THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD...

There is a light to guide the two young people fleeing from their homes and in search of safety...

The crippled old soldier, reject from the Roman Army on account of injuries piled upon him in a vicious attack by locals resentful of Roman authority in Nazareth, gazed at the light he'd erected high above the door to the almost tumbledown stable where Maria and Jo-jo were to stay whilst their baby was born, and rubbed his hands together and nodded with satisfaction. He might be a cripple but if a cripple takes his time there are surprising things he might do, he thought.

A cripple might even make a star!

They'll see that, he thought, anyone will see that, even from miles away! It's a good light, is that, and that crystal I put in front of it helps cast the light even further! It really is like a star, a genuine powerful guiding star.

And indeed, even by daylight it shone brightly, tucked away as it was in the shadows above the stable entrance. Anyone approaching along the road from Jerusalem (and hence from Nazareth) would see it quite clearly even in the light of day if they penetrated the constant gloom with eyes willing to see. It was a triumph of the wick-maker's art, and the lamp's huge reservoir contained enough animal oil to burn for days. It was indeed a light to guide the strangers from a strange land to the comforts of a crude bed for childbirth.

And a crude bed in a stable was most likely all they’d have.

He'd done the best he could. It was up to them, now. But maybe he should keep an eye on them for a little while. Maybe there were still ways he might help them. But it might be best if they didn’t know he was there. It might be best if they learned to be independent.

Why am I doing this? he asked himself, and, because it was all the work of that damned army Captain, he replied. I was army once, damn them, and although I’m not responsible for this girl’s burden I feel it!

Then he decided to make his way quietly and as unobtrusively as he could on his old horse down the road that led back towards Nazareth, keeping out of sight of the road itself. Not that you could call it a road, not a proper one, It was little more than a track left by the occasional caravans of traders who once in a blue moon came this way, and off the road was little worse than being on it. So he ambled on slowly, pausing quite often in order to offer relief to that old nag of his, and far enough away from the track to be safe from being seen by strong young eyes it. He wanted to watch the couple, make sure they were all right and making for the right direction, but for reasons he had tried to explain to himself he didn't want them to know he was there.

They were still a good day away from Bethlehem when he found them. At first he spotted them in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief when he noted that they'd somehow got the use of a donkey (as old as his own horse, by the look of it, but with four sturdy legs so less decrepit), and the girl was riding it. She looked pale and it was immediately clear to him that her pregnancy was well advanced.

He tethered his own steed and painfully struggled across the rough terrain on his mutilated legs, keeping in the shadows of boulders and the odd straggly tree, until he was within earshot of the two youngsters. He didn't know why, just that he needed to sure that all was well with them before he returned to his old piece of wall where he wiled his life away, in Nazareth.

"Just because you couldn't keep your legs tight together," Jo-jo was moaning. "I don't know why I'm sticking by you, I truly don't."

"Could it be because you love me?" suggested Maria. "Could it have anything to do with the feelings we share for each other?"

"Me love you?" almost sneered the young man, "I might have once, if I knew what love was, when I thought you were innocent and still a child, but since this happened..." he indicated her growing bump, "I've lost every feeling I ever had for you. As far as I'm concerned you're no better than a common prostitute whose flesh is on hire to all comers!"

"And you're no better than a pimp because I gave you most of the gifts my visitors left for me! You did well by me, which is more than you can say for your carpentry!" snapped Maria. "A girl doesn't get rich being honest and decent and innocent, you know, any more than a woodworker does by being careless with his tools!"

"You never got rich!"

"But then I was never anywhere near as naughty as your imagination says I was," almost sobbed the young girl. "It was only that Captain, and you can believe it or not, it’s up to you, but he only went all the way with me once! And I never complained, but it hurt! You've no idea how much it hurt! All the rest of the time he was happy with ... you know, other stuff."

"Yet you concocted that angel-from-Heaven story between you," snarled Jo-Jo. "Why do that if you're oh, so innocent, eh? Why tell such a monstrous lie when all it will end up doing is making the rabbi mad enough to order a stoning for you if he hears one whisper of it!”

The girl paused. Then: "Have you any idea what it's like to be a girl!" she flashed at him. "You lads, you go off, sow your wild oats or whatever you call it, go with whatever lass you feel like going with whenever you feel like it, even somehow do it to yourselves until you’re as good as drained ... and us girls have to behave ourselves, stay chaste and innocent and be eternal virgins ... it isn't fair! It just isn't fair!"

"Who said life had to be fair!" snapped back Jo-Jo.

"Nobody..." That last word was sobbed, and the argument was over. The boy had won, of course. The old soldier felt sadder that moment than he'd ever felt before. And the girl had a point, a great big juicy point that was the sole reason her gender was so repressed by both convention and law. He’d seen it so many times and it was so obviously unfair.

I'll see you're all right, my dear, he muttered to himself as, as silently as he could, he made his way back to his ancient steed, still keeping out of their sight.

And he trailed them, always invisibly, until, in the distance as daylight started to give way to the dusk of evening, he saw the glimmer of his lamp. It flickered feebly, but it was a beacon visible, as he’d hoped, for miles, even in the light of a fading day.

"Look at that!" whispered Maria, pointing. "What is it?"

"It's a light, burning by day. That's wasteful!" replied Jo-Jo, forgetting, for a moment, their argument.

"I wonder why it's there?" queried the girl.

"Maybe it's to guide us," mused the young man. "Maybe it's a light from the gods..."

"The god, you mean," said Maria. "There's only one god, remember. None of the others work."

"They do, according to the Romans, and they know lots of stuff," retorted Jo-Jo.

"Oh, shut up!" she sighed. Then: "I don't care how many gods there are! Get me to that light, and quickly, if it’s there to guide us. I think my baby's coming!"

© Peter Rogerson 18.11.12 revised 24.11.16