Father ordered the soldier to remove the chest to the courtyard. I watched as he hefted it onto his shoulder. Once again I tried to summon tears from the dust clefts in my eyelids, but my relief at having salvaged my most ardent work was too great. Mother watched me, lifting her brow once more, this time in curiosity. She was not easily fooled, my mother.
After Yaltha had left me the night before, I’d spent the wan hours thinking of where to hide the purple bundle—my scrolls were at risk here in the house under Mother’s nose. I’d pictured the caves on the hillsides that surrounded the valley, the places I’d explored with Judas as a girl. For centuries, those caves had been burying places not just for people, but for family valuables and forbidden texts. In order to hide my scrolls in one, though, I would have to secure Father’s permission to walk among the hills. It was an unusual request.
Beyond the window, the smell of fire and cinder erupted in the courtyard. They came then, tears gurgling up like a springhead. I went and stood before my father. “I am but a girl, but I’ve wanted to be like you, a great scribe. I wanted you to look on me with pride. I know now I must accept my lot. I’ve disappointed you and that is worse to me than a marriage I do not want. I will go willingly to Nathaniel. I beg for only one thing.” The tears flowed and I didn’t wipe them away. “Allow me to walk outside in the hills. I will take my comfort there and pray to be delivered from my old ways. Lavi can accompany me to keep me safe.”
I waited. Mother tried to speak, but he waved his hand for silence.
“You’re a good daughter, Ana. Walk in the hills with my blessing. But only in the mornings, never on the Sabbath, and always in the company of Lavi.”
“Thank you, Father. Thank you.”
I couldn’t hide my relief and exuberance. As they left, I refused to meet my mother’s gaze.
ix.
The following morning I waited for Lavi in my room. I’d instructed him to pack goat cheese, almonds, and diluted wine so we could take our breakfast along the way, impressing upon him the importance of leaving early. One hour past sunrise, I’d told him. One hour.
He was late.
Since Father had confined my excursions to the mornings, I meant to make the most of them. I’d risen in the dark and dressed hurriedly, a plain coat. No ribbon in my braid or anklet at my foot.
I paced. What kept him? Finally, I went in search of him. His room was empty. No sign of him in the upper courtyard. I’d come halfway down the steps into the lower courtyard when I saw him on his knees scraping soot and cinder from the oven, his dark face white with ash. “What are you doing?” I cried, unable to keep the exasperation from my voice. “I’ve been waiting for you—we should have left already!”
He didn’t answer, but tensed his eyes and looked toward the doorway beneath the stairs that led to the storeroom. I descended the remaining steps slowly, knowing whom I would find there. Mother smiled with satisfaction. “Your plans will have to be postponed, I’m afraid. I discovered the oven was hazardous with grime.”
“And it couldn’t wait until the afternoon?”
“Certainly not,” she said. “Besides, I’ve arranged for you to have a visitor this morning.”
Not Nathaniel. Please, God. Not Nathaniel.
“You remember Tabitha?”
Not her either.
“Why would you invite her? I’ve not laid eyes on her in two years.”
“She has only recently been betrothed. You have much in common.”
The daughter of one of my father’s underling scribes, Tabitha had made a handful of visits to our house when we were both twelve, those, too, at my mother’s instigation. She was female and Jewish, and that was the extent of our similarities. She didn’t read or write or care to learn. She liked to steal into my mother’s room and rummage among her powders and perfumes. She performed playful dances, pretending to be Eve, sometimes Adam, and once,