Free The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain Page A

could have come from nowhere but the distant and fabulous Cathay. He talked in the high-pitched voice of the professional teller of tales, he gestured like a camel trader, he fell in and out of rages as easily as a player of parts. His talk never ceased, and it was amusing, blistering, and laudatory in turn. He was openly and professedly a friend of every man on the caravan trails.
    He crossed the courtyard of the khan, his voice shrill in greeting of Luke the Physician. A clout on the chest knocked the latter off balanceand an immediate thump between the shoulder blades saved him from falling. “You look as cool as the snows of Ararat,” Adam declaimed. “What errand brings you here? Do you go to prepare the way for the Brave Voices in a conquest of Bavil?” *
    Luke had accepted the buffeting in good grace, but he protested what Adam had said. “It hurts me to hear you speak in this way,” he said.
    “Because I call Paul and Peter and the rest of your friends the Brave Voices? Come, what am I to call them? I stand by the old beliefs and the Law of Moses and I cannot bring myself to speak of these followers of the Nazarene as apostles. What then? Brave Voices is as good as any name. If it implies a small measure of disrespect, it indicates at the same time that the Christian leaders have courage. Can you expect me to do more?” He burst into a loud guffaw. Ending it abruptly, he shot a question at Luke. “What brings you to Aleppo?”
    “I bring you this lad,” said Luke. “He goes to Jerusalem, and it is the wish of Joseph of Arimathea that he make the journey in your train.”
    The light eyes of the mahogany-skinned nomad turned in Basil’s direction. They took in every detail of his appearance, the youthful thinness, the wide brow, noting also the short-sleeved colobium of the free man, which the youth wore with such gladness.
    “Who is he?” demanded Adam ben Asher, not lowering his voice. “He’s too young, I think, to be one of the Brave Voices, but there’s a suspicious glitter in his eye. There’s something about him that makes me uneasy. What is it?”
    “Adam ben Asher,” said Luke in an urgent tone, “it will be better if you refrain from shouting about us to the rooftops. This young man comes from Antioch. He is an artist and he goes to carry out a commision for Joseph of Arimathea.”
    At this the caravan man gave over all other interests to a study of the youth. His manner lost all trace of joviality and became intense and critical.
    “I think ill of artists,” he remarked. “There have been too many of them in the world, painting on walls and carving idols out of stone. So, this one is an artist and he goes to work for Joseph of Arimathea! I have worked for Joseph of Arimathea all my life, and this is a matter of some concern to me.”
    The kindly eyes of Luke showed a faint trace of weariness. “My friend,” he said, “this is a very small matter. It does not concern you in any way.”
    The curiously assorted trio sat down together in a corner of the courtyard with a copper dish between them, filled with rice and lamb and all manner of small surprises in the way of vegetables and nuts and spices from the Far East. Basil ate with the good appetite of youth. Adam ben Asher performed prodigiously, wiping his hands on a napkin each time he dipped into the dish but paying no immediate attention to the smearing of his lips and cheeks. Luke partook lightly and with a noticeable fastidiousness.
    “You and I, O Luke,” declared Adam, probing into the dish with a forefinger, “are much alike. You are not counted among the bravest of the Brave Voices, but I have observed how they depend on you in all things. You arrange the meetings, you talk to the magistrates, you see that there is food. When money is needed, you go to Joseph of Arimathea. You talk to the captains of ships, and jailers and innkeepers and tax collectors. I wonder if there would be as many believers today had it not been for