“She stops where the black viper lives on the rocks and makes an offering,” they confided. “She feeds the baby from her fingers, filling him with figs and pomegranates and barley cakes as though he were a dove. She tells him he is so sweet the bees will follow him.”
The older boy, Noah, looked much like his father, the Man from the Valley, the warrior who kept to himself, a fighter I was curious about. Amram had told me this man could not be turned away by bloodshed, plunging into the fray when anyone else would have retreated, and wisely so. He took risks only a madman would take on, courting the Angel of Death, calling out, daring Mal’ach ha-Mavet to appear before him as he wielded his rough-hewn ax, the only weapon he had need of. His brothers in battle admired him, they spoke of him with respect, even awe, but they did not wish to stand beside him. They knew that he who is without a fear of death is the most dangerous man of all.
What makes a dangerous woman, however, was not always so apparent, for what is unnoticeable to the human eye is often the most deadly attribute. What is hidden can destroy you. Demons appeared in the dark, when you least expected betrayal, when your eyes were closed. Because my mother refused to confront Channa, I wondered what this dark woman’s power over her might be. I studied Channa, and still I saw a weak creature, but one who had woven a strong web.
“Our leader’s wife whispers to Arieh that she alone protects him,” Revka’s grandsons told us. “She warns him against the women who wait at the wall. She tells him he must never listen to the one named Yael, that she will tell him lies and will beseech him to think he belongs to her.”
Yael grew ashen upon hearing these slanderous words, the marks on her face standing out as though she’d been dashed with blood. Still she sent the boys to discover more. They crept through the garden beside the palace, making their way past the mint and marjoram and sage, slinking as close as they dared. The boys had spied Channa waiting for her husband at the door with the baby in her arms, as though Arieh was an offering.
“And what does her husband say to this?” Yael wanted to know when Revka’s grandsons told of the situation, her voice sharp.
“He walks past her,” Noah remarked. “He never looks at her.”
When Yael heard this, she nodded, pleased. She was thin and agitated, yet doing her best to convince herself that the child would be returned to her. “What’s done can be undone,” she told us.
I didn’t offer an opinion, but I had heard my mother say the very same thing upon my sister’s marriage day, and Nahara was still bound to her husband. I was not certain that our lives were so similar to thread, able to be unspooled, then gathered up again.
ONE EVENING as I kept watch along with Revka and Yael, we saw the great man himself entering his chambers. My mother refused to come with us; she had offered a warning and had been ignored. I noticed she turned pale when Channa’s name was mentioned. She was not among us when we recognized Ben Ya’ir’s broad shoulders and his prayer shawl and how proudly he walked, much as a king might, though in fact he cared to own nothing on this earth and had cast away his possessions when he observed the greed of the wealthy in Jerusalem. His wife might sleep in the palace, but Eleazar ben Ya’ir remained outside under the stars or went to the barracks to spend his nights there so that his warriors would know he was no different than those he commanded.
We decided it would be best to go to him so that he might learn of Yael’s plight. He was known to be fair; perhaps he would cast a judgment in favor of the true mother. But when the time came, the others were too nervous to face him, for the burden of our people was his. The weight of this fortress upon a single man was so heavy Revka and Yael feared they would seem like fools to plead for Arieh. How dare we engage our leader in such small troubles when Jerusalem had fallen and there were demons waiting for us all?
We were now the only fortress of rebels in Judea. All others had been conquered, and because we alone stood fast, Rome had become more interested in us. We were at first elated, prideful to show that we had not been vanquished and were firm in our resolve. But slowly we grew more fearful about the legion’s response now that they realized we alone had managed to survive.
Even Revka, known for her sharp tongue, refused to approach our leader with worries over a single child, though he was our beloved Arieh. Ben Ya’ir was too great a man, with too many concerns. But I had no such fears. Eleazar ben Ya’ir was a warrior like any other. A man was only a man, and I had killed my share in my other life. I had seen that they all gave up their lives to God in the same manner.