Free The Blood of the Martyrs by Naomi Mitchison

freedwoman and Christian; she had sometimes been to the meetings in Caesar’s household, and now there were meetings in her house, which Manasses and Josias could go to. Euphemia, another freedwoman, used to come, and Rhodon the metal-worker, and Phineas andSapphira, and sometimes others. Lalage used to come when she was in that part of the city. She had been baptised almost at the same time that Manasses and Josias were re-baptised, after the meeting had decided that their old purification did not count. And later on Niger, who was black and having a bad time where he was, came, when he could manage to get away.
    But the meetings were often in the house of Crispus, in summer always in the unused boiler-room, where the furnaces for the hot water system stood cold for eight months of the year. By that time Argas had come, and Dapyx, and then little Persis. Sometimes, too, there would be brothers who were strangers, who had only just come to Rome. They were always welcome and always trusted, and usually, but not quite always, the trust was justified. But there was one man who prophesied and spoke with tongues, and they lent him money, more than they could really afford, and then he walked out on them and they never got any of it back. More of them than not were Jews, but still quite a number were Greeks or other Gentiles: Manasses hardly even noticed now. And sometimes there would be a new convert, like Sotion, the freedman who lived quite near and who had begun to come to the meetings lately.
    It was another life going on all the time under and beside the ordinary slave’s life. The two lives did not really overlap. On the whole the Christians in Crispus’s household were good servants, unusually truthful and honest. But none of them would have dreamed of breathing a word of all this to their master. It was nothing to do with the masters. And so when Manasses looked up from clearing the table and saw Beric the Briton making the sign—their sign—it was like suddenly seeing light through a brick wall. And then, when it was apparent that the Briton did not really know what he was doing or who they were, he had been sickeningly afraid. But he had gathered up his courage and spoken gently, and he had seen that the Briton was afraid too, only in a different way. And then? Was it that he had forgiven the Briton for being one of the masters, or had the Briton forgiven him and Argas for being slaves? They had become each a little in the power of the other. But not this time as he had alwaysbefore been in the power of his masters. Not in hate. But in some suspended feeling that was half way to love, that was a reaching out from either side to the other.
    Lalage had gone out and left them alone. She had said, laughing, that she would come back and be paid the next day, and the Briton had stood looking after her, one hand out as if he would have stopped her, but not finding anything to say. Then he turned back to them, saying, ‘The words—what was it you meant by the words? Is that how you know one another?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Manasses, adding, ‘They are the words of our prayer.’
    â€˜Your prayer,’ said Beric; he was stumbling over it, thinking hard and slowly, ‘to your Leader. But He is dead.’
    â€˜He is risen,’ said little Phaon quickly, but Manasses said, ‘Yes, He is dead.’ Time enough for the other thing later.
    â€˜Then,’ said Beric, ‘is this to call Him back?’
    Manasses was thinking what to say, but Argas said, ‘He will come when the time is ripe and the people have suffered enough. This is to show we are His!’
    Manasses said, ‘He taught us to pledge ourselves to His Father in heaven, who is the Father of us all, with these words and in this manner of praying …’ And then he hesitated, because it was so queer to be saying the words in front of one of the masters.
    But Beric said, ‘Go on,