Together we went to the dovecote. The pale moon watched over us and allowed us to slip through the plaza as nothing more than shadows. We went inside, then crouched upon the straw. I watched as Yael called the doves to her. She raised her hand up, and they were summoned. As each one came to her, Yael sat with it quietly, then broke its neck. She wept as she did so, such was her sacrifice on my behalf. Then she lay their limp bodies on her lap, stroking their feathers before she gave them to me.
She walked me back to my chambers, helping me carry the provisions I meant to bring to my sister. As I had helped her in her times of need, so she was now beside me. I would never have imagined that she who had once been my rival had become a sister to me. If anything, I had imagined she might become my sister through the laws of marriage. Amram and I had always planned to include her in the ceremony, but that time was over. The day after the little messenger girl told him I was ill, Amram came to our chambers and knocked upon the door. My mother was surprised that, as soon as I spied who the caller was, I slunk into the garden. I overheard him ask about my fever and heard her answer that it was my brother who had been ill, not I. Perhaps Amram had complained to his sister, for as we neared the barracks Yael murmured, “My brother says that he rarely sees you. He still wears the blue token.”
“That’s done in your honor.” I kept my eyes lowered. “Not mine.”
“Every man changes in war.”
From her tone I understood that she knew some part of her brother had been lost.
I DRESSED in my brother’s tunic and took a heavy pack upon my back, meant for my sister. Adir was still on his pallet because of his difficulty in walking. When he saw me dressed as him, he was amazed. He vowed he himself would think that I was Adir had he not known better. He hadn’t fully understood that he had managed to be a warrior though he still lay in a darkened corner of our chamber.
“They all believe I am you,” I admitted.
My brother accepted that I had taken his place and that I had honored his name. This was why the warriors left gifts of oil and myrrh at the door and why people came to offer their congratulations on the bravery of his deeds.
My brother lifted himself up on one elbow to study me. The dog stood beside me, a pack tied to his back, for he was mine when he should have been my brother’s.
“Have I done well as a warrior?” Adir wanted to know.
I nodded, embarrassed to have taken so much from him. But he seemed relieved.
“Have I slain many of the enemy?”
“Only when you needed to.”
Every time the warriors went out on raids, my brother, you were among them. We attacked at night, splitting into four sections, coming to our enemies in the dark from the four corners of the world. We went to let the Romans know that they had not destroyed us and that we had not disappeared despite their presence in our valley. We went to take what we needed to survive and because our people could not be contained nor denied their right to Zion.
During the nights when you, my dear brother, rested on your pallet, I had gone into the thornbushes and held the man who was unafraid of metal, who yearned for it, as I did, as I had done all my life. Though we were but halves of people, though we had lost ourselves, together we were one, and whole. This is why I was so impatient whenever I needed to remain on the mountain. He was the only one who knew me. He told me that, if I had been a woman, he could not have had me, for he had vowed never to be with a woman other than his wife. But I was something else, a warrior, as he was. We did not have to speak, as those who fight side by side need no words, but instead we knew each other in silence. In that way it was possible for each of us to foretell what the one beside us wanted, whether it was brutal or tender, whether it lasted all night or for but a brief burst of stolen time.
On the day when we repent for our sins, I had left this man to the heartache of his past. On the eve of Yom Kippur, he disappeared into the wilderness. I did not ask to share his sorrows, for that would not have been possible. I waited in the blue night, alone, as any comrade would. When he came back to me, there were strands of thorns fitted across his chest. I offered him water and a share of my supper, and I asked not a single question and made no demands. We had enough adversaries, we did not need to defy each other.
I was grateful, my brother, that you could not see what the world was beyond these gates, as I was grateful that I could close my eyes inside the bower of the thornbushes, that I could moan and thrash as I never did in battle, for in battle, my brother, your reputation was one of silence. You never cried out as you did at night, with only the dog to overhear you as you clung to the warrior beside you. You were young, the slightest among them, but you were a fine archer, perhaps the best of all, known by the red feathers on your arrows that quickened every shot, the weapons becoming birds seeking out our enemies and bringing them to their death. No wild goat could run from you, no rabbit was quick enough.