Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba (49 page)

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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba
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I had never thought to keep what passed between King David and me from Solomon; like all who love, I wished to give my mind and heart, as well as my body, into my beloved’s keeping. And so upon our wedding night, when we at last stood bared before each other in the king’s bedchamber, I held Solomon off with my hand and tried to tell him the truth. But he refused. to hear.
“Whatever happened, happened,” he said. “It does not matter.” I searched his eyes and saw only love there. So for that one night, we both lay together content.
But I woke uneasy next morning, and so I sought out my mother. “I have a question, Mother, that you alone can answer,” I began, and my mother laughed, a low, rich ripple of sound; all my life I loved my mother’s laughter.
“You should have asked before the wedding night, and not after, Daughter. Now is too late!” Then she sobered. “What happened, Abishag? Did King Solomon chide you for what you were to King David?”
I shook my head. “No—but he would not listen when I tried to tell him the truth. That King David and I—”
“No.” Swift as a serpent strike, my mother’s hand pressed against my mouth, trapped my words unspoken. “Do not tell me, Abishag. Do not tell Queen Michal, do not tell your
maidservant. Tell no one.” She let her hand fall away from my lips. “Do you understand? No one.”
Never had I seen my mother so solemn; I stared, seeking hidden laughter in her eyes. I saw none, only a calm sure command.
“Not even King Solomon?” I asked at last.
“Twice never tell him! For he is a man—and for all Queen Michal has striven to create a god in human form, too good for use, he is still only a man. And no matter what you say, he will shape it into a weapon against you.”
“Solomon is not like that,” I protested, and my mother laughed again.
“All men are like that,” she said, and took my hands in her own. “Now listen to me, Abishag, and remember always what I say to you now. Swear it. Swear it on your love for Solomon.”
Seeing her so solemn troubled me; I swore as she asked.
“Never give a man everything. Keep something back, always. A woman without a secret is a woman without power. For a man, certainty is the death of love.”
“But I love Solomon; all I have done has been for him, and for him alone.”
“And so that you might one day be his queen,” my mother said with calm assurance, “Well, there is no shame in that; rejoice that for you, love and ambition embrace.”
Unwillingly, I understood. Love and ambition—how could I not love Solomon, who could set a crown upon my head? “Then I owe him truth twice over. Whatever I say—”
“Will kill what binds you together. For if you say, ‘No, King David never touched me,’ a part of King Solomon will not believe you. And if you say, ‘Yes, your father lay with me,’ that knowledge will gnaw your husband’s heart. Soon or late, jealousy will eat away his love for you, leaving only cold bones.”
I wanted to cry out against this harsh judgment. But all of my life, what my mother taught me had proven true in the end. When my heart’s desire lay in the balance, did I dare question her wisdom?
“Whatever the truth is, whatever passed—or did not—between you and King David, never tell it. Cherish that truth; chain it silent within your heart. Always remember that secret is your power. Do not risk everything on a man’s good opinion of himself, Abishag. Even when that man is King Solomon.”
In harpers’ songs, the tale ends when the great deed is done, the treasure gained, the favor granted. In life, there are no simple endings. I had won for the Queen of Sheba all that she desired, won for myself my father’s blessing.
Now I must ask him for more, must finish spinning out the thread I had begun so long ago.
For this, I went to my father as I had always done, freely and privately, as his daughter. The guards at the doorway to his working rooms stretched their eyes at me; I was worth staring at, now. I was the girl worth the world’s weight in incense and in gold. I was the treasure King Solomon had given into the keeping of the Queen of Sheba.
Yesterday I was only King Solomon’s daughter. Yesterday, no one cared to look, to see me. Anger coiled within my heart at the thought; I forbade it freedom.
“There is a price to pay for every desire, little goddess. If you will not pay the price, do not claim the prize.”
I could no longer afford easy anger.
Instead I smiled at the guards as I had always done and passed through the open doorway. In the first room, my father’s scribes sat, awaiting his call; again I smiled as I always did, and greeted them by name, and asked if my father was alone in his inner office. When they said he was, I smiled again; I saw the scribes slant their eyes to stare as I walked past them to the next door. Under the pressure of their eyes, I stood calm and knocked before I opened the door and walked into my father’s presence.
He stood facing the map painted upon the long wall, the map of all the world that swayed to King Solomon’s will. The land stretched yellow from the Troad to Thebes, from Babylon to Damascus; across the yellow lands ran lines of red: the King’s Highway and the Incense Road, the Silk Road and the Way of the Sea. Swathes of blue: the Red Sea that led south to Sheba and the lands beyond; the Black Sea, path to the lands of amber, furs, and gold; the Great Sea that stretched from the shores of the Sea-Cities west to world’s end.
“All this bends to my wishes,” he said, his voice low and calm; he did not move or turn. “All this I rule, and yet I am not master in my own house. Is that not strange?”
That question, I knew I could not answer. I found my voice, but said only “Father.”
For a heartbeat I thought he would not turn to me; then his shoulders softened and he faced me squarely. But he did not smile. “Yes, my daughter?” His voice was smooth, even, as I had heard it many times in the great courtyard as he laid down judgments.
“I have yet another boon I would ask.”
“And you come silent and secret to ask it? Do you not wish to hold me to account before priest and people?” Bitterness sharpened my father’s voice; surprised, I suddenly found myself looking upon him, not as my father but as a man and a king who had been forced before all the world’s eyes to yield to a girl.
No, not that. To yield to his own justice.
I remembered how he had smiled and jested in the throne room, betraying no hint of pain or sorrow, and I could only pray that I, too, would someday own a heart as great as his.
“This boon requires the skills of a wise mind and a generous heart, if it is to be granted.” I wished I did not need to ask yet another gift of him, but I must.
“And I am to be both wise and generous, I suppose? Well, what else is it you desire, my daughter?”
I hesitated. “Before I ask, I would beg one thing more—that if you cannot grant this, you will never speak of it to—to anyone.”
“To whomever you have promised my favor to? Very well; you have my word. Ask.”
That was all he said: “Ask.” Not “Ask and it shall be granted.”
Knowing how my words would be weighed, I hesitated. No longer was I a child to be indulged; I was a woman to be judged.
I do not ask lightly, or for myself.
And I had my father’s word he would never speak of this; if I failed, Helike would never know I had even asked.
If I fail, Helike will slay both her child and herself.
So I must not fail. I gathered my words with care, and then began.
“My father, you are a great king; your house holds many wives. Your women have been brought from all lands to wed you, to seal treaties and strengthen alliances. And you treat them all as queens—” I stopped in mid-praise, for my father held up his hand. And to my surprise, he smiled.
“Once more you confound me, Daughter. I understand now; you have promised to ask a boon on behalf of another. Now cease coiling words until at last you reach your point. Ask, and if what the Princess Baalit of Sheba asks can be granted by King Solomon—the Wise—it shall be granted.”
To my astonished horror, tears burned my eyes; I blinked hard to keep back the tears. “May the Lady Helike come with me to Sheba?”
“The Lady Helike? The Horse Lord’s daughter?” My father stared at me, plainly astonished.
“Yes,” I said. And after all my planning, all my care composing an elegant supplication, I found that I need only speak plainly, my words unveiled.
No more secrets.
Now only truth would serve. “She was forced to come to Jerusalem, forced to wed. She loathes the palace, loathes—”
“Me?” My father’s voice was low; I suddenly realized even a woman he barely knew could wound him.
“Oh, no—no, it is herself she hates. Father—she was an Amazon, a Sword Maiden. She came as a prisoner, her sword-sisters held as hostage for her submission.”
My father stood still and silent; I could not read his eyes. At last he said, “I did not know.” That was all, but never before had I heard such pain in his voice.
“It was not your fault,” I began, and my father laughed, a sound harsh as a hoopoe’s cry.
“When you are queen, my child, you will learn that all that passes is your fault. I am king—it is my duty to know, to care. But I did not know; I accepted unquestioning what the Horse Lord sent—a dozen fine stallions and a hundred finer mares. And a princess to seal the bargain. I inspected the horses with great care.”
Now I stared, my mouth slack with surprise; never before had I heard my father speak with such bitterness. “You did not know,” I managed to say. I could have wept at the anger I saw in my father’s eyes. Anger at himself.
“I should have known. Her oath-breaking lies at my feet; she is guiltless. As the Lord lives, Baalit, I am at fault and should beg her pardon upon my knees in the palace gate.” He sighed and set his fingers to his brow; I saw the skin whiten beneath the pressure of his fingers.
“You did not know,” I repeated, unwilling to see him take such a burden upon his heart. “It is not your fault. But she is unhappy here, and I—I shall need my own captain, in Sheba.”
“She may go; of course she may go. And with all honor, as befits a king’s wife and a Sword Maid.”
“And the treaty with the Horse Lord?”
“Will stand. If I order my wife to accompany my daughter to her new home, where is the disgrace in that?” A pause, then he added, “I am king, after all; who is to say me nay?”
I felt my face grow hot, for I knew I had forced him to my will—we both
knew it. Someday I hoped he would forgive me. But now I must plead on another’s behalf, and so pretend I noticed nothing.
“There is one thing more.” I wished with all my heart that I could remain silent, but I knew I must tell my father the whole truth. “Helike is with child. That is why she came to me. Oh, Father—she swears her goddess told her the child is a girl, a girl to redeem her own broken vows. She wanted me to take the child to Sheba, to dedicate her to the Horse Goddess. She swore that if I did not, she would slay the child herself.”
“And did you swear to do so?”
“I swore that I would send for her daughter and raise her as my own. But that I would not vow any child to a god without her own consent.”
“And the Lady Helike agreed to this?”
“Yes,” I said, “she agreed. She asked for nothing for herself, only for her daughter. It was I who thought of taking her for my own captain. Helike knows nothing of this.”
“Nothing for herself.” My father seemed to stare beyond me, into some world only he could see. Then he returned from whatever realm had briefly claimed him; his eyes looked into mine, and I saw a glint, brilliant as crystal, as if my father, too, must battle tears. “Nothing for herself,” he said again, and then, “Princess Baalit, the king grants your petition. When you ride south with the Queen of the Morning, the Lady Helike rides with you. I am losing my own daughter; I will not force Helike to lose hers.”
I would have bowed to thank him, but my father caught me up in his arms and held me close, as if I were a small girl again. Now I did not fight my tears; my eyes were damp as I hugged him hard. “You are not losing me, Father. You are gaining the best of allies.” But my words were muffled by the thick wool of his tunic, and by my tears, and I do not know if he heard me or not.
For her daughter’s sake, she had dared hope, dared dream. But not for herself; Helike accepted despair for herself, dared desire nothing more. It was enough that Princess Baalit had sworn to save her daughter; Helike clung to that promise as she clung to a horse’s back—with all her strength and skill.
And the princess had kept her oath; she stood before Helike smiling, speaking words that seemed to ring like sword blades in the garden’s closed
sullen air. “My father frees you, Helike. You are to come with me to Sheba. And more—you are to be captain of my guard. Captain of the heir’s guard, just as Nikaulis is of the queen’s guard.”
As Helike stared at her, Baalit held out the parcel she carried in her arms, a large bundle wrapped in a crimson cloth. “Here, this is for you. Take it, Helike.”
Something is wrong; I feel nothing. No joy. Nothing. It is too late—
The princess tried to push the bundle into Helike’s hands. “Take it, open it. Here, let me help you.”
She is blind; does she not see she tries to touch a ghost?
As Helike stood there, cold and still, Baalit pulled back the parcel and set it upon the ground between them. Swiftly, the princess stooped and unwrapped the cloth that covered what she had brought. She rose and took Helike’s hand, pressed an object into her palm. Helike looked down and stared at a dagger, long-bladed and sharp. Upon the hilt a gilded leopard snarled. The leopard’s eye glinted green; emerald-set.
“The leopard is Sheba’s beast. You see? You are captain of my guard. You are a warrior again, Helike.”
The princess closed Helike’s fingers over the dagger and stepped back. Helike turned the knife over in her hands, ran her fingertips along the blade, but her hands shook so she fumbled and the leopard dagger fell to the floor; the iron rang against the tiles like a bell.
“The Queen of Sheba’s captain told me what you should have, to ride by my side. All is here, ready for you to don—and I had the garments made in my own colors.” Princess Baalit smoothed her hand over scarlet leather, traced flames embroidered in golden thread. “My own colors, marked with my own seal. See, I have had a phoenix stitched upon the tunic. Do you like it?”
The princess smiled hopefully, and suddenly Helike saw that the girl was tentative, unsure, her pride a shield.
The phoenix. The bird born again from fire. What clearer sign could I ask?
All doubt fled, all pain and anger burned to ash. Helike bowed her head, silently acknowledging her Lady’s mercy. Then she reached out and accepted the leather tunic from Baalit’s hands.
“Yes, Princess.” Helike closed her fingers over the fire-bright leather. “Yes, I like it very much.”

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