The Dovekeepers

“Go on!” Shirah demanded. “If this woman had anyone else to turn to, do you think she’d be here? She has no one, only a man who wants nothing to do with her and a baby who refuses to leave her womb.”

The faster I did as Shirah said, the faster I would be back in my own chamber, away from this mad scene. I went recklessly through the hallways, which seemed a series of dungeons, black as pitch, for I had no lamp. At last I reached the doorway that led me into the night. There was a pale moon, and the lemon-tinged light was nearly blinding after the dim air of the storehouse. Still, no one noticed as I ran to the dovecote, my footsteps silent on the granite stones. I unlocked the door, then made my way among the birds as they fluttered about, surprised to have been disturbed at such a late hour. I began to fill the basket, frantic, my blood racing.

It was then I saw the slave. His chain reached from the loft where he slept down to the floor. He had been awakened when the door to the dovecote was thrown open, ready to defend himself if our warriors had come to mutilate him, or murder him, or trade him to nomads. I had completely forgotten about him. I could hear my own panicked, raspy breathing. Tears that did not fall were burning behind my vision. Our eyes caught. We looked at each other much as two animals who had met at a pool might have, both thirsty and mistrustful, both perfectly capable of violence. After a moment, the slave nodded for me to continue what it was I’d come for. He sank down and lowered his eyes, so they seemed like slits. He pretended to be sleeping, his back against the stones. I was grateful and told him so. Whether or not he could speak our language did not matter. He gazed up, and I could tell he understood.

I finished my gathering, then locked the dovecote and ran back the way I had come. There were almond blossoms falling from the trees, and the ground looked white. I thought of snow, and of manna, and of Jerusalem. I thought of the slave crouched down among the doves. My breath hit against my bones.

Shirah was waiting for me, pacing the floor. She had piled her long, sleek hair atop her head and had thrown off her veils. With a fine-edged pen made from a hawk’s feather, using blood rather than ink, she had written the name of our Lord on her arms, the letters reading upward, leading to heaven. She had concocted pharmaka from the precious leaves of the rue, an herb most women with child avoid, for it brings on cramping. Many refused to touch rue, for it burned the flesh. Often it was removed from the ground by tying it to a dog, which allowed the curse of pulling out the root to fall upon the animal. Some women used the herb when they wished to miscarry, but rue could also be depended upon when a full-term baby needed to be hurried along, both for his sake and for the mother-to-be.

Shirah gathered the dove droppings and set a fire using them as peat. She fanned the flame until there was a plume of smoke. The scent that emanated was bitter but also familiar. It seemed the doves had followed us to this place; we could hear their wings beating, fast as our breathing, fast as the birth must become if mother and child were to survive. After the laboring woman drank the bitter rue, retching as she did, Shirah had us take her by either arm. We forced her to stand above the fire. The air burned with heat, and we were all slick with sweat. I grabbed off my shawl, feeling I might suffocate. I could hardly see for all the ash and sparks. The world was made of salt and smoke, and there was no choice but to go forward.

We had entered into the deepest of places, the seat of the great goddess Ashtoreth, written of by the prophets, a goddess who was with us still, even though the wise men in the Temple had done all they could to destroy her. Neither could they defeat what many claimed was the female aspect of God, the Shechinah, all that was divine and radiant, the bride to Adonai’s groom. The Shechinah healed the ill, sat among the poor, embraced the wicked and the good alike.

The woman who was laboring sobbed in our grasp. As for me, I had stopped thinking and merely did as I was told. I didn’t know how I had been drawn here, woken from my dreams, dragged from my chamber into this dim night. I of all people, a harbinger of the Angel of Death, known to Mal’ach ha-Mavet before I was known to humankind, a murderer of my own mother, now stood guard for the Queen of Heaven.

The housemaid pleaded with us not to keep her positioned over the fire. She said she was burning alive, that the sparks were entering her, entwining with her blood and bones. I asked to be allowed to move her, but Shirah insisted the smoke was needed to open her womb. “Kindness can be a curse,” she said. She crouched beside the servant woman and began to chant.

Beshem eh’yeh asher eh’yeh tsey tsey tsey.

Shirah’s voice was hoarse and hot, the intonations rising. She spoke the words repeatedly, until the chant wound around us and we could hear only its tone and its desperation.