The skies were overcast, and there were fires in the distance, for nomads roamed and troops from the legion were not far off. The smoke swelled into the clouds, turning the world somber. Amram was gone for days. Soon Aziza took to her bed, refusing to come out even when the sun finally broke through the gloom. Not even her younger sister could convince her she must go about her life. She was in the grip of the terror that held fast to every woman who waited for a warrior.
My father and I also looked out over the cliffs, searching the horizon. Despite the distance between us, we were equal in our love for Amram. Perhaps because of our shared worry, we had begun to take our evening meal together. We did not speak, other than to mention the food, but we could finally be in the same chamber without one of us turning away. I tried not to think of how my father would react to my dishonor if he knew I carried Ben Simon’s child, how his loathing of me would multiply, how he would humiliate me and cast me out, how I would prove him right. Nothing but trouble. I, who could drown someone from the inside out, who would seduce another’s husband, as Lilith was said to do, was not worthy to sweep my father’s floor. My father would shear the hair from my head and shred my clothes to mark me as a zonah, then he would tear his own clothes, as we do to mourn the dead.
I could only be silent if he did so, for silence was what I knew best.
IN THE FIELDS, the fruit trees had not borne as sweetly as they might have after the sudden cold spell. Herod’s supplies were dwindling fast, the rations reduced. My father complained about the meals I made for him, and he had every right to do so. Our people began to go hungry. Amram and the other warriors had been sent into the valley to take what other settlements had in their storerooms and fields. Some might call this thievery or mayhem or murder, but it was the way we lived now. The rule of the desert was one I’d learned well, mere survival. My brother vowed that even a bandit could be pure in the eyes of the Almighty. He insisted that God’s judgment depended on motive, and ours was to stay true to Israel. Surely God would look down upon us and send fortune our way.
Since the birth of the maidservant’s child, Nahara had taken to confiding in me. One day, when we had spent hours working side by side, she admitted that, before my brother went down from our mountain to lead the raid, Aziza had gone to him with a powder of burned snakeskin. Their mother knew every manner of spell, and although Aziza had never showed an interest in such matters, for Amram’s sake she had peered into the magic book her mother kept under lock and key.
When Aziza had embraced my brother at his leave-taking, she’d wound the snake’s powder into his hair. As she held him near, he had no idea that within her embrace there was the white-green essence of a serpent that would bite his enemies and protect him from evil. My brother might not understand what lengths Aziza was willing to go to in order to save him, but I did. I would have done the same if I’d had access to such a potent spell. I would have burned the snake to ashes if it could have kept my beloved from harm.
When the warriors completed the raid, it was clear they had not been favored. The settlement they had attacked had been forewarned by the barking of dogs, and the battle had been fierce, with losses on both sides. Our men did not return to the fortress but instead went into the cliffs directly across from us, a pockmarked, shadowy place known to the beasts. We knew then that they were tamé, made unclean by their proximity to death, and that they must now purify themselves. The survivors needed to pray and fast for seven days before they could be welcomed back.
The families of those who had gone out waited mutely by the gate with the full knowledge that some of us would soon be in mourning. When at last the remaining warriors returned, I nearly fell faint when I heard people shouting Amram’s name. I went to find my brother, grateful beyond measure that he’d been among those left to bury the dead. But being so close to Mal’ach ha-Mavet had burned him, the way steel is fired in an oven and made harder. He had been forced to bury his friend Jonathan, the one who had studied to be a scholar, who’d had thoughts of becoming a priest but had picked up the dagger instead. On this day Amram wore Jonathan’s prayer shawl, with its white and blue fringes. There were women whose sole work was to make the violet-blue dye used for prayer shawls, boiling shellfish that could only be found on a single shore of the Great Sea, adding salt and sand and stone until the color became the color of the heavens. Each knot in the garment was a sign of devotion. Amulets were attached to the threads, to bind demons and bring fortune to the devout. And yet Jonathan had been taken by death. His family sat concealed in a darkened room, tearing at their cloaks, refusing to speak to anyone, closing their shutters to ensure light would not enter their chambers.