Winter 308

“My friend told me that they were terrified, so frightened that most of them couldn’t even pray. They were like little birds caught by a snake’s stare.”

Mus nodded, his eyes round and wide, mouth slightly open as he listened, riveted.

“Before they scattered to their hiding places, Father Gregory spoke to them. He recited from the Psalms, and from his talk they found the courage to scatter and hide, and pray. My friends hid in a rocky outcropping near Father Gregory and the deacon, so Peter saw everything that happened.”

“Bishop Peter?” asked Mus, voice cracking and his eyes going even larger and wider than before.

Macrina nodded. “Yes, Bishop Peter. He wasn’t a bishop or even a deacon then, though. He was very young, and he and Lydia had just married. He was the one who introduced me to Father Gregory.”

“Oh,” breathed Mus.

“The bishop stood a little way down the hill from where Peter and Lydia lay in the rocks. He stretched out his arms, and turned his head toward heaven. ‘I will lift up mine eyes to the hills; from whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. To Thee I lift up my eyes, O Thou who art enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, we look to the Lord our God, till He have mercy on us.

“‘Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us. If the Lord is not on our side, when men rise up against us, then they will have swallowed us up alive, when their anger is kindled against us.

“‘Blessed be the Lord, who will not give us as prey to their teeth! Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.’” Macrina shook her head. “Oh, I can’t remember any more now, because he prayed and prayed and just didn’t stop. At first, the people at the bottom of the hill were afraid to climb and start searching. They milled around on the level ground, talked in groups and walked around the hill—but none of them could find the courage to come up.”

“Didn’t they see Father Gregory?” Mus asked.

“They didn’t appear to, Peter said. Certainly, no one pointed and shouted and charged up the hill to grab him.

He just stood there praying. It gave the people courage to see that, Peter said.

“Finally, though, the persecutors began to move up the hill. Once one group started, the others set off for different parts of the hill, so no one could move from hiding spot to hiding spot.

“Some of them walked by Peter’s hiding place, not more than twenty paces from where Peter and Lydia and one or two others huddled. One woman had a baby, Peter said, sound asleep in her arms. The searchers saw nothing! Peter used to talk about how his heart stopped because one man looked straight into his eyes!”

Mus gasped.

“But he looked away again, as if there was nothing and no one there. They searched the whole hill from the top, where that great craggy outcrop of rock stands so high—do you remember?”

Mus shook his head.

“I do,” said Basil.

Macrina nodded. “From there, all the way down to the very bottom, where their people stood guard, and back up again.

“Up the hill their leader stamped, furious and raging. He stopped not thirty paces from Father Gregory, who was still praying with his eyes on heaven.

“The leader stood with his hands on his hips, his toga rumpled and trailing on the ground. ‘They have to be here!’ he said. ‘We followed them—fifty or sixty people, they left tracks as clear as a road. Where have they gone? There’s nothing here, nothing but rocks and a couple of trees’—and he pointed right at Father Gregory and the deacon.” Macrina laughed.

“What, Mama? What’s so funny?”

“Father Gregory’s deacon. He was a dear man, may his memory be eternal, but he had less faith than Father. But his courage was strong and abundant. He wouldn’t leave Father, not even to hide, Peter said, but stood a behind Gregory in plain sight, shaking and pale. When the leader came up from the bottom of the hill, he stood as still as he could, but Peter said he could see the sweat on the deacon’s head—he was quite bald, you know—running down his skull. The deacon turned his head to watch the pagan leader, his eyes almost falling out of his head, he was so frightened. But he never moved—he stayed right beside Gregory the whole time.

“And all the leader saw were two trees on the side of an empty hill!”

Mus’s eyes were wide and bright. He opened his mouth to say something but froze as a horse’s whinny sounded—seemingly right next to them. He gripped Macrina’s hand, squeezing her bones together in his terror, but he said not a word.

“Somewhere here,” she heard a man call. Macrina’s heart sank—he’d heard her voice, and now it was just a matter of time. Slowly, she looked around, too frightened for even the simplest prayer.

She could hear a man’s voice, the jingle of the harness and the stamp of a horse’s hoof, as clearly as if they were beside her, but could see nothing but grey and white fog. She knew that in such weather, voices and sounds distorted, and the fog played tricks with distance and clarity, but she was still too frightened to move.

She heard crashes and thumps, the sounds of feet stomping uncaring through bush, and a voice uttering what sounded from the tone like an oath.

“I heard a voice, very near here.”

She turned her head. Basil looked into her eyes and shook his head.

“Stay,” he mouthed. She nodded. If they couldn’t see the searchers, the searchers couldn’t see them—and any noise would only alert them to the fact they were close. She clung to Basil’s hand and prayed. Beside her, Mus shifted. His mouth was open, his face turned to the sky, arms rising from his sides. Before he could utter more than, “Oh Lord,” Basil leaned over her and hauled him down. Macrina slapped her hand over her fool son’s mouth and glared at him. Only the fear of being located kept her from blistering his ears with her angry words. She sat and fumed, and quaked in fear, prayers forgotten as they waited.

The fog hung, white and blanketing. Between the searchers’ voices and their noisy trampling, the only sound was the dripping of water from leaves and branches. How long they sat, in terror and trust, hoping and breathless with fear, Macrina didn’t know. But whether it was the fog, or God, or both, the searchers never seemed to stumble through the ring of trees and bushes onto the fugitives.

Finally, the noise died away, but they sat longer still, until the diffuse light began to fail, and darkness replaced the fog.

While Macrina prepared a cold meal, not daring to light a fire, Basil took Mus to the other side of the clearing.

She heard her husband’s intense, quiet voice for some time. Mus she heard scarcely at all—an occasional grunt, or “Yes, Papa,” was all he said. They packed up and moved the next morning. He had told Mus, Basil said as they walked, to think about wonders and miracles, and to think also about how much faith someone had to have before the name “Wonderworker” became attached to his own.

Macrina nodded, watching her son tramp listlessly ahead of them. “I agree, Basil, he did put us at risk. But think about what he did.”

“He nearly gave away our position to soldiers of the emperor, that’s what he did!” Basil’s voice rose, and ahead of them Mus winced and hunched his shoulders against his father’s angry tone.

“Yes, and I was furious too. But I thought about it all last night. He had more faith than we did.”

“He had more stupidity than we did!”

She paused and touched her husband’s arm. “No.”

She glanced at Mus, speaking so he could hear. “We were afraid to trust that the Lord sent the fog and that He would protect us. Mus wasn’t. He trusted that the Lord who loved Gregory enough to fool his enemies would love him, Mus, just as much and protect him just as thoroughly. Yes, he put us at risk, and yes, we were afraid of being arrested. Mus simply loved God and trusted Him to do the right thing. Can you fault him for learning the things we’re teaching him, Basil?”

Basil scowled, grunted, and strode ahead, but he ruffled Mus’s hair as he passed the boy. Macrina trudged behind, noting that her son’s shoulders were straighter and he had a little more spring in his step.