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.”
