Mary of Nazareth Read Free Page A

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” he said grouchily.
    â€œIt’s your name.”
    â€œYou may be brave, but you’re still as silly as a little girl.”
    The barb displeased Miriam more than hurt her. She knew boys’ minds. This one was trying to make himself seem interesting. There was no need. He was interesting without having to make an effort. He was a pleasant combination of strength and gentleness, violence and fairness, and did not seem overconscious of the fact. Alas, boys of his kind always thought that girls were children, whereas they, of course, were already men.
    Intriguing as he was, though, he had brought the soldiers down on their house and the whole village.
    â€œWhy were the Romans looking for you?” she asked.
    â€œThey aren’t Romans! They’re barbarians. No one even knows where Herod buys them! In Gaul or Thracia. Perhaps from among the Goths. Herod isn’t capable of maintaining real legions. He needs slaves and mercenaries.”
    He spat in disgust over the low wall. Miriam said nothing, waiting for him to answer her question.
    Barabbas peered into the dense shadows of the surrounding houses, as if to assure himself that no one could see or hear them. In the weak light of the moon, his mouth was handsome, his profile fine. His cheeks and chin were covered with a curly beard as thin as down. An adolescent’s beard, which probably did not make him look all that much older in the full light of day.
    Suddenly, he opened his hand. In his palm, a gold escutcheon glittered in the moonlight. It was instantly recognizable: an eagle with outspread wings, a tilted head, and a powerful, threatening beak. The Roman eagle. The gold eagle fixed to the tops of the ensigns carried by the legions.
    â€œI took it from one of their storehouses,” Barabbas whispered, and laughed proudly. “We set fire to the rest before those stupid mercenaries even woke up. We also had time to pick up two or three bushels of grain. It’s only fair.”
    Miriam looked curiously at the escutcheon. She had never seen one so close. She had never even seen so much gold in her life.
    Barabbas closed his hand again and slipped the escutcheon into the inside pocket of his tunic. “It’s worth a lot of money,” he muttered.
    â€œWhat are you going to do with it?”
    â€œI know someone who can melt it down and turn it into gold we can use,” he said, mysteriously.
    Miriam took a step away from him, torn between conflicting feelings. She liked this boy. She sensed in him a simplicity, a frankness, and an anger that appealed to her. Courage, too, because you needed courage to confront Herod’s mercenaries. But she did not know if she was right. She did not know enough about the world, about what was just and what unjust, to be certain.
    Her emotions drew her naturally to Barabbas’s enthusiasm, his anger at the horrors and humiliations that even young children suffered daily in Herod’s kingdom. But she could also hear her father’s wise, patient voice, and his unswerving condemnation of violence.
    Somewhat provocatively, she said, “You’re a thief, then?”
    Offended, Barabbas stood up. “Certainly not! It’s Herod’s people who call us thieves. But everything we take from the Romans, the mercenaries and those who wallow in the king’s sheets, we redistribute to the poorest among us. To the people!” Underlining his words with a gesture, he went on, his voice full of barely contained anger. “We aren’t thieves, we’re rebels. And I’m not alone, believe me. I’m one rebel among many. The soldiers weren’t only after me tonight. When we attacked those storehouses, there were at least thirty or forty of us.”
    She had suspected as much even before he admitted it.
    Rebels! Yes, that was what people called them—usually not approvingly. Her father and his fellow carpenters in