Rebekah understood. Had she herself not done the same in the past? Had she not plugged herself with a cork soaked in the juice of weeping willows to stop the seed of Jacob the Fatherless?

“Gold, it’s not too late. You’re still young. Don’t shut yourself to the Shah. Barren women are thrown into the Cage. Die in oblivion.”

“Even if they hang me from the tower, I must meet Soleiman.”

Rebekah the Bundle Woman went to the Jewish Quarter, past the Muslim bazaar, where the air was heavy with the perfume of nard and myrrh, where apothecaries stocked jars and phials of cosmetics: green malachite, brown sumac, and red henna. As she approached the garbage pit, the odor of putrid food replaced the fragrant air.

Her daughter had forgotten the agony of living by the stinking pit, behind the baths, where lame beggars deloused their starving children. She had never known the pain of becoming a whore-wife.

Soleiman’s wooden-planked door gave way to Rebekah’s touch. She entered a gloomy room overwhelmed with books.

Soleiman the Agile’s trade took him around the city at night, so he slept during the day—a sleep that had become light and unsettled since that day in the harem. He sensed a shadow over him and opened his eyes, facing an apparition he thought had descended from heaven—passionate eyes, and dewy skin framed by hair the color of sunshine. He reached out to touch her.

“Not me, sweetlove,” she sang. “Unfortunately, I’ve come about my daughter.”

He sprang up—leaped into the air—came down and grabbed the sword that leaned against the books—circled it above his head—bent his knees—raised one arm and aimed the blade at Rebekah.

She fluttered her fingers over her bosom. “Don’t try to impress me, I’m not in a very good mood.”

He gazed at the shrunken glove of her hand. The Jewish Quarter was a small place. Everyone knew Rebekah, who her late husband was, and where her daughter now lived. But was the sultana, whose heat he had felt from behind the curtains, whose eyes he had seen, whose solitary clap he had heard, whose cry of “Marvelous” had, for days, reverberated in his head, this woman’s daughter and the girl with the cherry anklet who had vowed to become his wife?

Rebekah pointed a flirtatious finger at the books. “I see you’ve brains to complement your good looks.” She paced the room in silence, the message she was about to deliver locked in her throat. “I was forced to make this trip because of a flaw in the king’s character,” she said at last. “He has passion in his heart, but can’t use it wisely.”

Soleiman struggled to hide his fear and exhilaration. The blade carved a circle in the air above his head, crowning him with an invisible wreath, then came down stiffly at his side, exaggerating his lean silhouette. Why was this woman torturing him? When would she voice the sultana’s name and break the shroud of mystery, give life to her in his modest room and confirm that miracles could happen in the Jewish Quarter, too?