The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [121]
“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