"Are you so sure about that?"
"I'm smaller than you are. I can fit in tiny places."
"I don't like to be blackmailed."
"I'm not blackmailing. I'm just asking for a deal. What would you do in my place?"
Rivka considered his words. She didn't understand how the magic worked, and, inevitably, it would be up to Isaac. But thanks to Micah's street morality, he had the potential to restore Esther's happiness. "Go be a man, instead of a boy, and ask him yourself. I think he'll say yes."
She watched him scamper across the room to where her husband stood holding the infant princess and plead his case. An expression she didn't understand came into Isaac's face for a moment, his eyes moving from side to side slowly. Then he smiled gently, and Micah's body language became triumphant.
He faced the others. "Esther—"
"Hmm?" The young woman turned her tearstained face from Liora's shoulder at the sound of her name.
"Your violin is safe. I stole it from Eli the same night he took it from you, before he burned the case."
"What?" She scrambled to her feet. "You mean it?"
"I thought it was his," Micah explained. "I didn't like him because he laughed at me when I was begging for food. I missed my violin from back home, so I figured I'd paid for it with my dignity. Or something." He shrugged. "Anyway, you can have it back now."
"Riv, go with him," Shulamit commanded.
"Of course."
"I didn't know you played," said Esther. She took his hands in hers. "Are you any good?"
"We played together the other night—I thought he did well," said Rivka. "Come on, Micah."
***
Aviva sat in the kitchen-house, grinding chickpeas into meal for falafels. Her shoulders swayed to the lively melody that floated in from some other part of the palace, and she felt a deep, sweet peace inside at the idea that Esther and her precious violin had been reunited. For it must be her—she recognized the melody from the recital, and besides, she had every confidence in the brain of her beloved Queen Shulamit.
She smiled broadly to welcome the queen into the room. "So the songbird is reborn?"
"Yes, but at a cost."
Aviva looked at her meaningfully. "You mean Eli?"
"That's got to be rough." Shulamit collapsed into one of the chairs. "I'm letting her stay in the palace overnight to recuperate."
"What about your other mystery?"
"Oh, the clasp design?" Shulamit hid a yawn, not very well. "Gershom had to go to jail, unfortunately, because of the potion he used. He won't be there long, but hopefully he'll learn his lesson. And Zev said that it was all right for him to use the clasp design once he got out as long as he gave him credit in the shop and paid him rent on it."
"Who's watching his shop in the meantime?"
"One of Dafna's kids." Shulamit snorted. "If they want to go to the Sugar Coast and stay up all night partying, let them earn the fare. Speaking of staying up all night! Our poor little daughter."
"You hustled her away before I could do anything," Aviva pouted.
"No reason for both of us to get no sleep," Shulamit pointed out. "Poor little thing." She caressed Naomi's tiny head.
"And we have more sour oranges to look forward to," said Aviva. "This is only one tooth. Soon, she'll summon all her friends!"
"It's what we signed up for." Shulamit looked exhausted but contented.
"Still want more?"
"Yes, but not for a few years!" Shulamit yawned. "And I know you still want to bear one." The yawn persisted. "Ugggh. Now that I don't have to put on my public face for all those people, I can't stop!"
"You should nap, now that all your mysteries are solved."
"I will. I need it."
When Shulamit left, Aviva was by herself again until lunchtime. She noticed with interest that the violin music had split into a duet, and wondered if Liora had gone home to get her own instrument. Or perhaps it was Micah, playing on a borrowed fiddle from Tzuriel. Either way, it made the morning's work seem magical and assisted by fairies.
When Rivka and Isaac arrived for lunch, they had Micah in tow. "Look at this hard worker!" Rivka said proudly. "All morning he carried supplies for the men who were fixing the roof. He was very helpful!"
"Then I'll definitely give you a meal!" Aviva carried the platter of falafels to the table. "Then it wasn't you I heard playing duets with Esther?"
"That was Liora," said Isaac. "She went home to get her violin and spent a few hours keeping Esther company."
"See? I told you they aren't competition." Shulamit was last to enter, the baby princess strapped to her chest.
Lunch was over quickly, and Shulamit rose to study some legal documents. The others remained, Rivka relaxing with a mug of mead, and Isaac distracting the clearly nervous Micah with stories of his and Rivka's days in battle together. Aviva stood at a basin on the counter, scrubbing the dishes from lunch to a sparkling clean.
She could feel the atmosphere in the room change when Isaac retrieved the gem from his pocket.
Micah's hands rested on the table, slowly moving the fig-colored crystal around between his fingers. "Will my voice get deeper?"
"I think that is likely, yes," said Isaac.
"Will it make me tall? Will it make me broad?"
"I don't know," said Isaac. "You're tall enough now, but perhaps."
"For broad you can always work your muscles as I do," Rivka pointed out. "There is a technique to it, and I will teach you."
"Will I grow a beard?" Micah looked intently at Isaac's face, at his delicate goatee.
"Perhaps," said Isaac. "I think so."
"Will other things grow?" Micah continued nervously, but with resolution in his tone.
"I don't know," said Isaac. "Maybe that is only for you to know."
Micah looked at the crystal again, then lifted it to his lips. Rivka pushed over her mug, ready to ease its passage, and Micah picked it up in his other hand. "Today, I am a man!"
Rivka chuckled, and Isaac said, "It's never too late to say that."
"To the new me," Micah continued quietly, then engulfed the crystal with his mouth. A swig of mead followed, and he swallowed hard.
"To ripening," said Aviva from her dishes, lifting the clean plate in her hand into the air to honor him.
Chapter 21: Hold Your Arm Closed
Isaac left Micah in Rivka's more than capable hands and made his way across the courtyard. On his way, he met Esther. The hair around her face was damp and she looked out of sorts, but she smiled when she saw him. "Isaac, right?"
"Yes, that's me."
"I was washing my face in the creek behind the palace," she explained. "So I could tell myself I was done with crying."
"It doesn't make you feel better to cry, to let it out?"
"I don't know." She looked lost. "I was wondering, could you come and keep me company for a little while? Ever since I saw you holding the baby princess—I thought of my sisters—anyway, if the queen trusts you with her most precious... but maybe you don't have time and this is very inappropriate and I'm just a bother—"
"Come and tell Zayde the Wizard your troubles." Isaac looked on her warmly and gestured back toward her room.
"That's grandfather where you come from, right?" Esther led him back into the chamber the queen had graciously lent to her. "I didn't get as far away as that on my tour."
"Will you continue, now that you have back your fiddle?"
"Yes, actually—" She sat down on the sofa and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Liora and I will be on tour together."
"Ahh, so the duets we all enjoyed this morning—"
"You liked it?"
"First rate!"
"We'll go back to my hometown first. More than anything I want to see my family right now," said Esther. "Oh, and I've asked Micah to come along as my, I don't know, water boy or something. Liora says she raised enough money playing in the park on my behalf that she bought him his own violin, although I'm sure Tzuriel un
dercharged her, and we'll both be giving him lessons, food, and a place to sleep in exchange for his duties."
"Tzuriel seems like a good man."
Esther inhaled a momentous breath. "Yes, he's already given me a case to replace the one that burned up." She gestured with her foot at the new case, plain but sturdy, sitting at the foot of the bed.
Isaac noticed that her wording avoided blaming Eli for the fate of the original case. "No butterflies," he commented genially, avoiding the topic.
"No, not yet." A smile escaped from the desolation of her face. "He said we could paint it later, but for now it's blank and clean."
"A beautiful idea."
"It is." Esther's expression darkened. "But do I deserve it? I keep flashing back to what Eli said and wondering if I'm doing everything all wrong."
"I remember his lips moved a lot, but nothing of value came out."
"He was hurting so much. He kept saying how I wasn't considering his feelings. How I could never empathize. How my music humiliated him. How it embarrassed and frightened him when I made friends if they were men." Esther cast up her hands in frustration. "I'm sure he'd even be mad if he knew I were in here talking to you—and you've got to be twice my age!"
"More than that," said Isaac, but not without amusement.
"Oh no—I didn't mean—oh, I'm sorry."
"I do not want to be young again," Isaac reassured her.
"He said I was keeping him around for convenience..."
"Were you?"
"I don't even know what that means! He said—"
Isaac held up one finger on his left hand to silence her, then slowly revealed the scar that ran across his right palm and down the underbelly of his forearm.
Esther's eyes bugged out, and then she caught herself. "What happened?"
"At one time I was not only a wizard, but a warrior," said Isaac. "I was sliced open in battle and can no longer close this hand." He strained his fingers to demonstrate, noticing Esther wince—most likely at the idea that such an injury would wipe out someone's ability to play violin as she did.
"How long ago did it happen?"
"Before you were born."
Esther's eyes widened. "So your whole life, pretty much."
Her self-centered innocence made him smile. "I want to tell you about it, because there is a lesson there for how you should go forth from today. You, too, have been sliced open."
"Yes..." She understood.
Isaac often told of the scar's history, to entertain new guards in training, or to enthrall the children of visiting foreign royalty. But while he usually talked about the adventure that led to it, of the rescue of the kidnapped boy prince and the capture of the pretender, of the plot and how the wizards had uncovered it, today was different. Today...
"Not everyone who seeks magical training finishes the study," Isaac began. "During my acolyte years, there was a man who didn't finish. I met him later on the battlefield, once I became a full wizard, during a mission with my order."
"Did he have any powers?"
"No, I don't think so," said Isaac. "He never got as far as that. He knew me, but we were fighting on different sides, and he was just as devoted to his side as I was to mine. With swords we faced each other, but I was too secure in my own abilities and tried to use magic and swordplay at the same time. As I lifted my left hand to send a bolt of energy in his direction, he gashed upward, at my right hand where I held my sword."
"Ouch." Esther winced.
"Naturally, I lost the sword," Isaac continued. "In that split second, then, I had to make a decision. Humiliated and angry, I longed to continue the battle, to take up the sword with my left hand, or to use the magic I had been about to aim his way. But this part of the arm..." He ran his left pointer finger up and down his scar. "If it opens, the blood comes out too quickly and death is very fast."
"So what did you do?"
"I chose life. I chose... humiliation, but I chose to keep myself alive. With every ounce of magic in my body, I concentrated on holding the wound in my arm closed and ran for safety. There were other wizards, you see, to take my place anyway. It did not hurt the fight."
"Did anyone help you?"
"Nobody saw what happened. I disappeared into the forest and took my snake form—I thought, well, a snake has no arms, so maybe nothing will hurt. I was wrong. My whole body burned. It was as if the gash traveled the length of my whole body."
"How horrible!"
"Again and again the thoughts assaulted me, You could have stayed to fight! How dare he! He, whose skill was less than mine. He, who had failed to complete magical training. All these arguments."
"But you would have died."
"Exactly. And that's why I had to keep reminding myself that I held my arm closed, that in order to live it was vital that I hold my arm closed. I could not do both. Each time I felt the old anger, I thought of my arm. It shows me I made the right choice."
"Are you trying to tell me that in order to heal, I have to stop arguing with Eli in my mind?"
"Already you understand." Isaac patted her hand. "Just think of me each time one of his pieces of nonsense rises up in your mind. Don't argue with it—simply dismiss it. For if you argue, you will find yourself arguing again, forever. He was wrong, but you fear him anyway. Hold your arm closed. Let him continue being wrong, far from your heart."
"Far from my heart," she echoed dully.
"Hold your arm closed."
"Yes." She turned toward him. "It's an amazing story. I'm sorry it never healed properly, though."
"That may happen with you as well, but it doesn't keep me from living my life," he explained. "I learned to write and wield a sword with my left hand; magic helps with plenty of other things. The scar you may bear from Eli will hold nothing to the magic you'll discover as you open up to all the new things he prevented you from experiencing."
"Hold my arm closed," she murmured. "So the magic wouldn't help it heal right?"
"No," he said. "I bound my hand myself, since it would be a while since I could get to anyone with medical training. I bound it tightly and with my fingers outstretched, so I could still aim magic through my fingertips."
"So you can still do magic on that side?"
"Of course!"
"Hold my arm closed," Esther repeated. "What happened to the other man? Do you know?"
Isaac's mind flashed over a series of images—years later, helping his former opponent under completely unrelated circumstances, perhaps even saving his life. It made him feel selfishly powerful to be in that position, and for some reason his pride had kept him from revealing the permanent nature and depth of the injury. Well.
"That isn't important for you right now," was what he said out loud. "Look to your own future. Keep yourself safe. Concentrate on your music—and on your new friends."
"Liora's got such a deep heart when you get to know her," said Esther. "Eli kept saying she—Oh, right." She grinned self-consciously.
"See? You can do it."
He left her late in the afternoon, returning to her fiddle with renewed dedication to her art, to God, and to herself. It was time to clear his head—he didn't regret the way he'd comforted her for a moment, but kicking up all the dust around his long-ago adventure had taken a lot out of him emotionally. Esther had washed away her tears in the creek. Maybe a trip out back would be good for him too. His throat felt dry, too, from all that talking.
Rivka was there ahead of him, scrubbing her feet in the cool, sparkling water.
Isaac, as usual, felt as happy to see her as if they hadn't met in weeks. "I wanted a drink, but I also found something tasty!"
"You know it," Rivka shot back.
"I'm exhausted, Mighty One."
"You're exhausted?" She raised an eyebrow. "I just taught Micah every bodybuilding exercise I know. He's a sweet boychik. Would have let me use the crystal myself—he thinks I'm like him, of course. I wonder what would happen if I had. Not become a man."
"I bet yo
ur mask would disappear," said Isaac evenly.
To his surprise, Rivka's eyes looked thoughtful and welcoming rather than the shuttered windows this topic usually conjured. "Someday..."
He fixed her with a heartfelt stare. "If you decide to unmask, you know I'm with you every step of the way."
"If I unmask... it can't be just about me," said Rivka. "Even if I'm wrong that my reputation would be dismissed as impossible, as lies—then I become exceptional. I become 'Rivka the Mighty,' not proof that women can be soldiers."
"So what are you thinking?"
"I think I will recruit a group of young women for a women's unit to join the queen's royal guard," said Rivka. "Do you remember that girl in the City of Red Clay who practically wanted to run away with us? Maybe we can find her again. There will be so many more like her too. And if I unmask, it will be after we all prove, together, that women can fight."
"I like this," said Isaac, amazed, "and I will help however you need me to."
"I never doubted you would," was Rivka's response.
"Dafna knows I took the transformation stone," said Isaac, "and people talk. It's possible many of them will think I used it to help my male lover become a woman."
Rivka shrugged. "People are already making up stories about me. Not much I can do about it, so I don't care—as long as they believe the truth about my abilities."
"Shulamit will need to be more emphatically open about her inclinations," Isaac pointed out. "Without us standing there as brawny reminders to respect same-sex pairings, she'll need to be the public face of it herself."
"She's never hid it—people are just..." Rivka waved her hand dismissively. "Well, she'll be fine. She's ready. It already frustrates her how easily people are willing to ignore what's right in front of them if it doesn't fit the ideas they already had. So where were you all afternoon?"
"Comforting Esther."
"Oh." Rivka snorted. "That Eli was a piece of work. What does he know from love? He loves himself, that one."
"When someone loves a remarkable woman..." Isaac sat down on her right side and caressed the firm line of her biceps with his left hand. It stirred his blood. "...her feats should captivate him, just as her eyes do."
A Harvest of Ripe Figs Page 14