And then, like a scorpion stinging the foot of a passerby, Sela’s pleasant days had been suddenly and violently ended. Her father had found himself on the wrong side of a business dispute with a member of the Roman provincial authority. An assistant to an advisor to the Roman-appointed governor of Antioch. And while he couldn’t remember the details of the dispute — something about price promised versus price paid — Balthazar remembered the outcome:
Sela’s father had been roused from sleep that night by a banging on his door, dragged from his home as his daughter scratched and pulled at the faceless soldiers around her. That very night, he was sent to the executioner without trial, beheaded and tossed in a shallow desert grave. All on the whim of some nameless, middle-ranking foreign bureaucrat. All over a business dispute. Just like that. That’s how fast these things happened.
Balthazar remembered the chill that had gone from his toes to his fingertips when she’d told him this. And while he would never tell her of his dealings with the dead, not on that or any night, Balthazar would often wonder if her father had been among the bodies he’d dug up on the other side of the Orontes. If some small part of his happiness had come at her expense.
A year had passed since her father’s death, and here she was. Fourteen. All alone in a big house. Struggling to get by as best as an honest girl could, but not doing a very good job of it. Here she was, wiping away her tears and saying something to a boy she’d only just met. Saying it like she absolutely believed it: “I swear… before I die… I’ll watch all of Rome burn to the ground.”
Balthazar remembered thinking, Now, there’s a nice image… all of Rome in flames. A beautiful girl laughing as she watched it burn from a hill above the city — the warm winds kicked up by the fire below, making her hair dance around her face.
Balthazar said he believed her. Though silently he doubted that any army, let alone a single person, could pull off such a feat. But there was no doubting her resolve. He could feel the anger radiating off her body, just as heat radiates from the stones around a fire, long after the flames have died out. And it was intoxicating, that anger. Anger and beauty, sadness and loneliness, all mixed up in one face.
He remembered a kiss and knowing that he was hopelessly and forever in love.
Pleasant days had blended pleasantly together after that. Balthazar had chipped away at the honest, sheltered girl he’d found on the stoop, teaching her how to fight, how to steal, how to do a better job of getting by. Showing her a side of Antioch she’d never known in the comfort and isolation of her youth. He’d doted on her, provided for her, spending his every free moment by her side, often with Abdi tagging along. Sela, for her part, fell into a familiar role, devoting herself to his happiness. Forcing Balthazar to unfurrow his brow. Forcing him to laugh. Showing him a side of Antioch he’d only recently discovered but never really known.
They’d been the kind of days that shone golden in the memories of the old. Days when it had all been promise and forever ahead. Days spent confiding in each other, whispering things they’d never dared to whisper before. And nights, those impossibly warm nights, spent walking the Colonnaded Street, hand in hand. Sneaking off to the banks of the Orontes, disrobing by the light of the stars. Wading into the water and standing face-to-face, pressed against each other beneath the surface. Feeling each other’s nakedness in the black water. The same water Balthazar had waded through, back and forth between the living world and the dead. But these things were far away when he was with her. In these moments, it was just perfect, and it always would be, as if destiny had delivered them to exactly this place, if you believed in stupid things like destiny. Like he’d been sent to rescue her from being alone. To look after her. And like she’d been sent to rescue him back. And, God, it had been so stupidly giddy and erotic and perfect.
And then, like a scorpion stinging the foot of a passerby, it had all been brought crashing down in a single moment.
Just like that.
III
It was a big house by any measure, especially for a woman living alone. The first floor had two bedrooms, one where Sela had slept alone for the last five years and one where she’d worked when there was work to be found. They were centered on a large kitchen and common area, with a table and chairs and rugs covering every square inch of floor. There were three smaller bedrooms upstairs. The previous owner had filled them with children. But Sela had never had any use for them. Not until tonight.
Darkness had only just begun to fall outside, but most of the fugitives had excused themselves and disappeared upstairs for the night, eager to be rid of the strained silence that had hung over the house since their arrival. Balthazar sulked alone in one of the bedrooms, nursing wounds of the face and ego and quietly cursing all those giddy and erotic and perfect memories that had flooded into his rattled mind after their extended absence. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling through a pair of black eyes. He could hear Gaspar and Melchyor’s muffled whispers through the wall on his right and Joseph’s deep, rhythmic snores on his left. He didn’t know which sound he hated more. Or if he hated them at all. Or if he just hated everything.
I shouldn’t have come. I should’ve known she’d react like this.
It was all so stupid, so juvenile. He was a killer. A thief. The Scourge of Rome. And look at him now. Caring for a baby and a couple of zealots. Beaten bloody by a woman. A hole in his chest. The Roman Army on his heels.
Of the six fugitives, only Mary and the baby remained downstairs after sunset. Sela sat with them at the table in the common area, watching the fifteen-year-old girl across from her — not much older than I was when I met him — bathe the tiny, wrinkled creature in a bowl of warm water. His blue eyes were wide open, darting around, looking at everything without really looking at anything. His head was propped against one shoulder to relieve the burden of his tiny neck, and the remnants of his umbilical cord had blackened and shriveled over his belly button, threatening to fall off at any moment.
Sela sat in silent fascination, watching him. Listening to the involuntary little hics and coos come out of his body as his mother gently washed the dust of the desert off his fragile scalp. She’d never had a sibling, never had cousins to care for. She’d never even held a baby, best as she could recall. Abdi was the closest thing I ever —
“Do you take boarders?” asked Mary.
It was a reasonable question, given that the house was much bigger than most single women would need or be able to afford without some form of income.
“No,” said Sela. “But I work. Down here… in one of the rooms.”
Mary was suddenly embarrassed that she’d brought it up. Of course. She knew what line of “work” Sela was in. A beautiful woman with no husband, no children? A beautiful, sophisticated woman who seems to have plenty of mon —
“I’m not a whore, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“What?” said Mary. “No! No, I didn’t think… I didn’t think that.”