Queen of Sheba (12 page)

Il Hamd bowed low and kissed the hem of her garment in a gesture that was most unlike him. It was obvious he was completely taken aback
by her cunning. “You are your father’s child and have more wisdom than becomes a woman.”

With that he bowed himself from her presence and she could hardly wait for him to disappear before she laughed a hearty, ringing laugh. She held the jeweled collar up to her own neck. “And I’ll choose this for myself,” she said stooping so she could see her reflection in an old brass shield.

When Badget left the queen, he hurried through the maze of winding lanes out toward the market; he had other matters to tend to besides the usual packing. He made his way through the gathering dusk to the shop of a merchant named Pelli. Pelli always supplied him with the most valuable ornaments crafted in pure shining gold and usually for a good price. Pelli in turn had been impressed with Badget, so impressed in fact that he had given him one of his daughters, Terra. “It’ll be a good thing for you to have a woman waiting for you here in Marib,” Pelli had said.

Now as Badget came to the shop, he saw that Pelli was still sitting surrounded by his treasures. Like all the shops in Marib, it was small enough for Pelli to sit cross-legged among the colorful cushions and still reach anything a buyer might want to see. In front of him, spread out in grand array, were the less valuable brass and copper ornaments with the gold and silver hanging in profusion behind him.

Badget stepped up onto the narrow platform that brought him to eye level with Pelli. “I received your message,” he said as he reached across the confusion of brass and copper to clasp Pelli’s hand in both of his. “I was concerned. What’s wrong with Terra? Is it a fever?”

“No, no, not really,” Pelli said. “It’s nothing that medicine can cure.”

“Then she is ill?” Badget said leaning forward and in so doing dislodging some copper ornaments that hung around the opening to the shop.

Pelli put his finger to his lips and spoke softly. “Not here, we can’t speak of it here. Go on up and I’ll come as soon as I’ve closed the shop.” Badget looked up and down the street of the merchants and could see what his friend meant. Merchants and buyers alike had paused, obviously interested in the conversation between these two.

Badget stepped down and walked quickly to the door that had now
become familiar to him. It was opened even before he knocked by a servant who brought him into the dark hall. As was the custom, the servant removed Badget’s sandals and washed his feet, then taking the lamp from one of the wall niches, led him up the dark stairway. They passed some storerooms before they came to the ample living quarters of Pelli’s two wives and many daughters. “You are to wait here for my master,” the servant said, motioning to the family room decked out with luxurious mats, silken armrests, and pillows.

This was a room in which Badget had spent many happy hours both with Pelli and with his daughter, the charming Terra. He looked around expecting to see Terra smiling at him from the doorway, but to his utter disappointment she was nowhere to be seen. “You’re missing my daughter?” Pelli came forward and bowed his greeting over Badget’s outstretched hand and then took his seat across the narrow room from him.

“I had expected to see her,” Badget said. “Is she then so ill she can’t be seen?”

Pelli smiled his most disarming smile. “You must understand. Her eyes are red from weeping and she has lost all interest in food of any kind. We’re terribly disturbed.”

“But that’s so unlike her.” Badget was now obviously concerned and almost impatient with his friend.

“Yes, yes, we have never seen her so upset. There’s no way we could comfort her. I brought her choice nutmeats and some of our market’s finest figs and dates, but she would have none of them.” Pelli dabbed at his eyes as though he himself were now on the verge of despair.

Badget had liked Terra from the first for her soft roundness and her obviously healthy appetite. If what Pelli was telling him was not an exaggeration, then Terra was really ill. “We must do something. Call the herb woman, order some charms, go to the temple and make an offering.” Badget noticed that his concern seemed to please Pelli.

“I assure you none of these will work. We’ve tried them all,” said Pelli with downcast eyes.

“Surely it is not totally hopeless.” Badget wasn’t used to such frustrations.

“No, no, there’s a cure, not a cure either her mother or I enjoy contemplating.” Pelli became even more downcast.

Badget leaned forward eagerly. “Whatever it is, whatever it costs, I am ready to oblige. Anything to make my darling well again.”

“Only you have it within your power to cure her. But …”

“I, I have it within my power? Tell me, and no matter what the cost, it’ll be done.”

“It seems the maiden is sick with love of you. She can’t endure your leaving without her. In short, she’s packed her things and will hear of nothing but that she be allowed to travel with you back to Jerusalem.” Pelli had made his fingers into a pyramid and while he appeared to be studying his own hands he was actually darting quick glances at Badget.

Badget turned pale and coughed nervously. He’d been completely charmed by the girl and would have been delighted to take her with him, but he had one problem. In Jerusalem he already had a wife, a very jealous woman who had blocked every attempt he’d made to marry a second wife. All his friends had encouraged him to marry someone else since his wife was getting older and had given him no children. Knowing how rich Badget must be, some of them had even offered their daughters. The arrangement had always been canceled when his wife discovered the plans.

His wife was named Yasmit and had at one time been married to an old trader named Eon. Eon had taught Badget most of what he knew, and it seemed logical that when Eon died, Badget should marry his widow. At the time Badget was captivated by her spunk and charm and assumed that once married to a younger man like himself, she would have many sons.

This had not happened and now Badget had grown impatient. He had not planned to bring Terra home with him, but neither was he willing to give her up. “Yasmit will just have to face the inevitable,” he muttered to himself.

He knew there would be a terrible scene. Yasmit was not one to accept competition without a struggle. She would threaten and scold, making life miserable for everyone. In the long run, she would have to give in and accept the fact that she was fortunate to be the first wife and in charge of his home and his kitchen if not first in his heart.

It would take three months of fast travel to reach Jerusalem. In the meantime he would have this delightful creature all to himself. He’d face the problem of Yasmit later. Wasn’t he almost being forced to take her with him? He couldn’t have this on his conscience that lovely, plump Terra
had died of grief for love of him. He smiled. “My friend, tell your beautiful daughter to dry her eyes. I’ll go right now and hire the very best howdah fitted onto one of my camels. A howdah with all the amenities for such a charming creature.”

At the door Pelli kissed him on both cheeks, wishing him godspeed, and Badget urged him to have Terra ready just before dawn, when he would come for her.

Badget had done all that he promised and more and found to his amazement that Terra was indeed one of the best bargains he ever made. By day she rode among the colorful, scented cushions of the howdah but at night she shared his dinner and his tent. They lay in each other’s arms and watched the majestic movement of the stars while Badget taught her the simple words she’d need to manage in Jerusalem. He was happier than he’d ever been, so happy he hesitated to tell her of Yasmit.

Each night he tried to bring himself to explain just what she would face in Jerusalem, but over and over again he found he couldn’t risk losing this newfound happiness.

At times he rationalized and fantasized that Yasmit would have grown reasonable. Of course he knew it was impossible. She wasn’t the kind of woman to accept anything in life she hadn’t planned or could somehow manage to control.

In Jericho he experienced the supreme joy of finding Terra to be pregnant. At all costs he wanted to protect her. He yearned to keep her to himself. He had always been a man of action and now faced with this dilemma he found himself undecided. He thought of sending a messenger ahead to tell Yasmit of his marriage. Maybe if she heard the news she’d leave, go off with one of the men he’d heard she entertained while he was gone.

Instinctively he knew this wasn’t possible. If she was warned, she might be angry enough to kill them both. It was better after all, he reasoned, to surprise her. Surely he was man enough to face this woman and tell her just as other husbands had done before him that he was married to a second wife. It was done and finished. What could she really do? Surely she would realize that this time the matter was out of her hands.

The next day as they prepared to travel the last few miles to Jerusalem, Badget wasn’t as confident. He’d faced wild animals, hostile foreigners, and been known as a hard bargainer. But to face Yasmit with a new wife
was entirely different. He found himself irritable and anxious. The day was overcast, and all the signs he depended on as a trader and traveler were ominous.

At the last minute he decided to leave Terra with the wife of the innkeeper. He paid handsomely for a whole floor in the inn and for servants to wait on her. When he realized how frightened Terra was, he gave the innkeeper more money to pay for runners who would come twice a day and report on her health.

Last of all he told Terra about Yasmit. “She is a difficult woman, not one to accept a second wife without a struggle,” he said as he nervously paced the narrow hall between the upper rooms.

“A wife?” Terra burst into tears and could not be consoled. “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.”

“I meant to keep you in Marib, then it wouldn’t have mattered. You were the one who insisted on coming with me.”

At that Terra threw herself down on the mat where they’d spent the last night together and burying her head in her hands wept bitterly. Badget was at a loss as to what he should do. He tried to reason with her and tell her that Yasmit had given him no children. “You’ll be the one to give me a son,” he said.

When he offered to let her live in her own house in Jericho where she would never see Yasmit, she seemed to regain her composure. She sat up and dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her mantle. “Do you truly love me as you have said?” she asked, looking away so as not to see his reaction.

“Oh, yes, yes, you know that I do,” Badget said as he hurried to take her in his arms and proceeded to dry her eyes himself with her mantle. “Haven’t you listened to what I’ve told you over and over again?”

“You’re a man who has a way with words.”

“Look at me. Look in my eyes,” Badget said turning her head so she had to look at him. “I’ll go to Jerusalem if that is your wish and I’ll settle this thing so you can be with me there.”

At that she smiled. “Don’t worry. I have your child to think of. I can manage.”

Badget spent another hour making sure the wife of the innkeeper would bend every effort to make Terra’s stay pleasant, then he rounded up his caravan and headed up the road toward Jerusalem.

He tried to dismiss all thought of Yasmit. He had no idea what would happen when he told her of Terra, but it would do no good to try to anticipate her reaction. He decided to face the problem head-on when he encountered it.

He had the message to deliver to the king. He must do that as soon as possible. If Yasmit was very angry, he could stay at the guardhouse just outside the palace. Certainly she wouldn’t stay angry for long.

T
hat evening when Solomon had said goodnight to his friends at the pillared portico of the Hall of Judgment he walked slowly up the long marble stairs to a pavilion on the roof above the women’s quarters. Most of his guards and retainers were left in the courtyard below with only his personal servants following at a discreet distance behind him.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the servant drew back the heavy goathair covering. Just inside he stopped and looked around at the colorful banks of cushions and softly billowing draperies that covered the walls. The roof of black woven goathair moved gently in the spring breeze causing the tent poles that held it in place to sway hypnotically.