He would meet them head-on, take as many of them as he could. For the second time in as many minutes, Balthazar charged toward certain death, his sword held high. Screaming. For the second time in as many minutes, he crashed headlong and hopelessly into a tidal wave of bodies. Into the blinding wall of flailing limbs and clanging armor.
The last thing he remembered was a brief struggle, a sharp pain.
Then… peace at last.
And Abdi with his arms around him, telling him it was going to be all right.
11
No Accidents
“I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you — when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.”
I
Herod reclined with his eyes closed, enjoying the gentle swaying motion of his traveling chair. A baby being rocked to sleep. He was on his way to his summer palace, a favorite retreat on the shores of the Mediterranean, where the onshore breezes carried the cooling mist of crashing waves, and the songs of seabirds calmed any nerves that might have been frayed in the lion’s den of Jerusalem. And though he couldn’t hear the waves beating against coastal rocks just yet, Herod knew they were getting close, for he could already smell the salt in the air. He breathed deeply of it. Savored it. It was, perhaps, the sweetest thing he’d ever smelled.
All was right with the world.
Somewhere, on the other side of his chair’s wine-colored curtains, the prisoner was being dragged across the desert, naked. Humiliated and bloodied. He was being urinated on by Roman soldiers as his body scraped over grains of sand and patches of dry grass. He was being pelted with rocks and insults alike. Soon, he would be submitted to the most unimaginable suffering the empire could conjure, before being exiled to the wasteland of death. The “Antioch Ghost” would be just that. And this was good. Without their protector, the remaining fugitives would soon be captured. And this was also good. But it wasn’t nearly as good as what was going on
For the first time in years, Herod the Great was getting… better. He could feel it happening by the minute, mile by mile. The oozing lesions of his skin — those old familiar bloody scabs and pus-filled nodules — were receding with unnatural speed, and his skin had begun to trade its sickly pallor for a healthy olive hue. His hearing was clearer, his muscles stronger, his hair already a shade darker, his teeth a shade whiter, and his mind a notch sharper. His eyes, clouded over for so long, were suddenly as clear and wet as the day he’d taken the throne.
It was a miracle. But not a miracle of any god. This was the magic of man, freeing him from the false imprisonment of nature. It was more than a miracle; it was a confirmation of everything Herod believed. Confirmation that the time of the old myths and old gods was at an end. That the New World was a place where miracles would be performed by men.
A world in which there was no more need for gods.
Back in the Roman camp, Herod had approached the magus with a simple proposition. One that had popped into his head, as if in a dream.
His decision to involve Rome in his domestic troubles had turned disastrous. But there was an opportunity in every crisis, and once again, Herod’s mind had revealed the silver lining in the clouds around him. He’d been careful to make this proposition away from the eager ears of Pontius Pilate — for Herod knew that the faithful Roman imperator wouldn’t like what he had to say.
Unaccompanied by his usual cadre of courtesans and guards, Herod had let himself into the magus’s large, lush tent. There, he’d found the dark priest alone in his sleeping gown, sitting with his back facing the tent flap, lit by the glow of oil lamps and engaged in the rather unmagical act of stuffing his face with cooked lamb.
“Augustus doesn’t appreciate you,” Herod began.
The magus stopped in midbite. He dabbed his mouth and turned toward Herod, slowly.
“Don’t take it personally,” said Herod when the magus had completed his slow, mystical turn. “He doesn’t appreciate me, either.”
He stepped all the way inside and let the flap close behind him.
“I’m not saying I blame him. Let’s be clear about that. It’s not an easy thing for a powerful man to put his faith in others. Even I can be too self-reliant at times, too stubborn. It’s part of being a leader of men. But the Romans… the Romans have a particular gift for believing themselves superior to
He stepped closer, hoping to better gauge the magus’s expression through his cloudy eyes. But there was no expression to gauge. The magus remained statuesque and cautious.
“Do you know who I am?” asked Herod.
The magus gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
“Then you know how much I have to lose by saying what I’m saying.”
The magus studied him a moment or two, and then gave another, even smaller nod. Herod smiled and helped himself to a seat, taking extra care to steady himself this time.
He knew how to speak to these mystics. On the outside, they wore their piety like a crown, eschewed the trivial pleasures of earthly life and cultivated an air of mystery around themselves. Take the magus. He didn’t speak — not for some ailment or want of a tongue, but for the aura it created around him. Yes, there was all that nonsense about ancient vows of silence and keeping one’s voice pure for spells and so on. But really, being a mystic was no different than being a king: The more powerful people believed you were, the more powerful you were. And this little gimmick worked, because most men were weak-minded. Most men were sheep.
But not Herod.
Yes, the magus knew a few tricks. Yes, it seemed that he could bend the rules of nature to his will. And there was value in that. But in the end, he was a man — and men were men. They had the same weaknesses and desires, whether they wore the robes of kings, peasants, or priests.
“You and I,” said Herod. “We’re men the world no longer needs.”
He waited for a reaction. A raised eyebrow, a squint of puzzlement. Anything. But the magus gave him nothing.
“The world doesn’t care about magic anymore,” he continued. “It doesn’t care about priests or withered old kings and their little kingdoms. All it cares about is Rome and its emperor. The world exists to serve him.
There was no going back now. This was treasonous territory.
“Alone,” Herod continued, “the two of us, we’re… nothing. Me, a king who’s lived through two Caesars, who’s ruled my little kingdom with Rome’s permission. You, a conjurer who’s been kept locked away like a suit of
