Alice Hoffman - The Dovekeepers

“I thought you wanted my life,” I remarked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I wanted my husband.”

“Then go to him,” I suggested.

She was hesitant. Not until I began to close the door did she speak out, her words flowing.

“Only you can grant me the protection of his life.”

We gazed at each other over the threshold. I wondered if it was possible that, even now, as Rome was besieging us, Channa might be trying to ensnare me, hoping to have me brought before the council and tried as a witch. Still I listened, for this woman and I had been tied together as the night is tied to the day, never knowing each other yet never eluding one another.

Perhaps I wanted to see her beg for something. The idea of her bleak pleas and her remorse was compelling. I sent the dog inside, then stepped into the yard. In any other year, this season would have meant the start of planting, but our fields lay fallow. There were no seeds and no men to work the plows and no beasts to assist them.

“I am not a magician,” I told my rival. “I can’t grant you anything.”

The almond trees were in full flower, and the hyssop bloomed. Channa had finished the cure I had sent to her and was once more prone to difficulty when she drew in deep breaths. I did not mention that hyssop grew nearby, along my wall. I let her puff and pant.

“Tonight the warriors are going out to try to stop the building of the ramp. They will not all return.”

I was resolved not to let her see how this news affected me. If she thought I was indifferent, she would not have the power to break my heart.

Channa went on when I was silent. “I dreamed he would return only with the help of a black bird.”

“I’m not a bird,” I said, though I was alarmed by this news, for I, too, had dreamed of a black bird, a raven, such as the one that had visited Elijah and fed him when he was lost in the wilderness and had no sustenance. “Why come to me?”

She was gazing at the child within me. “Is it a son?” Her voice was plaintive.

“Now you think I’m a witch and can divine God’s will. You think I’m many things, it seems. Did you ever think I was a girl who was sent into the wilderness? Did you see that my feet were bare and that the vultures followed me and that I was alone, sent to die? Maybe that was why your dream came to you. Perhaps you’re meant to choke on feathers.”

“Save him, even if it’s for yourself,” Channa said to me then.

She raised her eyes, and I saw the truth, that he was her husband and that she was willing do anything to rescue him. I took a step away. I knew then that she had power over me still, and that her power came from the fact that she loved him.

“I should have brought you into our home,” she went on. “Then your children would be mine as my husband was yours. We might have carried our burdens and joys together, as sisters.”

I marveled that she had the courage to speak to me in this manner, that she hadn’t been afraid to court my hatred of her and my spite. Because of this, I softened in a way I hadn’t thought possible. Perhaps it had been written that she would ruin her life and my own. Perhaps she, too, had no choice but to follow her fate.

“Don’t do this for me,” Channa said. “Do it for the one you love. Our husband.”

I watched her hasten away, following the wall, although arrows flew close by, some set on fire. She didn’t shrink from them; perhaps she no longer cared about matters such as her own safety. I noticed that her feet were bare, and that she had wound a black scarf around her shoulders, and that she was now in the wilderness herself, and that everything she had said was true.

I WENT to the Snake Gate and asked the guard to let me by. I understood why I had dreamed of forty acacia trees surrounded by bees. The dream had been given to me by the angels and by the Almighty. What had appeared to be a puzzle now formed itself into a path.

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.