Unholy Night (16 page)

Augustus shifted on his throne, thinking. He didn’t like the idea of all this fuss over a thief and a baby.

But Pilate is right…there is an opportunity in this.

“Very well,” said Augustus. “I will catch Herod’s infant and his thief. But not because Herod requests it, and not because they have wronged Rome. I will catch them because Herod cannot. And in doing so, I will remind our sickly friend how small he really is.”

An ordinary emperor would have sent troops and left it at that. But Augustus had no interest in being ordinary. He would do more than send troops. He would make a real show of his power. Put the fear of death in the puppet king of Judea.

He would send the magus.

M
elchyor and Joseph watered the camels and filled the canteens in the desert stream, while Mary sat on the sand with the child under her robes. Balthazar knelt a ways downstream, cupping handfuls of water—first to his mouth, then over his face and chest, washing away the blood that continued to seep through his stitches.

“This is madness,” said Gaspar, who’d come to kneel beside him. “We have the entire Judean Army after us, yet we play wet nurse to a baby. We could have been halfway to Egypt by now if we were not dragging them with us. It is too dangerous, Balthazar. We must think of ourselves.”

“I am thinking of myself. I was thirsty. We found water. I stopped.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know,” he said, cupping another handful to his wound. “I also know what I saw in Bethlehem. What all of us saw. You want to leave them to Herod’s men?”

“Yes, I saw. And the same will happen to us if we are captured. I did not escape certain death to throw my life away for strangers.”

“I don’t like it either, okay? But I didn’t go back for that baby just to dump him in the desert to rot. Once we cross the border, we go our separate ways. Until then, we play wet nurse.”

Balthazar stood, shook the water from his hands, and dried them on his robes.

“Why does the Antioch Ghost care if an infant lives or dies?” asked Gaspar.

It was a stupid question, of course. The obvious answer was, “Because I still have a shred of decency,” or “The real question is, why don’t
you
care?” But Balthazar didn’t say either of these things, because as obvious as those answers were, they weren’t the real answers.

Go on, tell him, Balthazar. Tell him why you care so much. Why you hate so much, kill so much, search so much, as if any of it will bring him—

“Ask yourself,” said Gaspar, shaking Balthazar out of his trance, “would you give your life to protect theirs?”

Balthazar looked back at Joseph and Melchyor wrestling with their camels. At Mary sitting on the ground, feeding the baby beneath her robes.

“Not if I can help it,” he said, and walked away.

Pontius Pilate stared ahead at the open water of the Mediterranean. Only hours after kneeling in the emperor’s throne room, he found himself standing on the bow of the
Heptares
—a heavy warship carrying over 1,000 men, leading an armada of smaller triremes from Rome. He’d never seen water rush by a bow so fast or known a sail to be fuller than the one above him. Normally, the hundreds of men sitting belowdecks would be rowing across the sea one stroke at a time. But today they could only sit with their oars on their laps, as a steady tailwind sped them along faster than mortals could ever hope to row.

Pilate wasn’t sure, but he had a good idea of where this strange, steady wind was coming from. The magus was onboard the
Heptares
with them, tucked comfortably in his private quarters below. And though his cabin door was closed, he could be heard muttering to himself on the other side. Praying in some strange mix of Latin and other languages, repeating the same phrases over and over like a chant. Pilate hadn’t been able to make all of it out, but as he’d pressed his ear curiously to the magus’s door, he’d heard one word repeated among the others:
ventus
.

Wind
.

The emperor had taken Pilate into his confidence in Rome, sharing the secret history of the Caesars and the magi, his powers and the role they’d played in creating the present-day empire, and what was known of their cult’s origins and demise. And when he’d finished, Augustus had summoned the magus to his palace and introduced him to the young officer.

Pilate had done his best to hide his dread at meeting such a strange, dangerous little man. He’d been prepared for the oddity of the magus’s appearance, but nothing had prepared him for the feeling of seeing those piercing black eyes for himself. He’d felt those eyes look right through him, felt as if they were peeking into his head. His thoughts. Most unnerving was the fact that the magus looked just as Julius Caesar had described him in his letter forty years earlier.

That he hadn’t aged a day in all that time only unnerved Pilate more.

“He doesn’t speak,” Augustus had said, “but he will tell you everything you need to know. Listen to him, Pilate, and return him to me unharmed. I’m trusting you with my most prized possession.”

And here he was, alone on the bow of
Heptares
, the sole commander of 10,000 men and one mystic. Pilate could feel himself getting closer with every mile. Closer to his prize, his destiny. That’s all this was, after all—just destiny, playing itself out, mile by mile. There were no accidents in this life. Pilate believed that the gods had a plan for all of us. And no matter which turns he took, he believed that his life would intersect greatness sooner or later. His name would ring through the ages, immortal.

Usually, if the sea smiled on you, it took seven days for a ship to sail from Rome to Judea. At this rate, Pilate would intersect his greatness in less than two.

Mary rode behind a terrible man. Yes, he’d come back for them, saved them from Herod’s men, and she was grateful for that. Grateful enough to risk everything to save his life in return. But Mary was eager to reach Egypt and be rid of him forever.

The sun was growing blessedly lower in the sky, though the heat still radiated off the sand, baking them from the bottoms of their feet to the tops of their headdresses. At least the baby seemed full and happy for the moment, his blue eyes blinking up at her, the lids above them growing heavy. She poured water from her canteen onto her hand and ran it over the baby’s scalp to keep it cool. She adjusted her robes, trying to keep the sun off of his face, while whispering one of her favorite stories from the Scriptures to nudge her son closer to the sleep his body craved:

When she was little, Mary had whispered these stories to herself at night—a way to quiet her restless mind, to comfort herself when she was frightened or anxious. She envisioned the Scriptures as a bottomless well of these stories. A place from which she could always draw nourishment, even here in the desert.

As a woman, she was forbidden from studying the scrolls on which they were written. But she was permitted to sit in the rear of the synagogue, listening to the men read them aloud. She’d been transported by those stories as a young girl: Jonah in the belly of the whale, the folly of building a tower to heaven, Noah’s test of faith before the Great Flood. And though she would never say so aloud, she prided herself on being able to quote these passages better than many of the men who fanned themselves in the heat of the synagogue and stole naps beneath their shawls. This one had popped into her head out of nowhere.

“What are you muttering about back there?” asked Balthazar.

“I’m not muttering. I’m reciting a story to help him sleep.”

“Well…recite quieter.”

Mary bit her lip in frustration.
Miserable soul! Uncaring, dispassionate wretch!
She sat in silence for few moments, reminding herself that every step of the camel beneath her was one step closer to Egypt. But in the absence of his mother’s soothing voice, the baby began to fuss again. Soon he would begin to cry, and the insufferable man in front of her would only grow more insufferable.
Fine. If you won’t let me whisper, you’ll just have to talk to me.

“Do you know the Scriptures?” she asked.

Balthazar rolled his eyes.
Here we go.
What was it about these people? Why couldn’t they just keep their delusions to themselves?

“This may come as a shock,” he said, “but not everyone in the world is a Jew.”

“No…but even the Romans have their sacred stories. Surely your people do as well.”

“Ancient nonsense, written by dead fools. Just like your Scriptures.”

“How can you say that, when God has spoken to you?”

“God’s never ‘spoken’ to me. In fact, I’d love it if you tried to be more like him.”

“What about your dream? Zachariah said he chose you.”

“He didn’t choose anything.”

“But how do you kn—”

“Because there is no ‘he.’”

Mary couldn’t believe a man would say such a thing. It was one thing to be cruel and uncaring. But to be blasphemous?

“But…that’s ridiculous. Who sent the plagues to Egypt? Who created the earth beneath us? The stars above us? Who created man?”

“It’s too hot to argue. Especially with a woman.”

“I’m not trying to argue. I just…I’ve never met a man who didn’t believe in God.”

Balthazar turned and glared at her. Mary was surprised by the contempt on his furrowed face.

“Of course you haven’t,” he said. “You’re a stupid little girl from a stupid little village of zealots. This is the real world.”

“But a life without God is…”

“Is what? What’s so great about your God? You tell me what’s so great about a God that does nothing while infants get run through with swords. Swords held by his devoted followers, by the way. You tell me what kind of God that is.”

Mary had no answer.

“Either I’m right,” he continued, “and he doesn’t exist, or you’re right, and he’s the kind of God who watches children die. The kind of God who sits around while men like Herod build palaces and good people starve. Either way, he’s not worth worshipping.”

Mary sat in silence. She’d never heard anyone denounce the Lord. Of course he existed. To think otherwise would be to admit that everything she believed was a lie. Worse, it would mean that she was crazy. But Balthazar’s words were confusing.

“All men need something to believe in,” she said at last.

Without looking, Balthazar reached down and pulled his sword out of its sheath.

“Well…you have your weapon,” said Mary, “and I have mine.”

Balthazar put the sword away and turned back to the desert ahead.

“I like mine better,” he said.

N
ight had come to the desert.

Ten thousand Roman soldiers stood in formation, flames reflected in their polished helmets and shields, all of them facing a makeshift altar of piled stones. As Pilate predicted, they’d reached the shores of Judea in less than two days. Faster than most of the assembled men thought possible. Some were calling it a miracle. But it was only a taste of the extraordinary things to come.

Two great pyres burned before them—one on either side of the altar, where the magus stood over the body of a sacrificial lamb. Its throat had been cut and its blood drained into a bowl. As the men watched, the magus dipped his finger in the blood and used it to draw a line across his own forehead. He dipped a second time and traced it along the brass serpent that topped his walking staff.

“
Nehushtan
…,” he whispered.

To the Romans, it was nothing more than a strange word. They wouldn’t have recognized it from the Book of Exodus, nor known that the brass serpent they were looking upon—
the Nehushtan
—had been cast by Moses himself. Created to adorn the walking stick he’d used to guide his people through the desert. It was a relic of untold age and power. How the magus came to possess it was a mystery.

He raised the bowl to his lips and drank a mouthful of the lamb’s blood, then walked to the pyre on his right, so close to the flames that his robes billowed in the heated air. He held the staff out in front of his body, until the snake was fully enveloped in fire. The lamb’s blood on its surface blackened, then burned away. The magus chanted to himself, his words growing faster, as Pilate and his fellow officers looked on from the side of the altar.

Did the snake just…move?

At first, the men thought it was a trick of the light. Until, to their amazement, the brass snake slowly uncoiled itself and wound its way onto the magus’s arm. A few of the enlisted men broke ranks and fled, terrified by what they saw.
What darkness is this? What gods are at work?
But Pilate stood his ground, even as the Nehushtan wound its way down the magus’s body and onto the desert floor. He didn’t know how it was possible. He didn’t care. He only knew he was one step closer to his prize.

The magus stood before the altar with his eyes closed, reciting an ancient incantation over and over, guiding the beast at it slithered off into the desert…

Hunting.

Balthazar sat near the mouth of a cramped cave, keeping watch over the vast expanse of desert. The others were sleeping behind him. All except one.

“Get some sleep,” said Joseph, who’d come to join him. “It’s more important you be rested than me. I can keep watch for a while.”

Balthazar considered the faint, moonlit outline of Joseph’s face. The young, bearded face of a village woodworker. They were about the same age, but they couldn’t have been more different.

“I’ll stay,” said Balthazar. “No offense, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing it was you keeping watch.”

Joseph smiled and sat beside him.

“You think I’m weak.”

“I think you’re naïve.”

“And what have I done to make you think this?”

“You believe the impossible.”

Ah…this again. The man who mocks others for believing the word of God.

“So I’m naïve because I believe the Scriptures?”

“No…you’re naïve because you believe her.”

It took a moment for Joseph to untangle what Balthazar had said and get his meaning. When he did, his face darkened, and his mind wandered back to what had been the hardest few days of his life. The days back in Nazareth, when his happiness had been shattered and his faith tested to its limit. And all because his young bride-to-be had come to him with a tearful confession.

“I didn’t, you know,” Joseph said at last.

“Didn’t what?”

“Believe her. Not when she first told me, anyway. I wanted to, of course. Desperately. But…”

“But?”

“I’m a patient man, but to believe such a thing…like you said…it was impossible.”

“What did she tell you?”

Joseph thought about it for a moment.
What was it she’d said again?

“She told me,” said Joseph, “that she had woken to the whispering voice of a man.”

“Not a promising start.”

“She told me that she’d followed the voice outside, only to find that the night had turned bright as day. And yet the streets of Nazareth were barren. There was no sound. No rustling of olive trees or birdsong.”

“A dream.”

“But as real as any dream she’d ever had. As real as the two of us sitting here in this cave. Mary told me that she’d seen a man approaching. A shimmering, radiant man who seemed to step out of the sun itself and walk toward her. A man not of this earth…a man with wings.”

Balthazar tried to hide the chill that touched his spine on hearing those words.

“And before he even opened his mouth,” said Joseph, “Mary told me that she knew—knew with absolute certainty—that his name was Gabriel, archangel of the Lord.”

“Gabriel?”

“‘Rejoice, you highly favored one,’ he told her. ‘The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son. And the holy one who is born from you will be called the son of God.’”

“That’s it? That’s what she told you?”

“I knew it was a lie. I knew. I thought, ‘
No, it’s worse than a lie. A lie could be forgiven. This was blasphemy! God born of a woman!
’ I could see only two possibilities: one, that Mary had known another man, whether by her choice or not, and invented the story to explain her condition. Or two, that she suddenly dreaded the idea of being my wife and was trying to scare me off. But I thought,
if she dreaded me that much, why has she seemed so happy until now?
It didn’t make sense.”

“Women never do.”

“But then I realized that there was a third possibility: that Mary had gone mad. That she actually believed what she’d told me. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt in my heart that this was the real answer. She’d told her story with such conviction. Her face had never wavered; her eyes had never lied, even as her lips did. Maybe it was just that I wanted to believe anything other than the thought of, you know…”

“I know.”

“But what could I do? If I turned my back on her, I knew exactly what would happen. I’d seen it before: adulterous women dragged out of their homes, made to stand against a wall as the men gathered up stones. I’d seen those women with their skulls cracked open, with their brains dashed out, left to die alone. As much as I refused to believe Mary, I couldn’t condemn her to death. I thought,
‘I could always tell them that
I
was the father.’
But to admit that we’d been together before marriage? We would’ve been exiled from the only home we’d ever known. Shunned by the people we loved.”

“So you married her anyway.”

“No. I mourned. I mourned the life that could’ve been. Everything had been perfect, you understand. But in the space of one cursed day, my future had been narrowed down to three possibilities: either I would be the husband of an adulteress, the keeper of an unwilling bride, or the guardian of a madwoman. Three possibilities—each one worse than the last. But then? A miracle.”

This time, Balthazar had to consciously keep himself from rolling his eyes.

“That night,” said Joseph, “as I wrestled with these three possibilities, the angel Gabriel visited me and showed me a fourth possibility: that what Mary had told me was true. That the Messiah was growing in her womb and that I was to be his guardian.”

Balthazar sat in silence for a good deal of time. Clearly, the carpenter was also out of his mind. Yes, he’d probably had some kind of vision—a vivid dream brought on by desperation. A desperation to believe
anything
but the painful truth. Balthazar had experienced visions of his own. Things he would’ve
sworn
were real at the time. It had happened to him as a boy, when he’d dug up bodies on the far side of the Orontes. It had happened to him while he suffered through his recent surgery. The difference was, he had the ability to discern dreams from reality. Visions presented themselves all the time. Dreams came, fully formed. But they were just that—dreams. Nothing more. And the carpenter was naïve for thinking otherwise.

“Well,” said Joseph, “let me know if you change your mind about getting some sleep.”

With that, he excused himself and retreated farther into the cramped cave—disappearing into the darkness. Balthazar flirted with the idea of calling after him. Of keeping him close by so he could spend some more time mocking him for his stupidity. But what was the use? No…leave the little man to his little delusions. It wasn’t worth the energy.

Balthazar sat alone at the mouth of the cave, searching the darkness with his eyes and ears. Looking for the low stars of far-off torches. Listening for the distant beating of hooves and the clanging of armor.

But not the slithering of a brass snake rendered living by an ancient darkness.

If Balthazar had, by chance, turned his attention to the desert floor, he might have seen the Nehushtan slither past him, then off into the black desert with its message:

I’ve found them
.…