And then, to Balthazar, understanding came in a flash. Melchior’s errand and his merged and made sense. It was in the reign of this child, and under his influence, that the old world would end and a new one be born, and the bad things, like slavery, be done away with.
He wished with all his heart that he had a gift to offer this wonderful child; and even as he wished it, he knew that he had. A small gift but useful. He had the pot of myrrh ointment, stuff of such potency that only two dressings of it had healed his festering sores and the wound the dog had made. And every child had rashes and scratches, fell when it took its first steps and bruised its face, grazed its knees. The old woman had said that the ointment improved with keeping. Remembering her he wished that he had bought an alabaster pot.
So the gifts lay in Mary’s lap; the jewelled gold crown that had rolled from the head of a dead king; the frankincense that had been intended for the altar of an unknown god; the pot of myrrh that had eased a slave’s sores. She read their meaning plainly: gold for kingship, frankincense for priesthood; and myrrh for the anointing of a dead body. Just as it was written. But of what she knew she gave no sign; she thanked each man as he made his gift and smiled with a smile intended for him alone.
“And now,” Melchior said to Joseph, ‘you will leave at once.““At once. Nothing that I can say can express the thanks I feel. You came from God!”
Gratitude and another unnameable emotion choked him. In the last few days he had lost faith, regained it, lost it again.
Mary had always held that the baby would be born just an ordinary human baby, but privately, in his heart he had hoped for some sign, something out of the ordinary and reassuring, even if it came secretly, to them alone. The birth had been like all others, a painful, bloody business, and Eunice had treated him as the women in charge always treated the man regarded as responsible for such an unpleasant procedure; coming to tell him the news she had said, “You have a fine son; better than you deserve, keeping her on her feet till the last minute, you thoughtless, feckless fool!” And Ephorus had said, “We must drink to the boy.” What could have been more ordinary? It had been impossible to shake off the sense of something lacking. Then, when Mary was sleeping, three shepherds had arrived; one of them had seen angels, and heard heavenly voices, one had seen and heard something, the third knew nothing.
But Joseph had taken their coming as a sign, and so had Mary, until Eunice, bringing a bowl of gruel and seeing the shepherds depart, taking with them Joseph’s cautious warning not to say anything about this to any but faithful, trustworthy Jews, had said, “Was that Josodad, the shepherd?” Joseph said that he did not know the names of any of them.
“I recognised him,” she said.
“Poor man, he is demented; he lost his favourite son and has never been the same since. And he drinks. Not here, Ephorus discouraged him; but he drinks.”
And the shepherd had talked about seeing his son, dead these five years. So what did one make of that? Drunken men did see strange things; Joseph knew a fellow carpenter who had seen snakes, bright blue ones, in his bed. A man crazed with grief and full of wine, might have had an hallucination and communicated his hysteria to his companions, seen a light, felt the. urge to communicate, and then, being a Jew, knowing the prophecies, seeing a new born child, said all that the shepherd had said.
After that there had been the ordinary days; until tonight when he had had his dream, been about to ask how the journey could be managed and then these men had arrived, bringing the answer. And the old man had spoken with the true prophetic voice.
It seemed to Joseph that he was always falling out of the hand of God, falling, falling, only to be caught again in the hand of God. So, standing there, he uttered a brief prayer, extempore-Lord God of my fathers, I do believe; help me when next I doubt.
But even as he did that he was thinking about Micah’s old donkey. Standing idle and well-fed, it had again taken on that deceptive appearance of roadworthiness, and Mary, he knew, would insist upon taking it. And he thought about Anne’s jibe that Mary owned two donkeys; it was justified. His faith, like the donkey’s gait, flagged, was restored, and then failed again.
Another thought assailed him, had it not been for the broken-down donkey they would not have landed in this place, with the innkeeper so attentive, his wife so competent and both so kind. Nor would they have been here tonight, to be found by this old man who confirmed all the prophecies and who had brought the answer to the question he had been about to ask in his dream—How is this to be managed? It was all—he thought-far beyond the understanding of a plain simple fellow like himself, and the most he could do was to blunder along, doing his best from day to day.
“We will go at once,” he assured Melchior and looked at Mary, who, as though she understood, rose up, straight and strong.
“There is no reason,” she said, ‘to rouse the house at this hour. I’ll fold the blanket and leave it on the stool, with the coin that Elisabeth and Zacharias gave us. Eunice and Ephorus will understand. But first, I think our friends should see him. I must wake him anyway.”
She went to the place where the child lay, lifted him and turned, holding the baby towards them, as though offering them a reward for their journey, for their gifts.
And suddenly they were all smiling. Joseph with his faith restored,
Melchior with his errand done, Balthazar who hadseen this wonderful thing and Caspar-who had found his heart. Even Mary, burdened with the weight of knowledge, knowing the end at the beginning, troubled by so much that must be kept locked in her heart, smiled, as any woman does, feeling the weight and warmth of her child, smelling the sweet, clean, milky scent.
So she held him towards them, and the beam from the lantern was caught in the soft fuzz of baby hair; so that to those who watched it seemed
for a moment that he wore a halo of light.