Bright Dark Madonna - Elizabeth Cunningham The Maeve Chronicles

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Elopements, and Wonder Voyages?” Dwynwyn prompted, reeling off some basic bardic curricula.

      “I don’t seem to recall any stories about pregnant widows who live on after their husbands have died and become gods or saviors,” I said stubbornly.

      “Forgive her, Isis.”

      A third voice spoke, and I found myself looking at a pair of ancient feet that seemed to have planted themselves by the well like roots, all textured, twisted, and knotted. When I looked again, the feet were young, golden as the light in the valley. I lifted my eyes till I had to close them against the brightness.

      “Bride,” I murmured,” Bride.”

      When I looked again, I saw the Cailleach of Tir na mBan, her knobby bare feet, peeking out from under her grey cloak, as she stood spinning with her drop spindle. My own three fates together in one place, one timelessness.

      “She’s not herself,” added Anna. “She’s had some dreadful shocks.”

      “So back to the story, pigeon pie,” said Dwynwyn. “Posthumous pregnancy. Not a traditional tale among the combrogos perhaps but not a bad storyline, if you can manage to keep yourself alive and your child out of danger, though danger is always good for a story, gooses the plot—”

      “There’s often danger to innocents in Hebrew stories,” Anna observed. “Hiding babies in bulrushes to avoid slaughter and whatnot.”

      “I’m not putting my baby in the bulrushes,” I objected.

      “No, of course not, little dove. It was just an example.”

      You may have thought I was going to learn something substantive about my fate, but I knew better.

      “Let me see if I can get this straight,” I made an attempt. “Jesus is not coming back, because he never really went anywhere. I have to figure out what that means. My main task is to stay alive, and protect my child. And someday there might be a story worth telling? That people might listen to? That will feed them like plumped grain?”

      “Bright. Her mothers called her Little Bright One,” said the Cailleach to the others. “I think perhaps they were referring to the hair color.”

      “Anything else? Leading a movement? Starting a mystery cult? Dipping people in cold, muddy water? Telling everybody what Jesus really said and how everyone else got it all wrong?”

      The three old women exchanged looks; then they turned their attention back to the well. I found myself gazing, too. For a moment it seemed that light and dark were about to cohere, and I would gaze again at my beloved’s face. Something bright swam up, broke the surface and leaped in the air. I felt the splash as the salmon of wisdom dove again, slapping the water with his tail.

      And then Miriam was shaking me awake. I sat up, a little disoriented to find myself looking over the Kedron Valley again, now engulfed in the shadow of the Temple mount. In the highest branches of the trees where the light still reached, the mourning doves called, and then fell silent as someone hurried towards us.

      “Miriam, Mary,” Susanna called to us. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Miriam, Your son is here.”

      “My son.”

      Miriam’s voice, as she spoke those two words, brought the sun back to the valley, made the day dawn all over again. And her face looked as young as the morning.

      “Yes, James has arrived. He’s come from Nazareth to take care of you both.”

      I watched as Ma turned back into an old peasant woman before my eyes.

      CHAPTER THREE

      LEVIRATE OR HOW TO SALVAGE A LINEAGE

      IF THERE HAD BEEN FINE CHINA and silverware in those days, you would have heard the sound of forks and knives scraping plates. It was that sort of a meal at the Bethany house that evening; the bustle of Martha dishing up seemed unnaturally loud and not at all reassuring. Maybe because you could hear people chewing, swallowing, and even sipping (or slurping) their wine, everyone felt self-conscious and constrained about indulging their appetites too freely and heartily.

      Everyone except me. I was ravenous as usual and ate with gusto until I finally realized everyone else had stopped and was looking (or trying not to look) at me.

      “Everyone” included the newly arrived James along with Mary B and the Twelve (or twelve again because of the newly elected Mathias). They had made the trek from Jerusalem to meet with James. Of course, Lazarus was there as well. Although women often did not eat with men, Ma, Mary B, and I were reclining with the rest while Martha and Susanna, by preference, served us.

      “Well,” someone said at last; I am not sure who it was.

      “Well.”

      “Yes, well.”

      “Pardon me, you go first.”

      “Well, all right.”

      There was prolonged throat scraping on James’s part. I looked at him curiously, a sober-looking man in his forties, his hair graying: Jesus’s half brother, the oldest of Joseph’s sons by his first wife, so technically Miriam’s stepson. I had met the brothers only twice. If you are thinking that I am subscribing to the Roman Catholic position that The Blessed Virgin Mary lived up to her title, I will take this opportunity to note the existence of Jesus’s long-suffering full sister, Leah, who had heretofore devoted her life to Ma (where was she? I wondered a little nervously) and another brother whose name I can’t remember, but might as well have been something like “chopped liver” as in What am I? All Joseph’s sons were exemplary in their behavior toward their stepmother, especially considering that her own oldest son and unquestioned favorite had been such a dead loss, disappearing on benders or quests his whole life, marrying a gentile whore, now getting himself publicly crucified during the holidays. I have to admit, if I were his brothers, I would have regretted not selling the brat into slavery while I had the chance. So I wasn’t exactly prepared for the first words that came out of James’s mouth.

      “Jesus is Lord.”

      There followed a silence in which mine was not the only jaw dropping. Then more throats were cleared, till Peter remembered his preeminent position and called upon himself to speak for everyone.

      “Er, yes, we know.”

      A great deal has been made of Saul of Tarsus’ dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, how he turned from persecuting followers of Jesus to recruiting them. But I wonder why more people don’t wonder about James the Just, how he went from attempting to straitjacket his brother (Mark 3:21) to becoming the first bishop of the Jerusalem ecclesia.

      “Um,” Peter continued, definitely wondering, “How did you find out?”

      “He appeared unto me.”

      That is how James spoke. Very formally, as if he wanted his words to be written down as scripture right away.

      “He spake unto me and said, Brother, go you to Jerusalem and commend yourself to my followers, for you are of the royal house of David, even as I am, and you must prepare the way for the Son of David to return to his rightful throne in Jerusalem.”

      I glanced around the room, hoping to catch someone’s eye, so that I could subtly roll mine. The only time I had ever heard Jesus mention his lineage was when the druids demanded that he recite it during admissions screening. They asked for nine generations and were equal parts impressed and put out when he went back more than twenty-eight. But no one met my glance. James had everyone’s rapt attention, and everyone nodded for him to continue.

      “And further he spake unto me and said, in Bethany you will find my beloved mother, whom you have ever cared for tenderly (as if her womb had borne you and her paps given you suck), and with her you will find the wife of my bosom, whom you have graciously welcomed to your bosom, though she is a stranger from a strange land, who has worshipped false gods, even as once did our foremother Ruth, who followed after

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