LITMIR.BIZ

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come back to your distracted wife and the son who has been robbed of his rights, and tell us what we should do!”

      Basil was conscious of eyes on his back as he descended the stairs to the main floor and of anxious faces peering at him from around corners and out of darkened doorways. The silence of intense fear hung over the slave quarters. Castor met him in the lower hall, resentment in every line of his squat figure.

      “He has come, stamping on his heels as though he owned everything,” he said. “It was different once! He would come to me then and whisper out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Help me in this, Castor,’ or ‘Get me those papers which came from the warehouses today when my brother is through with them.’ He was like a cat with butter on his paws. When he came in just now, he stared at me and gave that grunt of his. ‘You will be taking my orders, O once mighty Castor,’ he said. ‘Put away that whip because I am going to rule by the bastinado. How sensitive are the soles of your feet, my Castor?’ ” The major-domo stopped abruptly, as though realizing the danger to which he might be exposing himself with his frankness. He nodded to Basil in as friendly a manner as he dared assume. “You are wanted at once.”

      The new head of the gens was sitting in his brother’s chair when the dispossessed heir entered the circular room. His head, which had once been covered with a thatch of tight-curling reddish hair, had been shaved as a sign of mourning, and it had something of the look of a ripe squash. Because of the heat of the day he had drawn the skirt of his tunic up around his hips, and his fat bare legs were spread out in front of him. There was a triumphant and malicious glitter in his pinkish-red eyes.

      “You have been sold,” he announced. “To Sosthene of Tarsus, the silversmith.”

      Basil had been expecting some such announcement and he was not much disturbed. Being sent back to the Ward of the Trades might be better than remaining here. He could detect sounds of activity in the room back of him, which the secretary occupied. “Quintus has lost no time in changing sides,” he thought. “I wish him joy of his new master.” He was fully aware, nevertheless, that the fault did not rest on the shoulders of that capable young Roman but on his own.

      “This knack of yours”—there was a slighting edge to the voice of Linus—“gave you some small value. I drove as good a bargain as I could, but in spite of that I got little enough for you. You will go to your master at once. I don’t want you here a moment longer than is necessary, so be on your way, my once proud Ambrose, son of the laziest seller of pens in all Antioch.”

      “The Romans would crucify me it I killed him now,” said Basil to himself. “I must swallow everything he says—and wait.”

      “You understand, don’t you, that you have no possessions now? Take nothing with you but the clothes you wear. I would strip you to the skin and send you on your way in sackcloth, but if I did there would be people to find fault with me. The tools you used and the trinkets you made are no longer yours. They belong here. They have been collected and put away.”

      “They are mine!” Basil looked up at the new master of the household for the first time. “I know something of the law and I can prove——”

      Linus threw back his head and let out a loud guffaw. “So you want more of the law, do you? More of Marius Antonius? You stupid ox, get yourself gone before I invoke the law myself. A slave has no rights in a Roman court. I think your stupidity exceeds your pride.” He raised one broad sleeve of his tunic and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “I give you a word of warning. You are not to see any members of this family. Most particularly, you are not to talk to the lady Persis. You must not communicate with her in any way. Is that clear in your mind, slave? If you come here on any excuse, I shall have you beaten and driven away like a thief!”

BOOK ONE

      CHAPTER I

      1

      For two years the Great Colonnade, with its four rows of pillars like Roman soldiers on parade, had cut Basil off from everything that seemed worth while in life. He lived in the Street of the Silversmiths, which was narrow and turgid and filled at all hours with chaffering and expostulation. Here he sat at a rear window, in a sweltering hole under the roof, working through the hours of day and often into the night, with his hammers and chasing tools, his pots of wax and his soldering wicks. He was subject to the sullen humors of his master, who was called Sosthene of Tarsus, and the tinderlike temper of his mistress, who kept him under pressure to produce more and more.

      From his window he could see the tops of the Colonnade columns and even a segment of parapet that he believed to be part of the house, once the property of Ignatius and now rightfully his.

      Sosthene was small and black and at his trade he was quick and skillful. In the beginning he had been helpful. He would watch Basil at work and then suddenly he would shake his head and take the tools out of the boy’s hands.

      “No, no!” he would say with a rising intonation that made his voice seem to screech. “Not that way. By Zeus, by Apollo, by Pan! By Men! By all the gods! See, stupid one. Do it thus. And thus.”

      In spite of his great skill with the tools, the little man had no sense of beauty, and what he produced was dull and uninspired. It brought small prices in the shop below. The results were different when Basil had learned the tricks of the trade, for then everything he did glowed with beauty. Using the sketches he had made on the aliyyah, he produced busts and figurines that began to satisfy him in an increasing degree; but never completely, for he remained fiercely self-critical. They pleased the customers of the shop. Everything he made was sold, quickly and at good prices.

      He never went out. This was due to a disinclination to meet old friends while wearing the cloth of servitude, but as time went on a more tangible reason had developed for remaining out of sight. He realized that his safety depended on not being seen. Linus knew that public opinion had been against him and that all Antioch was convinced he had robbed his brother’s rightful heir. It required no special knowledge of the way that evil mind worked to be sure he would never be at rest as long as Basil remained a reproach to his possession.

      Linus was not only increasing the wealth Ignatius had left but he was already a force in politics. He was hand in glove with the Roman authorities. It was being told around that he had great plans; that he was buying ships and organizing more and more camel trains; that he was setting up his personal agents everywhere. He would soon be in a position to enforce his desires.

      Basil lived in fear of Linus from the day that a note reached him in the Street of the Silversmiths. A stranger slipped it into the hand of Agnes, the small Jewish girl, a slave like himself, who did such household work as was needed. The stranger had said in a hasty whisper, “Put this into the hand of Basil, son of Ignatius.” Agnes had willingly risked the beating she would have received had her part in the transaction become known. She was a tiny wisp of a girl, flat-chested and thin, with unnatural spots of color in her cheeks. She waited until the time came to sweep out his room at the end of the working day. It was dark then and Basil was sitting at the open window. He was in a mood of the deepest dejection and paid no attention to her until she said in a whisper, holding out her broom of sturdy willow withes, “See, it is for you.”

      A piece of parchment was stuck in the osiers. He reached down quickly and took it. It proved to be an unsigned note, written in Koine, and in an unfamiliar hand.

      The head of the usurper lies uneasy on the pillow and he dreams of means to rid himself of the one he has wronged. Go not out on the streets. Have no speech with strangers. You will not be safe as long as you remain in Antioch.

      Basil did not know who had sent him the warning. He was certain it had not come from his adopted mother. It was reported that her health was increasingly bad and, in any event, she lacked the energy for a step of such daring. He concluded finally that the note had come from Quintus Annius, who would be in the best position to know the designs of Linus. Perhaps the young Roman’s conscience had prompted him to this one effort in his behalf. Whatever the motive had been, Basil believed the danger to be real. If he desired to live (sometimes he did not care), he must find some means

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