The Blood of the Martyrs Read Free

suddenly he’d go queer and sullen, as if he hated the kind of life he was leading, which was stupid and ungrateful of him; not many slaves were as well treated and as well trained as Flavius Crispus’s dancing boys.
    The other was a young Jew, Manasses, older than Phaon and with much more experience; in fact, it was he who had taught Phaon; he was easier to deal with, and his dark curls and dark sidelong eyes made him a good contrast with the little Greek. But Beric didn’t like him much. Jews were a nuisance in a household anyhow, with all the different kinds of food they refused to eat, and their praying, and trying to sneak off from work one day a week. In the Jewish Quarter in Rome you could go there one day and there wouldn’t be a soul about, not so much as chopping wood or drawing water. Of course, there were certain things which he, Beric, did not eat—goose, for instance; naturally, no Britons ate goose! It always made him feel uncomfortable to see the Romans actually enjoy eating it, especially Flavia; it made him feel squirmy, as though he didn’t want to touch her for an hour or two afterwards. But everybody knew that pork was one of the best foods there is! He remembered helping in a great game one day when the rest of the household made the Jew slaves eat it—held them down and jammed it into their mouths. Most of them were sick afterwards. It was all in fun, of course, and the rest of them had laughed like anything.
    Some of the others had manhandled Manasses a bit that time; the rest of the slaves were always jealous of the dancing boys, and, on the whole, Beric saw the point of that. Of course, all the dining-room slaves had a better time; they had the pick of what was left over—they were supposed not to, but neither Beric nor Crispus were going to be hard on them; when there were no guests they often talked to the slaves who were waiting on them; naturally they were more intelligent and trustworthy—and better-looking than the rest, too! They were mostly Greeks, Lamprion, Sannio, Argas, Mikkos, and the rest.

    By now Beric did most of the running of the household, thus, as he sometimes said to himself, saving the price and keep of an overseer. Today, for instance, he had hired a professional dancing girl entirely on his own; well, as a matter of fact, Flavius Crispus had seen her somewhere when he was dining out, but it was Beric who had found out her name and where she lived. Sometimes he wondered what was going to happen to him later on, when he was a man grown, with a great brown moustache like his father. Not that he wasn’t big and strong enough now; they all said so at the gymnasium; he could throw most of his friends. But—later on? Some day soon he must ask Flavius Crispus.
    Thirteen years ago, the British king, Caradoc, son of Cymbeline, had been chased out of Essex by the legions, west along the Thames valley and into Wales. There had been fighting there, the usual betrayal of barbarians by one another, and in the end Caradoc and his wife and children had been taken to Rome, where the old Emperor Claudius had, on one of his good days, seen and pardoned them—not, of course, to go back to Britain, but to live on as clients in Rome. And the youngest boy was given to Flavius Crispus to be brought up with his own motherless little girl. Beric had howled and kicked at first, but it was all a long time ago. Caradoc and his wife were dead years back, and Beric had not grieved much; he had never tried to get in touch with his brothers, who were probably somewhere in Italy; nor did he think of himself as the son of a king except sometimes with Fla Flavia. When they were quite little, she had made him crowns out of anything that came to hand, and pretended to do him homage. And again this last year it seemed to heighten everything for her; she had whispered it at him, king’s son, king’s son, making him do this or that, touch her or not touch her,