Shimon’s wife and wrapped
woolen robes around her and borrowed a mule from Rahav and went to see her son.
It had been many a year, she thought, since she had last made such a journey alone. A young woman would never travel so unprotected.
But there was a fierce freedom to it. Who could rob her now? What would they take from her? She had water, and hard bread,
and a bag of apples. She kept to the main roads. She told her sons where she had gone and when to expect her return.
She ruminated as she rode. There was such an anger in her heart, she hadn’t known it was there until she was alone on her
mule, riding the iron-hard miles. She had never been a bad mother, never truly a bad wife. She’d cared for her children—she
flexed her stiff fingers, reminding herself how much it had cost her to care—had made loaves of bread and meal cakes and soups
and roasted meat and dried fruits, had washed the children and kept them free from disease, had lain with her husband even
when she was tired or unwilling because these are the duties of a wife and a mother. She had vanished into it and not accounted
it a loss. This is who she was: a mother.
And this child could not pay her the duties of a son? Not to visit her in glory with his mighty crowd of men? Not to give
her a place at his table? Not to write to her or send word to her after all she had done? From the first red scored line that
had popped open across her belly when she grew big with him to the last bowl of soup she had made for him before he vanished,
was all of this nothing?
Her soul grew bitter as the miles passed and when she arrived at the encampment—there was no mistaking it, five hundred travelers
make smell and noise and smoke—she felt as tough and unyielding as the frozen earth.
“Where is the tent of Yehoshuah of Natzaret?” she said to a Roman hanger-on with fine clothes.
“Who are you to ask?”
“I am his mother,” she said.
The first they know of it is that the long barn is on fire. The barn at the edge of the village, the first one you come to
if you’re walking from the south. There are cries in the street of “fire, fire” and Miryam runs out like everyone else, carrying
her bucket, ready to be part of a chain down to the river. It has been dry these past few weeks—a stray cinder from a careless
fire could have set the barn ablaze.
They begin to run down the hill to the barn, barefooted mostly on the chalk-dry baked earth. Calling to one another that they
should make for the river to bring water. And they see the crested plumes and the glittering spears and they hear the sound
of the phalanx. And they are afraid.
It is only a scouting party, ten men with a guide who speaks the native language. Rome does not send its finest and best to
seek out a small village sixty-five miles from Jerusalem. But even a scouting party brings with it the authority of those
who sent it, the invisible chain stretching back from these ten to the centurions garrisoned at the capital, and from there
to the Prefect, and from there to the Emperor himself. If these men are not satisfied, others will come. If those are not
satisfied, more men will come. Eventually Rome will have its answer, or the place will be reduced to a bloody smear upon smoldering
earth.
This is why they have burned the barn. It is not your barn, they are saying. It is ours. Rome owns you.
They come to a halt in the town square. The people gather there too. There is nothing to do now about the barn or the stores
that will be lost.
The leader of the soldiers makes a brief statement. The people of the village do not understand the language. Some of them,
those who go to the larger cities to trade, have learned a few words, but this speech is fast and complex.
They know the translator. He is a man who works for the tax overseer in Galilee. They have seen him often. He never brings
good news. It is no surprise to see him now with the
woolen robes around her and borrowed a mule from Rahav and went to see her son.
It had been many a year, she thought, since she had last made such a journey alone. A young woman would never travel so unprotected.
But there was a fierce freedom to it. Who could rob her now? What would they take from her? She had water, and hard bread,
and a bag of apples. She kept to the main roads. She told her sons where she had gone and when to expect her return.
She ruminated as she rode. There was such an anger in her heart, she hadn’t known it was there until she was alone on her
mule, riding the iron-hard miles. She had never been a bad mother, never truly a bad wife. She’d cared for her children—she
flexed her stiff fingers, reminding herself how much it had cost her to care—had made loaves of bread and meal cakes and soups
and roasted meat and dried fruits, had washed the children and kept them free from disease, had lain with her husband even
when she was tired or unwilling because these are the duties of a wife and a mother. She had vanished into it and not accounted
it a loss. This is who she was: a mother.
And this child could not pay her the duties of a son? Not to visit her in glory with his mighty crowd of men? Not to give
her a place at his table? Not to write to her or send word to her after all she had done? From the first red scored line that
had popped open across her belly when she grew big with him to the last bowl of soup she had made for him before he vanished,
was all of this nothing?
Her soul grew bitter as the miles passed and when she arrived at the encampment—there was no mistaking it, five hundred travelers
make smell and noise and smoke—she felt as tough and unyielding as the frozen earth.
“Where is the tent of Yehoshuah of Natzaret?” she said to a Roman hanger-on with fine clothes.
“Who are you to ask?”
“I am his mother,” she said.
The first they know of it is that the long barn is on fire. The barn at the edge of the village, the first one you come to
if you’re walking from the south. There are cries in the street of “fire, fire” and Miryam runs out like everyone else, carrying
her bucket, ready to be part of a chain down to the river. It has been dry these past few weeks—a stray cinder from a careless
fire could have set the barn ablaze.
They begin to run down the hill to the barn, barefooted mostly on the chalk-dry baked earth. Calling to one another that they
should make for the river to bring water. And they see the crested plumes and the glittering spears and they hear the sound
of the phalanx. And they are afraid.
It is only a scouting party, ten men with a guide who speaks the native language. Rome does not send its finest and best to
seek out a small village sixty-five miles from Jerusalem. But even a scouting party brings with it the authority of those
who sent it, the invisible chain stretching back from these ten to the centurions garrisoned at the capital, and from there
to the Prefect, and from there to the Emperor himself. If these men are not satisfied, others will come. If those are not
satisfied, more men will come. Eventually Rome will have its answer, or the place will be reduced to a bloody smear upon smoldering
earth.
This is why they have burned the barn. It is not your barn, they are saying. It is ours. Rome owns you.
They come to a halt in the town square. The people gather there too. There is nothing to do now about the barn or the stores
that will be lost.
The leader of the soldiers makes a brief statement. The people of the village do not understand the language. Some of them,
those who go to the larger cities to trade, have learned a few words, but this speech is fast and complex.
They know the translator. He is a man who works for the tax overseer in Galilee. They have seen him often. He never brings
good news. It is no surprise to see him now with the
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