Ring Of Solomon (25 page)

‘It is very large. Bigger than the queen’s house in Himyar, if not so beautiful.’

The vizier laughed. ‘Was your queen’s palace built in a single night, as this was? Solomon wished his residence to exceed the glories of old Babylon. What did he do? He summoned the Spirit of the Ring! The Spirit commanded nine thousand djinn to appear. Each carried a bucket and a shovel and flew on butterfly wings, so that the sound of their labours would not wake the wives in the harem camp below the hill. As dawn broke, the final brick was eased into place, and water began to flow from the fountains in the garden. Solomon breakfasted beneath orange trees that had been brought from eastern lands. From the first it has been a house of marvels, like nothing yet witnessed in the world!’

Asmira thought of the fragile mud-brick towers of Marib, painstakingly tended and patched by her people down the centuries, now threatened by this self-same Ring. Her teeth clamped tight; still, she affected a tone of guileless wonder. ‘All in a single night!’ she said. ‘Can this truly be the work of one small ring?’

A sidelong glance beneath the heavy lids. ‘It is so.’

‘Where does it come from?’

‘Who can tell? Ask Solomon.’

‘Did he make it, perhaps?’

The green-eyed mouse chittered with mirth. ‘I think not!’ the vizier said. ‘In his youth Solomon was a magician of small competence, not yet a great one of the world. But always a passion for the mysteries of the past burned like a flame inside him, a love of long ago, when magic was first practised and the first demons brought out of the abyss. Solomon collected artefacts from those early civilizations, and to that end travelled extensively in the east. The stories say he grew lost one day, and came upon a place of ancient ruins, where, hidden beyond the sight of man or spirits for who knows how many years, he chanced upon the Ring …’ The vizier smiled grimly. ‘I do not know the truth of that, but this I
do
know. From the time he picked up that Ring, fate has favoured him more than any living man.’

Asmira gave a little maidenly sigh. ‘How I wish to speak with him!’

‘No doubt. Unfortunately you are not alone. Other supplicants have arrived in Jerusalem on missions similar to yours. Here! This is the viewing gallery above the Magicians’ Hall. Take a look, if you wish, before we go down.’

In the side of the corridor, a stone alcove; in the centre of the alcove, an opening. Beyond was a vast space, shimmering with light. From it rose a swell of sound.

Asmira went to the alcove, set her hands upon cold marble, leaned out a little way.

Her heart caught in her throat.

She looked down upon a hall of immense size, lit with floating orbs. The roof was made of dark, rich wood, each beam a tree’s length. The walls, inset with columns inscribed with magic signs, had been coated in plaster and painted with wondrous scenes of dancing animals and spirits. All along the hall were rows of trestle tables, at which sat a vast company of men and women, eating and drinking from plates of gold. Broad platters of every kind of food were piled before them. White-winged djinn, wearing the bodies of youths with golden hair, drifted above the tables, carrying jugs of wine. As hands were raised and orders given, the youths flitted down, pouring glittering red streams of wine into the waiting cups.

The people at the tables were of even greater variety than Asmira had seen in Eilat. Some were very new to her: strange pale-skinned men with reddish beards and uncouth fur-lined clothes, or dainty women in dresses formed of woven flakes of jade. The whole great multitude sat and ate, and drank, and talked together, while high above, in the centre of the plaster wall, between the cavorting djinn, a painted king watched over all. He was drawn sitting upon a throne. His eyes were dark, his face beautiful and strong; faint beams of light radiated from his person. He stared straight out in calm and solemn majesty, and on his finger he wore a ring.

‘All these delegations,’ the vizier said drily at her shoulder, ‘are here to seek aid from Solomon, just as you are. All, like you, have matters of the utmost importance to discuss. So you will see that it is a ticklish business to please everyone. Still, we try to keep everyone fed and watered while they wait their turn. Most are satisfied; some even forget the business that brought them here.’ He chuckled. ‘Come then, you shall join their number. We have a place set ready for you.’

He turned away. Hot-eyed, dry-mouthed, Asmira followed him.

The food, at least, was good, and for a time Asmira thought of nothing but roasted meat and grapes and honeyed cakes and dark red wine. The noise of the hall engulfed her; she felt cocooned by it, swaddled in its splendour. At last, with pains in her belly and a warm haze in her brain, she sat back and looked around. The vizier was right. In such a place it would be easy for anyone to get detached from the purpose that had brought them here. She glanced up with narrowed eyes at the great throned figure painted on the wall: perhaps, indeed, this was what Solomon intended.

‘New, are you?’ the man beside her said. With his knife he speared a small glazed piece of meat from a selection on his plate. ‘Welcome! Try a jerboa!’ He spoke Arabic, though with a strange inflection.

‘Thank you,’ Asmira said. ‘I am already full. Are you here to speak with Solomon?’

‘I am. Need a dam built above our village. There’s water enough in the spring, but it all runs past. In the summer there’s drought. One touch of the Ring should sort it. Just need a few afrits, or a marid or two.’ He took a bite and went on chewing. ‘You?’

‘Something similar.’

‘We need terraces dug in our valley.’ This was the person opposite, a woman with bright, almost fevered eyes. ‘It’s too steep, you see. But his slaves could do it easily. Not hard for him, is it?’

‘I see,’ Asmira said. ‘How long have you waited?’

‘Five weeks, but my time is almost up! I shall be one of the lucky few next council!’

‘That’s what they told
me
two weeks ago,’ another man said dourly.

‘A month for me – no, two!’ the man beside her said, between chews. ‘Still, when there is such bounty to enjoy, who am I to complain?’

‘It’s all right for
some
,’ the dour man said. ‘But I don’t hold with waiting. There’s famine coming in the Hittite lands, and we need help now. Why he can’t just send out his demons to help all of us straight off, rather than this bloody hanging about, I’ll never know. Enjoying himself too much up there, I reckon.’

‘Wives,’ said the first man.

‘He’ll get to us in time,’ the woman said. Her bright eyes sparkled. ‘I can’t wait to see him.’

‘Have you not even
seen
Solomon?’ Asmira cried. ‘Not in five whole weeks?’

‘Oh no, he never comes down here. He’s up in his apartments across the gardens. But next council day I’ll see him, sure enough. You get to stand before him, so I’m told, but then he’s up on a throne, of course, top of some steps, so it’s not exactly
close
, but even so …’

‘How
many
steps?’ Asmira said. She could throw a dagger forty feet with perfect accuracy.

‘I’m sure I couldn’t say. You’ll see soon enough, dear. In a month or two.’

Asmira sat back from the conversation after this, a smile carefully maintained upon her face and a dull-edged stab of panic prodding in her gut. She did not have two months. She did not have one. She had two
days
to gain access to the king. Yes, she was in the palace, but that meant little, if she was expected to sit around with these fools, waiting. She shook her head as she regarded them, still busily discussing their hopes and needs. How blind they were! How fixated on their own small purpose! Solomon’s wickedness was invisible to them.

She stared angrily about the crowded hall. Clearly the king did not rely purely on terror to maintain his rule, but laced it with charitable deeds so that some good would be spoken of his name. All very fine, but the upshot for her was that he was out of reach. And that was only the half of it. Even if, by some miracle, she managed to gain access to his very next council, it didn’t sound as if she would be allowed to approach the king at all. That wasn’t good enough. She needed to be so close that neither he, nor his demons, had time to act. Without that, her chances of success were small indeed.

She needed to find another way.

The voices of the nearby diners stilled; their hands hovered above their plates.

Asmira’s skin prickled; she sensed a presence at her back.

Grey fingers brushed against her sleeve, wine fumes plumed about her neck.

‘And what,’ the magician Khaba said, ‘are you doing sitting
here
?’

He wore an elegant tunic of black and grey and a short grey cape. His face was flushed with wine. When he held out his hand to her, she noticed how long his nails were.

Asmira attempted a smile. ‘The vizier, Hiram, said I should—’

‘The vizier is a fool and should be hung. I have been waiting for you at high table this last half-hour! Up with you, Cyrine! No, leave your cup – you’ll get another. You shall sit with the magicians now, not among this rabble.’

The people all about her stared. ‘Someone’s got friends in high places,’ a woman said.

Asmira rose, waved farewell, followed the magician through the ranks of tables to a raised platform. Here, at a marbled table piled high with delicacies, and attended by several hovering djinn, sat a number of richly apparelled men and women, who stared at her blankly. All carried about them the casual assurance that came with power; one or two had small animals sitting on their shoulders. At the far end sat Hiram; he, like Khaba, and most of the other magicians, had already consumed a good deal of wine.

‘These are the Seventeen,’ Khaba said. ‘Or what’s left of them, Ezekiel being dead. Here, take a seat by me, and we shall talk some more, get to know each other better.’

Hiram’s eyes widened over the rim of his cup at the sight of Asmira, and his green-eyed mouse wrinkled its nose in distaste. ‘What’s this, Khaba? What’s this?’

A sharp-featured woman with long braided hair frowned: ‘That is Reuben’s chair!’

‘Poor Reuben has the marsh fever,’ Khaba said. ‘He stays in his tower, swears he’s dying.’

‘Small loss if he is,’ a little, round-faced man grunted. ‘Never pulls his weight. So, Khaba – who’s this girl?’

‘Her name,’ Khaba said, taking his cup of wine and pouring another for Asmira, ‘is Cyrine. She is a priestess of … I do not recall the exact location. I saved her on the desert road today.’

‘Ah, yes. I heard,’ another magician said. ‘So you’re back in Solomon’s favour already? Didn’t take you long.’

Khaba nodded. ‘Did you doubt it, Septimus? The bandits are destroyed, as requested. I shall make my formal representations to the king when he next allows an audience.’

Asmira said: ‘Will you take me with you when you meet the king? I am fretful of delay.’

Several of the other magicians snorted. Khaba looked around at them with a smile. ‘You see that young Cyrine is eagerness itself – I can scarcely restrain her! Dear Priestess, one may not come unbidden into Solomon’s presence. I shall do my best to speed matters for you, but you must be patient. Come to my tower tomorrow, and we shall discuss it further.’

Asmira inclined her head. ‘Thank you.’

‘Khaba!’ At the far end of the table the little vizier was scowling; he tapped the wood peremptorily with his finger. ‘You seem remarkably confident that Solomon will welcome you once more,’ he said. ‘Yes, you may have killed some robbers, all well and good, but your negligence on Temple Mount distressed him deeply, and he is getting ever more irritable with age. Don’t assume that you will find it smooth going with him.’

Asmira, looking at Khaba, noticed something stir in the depths of the soft eyes, a sudden unveiling that made her soul recoil. Then it was gone, and he was laughing. ‘Hiram, Hiram, do you truly question my judgement?’

A sudden silence fell among the magicians. Hiram held Khaba’s gaze; he spat an olive stone upon the table. ‘I do.’

‘The fact is,’ Khaba went on, ‘I know the king just as well as you. He likes his trifles, does he not? Well, I shall smooth my way with a little gift, a curiosity for his collection. I have it here. A pretty enough thing, don’t you think?’

He put something on the table, a small round bottle of clear crystal, decorated with little flowers. The top had been plugged with a wad of lead; behind the crystal facets, faint coloured lights and traces swirled.

One of the nearest magicians picked it up and inspected it closely, before passing it along. ‘Lost all form, I see. Is that normal?’

‘It may still be unconscious. It resisted its Confinement.’

The long-haired woman turned the bottle over and over in her hand. ‘Is it liquid? Is it vapour? What vile, unnatural things they are! To think they can be reduced to this.’

When the vizier took it, the green-eyed mouse shied away and hid its face behind its paws. ‘It makes a pretty trinket,’ Hiram said grudgingly. ‘Look how the lights wink in and out of view; it is never the same twice.’

The bottle completed its circuit of the table and was returned to Khaba, who set it before him. Asmira was fascinated; she reached out her hand and touched the crystal; to her surprise the cold surface vibrated to the touch. ‘What is it?’ she said.

‘This, my dear,’ Khaba said, laughing, ‘is a bottled fourth-level djinni, imprisoned for as long as Solomon desires.’

‘More to the point,’ the long-haired woman said, ‘
which
is it?’

‘Bartimaeus of Uruk.’

Asmira started, and opened her mouth to speak, then realized that Khaba did not know she knew the djinni’s name. Or perhaps he was too drunk to care.

Evidently the others recognized the name also. There was a chorus of approval.

‘Good! Ezekiel’s ghost will take pleasure in the act.’

‘The hippo? You are right, Khaba – Solomon will certainly enjoy this gift!’

Asmira stared at Khaba. ‘You have trapped a spirit in there? Is this not a rather cruel deed?’

All around the table the magicians – old, young, men, women – burst into peals of raucous laughter. Khaba laughed louder than all of them. His eyes, when he looked at Asmira, were contemptuous, red-rimmed, bleary with wine. ‘Cruel? To a demon? That is a contradiction in terms! Do not worry your pretty little head about it. He was a pestilential spirit and no great loss to anyone. Besides, he’ll get his freedom eventually – in a few hundred years or so.’