That we reached the bottom of the road alive and unharmed was due to Uri’s clever hooves and to sheer good fortune. Certainly no credit for our safe descent could be laid in my hands.
Where the road down the hillside flattened into the valley, it split into two paths, one leading north towards Gibeon and the other curving sharply towards the south, and Jerusalem. For an instant Uri slowed, as if to decide which path to choose. In that moment, no longer than a quick indrawn breath, I had one chance to regain control of my mount, and I took it without daring to think of the cost if I failed.
Dropping the reins, I grabbed Uri’s mane with my left hand and reached for his bridle with my right. I nearly overbalanced and clung hard with thighs and fist—and then my right hand found what it sought and I clutched the bridle’s cheekpiece. I flung my weight back and hauled upon the bridle, hard and steady.
My desperate move succeeded. His head curved back, his flaring nostrils almost touching my knee. Uri slowed, shaking his head in a vain attempt to free himself from the weight hauling him off balance.
“Gently, Uri. Gently now.” My voice came soft but firm, coaxing the stallion to listen to my commands once more. Uri flicked his ears back and forth; his frantic strides shortened, slowed, until at last he responded once more to my touch upon his reins, to shifts of my legs against his sides.
When his strength and speed were once more mine to command, I pulled him to a halt and slid from his back. My legs seemed to fold bonelessly beneath me, unable to hold me upright; only my arms about Uri’s sweat-foamed neck kept me upon my feet.
I stood so until my breathing steadied and my blood no longer pounded against my skin. I looked at Uri; his coat gleamed with sweat as if it had been oiled; his nostrils flared wide as he, too, sought air. His muscles shuddered beneath my hands.
But when I led him forward he walked steadily enough, and I nearly wept with relief. My heedless anger had not lamed Uri, a mercy I knew I did not deserve. I stroked his wet neck and begged his pardon for treating him so, as if he could understand, and forgive. Perhaps he could, for as I spoke gently to him, Uri rubbed his head against my arm as if to console me.
I cupped my hand over the hot soft skin of his muzzle, and Uri lipped at my palm. I knew he wanted water, but I had none to offer. “I know,” I said, “I am sorry.” Then I took up the reins and began the long slow walk back to the high road that led to Jerusalem.
Long years of practice enabled Solomon to set aside his anger and hurt, to continue judging the horses paraded before him as if his daughter’s visit had not occurred. Not until he returned to Jerusalem did he permit himself to think upon what had happened—and when he did, memory of his own words flooded him with shame.
“I forbid it.”
He, who so prided himself on treating all men and women justly, and with dignity, had spoken to his own daughter as if—
As if I owned her, as if she were—
As if she were in truth the jewel he called her, his jewel, to dispose of at his will. Was that truly how he thought of her?
No. No, of course I do not think that. Still, she is my daughter—No, I will not consider this further. Baalit is a child still, she does not know what she asks.
Yes, that was it: a child dazzled by the foreign queen who flattered her. But no matter how he strove to master his thoughts, Solomon could not. The relentless sunlight could not burn away the vision of his daughter’s defiant face, her desperate eyes.
Nor could the rising sounds from the city streets drown out the echo of his own voice, harsh as a stranger’s.
You are my daughter and you will obey.
How could I speak so to her? As if—as if I owned her soul, as if she were—
As if his daughter were no more than another of the king’s treasures; a possession to be locked away at his whim.
That was what the Law said she was. In anger and sorrow, he had spoken just as any father might chastise a willful girl. Children were a man’s chattel, treasure stored up against an uncertain tomorrow. A father might do as he chose with his daughter’s future. That was the Law.
So you will cling to cold law now?
Solomon demanded of himself. Had he not trained Baalit up to follow her own will? To think herself the equal of any of her brothers?
Yes, Solomon, you did; in your proud folly you dowered her with a seeking mind and a bold heart—
And now that she wished to follow her stars into a future he could not shape, he revoked his gifts.
You dare invoke the Law, when what you chose to do with Baalit’s future was offer it to her with open hands?
No wise words flowed into his mind to answer that cold accusation. Sighing, he walked to the parapet and laid his hands upon the sun-baked stones, welcoming the quick heat beneath his skin. Below him, King David’s City sprawled golden in the summer light. On housetops, women worked; he saw cloth spread out to dry, watched serving maids dip into cisterns for stored rainwater.
From such a vantage point, my father looked down upon my mother as she bathed upon her rooftop, and thought her fair—
And when he lifted his eyes, the Temple filled his vision, its gold burning bright under the noonday sun.
The City of David. The Temple of Solomon.
He turned his eyes away from the Temple’s savage radiance, looked down again upon the hot busy city. King David’s City.
How long will they call Jerusalem by that fond name? And will men ever speak of my Temple with the same love and pride as they do my father’s city?
Or will I be forgotten, and all my faults and virtues fade, less than dust upon the wind?
Had his father David ever known such darkness of spirit? Or his mother? Thinking of Bathsheba’s sweet nature, her refusal ever to hear a sour comment or to see a mean deed, Solomon found himself smiling. No, Bathsheba never knew fear or despair.
She walked in sunlight all her days.
And his other mother, Queen Michal?
Ah, that is a different song.
Queen Michal had always shown a warm face to him, her heart’s son, but he had always sensed that behind her eyes lay a deep cold well. Never had he seen her look upon his father with soft eyes; always, when Queen Michal looked upon King David, her eyes held the cool patience of a serpent.
She had not been stone-hearted; no one knew that better than he. But her cool eyes had warmed for him, and for his mother. For David, the hero for whom she had defied her own father, King Saul, for whom she had waited ten years married to another man, for whom she had sacrificed her own future—for David, her eyes held nothing.
Sometimes Solomon thought that was only his own wild fancy—
Boys are selfish creatures, boy princes twice so. I wished her to love me best and only, after all!
Yes, perhaps that was it. All the songs swore Queen Michal loved King David more than honor and herself, after all.
“Yes, and songs are very pretty to listen to. But never mistake a harpers’tale for truth.”
Queen Michal’s cautioning words echoed in his memory. Unlike his mother Bathsheba, Queen Michal heard every word clear as stone upon stone, saw every deed as plain as sunlight at noon. And she had taught him to do the same.
“Know the truth, Solomon, even if you never speak it. Know the good, even if you never do it.”
“But it is better to speak truth and do good?”
he had asked, and Queen Michal had smiled.
“Yes, my heart, it is better to speak truth and do good. But for a king, that is not always possible. Sometimes a king must do what is right.”
He had not understood that riddle for many years. Solomon smiled again, this time at his own folly.
Well, I know the truth and I know the good, and what am I to do with this great and powerful knowledge? And how am I to know what is right?
Solomon the Wise—he laughed, mocking himself. Solomon the Wise, who knew everything except how to pluck happiness from life’s thornbush.
And what makes a man happy? Love?
Unbidden, the thought summoned the images of his women: Nefret and Naamah; Melasadne and Dvorah.
So many wives; do any of them love me?
Have you ever asked that of them, Solomon?
The silent mockery rippled upon whispered laughter; the silent voice that chided him was Bilqis’s.
Ah, now there was love. Well-spiced love. Bilqis, Queen of Sheba. So ripe, so warm, so wise.
My last love.
So different from his first love.
My jewel, my rose, my song made flesh. My Abishag.
His passion for Abishag had been a young man’s love, demanding and hot. Chaining his desire, surrendering his beloved to his aged father’s need, had cost him dearly in sleepless nights and restless days.
But King David had lain dying, cold to his ancient bones, and Solomon had yielded to his father’s need and to his foster-mother’s will.
No, speak truth, if only to yourself. Queen Michal lauded the plan and twined it about her ambition for me. But the mind that devised the scheme was yours.
Unwillingly, Solomon remembered the words he had spoken to his foster-mother, seeking her approval.
“At first I thought, Why should not my father have comfort? And then I thought, Why should this girl not tell us what he says, and to whom?” Yes,
and more, but those words Queen Michal had said so that he need not.
“If I take this young fair maid to wife after, it will strengthen my claim to David’s crown.”
That was only good sense, as Queen Michal had said. A spy in King David’s bedchamber and a queen in King Solomon’s court—it had seemed so prudent, so simple, when he had revealed his plan to Queen Michal.
But that was before he had sought and found the unknown girl for whom he had planned this twice-royal future.
Before he had found love.
And with love, pain. For Abishag had assented to his wishes, served as his shadow in his father’s chambers.
A fair maid to tend him, to sleep beside him and warm his cold bones—a king’s maiden, to carry the royal succession in her soft young hands from the old king to the new—
Abishag had done all that Solomon and Queen Michal asked of her and more. And not once had she faltered or betrayed by so much as a flicker of her lashes what truly had passed between her and King David. To this day, Solomon did not know whether his father had lain with Abishag as a man does with a woman he desires.
He did not wish to know.
Upon their wedding night, Abishag had tried to speak of her nights with King David; desired, Solomon knew, to swear to her chastity. But he had refused to allow her to utter the words.
“What passed between you and my father does not matter,” he had told her, “so do not utter words because you think I wish to hear them. Whatever happened, happened.” Swiftly, Solomon had taken her face between his hands and kissed her soft mouth, tasted cinnamon and roses. “That is past, my heart. Over and gone. This night is ours alone; ours to do with as we
wish. Even if King David possessed your yesterday, King Solomon owns today and all your tomorrows. Be content with that.”
Abishag had looked long into his eyes; at last she’d said, “I can rest content with that, my king. But can you?”
“Yes,” he had said, and again, “Yes. You are my heart and my queen, Abishag. Nothing else matters.”
So he had vowed upon their wedding night; then he had thought himself magnanimous, great-hearted and generous. Many men would have demanded a bride come to them virgin although they had themselves sent her to another man’s bed.
But I vowed it did not matter. I think she believed me. I hope she did.
For now Solomon knew he had not been generous.
He had been afraid of the truth he might hear.