Immortal (16 page)

But Jesus, the boy Jesus—a King of Kings? Joseph and his people believed in only one God. Every other religion that Agios had learned about worshipped many gods, some of them fierce and dangerous to humans. What kind of god would this child follow? A god of war, of bloody battles?

Agios began to hope that the scholars from the east had been self-deceived, that it was all a mistake. Better for Jesus to live and die as a simple carpenter than as a king ordering the deaths of men, the enslavement of women and children. The more he pondered, the more the world darkened in his vision.

Nazareth turned out to be a white city perched on a hill, its stones shining in the morning sun. Compared to Alexandria and Memphis, it was small, but it obviously held a great place in Joseph's heart, and in Mary's.

They first stayed with a kinsman of Joseph's, while Joseph arranged to reopen his carpenter's shop. Joseph found a house, not large or ostentatious, but comfortable. They moved in and Agios told himself,
Now I can go. I've seen them to Egypt and back again. Whatever happens to the boy, whatever he becomes, is none of my concern. My promise to Melchior has been fulfilled
.

Yet somehow he stayed on. Krampus wanted to be near the family. Agios knew that if he insisted, Krampus would move on with him, but—
One place is as good as another
, he told himself. Agios bought a small flock of sheep, and he and Krampus became shepherds, living in a small hut a few miles from Nazareth, among gently rolling hills. Krampus became as good with the sheep as he had been with the goats in Egypt, and they resumed their quiet way of life, Agios and his adopted, ugly son, who inside was as gentle, and as simple, as a little child.

Y
ears passed and the world changed. Agios had reported the family's safe return to Nazareth in a letter to Melchior. He had no response for a long time. The Romans did not like unrest in Judea, and after two years the emperor Augustus abruptly dismissed and exiled Herod's son, decreeing that from then on Judea would cease to be a kingdom, but would be combined with Syria and Galilee into one Roman province.

That hardly mattered to the ordinary citizens, for life went on as always. A full five years after the change of government, Agios at last received a message from Melchior that saddened him: Caspar and Balthasar had both died, the former from a fever, the latter from a fall. “I am ill and may pass soon myself,” Melchior said in the letter. “If I do, I will thank God that I was allowed our journey and our meeting the King of Kings. Farewell, Agios, and for the last time, perhaps, thank you.” Agios wished that he had been able to say farewell to his old companions.

A score of years and more passed, while Agios and Krampus settled into a routine in their hut a few miles from Nazareth. The life of shepherds meant that they remained in the fields with the sheep during the dry months, lived in the hut during the rainy season—and each year, in the spring, found a shepherd boy to watch the flock while they undertook a journey that led through Nazareth, where they heard news of Jesus as he grew.

They heard of his being wise beyond his years, of his discoursing with learned teachers—rabbis, the Jews called such men—but they never once saw him. Still, on their annual trading journey they always passed through Nazareth, and almost every year they heard a little more.

For the rest of the time, Agios took care of their work and their meals, sometimes adding to their diet by going hunting in the hills around for small game, or fishing in the streams. On some days when he was in the forest or wading in a stream with a sharpened spear, watching for fish, he felt fleeting touches of peace.

Those were the times when he was alone, far away from petty kings or Roman laws, when he had no one to watch over or protect. He was free, in a way—though memories always came to keep him company, and then he would sigh and go back to the way of life he and Krampus had made for themselves. Routine could at least dull his aching need for solace.

Most of the time, though, he felt restless. He felt a constant urge to leave this place of shepherds and towns, to go back to the wild mountains, to spend his last years near the place where Philos had died—for he felt that time was passing and that, like all men, he was aging. Krampus certainly was. Though he was fifteen or more years younger than Agios, he had begun to walk with difficulty, leaning on a staff. Perhaps his insistence on sleeping in the open was causing it, or his weak heart, or perhaps it was merely the years passing.

Krampus was a man, and he would one day grow old and die. He occasionally had gasping fits like the one that happened in Egypt. After so many years, Agios knew that these episodes weren't painful so much as they were distressing—Krampus would sleep for hours afterward, his body weak with a weariness that clung to him for days. It frightened Agios, for he was also a man—he would pass, too. What would become of Krampus if Agios died first?

These thoughts invariably put Agios in mind of his son. At times he felt that Philos was near him, separated only by the thinnest of veils—but more often he was sure the boy was gone forever. He yearned to join his son in whatever waited beyond the grave, peace or oblivion.

To keep his mind and his hands occupied, Agios still carved and shaped things, but now, with wood and other materials more easily available, he had begun to make more intricate things: a Roman trireme with oars that moved all together; an Egyptian chariot drawn by a horse, the horse's hooves on small concealed wheels, and the chariot moving by means of a coiled brass spring that could be wound by turning the wheels backward; and intricate carvings of the animals he had seen in his travels: camels who lowered their necks as though drinking, alligators with snapping jaws like those he had seen in the Nile, bears, lions, even apes and monkeys.

These he stored until one of his annual visits to the surrounding villages, when he would distribute them to the children—or to the children traveling with their parents whom he passed on the road. Krampus would always mope when the shelves had been emptied, but soon Agios began to fill them again, and Krampus never lost the little carved baby that seemed to mean so much to him. When no other carvings remained in their hut, Krampus would sit in the sun and admire his own possession, looking at it as if it were wrought of gold, not of sandalwood, gazing at it as though every time he saw it anew. It comforted him when Agios gave away the other toys.

One spring, Agios had a large load to trade—not only dried and salted meat, but cheeses, many sheepskins, bags of wool, small leather bags of aromatic herbs for healing and cooking, and, of course, toys to place where children would find them. Their trading route usually took them in a lopsided circle from Nazareth to Jerusalem and back again. Agios liked to loop east before spending a few days in Jerusalem, where he would sell the bulk of his goods. Then he and Krampus would head home via a more direct route. There was little left for them to trade by the time they journeyed through Samaria, and though Agios didn't dislike the Samaritans the way the Jews did, he was content to travel through their country and back home quickly.

“Wear your loose robes and wrap your turban around your head,” Agios reminded Krampus as they prepared. “Remember to be quiet, even if people yell at us. Their words can't hurt. Let me do all the talking.”

Krampus nodded. “I know.” Together he and Agios finished loading the camel, which was being unusually skittish. Agios, worried about Krampus and the journey ahead, perhaps did not pay as close attention to the animal as he should have.

They set off. It was a hot morning, and the camel, no longer young, took its time. By the end of the first day, the animal began to limp, favoring its right front leg. Agios paused to look at its foot but saw nothing wrong.

All the same, he decided to alter their route—to go directly to Jerusalem instead of meandering through the smaller hamlets along the way. Sychar in Samaria was only another half-day's journey, and Agios knew they could stop there if they needed to.

It proved to be a wise decision. By afternoon the beast was limping so badly they could no longer drag it along. Agios led the halting camel slowly and carefully to a shady spot, and there he stopped to look closely at the lame leg. Some insect had bitten it, he realized, on the inside of the right knee. A gall-sore as big as a fig had swollen, and pus seeped from it. “This has to be drained and bandaged,” Agios told Krampus.

Camels have minds of their own, and this one was no exception. Krampus held the reins and kept the camel still as best he could. Agios carefully nicked the swelling with the tip of a sharp knife, making the camel surge and jerk, but the sore began to drain. When the discharge had turned bloody, showing that the bad humors had been purged from the swelling, Agios prepared a poultice of calendula leaves—some of the herbs he had intended to trade—and bound it to the animal's leg. The camel snorted and fidgeted, but seemed to be in less pain.

“Stay and mind him,” Agios told Krampus. “I'll bring water.”

They had used the well at Sychar often enough before. People called it Jacob's Well, after an ancient Jewish patriarch who once had lived in the area. Agios untied a leather bucket and a long rope from the camel's pack.

The sun rode bright and white in a clear sky, not even a wisp of cloud offering protection from the unforgiving heat. Agios could feel sweat running down his neck and back, and he breathed shallowly as he climbed the hill to the place where the cistern offered relief. As he crested the short ridge, he saw no one else at the well, to his relief. Agios didn't dislike people, but he found himself avoiding interaction as much as possible these days—and, after all, these were Samaritans.

The stones were crumbling around the well, and a shower of dust and small pebbles trickled down and down until they plopped into the water far below. It wouldn't be cold, but it would be welcome all the same, and Agios lowered the bucket until it sank. Then hand over hand he drew it out with a heavy load of water, the weight life-giving and exhausting at once.

By the time he held the bucket, full and dripping, Agios found himself unusually weary.
What's the matter with me?
he wondered.
Getting old? Too stupid to find more shade and stay out of this blistering sun?
His pulse felt fast and fluttery, as though his heart had become too tired to pound as strongly as it should have.

He turned from the well, nearly stumbling, and gasped in the hot air. His palms felt sweaty. The short hike back to Krampus and the camel would be impossible in this state. Krampus was waiting and needed water as badly as the camel did, and Agios needed to get there as quickly as possible, but for the first time in many years he knew he had no choice but to rest. His age, his own mortality, felt as real and agonizing to him as the sun that beat down on his unprotected head.

He found a thorn tree with its flat canopy offering enough shade for him to collapse out of the sun's blaze with his back against the bark. He didn't mean to doze, but the dance of sun-spattered shadows lulled him, and his eyes fell shut. His knees were pulled up to his chest, the bucket of water tucked between his legs like a treasure far more precious than its humble vessel suggested.

How long did he sleep? Minutes? More? Agios didn't know, but when he stirred it was to the sound of a voice.

“Will you give me a drink?”

The man was dressed simply in the Hebrew fashion, a long tallit, a prayer shawl, covering his head and obscuring his face. He sat on the edge of the well, hands on his knees as if holding himself up against the sun and the exhaustion it glared down. A woman had drawn water from the well and stood staring at the man as though astonished by the request. Neither appeared to have noticed him.

Even blinking sleep from his eyes, Agios could see the shock on the woman's face. She was lovely in a dark, simple way, but her eyes filled with suspicion as she regarded the man. “You are a Jew and I a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

Agios sat up straighter, sloshing water on his dusty feet and darkening the leather of his sandals. It was unheard of, a Jew asking a Samaritan for anything, especially a lone woman. Almost against his will, Agios felt a surge of sympathy for her. He saw her pride in the way she held her jaw just so, as if she was used to keeping her face set, her countenance strong so she didn't betray her true feelings. Yet Agios sensed something soft about her, as plain as the urn in her hands.

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink,” the man said quietly, “you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

The words were little louder than a whisper, but Agios heard them as surely as if they had been spoken for his benefit. The woman was already shaking her head, but something inside Agios fractured at the man's strange proclamation. His gaze shifted to the man, the thick stripes of his tallit and the tassels that lay in his lap. Who was this? What did he mean by “living water”? It sounded as foreign and magnificent as heaven itself.