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big as saucers.
    Finally the woman fell in the dirt, twitched, then lay still. Joshua went limp in our arms.
    “Let’s get him out of here,” I said to Maggie. She nodded and helped me drag him behind the wagon where the centurion was directing his troops.
    “Is he dead?” the centurion asked.
    Joshua was blinking as if he’d just been awakened from a deep sleep. “We’re never sure, sir,” I said.
    The centurion threw his head back and laughed. His scale armor rattled with the tossing of his shoulders. He was older than the other soldiers, gray-haired, but obviously lean and strong, and totally unconcerned with the histrionics of the crowd. “Good answer, boy. What is your name?”
    “Biff, sir. Levi bar Alphaeus, who is called Biff, sir. Of Nazareth.”
    “Well, Biff, I am Gaius Justus Gallicus, under-commander of Sepphoris, and I think that you Jews should make sure your dead are dead before you bury them.”
    “Yes sir,” I said.
    “You, girl. You are a pretty little thing. What is your name?”
    I could see that Maggie was shaken by the attention of the Roman. “I am Mary of Magdala, sir.” She wiped at Joshua’s brow with the edge of her shawl as she spoke.
    “You will break someone’s heart someday, eh, little one?”
    Maggie didn’t answer. But I must have shown some reaction to the question, because Justus laughed again. “Or perhaps she already has, eh, Biff?”
    “It is our way, sir. That’s why we Jews bury our women when they are still alive. It cuts down on the heartbreak.”
    The Roman took off his helmet, ran his hand over his short hair, and flung sweat at me. “Go on, you two, get your friend into the shade. It’s too hot out here for a sick boy. Go on.”
    Maggie and I helped Joshua to his feet and began to lead him away, but when we had gone only a few steps, Joshua stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the Roman. “Will you slay my people if we follow our God?” he shouted.
    I cuffed him on the back of the head. “Joshua, are you insane?”
    Justus narrowed his gaze at Joshua and the smile went out of his eyes. “Whatever they tell you, boy, Rome has only two rules: pay your taxes and don’t rebel. Follow those and you’ll stay alive.”
    Maggie yanked Joshua around and smiled back at the Roman. “Thank you, sir, we’ll get him out of the sun.” Then she turned back to Joshua. “Is there something you two would like to tell me?”
    “It’s not me,” I said. “It’s him.”
     
    The next day we met the angel for the first time. Mary and Joseph said that Joshua had left the house at dawn and they hadn’t seen him since. I wandered around the village most of the morning, looking for Joshua and hoping to run into Maggie. The square was alive with talk of the walking dead woman, but neither of my friends was to be found. At noon my mother recruited me to watch my little brothers while she went to work with the other women in the vineyard. She returned at dusk, smelling of sweat and sweet wine, her feet purple from walking in the winepress. Cut loose, I ran all over the hilltop, checking in our favorite places to play, andfinally found Joshua on his knees in an olive grove, rocking back and forth as he prayed. He was soaked in sweat and I was afraid he might have a fever. Strange, I never felt that sort of concern for my own brothers, but from the beginning, Joshua filled me with divinely inspired worry.
    I watched, and waited, and when he stopped his rocking and sat back to rest, I faked a cough to let him know I was coming.
    “Maybe you should stick with lizards for a while longer.”
    “I failed. I have disappointed my father.”
    “Did he tell you that, or do you just know it?”
    He thought for a moment, made as if to brush his hair away from his face, then remembered that he no longer wore his hair long and dropped his hands in his lap. “I ask for guidance, but I get no answer. I can feel that I am supposed to do things, but I don’t know what. And I