Two Women Of Galilee - Mary Rourke

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will be home by dusk,” Chuza said. “We don’t need any more excitement.”

      The next morning my carriage rattled over city streets, past the bridge where peddlers pushed their trinkets at me. Another time I would have been tempted by their bronze amulets that promised a cure for foot sores, toothache and sneezing fits. That morning I wanted only to see Mary.

      Octavia fussed over my pillows and asked if I was warm enough until I eased her hands away and she settled in to her needlework, reinforcing the silver on one of my husband’s evening cloaks.

      The winding road to Nazareth was clear until we came upon workers repairing the aqueduct. They were finally getting around to it, after the Passover delays. Five men on a scaffold hoisted large rocks to replace those washed away by the rain.

      Phineas slowed us to a crawl. He was always fascinated by the efficiency of so many ropes and pulleys, buckets and planks in motion. The workers’ heavy bundles swayed and lurched.

      Octavia let out a clucking sound of disapproval and looked at Phineas in the driver’s seat just ahead of us, as if to suggest that I should signal him to hurry. I took up my writing tablet and made a note. Butcher—cut of beef for ten.

      A muffled thud warned me. Turning toward the sound, I watched a huge rock break away from the crumbling arch and crash to the ground. Two men at the top of the scaffolding lost their balance and fell. I watched with open mouth as one landed on the iron gears that moved the pulley. He was spiked on the sharp gears. I leaned over the side of the carriage and threw up.

      “Now we’ll never get through,” Octavia groaned. She had not seen the men fall, or my sudden illness.

      “We’ve got to help them,” I said, not certain what to do.

      Octavia’s expression told me she wondered whether she’d heard me correctly. I called to Phineas. He stopped the horses, climbed down from his place and soon stood beside me.

      “Go and ask if we can do anything.”

      He looked at me twice to be certain that he understood. Unlike Octavia, he would never think of questioning a command. He returned to us, asking for bandages. Octavia handed him a box from under the seat.

      I opened the latch and prepared to step down. “Are you sure?” she pleaded. My husband’s warning came back to me. No more trouble. I closed the door and waited. Phineas returned once again. “One is dead,” he reported. “The others should be all right.”

      The foreman rode toward us, waving us on. The purple stripe at the hem of his tunic explained his polite attentions. A higher-ranking man, with at least two stripes on his tunic, had sent him. Our escort led us past the accident, and we continued on our way. Octavia rolled her sewing project between her fingers, preparing some sort of speech.

      “If I may say,” she began.

      I kept still, inviting more.

      “It is dangerous for a woman to stop and help strangers.” She was not correcting me so much as curious about my actions, it seemed.

      “What if one of my servants had an accident on the road?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you want someone to stop for him?”

      “Did something happen to you at the temple in Jerusalem?” Octavia asked.

      “No,” I said.

      Mary, my cousin, was the only one I would tell about my morning at the temple. Without her to explain it to me, I had no words for the mysterious encounter. Even though I did not yet know the meaning, I was certain of what I heard in the women’s court. Bursting with excitement and gratitude, I wanted to do good for someone else. That is why I stopped for the laborers. But all of this was more than I could express to my maidservant. I looked out the window until she went back to her needlework.

      From below the town, Nazareth’s hillside of caves resembled a bee’s comb. Some of the caves had shacks in front of them for extra living space. We moved slowly along the rugged switchback that had been pounded smooth by the goatherds.

      The carriage was too wide to squeeze through the town’s narrow lanes. Before we left it at the livery, I packed Phineas with sacks and jugs until he smelled of the barley, dried cod and palm oil he carried. Octavia placed a basket of apples over her shoulder. The villagers watched us with suspicion. We were strangers, not to be trusted.

      I recognized Mary’s compound by the sign above the gate. A carpenter’s level announced the family business. We entered the courtyard. Phineas went to my cousin’s door and knocked. She opened it so briskly that the air stirred around us. In quick steps she came outside and dusted flour from her dress, vigorous as a young woman. Her large scarf could not contain the thick dark strands that rolled across the edge of her forehead. I smelled spice cake.

      “Joanna, come in,” she said, opening her arms to me.

      I followed her like a curious child.

      She greeted my servants as if they, too, were guests. I took my place on the small couch built into the wall where she had motioned me to sit. They stood near the door. She offered me a cup of warm water flavored with citrus and honey, then she offered the same to my servants. I nodded at them to accept it, although I was as confused as they were by the offer. They drank quickly, not moving from their places. When they were finished, I sent them to the inn at the north edge of town to wait for me as we had planned.

      Mary went to her worktable, a clutter made from clay bowls, a jug of oil, a sack of flour and small linen pouches filled with expensive spices. I wondered if they had been a gift to her. They were an extravagance in such a modest home.

      She brought me a taste of one of her cakes and began to wrap the other in fig leaves. “My brother-in-law likes these,” she said, as if I knew her family. I only knew that her husband was a carpenter and builder who had died not many years ago. And of course I knew of her extraordinary son.

      I moved to a small wooden stool near her table. My warm drink soothed my rough throat. “My servants are not accustomed to being received like guests,” I said, allowing a hint of confusion.

      She went on sweeping the table with a small fir branch. “Once, we were slaves in Egypt,” she said. “Now it is our turn to be good to strangers.”

      The scent of almond oil wafted from my hair, threatening to overpower us. When I lifted my hand to remove my costly gold earrings, my charm bracelet clanked like cowbells.

      Mary paid no attention. She admired the full sack of barley and the clay jug. “You are very generous,” she said.

      “We have more than enough at home.” Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes. “Plenty does not always bring peace,” I burbled. The powerless feeling that illness brings came back to me.

      Mary went on clearing the table in silence. When she spoke, it seemed at first that she had changed the subject. “My father owned orchards and wheat fields,” she said. “He offered twenty sheep at the temple when I was born. But he only wanted sons, not a daughter. I know that the rich can also suffer.”

      I encouraged her, and listened as she told me about our younger years. I imagined the life we might have shared as cousins, if it had been allowed.

      “My mother admired you,” I said. “She told me how good you were to your parents when they were old. I wish I had known you then.”

      “When I was still young everything changed for my family,” Mary said. “My father lost his land to Herod. We left Sepphoris for Nazareth and he seemed to age overnight.”

      “My father cut our family off from yours,” I said. It troubled me, now that I understood it. “We followed the Roman powers and made enemies of our own relatives.” A sense of loss had been building in me as I listened to Mary. I might have been raised as she was, according to the holy customs.

      Mary’s stories about her childhood filled me with fantasies about how I might have fit in. She was twelve years old when her family fled Sepphoris, and at the time I was

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