So Bethlehem was full. Didn’t I just know it. Every last lousy room full of travellers from heaven knows where, and me on my fleabitten back in several of them. There were endless pots to wash and food and drink to serve, not all of it that wholesome. Here at The Key of David they’d got hold of an old ewe from a rustler and were trying to pass it off as lamb. Well I know how that felt.
I hadn’t had much time to consider what was euphemistically called strange goings on. I had enough trouble of my own, trying to keep wandering hands at bay, avoiding the master’s eye and the back of the mistresses hand. More folks kept arriving and every last space was filled. I heard they’d put a young pregnant lass in part of the stable. Well in some ways there was less vermin there than inside the house.
I spent several mornings heaving up in the gutter outside. What I’d thought was a bad brew of ale was looking increasingly less gastric and more drastic. I didn’t really have time to think or listen to vague stories from drunk locals about angels and peace on earth. There was always more work to do and no one else to do it.
Things began to thin out a bit once people started to get registered. Once done they left for their own homes again. The master agreed the young mother (she had given birth out there after all) could move into one if the inside rooms and I was kept busy enough running food and water and whatnot up and down the stairs. She was quiet most of the time, thoughful maybe, tired of course and trying to get the hang of managing an infant.
One day an odd bunch of foreigners turned up, a sort of camel train. Said they were looking for one born a king.’ Look all you want’ the master laughed at them. ‘Only baby here was born in a stable and is now upstairs’. They went to look anyway, and decided to stay over. That pleased the master most because it meant more money. I cleaned out some rooms as best I could and found something for them to eat. They were serious reserved gents but they told an odd story of ancient wisdom, stars and a long journey with many twists and turns. They’d even been to Herod’s court which made most of us shudder. But they were polite and didn’t take advantage, even though the mistress kept hinting at how there were extras available if they were interested.
They weren’t but went to bed early. Next day we were all woken by noise and chaos. News had it troops had been sighted. The little family and the camel riders all wanted to move on suddenly. Something about bad dreams; well I know how that felt. I’d not been sleeping for quite a few nights now wondering what to do about my own situation. I was bright enough to know that my news would not go down well in this household.
‘We have to go at once’ they all seemed to speak at once but in different ways. The camels were loaded up and a couple of donkeys too. Seemed the family and the foreigners had decided to travel together. It wasn’t the right way back for any of them but it was a way out for now.
Turned out it was also a way out for me. The mother could not travel alone with all those men. Who would help her with the baby? I would. I rolled my few possessions into a bundle, and seizing the bridle of the pack donkey I set off without looking back.
We were on odd bunch, the little family, the three gents and me, now an ex-barmaid but something bound us together.
As we left chaos erupted in Bethlehem. Troops went from house to house searching violently, killing male infants and even toddlers, maiming family members who got in the way. Mothers wailed: there was a crescendo of pain that could be heard beyond the walls as we set our sights on Egypt. Somehow in the confusion we made it, though those were anxious days.
We left the family on the border and we turned to cross the desert again. What, you are surprised I stayed with the three gents and not the family of three? Well it was a difficult decision but I’d learnt a lot on that journey. To go to a new place and start again, a new life with a new story and identity; that attracted me. From barmaid to scholar might have sounded unplanned, unlikely and not without hidden dangers but I’d come to enjoy their company, their storytelling and wisdom and amongst them I’d found myself valued. My own voice had begun to emerge as my belly grew with the child I carried. No one can say what the future holds but I began to understand what stories I would tell and get a glimpse of the wisdom I would grow from this.

Janet Lees/ 01.01.2017