“Elizabeth–”
“Just wait, Abigail. Someday soon you will understand what I mean.”
Abigail felt her brows pull down, the anger bubble up. “Are you a prophetess now? Shall we call you Anna?”
Her friend ignored her. “Maybe the prefect will give you to Simon, since his wife is barren. Or maybe old Cleopas himself will–”
“Stop!” Abigail’s voice grew loud for the first time in the conversation, and she stood to emphasize her point. “Speak how you will of your own masters, but mine you will treat with the honor they are due.”
“Always the good little slave.” Elizabeth turned to face the Praetorium.
Without another word, Abigail left the roof. Surely this day would forever be fixed in her memory as one stained by unwelcomed truth.
Chapter Four
Abigail glanced once more at the table, set and ready for their guests. She heard the commotion at the door, Simon answering. She slipped behind Ester as she and Cleopas moved to greet Vetimus, his expecting wife, and their small son. The small family had a new luminosity about them, especially little Claron.
When he hopped about without a limp, Abigail forgot herself. “Claron! Your leg!”
The little boy grinned. “It is better! The Lord healed me!”
Ester and Cleopas looked first to each other, then to the parents of the suddenly whole boy. Vetimus put a possessive hand on his son’s small shoulder. “Phoebe and Claron were in Capernaum visiting her sister. The Nazarene was there.”
“Who?” Ester never heard as much gossip as the rest of them, since she rarely went into town. And Abigail rarely bothered her with the stories of the latest rebel.
“His name is Jesus.” Phoebe smiled and put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “I have heard the most remarkable stories of the man. I had no idea he was in the city, of course, but as Camilla and I were shopping, Claron got away from me and ran up to this stranger.”
“He was nice,” Claron interjected in his little-boy voice. “He bent down and picked me up and smiled at me. Then, when Mother came to get me, he put me down again and I could walk!”
“It was a miracle.” Phoebe fairly beamed.
Ester, disbelief in her eyes, held out an arm. “Why do we not go in to dinner, and you can finish the story?”
The visitors followed Ester and Cleopas into the other room, but the conversation did not stop. Abigail trailed behind, careful to listen as Phoebe continued the tale. “Some are calling him Messiah, but I do not know exactly what that means. He is a Jew, though, so I was hoping you may know a bit more about it, Ester.”
Her mistress looked uncomfortable. “There have been many prophecies, of course, but most are disputed. The general populace holds that they portend a Christ, a man who will come as a king to deliver Israel. Others, my father included, held that the Scriptures speak of no such individual, but rather to many different men who have already come and gone. I do not know.”
Phoebe’s face fell. “This was no king, certainly. But nevertheless, he healed my child, without even being asked. It was as though his very touch contained magic.”
Vetimus laughed. “Have you been in Persia, my love? There is no magic.”
“Power, then.”
Claron piped up. “I knew he could make me better.”
He grinned into the looks of shock everyone sent him.“He is God. And God can heal anybody.”
Did Abigail ever have such faith as this child? Not in her recollection. Then again, no messiah had ever healed her.
“Which god, though?” Phoebe shook her head. “Apollo? Jupiter?”
“God,” the boy insisted. “He made me better.”
Cleopas smiled at the child. “Indeed.” He turned to his wife. “I, too, have heard of this Jesus of Nazareth. For a while, when people first started wondering as to the possibility that he is a messiah of some sort, there was question that perhaps he was a rebel. We kept an ear on the stories coming in about him but were not worried. It seems he is more concerned with preaching repentance and telling stories and healing people than with Rome. A rabbi.”
“I hear he fed five thousand people with just a few loaves and fishes.” Vetimus’s lips twitched into a grin.
The other adults laughed over that one, and Phoebe’s eyes twinkled. “Stories certainly have a way of growing with the telling, do they not?”
The conversation turned to other far-fetched stories they had heard over the years, many of them about senators and Augustus himself. Abigail took the opportunity to sweep the child out the room, as she always did, and into the kitchen.
Dinah had a plate ready for him. Simon and Andrew were doing all the serving tonight so the women would be free to watch the boy.
“I am better!” Claron proclaimed again upon seeing a new face.
Dinah looked from the boy to Abigail.