Another Christmas…

Magda was beginning to think she would never be truly warm again. She had trudged across the dry plains until her feet bled, and she may well have died there had not the camel traders found her and ferried her to the foothills. They had been kind, gifting her with a cloak and some fur-lined boots, and their old cook had laid her wizened hands on Magda’s belly and spoken a blessing on the little one that lay within. When they left her, she cried a little before turning her face to the north – away from the reach of those who had killed her beloved and who sought to rip the child from her womb and kill it too.
She had been about a month, she thought, climbing steadily, when she came on a family of the despised ones. Joshua had always spoken kindly to these blue-eyed people, with their strange pale skin, and Magda knew enough of their tongue to greet them politely. They beckoned her forward and one of the women put a bowl of thick, savoury stew in her hands, indicating by gesture that she should eat.
Magda cried tears of real gratitude as she felt the child move beneath her heart. She tried to pay for her food from the small store of coins she carried, but they would have none of it.
The leader spoke slowly, in a tongue Magda could comprehend.
“No payment. We will always help the helpless and those with babes. Will you ride with us?”
“Please father. If you go towards the snow line I will be grateful.”
“We do.”
The higher they climbed the colder it became, and Magda, who was a child of the warm lowlands, wondered what sort of people would choose to live in such a cold climate. But she was a realist, and she knew that these cold mountains represented the only chance of safety for the wife and child of the man they had crucified all those months ago.
It was midwinter when the family reached a wayside inn nestled in a fold of the snowy landscape. Magda climbed stiffly down from the small cart and as her feet touched the frozen ground her waters broke. The women of the family rushed to her aid cooing and patting. The innkeeper came out with a worried look on his broad, kindly face. The inn, it seemed, was full to bursting point. He indicated the stable with an apologetic lift of his beefy shoulders.
The women helped Magda into the welcome shelter while the men dealt with the mules.
Darkness had fallen and the night was lit by a cold white moon when Magda’s daughter drew her first breath.
Magda smiled at the young man who had been her unobtrusive support since she joined his family.
“Is it well,” he asked, “that your daughter is born among the beasts of the field?”
“There is a precedent.” A single tear fell on the baby’s downy head. “Josefina’s father was born in a stable.”