The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [167]
I wanted to command him, but I knew Amram wasn’t a man who would do a woman’s bidding. It was I who must make certain my brother remained safe. I made a vow to myself as I stood there in the plaza, though I said nothing to Amram. Adir would not be among them when the next raiding party went out. I would make sure of it.
When Amram set out to fight, another warrior would walk beside him.
I ASKED for her favor, and Yael did not deny me, for I was the one who had placed her son back in her arms. I had snatched him from the sinister woman who wished so desperately to be his mother she had convinced herself that she was. Yael waited for me in the plaza, where heat waves rose from the earth, the baby at her hip. Since Arieh had been returned to her, she refused to let him out of her sight for long. If she needed help and Revka and I were at work at the dovecote, she would occasionally leave him with her father, who had taken a liking to the child. He had made amends with Yael in the way he cherished her son. Perhaps he thought he had a second chance to forge another warrior. I’d overheard Revka ask why Yael allowed this man to be included in her son’s life when he’d been so cruel to her. Yael said he was a changed man now, beaten down by the desert and by his age.
“When I see him with Arieh,” Yael admitted, “I see the man he might have been had he not lost the one he loved most in this world.”
Arieh’s safety was assured while he was in the care of a grandfather who had been among the great Sicarii of Jerusalem, for the assassin’s knife was still hidden within his cloak, even though he was now delegated to clean weapons. It was he I wanted to see, and I asked Yael to lead me to his chamber. The assassin had disapproved of me as unworthy of his son. Perhaps Yael imagined I wished to win him over. But a man such as he could not be easily convinced, and in fact I wanted no such thing.
“You remember Aziza,” Yael said to her father.
Yosef bar Elhanan looked up, appraising me with a cool glance. I wondered how many men he had murdered, if the rush of blood had ever humbled him or made him seek forgiveness. He took the baby on his lap, then nodded. “The shedah,” he said.
He meant to insult me, but I smiled prettily. Such things as smiles can be weapons as well.
Yael went to make tea, though she feared leaving me at her father’s mercy.
“I’m used to such men,” I assured her, for indeed I knew that among men words were not nearly as perilous as the ones women spoke.
The assassin ignored me and tended to the child with unexpected affection. I leaned forward so only Bar Elhanan would hear, for what I was about to say was far too intimate a request for anyone passing by to overhear.
“I want you to teach me to be invisible,” I told him.
The old man had been jiggling Arieh on his knees, much to the baby’s delight. I half-expected him to feign deafness when I informed him of what I wanted, but he was curious when I made my request and couldn’t resist knowing more. He stared at me rudely, giving me no more respect then he would a common zonah.
“Why would I do this?” he asked.
“So I can protect your son and my own brother.”
“My son is lost to me because of you.”
I knew distance still remained between Bar Elhanan and his son, but I wasn’t afraid to talk back to him and stand my ground. If I slunk away under the heat of his words, he would never respect me.
“If he’s lost to you, it’s because you’re too lazy to go and find him.”
The assassin chuckled and shook his head sadly. “True. I shut the door to him, and now I wonder why he doesn’t walk through it.”
I had hit upon his heart, for it turned out that he had one, so I dared to continue.
“I want to take my brother’s place, for it should have been my place to begin with.”
The assassin snorted a laugh. His weathered face showed only amusement. He seemed to believe I was there to entertain him with foolish tales. He would have begun to admonish me to keep