The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman [55]
Shirah now commanded the housemaid to crouch upon the birthing stool she had brought along, and to bear down. Still there was nothing. The housemaid was so young she seemed little more than a child at this moment. She cursed not the man who was the father but herself. I felt something rise in my chest and throat as I surveyed a birth that would not come to pass. I had Ben Simon’s knife in my tunic, cold against my skin. I thought of the knife that had been used to take me from my mother, and her great echoing cries, and the silence of her last breath.
Shirah came to me and shook me. “Stop dreaming! Go to the dovecote and get me a basket of droppings.”
It was broiling hot inside the storeroom, and Shirah was drenched. Her black hair streamed down her back. The kohl around her eyes was melting so that her eyes seemed to stare out from behind a veil. I thought I had never seen anyone as beautiful or as fierce. Her tunic had been flung open, and I was shocked to see a swirl of red tattoos on her shoulders, a practice that was forbidden to our people. Those who had been marked so were said to belong to the kedeshah, holy women who were loyal to religious groups with practices so secret and controversial they had been outlawed long before Jerusalem fell.
“Go on!” Shirah demanded. “If this woman had anyone else to turn to, do you think she’d be here? She has no one, only a man who wants nothing to do with her and a baby who refuses to leave her womb.”
The faster I did as Shirah said, the faster I would be back in my own chamber, away from this mad scene. I went recklessly through the hallways, which seemed a series of dungeons, black as pitch, for I had no lamp. At last I reached the doorway that led me into the night. There was a pale moon, and the lemon-tinged light was nearly blinding after the dim air of the storehouse. Still, no one noticed as I ran to the dovecote, my footsteps silent on the granite stones. I unlocked the door, then made my way among the birds as they fluttered about, surprised to have been disturbed at such a late hour. I began to fill the basket, frantic, my blood racing.
It was then I saw the slave. His chain reached from the loft where he slept down to the floor. He had been awakened when the door to the dovecote was thrown open, ready to defend himself if our warriors had come to mutilate him, or murder him, or trade him to nomads. I had completely forgotten about him. I could hear my own panicked, raspy breathing. Tears that did not fall were burning behind my vision. Our eyes caught. We looked at each other much as two animals who had met at a pool might have, both thirsty and mistrustful, both perfectly capable of violence. After a moment, the slave nodded for me to continue what it was I’d come for. He sank down and lowered his eyes, so they seemed like slits. He pretended to be sleeping, his back against the stones. I was grateful and told him so. Whether or not he could speak our language did not matter. He gazed up, and I could tell he understood.
I finished my gathering, then locked the dovecote and ran back the way I had come. There were almond blossoms falling from the trees, and the ground looked white. I thought of snow, and of manna, and of Jerusalem. I thought of the slave crouched down among the doves. My breath hit against my bones.
Shirah was waiting for me, pacing the floor. She had piled her long, sleek hair atop her head and had thrown off her veils. With a fine-edged pen made from a hawk’s feather, using blood rather than ink, she had written the name of our Lord on her arms, the letters reading upward, leading to heaven. She had concocted pharmaka from the precious leaves of the rue, an herb most