Read Online Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes - Free Book Online

responsibility for their food and shelter and their spiritual welfare, as well as the responsibility to keep them safe within the Law. But worse, it seemed to her, was this cross that each of them also began to shoulder as they approached adolescence—this awful concern for their whole people, Israel.
    Boys who had been pleasant playmates became bowed with it; their eyes became enflamed when they spoke of it. It was almost an obsession. And it was true, all true, these things they said. Once when she was small her own village had been ravaged. Joachim had reached his family in time and carried them off into the hills, but she would never forget the blood in the streets when they returned, or the acrid odor of burning wood. Worse were the crucifixions. Zealots who dared to defy the power of Rome, false prophets such as Joseph had mentioned. Whether it was at that time or later Mary couldn't remember and didn't want to, but Hannah, in a fierce mixture of curiosity, drama, and protest, had taken her to one. A spectacle so horrifying that she had fled screaming through the crowds and dreamed of it ever since.
    Sometimes she could still hear the man's sick yells, pleading with them to take him down, crying pitifully that he couldn't stand it; and most ghastly of all, the apologies to the Romans, to all Israel, for realizing too late that he must have been mistaken or God would not have let such a thing happen to him. Though she had muffled her ears with cushions and beat her head against the wall, she could hear him long after she reached home. And she sometimes heard him still.
    Yet there was this about being a woman. A woman could speak of other things. Because, for all man's greater responsibility, his superior strength and knowledge, it was through a woman that the deliverer would come. From a virgin, the Scriptures said. A young woman. Mary shuddered softly, newly conscious of her ripened body and its sweet weight of love.
    And he would heal all these bloody wounds, the prophets taught. Every injustice would be avenged. The Romans would retreat in disgrace. The kingdom, so wide in the days of Solomon, would expand again. He would reign in majesty and infinite wisdom, and all the world would recognize that the despised but proud and mighty Jews were right, theirs was the true religion. Soon, soon! "Oh, Lord, how soon?" the mobs kept crying—along with the priests in the Temple, and the rabbis in the synagogue. The cry was a ceaseless supplication. And God in his mystery gave no response. But Mary knew. All women knew—and this too was what gave them a certain serenity, detachment and power over the more impassioned men. They knew that it would not be long.
    The men stood up, brushing away the crumbs. It was time for the women to clear away the cups and bowls and bring the children and sit down. Mary kept her eyes averted as Joseph moved past to follow her father to the roof, for the night was unseasonably warm. They would continue their discussion under the stars. But she could feel his presence strongly, and she knew without even lifting her gaze that his whole being yearned toward hers.
    Later, stepping into the yard to empty the dishwater, she could hear the voices continuing overhead. "The Sanhedrin has no power. . . ." "The effrontery, to put a golden eagle on the very Temple to mock us, and putting the torch to the people who tried to remove it. . . ." An affectionate exasperation shook her. Oh speak of something else! Speak of youth and love and marriage, speak of me. . . . The towel still lay cradled between her breasts. She could feel it like a caress as she bent to toss the water over the last red coals of the spit. They hissed and sputtered and sent a plume of white smoke coiling toward the roof.
    For a moment she stood watching it, aware of him who might notice and look down upon her, small and desirable in the firelight as she performed her task of drying out the vessel. Slowly, in a sweet lassitude of love, she