“Go on,” he said. “Don’t stop there.”
Sela tried to tell herself she didn’t care what Balthazar thought. But she couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed at sharing his darkest secret with relative strangers. Mary was right. She still cared enough to feel a twinge of guilt over having betrayed something so deeply personal.
“Go on,” he said again, in a tone that sounded less like a suggestion and more like a threat.
“Balthazar, I—”
“Tell her,” he said. “Tell her what happened next.”
Sela sighed. There was no point in arguing. The damage was done. The damage was done a long time ago. She turned back to Mary, and continued.
“He spent weeks searching all over Antioch, asking questions. Spying on Roman barracks, hoping to get a glimpse of the man who’d killed his brother, a glimpse of the pendant that hung around his neck. I barely saw him anymore, and when I did, he hardly said a word. And then one day, he found what he’d been looking for. A clue. Someone who’d seen the centurion pack up and leave Antioch, headed to a new post in another part of the empire. He left that night without a word to his mother. Or me.”
“Then what?” asked Mary.
“You’ll have to ask him,” said Sela, looking up at Balthazar. “That was the last time I saw him until three days ago.”
“After that,” said Balthazar, “he spent every waking minute looking for the centurion. Looking for vengeance, or justice, or whatever you want to call it. Following rumors from city to city. Stealing to survive. Killing. Until one day, for no real reason at all, he woke up and realized that it was all pointless. Life isn’t fair. There is no justice—there’s only what’s taken from you and what you take back, and that’s it.”
“If it’s meant to be,” said Mary, “God will deliver the centurion to you.”
“God had nine years to deliver him to me.”
“Maybe this was his plan for you all along.”
“Don’t talk to me about ‘God’s plan,’ okay? What about the plans Abdi had? What about the children who died in Bethlehem? The babies who were hacked to death before their lives even began? What plans did their mothers have for them?”
“What about the plans I had for us?” asked Sela.
Balthazar turned to her, stared at her for a moment. Then another.
“Hurry up and finish feeding that thing,” he said to Mary at last. “We have to get moving.”
With that, he disappeared into the darkness again, determined to soak up a few more minutes of being angry and alone. Sela stood and disappeared, too, determined to do the same.
Mary found herself alone in the last of the dying light. She looked down at the baby in her arms, asleep but nursing. Seeing him there, so helpless and trusting, brought the full horror of Sela’s story rushing back. She imagined the grief that Balthazar’s mother must have felt at losing two sons in one day. She imagined the face of the centurion as he squeezed Abdi’s hand to the breaking point. She didn’t know how a person could do such a thing to a child. Nor did she know how anyone could go on after witnessing something so violent happen to someone you loved.
She only knew that the terrible man didn’t seem quite as terrible anymore.
IV
Herod never expected he would live to see such a thing. A Roman legion, laid to waste. Licking their wounds in the desert of Judea. And not from the work of Gauls or Visigoths, either, but from insects. It was impossible, of course. Yet if you believed the accounts, that’s exactly what had happened.
And why wouldn’t you believe them? Who would lie about such a thing? Who would admit to being vanquished by a swarm of bugs?
Herod watched through the curtains of his lectica, his slaves bearing its burden on their shoulders fore and aft. He’d traveled all day and half the night, trying to catch up with the Romans he’d set loose like dogs in his own kingdom. The Romans who’d proven no more effective than his own troops had. He realized that he’d been a fool to involve Rome. Yes, there was the benefit of flattering Augustus Caesar. Of giving Rome the credit for victory. But Herod hadn’t considered the alternative: that they might fail. And if that happened, the blame would rest squarely on his shoulders.
The fires of the camp burned on either side of him, filtered through the curtains of his traveling chair. Roman camps were usually filled with energy and music and conversation. With the camaraderie of rested, wine-soaked soldiers. But this camp was like a graveyard. The men sat quietly around the flames, frightened. Clearly they were beginning to realize what Herod already had: We’re dealing with more than a thief and a baby here. They were coming to terms with the fact that the Hebrew God had taken sides. That he was mocking them. And even though it was only the Hebrew God, being the enemy of any deity was a tactical disadvantage, to say the least.
Herod, however, was used to this feeling. The Hebrew God had been mocking him for years now. Belittling him with every drop of blood that dripped from his open sores. With the painful, yellow discharge seeping from places he’d rather it didn’t. And this mockery was getting stronger with time, his body growing weaker. Herod knew it, though he preferred to push these thoughts to the shadows. You’ve lived this long, and it hasn’t killed you yet. Nothing will. Sometimes he wondered whether this God had it in him at all.
Can a man be bigger than a god?
Herod’s lectica was gently lowered to the ground and its curtains opened by courtesans. They helped their frail king to his feet and pulled politely at his robes, removing the wrinkles of a day’s travel, then led him toward the unremarkable tent in the center of the camp—its flap guarded by a pair of Roman soldiers in full armor and flanked by torches on tall posts. And though Herod didn’t see them, one particular pair of wounded men went to great lengths to make themselves scarce as he approached.
Gaspar and Melchyor peered around the corner of Pilate’s tent, both of them nursing wounds from the tiny jaws of locusts.
Pilate’s tent was a simple affair. More Spartan than Roman, in Herod’s opinion—a few chairs for holding court with his officers; a bed that looked unused; and a polished helmet and breastplate neatly laid out on a dressing table, with a sword beside them. A few hanging oil lamps cast dancing shadows around the interior. But there were none of the usual comforts Herod demanded during his own travels: no rugs or pillows, no couches to recline on. More importantly, no young girls to recline on them with.
This was no way to go to war.
Pilate stood ready in his formal lavender robes, their seams adorned with patterned leaves in gold thread. He greeted the puppet king of Judea with a deep bow, taking care not to let his eyes linger too long. He’d heard reports of Herod’s sickly appearance, but when confronted with the real thing—with the rotted flesh and blackened teeth, the yellowed eyes and sores—Pilate was quietly shocked. Breaking with protocol, he decided against kissing Herod’s extended hand and instead touched his lowered forehead to it—a rarely used but acceptable alternative.
“I have come to help you,” said Herod.
“I’m honored,” said Pilate, rising to his full height. “And may I ask what it is Your Highness has come to help us with?”
“With the thing you were brought here to do. To capture a common thief and an infant.”
“If I may,” said Pilate, “there’s nothing ‘common’ about him.”
Herod showed a bit of those blackened teeth. “No,” he said. “I suppose there isn’t.”
Pilate motioned for the king to sit, and he did. The wooden chair creaked beneath him, and for a fraction of a second he thought it might break and send him to the dirt floor. His arms shot out to his sides on their own, and he felt the rush of adrenaline that accompanies a near fall, followed almost immediately by relief and the fervent hope that Pilate had missed this brief show of weakness.
“Do you find it strange, Your Highness?” asked Pilate, who’d seen the king’s momentary panic but showed no sign of it.
“Find what strange?”<
br />
“Well…the Antioch Ghost or ‘Balthazar’ or whatever you prefer. He’s known to be a heartless murderer, as you say—a man who places no value on life, who prefers to work alone.”
“So?”
“So…do you not find it strange that such a man has cast his lot with a pair of Jews and their baby?”
“A man like that thinks only of himself. He travels with them only because there is some advantage in it—I guarantee you. But I’m not concerned with the Antioch Ghost, Commander. I’m concerned with your inability to catch him.”
“With all due respect, Your Highness, we’ve been battling forces beyond our control.”
“With all due respect, your men were just beaten by a creature that I could crush in my fingers.”
Pilate was too political to say the words that sizzled on his tongue. Too professional to give Herod the slightest hint of a telling expression. Herod stood, determined to make his point while looking down at the young officer.
“In thirty years of ruling over Jews, I’ve come to believe in one very simple truth,” said Herod. “That their time on this earth is almost at an end. All they have are old stories. Old traditions. All they have are tales of ancient leaders and kings, ancient magic, and a messiah who keeps promising to arrive but never does. Everything about them is old. Everything about them is the past.
“I’m interested in new traditions. New empires. I build new things, and they protest. I pass new laws, and they protest. But I don’t listen to them, because I’m the future. And I certainly don’t fear them, or their God. Because the time of Moses and David has passed to dust. The world belongs to Caesar now. To men. And I’m here to makes sure it stays that way.”
“All the same, Your Highness, my men are frightened. They fear the wrath of this power. This God.”
“If I were them, I would fear the wrath of Augustus more.”
Vision. It was the most important quality a leader possessed. It’s why Herod had reigned as long and successfully as he had. He’d already summed up this young officer. This “Pilate.” He was a leader, sure. Aggressive and thorough. Cautious enough to avoid kissing a diseased hand but clever enough to find a suitable alternative in a fraction of a second. But he lacked imagination. He lacked vision. And this would keep him from achieving the heights his cleverness made him aspire to. As always, it would be up to Herod to make sure things ran smoothly from here on.
“They’re headed south, yes?” asked Herod.
“Yes. To Egypt.”
“And the fastest way to Egypt is through the Kadesh Valley.…” Vision, boy. I’ll show you the meaning of it. “I understand you have a shaman traveling with you,” said Herod. “Some kind of…seer.”
“The magus.”
“I’d very much like to talk with him.”
V
What is it, an earthquake?” asked Joseph.
Balthazar remembered hearing a similar sound as a boy in Antioch. A low rumble. The slow groan of the earth moving beneath your feet. But these rumbles were usually accompanied by violent shaking, followed almost immediately by the screams of a panicked citizenry. Neither followed in this case. Yet that slow, low complaint of rock moving over rock persisted. And the five fugitives found themselves looking for the source of the growing noise, which seemed now to be coming from all around them.
“What is it?” Joseph repeated.
The desert had funneled them into the Kadesh Valley—a long, lifeless passage between two mountains. Long ago, a river had snaked over the dry ground they now walked upon, and the early Egyptians—believers in the power of water to carry souls into the afterlife—had buried their dead on both sides of its banks in tombs of all sizes and lavishness. There were still remnants of those long-forgotten tombs all around them, some chiseled into the rock of the ravine, others made of piled stones, their riches long since taken by grave robbers.
After looking for the source of the rumbling, Balthazar’s eyes at last found the culprit:
The tombs.
The first one he spotted was nearly 200 yards behind them. It was one of the bigger tombs, chiseled into the side of the hill to their left and adorned with carvings that had been worn away by the desert winds. The tomb’s large stone slab was sliding open, revealing the long-suffering darkness within and producing the low groan of rock moving over rock, not unlike the rumbling of an earthquake. And Balthazar now saw the whole, stupid truth of the matter:
They were being ambushed.
Knowing they were headed to Egypt, the Romans had overtaken them—again. They’d lain in wait—again. And here they were, popping out of their hiding places—again—with their swords and arrows, utterly pleased with themselves for pulling off such a clever ruse.
Enough already.
It was exhausting. Balthazar was sick and tired of being surprised, and somewhat surprised that he was surprised at all.
Of course they’re ambushing us. That’s all they’ve done. Why don’t they just attack us head-on and save everyone the trouble?
Sure enough, one of the Romans stuck his head out from behind the open door and began moving quickly but awkwardly toward them, moving over the rocks of the ravine like an oversized insect. But on closer inspection, Balthazar once again found himself awash in doubt. For the being that was crawling toward them—too fast…it’s moving too fast—wasn’t a Roman. It wasn’t a soldier. It wasn’t even a man.
It was a corpse.
More groans joined the first as slabs were pushed open all around them. The dead emerged from the shadowy depths of tomb after tomb. Dozens of them. The mummified remains of men, women, and children stepping into the long-lost sunlight, finally free from the prison of sleep, and moving toward the fugitives with unusual speed, crawling insectlike across the ravine.
Their bodies were in varying states of decay, but they all had the brittle, leathery look that comes with centuries of decomposition, their eyes and brains rotted out of their skulls. Skin stretched tightly over their faces and teeth exposed in sickly grimaces. They moved deliberately, forming ranks and closing in, as if controlled by a single, unseen mind, just as the locusts had been. But unlike the locusts, the fugitives sensed this swarm was very interested in doing them harm, and it was less than 150 yards away.
“Balthazar?” asked Joseph.
“I know.”
“What do we do?”
“Give me a minute…”
“But they’re getting clo—”
“I said give me a minute.”
He had to focus himself, had to pull his mind back from the edge of panic and come up with a plan. But all he could do was watch as a wave of resurrected beings crept closer, and fear washed over him. All he could do was watch the horde moving toward them, faster than nature intended most men to move. Too fast for the others to outrun. Their dry sinew cracking with every movement, loud enough to be heard clear across the ravine.
Balthazar had been wandering through his own mind a lot in recent days, trying to sift through his doubts. Trying to reconcile what his beliefs told him with what his eyes and ears had been telling him in recent days. It had been a rambling walk. Aimless. Inconclusive. But now he’d reached a fork in the road.
Either he had to accept that he was dead or dreaming, in which case nothing mattered and there were no consequences, or he had to accept that what he was looking at was real. In which case, everything he believed was wrong, and he was probably cursed to spend eternity in the flames of hell. But eternity would have to wait. It was decision time.
Better to pretend it’s real and be wrong, right? Plus, I’m sure something miraculous will happen when all hope seems lost. I’m sure we’ll make another last-second escape. Isn’t that how it’s been lately? Maybe it’ll be a flood this time. A wall of water from nowhere crashing through the valley, washing these things away but somehow sparing us. In fact, I’m sure that’s what it’ll be. A flood.
Balthazar turned to the others.
“Run,” he said.
But they didn’t. Joseph and Mary were paralyzed with fear, watching the dead stagger ever closer—inside 100 yards now. Sela seemed frozen, too, until she lunged toward Balthazar and pulled a dagger from his belt. She did this so suddenly, so violently, that at first he wasn’t sure what her intentions were. Maybe this is the opportunity she’s been waiting for, he thought. Her chance to kill me for abandoning her. But Sela had no intention of stabbing him. She stepped closer and pointed at the horde.
“I’ll stay with you,” she said. “Help you fight them off.”
Balthazar grabbed her hand. “No.” He pointed to Joseph, Mary, and the baby. “Without you, they’re as good as dead.”
“Without me, you’re dead!”
“You know how to fight, Sela, how to survive. Get them to Egypt.”
“There’s no way you can—”
“Shut up!”
He grabbed her arm, hard. Seventy yards…
“Run, now, while you still have a head start. Don’t stop; just keep going. I’ll buy you a little time.”
He pushed her away. Sela turned back toward the frightened carpenter. Toward the little girl and the sleeping baby. She knew Balthazar was right. They were as good as dead without her.
“Sela,” he said.
She looked back at him, frightened but still so beautiful it wasn’t fair, and for a moment, they were back in the waters of the Orontes, all golden and forever. Balthazar had a sudden urge to grab her, to kiss her one last time just for the hell of it. What did he have to lose? He was probably moments away from a grisly death, and besides, something about the look on her face told him she was thinking of doing the same thing. But before he could work up the nerve to do it, the wail of the approaching dead shook the past away and summoned Balthazar’s eyes to the urgent now.
“GO!” he yelled. And they did.
Unholy Night Page 22