Unholy Night Read online

  “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.”

  “I’m not trying to argue. I just…I’ve never met a man who didn’t believe in God.”

  Balthazar turned and glared at her. Mary was surprised by the contempt on his furrowed face.

  “Of course you haven’t,” he said. “You’re a stupid little girl from a stupid little village of zealots. This is the real world.”

  “But a life without God is…”

  “Is what? What’s so great about your God? You tell me what’s so great about a God that does nothing while infants get run through with swords. Swords held by his devoted followers, by the way. You tell me what kind of God that is.”

  Mary had no answer.

  “Either I’m right,” he continued, “and he doesn’t exist, or you’re right, and he’s the kind of God who watches children die. The kind of God who sits around while men like Herod build palaces and good people starve. Either way, he’s not worth worshipping.”

  Mary sat in silence. She’d never heard anyone denounce the Lord. Of course he existed. To think otherwise would be to admit that everything she believed was a lie. Worse, it would mean that she was crazy. But Balthazar’s words were confusing.

  “All men need something to believe in,” she said at last.

  Without looking, Balthazar reached down and pulled his sword out of its sheath.

  “Well…you have your weapon,” said Mary, “and I have mine.”

  Balthazar put the sword away and turned back to the desert ahead.

  “I like mine better,” he said.

  V

  Night had come to the desert.

  Ten thousand Roman soldiers stood in formation, flames reflected in their polished helmets and shields, all of them facing a makeshift altar of piled stones. As Pilate predicted, they’d reached the shores of Judea in less than two days. Faster than most of the assembled men thought possible. Some were calling it a miracle. But it was only a taste of the extraordinary things to come.

  Two great pyres burned before them—one on either side of the altar, where the magus stood over the body of a sacrificial lamb. Its throat had been cut and its blood drained into a bowl. As the men watched, the magus dipped his finger in the blood and used it to draw a line across his own forehead. He dipped a second time and traced it along the brass serpent that topped his walking staff.

  “Nehushtan…,” he whispered.

  To the Romans, it was nothing more than a strange word. They wouldn’t have recognized it from the Book of Exodus, nor known that the brass serpent they were looking upon—the Nehushtan—had been cast by Moses himself. Created to adorn the walking stick he’d used to guide his people through the desert. It was a relic of untold age and power. How the magus came to possess it was a mystery.

  He raised the bowl to his lips and drank a mouthful of the lamb’s blood, then walked to the pyre on his right, so close to the flames that his robes billowed in the heated air. He held the staff out in front of his body, until the snake was fully enveloped in fire. The lamb’s blood on its surface blackened, then burned away. The magus chanted to himself, his words growing faster, as Pilate and his fellow officers looked on from the side of the altar.

  Did the snake just…move?

  At first, the men thought it was a trick of the light. Until, to their amazement, the brass snake slowly uncoiled itself and wound its way onto the magus’s arm. A few of the enlisted men broke ranks and fled, terrified by what they saw. What darkness is this? What gods are at work? But Pilate stood his ground, even as the Nehushtan wound its way down the magus’s body and onto the desert floor. He didn’t know how it was possible. He didn’t care. He only knew he was one step closer to his prize.

  The magus stood before the altar with his eyes closed, reciting an ancient incantation over and over, guiding the beast at it slithered off into the desert…

  Hunting.

  Balthazar sat near the mouth of a cramped cave, keeping watch over the vast expanse of desert. The others were sleeping behind him. All except one.

  “Get some sleep,” said Joseph, who’d come to join him. “It’s more important you be rested than me. I can keep watch for a while.”

  Balthazar considered the faint, moonlit outline of Joseph’s face. The young, bearded face of a village woodworker. They were about the same age, but they couldn’t have been more different.

  “I’ll stay,” said Balthazar. “No offense, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing it was you keeping watch.”

  Joseph smiled and sat beside him.

  “You think I’m weak.”

  “I think you’re naïve.”

  “And what have I done to make you think this?”

  “You believe the impossible.”

  Ah…this again. The man who mocks others for believing the word of God.

  “So I’m naïve because I believe the Scriptures?”

  “No…you’re naïve because you believe her.”

  It took a moment for Joseph to untangle what Balthazar had said and get his meaning. When he did, his face darkened, and his mind wandered back to what had been the hardest few days of his life. The days back in Nazareth, when his happiness had been shattered and his faith tested to its limit. And all because his young bride-to-be had come to him with a tearful confession.

  “I didn’t, you know,” Joseph said at last.

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Believe her. Not when she first told me, anyway. I wanted to, of course. Desperately. But…”

  “But?”

  “I’m a patient man, but to believe such a thing…like you said…it was impossible.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  Joseph thought about it for a moment. What was it she’d said again?

  “She told me,” said Joseph, “that she had woken to the whispering voice of a man.”

  “Not a promising start.”

  “She told me that she’d followed the voice outside, only to find that the night had turned bright as day. And yet the streets of Nazareth were barren. There was no sound. No rustling of olive trees or birdsong.”

  “A dream.” />
  “But as real as any dream she’d ever had. As real as the two of us sitting here in this cave. Mary told me that she’d seen a man approaching. A shimmering, radiant man who seemed to step out of the sun itself and walk toward her. A man not of this earth…a man with wings.”

  Balthazar tried to hide the chill that touched his spine on hearing those words.

  “And before he even opened his mouth,” said Joseph, “Mary told me that she knew—knew with absolute certainty—that his name was Gabriel, archangel of the Lord.”

  “Gabriel?”

  “‘Rejoice, you highly favored one,’ he told her. ‘The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son. And the holy one who is born from you will be called the son of God.’”

  “That’s it? That’s what she told you?”

  “I knew it was a lie. I knew. I thought, ‘No, it’s worse than a lie. A lie could be forgiven. This was blasphemy! God born of a woman!’ I could see only two possibilities: one, that Mary had known another man, whether by her choice or not, and invented the story to explain her condition. Or two, that she suddenly dreaded the idea of being my wife and was trying to scare me off. But I thought, if she dreaded me that much, why has she seemed so happy until now? It didn’t make sense.”

  “Women never do.”

  “But then I realized that there was a third possibility: that Mary had gone mad. That she actually believed what she’d told me. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt in my heart that this was the real answer. She’d told her story with such conviction. Her face had never wavered; her eyes had never lied, even as her lips did. Maybe it was just that I wanted to believe anything other than the thought of, you know…”

  “I know.”

  “But what could I do? If I turned my back on her, I knew exactly what would happen. I’d seen it before: adulterous women dragged out of their homes, made to stand against a wall as the men gathered up stones. I’d seen those women with their skulls cracked open, with their brains dashed out, left to die alone. As much as I refused to believe Mary, I couldn’t condemn her to death. I thought, ‘I could always tell them that I was the father.’ But to admit that we’d been together before marriage? We would’ve been exiled from the only home we’d ever known. Shunned by the people we loved.”

  “So you married her anyway.”

  “No. I mourned. I mourned the life that could’ve been. Everything had been perfect, you understand. But in the space of one cursed day, my future had been narrowed down to three possibilities: either I would be the husband of an adulteress, the keeper of an unwilling bride, or the guardian of a madwoman. Three possibilities—each one worse than the last. But then? A miracle.”

  This time, Balthazar had to consciously keep himself from rolling his eyes.

  “That night,” said Joseph, “as I wrestled with these three possibilities, the angel Gabriel visited me and showed me a fourth possibility: that what Mary had told me was true. That the Messiah was growing in her womb and that I was to be his guardian.”

  Balthazar sat in silence for a good deal of time. Clearly, the carpenter was also out of his mind. Yes, he’d probably had some kind of vision—a vivid dream brought on by desperation. A desperation to believe anything but the painful truth. Balthazar had experienced visions of his own. Things he would’ve sworn were real at the time. It had happened to him as a boy, when he’d dug up bodies on the far side of the Orontes. It had happened to him while he suffered through his recent surgery. The difference was, he had the ability to discern dreams from reality. Visions presented themselves all the time. Dreams came, fully formed. But they were just that—dreams. Nothing more. And the carpenter was naïve for thinking otherwise.

  “Well,” said Joseph, “let me know if you change your mind about getting some sleep.”

  With that, he excused himself and retreated farther into the cramped cave—disappearing into the darkness. Balthazar flirted with the idea of calling after him. Of keeping him close by so he could spend some more time mocking him for his stupidity. But what was the use? No…leave the little man to his little delusions. It wasn’t worth the energy.

  Balthazar sat alone at the mouth of the cave, searching the darkness with his eyes and ears. Looking for the low stars of far-off torches. Listening for the distant beating of hooves and the clanging of armor.

  But not the slithering of a brass snake rendered living by an ancient darkness.

  If Balthazar had, by chance, turned his attention to the desert floor, he might have seen the Nehushtan slither past him, then off into the black desert with its message:

  I’ve found them.…

  8

  Miracle of the Bowing Palms

  “They shoot from ambush at the innocent; they shoot suddenly, without fear.”

  —Psalm 64:4

  I

  Herod was feeling much better.

  Though it was nearly midday, he was still in his bedchamber, his head propped up on silk cushions, his chest shining with scented oils. He was awake, but his eyes remained peacefully closed as he breathed deeply of the healing vapors, just as his physicians had instructed him to do. Herod was usually loath to follow their advice. They’d proven useless in ridding him of his cursed disease, after all. Despite all of their so-called remedies and potions and rituals, his skin remained covered in oozing lesions, and his ribs stuck out of his emaciated chest like dunes in the desert sand. Even so, Herod had to admit that his physicians had done well in ridding him of the raw throat he’d given himself while screaming. He was feeling so good, in fact, that he’d decided to stay in bed on the “pleasure” side of his twin palace today. His “business” palace, with all its duplicitous courtesans, unsettled disputes, and ceaseless bad news, would wait. Today would be a day of rest. Of pleasure. He deserved it. He deserved something new.

  And here she was.

  Sitting on the bed beside him. A girl he’d never seen before. A girl of twelve, thirteen at the most, her body not yet a womanly shape. Here she was, sitting beside her sickly king, dropping dried figs into his mouth, one at a time. Herod savored each sweet specimen, chewing them slowly, loudly between his blackened teeth—his eyes closed all the while. He’d stolen a glance at this nameless little beauty when she’d entered, carrying her basket of foods and ointments. She’d been fully clothed then. Now her robes sat in a heap around her waist, her bare breasts red from where Herod had playfully pinched them between his fingers. He continued to feel his way around her body, his eyes closed. Chewing his figs with a faint smile on his lips. But it wasn’t the feel of her young, warm secrets that made him smile. It was knowing that he had Augustus Caesar, the world’s most powerful man, right where he wanted him.

  Herod’s instincts had proven themselves once again. Only days after his messenger had left for Rome, letter in hand, no fewer than 10,000 Roman soldiers had landed on Judea’s shores. This in itself was something of a miracle. Even Herod couldn’t have imagined such a quick response. But that was Rome. Decisive. Overwhelming. You had to hand it to them—right or wrong, they were never perfunctory.

  Herod wasn’t stupid. He’d known that the emperor didn’t like or trust him. Just as he’d known that Augustus wouldn’t be able to resist his letter and the chance it gave him to make a show of his might. He’ll want to frighten me, Herod had thought before sending the letter. Remind me that I’m nothing more than a sniveling little puppet king who’s lucky to have his throne. But far from feeling frightened or inferior, Herod now found himself filled with a deep sense of accomplishment and pride.

  He’d killed two birds with one stone: He’d flattered Augustus, and at the same time, he’d turned the Ghost and the infant into Rome’s problem. Let the emperor think what he wanted to think. What mattered were facts. And the fact was, Herod was sitting here in bed, being hand-fed by a naked girl while the Romans were dragging themselves through the desert looking for his fugitives. He couldn’t help but smile
at the thought. A legion of the emperor’s best troops, running Judea’s errands.

  Your little “puppet” has outsmarted you, Augustus.

  There was, however, one little piece of the puzzle that Herod hadn’t anticipated: this “dark priest.” There were rumors of a soothsayer traveling with the Romans, a magician of some kind. Rumors of a ritual in the desert. A bloody sacrifice, a brass snake. Herod’s advisors had come to him with these rumors. They’d warned him that the Romans had brought something strange across the sea. Something that had frightened many of the men who’d witnessed it. And while Herod had been surprised to hear of Romans appealing to the gods for anything, he hadn’t allowed himself to share in their concern. So what? The Jews had their prophets. The Greeks had their oracles. Let the Romans have their priests.

  She wants me…I can feel it.…

  Herod opened his yellowed eyes and took her in. The fear on her face. The tears. Why do they cry, even when their bodies are joyous at my touch?

  In some kingdoms, it was customary for young girls to lie with their king. In some kingdoms—and Herod had heard these stories firsthand, so he had no doubts as to their veracity—all girls were sent to live in the royal harem when they came of childbearing age. They were forbidden from returning home or taking husbands until they’d first given themselves to their king. The Romans called it ius primae noctis—“law of the first night.”

  Herod knew the Jews would never stand for such a custom. Even if they did, Judea was a big kingdom. There were too many girls, and he was only one king. So he’d been selective instead, sending his men into the city streets, into the villages to find the most fetching creatures, to bestow upon them the honor of serving their king. And here was one of the honored now, feeding him on his silken bed.