"All that would ever be had already been written before it happened." "My name is Flavius Josephus." "Rome has ordered that you tell me your story." "You will remain my prisoners until you've told me what really happened in Masada." "So tell me the truth." "Tell me your story." "And do not, on any account, ever waste my time." "All that interests me is the truth." "Your lives depend upon it." "So let us begin." "You may sit." "You." "Start." "My name is Shirah." "I was born in Alexandria, in Egypt." "Your parents?" "My mother was sent from Jerusalem and trained as a holy woman." "I never knew my father." "A holy woman?" "She was a kedeshah." "Outlawed by the temple." "Some call them whores." "They feared the power of women like my mother." "She taught me all there was to know of this world." "And the World to Come." "She knew she would not survive." "Before she sent me away, she gave me these amulets." "I never saw her again." "And what of your story?" "That is why you are here." "It was in the city of Jerusalem that my fate awaited me." "Everywhere I walked, my fate walked with me, sewn to my feet." "My mother sent me to Jerusalem because she thought I would be safe there." "I stayed with a distant cousin of hers and took care of his children." "A boy named Amram and a girl named Yael." "My name is Yael." "My mother died as I was born." "I was taken from her womb, cut out with a sharp knife." "I could hear my father's roar of grief." "They say that a child born of a dead woman, like you, is touched by the Angel of Death." "No one wants you." "Surely your father wanted you." "What was his name?" "Josef Bar Elhanan." "My birth stole my mother from him." "He never let me forget." "He hated me." "So who looked after you?" "No one." "Not until a young servant girl came from Alexandria." "She was a nursemaid, but to me, she was a mother." "Master, Yael is hungry." "Get her out of my sight." "Come with me, little one." "Let's get some food." "Amram, hm." "You're beautiful." "You're like a little angel." "Do you want me to sing you a song?" "Hm?" "Can you hum it with me, Yael?" "Eleazar, my love." "What will your family say?" "Your wife, she will never accept it." "Eleazar," "I could never share you with anyone else." "My true wife." "I hired a nursemaid to take care of my child, not a whore who gets herself pregnant by a married man!" "Out!" "Ungh!" "No!" "I must talk to the child." "You cannot deny me that." "I saved this for you." "Yael, listen to me." "Faith willing, one day, we shall see each other again." "Ow." "So you seduced a married man, Eleazar Ben Ya'ir." "That's a grave transgression." "What was the judgment of the elders?" "They cast me out of Jerusalem and sent me to the desert to die." "Such is the penalty for adultery." "His wife deserved justice." "Do you agree with that?" "So was it your fate that you would have Eleazar's baby all alone out there in the wilderness?" "No." "That was my choice." "So with Shirah gone, who then was your protector?" "Your brother." "His name was Amram." "Now, he must have been your father's favorite." "Did you resent him for that?" "Amram was brave and beautiful and gentle." "Yes, but he became an assassin, like your father," " a Sicarii." " I was afraid he would be killed." ""I cannot renounce our faith, Yaya," he said." "I admired him for that." "Yaya?" "His pet name for me." "So just a gentle boy who burned for justice." "We know how this all began." "The Romans came to Judea, spreading a tide of blood." "They command the Jews to bow down before the emperor." "But you refused." "Jews bow down only to Adonai, the Creator." "Your father and your brother belonged to a secret group, the Sicarii." "They were craftsmen in death." "Cruel and ruthless." "They killed men like leaves." "So many they could not be counted." "Oh, they were counted, all right." "You can be sure of that." "Rome counted every one of them." "Rome desired our holy land." "It was a fire that could not be quenched." "They wanted all we had." "Our land and our humanity." "They defiled our city." "We shall make them pay." "Freedom or death." "Be careful, Amram." "Don't worry about me, little sister." "I'm invisible." "Ben Simon, hurry." "Amram, let's get out of here." "Let's go!" "Run!" "General, you're bleeding." "These dogs will pay." "Assemble all the men!" "I will wipe them out of Judea once and for all." "Yaya, they're after me." "I have to leave so you'll be safe." " I came to say goodbye." " Where are you going?" "Masada." "It's a fortress in the desert where our people are hiding." "Here." "This is for you." "I don't deserve such a beautiful thing." "Yaya, there are worms that spend their entire lifetime spinning such threads, and now you refuse to honor their destiny?" "No worm made this." "I will think of you every time I wear it." "No, wait, wait." "Wait." "Take this." "Solomon slaying the demon." "It will protect you." "Yaya," "I'm not afraid of death." "Amram, we have to go." "Hurry." "We'll meet each other again." "I promise." "Sorry I have to leave you with father." " Tell him?" " Mm-hm." "Amram was fighting for his faith." "Of course he was." "But what about the father and the sister that he left behind?" "He saves himself, but he leaves you to the clutches of Rome." "It was not how you describe." "He thought, by leaving, he would turn them away from us." "There's nothing I admire more than selfless idealism in the face of overwhelming odds." "I, Lucius Flavius Silva, governor of Judea, by decree of Imperium Romanum, do declare all Jews expelled from the city of Jerusalem." "Their places of worship will be ground to dust." "Their homes will be burned to ashes, their wives and children taken as slaves." "Oh, no!" "Let any Jew who dares to resist the power of Rome pay the price in blood." "Judea will be destroyed." "They were killing all the Jews." "We fled into the desert." "Come on." "Hurry!" "Come on." "Go." "Don't look back." "Come on." "Come on." "Come on, follow me!" "Let's go!" "Ben Simon." "My love, will you help her?" "No." "Don't tire yourself." "She can carry it." "What about you?" "Where were you when Jerusalem was burning?" "A woman all alone in the desert with a newborn baby, what then?" "Sa'adollos found us." "Sa'adollos." "That is a Moabite's name." "The land of Ruth." "He was from Moab, yes." "Man of wealth." "Strong." "I had nothing." "Only my mother's spell box." "He saved us." "Did Sa'adollos realize that your tattoos marked you as a prostitute?" "He didn't care." "My god was not his god." "I took him as my husband, and he took Aziza as his child." "So the Witch of Moab, that's where your nickname comes from." "Now, this man who takes pity on you in the desert, was he a good husband?" "He gave me another child." "Beautiful boy by the name of Adir." "A son." "But was he a good husband?" "Did you love him?" "I was grateful." "Well, that's not the same thing, is it?" "The heart wants more." "We journeyed far into the land of Moab." "We settled in Sa'adollos's village." "Eleazar and I never lost contact." "With our doves, we sent messages of our love." "And it remained alive." "Go find him." "Go find Eleazar." "Immah!" "Immah!" "They're back." "Come." " Adir." " Aziza!" " My son." " My heart." "Are you all right?" "Ran into some Roman scouts." "Aziza did well." "He killed two." "Father killed many more." " Are you all right?" " Fine, immah." "Whose blood is this?" "It's not mine." "Come on, boys." "Let's go eat." "Tomorrow we move south, back into the mountains, away from the Romans." "We're leagues away from Judea." "They'll never find us here." "Shirah, they're killing everyone in their path." "Not just the Jews, but everybody." "We have no choice." "We have to leave." "We'll go on ahead to make sure the way is safe." "I'll be back at daybreak to get you all." ""My true wife."" "Where are we going, immah?" "Shh, be quiet." "Go fetch your brother." "So you left." "When everyone was running away from Judea," " you ran towards it." " Yes." "We rode all the way to the Salt Sea." "There I asked a boatman to take us across to Judea." "We were going to Masada, where the love of my life, Eleazar Ben Ya'ir, was waiting for me." "We were going home." "The Tenth Legion was scouring the desert for Jews." "How did you and your father survive alone?" "We weren't alone." "We were with Ben Simon and his wife Sia." "This Ben Simon, did you know him from Jerusalem?" "I only knew what I had heard." "Like my father, he was a Sicarii." "Someone my brother admired." "He had the eyes of a lion." "We've come from Jerusalem to here." "If we take the route along the Salt Sea, we have a chance of finding Masada." "This is the fortress where Amram is hiding?" "Yes." "But this Way's the route of the doomed." " They say it's so hot, birds can't fly." " True." "But we'll avoid the Roman scouts." "It's our only hope." "Your hair is so beautiful." "It's like a flame." " Boys must tell you all the time." " No." "No boyfriend?" "Never." "They don't see me." "No one does." "Well, then they are blind." "I'm so glad to have you here beside me." " Hm." " It's like having a sister." "No." "Don't hurt yourself, Yael." "Why are you doing that?" "It's to mark off the days." "Our people are not allowed to injure ourselves." " The Lord commanded us in the..." " It's all right, I don't feel it." "I feel I can trust you." "Of course." "My husband never told me he killed people." "I wasn't supposed to know." "But he made me clean the blood off his knives." "Human blood." "Yael, I'm so afraid God will punish me for it." "God won't punish you." "You did as your husband demanded." "You don't fear things like other women." "Where did you get that?" "It's the mark of a lion." "The Romans devised a test for choosing gladiators." "They locked ten of us in a cage with a lion." "He killed all the others." "God protected me." "I ask nothing of you, except silence." "You were a small group, alone in the desert." "How did you survive?" "What is brutal survives." "What is cunning lives." "We were people going backward." "Barbarians." "We broke every law it was possible to break." "One broken law led to another." "You didn't care that Ben Simon showed no respect for you or his wife?" "I had become fierce in the desert." "I felt a savagery inside me, willing to do anything to get what I wanted." "But you knew it was wrong." "I was bewitched." "Ben Simon saw me." "No one else had." "Don't touch me." "I can't walk anymore." "We're here." "She's not sleeping here." "Get out." "I was under the spell of Ben Simon." "But Sia's rejection made me feel impure." "I looked for water to clean myself." "But all I found was mud." "I streaked my skin with it as I had seen the nomad women do." "They did it to keep their men away." "But I knew I couldn't resist the lion's call for long." "I was a woman of the desert." "Wild." "And he was the lion I always knew would take me." "Marcus." "Marcus!" "If I catch you stopping again, you won't have any hands to write with." "Now, where were we?" "He told me I was beautiful, and I believed him." "Of course you did." "I shouldn't be here." "Ben Simon was married." "That didn't trouble your conscience?" "And you, also, were with a man who didn't belong to you." "Eleazar Ben Ya'ir." "How long are you going to drag this out?" " Until I get the full story." " Which story?" "The one that makes the Romans happy or the true one?" "Sit down." "Now." "Shirah." "Your story." "So you're by the Salt Sea with your children, waiting." "What are we waiting for?" "Take off your garments." " Why?" " You heard me." "Now, take them off." "Now put this on." "These are girl's clothes." "Heh." "I'm a warrior, I'm not wearing this." "One day I will tell you why I made you live as a boy." "You have to trust me and do as I say." "But I don't want to." "Immah." "I spent my whole life as a boy." "How can I be a girl?" "You have to be clever." "You have to watch and you have to listen." "That's what a woman does." "And at all costs, avoid love." "I have seen your fate, Aziza." "Child, arms up." "You are born today." "Blessed are you, God, Lord of the universe, who has kept me alive and sustained me, made me arrive at this day." "So your son is now a daughter." "You're on the shores of the Salt Sea with your two children, Aziza and Adir." "Men came." "They were sent by Eleazar to take us to Masada." "Masada." "Were you out of your mind, woman?" "You took your children straight into the path of the Roman army?" "The same army that vowed to obliterate every last Jew in Judea." "She followed her heart." "Heart." "I don't understand heart." "I understand head." "This." "What you think with." "Hear this, Witch of Moab." "If I'd followed my heart, I wouldn't be in this room today." "I would be dead." "My throat slit like a rooster." "Adonai, take me, not her." "She deserves to live." "Yael." "Yael." "Will you take care of him when I die, Yael?" "Promise me you will." "Yes, of course you will." "Thank you." "So kind, Yael." "My little sister." "Can we go home now, my love?" "I will make her better." "I know a way." "There is a flower in the desert that cures the fever." "Are you sure?" "Can you get it?" "Yes." "Yes, yes, I will go right now." " I swear I can do it, I swear." " Take my knife." " I..." " A woman alone in the desert is like a bird in a snare." "Be careful." "Thank you, Yael." "Thank you." "Go." "Save her, maybe God will forgive you." "I climbed down the mountain and onto the desert floor, and I ran as fast as I could, searching everywhere." "I tore strips of my blue scarf and tied them to the bushes so I could find my way back." "You just wanted to please Ben Simon?" "No." "I wanted to save Sia." "Oh, Yael." "Yael." "You just wanted your Lion all to yourself." "I wanted Sia to live." "I knew Ben Simon loved his wife." "JOSEPHUS'." "So you're telling me you wanted to save her and you would risk your life if necessary?" "I knew there was a flower." "Ben Simon." "Ben Simon." "Ben Simon." "Ben Simon." "Ben Simon?" "Ben Simon." "Ben Sim..." "Ben Simon." "It's your fault." "This is God's punishment." "I hear his heart." "It still beats." "I..." "But I..." "I fear..." "His..." "Ben Simon." "Ben Sim..." "Ben Simon." "Did you think he would be yours?" "My father had to bury them." "I couldn't do it." "I couldn't eat or drink for seven days." "My father had always told me I was nothing." "And that was what I had become." "What did you expect?" "Please go on." "The wind had carried a shred of my blue scarf." "That was how they found us." "Jonathan and Uri, friends of my brother's." "They would take us to Masada." "It was like a dream." "It was everything they had said, but all the more brilliant." "So near to the sky, we could hear the voice of Adonai." "He had saved us and delivered us to Masada." "Yaya!" "Yaya." " Yaya." " Amram." "Ah!" "It's so good to see you." " Father." " My son." "It took so long to find you." "We're one of the last holdouts in Judea." "The Romans are destroying our people everywhere." "That's Eleazar Ben Ya'ir, our leader." "It's an honor to follow him." "He's not afraid of the Angel of Death, and he'll be no man's slave." "And that's your new home." "First, show me to the warriors' barracks." "You've been assigned" " to take care of our weaponry." " What?" "Father, this is war." "Am I a toothless old woman?" "My own son betrays me, huh?" "I'll take care of him." " It's so good to see you." " And you." "Father!" "She didn't realize it was me." "But my heart was full when I saw her." "Heh-heh." "You must have been surprised." "This was Yael, the child that you left behind." "I had loved her like my own." "I couldn't believe it was her." "Destiny had brought her back to me." "It's not a bad house." "It's bad enough I have to eat your food." "I was told to come here." "Yes, my mother sent for you." "You are Yael." "Our new dovekeeper." "I'm Aziza." "Come in." "My mother was right to choose you." "You have a way with birds." "I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote." "Can you put away your teeth and your claws?" "Hardly a lioness." "You're not too good to use a shovel, are you?" "Even a lioness has to work." "Here." "Put these on." "Thank you." "That's good, Yael." "We put the droppings in the basket, and then we use them to fertilize the fields." "Do you have family here with you?" "Just my father and brother Amram." "Amram's your brother?" " You know him?" " Yes." "Everybody does." "He's a great warrior." "Are you all right?" "You've been in the desert a long time." " You're weak." " No, I'm fine." "Go home and rest." "Do as she says." "My mother knows these things." "Was any thought given to Rome at this point?" "They'd already wiped out every village and town in Judea." "You think they'd just forget about Masada and go away?" "We felt safe in Masada." "I remember when Flavius Silva came to Rome." "He paraded his slashed face for all to see, and I knew then that Judea was doomed." " It was personal." " Oh." "It's always personal." "Did you think he would forget your brother's face, Yael?" "No, not for a moment." "He was gonna make every last Jew pay for that." "They all had your brother's face now." "The Romans sent out scouts to look for Jews hiding in the desert." "Our warriors attacked their camps." "And when they were successful, they took everything they could." "One of the spoils of war was the giant of a man with..." "With long white hair, taken from his land and made prisoner." "One destined to become a slave, no doubt." "The slave was ordered to work with us in the dovecote and in the fields." "He wasn't chained, but he wasn't a free man either." "We remained hopeful because our warriors often came back victorious from these raids." "More Romans have fallen into our hands." "What was theirs is now ours." "We owe our victory to courageous warriors like Amram!" "Son of Josef Bar Elhanan." "Amram." "But most of all" "our victory is due to our God." "Take him to prison." "He asks for water." "I don't speak Roman." "Why do you treat him like that even if he is a Roman?" "He's not a Roman." "They took him from his homeland." "You're too softhearted, little sister." "It will get you into trouble." "Take him." "They gave him to us to do the heavy work." "He's a savage." "Between the three of us, we'll soon tame him." "Do you understand what we're saying?" "Take him to the field." "He'll carry the baskets." "Come." "You were lonely, you needed someone." "No, that wasn't it." " Was it compassion or was it lust?" " No." "It was recognition." "I, too, was a slave from birth." "I knew what it was like to be invisible." "Do you know what a slave's worth is?" "Two donkeys." "That's not how I see it." "Why are you sick?" "I'm not." "So you do speak our language." "In my land, we have many women with hair your color." "All the beautiful ones." "Where is your land?" "In the north." "It's greener than you can imagine." "Lakes are lapis blue." "And we have stags that run faster than leopards." "What is a stag?" "It's this." "The sign of my tribe." "Tireless warriors who watch over their women and flocks." "Yael." "He can never be one of us." "I suppose you won't listen to my advice." "I will listen." "And then you will do as you please." "Go." "Go." "Penalty for helping a slave is death." "That didn't concern you?" "No." "I was more concerned for my brother." "Oh, yes." "Your dear brother Amram, the warrior." "They'd been gone for days." "We feared the worst." "I was sure my brother was dead." "But when he returned, he was carrying a dead warrior, a childhood friend." "I was grateful my brother was spared." "But being so close to death had burned him." "The way steel is fired in an oven and made harder." "It should have been me." "He died a Warrior's death." "It is the greatest honor." "No." "He stepped in front of me on purpose to save me." "Things happen." "Amram, we cannot understand God's plan for us." "We can only accept it." "You're with child?" "Yes." "Who?" "Ben Simon." "Yaya, he was supposed to protect you." "He did protect me." "What about father?" "You won't turn me away, will you?" "Yaya, after all this, would I abandon you now?" "Give me that." "Yet another pregnancy out of wedlock." "How can I question the angel of life any more than you can question the Angel of Death?" "It was meant to be." "Ungh!" "Shirah?" " Yael?" " Ah." "Ah!" "Yael." "What is wrong with you?" "Wait." "Drink." "Drink." "Drink." "It is not a cure, but it will stop the cramping." "Is there anyone who wishes for this baby to be unborn?" "Anyone who wishes you harm?" "Her." "Her." "She hates me." "A ghost." "She comes here for a reason." "What did you do to her?" "I took something that wasn't mine." "I took her husband." "Did you not know, when you're with someone's husband," " the baby's rightfully his wife's?" " No." "No." "This ghost wants to take your baby with her" " to the World to Come." " It is mine." "She's sewn herself to you, Yael!" "Listen to me." "The only way to get rid of her is to possess regret for what you did." "Do you?" "No." "I loved him, I..." "Do you want to keep this child," " yes or no?" " Yes." "Then do as I say." "Go where no one can find you." "Cut a lock of your hair." "Burn it." "Chew the leaves of regret." "The taste is the bitter taste of what you did to her." "Amen." "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry, please." "Please forgive me." "Forgive me." "Was it not enough to kill your mother?" "Now you shame me like this?" "Nothing but trouble." "That's all you've ever been." "I am not the only one at fault!" "Are you saying I was the cause?" "Did my mother make herself with child?" "Did She?" "We killed my mother together." " Get out!" " Ungh!" "Out!" "Please." "Please, I..." "I have nowhere else to go." "Did you know that doves mate for life?" "If you separate them, they always find their way back to each other." " No matter the danger." " Hm." "Can you defend yourself, my little dove?" "Her name will be L'viyah." "A lioness." "She's so beautiful." "Queen of heaven." "Giver of life." "He fought back the demons and brought forth this child." "Yael?" "My mother gave me this." "I want you to have it." "It will bring you good fortune and keep you safe from harm." "Thank you." "She is a lioness." "Heh-heh." "In the winter in my land, the snow gets so deep, you sink to your shoulders." "Heh, my brothers, they lashed branches onto our boots so that we could walk in the snow." "So once we were tracking a stag for a whole week." "And our father rewarded us with a good thrashing for making our poor mother worried." "This isn't the path I intended my life to be." "What did you intend?" "I intended to find a woman like you." "You think because I have red hair I'm like the women in your land." " You are wrong." " I am not wrong." "I know who you are." "Yaya." "I will never raise a hand to you." "I would protect you with my life." "I think that you" " have bewitched me." " No." "I was worried about her falling in love with him." "It was something that could not be." "They had a connection." "They understood each other." "He reminded me of a bear I saw in a marketplace in Jerusalem once." "Chained up and muzzled and forced to dance." "And your magic couldn't stop this." "It was too late." "The damage was done." "And the sun, the sky, your mother," "and I am Wynn." "Wynn is a beautiful name." "It means pale snow." "Do you hear that, L'viyah?" "We have foxes as white as winter, and then summer comes, and they change back to red right before your eyes." "Red, like your mother's hair." "When you speak, I forget about the desert and all that happened there." "The lion." "Leave him in your dreams where he belongs, Yaya." "Don't wait for the Romans to come." "They will not rest until every fortress falls." "Here." "Take this." "Come with me, Yaya." "And L'viyah." "I'll take you to my homeland, she'll take my name." " My brothers..." " Shh." "Do not tell me when you are going." "I want to come in one day and find you gone." "Let him up." "Your escape plan was weak, but your slave was right." "Rome would be back." "The Tenth Legion." "They can bring the entire Roman army, they will never scale the mountain to reach us." "Masada." "Fools, all of you." "The Sicarii, your father, your brother, your Eleazar." "All of you to blame." "You drew the Romans to you like bees to honey." "We did not care what price we had to pay for our freedom." "All the Jews had to do was to pay homage to Rome." "That is all." "And then you were free to worship any god you liked, 20 gods if you wanted, but no." "In your stubbornness and your stupidity, you refused to do the one thing that would have saved you." "The one thing!" "And you brought the full weight of the Roman Empire down on the whole of Judea." "We would never betray our faith." "Oh, you speak of faith." "Faith is in here." "It's what you show on the outside that keeps you alive." " You are wrong." " Oh, am I?" "You, an unwed girl, you bring an innocent child into this world of darkness." "And you, Witch of Moab, trapped on this perch with your children, from which there is no deliverance, and committing adultery." "How dare you?" "How dare you judge us?" "I know who you are." "Joseph Ben Matityahu." "A Jew from Galilee." "I know your story." "You traded your life to be a slave to the Romans, to write their glorious histories, their lies." "You are but a hollow reed blowing in the Roman wind." "All you did was survive." "We are not so wedded to life that we will betray our people." "Throw me in a cell for the rest of my days." "Beat me, starve me, kill me." "Do you think I fear death?" "!" "I'm not like you," "Flavius Josephus." "Traitor." "Kill us now," "Jew to Jew." "You have the power." "Oh, you think you're so different from me." "What is the difference between us?" "Because you survived too." "You call what I did treason." "I call it reason." "And history will tell." "And who will tell the story of Masada, hm?" "You or Rome?" "You tell me," "Jew to Jew."