December 7 (part 3)

The Travelers
by Margery S. Stewart

It was a hot, dusty, turbulent day in Bethlehem. The narrow, dirty streets were crowded with camels and donkeys and tired travelers. The women found it hard to draw water from the wells because of the press of the crowd.
At the inn, it seemed more brawling, more noisy, more dusty than anywhere else. We were filled from courtyard to gate, sleeping spaces as valuable as camels. It was a grim, endless day for me, for I must superintend the maids and the stable boys, and strive to keep a semblance of order about the place. My husband, Jasper, strode back and forth, shouting at the servants, browbeating the more humble of the travelers and berating me for a thousand and on things that had gone amiss.
"Dorcas!" thundered my husband for the dozenth time in an hour. "More men come seeking shelter. Turn them away."
I went swiftly, the anger and impatience in his voice taking seed in my heart and spourting swiftly into its own dark violence. "There is no room," I shouted, without waiting for their request. "No room at all."
There were fice of them, five dusty, bearded men. Their leader bowed. "But we have sickness among us, surely that makes a difference." I looked to where they pointed and saw an old woman lying in the dust of the street on an improvised litter. She was like my mother, little and fragile, the wrinkles like a veil over her face. I went to Jasper.
"There is an old one," I pleaded, "a little old one and very sick. Let us make room for her."
Jasper turned on me in rage, clawing his black beard. "I told you to send them away. Sick! There be many sick among them. That is no concern of ours. Send them away and ask me no more for any." He glared at me, his eyes cold and menacing under the eave of his brows.
I backed away. "As you say, Jasper." I went back to the gate. "There is no room." I shouted. "No room at all. Begone all of you! All of you!"
My shouting voice seemed to take all my strength with it. I leaned against the gate, shaken and sick: I was aware of someone standing beside me. I looked up.
He was a tall man, with a long brown beard, well flecked with gray. his eyes were brown, too. He wore a rough robe and carried a staff. There was a compelling quietness about him for all his dusty clothes, and his knotted hands and the dust upon his feet. "I must have a room," he said.
He did not nod with his head, no indicate in any way, but I looked past him as though drawn by the force of his concern and saw her. My first thought was wonder, that his wife should be so young, her face tender as a maids, with the clear color in it. She was sitting on a small gray donkey; her blue robes trailed down her side. She was with child, and I started, wondering that anyone would travel in such condition, until I remembered that all the travelers were under a decree and came not of choice.
I wrung my hands. "There isn't room." I said. "All day we have had to turn men away. There is no corner left."
"I must have room," said the tall traveler. "You are a woman, there is compassion in you for a sister in need."
"There is no room," I repeated heavily. "If I should ask my husband, his anger would lash on me, and for no good reason, for one cannot make space where there is none."
He turned instantly to her. "Let us go to the well, Mary. There be many there, you shall have fresh water and I will meet with many people. Surely we will find a place for you."
He picked up the reins and the small gray beast lifted his head and plodded on.
I should have gone in - there were linens to be counted, water pitchers to be filled, straw to be strewn. Instead I leaned against the gate following the blue robed figure in the malestrom of the street.
"Why stand you thus, dreaming?: Jasper demanded behind me, his voice rsping. "There is much to be done. One of the maids is sick and there is none to take her place at the milking."
"I will help," I said, and fled from his presence which was like darkness after sunlight.
It was quiet and cool in the stable. It had been built out of a great cave in the hills behind the inn. Jasper was a careful man with all his goods, and the stable was not less clean then the inn. I caught my breath and stared about me. With the cattle in their stalls and the floor swept and scrubbed, it would be a place - oh, better than the roadside and other places more dreadful, where the man Joseph might be driven to take the little Mary.
I caught up the bucket of milk and carried it to the kitchen. I said to Miriam, the cook, "I will go for the water this evening."
She nodded her covered head. "Aye", and I caught up the pitcher, put it on my shoulder and hurried out of the inn, into the whirling current of the street. The crowd around the well was deeper than it had been at noonday. The faces here were troubled and very tired. The man, Joseph was talking to Marya, the widow. She had a large house.
But she shook her head abruptly and turned away from him.
So they still had no place at all. I stepped forward. "Sir," I said, "I have a room."
Even in his great anxiety, his turning was quiet.
"It is a very poor place, in the stable, but I will scrub it myself, and sweep and prepare a place for you."
Joseph touched my shoulder, "You are kind," he said, "But a stable...for Mary? I will look further..."
Mary leaned down from the donkey. "There is no time, Joseph, we must take it and be grateful for it."
I said, "I will run ahead and prepare a bed for you."
I forced my way through the crowd about the well, let down my pitcher, drew of the cold delicious water and hurried through the crowds back to the inn. I should have asked Jasper first. What if he turned on me and ordered me to send them away again?
"Jasper," I said, giving the pitcher to Miriam, "There is a favor I would ask of you."
He threw down his napkin. "Always you come whining for favors when my mind is reeling with all the things my guests have asked me to do. Well, what is it?"
"The stable," I said, "Is a clean, quiet place. I thought I might give it to pilgrims for the night. At least they would have shelter."
"No!" shouted Jasper, and then his face grew still and speculative. "They would have to pay for it, the same as any room."
"They would pay, Jasper. I would see to that."
He rose and wiped his mouth. "Then fill the stable if you like. I care not."
All the weariness the day had fastened upon me vanished like an oxen yoke lifted by the master. I seized brooms and brushes and wooden buckets.
The floor was still damp when Mary and Joseph bent their heads to enter the low door, but the place had the clean smell of a fresh scrubbing. I was making a bed of straw. "Miriam," I said, "run swiftly to the house and get me linens and a coverlet." I gave her the key. "But this key is to your good linens," She said.
"You have the key," I said coldly, and went forward to receive the guests. Mary looked all about. "How quiet it is," she said, "and cool.
Joseph looked troubled. "But a stable." He protested, "Mary, Mary, this is no place for thee."
"Peace Joseph, it shall be well with me."
I said, "I...found a little manger you might use. I filled it with straw."
Mary looked to where I pointed. She smiled and went slowly and heavily to the rough, makeshift crib and touched it. Her fingers pressed down the straw. "I will put my robe under him, folded several times. It will make a good bed."
She straightened and was still. Her eyes closed and the whiteness ran into her lips. I took her arm. "Come, sit here on this stool until I make your bed."
She straightened and was still. Her eyes closed and the whiteness ran into her lips. I took her arm. "Come, sit here on this stool until I make your bed."
Miriam came bustling in, her arms filled with linens. Together we made the bed and stretched Mary upon it and covered her over with the coverlet, one never used before, one I had woven the previous winter.
Miriam looked down on Mary. "Poor, poor child. What a pity she couldn't have had her baby at home, in her own home, under her own roof, with her people near."
"The weariness of the journey makes a double portion," I said. "Do go swiftly and bring her a cup of your good soup, and some of the bread you baked this afternoon."
I said to Joseph, "Build a fire outside the stable and put water on to boil. This night will be a busy one for us all."
And so it was, the hours grinding away, and no noise at all in the stable except the blowing of the cattle and the stamping of their feet and the unheard sound of pain that women know. I knew. I had borne two and lost them both...I knew well the wracking of the flesh when they came and the tearing of the soul when they were taken away. But this I had not known before, that such a hush should come, that the stillness would grow and deepen until we talked seldom, and then only in whispers. The great hush that was in us all and in the humble room deepened and deepened and grew in intensity, until Miriam and I could only speak with our eyes as we bent above Mary.
We smoothed her forehead in silence and we held her hands. Then suddenly in the night, in the hush and the quietness, the child was born.
I held him and he cried, the new child cry, that is like no other in all the world. My arms circled him about, hungrily, loving his smallness and perfectness. My eyes marveled over him, seeing in him the seed from which the tree of the man grow. Seeing in him the buds of his hearing and sight that would open and unfurl and see and har, knowing that in him beat the perfect and untouched heart that would grow and know suffering and happiness and grief and be scarred with many scars before it should be still.
"This is not a usual child," I said to Miriam, as I bathed him.
"They say that always," said Miriam soberly, "and yet I say with you, this is not a usual child."
One of the maids came running with the summons from Jasper that he wanted me at once.
I rose and brought the child to Mary. She opened her eyes when she felt me standing beside her and smiled and held out her hands for the baby.
"It is a son," I said.
"I know."
Running along the pathway to the inn, I marveled that she had said that. How could she have known.
When I returned from the inn, two hours later, in the stable, all was still. Joseph sat beside Mary's bed, not speaking; the baby slept in the manger. I tiptoed over to look at him. he slept sweetly, small, mysteriously as all babies are mysterious, beautiful as new babies are, with their small curled fists and closed eyes and tender skin.
Suddenly there was a commotion at the door. Joseph rose up instantly and I went behind him. We peered out in the darkness and saw the torches coming along the path from the Inn. Joseph stepped out. the men surged forward. "Whom do you seek?" Joseph asked quietly.
The leader stepped forward, a great, rugged man. "We seek a child, born this night in Bethlehem."
Joseph said, after a moment, "There is here a child born this night."
The four men behind the leader fell back. They murmured one to another and tears gleamed on their harsh bearded cheeks.
The leader spoke gruffly, tears thickening his voice. "This night we wer ewatching our sheep on the hills east of Bethlehem...suddenly...suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared unto us."
"We were sore afraid," murmured the shepherds, crowding behind him, "sore afraid."
The leader nodded. "It is like a sword in the bosom to behold an angel of God. But he said unto us, to fear not, but to be of great joy, for unto us is born, this night, in the city of David, a Saviour, who is...Christ...the Lord."
"Oh, no!" I fell back from his word. I looked from the ragged man in the darkness to the baby in the manger, his small face lighted by the candle burning beside him.
"But the Great One cometh in clouds of glory, in a golden chariot." I whispered.
The grizzled leader nodded. "So thought we all, until this night. Christ...the Lord, in a manger. But there was not only this angel, but the skies were filled with a multitude..." his voice deepened with wonder and tears crowded him, "a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and singing, "Peace on earth, good will toward men."
"Peace on earth." I whispered. I trembled there in the cave.
Joseph stepped aside. "The child lieth in the manger."
One of the men pushed forward. "That spoke the angel also, 'and this shall be a sign unto you, that you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.'"
They came forward hesitantly their faces shining, tears wet on their cheeks. They knelt beside the manger and prayed and worshipped the baby. I wept, too, standing back in the shadows. There was a glory in the night that filled my heart and overflowed through all my being.
Jasper woke when I crept into the room. "Where have you been, Dorcas?"
"In the stable with a young mother who had her first child," I told him, "A beautiful boy!"
Jasper grunted. "Ther is strange tales that go about the streets. They say shepherds came down from the hills seeking a first born son, saying he was the Savior...Christ the Lord."
I caught my breath. "The came to the stable." I whispered. "They worshipped the child."
Jasper sat up. "Preposterous!" he exploded. "Blasphemy. Have no more to do with them. Do you hear!"
"But Japser, I was there. There was a glory. I felt it. Why should it be so strange? Moses was fished from the river...Samuel, the prophet, was a little lad when he heard the voice of God...humble ones."
Jasper pounded his fist in his palm. "But I know, Dorcas. I know. Emmanuel shall not come in humble fashion, but in a chariot of gold. He shall ride out of the skies and deliver us from our enemies."
"Yes, Jasper...but this..."
"You doubt me, we woman, small woman! You doubt me?!"
"No Jasper...only...only." I lay on my pallet. The night swept back and forth in my mind, all the small details. The shepherds' rough robes, and the broken sandal on the leader's foot. mary's face, pale with pain in the candlelight. The hush before the birth. The angel's song. "Peace on earth...god will toward men..." I turned on my pillow and prayed, but I was only a woman, childless and lonely, not greatly loved by my husband.
Sleep would not come. I rose at last and put on my robes and went softly out into the dawning. The world was very still. In the courtyard the shepherds knelt in prayer, before they hastened back to the hills.
I went along the path to the stables. Inside all was dark. Joseph slept on a pallet by the door. Mary slept in the bed we had made for her, one arm thrown across her face. The baby slept, too, the light, lovely sleep of new, little ones.
I looked at him for a long time, and then, I too, dropped to my knees, for within me, not from without, came the singing knowledge, the beauty and the promise.
I touched the forehead, small and fair beneath my work-coursened finger. "Sleep well, little one...sleep well...Long lieth the road before Thee."