Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba (21 page)

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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba
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What am I doing here, in this land of hard men and harder laws?
An idle question; Nikaulis knew why she was here: her queen commanded it. And though Nikaulis herself thought this journey odd, and her queen’s behavior odder still, it was not her place to question, only to obey.
But she would be less than human if she did not wonder. Of course she did not doubt the queen obeyed divine decree—but sometimes, during the long journey north, Nikaulis had wondered if the queen had misunderstood her goddess’s message. Oracles were tricky things. Had the queen’s own desire led her astray? Surely not; Bilqis had reigned many years and must know how to interpret her goddess’s will. Fortunately, Nikaulis’s own goddess was less difficult to understand: Artemis, the Moon’s Sword Blade, demanded only chastity and courage of her worshippers.
Nikaulis gazed across the hard-packed earth to the pavilion sheltering the queen and the king she had traveled so far to meet. Bilqis reclined, indolent, against silken cushions; her favorite maid, Khurrami, slowly waved a fan of peacock feathers, creating a soft breath of air that pressed the fabric of the queen’s garment closer to her skin. The queen spoke, gesturing with practiced ease, and King Solomon smiled and answered. Nikaulis could
only guess at their words; from their smiles, and Bilqis’s gentle laughter, the king’s wit was to the queen’s taste.
Vigilant, even here in the midst of apparent amity, Nikaulis kept her eyes moving, studying those around her for any hint of threat. All seemed peaceful. Then her seeking eyes met another’s equally intent gaze; Nikaulis found herself exchanging stares with the commander of King Solomon’s guard.
Benaiah.
That was his name, a soft name for so hard a man. Nikaulis had learned to weigh and to judge a warrior’s worth; this man had fought battles in his day, and fought them well. His sun-darkened skin bore enough scars to prove him a fighter, few enough to prove him a good one. But now he grew old, his hair gray and his body thickened, although he still moved with a fighter’s easy grace. His eyes were dark, unwavering—
Heat flooded her face, a strange tingling that shocked her.
I have stood too long in the sun,
she told herself.
That is all.
Unwilling to reveal weakness, she kept her gaze level, her face smooth, meeting Benaiah’s keen eyes without wavering. She counted heartbeats; after half-a-dozen, she slid her gaze past the guard, resumed scanning the royal gathering.
For no matter how safe, how civil, this meeting seemed, men carried danger with them like a plague.
Hard men, hard laws. I wish the queen had not come here. This land is not safe for her. For any woman.
Nikaulis found herself gazing once again upon King Solomon’s general; the man’s eyes probed the pavilion, judged the men and women gathered there, as hers did. For a breath their gazes met, swept on, seeking danger to the rulers they guarded.
The king’s man, too, will be glad when this folly is over and done with. The queen will find what she seeks, and we will return home to Sheba.
Soon.
Benaiah had not been captain of the foreign troops under King David and survived to become commander of the host under King Solomon by being indecisive and trusting. Perhaps this woman, this Queen of Sheba, had journeyed half a world only to behold King Solomon in all his glory.
Perhaps she had not. Perhaps she was not even Sheban, let alone its queen. Benaiah stood ready at King Solomon’s side, and reserved judgment. In truth, he cared little about the queen, save as her visit affected King Solomon and
Benaiah’s own task. Another woman filled his eyes; had captured his dreams since the moment he first saw her riding beside the foreign queen in the desert wadi.
Now she stood watchful beside the Sheban queen, a woman such as he had never before encountered: slender as a hunting knife, supple as a bowstring. Her plaited hair shone bronze in the sunlight. She wore a short tunic and trousers, in the Scythian style, and a sword was belted at her side. Her eyes, when she turned them upon Benaiah, were gray, gray as a polished iron blade.
Something odd happened as her iron eyes met his. Warmth flowed beneath his skin; slow fire caressed his bones. Time slowed.
Then her seeking eyes slid past him, freeing him.
Who is she? What is she?
Benaiah caught the arm of the nearest Sheban, asked the questions, oddly surprised to find that his words did not burn themselves into the incense-laden air.
“That? Why, that is the captain of the queen’s guard, the Sword Maid Nikaulis.” Then, as Benaiah stood grim and silent, the Sheban added, “Some call them Moon Maids. Amazons. Do all your people treat guests so coarsely?”
Benaiah released the affronted Sheban and stared at the queen’s captain. He had heard of the Amazons, warrior women who had once ruled the open lands, who served kings only at their own pleasure. But that was long ago; the world had turned and changed, and few now living had set eyes upon one of the fabled Sword Maids.
Sometimes Benaiah had dreamed of such a woman. But dreams faded at dawn. Benaiah knew better than to build a house upon dreams.
 
 
An old soldier, Benaiah prided himself upon sleeping quick and hard, no matter how rough his bed—but that night sleep was long in coming. Benaiah lay in the darkness and stared at the moonlit plain beyond the campfires. The warrior maid’s image trembled before him, a silver ghost in the pale moon’s light, a golden flame dancing in the banked fire’s depths.
Nikaulis. Sword Maid.
And when he at last closed his eyes, she burned before him still, an ardent brand upon the darkness before sleep.
Amazon.
Mounted on a horse swift as air, I rode a path laid down in moonlight. The horse moved strong between my thighs, muscle slid beneath skin as we fled whatever followed behind. For we were hunted, pursued relentlessly through the sunlit hours of the day into the cool silver night.
I fled an enemy that never paused, never tired. My horse reached a riverbank and checked its headlong pace; before us water flashed bright as glass. We splashed through the bright water, leapt up the far bank. For a breath the pressure of the hunter eased—
—and then my foe slipped across the water; rejoined me. I looked back to face my fear.
And saw nothing.
Before me the grass stretched endless, flowing beneath the wind like gilded water. Behind me the river burned, moonlight transmuted into fire. Terror hunted me.
And I ran … .
I woke cold to my bones. But when I tried to reveal my dream to Keshet and Nimrah, I found that I could not. Even in memory, my dream hunter remained unseen.
A troubling dream—but night demons flee sunlight, and I soon had no time for dreams, for my father sent messengers to warn his wives that he returned with his guest, the Queen of Sheba—
“Coming here, to stay under his roof. And where are we to put her and her court?” That was the Lady Chadara’s question, and I thought it not unreasonable. But then, the Lady Chadara held the duty of managing the supplies and servants. No one else cared—
“So long as she does not think to take my rooms!” said Yeshara, only to find herself scorned by Naamah.
“As if she would desire them! Mine, now—I am the chief wife, mother of the king’s eldest son. But if this woman thinks to take my place, she will find herself mistaken.” Naamah tossed her head, displaying the clean lines of her chin and throat. Naamah battled time as a mortal enemy; with great effort, she had held her foe at arm’s length—so far.
Her claim enticed others into the rising quarrel. “We all know there is no chief wife,” Xenodice said; an Achaean, she stood always ready to argue fiercely on any matter or on none. “And if there were, surely it would be Pharaoh’s Daughter.
She
is a queen to her very bones.”
Naamah’s red lips thinned a moment, but she did not retaliate. There was no need; Naamah’s cronies rounded upon Xenodice, eager for prey as a pack
of hunting hounds. “So only Pharaoh’s Daughter is fit to be queen?” demanded Naomi, whose tart tongue made her name, Pleasant, a wry jest. “Unfit, rather—all these years wed to the king and not one child, not even a girl.”
This spiteful comment was a mistake, for it reminded all the women gathered in the harem garden of the only woman who had ever held the king’s heart in her keeping. The woman who had given him a daughter whom he favored above all his many sons. Now the women all turned to gaze upon me, where I sat playing cat’s-cradle for my baby brother David, the Lady Makeda’s son.
Sensing the pressure of their regard, I paused with my fingers tangled in the scarlet thread I wove into patterns for my small half-brother’s amusement. The stilling of my fingers and thread displeased him; he frowned and waved his hands and feet, demanding I continue. When I did not, he reached up and grasped the thread, pulling hard and tangling the pattern beyond all unknotting.
I will have to begin again,
I thought, glancing down at David’s clutching fingers. I decided to remain silent, not add kindling to the fire of their quarrel.
And I knew silent observers heard more of interest than those who wished their own views admired. So I bowed my head over the scarlet thread and began slowly unplucking the knot, to start the game again. David’s mother sat upon a bench close by; she watched, and slanted her night eyes at my father’s other wives.
“Jackals about a bone,” she said, and laughed.
As if Makeda had not spoken, the others lifted their eyes from me, to continue scratching each other with sharp words. No wife would willingly retreat a step to grant another pride of place, and on one thing only could they agree: that the arrival of the Queen of Sheba promised trouble.
Why they should be so sure of that, I did not know. No one had yet set eyes upon the fabled Queen of the Morning. She might be old, or plain, or dull-witted. As for why she had journeyed a thousand miles—
“She hopes to wed King Solomon,” Arishat said. “Why else would a woman travel so far and so long? And then she will be the chief lady of the palace.”
“Why else? To glean treasure, of course. Is not Jerusalem the world’s heart now?” That was Marah, spiteful as her name.
I had the scarlet thread smooth, and began twining it about my fingers,
weaving the pattern once more. Small David stuck his fist into his mouth, staring wide-eyed as the web grew between my hands.
Why do they hate the Sheban queen so? They have not yet set eyes upon her!
But they were jealous as cats of their place in sunlight—or, as the Lady Makeda had said, as jackals of a bone. I glanced up through my lashes, judging who had gathered to complain and quarrel. Naamah, of course, and Marah; Yeshara and Arishat. That they partook of such bitter bread surprised no one, and any who wished to protest imagined wrongs drifted towards them.
Others avoided the quarrelsome group. At the other end of the garden, Melasadne rolled a gilded leather ball for her two young sons and half-a-dozen small white dogs. Lady Leeorenda and the Persian princess, Nilufer, sat beneath the lemon tree, engrossed in a scroll. Nefret, the Pharaoh’s daughter, had not come to the garden at all that day.
And the Lady Chadara had left it. As I studied my father’s wives, I realized that Chadara no longer stood within the group of arguing women.
Because she must prepare for the Sheban queen’s arrival, and they need only deplore it.
The thought made me smile; David pulled his fist from his mouth and laughed, and once again seized the net of thread I had so painstakingly rewoven for him.
At that, I, too, laughed, and set aside the tangle of scarlet. “So you grow bored, little prince? Come, let us walk about and find something else to amuse you.” I scooped him up from the sheepskin on which he lay and kissed his plump neck. He gurgled happily and grabbed one of my braids.
“I will take him now.” Makeda rose and held out her hands; I gave David into his mother’s arms and then pried his fingers from my hair. And when she had taken him away, I, too, slipped from the main garden.
I wanted to know more about this visitor from a far land, this unknown woman who dared such a journey.
Why has she journeyed so long and so far? And for what?
Trade and treaties could be negotiated by envoys; queens did not travel half the world lightly.
So why has this queen come here? What does she seek?
But I would not learn what I wished to know from my father’s wives. I must wait until the Queen of Sheba arrived, and discover her secrets for myself.
As they rode north from the encampment outside the walls of Ezion-geber, Bilqis studied King Solomon with discreet caution, judging him as if he
were a rich gem for which she bargained.
Or say, rather, a treaty which I must examine point by point, lest I be deceived by fine words and a smiling face.
One thing already she had learned: these men regarded her and her women with both awe and anger; a potent mixture that she must control with great care. Oh, the king was pleasant enough, at least pretending tolerance—but his courtiers were less tactful.
And the king’s general never takes his eyes from my Amazons, and never smiles.
Such men could be dangerous—
“What so chains the queen’s thoughts?” King Solomon’s question summoned her attention back to the moment; she glanced sidelong and saw him trying to judge her mood.
Difficult, with a veil guarding my face.
Behind that protective cloth, she smiled. “I think on the king’s land, and on his people, so different from my own. I look forward to learning of them both.”
“As I do to learning of yours.” He hesitated, then said, “And to discovering what has truly brought you so far from your kingdom and your throne. It must be a great matter for you to so risk yourself and your crown.”
At first she did not answer; they rode side by side in a circle of silence created by their hidden desires. They crested a hill, and she looked upon a broad river flowing slowly through the valley below. By the river’s color and the speed of its flow southward, she judged it not deep. But in this land of golden dust and rose-red stone, the river glowed like a fine turquoise.
“The Jordan,” the king said. “Our mightiest river.”
She liked the wit that could so describe the shallow waterway, and the patience that let him wait without repeating his question. It was for her to choose when and if to answer. As their horses walked slowly down the hill road, she decided to reveal the truth to King Solomon—
some truth, for the moment. I will see how he accepts a portion before gifting him with the whole.
“I have come at my goddess’s bidding.”
Solomon regarded her with interest. “Your goddess speaks to you?”
“From time to time. And your god—does He speak to you?”
Now it was his turn to pause, as if weighing each word before he uttered it. At last he said, “Once. How does your goddess speak with you? In dreams? Visions?”
Bilqis shrugged; the dark veils shrouding her rippled as if lifted by a summer breeze. “She makes Herself understood, if I have the wit to heed Her.”
“And your goddess—” He paused, and she said, answering his silent query, “Her name is Ilat. Sun of our Days, Mother of Sheba.”
“And Ilat told you to journey north, to see me?”
“She told me to seek to the north. You”—she slanted her eyes at him, shrugged again, creating another subtle ripple of veils—“you were kind enough to provide ships for the journey.”
“Charity is a virtue. What is the prize your goddess has promised, that you look upon a thousand miles as if it were a single step?”
“One worth a journey to world’s end and back. And you, Solomon? What did your god promise you—once?”
Again he seemed to weigh his words, at last saying only “What I asked of Him.” And after another silence, “It is wise to think well before one petitions one’s god.”
Yes, for She—or He—may answer, and the gods do not think as we do.
Time to lighten the mood; she laughed, low and soft, the sound muted by her veil.
“True enough, and enough truth for today.” Bilqis tilted her head; the thin gold stars sewn upon her veil shimmered and glinted. “Now the King of Israel has questioned the Queen of Sheba, and she him, and both been answered. Now ask again, any question you desire. Surely there is something the man Solomon wishes to ask the woman Bilqis?”
“Yes,” Solomon said. “Why do you hide yourself behind gold and veils—yet ride upon a horse like—”
“A man? Why, I ride because upon a horse one can move freely, without reliance upon others. And I veil”—she glanced sideways, and her eyes met his—“I veil to hide my face from the sun, which kisses too hard and hot. Does that answer please you, Solomon?”
And before he could answer, she touched Shams with her heels; the stallion danced sideways. “I must let him run, or he will give me no peace,” she said, and sent Shams cantering off along the road that led north.
To Jerusalem.

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