"Don't talk. Come," said Alphaeus.
"Where are they hiding?" Little Salome asked.
"In the tunnels, they have to be in the tunnels," said my cousin Silas. His father told him to be quiet.
"Let me go up on the highest roof," said James. "Let me look."
"Go on," said Joseph, "but keep low, don't let anyone see you, and come right back to us."
"May I go with him?" I begged. But the answer was no.
Silas and Levi were sticking out their lips that they couldn't go with James.
Joseph led us faster and faster up the hill.
He brought us to a stop in the main lane maybe halfway up the rise. And I knew we were home.
It was a big house, far bigger than I had ever dreamed it could be, and very old and tired. It needed plaster everywhere, and even sweeping, and the wood I could see that held the vines was rotting away. But it was a house for many families, as we'd been told, with an open stable in its great courtyard, and three stories. And its rooms came out on either side of the big courtyard with a large roof hanging over all around for shade, and with many dusty old wooden doors. In the courtyard was the biggest fig tree I'd ever seen.
It was a bent fig tree, a fig tree with twisted branches, and its branches reached all over the worn old stones of the courtyard to make a living roof of new spring leaves, very green.
There were benches under the tree. And the vines grew on the rotted wood frames above the low wall at the street making a gateway.
And it was the most beautiful house I had ever beheld.
After the crowded Street of the Carpenters, after the rooms in which women and men slept on either side bundled up with babies crying, it was a palace to me, this house.
Yes, it had a mud roof, and I could see the old branches that had been laid over it, and I could see the water stains on the walls, and holes in which the pigeons were nesting and cooing - the only living things in this town - and the stones of the courtyard were worn. Inside, we would probably find mud floors. We had had mud floors in Alexandria. I didn't even think about it.
I thought about the whole family in this house. I thought about the fig tree, and the glory of the vines with their peeping white flowers. I sang a secret song of thanksgiving to the Lord.
Where was the room in which the angel came to my mother? Where? I had to know.
Now all these happy thoughts were crowded in an instant in me.
Then a sound came, a sound so frightening to me that it wiped out everything else. Horses. Horses coming up the lanes of the village. Rattling and scratching and the sound of men calling in Greek words I couldn't make out.
Joseph stared one way and then the other.
Cleopas whispered a prayer, and told Mary to get everyone inside.
But before she could move, the voice came again, and now we could all hear it, and it was saying in Greek for everyone to come out of their houses now. My aunt stood still as if she'd turned to stone. Even the little ones were quiet.
From up the hill and down came the riders. We went into the courtyard. We had to go, to get out of their way. But that's as far as we went.
They were Roman soldiers in full armor, the riders, their brows covered by their helmets, and they carried spears.
Now, I'd seen Roman soldiers in Alexandria everywhere all my life, coming in and going out, and in processions, and with their wives in the Jewish quarter. Why, even my aunt Mary, the Egyptian, wife of Cleopas, who was standing here with us, was the daughter of a Jewish Roman soldier, and her uncles were Roman soldiers.
But these men were not like any I'd ever seen. These men were in a sweat and covered in dust, and looking from their right and to their left with hard eyes.
There were four of them, two waiting for the other two who were coming down the slope and all four met before our courtyard, and one of them shouted for us to stand where we were.
They pulled up their horses, but the horses were dancing and wet and foaming, and they wouldn't stop going back and forth, and kicking up the dust. They were too big for the street.
"Well, look at this," said one of the men in Greek, "it seems you're the only people that live in Nazareth. You have this whole town for yourselves. And we have the entire population gathered in one courtyard. Isn't that good for us!"
No one said a word. Joseph's grip on my shoulder almost hurt. No one moved.
Then another soldier who waved for the other to be quiet moved forward as best he could on his restless horse.
"What do you have to say for yourselves?" he asked.
The other soldier called out, "Is there some reason we shouldn't crucify you with all the rest of the rabble down the road?"
Still no one spoke. Then in a soft voice, Joseph began.
"My lord," he said in Greek, "we've only just come from Alexandria, to find our home here. We know nothing of what goes on here. We've just arrived, and found the village empty as you see." He pointed to the donkeys with their baskets and blankets and bundles. "We're covered with the dust of the road, my lord. We're at your service."
This long answer surprised the soldiers, and the leader, the one who was doing all the talking, made his dancing horse come close to us, the horse moving into the courtyard, making our donkeys shy back. He looked at all of us, and our bundles, and the woman huddled together and the little ones.
But before he could speak, the other soldier said:
"Why don't we take two and leave the rest? We don't have time to raid every house in the village. Pick out two of them and let's go."
My aunt screamed and so did my mother, though they tried to cover their screams. At once Little Salome started crying. Little Symeon began to howl, but I'm not sure he knew why. I could hear my aunt Esther murmuring in Greek, but I couldn't make out the words.
I was so scared I couldn't breathe. They had said "crucify," and I knew what crucifixion was. I'd seen crucifixion outside Alexandria, though only with quick looks because we wanted never, never to stare at a crucified man. Nailed to a cross, stripped of all clothes and miserably naked as he died, a crucified man was a terrible shameful sight.
I was also in terror because I knew the men were in complete dread.
The leader didn't answer.
The other said, "That'll teach the village a lesson, two, and let the others go."
"My lord," said Joseph very slowly, "is there anything that we might do to show you we're not guilty here, that we've only just returned from Egypt? We're simple, my lord. We keep to our law and your law. We always have." He showed no fear at all, and none of the men showed fear. But I knew they were in dread. I could feel it as I could feel the air around me. My teeth began to chatter. I knew if I cried I would sob. I couldn't cry. Not now.