Then, from beyond the grove, I heard her give a sudden anguished cry.
Chapter Fourteen
I RUSHED THROUGH THE BRACKEN.
She stood only a few feet in front of me, and beyond on the descending slope there stood a loose and silent crowd.
James, Joses, Simon, my uncle Cleopas, and dozens of other men stood staring up at us. Shabi and Yaqim started forward, but the older boys took hold of them. Only Silent Hannah broke from them nodding and pointing and rushing to Avigail. James stared at me, at her, and me again, and then, his face stricken with grief, he bowed his head.
"No, stop it, all of you, get back," I said as I came forward, passing her, and standing in front of her. Silent Hannah stopped in her tracks. She stared at me, and then back at the crowd. In an instant she seemed to realize what she'd done.
And I realized it as well. She'd sounded the alarm that Avigail had run away. She'd brought them here, and only now did she realize her terrible mistake.
Behind me Avigail murmured a strangled prayer.
More and more men were coming, it seemed from everywhere, out of the fields, from the village, from the far road. Boys were running towards us.
Up from the village came Jason striding with Reuben of Cana beside him.
Someone shouted for the Rabbi. Everyone was shouting for the Rabbi.
James turned and shouted to his sons to get Joseph and the elders this very instant. The name "Shemayah" was bursting from everyone's lips, and suddenly Avigail ran towards me, and in a gesture as fatal as that of Yitra when he had reached for the Orphan, she flung herself against me with both arms.
Stones whizzed through the air, one narrowly missing my ear. Cries of "Hypocrite" and "Harlot" let fly along with the stones.
I turned and sheltered Avigail. James rushed forward and stood in front of us, his arm outstretched. My aunt Esther had arrived with a group of women streaming behind her and she ran forward now as well. She screamed as she backed up into us. The stones stopped.
"Shemayah, Shemayah!" men chanted, even as the crowd broke open to disgorge the Rabbi and Hananel of Cana and two of the elders at their side.
Astonished, the Rabbi looked at us, his eyes moving over every detail of the scene he beheld. I stepped forward, all but shoving James out of my path.
"I tell you, nothing has happened here, but words, words spoken together in quiet there in the grove where I come, where everyone knows that I come!"
"Avigail, do you accuse this man!" cried the Rabbi, his face white with shock.
She shook her head violently. She gasped. "No," she cried. "No, he's innocent. No, he did nothing."
"Then what is this madness!" cried the Rabbi. He turned on the crowd which was now tripling in size, and full of gawking necks and raucous demands to see and to know. "I tell you stop this now and go back down to your homes."
"Go back at once, all of you," cried Jason. "There is nothing to see here. Get away from this place. You're drunken, all of you, with your celebrations! Go home."
But murmurs and grumbling ran rampant in all directions. "Alone, in the grove together, Yeshua and Avigail." I caught it in bits and fragments. I saw Joseph hurrying up the slope. Menachim was all but carrying him. More and more women were running towards us. Avigail had broken into helpless gasping cries.
"Bring her home, now, bring her," I said. But suddenly my brother Joses had his arms around me from the back, and my brother Joseph did too.
"Don't! Stop this," I said.
"Shemayah," Joses said, and there the man was, striding up the hill, parting the crowd, shoving people out of his path.
At the sight of him, Avigail buckled. My aunt Esther tried to hold her, but Avigail doubled over and stumbled backwards and slipped out of Esther's hands.
The Rabbi stepped into Shemayah's path. Shemayah went to strike him, and the farmhands caught his upraised arm. Men seized Jason before he could strike Shemayah, and others grabbed hold of Reuben. It seemed all strove one with the other.
Shemayah threw off those who held him. He glared at his daughter and at me.
He ran at me.
"You'll drink from that broken cup for the rest of your life, you will!" Shemayah cursed. "You filthy cheating liar, you damnable thief."