Chapter 3

She paused, feeling a fresh wellspring of love for the bearded youth. She wanted to thank him, to express the joy and praise toward Yahweh Elohim spreading through her in a flood of joy and gratitude, but she was suddenly too tired to even stand upright, so she allowed him to see her smile, and then she lay down with a wearied sigh. Later that afternoon Ruth the innkeepers wife joined them, as Salome` napped, exhausted by her playtime with her beloved young uncle. Hannah sought a comfortable position at the loom as he retold the exciting details of his first encountered with the three Magi from the East, and began to describe their gifts again. Her sides ached and her back felt as though her shoulders were being pushed down against her hips by invisible hands intent on causing her pain! Although it troubled the sensitive youth to be sent away when he could see how much pain she was in, because another woman was there, even an older woman like Ruth, he was too uncomfortable to remain in their company, with his still being an unmarried man, and so he kissed his adopted mother goodbye, and held the sleeping toddler cradled against his chest.

She had such a strange look on her face as she touched her fingers reverently to the weather-aged mezuzah on the doorframe of the cave that Hilkiah was too intimidated to question her. If the stout woman wished to say anything on the long walk back up the path to the village proper nothing on this world or the next could prevent her! Instead she merely kissed him on the cheek distractedly, looking toward the near hilltop that was now empty. She seized Hilkiah's arm in excitement as she saw the two heavily laden donkeys bearing his sister-in-law and her new nephew. She disliked Sari’s sharp tongue, seeing as how the first child she bore the lean, kind youth Asa died before she could be named, but it comforted Ruth to know her friend Hannah wouldn't be alone tonight after all! She let out her breath and pulled her head covering closer against the growing cold. She couldn’t stay away much longer. As much as Imri loved his baby sister, Bashemath would always remain a child in her mind no matter how much she aged, a parting gift from a man cruel enough to blame her for the child’s defect before he choked to death on his own bile. Such children were common to his family, not to hers, but luckily she had strong family ties with her own ken despite his hearty dislike for them, which was gladly returned to his face, none of her father’s sons being shy or retiring, and unlike Hannah, she and the three children were well cared for. It was good to see Abigail’s younger son return to care for his widowed step-mother and half-sister although he was as mild natured as the serene mother who died in childbirth giving that old goat a seventh son!

Hilkiah nodded. Sari would be home before dark. He’d have to find some way to let Asa know, so he could hire a boy to watch his flocks. To have a son and heir as well as a living child had to mean as much to him as it did their older half-brothers, but he doubted Asa would have rebuked the lovely woman for having born a living girl. He knew they both wanted to name their first girl after their mother Abigail. To keep from guessing that Joseph’s absence was anything more than a causal trip to buy exotic woods or to sharpen a farm’s implements on site, Hilkiah intended to return to the house he’d so recently shared with the carpenter’s family, but as he stepped out of doors, he came across one of the Bethlehemite’s playing a cruel practical joke on his brother Asa by smearing a wide swath of lamb’s blood over the mezuzah nailed to the doorpost of the house entrance. But the man ran away too quickly for the youth to rebuke him or make him clean up his cruel prank before his sister-in-law returned with his new nephew. Hopefully, it would be dark by the time Sari arrived, and she wouldn’t notice it. Without warning, he felt a chill cross his cheek and glaze his right eye and he stood stock still, in dread that some terrible calamity that was following his father’s family had just laid its cold hand against him and the magnificence of his dreams! If he were less than fit, all would be for naught, and he would be driven away from his home and life! That moment’s pause saved his life as a quadroon of Roman Soldiers lead by a Roman soldier on a war trained horse swept into the main street of the sleepy, rural town, leading the four armed pedanites left under his command with the withdrawal of the main group this afternoon. Armed and red eyed with the stain of dust and the glare of too little hope and too much liquor, how many swords would it take to kill a handful of armed Jewish boys still clinging to their mother’s paps?

The grim faced master of the death squad waited just below the brow of the hill overlooking the village they were preparing to attack. It bothered the grim sergeant that this attack would occur within the festival of Vespa, even knowing they scorned ‘minor’ gods not of their own making. It was almost dark when the screaming began, the tiny crescent of the moon overhead hiding the soldiers as well as their intended victims, but mothers and sons were most likely to be home shortly after dusk, whether their men were or not. He watched the stealthy movement of the spy they’d paid to sneak down and mark the nine doorways they were seeking with fresh lamb’s blood, but he doubted the mothers would wait inside once they were altered to the terror seeking them out in the night! Like most Romans, he had a superstitious fear of even numbers, and Giovanni cursed the pretty but foul tempered brute whose reins he held at arm’s length to keep the nervous animal from biting at him, as it had been taught to do in battle. He half wished the twenty-seven year old Sergeant would mount on the brute, to relieve him of his constant need for alertness as the night was shattered time and again by women’s screams and men’s foul curses. In this moment he hated the aloof young soldier in charge of him and befouled the name of Herod as easily as he did Tiberius’, if only in his own mind. Kicking his sandaled foot at the brute’s hooves as it reared and tried to lash at him with its iron shod hooves.

“ We need to keep it as quiet as possible, Giovanni. “ He thought out loud. “ Otherwise they’ll hide the beasts or run into the streets and who can tell one from another in this foreign place? “ He spat contemptuously, starling the high struck animal under his trusted slave’s care into another chilling display of the pawing of iron shod hooves and primitive rearing, almost falling victim to the stallion’s sharp yellow teeth on the leather covered shoulder of his logia. When the man’s soft voice left off calming the brute animal, Xavier felt the educated voice strike delicately at the edges of his nerves. Saying yes and actually doing it was proving to be two different things! He feared he would remind him that lived with a Jewess as if she was his proper Roman wife, even in front of Pilate, who winked broadly as such misalignments as long as the woman was as cultured and wise as Shelomith, but instead the aged slave revealed his truth thoughts, almost unnerving the grizzled warrior.

Xavier Quintus Marcus hugged his bared arms tighter against his metal breast-plate as the hill borne wind cut through his cloak like a dagger. He’d picked these four men for their brutality and their willingness to obey any officer’s orders. But he’d brought his own aide along for the journey here and back since he feared for the bandits who made their homes in the caves and crags of that great, windswept mountain. These louts might as quickly flee a zealot’s attack as defend themselves with their superior training and physical conditioning, but now he questioned the wisdom of bringing a thinking man along with him on such a disgusting mission. There couldn’t be more than a dozen boy infants in this size village, but it would still require a house-to-house search to make sure none of them were overlooked. Herod could murder his own mother and children and call for his dead and beloved wife, believing her simply hiding from hismadness. What would he do to mere mortal men who’d allowed a rival king to live? But in the end he said nothing. What was there to say? They were soldiers of Rome, given a distasteful and gruesome task only the lowest of the execution squads would even welcome as a respite from the groans and pleas of dying men locked on crosses of Judean wood. “ Mind the horse’s welfare. He cost me a great deal to acquire. “ He said curtly. He didn’t make the rules, he just enforced them, but he’d been promised a rise to the rank of centurion in the next opening that came available while they were still in Jerusalem.

The usual calm of the sleepy village at night was broken by the flare of lanterns and the doors left open, their light pouring out into the muddied streets. Three armed Romans pushed past him, swords drawn blood stained and bleary eyed. They appeared to be moving in a coordinated search of the lanes and streets now filling with boys and old men bearing knives and sticks. But none dared to actually touch the three men they cursed and threatened in the foulest of oaths! It was death to touch a Roman. None of it made sense! Even less when a young babe in arms was seized from under a blanket and run through with one of the short, wicked daggers in the hands of the shorter of the three men. Hannah screamed in horror as Sari staggered toward them in the dark, her dead son bent backwards over her arms, his head pushed back and his throat now sticky and dark with dried blood. She was screaming obscenities and demanding the soldiers take Hannah’s baby as well, though Salome` was a girl! Her eyes were wide with demoniac revulsion as she stared in sick horror at the living child clinging to its mother’s breast

It kept trying to elude him, but for Hannah and his little sister’s sake, he didn’t dare give in to its powerful allure. He swayed like a drunken man, trying to remember why there should be so much blood on his hand. Then he saw the crook of the soldier’s elbow and the way the hair on the man’s hairy forearm stood out in the moonlight, the shine of the urine and blood burning white in the new illumination and his heart understood before his brain. Reaching out, he seized the thrusting arm. Twisting it sideways till the blooded blade merely cut the homespun cloth away, leaving a faint thread of living satin on the screaming child’s abdomen. As he passed out he heard Hannah’s voice pleading, “ See, sir, see! She is a girl! “ Tearing the blooded line in the cloth to reveal the lack of male genital between the twisting child’s legs.

Finally there was only the silenced tramp of the soldier’s feet and the smell of blood and fecal matter sticking to their clothing and legs as the quadroon returned, grim faced and tear stained. Even for them, this has been a difficult night. Xavier Quintus Marcus tried to keep his face clear of the revulsion that grew with the near approach of the four. They’d done what they had to do, but he knew looking at them that as soon as they were rested, they’d receive their marching orders that would take them to the perimeter of the empire where they would be allowed to die fighting. They were useless for any other duty with their spirits so broken. A part of him wanted to join the doomed men for his own willingness to do this wicked thing. The halo of dyed horsehair on his helmet seemed suddenly to be the color and stench of blood and for several seconds he couldn’t even speak over the weigh in his mouth.

“ We’ll march till full moonlight, then find a place to whore and wash. You’ll be given special places of honor at the Summer Solstice celebrations in two days. You’ve earned it, men. I’m proud of you. “ He lied. Hera was the mother of the gods, he could only hope she wasn’t watching the agony of the Jewish mothers they’d just left behind, or Zeus would destroy them all if only to silence his wife’s wrath, as he did Shelomith! He had to choke down the taste of vomit as they neared, their bloodied clothes as revolting as their body odor and sorrows. But he was a soldier and this was war, Xavier warned himself. He threw himself on the stallion’s back, and dug his numbed heels into the great beast’s sides, keeping his balance from years of experience despite his outward youth. Then he forced his hands to stop shaking until he rode behind the five men where none would dare to turn around and look, to see the emotion and horror that clung to him with the silences that were more terrible than the screams or the sudden stop of a dog’s vicious barking as it vainly defend its master and the three year old, or younger son, of the doomed, barricaded house.

If he didn’t know better Abiasaph would have been fooled into thinking the former slave girl had said something to betray a trace of humanity, but he shook off the illusion. Taking the gold and copper coins from her fingers in a greed he couldn’t hide, despite his best efforts, he left the side door without looking back. If he had, he would have seen the tears leap to the kohl defined edges of the woman’s eyelids, and he would have been shocked to the depth of his soul, as damned as he was sure it was when it came time to be weighed in the afterlife! The young woman’s lips parted, but what she said was too low for anyone’s ears but the Hebrew god to whom she addressed it, then she turned and carefully checked the lock on the gate twice, to make sure it couldn’t be moved from the outside. A shadow crossed overhead and she looked up, startled to see a long legged stork coming to rest on the roof of the stables, and for the life of her she couldn’t remember if that was a good omen, or bad. Hastening indoors quickly, she felt a prolonged shiver of anticipation.

Returning from Egypt with Joseph and his growing family, Hilkiah found himself aching to have his own child as he watched the precocious baby daughter Deborah willfully take advantage of her ‘cousin’ Salome`, and older half brother’s gentle good humor. Who could forbid her? Within hours of her birth she began to show the remarkable beauty that would make old men’s heads turn and young men’s to turn away, red with excitement. His strong willed Judith had waited patiently for his return though Masrekah the matchmaker grudgingly offered her name to two other suitable young men, but he didn’t wish to force the issue of children when intimacy between them was already unbearably awkward, so the news that sweet Mara was on her way had helped to seal their bargain for remaining in Nazareth with Mary’s widowed older sister Miriam Jacoba and her infant son Jude rather than yielding to the pressure of Miriam Salome` content in her own union with strongly opinionated Zebedee the fisherman in lakeside Capernaum, after moving then from Bethesda, further up the coast a short ways. What Mary thought during those years he’d never been able to bring himself to ask, for she kept so many things quietly locked away in her heart. But they were both happy in their marriages and the children grew, nurtured by three sets of hands on any one given day, so he became content to simply start each day with prayer and tying his sandals and ending each day with prayer and untying his sandals, pretending that he was really listening to Judith’s full account of what she’d done and what she expected to get done tomorrow with the sun’s rise. It wasn’t until the boy Jesus was twelve and Deborah just beginning to accept her enforced absence from her mother’s paps that Miriam Jacoba remarried, and remained in the South with her new husband and two step-daughters that they had even the smallest sign of rebellion from seven year old Mara, who refused to give up her cherished friend and playmate, soon-to-be ten year old Jude Thaddeus, and it wasn’t until the end of a very trying day as they were crossing the barren Micmash mountain valley range that he started to tack count of Joseph’s family, and finding twelve year Jesus missing, assumed him to be with other family members. They would all be gathered tonight at the campfires, and he hoped the good natured boy, who looked so much like Jude, despite being two years older, could ease his tiny daughter’s heartbreak at losing such a significant member of her ‘family’ for the first time. He remembered the ache he felt when he had to leave Hannah and Salome`, and they were within miles of his voice! It wasn’t until night fell and no amount of counting could make the numbers come out correctly that anyone suspected the boy wasn’t with them, each supposing he was traveling with the other along the Roman maintained Via Mares trade route From Damascus South to Egypt.

Hilkiah blamed himself more than he did the boy. The master’s oldest son was impressionable, as bright boys often are and having mastered the intricate nature of wood and grains the carpenter shop held little attraction for his agile mind. As the master began to ail, Jesus seemed to take extra care in helping him and his father stack and carry wood, and in taking on some of the more intricate carving he’d learned from those same gentle and patient hands, while his own beloved Judith had taken to helping Mary with her younger sons, five year old James and two year old Joses. But even his religious studies teacher Reb Av’ri complained that Jesus was far too consumed with ‘ideals’ instead of having fun, and getting in trouble ‘mildly’ like other boys his age. Often asking questions the old teacher had to postpone till the other boys were already gone, for they grew restive and bored in the quiet but intense conversations between teacher and student. Tall for his age but still slight with youth, twelve-year old Jesus seemed well content despite the weight placed on his shoulders as first born; watching over his eight-year old half-sister Deborah, and his two younger half-brothers, sometimes even their own four year old daughter Mara when he and Judith were called away with Mary and Joseph, but often he was absent from things others felt he should be at, because his heart and his mind were in the clouds, and even Reb Av’ri found it difficult to scold the boy for dreaming about things in ancient terms. He feared now that the impulsive youth’s belief the goodness that was so innate in his own nature was present even in the thieves and bullies who gathered in the walled city to plunder the lesser pilgrims, had surely cost the boy his innocence by kidnapping or worse, by those who recognized him as Israel’s future king! What else could have kept him away at such a cost to his parents and the others who loved him? Lately Hilkiah found himself so busy with their newborn son, Noah, he hadn’t taken the time with Jesus he had before. They’d been unable to find the lad despite two days and nights of frantic searching, even along the dark, busy lanes where only Gentiles lived and shopped. Vainly demanding hope from beggars, who went everywhere in the city without being noticed, but none could tell of a boy his age being held captive or crying. A country boy would stand out like a persimmon in a bowl filled with figs and citrons, but he must have been imprisoned in some inner room or worse! For not even the fear of a mother could bring them information about the missing boy. The Roman appointed king who cost his family so much difficulty was dead, but the son who ruled here in his place is little better! Even with the help of the master’s rich friend in Bethany, what hope did they have to raise a random if it was demanded for the safe return of the boy? As great as the parent’s sense of loss, his own pain was ten times more! How could he have failed the first test after living so comfortably for twelve years on a boyish pledge?

On the third morning they returned to the Temple,[3] having exhausted all human hope for the lad’s recovery, to pray for guidance and wisdom, only to find him on the temple steps holding a debate with the elders and learned scholars of the Law! A kindly man had kept watch over him and brought him each day that he might test the knowledge of some who’d sat at the feet of great men without learning anything original of their own, with a scholar’s lack of consideration for where the boy arose or what his parents might fear at his loss! Hilkiah was stunned and lost the last of his childhood fear and awe of bearded old men able to chant entire portions of the Tenach at will, for the old man callousness never gave thought to anything or anyone else, no matter his protestations when Mary attempted to reclaim the remarkable young mind!

Gamaliel, the grandson of the great Rabbi Hillel, generous and kindly natured even in his youth, watched the young mother and her burgeoning son with growing compassion for the maternal concern that seemed to take the lad by surprise. Having been appointed as Assistant to the brightest of the students when the number edged past forty-one, he found himself weighing the youth’s potential anew, wondering how soon they would recognize his boy’s extraordinary gift in love and purity of understanding of the finer points of Mosaic Law? He had to fight the impulse to nudge the young scholar at his side, as they were seated together apart from the others in their thirst and desire to know more of the Holy One’s infinite wisdom, as a finite mind might understand its portion of the Infinite, and ask if he felt the same shiver of anticipation and delight as he had felt? Though the youth from Nazareth was plain and bore neither conceit nor arrogance with his impressive understanding, he had the strangest feeling that natural humility was the thing that set the country youth aside as the next generations Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem.

“ As am I, Bethuel. Every one should provide himself with a teacher, because it prepares us for the life to come. “ He conceded gently, already losing thought of the domestic scene as he inwardly pondered the youth’s unfinished allusion when there were so rudely interrupted by his parents. The carpenter and his wife from Nazareth. ‘It was an intriguing point for one so young!’ Never noticing the cold stare from his trusted companion nor guessing that he had turned the intent around so totally, without even meaning to be unkind as Bethuel had! ‘It was as unlikely that the pleasant, even featured youth had been able to stop working in father’s shop three years ago, and begun to study in earnest as the able youth from Tarsus had at aged ten, as a rich man’s only son, but must have been content to study psalms and memorize verses with the local Hazan. [4] Still, there was a long and distinguished history of the Nazareth of the past that the three half brothers who organized and ran it surely preserved with their best and their brightest boys in their ‘vineyard’. And despite the disparity of their upbringing, there was a remarkable similarity in their thirst and their enjoyment for the Law that was refreshing, and he enjoyed the challenge in his own modest way.

“ If only Herod’s wits had been less sharp, or the Roman’s gladius less swift, we would have a king not unlike this boy I think, though he comes from gentile Galilee. “ His softly spoken regret, so familiar to those around him these last years seemed to go unnoticed by everyone but Alexander of Cilicia, the slave pedagogue, whom these people insisted on calling Eleazar. He gripped the service tools a little tighter, trying to hide his smile of pride and the goodly looks being turned in his master’s son’s direction, but luckily young Saul’s eyes were too focused on things nearby to take notice of such approval, as he did. For the first time since he was forced to leave the lush south east district in Asia Minor with its clarifying views of the deeply blue Mediterranean and the northern Plateau of the “Gates of Cilicia” where wealth and knowledge and beauty were accepted as a way of life as easily as the air on breathed, he felt a measure of peace at being certain the master’s son didn’t travel to his new life alone. Perhaps there was reward in watching his young charge grow and surpass him in religious studies as he had in math, science and astronomy.

Mary pulled back, feeling the shameful weight of so many men’s eyes on her as she hastily entered the Court of Gentiles, simply grateful beyond words to find that her son was alive, and well! She hadn’t given it a thought until he spoke a man’s words with a young boy’s changing vocal cords. Acknowledging the truth of what he’d said, in her spirit, even as her heart and her will struggled against losing her son Jesus so soon. Leaning heavily on his staff, Joseph stepped between the woman and the younger man to protect his beloved wife from the scowl of the white bearded elder who was sat in front, frowning in growing impatiently at the ardor of the woman that had carried her past the appropriate place for females. The old man pursed his lips together tightly in rebuke as the aged carpenter coaxed the frightened matron behind the barricade he and Hilkiah provided. There were some who would have detained the well spoken youth, beaming at the man they assumed had taught him so skillfully, but in the midst of the heated debate over the last point the earnest boy had made to Master Nicodemus Joseph was able to apologize and withdraw from the heated circle of voices. Walking behind, and watching Jesus’ face, eagerly upturned toward his mother, a sense of awe and wonder pressed against the whisper of his diminishing physical abilities. The last three days of stress and fear had demanded much more of him than Joseph cared to admit, even to himself. A gradual failing that sheer will power alone could no longer deny. The love shining from the boy’s face, the graceful curve of his cheek, given him by youth, so matched Mary’s beloved contours that for a moment he was so filled with love for the pair that he could hardly speak, praising the Holy One with inexpressible joy and gratitude that he had been allowed a part in this divine plan; even if it didn’t appear that he would walk beside the man, as he had carried the infant Jesus and encouraged the steps of the lithe, happy boy. Despite the repentance at having worried her so, there shone a light in the youth’s eyes that Joseph could only describe as determination. The time would come when he wouldn’t turn away from men like those!

“ It’s an holy fear, Kiah. “ He assured him, patting his work calloused hands on top of the younger man’s surprisingly warm hands. “ I shall rest easier knowing that His mother will have you at their side to protect them through the coming storms. “ Even understanding the sad voiced prophecy, the young bearded man glanced at the spring brightened skies, barely able to discern the older man’s words above the noise raised by the nesting birds. Side by side they followed as the boy slipped his hand into his mother’s, his smile deepening with an adult incline that caught other people’s notice as the merchants stepped out of their shops to glance at the sky, as changeable as it was at this time of year, assuming the two men who gave each other support were the brothers they appeared to be after the flesh.

They were common folk, wearied and covered with dust from their long pilgrim-age from Out There Somewhere, but not likely to press copper coins, a Denarius, nor golden Shekels into eager, up-thrust palms, so they were forgotten as quickly as their shadows passed on the ancient walls of David’s glorified city. The sound of hammers and nails and stone chisels taking up the tempo of the day as Herod’s building plan continued to be implemented even as his bones dried and bleached in their extravagantly carved ossuary. Jesus returned to Nazareth with them, like any other boy his age except his reluctance to seek out a girl on which to shower his attentions, which Hilkiah understood with better grace than his religious teacher Av’ri, for the woman he married would have to be fit to rule a kingdom, not merely keep a carpenter’s house in a back water town with a glorious but ancient past that only embarrassed it on its day-to-day dealings with the larger Gentile population around it, and the years became measured in his children’s growth, though no second or third son followed Noah as they had been in his father’s house. If it meant keeping the same wife, Hilkiah was well pleased.

Some two years later the outside world intruded again briefly as the old emperor Augustus, who had fought Anthony and Queen Cleopatra, died in the month after which he renamed himself to commemorate his victory, just thirty-five days short of his seventy-sixth birth date and his adopted son, Tiberius ruled in his place in Rome, appointing a new Prefect, Valerius Gratus, who appointed three High Priests in as many years until he found one who was willing to work for the good of Rome as well as the people, the young son-in-law Joseph ben Caiaphas, who’d stood at Annas’ side the year when Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem for that Passover, was taken from office by the strong willed Imperial. No doubt by the recommendation of Sejanus, the anti-Semitic commander of the Praetorian Guard in Rome, the son-in-law of Tiberius came to Judea to rule in Gratus’ place, Pontius Pilate, as the fifth Prefect of Judea. In the typical Roman arrogance and shadowed deceit, the obdurate new ruler of the providence, determined to secure the corn so vital to Rome’s bread making and prove his superiority over the conquered people, sent by night the emblems of Caesar’s authority and signals of the great battles he had won over peoples greater than them-selves.

On the sixth day Pilate set up his Tribunal in the open market and called the multitude to him, as if to hear them out and acquiesce to the moral power of their demands, that he was eager to give them an answer. But as the leaders and the people of the Book strengthened themselves with hope, despite Rome’s former treatment, and they gathered around him to reason with him according to their own level of belief or understanding, which was sharpened by the intensity of their former revolt, Pilate gave the signal and they found themselves encircled by first one row of soldiers with their weapons and their shields a vertical forest of iron and seasoned wood to close off any hope of retreat, then a second, and a third and the man seated above them as the living emblem of Rome made no effort to hide his contempt as he saw their fear and dawning realization they had been duped and he made it clear to them that unless they would admit Caesar’s images into Jerusalem. Otherwise, they would be hacked to pieces by the war hardened soldiers of Rome to the man; and as proof of his resolve, Pilate gave the sign and the soldiers mercilessly drew their swords from the scabbards, choosing targets with their eyes. In the midst of this intimidating show of force and resolve as naked as the weapons in the morning sun, the Jews, as if on a signal laid themselves down where they stood and bared their necks, crying out that they were ready to be slain, though none had had the time to kiss their womenfolk goodbye or to grieve with their children, than to allow the sacred Law to be transgressed.

Pontus Pilate, a man of war, used to the stratagems and the mind of warriors, was shocked speechless for several long seconds, as the waiting and the silence grew more intense with each passing moment. The poised soldier’s feet pressing back and forth as they shifted weight, waiting for the carnage to begin, the slow, piecing wails of women around the edge of the marketplace as they realized the doom of their loved ones and the Elders from Judea. The visceral destruction of the heart of Israel and the Northern kingdom. Surprised at such a prodigious superstition gave the order that the emblems should be presently carried out of Jerusalem. Hilkiah could only imagine their joyful astonishment as they bathed and shaved for the first time in as many days as nights and perhaps sipped at broth and goat’s milk as their stomachs were surely as greatly shrunken by their prolonged fast as their spirits were uplifted by its uncommon success. But once the initial furor subsided when Pilate backed down from the fervent objections of the priests to the unholy symbols of Rome being placed in the Jerusalem, the heart of their world returned from national events and possible catastrophes to the heartbeat of their life in Nazareth as more and more of the local carpenters went to work in near-by Sepphoris, giving them more work from the strictly Orthodox households of merchants and farmers then they could handle, until the night Joseph slipped away from the arms of his loving family and his sons began to compete with their elder half-brother, deifying their widowed mother’s vain desire to keep them as malleable boys, if only to keep peace in the small, crowded house. With the enormous hole was torn in their lives with Joseph’s passing, Mary naturally turned to Hilkiah, although he was two years younger than herself as he and Jesus, the oldest son kept the shop and expanded it slowly, watching Joseph’s last two children drew near the age when they too would marry, like Deborah and James, and take up lives of their own. Frankly he’d forgotten the passion that committed him to the newborn babe when he was thirteen, and he’d rather hoped the eldest son of the house of Joseph had too, but it wasn’t to be so.

Tabboath ben Adonikam raced his own shadow down the narrow, littered Street of Carpenters. He wanted nothing more than to give the widow’s son the Mohar [9] agreed upon, and have this marriage contract done and over with before sunset! Though Obadiah was closer to him in blood, having the same father as he and Onycha, he thought more highly of his mother’s oldest son Othoniel, especially in the business of doing business. Obadiah was wise in the way of the ancient texts, but one doesn’t become one of the wealthiest men in town by making the wrong decision or ‘the right decision out of season’, as he was found of putting it when he was apply salve to his younger brother’s easily wounded feelings. All of the gifts pressed on his pretty but witless daughter could be construed as Mattan , the gifts of love already so evident in the pair, but it was to himto provide her Shiluhim to help equip her for her new life with the life she must now share with the most scholar’s income even a successful carpenter’s shop might hope to offer a middle brother. Othoniel was seeing to the exact wording of the Ketupah before Jael coax her half-witted aunt into adding anything more than would negate the final agreement in shul! His belly growled from the prolonged fast require of Yom ha Kippurim as well as the ‘Fast of the First born’, but feeling as though he’d properly attended to such weighty spiritual matters and having his name inscribed in the King’s Book of Life for another year despite his growing ill health he needed to put this whole distasteful scene behind him as quickly as possible. His daughter Jael was actually proud that she’d been returned to him, a virgin, for the only man she had ever said she would marry and lest someone give his half sister Onycha the idea that there was another reason for his daughter’s immodest and unbecoming behavior other than childish and misplaced affections for the handsome third son of Joseph the master carpenter, he had to spew out his lies, smile as if he meant it and down his sorrow in the bitter gall of his broken dreams. Why hadn’t his wife been obedient in this as well as everything else in life and given him a son before she died? Yet, how could he deny his daughter when she’d lived her whole life seeing him love only one woman with such a passion? It was in her blood, he thought to himself with a weary sigh, wishing the pounding in his head would lessen so he could hear something other than its silvered knives slicing relentless against the back of his ears! It was a father’s duty to see his own child cared for lest Othoniel try to marry her to his son with his mother’s poor teeth and persistent bad breath as an excuse to keep the family wealth under his control when he was gone to Abraham’s bosom to finally rest.

It wasn’t merely the closeness in their blood as half brothers but the vile way Othoniel’s son Jeremiah looked at his cousin that twisted his gut into a knot, for Jael was as beautiful as she was willful and he couldn’t bear to see her spirit broken, no matter how misguided her passions. Better a union to a scholar to take Obadiah’s place that to that leering wretch who spent his entire allowance in the hut of Tivah the town prostitute, thinking that the pitying looks in his direction were envious glances at his stamina and his prowess. He couldn’t put his little darling through something like that! Besides, Othoniel actually thought the lout would follow him into a place of position at shul because he had no head for business. It was enough to make one want to retch and force the very idea out of his body! No, even Joses ben Joseph was a better match than that! In the end Jael would love him more for allowing her to ‘have her way’ as usual. He would never tell her the truth. As long as she was happy with her young scholar it was the best he could hope for in a bad situation and at least it helped to know that he loved her as passionately in return, now while youth clothed his mind and his muscles. Later the ardor would fade, it always did, but by then there would be babies and her natural place at the head of Hadassah. ‘He couldn’t do everything!’ He argued with himself angrily, but the increased force of his emotions caused his vessels to swell with tainted blood and it made the pain behind his ear hurt all the more intently so he pushed it away, focusing on an obscure reference from Isaiah that he had been meditating on during the solemn and profoundest moments of this most sacred day. ‘Get this over with and let me go home before I’m there long enough for them to smell the cloves hidden in my ear, Holy One!’ He prayed, with the same fervent worship as he had the prayers of Kol Nidre last night!

He’d wakened from a sound sleep, though he had tried to stay awake, and found the blood pooled in his ear again, a frightening sign that his time was slipping away almost as fast as the night was overtaking this sacred day. ‘Otherwise I would never…’ He started to protest automatically, to defend himself against the Holy One’s wrath as much as the memory of his dead father’s cuffs against this ear when he was only half Jeremiah’s size, but he stopped short, the feeling of being watched by that grim, all knowing visage of the Ancient of Days, blessed be His Name, bearing down on his innermost thoughts while riding on His sacred chariot of flaming Cherubim was too real, too recent to risk self approbation and self justification and who could be sure he would HAVE next week if the doctors were right? Jael, the very image of her mother Elizabeth, deserved much better than that! The courtyard where he was ushered into with such grace considering the shocking intrusion on the end of such a holy day was covered by large weave homespunthat allowed the breeze but forbid all but the most determined winged insects drawn to the lanterns lighting the gay scene below. The two older sons were there already, Jesus unmarried and James, steadily married as became being raised in such a pious household, event he two younger, unmarried sons as well as the youth he would have chosen for his beloved Rose of Sharon had he been offered the chance to pick, the youth Noah ben Hilkiah. Though pale as a scholar and skinny as a tree planted too far away from water, the nineteen year had a gentles he would have liked to seen wrapped around his strong willed and extravagantly emotional heir. But the knobby kneed youth of nineteen was married to a flax plant so pliable she must have asked permission of her own shadow to cross over it! But in this house with THAT WOMAN there, so proud of the older wealthy merchant she’d married after his first wife died, it was probably just as well. He grinned, as if in pleasure of seeing the mild manner widow Mary approach but inwardly he was thinking of how his Rose would take on that fading beauty of an eldest daughter and put her in her place soon enough! The young one didn’t even matter. Jeremiah lusted for her and her fawnlike eyes, and no doubt would have her once this marriage contract was agreed upon by himself and the widow’s eldest son. He simply wished it was already done, waiting with false smiles though the elaborate greetings it took to merely get his foot past the door facing the street.

The six children were arranged in a large semi-circle around the first two Triclinium tables, as calm in their appointed places as the chickens and geese resting on the branches of their coops along the furthest wall. He fought back a moment of envy for the household, which featured five separate families and three strong willed women moved smoothly and calmly under the direction of the middle aged woman who greeted him so pleasantly. Even with her back turned her serving woman and her daughters-in-law continued as they had before. It was as no one wished to cause her grief or worry, a peacefulness he’d lost with Elizabeth’s passing, thinking things were just naturally so. It made him all the more determined and abrupt to get the formality settled since they had discussed this at length during the last two weeks of Elul after she was angrily returned to him from her former father-in-law’s house in utter disgrace. Apparently her husband had tired of her fainting spells and tears from their meaningless time locked in the chuppah behind the synagogue and tried to apply his husbandly rights where he felt it would do the most good and she had snapped something that broke the marriage vow more surely than it did the unfortunately erect flesh.

‘That’s my Jael!’ he thought to himself over the boring drone of the prospective son-in-law who should have had the sense of the geese resting behind him and simply pretended he wasn’t even there! This was a matter for his elders! Maybe not being around much longer was going to be a blessing in disguise! But knowing Jael would pout if her beloved Joses gave even the smallest hint of his boredom or his distain he half shut his eyes as he did when Obadiah preached overlong from the Bema and he envisioned Elizabeth as she had been in the blissful early years of their union. They had been strangers, meeting for the first time at the beginning of their year of betrothal before she returned to her father’s house to wait for him to build them a house of their own on his father’s land, but Masrekah had been kind to them, as had the Holy One, Blessed Be His Name, and she proved right, it was a match made between kindred souls and he longed for its return in a way that was both profoundly sad and sweetly-bitter all at the same moment. He could only wish as much happiness to his daughter’s union to the youth she had sacrificed so much for. He was therefore caught all the more unprepared for the cold silence that greeted the elder son’s quiet announcement that he would not be there to hand the bride to her husband at this time next year. He was leaving the carpenter shop to travel about and preach. Which was no surprise to him, though it appeared to leave his family speechless. Even Reb Av’ri, the boy’s religious studies teacher complained that Joseph’s oldest son had his head in the clouds for all that he was a good boy and contentious in his studies and his duties. See the way he had shouldered the load with his father Joseph’s passing? But then again, there were rumors that he was so much Mary’s son it would be unlikely he would ever marry. Av’ri and Obadiah had, but their wives had had to be content with the name of a husband, beyond the required first night spent after their return from the woman’s mikvah and the week’s abstinence required by their flow of woman’s blood. Having exchanged the necessary formalities, chaste kisses and ritual needed to complete the marriage contract between their families, he fled; a cat’s high pitched protest and a child’s tears coming over the high wall of the compound into the dusk emptied street as half a dozen voices tried to speak and be heard at once. Speaking His decision to abandon them as casually as if he were saying the kind of wood he’d chosen for a particular project where the customer had asked specially for him rather than James or James, who often took less care than they’d learned at their father’s side, it took his elders a few moments to understand the depth of His decision, the old man from Bethlehem most especially. Looking at Jesus, first as the babe, then the child and youth he’d always known, Hilkiah felt a sharp tug in his spirit. ‘Why him? Why now? He was ready to retire to watch his grandchildren toddle about the yard and enjoy the respite from the hard work and traveling that had carried him this far!’ But in the confusion, no one thought to ask his opinion and Judith made it clear she was holding him personally responsible for this new disruption in their lives, when he’d been so willing to sit patiently and merely smile and nod when Mary’s son told His wild tales of what He would do for Israel some day! The terrible scene of confusion grew more intense with the fall of night as the arrival of Sabbath with the setting sun’s final departure from the ruddy and glowing sky behind the hill on which their city was built, provided none of the lovingly prepared meal which completed the break from their fast. Apples and honey would carry a child’s empty tummy only so far.

Because her husband Zaavan had failed to arrive from his yearly residence in Egypt before Yom ha Kippurim as he promised, when she and the children expected him too this year at least, Deborah’s oldest child Mattatha was proving to be a handful, ignoring her grandmother Mary’s every attempt at soothing her, and angrily slapping her youngest uncle Judas when he tried to coax her out of her ill mood with a wooden toy she’d already thrown to the ground once in disapproval. Almost ten year old Judas’ eyes had gone wide and threatened to drip tears, for he loved the beautiful girl more than he dared to allow himself to care for anything since his aged father’s abrupt disappearance from their life. But the elegant twelve-year old stamped her foot angrily at being denied her way, and gave no thought to the pain she caused her young Uncle.

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