They reached a side door, which let them out to a small garden, planted with flowers, vegetables, and aromatic herbs. Across the garden was a separate structure, dark and overgrown with ivy. Sallan gave her the lamp and tried to open the door. It resisted. He put his shoulder against it, pushed hard, and the door gave in with a loud screech and a puff of dust. Dogs barked nearby, and a moment later two of them appeared at a sprint. They were huge, almost the size of donkeys. Deborah froze in fear, but Sallan laughed and petted them. A moment later, they sprinted away, wagging their tails.
“My mother’s dogs,” Sallan said.
“Your mother owns dogs?”
“She loves them, and they love her—enough to kill anyone trying to enter her bedroom at night.” Sallan chuckled. “Even her slaves don’t dare approach—”
“She owns slaves, too?”
“Of course. Why not?”
Deborah was shocked. “She’s a woman.”
“This is Edom, girl, not Canaan. Here, a woman may own land, slaves, and horses. She may inherit property from her father if he has no sons, from her husband if he dies before her, and from her own sons if they precede her in death without wives or children. Our women may sue before a judge, give testimony at trial, and make valid contracts for goods if they have no husband or father to do it for them.”
“Your women are lucky,” Deborah said. “Has it always been like this?”
“Since the war with the Egyptians, which left us with too few men.” Sallan took her arm. “Let’s go inside.”
He poured oil into two wall lamps, one on each side of the entry, and lit them with his small lamp. As the flames flickered and caught, a large room came into view. The air was musty with a mix of sharp smells. Rows of wooden shelves held countless jars and bottles. Several large work desks held measuring scales, clay bowls, wooden barrels, and mixing utensils. Everything was covered with spider webs and a thick layer of dust.
Sallan’s shoes left footprints on the floor. It was obvious no one had been here in many years.
He took her hand, and she felt his fingers clasp tightly.
“Is this your old workshop?”
He nodded.
They proceeded along the rows of shelves. As they went deeper into the workshop, the light from the wall lamps by the door grew weaker, and the flickering flame of the small lamp took over. At the opposite end, a large oven was built into the wall. Inside was a giant clay pot. Sallan lit two more wall lamps, which caught after a few flashes of hesitation.
“It took six of these,” he said, pointing at the pot. “The Egyptian army was marching north from the Sea of Reeds, where they had destroyed our army. There were going to reach Bozra within days and mount an attack. I was working here like a madman while three thousand women lined up outside, each one waiting to drink a goblet of the Male Elixir.”
“The same as what Kassite has given me?”
“Not exactly.” Sallan touched the pot, his fingers leaving marks. “The situation required something very concentrated but short-acting. Mixing it required all my knowledge and expertise, and hefty measures of speed and audacity.”
“The women were audacious to drink it and face the Egyptians.”
“Like oil for a fire, my elixir fueled their courage, which in turn fueled my hubris, until the gods taught me a painful lesson whose scars would never heal.”
Sallan turned away, and Deborah sensed that he didn’t want her to ask him about that lesson. She wondered if it had to do with the death of the woman he’d loved.
The light from the lamp fell on a set of shelves nearby, each lined with jars and bottles.
“There are so many of them.” Deborah peered at the first jar on the top shelf, which was at her eye level. “What’s in this one?”
“The scalp of a male ape.”
She stepped back. “It contains a scalp?”
Sallan removed the jar from the shelf, pried open the cork plug, and poured out fine powder into the palm of his hand.
“Oh.” Deborah was embarrassed. “I thought you meant—”
“—that a whole bloody scalp was shoved into this jar?” He laughed and held out his hand. “Touch it.”
She did. The powder was soft and cool. A few grains stuck to her fingers. “It’s completely dry.”
“Every living creature is made mostly of water.” Holding the jar under his hand, he carefully poured the powder back into the jar. “Have you ever seen an animal carcass that’s been lying in the sun for a few weeks?”
Deborah nodded.
“You could lift it with one hand, because all the water has evaporated, but the good ingredients stay behind. We used to crush the body parts down to fine powder so that the elixirs would come out smooth. Customers didn’t want a lumpy elixir for their good silver.”
“What Kassite gave me was quite lumpy.”
“You didn’t pay much silver for it, did you?”
She blushed.
“In his defense,” Sallan said, “my dear friend didn’t have the tools and staff that I used here. My slaves worked very hard at the millstones.” He replaced the jar on the shelf. “A trader brought this ape to us from the land of tall black people, twice as far as Egypt. We paid fifty silver coins for it, but the lotions and elixirs we were going to make from its parts would have brought in a thousand times more.”
She noticed a small wooden cutout nailed to the end of the shelf, shaped like an ape. “That’s a cute animal.”
“With the personality of a rabid dog and the size of a donkey.” Sallan chuckled. “It took six slaves to hold it down.”
“It was alive?”
“Of course. We never bought dead animals. Merchants don’t know how to dissect the carcass, separate the various organs and body parts, and then dry them in the sun while keeping track of what is which.”
“How did you kill this ape?”
“Gave it a strong sleeping potion and suffocated it with a pillow over the face—the best way to end a life without causing physical damage. Dissection took a whole day, and the parts stayed on the roof to dry for a week while two slaves chased away the scavenger birds with palm fronds. Once everything was totally dry, my slaves ground the parts down to powder.”
“How do you know what’s in each jar?” She counted over fifty jars of various sizes on that particular shelf. “There are so many of them, and the powder inside probably looks the same. Have you memorized everything?”
“The secret to keeping track of many items is to devise a system that’s logical, consistent, and easy to remember. When separating an animal into its parts, we started from the top and went down.” He touched each jar along the shelf while listing the contents. “Scalp, skull, front brain, rear brain, eyes, nose, and so on.”
“What about parts that are at the same level?”
“From right to left and from front to back. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s test you.” He pointed at two jars down the shelf. “Each one contains one of the ape’s hands. Which jar has the left hand?”
Deborah imagined facing the ape when it was still whole. Its left hand would be on her right side. “This one.” She touched the second jar.
“Very good!” He waved at the rest of the shelf. “Everything else is here—the lips, teeth, tongue, every internal organ and every appendage down to the ape’s toes, which look more like our fingers than our toes.”
“I’ve never seen an ape.”
“Would you like to?”
“Of course!”
“Then stay here with us for a while. Soon word will spread that I’m back, and the traveling merchants will start to bring me all kinds of wild animals.”
Checking the ends of the other shelves, Deborah saw small cutouts for other animals, some recognizable, others unfamiliar to her. She touched one of them. “What’s this?”
Looking closely, Sallan’s face lit up. “That was a strange one, also from the land of black people. It was a
young one, looked like an ox with a single horn. The adults apparently grow twice as big, but with very short legs.”
“Only one horn?”
“A huge one that grows on top of the nose.”
“The nose?”
“Like that.” He demonstrated with his hand above his nose. “In a fight, they lower their head to the ground, get below their opponent, and gorge the underbelly. Their skin was very hard to cut, and the internal organs are similar to an ox, but what’s really valuable is the horn.”
“For what?”
“For mixing the Potency Elixir. Rich old men always need help to make their young wives pregnant, and no price is too high for that. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Deborah nodded, thinking of Seesya’s inability to possess her on their wedding night and his explosive rage afterward. To change the subject, she pointed at another shelf-end cutout. “What’s this? It looks like a mouse.”
“The biggest mouse I ever saw. It had yellow teeth and red fur.” Sallan smiled at the memory. “Libyan traders brought it to me, but I’m not sure where they got it. One of my slaves reached into the cage to feed it and lost his finger.”
Deborah covered her mouth. “That’s terrible!”
“And very funny.”
She didn’t think it was funny, but life among the men at the tannery had taught her that men could laugh at things that, to her, seemed cruel, sad, or downright tragic.
“Now I understand why you loved your work,” she said. “All the strange animals and the powers hidden inside their body parts—it’s fascinating. How many different animals do you have here?”
“Over a thousand, many of them bought by my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Through the decades, foreign merchants learned of our interest in strange animals, and we paid generously for their efforts.” Sallan walked along the rows of shelves. “They are in perfect order from large to small, from four-legged to crawlers and snakes, from mountain dwellers to prairie, river, and sea creatures.”
“Logical, consistent, and easy to remember.”
“Exactly. Have you ever seen anything resembling this workshop?”
“No.” Deborah was truly amazed. “Do you need so many ingredients for mixing elixirs?”
“Elixirs to drink, lotions to apply, or aromatic incense to inhale. Most are medicinal, some are for improving life in various ways, and some are still a mystery—an opportunity, really. We’d always experimented with new things to see what results could be achieved.”
The windows along the wall had been covered with heavy linen. He tugged on one of the sheets, and it came down with an explosion of dust and dead moths. Coughing, they hurried outside, where they patted the dust off their robes and breathed in the fresh air. Deborah looked around, worried that the dogs would return.
“Don’t fear them,” Sallan said. “They’re good dogs.”
“They’re like wolves.”
“With dogs and with men, if you cower and show weakness, they will abuse you, but if you stand proud and exude confidence, they will seek your approval.”
“I’m not accustomed to hiding what’s in my heart.”
“Sincerity is a precious quality in friendship, but a disadvantage in dealing with dogs and their human equivalents.”
Deborah laughed. Sallan locked arms with her, and they crossed the small garden to the main house.
“You left the workshop door open,” she said. “And the lamps are still burning.”
“I’m going back there,” he said. “Thank you for accompanying me.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“To the contrary,” Sallan said. “I was too nervous to enter alone after all those years of absence from the workshop. It’s filled not only with shelves, jars, and ingredients, but also with countless memories.”
“Good memories?”
Sallan sighed. “My father was a healer, like his father and grandfather before him. The men in our family never strayed from the holy mission of curing illnesses, injuries, and physical dysfunctions. My father disapproved of my experiments with popular elixirs. In fact, he cringed at the mystical flourishes and magical theatrics I brought to the craft. We argued, but he was a gentle man, and time has a way of settling arguments. For every customer with an aching stomach or a pestilent skin rash, there were a hundred customers seeking a cure for the various effects of aging.” Sallan paused and gestured vaguely. “People used to wait in the front garden for hours until I could see them and offer the particular elixir for their desired effect.”
“And your father?”
“He grew proud of me and my success.” Sallan took a deep breath and sighed. “I added flare and glitz to our tradition, but all the secrets of the craft I learned from him. My father was a gifted teacher. Perhaps that’s the most valuable skill I learned from him, and one day I’ll be able to teach a young apprentice the things I know. It’s a heartwarming prospect, especially now that I’ve reentered the workshop and found it so well kept.”
“Why did you call me to join you?”
“I didn’t know what to expect when I opened that door and walked in, what ghosts would be waiting for me, what destruction unwelcome visitors might have wreaked on our tools and treasured ingredients.” He paused, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Actually, I was afraid to enter.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of finding the answer to a frightening question. I didn’t know whether Qoz had brought me back to close the book on my life peacefully, or to give me an opportunity to launch a fresh beginning, a chance to start a new chapter, a second adventure as the Elixirist. That’s why I was too afraid to go in alone.”
They reached the door to the guest quarters.
“And?” She rested her hand on the door handle. “Did you find the answer?”
“I’m not afraid anymore.” He took the lamp from her. “Good night, and thank you for joining me.”
Deborah opened the door. “Why didn’t you ask Kassite to accompany you?”
Sallan considered her question for a long moment, and when he looked at her above the lamp, his eyes glistened. “He’s as old as I. What’s the point of a fresh beginning at my age if there’s no one to carry on after me?”
Back under her blanket, Deborah wondered what he had meant by those words. Surely Sallan didn’t think that she would make a fitting apprentice for him, did he? A Hebrew girl, masquerading as a boy, to become the future Elixirist and sell skin-softening potions to old women and virility elixirs to old men? The whole idea made her giggle in the darkness.
She curled up, her sack under her head, and fell asleep.
The sense of suffocation had become so familiar that even in her sleep Deborah knew it wasn’t real, because a man with a sword stuck in his chin couldn’t possibly choke her, surely not a week later and a great distance away. She opened her eyes, raised her head, and glanced around the room, faintly illuminated by moonlight through the thin curtains over the window. She saw Kassite and the two boys sleeping soundly.
Resting her head back on her sack, Deborah wished she could stop dreaming about Hashkem. Wasn’t it enough that she thought about the young soldier constantly while awake, filled with guilt and remorse? She would rather dream of flying on the wings of the great eagle, soaring over new places, experiencing new events, and finding new opportunities to interpret the dreams in ways that would help her resolve her nagging doubts about what Yahweh wanted her to do. Should she complete the transformation into a man, go back to fight for Palm Homestead, and serve as God’s prophet, or was her True Calling to follow her mother’s example and abide by Yahweh’s command for the Hebrews to procreate and fill the earth, for which the old healer had made the ultimate sacrifice?
Kassite made a snorting sound in his sleep, similar to the sound he often made to express disdain while awake, and she felt disdain for her new doubts. Hadn’t she worked too hard and suffered too much to give up now? “When you pursue your True Calling, God pro
vides the shortcuts.” How could she doubt Yahweh’s expectations when His divine hand had brought her this far? Here she was, in Bozra, and Sallan was probably measuring out the ingredients right now from jars and bottles in his old workshop, mixing the third dose of the Male Elixir for her. In a few hours, when the sun came up, she would drink it and begin the final phase of her transformation.
Deborah decided to set aside her doubts. Closing her eyes, she imagined she was back at Palm Homestead, lying down for the night at home with her parents and Tamar.
Chapter 33
The eagle soared over the Sea of Salt. The air was warm and pleasant. They approached the shore, and Deborah recognized Ein Gedi. The eagle swept over the mouth of the canyon. A pile of rocks near the locals’ huts told her they had kept their promise and buried Soosie’s bones. Completing a full circle, the eagle passed above Miriam’s grave by the plum tree and descended very low over the stream. She saw Hashkem lying underwater, looking up, her sword stuck under his beard, the blade glinting through his open mouth. Deborah grasped the feathers on the eagle’s neck and pulled hard, making the huge bird ascend sharply and fly away, high over the Sea of Salt. She took a deep breath, and a sense of relief washed over her at avoiding being choked yet again by the man she had killed.
“Do not kill,” a voice said beside her.
Deborah turned and saw Hashkem sitting on the wing, his beard fluttering in the wind, the bronze hilt of her old sword sticking out from under his chin.
She scooted away from him onto the other wing, as far as she dared before falling off. “What are you doing here?”
“Where you go, I go.” He grasped the hilt and tried to pull out the sword, but it wouldn’t budge.
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