The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [204]
He was still her brother, willing to listen to her demands. He spoke with the guard, who let us slip out the gate. The daylight had stretched itself into long shadows, which allowed us to press ourselves against the cliffs and go forth unseen. I had meant to be alone, but now I had no choice in the matter. Perhaps it was fitting that Yael should accompany me, for she had learned the spells my mother had taught me and would have no fear of what we must accomplish.
We made our way along the hillside together, then slunk down toward a damp ravine between two caves. Once, gathering kindling nearby, I had spied bunches of fragrant pink blooms set upon spindly green limbs. They were wild cousins of the rhododendron, a flower my mother had pointed out in Alexandria so that she might warn me of its dangers. Like the ba’aras root, which could draw out an enemy’s soul, the leaves and roots of the rhododendron were forbidden but often used for pharmaka in matters of love and of revenge. Of all the parts of this toxic plant, the flowers were the most potent.
We crouched low and listened well, the mud of the nachal slippery under our bare feet. We were protected by the wind. It seemed we were in another world entirely, one in which we might remember how beautiful the wilderness could be. We would soon be approaching the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the sun was strong for the season. The rhododendron flower was the potion I had come to find, one I did not need to concoct or create, for it was already part of creation. Spells and charms were not enough to protect my beloved. It was poison I needed.
I held up my hand so that Yael might bend her ear toward the echo that rumbled nearby. Beneath the never-ending noise of the Romans, rising up as they toiled with shovels and picks, was the sound of bees. In spring they often swarmed in these hills, traveling here from Egypt for the last flowering of the desert before the heat arrived. We followed the buzzing to a fallen log, wherein yellow honey was dripping forth, what some among us call debas, and others refer to as manna. The food of the bees was often salvation to those in the desert, praised by man and beast alike. But this honey was like no other, for it was gathered from the deadly pink flowers that grew in the ravine; only a small taste would drive a man mad for hours, perhaps for days.
I shrugged off my cloak and insisted Yael stand back. I alone was safe from the bees’ stinging wrath, for I had poured salt upon my skin, so that they would not light upon me as I reached inside the log to draw out the honeycomb. Before our warriors went to destroy the ramp of the Romans, the soldiers of the legion partaking of this tainted honey would be maddened. When evening fell, they would not be able to divine whether they were dreaming or if indeed our men had fallen upon them. In their confusion, like men made drunk, they would fail to draw their swords.
Yael and I huddled beside a cliff as bees circled around the honeycomb. I sprinkled salt upon it, forcing the bees to float away, back to the deadly pink flowers, where they gathered more nectar. When I described my intentions, Yael was not surprised. She admitted that she had come in search of me, for she had heard a voice calling to her, telling her what she must do. She was the one who would bring the poison to our enemy. That was the reason she had chosen to leave Arieh with her father, and why she’d dressed in the assassin’s cloak, slipping it from a hook in his chamber to serve as her armor, flimsy and thin as it might be. When she drew it over her head, she all but disappeared before me. The cloth was the color of the pale sky, and of the stones, and of the thin sunlight that fell upon us. Even her scarlet hair faded beneath the hood; her face disappeared and became a mist.
I had planned to deposit the tainted manna for the Romans, but Yael insisted the voice had spoken to her for a reason. I did not wish to let her go, or to be the