The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain Read Free Book Online Page A

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 of getting away.
    Sosthene’s wife brought him his meals. She was called Eulalia, which means fair of speech and was, therefore, the least suitable of all names for the double-tongued woman who bore it. She was the real head of the household, ruling her husband as rigidly as she did the two slaves. She never failed to be in the shop when a customer called, and it required an iron will to get away from her without making a purchase. All money went immediately into her hands, and it was one of the jokes in the Ward of the Trades that Sosthene never had as much as a half shekel or even a mite in his possession from one year’s end to another.
    There were two meals in this household of extreme frugality, the first at ten in the morning, the second at five in the evening. Eulalia would carry a battered tray up to Basil to save the time he would waste in walking up and down the stairs that were on the outside of the house. She would stand by and watch while he finished his meal, her eyes following each morsel of food from the dish to his mouth as though begrudging it. The fare was always of the plainest kind. Meat was provided twice a week only, and the usual dishes were vegetables, cheese, fruit, and coarse black bread. The wine was thin and sour, and of this he was allowed no more in a week than three and a half pints.
    “The reward of diligence,” she would invariably say as she picked up the tray. “Such bounteous meals will be forthcoming only if you stay close to your work.”
    On the day after the receipt of the warning he stopped her with a question before she reached the door with the empty tray.
    “Do you sell all the things I make?”
    Eulalia had stretched out an arm, so thin and withered that it resembled the stalk of a sunflower when the frosts are ready to cut it down, to open the door. She drew back at once.
    “Is it concern of yours?” she demanded harshly.
    Basil nodded. He had never been afraid of her and had won on that account a grudging measure of respect. “It is concern of mine. Wouldyou like to make much more money out of the work I do?” He waited a moment before adding, “There is a way.”
    She placed the tray on the floor with a jolt that spilled what was left of the goat’s milk, and walked back to confront him, hands on hips, her black eyes fixed as implacably on his as those of a hawk that sights below the slow beating of a victim’s wings.
    “What do you mean by that?” she demanded. “You are a slave. Everything you do belongs to us—to me, because I am the holder of the purse. Have you not been doing your best work? Is that what you are telling me?”
    Basil shook his head. “No. I do the best I can. Always.” He held out his hands, palms turned upward. They had changed from the soft white of the easy days when slaves had tended him, laving them with great care and rubbing them with costly unguents. They were now soiled with acids and callused from continuous work. He was finding it impossible to remove the grime with the niggardly fragment of soap allowed him. “There is so much these hands must learn. If I had the means of instruction, I am sure I could produce work such as has never before been seen in Antioch. Do you believe me? If not, ask the rich men to whom you are selling what I make now. They will open your eyes.” He let his hands drop to his lap. “I can learn no more here. If I stay, I shall not be capable of doing much better than I do now.”
    “Your master shows you everything——” she began.
    Basil brushed aside the suggestion of learning more from Sosthene of Tarsus. “He cannot show me the things I must know. I have already passed beyond him. He