"No," I said. I shook my head and looked away.
The sound of my answer hadn't carried in the din, but the shape of it did, and he was gone and all the younger men with him.
The street was so full of torches it might as well have been the night of the Exodus from Egypt. Men were now laughing and hollering as they dodged in and out of their houses to get their heavy woolen robes and wineskins for the trek.
James caught his young son, Isaac, and when Isaac, a boy of no more than ten, struggled, Avigail suddenly seized him and demanded fiercely, "What, would you leave me here alone? Do you think no one has to take care of this village?"
She held fast to him in a way that his father could never have done, because Isaac wouldn't fight her. And she rallied to herself the other young boys, all that she could see. "You come here, Yaqim, and you too, Little Levi. And you, Benjamin!" Silent Hannah took up the exhortations.
Of course other women, young and old, were doing the same, each dragging out of the march any whom they could handle.
And into the village came more men from the countryside, farmhands, men of the villages near and far that everyone knew, and I saw finally even the soldiers, Herod's soldiers from Sepphoris.
"Are you with us?" someone shouted.
I covered my ears.
I walked on into the house.
Avigail all but dragged Isaac in with her. James was too angry to look at him. Menachim and Shabi were already on their way out as we entered, and Menachim looked once at James as if he would cry, but then he said, "Father, I have to go!" and off he went as James turned his back, and let his head sink on his chest.
Little Isaac began to cry. "My brothers, I have to go with them, Avigail."
"You will not," Avigail said. She reached for her ducklings. "I tell you, you will stay here with me." She held six or seven of them in thrall.
My mother helped Joseph to be seated near the fire.
"How can this all begin again?" asked Cleopas. "And where is Silas!" he suddenly demanded. "Where is Little Joseph?" He looked around in panic. "Where are my sons!" he roared.
"They're gone," said Avigail. "They came to the assembly ready to go." She shook her head at the pity of it. She held Isaac by his wrist, though he struggled.
Avigail's father, Shemayah, came into the room, hulking, breathless, out of sorts - he saw Avigail with her children, and making a disgusted gesture walked out and home before anyone could offer him a cup of wine or water.
Avigail sat amongst the boys, most of them ten or eleven years old, and one, Yaqim, who was twelve. She held fast to Yaqim's hand just as she held Isaac's hand. Yaqim had no mother, and in all likelihood his father was drunk in the tavern.
"I need you all here, we need you," Avigail maintained, "and I won't hear another word on it. None of you go. You stay here tonight under this roof, where Yeshua and James can watch you. And you girls, you come with me, tonight, and you." She tugged at Silent Hannah.
Suddenly she paused, and she came to me.
"Yeshua," she said. "What do you think will happen?"
I looked up at her. How tender and curious she seemed, how far from any real dread.
"Will Jason speak for them?" she asked. "Will he put the case before the Governor for them?"
"My dearest child," I said, "there are a thousand Jasons now making their way to Caesarea. There are priests and scribes and scholars on their way."
"And brigands," said Cleopas, disgusted. "Brigands who'll mix with the crowd, who'll bring the whole thing to riot at a moment's notice if they think they'll have the fight they've always wanted, the fight they never wanted to give up, the fight they still maintain in every backcountry cave and tavern."
Avigail was suddenly afraid, as were all the women, until James urged Cleopas to please leave off, and Joseph said the same.
Old Bruria came into the room, the eldest of our household, a woman not related to us by blood but one who'd lived with us from long ago when the land had run with blood after the death of Old Herod.
"Enough," said Bruria in a dark, strong voice. "Pray, Avigail, pray as we all pray. The teachers of the Temple are on the road. They were on the road before the signal fires even glittered on the evening mountains." She stood beside Joseph. She waited.
She wanted Joseph to lead us in prayer, but he seemed to have forgotten. His brother Alphaeus came into the room, and only then did any of us think that he had not even come to the assembly. He sat down beside his brother.
"Very well, then," said Bruria. "O Lord, Maker of the Universe, have mercy on Your people Israel."
All night long the village was alive with the sounds of men passing through on their way south.
Sometimes when I could no longer sleep, I went out in the courtyard and as I stood there, hugging my arms in the dark, I could hear the raucous voices from the tavern.
At dawn, riders came to the village, reading aloud their brief letters, declaring that this or that town had sent all its occupants south to appeal to the Governor.
Some of the older men put on their robes and got their walking sticks and set out to join those marching through.
Even some of the old men, on their donkeys, wrapped in blankets to their noses, made their way.
James worked without a word, banging the hammer with more strength than needed for the slightest nail.
Mary, the wife of Little Cleopas, broke into sobs. Not only had he gone on, but so had her father, Levi, and her brothers. And word had come that every man worth his salt was joining the movement to Caesarea.
"Well, not this man worth his salt," said James. He threw the lumber into the cart. "There's no point to going to work," he said. "This can wait. Everything can wait, as we wait on the windows of Heaven."
The sky was a pale soiled blue. And the wind was filled with the smells of the unwashed stables and courtyards, of the dying fields, of the urine drawing flies to the stained plaster.
The next night was quiet. They were all gone. What could the signal fires say except that more and more people were taking to the roads, except that they came from the north and the south and the east and the west? And that the ensigns remained in the Holy City.
James said to me at dawn:
"I used to think you would change things."
"Remember yourself," said my mother. She set down the bread and olives for us. She poured the water.
"I did," said James, glaring at me. "I used to think you would change it all. I used to believe in what I'd seen with my two eyes - the gifts of the Magi laid down in the straw, the faces of shepherds who'd heard angels fill up the sky. I used to believe that."