Unholy Night (6 page)

T
he 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.

B
althazar 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.

“People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving.”

—Proverbs 6:30

T
here were plenty of ways to pick a pocket.

There was the Bump, wherein your accomplice “accidentally” collided with your target on a crowded street. And while he apologized profusely, you made the lift. The Beggar, wherein your accomplice—or even better,
accomplices
—mobbed the target with requests for money in the front, while you took his coin purse from behind. The Fight, wherein two or more accomplices pretended to brawl in the street, and you picked the pockets of the men who stopped to watch. The False Arm, the Switch, the Victim, the Prophet. But no matter the method, the steps were always the same: distract, act, and disappear.

The first part was easy. A few pigeons taking flight, a faraway yell, a beautiful woman passing by—any one of them could distract a man long enough to part with his money. And disappearing was easy, too, since most victims didn’t know they’d been victimized until minutes—even
hours
—later. But the
lift
. The lift was the thing.
That
was the element that required skill and practice. That was the art, and Balthazar was an artist. There were plenty of ways to pick a pocket, sure. But no one in Antioch could pick them quite as well as he could.

And he was only twelve years old.

Already a man by any standard of the day, and already a seasoned criminal—the best pickpocket in the Eastern Empire, by his own reckoning. He’d helped make his first lift at the age of four, acting as an accomplice for the older boys. By six, he could pick the pockets of easier targets—namely drunks and the elderly—by himself. By eight, he had accomplices of his own, most of them older than he was.

Over the next four years, Balthazar had honed his craft. Developed his own methods for setting up lifts and tricking targets into revealing the location of their coin purses. One of his favorites was also the easiest:

“Be careful, sir,” he would warn an intended victim. “There are pickpockets all over this forum.”

And lo and behold, nine times out of ten, the target would instinctively reach for his money to make sure it was still there. Later, Balthazar learned that he could simply put up a sign that said
Beware of Pickpockets
in any public place and get the same result.

An aspiring pickpocket couldn’t have asked for a better place to hone his craft. Antioch was a mere 300 years old, still in its infancy compared to the other great cities of the world. But in that relatively short time, it had experienced explosive growth and become what many called “the Jewel of the East.” A city to rival the greatness of Alexandria, with some 300,000 free men and 200,000 slaves.

The vast majority of the population was Greek, but it was also a melting pot of Macedonians, Jews, Chinese, Indians, native Syrians, and Romans—who, as usual, were the all-powerful minority. With the Romans had come all the attendant innovations: an amphitheater; an aqueduct to deliver abundant fresh water; and a circus for horse races, one of the largest in the empire, with seating for up to 80,000.

But of all the Roman upgrades, the feature that really defined Antioch was its Colonnaded Street. Its scale was almost unimaginable: a cobblestone road, thirty feet wide and four miles long, with covered walkways (or “colonnades”) running on both sides for the entire length. It cut a straight line, north to south, through the center of Antioch, parallel to the Orontes River, which ran along the city’s western border. Beneath these covered walkways, merchants sold food and wares of every variety, some from permanent shops, others from movable stalls. At night, the entire four-mile stretch was illuminated by torches, and the crowds would continue shopping, eating, and socializing into the early hours of the morning. The north and south halves of the Colonnaded Street met in a huge, round marketplace, which would, centuries later, be rebuilt into a forum by the Eastern Emperor Valens.

Though he had four miles of busy colonnades to choose from, Balthazar liked to work the forum. It was the heart of Antioch. A place where meetings could be arranged, where merchants could be heard haggling, political debates could be heard raging, and caravans of camels could be seen arriving with exotic goods from the East at all hours. The forum also happened to offer the most pockets to pick and the greatest number of escape routes. But the privilege didn’t come cheap. There were kickbacks to be paid. Tips to be rewarded. Accomplices to be cut in. As with any business, it took money to make money. And as in real estate, prime locations came at a premium.

Balthazar liked to hang out on the perimeter of the forum, near the money changers. He would spend hours watching the men line up in front of their tables, waiting for the right target. Patience was the all-important virtue of the pickpocket. Balthazar had seen too many of his colleagues undone by hastiness, too many boys his age walking around with stubs where their hands had been. You needed patience. You needed a plan.

Sometimes the money changers would give him a tip—in exchange for a hefty kickback, of course. But Balthazar hadn’t needed a tip today. He’d spotted the target himself: a tall Greek businessman who looked to be in his forties, with hair to the middle of his back and a chinstrap for a beard.

A good target was a combination of three things: distracted, alone, and carrying a lot of money. Today’s scored two out of three. He was carrying quite a bit of money, and he was certainly distracted—his eyes darting around, his sandals tapping impatiently as he yelled at the money changer to hurry up. He was a man who clearly needed to be somewhere, and that was always a plus. The problem was, he wasn’t alone. There was another Greek with him. Slightly younger, and slightly less distracted.

Pairs were bad. Mathematically, they doubled your chances of getting caught. But there were ways to make them work in your favor. Balthazar gave a signal to his two accomplices—a pair of younger boys waiting on the other side of the money changers. When he was sure they’d seen the target, he gave them another, using his right hand to mimic the carrying of a handle.

He’d decided on the Spill. It was his go-to move for pairs. Balthazar would follow closely behind the two Greeks as they made their way across the crowded forum, waiting for his accomplices to strike. If everything went as designed, the boys would emerge from nowhere, hurrying along with a jug of wine. They would clumsily run into the two Greeks, spilling its contents all over their robes. And as the men examined themselves—as they cursed and yelled and threatened to beat the boys for their clumsiness—Balthazar would make the lift: passing behind the target, slipping a small knife imperceptibly toward the Greek’s coin purse, cutting the small leather strap that held it to his belt, and snatching it away without breaking his stride in the slightest. The target would never know what hit him, other than a jug of wine. When it worked, it was a thing of beauty.

When it didn’t? You ran.

Balthazar went as fast as his spindly legs would carry him—which was, it seemed, only a fraction faster than the Greeks chasing him. It had been a bad lift from the start. The Spill had been clumsily delivered, spilling onto their feet instead of their robes. Worse, the Greek’s companion had clearly been a victim of pickpockets before. Once the initial shock of the spill had worn off, the younger Greek immediately checked his own coin purse and began looking around. Balthazar had made the lift despite the botched spill. Unfortunately, he’d gotten only a few feet away before he heard the dreaded, “Hey! You!”

So here he was, pushing his twelve-year-old legs well beyond their intended use, with two much bigger Greeks chasing him—their feet stained red with wine, yelling, “Stop that boy! He’s a thief!”

If they caught him, it would mean the loss of both hands, at a minimum. More likely, he’d be put to death, either by stoning or by beheading. Pickpocketing had become an epidemic all along the Colonnaded Street and in the forum, and the Romans were cracking down. There was no place for rampant crime in a Roman city. Just as there seemed to be no place for its native Syrians.

He ran east along one of the canals that carried fresh water into the center of the city—part of the network of channels, tunnels, and pipes that made up the aqueducts built by the Romans. This particular canal was dry at the moment, littered with dirt and sticks and garbage. And that was
exactly
why Balthazar was following it.

The neighborhood—if I can make it to the neighborhood, I’ll be safe…I’ll be able to disappear.

There were dozens of small villages packed together on the outskirts of Antioch, so dense that they formed a sort of second wall around the already walled city. There were incredibly rich sections, marginally rich sections, middle-class sections, and poor sections. And then there were the Syrian slums. The slums toward which Balthazar now ran with death nipping at his heels.

“Syrian filth!” he heard one of the Greeks yell behind him. “I’ll tear your arms out of their sockets myself!”

Balthazar knew every inch of the four square blocks that made up the section called Platanôn—a maze of tiny, tightly packed houses and narrow, unpaved streets where most of the city’s native Syrians lived. He knew every face on those streets, every name of every resident of every house. And he knew that he could rely on any one of them to keep him safely hidden from the Greeks. But first he had to get there—and that was going to take a minor miracle.

Actually, three minor miracles.

As Balthazar ran along the dry canal, the wide cobblestone streets and gleaming colonnades of the city dissolved away, becoming the narrower streets and houses of a poor suburb. Ahead, the houses abruptly stopped at the edge of a hundred-foot ravine, but the canal kept going, continuing across a narrow, unfinished bridge.

The old bridge had collapsed during a recent earthquake, one of the unpleasant realities of living in Syria. Roman engineers had shut off the water while they built a new one. One team had started on the near side of the ravine, another team on the far side. The plan was to have the two halves of the bridge meet in the middle, and they were almost there, only twenty feet to go. A wooden crane sat on the edge of both sides, each of their outstretched arms supporting the ropes used to hoist stone blocks to the top—the ropes Balthazar hoped would carry him to freedom in a few seconds.

The first of Balthazar’s three minor miracles occurred: the bridge wasn’t under construction today, though this barely qualified as a “miracle,” given the notoriously relaxed pace of Roman construction. The second miracle occurred immediately after: the rope hanging from the crane on the near side was within his reach. Now all he needed was a third miracle: to grab on to the hanging rope and swing safely across.

When he neared the edge of the ravine, Balthazar diverted off the road, down into the canal, and out onto the unfinished bridge, the men nearly close enough to touch the back of his clothes.

You can make it.

He ran with every bit of speed he could squeeze out of those spindly legs as he closed in on the edge of the bridge and the hanging rope.
You can make it, Balthazar.
And with a last leap, he grabbed on to the rope and swung off the end.
You can make it. Just don’t look down and you’ll—

There was no way he was going to make it. As soon as Balthazar swung out over the ravine, he knew he was in trouble. The distance between the two sides was
twice
what it’d looked like from the bridge, and the drop twice as far. Worse yet, the top of the crane he was swinging from wasn’t centered between the two bridge sections—it was
much
closer to the side he’d started on. As he approached the bottom of his arc, Balthazar suddenly found himself with two unsavory options: He could either hold on to the rope and return to the side he’d swung from—the side where two big men were waiting for him—or he could let go and jump. Either way, there would be no more miracles today.

He let go.

Once again, it was a decision met with instant regret. He wasn’t going to make it across. Not on his feet, anyway. There was a chance—a
sliver
of a chance—that he could reach the edge of the other bridge with his fingertips. Balthazar pumped his exhausted legs as he flew, as if running on air would propel him farther.

I’m descending.

He reached his arms out in front of him as the uneven, unfinished stones of the other bridge rushed at him. But it was his
chest
that hit first, smacking against the bottom of the other canal and knocking the air from his lungs.

The impact startled a rat that had been picking through litter on the other side of the canal. It looked up, a half-chewed maggot in its mouth, and saw a human boy clinging to the edge of the waterway, struggling to pull himself up. It was a brief struggle, for the boy began sliding back toward the drop almost immediately. The rat watched as the boy’s fingers grabbed at the bottom of the stone channel, trying to hold on. After a brief but valiant effort, the boy disappeared over the side. The rat, who assumed the human had fallen to his death, went back to its rummaging.