Bright Dark Madonna. Elizabeth Cunningham

man who had been nothing but kind to me, and who was trusting me with his truth.

      “I know, Joseph,” I said.

      And there seemed nothing more for me to say. So we sat in silence for a time, the afternoon light slanting and the mourning doves calling and calling.

      “Maeve,” he said at length. “I know you have always loved him. I know you cannot love me, or anyone, as you loved him. I am not a fool—or maybe I am where you are concerned, but I am not deluded. I can offer you my love. I can marry you, if you will have me. I can make a home for you anywhere in the world—far from here, I hope. I can love and protect your child. And I can understand, as no other man could, that you love him still. Don’t forget that I witnessed that love almost from the beginning.”

      It was true. Joseph, on business in the Pretannic Isles, had met Jesus just after he escaped from Mona. He had been with Jesus when the priestesses of Glastonbury informed him that the druids had exiled me alone in a small boat “beyond the ninth wave” as punishment for interfering with the mysteries (i.e. human sacrifice aka the god-making death). Joseph had agreed to attempt a search for me, but then the terrible storm came and with it their certainty of my death. By sheer chance (or not) Joseph had encountered me in a Roman brothel three years later and had pieced our stories together.

      “Oh, Joseph” was all I managed to say, and I turned to him and pressed my face against his heart.

      “Maeve,” he murmured, dropping kisses on my head, “Maeve, may I hope—”

      I realized my mistake and gently drew myself apart. Joseph looked away abruptly, but not before I saw the pain. It’s done now, I thought, it’s over. But it wasn’t.

      “You received me as your lover when you were a priestess,” he spoke tersely, not looking at me. “Was it…was it charity? Obligation? Obedience to the goddess?”

      “And to the god.”

      Isis, I prayed. You called me to be your priestess. Help me now to heal the wounds I never meant to inflict.

      “The god in you. Look at me, Joseph,” I commanded in her voice, and he obeyed. “What do you see?”

      I didn’t know the answer myself. I only knew he had to see it and say it for himself. He looked at me, and I looked back. I saw his face change, hurt and longing giving way to surprise, maybe even awe. Then at last there was sadness again and love.

      “I see, Maeve,” he said.

      What do you see? I wanted to ask again, not in her voice this time, but in my own human confused voice. Yet I held my peace.

      “You won’t come away with me,” he stated. “You won’t let me make it easy for you. Or safe. You won’t let me save you. That’s not what you want. It never was; it never will be.”

      I felt him let go, move away. In my mind I saw his boat, leaving this shore, leaving this story. And I could go, could have gone. Any moment it would be too late.

      “Joseph.” I called out as if over the waves, over the wind.

      “Shh! Maeve. I’m still here. Shh!”

      He reached for me, and I clung to him, not like a lover but like a child. Joseph understood and held me close.

      “I have to ask you one thing, Maeve,” he said after a moment. “Although my pride wishes I wouldn’t.”

      “Ask anything,” I said, letting go of Joseph.

      “I know that James the brother of Jesus is claiming the right of levirate. Are you—”

      “Sweet Isis, no!”

      “Well, I thought…I thought you might want to marry his brother…to stay close to him. To be with someone who reminded you of him.”

      “Joseph, have you met James?”

      “At the wedding. Oh, yes, I see what you mean. No family resemblance at all.”

      “None.”

      “I told you I was selfish,” said Joseph. “I won’t pretend I’m not glad. But I am also worried. Who is going to protect you, Maeve? You and the child?”

      “Who” must mean what man? Apparently that was what men were for. Even my beloved had said it: you need someone to protect you, you and the child. Who else but a man? A husband? Yet life hadn’t taught me what seemed so obvious to others. I had grown up without a man in sight. I had lived with whores and priestesses most of my adult life. I had finally married a man who had no home, no wealth, and no idea of how to protect himself, let alone anyone else. Pardon me if I remained clueless.

      “I don’t know, Joseph. I don’t know. Have...have faith in me?” I suggested

      But the words didn’t sound as convincing as they had in my dream conversation, and Joseph looked dubious.

      “Maeve,” he said at last. “Listen to me. I won’t ask you again to be my wife, but please hear me. I have to make a voyage to look after my interests in Pretannia. You could come with me. Just come. You could go home to your people.”

      I closed my eyes, the sense of homesickness was so sharp, so unexpected. I could hear the sound of the sea, smell it, see the spray of waves breaking on rock, catching the light, hear the sound of gulls. And inland the darkness, the greenness, the huge oaks.

      “Joseph,” I spoke with effort, as if in a dream. “I am an excommunicate, an exile.”

      “That was long ago now, Maeve. No one will remember.”

      “Joseph, surely you’ve met druids. Remember is all they do.”

      I opened my eyes, and here I was again, in Martha’s courtyard, the heat of the afternoon just beginning to turn, the dusty olive leaves making their dry sound in the breeze. Then I heard the humming sound, bees in apple blossoms on the Shining Isle of Tir na mBan, or the wild roses of Temple Magdalen.

      It was only Ma carrying a tray of food, a little haphazardly, scattering figs and olives as she listed across the courtyard.

      “I sail in three days, Maeve,” said Joseph softly. “Send me word, if you change your mind.”

      And though Joseph stayed to eat with us all, as the rules of hospitality demanded, I knew in my heart—in his heart—he was already gone.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      TWO OR THREE TOGETHER

      SOMETIMES I STILL WONDER if I was temporarily insane. Here is Joseph of Arimathea about to set off for Glastonbury, and I refuse to go with him? And what is so wrong with a second marriage to a doting older man who asks nothing more than to love and protect my child and me? A doting older man named Joseph, no less. Just like Miriam’s husband. If it was good enough for the mother of god, for god’s sake, why didn’t I jump at the chance? Who do I think I am? (I’m not going to answer that).

      The day after Joseph sailed, the khamsin kicked up, a hot desert wind that parches the earth, the skin, the soul, and covers the sky with the kind of clouds that never rain, just block the light and dull the senses. Martha and the rest of us worked inside, out of the wind, pressing figs into cakes that could be preserved and stored. A simple enough task, pleasant and repetitive, but today I could not settle into a mindless rhythm.

      I’ve got to get out of here; the thought was clear and urgent as an alarm bell. And I looked at my life, suddenly aghast that I had not only refused Joseph’s help but made no plan at all for the coming birth of my child. I’d been docile as a cow, sitting here all summer, content to chew my cud. Now the lethargy of early pregnancy was gone; the child was quickening. Time was racing. What was I going to do? Hang around and let James determine my fate? And if I didn’t, who would help me escape? Escape might seem a strong word to use, considering that I was among friends, or anyway friends of Jesus, who would take care of me for his sake. Lazarus had made that very clear.

      Lazarus.