The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

  “Did she say anything about me?” Shirah asked.

  I thought it best not to reveal the bitterness inside the truth. “Nothing. She only sent her gratitude.”

  Shirah laughed, but her dark eyes revealed her worry. “Her gratitude is a curse. Remember that.”

  I WENT DIRECTLY to Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s house. From where I stood, I could hear the men at work in the fields even though the light was fading into pink bands that struck the white, dusty earth, turning it red. The men had brought buckets of water from the cisterns, attempting to save the crop of wheat, for still there had been no rain. The bees in the hives were usually swarming at this time of year; they dove through the air searching for blossoms, white narcissus and pink cyclamen. But this season they found none. Channa let me in when I arrived and quickly took the cure from me. I told her that she must never add to the mixture, and that the flame must be kept constant; too much heat would take away the strength of the cure. In return, she promised she would speak to the guards. Then she hesitated.

  “Is the slave the child’s father?” she wanted to know.

  “This child has no father,” I said.

  She motioned for me to turn the child into her arms, but I held tightly to the baby as I stood inside the hallway that was intricately patterned with black and white tiles. Voices echoed here. Annoyed, Channa motioned to me again. I knew what she wanted. I thought of Shirah’s warning, but I understood what it was like to long for a child. How could Channa bewitch us or harm us? She was a slight, weak woman who lived under a cloud of illness. I didn’t think it would hurt to please her for a moment. I placed Arieh in her arms. Instantly, she was overcome by his charm. “Perhaps he needs a father,” she said with yearning.

  I quickly took him from her, shifting him back into my arms. “He has a mother,” I informed her. “He needs nothing more.”

  Channa smiled then. “Everyone needs more.”

  THOUGH WE ALL joined in to gather what little food we might spare, it was decided that Yael should be the one to continue to visit the Man from the North.

  “He was always your slave,” Aziza decreed.

  Yael looked up, hurt. “No man should be so.”

  The next time she went to the tower they unlocked the door and allowed her to sit beside him. She was flooded with anger, appalled at the crude, filthy conditions of his incarceration. She would not say any more other than that when he leaned his head into her lap, and she stroked him where they had shorn his hair in such a cruel fashion, there were still beads of blood along his scalp. She brought a poultice of aloe and honey, the same remedy she had used for Arieh’s mark, and if the salve did not ease his pain, at least it brought him the knowledge that someone had wished to do so.

  Channa had kept her part of the bargain, she was honest enough in that. I hoped the slave’s well-being was worth the price that was being paid, for every time in this month of the scorpion when Yael went to see the slave I brought the baby to Ben Ya’ir’s house and let Channa hold him in her arms. I was wary and careful. I never once let him out of my sight. Each time I reminded Ben Ya’ir’s wife that this child had a mother.

  I told myself she was listening to me, but in truth, she hadn’t heard a word.

  OUR WORLD was punished by thirst. At this time of year, in the month of Kislev, we expected a greening of the land, fields that were seeded and watered, melons and gourds already growing on the vines, figs pollinated by Egyptian wasps. This season was different. There would be no cumin or coriander or leeks or anise. The fruit trees were bare and black.

  Though the days were bleak and we wore our cloaks, there was no sign of the much needed rain. It was time to scatter seeds for the spring, then plow the fields to bury them, the donkeys pulling metal blades across the earth. The men ordinarily cut down the barley, which would then be tied into sheaves and spread in the field so that the livestock could walk over the stalks to thresh them. But without rain, what good would this do? To winnow the barley, the wind was needed to blow the chaff off the grain, and the air now was lifeless and dull. Seed must be set down during times of rain so it would be trapped in the earth rather than dry up and shrivel before it could take root.

  The men from the synagogue called for public atonement and fasting in the hope that their sacrifice might cause the rain to fall. We were summoned to the plaza to pray for forgiveness. The women stayed in the back, so we could care for the children and the animals if need be. The men gathered together, forsaking their duties and chores, a sea of prayer beneath the unrelenting sky. The high priest, Menachem ben Arrat, usually cloistered inside the synagogue, where he studied and gave advice, now came to stand upon the wall and lead the men in prayer. But as learned as he was, he could not make it rain, not even when he buried twelve lead jars with ceramic stoppers beneath the synagogue walls to keep demons from escaping into our midst.

  It was decided that our people would fast until God sent relief to us. The drought became a hammer, and our people’s thirst was a nail beneath that hammer. Some of the older men were so weakened by hunger by the second day of the fast that they fell to their knees, but they continued to pray even then, their shawls around their shoulders, chanting to a heaven that would not answer their prayers but gave them only dust in return.

  The fast was called off after three days. Nothing had changed. We had no choice but to wait for God to see our plight. The leaves of the grapevines curled up. The olives grew white then dropped from the trees, clattering onto the stones. People began to whisper about the water the Essenes used for their rituals. Guards were posted near the goat house to see what rites performed there might call for water. So as not to bring attention to themselves, our guests asked for no more. Instead they took to reusing their water until the drops they laid upon their heads to purify themselves were as black as the feathers of ravens.

  When Yael thought no one noticed, she pilfered some of the water we were to use for the doves. Some she gave to the slave, the rest I helped her carry to the stone house to place in her friend Tamar’s hands. We brought some withered fruit and olives as well. Nahara approached us shyly. Shirah’s younger daughter appeared to have become a grown woman, serious, dressed in white, her hands hardened by work. She asked after her sister but said nothing of her mother. I noticed that she glanced at the gold amulet Yael wore at her throat, then just as quickly looked away.

  In return for the gifts of sustenance we had brought, Tamar gave us a length of the pure white linen their women had woven. We covered our table at the Sabbath with the fabric when we lit our lamp and said the Sabbath prayers. Once we had arranged the linen on our table, we could almost believe our poor chamber was a home like any other.

  ONE EVENING as I made my way to the looms, I saw Ben Ya’ir walking in the orchard through a white mirage of billowing dust. He had returned from his journeys into the desert, his warriors bringing back nothing but wild birds they had trapped with nets, as young girls might have. Our provisions were lower than they’d ever been, our people distraught. I could see the weight our leader carried on his shoulders from his posture, the fate of us all resting upon his words and deeds.

  Where another might have seen only darkness, I noticed the shadow of Ben Ya’ir’s wife, watching. I had begun to know her from my visits with Arieh, when we sat together exclaiming over his charms. She made the baby laugh with a show of silly faces while she bounced him on her knee. I had come to understand that Channa had a wall around her meant to keep others out. Yet every now and then, I saw the curl of a smile upon her lips. When she spoke Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s name, her face transformed, and I could imagine her as the girl she had been. Her love for her husband was evident, though she seemed as far away from him as the rest of us.

  I realized that, as he walked, Ben Ya’ir was gazing in the direction of Shirah’s house. He was drawn there as the hawks were drawn to the dovecotes. It seemed he had called to her, for Shirah stepped into the liquid heat of the evening. She wore no veil, and she lift
ed up her hair as though to cool herself. When Ben Ya’ir went to her, he placed his hand upon her throat, for she clearly belonged to him. They stood in deepest confidence, heads together.

  If I could see what was between them, surely Channa could as well. I turned to her, but in the instant I had looked away, she’d vanished from the plaza. She ran so fast that her shadow was left behind. I followed it as the shade chased after its mistress, slinking over the cobblestones. At last I spied our leader’s wife winding her way back to her chambers, the palace where Herod’s son had lived once, a son the king had murdered when it suited him to do so, when he placed his needs before all others, as men in power often do.

  As she reached a hillock, I saw Channa glance back at Shirah’s house. Her eyes were bitter and black. She held one hand at her chest, for once again she could not breathe. Yet she remained there, though it was the season when she was known to lock herself away, for the hyssop was blooming—it was the single flower that could survive a season without water. In that instant, as her shadow fastened itself to her flesh, I realized that Channa was the sort of woman who was willing to do anything to keep her husband.

  It came to me that, of all the spells known on earth, a child was the one ingredient that could bind a man to a woman in ways only the angels could understand.

  WHEN I NEXT went to see Ben Ya’ir’s wife, I did not bring Arieh. I had rethought our bargain and realized my error. Channa’s face registered disappointment. Her eyes flashed as they had when I’d seen her on the hillock without her shadow.

  “He was cranky,” I told her. “A tooth is coming in.”

  If anything this news made her even more eager to see him. “Poor thing,” she whispered. “If only I could hold him, I could soothe his pain.”

  I felt a chill when I saw her expression. I wondered if the pact I’d made with her had given too much away in order to help the Man from the North. The next time I went I told her Arieh was too heavy for me to carry, he was growing so fast, and I could not bring him with me again. She said nothing. Not even good-bye. She showed me to the door and closed it behind me. I heard the lock clack shut.

  Not long after, I saw her prowling along the wall near our chamber. It was dark, but I recognized her. I was surprised to see her there, she who kept to herself and usually avoided the plaza. But such things are known to happen; what is sweet draws out what is sour, as the good, in all their innocence, beckon the wicked. They say that Lilith has thirteen demons to assist her when she wishes to steal a baby. One of them is the Night herself, cloaked in starry black, able to vanish in an instant in the breaking light of day, yet still lingering without a shadow outside the door.

  AT LAST Shirah fashioned the charm for my grandsons. I had been patient, and my patience was rewarded. Now that the time had come, I was anxious, for this was my last hope. Beyond that hope lay a cliff, and then nothing more than the unforgiving air. The charm was an incantation bowl, a beautiful, delicate piece of pottery, the making of which had been taught to Shirah by an ancient Babylonian woman. Upon the dried clay the names of God in Aramaic and in Hebrew had been written. In the center of the bowl there was the black image of a snake-headed demon with wings, shackled with ropes constructed from the letters of God’s name.

  This amulet shall gather voices and bind demons and set angels free to do what they must. In praise of God. Amen Amen Selah.

  She had written these words inside a circle of angels, their wings pitch black, the feathers of ravens.

  To protect and to heal, to return what belongs to the children, to reverse the effect and render the demon without a voice and without power.

  “Place this under the bed and wait. Have patience still,” she instructed me. “One ingredient is missing. Because of that this bowl is powerless. I myself cannot say what is missing, but when it appears, you’ll know. Be quick to add it into the bowl and your son-in-law will have his wish.”

  I was nothing but a baker’s wife, a mother without a daughter, a fool who had placed a baby in an envious woman’s hands. How could I possibly recognize the most important ingredient of all?

  “You’ll know because it will come on the day I am in irons,” Shirah told me.

  THE MEN who practiced magic took to the plaza one dusty day. It was the end of winter and the drought continued. Our people seemed cursed. The priest and the rabbis had failed, and now the minim who practiced outside the laws of the Temple claimed that by casting arrows they could divine the cause of the drought. People believed them because there was little else to believe. They were parched, beaten down, desperate for water. Surely someone was to blame for our anguish. The crowd gathered around those practitioners who claimed to have access to God’s truth. The men circled near, and behind them came the women, and then the children with sticks and stones in their hands. There was a line of fury on the ground, slithering forth. Someone would be blamed, we all felt that. Our people wanted more than a demon. They wanted flesh and blood, someone to turn against, someone on earth.

  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 sa
w 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.

  Now that she had been freed, the shackles loosened, Shirah grabbed for a stick and formed a circle in the dust.

  “You wanted me here,” I overheard her say to Ben Ya’ir. “Was it not for this, cousin?”