Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [48]
Avigail looked up at me. I nodded.
“Go on, you may accept it,” said James.
Avigail received the present and opened the silk. She stared at the necklace. She was silent. She was dazed.
Her eyes locked on those of Reuben of Cana.
I looked down at the grandfather's face. He was transformed. The cold hard look of scorn was broken and dissolved. He stared up at Avigail and his grandson. He said nothing.
It was Reuben who spoke in a halting voice.
“My precious Avigail,” he said. “I've traveled many a mile since I last saw you. I've seen many a wonder and studied in many a school, and wandered to many a place. But through it all, I carried in my heart one most cherished memory with me, and that was of you, Avigail, of you as you sang with the maidens on the road to Jerusalem. And in my dreams, I heard your voice.”
They stared at one another. Avigail's face was smooth, and her eyes soft and large. Then Reuben flushed red and hastily reached for the necklace, slipping it out of the silk in her hands which fluttered to the ground. He opened the clasp and he gestured: Might he put it around her neck?
“Yes,” said my mother.
And my mother took the necklace from him and she closed the clasp at the back of Avigail's neck.
I stepped up and put my hands on the shoulders of Reuben and Avigail.
“Speak to the young man, Avigail,” I said softly. “Let him know what's in your heart.”
Avigail's face softened and heated and her voice came low and full of emotion.
“I am happy, Reuben.” Then her eyes melted. “I've suffered misfortune,” she whispered.
“I know this. . . .”
“I haven't been wise!”
“Avigail,” I whispered. “You are to be a bride now.”
“My young one,” Reuben said. “Who of us is wise in such adversity? What is youth and what is innocence, but treasures that we're soon to lose in the world's trials? That the Good Lord has preserved you for me through my years of foolish roaming, I can give only thanks.”
The women surrounded them, hugging them and patting them, and then they drew Reuben back, and they took Avigail away, to the far end of the house and up the steps.
I looked at Hananel. He was staring at me fixedly. His eyes were cunning, but his look was chastened and faintly sad.
It seemed everyone was on the move now in the room, urging our guests to make ready, if they wanted, for bed in a clean, dry room which had been readied for them, or insisting that they take more wine, or that they have more food, or rest, or whatever it was in the world they should desire.
Hananel kept his eyes on me. He reached up for me. I came round and sat down beside him.
“My lord?” I asked.
“Thank you, Yeshua bar Joseph,” he said, “that you came to my house.”
16
AT LAST OUR GUESTS were securely bedded down in their rooms, on the best rugs we had laid over straw for beds, with the few fine pillows we could gather, and the inevitable brazier of coals, and water should they require it. Of course they claimed it was more than they had ever expected, and we knew it was not, and insisted that we wished we could provide them with silken bedding, and they urged us to go on to sleep, and I came back to the main room where I almost always slept and fell down beside the brazier.
Joseph sat silent as before, gazing at me with thoughtful eyes, and Uncle Cleopas sat staring at the fire and savoring the cup of his wine, sipping from it, murmuring to himself.
I knew a wrenching misery. I knew it as I lay still in the silence and in the shadows, ignoring the coming and settling of my brothers Joseph and Judas. I knew it as vaguely as I was aware that Silas and Levi were there too and Little Cleopas with his wife, Mary.
I knew that Avigail was saved; I knew that somehow her misery was at an end. I knew that Hananel and his grandson Reuben would be good to her all her days. I knew that.
But I also knew that I had given Avigail away to another man, I'd given Avigail away forever.
And a wealth