“Tell him our wish,” Shirah said without hesitancy. “He will be generous to us.”
But Ben Ya’ir had gone into the wilderness with his warriors, leaving no second in command other than the elders, and they would surely not listen to Shirah’s pleas or even allow her to come within their doors.
We were told there was but one person who might convince the authorities that the Man from the North deserved a visitor—Ben Ya’ir’s wife, Channa, the dark woman who lived in the lower section of the Western Palace, a villa in which the frescoes had been created by master painters from Rome. She held some of her husband’s authority when it came to domestic matters, hearing complaints about living space or work allotments among the women. She was revered even though she set herself apart from all others. For days at a time she refused to open her door; her ration of food was brought to her, then left outside her gate, her water set beside her garden in buckets and goatskin flasks. She ventured out at night and was sometimes seen in the Western Plaza, flowing scarves wrapped around her that resembled a shroud, her sharp face set in mourning, although she had lost no one. She was a mystery and a shadow, but shadows were what I understood most of all.
When we stated our plea, the guard asked who among us would visit Ben Ya’ir’s wife. I could feel the others’ hesitation, and even Shirah turned away, wary of such an encounter. I found myself offering to go. I was the eldest, and because of this it was my duty. But there was more. I was the diviner of shadows who had learned not to show what was inside. I could pretend to be a baker’s widow, a simple woman, and held a talent of disguise that would help with this task. The other women looked upon me, grateful for my offer, each with her own reasons for not wanting to go to the palace.
As I was to leave, on impulse, I decided to bring Arieh with me. I had a premonition. I thought I heard a voice say his name. Perhaps the angel who had stood with me in the bakery was beside me again. Perhaps he who had instructed me to take up the vial of poison now murmured that this child might be the key to unlock a prison door.
“Who could deny a smile to Arieh?” I said to Yael. “What harm can it do?”
Ben Ya’ir’s wife might take an interest in the welfare of the dovecotes if she took an interest in the baby. If so, she might allow us to visit a man who was nothing more than a stone, but who all the same had entrusted us with his name.
WHEN I RAPPED upon the palace door, the great man’s wife was quick to call Go away. I set to knocking once more. I’d often needed to call upon customers who had forgotten to pay the Baker; I did not give up easily when told to leave. The door of this grand house was made of red cypress, which I took to be a good omen. Our town in the Valley of the Cypresses was said to have been blessed by the angel Michael; perhaps the wood used for this door had come from our forest and had therefore been blessed as well. My mother’s great-grandmother might have walked beneath this very tree’s branches before King Herod’s builders cut it to the ground.
Arieh squirmed in my arms. A wind was blowing and all at once I had a chill. Perhaps I’d made a mistake to bring the baby, for he was usually so good-natured and calm. Now, in the light of the dwindling day, he fussed as never before. I wondered how a woman could ever know if it was an angel who urged her on, or if one of Lilith’s demons was whispering in her ear.
Though I fretted and worried that I had made a mistake, I knocked yet again. There were no shadows because of the clouds rushing past; perhaps that was what led me astray. I could read shadows far better than I could read flesh and blood.
Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s wife opened the door a crack to peer out. She was thin and dark with a restless expression. “I have no time for you,” she told me.
She would have gone on with her excuses and perhaps managed to send me away, but her eye caught on the baby in my arms. He grinned at her, the flame mark on his cheek hardly noticeable in the dim light of the doorway. It looked like the imprint of a kiss.
“Who’s this who’s come to call?” Ben Ya’ir’s wife asked, her interest piqued.
“This is a child whose mother needs your favor,” I replied.
Channa was aloof again. “I have no favor to grant. My husband is the one you want, not me.”
When she breathed in, I heard a rasping sound. I wondered if her labored intake of air was the reason she often locked herself away and was so rarely seen among other women. She turned and coughed, bringing up blood, which she hid from me in her scarf. But I had caught sight of the shadow of the stain. It was clear that she had a breathing disease, the sort that forced a person to forsake the open air. Each breath was trapped inside the cage of her ribs and could not be released. It lay there, rattling, like dry leaves caught in a net.