“Yes, true serenity is a rare gift; the gods do not often bestow peace upon us. Ah, what lovely carving upon this gate; you are fortunate in your craftsmen, King Solomon. Now let us enter your garden that I may meet the fairest flower within its walls.”
When she and the king entered the garden, all the women ceased to move or speak. They stared at the queen—
As if turned to salt by my gaze.
Bilqis kept her face bland; she must not laugh at King Solomon’s women.
“Here you see some of my good wives and my fine sons.” The king smiled upon the women and then led her to where his daughter stood, hands still lifted to catch a gilded ball. “But you shall meet them in a moment. First, I must show you the most precious jewel in the king’s palace.”
Solomon smiled, and his daughter smiled back, meeting his gaze squarely. “See, O Queen of the South, the treasure of the north. My daughter, Princess Baalit.”
As the king held out his hand, the princess crossed her arms over her breast and sank to her knees, head modestly bowed. “Greetings, my father; I am honored by your presence. Greetings, Queen of the South. Welcome to my father’s kingdom, on his behalf—and on mine.”
Graceful as flowing water, she rose to stand straight before them, her
clear bright eyes intent upon Bilqis’s face. Looking into those eyes, Bilqis offered up silent thanks to Ilat.
Yes. This girl is the one. It is she whom I have traveled half the world to claim.
Exaltation burned her blood, dizzying her; she forced herself to speak calmly.
“You spoke truth, O King, when you claimed your daughter as your most precious jewel. The Queen of the South thanks the Princess of Israel for her welcome—and Bilqis thanks Baalit. You are indeed the treasure your father calls you.” Light-headed with joy, Bilqis smiled, and watched in delight as Princess Baalit smiled back.
The girl was all that first glance had promised, and more. Oh, there was nothing outwardly odd about the princess, nothing strange to make others point at her, weave hissing tales of her as she passed. Indeed, she was everything King Solomon’s daughter should be: poised and comely, with a graceful wit that adorned her character as the gold and gems upon her arms and throat adorned her body. King Solomon had raised his daughter well; she owned pride without arrogance, generosity without foolishness.
And within her, fire burned, fire the gods gifted upon those they loved well. Baalit’s feet touched the threshold to womanhood, and the rising flames within her licked well-seasoned timbers, ready to burst into glorious light.
But that fire was but a little thing as yet, as easily banked as kindled.
I must open her to that fire; such a gift must not be wasted.
Still smiling at the princess, Bilqis extended her hand and touched the king’s wrist. “You are fortunate in your children, King Solomon. You must grant me your daughter’s company.”
“Granted,” he said, “if it pleases you both.”
“It pleases me,” she said, and looked to the princess. “Does it please King Solomon’s daughter to bear the Queen of Sheba joyful company?”
Princess Baalit clasped the queen’s outstretched hand and bent to press the queen’s fingers to her forehead. “If my father wishes it, and you wish it, there is nothing that would give me greater pleasure,” she said, and Solomon laughed.
“You see what a gem she is—a more pious and proper answer I could not desire.” The king smiled at his daughter, who displayed enough pleasure at his praise to show she valued it, but not so much as to show his praises were seldom spoken.
“Thank you, my father. I hold myself ready to do the queen’s bidding.”
Each of the princess’s answers seemed to confirm her as the goddess’s choice.
A thousand praises, Mother, I shall set a cup of pearls before You as thank-offering before the moon turns again.
A few more words were spoken, and then King Solomon moved on, leading her away from the princess, seeking to display his wives and sons for her approval. Smiling, Bilqis followed him. And without looking back, she knew that Princess Baalit stood and watched—and waited.
Although he knew he was being elegantly, skillfully, flattered, Solomon still warmed to the queen’s approval of his daughter.
After all, it is something to my credit that the Queen of the Morning feels the need to flatter me.
And he was no besotted fool; he knew his own child’s virtues. Abishag’s daughter was indeed a jewel worthy of a queen’s praise.
He watched the queen smile upon Baalit, watched as the queen stooped, graceful as water, to kiss the girl’s smooth forehead. Ripe beauty greeting the ripening; pomegranate fruit and flower … .
An image worthy of a song. A thousand pities I am only King Solomon and not King David; my father’s skill would have been equal to the task of creating a song from such beauty.
Suddenly he seemed alone; queen and princess stood before him in a circle of silent understanding Solomon knew he could not enter. Sunlight gilded their skin, sparked slow fire from their hair; they dazzled his eyes, bright as fire from heaven—
As he led the queen towards his waiting wives, he chided himself silently.
I wax poetic,
he told himself, mocking his much-lauded talent with words.
King Solomon the Wise, King Solomon the Great, the writer of proverbs—
But proverbs were cold things, weighed against songs.
His father had composed songs that men still sang.
No doubt men still will
sing them in a thousand years. Whatever King David had touched turned to gold; whatever sin King David committed became virtue.
Had any other man and woman done what King David and the Lady Bathsheba dared, they would both have been stoned at the city wall.
Queen Michal had prevented that tragedy; that much of the affair Solomon knew. But he knew there was more, something darker even than the tales that his father had murdered his
mother’s husband. But what that dark secret was, Solomon had never learned … .
“Return to us, O King; we wait upon your pleasure.” Laughter warmed the Spice Queen’s voice, rippled beneath her words; a subtle caress.
Caught back from the past, Solomon countered by returning the queen’s own words, always a useful ploy. “No, it is the king who waits upon the queen’s pleasure. What is your will, Queen of the South?” He smiled; another useful ploy when one had not been attending.
But the Sheban queen was as adept at this game as Solomon himself. “King Solomon has been elsewhere in his thoughts. Doubtless the words of mere women bore him.” Wicked pleasure glinted golden in the depths of her eyes.
Warmth kindled Solomon’s blood; he smiled back, this time without calculating the effect his expression would have. “Never,” he said, and the queen laughed.
“The proper answer, Solomon the Wise,” said the queen, “is Ah, but the Queen of Sheba is not a mere woman!’”
“Perhaps it is, but as Solomon the Wise is but a mere man, he can speak only what is true, and not what is proper. And the truth, O Queen, is that your words could never bore any man.”
Their slow pace had brought them to those of his wives who had chosen to amuse themselves in the garden; Solomon presented each to the Queen of Sheba, taking care to do so in the order of their marriage to him. He would not set any one woman above another, but no one could argue that this method exalted one queen over the other. Even Naamah, mother of the crown prince, must wait until those who had wed the king before her had bowed before the Sheban queen.
The Queen of Sheba spoke pleasantly to his wives, affectionately to his small sons. Then, with a sidelong glance at the watching women—
huddled together like a covey of quail; do they think Bilqis will turn them into sand with a touch?
—the queen said, “And now the Queen of the South claims the Princess Baalit to amuse her for an hour.”
“As the queen wishes.” There was no other answer Solomon could make—
Nor should I wish to.
Yet as he watched the Sheban queen walk back across the garden to Baalit, and saw the delight upon his daughter’s enraptured face, he forced down an urge to call them back to him.
Do not be foolish. What harm can come of letting Baalit chatter to Bilqis?
When my father entered the harem garden leading the Queen of the South by the hand, I stared at her and thought only
I am not ready!
I had no idea what I meant; ready for what? And why should I tremble as if I faced some great danger? I had longed to meet the Spice Queen since I had watched her in my father’s great court; had schemed, without success, to meet her. Now my father himself brought her to me.
Seen close, she was still beautiful, although clear sunlight revealed lines shadowing her eyes. She did not strive to conceal the fact, and I admired her the more for such courage. All my stepmothers labored mightily to hide the least sign of time’s passage.
My heart pounded so I could scarcely think; I hardly knew what she said, or I answered, but it pleased both my father and the foreign queen, who said, “You are indeed the treasure your father calls you.”
I felt my face grow hot. “My father praises me too highly, for he loves me too well to say I am less than perfection.”
“Do you say, then, that King Solomon—the Wise—errs?” asked the queen.
My father said, “I often err, but not in praising my daughter, who is better to me than forty sons.”
“And who should know better than a man who has forty sons?” the queen replied, and my father laughed.
“Oh, I have not quite so many as forty! Come and meet a quiverful of them before they go mad with waiting.”
My father led the queen off to present my brothers and his wives. I watched the queen speak kindly to each; she even bent and fondled the Lady Melasadne’s frolic of dogs.
How they will queen it over the others who have not met the Shebun!
I foresaw a fresh crop of vigorous quarrels in the days to come.
As I watched, the Sheban queen smiled up at my father and laughed, softly; I saw my father smile, gazing fondly upon her. Jealousy bit sharp; until now, only I had ever brought that look of loving amusement to my father’s face. Then shame flooded me, washed away the unworthy emotion. How dare I deny my father pleasure?
If he has found a woman who can make him truly happy, how dare I object?
And as I thought this, the queen left him and came walking back towards me; she moved easily and quietly, as comfortable in her body as a cat. I stared,
unable to think what I should say. How could I impress a woman who ruled the world’s most fabulous kingdom? So I waited for the queen to speak first.
“So you are King Solomon’s daughter.” Her voice was soft, husky; it seemed she spoke for my ears only. “Truly you are worthy of such a father.”
“You cannot know that yet.” I had not known I would speak so frankly until I uttered the words. Horrified, I tried to form an apology, but there was no need, for the queen smiled, and suddenly I felt I had known her all my life, might speak my mind freely to her.
“You have a sharp wit,” the queen said, and I felt myself grow hot.
“I try not to,” I said, and she smiled again.
“Keep the wit; at times it serves well. But remember that wit is a blade.” The queen paused, as if waiting for me to finish her thought; I did.
“And a blade may be turned against its wielder,” I said.
“Ah, so Solomon’s daughter is wise as well as clever.”
“Not yet,” I said, “but I try to be wise. And it is not wise for a girl to seem too clever.”
She sighed. “Here—no, here it is not wise for a girl to seem too clever. Come sit with me and talk awhile.”
I sat with her on the bench beneath the pomegranate tree, casting swift glances back at my father and his wives. I knew my stepmothers would count each moment I spent alone with the Sheban queen, her attention sparking envy in those who most loudly scorned her foreign wiles. “What does the queen wish to speak of?”
“Why, of you.” She smiled upon me as fondly as if I were her own daughter. “And I wish to thank you for your gift.”
“A small thing, compared to my father’s gifts,” I said, and she laughed.
“A charming thing. And your father is the most generous of kings—but one cannot eat gold or gems!”
Much relieved, I too smiled, and clasped my hands in my lap to keep from fidgeting with my sash. I wished to seem calm and royal, to be even half her equal. “I am pleased that my gift pleased you.” I had longed to gain her regard, and had first thought to send her a cup of embossed gold filled with pearls. But something had stopped me; almost against my will, I had chosen an unadorned alabaster bowl and ripe pomegranates to send as my greeting to the Queen of the Morning.
And my gift had pleased her.
“Yes, I was most pleased to receive your gift, and am even more pleased to meet you at last. I have been waiting a lifetime to meet you, Baalit.”
That day, I thought this only a polite Sheban phrase, a meaningless compliment. So I smiled, taking her words lightly, and said that I, too, had longed to meet her, and that I hoped I did not disappoint, now that she had met me.
“You are all I thought you would be, and more. You are a worthy daughter; I see your father and your mother in your eyes.”
“How can you? My father stands there, across the garden. My mother has lain long years dead.”
“Nevertheless, she too created you. She is there, Princess. She will always be there in you.”
Did the Sheban queen know somehow of my dreams—dreams I often thought were sent by my mother’s ghost?
No, she cannot.
Not unless she were the sorceress some called her—
“A pinch of incense for your thoughts, Princess,” she said, and her eyes were so kind I found myself saying, “Is it true you are a djinn’s daughter?” I was horrified the moment the words left my lips, but the Sheban queen only laughed and shook her head.
“No, nor am I sprung from an eternal flame, nor is my true form that of a white serpent. Do not look so startled; I would be a poor ruler did I not know what tales were told of me. But no, I am a woman like any other.”
“No,” I said, “you are unlike any other. You rule a kingdom.”
“So does your father.”
“Yes, but he is a man. Men are born to rule.”
“And women to be ruled?” the queen asked, and I could say only “And women to be ruled. That is the way things are done.”
“That is the way things are done here. But Israel is not all the world, little goddess.”
“Little goddess
—” No one had called me that since my laughing grandmother had left me to return to Ascalon. I blinked back a sudden sharp press of tears.
“That is what your name means, is it not?” she asked, and I nodded. “A strange name for a daughter of the god Yahweh. But your mother wished it?”
“Yes, my mother wished it. I do not know why.” Even my father did not know. Perhaps to please her own mother. Perhaps as a dying vow I would
never know. To my horror, more tears stung my eyes; I looked down to hide them, but I knew I failed.
The queen put her fingers under my chin, lifted my head until we looked straight into each other’s eyes. “Why does not matter, not now What counts is that your mother’s love flows in your blood. Never doubt that.”
She glanced across the garden; I saw my father turn his head and smile at us. The queen touched my cheek, her fingers soft as a dove’s feathers. “And now I must return to your father. But I will be back, Baalit. Do not doubt that either.”
“I won’t,” I said, and rose as she did, watching her walk back along the path of white pebbles until she stood at my father’s side once more. As they left the garden, the queen glanced aside and smiled at me. I would have done anything for her in that moment; I knew that somehow I must repay her for opening a gate in my mind that I had not known was closed and barred.
Israel is not all the world, little goddess … .
Always I had known that.
But now I believed it. A world lived strong and joyous beyond Jerusalem’s walls. And even if I never saw that bright world, I would know always that it waited there.