Unholy Night

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:

And a great cry went up to Moses. “Why have you led us here?” they said. “Were there no more graves in Egypt? Have you brought us into the desert to wither and die?” And Moses said, “I was commanded by the Lord to lead you here, for you were the slaves of a cruel pharaoh — and it is better to die in the desert than die a slave.”

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.

“Do not be afraid,” said Moses. “Stand firm, and the Lord will stand with you. Be still, and he will fight for you.”

“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.”