Unholy Night

I

The spirit that had once called itself “Balthazar” was swimming.

Swimming through an ocean without end, an ocean of space and time, where all that had ever been and all that ever would be converged into one. As Balthazar looked up at its infinite, shimmering surface, he could see the whole of creation reflected back, every detail of the universe — from the stars in the heavens to the smallest insects of the earth. He could see every moment of his past and future. But as he swam, his movement created ripples in these images, warping them into ever-changing suggestions of the truth: Here was the man again, leading an animal through the desert… the woman on its back. Here was the distant star in the heavens and the trees with a secret. Here was the face from his past.…

And the faster Balthazar swam, the farther into the future he went. The stronger the ripples became, the harder those reflections were to see: Here was an army of strange soldiers and a wooden beam, splitting in two. Here was a great city in flames and his brother, Abdi, as a grown man. At least that’s what it looked like.

Balthazar was suddenly aware that he was no longer swimming. He was flying — floating above the earth, as if carried by a pair of outstretched wings. The shimmering surface he’d been looking up at was now miles below him, and the whole Judean Desert — no, all of Judea — stretched out as far as his eyes could see. Deep ravines were suddenly nothing more than jagged little lines in the sand. Soaring mountains were suddenly scaled with the tip of a finger. He could see flocks of birds beneath him, flying in formation above the waters of the Jordan River. He could see the tops of clouds and the shadows they cast on the desert floor.

Balthazar had never felt such peace. Such freedom.

I’m descending.…

The tops of the clouds were growing closer. Almost close enough to skim with his outstretched feet. Closer… until the birds were above him, and Balthazar was immersed in the dense fog of the clouds themselves. And when he broke through the bottom, the desert was much closer than it had been. Close enough to make out the scattered bits of green that had managed to push their way through the rocks… and close enough to see the tiny procession of Judean soldiers and cavalry below.

No…

The victorious captain and his hundred men, trekking from Bethel to Jerusalem with their unconscious prisoner in tow.

No, not there!

Balthazar could feel himself being pulled out of this glorious world, could feel the memory of his former self come flooding back. And he could see the prisoner beginning to come around.…

No… no, I don’t want to trade places with him! I want to stay up here! I want to st —

Balthazar woke up retching. He felt the muscles of his stomach contracting against his will and its contents climbing up his throat. Instinct told him to cup his hands, but his hands told him they were still tied behind his back. He thought about fighting the urge — thought about bearing down and commanding his muscles to obey. But it was too late. His body had taken the reins. He was just a passenger now. And so the paltry contents of his stomach were ejected over his chin, down his front, and onto the tail of the horse below. The horse he was riding backward.

This was immediately followed by a chorus of cackling and harassment on all sides. And though Balthazar couldn’t see the men who were laughing and hurling insults at him, as his eyes were still only half open and flooded with the involuntary tears of his involuntary purge, he had a pretty good idea who they were. Just like he had a pretty good idea where he was, and how he’d gotten here.

He’d been knocked out with a blow to the head. That much was obvious, thanks to the blurred vision and the skull that throbbed in a way he’d never thought skulls could throb — the pain broadcasting all the way to the tips of his fingers. And while he wasn’t able to check at the moment, on account of his hands being tied, Balthazar also suspected that the hair he felt clinging to his scalp was glued there with dried blood. He was dizzy and nauseated from the force of the blow and from dehydration — judging by his maddening thirst and cracked lips. His neck was too stiff to turn more than a few degrees in either direction.

No, they’d cracked him on the skull, no doubt about it. And while he’d been off swimming through the infinite, Balthazar’s unconscious body had been lifted onto a soldier’s horse, their waists tied together so he wouldn’t slip off. Why they’d put him on backward was a bit of a mystery. He could only assume it was some kind of insult. Something the Judean cavalry had dreamt up for its prisoners maybe. But whether it was tradition or an insult improvised at the last minute, it was effective. Besides being generally disorienting, it gave the soldiers behind him a clear shot at his face, which they used to mock him with words and gestures.

Also, having one’s nose directly above a horse’s ass wasn’t pleasant either.

But obscene gestures and the persistent smell of manure aside, Balthazar was alive. For the moment, anyway. He was almost certain they were headed toward Herod’s Palace in Jerusalem, where he’d be presented like the prize that he was and then killed in any number of terrible ways before the day was out.

If he could only turn around, Balthazar was sure he’d find Captain Peter riding at the front of the pack, grinning ear to ear, silently rehearsing his grand presentation to his king and counting the reward money in his head. Herod would do a little gloating, and then order Balthazar executed on the spot — that was, assuming the festering wound on his scalp didn’t kill him first.

As the sun baked the last drops of moisture out of his body, Balthazar replayed the day’s events in his aching head — a forensic accounting of every action and reaction. A study of what had gone wrong. Had it been the attempt to calm the bathing women instead of running away and finding another place to hide? Should he have taken on the ten soldiers behind the bathhouse instead of climbing up the side of the building? Stolen a horse instead of a camel? Should he have given Flavia that knock on the head when he’d had the chance?

I never should’ve gone to Damascus.

That had been the real error in judgment, hadn’t it. That was the decision that had ultimately led his nose to a horse’s ass. If he’d never gone to Damascus, he never would’ve heard about Tel Arad and its corrupt governor. But he had gone, chasing down his one weakness. That one elusive piece of treasure… the same piece he’d been chasing for years.

The pendant…

Balthazar had followed rumors of its existence all over the empire, and those rumors had always — always — proved to be a waste of time. He should’ve known Damascus would be the same. He should’ve stayed put in Crete, which had been good to him in so many ways. But whenever that old rumor found him, no matter how unsubstantiated or far away it was, Balthazar dropped everything and chased after his little flittering gold purpose in life.

That was the real tragedy here. Not that Balthazar would die. But that he’d die before he found it. Before he finished what he’d set out to do. What he’d sworn to do.

II

The eastern approach to Jerusalem was the real jaw-dropper. The one that led you over the Mount of Olives and into the Kidron Valley, the whole city revealing itself at once, rising from the desert, with the Great Temple in the foreground. But even here, from the north, Jerusalem struck an impressive sight.

Herod the Great may have been famous for his excessive cruelty and lavish lifestyle. He may have been decried for being a puppet of Rome and hated for his heavy taxation. But even his fiercest enemies had to admit — the man was one hell of a builder.

As a young king, Herod had learned that there was no scandal, no discontent that a few shiny new buildings couldn’t hush away. And over his thirty-year reign, he’d used this philosophy to transform much of Judea — building temples and coliseums, improving roads, and building aqueducts to carry fresh water to his subjects. But while Judea was his kingdom, Jerusalem was his showroom. The place he’d transformed from the little city of Solomon into one of the Marvels of the East.

Since he’d taken power, there’d seldom been a time when the city had fewer than three massive building projects under way. Many wouldn’t even be completed in his lifetime. It didn’t matter. Placating his Jewish subjects wasn’t Herod’s only priority. It wasn’t even his top priority. What Herod really wanted was Rome’s attention. He wanted to create a city so grand, so indispensable, that even the mighty Augustus would be proud to call it home. A city worthy of being called “the Rome of the East.” And he wanted his sons, his grandsons, and their grandsons to rule over it for all time, each generation praising the name of the visionary king who’d started it all.

And who was to say? In time, maybe his descendants would build a whole empire of their own. Maybe the children of Augustus would find themselves kneeling before the children of Herod, instead of the other way around.

Jerusalem was home to some 150,000 people. Still little more than a suburb when compared to Rome’s million-plus inhabitants, but it was on its way to becoming one of the grandest cities in the empire — right up there with Alexandria and Antioch. And with the census in full swing, its population had swelled to nearly twice its usual size.

The hordes barely noticed as Balthazar was paraded through the packed streets — streets that had changed so drastically, even in his lifetime. Where Balthazar remembered nothing but dirt, Herod’s amphitheater now rose more than a hundred feet off the ground, its stage home to the newest works from Rome and Greece. There was the Antonia Fortress, which Herod had named in honor of his friend and patron Marc Antony; the monument to King David, who’d ruled from this very city a thousand years before Herod’s birth; and, of course, there was Herod’s Temple — the city’s biggest, most stunning feature.

A city unto itself, the temple took up nearly half of Jerusalem’s eastern border. The outer walls measured 1,600 feet by 950 feet and rose 100 feet above the ground. Those walls supported a collection of inner courtyards and buildings, all of which surrounded the gleaming, white marble temple in the center. The biggest of these was the Court of the Gentiles, with its money changers and barbers; its priests scurrying about in their white robes; and merchants selling sacrificial animals, food, and souvenirs to the throngs of pilgrims.

At the center of it all was the temple itself — a white marble tower, from which the smoke of burning sheep and doves never ceased to rise. Unlike the noise and activity of the complex around it, the temple and its walled-in courtyards were strictly for worship and sacrifice, and strictly for the faithful. Non-Jews were expressly forbidden, on punishment of death, from setting foot inside. Even Herod would’ve risked a riot if he’d insisted on entering. For though he’d officially converted to Judaism when he took power, he was still considered an Arab by most of the local population.

The temple was the grandest flourish of Herod’s grand flourishes. But while he publicly boasted of the house he’d built to honor God, he was privately fondest of the house he’d built to honor himself: his palace in the Upper City.

Herod had palaces throughout Judea. In Caesarea near the Mediterranean coast and in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. In Masada and Jericho. Each one beautiful and grand. But even though some of these palaces were bigger than his home in Jerusalem, none of them approached its magnificence. Like the Great Temple, it was built on a raised platform, a rectangle measuring nearly 1,000 feet long and 200 feet wide, and surrounded by high walls and guard towers. Officially, it was built as a fortress to protect the Upper City, on Jerusalem’s west side, from invading forces. In reality, it was an offering from a mighty king unto himself. The towers were spaced evenly along the four walls. Each had a name. One for the king’s brother, one for a friend, and one for his beloved second wife, Mariamne.

Mariamne… oh, what a beauty she’d been. Oh, how Herod had loved her. And oh, what a shame that he’d been forced to have her executed. And the man he’d suspected her of having an affair with. And her brother. And the two sons she’d borne him, lest they grow up to resent their father for having their mother executed. Mind you, it hadn’t given Herod pleasure to do this. Ordering one’s own children put to death was one of the more unsavory of a king’s duties. But, as Herod was fond of telling his remaining sons, “Emotion is emotion, and politics is politics, and one has nothing to do with the other.”

Now all that remained of Herod’s favorite wife was a guard tower bearing her name above the north gate. The gate through which Balthazar was unceremoniously led into Herod’s Palace for the first and last time in his life. Backward. Covered in his own blood and vomit.

Thirty-three years later, another man would be paraded through the same gate to face another Herod — also covered in his own blood, and also on the way to his death.

Once Captain Peter and his men were inside the palace walls, Balthazar was finally untethered from his chaperone and lowered to the ground, still slightly dizzy and very thirsty. It took a moment to steady himself, especially since his hands were still tied behind his back.

After gaining his balance, Balthazar turned away from the north gate… and found himself transported to another world. A world almost as surreal and infinite as the one he’d flown through in his dreams. It was a world of lush green and cool marble. A world of polished bronze fountains and meticulously groomed dogs. It was, simply, paradise on earth. The Garden of Eden, rediscovered at last.

Inside the rectangular outer walls, the interior grounds were divided down the middle into two smaller, perfectly symmetrical rectangles — each half mirroring the other down to the smallest detail. And while outsiders probably imagined Herod’s Palace as a single structure behind those walls, just as Balthazar had, there were actually two identical, sprawling palaces inside — both facing each other across a vast rectangular courtyard.

Running down both sides of the courtyard, covered walkways and rows of neatly planted trees offered shade in the hottest months. And when those weren’t enough, a pair of circular pools — each fed by identical bronze fountains — stood ready to provide relief from the heat.

Balthazar knew at once why Herod had built two identical palaces. One of them undoubtedly contained his throne room, where he held court, threw official banquets, and greeted foreign dignitaries. And where he dreams up new atrocities to commit against his people and lives in fear of a man 1,000 miles away. This palace was distinguished by the courtiers, military officers, and wise men — a title that covered a broad range of functions, from advisor to physician, but that usually referred to priests — milling about in front of it.

Across the courtyard, some 300 feet away, the other palace served as Herod’s private residence, with apartments for his wives, his sons and their wives, heated baths, and a personal harem of some forty women — all of whom he’d “recruited” from the local population and not one of whom was older than sixteen. This palace was distinguished by the hordes of children playing and young women sunning themselves in front. Two palaces. One business and one pleasure.

You had to give the man credit. He was one hell of a builder.

Predictably, Balthazar was led toward the business palace by his soldier escorts. But business aside, there was scarcely a doubt in his mind that Herod was going to take plenty of pleasure in killing him.

III

Balthazar had assumed he would be led straight into the throne room. Paraded before Herod for a minute or two, mocked, perhaps tortured, depending on the king’s mood, and executed for the amusement of all. Quick and easy.

But the king was a busy man, and even a prisoner of Balthazar’s stature had to wait for an appointment. Here he was in an antechamber, almost an hour after arriving at the palace, sitting on a stone bench just outside the closed doors of the throne room. Judean soldiers sat on either side of him, their captain pacing nervously nearby, silently rehearsing his presentational speech. And designing the new house you’re going to build with all that money, you self-righteous —

“This again!” someone screamed.

The gravelly, muffled voice had come from the other side of the throne room doors.

Herod.

It had to be. Who else would scream like that in a throne room?

It was funny — the two of them shared so much history, caused each other so much grief. Yet they’d never seen each other in person. Balthazar had no idea what his nemesis looked like. Sure, there was the familiar profile stamped on all those coins — and the mosaics and the carvings and the statues. But in Balthazar’s experience, those likenesses tended to be a bit flattering when compared to the real things.

Even through the closed doors, Balthazar and the Judean soldiers — who did their best not to look like they were listening — could make out every word:

“Thirty years!” the gravelly voice continued. “For thirty years I’ve built this city into what it is! I’ve shepherded Judea into a new age! But no matter what I do — no matter how many glorious monuments I build to honor their God — I’m still forced to listen to this! This nonsense! This treason!”

“And when the Great Temple has been rebuilt,” said a calmer voice, quoting the prophecies, “when the city of David has been overrun and the ruins of Judea born anew, the Messiah shall appear — born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem.”

“Yes… I’ve heard it all before.”

“And with him the dead shall rise, and the plagues of old retur — ”

“You’re wasting your breath.”

“The plagues of old return to smite the nonbelievers. The kings of the earth shall be rendered powerless, and a voice shall be heard, the voice of mothers weeping for their children, because they are no more.”

“I said ENOUGH!”

A short silence followed the outburst. Then, in a more conversational tone, the gravelly voice continued. “If I heeded the warnings of every screaming prophet in this city, I would drive myself mad in an hour’s time. I will not cower before old superstitions.”

“All the same, Your Highness, never have there been so many signs from so many prophecies: the temple rebuilt, the cities of Judea born anew, the crowds in Jerusalem for the census. All that remains to be seen is a light in the east.”

“And what would you have me do? Would you have me go and tell Augustus that he should fear a child who may or may not exist? That Rome should recall its mighty armies from Gaul and Germania and lay siege to the town of Bethlehem? Do you have any idea what a fool he would think me?”

“The prophecy is clear, Your Highness. The Messiah shall topple all the kingdoms of the world. Even yours.”

There was a loud crash. The sound of something being knocked (or more likely kicked) over. Something metal. From the sound of the impact and the resulting smaller clangs, Balthazar guessed it was a table, from which several chalices and serving platters had fallen.

A considerably longer silence followed. Balthazar caught a few of the Judean soldiers trading nervous glances.

When Herod finally spoke again, it was to issue an order:

“There will be no more talk of Messiahs.”

IV

A cry went up through the town of Bethlehem, reverberating through the torch-lit houses in the village and the caves that had been carved into the hills above it many thousands of years earlier. It was brief and sharp, and it came from a small stable on the north side of the little town. A stable that was unremarkable in every way — except for the star that shone directly over it in the high heavens, brighter than any in the eastern sky. A star that hadn’t been there an hour before.

Joseph and Mary felt like every innkeeper in the Upper City had turned them away. Every house had been full to bursting, every room taken, every patch of bare earth spoken for. With Mary’s contractions growing more frequent and Joseph’s fuse growing shorter, they’d given up on Jerusalem and taken the road south to Bethlehem — where, rumor had it, there were still a few spaces for smaller families.

But Bethlehem had proven every bit as full, and they’d been turned away from the first two places they inquired. With the sky growing dark, Mary no longer able to ride or walk, and Joseph ready to throw up his hands and curse every man in Judea, an old shepherd and his sons had taken pity on them. And though the shepherd’s home — like all the homes in the area — was packed with boarders and relatives for the census, he’d offered them the cramped stables behind it. After laying out some fresh straw and water and hanging a small oil lamp, he’d left them alone. The birth of a child was a sacred, private affair. No place for men or strangers.

And there they were. Surrounded by the stench of animals. The glow of a single flame. A fitting place for the birth of a king, thought Joseph.

If they’d been in Nazareth, Mary would have been attended by the women of the village. She would’ve been comforted by familiar faces and voices and surrounded by those with years of childbearing experience. But here she was utterly alone. A fifteen-year-old girl, lying on hard straw and the few blankets they’d carried across the desert, sweating and pushing her way through the worst pain she’d ever known.

There had been times — many times — throughout the night when Mary had been convinced something was wrong. It’s not supposed to be this hard, this painful. It’s not supposed to take this long. I must be doing something wrong. And there had been times — many times — throughout the night when Joseph had been close to rushing in. But he couldn’t. It was forbidden. He couldn’t lay eyes on her in such an indecent state. He couldn’t touch her when she was unclean. And so he’d done the only thing he could — he’d shouted words of encouragement to her through the stable walls, and prayed.

The infant had cried at first, an announcement of health. A cry that had echoed across Bethlehem. A voice that shall be heard the world over, Mary thought as she held the baby to her chest. And then it had been silent. Calm. It had looked into Mary’s eyes for a moment. Not the all-knowing look of an all-knowing God, but merely the quizzical look of an exhausted infant. Then it had slept.

Mary and Joseph lay beside each other, watching the baby sleep as the sun peeked through the slats in the stable walls, and the animals around them began to stir.

It was tradition that a male child’s name not be spoken aloud until its eighth day. The day of its circumcision. But there was no need to speak.

The angel had told both of them what to name the child.

V

The doors to Herod’s throne room were finally opened, and Balthazar was ushered in to meet his punishment, with Captain Peter proudly leading the way.

The throne room was every bit as symmetrical and rectangular as the rest of the palace grounds, with the doors on one end and the throne on the other, so as to make guests walk the maximum distance for added dramatic effect. But unlike the lush paradise he’d seen outside, Balthazar found the interior cold and drab by comparison. Stone columns lined both sides of the narrow passage. Daylight filtered in through the windows behind those columns and from the large, square opening in the center of the ceiling, some forty feet above. At night, the torches and lamps mounted along the length of the room would provide ample light and heat, although Balthazar guessed that Herod didn’t spend much time in here after dark. Why would he, with a whole pleasure palace waiting across the courtyard?

As they neared the throne, Balthazar saw slaves hurriedly cleaning an overturned table to its right and the chalices and platters that had been knocked off of it. And as he silently congratulated himself for correctly guessing that it had, in fact, been a table overturned, his eyes turned back to the throne itself, and the figure slumped in it.

Balthazar had seen a lot of gruesome things in his twenty-six years. But nothing he’d seen had prepared him for his first glimpse of Herod the Great.

There had been whispers that the king had been sick for years. He didn’t venture out among the people anymore. He no longer came to supervise and bask in the glory of his construction projects. Even the lavish private box at his beloved theater had been empty for years. Some speculated that he was dead. That his sons were secretly sharing power and using their father’s feared name to their advantage. But Herod was alive… if you could call it that.

He was hunched forward, his spine twisted. His eyes were yellowed, his teeth blackened, his pale flesh covered with open sores. His sunken eyes and cheeks barely looked strong enough to support the weight of his wispy, graying beard, and his robes hung off of him like sheets from a clothesline.

This was the mighty Herod? This shriveled little man? This wisp? This was the King of Judea? He looked less like the man who had rebuilt Jerusalem and more like one of the lepers begging blindly on its streets. In contrast, his throne was grand, its white marble seat embellished with gold accents. But while it had been designed to inspire awe, it only served to make the tiny man sitting in it look that much smaller.

Peter stepped forward, his captain’s helmet under one arm. He snapped his heels together and — just like he’d rehearsed on the way from Bethel — addressed his king. “Mighty Herod! It is my honor to present to you the Ant — ”

“Yes, yes,” said Herod with a wave of his hand. “Leave us.”

Balthazar saw Peter’s face sink at the realization that he was being brushed aside. He could see the visions of promotions and slaves and reward money burning away before the captain’s eyes. It almost made his current predicament worth it.

As Peter sulked away, Herod considered Balthazar from his throne. Studied him with those yellow eyes.

In Balthazar’s experience, men of power were either cats or dogs. Dogs were simple. Direct. If you wronged a dog, it barked, sank its teeth into you, and shook you until you were dead. But cats… cats were devious. Cats liked to toy with their prey before eating it.

“The Antioch Ghost,” Herod shouted, opening his arms wide and walking down the steps from his throne. “You do me a great honor by gracing my humble palace.”

Cat.

Herod continued down the steps until he was close enough to put a hand on Balthazar’s shoulder. So close that Balthazar could smell the decay coming off of him. The rot of fungus and boils. The smell of death. Balthazar suddenly had a vision of Herod traipsing through his harem at night, pressing his naked, diseased flesh against that of his concubines. Forcing his decaying self on girls a quarter his age. He nearly retched again.

“Here we are at last. The two most famous men in all of Judea.”

Balthazar looked straight ahead. Not at Herod, not past him, but through him. Just as he’d refused to give the Judean troops the satisfaction of seeing him squirm, he wasn’t about to give their king the satisfaction of an answer — even if he was a little flattered at having his fame compared to Herod’s.

“Although, how famous can a man be if he doesn’t even have a name?” Herod stepped back and admired his prize for a moment. “Please,” he said. “I must know. I must know the true name of the man who’s taken up so much of my time these many years. Whose name I have — I admit — often cursed from this very chamber.”

Not a word from Balthazar. Not so much as a quiver of his cracked lips.

“Yes,” said Herod after a few silent moments. “Well… I suppose a man has to take something to his grave.”

Herod backed away and began to pace, much to the relief of Balthazar’s nostrils.

“You know,” he continued, “some of my advisors say that I should have you put to death immediately. Right now, in this very room. They tell me that a public execution is too risky. That you have too many admirers among the people.”

Balthazar couldn’t help but feel a little rush of pride. People love a celebrity.

“But I told them no! ‘You overestimate the public!’ I said. For the one thing the people love more than an outlaw is seeing him punished!”

Sadly, Balthazar suspected he was right. But he said nothing.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to give you the execution you deserve. The horrid, excruciating death you’ve been begging me to give you for years. And despite what my advisors think, I can tell you with absolute certainty that your suffering will please the people of Judea almost as much as it will please me.”

No… it’s too perfect. I have to say it.

“You mean it’ll please your Roman masters.”

A hush blanketed the room. Balthazar saw Herod’s priests trading nervous looks.

Here it comes… here comes the punch in my insolent face. Though I doubt this one will have as much behind it as the captain’s did.

But Herod simply broke into laugher. His rotting teeth exposed. His foul breath attacking Balthazar’s senses once again.

“You see?” said Herod. “That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say. That’s a response worthy of the Antioch Ghost.”

And before the conversation had even really begun, it was over. Herod turned away and slowly, frailly climbed the steps to his throne. His advisors stepped forward with the next items of business, and Balthazar was ushered out the same way he came.

The king was a busy man.

VI

Balthazar had to admit, Herod’s dungeons were among the nicest he’d seen. The sand-colored walls and floors were smooth and dry, and at ten feet by ten feet, the cells were on the larger side. But the real attention-getting amenities were the small, iron-barred windows on the east-facing walls of each cell. Windows… in a dungeon. What a world this is.

He was led down a corridor by no less than six torch-wielding palace guards and pushed into a cell at the far end, where he was slightly disappointed to see two other prisoners sitting on the floor against the opposite wall. He’d assumed that a guest of his stature would be afforded private quarters. One was an African, lean and muscular, with a permanent scowl and a bald head. The other looked Greek, though it was hard to tell through his thick brown beard. Whatever his nationality, he was round and short. From the looks of them, they’d been through ordeals of their own.

“The Mighty Herod will hear your last request,” said the chief guard.

Balthazar thought about it for a moment. In truth, there was nothing on earth he wanted more than food — any food — and water. But a plan was a plan.

“I’d like a priest,” he said. The guard made no effort to hide his surprise, and the other prisoners exchanged bewildered looks behind him. “I’d like a priest to come and offer me comfort before they take us. One for me” — Balthazar turned and examined his cellmates — “and one for each of them.”

“Save your priests the trouble,” said the African, in an accent Balthazar was almost positive was Ethiopian. “My friend and I are comfortable enough.”

“Please… I insist,” said Balthazar. Then, turning back to the guards, “Three priests. One to comfort each of us.”

The chief guard considered this request for a moment. “Suit yourself,” he said, and removed the binds from Balthazar’s wrists, which felt almost as good as a drink of water would have. And with that, the guards were gone, taking the light of their torches with them. The door was shut and locked, and Balthazar was suddenly alone in the dark with a pair of strangers. Nothing but a few feet of cell and a few slivers of moonlight between them. He swung his arms in circles, trying to loosen his aching shoulders, trying to get the blood back in his wrists.

“Congratulations,” said the African. “You are, perhaps, the dumbest man I have ever met.”

“You’re probably right. But it’ll save time if you call me Balthazar.”

“Gaspar,” he said. “And this is my partner, Melchyor of Samos — the finest swordsman in the empire.”

Balthazar had listened to his share of dungeon boasts. Criminals were a bragging breed, especially around other criminals. But that was among the more ridiculous he’d heard. Gaspar’s round little companion didn’t look like he could lift a sword, let alone kill something with it. But as he was too weak for the usual verbal jousting that went on in these cells, Balthazar chose to ignore it.

“And you?” he asked Gaspar. “I suppose you have some extraordinary talent, too?”

“My only talent is being smart enough to partner with the best swordsman in the empire.”

“He must not be that good,” said Balthazar, “if the two of you ended up in here.”

“We were captured trying to steal a golden censer from the Soreg,” said Gaspar. “Turns out I don’t make a very convincing Jew.”

“We’re to be put to death in the morning,” said Melchyor, in a way that suggested he didn’t fully understand the implications of what that meant.

“What a coincidence. I’m to be put to death in the morning, too.”

“And you?” said Gaspar. “What did you do to end up as a guest of Herod the Great?”

Here we go.

“If I tell you,” said Balthazar, slumping against the opposite wall, “you’ll think I’m a liar.”

“I already think you’re a fool. Any man who turns down food and water in favor of a priest is a fool.”

What difference does it make? I’m a dead man. Let these two spend their last night on earth thinking I’m a liar.

“I’m the Antioch Ghost.”

This was followed by a considerable silence, as it always was.

“Nice to meet you,” said Gaspar. “I’m Augustus Caesar.”

Melchyor guffawed.

“Believe me or don’t believe me,” said Balthazar. “It doesn’t change the fact that we’ll all be dying together in the morning.”

“If you’re the Antioch Ghost,” said Gaspar, “how was it you were captured? I thought he had the strength of ten men.”

“I heard he was eight feet tall,” said Melchyor.

“Eight feet tall,” said Gaspar, “and faster than a horse. And yet here you are with us, a man who needs the comfort of a priest in his final hours.”

“Look, if you don’t mind, I’d like to just… think for a while.”

“By all means. You’re going to need your strength to knock down the dungeon walls and free us.”

As Melchyor guffawed again, Balthazar stared through the iron bars on the eastern wall and at the unusually bright star that hung in the sky. A plan was a plan.

Even when it was a stupid plan with virtually no chance of succeeding.