The Dovekeepers (38 page)

Arieh squirmed in my arms. A wind was blowing and all at once I had a chill. Perhaps I’d made a mistake to bring the baby, for he was usually so good-natured and calm. Now, in the light of the dwindling day, he fussed as never before. I wondered how a woman could ever know if it was an angel who urged her on, or if one of Lilith’s demons was whispering in her ear.

Though I fretted and worried that I had made a mistake, I knocked yet again. There were no shadows because of the clouds rushing past; perhaps that was what led me astray. I could read shadows far better than I could read flesh and blood.

Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s wife opened the door a crack to peer out. She was thin and dark with a restless expression. “I have no time for you,” she told me.

She would have gone on with her excuses and perhaps managed to send me away, but her eye caught on the baby in my arms. He grinned at her, the flame mark on his cheek hardly noticeable in the dim light of the doorway. It looked like the imprint of a kiss.

“Who’s this who’s come to call?” Ben Ya’ir’s wife asked, her interest piqued.

“This is a child whose mother needs your favor,” I replied.

Channa was aloof again. “I have no favor to grant. My husband is the one you want, not me.”

When she breathed in, I heard a rasping sound. I wondered if her labored intake of air was the reason she often locked herself away and was so rarely seen among other women. She turned and coughed, bringing up blood, which she hid from me in her scarf. But I had caught sight of the shadow of the stain. It was clear that she had a breathing disease, the sort that forced a person to forsake the open air. Each breath was trapped inside the cage of her ribs and could not be released. It lay there, rattling, like dry leaves caught in a net.

“Perhaps I have a favor to grant you,” I said.

My husband had often convinced customers to buy more loaves than they initially thought were needed.
You will never go hungry,
he told them.
Your table will be the envy of all.
Possibly there was a bargain to be struck. In the bakery this was always so, why not at the palace door?

Ben Ya’ir’s thin, dark wife eyed me, suspicious. Her lips were bright with blood. “No one can help me.”

I assured her that someone could. I would offer her proof that for every ailment there was indeed a cure. When I turned to leave, Channa called for me to bring the baby if I were to return. My prediction was correct. He was the key that would open a doorway so the Man from the North could escape his plight.

I WENT DIRECTLY
to Shirah’s chamber and sat at her table. We shared a tea made of the dried root of the hyssop. The boiled water was tinted sky blue. There was a plate of dried fruit, raisins and figs. My grandsons were in the courtyard with Shirah’s son, Adir,
along with the Essene boy, Yehuda, Tamar’s son, who had become their great friend, though he’d been commanded by his people to stay away and pay more attention to his studies. All were taking turns with the spinning top, so we had our privacy.

“Did she speak to you?” Shirah tried to be offhand about the matter, but her gaze was sharp. “She locks her door to most.”

I wondered how it was possible that others did not see the truth as I did. Did they not take note of the unusual color of Aziza’s eyes? The shade was not unlike the Salt Sea, changing with her mood, now gray, now green, now dark as stone. Only one other person had such eyes. At the mention of Ben Ya’ir’s wife, Shirah was struck with grief. When I spoke of Channa’s illness, however, she did not seem surprised.

“While the hyssop flowers, she can go out only at night, when the flower closes and the scent evaporates,” Shirah informed me. “She keeps the same hours as the rats.”

Shirah took a sip of her tea, made of the bloom that caused Ben Ya’ir’s wife such difficulty. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy its sharp flavor.

“I didn’t realize you knew her.”

Shirah laughed grimly. “I’ve never met her.”

I thought this over, how it could be possible for Shirah not to know this woman, yet still be acquainted with the most intimate details of her life. In our world a man who was married could lie with an unmarried woman and no one would think him the worse for doing so; he might be required to pay her family for her shame. But a woman who gave herself to such a man had no legal rights. Even her bones would be sentenced to lie alone if she was convicted of any wrongdoing; they would be cast out and unburied so that she would forever be unable to find rest among her own kind.

“Channa has the power to open the prison gate,” I reminded Shirah. “She might be willing to do so in exchange for a cure.”

“Then we pay the jailer,” Shirah said moodily. “Is that what you want of me?”

“Is that what she is?” When Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s wife had peered out from behind her door, she had seemed like a prisoner rather than a jailer to me. “I pity her.”

“Don’t be fooled,” Shirah admonished me. “Is what we see on this earth all there is? You understand there is a shadow world. Can you not spy a demon in the corner even though you cannot see her or feel her breath upon your skin?”

Shirah was convinced to find a remedy, for there was no other recourse. She went to the shelf where she stored herbs. There were brown sheaves wrapped in cord and containers of powders, thistle and garlic, wormwood and cinnamon. When she returned she held out a leather pouch of crushed myrrh. Her instructions were simple: I was not to let the fire flame too brightly or to add other ingredients to the mix when I presented it to our leader’s wife. Cures such as this were strong and therefore dangerous. Death could occur if care wasn’t taken.

“If she breathes in sparks, she may never breathe again,” Shirah remarked as she closed the cord of the bag. There was a certain delight in her tone.

I reached for Shirah’s hand in order to gaze into her palm. I was not educated in such matters, yet there was one sign I knew quite well. The brand I carried, the one that signified a murderer, a mark that had twisted into my flesh on the day I’d become the thing I was now. I was relieved to find that Shirah’s hand was clear of such an abomination.

“Did you think you’d see her blood on my hands?” Shirah demanded, drawing away. She laughed, well aware of what I had been searching for. “If I’d wanted to accomplish that, I could have done so when I was a girl.”

This was unexpected. “You knew her then?”

“I didn’t know her then any more than I do now.” Shirah led me to the door. “If you want her to accept this cure,” she murmured, handing me the precious herb, “don’t tell her where you found it. If she had my life and I hers, she would have done exactly as you imagined of me. If you want to look at someone’s hand for the mark of death, search hers.” Shirah nodded at Arieh now, dozing in my arms. “Bring him to Yael before you return to the palace.”

“Why wake him? I’ll carry him with me.”

Shirah gazed at me. She could see inside me, and she knew there was more to my reasoning. I admitted that Channa had asked me to return with him. “Who could not be charmed by him?” I said, for our lion brightened all of our lives.

Shirah was troubled. Usually she appeared to be a girl, no older than Aziza, but at this instant she seemed her true age, a woman who had crossed the desert not once but twice, who had brought three children into the world and been marked with forbidden tattoos when she was little more than a girl herself.

“Bring him if you must. But whatever you do,” Shirah warned, and in this she was very clear, “do not let her hold him.”

I RETURNED
to the palace and stood at the fine-grained door. This time, Channa unhooked the lock before I rapped on the wood, already waiting, curious, eyes glinting. Her breath was rasping, and she clutched at her chest, in the grip of her ailment. Still she warmed at the sight of the sleeping child and was quick to invite me in.

I stepped over the threshold of our leader’s house, humbled. I was relieved that Ben Ya’ir was in the desert with his men so that I did not have to bow before his greatness or risk that in his wisdom he might see me for the murderess I was.

I followed my hostess past the frescoes, highly praised by all who saw them, and for good reason. They were painted upon
plaster in glorious tones of orange and red and gold. Although faded, they were clearly the work of a master. The seven sisters that the Greeks believed moved through the sky in a burst of stars had been set upon the wall, lifelike in their human guise, along with the moon, the most beautiful woman of all, in a dress of silver with strands of gold leaf running through her garment; so present it seemed real thread had been stitched through the painted fabric. Lamps lit the darkened hallway, and there was the scent of pure olive oil burning. The chamber we entered was well appointed, furnished with tables and benches left by the king’s household. I thought of our straw mats, our coarse cloth blankets, our dirt floors.

I asked my hostess to fetch a dish and some kindling. When she did so, I brought forth the myrrh Shirah had given me. Arieh was still dozing, so I laid him upon a small woven rug. Then I lighted the kindling with my flint. When the fire caught I told Channa what she must do. She would lean her head over the smoke and I would cover her in fabric so none could escape. She was to breathe deeply and keep the smoke inside her for as long as she could without taking another breath.

Channa recoiled, afraid she would choke to death on the fumes. She feared me, perhaps sensing the crimes I had committed. But I wasn’t there to do harm. I lifted Arieh back into my arms, and I hid the brand of my sin, slipping my hand inside the sleeping baby’s tunic, hoping I would not taint him merely by my touch.

“Breathe in and the way will be clear,” I promised.

Ben Ya’ir’s wife looked at me reproachfully, then did as I said. Though she didn’t trust me, she was desperate for air, willing to take the chance that the cure might be worse than the disease. She leaned forward, and I covered her head with a beautiful woven shawl. I sat watching as her shuddering gasps eased during the time she breathed in smoke. When the myrrh had burned to ash, I removed the fabric from her head. Channa drew a deep intake of
air without any rasping. Her color had turned from sallow to rosy. The scent of myrrh clung to everything, a bitter fragrance in its purest form. We studied each other while the baby woke and happily began to play with a twig that had fallen from the kindling pile.

“I’ll talk to the guards about a visit,” Channa said thoughtfully. I had the impression, however, that her thoughts were truly on other matters. “I’ll do what I can for your slave.”

She led me back down the hall, past the orange light and the seven sisters on the wall. When I left she asked me for a promise to bring her more of the herb, so she would have access to the medicine should another attack begin. I said I would try my best to locate what she needed.

“I think you know where to find it,” she remarked.

She smiled grimly, clearly aware that I was not the one who possessed the knowledge regarding such remedies.

“Tell the witch I’m grateful,” she said.

YAEL WAS ALLOWED
to visit the Man from the North, bringing a basket of food and a goatskin of water. She was instructed to speak to him through the door, but she had a glimpse of him when they unlocked the cell to shove the provisions inside. She saw that they had cut off his beard and his hair and had left whip marks on him with their ropes and chains.

“Go back to the palace,” Yael insisted after returning from this terrible visit. Her face was swollen with fury. “Talk to Ben Ya’ir’s wife again. Convince her to insist that the guards allow another visit. They’ll kill him soon enough. The least I can do is bring food and water, and see if I might heal his wounds.”

I said I’d have more luck with Ben Ya’ir’s wife if I took the baby with me.

Yael was cautious. In this way she was far wiser than I. “Why would she care about a baby whose name she doesn’t even know?”

“She’s lonely, friendless. There’s nothing to worry about. She’s taken a liking to him. Who can blame her?”

Yael accepted the compliment. She ran her hand over Arieh’s black hair and held him close. She could hardly bear to let him go, even for a few hours.

“It’s hard to say no to a face like his,” I reminded her.

“For an hour,” she said. “No more.”

The following day Yael watched over my grandsons while I went to Shirah for more of the breathing cure. Shirah and Aziza had already begun to cook their evening meal, but Shirah rose and went to her collection of herbs. This time she gave me both myrrh and frankincense—burned together they would be twice the remedy. Perhaps if the cure lasted longer, Channa would not ask for more. It was best to keep our distance from this woman, Shirah murmured. The wife of a man in power could become hungry for power of her own.

“Did she say anything about me?” Shirah asked.

I thought it best not to reveal the bitterness inside the truth. “Nothing. She only sent her gratitude.”

Shirah laughed, but her dark eyes revealed her worry. “Her gratitude is a curse. Remember that.”