The Betrayal

by W. Michael Gear

  His shoulder-length black curly hair hung around his handsome face in sweat-soaked locks, tangling with his beard and mustache. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  In the distance, their horses placidly nipped the grasses at the edge of the pool. The bony beasts needed every scrap of nourishment they could find.

  “Try me.”

  He tied another knot. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “When a man says that it means he’s ashamed of something.”

  The desperation in his gaze made her feel as though she were being impaled. “Go away.”

  A gust of wind blew through the oasis, tousling the palm fronds and fluttering red hair over her eyes. Kalay caught the strands with one hand and held them until the gust passed on. “Well, if you want my opinion, you’re being a fool. You had two choices. You could have let those foul sicarii kill your brothers and me, or you could have killed them first. Do you truly think your God would rather have us dead and Loukas and his boys drinking and whoring?”

  The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “What worries me”—he paused and tied another knot—“is that I fell back into my old life as easily as though I’d never taken vows, never dedicated my life to following my Lord’s teachings.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “Do you? My Lord would have preferred that I avoid the situation altogether. That was my failure.”

  “So you should have run away?”

  “No, I …” He heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know what I should have done. I only know that what I did was wrong.”

  It was clear that he keenly felt the weight of the lives he’d taken, despite the fact that he’d saved four in the process. It was unfathomable to her, but she said, “You didn’t start this, Cyrus. Your church did. You protected your friends the only way you knew how. And, I might add, did it with remarkable skill.”

  He twisted his prayer rope and gazed out at the starlight glimmering from the pool. “You’re not helping much.”

  “Well, talking a man out of his guilt takes a while. I need more time.”

  As he lifted his eyes to the trail they had ridden in on, he said, “I swear I’ve seen him before.”

  “Who?”

  “‘Loukas,’ if that was his name.”

  Kalay frowned. “Where have you seen him?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe in the army.”

  “Did you serve with him?”

  Cyrus cocked his head, as though trying to recall. “I remember the face of every man in my century, as well as every name. If I did serve with him his appearance is much changed, and he’s using a different name.”

  “Why would that be?”

  He tied his prayer rope to his belt, as though finished for the night. “He may have been very young when I knew him. Or he could be a member of a secret military or religious order that requires such changes. Altering one’s appearance and undergoing a name change is symbolic of giving up your old life and accepting your new duties and responsibilities.”

  She pondered that for a moment, considering how similar it was to Christian baptism. “What secret military orders?”

  He dropped his head into his hands and massaged his temples. “All I can tell you is that there are many, and they share a common belief that paradise lies in the shadow of swords.”

  “Do you think Loukas is some sort of grand master?”

  His gaze shot in her direction as though even that knowledge was reserved to a select few.

  Kalay took a drink of water. It had a clean, earthy taste that pleased her. “Men love to strut and preen when they’re attempting to impress a woman, Cyrus. They drink too much. They brag about their importance. Most mistake divulging a secret with intimacy.” She let him digest what that meant and took another drink of the cool water. “Do you think the man in charge is Roman?”

  “Almost certainly. There has always been discord between Egypt and Rome, which makes me wonder if this doesn’t go all the way to Bishop Silvester of Rome.”75

  “Who is he?”

  “The right hand of Emperor Constantine.”

  “You mean he’s the emperor’s lackey?”

  “Yes.”

  He rose and walked to the pool to fill his water cup. For a big man, he moved with the silence and grace of a leopard. Dust coated his black hair and white robe, and she could see his powerful shoulder muscles flexing beneath the dirty fabric as he lowered his cup to the pool.

  Kalay stretched out on her side and propped her head on her hand. Zarathan had started to snore. In response, Barnabas flopped to his opposite side.

  Kalay tipped her head toward Barnabas. “I found it curious that the old monk did not try to stop us when we were questioning ‘Loukas.’”

  Cyrus walked back and sat down beside her. “As did I. I expected him to intervene.”

  “To spare you?” she asked bluntly.

  Cyrus closed his eyes as if at a sudden stab of pain. “Did no one ever teach you subtlety?”

  She shrugged. “It’s easier on people in the long run if you’re just frank.”

  Cyrus swallowed a gulp of water, before he said, “I wouldn’t know. It’s something I’ve never tried.”

  “Well, you’re probably afraid of hurting other people’s feelings. I’m a beast.”

  “That hasn’t been my impression.”

  As they stared at each other, conflicting emotions danced across his face. The longing in his gaze touched her. Irritated with himself, he looked away.

  Softly, he said, “Forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  “I know you don’t like to be stared at.”

  “It’s all right. You can’t help it. I’m the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.” She the repeated words she’d heard a thousand times.

  The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. “Actually, you’re not.”

  She pulled back as though shocked and dismayed, then said, “Does that mean I won’t have to worry about you creeping into my blankets some night?”

  He smiled.

  Kalay drained her water cup and set it aside. The more time she and Cyrus spent together, the more the attraction between them grew, though it was a reluctant attraction on his part. As for her part …

  As the silence lengthened, Cyrus’ smile faded and he frowned down at the chipped clay cup in his hands. “I wish it were that simple. You and I know it’s not. May I tell you something? It may make things easier between us.”

  “Of course. I can stand rejection.”

  It seemed to take a long time before he decided which words to use. “I had a wife once, a long time ago. I still miss her. When I’m truly tormented, she comes to me in my dreams. We talk. We laugh. I cannot tell you how very much I crave the tenderness of her touch.” His jaw clenched. “There are times when I look at you …”

  He stopped.

  Kalay carefully asked, “What was her name?”

  “Spes.”

  “Like the Roman goddess?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she the woman more beautiful than me?”

  Old pain tightened his eyes. “She was.”

  The agony in his voice went straight to her heart. “Did she have red hair, like mine?”

  He nodded.

  She had heard this story many times. “You remind me of my lost childhood love … my dead wife … the woman I could never have …” The words always came out in a tormented voice.

  Sympathetically, she said, “Then it’s natural that I remind you of her. But I’m not her. And no man on earth would describe me as ‘tender,’ Cyrus. Now that you realize your heart is just hoping too hard, let it go.”

  “I am trying.”

  “I know you are, and you’re a valiant warrior.” She reached over to playfully slap his cheek. “You’ll get over me.”

  She rose to her feet. “I’m going to bed now. Don’t follow me.”

  As she walked away, he laughed and shook his head.

&nb
sp; Kalay curled up on the sand at the base of a palm tree, and used her arm as a pillow. The fragrance of the water and sound of the wind rustling the fronds was soothing.

  Cyrus sat for a time, staring at the pool, before he got to his feet, picked up his sword, and belted it on. As he walked past her, he halted briefly to say, “That was an unexpected kindness. Thank you.”

  “Get some rest, Cyrus.”

  “I will. Later.”

  He continued up the trail to the top of the dune where he could watch the approaches that led to the oasis. They made dark, sinuous lines through the sand.

  When she woke in the middle of the night, he was still standing there like a soldier on duty, staring out at the starlit desert.

  Forget it, the last thing you need is a man.

  But when she rolled over and closed her eyes again, he was smiling in her dreams.

  THE TEACHING ON THE BEAST

  “All of our lives we tiptoe around him, afraid lest he wake. I tell you now, brother, it is absolutely necessary to awaken the Beast, for it is only when we are crouching in that dark pit of terror, shivering and lost, that we clearly hear God calling and run toward the resurrection.”

  TWENTY ~ FOUR

  Sand blew across the dusk-shadowed trail in glittering veils. They’d alternately ridden and walked all day and were bone-weary, but their horses were in much worse condition. When the lathered animals had started to stumble at sunset, they’d gotten off and started leading them. As she walked, Kalay stroked her horse’s flank, speaking gently to the animal to keep it going, but the trick would not work forever.

  She smiled at herself. She was more weary than she’d ever been in her life. The long, exhausting days of washing and drying at the monastery now seemed laughable. At least there, when she’d fallen into bed at night, she’d gone right to sleep, and slept straight through with few worries.

  Far in the distance, a thread of deep blue painted the horizon, marking the location of the ocean. Already a salty scent pervaded the air.

  “Cyrus,” she said, “we should find water and camp for the night.”

  “Yes. Soon.”

  The trail dove off the edge of a dune. As Cyrus cautiously led the horse down, she walked out front.

  Brother Barnabas tugged on his horse’s lead rope, pulling the animal closer to Cyrus. His gray hair, soiled with dust and sweat, appeared darker, which gave his deeply sunken eyes a haunted look. She feared that if they did not find a place to rest for a few days, and soon, he would be ill, or worse.

  “My old friend, Libni, lives just south of Agrippias,” Barnabas said to Cyrus.

  “How far south?”

  Barnabas pointed a gnarled finger. “There. Somewhere.”

  Cyrus shifted to study the broken distance, a terrain of dark jutting rock, stony flats, and occasional dunes. Twisted lines of wadis, drainages, carved their way toward the west. “You don’t know exactly where he lives?”

  “No, but I have a good general idea. Once or twice a year, he sends me letters through traders.”

  “Have you ever written him back?” Zarathan called from where he walked in the rear.

  “Three times in the past twenty years traders have been able to deliver letters for me.”

  Zarathan scratched at the blond fuzz that he called a beard. “You’ve only written him three times in twenty years?”

  “No. I write him every month, but Libni is very hard to find.”

  “Then what makes you think we can do it?”

  “Libni described the area for me,” Barnabas said. “When we reach the branch in the road just west of Gaza, I’ll lead.”

  Cyrus nodded.

  The horses panted and licked at their lips, as though desperately thirsty.

  “Brother Barnabas,” she said, “you clearly know these roads. How long before we reach water?”

  “Not long. Around the first hour of night, we’ll pass by a pool outside of Gaza. We can let our horses drink there, and drink our fill ourselves.”

  Eagerly Zarathan asked, “Will we camp there? I’m starving.”

  Barnabas turned to Cyrus, the question in his eyes.

  Cyrus said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to scout it first. If it’s too close to the town, I think we should move on.”

  “It is close to town, or at least it was when I last passed through Gaza over twenty years ago.”

  The dune flattened out, and Barnabas fell into line behind them again. Kalay could hear him talking softly to Zarathan.

  She gently stroked her horse’s flank, apologizing for the fact that he would have to walk for another hour without a drink. At the feel of her hand, the bay swiveled his head to look at her.

  “It’s all right,” she soothed. “It won’t be long now.”

  The horse shook his head, and she wondered if it wasn’t his way of remarking, That’s what you said an hour ago.

  Cyrus patted the horse’s neck. “Kalay, I have a question for you. It’s about the papyrus. Did you notice that the word Selah breaks the pattern?”

  “I did. All of the other names, with the exception of the name for God, begin with the letter m.”

  “I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Do you?” He swiveled to look at her as best he could.

  “No. I suspect every letter means something.”

  “Do you have any idea why that word breaks the pattern?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s the seventh word.”

  “The seventh word? Why is that important?”

  She frowned at the back of his head. “Have you ever studied the Hebrew prophecies?”

  “Some. Why?”

  “The number seven is a sort of divine cipher. For example, along with the break, I also noticed that if you total all the letters through Selah, there are forty-three, which, when added together, four plus three, equal seven.”

  “So? What does it mean?”

  “Will you just listen for a moment? There are another twenty-eight letters after Selah, which equals ten. Two plus eight.”

  Cyrus didn’t say anything, but she could see he was thinking about it. “Are the numbers seven and ten important?”

  “Well, yes,” Kalay answered, a little taken aback. “Because seven times ten is seventy.”

  She gave him time to consider the implications while she watched a whirlwind spin across the road ahead of them. It was small, without much strength, and faded to a gust of sand a short time later.

  “Seventy,” he repeated as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

  Kalay sighed. “Think of the Book of Daniel.”

  Cyrus paused. “Ah. You mean the Seventy Weeks prophecy about the appointed End of Time?”

  “Yes. Daniel prophesied that there would follow seventy weeks of years after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians before the messiah came. Jerusalem was destroyed in the Jewish year 3284. One Sabbatical year equaled one ‘week,’ or seven ordinary years. The total period then, seventy times seven, was four hundred and ninety years. The final Sabbatical year, that is the last seven years of the world, began around the year, on your calendar, of twenty-six or twenty-seven. Your Lord and his followers believed the world was going to end in the year thirty-three or thirty-four.”76

  Cyrus pulled the horse to a sudden stop. “I didn’t know that.”

  “You would if you were Jewish. As your Lord was.”

  That seemed to stun him.

  Barnabas pulled his horse forward, glanced between them, and his elderly face tensed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Kalay and I were talking about the papyrus. The seventh word, Selah, breaks the pattern, and if you total all the letters through Selah it equals forty-three. Which—”

  “When added together,” Barnabas interrupted, “totals seven. What else?”

  “Kalay also noticed that there are twenty-eight letters after Selah, which—”

  “Equals ten, and ten times seven is seventy.”

  Cyrus’ mouth hung ajar. “Y
ou knew?”

  “That the papyrus might refer to the Seventy Weeks prophecy in Daniel, yes. But keep in mind that Selah could also be a simple musical stop. There are many selahs in the Psalms, for example, and that is what they are. When poems were sung, there had to be musical stops.”

  Cyrus’ gaze fixed on the horizon, as though it was a centering point for his thoughts. “But, it could also mean the papyrus is about the End of the World.”

  “Or the appearance of the messiah, who is supposed to herald the End,” Barnabas said.

  Zarathan peered around Barnabas’ shoulder. It amazed Kalay that his blue eyes retained their perpetual look of surprise. You’d think, after what they’d been through, he’d have gotten over that.

  In a grave voice, Zarathan said, “The papyrus map leads to the End of the World? I’m not sure I like that.”

  Cyrus said, “I thought you longed for the coming of the Kingdom?”

  “Well, yes, of course, I do. It’s just that the End of the World sounds so final.”

  Barnabas wiped his sweating forehead on his dirty sleeve. “Don’t worry, Zarathan. We don’t even know that it is a map.”

  Cyrus whispered, “The year 27. Isn’t that the year our Lord began his ministry?”

  Barnabas nodded. “Probably, although it might have been the year 28, or even 29, depending upon which gospel you believe.”77

  The last gleam of dusk faded, and as twilight settled over the desert, the shadows of the dunes took on a faintly purple hue.

  Cyrus said, “It’s no wonder our Lord says his own generation would live to see the Apocalypse, and Petros wrote that the end of all things was at hand. They truly believed that they had accurately calculated the Seventy Weeks prophecy.”

  “And I’m sure they did,” Kalay noted, perhaps a little too gleefully. “Unfortunately, the prophecy was bunk, and you monkish fools have wasted three centuries waiting for the End, instead of living fruitful lives the way God intended.”

  The tone in her voice must have frightened the horses. They both stamped and shook their heads, jingling their reins, which sounded loud in the desert quiet.

  Barnabas patted his horse’s neck. He whispered something Kalay couldn’t hear, but the animal calmed down.