The Dovekeepers

I listened as he bewitched me, for even then he had a way with what God had created first, and his words poured over me like water. But I had bewitched him as well. He was a husband, a young man of eighteen, and I was only a girl. All the same, I felt the power I had experienced when the fish came toward me of its own accord. It had no choice, for it had been written that my cousin and I would find each other, and that our love would ruin me, and that I would not care.

NOW, as I stood and listened to him speak King David’s words on the day of madness, when our people were transformed into jackals by their fear, I was again entranced. Like anyone else on the mountain, I was swayed by the splendor of his voice. But the others did not know him as I did. When he recited David’s song, I felt he spoke directly to me, for I was his beloved, and had been all this time.

“Oh that I had wings like a dove; for then I would fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.”

From this mountain there was no longer an escape into the wilderness. The six Roman camps with their high towers blocked any passage through the ravines, or down the serpent’s path, or along the treacherous southern route of the cliffs on the back of the mountain. This stronghold was the only place where we might abide. Like the lion on his chain, we had no way to run from the force of our enemy. It had been written that we would make a stand here and that we would be the last to do so. The outcome would remain unknown until it was upon us, and all we could hope to do was follow God’s path.

“As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord will save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me.”

Afterward, when people had grown quiet, their faith restored, the women and children went to gather stones that they might fashion into weapons. These were then thrown down in a volley, like a hailstorm tossed upon the workers below. But the Romans seemed to worry little over the boulders that were catapulted into their midst. The building continued as they raised up their garrisons made of stone. If a slave at work on the wall should happen to die, there would be another to replace him. If a soldier should be wounded and falter, his brother would stand in his place.

In the quiet of twilight, we listened to the echo of the rocks that were lifted upon the wall, and we trembled despite King David’s words and Eleazar’s fierce confidence. This was the Romans’ method, to intimidate and terrify. That night when they fed the lion they gave him a donkey so that he might kill his own meal. We could hear the donkey’s screams above the endless clinking of shovels and picks and the raw voices of the men shouting below us. There was a great echo in the valley, and it seemed that the soldiers were speaking directly to us, as though we were the ones the lion had in its jaws.

I gazed down at the cliff to where my daughter was, hidden in the cave with the people she had chosen as her own. It seemed a cave like any other used by the wild ibex for shelter. If the Essenes’ presence remained unknown to the Romans, perhaps she would indeed be safer there. There was a bright flash; someone in the darkness of their cave had lifted a bronze bowl that glinted in the dark. I took it to be a message. I imagined it was her heart reaching out to mine. Despite everything, she was still the child I had struggled to bring forth into this world.

IN THE MONTH of Shevat, sheets of rain fell. Our people did not plant wheat or barley or flax or venture into the plaza to celebrate Rosh Chodesh, but instead peered up at the swollen sky from our doorways, unable to see the new moon and therefore unable to chart the true month, which begins with the moon.

My neighbors stood inside their houses and watched the flooding and breathed in the chill air. They shied from the rain, as I was drawn to it. I went to stand in my garden until I was drenched. I thanked Beree, angel of rain, who came to me when I searched for him, for I had called him to us in the hopes that the Romans would stop their building if the last of the season’s violent rainfalls disrupted them. Perhaps pools of mud, deep enough for mules and men to drown, would serve to slow them down.

But if anything the Romans worked harder at their task. Their world was appearing before us. Like the angels, we peered down to see what they were creating out of sand. More Jewish slaves had been brought to the valley, tied together with leather straps, treated as little more than sheep or goats. We could only watch as our brothers who had been enslaved called out for us to save them while they were mistreated and beaten. We heard their wailing, yet could do nothing to ease their suffering. They slept in pens, like the sheep, without shelter from the rain, while the soldiers resided with ease in large tents set upon stone foundations, protected by walls, with guards stationed at each camp’s four gates.