Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba (24 page)

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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba
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Even as the words flared like fire in my mind, I wondered why I thought that meeting would cost me anything.
Even of King Solomon, I would not have granted this tale’s truth—
save that I have looked upon this corruption with my own eyes.
When he had heard that the king had raised up a throne beside his own and set a pagan queen upon it, Ahijah had doubted. Even Solomon, whose House of Women sheltered idols within its walls, would not dare do such a thing.
But he has. Now no one can doubt this king’s love of vice and iniquity.
Ahijah stood in the shadows cast by the pillars of cedar ringing the great court and watched as the Sheban queen walked in brazen wantonness up to the steps of King Solomon’s throne. She did not bow. The king came down the steps to offer her his hand and lead her to the silver throne placed beside his own.
And as King Solomon announced to all the court that the Queen of Sheba would sit beside him at her own pleasure, Ahijah drew in his breath and stepped forward, out of the shelter given by the cedar pillars.
You see me, King Solomon. Heed me.
But as Ahijah drew in his breath, the king’s gaze slid
over him, swift as a falcon’s shadow. As if Ahijah were no more than a servant or a dog.
As if he could no longer be seen by the king’s eyes.
No. Silent, Ahijah stepped back between the pillars.
No. You will not laugh at me again, O King. Not again. I am Yahweh’s prophet, and I will not cast Yahweh’s words upon deaf ears. I will wait—
wait until the day Yahweh sets the weapon in my hand that will destroy you.
Although she cared nothing about the Queen of the South, she had followed all the rest of the king’s women to the gallery overlooking the great court; compliance was easier than thought. She had not dreamed that she would regret this choice so bitterly, that pride and passion long chained would be unleashed by the sight of a foreign woman.
But it was not the Sheban queen—a creature sun-kissed and lush; she plainly worshipped an easy goddess of day and laughter—no, it was not the queen who captured Helike’s eyes. For a pace behind the Queen of the South stood a warrior. A tall, supple figure clad in a leather tunic sewn with bronze disks and scarlet leather trousers tucked into high laced boots. A figure whose strong hand rested on the hilt of a short iron sword and whose hair fell down her back in a single braid. A band of silver a handspan wide guarded her throat … .
No. No. Surely my eyes lie.
But she knew they did not. Behind the Sheban queen a Moon Maid stood sword watch. Pure and straight; a reproach from the Huntress, keen as an arrow in the heart.
I was that once. And now—
Helike bowed her head, sick disgust pushing against her throat.
Now I am nothing. A man’s wife; his vessel to fill as he will.
Chattel.
Others pressed forward, pushed her towards the rear of the queens’ gallery. She allowed herself to be shuffled back; she would not struggle to retain her place.
What place? What does it matter what I do here?
But once her sight was barred by the bodies of the king’s women, terror rushed through her. If the Huntress had vouchsafed a sign—a
sign to me, after all these long cold moons
—how could she refuse to accept it?
Even though it means my death, I must look again upon my sister-in-blood.
Deaf to the protests of those she brushed aside, Helike fought her way back to the cedarwood lattice that hid the king’s women from view. There
she clung, staring through the screen, filling her eyes with the sight of her unknown sword-sister.
She could not tell which clan had reared the stranger; she knew only that they were moon-kin. For now, that was enough.
And for once she was glad of the seclusion the king’s women kept. She could feast her starved eyes upon the Sword Maid unseen, without risk that the Queen’s Blade would see her—
And if she did?
Bitter thought; Helike tasted bile on her tongue.
And if she did, what would she see? Nothing. Nothing but a palace woman.
Tears bit at her eyes; Helike lifted her gaze from the Amazon and stared at King Solomon where he sat upon the great gold and cedar throne.
What would she see? One of King Solomon’s queens.
The golden king upon his golden throne blurred, became a golden haze before the bright mosaic on the wall behind the throne. The Spice Queen moved, radiance incarnate, towards the golden glory of King Solomon. The Sword Maid stood, spear-straight, her scarlet leather bright as blood, never flinching.
No, I am wrong. She would see nothing. Nothing at all.
The queen’s truth was that I had been chosen to act as her eyes and ears in King David’s chambers. For Queen Michal meant the next king to be Solomon. To that end, she must know all that passed between the king and those who visited him as he lay cold in his bedchamber. And so I had been chosen
—a young maiden to tend and warm the dying king—
and to carry all that was said or done in his presence back to Queen Michal.
But she left the final choice in my hands; I weighed all she had said, and remembered all my mother had so carefully taught me, as if she had prepared me always for this task.
And I thought of Solomon’s sun-bright eyes. “Yes,” I said, and lifted my hand to curl my fingers about the cool coral and warm pearls the queen had set about my throat. “I will be your gift to King David.”
“My last gift to him,” the queen said, and smiled.
And so I became one of the king’s many women—
and one of the queen’s shadows. The second task was harder than the first.
She had been royally housed and greeted—greeted as an equal, a ruler to set beside the king himself. In this land, Bilqis knew that was no small gift.
Already
her servants brought her rumors of outrage that a mere woman should be so honored.
Let the men and women of this kingdom protest; I shall not remain here long enough for it to matter to me.
One thing only mattered: seeking out the promised queen she had journeyed so far to claim.
If she indeed is here. If she exists at all.
For now she had met King Solomon, and looked upon the City of David, and upon the Great Temple as well. But she had not yet discovered, in this royal city, the daughter that Ilat had promised.
“Cultivate patience and reap riches,” she reminded herself, but the old proverb failed to soothe her unquiet heart. Somewhere upon her long journey she had begun to doubt, not only her goddess but herself Had she mistaken Ilat’s words, heard only what she had longed too greatly to hear?
Have I traveled half the world only to fail?
She pushed the thought aside; worry was weakness.
If I have erred, I must correct the error.
Her goddess had led her here, had promised a daughter for Sheba.
Now I must unravel Her riddle and find the girl.
But perhaps there was no girl—not yet. Suddenly she saw another way—
We are far from Sheba; we will not see Ma’rib’s walls again for a year.
She had young women attending her, women whose bodies were still fruitful.
Get one of them with child by the king, and claim the babe as my own daughter, goddess-granted. I shall have one of them take Solomon to her bed. A child of his to fulfill Ilat’s promise—
No. The denial rang clear. That path was wrong; she knew it in her bones.
Then I must wait. Wait and see what Ilat sends. Only please, Mother, let it be soon!
Seeking ease from her fears, she went to stand before the altar, facing the ivory image of the goddess. Crossing her hands over her breasts, Bilqis bowed her head and then looked into Ilat’s lapis eyes. She did not petition, she merely stood awaiting whatever Ilat might deign to send her. But she felt nothing, and after a time she bowed her head again and backed away.
“The gods aid those who aid themselves,” she told herself, and heard a soft laugh; Khurrami came towards her, bearing an alabaster bowl in her hands. Pomegranates glowed red and perfect against the pale stone.
“A gift from King Solomon?” the queen asked, and Khurrami shook her head.
“No,” Khurrami said, holding out the alabaster bowl. “A gift from King Solomon’s daughter.”
The words seemed to echo in the warm scented air; she stared at the crimson fruit, reached out and took a pomegranate in her hand. “King Solomon’s daughter,” she said slowly, and then, “Khurrami, I am a fool. Send word to King Solomon that the Queen of Sheba wishes to walk and talk with him this afternoon. And tell Irsiya to come to me and help me dress to meet with the king.”
Khurrami set the alabaster bowl upon a carved cedarwood chest and went off to perform her tasks; Bilqis cradled the pomegranate in her hands.
You knew the king had a
daughter, yet it did not occur to you that she might be the girl you seek? Did you think your prize would be set before you upon a golden tray with the king’s other gifts?
And why had the king not offered to show her his wives, his children? Of course she had met Prince Rehoboam—who had greeted her with a sullen courtesy that boded ill for his future reign did he not improve his manners—and such of the king’s sons as were old enough to have left the women’s palace and have quarters of their own.
But Solomon has not shown me his women’s world. Why?
Perhaps it was Ilat’s doing, to remind her that even a queen could be a fool. “Did I expect a slave girl or a novice priestess to cross my path in the street and have my crown fall at her feet?” Her fingers closed over the pomegranate’s smooth tough skin; she laughed softly. “I have listened to too many harpers’ songs.”
She gazed at the fruit that shone like rubies within the moon-pale vessel. Still smiling, she set the pomegranate she held back in the bowl and then carried the princess’s gift to lay before Ilat’s ivory feet.
“Thank you,” she said. She had asked for guidance—and what clearer sign could the goddess have sent her? Soon her quest would be ended and she could return home—home with Sheba’s future safely in her keeping.
 
 
When she asked King Solomon if she might see the queens’ palace, she made her request light, half a jest. “Forty wives, and all of them queens! Now that is a sight worth setting eyes upon.” Bilqis slanted her own eyes at the king, teasing glints half-veiled by her lashes. “Why do you hide them from me? Are you afraid of what they may reveal?”
Solomon laughed. “A man afraid of his wife—”
“Or wives,” she said.
“—or wives, is a man who wed the wrong woman—or women,” he added. “No, I thought only that such a visit would bore you.”
“Because I rule a kingdom and they do not?” So that was the reason, no more—and had she had the wit to ask at once, she would not have wasted a week once she arrived in Jerusalem! She tilted her head, letting her tiered gold earring brush her cheek, light as a dragonfly. “Tell me, O King, do you speak only with kings and princes? Or do you learn from all men?”
He did not spend breath on an answer they both already knew; he smiled and held out his hand. “Come, then, O Queen, and look upon the world of the king’s women. Although what the Queen of the South may learn from women whose only interests are their garments, their gems, and their children, I do not know”
O Solomon, you are called “the Wise”
—yet you are as blind as any other man when you look upon your own women.
But she only smiled, and laid her hand over his. “Of course you do not know; you are a man. Show me your women, reveal to me the living treasures of your palace, King Solomon, because I ask it.”
“Whatsoever the Queen of Sheba desires, that she shall have,” the king said, and Bilqis smiled, the curve of her lips as meaningless as his extravagant ritual promise.
As they walked through the courtyards and corridors, Bilqis noted each fruit or flower painted upon plaster walls, each emblem carved in stone, that might serve as a clue to guide her should she ever need to walk these halls alone. The Palace of the Sun and Moon in Ma’rib rose seven stories into the sky and spread its brick skirts wide—but King Solomon’s House of Cedar was a match for it in size and splendor.
And like all kings’ houses—and queens’ too—Solomon’s palace coiled about itself like a serpent. Without quick eyes and mind, a stranger would lose his way by the third turning.
Labyrinth,
such royal puzzle-houses had been called when Knossos still stood and the Bull-King and the Lady of the Labrys ruled all the world washed by the Great Sea.
And like all palaces, King Solomon’s offered hidden vantage points from which to spy upon those the king wished observed. A long gallery shadowed one side of the women’s quarters, its windows veiled by latticed screens delicately carved in stone; from that private spot, shielded from their eyes, the king could watch his women—
“Secretly,” King Solomon said, and she sensed hidden amusement beneath his blandly correct tone.
“And does King Solomon the Wise often watch here in secret?” Her own voice gave no hint of her distaste for such enforced seclusion of royal women; this land was not hers, and its ways were strange. She must take care not to give offense.
Solomon smiled. “King Solomon is too wise to think his presence here is ever truly secret. My women know more of what happens in Jerusalem than do my spies!”
Blind you may be when you look upon your wives
—but at least you are wise enough not to despise women as so many men do in this land that reckons lineage by fathers instead of mothers.
She allowed her own lips to curve in an answering smile, but said nothing. Instead, she moved forward to look down into the garden below.
Clearly the common ground of the women’s palace, the garden spread wide, offering both sunlight and shade, fruit trees and fountains. Flowers, too, and neat-laid paths to walk upon, and benches to rest upon set beneath olive and lemon trees. And for all the garden was set within palace walls, and all the women who walked within it were a king’s wives, the queens’ garden court seemed in truth no more than a village gathering place, the grand fountain no more than a village well.
Here is the heart of King Solomon’s world. The women at the well, and their children. Here is where I Shall truly learn to know him. Any man can play the hero to a guest. His women—ah, they will know him better.
In the garden below, a woman strolled past, half-a-dozen tiny white dogs trotting along with her, their fur swirling about them like water. Two women sat upon the fountain’s edge, their heads bent close in quiet talk. Several small boys kicked a gilded leather ball back and forth.
“Your sons?” she asked, turning away, ready to go on.
If I do not see his daughter soon, I will ask. Patience has limits.
“Some of them.” Solomon gazed down upon the domestic scene and smiled. “And there is my daughter.” His voice changed as he said the words, love and pride haunted by sorrow.
At last.
Bilqis turned back and looked down into the women’s garden once more, and a wave of gratitude swept through her, heating her blood and turning her bones to wax.
Forgive me, Mother Ilat; never again will I doubt.
A girl ran after the gilded ball, caught it up, and tossed it for the little boys to chase. As they ran, she laughed, pushing unruly hair from her face. Then, as if she knew herself watched, the girl looked up, and all Bilqis’s lingering fears fled as she stared down into sun-bright eyes.
Yes. Yes, this is the daughter I have come for. She is Sheba’s next queen,
A great queen, too, for the girl was a fire-child; born under the stars of the Phoenix, the sign that claimed kings and queens as its beloved children. Her birth-stars blazed in the red that rippled through her dark hair, flames born of the sun’s rays.
Yes. That one.
“That one.” Nothing of the triumph and delight soaring through Bilqis touched her voice. “A lovely girl; what is she called?”
“Her name is Baalit,” King Solomon said.
Baalit; little goddess.
Pain grasped her heart; she closed her eyes against bitter memory.
“Baalit … my goddess-child. Sheba’s queen, Mother … .”
Her daughter Allit’s dying words, naming a child who had lived to draw only half-a-dozen breaths—
No. I must think not of what was but of what will be. You were right, my Allit—Baalit will one day be Queens of the Morning.
“It is a good name,” she said at last.
“It is a strange name for a girl of our god’s people to bear, but her mother desired it.”
Now the pain rang sharp in his voice; clearly the girl’s mother had been dearly loved. Bilqis laid her hand upon his. “You are a good man, King Solomon. Many would not have honored such a desire.” She did not give him time to answer but spoke swiftly on. “Let us go down into the garden, for I would meet your wives and sons, and your daughter.”
“If you wish it,” he said, smiling, and she managed to smile back as if she made only the lightest, least vital, of requests.
“Yes, I wish it.”
“Very well; come with me, and I shall present my daughter to you. But I warn you, my Baalit is a clever girl who asks as many questions as—”
“As her father does? Do not trouble yourself, King Solomon. Questions amuse me.” And she laughed, easy and soft; she dared not betray strong interest—not yet.
But she is the one I have been sent here to find. She is. I know. She is a queen already, and does not yet know it.
This wild girl burned with the passionate fire that once had blazed
through Bilqis’s blood. Bilqis did not need Ilat’s whisper telling her this girl was the one for whom she had come so far, and at such risk. Baalit was the daughter of her soul; whatever the cost, Sheba must have her.
Solomon held out his hand, and Bilqis laid hers upon it. Despite her exultation, her skin was cool, her face calm. And her steps matched his; she would not ruin all by undue haste. Behind her tranquil eyes, her mind began telling over what she now must do.
She permitted herself a soft laugh, as if at the small jest King Solomon was telling her over the flowers in his garden.
My true daughter, my gift from the Queen of Heaven. I must return great offerings as thanks for this favor.
Prayers were so rarely answered so clearly; Bilqis was truly grateful.
“Such serenity,” the king said, pausing at the gateway to the garden. “A rare quality; I would give much to possess it for myself.”
She noted the hint of doubled meaning, gratifying to know she could still bring fire to men’s eyes.
Or say, rather, warmth; I do not think this man sparks to fire.

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