Immortal (28 page)

“What do you mean, they're talking about me?” Agios was going through his bag, taking inventory of what he had given and what remained to be distributed.

“Your gifts,” Nicholas said, as if they should be past the point of pretending. “They say you're a miracle, a saint, the hand of God himself. Some say you're my uncle Nicholas, who was known for charity, come back to help the poor.”

“I don't know anything about that.”

His old friend laughed. “A red coat,” he teased. “They always see a flash of red after a blessing appears.”

“Nonsense.”

Nicholas said suddenly, “Other people think that it's me.”

Agios studied Nicholas's red robe, the way his long beard had grown gray in the years since they had first met. When had his friend aged so? It sobered him to think that so much time had passed, and yet, he could see how the man he considered a son could almost be mistaken for him. “Does this bother you?” Agios asked.

“I want no glory,” Nicholas said sincerely. “Let those who want to give thanks for bounty thank Jesus himself, the fount of all blessings.”

“You are his hands and feet,” Agios said. “And my generosity springs from your well, my son. You inspire me.”

For just a moment, Nicholas grinned like a child. It flashed across his face so bright and sweet that Agios felt his heart catch in his chest. “We are twins, you and I,” he said with a glint in his eye. “I know your secrets, Nicholas. I know about the dowries!”

Nicholas laughed.

“The story is on everyone's lips. You threw three bags of gold through the window of a poor man's house so his daughters wouldn't be sold into slavery!”

“The earth is the Lord's and everything in it,” Nicholas said with a shrug. “What is gold to me?”

Now Agios was laughing. “They say it landed in stockings left before the fire to dry.”

“My aim isn't that good. Tales grow in the telling!”

After a moment, Agios added, “Tale or not, you've started a tradition, you know. I hear children are hanging their stockings over the hearth in the hope that you may visit their house one night.”

“Then we shall make sure they are not disappointed,” Nicholas said.

They worked together whenever they could, distributing bread where bellies were empty and shoes where feet went bare.

Nicholas's reputation grew, and it wasn't long before Agios himself felt humbled by the stories he heard. A boy, snatched into slavery and missing for months, appeared healthy and whole in his parents' home, still clutching the golden cup he had carried for some faraway king. A storm was calmed, an innocent set free, there was food in the midst of famine. And through it all, Nicholas and Agios spread the name of the one who gave it all so that every tongue sang his praises:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
.

When the Romans imprisoned Nicholas, no one was much surprised. But though Agios's heart ached, he couldn't abandon the vision that he and Nicholas had so earnestly embraced. Agios redoubled his efforts. The man in the red coat was everywhere and nowhere: extending compassion, inspiring peace, spreading hope.

One night, as Agios left a basket on the doorstep of a widow's modest home, the door opened. Agios froze, waiting for her to shriek in alarm at this stranger standing on her doorstep. Instead, a smile broke across her face and she threw the door open to take his huge, rough hands in her own small, soft ones.

“Is it you?” she whispered in awe. “Bishop Nicholas, is it you?”

Agios ducked his head. “No. Just a friend,” he murmured.

“Thank you!” she said. “Oh, thank you. I didn't know if—I thought that with Bishop Nicholas in jail we had no hope.”

Tears shimmered on her cheeks in the pale moonlight, and Agios was overcome with compassion for her. “We are Christ's ambassadors,” he told her. “Bishop Nicholas and I, but you, too, my daughter. We are
all
his hands and feet.”

She squeezed his hands and whispered a prayer of thanksgiving. And as Agios left, he glanced over his shoulder and saw that despite her own need, instead of carrying the entire basket into her own tiny house, she first took a loaf of bread and laid it at her neighbor's door.

Surely, it was the start of something beautiful.

Emperors fell and rose. Constantine, more tolerant than Diocletian, and finally a Christian himself, took the throne. Nicholas was released from prison and given more honor than ever. Agios found his old friend thin and scarred, his face drawn and tired, but his eyes were still warm and bright.

“What have they done to you?” Agios cried.

“It doesn't matter,” Nicholas said putting his hand on his old friend's shoulder. “Scripture tells us everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ‘We glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character, hope.' ”

Agios finished, “ ‘And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts.' ” He searched Nicholas's face. It was open and inviting, the sort of countenance that made you want to linger and listen.

“Love is never safe,” Nicholas said. “It is always a danger, a great and beautiful risk. But I take it gladly, Father.”

Father
. Even now the word gave Agios a twinge of regret for the past—though he did love Nicholas as a son.

Agios reached out and clasped Nicholas's hand, drawing it to his chest where he could hold it tight against his heart. “And so do I, my son.” It was a covenant between them, a promise that all that had happened, everything that had come before, would pale in the glory of all that was to come.

It was just the beginning.

S
ometimes death is a simple thing.

Nicholas's death was not.

He was seventy-five years old and a bishop when his body began to fail. One day he struggled to read his scrolls and the next he listed to the side when he walked. It pained Agios to watch his friend deteriorate by degrees, but Nicholas accepted everything cheerfully.

“I am an old man!” he told Agios. “And I have nothing to fear. My life is safe in Christ.”

“I know, son,” Agios said. He carefully rolled up the scroll they had been studying and rose to put it away. Death was a topic he could hardly bear to discuss. It made him think of the ones he had lost—and reminded him that he would soon add another loved one to the growing list. It filled him with an emotion that he was neither comfortable with nor proud of: envy. When would it be his turn? When would he close his eyes and open them in the presence of Jesus? And Krampus? And Philos? His soul yearned for this above all things.

One last secret remained between him and Nicholas, one truth that stood like a wall separating them. But why was he hiding? Nicholas was his dearest friend, his teacher and advisor. His
son
.

“Nicholas,” Agios said, rejoining him at the table. “I must tell you something.”

Nicholas's eyes had drifted shut, but he opened them now and fixed Agios with a slow smile. “You have my attention.”

“Have you—” Agios wasn't sure how to begin. “Have you noticed anything different about me? I mean, compared to other men.”

His laugh was still a joyful sound, though Nicholas wheezed. “Father, everything is different about you.” But the serious look on Agios's face seemed to make him rethink his answer. Gently, he said, “You are set apart, Agios. I don't know how or why, but you are not like other men. You are fast and strong, tireless. You haven't aged a day since I met you when I was just a boy, yet I am now old and about to go home.”

Agios was surprised. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“I trust you, my father. I knew you would tell me in good time. And if you didn't, I thought it wasn't a secret for me to know. I asked you about it once, remember?”

Agios did remember. Nicholas had still been a child then. One night as they sat together he had studied Agios's hands and asked, “How old are you, Agios?”

There was no answer for that. Besides he didn't want to scare the boy. “As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.” He paused and smiled. “I'll tell you when you have a white beard of your own,” he said.

Nicholas hadn't pressed him further.

“Agios,” Nicholas said gently, “my beard is now as white as yours.”

“I was there,” Agios said in a rush, knowing that Nicholas would believe him, that he could finally unburden himself of his own bewildering story. “I saw Jesus.” He touched his left cheek. “I got this scar when the Romans crucified him.”

The tale came out over the course of days and Nicholas faded bit by bit. By the time they reached the heartbreak of Jesus's crucifixion, Nicholas lay confined to his bed. Still, he would murmur his delight at certain parts of Agios's account. And sometimes, Agios would use a cloth to wipe the tears that collected in his old friend's eyes.

“Such a gift,” Nicholas whispered. Agios had thought his friend was sleeping. His eyes were closed, his breath too shallow, too quick.

“I've always thought it was a curse,” Agios said.

Nicholas's eyes flashed open. “God gives good gifts to his children,” he insisted. “We are all a part of the body; we each have a role to fulfill. Yours is remarkable.”

“I never understood,” Agios confessed.

Tenderly, the old bishop said, “Oh, Agios, I told you long ago. You are worthy, and God forgave you before you ever thought you needed it. You asked humbly and with a broken spirit and God heard your prayer and transformed you into a different man.”

“Humble?” Agios asked, shaking his head. “Me?”

Nicholas took his hand. “You're the most humble person I know. The scars on your hands and your face were earned by serving others. Don't you feel that your scarred heart was made whole the moment you gave your service to Christ?”

“My son,” Agios said, clasping the aged hand. “I didn't know! Not until you taught me— even when you were only a child, you showed me what it means to give without grudging, to live with love. Nicholas, I
saw
Jesus, but I never
knew
him—not until you showed me the way. How long does it take for a man like me to understand? Help me again. I once prayed that God would allow me to serve him until Jesus's mission was through, but I don't know how to do that.”

Nicholas squeezed Agios's hand with his frail fingers. “You need no help, my friend. How can any of us understand it all, the gift from that baby you guarded, from that holy man who died on the cross? It doesn't ask understanding, but only acceptance. Your prayer has been answered. You've become a legend, a guardian, and a mystery.”

“What do you mean?” Agios gripped Nicholas's hand even tighter, but just like that, Nicholas had fallen asleep.

The others Agios had mourned had died by violence, or suddenly, and this slow decline was one of the most heartbreaking things he had ever encountered. Nicholas drifted in and out of consciousness, and sometimes when he opened his eyes Agios could see recognition there. Other times it was as if Nicholas was already gone.

For two days Agios didn't leave his beloved son's side. Then, late one night, Nicholas took a deep breath and whispered his first words in days. They were clear and lovely, a call to arms: “Persevere, Agios. Until Jesus's mission is complete. Until all the ends of the earth shall hear. Remind all mankind to fight the good fight. Remind them to give in memory of God's greatest gift. Give them comfort and hope. Promise me, Father.”

Agios swallowed. “I promise—Father.”

Nicholas's smile was gentle. “You've never called me that before.”

“You are a priest,” Agios said simply.

Nicholas drew a deep breath. Then his features relaxed, and his smile became a look of expectancy— of delight.

He didn't breathe again.

Tears dripped off Agios's cheeks as he leaned over his friend. He kissed his forehead in blessing, in good-bye. “Farewell, Son. Farewell—Father.”

His back bent with the burden of loss—“But God gave me a back for bearing burdens,” he whispered to himself. He stood beside the bed.

The whole town mourned Nicholas's passing. With his own hands Agios carried the frail body to the tomb and placed it safely inside.
I have buried three sons now
, he thought.

But now he hoped to see them all again, in the fullness of time.

The priests of the church thought of Agios as a faithful servant of the bishop's. They offered him a place among them, but he gently refused. One asked, “What do you want, then? You deserve something.”

“There is one thing,” he said. They were surprised when he named it, for it was only a well-worn garment that Nicholas had set aside years before, but they gladly gave it to him.