The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (Harvest in Translation) by José Saramago Page A

mother, as if convinced that no arms can protect his son better than his own. He accompanies his wife and child to the city gate before returning to the Temple site. He will also be here tomorrow to finish his week's work, and then, God willing, they'll be off to Nazareth with all haste.
    That same night, the prophet Micah revealed what he had hitherto withheld. As King Herod, by now resigned to his tortured dreams, waited for the apparition to disappear after the usual ranting and raving, which no longer had much effect, the prophet's formidable shape suddenly grew bigger, and he uttered words he had never spoken before, It is from you, Bethlehem, so insignificant among the families of Judah, that the future ruler of Israel has come. And at that moment the king awoke. Like the deepest chord of a harp, the prophet's words continued to resound through the room. Herod lay with his eyes open, trying to fathom the meaning of this revelation, if there was indeed any meaning, and was so absorbed that he scarcely felt the ants gnawing under his skin or the worms tunneling in his entrails. The prophecy was familiar to every Jew and
revealed nothing Herod did not already know. Besides, he was never one to waste his time worrying about the sayings of the prophets. What bothered him was a vague disquiet, a sense of agonizing strangeness, as if the prophet's utterance had another meaning and that somewhere in those syllables and sounds lay an imminent and fearsome threat. He tried to rid himself of this obsession and go back to sleep, but his body resisted, aching to the marrow. Thinking offered some measure of relief. Staring up at the beams on the ceiling, where the decoration appeared to vibrate in the light of aromatic torches shielded by fire screens, King Herod searched for an answer but could find none. He then summoned the chief eunuch from among those guarding his bedside and ordered him to fetch at once from the Temple a priest bearing the Book of Micah.
    This coming and going from palace to Temple and from Temple to palace went on for almost an hour. Read, ordered Herod when the priest entered the king's bedchamber, and the priest began, The word of the Lord as spoken to Micah of Maresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He continued reading until Herod told him, Read further on, and the priest, puzzled and uncertain as to why he had been summoned, jumped to another passage, Woe to those who plot evil and lay plans for wicked deeds as they he abed, but here he stopped, horrified at this involuntary impudence, became tongue-tied, and, hoping Herod might forget what had just been said, he went on, In the end it will come to pass that the Lord's great mansion will rise above the hills. Further on, snarled Herod, impatient to get to the passage that interested him, and the priest finally came to it, But it is from you, Bethlehem, so insignificant among the families of Judah, that the future ruler of Israel will come. Herod raised his hand, Repeat that passage, he insisted, and the priest obeyed. Once more, he ordered him, and the priest read it a third time. That's enough, said the king after a prolonged silence, You may withdraw. All was now clear. The book announced a future birth, nothing else, while the ghost of Micah had come to warn him that this birth had already taken place. Your words, like those of all prophets, could not have been clearer, even when we interpret them badly. Herod thought and thought again, his expression more and more grim and menacing. He then summoned the commander of the guards and gave him an order to be carried out forthwith. When the commander returned to report, Mission fulfilled, Herod gave another command to be carried out at daybreak, now only hours away. So we shall soon know what has been ordered, unlike the priest, who was brutally assassinated by soldiers before he reached the Temple. There is reason to believe that this was the first of the two orders, so close