The Sacrifice Stone (5 page)

‘And they all came from central Europe?’ Beth asked.

‘It’s believed they were originally low-caste Indians who spread via Persia to Turkey, Greece, Hungary, the Balkans, and eventually right across to Germany, France and Spain. Because they were dark, it was thought at one time they came from Egypt, hence Gypcians, or gipsies.’

Beth thought how bizarre it was, to be sitting in a café in Arles listening to a pocket lecture on the culture of the gipsies. Her imagination stimulated, she asked, ‘Why did they leave India in the first place?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Why does any people leave their homeland? Persecution, famine, overcrowding? It’s too long ago to say with any certainty.’

‘What I was really wondering was why did they leave and not settle somewhere else.’

‘Why did they become travellers, you mean?’

‘Yes. If persecution or whatever drives you away, you usually find somewhere else that becomes your new homeland. Like that religious sect who ended up in Salt Lake City — who were they, Joe?’

‘The Mormons. They had to travel from New York State to Utah to find their new home, with several stops along the way before Brigham Young decided that Salt Lake City was the place.’

‘Yes, but their travels were only because they weren’t allowed to settle in all the intermediary places, were they?’

‘No. They —’

‘The combination of extreme religious devotion and outstanding financial success tended to make them unpopular, or so I understood,’ Adam put in. ‘Isn’t that right, Joe?’

She glanced at him, again seeing on his face the look of suppressed laughter. She wondered if it was Joe’s air of intensity that was amusing him. ‘Joe’s a theology student,’ she said. Then, noticing Joe’s sudden scowl, wished she hadn’t.

‘Really? Are you at theological college?’

‘I’m not training for the clergy, if that’s what you mean, no. I’m reading theology for an advanced degree.’ He fixed Beth with a fierce glare, and, without knowing quite what she was apologizing for, she mouthed, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You were asking why the gipsies went on travelling instead of settling in a new homeland,’ Adam reminded Beth.

What a diplomat, she thought. ‘I was,’ she said gratefully.

‘I would guess, from talking to scores of them — some of them claiming to be well over a hundred, with very long memories — the primary reason is that they simply got to love the roaming life. Being travellers, they soon developed skills that suited the way they lived — some of the present-day people speak proudly of ancestors who were acrobats or conjurers, and who would entertain the villagers in the places they passed through. There’d be a dearth of entertainment in an Anatolian village miles from anywhere — you’d probably have sold your grandmother for a troupe of tumblers. And many of them were merchants or craftsmen.’

‘Like tinkers, or chair-menders,’ Beth suggested. As a child, she’d learned a poem about a chair-mender.

‘Yes. And they seem to have had a regular round, if you like, so that on their migrations to and fro across the continent, the same places were visited again and again.’

‘You mentioned folklore,’ she said. ‘Did you mean stories and legends and things?’

‘I did indeed. Plus music and songs — in Avignon I watched a group of little girls dancing round an upturned barrel, one of them standing on it and conducting, the rest circling her with linked arms. They were singing a song — singing it beautifully, harmonizing with each other — and when I got closer, I recognized the tune — Dvo
řák
used it for one of his Slavonic Dances. Number seven, in C minor — you know it?’ He looked from one to the other of them eagerly. ‘Dum, dum da-de dum, dum, dum da-de dum, da de dum-dum da de dum ...’ He broke off. ‘Obviously you don’t.’

Beth said politely, ‘It’s vaguely familiar.’

Adam smiled at her. ‘I’ll take you back to Avignon and we’ll see if we can find my little girls. They sing it far better than I do.’

Fine by me, she thought. But she didn’t say so.

Joe said suddenly, ‘What were you doing in the Alys-camps cemetery? There weren’t any ancient gipsies buried there, surely?’

‘Joe!’ Beth exclaimed. I’m used to him being abrupt, she thought, but really he’s too old to act like a suspicious child in front of strangers. And
why
is he suspicious, for God’s sake?

‘No, there aren’t,’ Adam said mildly. ‘But I did say I was only partly here in order to work — this morning I was just acting like a tourist.’ He smiled at Joe. Then, unexpectedly, said: ‘What were
you
doing there?’

‘I was researching,’ Joe said; Beth waited, but just what they’d been researching he didn’t seem about to reveal.

This is ridiculous, she thought. ‘Joe’s writing a thesis about early Christian martyrs,’ she said firmly. ‘Aren’t you, Joe?’ He grunted. ‘And we’re going to spend the next few days immersing ourselves in Roman Arles, so that Joe can find out as many facts as exist about who believed in what, and who killed who because they wouldn’t worship this or that god, and —’

‘You’re making it sound fatuous,’ Joe said warningly.

‘Joe, I’m not, honestly.’ She reached out to pat his arm. ‘It’s just that I don’t see I don’t see why you’re making such a mystery about it, she wanted to say. But it’s his business, she thought, I suppose it’s up to him who he tells and who he doesn’t. ‘Never mind.’ She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

She realized, belatedly, that Adam had made no comment: turning to him, she saw he was sitting blank-faced, as if he had deliberately removed himself from the argument that had threatened to develop.

He went on staring straight in front of him. His lips moved, but he made no sound. It was, she thought, almost as if he was listening to a voice she couldn’t hear, and, as silently, replying.

‘Adam?’ she said softly. She touched her fingers to his hand: it was icy cold. ‘Are you all right?’

Slowly he turned his head and looked at her. His wide pupils slowly contracting, he said, ‘Fine, thanks. Anyone join me in another beer?’

She watched him as he beckoned the waiter and ordered the drinks. He seemed all right, smiling, exchanging a few remarks in French. And yet, she thought, yet ...

She didn’t know what was bothering her.

Shaking off her misgivings, she took a sip of the new glass of beer the waiter had just put in front of her.

I’m being over-sensitive — it must be the effect of this sudden rush of culture. I’ve just met a very presentable, interesting man — which is more than I’ve done in months at home — and, with any luck, I’ll be seeing quite a lot more of him over the next few days; as Joe pointed out earlier, this is a compact town.

Why don’t I just sit back and enjoy it?

When she became aware of Joe and Adam’s conversation, and realized they were planning a visit later in the day to the amphitheatre, the prospect of relaxing and enjoying herself suddenly became much more seductive.

And the memory of how his presence in the side chapel had seemed to bring with it unimaginable things, of how he’d sat in this very café, chilled, hearing some interior voice, faded away to nothing.

Almost.

5

They invited Adam to go back to the house with them for lunch — it seemed a waste of money to eat out when they were so close to the Place de la Redoute — but he said he had some notes to write up and would see them later.

Joe said as they got home, ‘I ought to jot down a few points, too. Can you get lunch ready?’

I can, she thought, but whether I will is another matter; she almost asked what the hell he had to jot down when they’d scarcely seen anything yet. On the other hand — she restrained her irritation — he seems to have mellowed over having Adam with us, so maybe it’s not the moment to make difficulties.

‘Yes, I don’t mind,’ she said equably. It was, after all, only bread, cheese and a green salad. ‘Tell you what — if you make some rough notes, I’ll type them up for you after we’ve eaten.’ She added: ‘While you’re doing the washing-up.’

She was quite surprised later, organizing Joe’s notes under various files on his laptop while he clattered about in the kitchen, to discover just how much he seemed to have absorbed in the course of a morning. He had interspersed his impressions with facts he must have already known: when she’d finished, she felt she was beginning to catch him up on the whole subject of Christo-Roman Arles.

Adam was waiting for them, sitting on one of the wide steps leading up to the amphitheatre’s entrance. Standing up as they approached, he fell into step beside them and they went in.

The entry tunnel emerged into the arena, and, the brightness affecting her eyes after the shade, she got the fleeting impression that the stone seats were thronging with people. Then, blinking and putting on her sunglasses, she realized she was mistaken; three small boys were racing around an upper tier shrieking, a group of elderly people were sitting fanning themselves halfway down the left-hand side, and a large party of tourists were standing in the middle of the arena listening to their guide.

Otherwise, the vast place was empty.

She noticed that rows of wooden seating had been constructed on top of the ancient stone tiers; it had the effect of making the arena smaller. Following the direction of her eyes, Joe nudged her.

‘The vertical stone slabs show where the original perimeter was,’ he said. ‘You can see how high the wall surrounding the ring had to be,’ — she could, it was at least twenty feet of sheer stone — ‘much higher than they need nowadays for the bullfight.’

She tried to imagine the arena without the modern seating: into her mind flew an image of a lion at the foot of the stone wall, poised to leap, blood on the fur round its mouth. A surge of atavistic fear shot through her, as if it were she who sat at the top of the wall, leaning forward, trembling with the perilous thrill of danger that came nearly too close. Is it safe? Should I have sat further back? Oh, but then I shouldn’t have had such a good view, should not have been able to see the very expressions on those terrified people’s faces as the great gates slam behind them and they cower, waiting for whatever wild beasts are to dispatch them ...

A great scream cracked through the whispering echoes: sweat broke out on her shivering body.

But it was only one of the boys.

She brought her attention back to Joe and Adam. Joe was providing a relentless running commentary — who needs a guide, she thought resignedly. ‘They built the amphitheatres with great ingenuity,’ he said. ‘As an engineering feat, they were remarkable — you’re talking about crowds of maybe 25,000 people, double that in the Colosseum in Rome — and they had to be got in and out without mishap. To stop mass sunstroke, they had retractable awnings — Caligula once punished the crowd for daring to protest about taxes by ordering the awnings pushed back and the people locked in to broil to death. And they had to have foolproof arrangements for the delivery of the animals — they were driven into cells underneath the arena, and brought up in lifts. They didn’t want to run the risk of any beast having its ferocity or its appetite blunted by attacking an attendant before it got to the Christians.’

She heard the sarcasm enter his voice: that’s why he’s telling us this, she thought. He’s going to make his point, with a vengeance.

‘Thousands of Christians died here,’ he went on, ‘in unimaginably brutal ways. And all to satisfy the Roman bloodlust — why go to the expense of training gladiators when you had prisons full of Christians? And when they —’

‘Christian martyrdoms formed only a small part of the entertainments,’ Adam put in mildly. ‘You’re giving a false picture by implying that, throughout the years of the Roman presence here, the only victims were the Christians. It’s just not so.’

‘Do the actual numbers matter?’ Joe countered. ‘If only one man is butchered for refusing to give up his faith, that’s one too many.’

‘Perhaps, but the killing of Christians must be seen in the right context. Yes, the spectators wouldn’t be too bothered whose blood was spilled, except that gladiators were much better fighters and so made a far more entertaining contest. And some historians bang on as if the whole purpose of the amphitheatres was for the elimination of Christians, whereas —’

‘You sound as if you’re defending the Romans!’ Joe burst out. ‘Are you?’

Adam hesitated. ‘I’m — No. Of course not. I just feel that it’s important to be objective, and to accept that sometimes the facts don’t quite support the scenario that we want them to.’

‘The facts speak for themselves! Here we have a ...’

Beth walked away. Neither of them will notice, she thought, and anyway why should I be a silent audience to their arguing? It’s just as well I didn’t want to contribute, they weren’t going to let me get a word in.

She was, she discovered, pleased to have the chance to circle the arena on her own. Okay, they both know more about it than I ever will, but that doesn’t mean I particularly want to listen to them holding forth the whole time. By myself, I can pick up the atmosphere, listen to the memories ...

She pulled up the thought: it was absurd to imagine any sort of impression of the past could be absorbed from inanimate material, and her scientific self told her not to be so stupid. It’s not like me to be fanciful!

Yet as she moved on round the shadowy gallery, following it slowly as it circled the arena, the impressions she had received the previous afternoon came back. Only now that she was right inside the amphitheatre, they came more strongly.

Far more strongly.

To her right, the wall of the gallery was broken at intervals; sometimes the arches gave on to steps that went up into the sunlit arena. But sometimes the steps went down into the darkness.

What’s down there? Dare I look?

It seemed her courage wasn’t going to be put to the test; the downward flights of steps were blocked off after the first couple of worn treads.

Then she came to one that was open.

I don’t want to go down, she thought as her feet took her from step to step. Four, five, six. It’s dark. I might fall.

Ten, eleven, twelve.

The air tastes old, as if it’s been shut away too long. And there’s a smell — oh, God, a smell of leather. And of sweat.

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

People were shut in down here, there’s no doubt — I can smell urine, but it’s not animal, it’s human.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

And she was face to face with a heavy wooden door, latched and bolted with iron, an iron grille let into it at eye level.

She peered through it.

The cell was roughly ten foot square, and the only light came through the grille. But she could still see, or she thought she could: then she rubbed her eyes and looked again, and the cell was empty.

What might have been there, if I’d looked two thousand years ago?

Leaning against the door, she closed her eyes and imagined. On the floor of the cell sat men clad in short leather tunics, silent, still men whose heads drooped and who exuded palpable despair. From somewhere above came the tolling of a bell, and the sound of some sort of machinery clanking into action — it could have been a hoist being wheeled down.

The cell breathed with a low collective sigh; for an instant the men appeared to shrink into themselves, then, one by one, they got to their feet.

Released from the trance, she turned and fled back up the steps.

I’m a scientist, she reminded herself. I’m not meant to have an imagination, it goes against the popular image.

She walked on round the gallery. Reaching a wider arch that led up to an area of seats above the arena, she went to sit in the sunshine. The boys had got fed up with careering round the upper tiers and had gone down into the arena, where they were pretending to be bullfighters, one waving an imaginary cape, one being the bull, fists with pointing forefingers to the sides of his head. The third — the littlest — had been excluded from the game and was sitting glumly watching.

‘Plus
vite
!’ the small matador shrieked. His companion obligingly speeded up, tripped, and fell on his face in the dust. Oblivious, his friend adopted a pose, then, to pass the time while the other one got up and dusted himself off, began to pick his nose.

Catch a matador doing
that
, Beth thought.

The elderly people had moved round the arena to seats in the shade. One of them seemed to have fallen asleep.

‘... and down there are the cells where the gladiators would be waiting for their turn in the ring,’ said a loud female voice in heavily accented English. ‘Below, in cages under the arena, were kept the beasts. They would be safely locked away, but the gladiators would have been able to hear them and smell them. Now we will go and sit, and I will explain about the contests between gladiators and wild beasts.’

Turning, Beth saw the guide and her party coming up the steps. Smiling a brief greeting as she stood up, she eased past them and went back down into the gallery.

It was cool in the shadows. She glanced about her as she walked, noticing how the darkness seemed more intense after every passage across a patch of sunlight. You can make yourself see things that aren’t there, see movements in the corners where really there’s nothing.

And this gently curving gallery goes on and on, what may or may not be around the next bend always just out of sight, elusive, beckoning you forward ...

She wasn’t sure if the thought had been prompted by the sound: it seemed too much of a coincidence if it hadn’t because, just as she was thinking it, she heard the footstep.

A footstep. Then, softly, two more.

So? What’s so extraordinary about footsteps? There are plenty of people around, why shouldn’t one of them be walking along ahead of me?

Come on! There’s nothing to be afraid of!

She made herself go on.

The footsteps went on in front of her, but whoever it was remained out of sight round the bend.

She speeded up slightly, curiosity driving out the vague apprehension, and caught a brief glimpse of a man. Then he disappeared.

He must be hurrying, too. Perhaps he’s like me, enjoying exploring on his own, and doesn’t want me to catch him up.

She broke into a trot, and this time managed to get a good look at the man before he, too, started to run.

It’s Joe! It must be, and he’s playing a trick on me! Great — she was running quite hard now — if he’s larking around it must mean he and Adam have finished bickering and are going to start being good company again.

The man wasn’t Joe. She could see him quite clearly now, a dark shape silhouetted against the dim light, and he was taller and broader than Joe.

Adam! It’s Adam! Joe’s probably behind me, they’re going to catch me between them. She stopped, spinning round to look. The gallery was empty.

She had come to a halt by an arched entry into the arena: peering along it, she realized she’d gone almost all the way round the amphitheatre and was approaching the entry booth.

In front of it, standing exactly where she’d left them, still arguing, were Adam and Joe.

She leaned against the wall, panting, shivering despite the heat. For an instant Adam turned his head and looked at her. She seemed to pick up his unspoken thought: I’m with you, but I can’t help you. Then he turned back to Joe, and the moment of contact was gone as if it had never been.

If Joe and Adam are out there, she thought shakily, who’s been leading me on?

I don’t care who it was, I’m not going to find out! I’m going back down into the sunlight, I’ll stand patiently listening till they’ve argued themselves to a standstill, however long it takes!

She pushed herself away from the cold stones, determinedly stepping out into the very middle of the gallery and briskly walking a few paces.

Then, momentarily confused,-she stopped. Which way should I go? On, and turn into the arena through the entry tunnel? Or back, and in through the one I’ve just passed?

Go back, she answered herself. Go back, because
he’s
ahead.

She turned, hurriedly retracing her steps along the passage.

He was just in front of her, the folds of some garment he was wearing or carrying — a jacket? a raincoat? surely not! — flapping as he rounded the bend and moved out of sight.