The Dovekeepers

I could not help but think of my brother, one of the ten who had been chosen by our leader. I wondered if he still wore that square of blue silk on his armor, if he remembered the day I had come to him beneath the flame tree and begged him to put away his knife. Perhaps that knife was all he had now, the only thing he cared about or trusted or was loyal to. I said a prayer for him. I think I knew the answer to my questionings, because the prayer I murmured on his behalf was a lamentation sung in memory of the dead to bring peace in the World-to-Come.

We went through the stone chamber, breathing in the dank air, not stopping until we came upon another set of stairs, which would bring us to a heavy wooden door. That door, once pushed ajar, led us into the open air. There we stood, the bitter reek of smoke claiming us, the wind in threads carrying sparks of the fires that had been set, along with the writhing spirits of the dead.

Revka took my arm, and we gazed at each other, needing no words to understand the pact made between us.

We intended to live.

I kept Shirah’s newborn girl wound in my shawl so that she might remain quiet and unseen, while Arieh rode upon my hip, his dark eyes wide, his hands clutching tightly to my tunic. When we emerged into the night and the door to the tunnel had shut behind us, it was as though we had entered through the first gate to Gehennom, the doorway into the valley of hell. The scene we had stumbled upon hardly seemed like earth but rather a world that was aflame with punishments for the wicked. Or perhaps this was a test for the faithful. Could we face hell and walk through fire without hesitation, or would we sink to our knees and give up the life God had granted us?

We could not go back now. Our world was ravaged, it had disappeared from God’s grasp. Revka and the boys were reluctant to go on, for there were crowds all around and they were afraid we would be sighted. Stay in the shadows, I told them, for that was what I’d done in the wilderness when I wished to go unnoticed by the birds who came to me.

I asked Revka where she had first seen Shirah, for that was where Shirah had instructed me to flee. I assumed she meant for us to run to the dovecotes and hide there, or wait for her by the Snake Gate, but Revka whispered a location that surprised me: She had seen Shirah many times, but she had not clearly seen her for who she was until she stumbled upon her in a cistern, the largest one, situated in the deepest cave carved into this mountain, down hundreds of plaster steps, set in the farthest field. That was where Shirah meant for us to go.

We made our way through the madness around us. Edging around the barracks, we passed the bonfire that was flaming out of control. Bodies had now been heaped upon it, alongside provisions and the remains of animals, all that we had in our warehouses and storerooms. Though the smoke was acrid, I stopped, stunned, for it was there, beside the piles of weapons, that I saw my father for the last time, lying among the slain soldiers.

I went to him and knelt beside him so that I might close his eyes. From his expression I understood that he was now beside his beloved wife, the woman with the flame-colored hair who was also my mother. We had that, at least, in common. Beside him on the ground lay the gray cloak. He might have attempted to escape his fate, but he had taken off the cloak so that he would be seen for who he was, the assassin Yosef bar Elhanan, who had been my father and who would remain so for all eternity.

As I studied his face, serene for the first time, I recalled what he’d said about his talent of stealth. Men often failed to catch sight of what was right before them. They searched for secrets and for what was buried, but what was openly before them in the light blinded them so they could not see. A mouse who went quickly across the table was less likely to be caught than one that stationed itself in the corners of a room, where mice were expected to huddle. An assassin who walks into a room may easily look like any common man if he does so with confidence, with every right to do as he pleases.

I took my father’s cloak. The others followed, and we moved together as if we had formed a cloud, a mist, nothing human. Quickly, we made our way through the orchard where there had once been almond trees, where pink flowers had floated in the air when the kadim wind arose. Nothing remained here, not a branch, not a bough, although the ground was littered with sparks that glowed with the incandescence of white moths that had been set before us, fallen to the earth.

More than mere trees had been felled in this now barren orchard, with blood flowing rather than sap, and strands of hair rather than flowers. Corpse after corpse littered the field.

Revka told her grandsons and Yehuda to think of the dark shapes on the ground as fallen trees, not as men and women and children with their throats slit. The deeds of the death-givers were nearly completed; soon they would set upon one another, for they had stood beside the Water Gate and drawn lots to see who would be the last warrior, the man to take all of his brothers’ sins upon himself and finish the other nine before turning the sword on himself.