The Dovekeepers

Many have said that the angel of rain comes to women in their dreams. It is Beree who causes them to cry when they feel they have nothing left inside, no soul, no tears. Perhaps this is why Shirah did not appear at the dovecote on this day. Beree had visited her before and now he had returned to whisper that she should prepare herself. The morning came and went, still Shirah remained in her chamber. She plaited her hair, drew on her black cloak and her veils, slipped on her amulets. Barefoot, she did not eat or drink or speak all that day. She sat at her table readying herself for the vision that had appeared to her when she first came to the fortress. She had seen herself in chains, in a season when the rain refused to fall.

The arrows thrown by the minim pointed directly to what had once been the kitchen of the king. The house of the Witch of Moab. She was waiting for the diviners at her threshold, her cloak held close. Exactly as she had predicted, she was shackled and led away.

I knew this was the day when the incantation bowl would be complete, for Shirah had vowed the missing ingredient could be added only when she was in chains. I could not attend to the spell, however. I fled the dovecote with Yael and Aziza when we heard news of Shirah’s captivity. Together we rushed to the plaza. There was a crush of people, and the flare of overheated rage striped the air. People wanted a reason which might explain why God had turned against us, why the leaves on the trees were singed, why the olives were white and unripened, why we had only thirst until we were gasping, like fish upon the shore. They believed they now gazed upon that reason.

Watching the crowd engulf her mother, Aziza had to be restrained to guard that she wouldn’t rush to Shirah’s side and perhaps be held to blame as well. Yael grasped one of her arms, and I the other. She was stronger than I would have ever imagined, but Yael managed to calm her.

“Have faith,” she urged, whispering to Aziza so no one could overhear and accuse them of plotting. The gold talisman glinted at Yael’s throat, and her face was serene despite the chaos.

They say a witch’s enemies must hold her in the air and separate her from earth if they wish to undercut her power, but when the minim tried this, Shirah laughed at them. The men lowered her and backed away, confused. They had no idea that water, not earth, was her element.

“There is no one but Adonai,” Shirah declared to those who had accused her of bringing God’s wrath down upon us. Her voice carried. We who had come from the dovecote faced her and were convinced she was speaking directly to us. Children in the crowd quieted. Several women Shirah had helped in their time of need glanced away, embarrassed not to offer their assistance in return. People whispered that Menachem ben Arrat, the high priest, had come to his doorway but had feared the witch’s powers so that he came no farther and neither condemned her nor joined in the fray. Beside me Aziza shivered, but there was a proud cast to her eyes.

Eleazar ben Ya’ir appeared out of the crowd, on his way from the barracks, at first puzzled by the scene before him, then understanding when he saw Shirah in chains. He commanded she be allowed to go free. When the men who held her hesitated, he shouted, “Are you made to attack one of our own? A woman of my own family? We have real enemies who would like nothing better than to have us murder one another.”

There was a moment when it seemed the crowd would not comply with his command. That moment passed, and at last one of the elders went forward with the key, but the threat of chaos had been there, hanging in the air, the instant when our people might have turned against their leader. An angry mob was not easily controlled, and a serpent sent by rioters offered a bite for which there was no healing.

This fortress would have fallen in the fever of that dishonorable instant had it not ended as coal fire is quenched by water. Our enemies would have had no further need to destroy us had the mob not backed away, for we would have destroyed ourselves. There had been several sightings of Roman soldiers nearby in the past weeks. The legion knew we were here, and they knew how well defended we were in our protected site. But they had no idea that we could so easily turn on one another, and that Ben Ya’ir’s will was all that held us together, keeping us one.

I saw the great man’s wife watching from where she stood beside the hyssop. It was Channa who had directed the minim to the witch. If she was disturbed to see that her husband now acted as Shirah’s protector, she didn’t let on. Her face was dark and impassive. Perhaps she had expected as much. Her breathing, usually so ragged, was perfectly even, and there was a flush of health in her face. I imagined she was gazing at the one who had cured her, but she was looking past Shirah, past her husband, to the child in Yael’s arms. I felt a chill along my spine.