by Bear, Robert
“I’m not the one who said that, Daniel. It was you.” Suddenly, Jesus stood up and pointed out to sea. “Look!”
The fog lifted from the water like a rising curtain, and there—not more than two hundred yards away—Kendrick’s ship came sailing in. Daniel gasped. His father wasn’t due back for another month at least, but there he was, waving to them from the deck. Who is that woman with him on the deck, and why does he have his arm around her so protectively? Has Papa remarried?
The ship approached, on a course to make its landing on the Lake Village dock. The crewmembers shouted to each other, but the woman paid them no heed. She was smiling at Jesus. Daniel turned his head. Jesus stood in the hollowed section of his model, smiling back at her. Daniel looked back and forth between them as the ship came closer. No. Papa was not bringing a new wife. He could recognize her now, though she looked older than he remembered. She was Mary.
Jesus ran to the dock as Mary walked to the gunwale. She was dressed in the simple, flowing dress she must have worn all the way from Galilee. She still bore herself with the grace that Daniel recalled from so many years ago.
Suddenly realizing that he had forgotten about his own father, Daniel raised his arm in a welcoming wave. Daniel ran after Jesus to the dock. Turning into the wind, the vessel approached the dock slowly. A crewman threw lines to shore, and some of the Lake Villagers pulled them in.
Jesus leaped across the gap onto Kendrick’s ship and into the arms of his mother.
“Oh, Jesus. I missed you so much!” Mary murmured with joy.
Jesus kissed her forehead. He stood a head taller than her now. “It’s been a long time, Mother. I missed you too.”
Daniel watched and listened from the shore just a few feet away. This was no ordinary reunion. Daniel felt the energy of their souls rejoicing, as something inside them was made complete. They came ashore arm in arm as the crewmen made the vessel fast to the dock.
Suddenly Mary stood back. “There is something I must tell you, Jesus. Your father, Joseph, he’s—”
“I know, Mother. He is with God now. I had a vision in a dream, just as he had those visions that led us to safety in Egypt and back home again when the time was right. I knew you were coming, and I have made everything ready.”
So that’s Jesus’s secret—the secret of the Lord. Daniel smiled.
“There is nothing for me now back in Galilee,” Mary continued. “Not with my husband gone and you here. You are everything to me now.”
“Life is good here, Mother, and we will be happy. The land is fertile, and the people live free of empires and their cruel taxes. They are warm and generous.”
“But they are pagans, aren’t they?”
“When I first arrived in Britain, all I could see was their ignorance of the one true God. But the Father wants me here for a reason; both to learn from these people and to teach them. It’s puzzling. Their priests give me ideas that launch me into a profound spiritual insight, and the next minute they just seem to know nothing but idolatry and their endless array of deities and demigods.”
“Let me look at you. You have grown into a strapping young man. I will miss the boy who used to help me bake the morning bread on the roof of our house in Nazareth.”
“There will always be time to spend with you, Mother,” said Jesus. “We must bake bread together tomorrow morning. We don’t do it on the roof here; the cooking fires are inside. But when we do that, I still can be as a child for a while. I will buy the flour and yeast from the natives.”
Daniel felt awkward as mother and son embraced once again. Perhaps I should leave them some time to themselves. His thoughts turned to his own mother, even though he had no memory of her. Did she ever hold me as a newborn baby in her arms, before she succumbed to the injuries from my birth?
Suddenly Mary’s embrace scattered Daniel’s feeling of emptiness.
“Oh, Daniel, I am so happy to be with you, too. We will have time to get to know each other at last, and you will be another son for me! I must make room in my heart, for there are many who are touched and will be touched by Jesus, but there will always be a special place for you.”
Daniel felt another arm join in the embrace. “Truly we are brothers now,” said Jesus. “As you have shared a father with me, my mother now is here to share with you.”
Papa had finished his business on the ship. Daniel quickly wiped his eyes as he joined him, hoping he didn’t notice.
“Let’s see that sand sculpture Jesus was working on,” said Joseph.
Mary nodded her agreement, and they walked over to it. “It’s beautiful. You captured all the details of David’s City. Will you finish the temple?” she asked.
Jesus stood silent, as if for once he did not know how to answer.
“I think Jesus was just thinking of home,” said Daniel. “With you here, we don’t need anything more to remind us of it.”
Joseph and Daniel stayed behind as Jesus took Mary to explore the Lake Village. “It has been four years now since I brought him to Britain,” said Joseph. “And still he sees himself as the Messiah who will free our people—doesn’t he?”
“Yes, Papa. That is why he keeps up the sword practice whenever we get away from the Tor. Since Fedwig died he has taken less pleasure in it, but whenever I try to discourage him he says that is his destiny. He says he must prepare for it.”
“Does he still talk about conversations with God in Heaven?”
“He doesn’t brag about it or volunteer anything to me. He just tells me things here and there, when they help him explain something.”
“Like what?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Come, now, tell me,” urged Joseph.
“After you left, he told me God wanted him to spend more time among the druids, even attend their festivals.”
“I don’t understand how he expects to ever lead our people. No righteous Jew will ever follow him.” Joseph gestured at the model of Jerusalem. “I’m puzzled,” he said. “He’s made a perfect replica of the city, but why has he not made a model of the temple.”
“He had created an exact image of the temple,” said Daniel, “but then he destroyed it. I was puzzled, too, Papa, but now it seems to me that he may be right. The temple is only a work of man. Perhaps the real blasphemy lies in elevating such a structure above the righteousness and power of God.”
“But is he joining with the Celts in their idolatry?” asked Joseph. “That’s blasphemy and against the laws of Moses.”
“If God tells him to learn from the druids,” said Daniel, “why should he care what Moses said about it?”
“Has he said anything about his dream of the crucifixion?”
“You asked me to keep that to myself, and we don’t talk about it.”
“It is not for us to reveal to him the true meaning of that prophecy. That is for God.”
“Could you possibly be wrong about that, Papa?”
“I wish I were, but I know I am not. If his fate leads him to a cross, then die upon it he most certainly will.”
“Have you talked any of this over with Mary?”
“Of course not. She thinks Jesus can do no wrong. Though I did tell her about Jesus joining in that battle at Rumps. I’m sure it was in his letter, too. That worried her, but she told me only Jesus could discern the path his Father in Heaven intended for him.”
Looking up, Daniel saw Jesus and Mary approaching. He was glad that their presence would end this conversation with his father. The four of them took some curraghs and paddled to Ynys Witrin. The hut Jesus built at the foot of the Tor was no longer so mysterious. It was to make a home for his mother. It did not bother him that Mary would sleep alone in the magnificent bed. She certainly was weary from her travels, and the rest of them were no strangers to the makeshift bundles of plant cuttings that served them for mattresses on the floor. Daniel smiled as he drifted off to sleep. It was as if each of them had been made whole.
Mary
It was sti
ll dark the next morning when Mary rousted Jesus from his bed. The dough left in the warm area near the fire had risen overnight. “It’s harder to use the fire embers to raise the dough.” She kept her voice low as the others slept. “I had to check on it a few times during the night. The dough will not rise if it gets too hot or too cold.”
They went outside into the morning fog and found a place to work. “You don’t really need to do this,” Jesus said as they formed the loaves. “We can buy our bread in the village. You can sleep soundly through the whole night.”
“Did you think I came here to get fat and lazy?”
Jesus laughed. “Not you, Mother. And we get to have this time together. We cannot buy that in the village.”
Mary smiled as they went about their work. They did not need to say anything. They could work silently, in the joy of each other’s company.
Jesus went inside to put more wood on the fire. As the flames came to life around the baking stones, he and his mother positioned the loaves for the final rising. Mary signaled Jesus to follow her outside again, where they could talk.
“How have you been, my son?”
“How do I seem to you?”
“I can see that you have come to love it here in Britain, but Joseph told me you lost your best friend in battle, and that has made you very sad.”
“That’s right. But you have also lost your husband.”
“He was so sick at the end, and it was hard to see him linger in pain. I was ready when the end came. After that, there was nothing to keep me in Nazareth—certainly not with you so far away. I had enough money for the passage to Arelate. That’s where Uncle Joseph happened to see me in the market, and he brought me here right away.”
“I saw that in my dream, Mother—the dream I had when I started building this house.”
“It must have been harder for you to lose your best friend when it was so unexpected.”
“I suppose that no death in war should be all that unexpected,” he answered. “Even so, Fedwig’s death still grieves me to the core.”
“Are there no other friends you can make here?” Mary asked. “And what of Daniel?”
“There are plenty of friends to be had, Mother, but no one can take the place of Fedwig. He taught me the ways of the sword, and we always had such great fun. I miss the way he could laugh at anything. He never seemed to know any fear, even when I first met him as a child. Daniel is wonderful, and I am so happy we will be real brothers now, but it’s not the same.”
“Surely, you must have made a friend somewhere. I remember how you befriended every child in the village back in Nazareth.”
“Actually, there was one boy who reminded me of Fedwig. But I only met him once.” Jesus told Mary about Brian and their excursion to the top of the Tor. He left nothing out, not even Esmeralda’s suspicion that Brian was a spirit attempting to ensnare him in the Otherworld—nor that, by all accounts, he was dead. “I did not mean to engage with any spirits of the dead, Mother; he looked like a normal boy.”
“It does not sound like he meant you any harm.”
“He was so full of laughter and love.”
“Then I don’t think he was from that Otherworld at all,” said Mary. “God told you he would look after the boy. Perhaps he was lonely in heaven, so God sent him back to share a few moments with you, his Son, to bring joy to both your hearts. He led you to God, which no unhealthy spirit would do.”
Jesus hugged her. “Oh, Mother! What a wonderful way you have of putting things. You have brought that memory close to my heart, and I can relive it now forever.”
Jesus
The final rising complete, Jesus and Mary silently retrieved the baking stones from the flames and set the risen loaves above them on a rack. Soon the hearty smell of baking bread filled the house as the sun began to rise. Joseph and Daniel stirred. Jesus and Mary exchanged many smiles that morning. Jesus remembered everything Fedwig meant to him. He would never forget his fallen friend, nor would he ever forget Brian. But Mother was with him now, and for the first time since Fedwig’s death, he felt himself able to accept it in peace.
Joseph
The harvest was finished a few weeks after Mary’s arrival, and both Jesus and Daniel returned to the mine in Priddy. Their workers began filtering back from the fields.
Joseph stayed behind in Ynys Witrin. The same morning the boys left, he began experimenting with the ore that had been extracted so far. Silver was harder to purify and refine than tin, and different types of ore called for variations in the techniques. It took Joseph several days to perfect the processes for working the silver from the ore.
Mary settled in comfortably, taking up residence by herself in the solid house Jesus had built for her. Jesus should be taking on the responsibility of the man in her life. He’s supposed to be the head of her household. Joseph shuddered when he remembered how he had found Mary wandering the streets of Arelate. He could not bear the thought that she booked a passage on a ship from Israel and lived aboard the ship by herself among strange men. Back in Galilee, it was scandalous beyond measure for a woman to be away from her family for anything more than running errands around the village. When a woman lost her husband, it became the responsibility of the men in her family to look after her. In fact, if a brother or male cousin of Joseph were unwed, it would be expected that Mary would quickly marry that man. And if there was no man available from her late husband’s family, the woman’s almost-grown son would be expected to take on the role of head of household. Jesus should be doing that now, but he treats Mary as if he were still a child. He even helps her bake the bread, which no self-respecting man would do.
Joseph was even more surprised to see Mary venturing out among the villagers. She was not fluent in the native language, but she seemed to make herself understood. It reminded Joseph of how Jesus picked up languages with seemingly miraculous ease. The way Mary kept her head covered made her easy to pick out even from a distance as she walked among the native huts. Whenever he asked, she explained that she was visiting this villager or that one, bringing a bit of food to someone who was hungry or sick or perhaps just helping out with some spinning or weaving.
The Celts held to different ways, and it was not unusual for widows and unmarried women to live independently. At least there will be no scandal in Britain. Jesus seems unconcerned to leave his mother living on her own. He didn’t even ask me to watch over her before he left. That is normal for a Celt, but scandalous for a Jew. Has Jesus become too much of a Celt?
By the time the boys returned, the days were shorter and colder. They managed to bathe off the sweat and grime from the mine in the frigid water. Joseph knew what they would be about; it was the evening before Samhain, and the pagans would be celebrating the end of the harvest. He called the boys to follow him outside for a word; he did not want to grieve Mary with this.
As soon as they were out of earshot, he got to it. “So, did you return for the festival? Don’t suppose for a moment that I don’t know what happens tomorrow.”
“We weren’t trying to hide anything from you,” Jesus answered.
“What about you?” Joseph turned to his son. “Surely you know better than to consort with pagans in their idolatry?”
“God wants Jesus to learn what he can from the druids, and also to teach them. That’s what he told me, and I believe him.”
Joseph wiped tears from his eyes as he looked from one to the other. “I do not know you any more—either of you. We are Jews. We live by the law. That is not something we put on for show among our people back home. It is who we are. It is what we take with us everywhere. You are both young men now and must choose your own paths, but just as you choose yours, so too must I choose mine.” He turned to Jesus. “If you insist on going to that festival, I must give up on this venture. I must leave Britain and not return. You can carry on through Kendrick or I can bring you back to Galilee, if you wish.”
“All of us are trying to determine God’s will,” said Je
sus. “I can only tell you that he wants me to stay and learn from these people.”
“God does not speak to me directly,” said Joseph. “I know his will only through his laws in the Torah.”
“I must stay with Jesus,” said Daniel. “I do not speak with God like he does, but I know from my heart that this is his will for me.”
“Perhaps all of us should pray about this,” said Jesus. “Let us do that tonight and pray that God might give us all guidance.”
Joseph spent a fitful night, dozing off, then waking up and trying to pray. How can I pray for discernment when that can only point me toward strict observance of the law? If it does, there can be no backing down. The boys seem just as determined to follow God’s will as they see it. I can give up the enterprise in Britain if I have to; I just cannot bear the idea of separating from Daniel and Jesus.
By the next morning, Joseph had changed his mind about leaving. He didn’t say anything else about going or staying on; he just refrained from any preparation to leave.
Jesus
The assembly was unlike anything Jesus had ever imagined. He stood with Daniel and Esmeralda at the Tor summit, spying across the country. In every direction, lines of men and women of all the Celtic castes approached. It was like a giant web of humanity moving into its center.
From the southeast came the Durotriges, led by warriors arrayed in their blue greasepaint. “Is it not forbidden for warriors to bring weapons?” asked Jesus.
“They bring only their war paint,” said Esmeralda. “They leave their weapons behind before they cross the border.”
From the north, the boats bearing the Silures from across the mouth of the Severn were coming up the Brue past Lake Village. Some were already discharging their passengers in the fields between Wearyall and the Tor.
And from the west came the Dumnonii. Jesus wondered if he would see any of his old friends. Most of these people would be from the area to the east of the Tamar, which was as far as the tin exploration had taken him. Perhaps some would make it from the western reaches toward Carn Roz.
