The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen (34 page)

“I was given discernment. I have spent it like gold. But you . . . you have chased it. And you spend it wisely, as the son born not to the rich man but the poor, who earns his wealth. I am the son of a rich man. But you are the one who has entreated the gods. How can that be? You who worship the moon! And now you will leave me, too. And I will give you all that you desire. And what will I have in return? I pursued you, and you kept your face hidden from me. I have come at you with arguments, and now I am the one to lose.”

“You do not lose,” I whispered. “But gain the thing you cannot get from a treaty wife, or a vassal, or anyone who calls you ‘King.’ You seek me because I am none of these. You ask me about love. I have been loved—beautifully. Mightily. Selflessly. But what is love to one who wants, more than anything . . . to be known?”

He covered his face.

“How can I let you return to Saba?” he cried. “I have driven you away with my demands. With every argument to hold you to me. You, who have ruined me . . .”

“I, who love you.” Imperfectly, selfishly and selflessly.

He took my hand and clasping it, said, “Then do not leave. Not yet. Stay.” He drew me to a chair and sank to a knee in front of me. “Stay, and I will give you everything I am. If only you will allow me to serve you. ”

“I will stay,” I said. “Until winter.”

He lowered his head to my knees.

We stayed like that for a very long time. When he lifted his gaze at last, I reached for my veil and let it fall.

He pulled me to the floor with trembling hands, fingers like the flutter of a bird’s wing against my cheek and over my lips, parting them gently. He traced the line of my jaw for an hour, the side of my neck, the curve of my shoulder. He hesitated and when I did not rebuff him, he touched me softly, as hesitant as a boy and then with the liberty of a lover, caressing me through my gown. His arm wound around my waist, my fingers all the while grazing the stubble of his beard, the arch of his brow, until I laid my lips against his. He sighed and I inhaled the soft sound of revelation.

I left a short time after, broken and remade, a shattered king in my wake.

T
he next day I sent only one message:

I have slaughtered my animals. I have mixed my wine. I have set my table and sent out my servant girl.

They were not my words, but his, lifted directly from his writings of Lady Wisdom.

I sent my girls to the camp to observe the sacrifice. They took with them all of the women of my household; only Shara and Yafush remained behind.

The king came late that night.

He entered my apartment with a glance around as though it dwelled not in his palace, but in that of another, foreign world. The carpets of my tent and those he had gifted me were laid across the floor of the outer
chamber, the most opulent of them beneath the replica of my throne, which was covered with the leopard skin I sat upon in my palace. Beside my throne on a broad stand sat my
markab
, symbol of my office.

The king paused before the ark and then reached out to touch it.

“This is the
markab
you rode into the battle for your throne,” he said with wonder, fingers brushing over gold leaf, the fringed end of an ostrich plume, much as mine had the first time I saw it.

“The very one.” I had not worn my veil, or even all of my jewelry. Such weapons lay forgotten.

“You told me earlier that your departure was secret. Have your advisors not noticed your ark missing?”

“There is one similar to it held in my privy chamber, while the true one has traveled with me.”

He considered this somberly as his hand twined with mine and his gaze drifted to my throne. I had received several visitors and resolved several arguments seated upon it—including that between the injured foreman and the owner of the camel that had kicked him. The foreman would limp forever, but Solomon’s physicians had proved adept; the man had neither died nor lost the leg.

He guided me toward the alabaster seat. “I want to know what it is like, when you ascend your throne in Saba. I want to see it with my own eyes.”

I gave a musing smile and walked past him to sit down, straight-backed, my arms on the rests. “The throne in my hall is larger than this one. There is a great silver moon behind it and three steps to the dais before it.” I gestured to the walls with a sweep of my arms. “There are twenty-eight alabaster discs set high into the walls. They shine white as a moon at night . . . and gold as the sun by day, morning to sunset.”

He stepped back, and then, to my great surprise, knelt. He did not speak, but slowly leaned forward to kiss my toes, to chase the
intricate flourish of henna to my ankles. I closed my eyes as his fingers slid inside my sandal to caress that sensitive arch.

A little later we walked together past the idols of Almaqah, Asherah, Thoth, and Neith to the inner chamber. He paused inside, taking in the sofas with their silk throws and cushions, the ibex incense stand.

“Where do you sit when you recline?” he said. “Here?” He went to one of two low sofas.

“Yes. There.”

“Then I will lay here.”

“No,” I said. “Lay beside me.”

We drank wine, his fingers roaming the slope of my shoulder like a gazelle. We sampled a parade of dishes that arrived from the kitchens with the food taster, Solomon eating from my hand, I from his.

“And now I forget the rest of the world,” the king murmured, his face turned against my hair, inhaling the perfume of it. “Day becomes night. The ibex and lion feed together.”

“There are no feasts, there is no gold . . . There is only a garden,” I said.

“I am a shepherd, as my father was.” He tilted up my chin and kissed my ear.

“And I a shepherdess.”

“And your dark-skinned people come not from a world away,” he whispered, “but the Valley of Shunem. Do you know I have imagined your face for years, both wanting and not wanting to see it, in the case that it was not as I envisioned?”

“And here I am. And my face is as it is.”

He traced my cheek. “It is more lovely even than I imagined, and I feel I have known it always . . . and that it knows me.”

He heaved a great sigh and lowered his head to my neck.

He wept that night in my arms, and I, later as he slept.

TWENTY-SIX

T
his was my world: the smolder of those eyes, turned in my direction. Perfumed sheets, laid fresh upon my bed. The roses of that garden wafting to my window, saying,
come
.

I no longer noticed the ever-present smell of burning meat; it was lost on me altogether as flowers flooded my chamber.

By mid-morning, his latest poem was delivered to my door.

You have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes,

With one jewel of your necklace.

How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice.

Mine flew back to him in return:

While the king was on his couch, my fragrance was nard.

My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts.

My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms.

I sat beside him in his hall, where my throne had been transferred. I took dinner with his advisors, all of whom glanced between us, the king saying often in their presence, “But what does Sheba think of such-and-such a matter?” until the eyes of the most astute—and most careful—councilors began to look of their own accord to me.

We sat as kings in his privy chamber and heard the case of Jeroboam, condemning the noxious fruit of rebellion’s seed. I was there when the boy’s poor mother, a widow, was brought before the king for questioning.

We denounced Egypt together for the housing of his enemies—Jeroboam, and before that, Hadad, who reigned now in Aram and with whom Solomon had made peace by marrying his daughter.

New reports arrived from Hazor about another skirmish, this time on the northern border with Rezon of Damascus. We debated what was to be done.

But at night, we forgot it all.

He came to my bed as supplicant. I came bearing tribute. He demanded and I pulled away. He whispered and I went into his arms.

“My mother was a conqueror of kings. I disdained him for that, years after he was gone. But no more.”

We spoke of gods and crops, of sea routes that would take a year and a half in the going out and again in the coming in. The conversations he would have with Baal-eser on my behalf. The ships that would sail to my ports. The way we would shape the world.

I sang the songs of my mother, and he, the hymns of his father. He whispered stories of his eldest brother, whom he worshipped as a boy—Adonijah, whom he had been forced to kill.

And for the first time in nearly five years, I spoke the name of Maqar, and wept.

“I, too, love this Maqar, though I never knew him,” he said. “He died for my queen, and because of him, I am with her now. We will send a sacrifice to both our gods, in gratitude.” We sent agents to the market to buy animals the next day, and the smoke of them went up on our altars. And I could be grateful at last for something bitter in my mouth turned sweet after so long.

I passed the afternoons in the heady languor of sleepiness, napping as larks sang outside my window, bathing as the sun canted toward the west.

At night, I ascended the stair to the terrace or sent for him to come to the bower of my apartment.
Come to my garden and eat its choicest fruits
.

We were shameless as children, brazen as we dared. We bathed in the middle of the night on his terrace. We sent secret glances across the table at state dinners. We stole through the tunnels and out of the city to lay like divine consorts of antiquity.

He came down to my camp on the next dark moon, bringing animals with the servants in his company. There he observed the ritual of Almaqah as a still-troubled Asm and I presided over it both. It would be my last ritual to the silent god.

“How terrible and beautiful and magnificent you are,” he whispered in my tent that night, long after the drums had ceased. “And how you have enchanted me. What power do you wield, Daughter of the Moon?”

“The power of wish,” I said.

“Do you believe in such things?”

“What is a wish, but a prayer? A man stole into my chamber when I was twelve. He took me by force. And again, on another occasion. And another.” He leaned up, face stark. “I prayed for deliverance.
And the wadi flooded and washed him away. I dedicated myself to the god in gratitude. But I think I am barren.”

He clasped me more tightly then than he ever had. “My poor love! Were that man alive, I would see him suffer. And to think I bid you come to me that first night alone. I curse myself that I ever dealt harshly with you. Forgive me. Forgive me,” he said, holding me to his chest.

“You never laid a hand on me.”

“I should have been gentle with you from the first pen stroke.”

“I would never have responded.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“So you see, I do believe. I prayed to the moon to deliver me. I prayed for freedom, and my father sent me to Punt. I was happy for years. I lived in love. But I wonder if a part of me prayed to be queen. I wonder now, if our souls are all-seeing, and if mine saw that I would come here. And if it knew I would not come if Maqar still lived . . .” I drew away to look at him in the lamplight. “The first time I wrote to you, a part of me wished for you. And the first time I set eyes on you, I wanted you. And here you are. But the god I dedicated myself to did not dedicate himself to me. So which god is it that has given you to me . . . and will soon make us part?”

“The same that will make us whole again,” he said softly. “We worship the same god, after all,” he said.

“Which god is that?”

“His name is love.”

Solomon, my poet.

After a time, I quit summoning him to my apartment, where my girls and the two lesser wives were, and had my things sent up to his.