Mary of Nazareth Read Online Free Page B

Mary of Nazareth
Book: Mary of Nazareth Read Online Free
Author: Marek Halter
Pages:
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so, where was the harm in it?
    He smiled at Miriam and gestured to her to walk beside him.
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    H OULDA ’ S house was one of the first you came to as you entered Nazareth from the direction of Sepphoris. By the time Miriam and Joachim arrived, half the men in the village had gathered outside it.
    About twenty mercenaries in leather tunics stood a little way along the road, guarding the tax collectors’ horses and the mule-drawn carts. Joachim counted four carts. These vultures from the Sanhedrin were aiming high if they hoped to fill them.
    Another group of mercenaries, under a Roman officer, were lined up in front of old Houlda’s house, holding spears and swords, all with an air of indifference.
    Joachim and Miriam did not see the tax collectors immediately. They were inside the tiny house.
    Suddenly, they heard Houlda’s voice. A hoarse cry that split the air. There was a scramble in the doorway, and out they came.
    There were three of them. They had hard mouths and the kind of arrogant expression in their eyes that power confers on people. Their black tunics swept the ground. The linen veils covering their skull caps were black too, and concealed most of their faces apart from their dark beards.
    Joachim clenched his jaws until they hurt. Just seeing these people made him seethe with anger. With shame, too, and the desire to kill. May God forgive them all! They were vultures indeed, just like those that fed on the dead.
    Guessing his thoughts, Miriam took him by the wrist and squeezed it. All her tenderness was in that gesture, but she shared too much of the father’s pain to really calm him.
    Again, Houlda cried out. She begged, thrusting forward her hands with their gnarled fingers. Her bun came loose, and locks of white hair fell across her face. She tried to catch hold of the tunic of one of the tax collectors, stammering, “You can’t do it! You can’t!”
    The man broke free, and pushed her away with a grimace of disgust. The two others came to his aid. They seized old Houlda by the shoulders, making no allowances for her age and frailty.
    Neither Miriam nor Joachim had yet discovered why Houlda had cried out. Then one of the tax collectors moved forward and they saw, between the tails of his black tunic, that he was holding a candlestick against his chest.
    It was a bronze candlestick, older than Houlda herself, decorated with almond flowers. It had come down to her from her distant ancestors. A Hanukkah candlestick, so old that, according to her, it had belonged to the sons of Judas Maccabaeus, the first people to light candles in celebration of the miracle of eternal light. It was certainly the only thing of any value that she still possessed. Everyone in the village knew the sacrifices Houlda had had to make in order not to part with it. More than once, she had preferred to go without essentials rather than sell it for a few gold coins.
    At the sight of this candlestick in the tax collector’s possession, the villagers cried out in protest. In the households of Galilee and Israel, wasn’t the Hanukkah candlestick as sacred as the thought of Yahweh? How could servants of the Temple in Jerusalem dare to rob a house of its light?
    At the first cries from the crowd, the Roman officer yelled an order. The mercenaries brought their spears down and closed ranks.
    Houlda cried out again, but no one could understand what she was saying. One of the vultures turned, his fist raised. Without a moment’s hesitation, he hit the old woman in the face, projecting her frail body against the wall of the house. She bounced off it, as if she weighed no more than a feather, and collapsed in the dust.
    Cries of fury went up. The soldiers took a step back, but their spears and swords pricked the chests of those at the front of the crowd.
    Miriam had let go of her father’s arm. She called out Houlda’s name. The point of a spear flashed less than

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