B and I had both forgotten something: The sign in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, that stated bluntly outside the gates of the Court of Women: No pagan may proceed beyond this point. Anyone who is taken shall be killed, and he alone shall be answerable for his death. Or her death, as it were, which is to say, mine.
(In case there is any doubt on this point, no, I never converted to my beloved’s religion; I wasn’t even a God Fearer, as gentiles who kept Jewish Law were called. Not that I wasn’t afraid of YHWH sometimes. Who wouldn’t be, considering his reputation? I had even prayed to him on a couple of desperate occasions, but we generally steered clear of each other. I am the daughter of warrior witches and a priestess of Isis. You can’t get more pagan than that. Though I have been known to trespass in sacred precincts forbidden to me, I needed a stronger motivation than worshipping an invisible god who insists—a little too vehemently—that he’s the only game in town.)
I quietly dropped behind the others. With the several Jerusalem households walking en masse, our group was so large I did not think I would be missed at prayers. So I began to wander around the Court of the Gentiles where all the teaching and commerce took place. Despite the riot my beloved had started almost a year ago now, business was as brisk as ever. Why weren’t the apostles and co. out here upsetting tables, if they wanted to continue his work? A stupid, bitter question, I knew. Because actions like that had eventually gotten him crucified, that’s why. Now here I was a year later, and peasants were still being ripped off, forced to buy sacrificial animals from the Temple at inflated prices instead of offering their own.
I found myself wandering up and down the aisles of the dove vendors—the sacrifice of the poor. Miriam herself had come from Galilee to offer two doves in thanks for Jesus’s birth when her time of uncleanness had passed. Anna had once said to Jesus, “Don’t scorn the doves, Yeshua, they have given their blood for you and for many.” On the day of the riot, Anna had materialized mysteriously and urged me to open the cages and set the birds free. But if I tried anything today, I would only cause trouble, draw attention to myself (my besetting sin) and I had promised Mary B I wouldn’t. So I just stopped and stood before the cages, trying to make that low whirring sound in a useless gesture of solidarity.
“We can buy some.” I turned and there was Miriam standing beside me.
“Are the prayers over already?” I asked, surprised.
“I didn’t go in; I followed you. It doesn’t matter which side of a wall I’m on, the angels know where to find me.”
That was true enough. I didn’t see them or hear them, but there was a certain quality to the air when they were around her, breezes that lifted the hem of her garment and the tendrils of her hair when everything else was still.
“Let’s buy some doves,” Miriam prompted. “In Anna’s memory.”
“I don’t think Anna would like us to sacrifice them,” I objected.
“Did I say anything about burnt offerings? No, we’ll free them, of course. That’s what Anna used to do. She was quite mad, you know.”
Miriam’s matter-of-fact pronouncement on Anna’s sanity struck me as hugely funny, but I managed not to laugh out loud.
“I’d love to free some doves,” I said. “But I have no coins.”
The realization hit me. Not only did I have no money to buy a dove, I had no means at all. I was completely dependent on the community.
“Here.” Miriam reached into her pocket and displayed a palm full of shekels.
“Where did you get that money?” I was curious and a little alarmed.
“I found it,” Ma said vaguely, shrugging as if it were not important.
“Found it? What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went to the kitchen to find something to eat. I was opening jars, looking to see what there was, and I found money.”
“And you took it?”
You are probably more shocked than I was. For me, she was just my crazy mother-in-law, which was bad enough, but not the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary, the only other mortal besides her son born without the taint of original sin. Well, Queen of Heaven or not, she had just told me she’d had her hand in the cookie jar.
“Why not?” she said. “If I had found figs or almonds I would have taken them.”
Ma was serene in her logic, but I was nonplused. I came from a country of cattle raiders, who regarded stealing each other’s herds as sport, but she was one of the children of Moses. As I recalled, there was a commandment that expressly said: Thou shalt not steal. What was she thinking?
“How much did you take?”
“Just what would fit in my palm,” she said righteously. “I’m not greedy, Mary of Magdala. Now are we going to buy some doves or not?”
I threw up my hands, by which I meant, I am not going to make this decision; in no way do I want to be implicated in stealing ecclesia funds. Miriam interpreted the gesture to suit herself.
“Vendor,” she said. “I want as many doves as I can buy with these.”
When the others emerged from their prayers, they found Ma and me with our four newly purchased doves, a pair each in small wicker cages, headed for the gardens where Anna used to sit.
“See!” shrilled Dorothea. “I told you they were not at prayers. That one,” she pointed at me. “She’s a gentile, I can smell it, and no better than she should be. Look at that flaming heathen hair. She’s a pagan in sheep’s clothing, she’s a wolf among the lambs, she’s….”
“Hush, Dorothea,” commanded Mary B. “She was the wife of our Rabbi; she’s going to have his child. She and his mother are no doubt making a thank offering.”
“We’d better open the cages now,” said Miriam.
And so we did. For a moment the disoriented doves perched on our hands, and then we tossed them into the sky.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BRING FORTH THAT WHICH IS WITHIN YOU
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, THOUGH it was not yet called that, was by no means my first experience of communal life. I had grown up in the small all female clan of my mothers. I had been a student at the famous druid college of Mona. I had lived with a Celtic tribe in the fastnesses of the Iberian mountains. When I ran away and got captured by a Roman slaver, I was sold to a Roman brothel, and sold again into a wealthy Roman household as big as a small village. Temple Magdalen had been my home for longer than any other, a loose (in every sense of the word) community held together by whore-priestesses who worshipped Isis and welcomed all comers in her name. Finally I was one of the companions of Jesus, a footloose, sometimes footsore band, now scattering, now gathering, seldom knowing where we would eat or sleep next. But there was something about this Jerusalem community that was unlike anything I had known in my diverse circumstances. I sensed it, but I could not at first fathom what it was.
Despite our rocky start, Ma and I each attracted a following. Many did regard us askance after the incident with the doves, but more were curious. The curious managed to evade the censorious and seek us out.
