Again Michael smiled.
“Can you really believe in nothing, mercenary?”
The children, David and Ruth, listened with rapt attention. Even the sorceress had, for once, shut up.
“What is belief, Michael? Does one ‘believe in’ the sun? The seasons? Even this flesh we inhabit? Belief is not necessary for these. Their reality is self-evident. Belief is only needed for that which does not exist.”
“Does God exist?”
“Which God? The emperor at Rome? The peacock of the Yazdani? What if ‘God’ indeed is naught except the reflected and magnified image of the worshippers who have raised Him up? He is vanity. His adherents worship nothing grander than a reflection of themselves—and a vain one at that. And what is the produce of this vanity, save cruelty and brutality, to themselves and to others?”
“You sound bitter, my friend.”
“This world is the only one that exists, brother. Learn its laws and obey them. This is true philosophy.”
For long moments Michael remained silent, as if waiting for the man-at-arms to speak further. When he did not, the Nazarene cleared his throat. “And what of worlds beyond this?”
“There are no worlds beyond this.”
Telamon poked at the fire, scattering embers and setting sparks ascending. David looked on with fascination. He had never seen his master speak at such length on any subject—and certainly not with such vehemence.
Telamon reckoned this. He was angry, clearly, with himself and with the course of this conversation.
“You asked,” the mercenary said to the Nazarene, “what god I worshipped. She is a goddess. The oldest and most primordial of all, called by my countrymen Eris.”
“Eris?”
“Strife. All things are born in strife, even the earth itself, and all are extinguished in strife.”
The Nazarene absorbed this thoughtfully. “So you have made yourself a warrior?”
“Yes.”
“And has that answered your riddle?”
“What riddle?”
“The riddle of your life. Of yourself.”
Telamon stood. The girl Ruth’s eyes tracked him, as did those of David and the sorceress.
“Have I upset you, brother?”
“You could not.”
“Sit. Please. This is our hour to speak truth to one another.”
With grave reluctance, Telamon assented. He resumed his place beside the fire.
Michael dipped a cup of the witch’s warming tea. He passed it to Telamon. The mercenary took it.
“Of course, you know,” the Nazarene said, “that my faith rejects every ‘truth’ you espouse. In fact, I believe the categorical opposite.”
Now it was Telamon who smiled.
“What you call ‘real,’ ” said Michael, “I call illusion. Self-delusion. Only that is real which cannot be touched or seen, save by the eyes of the heart. If I believed as you do, mercenary, that this world and its laws were all there were, I would cut my throat now and save you and the Romans the trouble.”
Michael indicated the pack and saddle mounts hobbled just outside the circle of firelight.
“If we cannot believe in things beyond what our senses deliver, then we’re no better than these animals and there is no hope for any of us. That is the difference between a man and a beast: we can perceive that which is not, and strive, if not to bring it forth into reality, then to enter it as spirit. I pity you, brother. You have yourself and nothing more.”
For long moments none spoke.
It was Michael, at last, who shifted upon his seat and turned to face Telamon directly.
“There is another world,” he said, “not ‘above’ this one but within it. In this world, all souls are linked by the commonality of their identity as children of God. In this world, care for others, even the humblest—especially the humblest—is the medium by which one may transcend that philosophy of isolation and despair which you so eloquently espouse.”
The mercenary’s glance remained downcast, held by the fire. “I would like to see this world.”
“In the world you inhabit,” said Michael, “nothing changes. Nothing can change. This is your truth. But if there ever was a truth that all may accept, it is that everything changes. You are a believer too, my friend. You just don’t know it.”
Despite himself Telamon glanced to the girl Ruth. She watched him with a keen and scrupulous attendance.
Michael’s eyes sought Telamon’s. The Nazarene held his speech until the mercenary’s gaze had met his own with full attention.
“Twenty-two years ago in Jerusalem, I stood present on Skull Hill when Jesus of Nazareth met his destiny.”
Telamon’s lips declined into an expression of skepticism and dubiety.
“I saw not God that day,” said Michael, “but a man. A mortal man. I watched him suffer and die and I departed broken in spirit and soul. Then, three days later, my uncle Stephen hastened to me. ‘Come at once,’ he commanded.
“I obeyed.
“That day,” Michael said, “I encountered him who had perished, whom the Romans had crucified, whom his own devotees had enshrouded and entombed. I saw him again, in form as flesh and blood. His eyes held mine, his voice spoke to me, his hands held mine. He was alive. I saw it.”
“And what holy pharmakon,” Telamon asked, “or ‘aid to prayer’ had you imbibed or ingested first?”
Michael’s expression responded for him.
“Your imagination fed only, then,” said the mercenary, “upon grief and anguish and the desperate wish to believe.”
“What I saw, I saw. He who touched me, touched me.”
“My friend,” the mercenary said, “I have served in campaigns from Britannia to Spain and Gaul, and now in Africa and Judea. I have seen men slain by the sword and the spear, the lance and the battleaxe. But one thing I have never seen is a dead man stand up again and live.”
“This one did.”
The Nazarene searched the mercenary’s eyes.
“Let me grant you your skepticism, brother . . . your disbelief, even your scorn. Say you are right. Indeed it may be more than possible that in my grief and sorrow I experienced a vision, a phantasm of the rabbi from Nazareth. Say that’s true. Does that make his life and suffering meaningless? If he were simply a man like you or me and he chose to die rather than betray himself and the meaning he perceived his life was dedicated to . . . isn’t that sacrifice a compelling narrative for the rest of us? Even if, especially if, he was not the supernatural incarnation of the son of God? A man such as this would be someone to look up to and aspire to emulate, would he not?”
Michael held Telamon’s eyes for long moments, then lowered his gaze and sat back within the envelope of the firelight.
Telamon glanced to the child Ruth, then to David, and finally to the sorceress. In all their eyes, the witch’s included, glowed the disposition, even the eagerness, to embrace that contention of Michael’s that to him, the mercenary, could be nothing but preposterous.
The man-at-arms turned at last to the Nazarene, with a smile.
“I see now,” Telamon said, “why the garrison commander of Jerusalem has trekked into this wilderness to hunt you . . . and why he, and Rome herself, consider you the most dangerous man in Palestine.”