The three Wise Men never returned. Story has it an angel told them to go back to their homeland by another path, under cover, unknown to King Herod and his spies. Herod, who had been waiting impatiently for news of the child, was incensed when he realised they were not coming back. He had been tricked. A baby was being worshipped instead of him! A puny weakling child was the challenger to his kingship! It was unthinkable and he would have none of it.

White-lipped with fury, red-eyed with revenge, King Herod summoned his cruellest, coldest men. Us.

“Go!” he ordered. “Go to Bethlehem, and seize every boy-child that is two years old and younger and kill it. Show no mercy, heed no grieving mother’s tears. Leave no house in and around Bethlehem un-searched. If even a single boy-child is left alive, I will cut off your heads!”

And so, obedient servants that we were, we went to do his bidding.

I will never forget that sound — the sound of weeping. For the next few months, Bethlehem was a city of wailing women. They tore their hair, beat their breasts, and fell at our feet. “Spare the innocent babes,” they pleaded. “Show mercy! God will bless you for your kindness!”

Their pleas fell on deaf ears. What concern was it of ours that Herod should want to kill innocent babes? He had killed his own children, had he not? Suspicious of a plot against him, he had raised not his fist, but his sword and slain his two young boys. A man who had no mercy for his own children, what mercy would he show to the children of others? We were not to be blamed. We were just doing our job. We had our own lives to save, our own families and children to think of. And so, trying to explain away our heinous crimes with such feeble excuses, we found and slaughtered all the two-year-old boys in Herod’s kingdom.

Hell is too good for me. How many nights I have woken up screaming, just thinking of what I have done.

But this story is not about me. King Herod was so relieved that the ‘pretender’ to his throne had been exterminated, that he was lavish in his praise and generous with his gifts. He rewarded us royally, and freed from worry and fear, he went back to doing what he did best — terrorising his people and glorifying himself.

So vain had he become that he forgot he was only human.

A dreadful disease struck King Herod and he retired to a town by the Red Sea to recover. Convinced that the illness was a conspiracy against him, he sent a letter to Rome asking permission to execute his favourite son, Antipater. It is said that when Caesar received the letter, he remarked, “It is better to be Herod’s swine than his son.” It is also said that during those last days, Herod’s happiest hour was when the letter from Rome arrived, allowing him to kill Antipater. Five days after it was done, Herod himself was dead.

Now Herod, while still alive and ailing, had instructed us to have all the leading citizens gathered in a hippodrome in Jericho and killed the day he died. His reason for this peculiar instruction was as simple as it was twisted. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that no one would mourn his death. (Even Herod couldn’t hide that fact from himself any more.) But if the kingdom’s finest men were to die on the same day, then at least their families would shed tears, and the air would be filled with the kind of lamentation that should have been his due. But his hold over us was over. We ignored the order. Instead, we opened the state coffers and threw coins into the street. We danced with our women and kissed our children. I laughed and wept and prayed. I could repent and hope to be saved. I was free at last. The tyrant Herod had fallen at last.

I felt it in my bones. It was time to take Jesus home. And I was right. That night, the angel appeared in my husband’s dream and said, “Joseph, Herod is dead! Take Jesus and Mary and return to Israel!”

And that is just what we did. Hearing on the way that Herod’s only remaining son, Archelaus reigned in his place, we decided to go to Galilee instead. There we settled in the city of Nazareth, and my son grew up as a Nazarene, free at last to follow what destiny had in store. My cup of joy was full.

The End

Extracted from The Greatest Stories Ever Told;
By Sampurna Chattarji;
Publisher: Puffin