“Tell the witch I’m grateful,” she said.

YAEL WAS ALLOWED to visit the Man from the North, bringing a basket of food and a goatskin of water. She was instructed to speak to him through the door, but she had a glimpse of him when they unlocked the cell to shove the provisions inside. She saw that they had cut off his beard and his hair and had left whip marks on him with their ropes and chains.

“Go back to the palace,” Yael insisted after returning from this terrible visit. Her face was swollen with fury. “Talk to Ben Ya’ir’s wife again. Convince her to insist that the guards allow another visit. They’ll kill him soon enough. The least I can do is bring food and water, and see if I might heal his wounds.”

I said I’d have more luck with Ben Ya’ir’s wife if I took the baby with me.

Yael was cautious. In this way she was far wiser than I. “Why would she care about a baby whose name she doesn’t even know?”

“She’s lonely, friendless. There’s nothing to worry about. She’s taken a liking to him. Who can blame her?”

Yael accepted the compliment. She ran her hand over Arieh’s black hair and held him close. She could hardly bear to let him go, even for a few hours.

“It’s hard to say no to a face like his,” I reminded her.

“For an hour,” she said. “No more.”

The following day Yael watched over my grandsons while I went to Shirah for more of the breathing cure. Shirah and Aziza had already begun to cook their evening meal, but Shirah rose and went to her collection of herbs. This time she gave me both myrrh and frankincense—burned together they would be twice the remedy. Perhaps if the cure lasted longer, Channa would not ask for more. It was best to keep our distance from this woman, Shirah murmured. The wife of a man in power could become hungry for power of her own.

“Did she say anything about me?” Shirah asked.

I thought it best not to reveal the bitterness inside the truth. “Nothing. She only sent her gratitude.”

Shirah laughed, but her dark eyes revealed her worry. “Her gratitude is a curse. Remember that.”

I WENT DIRECTLY to Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s house. From where I stood, I could hear the men at work in the fields even though the light was fading into pink bands that struck the white, dusty earth, turning it red. The men had brought buckets of water from the cisterns, attempting to save the crop of wheat, for still there had been no rain. The bees in the hives were usually swarming at this time of year; they dove through the air searching for blossoms, white narcissus and pink cyclamen. But this season they found none. Channa let me in when I arrived and quickly took the cure from me. I told her that she must never add to the mixture, and that the flame must be kept constant; too much heat would take away the strength of the cure. In return, she promised she would speak to the guards. Then she hesitated.

“Is the slave the child’s father?” she wanted to know.

“This child has no father,” I said.

She motioned for me to turn the child into her arms, but I held tightly to the baby as I stood inside the hallway that was intricately patterned with black and white tiles. Voices echoed here. Annoyed, Channa motioned to me again. I knew what she wanted. I thought of Shirah’s warning, but I understood what it was like to long for a child. How could Channa bewitch us or harm us? She was a slight, weak woman who lived under a cloud of illness. I didn’t think it would hurt to please her for a moment. I placed Arieh in her arms. Instantly, she was overcome by his charm. “Perhaps he needs a father,” she said with yearning.

I quickly took him from her, shifting him back into my arms. “He has a mother,” I informed her. “He needs nothing more.”

Channa smiled then. “Everyone needs more.”

THOUGH WE ALL joined in to gather what little food we might spare, it was decided that Yael should be the one to continue to visit the Man from the North.

“He was always your slave,” Aziza decreed.

Yael looked up, hurt. “No man should be so.”

The next time she went to the tower they unlocked the door and allowed her to sit beside him. She was flooded with anger, appalled at the crude, filthy conditions of his incarceration. She would not say any more other than that when he leaned his head into her lap, and she stroked him where they had shorn his hair in such a cruel fashion, there were still beads of blood along his scalp. She brought a poultice of aloe and honey, the same remedy she had used for Arieh’s mark, and if the salve did not ease his pain, at least it brought him the knowledge that someone had wished to do so.