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VII. THE PIT OF STONES
Joseph and Mirriam returned to Date Home to find the house completely empty. Cleopas must have taken the family to 'Salem to await the outcome of the trial. Sometime in the past three days, Cleopas--or more likely, Eli--had taken down the Tabernacles, tent frames and all.
Mirriam acquiesced to his suggestion she should nap and he set about cleaning his room--a shambles from his frantic packing for the escape, three days earlier.
When his chamber was in order, he peeked in on Mirriam. She was sleeping soundly. Her room was as pristine and ordered as if no one lived there, quite the opposite of the boys' room next door. Perhaps he should have sent the boys to the Annex with Anna for an education in tidy habits, but he was hardly the paragon of such virtues.
James and Jude, two more different souls did not exist. Joseph stepped over James' books and Jude's toys, gathering up their tunics and robes. When the clothes were laid in a side chest, he put everything that was on the floor on the bed--a trick his father had taught him, in the days before there was a woman in their household again. Once on the bed, the mess could be sorted to its proper place and the floor swept.
At the far side of the room, Joseph found what looked to be a splintered pile of kindling. Were the boys thinking to torch their room rather than clean it? Joseph crouched down and picked through the wood. No, not kindling. The slats were carved with tenon and mortis fittings and smoothed carefully to a deep sheen, one of Simeon's projects no doubt. Eli and Simeon must have stayed on at Date Home waiting for the trial to end.
Joseph settled himself on the floor and put the pieces back together. The olive wood began to re-form itself beneath his hands, speaking its own story of simple love and terrible despair, so loudly that Joseph could hardly finish its repair, though he knew very well he could do no other thing.
He was several hours and three trips back to his room for tools before he had Simeon's crib back together again. Poor Simeon, who had felt such pain and hopelessness that he broke the gift he had made for Mirriam's baby.
Joseph tucked the crib under a cloak for Simeon to find later, and he went to wake Mirriam. She packed a light meal and they started up the mount to eat in the garden and watch the sun set. Joseph knew they must talk, plan, decide, but he did not wish to disturb the wonderful stillness which held them both suspended, like Gabriel's Gate, outside the onslaught of the world.
Joseph did not feel the need to explain himself, as he had with Gabriel. Thinking back on it now, his lengthy discourse on Truth seemed utterly ineffectual at describing his heightened percipience. The silence between himself and Mirriam formed a better understanding somehow. It made no sense whatsoever, but it did not matter. Joseph was losing his inclination to rationalize. Some things were beyond words, beyond everything except simple, silent peace.
Shifting the pack to his left hand, Joseph took Mirriam's hand in is his own and relished the sudden feeling of completion.
The moment was shattered as they rounded the last turn in the lane and came upon the family, mourning in the garden. For a brief instant, Joseph wanted to run, but Cleopas' reddened eyes glanced up and he shouted their names.
And the stillness was lost.
The boys scrambled, squealing, for their father, Cleopas was nearly run over. Eli jumped up but then wrapped himself in his arms and held back, waiting with an older man and a young boy seated by the oil press.
A young man and woman sitting by Cleopas' wife on the garden's stone bench, jolted to their feet. Mary also bolted up, but her face paled suddenly and she collapsed to the pavement. Mirriam hurried past Cleopas, who sidestepped out of her way, only to be knocked back by Eli who had heard Mary fall and rushed towards her from the opposite direction.
Joseph knelt down and gathered his sons in his arms, nodding and smiling at their excited chatter. He looked over Simeon's shoulder to see Alf, turning in circles of confusion between the two tides of Mirriam and Eli, as another man walked forward to steady him and lead him back to his wife.
Joseph hugged his three boys and stood up. "Joshua," he called as he walked towards the fallen Mary and her many attendants.
He stepped into the circle beside his eldest son. They did not look at one another. They stared at Mary who was coming round, her head resting on Mirriam's somewhat diminished lap.
"Too much excitement," Joseph commented. "What are you doing here, son?"
Joshua agreed, "Yes, too much excitement. I told Salome that I was the master of my house, and she told me to find another house. As I reached Gophna, I got the news you had been sentenced. I came as fast as I could, but I was too late. Or so I thought."
Another woman walked up carrying baby Marta on her hip. She offered a damp cloth for Mary. "We could not bear to stay in the house, Papa," she said. "Too much like sitting shiva"
Joseph's eyes widened at the sound of his daughter's voice. "Lydia!"
The woman reached out with her free arm to embrace him. "Papa!" She hesitated.
"What is it?" Joseph asked.
Lydia put her hand to her face, flaring and fluttering her fingers, "Dragon-light. " The baby giggled and cooed and waved its pudgy little hands in mimicry.
Joseph rolled his eyes. There was more than a little of the witch about his dear departed wife. He was not happy to hear the echo of it in his oldest daughter. But then, she was probably right.
"Hug me anyway," he said. "And then I will introduce you to my new wife."
Cleopas helped Mary up to sitting and Mirriam stood for the introductions to Lydia, whom she'd never met, and to Joshua, whom she met briefly, but under strained circumstances, after her flight from Jake's house.
"What did you bring us, Papa?" Jude and James trudged up, dragging the pack between them.
"That is a small meal for two, but you may have it, after Mirriam has her share," Joseph said.
Mirriam and the boys went off to visit the jennies and eat their meal in the straw pile. Joseph shooed Simeon off with his brothers, but the lad would not go until Eli agreed.
Joshua and Lydia and the baby returned to the house to gather more picnic fare.
"Should they bring something for Mary?" Joseph asked Cleopas.
"No," Cleopas took the cloak Eli offered and cushioned Mary's head. "My wife is with child again, and you frightened the wits out of her. We thought you were dead and here you come, the two of you, like earth-bound spirits or demons."
Joseph was apologetic, "But really, dear brother, would you rather we were dead?"
Cleopas opened his mouth to say something marvelously pithy, but he broke down unexpectedly and it was a while before he could stop sobbing to say anything at all.
"I love you also, Alf," Joseph said when Cleopas had quieted. "And my congratulations to Mary and to you."
"Thank you," Cleopas mumbled. "I was so worried about the new baby and your children with no father. Well, Eli can take Simeon, but with two babies, the boys are really too much for Mary and I have my obligations at the Temple, and..."
Joseph missed the stillness more acutely. "I understand, Cleopas. But it is my house and Mirriam cannot travel now. Give me some time and I will make arrangements to move after she delivers and the baby is old enough to travel safely. Early spring should be about right."
"And can you do something about--" Cleopas glanced up at Joseph and then looked down again. "About that." Cleopas pointed to Joseph's face.
"What is it about my face?" Joseph looked at Eli then back at his brother.
"Do you remember how Abba was in those last days?"
"Not really, no." Joseph remembered is father as a vital, hulking presence, not the pale husk that had withered away to dust in the boys' room.
"Oh, you remember that last week, when his eyes went bright with the fever and he kept babbling on about angels and suns brighter than the sun--"
"And the radiant corridor between the stars," Joseph finished. "Yes, I remember."
"Well, your face looks like his, As if you were mindless or hopelessly in love or staggering drunk...or dying. It's disconcerting, Joseph. Stop it."
Joseph shrugged.
"Excuse me," Eli hooked his arm around Joseph's elbow. "I've someone who wishes to meet you." He led Joseph over to the old man and the boy sitting by the press.
"Master Hillel," Joseph recognized the elder Pharisee. "And Gamaliel." He bowed to them both.
Gamaliel was delighted. "I knew you would win! I knew the thirteen in you would be lucky! You can thank me for not being stoned."
"I do indeed, little one," Joseph agreed. "As I am also grateful for Master Hillel's support and Rabbi Eleazar's experience in Court proceedings."
The silver-beard lifted with Hillel's strong chin. "In the first place, Joseph Ben'eli Joachim, I supported, not you, but justice. In the second, the good Rabbi Eleazar has no experience in Court, not in High Court anyway. Which is why I have hired him as my assistant at the school. His conduct impressed me, as you impress me, Joseph."
"Thank you, Master," Joseph sat down beside the elder.
"Tell him about the new school!" Gamaliel interrupted.
Hillel sighed and studied his parchment palms, "My grandson is beginning to wear thin at the Hanuyot School. He is actually too young to be in the advanced classes, but he is already better read, though less-well-behaved, than the rest. I am forming a special school at my home in the Upper City, to accommodate some of the boys who are too young to be in Temple and too intelligent to be in the synagogue schools."
"And Grandpa wants you to build him a courtyard with the bone stone which he has bought from Herod, like you did at the Annex. And he wants Simeon to come and live with us and Eli too. Say yes."
"Yes," said Joseph.
"He means, of course, the 'skull' stone from the quarry north of Herod's palace. Here is the commission, Joseph. I hope it meets with your approval." Hillel handed Joseph a document describing a sum of compensation that would have made the old Josh salivate.
"No," Joseph said. "This is too much for the work involved." He thought a moment. "You do not have a house near the quarry where I and my wife and my sons could stay?"
"But this is a beautiful home," Hillel protested.
"My brother is expecting a second child and the boys are--"
The elder glanced over at Gamaliel, "I understand completely. Yes, I can put you up for the winter in the servants' quarters across from the Gennath Gate. There are only three rooms, but you can take meals with my daughter-in-law and myself, we live two streets south of the Gate. It is settled then? I will send some men to see to your things--shall we say the day after tomorrow?"
"Say yes, say yes!" Gamaliel hopped up and down. "Brothers, I shall have brothers--and Uncle Eli too!" he exclaimed as if he were a king counting subjects.
Joseph turned his palms up in surrender.
Lydia and Joshua returned with supper. They all washed in the garden well and then proclaimed together the great blessings God had bestowed upon them all. Mary folded her hands over baby Marta's. Cleopas glanced over disgustedly to see Lydia had brought up the common ware--and what would the most famous sage in all the world have to say about that?
Lydia stared northward into the distance where her family waited for her to return, as she had waited for her father. She sent them a silent blessing.
Joshua could not stop staring at his father. He was grateful the old man had not been killed, but the fact they'd not one disagreement since his arrival disturbed him profoundly.
Hillel thanked God for his grandson, and prayed he should survive the ordeal of raising such a child. Gamaliel gave thanks for his new brothers and all the fine times they were going to have when he took them round the Upper City.
God spare the city, Eli prayed.
Joseph did not pray at all. He simply stood at the center of the world, here in his own garden and absorbed the entirety of emotion, flowing from his family and guests, from the ground itself and the sky above them. He let the whole of Creation steal into him and swell him beyond the limits of his flesh, farther and farther until he found that other stillness whose reflection he had noticed in the short walk up the mount with Mirriam.
The fall was mild and life returned, after a fashion, to its more mundane rhythms. Joseph was unprepared for the celebrity which the trial had brought him. All sorts of fantastic things were said about how he had escaped dying. It seemed for a time, that no one spoke of anything else but how God Himself had saved the mason, and some of the more radical sects even hinted God had resurrected Joseph after he had died from the poison. And the tales they told about Jake's demise were even wilder: Joseph had killed him with a glance, like a basilisk, or he'd merely spoken an arcane word not heard since the dawn of time, or he'd called down God's Own Wrath, and so on.
Many more turned out for Jake's burial than cared anything for Jake, just to see Joseph in the flesh. Few of them were disappointed and the rumors only increased. Joseph finally finished his rather complicated marriage to Mirriam in a quiet ceremony at Date Home, Master Hillel presiding. There was no feast afterward--an omission he would apologize to Mirriam about for the rest of their lives. He regretted they could not have married as others did with days of food and wine and celebration, but Mirriam was too obviously gravid and Cleopas refused to publicly exalt such an irregularity of law, whether God had condoned it or not.
After Jake's burial, Joseph found himself in the peculiar position of being Jake's only male heir. Hannah was delighted and utterly relieved when he offered to manage the lands and household. He moved Jake's widow into the house south of the Temple where Mirriam had been conceived and hired several servants to see to things. He sent Joshua back to Branch to take care of Jake's house there and the property he owned on the Lake, including a fishing venture where some of Joshua's Zealot friends earned their bread. Perhaps this would entice Salome to return to him.
Mirriam helped her mother settle in, but she would not hear of staying in the beautiful Lower City house with Joseph living in the servants' quarters by the Gennath Gate. Joseph did not want to cross the city every day to work in the quarry, so they ended with Hannah taking the boys half the week, along with Gamaliel, who would not be separated from them, and Hillel's wife taking them the rest of the week, while Mirriam kept Joseph's house in the servants' quarters and visited her mother only to take the boys and bring them back.
Joseph took Mirriam's jenny and stabled her in one of the quarry caves, outside the wall.
Joseph thought things would be back to normal once he started working the quarry again and they saw he was only old Josh the mason, but he misjudged the effect of his transformation. He had always kept up with his younger crewmen before, now he out-paced everyone in the pit and the tales grew wilder still, invoking older myths, creating new ones.
There developed a lucrative, if peculiar, consequence of Joseph's notoriety: the oil from the garden sold as if it were liquid silver. Beneath the dignified trappings of the Temple and the precise logic of the Pharisees, there still lingered the inchoate longing for the magical. Even the High Priest requested some of the oil--discretely, of course--when he fell ill with fever in the first week of Heshvan.
Joseph sent money to Lydia and to Joshua, but he gave the majority of the profits to Cleopas. For the first time in his life Joseph did not desire wealth, but he had more than he could manage with Jake's holdings.
Cleopas hired two servants for Mary, who had pined in loneliness after Mirriam's departure with Joseph's sons. Cleopas was kept busy in the Council of Dates going over charts with a Persian mage who had just come from Alexandria with the most disturbing theory about a triple conjunction in Pisces.
As suddenly as Joseph's unwanted fame appeared, it was displaced by another incident concerning a second cousin of Cleopas', the priest, Isacariah. Zack's first son, Yohanan, had been delivered of his wife, Elizabeth. Zack had lost his voice six months earlier, when he thought he saw one of the Cherubs walk out of the Holies. With his son's birth, he regained his speech. Zack had just started back to his duties in the Temple, when he entered the Holy of Holies one evening to find three Cherybs standing there. He fled from the sanctuary, tripped, and bashed his skull on the altar, dying instantly.
Others claimed to have seen the third Cheryb also, but the High Priest Simon rose from his sick bed and investigated himself. He proclaimed there were only two, but that did not stop the stories. Nor did it help that they had not disposed of the extra Cheryb, but had instead sold it to a gentile trader for the value of its gold and olive wood.
Joseph sent Mirriam to see what Elizabeth's needs were. Mirriam arranged everything with Mary's help, the two of them conspiring together like generals in a campaign.
Joseph understood what had happened, both times, to poor Zack and he felt personally responsible, even if it was Gabriel's fault. So that was where Gabriel stayed. Where else would a shape-changing angel stay, but in the Holy of Holies, in the form of a Cheryb?
The days turned colder and settled into the somber tides of the season. The work went well on Hillel's project and the other masons grew accustomed to Joseph's new strength and odd face. He had looked at them many times and none of them were dead yet--and how about that man-faced winged lion that was walking the city, breaking men's heads with one swipe of its gigantic paw?
And each night, except Sabbath when they joined Master Hillel, Joseph returned to the spare chambers of his new home and the loving hearth of his new wife and the stillness that was solace to his soul.
The moon waxed and waned. Hannukah was celebrated. The weather turned disagreeable, one day rain, the next day mud, the next day fog, then more rain. Mirriam worried over him every time he returned drenched and chilled, but Joseph never fell ill. He suspected he never would again, but he knew better than to argue with his wife and he craved her concern, so he would always nod dutifully and swear not to overdo. She would cuff his ear and warn him once again that she knew when he was only humoring her.
He was just as concerned about her. Here she was, so great with child she could hardly walk and yet still riding across town twice weekly on that ill-tempered jenny he had bought in Branch.
"Mirriam, you really have to be more careful. The baby will come in two more weeks, if not sooner. I will not have you delivering in the street. Why do you think Master Hillel put up the midwife in his own quarters? Surely not so you could be all the way over town when the baby came."
Mirriam just smiled.
Joseph knew that smile, that mysterious, "You are only a man and I am the vessel of life," sort of expression. True enough, but this was Mirriam's first and no ordinary babe. "I am not bringing your jenny up here again until after you are delivered, and that is final, Mirriam."
Mirriam served him up a dinner and a silence that was hardly stillness.
The next day it rained, grey drizzle that sent the cold straight to the bone. The quarry was nearly empty, a pit of mud pools and grumbling, unhappy men wielding slippery, dangerous picks with numb hands. Joseph worked away at the corner Master Hillel had bought from the Idumean. His strokes were uneven and he ruined one plane of the cliff with a misplaced swing.
He put the tool down and tried to think what was bothering him so. Surely not the tiff with Mirriam. No, but it was definitely his wife. What? Joseph searched his thoughts, but nothing came to him. He was definitely worried, but he could not think why.
"Damnation!" he said aloud. Leaving his tools he bounded up the side of the quarry, hit the Gennath Gate at a dead run, made the sharp angle of the inner entrance, and flew down the street to his home.
"Mirriam!" he called out as he dashed through the door.
Mirriam was seated at the table, one hand on her swollen belly, the other on a book. "Yes?"
"You are all right? You are not--"
"I do not seem to be, Joseph. Are you all right?"
"I had the strongest sensation that something was wrong, then I thought you were having the baby." Joseph caught his breath.
"No," Mirriam shifted her position and sighed. "Unfortunately not. I do not mean to complain, but I am growing a little weary of carrying this son of yours, Joseph. At least he has stopped kicking me."
Joseph's eyes went wide. "What?"
"I asked him if he would not mind being a little quieter because my ribs were getting sore, and he hasn't kicked me since."
"Oh, Mirriam," Joseph sat beside her and placed his muddy hand on her belly. He could feel no movement at all and the baby had been very active these past weeks. Oh, Dear Lord, he thought, the babe has died.
Mirriam put her hand over his. "What is the matter, Joseph?"
"Nothing."
"Are you worried because he isn't kicking?"
"It may mean nothing, Mirriam. I wouldn't--"
"Yeshua, kick your father," Mirriam said.
Almost as if the babe had heard her, Joseph felt a forceful bounce beneath his hand. He leaned over the table and tried not to weep.
"Joseph?" Mirriam stroked his back.
"I thought the baby had died and that was why the baby stopped moving."
Mirriam pursed her lips together trying not to laugh. "Oh, Joseph. I will be well. You needn't worry so much."
Joseph could hardly tell her something dreadful was going to happen when he did not know what or how or when--or even if. No, the feeling was so intense, he could not fail to believe it.
Aloud, Joseph admitted he was acting as foolish as any father was entitled to. He changed to dry clothes and returned to the quarry. He made himself work, though he could not stem the tide of anxiety. Late into the grey afternoon, the clouds parted slightly and the sun sparkled the pools of water and raised a fog in the pit that made further work impossible.
Joseph fed and watered the jenny and left the pit. He bribed the guard at the Gennath Gate to let him up on the battlement and walked over to the Xystos bridge and straight into the Temple. The weather was so grim, most of the booths were closed and the courtyards were nearly empty. No one questioned or hindered him as he climbed to the higher court and across to the sanctuary. Gabriel, he screamed in his mind, I need you.
The priests at the altar looked up as he approached and backed away warily, some of them fleeing to call the Temple guard. There was no time to lose.
Joseph ran by them into the Holy and shouted at the Veil--Mirriam's Veil, he was to recall later. "Gabriel, get out here. I need you! Something terrible is going to happen! I need you!"
The priests rushed in and dragged him out of the sanctuary. They would stone him for this. No one but the highest priests were allowed in The Temple Sanctuary, the Debir. Had it all been a dream of the poison? Was he actually calling Archangel Gabriel in the Holy or Holies?
Had he lost his mind?
Joseph could hear the thugs stomping up the stairs, calling out orders.
"Gabriel!" Joseph cried out again, but he had lost his conviction and he felt ridiculous and deranged, at least he must seem so to the men who held him.
They did not hold him long. Abruptly, Joseph found himself alone behind the altar and all the functionaries of the Temple either down on their faces quaking or running for their lives.
Joseph turned to see something like a gryffin emerging from the sanctuary, and he was immediately chastened for his feeble faith. "Gabriel!" he shouted.
A few of the Sadducees and Levites lifted their heads fearfully. A few of the guard turned back.
And fewer still kept their wits enough to bear witness to the awesome Cheryb's kneeling down and Joseph the mason mounting the Throne as if he did it often.
With two great down-drafts of its wide wings, the Being was aloft, and mercifully out of their sight.
And those few who had seen, did nothing but deny it ever after.
"You might have landed us a little closer to my house," Joseph complained as they slogged their way down the Kidron Valley, up to their knees in mud.
"You might have told me you had moved," Gabriel replied. The angel drew Joseph's cloak over his head. He despised being this wet.
Beside him Joseph had been wet through his tunic to his skin. "Why did you not bring some clothes of your own?"
"Cherubs do not wear clothes," Gabriel replied. "And you called me out of the Holies so urgently, I did not stop to pick up my robe. Why can we not go into the city? Surely going round the outside of the wall is the most miserable way we could have chosen."
"Because," Joseph explained, for what was now the third time, "Though I do love you dearly, and am in no way ashamed of that love, still I would be hard-pressed to explain what I am doing walking the streets with a half-naked angel this time of evening. They would have me back in the Temple on charges, in no time at all."
"Well then," Gabriel sneezed. "Excuse me. You said you needed me, that there was going to be trouble. Mirriam is not in labor?"
"No, Gabriel, but it seems to be about Mirriam. I, I just~ -the feeling is so strong--"
They turned along the battlement below Herod's palace. High in the walls, the windows warmed with light, making the eve seem darker and colder.
"Do you have these feelings often, Joseph?"
Joseph stopped and whirled round grabbing for the angel's shoulder. "I know that tone of yours, Gabriel. What do you know about this?"
Gabriel lowered the cloak to his shoulders. His hair fell in gilded serpents, drooping waves, "Sometimes this happens, Joseph. Those few who--. Sometimes they hear things, sometimes they see, sometimes they just know things which ordinary men do not. In your case, the last seems to hold. Usually the knowing is foreknowing, a lesser form of the power some Bene Elohim possess. My brother, Rafael, has such prescience in the extreme."
"Gabriel!" Joseph exclaimed. "That is the first time you have mentioned your brothers since you returned to Judea."
Gabriel bowed his head and sneezed again.
"It was always Mica this and Rafe that. Why did you never say their names when we talked after the poisoning? What happened to your brothers?"
Gabriel looked up sheepishly, "I have no brothers anymore. I have been disowned for what I did. I have fallen from grace, Joseph. Our Father has turned His Face from me."
"They let you live, Gabriel. They were merciful in that at least, both to you and to me. Perhaps that was God's Purpose, after all."
"There is no need for profanity, Joseph," Gabriel said bitterly, all his fluid notes deserting him. "They locked me away, helpless, for a very long time. I think they would have killed me, but they discovered Mirriam was pregnant and they did not know what do. I do not know either, but this is my responsibility."
"Why would your brothers not help you, Gabriel."
"They know I have never loved them, Joseph."
Joseph thought of Alf and what a pain he was at times. He could never say about Alf what Gabriel had said about his brothers. He was very sad for his young friend.
"We should be getting on," Gabriel said brusquely. "The rain has stopped and Mirriam will be wondering where you are, now it is getting dark."
Mirriam grew restless as the sun began to set. Joseph always returned well before sunset. He had rushed home this day with a premonition of danger; for her, for the baby. What if the danger were his?
Twice round their tiny rooms and there was nothing left to distract her growing anxiety. Mirriam noticed the rain had stilled to a gentle mist. Without waiting longer, she wrapped herself in the blue cloak the Annex students had given her and stepped into the street.
Her hips were so loose she found walking in the mud an ordeal, but she made the Gennath Gate without falling. She leaned against the slimy stone of the gate tower catching her breath and pretending the guard's silly chatter was a matter of interest.
Then she was on her way outside of the city, south by the wall, and down the path to the white rock quarry. Here the mud turned to a grey paste of stone dust and rain. Mirriam found the going worse than the mud of the city.
But the quarry steps had been washed clean and the rough surface of the stone made the descent easy. The pit was filled with roiling mists, fluffy ground clouds like the ones which gathered on the Dead Sea, painting an image of the heavens upon the earth.
Mirriam called out for Joseph, but no one answered. She walked towards the center of the quarry's floor. The mists parted in the wake of her cloak, revealing the dark pools of water which had gathered from the day's rain.
Above her the sky clouds also parted, unveiling the tiny crescent of the new Tebeth moon. Mirriam looked down to see the crescent shining up at her from the pooled water of the pit's floor, so near that she could touch it.
She lifted her skirts and stepped onto the shallow puddle, standing on the image, waiting for the ripples to settle so she could see the moon beneath her feet. It would be a special blessing for the baby, the soft light of Mother Wisdom.
That was her excuse for playing like a child in rain puddles, when she should have been searching for her husband. Mirriam excused her whimsy. She would soon be a mother with no childhood left at all.
The setting sun suddenly burst through the clouds, lifting the fog, blazoning the sky, plating the quarry walls in gold. Mirriam slipped off her veil and lifted her hair out from the neck of the cloak, letting it dry in the last of the sun, the only sun they'd had all day.
There was a plunk and splash to her right.
"Joseph?" she whispered, clutching her veil.
"The next one will not miss you, witch!" An ugly voice filled with malignant and vicious glee called down to her.
Mirriam looked up. A black silhouette stood at the pit's rim, and beside him another, and another, and--They ringed the quarry, dark shadows with upraised hands. Mirriam put both her forearms over the baby and lifted her chin. The sunset painted her cloak as incarnadine as the flush of her outraged mien. She was the portrait of grim courage even as perspiration beaded her forehead and ringed her brow like a crown of tears.
"Suffer not a witch to live among you!" said another and a rock came sailing by her head.
She could not see their faces. Who were these men to go against the Judgment of God Himself?
The third rock found its mark. It hit her right shoulder so hard she was spun around and fell to her knees on the pale moon. The next hit her back and drove her forward on her hands. She could hear them laughing and cursing at her, claiming she had survived the trial by an evil trick.
Mirriam stared down at the moon, demanding of The Mother a protector for her child. Then something pushed abruptly against the back of her head. A light like glory took the sky and spun it into darkness.
The men on the rim began to argue who should go down to see if she were dead. Some contended they should continue the stoning, that she was only dazed. Could they not see her lying on her side, her face half in the water, not moving or breathing, quarreled others.
High Priest Simon would be furious with them if they did not carry out his command correctly, said the first man who had named Mirriam "witch."
No one heard his exhortation.
The blood-red dusk turned suddenly dark. An eclipse swept over them. Round about the ghastly circle, stones dropped from trembling hands.
The light returned as the monster descended into the pit of stones. The crimson twilight set its leathern wings aflame and dazzled its gem-set flanks. The hideous mouth sprayed steam between the ivory of its enormous fangs.
"Dragon!" someone screamed and the cry was taken up as one and all fled the quarry. The ring leader hesitated only a moment. Then he realized that even if they had not finished Mirriam, this gigantic winged serpent would surely do the job for them.
The elegant neck bowed forward and the flared nostrils nudged Mirriam gently. Her arm moved instinctively to her babe, but she did not rouse.
Samael slipped his obsidian claws beneath her and gathered her close to his brazen chest. He lumbered across the quarry on hind limbs the size of trees. He spread his wings and bounded into the sky, bearing Mirriam.
Out of the pit of stones.
Into the heavens.