Chapter 3
The Leper Bridge ~ continued from Chapter 3 | Outcast-Traitor-Divine
Her cooking pot boiled over and the hot flames brought her back to the night’s duties. A goat “bahhhed” from within the house and a calf cried for its mother’s milk. Nitzevet walked quickly into her front room where David slept on a bearskin. She kneeled next to him.
“How will I protect you?” she said as she stroked his thick, red hair. “What hardships yet what wonders you will have?”
The boy moved slowly toward his mother.
“You shall have the earth and sky.” She combed back her long hair. “The desert will turn to rain and fruit for you. The very sands will become honey for your sweet mouth.”
Late the next day Nitzevet stood high up on the limestone ridge that overlooked the valley; wind and rain swept along the mountain ridge and blew down along the terraced foot- hills that overflowed with dates, figs and olives.
David walked silently beside her clutching his slingshot as the rain slashed at his wool tunic. They climbed higher to where the shepherds’ paths and droveways disappeared.
“Will you see it?” David asked.
“Yes.” She placed her hands on his shoulders as they walked further into a thick afternoon fog.
“There is no light, no dark.” He moved up the mountain pass.
“There is always a battle,” she smiled and moved on.
Mount Gilboa was lost in the fog. The mists played like dark angels upon the mountain paths.
“Between who?”
“The sons of darkness and the sons of light,” she said as she pushed upward.
David hurried after his mother.
“Always never forget.” She looked back at her son.
Nitzevet stopped on the mountain path where a small rope bridge covered a deep gorge. She stood close to the bridge and started to push brambles up and away from the posts; as she did so a deep-rooted bush hidden by the underbrush came into relief. The bush unfolded and there in the deep fog and mist, high above Bethlehem and beyond the valleys and rolling hills, was a blood-red rose.
She motioned David towards the rose bush and took his hand.
“Here,” she said as she took his finger.
“Ouch,” he said as the thorn pricked him.
“We worship here in the high places.”
She walked over to a rough altar carved out of the mountain that was simply a dug-out place for a person to stand and look out. Her hair blew madly as she stood in the Bamah of the high places.
Nitzevet whispered to her son, “Two spirits of man.”
“This is the man who would bring others to the inner vision so that he may understand and teach to all the children of light the real nature of men, touching The Rose of knowledge.”
Down in the valley they saw lanterns heaving in the blowing wind. The procession of light moved slowly from the pastures up to the foothills, through the thickets and brambles of the high country and slowly upward.
The light disappeared in the dusk around mountain turns then became bright once again.
The rope bridge whispered in the wind of the coming struggles. It twisted and turned as one of the wooden steps broke free and fell into the gorge below. David looked across the tiny, threadbare bridge and then down at the sharp rocks.
“Tzaraath,” Nitzevet said.
“Where do they travel to?” David asked.
“Egypt,” his mother replied. “They take the mountain passes to avoid towns and villages.”
Soon a chant was heard as the lepers approached.
“Unclean, unclean, unclean,” was heard and swallowed by the wind. “Unclean.”
The lepers appeared on the mountain path, each holding a lantern with heads bowed low. Ten robed men stood in a single file, all of them stricken: they had stumps for hands, no ears and little flesh remained on their faces.
The leader held up his lantern and approached Nitzevet only to bow low in respect.
“I beg you to let us pass,” he asked.
Continue reading… Chapter 3 | Go In Peace
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