The Hanged Man
by Karen Deal Robinson

I dreamed I was visiting a woman who had written a fictional biography of Jesus; I had come to buy a copy from her. We stood in her pleasant, sunlit dining room while I leafed through my copy of her book. It was small and fit easily in my hands. Though the gray cloth cover was new, it reminded me of a well-made old library book. The print was clear and simple. Now and then a pen-and-ink sketch illustrated a scene. Despite the simplicity of the cover and the illustrations it was a beautiful book.

The scenes were not the old familiar Sunday school stories. Jesus moved through strange adventures with anachronistic characters: sages from India and Tibet, British explorers, Gypsies and highwaymen and mysterious ladies.

I began reading a chapter in the middle of the book. Jesus had been captured by bandits, and now a beautiful bandit girl was bringing food to him in his cellar prison...

Laila stood on the ladder a moment, watching the captive. The cool clay scent the earthen cellar surrounded her. Iron bars turned half of the room into a cell; in the other half were jars of wine and last year's apples and pomegranates. The prisoner knelt on the straw pallet in the cell as though praying. A dusty ray of sunlight from a tiny window far above made a halo in his dark curls, catching the few strands of silver.

He opened his eyes as she stepped into the room. Even in the dim light she noticed his eyes, large and dark brown, lit with an inner light that faded only a little as he turned his attention from his prayers. She walked up to the bars and slid the food tray through a small opening onto the floor beside the cell.

"Thank you," he said quietly, but he did not reach for the bread. "I have no money to pay for ransom. My family is poor, and my followers as well. Your people will get no treasures from me, at least not the kind they expect."

Laila sat on a low stool beside the bars that separated them. The clay floor was cool beneath her bare feet. "Aren't you Yesu the prophet? Great crowds follow you everywhere, they say. My father was hard put to catch you alone. If each of your followers paid even a farthing, we could collect enough ransom."

His smile faded. "Maybe so. But I would not ask it of them. I did not come to ask my followers to ransom me."

Laila tossed her head, shaking her thick curls out of her eyes. "It doesn't matter. My father didn't order your capture for the sake of ransom anyway."

"Why, then?"

"To keep you out of trouble. He thinks you are a great prophet."

Yesu rose from his knees and came and sat on the floor beside the bars. "And you don't?"

"Ha!" She tossed her head again. "Anyone can look into the future if they know how. But it takes no skill at prophecy to know that you're heading for slaughter if you keep on as you are now. And a Roman slaughter is no quick thing, Yesu. When Herod killed the prophet Yochan, the sword was sharp, they say, and the prophet felt little pain. But that is not the Roman way."

Yesu said nothing for a moment. "Tell your father I thank him for his concern. And you, Laila, do you know how to look into the future? It is not so common a gift as you might guess. The people of my country can read the sky, and say whether the day will be fair, but they cannot see what I see so clearly: the coming of the Kingdom."

"How do you know my name?" Laila demanded.

"Does that seem so miraculous to you, who can see the future?"

He was teasing her, she knew, but she felt uneasy. He had used no tools, no casting sticks nor scrying bowl. Could he really be a prophet? She put the thought aside and reached into the pocket of her skirt. "Shall I show you what your Kingdom will come to, if you persist?" She held out a hand-sized bundle, wrapped in a tattered green silk scarf.

The small, teasing smile never left his lips, but his eyes darkened a little. "Divination, Laila?"

She felt the heat of a blush in her forehead, and scowled. "What, does the holy man not approve? Don't your own priests in the temple practice divination? 'Urim and Thummim' they name their tools, though what they might be is a great secret."

Yesu sighed. "A secret long lost, even to the priests. They disappeared with the Ark of the Covenant. But they were toys, toys for men who had forgotten how to open their hearts and simply listen for the voice of God."

Laila gripped her bundle. "Are you saying then that God does not speak through the tools of divination?"

Yesu chuckled. "Through them? No, child. The lots fall as they fall. But sometimes, if you use their pattern to look into your own heart, they may aid your listening. Only you must be careful to what voice you listen. God's is not the only voice that speaks in our hearts. Now, what do your cards foretell?"

"Cards?" Laila stammered.

"Is that not what you have in your bundle?"

"How do you even know the word? Your people do not have cards. It is not a word in your tongue."

Yesu looked up at the distant bit of pale sky in the window high above. "I traveled in my youth, through many lands." He turned and looked at her once more. "Show me, then, if you will, what my Kingdom will come to."

Laila pressed her lips together. He was only humoring her, and the cards were a serious matter. She unwrapped them carefully, and rifled them seven times. She looked up and saw Yesu watching her through the bars.

She cut the deck in thirds, and put the middle third on top. As she was fingering the top card, Yesu said softly, "The Hanged Man."

She stared at him. "What?"

"Turn it over."

She held the card in her palm a moment, took a deep breath and then laid it face up on the stone floor. The painted Hanged Man looked up at her, his face serene despite the fact that his hands were tied behind him and he was hanging by one foot from the branch of a tree.

"How did you know?" she whispered.

Yesu shrugged. "You said yourself that it would take no skill at prophecy to know what lay before me."

"Yes, but to know which card would come up? If the cards fall by chance, as you say, how could you know? Anyway, the Hanged Man doesn't really mean what it looks like it means."

"No," he said, with a little half smile. "It's like a parable. The surface meaning is the least important one. I see the Hanged Man as a picture of my current plight, more than a warning of a possible future."

Laila knew immediately what he meant. Though the Hanged Man could signify sacrifice, it did not usually have anything to do with violent death. More often it referred to a time of retreat from the world, a suspension of daily activities, a surrender. "Laila," said Yesu. His voice was low and intense now. "Laila, you must let me go."

She looked again at the serene face on the card. Sacrifice, surrender. "Why?" she said lightly. "They say you work miracles. Walk on water, raise the dead. Surely walls and bars can't keep you. Walk through the walls and be on your way." For the first time he frowned, and backed away. "The miracles I work are for others, not for myself."

"You wouldn't be working in your own interest if you escaped," said Laila. "You're much safer here with us."

He sighed and didn't answer. Looking down he picked up the bread and broke the loaf with his strong, graceful hands. Laila watched, fascinated. She had often noticed that a man's hands framed by white sleeves could take her breath away. And his were exceptionally appealing. For the first time she thought of him as a man to be desired, not just a prophet to be studied. While his eyes were turned away she looked at his face. It wasn't a handsome face, not by the standards of her own people. Homely, she almost thought: his mouth was too wide and crooked, and his nose too big, his hair too shaggy. A homely face, and yet it had a strange, heartbreaking appeal. She wanted to kiss that funny mouth, make him smile again.

He looked up and reached through the bars, offering her half the bread. She had already eaten, but she knew it would be rude to refuse to eat with him. "Only a bite," she said. "I brought it for you. I have already broken bread with my father." She broke off a bite and returned the rest to him.

"And I have brought bread for you," he returned, "the like of which you have not tasted before. That is why I must work no miracle to escape: you have need of my bread. But you will know when it is time to let me go."

Bread? she wondered. It must be another parable. Maybe he meant food for the mind and soul, his words of wisdom. But it wasn't words she wanted from him now, not as much as she wanted his hands to touch her.

"You have beautiful hands," she blurted out.

"So have you," he said, reaching through the bars and laying his hand gently over hers for a moment. "Everyone's hands are beautiful when they are sharing bread."

Her breath came quickly then. "Yesu, forgive me for asking--do you have a wife?"

He grinned and gave her sidelong look as he bit into the bread. "How shall I answer? I am a Bridegroom, but I take no one woman for a bride."

"Another parable?"

"Mmmm--not a parable, exactly. I was married once, long ago in my youth, as is expected of all young men of my people. But I could not be the sort of husband my young wife wanted, and the marriage was dissolved." He took a pensive bite of the bread.

"Dissolved?" Laila said, with a pang of disappointment. "You mean it was never consummated?" Was it possible that this beautiful, homely man was not attracted to women?

He shook his head and said nothing.

"There are some men--" Laila felt her way cautiously. "There are men who are made so that they need the embrace not of a woman but of another man." She couldn't believe she was actually discussing such personal matters with a man who was hailed as a prophet of God. She half expected him to call down a thunderbolt for her impertinence at asking such questions.

He only sighed. "No, that is not how I am made either." He looked at her almost shyly. "Shall I tell you how I love? The pleasure that others find in physical love, I find in ecstatic prayer, in universal love. I am the Bridegroom, and the whole world is my Bride. Everyone I meet, I love as a bridegroom loves his bride, as a mother loves her child, as God loves us all."

Laila's lip curled. "A eunuch for the sake of God? Do you think God really wants that from you?"

Yesu looked surprised. "It is not a choice I made, but the way I was born. Some men were made, as you say, to love a woman, others to love a man. I was made to love everyone, and to find ecstasy not in the arms of a lover, but in the embrace of God. I do not think of myself as a eunuch, nor do I think I have lost anything. The joy I feel is surely as great as any lover's. But my poor little child-wife wanted a man who would cherish her above all others. She deserved such a husband, and I could not be that husband for her. I loved her deeply, but no more than I love you, and your father, and even those exasperating temple priests."

Laila raised her eyebrows, partly to hide the fact that his words touched her. He loved her, even if he would never be her lover. "'Brood of vipers' you called them, if the tales are true."

Yesu chuckled ruefully. "Did your mother never scold you, though she would die to keep you safe?"

Laila laughed. "She still scolds me, but I don't mind. She's angriest when I endanger myself or my sisters. That's why I don't mind her scolding; she does it because she loves us."

He nodded, smiling. "Then you understand."

"What happened to her? Your wife, I mean."

His smile broadened. "Six months after she left me, she married a young man who was devoted to her. I visit them now and then; he still treats her as though she were a queen, and she returns his love as lavishly. They have seven children and five grandchildren, and all live more or less in harmony."

"Aren't you sorry you lost her?"

"Lost her? I never lost her. Now I have not only her love, but that of her husband and all their large family."

Laila sighed. "That's what you mean by your Kingdom, I suppose. All the people you love--"

"Yes," he said softly. "Love is the key."

She felt the sting of tears and blinked them away. "I wish I could love like that. But I'm afraid I find myself wanting you, the--the way your young wife wanted you. Prayer for me could never rival the ecstasy of--of physical union with the husband I want to have someday."

He put his hand on hers again. "Nor should it, for that is one of the greatest forms of prayer, to join with another and make a family. But there is more than one way to make a family. Those we love become family to us. You are my family, Laila, but I cannot be that husband for you. You will find him, soon. Do not weep for me."

As though in contrary answer, her tears dropped onto their joined hands. She put her other hand on top of his. "Your hands are so beautiful," she said bitterly, "and if you leave us, the Romans will break them." She raised his hand and kissed it. "Will you love even the soldiers who kill you?"

He put his other hand on top of hers. She kissed it too. Then, very gently, he withdrew his hands, back into his cage. He looked down at them a moment before answering. "How can I know, until it happens? But it would be a very strange thing for me, not to love them. As strange as losing sight or hearing. I--I can't imagine what it would be like--not to love."

He looked back up and his eyes became very soft as he watched her weeping silently. "What of the other cards, Laila? What else do you see for me? The Hanged Man is not the only part of my story."

She rubbed her eyes with her sleeve and picked up the deck of cards again. "The first card represents you--the Hanged Man." She tried to keep her voice light, but the bitterness crept in. "The second card is your present situation. What will it be, prophet?"

As though to cheer her, he played the game. "The Chariot," he said.

"The Chariot?" It was the last card she would have expected, but when she turned it over, there it was. A strong young man drove forward with confidence and purpose, toward triumph. "The Chariot?" she said again, stunned. Here he was in prison, and his release would mean going into terrible danger. How could he be riding toward triumph?

"Don't you understand yet?" Yesu said softly. "Keep going."

She laid the Chariot over the Hanged Man. "The next card represents obstacles in your way." She looked at him expectantly but he shook his head. He wasn't going to perform any more miracles, however small, for her entertainment. She turned over the next card and shuddered. "The Devil."

Yesu nodded. "Yes. Fear and violence and bondage to old hatreds. Those have always been the greatest obstacles to the Kingdom."

Laila laid the Devil crosswise over the Chariot. "The next card is a foundation, something that has shaped you and brought you to where you are now." She turned it over. "The Star."

Yesu chuckled. "Of course."

Laila frowned. "It's not funny. The Star represents hope and courage when things look darkest."

"A good card," Yesu said soberly, but his eyes still twinkled.

Then Laila understood his chuckle. "They say a star of omen shone over your birth."

"So they say," said Yesu, with a small smile.

Laila smiled too. The Star was the most beautiful card in the deck, to her eyes. A young woman knelt naked and unashamed by a stream by starlight, pouring out the bountiful waters of life from the water jugs in her hands. Laila laid the Star below the crossed cards.

"The next card is the recent past." A woman crowned with flowers appeared, effortlessly holding a lion's jaws shut so that it couldn't bite. "Strength," Laila breathed. "Another card of courage and determination and triumph, the triumph of love over hate."

"Your father," said Yesu gently, "has tried to take me from that path. He means it in kindness, but shutting the woman away from the lion is no kindness; it only leaves the lion to terrorize the country unchecked."

"And after the lion turns and slays the woman," Laila countered, "who will save them then?"

"Read on. You have not reached the end of the story."

Laila pressed her lips together. "Very well. We come now to the near future." She gasped. "The Moon! Yesu, this is a warning. Treachery and deception. You must be wary, careful of whom you trust."

He closed his eyes briefly, and his eyebrows tilted in an expression of pain. "I would rather be betrayed than not trust my friends. But the Moon card has other meanings, dreams and imagination--"

"Yes," Laila cut him off dryly. "It is also a warning against self-deception. I won't say you're walking into a trap; you know what you're facing. But you may find an extra heartache you do not expect."

"That's the danger of loving," sighed Yesu. "You break your heart over and over. But still the loving is worth the heartbreak."

Laila swallowed. "That's what my mother said when my baby brother died. She grieved until she was sick, but she said the grief was worth the joy of having him in her arms those few days. And she had four more children afterward."

"Yes," said Yesu. "She is a woman of great courage and faith, to risk more grief for the sake of love." He closed his eyes again. "The next card crowns me, I believe."

Laila nodded. "A destiny card, a summary of your life--" She turned it over in her hand, but her eyes widened and she kept it hidden from him. "Oh, dear--"

He chuckled wryly. "The Fool, isn't it? I know they call me a fool, for believing that that the power of love can transform the world. And they will crown me king of fools in the days to come, I think. But this card too is a parable."

Laila laid the card on the floor and shivered. The cards were now arranged in a cross. She shook her head to chase the image away, and looked at the Fool. A carefree young man danced along a roadway, all his possessions in a tiny bundle. But as he looked away to the wide skies above him, he didn't notice the precipice at his feet. "The innocence and optimism of a child," Laila said softly. "Trust and hope, yes, I can see how that could be you. You take no notice of the danger right before you." She turned to face him, and her voice became rougher. "You are a fool, Yesu, if you don't stay here safely with us."

He ignored her last words. "We must be like children in their innocence and trust and powerless-ness to walk in the Kingdom."

"Children!" said Laila with a bitter laugh. "Children can be more selfish and cruel than any adult. Like wild beasts they are sometimes, when they turn on a playmate."

Yesu nodded. "Sometimes, yes. Just like adults, they have great potential for love or hate. Only their faults and virtues lie nearer the surface. They are almost always more honest, unless the truth is beaten out of them. It is that honesty and innocence we should have, to walk the Fool's path. You are like that, Laila. You have told me your thoughts and feelings, even at the risk of rejection."

Laila blushed. "I hope you don't think I throw myself at men like that all the time."

"Of course not. I know you spoke from your heart, and I like you very much for that. It took courage to speak as you did, and I treasure whatever love you give me." He looked down on the cards as they lay arranged on the floor. "You have built a cross for me."

Laila shuddered again. "There are four more cards in the layout. After the cross comes the scepter."

"Yes," he said softly. "Remember that."

Laila blinked and looked into his eyes. They were shining through the bars of his cell with a strange joy she didn't understand. Was he a madman? The thought hadn't crossed her mind until now. Shaken, she drew the next card. "The first card of the scepter represents you and your feelings about--about the question at hand," she finished awkwardly. She felt even more awkward when she turned the card. It was the Lovers.

The card depicted a young couple gazing at one another, while an angel hovered over them with wide-spread wings. The young man glanced up from the woman to the angel, as though trying to decide between marriage and a life wholly devoted to God. Parables, Laila told herself sternly. The surface meaning was the least important.

"You have a difficult choice before you," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. How she wanted to grab him, to wrest his gaze away from the angel's to her own.

But his head was down, cradled in his folded arms as he rested his elbows on his knees. "I have already made my choice," he said, without looking up. "I am going to Jerusalem."

"But why?" she said. "What's the point? You know how dangerous it is. If you don't want to remain in hiding here, if you must speak out as prophets seem to feel they must, why not at least stay in the countryside? If you march on the city, they'll see it as a direct act of rebellion."

He raised his head. "For one thing, I have a message to deliver, to Jerusalem in particular. If you can truly see the future, you must have seen it coming too, not soon, but soon enough to need the warning."

Laila felt an old dread come over her. "You mean the destruction of the city. Yes, I saw it. In a reading once, the Tower of Destruction led the layout, and the Moon and many swords followed. When--when do you think it will come?"

He shook his head. "I don't see clearly the hour, but I know that many now living will see it, unless--"

"Unless?"

"Unless the people of the whole nation repent, as Yochan the prophet said. We must turn away from bickering over details, away from the corruption of the temple, and let justice roll down like mighty waters, as foretold in Scripture. If we become the nation we are meant to be, then God will aid us."

"But surely," said Laila, "the people of Jerusalem have heard Yochan's message already. Gossip travels faster than a prophet's feet."

Yesu smiled at that. "There is another reason. But it's difficult to put into words. Have you ever seen a woman in childbirth?"

Laila blinked again. "Childbirth? My mother, of course."

"Then you know that when her time is come, her need to push the child from her womb is more compelling than any other desire."

Laila nodded.

"All I can say is that my time, too, is come. I must go to Jerusalem. It is a time for travail, and then for birth."

Laila sighed. What did a man know of birth? Maybe he really was mad. To escape the thought, she returned to the cards. "The next card is your house, your surroundings and outside influences."

She turned the card and shivered. A grinning skeleton waved a scythe, cutting down children and kings and priests like a reaper harvesting grain. "Death. Of course."

"I don't fear death," Yesu said quietly.

"Then you're not human," Laila retorted. "Everyone is afraid of dying."

Yesu grimaced. "I didn't say that I wasn't afraid of dying. I know it won't be easy. But death itself is nothing to fear."

Laila looked down at the hideous figure on the card. "I wish I could believe that. Still, they say this card too has hidden meanings: transformation and new beginnings. That sounds hopeful."

"Yes--"

"There are only two cards left. The next represents your hopes and fears." She turned it over. It baffled her even more than the Chariot had. "The High Priest?"

Yesu was quiet for a while, as he looked down into the face of the solemn figure on the throne. Then he sighed. "The priests are the shepherds of the people. They could lead them into the Kingdom. That is my hope. But I fear they have learned to love power and prestige and wealth."

Laila stared at the card. She'd thought she knew the figures on the cards as well as she knew her own family. But now she saw something she'd never noticed before. "Yesu," she breathed, "the Priest is holding a cross. I've heard they collaborate with the Romans. This is another warning."

"A warning? Yes, I think so, but not about Caiaphas and Pilate." Yesu peered at the card. "I think--I think this is a new kind of priest, one who will claim to speak for me. The cross he holds is not--not a symbol of Roman terror, but an emblem."

"An emblem?"

Yesu turned away from the card and looked up into the ray of dusty sunlight. "An emblem of me," he said at last. "Of the death I shall die." He closed his eyes briefly, then turned back to her. "My hopes and fears center not on the High Priest Caiaphas and his collaboration with Pilate. What concerns me more is what will happen afterward, among my followers. Will they be true to my message, or will they, too, learn to love power and prestige and wealth? That would harm them more than anything the Romans could do to them." He stared gloomily at the card and sighed.

"There is one more card," Laila said softly. "The final outcome."

His face relaxed. "No outcome is ever final. But maybe you will see how my sojourn in Jerusalem will end."

Laila turned over the last card and let out a long, slow breath. "The Sun." A grinning sun beamed down on a gleeful naked child. It was one of the very best cards in the deck. "Success, joy, happy endings." She turned to Yesu, puzzled. "I thought the Hanged Man meant they would kill you. But maybe I'm reading the whole thing wrong."

Yesu shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "I don't think so. The cards fall by chance, but you have a gift of prophecy, Laila. I have no doubt that pain and death await me in Jerusalem. But that's not the whole story."

"I don't understand."

"I'm not sure I do either, not completely."

"Do you mean your followers? You have faith in them, despite--" she touched the High Priest card.

"Partly that--" He closed his eyes and nodded. "There will always be some who remember, who understand." He opened his eyes and reached through the bars, and laid his hand over hers, covering the card. "But there is more. Remember what I said about travail and birth? There is great joy coming. I think I'll see more clearly as it draws nearer." He lifted his hand and gestured at the cards. "Look, there is my life. It begins with the Star of hope, and culminates in the rising Sun of joy."

"Joy," Laila repeated. The cards blurred as tears stung her eyes. "But there's so much in between. The Fool walking unheeding toward betrayal and death, the Hanged Man--"

"The Kingdom will come, Laila. It is here already, growing unseen like seeds sprouting in the earth."

"And when the Romans have broken you?"

She felt Yesu's hand on hers again. It was so big, so strong and gentle. "After a seed is buried," he said, "that's when the flower grows. And after the flower dies then the fruit ripens."

Laila wept silently, grieving for his strong, gentle hands. Then she scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve and looked again at the cards.

Her scalp shrank and her hair tingled as though caught by a coming lightning storm when she realized what she saw. "Yesu," she whispered, "they're all Trumps. You said the cards fall by chance, but every card here is a Trump card."

"So they are," he said, as though he'd just noticed it himself.

"There are only 22 Trumps in the deck," Laila said, with a shiver of wonder, "out of 78 cards in all. All these cards are Trumps, and they all landed right-side-up too. I could deal out cards for a lifetime and never see another layout like this."

"That's true of every layout," Yesu said reasonably. "Each one is unique. You only noticed this one because--"

"Because it's a layout for a king," Laila finished.

Yesu said nothing, only smiled his funny, crooked, homely, beautiful smile.

Laila closed her eyes. Dear God, she prayed silently, how can I let him go to torment and death? And yet how can I keep him prisoner? He's driving the Chariot, and somehow he's heading for triumph and joy. I can't keep him locked up like a wayward stallion.

She opened her eyes and faced him. "If I let you go," she said slowly, "will you take me with you?" She held up a hand to forestall his protest. "I know I can't be your wife. I know there are other women who love you and follow you. But I still want to come with you."

"To Jerusalem?" he said gently. "Knowing what you know?"

"I want to be with you, Yesu. To--to comfort you if nothing else."

He took her hand again. "I can't prevent you from coming with me. But I would rather you stayed here. Tell your people about the Kingdom. Your love will comfort me, even from far away. Can you do that, Laila? Can you let me go, and remain behind as an ambassador? Your parents will be angry, but I don't think they'll do more than scold you."

"When they see the cards they'll understand." She took a big iron key out of her sash and held it in her palm. "I'll let you go on one condition."

He raised his eyebrows. "What is that?"

She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. "Give me a hug before you go."

"Of course. That will comfort me too." He let go of her hand and stood up.

Laila set the deck of cards beside the layout and stood facing him. She looked from the cards to the key to his quiet face. She took a deep breath, ran her sleeve over her eyes again, put the key in the lock and opened the barred door.

Yesu stepped through the doorway. He put his hand on her shoulder and peered into her face a moment, as though making sure she really wanted a hug, and then folded her into his arms. He smelled like sunshine on the riverbank where he must have washed his linen tunic and laid it out to dry. He smelled like clean sweat, like fresh bread and pomegranates, like everything desirable in a man.

Laila buried her streaming face in his chest, cooling her eyes against the rough, soft homespun. "I wish you wouldn't go."

His arms tightened around her and he kissed the top of her head. The kiss was as chaste as a parent's kiss, and yet it sent a shiver down her spine, from her neck to her tailbone.

"Don't be afraid, Laila," he whispered. "Remember the Star and the Sun." He stood back and looked into her face, his own face as tender as a father's. "Look to the western road; soon a caravan will come down that road. Your village needs a carpenter. There will be a young man in the caravan who is skilled at woodwork, looking for a place to settle. If you make him welcome, I think you will stop grieving."

"I'll never stop loving you!" Laila said fiercely.

He smiled. "I'm not asking you to. Love isn't like a miser's store, to be hoarded against loss. It's like seed corn; the more you sow, the more you will have." He laid his hands gently on her head in blessing.

She closed her eyes, drinking the sweetness of his touch. Very slowly he lifted his hands, so slowly that she couldn't tell when he stopped touching her. She stood breathing the earthy darkness, her hair still springing on her tingling scalp, long after she suspected that he'd taken his hands away. At last she opened her eyes, and wasn't surprised to find that she was alone.

She left the cards lying on the cool clay floor, and climbed the ladder into the dazzling sun of a spring day. She couldn't tell whether the tears that blinded her came from the sudden light, or from her grief.

In a few minutes her sight cleared. The road running westward out of her village wound up a low green hill between banks of dancing lilies. At the crest of the hill, a distant figure turned and waved to her, and then disappeared down the other side. Laila stood staring forlornly at the blank spot on the hilltop, where he had been.

A moment later something else appeared on the crest of the hill. A camel's ungainly form rose up against the dark blue sky. Beside the camel walked a young man. Even from so far away, Laila could hear him singing.