The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen (12 page)

My laughter rang out through the chamber.

“And now the shepherd’s son is this great and wealthy king.” I glanced at Shara, who covered what I imagined to be a rare smile as though she were not veiled.

“Yes.” The trader spread his hands. “His father was an unlikely king. But this is the lore: that he was a war champion. A bandit many of his days, and a killer of men. It was he who united these tribes of Israel.”

Our own rulers were unifiers of tribes. Even today, my people called me
mukarrib
—“unifier”—after the tradition of my grandfather, who knit the four great kingdoms into one, Saba over them all.

“So this shepherd king’s prayer is that Saba should bring gold to his son.”

“My queen, Saba’s wealth is legendary. It is a compliment to your kingdom that the former king wished his son to be held in so much esteem.”

“Come, Tamrin, let us speak frankly now.”

He stood back as I stepped down from the dais and moved toward a low sofa. I gestured Tamrin to the one adjacent, affording him the status of a councilor.

“Ten years on the throne. Eleven, perhaps, you say,” I began, as Shara set a plate of dates before us.

“Yes, my queen.”

“His wife is the daughter of the Pharaoh. But it is well known the Pharaoh is weak.”

“His first wife.”

“How many does he have?” I lifted my cup. My own father had kept several concubines himself.

“I’m not certain of the number. Perhaps two hundred at last count.”

With an effort, I did not sputter.

He smiled slightly. “It is true. The Pharaoh’s daughter brought him Gezer. The Ammonite bride, control of the King’s Highway from the Red Sea all the way to Damascus. There are many of these, including concubines from the twelve tribes of his nation, and wives from the vassal states of Moab, Edom, Aram, Hamath, Zobah, Canaan, the Hittites, and the Amalekites.”

“Is every account of this man so grossly exaggerated—from his lands to his wealth to his wives?” This time, when I looked at him, I almost stared. How had I not noticed until now that his eyes were a very dark blue?

The trader shook his head slightly. “I fear not. I have seen his capital and the construction of his temple, and his fortifications of the cities where his garrisons control the roads from the Euphrates to the Sinai and from the Red Sea to Palmyra. With control over the trade routes passing through Gezer, he is also the middleman in the trade of horses and chariots between Anatolia and Egypt.”

My eyes narrowed.

“They call him the Merchant Prince,” he continued. “He has a taste for every luxury, every exotic good and animal.”

“And women, apparently.”

“Apparently,” he said, with a slight smile.

“Why have I heard so little of him or his father, if he is so very
powerful and so very wealthy?” I had heard something of the brigand king David years ago, but that was all.

“Few caravans go so far north, often taking their goods only as far as the oasis at Dedan, where they are purchased by other traders. My father has made the full journey of months to Edom and Jerusalem several times, and I, twice, and I have seen these things for myself. Your father had dealings with this king—indeed, he sent the myrrh for the burial of the king’s beloved mother as she grew infirm. On my last trip, I learned she had gone to the shadow world.”

I considered the man before me again, carefully taking in the lapis of those eyes and the fine lines around them, the wide bow of his upper lip, the slender fingers of his calloused hands. I had been right to think that this was the kind of man who must proclaim Saba’s commercial might to the rest of the world. I noted the way he had not lounged fully, his feet on the floor yet, a man grounded, never quite fully unguarded.

Or a man who tolerated courtly life with seeming ease, but only for as long as he must.

“You left my banquet early,” I said.

He inclined his head. “I am a humble trader not at home with luxury. Forgive me.”

I plucked at an imaginary string on my sleeve. “What did my father receive in return for this queen’s burial incense? I assume the king’s mother was a queen, and not some shepherdess.”

“The king’s thanks and favorable terms.”

“The king’s . . . thanks.”

“Yes, and favorable trade terms. My queen,” Tamrin said, leaning toward me, “I will take north such tales of your kingdom, of your wealth and the loyalty of your people. Tell me what else you desire . . . and I will do it.”

Did I perceive wrongly, or did those eyes hold promises within
them, the faintest smolder? My gaze lit on the back of his hand, traveled the line of his wrist to the strong forearm, corded beneath the skin.

I leaned back against the cushions.

“You understand my purpose. Then understand this: I want our language and gods and the exploits of our water engineers carried north beyond Phoenicia. I want the world to hear of our dam and canals and the breeding of our camels. And the twin paradises of Marib that are our oases, and the walled city our capital, and her many-storied houses.”

“And the beauty of her queen?”

I quirked a smile, amused. “You have never laid eyes on my face.”

“Nevertheless, when I tell the tale of you, my queen, I will be accused of exaggerating as much as you have accused me in my telling of Solomon. But why do you want the world to hear of Saba’s marvels? It cannot be for mere right to boast.”

“You are right. But boast we must. I want to lure the world’s most educated sages and skilled artisans to my capital. I am longing for the day when bronze workers and builders from Phoenicia and astronomers from Babylonia and textile workers with the secret of silk from the edge of the east flock to Saba for our abundance, and because their knowledge will be richly rewarded here.”

He drew in a slow breath. “Ah, and now I see. And so I will see to it that Saba is spoken like the name of a god, with mystery and wonder . . . and the name of her queen, as a goddess.”

I laughed then, and it was a very different sound from that of earlier.

“I expect that you will soon receive many gifts from Egypt now that the rains are over,” Tamrin said, watching me. His eyes drifted down my veil.

“Egypt’s golden days are behind her,” I said.

“But her Libyan mercenaries grow more powerful by the day. Egypt has lost Nubia, but she will soon be a new and more militant kingdom.”

“We have always had good relations with Egypt. But the priests rule Egypt now. We will send gifts to the temples in Thebes.”

“As you say, my queen. These visions will be costly.”

“Yes, and you will stand to profit. I will make you rich—richer than you are,” I said. Only a man of means with nothing to prove would dress in such plain quality and carry himself so well. “But now tell me: what gods does this king Solomon worship?”

“The god of his forefathers.”

“Which is?”

“They call him ‘the God That Is,’ the ‘I Am.’ ”

I raised a brow.

“What is the god’s name?”

“It is a god with an unpronounceable name. The god they believe to be over all gods.”

“Surely this king is bound for a fall!” I chuckled. “Does he not know how well this was done in Egypt, when Akhenaten proclaimed worship of Aten alone—a god with at least a name—and how miserably it failed? Akhenaten, who is ‘the enemy’ in their own archive!” I had read the account years ago of the temples neglected for years after Akhenaten’s death and the plague that ripped through the population. No wonder history hated him for angering the gods.

“What is this unspeakable god’s symbol? Have you brought back an idol with you?”

He hesitated. “The god has no symbol. It has no idol.”

I broke out in truer laughter than before. “A god who cannot be spoken or seen.”

“Their law forbids the graven image of any god—including their own.”

“What atheism is this, that they annihilate the name and face of the divine?”

“I assure you his priests are devout,” he said somberly, “though the king’s wives practice their cults in the high places he has built for them outside the city.”

I shrugged. “He will not be long for this world.”

“As you say.” Tamrin bowed his head. “But while he is still in it, what gifts shall I prepare to bring with my caravan when we depart?”

I looked at him squarely. “None.”

His brows lifted.

“Take your usual quantities for distribution, of the best quality.”

“Are you certain, my queen?”

“Saba has the monopoly on the spice trade. If he wants commodities from Punt or Hidush or even the east beyond, he has to deal with us. If he wants the highest quality frankincense, he has to deal with us. I am the new queen with whom he must deal. He may send gifts . . . to us.”

He hesitated. “As you say. And what message shall I take to the Merchant Prince?”

“Only your stories . . . and prices.”

“And when I go to Jerusalem and tell tales of Saba and her magnificent queen to this king hungry for peaceful and profitable alliances . . . what am I to say when he proposes a marriage alliance with Saba?”

“That I have no daughter for him.”

“I meant, my queen, with you.”

I leveled a look at him. “I am the ruler of my country. Not a princess to be sent to his harem.”

“May you reign a hundred years,” he said, bowing his head.

When he had taken his leave, I removed my veil and drank long from my cup.

I did not miss Shara’s sideways glance.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said later, as she undressed me in my chamber after the nobles’ daughters who tended my rooms had been sent to their beds.

“Tell me you didn’t notice how handsome he is . . . and how he looked at you.”

“I might have noticed.”

She laughed, and I was grateful for the sound.

That night, as Shara slept, the rhythm of her breath like the rolling tide in and out to sea, I thought again of those slender fingers and corded forearms, the way the bow of that upper lip broadened when he smiled.

But I didn’t need a lover so much as a skilled ally. A mouthpiece to the world.

A beautiful mouth, granted.

T
amrin returned three weeks later to take his leave of me at the temple on the first day of the waxing moon—a time for new beginnings and journeys. This time he wore a bronze amulet inscribed for protection, the amulet of traders. A priestess—that female incarnation of Almaqah’s lunar cycle—intoned a hymn as Asm’s acolyte caught the blood of an ibex in the bowl before the sacred well. The young virgin installed at the temple by my bidding swayed where she knelt, no doubt under the influence of Asm’s datura tea.

“The lion will roar,” she said, and repeated herself. Asm did not interpret. The omen was for the trader alone; he alone must discern its meaning, if indeed there was one.

When I raised my arms over the trader in benediction, the girl looked up at me and screamed, shielding her eyes. I ignored her, knowing she was half out of her mind, my focus solely on Tamrin,
this man in whom I must place so much trust and whose journey I realized I strangely envied.

He, too, looked up at me, as though I were not a woman or a queen but something
other
.

And I felt the space between us stretch as keenly as I had the night I had burdened Asm with my questions, when my circular ruminations and terrible search for answers had not been mirrored in his eyes.

I dipped my fingers in the bowl. “Return safely and swiftly to me next year,” I said, drawing the upturned crescent on his forehead.

He fell forward and kissed the strap of my sandal.

He left moments later, riding off to join the caravan of three hundred camels and as many men.

Winter came, and I forgot the Israelite king.

EIGHT

I
gave blessings to marriages. I pardoned the persecuted seeking sanctuary at the temple and pronounced the oaths they should swear on the graves of dead relatives in penance. I sat in judgment of a tribe known for raiding its neighbor’s camels, and of a woman who married two brothers and divorced one of them but had not received back half her dowry. And again, of a man who could not give his wife children and so took in a traveler and left them alone, and the traveler, who claimed right to the child when he visited the following year.