Unholy Night

“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?”

“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.