The Dovekeepers

I offered to be the one to go.

Yael was as surprised as she was grateful. “My brother sees your beauty, as do I,” she said simply.

Lately I had come to believe that Amram looked only for a woman’s beauty, nothing more. All that I was had been masked by my sheet of black hair, the woman I appeared to be. I said nothing to Yael, merely accepted her gratitude, then made my way alongside the palace walls in the falling dark. I was quiet; I knew how to stalk prey and how to fold myself into the shadows.

When I reached a window, I stood on a pile of kindling and hauled myself up to the ledge so I might peer through. There was very little furniture in the chamber; most of it had been broken apart and used for firewood. But the marble floor and the frescoes amazed me. For a moment I was in thrall, thinking of the royals who had once lived here, without fear or poverty. I understood why it was said that the Queen of Egypt had begged Rome to grant her this fortress to call her own. Then I observed Channa, and caution ran through me. She sat on a bench by the fire, whispering to the child, holding him close. The delight she took in him was so evident I was glad Yael was not there beside me to see.

Near the oven there sat a cradle carved of acacia, crafted by a master woodworker from Jerusalem. An amulet of protection was tied above the place where the child’s head was to rest. The pallet itself was rich with a fine linen bedcovering, and there were bronze bells tied to the rockers, so that demons might be chased away by the sound. As for Arieh, he wore a purple tunic, as though he were the son of a king. It appeared that the child had no home other than this chamber, and that his every need had been seen to. At that moment I understood this woman had no intention of giving him back.

I thought of my sister’s father, how he could become a whirlwind against his enemies, how I might be equally fearsome should I so desire. But I had to hide that part of me, as I did with Amram. I could not climb through the window or reach for the knife set on the table so that I might take what I wanted. Instead, I knocked politely at the door.

I hadn’t expected the great man himself to answer.

“I’m here for the child,” I said softly, casting myself as a pretty woman and nothing more. I had burned half a dozen acacia branches in memory of the souls I had released. I had been covered with the blood of the ibex and felt its heat. Now I lowered my eyes. Still I had a glimpse of our leader, who gazed at me with such intensity I understood why Yael and Revka had been fearful of speaking to him directly.

“The child?” he said, confused by my presence and my request.

He seemed more powerful than most men, and I felt myself vanishing as I bowed my head. I forced myself to remember the person I had once been, the men I had killed, the nights that had belonged to me. I raised my eyes to his.

“His mother waits.”

Ben Ya’ir turned to see Yael, alongside Revka and her grandsons, as they perched upon the wall. They were not unlike the shades that remain on earth when those who are unfairly put to death are unable to find rest.

“He has a mother?”

His surprise made me realize his wife had told him otherwise.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

The great man’s face twisted into a smile. I was relieved. Perhaps I smiled as well.

“And a father?” he asked.

“Not everyone has that,” I was quick to say.

“Everyone has that,” he assured me.

He told me to wait, then closed the door. I looked at the garden that was tended by slaves. There was a stone fountain from the time of the king, dry now, the rim cracked, the finials broken into pieces on the ground. A wealth of herbs and mint grew in neat rows, and the scent that rose up was green and sweet. I heard the sound of birds, though it was dark and no birds flew after twilight, only the silent owls that lived in the caves across the mountain. Still, they sang, an odd event at this hour.

I edged behind the fountain. There, below a trellis of cucumber vines with their deep green leaves, sat a wooden cage. Inside, two doves huddled close, cooing.

I felt the spark beneath my eye, as if the message I’d once found on the ground burned me still. My heart felt heavy, so much so that I doubted I would be able to run away, though I wished I could now do so. I wondered if this cage of doves contained the messengers to the Iron Mountain, and if this was why my mother had refused to come to this house and risk Channa’s wrath.

Ben Ya’ir returned to the door, the baby in his arms. I could hear weeping echoing in the chamber behind him. I had made my way back through the garden, the scent of mint clinging to my garments, the sound of the doves a song I carried with me, one that had accompanied me from the far side of the Salt Sea, where the caged doves had eaten grain from my hand as they waited for my mother to set them free.