A son announces not just a presence, but a dynasty. Not just a woman but a matriarch

Galilee, 1535

A flick of her wrists and the faintest tug on the reins. Slight pressure on the horse’s flanks. The horse slows and Leonora is filled with satisfaction: it has been carefully trained by the Arabian dealer. Behind her, the rumble of hooves on soil slows and quiets. The horses whinny and pant. Leonora motions to their guide.

“How far now?” she asks.

The man cups his hand over his eyes to shade them from the glare of the spring sun.

“We should be there by nightfall,” he says.

She nods. Nightfall. So they will enter Tzfat in a blaze of torches. She will change out of her traveling cloak and don a cloak of purple velvet. Yes, that will be satisfactory.

The guide retreats and Leonora dismounts. Here and there, olive trees twist away from the wind then away from the sun, but mostly, there are scrubby thornbushes. She bends down and sniffs. Hyssop. Lemongrass. The green is dotted with wild flowers in lilac and orange. She runs her fingers over a branch, feels the tiny bulges. In two weeks, maybe three, these will burst into flower.

When she stands, the sunlight warms the back of her neck. Leonora turns and tips her face toward it. The bushes. The sun. The sudden lightness of spirit that fills her, knowing that she is no longer lost and wandering, that soon enough she will find her place and settle… all brings her back to Spain. To the long-ago years when she was a child, waiting and wanting for nothing more than the blossoms on the pomegranate trees to fall, leaving the orange bulbs that would grow into fruit.

Ines, her oldest servant, touches her on the shoulder.

“Are we to take a rest stop or to press on?”

Leonora turns and surveys their group. Half are on horses, for it is the only animal that Leonora will ride, apart from in the desert — and the others, still in the distance, ride loaded donkeys. They have been on the road for two days now, but yesterday evening they stopped in a caravanserai and so passed an easy night, sheltered from the teeth of the wind and the dew that soaks them every morning.

She points ahead. “That up there is the holy city of Tzfat. If we press on, we will arrive this evening.”

Ines bows her head.

Leonora remounts and turns to see her sons on idling horses alongside their wives, children bouncing in front of them. She could send servants ahead to announce her arrival, but a son… A son announces not just a presence, but a dynasty. Not just a woman but a matriarch.