The Dovekeepers

By then your father had given Adir a fine horse, the one I’d trained upon, no longer mine. Now I rode an old white stallion whose time had passed and who would never again win a race no matter how I might kick at him. Your father’s people were moving south, to Petra, giving up their traveling ways. The city that had arisen from the red rocks, taken from the edge of the deep, nearly endless ravine, had begun to call them to its great beauty and the settled life they might have there. There was a pool reputed to be larger than any lake and terraced gardens that were incomparable. It was said that every wanderer came home to this place, and that even these wild men who longed for freedom, who had spent their lives in pursuit of open grasslands, could not ignore the voice of Petra. And there was another reason—the Romans might attack our camp, despite their pledge of peace and their fear of the legendary courage of the tribesmen. There was a rumor that, should any blood be spilled upon the iron cliffs of Moab, a dozen men would spring from the blood of the first. Perhaps the men were tired from their shifting homes, their many wives, and were eager for a single residence and a life of ease.

My mother pleaded with your father to let us remain in the mountains when he and his brothers and uncles answered the call to Petra. We could camp with those who were stationed to guard against the legion, should the Romans change their peace with the tribesmen into war. She said her spirit could not be contained in a city, even one so glorious. She told her husband she had become accustomed to this tent and to these stars, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. There was something more. Something your father had not seen, though he had the keen sight of a falcon. Something only a woman would notice. In that way, I was still female enough.

On the day the women began to pack up the camp, pulling down the tents, gathering their kettles and their rugs, a dove arrived. I saw it float down among us as if it were a part of the sky that had wrenched away to plummet to earth. There was a violet chill in the air, and I gazed up in alarm, unsettled by the dove’s arrival. I had the sense that everything was about to change and that the past was already smoldering into ash. Our mother had asked to stay behind, but your father had refused her request. He wanted her with him. He told her to take all of the belongings that mattered to her, for she might never come to the Iron Mountain again.

Our mother went up to the mountaintop with the bird in a basket, so that she could be alone to read the words that had been sent to her. I don’t know what the message was, but when she returned to camp her expression was set.

We packed up, and it seemed we would be leaving for Petra in the morning, but my mother did not wait for the sun to rise. She woke me the instant your father set off with his brothers to ensure that the route to the city would be safe for the women and children who followed. As soon as he was gone, we readied Adir’s fast horse. We had my father’s great racehorse as well, for he had taken one of the mares, leaving his own steed behind for my mother, a mark of his devotion to her. The horse was called Leba, a name which meant heart. He was an animal so loyal he would never have gone with us had he not known me so well, but I had often fed and watered him. I’d always wished he would be mine someday, though I knew your father would never give Leba to me. Adir was the true son.

We took only the doves in their wooden cage and a single woven satchel of our belongings, along with a leather bag of water, and another bag of yogurt and cheese. I saw my mother reach for the book of spells from her mother and the ironwood box in which she kept the journal. She wore the gold amulets that had been given to her in Alexandria when fate seemed unlikely to bring her to Moab, and the earrings your father gave to her on their wedding day. She left behind all of the rest, masses of jewels your father had presented to her. There were jade necklaces, turquoise and gold bracelets, silver and lapis beads, gold rings set with precious gems none of us had seen before, some of which, rare opals, moved, incandescent, containing both water and fire within the stones. She laid out the jewels tenderly and with gratitude on the pallet where they had slept, but she showed no regret. Your father was the man who had rescued us but not the man she loved.

OUR MOTHER’S FACE was transformed all the while we rode west, as though she was young again. I had spent my entire life beside her; now she had become wholly unknown in a way I couldn’t define.

It was true that you and our brother did not want to go. Adir sulked and fussed, and you called out for your father. You might have gotten us killed with your cries, but we rode so quickly that the wind took your voice up to heaven. We left the horses at the shore of the Salt Sea, so they might return to their rightful owner. We weren’t thieves. Your father’s horse turned and raced back the way we had come. Adir’s horse followed. In a flash they were gone. Only their hoof marks in the sand remained, and even that disappeared as we stood watching, for it now seemed that our lives in the tents had been a dream. If we ran back the way we had come, surely we would find nothing on the mountain where we’d lived for so long, not even ashes.