The Lamp of Darkness, - [any book recommendations txt] 📗

“They’ll be in the musicians’ quarters.”

“We don’t mind being with the musicians too,” Yonaton said.

Ovadia shook his head. “Master Uriel made me promise to look after the two of you while you are here. He wouldn’t agree to send you without my giving my word.”

The day before, Uriel had insisted that he would let events take their course without interfering. Yet, as the horses carrying Daniel and Zim turned off the main road immediately inside the city gates while Yonaton and I were carried farther up the hillside, it seemed to me that the old navi was not done interfering after all. And I was sure of it when we reached Ovadia’s house, the largest and most beautiful I’d ever seen. There was an arched entranceway to the courtyard, and the walls were built of hewn stone, containing windows a full arm’s length in width. While two maidservants prepared a stew and kneaded dough in the wide kitchen, a manservant carried our meager belongings up the ladder to a room reserved just for us. Ovadia and his wife Batya saw to it that we wanted for nothing, yet they hardly spoke in our presence, even to each other. As I soaked up the last of my stew with my bread, Batya said, “You two look exhausted; you ought to get to sleep.”

Though the sun had not yet set, Yonaton nudged my shoulder as if to say, “Don’t argue.” It was clear the family wanted its privacy. We said goodnight and climbed the ladder to our room where the amber light of late afternoon streamed in through an open window. It shed a soft and inviting glow over two fresh straw beds. I’d never slept on straw before—in my house, only my aunt and uncle enjoyed such luxury. I leaned out the window and took in the view of the palace, which stood upon a raised rock platform cut out of the hilltop. Its high walls glowed, reflecting the setting sun. Soldiers stood guard, stone-faced, at the corners of the parapet. I watched until darkness fell and the palace disappeared from view. Only a week ago, my sheep were my sole audience; now I was in Shomron, about to play my kinnor before the King. Perhaps Dahlia was right: our lives could change in an instant.

In the morning, the manservant directed us to the visiting musicians’ quarters, a single room that could comfortably sleep six, but with more than twice that number crammed inside. Except for a wine barrel standing upright in the corner, the floor was completely covered with bodies. We stepped gingerly over a dozen sleeping musicians to reach Daniel and Zim against the far wall. Daniel sat right up when Yonaton jostled his shoulder, but when I shook Zim, he opened his eyes, moaned, and rolled back over.

“Have a late night?” Yonaton asked.

“More like an early morning.” Daniel stretched his arms over his head and yawned.

“Well, help us wake the others, we’ve got to get down to rehearsal.” I shook Zim’s shoulder again. “Come on, Zim, you’ve always managed to get up to play for the prophets. This time it’s for the King.”

“Yes,” Daniel mumbled, pulling on his clothes, “But our prophets water down their wine.”

After much wrangling, Daniel managed to get all sixteen visiting musicians up, dressed, and out through the city gates. The sodden bunch could barely keep their eyes open as we headed toward an open field where the six court musicians waited with some amusement.

“I’m sure you’re all good musicians, otherwise you wouldn’t have made it here,” said Dov, the chief musician in the King’s court. Despite his bearish build, Dov had soft eyes and a warm smile peeking out from behind his graying beard. “We have only two days to learn to play together, so we’re going to have to be diligent. The court musicians have been working on the music for the wedding ever since the engagement, so we’ll lead. When you feel that you’ve caught on, join in.”

Dov picked up his tall nevel and counted into the first melody—a rousing dance tune that kicked off with strong percussion and two nevelim. The other court musicians set right into their parts without hesitation. The rest of us, one after the other, meandered into the tune as it became more clear. As soon as all of us were well into the melody, Dov laid down his instrument and circulated among us, offering comments and corrections. “You need to slow down,” he said to Zim. “Focus on staying in time with the rest of us.” Zim, who was still struggling to keep from nodding off, scowled at the criticism, but he did slacken his beat.

Yonaton, whose turn was next, watched the exchange out of the corner of his eye. “I think you’ve got it,” Dov said to him. “Play louder, I want you to come out clearly.” Yonaton’s shoulders relaxed, and a grin rose from behind his halil. Dov then stopped in front of me and closed his eyes to filter out the other musicians. He opened them, nodded, and walked onto the next player without saying a word.

Once he had finished his rounds, Dov returned to his place, picked up his nevel, played through one full measure with us, then brought the piece to a close. He immediately started a new nigun, and the process began again from the beginning.

The King’s Road was packed with people pouring in for the wedding when Yonaton and I headed back in through the city gates. Apparently, not all of Israel was as opposed to the match as the people of Beit El. Merchants hawking their wares to the milling crowd lined the main road as it climbed the hill toward the palace. Yonaton stopped before a man selling iron tools and picked up a two-pronged plowshare. “My father could plow twice as fast with one of these.”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the cart, “Come on, you can’t afford that.” Yonaton shrugged and released the plow point, which clanked against the others in the cart. I stopped in front of another cart loaded with milky rocks. I licked my finger, touched it to the rock, and brought it back to my mouth. “Salt!”

“From the Salt Sea itself,” the merchant said. “Don’t go eating it, and mind your hands now that you’ve touched it—you could blind yourself if you rub your eyes with this on your fingers. But I promise you, friend, sheep love it. So do shepherds—keeps the flock healthy like nothing else.”

I put my hand on the rock again, feeling the sharp points of the crystals pressing into my palm. No shepherd in Levonah had a rock like this. Yonaton tugged on my arm. “You were right, we can’t afford this stuff.”

“Now, you don’t know that.” The salt merchant held up both hands to stop us. “A little one costs just this much copper…” He held up a small iron weight and dropped it on one side of a scale.

Yonaton pulled on my arm again, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from those rocks. Would it really keep the flock healthy? If we were paid well for the wedding, it might be only two years until my flock grew too large to keep at my uncle’s house. Would I have to take final leave of my family at age fourteen?

Unbidden, a new image rose in my mind. It was Dov’s face from that morning, smiling at me, the lone musician among our group he hadn’t criticized even once during the rehearsal. True, I mainly stood out because I wasn’t suffering the effects of wine like the others, but Dov didn’t know that. Without even meaning to, I’d impressed the most influential musician in the Kingdom. Perhaps Dov would offer me a place in the King’s court if I proved myself? Then being a musician wouldn’t mean moving around, hunting for work wherever I could find it. It wouldn’t mean living in a cave, playing for prophets who would use my music to enter realms forever closed to me. I could stay in Shomron, play before the King and nobles, and find my place among the elite musicians of the land—even Zim dreamed of that.

Dov’s face faded from my mind, replaced by one younger, sweeter, and so much closer to my heart, with stubborn red curls forever falling over a pair of hazel eyes. I was closer to Dahlia than anyone in the world, but she just wouldn’t see the fact I could never ignore. There was a stone wall between us. It was something we never talked about, even though I’d gone over what I would have to say endless times in my mind.

The stone wall is like the wall of the pen. I’m on the inside, locked in with the sheep. You’re on the outside, feet planted on the soil. The wall is only waist high now—we can gaze at each other, talk together, even touch as we did when we were children—but only because we’re young. As soon as we’re both of age, this wall is going to rise right over our heads.

We’d been raised like brother and sister, but that was just another part of the illusion. As brother and sister, we could stay close—what husband would be jealous of his wife’s brother? But no man would tolerate such closeness with a cousin. Isaac married his cousin, Jacob married his cousin. Cousins could make the ideal marriage partners—they share family and their lands are often side by side.

But Dahlia and I were the exception. Uncle Menachem would never accept the life of the nomadic shepherd for his daughter. A traveling musician or even a player for the prophets would seem no better. But what about a member of the King’s court? There was certainly no comparison between a life in the wilderness and a life in Shomron, the seat of nobility.

And then there was the copper. Daniel told me the King paid visiting musicians well—surely he did no worse for members of his own court. It might take me twenty years as a shepherd to save enough to buy a piece of rocky hillside, but all the court musicians that morning were dressed in linen tunics, not the woolen ones farmers and shepherds wore. Perhaps as a court musician, I could buy land in ten, maybe even five, years. And Dahlia was right; if the Yovel wasn’t coming, then any land I managed to purchase would be mine forever. Would it be enough, though?

The salt merchant hadn’t taken his eyes off me this entire time. No doubt, he thought I was dreaming of returning to my flock with one of his rocks, but I was no longer interested. Here, finally, was a dream worth leaving my flock over, a path that even a landless orphan could take toward a normal life.

A shrill scream shook me from my thoughts. A woman shrieked in the distance, her voice immediately drowned out by the rough cheers of a crowd of men. The cheers faded and her cries rose again, only to be drowned out a second time by a deep roar.

The salt merchant laughed.

“What’s that noise?”

“Go see,” he said with a wry grin.

Yonaton and I followed a throng heading off the main road in the direction of the commotion and looped around a pile of boulders jutting out of the hillside. There was another shrill scream, and we scampered up the boulders to peer down on the scene below. I fell behind because of my kinnor slung over my shoulder and called ahead to Yonaton when he reached the top. “Is she all right?”

“The woman’s fine.” Yonaton flinched, and the crowd roared again. “It’s her husband that’s got the problem.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He might be torn apart by a bear.”

“A bear’s chasing her husband?”

“No. Her husband’s chasing the bear.”

Sure enough, an enormous iron cage stood in the clearing below. Inside, a powerfully built man edged closer to a shaggy, brown bear. Over a hundred people cheered him on while his wife pulled at the bars, berating him. He ignored her, his eyes focused on the bear