The Dovekeepers (65 page)

The guard might have refused me, but Amram passed near, and I turned to him to plead for help. He was arrogant and impatient, half-dressed in his silver-scaled armor. His hair was long and plaited, ready for war.

“No woman goes through the gate,” he told me coldly, girding himself for the coming night, when the warriors meant to attack the slaves who were building the ramp. He had no idea that I had known him as a spoiled and sweet child, favored in his father’s eyes. Now his demeanor was harsh, and I saw something dark within him, a blackness of spirit that wasn’t there before. Some whispered that the raids of our people had included the murder of women and children. They swore our warriors had no choice, that it was all for the cause of the true Israel and the one whose name can never be spoken aloud,
I am I.
But war brought such changes to all, and with those changes it brought a loss of
lev,
the true heart, especially for those who had betrayed God’s laws, and who knew that they did, and who told themselves they acted as they must.

“Perhaps you’ve come because your daughter has a message for me?” he asked.

Aziza had spurned this warrior without granting him a reason for her displeasure, and his hurt was evident. She would not speak of him and seemed to have no interest in him.

“Are you her messenger?” the warrior wanted to know.

He used the word
mal’ach,
which although it can mean messenger can also mean angel. Perhaps this was his way of calling her a
shedah,
as many before had, or perhaps he believed I had called the
angels of wrath upon him, that it was my disapproval which had caused Aziza to turn from him.

Yael had spied us from the plaza. She wore a tattered gray cloak that was too large for her frame. She came forward, concerned, when she saw her brother’s bitterness. “Shirah is not the cause of her daughter’s actions,” Yael reminded him gently.

“Or am I, it seems,” Amram said in a heated tone. “She can no longer even see me.”

“Be patient,” Yael suggested. “She may return to you.”

Amram reached out to make a quick sweep of the chaos below us. “I have no time to wait.”

Yael had taken note of the basket I carried. She threw me a quick look, then asked her brother if we might gather herbs from the hillside.

Amram shook his head, for this was not allowed. “Not on this day.”

“My brother,” Yael teased, “must I remind you that I can remember when you slept with your thumb in your mouth and feared the scorpion in the corridor?”

“Yaya,” he said, shaking his head, smiling in spite of himself. “I cannot let you go.”

“We’ll be careful,” she vowed. “Some things are meant to be,” I heard her whisper to Amram. “I’ll look for an herb that will bring you luck.”

He was still her brother, willing to listen to her demands. He spoke with the guard, who let us slip out the gate. The daylight had stretched itself into long shadows, which allowed us to press ourselves against the cliffs and go forth unseen. I had meant to be alone, but now I had no choice in the matter. Perhaps it was fitting that Yael should accompany me, for she had learned the spells my mother had taught me and would have no fear of what we must accomplish.

We made our way along the hillside together, then slunk down
toward a damp ravine between two caves. Once, gathering kindling nearby, I had spied bunches of fragrant pink blooms set upon spindly green limbs. They were wild cousins of the rhododendron, a flower my mother had pointed out in Alexandria so that she might warn me of its dangers. Like the
ba’aras
root, which could draw out an enemy’s soul, the leaves and roots of the rhododendron were forbidden but often used for
pharmaka
in matters of love and of revenge. Of all the parts of this toxic plant, the flowers were the most potent.

We crouched low and listened well, the mud of the
nachal
slippery under our bare feet. We were protected by the wind. It seemed we were in another world entirely, one in which we might remember how beautiful the wilderness could be. We would soon be approaching the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the sun was strong for the season. The rhododendron flower was the potion I had come to find, one I did not need to concoct or create, for it was already part of creation. Spells and charms were not enough to protect my beloved. It was poison I needed.

I held up my hand so that Yael might bend her ear toward the echo that rumbled nearby. Beneath the never-ending noise of the Romans, rising up as they toiled with shovels and picks, was the sound of bees. In spring they often swarmed in these hills, traveling here from Egypt for the last flowering of the desert before the heat arrived. We followed the buzzing to a fallen log, wherein yellow honey was dripping forth, what some among us call
debas,
and others refer to as
manna.
The food of the bees was often salvation to those in the desert, praised by man and beast alike. But this honey was like no other, for it was gathered from the deadly pink flowers that grew in the ravine; only a small taste would drive a man mad for hours, perhaps for days.

I shrugged off my cloak and insisted Yael stand back. I alone was safe from the bees’ stinging wrath, for I had poured salt upon my skin, so that they would not light upon me as I reached inside
the log to draw out the honeycomb. Before our warriors went to destroy the ramp of the Romans, the soldiers of the legion partaking of this tainted honey would be maddened. When evening fell, they would not be able to divine whether they were dreaming or if indeed our men had fallen upon them. In their confusion, like men made drunk, they would fail to draw their swords.

Yael and I huddled beside a cliff as bees circled around the honeycomb. I sprinkled salt upon it, forcing the bees to float away, back to the deadly pink flowers, where they gathered more nectar. When I described my intentions, Yael was not surprised. She admitted that she had come in search of me, for she had heard a voice calling to her, telling her what she must do. She was the one who would bring the poison to our enemy. That was the reason she had chosen to leave Arieh with her father, and why she’d dressed in the assassin’s cloak, slipping it from a hook in his chamber to serve as her armor, flimsy and thin as it might be. When she drew it over her head, she all but disappeared before me. The cloth was the color of the pale sky, and of the stones, and of the thin sunlight that fell upon us. Even her scarlet hair faded beneath the hood; her face disappeared and became a mist.

I had planned to deposit the tainted
manna
for the Romans, but Yael insisted the voice had spoken to her for a reason. I did not wish to let her go, or to be the cause of any harm that might befall her. I pleaded with her, but she would not listen. She believed she had been called to take the honey from my hands. In truth, I understood, for in my dream she had been beside the acacia trees. She had lifted her arms to heaven as she’d stepped into my place.

I appreciated why Yael had given the slave the gold amulet of protection; we were all comforted to think of him finding his way to his own country, where the snow was spiraling down. Still, she was in need of protection. I fastened the second gold amulet around her throat, despite her pleadings that she wasn’t worthy. I
knew that she was meant to be sheltered by the sign of the fish, and by the promise of water, and by the grace of the Almighty.

I WAITED
in the fading daylight as Yael went on alone. We had entered the hour that opens the heavens to our sight, a time when holy men insist it is possible for them to witness the throne of God. I saw only the cliffs that were before us. I dared not raise my eyes to the cave on the sheer cliff where the Essenes had died, for my daughter’s spirit lingered there, cold and alone. The wickedness of the world was a part of creation, I knew this, and the Angel of Death had been created on that day when life first appeared, yet I was embittered. I wept for what I had lost and what the world had lost and would yet lose again.

Yael was quick as she made her way down the mountain. I barely managed to observe her form beneath her cloak as she approached the white ramp that led to hell, for that is what we called the valley that had once been ours and had come to belong to Rome. When she neared the building site, she immediately left the honeycomb on a ledge of rock, placed carefully, so that the soldiers who oversaw the slaves would be sure to find it. The sweet scent would call to them, and they would devour the poison as our people enjoyed the bounty of
manna
when we were released from bondage in Egypt. Our warriors would then have a measure of safety when they attacked.

The curtain of night would soon be upon us, the honeycomb was in place, yet Yael tarried. I grew cold watching the stars appear, still she did not come. I began to worry and pace, for she seemed to have vanished. Though she wore the gold amulet of protection, God alone could protect her in this valley. As the hour grew late, I became frantic, nearly overcome with the fear of what might have happened to her. Then I saw a flicker of mist.

In the darkness, Yael had managed to slink down beside a rock and remain hidden as the Romans in the field practiced for the warfare to come, setting to with the swords and javelins they would use against us when the white ramp was completed. When the soldiers at last went to their barracks, Yael rose up from beside the rock. I couldn’t fathom the meaning of her movements as she left the safety of her perch and continued to go forth. I wondered if perhaps she had eaten from the honey and if she herself had gone mad to think she could enter the valley floor of the Romans and survive. Still she moved forward.

The pool of mud was before her, and beyond that lay the lion.

In all the valley this beast alone had spied her, or perhaps he had picked up her scent. Yael had gone to the
mikvah
that day, and when stench is everywhere, the scent of what is pure is most noticeable of all. The lion raised his head and gazed across the pool as Yael made her way, wading carefully. I could not abide the thought of seeing her torn apart, ravaged and devoured while I watched, the little girl I had loved as though she were my daughter when I was but a girl myself. My grief was enormous as I stood alone in the falling dark, weeping for all I had done in the world and the many people I had wronged. I thought that perhaps I was witnessing the End of Days and that the Essenes had been right all along, and we had been merely too foolhardy to listen. I thought of what the bones I had thrown had revealed, and the future I had seen and all I had yet to lose in this world.

Yael had come to stand before the lion. He could have easily reached to attack her, yet he did not move. His tail switched, nothing more. Yael drew closer still. I could see them through a layer of mist. A fierce creature, a pool of water, a woman who was unafraid. Perhaps because she had once been bitten by a lion, she imagined she was immune to any further bites, as some who are attacked by bees never again react to their sting.

No one in the Roman camp had paid attention to the lion for
some time, or had even thought to feed him since their arrival. One donkey was all he’d been granted. He had been mistreated, half-starved, made to stay unsheltered from the burning sun, unable to flee the torrents of rain when they came. He had served his purpose, to frighten us, and now he was abandoned. Ravens came close, but he could not reach them. Ibex and deer and sheep had been roasted over the fires of the Romans, but the lion had not been granted a shred of their meat or bones.

He did not move as Yael approached, nor did he shrink from her. Perhaps he did not maul her because he had been broken, taken from his land, abused, unable to act like a lion. Or perhaps he was merely waiting for a messenger from God, as we wait for Gabriel.

Yael now came close enough to unhook the brass buckle which fitted the creature’s collar to his chain. I could not breathe or move. I imagined he would turn on her then and I would see her death before my eyes. Instead the lion rose to his feet and stood before her. He stared at Yael with his yellow eyes, more curious than ferocious. He may have thought she was one of his own kind and wondered if she meant to accompany him. He may have believed she was a dream, for if lions dreamed it would surely be this, freedom in the night, hands that unleashed you, the mountains before you.

Yael lifted her arms, as we do to bid the doves to take flight. The lion turned to run across the valley, disappearing into the cliffs, his dun color the cloak which allowed him to vanish before our eyes.

I knew then I had witnessed a miracle. I waited where I was, praying, offering gratitude to the Almighty, my faith renewed, while on the valley floor the bravest warrior among us made her way back to our mountain, invisible to all men beneath her gray cloak, but radiant in the darkness, a shining star before the eyes of God.

*

OUR WARRIORS
went out that night to find the soldiers of the legion intoxicated, maddened and half-asleep, for they had mixed the toxic honey with wine to make a mead, and many had drunk from this poison. Our men killed as many as they could before the cries of the slaughtered brought hundreds of soldiers racing. By then the warriors of Masada had begun to climb back up the cliff. Several were lost in the fray and were carried upon the shoulders of their brothers. At least we had their bodies and could prepare their earthly forms for burial. In Jerusalem we would have taken our dead to the caves of our fathers, then a year later collected the bones to be stored in stone ossuaries. Here there was no time for such practices. Though the Romans had retaliated with a storm of burning arrows, we gathered in the plaza to sing lamentations and tear at our garments and lay the dead to rest.