The Kingdom of the Wicked Page 9

  ‘I am going to Rome, you dead bitch, and I am going to spit on your grave,’ he said to the dawn inching up over the mainland. He snuffed out the night light, and the imperial penis settled back to its torpor. On the table was a bell. He raised it and the little clapper gave its regular morning tongue. It was answered by a bigger bell and then a bigger bell still, somewhere off. A couple of naked slaves, Felix and Tristis, came running with his morning potion, a chilled posset of wine and goatmilk. Then he got up.

  On the terrace of the Villa Jovis he saw the guard being changed. The junior centurion on his dawn inspection checked the dress of the incoming maniple. That sandal badly buckled. You need a haircut, Balbus. Tiberius watched. The junior centurion saw and stiffened and handed him a morning ave. ‘Here,’ Tiberius called. The junior centurion ran towards the terrace on light feet. Handsome enough, brawny, well made. ‘I knew your name,’ Tiberius said, ‘but I have forgotten it. An old man’s memory, as they say.’

  ‘Marcus Julius Tranquillus,’ the young man said, ‘Caesar.’

  ‘Julius? Julius? Julius? This is some joke. It is too early in the day for jokes.’

  ‘No joke, Caesar. I belong to the plebeian branch.’

  ‘There is no plebeian branch of the Julian line.’

  ‘That may be so, Caesar, though my father and grandfather believed otherwise. Julius is certainly my middle name.’

  ‘Well then, Marcus Julius, you have much to do today. I leave to you the details of the embarkation.’

  ‘Embarkation, Caesar?’

  ‘Yes, we are going to Rome. In a day or so. I must, of course, consult the sacred entrails. But the sacred entrails are a mere formality. And I suppose you ought to find Apemantus for me.’

  ‘Apemantus, Caesar?’

  ‘Yes yes, my astrologer. Apprise your men of the need for the utmost efficiency in the carrying out of their duties. We have enemies. They must be on the alert. I am going to Rome. Caesar is going to Rome. There is much to do. Messages must be sent. Every possible precaution. These are dangerous times we are living in, Marcus Julius.’

  ‘Indeed, Caesar.’

  ‘And tell me, young man, you may speak in all confidence, a dawn converse between man and man, what is your view of the future of the Empire?’

  ‘A very large question, Caesar. I wish continued life to Caesar and rejoice that he is to show himself in Rome. Rome, after all, is the Emperor.’

  ‘Come now, boy, you know I cannot last much longer. Your duties here have made you acquainted with my grand-nephew?’

  ‘I have seen him occasionally. But only from a distance.’

  ‘And you have no opinion of him? I mean – as the imperial successor.’

  ‘Caesar has chosen him. What else can I say?’

  Tiberius felt anger spurt like bile. ‘And if I said to you that I have been nursing a viper?’

  ‘Caesar’s devotion to his pet serpent is well known.’

  ‘I’ve bred a race of sycophants and dissimulators and evaders of the truth. I can blame only myself. You can say what you wish to me, man. I won’t order your crucifixion.’

  ‘The prince Gaius,’ the junior centurion said, ‘is the son of the lamented Germanicus. We naturally expect the best from him.’

  Tiberius wished now to void his morning posset. ‘Oh, get out of my sight. Fetch Apemantus. You Romans will get what you deserve. You always have.’

  His snake Columba was sleepily coiled on his left arm as he sat listening to the astrologer’s interpretation of the stellar configurations. They would never be more auspicious.

  ‘They will never be more auspicious,’ Curtius said.

  ‘I catch your sardonic tone, Curtius. I listen to soothsayers but not to stoic reason. But you ought to be pleased – the result is the same.’

  ‘Praise be to God or the gods,’ Curtius said. ‘When do we start?’

  ‘The winds are set fair,’ the astrologer said. He was a sly man in middle age, Graeco-Roman, his eyes unwavering when trained upon his charts but shifty in human contacts. He had contrived a distinctive dress for himself to show the world that he was an astrologer – blue robe with cutout golden stylised stars sewn on and, also to hide his baldness, a turban in the eastern style. He wore seven rings, one for each of the major heavenly bodies. Onyx, amethyst, moonstone, ruby, opal, sapphire, plain gold. ‘And the auguries for Caesar’s health are truly excellent.’

  When Tiberius took his mid-morning swim in the piscina one of his minnows took a vicious bite at his shrunken testicles. Tiberius naturally had him whipped, though not to the point of extinction. Then, as the whip was handy, he had the astrologer whipped. He trusted nobody.

  Bartholomew came out of the darkened bedroom to tell the two girls that their mother was fast wasting, unresponsive to herbal decoctions, unable, indeed, to keep even water on her stomach: they had better prepare for the worst. But, of course, if they required another opinion—

  ‘We trust you,’ Sara said, sighing. She put down her piece of stitching and added: ‘No Nazarene miracles, then.’

  ‘One never knows. They can never be predicted. And sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between a miracle and an act of faith in the confidence of the healer. Nobody will ever properly understand the human temple.’

  ‘The—?’

  ‘Human temple. A metaphor. I’ll come again tomorrow. But I think you must—’

  ‘We know,’ Ruth said. She looked at a painted cloth hanging of Odysseus straining his bound muscles to get at the sirens. A naked man anxious to add his bones to a mound of others. Greek. There was loud Greek being spoken in the neighbour room. ‘If only,’ she said, ‘mother could see Caleb once more.’

  ‘It’s enough,’ Sara said, ‘for her to know that Caleb is still alive. She clutches that little note like life itself.’

  ‘She’s not overanxious to live,’ Bartholomew said. ‘And that has to mean no miracle. I’ll leave you now.’ And he went, a little man with a neat beard, dressed in rusty black.

  ‘You should have asked him,’ Ruth said, ‘about that poor woman.’

  ‘Saphira?’ Sara said. ‘That would have been embarrassing. Her husband dead and she left all alone to die and be eaten by the rats. These Nazarenes are just like everybody else. Preaching love and charity and letting one of their own be eaten by rats.’ She added: ‘Most of them.’

  ‘Will we ever be back in our own little room with Elias going on about the rats taking over the whole world?’ Ruth said. ‘I don’t like these Nazarenes.’ She added: ‘Except Stephen and his family.’

  ‘One religion’s as bad as another,’ Sara said. ‘Religion is a lot of nonsense. What good has it ever done? Beatings and crucifixions and sanctimonious balderdash. Men make religions so they can threaten other men. And women too. Hypocritical rubbish.’

  Ruth looked at her sister with fear and awe. ‘That’s terrible, Sara. God could strike you down. He hears everything. He could turn you into a pillar of salt.’

  ‘Let him. Anyway, he’s too busy at the moment. It must be hard work splitting yourself up, even if you are God. One bit for the Jews, another bit for the Nazarenes. And then there are all the other religions in Egypt and Syria and the other places.’

  ‘You can’t say that about the Jews and the Nazarenes. The Nazarenes say they’re good Jews,’ Ruth said. ‘They don’t say anything about a different God.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not really worth discussing. One God has a son and the other one hasn’t. It’s as simple as that.’

  Loud Greek was still coming through from the next room: many voices, something important from the sound of it. ‘Something important from the sound of it,’ Ruth said. ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘I don’t know enough Greek to tell you,’ Sara said. ‘Something about religion.’

  ‘They’re Greek and yet they say they’re Jews.’

  ‘So they are. Greek Jews.’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story, Ruth. Isr
ael has been all split up. The diaspora, they call it.’

  ‘Where do you learn all these big words?’

  ‘Some Jews went to Rome, some to the Greek islands. And then a lot of them decided to come to Jerusalem. Coming back home, they call it.’

  ‘Listen to them.’

  In the next room Tyrannos, the father of Stephen (I am convinced that his name was really a nickname given by the students he had taught), Stephen himself, and other Greek Jews – Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolaus, others – were conducting a hot discussion over an amphora of resinous wine from Mytilene. Philomena, the only woman present, poured it into stone cups with an incised Greek key pattern. Nicanor was saying:

  ‘As I’ve always said. They think themselves to be the only real Jews. And Aramaic the one true Jewish language. So we speakers of Greek are left out of it. Very well, we can accept that. But when it comes to a matter of genuine injustice—’ Nicanor was in early middle age and was, by trade, a maker of metal, mostly silver, candlesticks. To say that he had Grecian features would be to assert that such features were measurably different from those of the other children of the Middle Sea. For all the sons and daughters of its mild sun (mild, I should say, in comparison with that which has burnt black the children of Ham) are alike in possessing skin that is of the hue of the olive, swart hair that in men defies the comb, a shortness of stature not to be found among the pale tribes of the north and west, and a generosity of nose that, so says the myopic Hebrew folk legend, was granted by God for the sniffing out of evil and fleshmeat not ritually slaughtered. Yet sometimes among these Greeks gold flared in hair and body flue, a gift from Aphrodite a pagan might say, and Philip had such a metallic crown, and the sun nested in the thick brothy tangle on his bare forearms. It was Philip who now said:

  ‘Neglect more than injustice, Nicanor.’

  ‘Very well,’ Nicanor said. ‘Take the case of poor Philomena here. Widowed for six weeks and not one leaden as out of the fund. And yet they were quick with the showy funeral of what’s her name—’

  ‘Saphira,’ Philip said. ‘That was inevitable. Shameful at their neglect. So with the money paid out to that crippled daughter living with the aunt up in Galilee.’

  ‘I could give you other instances,’ Nicanor said. ‘And not only as regards money. But the money part is the most blatant and shameful. It’s time the Greek Jews spoke up.’

  ‘Would,’ Stephen said, ‘you like Philip and me to speak to—’

  ‘Do that,’ Nicanor said. ‘Lash out with it. Speak fishermen’s language. And remind him of something in the Book of Genesis. “God shall give beauty to Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.”’

  ‘Meaning?’ Parmenas of the heavy oiled beard asked.

  ‘That the word of God is as good in Greek as it is in Hebrew.’

  So Philip and Stephen went out into the hot noon and walked two streets to the house that had formerly belonged to Matthias but was now, in place of the upper room that had smelt of betrayal, the headquarters of the twelve. They kept the premises, the fastidious Philip noticed, in a state of dust and disorder; unlike their master they feared the distractive presence of women. It was old Thomas who was bringing a dish of beans, sliced onions, olives, oil and vinegar to the table as the two Greeks entered. Bartholomew, the two Jameses, Matthew and Peter were seated at the grease-smeared board; Little James was carving a loaf so stale it required much of his muscle. ‘Come to eat, have ye?’ Thomas beetled at them. ‘Good Galilean fodder, none of your Greek fripperies. Come on, get seated.’

  ‘Beans,’ Bartholomew said, shaking his head sadly. ‘A terrible maker of wind.’

  ‘An Aeolus among vegetables,’ Stephen flippantly said, putting his leg over the bench. ‘May we discuss an important matter while we eat?’ He addressed Peter. Peter said:

  ‘It’s about the widows, is it?’

  ‘So you heard.’

  ‘Hard not to, with you Greeks jabbering away about injustice. All right, such things are bound to happen, though I’ll be the first to say that it’s wrong.’

  ‘Bound to happen,’ Philip, fingering the beans and finding them underboiled, said, ‘because you Palestine Jews think that we people of the dispersion are a race set apart and inferior. I’d remind you – What’s that out of Genesis, Stephen?’

  ‘“God shall give beauty to Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.”’

  ‘Meaning?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘It’s up to you to tell us what it means,’ Philip boldly said. ‘You’re the great explicators of the word. But I’ll do your work for you. The language of Japheth is not like the language of Shem, but if we read the word of God in it God blesses us as much if not more than he does you when you read it in Aramaic. In other words the Hellenised Jews, as you people call us, are not inferior in rights to the Jews of Palestine. But this is daily flouted in the handings-out to orphans and widows. We want matters put right.’

  ‘What ye mean,’ Thomas said, ‘is that the Hebrews are favouring the Hebrews.’

  ‘He’s right, God knows,’ Peter sighed, letting a sliver of onion blow out on to his beard. ‘And there’s only one solution. Let’s see how you Greek Jews get on with the day’s handreaching. I’ll wager all the complaints will come now from the other side. Besides, the twelve have other things to do than serve tables.’

  He spoke Aramaic. Philip said: ‘What’s that phrase?’

  ‘Diakonein trapezais.’

  ‘He means,’ Thomas said, ‘that we’re spending too much time dishing out bread to the poor and clanking down bits of hard money. We’ve other things to do than be, to speak your own language, what do you call them, diakonoi.’

  ‘So the Greeks become the deacons?’ Stephen said.

  ‘Put it that way if you like,’ Peter said. ‘If a diakonos – if that’s the right word – is a servant, then we’re all servants or deacons, but you can be this special sort of deacon. So now there’ll be no more trouble from the Greeks.’

  ‘How many of us?’ Philip asked.

  ‘Well, not twelve, but there are other holy numbers, seven, for instance. Can you name seven?’

  ‘Yes,’ Philip said. ‘Myself and Stephen here. Then Prochorus, Timon, Parmenas, Nicanor, Nicolaus.’

  ‘They’re very outlandish names,’ Little James said. ‘They don’t sound a bit Jewish.’

  ‘That ought to mean something,’ Stephen said. Peter said:

  ‘Yes, it means the Greek Jews look after the money and the Hebrew Jews look after the gospel.’

  ‘Doesn’t it really mean,’ Stephen said, ‘that Greek and Jew and Hebrew have no more meaning? That we’re all united in the Christ and forget what we used to be? That the gospel is ready to be heard by men and women with names more outlandish than ours?’

  ‘We’re not ready for that yet,’ Peter said.

  ‘The Samaritans are ready,’ Philip said. ‘The Romans have been teaching them the gospel of suffering. The next stage is to teach them the meaning of suffering.’

  ‘That will come in time,’ Peter said. ‘The Samaritans are a sort of Jews, and they’re entitled to hear the word—’

  ‘And this Greek is a sort of Jew,’ Stephen smiled. ‘Ready to go to the Greek islands and speak the word in Greek.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Peter said. ‘If you want to preach, preach in the synagogues here. Go to that synagogue where the Libertines go—’

  ‘Libertines?’ Philip frowned. ‘Fleshly sinners?’

  ‘No no no no. I don’t know why they’re called Libertines.’

  ‘A libertinus,’ Bartholomew said, ‘is a freedman or the son of one. They like to keep together. They’re from Alexandria and Cilicia and such places. You can talk to them in Greek.’

  ‘Cilicia,’ Matthew said. ‘That’s where Saul comes from.’

  ‘There you are,’ Peter said. ‘Try and convert this Saul. You’ll have your work cut out, I can tell you. Ah, gentlemen,’ he said, rising, ‘brothers. You’re heart
ily welcome.’ To the surprise of Stephen and Philip two men in priestly garb walked in. ‘Forgive the clutter of the table here. We’re humble men who have to fend for ourselves.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ Philip said, ‘giving thanks for what you’ve granted.’

  ‘Bring the others here tomorrow,’ Peter said. ‘We have to perform a little ceremony. You’ll have the hands of blessing laid on you in the sight of a houseful of the faithful, and then you’ll know you are officially what you are. God be with you. Sit, brothers.’ The two priests, astonishingly to the two Greeks, bowed to Peter before sitting. Conversion of the enemy? Well, these priests were poor men by the look of them, ready to give up what little they had in the Lord’s name. It would be different with men like Annas and Caiaphas. Still, the new faith had breached the stone wall of the orthodox. Miracles, less spectacular than giving sight to the blind perhaps, but miracles none the less were proceeding quietly in the realm of the spirit. Yet Stephen felt a prick of unease. The faith was being kept in the family whose house was the Temple. Surely it had been intended that it should be part of a ship’s lading, breathe new air. The Temple sat complacently at eternal anchor.

  Tiberius had spoken of starting for Rome in a day or so, but the preparations for the imperial journey took more than three weeks, time enough for the fretful princeps to change his mind thrice and once again. At last, on a glorious day with the sea and sky mirrors of each other’s serenity, the trireme sent from the mainland weighed anchor to return thither, the huge eagled mainsail bellying due east in the warm wind and assisting the labour of the three banks of slave rowers who, in their ill-smelling dark with its brutal whipwielders and timekeeping drummers, heard the bucina up there in the world of the living signal the boarding of Tiberius and his entourage. There was a considerable staff, including three physicians, for the Emperor was far from well, though his running sores had been cleansed and his cheeks farded into a semblance of health. Gaius was insincerely solicitous. Herod Agrippa, to whom even the calmest of seas was prides of toothy lions, kept to his cabin and wondered all the time whether the Emperor designate would keep to his promise: he thought not. Not numbered in the ship’s company were the minnows of the imperial piscina, nor the young schooled perverts of the venerean grots. These stood silently upon the beach and the headlands to watch the vessel leave, knowing their future more clearly than Herod Agrippa knew his: fresh slavery, their youth abused till bones broke or youth passed. The more innocent dreamt of a manumission kindly bestowed by the new Emperor as one of a number of acts of justice and clemency proper to a new reign. Those who had caught sight of Gaius rejoicing in the bumping and trundling of maimed bodies down the cliffside hoped for nothing.