“Why? I have no business with these people.”
“Because you now know what I know about her son. It concerns her.”
“I know only what is claimed.”
Judah set his jaw. “What I’ve claimed is now made certain. Miriam’s son was the child. Herod’s father tried to kill him. No one must know Yeshua is this same child. She will speak to you.”
I slid from the camel and saw that the door was still open.
“Hurry, she wishes not to be seen with us.”
So I walked to the door and glanced back at Judah, who motioned me forward. Then I stepped into the dimly lit house.
Miriam stood by the oil lantern, watching me. Here in her own home, she appeared far more at ease.
The moment I looked into her eyes, I felt like a servant. I could not understand, for she was not a man to command me, nor was I a slave in Egypt to be commanded by a woman. But I did not resist her influence.
I dipped my head. “You have asked to speak to me?”
“Judah tells me that your son was killed in Arabia,” she said.
For weeks my loss had been my constant companion, silenced by the resolve that compelled me to avenge him. For all the Kalb, I had been obliged to remain strong, for they now depended on me as much as my son had, and I could not fail them as well.
But with Miriam I was again a mother. The emotions that swallowed me came unbidden.
I saw my baby cooing at me with a full belly, milk still on his tender lips. I saw his little arms grabbing awkwardly at the air, only just learning what it meant to be alive.
I saw Kahil bin Saman casually walk over to my sleeping child, pluck him from the ground by his one leg, and throw him from the window.
I saw my infant son lying facedown on the stone, head crushed.
I saw it all and I could not speak. I could hardly breathe.
Miriam, seeing my pain, stepped up to me and brushed a strand of hair from my face.
“I’m so sorry, sweet Maviah.” Her eyes were misted. “I am so very sorry for your loss.”
Her words, spoken as if from my own soul, washed over me and I felt rivers of grief rising. Then flowing. I didn’t want to cry there in Nazareth, but she had given me permission and I could not remain strong.
My head fell and my body shook as I began to weep.
I felt my mantle eased from my head. Miriam’s arms encircled me and I lowered my forehead onto her shoulder.
“Weep, my child,” she whispered. “Weep for your son.”
Judah had told me to hurry, but I was undone by anguish and I could not move. Nor did Miriam seem to want me to. For long minutes she soothed me and held me as if she were my own mother.
Indeed, in my mind’s eye, she was my mother, and sobs racked my body. I placed my arms around Miriam and clung to her as only a daughter might, and I could not stop weeping.
I wept for my son. I wept for my father. I wept for the fear that lurked in my breast like a tiger waiting its turn to tear out my throat.
But I wept mostly because I was offered deep understanding and comfort from a mother who knew of suffering and fear.
When I finally began to settle, she wiped my tears from my cheeks with her mantle.
“You must weep for your son,” she said. “Even as I weep for mine.”
I felt I should say something, but no words came.
Miriam walked to the table, where she’d been kneading a lump of floured dough. She picked up a vessel and poured water into one of two chalk cups on the table.
I glanced around the humble room. Light filtered in from small windows near the thatched reed ceiling. Two oil lamps on the mud walls produced flames that filled the room with the scent of olive oil. Mats covered the dirt floor. A passage to my left with only a sheet for a door led into what must be the sleeping room. Several large earthen vessels sat in the corner, presumably holding wheat to be ground by hand.
It was by all accounting a poor home.
Her eyes found mine as she handed the water to me. I drank.
“Among my people, you are seen as unclean. It is forbidden to break bread with a foreigner. Even touching you has defiled me in my people’s eyes. My son never saw it that way. He was always beyond the simple ways of religion and tradition, seeking instead a far deeper knowing. And I know now that he was right. I suppose I knew so even from the time we were in Egypt.”
“Egypt? I grew up there as a slave.”
She hesitated. “Our people were once slaves in Egypt. Now we are slaves in our own land.”
Miriam took the cup from me and placed it back on the table. When she faced me, urgency had claimed her expression.
“Judah tells me that you travel to Herod.”
“Yes.”
“That you seek his favor.”
“Yes.”
“Then you must know that Herod knows no more mercy than the one who took your son’s life.”