That was when I went forth on behalf of the stolen child, snatching him from her with such force that she stumbled, slipping in the place where my mother had piled the salt which would contain the evil within her. My mother had no fear in her expression as she watched her enemy falter.
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
“You witch,” the wife of our leader cried.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.
“Take him,” Channa said of Arieh, all but broken before us. “Do whatever you want with him. But you can’t have my husband.”
I took the child and ran with him so that his true mother might rejoice over him in the palace yard. Later, we would make a feast to celebrate and sing his praises, but now there was only one voice as I heard my mother dismiss our enemy. For it was she, neither an angel nor a witch, but a woman who was no longer afraid to speak, who faced her rival and proclaimed, “I’ve had him all along.”
TRADESMEN CAME to us from beyond the Salt Sea, bringing spices and incense, herbs and seeds. We were desperate for their wares, haggling over chicory and sorrel, trading silver coins and semiprecious stones for such condiments. One of the traders had with him a huge black dog, a mastiff from Asia. This creature went to the place where my brother often camped beside the barracks when he’d been an errand boy for the warriors, enthralled by their courage and their deeds. Now Adir was among the men, gone from us, yet something of his essence must have lingered here, for the huge, shaggy dog refused to be removed. He threw back his head and howled. The dog was an omen, that much was evident, good or bad I did not know.
I looped a rope around his large head so he would stop his howling, then led him to our chamber, where I tied him outside. The dog watched after me, yelping until I returned, offering water. When the tradesman to whom he belonged came for him, the black dog refused to go. He ran forward and bit his owner, then hid behind my legs, peering out, bowing his huge muzzle and head, whining.
“You’ve ruined my beast,” the tradesman shouted. “He was fierce, now he’s a sheep.”
The tradesman came from the eastern side of the Salt Sea. I knew the tones in which he spoke, the accent of my first father. The voice of Moab was beautiful to hear, even though the tradesman cursed me. When I answered him in kind, suggesting that the dog had made his choice and had perhaps been mistreated, the traveler was stunned at my knowledge of his speech. He accepted a few coins in exchange for the creature.
I did not wish to have a dog, yet he often accompanied me to the wall in the evenings as I kept watch over the valley with the other women, waiting for the warriors to return. I called him Eran, which means watchful, for the name suited this enormous and quiet creature. When I clicked my tongue, as I had for my horse in another world and time, he followed me. He did not bark or growl, nor did he beg at our table. I felt he would bring us luck; perhaps his fate and my brother’s were bound together. When my mother didn’t insist we be rid of him, though she disliked dogs and thought them little better than jackals, and when she set out a bowl of bread and milk, my brother’s favorite foods, I knew she agreed.
There came a night when Eran began to bark and would not be comforted no matter how I tried to silence him. Soon my mother awoke. We both had the same sense of dread and together went to the wall in the dark. There were other women there as well, many in tears, for they also had experienced omens. One had woken from a dream sent to her by the angel Gabriel, in which her dead father had ordered her to station herself beside the gate. Another had heard a bat, the sign of vigilance and of stealth, flirting through her chamber.
Near dawn we could make out the warriors returning; we saw the dust arise before we viewed their figures. When they began to climb the serpent’s path, our hearts lifted, then dropped. I was relieved to see Amram, but the slight figure he carried over his shoulder was my brother. I recognized his tunic and his cloak.
Our men had followed the Romans. There had been a skirmish, and our warriors had bested the modest troop of exploratores, whom they had outnumbered, sending them into retreat. Several of the unprepared soldiers of the legion had been slain despite the protection of their mail armor and bronze helmets. The rebels had done well, but Adir had been felled by a spear, and his wound was deep; he was aflame with fever. His dark hair was snarled, and his eyes, with their yellow flares, so like his father’s and Nahara’s, were runny and pale.