Fifth Gospel(9)

Once on the cobbled path the crying bundle sat a moment. It made as if to stand but its legs, unsure upon those tiny feet, gave way.

Cassius stared at the creature and willed it to walk; he willed it with all the force in his limbs.

The child, for its part, was paused in its crying to look at the father and the father, realising what would come, looked away, but it was too late – the child made a smile and began a crawl.

The man wailed and pleaded to Cassius but Cassius was resigned to it. He made a nod to Septimus and the young man made a laugh and took the child by one arm and held it up as if it were his prize. In that one instant a lifetime seemed to pass between the father glancing upwards, muttering prayers, and the pink child’s terror-full stare. An instant, an aeon, and after that a sweep of the Gladius across the throat followed by the falling to white of the eyes and the gushing of child-blood over the father and mother below.

All is dust and shadow, thought Cassius.

Septimus dropped the carcass without ceremony into the pile of dead things, wiped the blood from his face and left to see to his men.

The Centurion’s head was a vacant, vast adamantine wilderness. He did not try to recognise the geography of its landscape, instead he turned his horse away from the slaughter and took a moment to notice the silence that had descended over everything; a silence so deep that he could hear the moment’s heart pounding in the crib of the world; a silence that suspended the odour of bread and the scent of spices in the air, an imitation of a former peace now banished for always.

It was Septimus who broke it, warning the population of Bethlehem that should they speak of the slaughter, further reprisals from Rome would befall them. By then Cassius had directed his horse through the gates of the city and was on his way to the valley below.

When the young sergeant caught up with him to ask what he should do with the dead things, Cassius told him, with his mind full of scraps of thoughts:

‘Send them to Herod…the man who calls himself King of the Jews!’





3


KING OF THE JEWS




King Herod was dying. Beneath the cover of his vestments, the skin below his navel was black and his member was shrivelled and withered; that member, which had once enjoyed the flames of fleshly desires, had turned inwards to feed upon its master, and was now a putrid corpse that hung loose and impotent in the folds of his robes.

He was full of rage this night, full of hatred and suspicion, and the pain in his groin having fallen victim to this mood, would have caused him to cry out if not for the special brew made from the roots of ancient herbs. This brew made his pain less big and opened his mind to visions. He waited expectantly, looking into the flames, to the light that reflected, flickered and danced. He looked upon the altar, awash with congealed child-blood and encircled by priestesses chanting to the sound of the drums, and remembered how he had trembled with anticipation at the arrival of the Magi.

They had seen the star and had come, seeking to know more of the child who was destined to be the King of Israel. When they had left to look for him, Herod had summoned the priests of the Temple: the Sadducees, whose hunger for power made them grovel for crumbs at his feet; and the Pharisees, led by Hillel and Shamai, who looked upon him as a half-breed usurper, a puppet of Caesar and a thief of the crown of Judah.

The useless creatures had told him of the prophecies of Balaam. They spoke of two portents: a star destined to descend into the house of Jacob; and a sceptre presaged to rise up pointing to Bethlehem of Judea, the home of David. They said these portents meant the child-Messiah would be both a king and a priest.

Herod had shouted at them, ‘Fools! How can a man be two things?’

But the priests, in their ignorance, had not known how to answer.

These portents and interpretations were nothing new to him - every Jew knew them. Why else had he built his Herodium between four seas if not to keep his eye upon that silent little town called Bethlehem?

But the Romans had slaughtered every creature less than two springs and still they had not found the child! He knew this because his ailment was not healed, and without the blood of that child he would continue to be a miserable man whose breath stank, whose bowels dripped, and whose feet were enlarged and oozing with fluid. Without that blood, he would die with no friends to mourn him, a man hated by the Romans and despised by his own people.

He let the dervish, the song, and the smell of incense enter into him and he asked the devil a question:

What now?

Immediately he received a vision. His eyes stared into the smoke-full air between the naked bodies that moved around the blooded altar lit by fire and candle, and in that space he saw all that was in store for him. A surge of terror clawed its way from Herod’s colon to his eyelids and he gave out a yell that was drowned by the lament of dancers, the playing of instruments and the rhythm of drums. Something gripped his throat. He struggled for breath and tried to run out of the grotto but fell. Above him, dark shapes came, some with flapping wings, others with tentacles.