to Jerusalem. So Solomon built the Temple without using metal tools; and so the darkest pass between Jerusalem and Damascus is known to this day as Benaiah’s Pass, or the Pass of Solomon’s Worm.

The Shamir Worm, its work accomplished, grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared without a trace. The Bird was so horrified that it turned to stone – its outlines may still be seen in certain places, a skeletal thing with great wings, long jaws bristling with teeth, and a look of hopeless anguish on its petrified face.

Afranius now complained to me that if Paulus had heard this story in company – at Soxias’s house in Tarsus, for example – he would have made a convincing show of enjoying it; might have capped it, even, with another, stranger one. But there among the rocks and the firelight, they being encamped for the night, Paulus treated poor Afranius to what he described as ‘the most damnable Rabbinical commentary that ever if-ed and but-ed the zest out of an easy, digestive, after-dinner story …’

First, Paulus disapproved of the symbolism of the Worm, evidently intended to signify the Fundamental All-Powerful Energy of God of which some minute particle obviously had been left in Solomon’s trust to discover for himself by the proper application of those qualities with which the Almighty had seen fit to endow him. But the vulgar had always a woeful tendency to make allegories, using worms and other creatures of earth, air, or water; and an allegory was a mental image which was as bad as a graven image, if not worse. Begin by thinking worms and you’ll end by carving worms, and making sacrifices to worms and praying to worms. For the ignorant could not conceive of Energy without Shape: feeling the invisible but powerful wind, they had to take mud and make an image of a boy with puffed-out cheeks … and so on, and so forth. Hence, such tales might easily lead to atrocious practices, and should be banned.

Secondly, it was not on official record that Solomon was a Keeper of the Name which, as far as he, Paulus, knew, had been divulged only to Abraham and to Joshua. But perhaps Solomon had received a Seal with this Name engraved upon it; it was, however, nowhere written authentically that Solomon had ever dared to pronounce this Unsayable Name, by one repetition of which the sun could be made to stand still in the heavens.

And, thirdly, concerning the cutting of stone without the use of metal: did not the Chinese carve the hardest of stones, which is jade, by the use of a string and wet sand?

Hence, fourthly, and fifthly, and sixthly, up to tenthly – whereat Afranius, suppressing a desire to strike him on the head with a large stone, stopped him short by saying, with calculated casualness: ‘Touching the matter of God’s Name – people say that this so-called King Jesus was a Master of it. Thus, he made men rise from the dead, and worked other miracles.’

‘Do you believe that, Afranius?’ Paulus asked, with his lip curled.

Determined, now, to have the last word, Afranius said: ‘In the world there are so many wonders that it is almost impossible in the long run to invent a complete untruth. So I have learned to believe everything, and in the long run the odds are on my side. Yes, then; I believe that Jesus raised the dead, healed lepers and made the blind to see. Why not?’

‘You would believe a false witness, then?’

‘How am I to know that he is a false witness?’ cried Afranius, enjoying himself now. ‘Who am I to discriminate between what is and what is not? Who are you? Can you prove to me that Afranius is Afranius, and not a figment of your fevered imagination, a phantasm, a dream? Can you prove that in an instant I may not disappear altogether, with this fire and this desert, and all the company – yourself included – and that you will not wake up somewhere else? What more real than a dream? Prove to me that Paulus is not a dream of Jesus himself, and that when I clap my hands you may not wake out of a second of tortured unconsciousness and find yourself hanging by the hands while your life drips away!’

‘What need to prove that Paulus is Paulus?’ he asked, grimacing at the image evoked.

‘Because I say you are not Paulus,’ said Afranius, winking to himself. ‘I say that we are in Jerusalem, on the hill at Golgotha. What I hear is not the snorting of the horses, but the growling of a mob. What I smell is not smoke and dung, but the stink of that mob. I shut my eyes for a moment, sick to the heart. Thud! – thud! – thud! – that was not a horse stamping, it was the mallet driving home the nails. But I like to think that I am elsewhere, in the desert under the stars. And when I open my eyes I shall see Paulus’s bloody feet two yards off the ground; and he will see me turn away in pity and disgust –’

‘Enough, Afranius, enough!’ cried Paulus.

‘But can you prove to me by argument or demonstration that I am wrong? Strike me – I only dream of being struck, I say. Produce Logic – I say that Reason itself is nothing but a dream within a dream. Tell me I know that Paulus is Paulus – I reply: “This knowledge is part of my dream; it is because I dream Paulus that Paulus seems so real.”’

‘There is no argument concerning a fact,’ said Paulus, dismissing the matter.

‘I agree,’ said Afranius, obligingly, ‘because everything is fact, you see.’

‘The night is long,’ said Paulus, sighing.

In the Jewish fashion, Afranius said with a shrug: ‘Why shouldn’t the night be long? Haven’t the owls a right to live?’

‘The road is long.’

‘It would be longer if there were no road at all,’ said Afranius.

‘I mean, time runs away,’ said Paulus, ‘and we stand still.’

‘That, my friend, is just where you’re wrong,’ said Afranius, who was not going to let him off lightly. ‘Time stands perfectly still. Only you run away. Time is the same kind of thing as Height, Breadth, and Depth: immutable. Only you move – Distance is always here, and Time is a kind of Distance. That’s how Jesus brought the man back from the dead, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why, so far as that dead man was concerned, he put the calendar back a week; so the man, finding he wasn’t dead yet, got up, maggots and all. That was how Solomon seemed to be in two places at once: say he was in Jerusalem and wanted to be at Tarsus – all he had to do was, visualise the distance as it were on a long string, pick Tarsus up in his left hand and Jerusalem in his right, let go the Jerusalem end and there he was in Tarsus. That is the way demons fly.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘The Shamir Bird’s Nestling. Now go to sleep. We’ll be in Jerusalem tomorrow evening.’

‘Sleep well, dear Afranius,’ said Paulus, with his charming smile.

Afranius slept until just before dawn, and when he awoke Paulus was still sitting exactly as he had been sitting when Afranius closed his eyes; hugging his knees, his head on his bosom – ‘abortion-shaped’, as my friend described the posture.

‘Have you not slept?’ Afranius asked.

Paulus shook himself, and raised his head. ‘Eh?’

‘I asked, have you not slept?’

‘I don’t know. I believe so. I must have.’

Paulus stepped aside to say his prayers, and Afranius commented: ‘… He prays in such a manner that one feels his God will give him anything he begs for, just to be rid of him. He bows and straightens himself in a painfully spasmodic kind of way – as if he has not seen the horizon for months, and has just caught her leaning across a table. There is something avid and rapacious about a Jew at prayer….’ Afranius concluded the first part of this long letter as follows:

‘… I am at present the guest of my cousin Quintus, and have had a bath, but even so I am always aware of the stercoraceous exhalations of this feculent city. Paulus has vanished for the time being in a susurration of officialdom among rustling rabbis in some sombre sanhedrinal whispering-gallery. The thought occurs to me: if I were a King of Judaea (which the gods forbid) and Paulus were anywhere close to my throne, I should find myself afflicted with a chronic tension of the nerves, which could be relieved only by an outburst of weeping at Paulus’s funeral…. You have had the prickly heat, Diomed? Paulus is the prickly cold …’ And here, my kind Afranius dropped all effort at bright and pleasing correspondence.

‘A kind of fatal numbness has taken hold of me,’ he wrote, beginning the second part of his letter. ‘As in some uneasy dream, I am detached yet involved; I watch and play at the same time. I am drawn into the deep mud of this affair, joint by joint. Damn you, Diomed – I lent you a hand and you have snatched an arm! No, no, I beg pardon, old friend; I would not come back if you called me, now, for I must see how this matter ends … if it has an end. As with biting your nails, this business grows while you nibble at it; one ragged edge gives place to another; and while you well know that soon comes the bitten quick, and ugliness with blood and pain, still you gnaw away at yourself, engrossed.

‘I could honourably plead indisposition, having contracted one of the famous Jerusalem bilious colics, for the water is so putrid that one takes one’s life in one’s hands even in rinsing the mouth with it. The people of Jerusalem wash with words rather than water: let a Jew come brown-handed from the jakes with phlegm in his beard, so long as he trickles a thread of water over his fingertips and says the right prayers, he is ritually clean to shove his fist in the family platter; let a Jewess scratch herself in the armpits, wipe away sweat, a dead flea and wet hair against breasts which smell like an unscoured butter-tub before smearing the blow-flies off a honey-cake, and that cake is a clean cake if it is a Jewish cake …

‘But this is not to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. I am here to tell Diomed of a certain inflamed condition of affairs of which Paulus is the hot centre. Things do not happen to Paulus, Paulus happens to things: let us put it like that. He is a fever. Certain people avoid him for fear of catching him. This swarthy little fellow slups up life like a savage starved of salt.

‘He makes a meal of appetisers, as it were. Let him swell, let him thirst, let him burst: he will still call for stronger spices and something different to drink. He will go mad like a lost sailor trying to drink the sea. Everything he devours is an impatient preliminary, a taster to sting and stimulate. Stimulate what? Stimulation. He teases hunger, but for him there may be no easy repletion, no satisfaction of solid food.

‘There can never be any peace in life or death for this awful little man. His eyes are bigger than his belly and, as they say in Aramaic: “He will die with his hands clenched” – his wiry, worrying, fidgety, hairy hands that know no hold between the death-grip and the death. He was created to penetrate. (Perhaps this is why women find him beautiful, while men fear him? Because, when all is said and done, a woman is nothing but a hole: the heart and soul of a woman is in the orifice between that double-talking mouth with four lips, and when this dries, the woman ceases to be anything but a mess of lying memories – but, wet or dry, there she is, and the thighs of her spirit are ninety degrees separated.) Paulus was hammered by the gods to pierce membranes and draw blood…. I speak, as I must, only in figures.

‘You knew Phanok, the cutler, in Tarsus? Well, once he showed me something knotty and black and heavy. “Isn’t it lovely?” he asks. I say: “Is it?” “Yes,” says he. “But, my dear fellow, it has no form, no shape!” I cry. But he assures me: “Quality is shape, m’ lord Afranius – once upon a time there was a time when even you were a mess to wipe away with a napkin between piss and dung, begging your pardon.” I say: “Pardon granted, where’s your quality?” He answers: “Why, m’ lord, you have got to put something fine in before something fine comes out! Ask your mother.” “You are an impudent rascal,” I tell him, remembering my saintly mother and disgusted to think of her in heat; and so I leave Phanok with his bloated boy blowing his charcoal, while he smelts that veinous pig of black English iron. Two weeks later he shows me a knife, double-edged and a foot long, a sweet knife tempered to split a hair, ridged in the centre and darkly shining. A haft of plain ivory. “With this, you can shave a face, transplant a bud, or cut a throat – in any case, it’s a beauty,” he says.

‘So it was, and so I bought it for an exorbitant price. Phanok says to me, putting away the money: “Pretty, eh? Sweet, no?” – holding out his spiky hands like bundles of black twigs – “These filthy hands of Phanok forged that nice clean knife while your fat-arsed bugger-boy fuffed the fire; and I hardened it with stale piss and sweat – oh ay, myself, one-eyed Phanok! Not for nothing the gods made Cyclops with a lonely eye: you’ve got to take aim to make an edge, and who takes aim with two eyes? All the same, the virtue of the blade is in the iron and me!” (One of Phanok’s eyes really had been jabbed out in a brawl, as you know.) But let me cut this short: it was the best and the most beautiful knife I ever owned, but I never used it. I detest the squalor of origins. “In this blade I live!” said the cutler. Yes, yes; but I want a knife, not a life. I subscribe to no artisan’s conceit …

‘Well, some cyclopean god banged Paulus out of the black dirt, and if quality is form he is transcendent. Quality of what? Ask me some different question. There are many gods, and who knows which of them touches the lips of the baby when he is twisted and squeezed out into the acrid daylight? O, bloody birth! O, misery, to be born a man like little Paul foredamned to have for ever in his mouth the astringency of the piss in his biting temper!

‘It is not for me to speculate, Diomed, but to report – I report, of Paulus, a kind of dementia of over-elaborate officialdom. You know how a man may rationalise himself into this kind of condition. So may it be said of Paulus as he goes about his business.

‘A proper Jew, as you know, may not wear a mixture of fabrics, such as linsey-woolsey, for example, so Paulus wears clothes all of one cloth. Still, there are wools rarer than fine silk, and such he wears, and linens likewise, out of what they call “spider-flax” from Egypt. Jehovah insists furthermore upon certain fringes at the corners of a man’s garments; but there are fringes and fringes, and even a thread has a certain quality and value – if the Law says a fringe must be of wool and custom requires a blue fringe, there is no legitimate argument against sapphires, it seems.

‘Uncarved with living likenesses, the curtains of Paulus’s litter clatter and tinkle with gems, while the second and third fingers of both hands are so splayed with rings that he cannot but make the Jewish triangle of blessing when he lifts them. The collar of his shawl is gold and pearl; he binds his head-dress with rubies, wears silver and moonstone in his belt, walks hard-backed and stiff-necked in case of base shadows, with pattens on his feet to save him from the common dust. And he is fastidious as forceps in the fingers, having always a man after him with a silver ewer and basin, and another with a perforated silver ball of spices for his nose.

‘For what? To make deep diplomacy of common business, as I guess. For so he goes about by day, throwing good money down the drain – not Rome’s money, not Caesar’s money, for Paulus’s books will balance, or I am a fool – his own money and his father’s, my dear Diomed; his own perquisites, his own commissions!

‘Call me a dog if I lie; he is buying good-will. Whose? That of the master-men, the priests and the crowd-pleasers, the land-holders and the contractors, the merchants and suppliers. They go to him with long faces, voluble with guilt, and as full of explanation as so many heavy-eyed girls with grass-stained shoulders. And out they come, almost dancing, virtuous, all weighed and paid and legitimate. Saul, their Saul, has made honest men of them.

‘But, come the afternoon, official business finished, our Paulus comes out bathed plain, a Judge in Israel – only staccato, in a manner he must have picked up from you – and with a mouth of iron. And this Paulus I fear: the crystalled eye of the Shofetim, the monotonous voice of the judges. You know, perhaps – or do you not? – that at his present rate of procedure Paulus cannot live six months. He eats almost nothing; he is full before he sits down; and he is consumed with impatience at the thought of sitting down – does so because he must, and then with only half of his arse while his knuckly toes move with exacerbated impatience between the straps of his sandals. Diomed, you have stronger spirit than I ever had if you can, as you do, tolerate with humour this nightmare that walks like a Roman, this scratchy edge that impinges beyond hearing-point.

‘He is his own unnaturally jealous husband: he is always half shamefacedly holding hands with himself and, when he thinks nobody is looking, inflicting upon the inside of his own mouth a furtive little lover’s bite: and believe me, when he leaves himself alone for a little while, it is only that he may come up behind himself and surprise himself. It is odd, but I find it hard to discuss Paulus except in terms of torment; and, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, out of torment comes a certain malice, a self-justifying evil. A whole man is a whole spirit: “whole cripple” is a contradiction in the term. And Paulus’s is a crippled spirit, although physically he is of a piece, if somewhat wolfish.

‘He makes me think of my servant Junius’s left arm. “But Afranius,” you protest, “your servant Junius has no left arm!”

‘Here is the point, my dear Diomed. Old Junius is friend and servant to me, as your Pugnax is to you; and Junius and Pugnax are, as it happens, friends much as you and I are. Junius lost his arm at the battle of Arinic’s Ford, a quarter of a century ago. But it still troubles him, although it is not there. He says: “Master, when the wound festered, I tied a thong round it above the red part, and I said to my old comrade Maseratus: ‘Put an edge on your sword, old boy, and strike as at an enemy’ – and so he did, and that was that. It didn’t hurt, he having one of the strongest back-hand cuts in the army…. But oh, my Master, the misery of that arm which wasn’t there! The fire unquenchable, and the itch, the itch, the unscratchable itch!” And in the winter and the spring, when this non-existent arm burns and itches worst, poor Junius sometimes growls: “Oh, say, this is not the rage of the gods! For if a little arm is so uneasy when it is gone, what of the head and body when they are separated?” And he says: “For the corrupt part, when it was dead and rotten, had no feeling at all! Only that which lives knows grief; but being gone, what right has the void to suffer?” To which I always say: “Ask Terpsicles” – there is, of course, no such person as Terpsicles.

‘Paulus wears two faces and both of them are real, but where the one begins and the other ends it is impossible to say. Official business finished in the late afternoon, he slips without pause into another day and another world, a world of smoky lamplight inhabited by creatures of the shadows: pimps, beggars, whores, informers, runaway slaves, absentee soldiers, wanted men. By “wanted” I mean, of course, unwanted: Society wants them as you or I want a louse in the hair, to crack it and be rid of it. And now Paulus puts aside his finery; no jewels now; stout sandals and a robe of unbleached wool girt with a strap and, for his wand of office, a strong stick straight but with a tormented grain and studded with a thousand thorny knots, knobbed with a formidable root and shot with copper.

‘One might mistake him at first glance for a plain traveller – but only at first glance, my friend! Indeed, to anyone who has travelled as widely as I and seen as much of dangerous men and beasts, there should be no such thing as a first glance but only cautious scrutiny. At first glance a crocodile is a dead log, at first glance an adder is a green stick, at first glance a crouching lion is a hummock of sand. And, I repeat, at first glance our Paulus in the twilight is a quiet traveller going about some serious but innocent business – business of a petty nature, something to do with the conveying of a vineyard, say. Then he looks at you, very slowly, and says something (no matter what), and there comes over you a sensation which I can only describe as of helplessness. Diomed, don’t laugh – or yes, laugh, and when we meet again on your gracious terrace in kindly Tarsus, I will laugh with you – but it is not funny here and now.

‘Here in the heart of this sun-rotted and sand-blasted land, Paulus inspires a distressing mixture of emotions. It is some quality of the spirit. If he says anything even so trivial as “I shall wash my hands”, it is not a passing remark, it is an unalterable decision; if a locked phalanx stood between Paulus and a wash-basin, still he would get through and wash his hands. With him, everything is a matter of life and death. He makes opposition something not worth while: life is too short for argument with his kind. And so his merest affirmative nod fills one with a ridiculously disproportionate sense of relief, as if some bloody catastrophe has been narrowly averted, or a peace treaty sealed. No ewer-and-basin man, or perfume-carrier attends him in the evening, unless he has made himself splendid for some secret session at a great man’s house – no, only I accompany him.

‘A small, compact guard follows at a discreet distance; and behind them, in single file, the three most heart-freezing creatures in all Asia. The first of these is a man whose very name is not mentioned because it brings bad luck. He has a nickname, however: Little Azrael. Azrael is the Jewish Angel of Death, and it is his stern duty to separate the soul from the body; a melancholy angel, himself under a death sentence, because one day death will be no more, and God will slay Azrael. Little Azrael is a public executioner, trained in the mystery and craft of burning, strangling, scourging and beheading; he knows also the technique of stoning, which requires skilful supervision, as I shall tell you later. His like has not been seen since the time of Herod the Great – that is to say, he has not been equalled in strength and dexterity. But now, his is an unenviable position: all men shun him, and he has no regular income, but is paid by the job, and executions in the Mosaic style are infrequent nowadays.

‘There is no everyday work for which he is considered fit. They will not let him be a slaughterer of beasts, having an unpleasant feeling about having this fellow bleed their beeves and sheep. In any case, he has no licence to do so. He is not employed even to dig graves, except in the unhallowed barrens around the gallows. Sometimes he earns a coin or two dragging away the most offensive kinds of garbage, and now and then, for fear of the evil eye, someone throws him a few coppers or a bit of bread. He eats offal, is ostentatiously punctual in his prayers, and is completely indifferent to the swarms of great, greasy green flies that always buzz about his head. Superstition has it that these slaughter-house flies bring him news of the dead – and who, one asks, is more appropriately designed to receive such news than Little Azrael? He is squat and square, yet somehow emaciated, this sepulchral outcast, a creature of horn and cartilage; his nose is a claw, his mouth a gristly beak, and even his heavy eyelids appear to have the quality of great blunt finger-nails.

‘He will not beg. There are two others who beg for him, and always follow him, one behind the other. The first of these is a woman, called Ada the Mourner. I know other places in Asia where she would be killed out of hand as a ghoul, for she loves death, follows all the funerals, and loiters after dark in graveyards. But here they pity her, and give her alms. She wears only black sackcloth, sour and filthy, always smudged at the knees with fresh mould. Her hair and face are plastered with white ashes through which her constantly flowing tears have cut two fantastically shaped dark channels, from her drowned and bloated red eyes, around her starting cheek-bones, down into the caverns of her cheeks and so into the corners of her chewed mouth, where she licks them away with a quick dart of her rough, earth-coloured tongue.

‘They say she was beautiful once, and ready to be married to a fine young man. But the night before her wedding she began to weep, and has been weeping for the past thirty years, eaten up with some nameless, inexpressible, meaningless grief. She is in love with Death, in the person of Little Azrael, whom she follows, as I have said, sometimes calling to him, in something like a dog’s voice in the night: “Take me, Azrael, O beautiful Azrael, take me to your house!” An unappetising thought. In their rear, last of all, creeps the one they call It.

‘Born a man but unsexed by smallpox when he was a child, always going on tiptoe with the mincing steps of a eunuch, It can, with impunity, handle the pustular bodies of people smitten with the sickness that struck him monstrous either to wash them or put them in their graves. He is invulnerable also to the black cholera, is an opener of buboes and a disposer of pus. I shall provide you with none of the disgusting details. His blasted countenance is hairless, grey-white, blistery here and pitted there, like boiling porridge. In place of a nose he has a split thing like a peeled chestnut, and one of his eyes is sightless and glairy white, a kind of half-open oyster. Only his mouth is distinguishable as a human feature, and this is red, moist, and – most horrid of all! – voluptuous. As he creeps, he whispers to himself, and they say that he is praying for a plague like the one they had forty years ago, when he made money and grew fat.

‘And there you have the tail of the procession Paulus heads by night: Death looking for employment, Grief lusting after Death, and Corruption praying for Pestilence. He, She, and It – a horrid allegory, as it might be, grouped to lend terror to the skinny little prowler with the daemon on his back.

‘And what is the purpose of these nightly jaunts? I will tell you what happens …’

7

I MUST have been deeply engrossed, or she must have moved like a shadow, for I have ears like a dog, but I was not aware that Dionë had come in until I looked up from Afranius’s writing and saw her sitting on a cushion an arm’s length away.

‘That is an evil book you are reading,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘You go tat-tat-tat like a bird pecking worms, and your face is black as thunder.’

‘I cannot imagine why,’ I said. ‘But if you interrupt me again, I shall have you beaten with a stick.’ I smiled to myself at the idea: one might as well thrash a kitten or flog a flower.

‘If you do, I shall kill myself,’ she said.

‘I will bet that you would not,’ I said, glad, after all, of the interruption.

‘How much will you bet?’

I said: ‘Let me see. I will have you beaten now. If you kill yourself immediately, I will marry you tomorrow. If you do not, I won’t.’

‘I hate that book you are reading. Is it a sad book?’

‘How do I know until I have read it?’

‘Is there any love in it?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘there is, among other things, the story of how Solomon the Wise, King of the Jews, made a queen come to his bed.’

Dionë clapped her hands. ‘Tell me! Tell me!’

So I told her about the salty dinner and the empty water-pitchers. I told the story in the tantalising, cumulative way that children love:

‘… And so she went to the White Chamber, and what do you think she found there? … And then she went to the Blue Chamber, and imagine what she saw there! …’ Repeated, with additions and variations, this silly story gave my poor little Dionë pleasure for years to come, although she knew it by heart. Or because she knew it by heart. Nothing pleases like the familiar story. There is no new thing under the sun because that which is new makes men think twice, and this they hate, except in play. If I were inspired to make a new philosophy I should introduce it in the form of a game.

The story ended, she sighed deeply and, after some meditation, said: ‘But this King Solomon was also a ruler of demons!’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then if I had been Solomon I should have called a demon and said: “Demon, fetch me that woman.”’

‘That wouldn’t have been the same thing. She had to come to him of her own accord.’

‘But she didn’t come to him, she came to the water.’

‘Let us not split hairs.’

‘If she made herself so different from a thousand other women, I suppose she put a charm on him,’ said Dionë gravely. ‘My mother learned such a charm. She learned it from a woman who was a hundred years old, but who could make young men think she was beautiful. It is easy to make the powder, of which you need only a pinch, but you must say the words the right way.’

‘And thus, no doubt, your mother found herself a king for a husband,’ I said.

Her eyes filled with tears as she answered: ‘She died.’ Then, instantly recovering her spirits: ‘But I have used the charm,’ she said, laughing.

‘Upon me, presumably?’

‘Yes. You only think I am Dionë. Really, my name is Kakmara, and I am sixty-seven years old; I have only one tooth, my breasts are like cakes of dry cow-dung, and between my thighs is a withered apricot. Only I have cast a spell–’

‘Go to your room!’ I said, unreasonably angry. ‘Go now. I am reading.’ She left, downcast, and I was sorry.

But why, suddenly, had something cold come out of nowhere and walked between my shoulders? I went back to my reading.

Paulus’s purpose in making these strange excursions about Jerusalem in the evening was perfectly clear to me: it was part of a trick he had learned from me. The owl is a sagacious bird – that is to say, he is wiser than mice. Therefore, he knows that if he hoots in the dark, the little creatures, frightened by his voice, stir uneasily where they lie. So he comes down on his silent wings and strikes at the sound of their stirring. But men in hiding are not so foolish as mice or small birds – they think!

When the Accuser comes knocking by night, it is the innocent who start; the guilty keep very still. Hence, if it is man you are hunting, make your alarm and listen for the silences. And all this Paulus explained to Afranius sententiously and at some length – for which reason, no doubt, I made the impatient sounds Dionë imitated. I was asking myself:

‘Diomed, were you mistaken in this boy? What puerile play-acting is this? Is he out of his mind, to strut before Afranius like a lad in his first toga?’

But Afranius wrote on:

‘As one of the participators in this sinister dumb show I find it foolish and embarrassing. But this same fool’s parade seems to fill passers-by with a singular horror. To play it as Paulus does, one must be by vocation something of an actor: which is the same as saying, shameless with calculation.

‘First he stops before a gate: when he stops, I – outwardly a man of snow, but inwardly itching to hide my face – stop too; the guard comes to the halt with a stamp and a clatter while He, She and It, thrown together by their own momentum, form an unholy knot. Overhead our torches flare. Nobody speaks. Paulus then stands quite still for several minutes, stiff as a poorly executed bronze image, scrutinising doors and walls. Then he takes out a set of ivory tablets, looks at it intently, nods, snaps his fingers, and so we all go on, in and out of a myriad wynds and closes, fetid back-doubles and unsavoury blind alleys.

‘As we pass, the underworld of Jerusalem seems to hold its breath. Foul mouths hang agape in mid-obscenity and drunken voices crack into silence; a brazen whore, throwing open her dress in a doorway for some tipsy soldier, stands frozen, thighs apart, while her customer congeals with his penis in his hand. We were defeated only once, and that by a woman with a basket on her head.

‘The passage was narrow, and she would not give way. “Move, woman,” says Paulus, in his most peremptory tones. But she, a sturdy, copper-headed wench, puts her great fists on her hips and stands with her legs wide open – legs stout enough to support the weight of a house – and defies him in strident Galilean to do his worst. “I know you!” she screams. “Why, by God, if my husband caught something like you he’d throw it back for being too small! You’re Saul the Pharisee, ain’t you? Go and kiss Caesar’s arse, you afflicted minnow! Which end of you does your wife use, your head? Get out of it! Me move over for you? Ha-ha! Call your soldiers” – all the time her basket is swaying and swinging, perfectly balanced, although she must have been somewhat drunk – “What are you after, taxes? Or is it Nazarenes? Well, I haven’t got no money, and I haven’t got no Nazarenes – and, if I had, you shouldn’t get any! Yah, Pharisee night bird! God bless Rabbi Jesus!”

‘Paulus says: “Take her away.” At this, she falls back a pace, having lashed herself into one of those blind feminine ecstasies of rage, and shrieks: “What, take me away, you son of an unlucky mother and a filthy father? Take me, you child of the separation, you Onan, you! I’m Debby the Flower-Seller, I am, you chalky Pharisee – and I’ll give you some flowers, God strike me blind, I’ll flower you to make a mess of you for a month, I will! I will!” So saying, she reaches under her clothes and tugs out and brandishes a bloody rag, at the sight of which our lion-hearted Paulus jumps back – for the very touch of the menses is to the devout Jew pollution extraordinary, and must be followed by long and tiresome purifications. Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, this notable woman tosses her basket under the feet of the approaching soldiers and, bounding like a hare, is gone into the shadows.

Paulus said: “Debby, or Deborah, a flower seller in this quarter – let her be arrested tonight!” But nobody could find her; it appeared that, having soaked her head in cold water, she thought it expedient to leave town.

‘I wish her luck, wherever she is. I tried to make capital of this incident by asking Paulus: “Exactly where is your clowning supposed to lead? This is a devil of a method of catching heretics, surely?”

‘He, smiling, replied: “It is no method at all for catching anything or anybody, Afranius. It is a trick Diomed uses to stir up rookeries, I believe. But our quarry doesn’t inhabit a particular quarter, like the criminals. The Nazarenes are not a criminal class in the true sense of the term. They are heretics, fanatics, artisans, and so forth: they can’t bribe their way, and it is not worth any criminal’s while to harbour them. All this foolery of ours is the merest display, or rather a feint. People are fools. They think I am looking for Nazarenes in the streets. Bah! I am merely spreading a little insecurity among the lower orders. The thieves, and such-like, will soon find the presence of a Nazarene disconcerting. So will your ordinary working man with a living to get. Every man is at heart a traitor. In a week the street will be blocked with informers –”

‘I interrupted. “How do you discriminate between the true and the false witnesses?”

‘He was back at me with my own words to throw in my face, saying: “Oh, in this life, that which is true so heavily outweighs that which is not, that if I believe everything I find the odds on my side…. Eh, Afranius?”

‘I said: “And no doubt your God has seen fit to reveal to you this End?” I was irritated by his bantam cockiness. “Less presumption, young man!”

‘He went on: “Really, Afranius, you must not take me for a complete fool. Do you know the proverb: The fish always begins to stink from the head down?”

‘“Well?”

‘“Judaea is the fish, let us say. Jesus is the stink. Now you cannot believe that it is the hewer, or the drawer, or the artisan, who has time or room in his wambling brain for religious or political heresy? Come now, dear Afranius, you know that dangerous dissension is the naughty little pastime of the idle. Tell me, what momentous idea ever came from the people that work all day to get bread? Only the idle poor have time for the luxurious chatter of the idle rich. I do not regard the rabble, which I can handle with a dung-fork – give me the Rich, my dear Afranius, give me the Rich and a pair of tweezers!” There was a fever in the boy, and so I asked him, if he pleased, to expound.

‘I said: “I grasp the gist of what you are driving at, Paulus – but tell me some more.”

‘He did so with an impatient twirl of the fingers. “Oh, the argument of the Nazarene Jesus is, in effect, that man has nothing in the world but his fleshly harness to lose, and all eternity to gain. Do I deny this? No. It is a luxurious philosophy. But tell it, if you please, to the true man of the world. Sell me Jesus’s argument to the man alive who is wealthy enough to chaffer in righteousness – say to him: Money can buy poverty; give and you get it – just you try it and see!”

‘I said: ‘Paulus, you must make yourself clearer.”

‘He said: “Oh well, then, consider Neihshon ben Asher, a rich Jew, a nobleman. Why do you raise your eyebrows, Afranius? There is Jewish blood quite as thick as wolf’s milk. Neihshon ben Asher; an idle man of an idle family this past three generations, living off his rents. The poor hate him, of course; the poor are bound to hate the rich. Bear in mind, now, that Jesus of Nazareth was a poor man’s prophet. Tell me, as a gentleman who has tasted all the pleasures, what can titillate the rich palate as exquisitely as the affectation of a pauper’s philosophy? So Neihshon ben Asher is a Nazarene. And what alienates the poor like this same affectation? Because a poor man pretending to be rich is only a trickster, but a rich man playing poor is a usurper: he mocks hunger, he shames poverty, he makes a cushion of the swollen belly. Endeavour to understand me – one truly poor Nazarene is an item, one rich Nazarene brings Nazareth in a bankrupt’s lot wholesale to a dead market. Asher’s great-grandfather took the unborn calf and bought the crop before the corn was green. This Asher counts in millions, and yawns, yearning for new savours … for even among us, you know, we have our equivalents of Little Lucius –”

‘I said, with some irony: “Oh no! Don’t tell me so!”

‘“Fact, I assure you. So! Tomorrow, or the day after – let ’em sweat a little, they can’t leave town – I arraign Neihshon ben Asher, and his cousin Ahiezer too, for secret questioning. Not so secret, but silly old Barnabas Hagith will have information of it; and his turn comes the day after that. Well, Afranius, and now will you tell Diomed that I am playing the clown in the open streets?”

‘I said nothing. But if the Sanhedrin, through Paulus, decide to move against the likes of the ben Ashers and the Hagiths – who will be mulcted in stupendous fines, no doubt – why, then we are up against the gathered might of Israel. For Paulus’s politics are balanced to please the Temple and the poor, both at the same time; while the rich, as a class, will find themselves in no way embarrassed.

‘I only hope, my dear Diomed, that you may have nothing to beg the gods’ forgiveness for, old bestiarius of men that you are, who has taught a fox the taste of human blood! …’ Meticulous as old Tibullus himself, Afranius went on to describe the pall of terror under which Jerusalem lay, strangely quiet, while Paulus went methodically about his business.

Paulus, all of a sudden, affected an air of Pharisaical detachment; he let the authorities do his shouting while he stood by, squeezed to the eyebrows by pent-up commiseration. He was deeply concerned, he profoundly regretted, he was doing no less than his etcetera, etcetera. It grieved him that … but. Far be it from him … still nevertheless. Notwithstanding so-and-so, such-and-such remained. He knew 2, and he knew 2; but not to add each to each, or multiply each by each … The result might be 3, it might be 5; Paulus knew 2 and 2 … The ben Ashers cracked, letting out first in a beaded perspiration of self-interested inquiry, then a plaintive fart of protest, followed by a piddle of extenuation and at last a strained dollop of pent-up information.

‘Silly old Barnabas Hagith,’ as Paulus called him, opened his silly old mouth in moist surprise and said, of course he was associated with Nazarenes – was intensely interested in Nazarenes – wished he had known Jesus personally – had invited this discredited Rabbi to his house more than once, only Jesus wouldn’t come. Why? But didn’t everyone know that he, Hagith, was working on a book to be entitled The Golden Calf, or The Gullibility of the Multitude? Certainly he was interested in Jesus the Nazarene; but so was he interested in a Nubian thaumaturgist who could make people believe that a rose-bush could sprout and bloom in twenty seconds, and also an Indian with a rope … Paulus then begged leave to cross-examine Hagith. Afranius said that he reported, of course, on hearsay; but if there is any truth in the old saying: ‘The flood goes, but the sand remains’, it was there demonstrated. Grain by grain, tireless old Hagith trickled whispering back to his first position. It must have been worth hearing.

‘Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was King of the Jews?’ Paulus asked.

Hagith answered, scaly, deliberate, swaying his head like a tortoise. ‘Here you open an interesting corner of the subject. The Procurator, Pontius Pilate, stated so in writing and posted his statement in public. Am I to say: “Rome lies”? If I say so, I say that which I should not, and may cause trouble. Am I then to say: “Rome does not lie”? Then again I say that which I should not, and may cause confusion. So what do I believe? I believe in peace and quiet. The tunny-fish is a king of the fishes. So among tunny-fish everyone is a king of the fishes. Which is King of the Tunny-Fish? Among men, every Jew is Chosen of God. But which is God’s Chosen Jew? Dare I say that such a one is, or is not? Ahem! … Now Jesus of Nazareth rode into the city on an ass, and a multitude hailed him as King. This brings me back to the subject matter of my little book concerning the gullibility of multitudes. Firstly –’

‘Excuse me. Please answer directly and to the point. Are you or are you not at present in association with any professed Nazarene?’

‘Excuse me, Saul. How do I know? Who professes to be a Nazarene? It is wrong to be a Nazarene, so who dares to say he is a Nazarene? I do not, for example, associate with criminals. But before I exchange friendly words with an acquaintance, am I to ask: “Pardon me, but have you uncovered your mother’s nakedness, committed sodomy, or murdered your neighbour just lately? Kindly show me a testimonial from a reliable rabbi.” Must I ask this?’

‘Do you know any followers of Jesus, then?’

‘First tell me what they look like, what they talk like. Have they marks, characteristics? “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” says the Nazarene, quoting Jesus. And: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” says the tax-collector. What do I know?’

‘You have given money to Nazarenes. You have entertained them in your house, Hagith.’

‘So? Is a physician in love with you because he looks into your eyes? Is a surgeon in league with leeches? Am I a lover of desolation because I study Petra? Do I walk cheek-by-jowl with death because I annotate a history of things past? To hint this, even, is blasphemous, young sir!’

‘Pardon me, learned and pious Hagith. Leeches were made for the relief of man, not man for the nourishment of leeches.’

‘I ask to be informed, good Saul – can there be nourishment divorced from relief, or relief separate from nourishment?’

‘This is a matter to be discussed in another place and at another time,’ said Paulus easily. ‘Now tell us, have you not a secretary name Eli, nicknamed Kamzan?’

‘Because the poor fellow has a withered left hand like a pair of tongs. Eli? Yes. How many hands does a man need, to write?’

‘As many tongues as a man needs to talk,’ said Paulus.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Hagith, with a shake of his poor old head, ‘and that one is sometimes one too many for, as the saying goes: “The tongue has no bones, but it is strong enough to break a man’s neck.”’

‘Apt,’ said Paulus quietly. ‘Too true. Eli-Kamzan has a loose tongue, and it dribbles. But it breaks you, Hagith. With this tongue he has condemned you. You are a Nazarene!’

Moved to something like indignation, Hagith said: ‘Oh, even if I were, Eli would not say so. It is improper to mention this, and I do so only in protest, but I took Eli into my house when he was a lame and crippled child. Young sir, I taught him. I said to him: “Don’t believe them when they tell you that you have one shoulder lower than the other: the fact of the matter is, you have one shoulder higher than the other. Have courage,” I said. “If you had no hands at all, and God willed you to write, you would write with your toes.” What, Eli? Eli spy? Upon me? It is written that there is reason in everything. But in this there is no reason.’

Paulus handed the old man a packet of documents, saying: ‘You wrote these. I have here, also, Eli’s diary, together with a number of letters he wrote at your dictation, Hagith.’

Turning the parchments over stupidly in his knotty hands, Hagith said: ‘But he was a crippled child, and I took him in’ – over and over again, with something like incredulity.

Paulus said: ‘Naturally. Why else should he betray you?’

‘Silly boy! I suppose Eli takes half of any fine or confiscation the judges may see fit to impose upon me?’ said Hagith; and, when Paulus nodded – ‘Oh, unlucky lad! I had not told him that, being childless, I had made him my heir! Poor Eli.’

‘In short, Hagith, you confess?’

‘I confess? Confess what?’

‘Nazarene affiliations, to begin with.’

‘Young sir, I am a good Jew, as all the world knows, and a dutiful subject of Caesar, and I don’t know what you mean by “Nazarene”. You must define the charge. Come, now, if I love veal, do I therefore worship Isis? If I delight in fried fish, am I therefore devoted to Dagon? Does contemplation of the dawn make me Mithraic, or admiration for the rising moon an adorer of Ashtaroth? Does –?’

‘If you please!’

‘Does the fact that I do not eat pig indicate that I hold swine sacred, as the Indians regard the cow, whose flesh is forbidden to them as pork is to us? Does –?’

… The examination of Hagith ended more or less as it had begun, incriminating letters and diaries notwithstanding; for this was Jew-meet-Jew, and the man at the bar was no wind-dried son of a hairy carpenter, but a rich old scholar of noble family and hitherto unquestioned piety. The affair was ‘adjourned for further inquiry’. If Paulus was in any way disconcerted by this, he concealed the fact; put on, indeed, a knowing air and twisted a minor reverse into the appearance of an important victory.

He said to Afranius: ‘Of course, I could have told you so at the start’ – taking the wind out of his sails by anticipating his very words – ‘You see, my dear Afranius, if Hagith were a Nazarene ten times over, he would have to go scot free, for now. For now. In the first place he is too rich. Secondly, his wealth doesn’t come out of some conflicting business interest. Thirdly, he is very highly connected, by family. And fourthly, the rabble in general likes Hagith for his so-called “benevolence”, for he gives a fortune in alms. If we punish Hagith, we scarify rich and poor alike, don’t you see. And the common pack growls: “If kind-hearted Hagith is a Nazarene, all we can say is, there ought to be a few more like him.”’

Afranius asked: ‘What have you achieved, then, by pestering this silly old fellow, as you were calling him only a couple of days ago?’

‘Who, Hagith? Hagith silly? Did I say that? I must have failed to make my meaning clear. He is an old fox, and he knows we know, now, where his hole is. Achieved? Why, I have the names and whereabouts of his correspondents, and I have Eli-Kamzan’s diaries. Remember,’ said Paulus darkly, ‘that Hagith is old and retired. Benevolent as he may be considered, there will be other benefactors, Afranius – to stir the spirit while they fill the belly, too.’

Afranius said: ‘Would it not have been wiser simply to bribe this miserable Eli in secret, and let him stay in Hagith’s employ?’

‘Wiser or not wiser, the paralysed Eli was hungry for an informer’s reward, which might have been enormous’ – Paulus laughed – ‘but you do not take into consideration two important factors: the abysmal shamelessness and the diseased arrogance of the average cripple; and the insuperable vanity of the so-called “public benefactor”. Eli will beg Hagith’s pardon, and Hagith will forgive him and take him back into his house, and trust him more than ever. In fact, Hagith will love him more than ever! Certain troubled consciences work that way: they negate law and order, and are the friends of crime with their vicarious free pardoning. But the scholarly and gentle Hagith on his side, fails to take into consideration that Eli-Kamzan will hate him for having forgiven him, the paralysed dog! He will go on tempting pity as a gambler tempts fate, playing for the utmost limit of forgiveness … And meanwhile, he is my man. Never trust a born cripple – somebody, somewhere, always owes him an arm or a leg. Ask Diomed!’

‘But you trust Eli?’ Afranius asked.

‘No. Eli trusts me,’ said Paulus, ‘he adores me. I showed him the Four Scourges, and I said: “Look here, you lopsided carrion. This scourge is the bull-hide strap; it bruises to the bone. This other is the knotted nine-thonged scourge; it takes off your skin. That there with the copper hooks is the three-tailed scorpion; it takes the flesh off your bones. But that last, which is thick as your wrist at the handle and tapers to a pin-point eight feet away – the one that is flint-coloured and almost transparent – that is made of rhinoceros hide, and Little Azrael can take a man’s leg off with one stroke of it. One of these four you shall receive, according to your demerits; in which case we’ll complete the work your mother’s malformed womb botched when it only half bore you. Behave yourself, and perhaps you won’t be beaten at all.” He kissed my feet. Oh, rest assured, Eli trusts me, Afranius!’

‘And his reward?’

Paulus said: ‘Afranius, the highest reward one can offer most men is an assurance that they will not get what they deserve. Diomed says –’

‘Alas, my poor Diomed!’ said Afranius.

Paulus was quick to answer: ‘Poor Diomed? He is no poor Diomed. Do you know, Afranius, the time will come when Diomed will be the greatest Roman in Asia?’

‘Who will promote him that high?’ asked Afranius.

‘Whoever it may be, it is simply something I feel in my bones,’ said Paulus. ‘Afranius, listen. Diomed says –’

‘Oh, damn Diomed!’

‘Diomed says that all basic intelligence services, whether civil or military, must be basically dependent upon the proper evaluation and correlation of information received, however seemingly irrelevant its nature or questionable its source. Well, Afranius, I will tell you a secret. I have been correlating and evaluating information received, and I have arrived at a remarkable conclusion.’

‘Well?’

‘Jesus Christ is alive,’ said Paulus.

And then, for all the world as if it were the result of his own intensive investigation and study, he expounded to the astonished Afranius exactly what I had told him that night in my house – but with a fire and a vehemence of which I could never have been capable. He evoked a startling image of a breathing Jesus: a man with a limp, sleeved to the knuckles to hide nail scars, cowled to the eyes and muffled to the mouth, following his weird among the rocks; a gaunt, ragged, ghostly Catiline, gathering forces for an onslaught upon the Law; a spidery Anarch, spinning and spinning against his return in glory, feverish with fasting, fetid with fever, eyes of madness burned down in charred sockets; face moonstruck white, mouth parched black, gap-toothed and broken-nosed from the fists of the mob; back ridged like a sand-dune from the executioner’s scourge and stooped by youthful study …

Right or wrong, dead or alive, there was Paulus’s vision of a prowling Jesus; and he talked of it to Afranius in the strained, urgent manner of a man who remembers, but cannot quite describe, a bad dream.

‘Well,’ said Afranius humouring him, ‘assuming this Jesus to be alive, which I personally doubt, how are you going to set about finding him?’

‘As Diomed says, you never begin a search by looking for an individual – you look for a place, or area, where that individual is most likely to be,’ said Paulus …

And reading, I blushed: Diomed says this, and Diomed says that, and Ask Diomed so-and-so was growing embarrassing to me. He was talking in this way, of course, to win the approval and support of Afranius.

But Afranius said: ‘Oh, to hell with what Diomed says! Since when did a broken nose and a heavy fist make a man an oracle? We were boys together, Diomed and I, and I could tell you some stories –’

‘I don’t want to hear them. Diomed is my only friend. I love Diomed.’

‘He’s been my friend for twenty years, and I love him too, young Paulus; but I’m not so confounded vain as to believe that the virtue of my love is strong enough to make a god of him … although I concede that love is a very powerful thing. By the way, have you told Diomed of this story, or hypothesis, of Jesus surviving the cross?’

With that ready candour and absolute honesty which puts the professional examiner on his guard and makes him ready to put pressure on a question, Paulus replied: ‘No, Afranius. I did not tell Diomed of this.’

It did not occur to the worldly-wise, sly, contemplative, commentative Afranius that I, Diomed, might have told Paulus. The astuteness of a clever man in theory is nearly always, in practice, as full of holes as a sieve. Confronted with a real problem, however trivial, there is none so useless as your narrator of subtly-woven plot and tricky counterplot. Paulus did rightly in keeping a close mouth. But Afranius deserved to be kicked, kicked hard: if you don’t want to know an answer, do not waste a question, but if you want to know something, then go into the matter with a gimlet. In some ways, I thought, Afranius really was something of a fool.

He said: ‘Very well; granting your “place” and your “area” and what not – do you expect to find Jesus here in Jerusalem?’

‘Not necessarily. As Diomed puts it, the next best thing to discovering the area in which a person may be found is, to find someone who knows where this area may be situated. This brings us to the matter of the Diakonos.’

‘The messenger?’

‘Yes. Jesus has his Messengers, seven or eight of them. They raise and distribute funds, uphold his preachings, and in a loose kind of way keep the Nazarenes together. Now here in Jerusalem – here in the gut, Afranius, here in the heart! – I have made misery and confusion for the Nazarenes. Why,’ said Paulus, cracking his knuckles, ‘already the dogs fear me more than they fear their drag-footed whore’s by-blow of a King Jesus. Eh? Well now, Jesus must send a Deacon to give them courage, or he loses face. If he does not, then the Nazarenes will wail, “Where is he who said he was King of the Jews and the Son of God – where is he now, in the hour of our trouble?” So a Messenger will come, and I want that man. Yes sir, I must have that Messenger, and I will have that Messenger!’

‘How?’

‘If you will visit me after dinner at my house – I mean, of course, Mattathias ben Saripha’s house, which he has lent me – perhaps I may be able to show you how.’

‘Why don’t you invite me to dinner?’ asked Afranius.

Paulus smiled, and said: ‘Because tonight your cousin, the noble Quintus, is serving suckling pigs from a fruit-fed sow, and you would not like to miss that. You love suckling pig.’

‘How do you know this?’ asked Afranius, in astonishment.

‘Oh, in Jerusalem that which has wings carries me news. Incidentally, the sow is white but the piglets are piebald. Quintus’s cook has orders to roast them quite simply, with a savoury stuffing. The little pigs will have been killed and bled three hours ago, I think,’ said Paulus.

‘Tell me about my bath attendants,’ said Afranius, with irony.

‘Eh? Oh, the two slave-girls? One is an Egyptian whom Quintus calls Cleopatra; the other, a Syrian called Maia. You do not care for them much because they are too plump for your taste. You had a discussion about that matter with Quintus, the night before last. You maintained that a slender woman was nakeder than a fat one. Quintus, however, took the position that a man who likes to feel bone under a woman’s flesh is in love with Death…. More?’

‘What! You spy on your friends, do you, little man?’ said Afranius, perilously near anger.

‘No, Afranius, no! If I were spying on you, would I be such a fool as to uncover myself? Simply, information comes my way – all kinds of information, wanted and unwanted – and I repeated this only to tease you. What is it to me, if Quintus has pigs for dinner and fat girls in his bath? In Jerusalem, walls have ears –’

‘Oh the gods smite your stinking Jerusalem!’ cried Afranius. ‘It is a fly-trap and a shit-house, not a city!’

‘Yes, I don’t care for it myself, either,’ said Paulus. ‘But one of these days it will be properly watered and drained.’ Afranius noted, with a kind of half-amused exasperation, that Paulus spoke as if this were a matter he, personally, would attend to as soon as he had a free moment.

So he went home to Quintus’s house, and bathed with an uneasy feeling that Paulus’s glittering eyes were following his every movement. The suckling pigs were excellent. His good humour restored, Afranius said to Quintus, after the first mouthful, ‘Do you know, cousin, this tastes distinctly like a piebald piglet, and no other. Yes, and I’ll swear their mother is white!’

‘Is this another of your jokes, Afranius? Who can tell the colour of a pig by its taste? How the hell should I know the shades of its hair?’

‘As a matter of curiosity, ask your butler.’

Quintus asked the butler, and the butler asked the cook. The piglets had been piebald. Not being in a mood to prolong the joke, Afranius told his cousin how he knew, saying, ‘Quintus, old fellow, there are spies in your house.’

‘Why, of course there are,’ said Quintus, laughing. ‘You are in Jerusalem now, Afranius! I have lived here seventeen years, and have been spied on every minute. You get used to it. Let them spy their fill and go away, I say. What do they gain by knowing the colour of my stools, and so forth? Never brush spies off – let them spy themselves blind through looking at the same object too long and close. Remember the anecdote of the philosopher and the lice. “On no account comb them out,” said he to a solicitous person, “they have eaten their dinner, and are asleep; drive them away, and fresh, hungry ones will come to take their place.” So it is with the Jews.’

‘Your correspondence?’ asked Afranius. ‘Your secretary?’

‘He is a spy, naturally. I dictate to him only what I want Jerusalem to know; and what Jerusalem knows, it keeps secret, such being the nature of Jerusalem. Anything personal, I write myself and send my official courier.’

‘And even now we may be overheard?’ asked Afranius.

‘Certainly,’ said Quintus, with a wink and a chuckle. ‘It will all go back. And how it will confuse them! Between ourselves, Afranius, I have, at intervals, certain great thoughts but I never write them down; I follow the example of the masters. What great man ever wrote? Did Homer? No. Did Moses? No. Did Isaiah? Did Zeno? Did that Indian philosopher who sits in a lotus, or the yellow man Confucius ever write a line? No. Did Socrates write? Certainly not. What is good enough for them, then, is good enough for me. I throw out thoughts; take them or leave them. Let the pure-minded clarify, let the muddle-headed make turgid – it will all come sweet out of the filter.’ And this affable sybarite swallowed a great goblet of white wine and laughed until his face was blue.

Reluctant to leave such pleasant company but not to be tempted away from his duty, Afranius went at last to Mattathias ben Saripha’s house on the outskirts of the city. This house, he wrote, encircled by blank walls, crouched in the black shadows of some old cedar trees under a thin, hooked moon – trees of such a menacing and watchful aspect that Afranius would not have been much surprised if they had suddenly shrugged off their cloaks of ragged foliage and, revealing themselves as some other kind of creatures, closed in on him, whispering. Or, said Afranius, they might have been Herod’s martyrs of trees, dumb with fear, dripping with pitch, and waiting for the touch of a torch, at which they would go up shrieking in sheets of flame.

Paulus was waiting in a long lofty room, dimly lit, and dumb with carpets and draperies. Such were the shadows cast by the perfumed lamps that the corners of the room might have been the unexplored corners of the earth, and the ceiling the dark dome of the night.

‘The man I am waiting for will be here presently,’ he said, offering wine and sweetmeats.

‘A magnate? A potentate?’ asked Afranius, admiring Paulus’s jewelled coat. ‘You are dressed for one.’

Paulus replied: ‘A beggar, and the scum of Jerusalem, that’s who I am dressed for.’ Then, defensively: ‘The coat was a gift, so I put it on. It is the kind of thing a king wears, when he goes abroad, to please the mob. What gentleman would be seen in such a coat?’

But now the butler announced a visitor, and an armed servant conducted a man into the room. Paulus stared at him in silence for a long minute. The newcomer fidgeted uneasily. He was a big, stooped, ox-shouldered man, flabby-faced and grey of complexion, with a thin beard and a protuberant upper lip. He was round, pale and soiled like a turnip, and he shaded his prominent, watery eyes with a great flat hand, limp and veinous as a wilting leaf.

‘Mercy, Shofet!’ he cried, and went down on his knees.

‘I am not a judge,’ said Paulus. ‘You ask mercy for what?’

‘I am a sinner,’ said the man, in a glib kind of sing-song whine, ‘I am the lowest of the low, Judge. Why, then, should I not ask mercy? But I call your honour to witness that I came to you of my own accord.’

‘If I wanted you, animal, do you think I could not have had you dragged here by the heels?’

‘Yes, yes, a thousand times! But, Lord, is it not better that I came willingly to serve you, without being bidden?’

‘That is for me to decide. Firstly: you are a Nazarene, are you not?’

‘Oh Master, why do you say so? If I am in Babylon, does that make me a Babylonian? Was Lot a Sodomite? Is – ?’

‘You are a servant of the Nazarenes.’

‘The children of Israel were servants of Pharaoh. Did this –?’

‘Be quiet. Do you think I am here to exchange definitions with you?’

‘God forbid, Rabbi!’

‘Your name is Nun, is it not?’

Nodding vigorously, the man replied, ‘Nun, son of Jehuda. But they call me Blind Nun.’

‘But you are not blind.’

‘No master. But I was blind for forty years. I was born blind.’

‘You are a liar. You are a malingering liar.’

‘I swear by the Almighty, master, that I am not lying! Lilith touched my eyes in the womb. All Jerusalem knows it. It was God’s punishment to my father and God’s vengeance upon my mother. I was blind forty years, and then the sight of these unlucky eyes was restored.’

‘How?’

‘I do not know.’

‘No, you do not know, because you never were blind.’

‘Master, it was because I was blind that some people took me to Jesus. I would never have thought of going to him. They took me by the arms, and dragged me there, and said: “Here is Blind Nun, who has been sightless from birth.”’

‘And then?’

‘Then Jesus said to me: “Nun, do you desire to see?” It was my heart’s desire to see. I said: “Yes, Rabbi.” Then Jesus put a hand on my face, two fingers on each eyelid, and kept them there while he said: “See”. I opened my eyes, and I saw.’

‘And then?’

‘I fainted.’

‘Why?’

‘I cannot explain, Judge. For forty years my ears and my fingers were my eyes. I can hear the squeak of a bat. I can recognise everyone in Jerusalem by his footsteps. The darkness is my light, oh Lord, the great and gentle darkness, which I shall never see again – never! For if I bind my eyes, that which I have seen is lit with lamps inside me. And I am not of that which I see; I am as lost in the dirty daylight as you might be in the dead of night in a strange city. And the sight of things confuses my senses. I cannot link what I see with what I hear and touch. The world is out of shape, now, and I break my shins against it. The city is a coffin, and above it, what? Nothing. Blue? What is blue? The sun? A headache swimming in blood. Cursed be the day when I desired to see!’

‘Ha!’ Paulus exclaimed, deeply interested. ‘Say more.’

‘Lord, once I was Blind Nun. I knew every stone of the city, and every voice, and I was sure-footed as a goat. Now I know nothing and I stumble. I could always get a living; all I needed to do was, walk the streets with my staff and a wooden bowl, blessing passers-by by their names. The Jews are charitable; I never went to bed empty. If I laid out a few coppers the shopkeepers gave me more rather than less, because I was blind. Now, they say: “Praise God and go to work, Nun – you have your eyesight and a strong back. We have nothing for you.” Also, I have a wife.’

‘Oh, you have, have you?’

‘I have. As the saying goes, for every hole there is somewhere a patch. Fifteen years ago, somebody said: “Fat Ruth, the potter’s widow, is the perfect wife for Blind Nun. Perhaps, in all Jerusalem, Blind Nun might marry Fat Ruth.” I did not know why somebody laughed. Now I know. While I was blind, she pleased me – something smooth and soft is comforting to a blind man. To a man with sight, she is disgusting: the fat of her ankles touches the ground, the fat of her wrists covers her knuckles, she has no teeth, her skin is speckled like a croaking toad, and her eyes look in two different directions. I am sick to think that I ever touched her; but if I had remained blind I should still love her.’

Paulus said: ‘The Nazarenes give you alms, however.’

‘Master, what alms? Jesus was a poor man’s Rabbi. And such Nazarenes as can afford to give are afraid to do so openly, for it appears that Jesus was a false prophet, and to follow him is blasphemy. At first, they made much of me, and feasted me, and gave me gifts. But not now. They are afraid to employ me. Lord, I am a strong man, and the best watchman in Jerusalem: did I not say that darkness was my light?’

‘And you want employment?’ asked Paulus.

‘Judge, I do.’

‘You have something to offer, you bat, in addition to your cripple’s qualifications?’

‘Yes, Rabbi –’

‘Who gave you leave to call me Rabbi? I’ll Rabbi you – I’ll teach you something you won’t want to know! The point: come to it.’

‘Sir, because I can see in the dark, and because I can hear so well, and because I can tell one man’s footstep from another, and because Jesus gave me my sight, I am watchman for the Nazarenes at their secret meetings. A Messenger is on his way to Jerusalem now, to give them heart. You, Master, have cast a great fear over the Nazarenes in Jerusalem. So someone is coming with a message.’

‘And money?’

‘A little money, I think, too. Lord, I can deliver this Messenger, and all those who are with him.’

‘I see that you are not particularly grateful to this Jesus for giving you back your eyes,’ said Paulus.

‘Noble sir, that man’s reputation was made by me! And I am ruined,’ said Nun, indignantly.

‘Tell me something. You saw his face, did you not?’

Nun said: ‘It must have been the very first thing I ever saw with these eyes, sir.’

‘Describe it.’

‘Oh sir, how can I? After forty years I opened my eyes. There was a terrible light. It struck me in the heart, and I fainted.’

‘Ha! Good. You shall show me this Messenger when the time comes, and I shall see to it that you are rewarded.’

‘Thanks, Master!’

Paulus threw him a few coins. ‘Here is something in earnest. Don’t spend it conspicuously. Be cautious.’

Nun shuddered. ‘Lord, I will. I have no desire to be found in a ditch with my throat cut.’

‘I thought these Nazarenes of yours were men of peace.’

‘They are supposed to be, Lord, but it takes all sorts.’

‘Go, then. And when all is over I promise you the full protection of the law, steady employment in conditions favourable to your general condition, regular meals and housing, for life. Your enemies I shall put in chains.’

‘Master!’

‘Don’t thank me. Do your duty. Fail me, and you had better hang yourself out of hand.’

‘I’ll not fail you, gracious sir!’

‘Get out then,’ said Paulus.

‘One little thing, Master?’ said Nun. ‘My employment … not in Jerusalem, I hope?’

‘Very well. Not in Jerusalem. Ask me no more favours, blind man – you are playing with an edged tool here.’

When he was gone, Afranius said to Paulus: ‘Give me some more wine. I have seen everything.’ Holding a filled goblet courteously in both hands, Paulus gave it to Afranius and then, in high good humour, took another for himself. Afranius said: ‘I have seen the unicorn, and I have seen the dragon; I have seen the men whose heads grow below their shoulders, and the women who make fur aprons of their lower labia; I have seen the leviathan that lives in the sea and breathes smoke a hundred feet into the air, and I have seen the ape greater than a bear that can uproot trees but lives in a nest and makes music on its belly as a drum with its fists; I have seen women with wooden lips that hang down to their throats, and I have seen Hercules his pygmies. But by all the gods, high, middle and low, a monster such as this Blind Nun I have never seen!’

‘He is interesting, though far from prepossessing,’ said Paulus.

‘And you would give employment to such a thing as that?’

‘Oh come, come; values are relative. He will lead me to this Messenger. That is all I require of him. I want that Messenger, I must have that Messenger, and I will get that Messenger if I have to wash Nun’s feet and drink the water, by the Almighty God I swear it!’ cried Paulus.

‘Pah!’ said Afranius, shuddering. ‘If I had to use such a creature, then I suppose I should use him. But having rewarded him I should banish him to some lonely island.’

‘What, is this your Roman faith?’ asked Paulus, pretending to be shocked. ‘I have made good Nun a promise, and I never break my word.’

Afranius then wrote:

‘I have no time now to relate what ensued. A courier leaves for Tarsus tonight, so I seal this portion of my Commentary, or Report, and forward it by his hand. The rest, which will follow, is to my mind peculiarly shocking.

Afranius.’

8

I WROTE a note to Afranius forthwith:

‘My poor friend, my ill-used Afranius, you are breaking my heart. Your sufferings are greater than I can bear. What misery, to be bathed by plump girls; and what hardship, to be told in advance that you are to dine off a piebald suckling pig with savoury stuffing! How you can tolerate it, I don’t know.

‘It must be dreadful to see, in the case of our young friend, the Jerusalem dagger up the Tarsian silk sleeve. It must shock your sensitive soul, innocent young thing that you are, to witness the betrayal of a benefactor by a common informer. You must have changed somewhat from that Afranius who was my comrade in arms in Germany, once upon a time, and who boasts of having seen the world.

‘Be grateful to me for having given you a frame upon which you may weave the fantastic tapestries of a hundred fresh stories – for the gods know your present stock has worn pretty thin. I repeat; when you come home. At present, write what you see – if I want sentiments, I will read the poets. I regret the colicky nature of Jerusalem water, some of which must have got into your head, that you produce such a diarrhoea of words.

‘I am most interested to know what it is that has “peculiarly shocked” you now. One of the bath-girls rubbed you with the wrong kind of oil, perhaps? Or did you find a bug in your soup? Bear up. I think Paulus is doing very well, considering. But you must not tell him I said so. And try to write so that I do not have to dive too deep and open too many oysters before I pick up some seed-pearl of cogency. Save the deathless prose for your autobiography.

‘My love to you,

Diomed.’

We were accustomed, as old friends, to exchange more or less insulting letters. Taken as a whole, Afranius’s letter was all cogent, and my heart was not as light as my reply might seem to convey: there was something in the wind, there was something in the wind! I went about my duties – not perfunctorily, for there was nothing to warrant that – let us say, with only nine-tenths of my mind; and that little tenth constantly forced itself on my attention like a sore finger.

Late in the morning Paulus’s father came to see me, old Joseph himself dressed with rich and elaborate simplicity in the robes of a wealthy Jewish merchant, but in his speech and manner a little more Roman than any Roman ever was. He pretended for half an hour to discuss with me some legal point to which he said he attached considerable importance. Then I asked:

‘And is it this that has kept you from sleeping these last few nights, Joseph?’

‘It is true that I have not been sleeping very well,’ he said. Then, ‘It is best to be completely frank with you, Diomed.’

‘Yes. In fact it is a waste of time trying to be otherwise with me. What is troubling you?’

‘I know you hate me,’ said Joseph.

This took me unawares. I said: ‘You know what?’

‘That you hate me. Or at least, dislike me.’

‘This kind of talk,’ I said, ‘is for girls fishing for offers of marriage, or compliments. Yours is not the kind of statement I waste discussion on. But if I did hate or dislike you, my friend, I am so constituted that it would be all the better for you if I had to pronounce against you; for in such a case, I should be compelled by my conscience to disqualify myself as prejudiced. Similarly, if I loved you, and my decision were in your favour, I should examine myself and re-examine myself, for fear that affection had fuddled justice. What is this talk of hate, dislike, or what not?’

‘Forgive me! You are God’s own incorruptible man! I am not well, I am disturbed in my mind. I was going to say, “I do not believe you have much liking for me, but my heart tells me that you have a certain regard for my son Saul.”’

‘I said: ‘Joseph, your son saved my life, once. He went up unarmed against a madman with a club while I was on my knees. In any case, I have always had an affection for the boy.’

‘Yes, I heard about that. Bare-handed against a giant, a giant with a bronze club – and sent him to his knees with a look and a word of command!’

I had not the heart to say that Iscamyl’s fall had in fact been helped by a thrust in the guts; an irradiation of paternal love had made Joseph half sympathetic, for the moment. ‘Go on,’ I said.

‘For the past three nights, every night, I have had bad dreams of Saul.’

‘Natural anxiety causes bad dreams.’

‘Is Saul in danger?’

‘Why should he be?’ I said. ‘He has a hand-picked guard to ride with, and I have sent my best friend to be at all times by his side.’

‘Yes, and I bless you for it!’

‘And if he were in danger,’ I went on, ‘why should he not be? He is a man. Man needs danger. Would you lock Paulus up with the women?’

‘No, no, I would not do that. But these are troubled times, and –’

‘Are they?’ I asked, interrupting. ‘Where’s the trouble?’

‘I mean, somewhere, somehow, there is always some trouble, some danger; and Saul is headstrong. He has no regard for himself. Where it is prudent to go back, or stand still, he goes forward. And in my dreams he goes forward, always away, and my heart tells me in my dream that I shall never see him again. And, oh sir, I love him! I am a moderately well-to-do man, a man of business, a bargainer – I confess it, I like money; and they say of me that I would rather shed blood than spend money, and I admit it is almost true – but Saul is my life and my high hope, and for him I would give everything and take a bowl and beg!’

‘Oh, he will make his own way in the world,’ I said. ‘Although I should be the last to deny that money is useful.’

‘Have you news of him?’ asked Joseph.

‘Oh, I see what you’re driving at,’ I said. ‘You know I’ve had dispatches from Jerusalem, eh?’

‘But not a word to me, and I am Saul’s father, sir!’

‘Well, not a word to me, either,’ I said, ‘and I am by way of being in the line of his duty to Rome. And I’m not having bad dreams. But, to put your mind at ease, I hear that he is well, is doing his work competently, and in his half-official capacity is worrying the Nazarenes like a perfect little wolfhound.’

‘Good, good! But he is so daring. It is possible to have too much courage. Do you know, when Saul was only seven years old, he caught a serpent with his bare hands, his little bare hands?’

‘A poisonous serpent?’

‘Well, no, it was not a poisonous serpent. But it might have been, for all he knew.’

‘Fine. You will excuse me, now?’

‘Thank you, thank you, Prefect – I had not intended –’

‘Not at all. My respects to your charming lady –’

‘Ah, she grieves, she weeps all day for Saul. If, when you write, you could find time to tell him that?’

‘My business with him at present is official. You are his father. It is for you to tell him, or his mother herself, or his wife Jaël.’

He was somewhat ill-at-ease as he replied: ‘Sometimes I almost believe that his heart is not with us…. Tell me something, out of your great kindness, sir; has Saul –’ He stopped.

‘Has Saul what?’

‘Is there by any chance some woman he has met …?’

‘Not that I know of. Why do you ask?’

‘For no reason. It was a passing thought,’ he said.

‘And now it has passed?’ I asked.

‘I really beg your pardon, Prefect. My head is so full of little worries, I am talking nonsense.’

‘Not at all. You are sure that is not what you really came to inquire of me in the first place?’

‘Of course it was not! Why should it be?’

‘Why, what can separate a man from his family more surely than the love of a strange woman?’

‘For God’s sake, do not even speak of such a thing!’ he cried.

‘I should not have done so, if you had not raised the question. But be easy on that score, Joseph. One man in ten thousand is otherwise dedicated; your son is one of these. Now I really must beg you to excuse me, my friend.’

‘I owe you a thousand apologies, and thanks for –’ he began, then clutched at his throat with both hands like a man who has been poisoned ‘– Otherwise! Not a woman but otherwise? You cannot possibly mean …? You don’t imply …?’

‘Of course I don’t,’ I said, brutally. ‘The hole he is dedicated to has no bottom. Now I absolutely must entreat you to excuse me!’

And so, at last, I was rid of him.

Then I went to Soxias’s house. Gorged like a leech, preposterous in purple and gold, the magnate was sitting on cushions and inhaling steam from a vessel of boiling wine and aromatic herbs, pausing every few seconds to cough and spit into a silver bowl, while grim old Melanion struck him spitefully on the back with a kind of cushioned flail. This instrument, which was impregnated with some strong-smelling tincture, was supposed to beat medication into the skin while Soxias sucked in a complementary vapour through his lungs.

These two played strange games with death. At the beginning of the year Soxias always said, with a groan: ‘I’ll bet a Greek talent of silver I don’t see this year out!’ ‘Taken, said Melanion. On the last day of the year Soxias always paid up, grumbling that Melanion had loaded the dice. Then the bet was renewed. It was beneath that old pirate’s dignity to pay a physician a retaining fee. There had to be some sport in it. Thus, I have seen Soxias, taken with a painful spasm, laughing at Melanion and yelling: ‘You lose, Greek, you lose, pederast! My lawyer has instructions to collect!’ – while Melanion growled: ‘Have your talent ready, hippopotamus; but play fair, and if I say lie still, lie still.’

Now, as I came in, Soxias cried: ‘Stop!’ – and a slave took away the vessel while another wiped his face with a scented towel. ‘Diomed, what good wind blows you here?’ he asked.

‘Why, what but the troubled state of the world,’ I replied.

‘Is it in a troubled state?’ Soxias asked. ‘Really? Tell me all about it.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘you tell me.’

‘You receive the official dispatches,’ said Soxias. ‘What do I know?’

I said: ‘Come off it, Soxias, come off it! Overnight, trade slackens and cash gets tight in Tarsus, what time every dog-faced money-changer comes to me whiffling and sniffling pretexts but hoping for a signal from me, some dropped word. “Troubled world,” they say, and bury their specie; “troubled times,” they whisper all over the city, putting up their shutters.’ This, of course, was, if not a lie, a bending of the truth for the only hint I had picked up was from old Joseph by accident, and then only because I have a sharp mind.

I elaborated, however: ‘Wherever I go they pluck my sleeve, pretend official business, and whisper, “What news from Rome?” Come on, tell me, what have you heard that I have not?’

This kind of exchange did Soxias more good than all Melanion’s steams and herbs. He replied’ ‘How do I know what you have heard?’

I was ready for this. ‘You don’t,’ I said. ‘You know as well as I do that your merchants’ news-runners are faster and keener than Rome’s. But Soxias, my friend, bear in mind that merchants also talk, especially to me. So, what I hear I hear. Now, what is your news?’

Here was the merest false front, for I knew nothing. But Soxias said: ‘In that case, you have heard Caesar is dead.’

I replied: ‘I have heard nothing but a rumour of it’ – which was literally true; I had heard it that very moment, from Soxias himself. ‘What have you heard?’

‘That Caesar is dead,’ said Soxias, chuckling.

‘Well, he is over seventy years old, and has lived hard,’ I said, without emotion.

‘Seventy is not such a great age as all that!’ snapped Soxias. ‘I am no spring chicken myself.’

Melanion sneered: ‘Ah, but you have lived a pure and simple life, good Soxias.’

In the suave, bantering voice that everyone feared, Soxias said: ‘Yes. And I have the best of physicians, Melanion. I have an indispensable physician. In fact I am thinking of leaving instructions in my will, that when I die Melanion be sent along to look after me. Some eastern monarchs take their women with them – why shouldn’t Soxias take his doctor?’

Melanion’s expression changed: he did not like that. I said: ‘If Tiberius is dead, I am sorry. Rome will have worse Caesars than Tiberius before she has better…. But is he?’

‘Ah,’ said Soxias, ‘you are as wise as I am, I see.’

‘Does your intelligence name a successor?’ I asked, making the question seem rhetorical.

‘No.’

‘Well then, Tiberius isn’t dead.’ I was being informative now.

‘No. It’s a politic thing, for a Caesar to die once in a while, just so that he can see which way the cat jumps,’ said Soxias. ‘It is nice to know who will grieve and who will rejoice. And, of course, it affects the frontiers. All kinds of little secret schemes come to light, and all kinds of plots expose themselves too soon and abort. It flutters the dovecotes in the money market, also. The speculators always start selling when a Caesar dies; and when everybody sells, prices drop. At which point, I buy.’

‘As if you haven’t money enough.’

‘Oh, enough and more than enough. I don’t want the money, I want some fun. As I was saying – the Britons attack again, the Germans get bolder, and the East flares up. It helps a man to know where he stands, if he dies once in a while. Also, it teaches plotters the futility of plotting, and revolters learn something about the hopelessness of revolt.’

‘Shrewd policy, you call it, to give your enemies a light lesson to learn by?’ asked Melanion.

‘In the long run, no, but Tiberius hasn’t got long to run,’ said Soxias.

‘Oh,’ said Melanion, ‘I thought you said just now that seventy was no age at all.’

I said: ‘If people were capable of learning by experience, fools would be long extinct…. And what will be to do in Judea, do you think, Soxias?’

‘Now you know perfectly well, my dear Diomed, that you have given the Jews a bloody bone to snap over in your agitations against the Nazarenes.’

‘My agitations? It is my business to prevent agitations,’ I said.

‘Yes, yes, we know, we know. It is Melanion’s business to heal an abscess, but he does this by tickling it to keep it open.’

‘To drain,’ said Melanion.

‘Agitation,’ said Soxias obstinately, ‘agitation. What the Jews need is a fresh king to worship, execrate and squabble over.’

‘Little Herod?’ I suggested.

‘I wouldn’t give you that for his life!’ said Soxias, snapping his fingers. ‘But what’s your news from that quarter? I hear you got a letter from Jerusalem as fat as my wrist.’

‘How careless of me not to bring it. How can I rest in my bed tonight, knowing that I have neglected to let Soxias read all my private or official correspondence?’

‘I could have had it intercepted,’ he said, in his jocular way.

‘The year you do that, Melanion loses his bet, my friend.’

‘Seriously, what news?’

‘Paulus is harrying the Nazarenes,’ I said. ‘You know very well there is nothing much kept dark from you in Asia.’

‘Yes, I am keeping an eye on that boy. I like him. He made an impression on me, young Paulus. I could do a lot for a boy like that. Now if that one had other support, and Rome didn’t say no, and he had a fancy to strike for power, given the right time, I’d throw a little something onto his side of the scales. I would, you know! Paulus will be a man before his mother, yet. But Little Herod? Piss and wind!’

I admitted: ‘Paulus has capacity. He has a certain power to stimulate. And he has the vitality of a swarm of ants.’

But Melanion said sourly: ‘He is in the secondary stages of a clear case of janosity.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Soxias.

‘Janosity is a vertiginous state which, unless carefully treated, ends fatally in a convulsion of sinisity.’

‘Bah! Give me a wiry little one any day, and keep your loutish lobcocks,’ said Soxias. ‘The boy is sound as brass.’

Melanion explained: ‘Janus is the God of Thresholds, and has two faces; he looks in two directions at once, therefore. Sinis – also known as Pityocampytes – was a giant whom Theseus slew by tying him to two pine trees and so tearing him asunder. Live like Janus, and you die like Sinis. Paul is trying to go in two directions at once. He will split himself. Janosity,’ said Melanion, with relish, ‘is the disease of the age –’ he enjoyed the sound of it ‘– janosity….’

‘Set up a new thaumaturgic branch of medicine and treat disorders of the mind with long words,’ I suggested.

‘Yes,’ said Melanion, ‘the most satisfactory cures I have ever effected, have been of diseases that I have myself invented. Sinisity … Pityocampytic … Hm!’

In a month, every rich woman in Tarsus would have it.

I said: ‘A person who cannot quite arrive at a certain decision, for example, you might describe as having a sinicpityocampytaceous diathesis of a janostic origin.’

‘Are you trying to teach me my business?’

So, as a result of all this, I was able to add a post scriptum to my note to Afranius:

‘I do not know what rumours certain unscrupulous speculators may have put about to the contrary, but you will be happy to have my assurance that Caesar is in the best of health and spirits.’

It is always wise to keep an agent supplied with fresh, up-to-date information, especially in Judaea, where the very air distorts truth. As for Afranius’s happiness in my assurance – why not? There never was a change of Caesars without some measure of trouble in the transition. I know that much has been said against Tiberius: that he was secretive, pimply-faced, cold and cruel; that he violated patrician matrons and raped their unweaned babes, buggered small boys and dumb animals, and so forth – that his private life, in short, was far from exemplary. But he kept it private, and the State was none the weaker or the poorer for his games in the Caprian grottoes. He had his little eccentricities, no doubt; but he was a fine soldier, and had worked very hard for Rome in his time.

But my note had not been on the road ten days before the next part of Afranius’s letter came – another bulky document.

He wrote that Paulus did no business next day, after his meeting with Blind Nun. He went out, but came home in a hurry, having accidentally met in the street his old teacher, the Rabbi Gamaliel. It was curious, Afranius observed, that when one encountered a Jew purged of hate and cleansed of the pride of learning, one was likely to find a gentleman and a scholar – if he happened to have shed the habit of shrilly explaining himself like a belated girl with a bitten lip and a mossy arse.

Such a Jew, said Afranius, was Gamaliel, at present in some disrepute for a policy of tolerance of the Nazarenes. Gamaliel was a great rabbi: co-disputator with the mighty Rabbi Hillel, a master of the Midrash, a refiner of the Law of the Jews.

‘Well, Saul?’ said Gamaliel.

‘Rabbi,’ said Saul, making an obeisance to the plain little man with the wretchedly wispy beard through which was plainly observable the outlines of a chin which was round, pink and cleft like an apple.

‘Well, Saul, well?’ said Gamaliel. ‘What is hateful to you?’

‘Much that is, is hateful to me,’ said Paulus.

‘Do you do to yourself that which is hateful to you, Saul?’

‘No.’

‘No? Good. And to others, do you do what is hateful to you?’

‘Rabbi, these are hateful times,’ said Paulus.

‘Do you do to others that which is not hateful to you, Saul?’

Paulus answered: ‘Rabbi, who takes pleasure in cutting off a rotten finger? Have I answered?’

‘You have answered like a child.’ Gamaliel then walked on, followed by several tight-lipped students, and Paulus stood, making pumps of his heels in his sandals, pallid with rage.

He cried: ‘Who is Gamaliel? Is Gamaliel Hillel? And who is Hillel? Is he the Law? If the Prophets are not righteous, if the Angels of God themselves are not perfect – or Isaiah lied! – who is Gamaliel, who is Hillel? Where is the perfect Law, tell me, where is it? Where? It moves, it does; the Law moves! Do not unto others that which is hateful to thee. Aha, aha! And out of the same mouth, flogging a dunce, it is, This hurts me more than it does thee. What is this talk of Others and Thee? What constitutes Justice, then? How did I answer like a child? I hate a man who flips a statement over his shoulder and goes away! Parthian lawyer! Nazarene-lover!’

Afranius was tempted to say: ‘Oho, little man! He got one in between the joints of your armour, did he?’ But he held his tongue. Paulus composed himself all in an instant.

‘As far as we know, Afranius,’ he said, ‘there are at least five Deacons. That is to say, Blind Nun knows five: Nicanor, Parmenas, Stephanas, Nicolas and Timon.’

‘Were these of Jesus’s original twelve?’

‘No, not that I know of. I’ve got their names, have no fear of that. They are lying low in some rat-holes. There’s one of them I particularly want to get my hands on. A certain Simon, son of Jona.’

‘Why?’

‘Afranius, in any group of that kind, there is always a clown, a lout, an amiable idot. You can’t get rid of him. He is a kind of huge, clumsy, foolish dog, slobbering with affection. He is willing to do anything for anybody. He always does it wrong. He is absolutely obedient, and drunk with adoration – without someone to whom he can trot to heel, he is utterly lost. For all his uncouthness, you cannot be angry with him, for a harsh word would break his silly heart. He has a tremendous bark and a negligible bite. If you tell him that it is important to you that he stands on one foot all night long he will do so, without wondering why. Alone, he is always an abject coward. He is incapable of learning, and without will. This Simon is of such a type.’

‘What was he doing in the company of rabbis?’ Afranius asked.

‘Water-carrier, slop-emptier, porter, floor-sweeper, unhandy handyman, dish-wiper, watchman – the Nazarene stool-mender knew the value of such a fellow about the place. He liked the fellow. Simple Simon! Jesus degraded the Law for the understanding of idiots, but even so Simon could not grasp it. I likened him to a dog just now, I think. This Simon is something less than a dog. When Jesus was arrested, Simon pulled a knife, then dropped it and ran. A dog would have had somebody’s throat out. Gross cur! True, all the rest made themselves scarce enough, and Simon was the only one to sneak into court at his master’s trial. But when he was recognised, he bellowed, “Jesus? What Jesus? Who, Jesus? When, Jesus? Never heard of him! Stranger in town myself!” – or words to that effect; and ran for his life. A dog would have stayed…. Simon!’

‘What do you want him for?’ asked Afranius.

‘Why, didn’t you know?’ asked Paulus, laughing. ‘Simon is to be a very important man in Jesus’s Kingdom. Firstly, the whoreson chip-cutter nicknamed him Cephas, or Petros, or Peter, because this Simon was as ponderous and dense as a lump of stone. Then, when Peter wanted to know what would be his share of God’s Kingdom, this Jesus laughingly said that he could be doorman. Probably he was thinking of clumsy Hercules, who was made hall-porter for your Olympian gods. “And can I hold the keys?” this simpleton asks. Jesus says, “Yes, yes.” “And will they be golden keys?” “Yes, yes, yes, golden keys. Be quiet now.” The rest may have laughed. But Simon, or Peter, took it very seriously, and has since become portentous, I am informed – and therefore conspicuous. But he remains a coward and a fool; and I can crack him, that one!’

‘The way you are going, my young friend,’ said Afranius, ‘you’ll crack yourself, sure as Herod. How long since you slept?’

‘There is so much to do, and so little time,’ said Paulus, by way of reply. His mouth, Afranius wrote, was puckered and compressed, and his cheeks were hollow – it was as if he had sucked all the blood out of his little body into his sombre and congested eyes. Afranius drew a nervous picture of a terribly strange little face, exsiccated and strained, drained to pale green with bruise-coloured shadows, dry lips like yellow ochre, white gums, pale-blue teeth, black tongue.

‘Or ate and drank?’ continued Afranius.

‘I do not eat or drink until after sundown,’ said Paulus.

‘Since when?’

‘Since I came to Jerusalem.’

‘And how long is this foolery to go on?’

‘Until my mission is completed here.’

‘A madman’s vow!’ cried Afranius. ‘Since when did a man work best on an empty stomach? Diomed would not approve.’

Paulus said: ‘And who is Diomed? I serve God.’

‘A god that sends his men out to work for him without breakfast doesn’t deserve to have servants,’ said Afranius.

‘I do what I do of my own free will.’

‘Oh, if your God has no say in the matter, that’s different, of course. Or does he starve you as some fools starve watchdogs, to make you more ferocious?’

‘Afranius, there are some things you will never understand.’

‘I understand all kinds of things,’ said Afranius. ‘I have known zealots who starved themselves light-headed and mistook their fantasies for visions. I have known men who worshipped a woman with eight arms, who lay upon beds of nails; and others who served some goddess with a huge behind, who stood with one arm upraised until it withered. You wear, of course, a hair shirt under your robe?’

‘Do I?’ asked Paulus, flushing a little.

‘Yes, I can see you do. Well, my boy, mark my words, you’ll get used to it, as a soldier gets used to the chinstrap of his helmet. Then you’ll look for something sharper to scratch yourself with. Why, poor fellow, only a hair’s breadth divides you and Little Lucius, after all!’

‘Oh, indeed?’

‘Ay, indeed. The principle is, of course, that if you can take your mind quite away from your body, it will explore the ethereal. But there are as many devils as there are gods in the ether, my young friend – so take care! Love the good world.’

But Afranius wrote that, in his opinion, Paulus was doing penance; for, as he said, the Jews are the only people in the world who actually make a luxury of a tormented conscience, and are so constituted that the guiltier they feel, the better they feel. Paulus really was doing to others that which was hateful to himself, was punishing himself therefore and, in truly perverse Jewish fashion, twisting imaginary virtue out of the affair.

Nun came to Paulus again late that night, and said: ‘Master, tomorrow they are sending Stephanas.’

Afranius wondered why Paulus leapt up and shouted: ‘What? What? They are sending what, you blind dog?’

Terrified, Blind Nun whimpered: ‘The Messenger, Master – the Messenger, the Deacon Stephanas…. What have I said?’

‘Oh,’ said Paulus, ‘I was thinking of something else. For stephanos, in Greek, signifies a crown.’

‘What should I know of Greek, Master?’

‘Well, well, go on, go on.’

‘There will be a meeting tomorrow at midnight. I shall be on the watch. The signal is, a long knock and a short knock, then a short knock and a long knock.’

‘So Stephanas is his pretentious, his treasonable and blasphemous name, is it? Go on.’

‘The meeting will be in the cellar of Chislon, the wine merchant.’

‘Chislon, eh? The mealy-mouthed hypocrite!’

‘Yes, Master. He has a great cellar, quite deep, where he ages certain wines.’

‘What else should a wine merchant age in his cellar?’

‘He also stores cheese there. The cellar is to be reached by the warehouse door. But there is another door at the end, a trap-door.’

‘Good. But this Chislon has watchmen of his own.’

‘Yes, master, but when Stephanas comes they will be down below, eating God’s body and drinking God’s blood –’

‘Take care what you say, blind man!’

‘Master, that is what they say. It is bread and wine, but after it has been blessed it is taken as the body and the blood of Jesus.’

‘You said God.’

‘Master, is it my fault if they say Jesus was the one and only Son of God? Who partakes of Jesus partakes of God Himself – that is what they say, I did not say so. How could I say so? Would I be here if I believed so?’

‘This is most filthy blasphemy!’

‘Yes, master.’

‘And you, blind beast – do you not get your share of bread and wine and blessings?’

‘Last of all, Master.’

‘Tomorrow night you will have to do without.’

‘A mouthful of wine, a crust of bread – is this something to do without?’

‘And you get no money?’

‘Alms for watching. A miserable pittance, Master.’

‘How many will be there?’

‘Who can say? Sometimes more, sometimes less; it might be forty, or fifty, or eighty.’

‘Of what kind, what condition?’

‘All kinds, Master. Mostly Jews like us –’

‘Like what?’

‘I mean, mostly Jews. Some Syrians, some Greeks, some Romans.’

‘How long does this mummery go on?’

‘One hour, two hours, three. The Deacon preaches. The people bring food, and eat supper. Then before dawn they disperse, in ones and twos, to avoid attention.’ Nun hesitated. ‘Master …’

‘Well?’

‘You will bring your people only in ones and twos?’

‘Ha! A lucky day, that, when I take lessons in tactics from blind beggars!’

‘And Master … you will tie me up, as if you had overpowered me?’

‘Rest assured of that.’

‘Thank you, Master.’ Blind Nun fawned. Then: ‘Master … on account … just a little more?’

‘What? I gave you three silver denarii yesterday. That is more than enough to keep the likes of you for half a year!’

The man squirmed, and muttered: ‘For the likes of me, learned Master, more than enough. But – have mercy, did I ask for eyesight? I am … there is … a girl, sir, who dances without moving her feet.’

Afranius was surprised by a gush of pity for this wretch. But Paulus said: ‘You disgust me, you creeping thing!’

‘Master, it is something stronger than I am. Cursed be the hands that gave me sight!’ Nun’s anguish was horrible.

‘Yes. And so now all Jerusalem will be talking about Blind Nun, who is giving silver in handfuls to whores who dance without moving their feet, eh?’

‘No, Master, no, no! For after tonight I shall not meet Selma again.’

‘Why not?’

‘She, too, will be in Chislon’s cellar,’ said Nun.

Without a word, Paulus threw him five more silver pieces. Nun had to shut his eyes in order to find them. Afranius heard him mutter: ‘She despises me, but I can pay her price this once.’

‘She prostitutes herself and gives to the Nazarenes?’ asked Paulus.

‘Master, she says, “I sell what I have and give to the poor, and the lips I pray with frame no double meanings.”’

‘And you love this whore?’

‘Master, I hate her.’

‘Go.’

Nun went. Afranius felt, he wrote, as if he had fallen into a deep pit leaving his heart and bowels in the air above him.

When he, too, left, Paulus was sitting absolutely still, staring unblinking into the flame of a lamp. Next day he had a map, or diagram, of Chislon’s premises, together with a perfectly simple and workable plan of action…. Here I noticed a certain change in Afranius’s way of writing: I felt an astringency in it, together with a flatness of tone, such as one detects in the manner of an honest man compelled by duty to make a distasteful statement. He wrote:

‘I have seen many things that were supposed to be frightful. In the course of a lifetime largely spent in an endeavour to allay an unappeasable curiosity, I have made it my business and my pleasure to involve myself in many matters of a more or less unseemly and shocking nature – so many of which have to do with the gods, as it happens. I have been present at the fertility-orgies of the Baalim – which are tedious. I have witnessed the forbidden “nameless” rites of Hecate – which, to the dispassionate observer, are almost comic. Paulus alone has succeeded in disgusting me …’

Chislon’s cellar, Paulus demonstrated, was a commodious one, about eighty short cubits long and twenty wide; not high, but large enough to hold at least two hundred people in addition to the wine and cheese that were stored there. The cellar was approached from the warehouse by a ponderous double door of oak that was fastened from the outside by means of a strong beam. It was exactly as Nun had described it. From the doorway, ten stone steps connected the ground level with the cellar, at the other end of which another flight of steps led to a large trap-door which was bolted from within. This opened upon a walled yard, with a gateway large enough to let wine-carts through. This gate, again, was barred at night on the inside, but Nun was to leave it unlocked.

Half an hour after midnight, a spy reported to Paulus that he had counted fifty-three men, thirty-one women and nine children, who had gone into Chislon’s warehouse. Paulus waited another eternal hour, then tapped out the signal. Nun was there. The outer doors opened silently on oiled hinges. Paulus and Afranius went in, followed by four soldiers.

The cellar doors were not completely closed. Lamps were burning down there. Paulus put his eye to the little space between the doors. Afranius did not need to stand on tiptoe to look over the little man’s head. There, in a great dimness, all the worshippers knelt in silence, while Stephanas blessed them in a cool, deep, strong, buoyant voice, in the name of Jesus, the Son of God, the Saviour. Afranius caught a glimpse of a strongly-made man with what he called ‘an elegance of manner and an easy confidence of bearing’. Then, without a sound, Paulus pulled the doors shut and, obedient to his gesture, one of the soldiers lowered the massive barrier-beam into its brackets.

There was a space of half a hand’s breadth between the bottom of the doors and the stone floor. The soldiers produced some bundles of unwashed wool, which they arranged near this aperture. Oh, Paulus had thought of everything – like an assassin, like a woman! Now, they sprinkled this wool with oil. Paulus himself took a lamp and set fire to it. A stinking, choking smoke arose, hissing. This the soldiers fanned towards the door with their cloaks. What poured into the cellar must have been as dense as the wool from which it came. Then, at a signal, one after another, the soldiers cried ‘Fire!’ – separately, at first, each in his different voice, and then together as in a mounting chorus, at the same time beating their shields with the shafts of their spears and running noisily to and fro. One bellowed: ‘Water, water!’ – two others yelled: ‘Help, help!’ – while another bawled: ‘Run for your lives! The house is burning!’ And no doubt they enjoyed themselves immensely, as soldiers will when playacting comes in the line of duty.

There was a pounding at the cellar door. Over the shrieking of the women Afranius heard a man cry, ‘The doors are barred!’ Stephanas’s voice then commanded: ‘Be calm, children. There is a door overhead’ – pointing heavenwards, I daresay, and beckoning – ‘Steadily, now, and let the women and children come first.’

Paulus plucked Afranius by the sleeve and, bounding like a hare, ran with him to the other side of the building and into the walled courtyard. It was lined with soldiers, both Jewish and Roman, and several cloaked figures grimly waiting.

‘Now, watch,’ said Paulus. The two halves of the heavy trap-door rose, creaking, and fell apart with an echoing double crash that shook the night – exactly at which moment Paulus, in his excitement, beat a fist into his palm, so that there were later witnesses to swear that he carried thunderclaps in his hands – and the Nazarenes came coughing and weeping out of the cellar into the moonlight. The last to emerge was Stephanas, half-carrying a crying woman.

So Afranius reported: ‘… Not counting Stephanas and the wine merchant Chislon and his wife, a good bag: of men, fifty-three; of women, thirty-one; of children, nine. I beg pardon – a correction – of children, nine and a half….’

For the woman whom Stephanas dragged up the steps had been near her time, and fright and the wild jostling had brought on her pains. Convulsively, she gave birth there in the walled yard. Everyone stood hesitant. The Chinese say: ‘The perfume of a rose may stop a clock.’ But the outland prostitute Selma drew a knife from her sleeve, daring anyone to come near her; tugged the half-born child out into the light of the moon, wiped its mouth and eyes with her kerchief, and cut and knotted the navel-string. Then she swung the red and dripping infant up by the heels and shook it, saying to Stephanas: ‘Bless it.’ He blessed the babe in the name of Jesus, while his hands were being tied, and it drew its first breath and began to wail; at which everyone assembled seemed to come with a start out of a kind of stunned daze, and the order was given to take the prisoners away.

It was a melancholy procession. Stephanas led it, bound like a felon; and in its wake came He, She and It, led by Little Azrael. The night-birds of Jerusalem slunk away as they heard them all coming.

I remember that at this point I wrote in the margin: ‘The fact of the matter is, that Afranius’s “disgust” is mere boredom. Life has spoiled him by presenting him with too many events ready-made. Has he lived forty-five years without learning that it is the drill, not the battle, that breaks the soldier’s heart? He is simply tired of watching a zealot on manoeuvres.’

When the prisoners were penned, Paulus sent for Blind Nun. He had been tied, as he requested, and for good measure some guard had bloodied his nose. He fell at Paulus’s feet.

‘Master,’ he asked, ‘have I done well?’

‘Yes,’ said Paulus. ‘And I have a promise to keep.’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘I promised you – let me see – the full protection of the law, steady employment in canditions favourable to your general condition…. You prefer a dimmed light, I think?’

‘Yes, thank you, master.’

‘Regular meals and housing for life, and your enemies in chains. Something away from the city of Jerusalem. Yes?’

‘Oh yes, Master.’

‘Did you, by the way, satisfy your lust for the harlot Selma?’

Nun hung his head. ‘She cast a spell,’ he muttered, ‘she bewitched. She took my money. She took me to her bed. All my soul cried out for her. But I was struck limp as a worm. All night I tried. At dawn she kicked me out. As soon as I was in the street, I was a stallion. I knocked at her door. She let me return. And behold, I was a worm again.’ Paulus let out a bark of laughter.

‘Poor Nun,’ he said, ‘but never mind. You like sea air? Travel?’

‘Yes, Master. It is my heart’s desire.’

‘I am very happy for your sake, then. You will find it dim enough for you on the low bank of a trireme, I have no doubt, and there you may travel your fill.’

‘Master?’

‘I am having you sent to the galleys, blind man.’

‘But, Master, I served you!’ cried Blind Nun, numb with horror.

‘I paid you silver for serving me. The other payment is for having served the dog Jesus. Take him away!’

Afranius said to him, coldly: ‘Far be it from me to come between your youthful high spirits and their expression in a charming joke, Paulus, but it should have occurred to you that Diomed might have use for a fellow like Nun in Tarsus.’

‘It did occur to me,’ said Paulus. ‘But Nun is exposed as an informer, and an exposed informer is worse than none at all. Ask Diomed.’

‘Diomed would have let Nun “escape” to Tarsus and go into hiding there.’

‘He sickens me, with his worms and his lusts,’ said Paulus, dismissing the matter.

The trial of Stephanas was short and uncomplicated, for the man was evidently guilty of blasphemy a hundred times worse even than that of Jesus his master. A kindly old judge, of Hillel’s school, put it to him that the ritual of the bread and wine was a symbolic act, and understood as such. But Stephanas said: No – the bread was the body of God, and the wine was God’s blood in truth, by a holy and mysterious transubstantiation. ‘This is my body,’ Jesus had said; and Jesus was God’s only begotten son, flesh of God’s flesh, blood of God’s blood, spirit of God’s spirit walking in God’s own image. Several of the judges tore their garments for even having heard such blasphemy and afterwards did penance to avert calamity. Stephanas was sentenced to be stoned, and Paulus was appointed as Official Witness to the execution.

Impelled by his fever of inquisitiveness and followed by Afranius, he went to talk to Stephanas in his cell. The prisoner, full of solicitude for Paulus, rose courteously, offered him his stone bench, and said: ‘My poor young friend, you should take better care of yourself. You are tired out in a lost cause.’

Taken aback by such cool effrontery, as it seemed, Paulus said: ‘Lost cause? I?’

‘Yes, child. You make me think of the way certain Dacian shepherds catch wolves, in the winter time. They rub a knife with rancid fat and fasten it to a stone under the snow. The wolf smells the fat and starts to lick the knife. Licking the knife, he cuts his tongue. Tasting blood, he licks all the more hungrily. The more he bleeds, the more he drinks; the more he drinks, the harder he licks. So he dies of drinking his own blood, with a gorged belly and empty veins. You are drinking your own blood, Saul. How can a man be unhappy in the cause of righteousness? And you are so sad, poor Saul, that my heart bleeds for you.’

‘Save your bleeding for tomorrow.’

‘Yes, it is a sad thing indeed, to be stoned.’

‘I am told that it may be the most painful of all deaths,’ said Paulus.

‘Oh it is, it is! If I were to be burned, now, let us say – then there would be only one executioner. But to stone a man is to make a thousand executioners. That is the worst part of it. Even kind-hearted people throw a stone because they fear the censure of their neighbours. As for my personal discomfort, I must put up with it, and try to set a good example. Christ Jesus forgive me! I might have managed matters better. But what is done is done, and I alone am to blame. Christ’s lambs in captivity, and all those poor people tomorrow throwing stones! Alas, alas!’

‘Did you know Jesus?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘What did he look like?’

‘My son, in asking such a question, always remember this: that he who inspires love is beautiful. Looking at Jesus, then, some might see a nondescript figure of a man, almost undersized, not much taller than yourself, standing with his hands behind him, his shoulders stooped like a slave’s waiting for a beating. And another might look at Jesus and see the Son of God with a countenance of glory, hunching himself under the weight of all the wrath of heaven, with only his back between it and the world.’

‘We shall see how you take the weight of the wrath of God tomorrow, charlatan,’ said Paulus.

‘You mean, the weight of the stones? Yes, I am very sorry about that. Still, the wine is the soul of the grape, and you can’t get it without crushing the fruit. A sowing is a kind of funereal interment of seeds, if you choose to regard it in an unenlightened way. The body is nothing in itself, really. Why do you attach so much importance to it?’

‘I?’ cried Paulus.

‘Yes, son. You are taking some pleasure, I see, in mortifying your own body. I can tell by your breath – if you will excuse me – that you are fasting. And I see the marks of your nails in your palms. Which comes perilously near the idolatrous vanity of self-mutilation, so rightly prohibited by Moses —’

‘Come, Afranius!’ cried Paulus.

‘Is your name Afranius?’ asked Stephanas, as they turned to go. ‘Allow me to bless you, Afranius.’

‘If it will make you feel any better,’ said Afranius.

‘Thank you,’ said Stephanas, ‘you have a kind face.’

So Stephanas blessed him. Paulus was already on his way down the dark passage. Afranius gave the jailer a piece of silver and said: ‘See to it that the poor gentleman gets a good hot supper, anyway.’

‘Oh, that’s not necessary, sir,’ the jailer said, pouching the coin nevertheless. ‘I generally get ’em something tasty and a jug of wine to see ’em over the River, if they behave themselves. Besides, this is the first Nazarene to die for Nazarenery, or whatever they call it, so it’s a kind of special occasion…. He won’t be wanting any breakfast anyway, sir. Friend of yours, perhaps?’

‘No, just an acquaintance,’ said Afranius. ‘Why?’

The jailer whispered: ‘Because if he was, I know a Greek who sells a Powder for two gold pieces. Take it in a mouthful of wine before you go out, and you don’t feel those stones any more than so many dried beans, sir.’

Afranius hesitated. Then – he never knew why, for it was not on account of lack of money or sympathy – he said: ‘No. He won’t need that.’

Lamely enough, he wrote: ‘There is something base in drugging a man who has made himself ready to die. It is in a way like making a virgin drunk in order to take her to your bed. Do not imagine that I was restrained by any respect for law and order. Touching the matter of which, I am glad to inform you that the dancer Selma – probably by praying in the right quarter with those unequivocal lips she spoke of – has escaped; and I wish her good luck wherever she may be, for she is great of heart!’

He added: ‘Besides, I am sure the jailer was lying – a man must be a damned rascal, or he would not be a jailer. I do not believe there is any such powder. In any case, if a man chooses to face the agony and die like a gentleman, he has the right, the inalienable right … How so be it, poppy was never pricked nor wort uprooted under Saturn that could alleviate such sufferings as were Stephanas’s when they stoned him next day. Oh bloody, bloody rabble! A man, alone, may be sublime. In a crowd he becomes a component part of a slavering beast. A man apart may sometimes be a man. A thousand men together make nothing human …’

Strange words, these, from the gregarious, liberal-minded Afranius? But he was writing under stress of emotion. The inveterate bystander had been caught by a current and swept into the heart of the affair, and learned that the Voice of the People is the Voice of Chaos. For different kinds of men take the same ideas and passions, much as I, hating the stuff, partake of a dish flavoured with asafetida at a public dinner: to make myself stink as foul as my neighbour so that his breath will not make me sick.

9

I REMEMBER pausing, here, to ask myself: ‘Now exactly why is Afranius so disgusted?’ For disgust involves, in some tortuous way, private shame; there is no such thing as a purely objective disgust. True disgust can exist only in connection with guilt – it is a kind of reluctant self-castigation. It is a very personal emotion, for a disgusted man is one who smells in another something of himself that ought to have been buried. Disgust is an uncovering of a nakedness.

I read on:

A rumour that Tiberius was dead had got abroad in Jerusalem, Afranius wrote, and there were whispers – propagated by Paulus himself, he believed – that because of the Nazarenes and their ‘King’ Jesus, the wrath of the new Caesar would fall on the Jews. He was quoted as having said: ‘King Jesus, is it? Why, then, I’ll give these croaking frogs a King Stork – I’ll swallow them whole, the malcontents!’

Street-corner analysts foresaw ruinous taxation, forced labour, another Captivity. Nobody knew who this new Caesar was supposed to be, but the rumour took hold and overnight Jerusalem seethed like a cauldron. A rabbi of the tolerant school was pelted with refuse in the market-place. One group, with the tacit encouragement of some zealot nationalist rabbis, called for the blood of Gamaliel himself.

But artful, benevolent old Hagith remonstrated: ‘Good Jews, in God’s holy name, who has stolen away your reason? Pharisee, Scribe, Sadducee, Nazarene, Galilean, Jerusalemite – whatever you be, all are Jews to Rome, bless her! And to Rome this is nothing but another Jewish sectarian squabble. For your own sakes, keep the peace, and save your stones for Stephanas!’

And that is how the cry, ‘Save your stones for Stephen!’ originated, and it is used to this day in admonition, when acrimonious dissension breaks out among the sects. It was one of those little catch-phrases which, cried at the right moment, work wonders: all the terror and anger in Jerusalem seemed to run into one hot flood which directed itself against Stephanas. He, as Hagith must have reasoned, was doomed to die anyway; and the catharsis of his stoning would leave the populace flaccid for a while. Hence, with three words, he pacified a city, pleased Rome and the Temple alike and, at the same time, averted the mob’s blind rage from the Nazarenes and their supporters – for everyone who did not call for a general massacre of the Nazarenes was suspected of being in league with them, in Jerusalem at that time. People said: ‘We are deep enough in God’s bad books for the sins of our fathers, without incurring something extra for condoning blasphemy.’

So, Stephanas was taken out to be stoned.

Afranius, riding with the soldiers, felt that he was being carried, hip deep, through a clinging swill of humanity, a hot lentil pottage of round covered heads, bobbing and steaming before and behind him; and that if he should chance to fall, only his boiled bones would be found after the mass had bubbled and hissed away. There was a strong guard at the waste-ground which was the place of execution: one of those patches of barrenness that defy both god and man, treacherous to the feet and murderous to the back of the wayfarer; too shifty to build upon, too shallow to till and not worth watering; perfidious by night, treacherous by daylight – a spiny, spiky, flinty place in a shallow hollow.

And here, while Paulus stood with his hands in his sleeves, the executioner Little Azrael took charge of the practical details of the business. He had a voice, when he chose to use it, like the sound of a cracked horn, and he carried with him, in addition to his air of absolute authority, all the fascination of death. The people listened, breathless, while he spoke to them in a peremptory tone:

‘Many of you here will never have attended a stoning before. Such of you as may have done so are not likely to have seen the operation performed with the control and skill it calls for. Stoning is a good thing, wisely ordained: strangling, beheading and burning are for the gentlefolk, but stoning is the People’s punishment!

‘As I hope to see it, every one of you will go home to his family and be able to say with perfect truth, “This day, I have slain an accursed blasphemer” … ay, even if there be ten thousand of you! –’ his tone, wrote Afranius, was grotesquely like that of a hardened old sergeant trying to put the pride of the Regiment into a group of raw recruits ‘– I’ll give you an example, good people,’ he went on.

‘When I was only a boy I went to see a woman being stoned for adultery. Now an adultery stoning generally draws a fairly savage crowd of men – every one of them thinks of his own good lady, and lays on accordingly. It’s lucky, by the way, that women do not customarily come to stonings – they’d think of their own virtue, or otherwise, and do the the business with their fingernails. I say, I went to see this girl stoned. Now you know, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a woman stripped naked in public tries to cover her breasts and her privates with her hands, and lets her head hang down so that her face is covered by her hair. The nearest target, therefore, is the top of her head. Half a dozen fools in the front of the crowd went for this target like the blind oxen they were, with rocks as big as your two fists. Result? The adulteress was dead before you could count twenty, and all the rest of the crowd could do was stone her corpse – and much it cared!

‘That was not a stoning. The louts who handled those boulders deserved to be punished themselves – who named them executioners? That woman belonged to the People. Those uncontrolled stone-throwers assumed pre-emptory rights over the People.

‘Bear this in mind: you serve the Law, and the Law is God’s own Word. Whoso pre-empts you, the People, therefore pre-empts the Lord God Almighty Himself. Should himself be stoned, therefore. Got it?

‘Right.

‘Now listen to me, all of you, while they bring the condemned man up. If the Law says that a man shall be stoned, stoned that man shall be! The Law doesn’t say that a man’s dead body shall be stoned. Quite right too, for there is no sense in that. That person shall be stoned, and he or she is a person only as long as life remains in that person. Do I make myself clear?

‘Right.

‘Now I see some of you have picked up heavy stones. Well, I know how you must feel. But drop them, drop them at once!’

There was a clatter of large pebbles falling to the hard ground.

‘Good,’ said Little Azrael. ‘Now take small stones. I’ll have no individual pushing himself forward here. Fair play! Lord, if I had my way, I’d have every man, woman and child in the land throw a grain of grit, I would! But I haven’t, and I can’t have. Still, I’ll see order. Now, here comes your man. Man, I said, do you hear? And, as such, he’ll cover his genitals and his eyes as soon as I’ve stripped him. Don’t mind that. Use small stones, as I just said, and aim carefully for the elbows and shoulders: do it with a will, and God will guide you, my lads! But on no account hit him in the head. You hear that? For a stoning should be a kind of architectural job, so to speak, in reverse – little stones first, big stones last, and the head always free, never forget that. You’re not here to kill the blasphemer, only to crush him. A man, artistically stoned, should live several hours after the last stone has dropped – long after you’ve all gone home to your suppers. Now, it is to be one at a time, Children of Israel, after I have peeled the dog and cast the first stone.’

The crowd was silent. Steadily and methodically, Little Azrael stripped Stephanas of his clothes. The condemned man asked, ‘Must I be quite naked?’

‘Yes.’

‘It makes no difference,’ said Stephanas.

‘More shame for you,’ said Little Azrael, feeling the cloth as it came loose in his hands. He laid the garments at Paulus’s feet. Paulus drew back from them a pace or two. And now Afranius, standing to one side, heard some bewildered voices in the crowd:

‘Is that the one we are to stone?’

‘It seems so.’

‘I thought it was the little pale one.’

‘So did I …’

‘I did, too, for a minute …’

‘Fools, that is the gentleman from Tarsus!’

‘The tax-man, Saul.’

‘Saul, Paul – a Commissioner, an Official!’

‘Eh? Is there someone who has not heard of Saul of Tarsus? A man of God —’

‘Struck down a giant as big as Goliath with one finger!’

‘The Spirit of the Lord came upon him at a banquet of noble Romans, and he struck them all dead with a drop of wine!’

‘A Judge, a Prophet, a person in good standing!’

‘What’s the argument? The one they strip, that’s the blasphemer – stone the one they strip. The one they strip, stone. Stone!’

‘What’s his name?’

‘You should worry! Name! Do you want to write him a letter?’

Stephanas said to Paulus: ‘I’m very sorry for you, son. I forgive you, for what that is worth. Now you forgive me, and let us call it quits, eh?’

Paulus cried to Little Azrael: ‘Send him on his way!’ – and stood aside with Afranius.

Stephanas was all alone now. He did not cover his eyes, but used both hands to make a kind of apron, while he cried in his strong, persuasive, cheerful voice: ‘Look you, all you kind people – be comforted. Not one in five of you has the desire to throw a stone at me. I know it. The Lord Jesus —’

Then Little Azrael threw his stone, a carefully-chosen kidney-shaped pebble; threw it with accuracy and force as if to make it skip seven times on a pond. It struck Stephanas in the elbow, so that his right arm fell nerveless.

‘Now, then!’ Little Azrael shouted, and the crowd moved in closer to take better aim. The stones began to fly, now, in volleys, and Stephanas began to bleed. But he still stood foursquare, seeming to talk to the sky. Afranius heard him say:

‘Who am I to tell you, Lord, that they are mad, they do not know what they are doing. They will be sorry, so forgive them for poor Stephanas’s sake. They are children. Their hearts will ache tomorrow, or the day after.’

Paulus cried: ‘Are these stones, or puff-balls? Is this a stoning, or a mockery? Throw, curse you, throw!’

The stones came thicker and faster. Little Azrael shouted: ‘Let those who have thrown make place for those who have not! Fair play for all!’

Something snapped, and Stephanas went down on his knees.

Paulus said, between his teeth: ‘Is there none of these flabby dogs that can get me a cry out of this man?’

As if he had overheard, Stephanas called cheerfully to Paulus: ‘You see, young man, you are hurting yourself more than you are hurting me! Now is it worth it, to break your heart against my poor bones?’ Then a rib cracked, and he fell forward on his face. Little Azrael held up a hand, and the stoning stopped while he turned Stephanas over so that he lay on his back, and made a kind of pillow for his head with a heap of sharp grit.

‘If their heads are downwards, the blood rushes there when the rib-cage goes, and they are done too soon,’ he said. ‘If a man is to be stoned, let him know it.’

The stoning then continued as Stephanas lay on the ground. He called out, in a voice untouched by pain: ‘You see, good people, you cannot hurt a man from the outside. Only from within may he be destroyed.’

He was covered with stones to the armpits, now, and Little Azrael called for the large stones, which a man had to use both hands to lift, shouting: ‘Don’t try to throw them, now! Place them, smack them down firmly, but on no account try to throw, or you upset the balance of everything! Now!’

He stood guard over Stephanas’s head while, under his direction, a symmetrical mound of rock took shape upon the battered body; for the principle was, to break every bone and crush every organ without letting life depart. But still Stephanas uttered no cry.

Paulus had been shuffling and tapping his feet in impatience. Now, to Afranius’s horror, the shuffling and tapping quickened: Paulus was dancing, from the knees down – dancing without knowing that he was dancing, while his body stayed motionless and his face rigid. A nightmarish sight, said Afranius, to see him thus in that awful waste-ground which was now cleared of loose stones, dancing by that grisly pylon under a sky of wet wool dotted with hovering carrion kites, the menacing walls of the city before him and the surly, secretive hills behind!

In time, the last man dropped the last stone, and the crowd broke like dry earth and trickled away. Only the guards remained, like men of metal, leaning on their spears; and Paulus, unconsciously dancing, while Afranius watched with sick eyes and Little Azrael stood back complacent, covered with meat-flies, and Ada the Mourner and It behind him. Threads of blood came from Stephanas’s eyes and ears, nostrils and mouth, but he still lived. Neatly buried to the chin under two cartloads of jagged stones.

Paulus stopped dancing, and came to look at him. As he bent over, Stephanas’s eyes opened and his lips moved. Paulus started. He called to Little Azrael: ‘Cover me that face!’

‘My lord,’ said Little Azrael, ‘this way he will last until the dogs come out after dark to eat his head.’

‘I say, cover his face!’ screamed Paulus.

There was a great boulder near-by, half as big as a man. Little Azrael lifted this without effort, poised it, aimed it, and let it fall. Stephanas’s head smashed like a gourd with a crack and a milky splash. ‘Is the Will of the Almighty done?’ asked Little Azrael.

‘It is done,’ said Paulus.

Little Azrael stooped and picked up the dead man’s clothes, which were his perquisites. Paulus told him: ‘Someone will offer you a high price for those garments. Sell them, and report the buyer: he will be a Nazarene.’

‘Yes, Master.’

Then Ada the Mourner cried: ‘Oh, Azrael, my love, my lord, my lion! Azrael, Azrael, take me, take me – why will you never take me?’ – and fell into a fit, chewing her tongue and thrusting with her fleshless belly in vile convulsions. It put a stick between her teeth and sat with her. Little Azrael turned and walked away.

Then Paulus and Afranius left with the guard.

‘The jackals will have to dig for their supper tonight,’ said Paulus.

Afranius said: ‘If the gods give me only one-tenth of that man’s courage when my time comes, it will be said of me: ‘“He died like a gentleman!”’

‘He was stoned by the People, and he died like a dog.’

‘Oh no. The People are the dogs. He died like a man. Bite your tongue, little one, before you talk like that!’ cried Afranius, in vexation. ‘The gods are offended by such presumption. Not one in five of your People but will feel in his own heart two stones for every one he threw this day! And can you see yourself, Paulus? Ixion on the wheel – Tantalus between the grapes and the water – Sisyphus at the stone, yes, Sisyphus – Prometheus on the rock! Oh, for the skill to paint your likeness at this moment! If you are one of the Righteous, let me be one of the damned!’

‘You are excited, my dear Afranius,’ said Paulus.

‘I am sick,’ Afranius said, and he must have used that iron voice of his that came when he was angry. ‘Oh, small man with a tortured heart, your god has made you mad! You think you have stoned Stephanas? Wait, and you will see that Stephanas has stoned you – yes, stoned you in the streets! Upon you, Paulus, will fall the weight of the shame that has been carried away in the souls of all who were at this place. Their guilt shall be your guilt, and they will tear you to pieces for it at last. Stephanas? Gone, little man, gone where the honest brave men go. But you are here, and his ghost will certainly be with you, frantic companion of spies and blind traitors and hangmen that you are! And whenever you go out to one of your feasts of blood and stones, Stephanas will be there to say: “See? You could not hurt me.”’

‘Afranius, enough!’ cried Paulus. ‘I am tired.’

Afranius said: ‘What rage like impotent rage? And what weariness like exhausted impotence? Oh, stallion in desire but worm in Atë’s bed!’

Paulus quivered like a bowstring but said, in a level voice: ‘If this tiny incident has so upset your dainty Roman stomach, Afranius, you had better go home to Tarsus. Because this is nothing but a light proem to what you will witness in Damascus.’

Regaining his composure, Afranius said: ‘Yes, I don’t suppose you’ll sleep until your mistress says: “Ah, Paulus, that was marvellous!”’ He was speaking figuratively, of course, in terms of Paulus and his Atë, his Goddess of Vengeance. ‘Then, poor fellow,’ he went on, ‘your self-inflicted miseries will really begin. It will be, “Who comes here when I am away?” And it will be, “What are you thinking when you smile to yourself?” And, “Tell me every little detail about your past.” and, “Did you do with other men all the things you do with me?” For Atë is a bitch, and she will eat you up. And if you have juice enough to fructify her, none of her children will resemble you enough to satisfy you. And rant as you may, you will always know in your heart that if you came home and found her in bed with a scavenger, she would only have to say: “Oh, it was only a passing fancy, darling; you are the one I love” – and you’d forgive her, hating her with all your shameful heart and crazy with contempt for yourself … Bah! Let us go to Damascus, then.’

‘The day after tomorrow,’ said Paulus, coldly.

‘If you take my advice, eat and sleep between now and then. It’s a rough road.’

‘I am free to break my fast now,’ said Paulus, ‘but I am not hungry, only thirsty.’

‘Then get blind drunk, and sleep.’

‘Attend to your own health, Afranius.’

‘Oh, chase yourself until you drop, like a starved dog with a bone tied to his tail, then. I think a girl would do you good.’ Without replying, Paulus went away to wash and pray.

Afranius went to his cousin’s house to bathe; but, as he wrote, he had no appetite for supper. ‘… Call me effete, call me a milksop, but I cannot enjoy venison pasty with savoury jelly so soon after a stoning, any more than I can relish roast lamb after a burning. But there was a good fish, and some young ducklings with a preserve of quinces …’ He added: ‘To deal plainly with you, my dear Diomed, your Paulus has become indescribably repulsive to me …’

Yet when they met again next day, Afranius was all compassion. ‘My boy!’ he cried. ‘You have a face to frighten Cerberus! Have you broken this madman’s fast of yours?’

The acrimony of the day before seemed forgotten. ‘I ate but I could not hold down what I ate.’

At this, Afranius who could be gentle and stubborn as a woman, pleading in a manner that may only be described as ‘winning’, explained that more than a hundred miles of very hard road lay between them and Damascus, and spoon-fed him a sop of bread, new milk, and honey, and made him drink (‘Just one sip more … there, now just one little sip more …’) raw eggs beaten in sweet wine, all the time telling him curious little stories until, having in spite of himself eaten enough to preoccupy his stomach at the expense of his head, Paulus dozed.

All the time wondering why he was doing all this, Afranius picked Paulus up and put him on a couch. He covered him with a quilt. The young man groped in the air, found Afranius’s hand, and held it for some time before his grip relaxed and he breathed strongly and steadily. Afranius went out on tiptoe, whispering to an old manservant whom he met: ‘Your master is asleep.’

‘Thank God!’ said the old man.

‘I pity you if you disturb him, or go into the chamber until he calls for you.’

‘May I never be the father of my children if I do!’ the old man said. Leaving, Afranius turned and saw him creeping into Paulus’s room, to keep watch, no doubt. For Paulus slept all through the day, awoke at evening, ate heartily and slept again.

And he was so cheerful and talkative when they went away on the road to Damascus that Afranius said to him: ‘Save some of it. There are six days and five nights between here and there.’

But he talked on and on, aroused and excited, like a soldier at the prospect of a furlough, or a girl before her wedding; but with a certain feverishness. His chatter was glistening rather than polished, glazed but not bright. Soon, Afranius felt, the heat would break through, and the varnish would peel; and there would be the knotty, cross-grained, unworkable Paulus whom he had come to know – dry, tight and splintery by nature, growing like a desert weed, happy in dead sand and solitude, proud of its obstinacy, uncrowded because it offers no shade.

Paulus said: ‘Diomed has talked to you, no doubt, of his projected work? I mean the book, Arachne: or, A Theory of Centralised Intelligence and its Relation to the Security of the State?’

‘Yes,’ said Afranius.

‘Will Diomed ever write it?’

‘If Diomed says he will write a book, Diomed will write that book. But Diomed is not one of your happy-go-lucky slapdash boys. Such a book is the work of a lifetime. If I know my old friend, he won’t moisten a pen until he has forty years of working experience to draw on,’ said Afranius. ‘I believe he has drawn up a Protocol, but even that remains tentative. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, I was merely thinking. The idea,’ said Paulus, ‘is ingenious.’

‘Tell Diomed that,’ said Afranius, beginning to be irritated again. ‘Praise from Paulus is praise indeed. No doubt he will blush like a girl.’

‘I used the wrong word; I meant sound,’ said Paulus.

They were talking of my cherished dream. Taking Rome as the centre of the world, let there be established there a great Prefecture, sensitive to a certain number of main filaments extending to every quarter of the world; these filaments being in turn connected each to each by shorter filaments; the pattern of the whole resembling, in effect, a spider’s web. At convenient intervals throughout the web, a Sub-Prefecture, or Station, manned by agents trained in Rome, and equipped with fast horses, ponies or camels, according to the terrain. The intervening spaces to be constantly patrolled. Thus, a branch could not fall in the British forests, say, without its being heard almost immediately in Rome. For the patrolling of the rivers, armed barges. For the seas, news-bearing galleys, light, lean and fast as hounds. … As the saying goes, a virgin with a pot of gold on her head should be able to walk unmolested from the Persian Gulf to the tip of Gaul. The Law made omniscient, comprehensive, and therefore generous. Its servants dedicated; corruption a madness, crime a folly; all gods respected, all customs hallowed, all persons sacred. My Badge: a sword for strength, a book for understanding, an olive branch for peace, and an eagle for Rome…. A dream? A dream! But what more dare a man lay by for his old age?

And here was Paulus with his ‘ingenious’!

‘Solomon should have thought of it,’ said Paulus.

‘He was too busy plagiarising his Song from the old Assyrian,’ said Afranius, ‘when he was not compiling platitudes which you call Proverbs.’

‘The radiations in the concentricities,’ Paulus mused. ‘He might have conquered the world!’

‘It takes tolerance to conquer a world,’ Afranius said. ‘Alexander was tolerant. But you know what happens to a tolerant Jew, don’t you?’

‘A wise ruler knows how and when to be lenient.’

‘Are you tired?’ Afranius asked, after a while.

‘Tired? No, why should I be tired?’

‘You are not looking well. Another day or two of rest would have done you no harm.’

‘Who knows? On the Lord’s business, who dares to rest?’

‘Oh, God himself took a day off, I hear. Calm, calm, there will still be Nazarenes in Damascus for you to play with.’

‘What do I know?’ Paulus passed a hand over his eyes.

‘A headache?’

‘No, a noise, a noise not unlike a swarm of bees.’

‘The flies, perhaps.’

‘No, if I stop my ears I can still hear –’ Paulus stopped abruptly. ‘Why are you talking to me as if I were a child?’

‘Was I?’

‘No, I beg your pardon, Afranius. To tell you the truth, I think I must have been a little over-wrought, but I feel better now…. Has it ever happened to you that when you shut your eyes you saw little threads of light slowly moving?’

‘Once or twice, when I was sick and weary. When we stop you must eat.’

‘I may not, until sunset.’

‘Look here, fasting is not for those on the march. When we rest, I say, you shall eat if I have to pry your jaws open with my ringers. And don’t think I’m not capable of doing it.’

‘You were a great athlete, I have been told.’

‘Average, average,’ said Afranius, ‘so-so, so-so.’ He liked to be reminded that he had won a wreath, once, in a Pankration.

‘I used to wish I were a big man,’ said Paulus.

‘Bah! A man is only as big as his heart. Why, even in Jerusalem they are talking about how you overcame that great fellow what’s-his-name.’

‘Iscamyl. I hated to be called Paulus, at first … Concerning threads of light, and all that: when you suddenly opened your eyes, did you see a kind of procession of black dots, as it might be a line of ants each carrying in its jaws a little bit of fire around the balls of your eyes and into your brains? You know how ants make a hill? Well, instead of grains of sand, sparks. Did you see that?’

‘No, I can’t say I did. If you don’t eat a good meal this evening, you know, we’ll have to carry you tomorrow; and that will delay us quite a lot. We might even have to leave you behind at some village. I’d stay with you, of course, but it would be devilishly awkward,’ said Afranius.

Paulus sighed. ‘Perhaps, perhaps…. Do you think Stephanas really suffered?’

‘Did you ever have anyone suddenly step on your naked toe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then, why ask?’

‘I know it offended you, Afranius, but it was the Law, you know.’

‘All right, all right.’

Paulus was growing excited. ‘I am not my own man, Afranius – I am not yet my own master!’

‘Yet? Who is his own master, ever?’

They were riding, now, between two steep, stony slopes. The trail narrowed. Afranius made the sign against the evil eye, muttered some lucky charm phrase, and spat three times.

‘Why do you do that, Afranius?’

‘Why, because I never yet had good luck coming this way, as I told you. We are coming into the Pass of the Shamir.’

‘Of the what?’ asked Paulus, absently.

‘The Shamir, Solomon’s Worm….’ Afranius intended to add: ‘After we have passed through it, my bedevilled friend, you shall sleep if I have to stun you,’ but Paulus turned to him so suddenly that his horse started.

‘What, must you be for ever at me with your accursed worms?’ cried Paulus with a snarl. ‘Is there rotten cheese in your head, that nothing crawls out of your mouth but worms, and worms, and WORMS?’ His voice had risen so that the officer at the head of the file turned in some amazement. ‘Worms! What have I to do with your worms? Your stallions and your harlots and your worms – what are they to me? Worms!’ he shrieked.

Afranius sat, aghast, while Paulus grasped himself by the hair, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands, and moaned: ‘Oh, where is the sense in burnishing your armour so that it bedazzles your friends? Tell them to go away, with their blinding armour! … Or stain it brown with burnt bulls’ blood…. And will no one stop the thunder of these bees? Will no one stop me the tramping of these ants? …’

Then he took his hands away and groped in the air, yelling: ‘Who has stolen the sun? I am bitter cold! I cannot see – the ants have eaten the sun – the roaring bees have sealed my eyes in a cell with six walls! They were not eggs, you fools, they were my eyes, my eyes!’ And, with that, he slipped out of his saddle and fell. Afranius leapt down, and was at his side in an instant.

The officer halted his men, and rode back. ‘Civilians,’ he said. ‘The gods damn all civilians!’

‘He is in a fit of some sort,’ said Afranius, loosening the clothes at Paulus’s throat.

‘A fever, more likely…. Does he always wear a goat’s-hair shirt?’

‘How should I know?’

‘Offended some god, I dare say,’ said the officer, unstopping a bottle. ‘Doing penance.’

‘You never can tell.’

Paulus lay rigid as wood, his hands clenched, his eyes all blood and water.

‘This is a hell of a place to have a fit, sir,’ the officer said. I don’t like penitents in hair shirts – they are bad luck.’

‘This is a hell of a place for anything, damn it,’ said Afranius. ‘Can we camp here tonight?’

‘I suppose so, if we must, but it’s exactly what I’d hoped we shouldn’t have to do. The Azygos men like nothing better than this Pass after dark. They would attack from above.’ Azygos was a bandit, so named because he boasted that in all the world there was none to match him, either in ferocity or ugliness.

‘He is simply exhausted, ’said Afranius. Paulus groaned.

‘Well, we’ll rig a litter with cloaks and a couple of spears, and get him into the open that way,’ said the officer. ‘Once out of this Pass a day or two makes no great difference.’

They improvised this litter, then; and so they camped in the plain that evening. Afranius sat apart with Paulus while he froze and burned, started and dozed. Once he cried: ‘Anathema, maranatha – oh, for ever accursed in the presence of the Almighty God is Saul of Joseph of Tarsus! Cursed is Saul because he has murdered his father, cursed is Saul because he has lain with his mother, cursed is Saul because he has slain himself! Cursed is he, because he has shed the blood of his brother, cursed in the presence of the Tablets of the Law!’

‘What does he say?’ the officer asked, who happened to be at hand.

‘Talking formal Hebraic,’ said Afranius.

Paulus raved on: ‘Guilty be his ignorance and ignorant be his innocence! Innocence be his guilt, and honour be his shame, for ever and for ever! … Who casts out Saul? I cast out Saul! What is your name? Saul. Who is your father? Joseph! Joseph? Who is your mother? Jaël, Jaël is my mother, a virgin unbroken, unpierced as an eardrum! Then who is your wife, your wife? Oh, Jaël is my wife! Then cursed be Joseph, your father, who begot you on Jaël! Oh abomination! … Within the two triangles of David lies the hexagon of the bee, and sealed therein the worm, the worm clogged with honey and blind….’ He caught his breath.

‘Where is Afranius?’ he asked.

‘Here, son, here,’ Afranius said.

‘I am blind, said Paulus.

‘I have put a wet napkin on your silly eyes,’ said Afranius.

‘No, no, I am blind. Only at the back of my eyes a fire burns, and there is something that crawls….’

‘That’s all right, old fellow,’ said Afranius. ‘Just take it easy. The pipe the gods feed the mind through is narrow enough at the best of times, and you have stretched yours rather fine. If there is something on your mind, tell me about it some other time. Rest now.’

‘No, no, I must go to Damascus. Why, what was I saying?’

‘Nothing much. You were elaborating Sophocles.’

‘Sophocles? What have I to do with Sophocles? I dare say I must have been a little light in the head. It was the reflection off the soldiers’ armour. It is very bad for the eyes…. Do you know what? When I have the say in the matter, I think I shall have soldiers’ armour painted. Not with images. I mean clear green. The soldiers will like that. “Hurrah for Paulus! No more sanding, no more burnishing with ashes!” – that’s what they’ll say. What? …’

He was talking, now, to some imaginary interlocutor. ‘… But I say green, sir! Paint costs more than sand? Never mind, the enemy pays. And the time thus saved can be spent in javelin-practice upon a dummy Nazarene…. Only first, I must get this wax out of my eyes. Only give me time to get out of this hexagon.

‘Yes, Gamaliel, yes, yes; I have done unto others that which is hateful to myself, and I do to myself that which is hateful to others. But all man-made laws are mutable. Think, and you will see that this must be so, for if there were nothing but black and white there would be no need for the Law, only for the Judges. Would you accuse the Almighty of superfluity? I have you there, hah? …

‘Hence, gentlemen, there is such a thing as green. What do you say, Nun? Can a blind man, then, be discerning, just, and righteous? What is green, you ask? …’ Afranius held a cup of wine to his lips. Paulus spat it out in a spray. He went on in two different voices:

‘What is green? Grass is green…. Green is sharp at the edges, then? In Galilee they circumcise boys with a stretched blade of grass. Then the grass becomes red. What is red? Blood is red…. What is blood? Blood is salt…. Then salt is red? No, salt is white…. What is salt? The sea is salt. Then the sea is white? Nay, the salt sea is green…. Hence, blood is green, then. No, blood is red, I say!

‘But blood is salt. Tears are salt. Then tears are red? … Tears have no colour. But what is green? A thorn is green. Then green is pain? Not so, pain has no colour…. Green is pain, and pain is tears and tears are salt; then pain is salt? … No, salt is life…. Then pain is life, and life is green? Some life is green, all flesh is grass…. Life is green, but it cuts, then? … The soft moss is green. Then green is cool? … Yes, green is cool…. A shadow is green? A stone is green? … A shadow has no colour, but a stone is red…. Then pain is red, and not green; but what is red? A rose is red…. Thus, pain smells sweet? Nay, pain smells of sweat…. But sweat is salt, and so are tears, and so is blood, and salt is life; then life is white….’

A pause, while Paulus writhed in his blanket. Then:

‘Again you ask, what is white, then? There is white and there is white. There is rose-white, like a girl’s skin, and there is dead-white like lime; and there is blue-white like a child’s eyes; and living white like lily, and grey white like salt, and clean white like snow, and dying white like a root that lives in the dark…. What is white white? White white is nothing at all, it is death…. Death too is white, then? Then what is black? … Oh, there is black and there is black. There is living black like Dionë’s eyes, and there is dying black, like a bruise; there is blue black like Dionë’s hair, and red black like Stephanas’s blood; and there is shining black like a written word, and dull black like charcoal doomed to the fire; and high black like the night, and low black like the pit, and green black like gangrene; there is rich black like silk, and poor grey black like the goat’s-hair of the tentmakers…. But black, what is black black? That is nothing at all, it is death…. White is death, black is death? Then death is life and black is white, but each being nothing, nothing at all, what then? …’

Afranius wrote as much of this as he could remember. He heard the mutter and the clank of the changing guard, which meant that four hours had passed since they had camped, and he was very tired.

‘Then since there is no such thing as nothing at all …’ Paulus said, in a dreary, fitful voice. Afranius slept a little, while Paulus, he supposed, talked on and on, being in that state of false concentration in which a man may carefully take a handful of flowers to pieces and make senseless geometrical patterns with the petals; or, with the nicest discrimination, gather pebbles of a certain shape and colour, in order to throw them away; or, awaiting some belated event, resolve to stand at one spot until exactly two hundred and twenty-two women have passed, no more, no less. He was awakened, he wrote, by a silence.

Paulus was sitting up and staring into the shadows beyond the fire. Afranius looked in that direction, and saw nothing but the dim form of a sentry leaning on his spear. But Paulus’s eyes seemed to follow somebody’s approach: he raised his gaze as if to keep it on some face. His hand went back very slowly. Afranius could see the lower whites of his eyes.

‘Who is this who comes?’ Paulus asked, in a harsh whisper.

‘Lie down,’ said Afranius. ‘The dawn is coming, and nothing more. Sleep.’

But Paulus talked over Alfranius’s shoulder, and past him. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

If it were a ghost, Afranius wrote, then it must have been one of the harmless, or even benign, ghosts; for he felt, heard and saw nothing. Paulus’s head was forward, now, and he was listening, and as he listened his face fell slack with incredulity.

‘Say that again!’ he said.

There was another silence. Then: ‘Afranius, call the guard!’

‘Rest, Paulus, rest, there is nobody,’ said Afranius, wearily.

‘Hush a moment, Afranius,’ said Paulus, then to the darkness: ‘Repeat that!’

A silence, all-pervading. ‘Yes, I believe you are!’ said Paulus, suddenly; and was somehow tongue-tied for the time being.

Now, wrote Afranius, weariness, the firelight, and the subtle shadows must have played a trick with him. He was looking at Paulus, whose head-dress had fallen back, uncovering his wiry, dishevelled hair, a lock of which fell across his forehead. As he looked, Paulus’s hair became smoother, for all the world as if some invisible hand were lightly caressing his head, while some folds in his sleeve straightened themselves and then folded again, as if a hand were passing over his shoulder and down his arm.

‘Because –’ Paulus began, as if in ready reply to some simple question; then stopped. He listened again, and said again, very hesitantly: ‘Because …’

Then he bowed his head, and said, shamefaced, like a respectable man asked for an explanation of something unseemly said or done when he was drunk: ‘I have no answer. I do not know.’

And he fell back – or something lowered him back – and he closed his red eyes and was peacefully asleep.

They carried Paulus most of the following day, but in the late afternoon he said: ‘Why, my eyes are clear again!’ So they were, clear and steady, with the fever gone out of them, and the soldiers were glad to set him down and let him remount his horse and ride.

‘Are you sure you are strong enough?’ Afranius asked.

‘Thanks, thanks, yes, stronger than ever. I have been mad as a dog, I fear; but now I am in my right mind. Afranius, if in my madness I said anything to offend you, I humbly implore your forgiveness.’

‘Bah! For my part, if I spoke a little hastily to you, forget it, Paulus, forget it. No hard feelings.’

‘Oh, but my kind Afranius, you never said a hundredth part of what I deserve. I am a little man in every way, and you have a good heart,’ said Paulus.

The astonished Afranius could only say ‘Bah!’ again. He was more surprised when they pitched camp for the night, and the fires were lit. Paulus took out of a leather box several handfuls of documents, and read them carefully. Misery and distaste made crescents of his eyes and mouth. Stirring the fire with a stick he dropped the parchments into the flames, piece by piece. He explained: ‘My notes, my memoranda and my lists.’

‘Nazarene?’ Afranius asked.

Paulus nodded. ‘I have committed everything to memory. It’s safer there. I shall not need this impedimenta now.’

‘Others might,’ said Afranius.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Paulus. ‘You will sleep soundly tonight, Afranius?’

‘Like a log, unless I have to put fresh wet napkins on your head every five minutes.’

‘I am perfectly cool now.’

‘Well and good. But that was a tough bout you had – short and sharp. You had better take things a little easier in Damascus.’

‘I promise faithfully not to distress you in Damascus, dear Afranius.’

‘You had better not. Good night, my boy.’

‘God bless you, Afranius.’

And when Afranius was awakened by the trumpet at dawn, Paulus was gone…. ‘Simply gone,’ Afranius wrote: a sentry had seen him walking away after midnight, wearing a sand-coloured woollen cloak and carrying his stick.

His clothes, jewels and business documents were all in order in their cases, together with his purse, which was well filled. But he had left in Afranius’s helmet a letter, rolled up and thrust through that sapphire ring Barbatus had given him. It was written in neat, formal Greek, on a sheet of parchment torn out of a flat, stitched account-book, and it said:

‘Afranius my friend,

‘As you lay asleep I kissed your forehead in farewell. Waste no time and risk no life trying to find me, for even if you found me and took me with you by force, I should surely go away again. Have no fear for me. I am safe, now, who was heretofore in danger. I go to beg forgiveness and make atonement, my heart being open to a purer love and my eyes to a higher duty than I owe to my father, my mother, my wife, my friends and Rome. Do not seek me. I am not lost, but found. Do not mourn me, for I am not dead. I am born. I was not struck blind by that white Light in the Pass. I was struck with sight. As the light of the lamp to the babe weeping out of the womb so the light of God’s Truth to the man groping out of the world.

‘Tell the well-beloved Diomed that I would to God our roads lay together. But he must follow my path, now, if that is to be; and so must you, Afranius; for Jesus lives, and I follow him.

‘Wear this ring, and think sometimes of me.

Paulus.’

And when Afranius suggested that they search the countryside for Paulus, the officer in command replied, very properly:

‘No sir! Not if he were my brother. He may be twenty miles away by now in any of thirty directions. I have my duty to my men, among other duties. The whole land is rat-holed with caves and as full of ravines as a badly-fired brick is of cracks. The gods have touched this gentleman here –’ he pointed to his forehead ‘– and I have no authority to waste Rome’s time and Rome’s men looking after those whom the gods would cast away. We march to Damascus.’

And to Damascus they went forthwith.

Afranius wrote: ‘Diomed, what was there that I could do? Every faith has its god-bedazzled men who, in the moment of glory, turn and go naked into the wasteland, as if the Hope of the World lies somewhere in the dust. The yellow men’s god, Gotama, was a prince at the height of his glory when he exchanged robes with a beggar and went away. At the peak of his passion and on the verge of his ecstasy, Paulus turned on his heel. Why? Are we all – the gods forbid – Blind Nun? Must all the springs of Desire run over the edge of the world?

‘Thus, I came to Damascus.’ Here, Afranius’s letter ended.

I sat, thinking in a turgid, disturbed kind of way; and whatever I thought, it made me bruise my thigh with my clenched fist, and bite my lip. But then Soxias was announced, and he came in with very little ceremony.

‘Let’s not beat about the bush,’ he said. ‘What news did you get from Damascus?’ A professional habit of impassiveness calmed me: control your face, and the rest of you will come to heel.

‘Eh? Damascus?’ I said. ‘What about Damascus?’ I forced myself to sit back, but knew better than to risk a smile.

‘Concerning Paulus, damn it all!’

‘Oh, young Paulus, eh? What’s the matter with him? Have you had some news of him? If so, what? If not, why do you ask?’

Soxias was as calm as I, now. ‘Your boy has turned Nazarene,’ he said, and watched me to see the effect of this.

‘Indeed?’ I said. ‘Have some wine.’

‘Melanion says I mustn’t, before sunset. Only a little, well watered.’

‘Now, what’s all this? Paulus has turned Nazarene, you say? In Damascus?’

‘No, in the desert.’

‘Turned Nazarene in the desert, eh?’ I said. ‘And what do you want me to do about it? –’ I could safely smile, now, with care ‘– Well, in case it interests you, I knew he would.’ If you must lie, lie deeply; but be sure to keep your wits about you.

‘Are you telling me the truth?’ asked Soxias.

‘Not entirely. I did not know that Paulus would become a Nazarene in the desert, exactly. But turn Nazarene? Yes, I wanted him to do that.’

‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’

‘It is a matter of supreme indifference to me, Soxias, what you believe,’ I said.

‘He was your man,’ said Soxias, ‘you groomed him, you broke him, you trained him. You had a use for that boy. Don’t deny it.

‘Why should I deny it?’

‘You wanted young Paulus for Rome.’

‘Oh? And how do you know that I haven’t got him?’ I asked.

‘Oh, what a merchant you’d make, Diomed! What a barefaced liar you are!’ cried Soxias in admiration.

‘How so?’ I asked, acknowledging the compliment with a bow.

‘I don’t know what game you’re playing, Diomed. But 1 wanted that pup. I wanted him for Judaea, and I could have got him, too. Tiberius is dying. Little Boots will be heir. I could have arranged the matter. A thousand, two thousand gold talents – damnation, I could have done it, and with Syria thrown in, all in good time! I –’

‘Bite your tongue, Soxias,’ I said, coldly. ‘I don’t know how many talents you can raise, but you’ve only got one neck.’

‘In the desert!’ growled Soxias. ‘Who baptised him?’

‘It is you who are bringing me the news, remember,’ I said. ‘For all you know, he may have been received as a Nazarene before, and made a profession of the fact –’

‘Nonsense! He ran through the Jerusalem Nazarenes like black cholera. He stoned Stephanas Diaconos. Anyway, what use is he to you as a Nazarene?’

‘Did I speak of myself? –’ I was trying to drill self-consolation into the position of an argument ‘– Who am I?’

‘You,’ said Soxias, ‘are perhaps the only man I couldn’t buy, but would if I could. Rome, then; what does Rome want with a Nazarene?’

I picked my points carefully, while I made a play of selecting grapes from a cluster in a bowl. ‘With a Nazarene? Nothing. What is Jesus to Rome? A nobody. A leader of a dissenting Jewish sect. The Jews have a score of dissenting sects: the more the merrier, says Rome. But the Nazarene is the only sect with what I might describe as an extra-Jewish appeal; and it is a poor man’s sect, and a sinner’s sect, and a merciful sect. It has caught on. The Jews have been foolish enough to endow it with the attractiveness of the dangerous and the forbidden; they have had the Nazarene leader publicly crucified, and the man Stephanas stoned –’

‘You have had news of that, then?’

‘Certainly. You just told me about it. Don’t interrupt. The Nazarenes might cause a serious division in Judaea, given time and organisation. Organisation. Understand? The Nazarenes are fairly numerous, and growing steadily more so. But they have no Temple, no centre. Now, given a leader, young, a devil in energy, white-hot in ambition, a Jew and a Roman at once, cool headed, tricky and bold at the same time, a gentleman at ease with the great –’

‘A Paulus?’

‘For example, a Paulus if you like; a resolute man, a resourceful man, versed in Roman and Jewish Law, an agile opportunist…. Given such a leader, the Nazarenes would find a heart and a brain. There might rise a second Temple, perhaps, at Nazareth – who knows? – with an ever-thickening rind of ambient sympathy.’

Soxias said: ‘Do you mean to sit there and tell me that what young Paulus did to the Nazarenes in Jerusalem was all part of a preconceived scheme?’

I answered: ‘I do not mean to sit here and tell you anything. I am telling you nothing. I merely say, rhetorically, why not?’

This kind of fantastically complex villainy was A, B, C to Soxias. A simple change of heart was not merely incomprehensible to his labyrinthine mind – it was alien, it was unbelievable. My windy and devious nonsense seemed to clarify matters for him. ‘Soxias,’ I said, ‘I am surprised, I really am surprised!’

And my surprise must have sounded genuine, for I was honestly astonished – not at Soxias’s ingenuousness, but at my own ingenuity. I was never slow-witted, but I did not think I had in me such a knack of ready inventiveness. It almost cheered me.

‘But the Nazarenes,’ said Soxias, ‘are sworn to peace. They may not take up the sword. They are inert.’

‘Well?’ I said. ‘What? If you want to rest on a splintery bench, what do you do?’

‘Put down a cushion,’ said Soxias.

‘Right. And if you want to put out flaring oil from a broken lamp, what do you do?’

‘Smother it with sand, or a blanket.’

‘Right again. Judaea is a splintery bench. Judaea is a broken lamp. Well?’

‘Well … Rome cushions, or blankets, or damps a frontier. But will the Nazarenes always turn the other cheek, as they put it?’ Soxias said. ‘No. The Nazarene is a Jewish superstition. Where there’s a Jew, there’s a justification. Nazarene Law has yet to be written; they’ll make it up as they go along, the way the rabbis do. Ring ’em with spears, and somebody is sure to have a Revelation – and the Nazarene priests will bless the iron, while the lambs of Jesus go to war. Nothing more dangerous than a mad sheep, and a sheep is only a lamb grown up. Have you – I mean, has Rome – considered this?’

‘Why, of course,’ I said, ‘can’t you see that’s just the point?’ Soxias whistled softly. I went on, using the cant of bribery and corruption which he understood so well. ‘Rome scratches your back, Soxias; you scratch Rome’s. Give a little, take a little. Paulus is officially on his own, as from now. My jurisdiction doesn’t extend beyond Tarsus. You have your watchdogs everywhere – keep a kind eye on the boy.’

Soxias nodded. ‘I will do that. Ai-yah! I must be getting older than I thought. I ought to have known that a fellow of Paulus’s sort wouldn’t give up a future like his for a bit of bread, a cup of wine, and a blessing.’

Epilogue

… A BIT of bread, a cup of wine, and a blessing? Master of the World, this golden clown has less,’ I thought, struggling out of my heavy reverie and looking up at Caesar’s shallow, embossed face. Bulky as he was, as he turned his head, I almost expected him to appear in profile as a thin, flat edge, and, if he turned his head, I should not have been surprised to see the reverse of an ornate medal self-struck in his own honour.

He was coming to the end of his elegy, now, and his audience was murmuring, and uttering little choked cries meant to express hardly-suppressed emotion. But I caught the eye of an officer of the guard, and that eye looked daggers: he was bored to the verge of mutiny. And Nero’s Greek secretary, a willowy little yellow-headed pederast, looked at me with undisguised hatred. He was smitten with one of those womb-less hysterias that sometimes take possession of the homosexual; a meaningless hate, a barren spite. But I, locked in my own silence, had been thinking of dead friends.

The dreams and the shadows of youth and strength are the wistful lights of old age, in evocation. There was the noble Barbatus, in a column of sweet smoke; and there was good Afranius, choked in a fit of laughter at a drinking-bout; and sturdy Pugnax, struck dead in harness; and old Soxias, with a patina of quaintness over his wickedness, dying with a knowing look; and dour Melanion, gone with the cholera; and poor Tibullus, fetched away in his sleep; and even Little Lucius, his corruption something pathetic in perspective; and old Joseph, who put on his second-best coat before rending his garments, elegantly mourning with a pinch of ashes on his bald head, mourning the loss of his son, his god-racked son who was dragging the weight of his shadow over the moonstruck roads of the night.

And there was Dionë, gripping my finger like a child, and asking me: ‘Will it be cold, Diomed? And will it be dark? And will you be able to find me in the dark, Diomed?’ – ‘No, my sweet, it will not be dark but if it is, you will sing a little song and I shall hear you.’ And there was my strong son, Artavius, in Britain now and cut to ribbons by the scythes for all I knew…. ‘And will it be cold, Diomed? And will it be dark, Diomed? And oh Diomed, will you be able to find me in the dark?’ … ‘No – you will sing Dionë, and I shall find you, my dear, wherever you are….’

And there was I, old and cold, bone-weary and lonely, and my mare Daphne dead on the road.

There was a tingling splash of sound as Nero dashed his hand over the strings and threw down the lyre. The others stamped and cried out applause. Only I, suddenly dumb, sat silent.

Then Nero shouted: ‘Flatterers and lickspittles that you are! False hearts and empty voices! Look here –’ he pointed to me; everyone looked ‘– I hear no flapping of hands and stamping of stinking feet in this quarter. But see; the man is weeping! One tear from this iron man, you sons of bitches, is worth all the blood in your bodies! Diomed, I embrace you! –’ and so he did, lingeringly ‘– I wrung your heart there, eh?’

I said: ‘Nero, my heart is wrung.’

He took off a necklace of precious stones, and clasped it about my throat. ‘I am going to weep, too, in a moment,’ he said, snivelling. ‘… I shall make you Master of Caesar’s Music.’

‘No, I am not worthy,’ I said.

‘What do you want? Name it! It is yours. Speak! I’ll make you Governor of Syria, I’ll –’

‘Oh Caesar,’ I said, ‘I am too old. I have heard Nero sing: I have lived! One small favour only.’

‘Anything! Anything!’

‘A man’s life.’

‘One man’s life? Take a hundred!’

‘Only one.’

‘Name him. Iaminus, Iaminus, prepare to write!’

‘It is only that he is my friend,’ I said, ‘and once he saved my life. Now he is confined in his own house in Rome. A harmless man, a Roman of Tarsus, a Jew of that same city, Caesar, who happens to be suspected of being something of a Nazarene. His name is Paul.’

The secretary Iaminus looked at me with concentrated malice, but he dared not speak. Nero said: ‘I spare Paul. Iaminus, write: I give Paul’s life to my best friend and my keenest critic, Diomed … and so forth … Oh Diomed, Diomed, if you have shed a true tear over this little thing I just dashed off, how you must weep when I sing you my Lament for Euridice! Or my Dirge for Patroclus! I have drunk too much to sing any more at this moment, my dear Diomed. But soon … You there, Iaminus, you little whore, have you written?’

‘I have written,’ said Iaminus, handing him the parchment. He scrawled his name at the foot, and the secretary folded and waxed it. Nero punched severely at the wax with his great ring, and gave me the sealed document. ‘Oh, lucky, lucky Paul, to have such clever, clever friends!’ said the secretary, with a twisted smile.

‘Go now,’ said Nero, reeling, ‘but come again.’ So I went, weak as a child and sick with triumph.

Flaminius was waiting for me at his villa. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘you come back with a head on your shoulders. But what a head! Man, man, you must sleep or die!’

‘Lend me a couple of good horses, old friend,’ I said. ‘There will be no rest for me until I have finished what I came to do – I am off to Rome.’

‘What did Nero say, eh?’

‘He sang me a song.’

‘You applauded, of course?’

‘No, I didn’t; for which very reason, he gave me this necklace, and the bit of parchment I asked for, and offered to make me Governor of Syria and Master of Caesar’s Music, and what not. Now will you give me those horses?’

‘Of course. But … Ha! And I was trying to … Ho! A lucky day, upon my word, when Flaminius gives advice to Diomed, the old grey fox! One always underestimates your cunning.’

‘It is less than forty miles to Rome. Horses, friend, horses!’

‘That was a long song Nero sang. Will you ride all night again, Diomed?’

‘How else can I get to Rome by dawn?’

‘Well, take Hector, my stallion, and the gods go with you.’ And so I rode to Rome.

There was a silence in the neighbourhood of Paulus’s little house. I knocked at the door. The sound rolled away, reverberating, and then died. I knocked again; nobody answered. Then I stopped a passing housewife.

‘Is this the house of Paul, the man from Tarsus?’ I asked.

She said: ‘Well, I don’t know, for sure, whose house it is. But if you mean Paul, the Nazarene, yes, he used to live here.

‘Used to? Is he gone from here?’

‘Eh? Gone? Oh yes, he’s gone all right.’

‘Where?’

‘Well, that’s more than I can say, sir. You see, they cut his head off yesterday morning.’

Copyright

This ebook edition first published in 2013

by Faber and Faber Ltd

Bloomsbury House

74–77 Great Russell Street

London WC1B 3DA

All rights reserved

© The Estate of Gerald Kersh, 1961

The right of Gerald Kersh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–0–571–30453–0

Table of Contents

Cover

Landing Page

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Preface to the 2013 Edition

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Epilogue

Copyright