Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba (47 page)

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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba
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As easily as she had flung aside her sober veil my mother shed her life as the widow Zilpah. “Now I may claim myself again,” she said. “I may grant Zhurleen of Ascalon life once more.”
More than that, she would not tell me. “Later, if you still wish to know, I will tell you what you have not learned by then. But I think I have taught you well enough for you to glean my story for yourself.”
Never again did I see the modest merchant’s wife Zilpah; that woman was gone forever. Zhurleen of Ascalon painted her face and garbed herself in scarlet and gold—and set up a shrine in her room to an ivory goddess whose outstretched hands held golden pomegranates and whose painted smile seemed to echo my mother’s.
Some of her old life I did learn for myself; enough to know that once my mother had dwelt in King David’s palace. But that had been long ago, and few women remained who remembered her.
Of course Queen Michal knew, but somehow I never dared ask her to speak of the past she shared with my mother, and the only other woman who might know was Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba. She, I am sure, would have told me whatsoever I wished—but the time for that never seemed to be ripe. Later, much later, when it was too late, I realized that never in all our shared days in the king’s palace was I left alone with Queen Bathsheba. Always Queen Michal was there, or my own mother, clinging to Bathsheba like her shadow.
The next great court lay three days in the future; I had ample time to think, and to burnish my new design until each step I must take shone clear. This time I must make no mistake, for I had to wager all my future on one throw of the bones.
Upon the third day, I summoned Nimrah and Keshet and commanded my finest garments be brought. “Today I go before my father’s court,” I said, as they exchanged wary glances, “and must not shame him.” That was all; I would not burden them with my doubts and fears.
For once I did not fret as my handmaidens fussed and debated over each garment. My patience puzzled them as much as it pleased, but neither questioned me. I stood still as a temple idol as Keshet slid a mist-thin tunic onto my body, as Nimrah offered a crimson gown. She and Keshet held the gown as I stepped into it; they drew the soft rich cloth up and pinned it closed with golden brooches fashioned in the shape of courting bees. I held out my arms, and Nimrah knelt and wrapped the wide girdle about my hips; gilded leather soft and supple as water. Tassels braided of fine wool and heavy with silver beads hung from the leather girdle to my knees.
“And your hair, Princess?”
For once I did not shrug and say it did not matter. All I did, all I was, all I appeared to be mattered. How did I wish to appear before my father—
No. How does the Princess Baalit, who seeks the crown of the Queen of the South, wish to appear before King Solomon the Wise?
At last I looked at Nimrah and said, “You know where I am going today, and why. Do my hair as you think best.”
“Yes, Princess.” Nimrah began to tame my wild hair. When she had done, my hair lay in a smooth-woven crown of braids, flowing into a coil gleaming like a serpent at the nape of my neck. When I looked in my mirror, my eyes widened in admiration of her handiwork.
“You have made a crown of her hair,” Keshet said, and Nimrah smiled. “It is how Queen Michal wore her hair, when she sat beside the Lady Bathsheba in your father’s court.” And then, when she saw Keshet and me staring at her, Nimrah said, “I asked Queen Nefret; she remembered, and drew a picture for me. Later I will show you.”
“Yes,” I said, “Later. Thank you, Nimrah. Now let me see my jewels.”
I chose gems with great care; today I must go before the king as his
equal in dignity and honor. Earrings of emerald and beaten gold, hairpins shimmering and trembling with leaves of thin gold and silver. A necklace formed of carved ivory plaques and another of golden snakes twined into an endless knot. Bracelets of ivory from the south and amber from the north.
And at last, when Nimrah and Keshet assured me I was adorned as richly as any goddess, I hesitated, and then took up the shoddy bracelet of worn brass chains from my mother’s ivory casket. The movement shook flakes from the fragile river crystals, glittering drops of time past.
“This too,” I said, and although Nimrah and Keshet exchanged puzzled glances, neither said a word. Keshet merely bent her head to the task of fastening the timeworn bauble about my left wrist.
All that remained was to don the silver veil, pin its glittering mist securely to my smooth-braided hair. And then I was ready, and Keshet held up my mirror.
I gazed upon a stranger in silver, glittering and unreal. No longer a heedless girl, but a woman. A queen in waiting. But pride did not kindle my blood; an odd chill slid through my veins like slow poison.
“So this is what a queen looks like.” I tried to make my words light, mocking my silver ghost in the mirror. But Keshet did not giggle; Nimrah did not murmur agreement. Instead, my words fell harsh and heavy into silence.
“Yes, this is what a queen looks like. Does it please you, child?”
Behind me in the mirror, a shadow danced; I flung down the silver mirror and spun around in a swirl of veil and a chiming of golden anklets, to face the woman who questioned me. For a heartbeat it seemed I looked still into the silver mirror, for her eyes were mine. And although I had not looked upon her face since I was seven years old, I knew who she was.
“Grandmother,” I said, and she smiled, and opened her arms to me.
 
 
At first I marveled over her arrival, wondering how she knew herself needed, only to hear her laugh.
“Dearest child, do you think every prince and pigherd from Baghdad to Damascus does not know how the Wise King and the Spice Queen dally in the Lady’s Dance? Asherah’s doves carry the new songs almost as swiftly as
rumor. Every temple from here to world’s end has received the news by now—even those whose birds are too plump to fly farther than across a courtyard!” A dark cloak embroidered with little stars covered her from throat to ankles; now she flung the cloak aside, revealing clothing such as I had never before seen.
A skirt tiered like lizard’s scales; a belt of stiff crimson leather two handspans wide; a bodice tight beneath her breasts, pushing them up as if cupped by loving hands. Golden bees hung heavy from her ears; golden doves spread gleaming wings across her bare breasts. Golden serpents coiled about her arms from wrist to elbow—and beneath her skin, serpents inked darkly into her flesh shadowed those of metal. She watched me stare, and smiled.
“This is how a priestess dresses in our Lady’s House, for She is very old, and the old grow stubborn in their ways. So to suit Her pleasure, we garb ourselves as if we dwelt in ancient halls. Ah, well—no one ever claimed the gods owned any taste in clothes!” And she laughed, which startled me even more than her seemingly impious words. “Oh, do not look so shocked, Baalit. Do you think my Lady has no better way to pass Her time than eavesdropping on our lightest words? Or that She cannot laugh?”
“I—I do not know.”
Your grandmother Zhurleen? I remember her laugh. Yes, that is how I recall her—the Laughing One. Always, always she would laugh.
“Doubt, they say, is the beginning of wisdom. Now, daughter of my daughter, humor an old woman and tell her just how you plan to unknot the thread you have so thoroughly tangled. And do not tell me you don’t know what I mean, little goddess, for I am old, not feebleminded. Sit, and tell me all that has happened to bring you to this threshold.”
And so I sat beside my laughing grandmother and told her all that had happened since the Queen of the South rode through Jerusalem’s gate, and all the wrong I had done through folly, and how I planned to mend what I had broken. My grandmother listened, and sometimes asked a quiet question, but she did not laugh—or even smile. I did not know enough then to thank her for that great kindness; only years later did I realize how much self-control it takes for the old to listen solemnly to the young. But my grandmother Zhurleen granted me that boon. When I told her all that was in my heart and mind, all I dreamed of becoming, she listened—and did not laugh.
Instead, when I at last fell silent, she took my hands in hers. “A good plan, Baalit; better than many conjured up by older and wiser heads. You do well to approach your father bravely and openly. He is not a man intrigued by shadows.”
She paused; her breath seemed to catch, as if on memory. And in that small silence, I sensed she waited for some response from me, some words she hoped I would speak unprompted—
“I do well,” I said slowly, “but?”
“But you are young, and the young are impetuous and disinclined to listen to their elders. Still, as you ask my advice, I will give it.” Laughter danced like sunlight in her eyes. “I know King Solomon’s mind, for I knew the women who raised him to be a man and a king. What you ask for yourself, your father will grant you if he can. But what you ask for others—that he will grant without hesitation. Now do you know what you must do?”
“Yes, Grandmother,” I said after considering her words carefully, “I think I do.” I lifted her hands and kissed them, as if she were herself a queen and I her handmaiden.
“Wait a dozen years and then thank me, if you still wish to do so.” She withdrew her hands and reached down to the star-sewn cloak that lay soft beside her feet. She lifted up a bundle that had been hidden in the folds of dark cloth, red silk wrapped about some small object. She laid the bundle in her lap, stared down at it as if scrying the future—or the past.
Then she raised her head and smiled at me. “I bring you a gift I have held in trust for you these seven years. Carry it when you go before King Solomon, little goddess, and I swear by the Lady’s hair he will grant whatsoever you ask of him—even if you ask a boon that carries you to the ends of the earth.”
She handed me the silk-bound bundle; I untied it, carefully, and uncoiled the soft red cloth until it fell away from what it had concealed and I looked upon the treasure my grandmother had given into my hands.
A spindle. A spindle of ivory, its whirl a circle of amber.
I stared at the fragile-looking toy, and then looked up at my grandmother, waiting.
“Queen Baalit will find it useful,” she said, “just as Queen Michal and Queen Abishag did before you. If you do not spin, you must learn.”
I could spin; of course I could spin. All girls learned to spin. I lifted the spindle; the ivory warmed to my hand, waiting … . “And if I carry this, I will be granted whatsoever boon I may ask? Is it magic?”
My grandmother laughed, a sound like a swirl of gay music. “Woman’s magic, little goddess. And if you do as I say—which is more than Queen Michal ever did—you will achieve your heart’s wish before you are too old to take pleasure in it! Trust me, Granddaughter, King Solomon will send you from his court with goodwill and good wishes, and think himself lucky to do so. He has a good memory, that one—for a man!”
I set my fingers upon the amber whirl and set it spinning, watched as it swirled and slowed. My mother had once touched this spindle as I did now, drawn thread smooth from its ivory distaff. I spun the amber whirl once again, and tried to remember Queen Michal turning this same spindle, its ivory warming to the caress of her long clever hands—
“No.” My grandmother laid her hand on mine, stopping the spindle’s whirl. “Do not use it to summon yesterdays. It is tomorrow you seek. Spin, O Queen, and summon the future.”
I looked at her thin hand and saw how delicate the bones were beneath her skin. Then I looked again at her face and saw that, although she was old, she was beautiful still. Always, when people spoke to me of my grandmother Zhurleen, they told me she was beautiful—but like all those who are young, I had thought beauty a thing created by a certain sheen of hair, a curve of breast and hip, a smoothness of skin. A thing of youth. Even the Sheban queen still clung to youth’s perfection.
But my grandmother Zhurleen was truly old—yet still truly beautiful. When I looked into her eyes, I saw that beauty was not only an illusion of the body, but a truth of the heart and mind. So long as the heart and mind find joy, that joy will grant beauty, no matter how gray and dull the hair, how lined and slack the skin.
“Someday, Grandmother, I wish to look like you,” I said, and at that she laughed again.
“Live long enough, Granddaughter, and someday your wish will be granted. Now let us go to the King’s High Court and liven up this dull day for these duller people!”
“Yes,” I said and rose, the queen’s spindle cradled in my hands. “Let us go to the King’s court.”
 
 
When we reached the gateway to the great court, my grandmother kissed my forehead and sent me on through the gate alone. I longed to cling to her, but I knew she was right. This I must do myself, or not at all. I stepped forward and did not look back.
When I stood between the tall cedar columns of my father’s hall of judgment, and demanded to be brought before the king, the royal herald stared as if he had never set eyes upon me before. He stood like Lot’s wife, frozen in place.
“Announce me,” I said again, “or I will go in and do it myself.”
That sparked life back into him; the herald hurried up to the throne. But instead of announcing me as I had asked, he spoke swiftly to the recorder at the throne’s foot. My father sat straight upon his throne; his face surrendered nothing. In the throne beside him, the Queen of Sheba waited, silent.
I heard my father ask, “Who next comes before the king for judgment?” and then the recorder’s response.
“The Princess Baalit comes before the court, O King,” “the recorder said, and I began to walk towards the Lion Throne, keeping my pace steady and my eyes fixed upon my father.
When I stood before the throne, I bowed, and waited. All rested, now, upon my father’s wisdom—and upon my own.

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