Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [56]
“Yeshua ben Yosef was the only begotten son of the One God of the Habiru folk,” I said aloud in my native tongue, addressing the back of Ilya and Leonid’s heads. “And they acknowledged him as the long-awaited savior of their people. Is that not so?”
I could see both of them stiffen at hearing Yeshua’s name coming from my lips. Although they understood nothing else, they did not like it when I spoke of him, but it helped me think and remember.
“But the Tiberians reviled him for sowing disorder. They took him prisoner, and killed him like a common criminal,” I continued. “And as his true love Mary wept at the foot of the post to which he was nailed, her tears mingled with his dripping blood in the soil. From this joining, Blessed Elua was engendered, and Mother Earth herself nurtured him in her womb.”
They didn’t like hearing Elua’s name, either, although I had the impression it was for different reasons.
I pondered what little else I knew. Of Yeshua ben Yosef, not much. The history of Blessed Elua and his Companions, I knew well. Ever since I had learned that I was half-D’Angeline, I had been curious about it.
The One God had turned his back on his Earth-begotten grandson, but a handful of his divine servants had abandoned their posts in Heaven and gone to Elua’s side: Naamah, Anael, Shemhazai, Eisheth, Azza, Camael, and Cassiel. When the King of Persis put Elua in chains, Naamah offered herself to him in exchange for Elua’s freedom. When Elua hungered, Naamah lay down with strangers in exchange for coin that he might eat.
Wandering the earth, they came at last to Terre d’Ange, where they were welcomed with joy. There, they made a home and begat thousands upon thousands of children.
Except for Cassiel, anyway. Although he stayed for love of Blessed Elua, he obeyed the One God’s commandment that his servants remain chaste.
I’d never quite understood Cassiel.
When their descendants grew too numerous, the One God took notice at last. He sent his commander-in-chief to fetch Elua and his Companions back to Heaven, but Elua refused, saying his grandfather’s Heaven was bloodless. In the end, Mother Earth intervened and struck a bargain with the One God, who had been her husband long, long ago. Together they created a new place beyond the mortal realm, which D’Angelines call the Terre d’Ange-that-lies-beyond.
Well and so, it seemed to me that the matter had been peacefully resolved. It had taken place over a thousand years ago. So far as I knew, Yeshuites and D’Angelines had lived peaceably together for those long centuries.
Mayhap the answer lay in more recent history. My thoughts circled back around to Berlik’s tale. In his day, there had been a great exodus of Yeshuites around the world as they embarked on pilgrimages to Vralia. There was a prophecy that when Yeshua ben Yosef returned to the world, he would establish his kingdom in the north, and the Yeshuites believed the time was nigh.
That, I remembered, was because of the war in Vralia. Some royal prince named Tadeuz Vral had set himself up as the supreme monarch. He’d even named the place after himself. But his brother had rebelled against him. Tadeuz Vral had appointed a Yeshuite immigrant with a gift for military strategy to lead his army, and swore an oath that he would convert and rule the country in Yeshua’s name if the fellow was victorious.
As it happened, he was.
That was how Vralia had become a Yeshuite nation, and that was the extent of my knowledge. I did recall that in Prince Imriel’s tale, this Tadeuz Vral had been none too pleased with him for killing Berlik, as all Yeshuite pilgrims were under his protection and Prince Imriel had lied about his intentions. But it was the very same priest who had begged Prince Imriel to spare Berlik who convinced Vral to let the prince go, so I did not see how the incident could be the cause of a grudge that had festered for over a hundred years and led to my own half-breed D’Angeline self being taken into captivity.
Again, so far as I knew, it was the start of a diplomatic relationship