The Dovekeepers

In the wild, Revka prayed to Adonai for her husband’s spirit and the safety of her daughter and grandchildren. Many times, she wished to be left behind to die and join her husband, but her grandchildren always pulled her along.

The family reached an oasis, where Yoav thought they could wait out the Romans. One Sabbath, when Yoav was away praying, a group of deserters from the Roman camp came to the oasis, spotting water and the family’s donkeys. Revka asked her grandsons to hide behind a rock. The men attacked Revka and Zara, brutally raping them. One of them injured Revka’s head and she fainted. When Revka awoke, she saw Zara had been tortured by the men and nearly killed. A dying Zara begged Revka to kill her. Revka slit her own daughter’s throat to put her out of her misery.

The men taunted Revka. She took her revenge on them by baking bread, which she secretly poisoned. The men died after eating the bread. When Yoav returned and saw what had happened, he was frozen with grief and fear. Revka gathered her family and asked them to keep moving. Her grandsons, who had witnessed what happened, have not spoken since that day.

The family came to Masada, where Revka was the newest arrival at the dovecotes before Yael. At Masada, Yoav is known as the fearsome “Man of the Valley.” Yoav is now a ruthless warrior and hardly speaks, “as brutal and merciless as the angel Gabriel is said to be” (161). Yoav seems to have lost faith in God, much to Revka’s grief.

Meanwhile, Revka has guessed Yael is pregnant. She knows Yael hides the pregnancy with good reason: Unmarried mothers are cast out of the community. One night, Revka hears a knock at her door. It is Yael with her belongings. Yael has fought with her father and wants a place to stay. Yael’s face is bruised, indicating her father hit her.

Revka suggests an arrangement to Yael: Yael can stay with her and look after Levi and Noah. Yael agrees and the two women soon fall into an easy rhythm. When Yael catches a scorpion for Levi and Noah, the boys are delighted at her fearlessness.

Revka notes that the doves listen to Yael above all women. Shirah says this is because Yael speaks their language. What is most astonishing to Revka is that even hawks alight on Yael’s hand. Hawks usually take a long time to trust humans. Wynn, clearly in love with Yael, teases her that the hawk is at her beck and call. Revka tells him not to trust the creature since “a hawk is always a hawk” (204). Later, Revka asks Wynn to stay away from Yael for both of their sakes, but he dismisses Revka.

In the month of Av, nearly a year after Yael left Jerusalem, a group of Essene Jews arrives at Masada. To Revka’s surprise, Yael runs up to them and greets an elder called Abba and a young woman called Tamar. Revka learns from the Essene women that their settlement was sacked by the Romans, who killed the Essene children. Of Tamar’s four children, only one, a boy called Yehuda, has survived. Yael promises Tamar she will help protect Yehuda at all costs.

Abba sends a 17-year-old Essene boy called Malachi to assist the women at the dovecotes. Malachi is pious and gentle and Abba’s favorite. Shirah assigns Malachi the far dovecote, which has space for only one person. However, Nahara often joins Malachi there. Revka notes Shirah is displeased at the growing closeness between her younger daughter and Malachi, and one day, sends him back, saying he is not needed at the dovecotes. When Nahara finds her mother has dismissed Malachi, she walks out of the dovecote in anger.

Shirah performs kepashim magic, sacrificing a dove, to drive a wedge between Nahara and Malachi. However, Revka notes that the spell must work only partially, because they spot Nahara in the valley below, wearing the white garments of the Essene. Meanwhile, Yael goes into labor. Nahara joins the women to help with Yael’s childbirth. Though Yael is petrified she will die in childbirth, she delivers the baby boy relatively easily.

Shirah gives Yael one of the two gold amulets she wears, as a symbol of her protection. The amulet is inscribed with the face of the sun and the moon. A jealous Nahara tells Revka this is her mother’s way of letting Nahara know she is no longer her daughter. Revka and the other women accompany Yael to the synagogue to circumcise the baby. As only male relatives are allowed inside, Yael reluctantly leaves the baby with Yosef and Amram. She fears her father may harm the baby, but Amram tells her the older man believes the child will bring their family together again. Yosef performs the circumcision, blesses the baby, and leaves. Yael names the baby Arieh, or lion. The baby is to be regarded not as illegitimate and with no rights, but as a shetuki, a child who does not know his father.

As Tishri, the growing season comes, Wynn and the women of the dovecotes dote on Arieh. They also miss Nahara, who stays away. To distract herself from her sorrow, Aziza fashions arrows. Sensing her skill, Wynn asks her to try shooting the arrows. Aziza hits the targets every time, as Shirah and the other women of the dovecotes watch.

Though Revka has found a new family with the women and children of Masada, she grieves bitterly for Zara, her dead daughter. On Zara’s first death anniversary, Revka wants to mourn and pray with her son-in-law Yoav. When she goes to seek him, the bitter, sorrowing Yoav tells her he has lost all hope in humans and God. The only way he will ever recover his faith is if his sons begin to speak again. Revka goes to the synagogue to beg the chief rabbi for an amulet that can heal her grandsons, but he dismisses her concerns as trivial.

Spurned by the priests, Revka seeks the help of Shirah’s magic. She finds Shirah swimming in a large secret cistern in the Northern Palace of Herod with Ben Ya’ir, the leader of the Zealots. It is clear the two are lovers.

When Shirah emerges from the water, Revka promises her she will not reveal her secret. She asks Shirah to restore the speech of her grandsons and confesses that it was she who killed not only her daughter but four Romans as well. Shirah reassures Revka that she committed no sin. God has forgiven her, but Revka needs to forgive herself too. Shirah will fashion Revka a charm, but the charm will need a secret ingredient to be complete. That ingredient will arrive the day Shirah herself is in chains. Till then, Revka must have patience.

Revka discovers that Yael has begun leaving the dovecotes unlocked for Wynn and confronts Yael about it. Revka fears if people find Wynn roaming the dovecotes freely, they will kill both him and Yael. One day, when Wynn tries to make an escape from the serpent path, he is caught by the warriors and taken away. Shirah wants to petition Ben Ya’ir for clemency for the enslaved person, but the leader is not at Masada. The women decide to approach Channa, Ya’ir’s wife, for mercy.

Revka brings along Arieh on an impulse. At first, Channa wants little to do with the petition, but the sight of Arieh thaws her. Revka notices that Channa is sick, coughing up blood. She offers Channa a cure if she can help Arieh’s mother and return Wynn to the dovecotes. Shirah prepares hyssop tea for Channa, which helps her cough. Channa cannot return Wynn but allows Yael to visit him with food and water.

The famine at Masada worsens with the dry season, with no rain in sight. People begin blaming Shirah’s witchcraft for the dry spell, calling her the Witch of Moab. One day, minim, male practitioners of magic who have the secret approval of some rabbis, shoot divining arrows to locate the source of the drought. The arrows point in the direction of the king’s kitchen, now Shirah’s quarters. Shirah is seized from the dovecotes, shackled, and taken to a high area of the fortress. The distraught women of the dovecotes follow. Shirah whispers for Aziza to have faith. Revka is sure Channa, Ben Ya’ir’s wife, has instigated the minim against Shirah.

As Shirah fearlessly chants that Adonai is the only God, Ben Ya’ir arrives on the spot and bids the crowd to release Shirah, his relative. The crowd does so reluctantly and Shirah now begins to chant a spell, drawing a circle in the dust. Clouds gather overhead and a downfall occurs. Revka realizes that the secret ingredient Shirah spoke about is rain and brings the charm in a bowl and bathes it with rainwater. Her grandsons begin to speak. Shirah’s power is established.