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

“Don’t worry so much.”

He led me further down the hill, where small, mud-brick houses lined the alleys. At this hour before evening, the air was heavy with the smell of burning dung. Zim stopped in front of a house that looked much like all the others, where a baby cried within. “Peretz!” he called out.

A man with a closely cropped beard pushed aside the reed mat covering the entrance. “Yambalya looking for another musician tonight?” he asked. “It’s a little early for him, isn’t it?”

“I’m the one looking tonight, Peretz. I’ve come to collect a favor. Allow me to introduce Lev, who joins the King’s Court tomorrow. He’s…” Zim caught my eye, “he’s eager to make a good first impression.”

Peretz’s gaze was kind and knowing. “Shalom, Lev, I remember you from the wedding. You played well enough then. You’ll find the music in the Throne Room far easier.”

The blood rushed to my cheeks. “It’s only the first day that worries me. I’ve never even heard the music of the Throne Room, and Master Dov said I’m expected to perform right away before the Queen.”

“The King as well,” Peretz said, “not to mention nobility, army generals, foreign dignitaries, and a load of commoners. But you’re right, the Queen is the only one you must please. Here, come in and sit, both of you.”

The single room barely held us all. We took seats against the back wall. Peretz picked up his daughter and stilled her cry with a gentle bounce. He returned her to the floor and pulled his halil from a niche in the wall. He blew a soft melody, which had none of the complexity of the songs we played at the wedding. I listened through one round, then swung my kinnor around for the second. The instrument sounded awful, and I broke off playing to tune it, stretching and tightening the sheep-gut strings until its voice rang true.

Zim tried to join us but soon gave up. “Yambalya will be expecting me,” he said.

Peretz removed his halil from his lips. “You can go. I’ll sit with Lev a while longer.” When Zim left, Peretz said, “It’s still early. The priests of the Baal never begin until after dark.”

“He’s not running toward the Baal; he’s running from this music.”

“It’s just as well. Master Dov does not allow drums in the Throne Room.” Peretz lay his halil in his lap. “You speak as one who knows Zim well. Where did you meet?”

I regretted having spoken. “At a gathering for the prophets.”

Peretz lifted his eyes to mine. “The prophets? I’ve heard much about them these past few months but mostly whispers. Do you know where they are now?”

I shook my head. “I’ve only heard whispers as well. Some have been killed, the rest have fled.”

“May the Holy One keep them safe. I have seen a number of prophets in my two years playing in Shomron.”

Prophets in the Court? “On what business?”

Peretz shrugged. “Advising the King, I suppose. I am only a musician. I know sometimes they came at the King’s request and other times without being called. I haven’t seen them since the engagement.”

“The lentils are ready,” Peretz’s wife said as she walked in with a steaming, clay pot. “Lev, will you join us?”

I gladly accepted. As we ate, Peretz told me of his life as a Court musician. The copper was less than I had imagined, but the work sounded easier than I feared.

When we finished, Peretz and I played through all the melodies Dov preferred for the Throne Room. I picked up each one by the second or third time through, yet we played each until I had their feel in my fingers.

I left Peretz’s house after midnight, my hands sore but my heart calmer. As Ovadia said, music was what came most natural to me. If the Queen were to close her eyes and listen, I was confident that she would hear a musician fit for the palace. Unfortunately, her eyes would be open.

The sleeves of my tunic hung down over my hands. I tripped over the skirts that dragged below my feet.

“I made them a little big, so you’ll have room to grow,” the cloth cutter said. “Just tighten the sash, and you’ll look like all the others.”

I pulled on the cloth belt until my waist hurt, but the linen still fell in heaps around me.

“You told me you wouldn’t bring your knife,” he pointed to the giant bulge on my thigh. “I told you it would show through your garments. Do you want the Queen to know you’re a spy?”

“I’m not a spy!” I rolled the sleeves over and over again so my hands could peek out the ends.

“Do you know what the Queen does to spies?” His eyes glistened as he leaned close to my face.

“She wouldn’t kill—.”

“Kill? You’re afraid she’ll kill you?” The cloth cutter laughed. “Before she’s done, you’ll beg for death. She’ll grant your request, eventually. First, you’ll tell her everything you’ve ever known. You’ll betray your own mother to stop the pain.”

“My mother’s dead.”

“So much the better for her! When the Queen sees a child playing in her Court, it won’t take long to guess he’s a spy.”

“But when she hears my music…,” I held up my kinnor, but the strings were all rotten.

“You’ll be lucky to play a single note. She’ll know you by your kinnor. The Queen won’t fall for that pathetic lie that your peasant uncle gave you a master’s tool. I knew at a glance it was prophet made. If you’re holding one of their instruments, you know where to find them.”

“I don’t. I—.”

“Don’t be a fool!” His voice dropped as he moved in close. I could smell the stink of his breath. “Tell the Queen where they are before she sees through your feeble disguise. Then she’ll fill your hands with gold rather than cutting them off at the wrists. With gold like that, you can buy the biggest farm in Levonah, and your uncle would never deny you Dahlia. You could live the life you dream of.”

“How do you know about—?”

He drew me toward him. “I know all about you, Lev. You’re a child playing a man’s game. You have no secret I cannot pierce. Perhaps I’ll tell the Queen and keep the reward myself.”

The door of the musicians’ quarters creaked open, and I bolted upright on my sleeping mat. My heart pounded in the darkness as Zim pulled the door shut and set his drum on the ground. His snores soon filled the room, even as I lay awake, dreading the dawn.

The cloth cutter held my folded garments in his hands but didn’t pass them to me. He sniffed the air and turned his sharp nose at the smell. “Perhaps you should bathe before putting them on?”

His expression made plain that he didn’t approve of a peasant boy wearing his precious handiwork. He was well paid for making the garments—it was no business of the cutter who wore the cloth. I nearly told him so but mastered my tongue. In my dream, his clever eyes had seen through my disguise. Why not use them to make it stronger?

“How should I smell when wearing your garments, master?”

His look softened at the title. “Clean, for one.” He paused. “Scented oils would also be appropriate.”

“Where do I find these oils?”

“Right over there.” The smugness left his face as he led me to a stall three down from his own.

“Yossi,” the cloth cutter said to the shopkeeper, “this boy will play in the King’s Court. What can you do for him, so he doesn’t offend his majesty’s senses?”

“I don’t cut hair,” he said. It was meant as an insult, but I felt a rush of gratitude. I hadn’t thought of my hair.

The cloth cutter stepped back toward his stall. “Just sell him something for his smell.”

I left Yossi’s stall with a small vial of oil that cost enough to feed ten prophets for a week. I didn’t regret giving him most of the copper I earned from the King’s wedding—if I failed there would be no more prophets left to feed.

The barber drew the thinnest knife I’d ever seen across a sharpening stone and frowned as I entered. Boys who dressed like me got their hair cut at home by their mothers, not by barbers in stalls of cut stone. “What do you want?” he asked, wiping his blade on his tunic.

“I will be a musician in the King’s Court,” I said, no longer shy. “Make me look like I belong.”

His eyes widened, and I could tell at a glance that this was a man who enjoyed a challenge. “Sit.” He jerked his chin toward a stool, put down his stone, and tested his blade across the tip of his thumbnail.

I hated haircuts—Aunt Leah’s blade always pulled at my hair—but now I felt barely a tug as clumps of hair fell at my feet.

When he finished, I headed to the pool of Shomron, outside the gates of the city. The spring which fed the city was as old as the hill itself, but Ovadia told me the pool that received its waters and the stone plaza surrounding it were among the first things King Omri built. At this hour of the morning, a few maidservants filled their water jugs, so I went to an empty spot at the far side of the pool. I scooped double handfuls of water over my head. Once I had scrubbed myself clean, I waited in the sunshine until I was dry.

I barely recognized my reflection in the still water of the pool. My hair, so thick and curly when I woke that morning, was cropped short. My new linen garments hung loosely on my shoulders, with none of the heaviness of my woolen tunic. The garments were white, with a fringe of blue at the neck and cuffs. There was a bit of bagginess to the fit, but they looked natural when I tightened the sash, as the cloth cutter promised. I could easily pass as the son of a nobleman.

I looked deeper into the pool, staring into my eyes. The last time I looked at my reflection, a few months earlier, I was struck by how old my eyes looked. Now I saw a scared boy pretending to be a man.

I strode back through the city gates with my woolen tunic balled under my arm. The guards in the gates halted their conversation as I passed by, the Israelite one standing a touch straighter. When I put my woolen tunic back on, would I be able to pass the gates as invisibly as I once had?

I dumped my shepherd’s clothes on my sleeping mat and retrieved my kinnor. It was time.

Not an eye turned my way as I entered the Throne Room. The King listened to a petitioner, and the Queen sat back in her throne, examining a scroll. Dov, Peretz, and a third musician sat off to the Queen’s right against the wall, where they could be heard, but not easily seen. When Dov caught sight of me, his hand nearly stumbled on his harp. Peretz gave my shoulder a welcoming squeeze. The third musician nodded to me, and I recognized him from the wedding, a halil player named Tuval.

I waited until their melody came back to the beginning and joined in on the first note of the round. The Queen glanced up at the change in the music. I fought the temptation