The Dovekeepers

  I put my arms around my warrior and drew him near to me and gave myself up to him. I hadn’t the strength for battle anymore. I wanted a world that was beautiful, and on this night, he was tender with me in a way he hadn’t been before, perhaps because he had seen me weep before my sister. He treated me not like a warrior but like a woman. I knew this was his way of telling me that the world was terrible and that I should prepare myself for what was to come. But I had decided to disregard such fears, as I had cast away my mother’s warning that love would undo me. None of that mattered now. We were both wounded, disbelievers in everything we had ever known and seen. We had killed together, and buried the fallen together, and chanted prayers meant only for men to recite. We had been together as animals were, desperate and driven by fierce need, and as lovers for whom the rest of the world falls away.

  When we left the cave, morning had opened the far corners of the sky. Dust was rising as the Roman Legion approached. There was a column from the north and another from the east. When the troops joined together, the rising clouds formed not the shape of the boar, the symbol they carried on their banners, but the figure of a lion, the symbol of the ancient tribe of Judah and of the wilderness around us.

  “My name is Rebekah,” I told him as we stood there together.

  As he was Yoav, the Man from the Valley, the love of my life.

  Autumn 72 C.E.

  Part Four

  Winter 73 C.E.

  The Witch of Moab

  We were no different from the doves above us.

  We could not speak or cry, but when there was

  no choice we discovered we could fly. If you

  want a reason, take this: We yearned for our

  portion of the sky.

  My mother taught me everything a woman must know in this world and all it was necessary to carry into the World-to-Come. By the age of eight I had learned that the leaf of a date palm boiled in water was a cure for a scorpion bite, that the nectar of the spiky blue flower of the hyssop dabbed on the wrist would ward off evil, that the burned, powdery skin of a snake would keep a man from harm. I had the tooth of a black dog strung around my neck as a protection against wild beasts and took care to recite an incantation when I dug around the roots of henbane, the holy plant, for I often buried my mother’s amulets as offerings to Ashtoreth, the goddess who watched over us in times of strife.

  My mother trained me in the making of fever charms and victory charms, although she refused to deal in hate spells, used to undermine rivals, something that was lacking in my book of recipes. I knew how to cast charms that would dissolve a spell and those which would cure reptile bites. Bits of silver scrolls and scarabs were sewn into the hems of my garments by my mother’s quick and tireless fingers. Her great beauty was eclipsed only by her great knowledge. Her name was Nisa, and I thought it was the most beautiful word in any language. The word itself was like the rising of the fountain, the rhythm of rain.

  At twilight, when the air in Alexandria grew softly blue, she instructed me in our garden, teaching me Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek, forming the letters in the dirt with a few thrusts of the pointed edge of a stick. No one saw what we did during these lessons, for we did not dwell among the townspeople but in the house of holy women who were available for the priests. In this way we were blessed as well, for the laws that applied to other women did not apply to my mother. Prayers were not forbidden to her, nor was an education, nor was the freedom to allow men into her private chamber.

  The entranceway to our house was lined with lanky hedges of jasmine and scented rose trees. In the evening the city itself seemed to turn blue, as if casting our world underwater. Long shadows spread out upon the terra-cotta bricks of our pathway, so no one could make out who entered our door and who left in the middle of the dusky, fragrant night. These shadows served me as well, for I was as solitary as I was self-reliant. The only witnesses to my instruction and my education were the inchworms and beetles. Even as a very small child, I understood that women had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.

  In the garden, where I learned my letters, there grew a variety of rare white water lily that gave off a perfumed scent at night. These blooms have been my favorites ever since that time. A single one is worth a barrel of balsam or myrrh. The wild red lilies of Moab, glorious as they may be, are weeds when compared to these blossoms, their scent mere air when considered alongside the lilies of Alexandria. My mother rubbed their perfume on her wrists, and because of this no man could deny her.

  While other women were contained within the walled courtyards of their houses, venturing no farther than the marketplace—and then only accompanied by servants or kinswomen—my mother was allowed to do as she pleased. Every spring she made the journey to visit her family in Jerusalem during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was there in that city that my fate awaited me.

  IT IS SAID THAT, after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, two angels offered to enter our world to teach humans the knowledge God would allow us. These angels have eaten meals with humans, fallen in love with them, had sexual relations with them, watched their children be born. Because of this, they can never return to the spirit world. They continue to walk the earth to this day, teaching the wisdom of sorcery to those who yearn to know it. My mother came from a line of women who were willing to listen when the angels began to speak. She kept her most private possessions in a box of carved ironwood, the key to which she wore around her neck on a strand of braided horsehair. The key had been formed into the shape of a snake. When I was a child, it seemed a living thing. Whenever my mother allowed me to hold it in my hand, I could feel it coldly inch across my palm.

  Inside the locked box was a notebook of parchment upon which my mother had written the many secrets she had accumulated over the years. It was a recipe book for the human heart, for our people believe that all we know and all we have experienced is contained there.

  *

  THERE WERE SPELLS on every page of my mother’s diary: For Night Blindness. To Catch a Thief. For Headache. For Fever. For Loyalty. For Love. While other girls were playing with string or with carved wooden animals, I was learning what had been written by my mother, secrets passed down to me that I would one day entrust to a daughter of my own. The spells themselves were transcribed in code, so that no outsider might understand them or fully gauge their power.

  There have always been ancient books of mysteries. Men who practiced magic were teachers who were called abba, fathers blessed by knowledge from The Book of Mysteries. Even Moses himself was said to have what magicians and great teachers call The Moon Book, a collection of magic so strong no other human has ever dared to open the pages, lest he be burned alive by the heat of the words within. There were those who said that Moses could make the sea disappear and that he could have destroyed the whole world had he wished to, or if God had called upon him to do so. Noah, too, had a book of incantations. The voice of an angel in The Book of Jubilees recounts that the angels themselves taught Noah all manner of secrets so that he might use the herbs of the earth to heal his sons. Among men it was rumored there was a priceless treasure called The Book of Watchers, which offered direct instructions from the Almighty, a mystical treatise so complicated, so hidden and wrapped within riddles, only the wisest sage could begin to understand its meaning.

  This was the work of men, of scholars and priests. There were two schools of magic men were privy to, that which the priests practiced publicly, the exorcisms and curses and blessings, and the lesser works crafted by the minim, men, be they sages or magicians, who offered magic for payment outside the synagogues. Beyond that, in secret, in the dark, there was the magic women practiced behind locked doors, with our recipe books of pharmaka, our medicines, and philtrons, our love potions. Women had secret uses for ashes, green bay leaf, blood, sulfur, myrrh, musk, honey, oil and flowers, along with the roots of plants such as the mandrake, yavrucha, and that
of the ba’aras, often called wondershine, red hot and aflame when pulled from the earth. At the Temple it had been decreed that no one should tolerate a sorceress, for such magic was said to be the work of harlots, their wickedness set beneath a mantle of wisdom they should not be allowed. There were ten varieties of wise men known but only two kinds of women who might hear the voice of the Almighty: prophetesses and witches.

  For women who practiced in secret, there was no one but Him, our God, the radiant one, who was far greater than any magician. But we did not agree with the rules of men, and we ignored certain decrees, even though the sort of magic women such as my mother were known for was outside the law and therefore considered to be a sin.

  We knew why this was so, and why our great goddess, Ashtoreth, both a warrior and a seer, had been defiled and warned against in writings that followed the Prophets. Ashtoreth’s presence was denied to us, the images of her form melted down into pools of silver and brass, the cakes we made in her image outlawed, the trees we decorated in her honor torn down long ago. The expulsion of the Queen of Heaven had occurred for the same reason that Samson had once lost every bit of his strength; it was the reason men burned their hair and nails, lest such tokens be used against them in any woman’s spell. Women who practiced keshaphim were considered witches and punished as such, cast out, burned, defiled. They were powerful and dangerous, and no man wanted such a creature near to him, except perhaps in his bed for a night before he rid the world of her.

  Surely this is why women did not often write down their knowledge, to make certain it couldn’t be found out and used against them. We told each other our magical recipes, just as we confided the best ways to make a cake of figs, a broth of bones, a stew of apples and honey that would be sweeter than any other. We did not discuss our methods, or make our talents public, yet other women knew. The truth was written upon us, as they say men’s sins are written on their bones so that when they die their wicked deeds can be read as if written upon parchment.

  We can offer women what they want most of all, cures for the most common ailments of this world. When a marriage is not blessed and demons have attached themselves to a household, a dissolution of the marriage can be found in a spell, which is a legal document of divorce. I drive you out of their houses, and you should not appear to them, not even in dreams, for I dismiss you and release you by deed of divorce, a letter of dismissal according to the law of the women of Israel.

  When children are ailing or babies refuse to be born, when men are unfaithful, when the sky is empty of rain, when the amulets buried beneath holy walls upon instructions of the minim offer no solace and all entreaties to the priests for guidance fail, when the rituals they offer bring no comfort and no consolation, they come to us.

  AS A GIRL in Alexandria, I often watched my mother leaf through her notebook when I was meant to be asleep on the pallet at the foot of her bed, which was worthy of a queen, raised off the floor and covered by a fine linen cloth, threaded with strands of purple and gold. My mother looked fierce in the half-light, her black hair falling down her back. In the evenings she burned balsam in an earthenware bowl. The smoke that spiraled up toward the ceiling was pale, much like the inner feathers of a dove’s wing. The scent was of lands far away, where the fields were always green and acacia trees grew. My mother had been chosen to go to Alexandria and live among a sect of Greeks and Jews because she was so beautiful and so learned. Because of this she wore secret tattoos imprinted on her skin, intricate designs fashioned with sharpened reeds that had been dipped in henna. These proclaimed her status as a kedeshah. After her initiation, she often kept herself hidden, for although her status was revered among many in Alexandria, the Temple in Jerusalem outlawed such practices.

  The women who joined in this way of life believed that few were closer to Shechinah than the kedeshah. They embraced the feminine aspect of God, the Dwelling, the deep place where inspiration abided, for in the written words of God, compassion and knowledge were always female. This is why the lilies grew in my mother’s garden and why she was allowed knowledge of Hebrew and Greek and could converse with any man.

  When the priests came to visit, I was sent from the house, and I would go into the garden. Among the hedges, there grew the white blooms of the henna flower that turned a mysterious, sacred shade of red when prepared as a dye. I often spent my time beside a small fountain fashioned of blue and white ceramic tiles. I was not pleased to be sent from my mother, but I occupied myself, a skill learned by children who must sometimes act older than their age. The water lilies rested on plump green pads that trailed pale, fleshy tendrils below them in the waters of the fountain. Birds came to drink, offering their songs in return for quenching their thirst. My mother had told me to be silent, and I did as she asked. I practiced until I could sit so still I became invisible to the birds that fluttered down from the pine trees. Often they would alight on my shoulders and on my knees. I could feel their nimble hearts beating as they sang in sheer gratitude for the shade and comfort of our garden.

  Once, when I was little more than four, I was sent out for several hours in the burning-hot sun. I was so angry to have been cast out of our chamber into the brutal heat of noon that I threw myself into the fountain. The ceramic tiles were cool and slippery on my feet. In my childish fury, I leapt without thinking of the consequences. The instant I did, the heat of the day disappeared. I held my breath as I went under. With the green water all around me, I immediately felt I had found a home. This was the element I was meant for. The world itself spun upside down, and yet it seemed more mine than any other place. I wanted to close my eyes and drift forever. I saw bubbles formed of my own breath. All at once someone grabbed for me roughly. The priest ripped me out of the water. He shook me and told me that little girls who played with water drowned and that no one would feel sorry for me if this should be my fate.

  But I hadn’t drowned, and I looked up at him, defiant and dripping with water. I could feel a new power within me, one that gave me the courage to glare at this holy man. I could see my mother’s glance focused on me in a strange manner, her gaze lingering on my drenched form from the doorway where she stood. Her hair was loose, and she was wearing only a white shawl wrapped around her naked body. The henna tattoos swirling across her throat and breasts and arms were drawn in honeyed patterns, as if she were a flower rather than a woman.

  Not long after my dive into the fountain, my mother took me to the Nile. It was here, on the shore of the mightiest river, that Moses had inscribed God’s name upon gold, throwing it into the waters, begging the Almighty to allow the Exodus of our people to begin. It was a long journey to undertake, but my mother insisted we must go. Our servants brought us there in a cart pulled by donkeys. A tent was lifted over our heads to protect our skins from burning as we traveled. We set off in the middle of the night so that the voyage would be cooler. We rested during the heat of the next day, then set off once again. As I dozed I listened to the wheels of our cart and the drone of our servants speaking to each other in Greek, the language we all spoke publicly, whether we were Jews or Egyptians, pagans or Greeks. Our donkeys were white and well brushed, their gait even and quick. We had fruit in a basket to eat whenever we were hungry, along with cakes made of dates and figs. I wondered if I were a princess, and my mother a queen. The air gleamed with heat, but the closer we drew to the river, the cooler the breeze became.

  Morning was rising, and people were already busy in the working world around us. The mass of life was noisy on the road to the river, the air scented with cinnamon and cardamom. There were pepper trees and date palms that were taller than any I’d seen before. I felt a shimmer of excitement, and great satisfaction at being alone with my mother. For once I did not have to share her. She allowed me to play with the two golden amulets she wore at her throat, and the serpent key that gleamed in the sunlight.

  My mother wore a white tunic and sandals. She had oiled and braided her own hair and mine, as she would have had we been a
ttending a ritual to make an offering. As we drew even nearer to the river, the hour was still early, the sky pink. There was the rich scent of mud and lilies. Women had brought baskets of laundry to wash and then dry on the banks, and men were setting out in narrow, flat-bottomed wooden fishing boats, their oars turning as they called to one another, their woven nets flashing through the air as they tossed them out for their catch.

  My mother leaned down to whisper that we had arrived at our destination. She told me that, if water was indeed my element, I must learn to swim with my eyes open. I must control it or it would control me. To take charge of a substance so powerful, one had to give in to it first, become one with it, then triumph. We went through the reeds, though they were sharp as they slapped against us, leaving little crisscross serrations on our legs in a pattern of X’s. I saw herons and storks fishing for their breakfasts. Our feet sank in the mud, and as we went deeper our tunics flowed out around us.

  The Nile always grew fat after the full moon in summer, its water a great gift in a time of brutal heat. I could feel how refreshing and sweet it was. I had never known the sense of true delight, how intense pleasure coursed through your body slowly, and then, suddenly, in a rush of sensation. All at once you possessed the river, as it possessed you in turn. I had the sense that I belonged to these waters and always had.

  “Now we’ll discover who you will be,” my mother said to me, eager to see what her daughter might become.