The Judgment

by D. J. Niko

  Would he remember his promise?

  “My lady Nicaule.” Irisi came into the bedchamber with a tray of jewels.

  Nicaule offered a weak smile. Irisi’s face was a boon in this godforsaken place.

  Irisi approached and sat next to her on the bed. “Azariah says the king will come for you at sundown. The time nears.” She gently cradled Nicaule’s hands and glanced at her from head to foot. “You are like the sacred blue lotus from the pools of Nun, so sweet-smelling and lovely.”

  Nicaule sighed. “I go with heavy heart.”

  “You must be strong, my lady. This is your destiny. The gods have willed it, and you cannot but accept it.”

  Nicaule squeezed her hands. “You are wise, my dearest and most loyal friend. Your mere presence gives me solace.”

  The deep, solemn wail of the shofar sounded in the distance, alerting the entire city of the ceremony under way. A violent knock came from the other side of the door, then the voice of Azariah. “The bridegroom comes. Be ready.”

  Nicaule sprang from the bed and wrapped her arms around her chest. A wave of nausea overcame her. She jerked her head to and fro, looking for an escape, though she knew there was none.

  Irisi rose. “Calm your nerves, my lady. You are about to be crowned queen. You will have the life so many women dream of.” She chose from the tray of jewelry two gold cuffs with moonstone scarabs.

  Nicaule held her arms out as Irisi fastened the cuffs. “I cannot do it, Irisi. I cannot lie with him.”

  Irisi looked deep into her eyes. “You must. It is your duty to Egypt. The way you conduct yourself will either magnify the glory of your fathers or diminish it.”

  A bitter smile crossed her lips. Irisi was right.

  The rapid cadence of a hundred drums, accompanied by a carefree flute song, sounded as the wedding party approached Bathsheba’s house. She imagined the man whose face she had gazed upon but twice, who spoke a different language and believed in a foreign god, who looked and smelled unlike her people, leading her by the hand to the royal marriage chamber. Anxiety stirred her belly with the fury of a maelstrom, and she bent over a pot, heaving.

  The music grew closer. The singing voices of the attendants were now within earshot. She raised her hands to her ears to escape the vulgar sound. She wanted to cry, but no tears came.

  Irisi’s gentle hands lifted her to her feet, then wiped her mouth and forehead with linen gauze. Irisi said nothing—not a word of judgment or of encouragement—as she reapplied ochre paste to Nicaule’s lips.

  Another hard knock.

  Irisi held up the veil, a diaphanous silk cloth embroidered with tiny flowers in red and white thread and edged in delicate golden fringe. She slipped it over Nicaule’s head and let it hang to the floor.

  Covered completely by the fine silken shroud, Nicaule felt safe. It was a curtain separating her from the activities unfolding around her, a barrier between her and him, a symbol of her detachment. In her country, only the dead would be swathed in such a manner.

  The door creaked open, and Irisi stepped back into the shadows of the room. Nicaule stood alone, clenching her fists to control her trembling limbs.

  Azariah stepped into the doorway. “Behold, the bridegroom has arrived. Go out and meet him.”

  Nicaule drew a long breath, her last as a single woman. With head high, she did as told.

  As she stepped out into the autumn night, a cool breeze kissed her cheeks and delivered the scent of molten beeswax. The whole of Jerusalem had come out to witness the occasion, cramming the path between Bathsheba’s house and King David’s palace and spilling down the hillside. They held candle lanterns, their flickering lights like a thousand stars fallen from the sky, and chanted a happy tune whose words Nicaule could not comprehend. They craned their necks to get a glimpse at the object of Solomon’s affection.

  At the top of a narrow passageway through the swarm of gawking Israelites stood the bridegroom and two white horses with garlands of white lilies hanging around their necks. He stepped onto the stoop of his mother’s house and gazed at his bride. He was dressed in a long white tunic over which was wrapped a white linen coat with wide sleeves, cinched at the waist with a belt of silver. A crown with twelve golden fingers reaching toward the heavens encircled the soft black curls that tumbled to his shoulders.

  He signaled to one of his attendants, who promptly delivered the bride’s gift on a cedar tray inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Solomon took up the golden crown, a smaller and more delicate version of his own, and placed it on her veiled head. He said something in Hebrew that she loosely understood to mean Welcome to my house.

  Emboldened by her gossamer shield, she met his gaze. Orbs the color of post-flood Nile silt regarded her with the voracity of a raptor. The intensity of his gaze held her captive, and she forced herself to look away lest she be mesmerized. She shuddered.

  He walked down the steps, and she followed him. He stopped in front of the horses and stroked the neck of one. He turned to his bride and lifted her from the waist, as effortlessly as if she were a feather, onto the horse’s bare back. He mounted the other horse and led the way through the crowd of witnesses.

  Nicaule’s eyes darted from face to face. Glowing like molten copper in the lantern light, they seemed like wraiths from the underworld haunting her steps, mocking her. Their gazes were like whips, their toothless smiles like spurs, goading her to the embrace of their king so she could become one of them, insipid and vulgar and stinking of too much wine.

  The palace of King David stood at the end of the ascending path, its two wings like open arms. Torches surrounded a tented canopy at the entrance, sealing her fate by fire. The rhythmic clop of the horses’ hooves on the cobbled stones, the sound of her fleeting freedom, grew slower until it stopped altogether. She issued a trembling sigh only she could hear.

  Solomon dismounted and walked to Nicaule, offering his hand. Together they walked to the wedding canopy and stood before the cheering crowd. Trumpets sounded, then drums and flutes. She felt like an impostor, posing as the happy bride when in reality there was nothing about that moment she wanted to own. She wanted to flee into the cold arms of the night, to be swallowed by its dark womb.

  He turned to her. She thought he said, “My rose, come into my father’s house.” She said nothing as he lifted her into his arms and led her into the chamber he had prepared for her. With one voice, his people sang them into matrimony. The door closed behind them. They were alone, save for one groomsman on the other side of the door, who would wait for the fateful knock signifying the union had been consummated.

  Even to her cynical eyes, the room was lovely. It was filled with lilies, whiter than alabaster and so profuse they recalled a valley in springtime. Their sweet perfume filled the air so that no breath could escape it. Perched on the carpets lining the floor from wall to wall, candle lanterns cast their halcyon light onto the ashlars, magnifying the texture of the stone. In the center of the room was a mattress covered in violet silk and draped with a swathe of white linen. Pillows of the same fabric, perhaps twoscore of them, enclosed the bed like a fortress. Silver-footed trays and red-slipped pottery bowls held grapes, figs, pomegranates, and apricots, a loaf of bread, and a honeycomb dripping with its golden gift. A skin of wine and two silver chalices sat on a low table nearby.

  Solomon kneeled before Nicaule and took hold of the edge of her veil, rolling it upward as he stood. He lifted it away from her face and let it fall to the floor.

  With nothing separating her from him, she could see the unadorned greed in his eyes as he drank her beauty. She instinctively took a step back.

  “Do not be afraid,” he said in her language, walking toward her.

  It disoriented her to hear Egyptian come from that mouth. Shaking her head, she inched backward. The thought of him touching her revolted her. It was inevitable, but she wasn’t going to surrender without a fight.

  He followed. “Why do you run from me? I want only to love you.”
/>   “No. I am not ready.”

  “That is the first time I’ve heard you speak. Your voice is like honey dripping from the belly of a fig.”

  She walked backward until her shoulders scraped against a wall. She let out a soft gasp.

  He caught up and placed a hand on her waist, holding her in place while he raised his other hand to her shoulder. He slipped his fingers under one of her dress straps and slid it down her arm, exposing a breast. He kissed her shoulder with fleshy, moist lips.

  Images of Shoshenq flashed in her mind, and a knot rose to her throat. She pushed Solomon away and slipped out of his grasp, darting to the other side of the room.

  He pursued her, removing his bridegroom’s coat and throwing it onto the floor. He untied his tunic. His chest was barely dusted with black hair. “I will not hurt you, my dove. I feel only affection for you.”

  She wrapped her arms around her, covering her naked breast. “Stay away.”

  He stopped. “You are trembling. Why do you fear me so?”

  She wanted to spew a litany of reasons but recalled the words of her father: A prosperous and peaceful alliance between two nations depends on you being a good and dutiful wife. Without thinking, she let a hand fall to her lower abdomen. “Please. I need more time.”

  Solomon’s gaze traveled slowly down her body. The voracity in his eyes was replaced with scrutiny. “Very well. I will grant you time. I shall hasten my journey to the northern stronghold, Megiddo. I shall leave tomorrow.”

  She exhaled.

  “I will be gone for a time, Wife.” He paused, his gaze boring through her. “Nine months.”

  The blood drained from Nicaule’s face. Her eyes grew wide as the realization settled upon her: he knew or at least suspected. She imagined the consequences if she was indeed with Shoshenq’s child. All of Jerusalem would know the royal marriage was not consummated, for they waited for the telling knock that, should Solomon abandon the seduction and depart for Megiddo, would not come. If her belly were to swell with child in Solomon’s absence, everyone would know of her perfidy. Banned from Jerusalem in shame, she would never be accepted back into her father’s house. She was standing on the slender edge of a chasm with a steep drop on each side.

  The oppressive perfume of the lilies choked her. They were everywhere she looked, swallowing her in their great white jaws.

  He picked up his coat and belt and gave her a triumphant smile. “Until then, my dove.” He turned and walked toward the door.

  She clenched her teeth to suppress a cry of despair. She wasn’t accustomed to being backed into corners. She called to him. “Wait.”

  He turned around slowly. His face was expressionless.

  With trembling hands, she lowered her other dress strap. She stood bare-breasted before him for a moment before lowering her gown past her hips and letting it drop to the floor. She untied the kerchief wrapped around her hips and let it fall from her hand. She could see beneath his tunic how she had moved him.

  “Come claim what you have bought,” she said with no attempt to mask her rancor.

  He approached, standing so close she could feel his breath on her cheeks. “I can see you are a lioness that must be tamed.” He motioned toward the bed. “Lie down.”

  She did as he commanded, choking back tears.

  Solomon stood over her and removed his tunic and loincloth. He didn’t even afford her the decency of the dark. Without the light, she could pretend none of this was happening, that it was merely a passing dream. But no. He would force her to look upon his nakedness, to watch as he laid claim to her body, to witness the look of ecstasy as he satisfied himself.

  He kneeled next to her. She could feel the heat radiating from his body.

  He picked up a pomegranate from the silver tray and tore it in two. The blood of the fruit dripped down his forearms. “Your pleasure is my pleasure,” he whispered.

  He put one half down and tore into the other with his fingers, excavating a handful of the red seeds. He sprinkled them onto her body.

  Each seed felt like a drop of cold rain as it landed, first on the notch of her collarbone, then between her breasts, then on her abdomen and navel. The tiny hairs on her skin stood on end as she considered his intention.

  He leaned over her. His hair brushed her neck as his lips explored her throat. His beard pricked her skin, and then his warm tongue tasted the seed in the hollow at the base of her neck.

  Nicaule quivered. She hated him for this. It would have been far easier to accept her fate if he would have snuffed out the candles and done the deed quickly without subjecting her to the spice of his passion.

  His lips traveled slowly down her sternum, sucking seeds along the way. He lingered on her breasts. Curse him! She wrapped her arms around him and dug her fingernails into the flesh between his shoulder blades, pushing hard until she felt his blood on her fingertips.

  Solomon groaned but did not stop. He picked up every seed from her abdomen with assertive sweeps of his tongue. When he reached her navel, she quaked, resenting him for taking that reaction from her without her wanting to give it.

  She could feel the mist of perspiration on his body as he draped himself over her, pushing upward with his forearms until their lips were a finger’s width apart and his locks encircled her face like a raven prison. She expected his kiss, but he withheld it. Instead he whispered, “My wife, my queen.”

  He parted her legs and entered her.

  She let out a gasp, louder than she’d intended. Sickened at the notion of being one with him, she bore down with her nails, further tearing his flesh. She lifted her hands off his back and shuddered at how much of his blood she had drawn. Her palms were smeared with it.

  She listened to his rapid, steady breath and felt warm beads of his perspiration drip onto her skin. She closed her eyes to escape her reality. She let herself drift into a daydream, imagining she was lying on the banks of the Nile beneath the new moon, dark water lapping her bare skin, and the man on top of her was a different husband.

  10

  City of David, 964 BCE

  A staccato sound echoed off the ceiling of the breezeway of King David’s palace as Zadok’s cane hit the pavement. Late summer’s hot, dry breath had descended upon the landlocked capital, causing his step to be slower than usual. Yet summer, for all its lung-strangling heat, imbued him with the carefree spirit of a much younger man, the man he used to be before age and hardship deformed his limbs and robbed him of mobility.

  He paused to catch his breath and heard the song of the cicadas. Their rhythmic trilling, like grain shaken inside a dried goatskin, was pervasive in summertime, signaling the last vestige of ataraxia before the changing of the seasons.

  All was shifting, and not only because of the passage of time. Soon the king’s first child would be born. If it were a boy, a healthy one, he could be heir to the kingdom. Zadok had hoped Solomon’s firstborn would not be out of his Egyptian wife, but God’s plan had it otherwise. All that remained now was to hope the child would be a girl with no rights to the throne.

  Zadok thought it important for Solomon—of all the kings—to continue the untainted bloodline of the Hebrews. Solomon was the chosen one, the one in whom Yahweh placed his most sacred duty and whom David, his father, trusted to perpetuate his kingdom, which was to rule over Jerusalem forever. Would there be an heir worthy of this?

  Though he was a man of faith, Zadok could see the faintest glimmer of destiny written on the hewn stones. Since marrying Nicaule, Solomon had taken two other wives, a Moabite and an Ammonite. The latter was just beginning to show pregnant with child. The king had also identified the daughter of a Phoenician king as the next addition to his harem and was to draw the contract with her father on his next trip to Sidon.

  Against his high priest’s advice, Solomon insisted on marrying foreign wives for the security and prosperity of the kingdom. In some ways, it was wise. In others, it was an abomination. Zadok knew better than to challenge the king on this
matter. It was an argument he could not win.

  Zadok came to the quarters of the pharaoh’s daughter, on the tip of the west wing, and knocked on the door. A nurse with kindly eyes opened it and bowed.

  “Have you any news?” he asked.

  “She still labors.” The sound of a woman screaming came from inside the room. “I must go to her.”

  “I will wait here. Bring me word as soon as the child arrives.”

  The nurse nodded and closed the door.

  There was a bench on the garden just beyond the breezeway, but Zadok was too restless to sit. Fueled by nerves, he paced the corridor. He heard the faint sound of Nicaule’s howls through the thick slabs of stone. They came more rapidly now. It would be any moment.

  Zadok knew Solomon was in the vineyard with one of his concubines, for it was a sin to touch his pregnant wives. He had not visited Nicaule in months but not only because she was swollen with child. When it was announced she was expecting, Solomon had confided in Zadok his apprehension. Though Solomon had been loathe to believe his dove had been delivered to him impure, there was evidence on their wedding night that he was not the first. Now he feared the child was not his own and retreated from his first wife as a result.

  Zadok could tell how much it haunted him. He suspected that was partly the reason for his taking other wives so quickly: not only to spread his seed but also to find solace in another. Only that solace never came, for none had the power over Solomon that Nicaule Tashere did.

  The door opened with a long creak, and the nurse emerged. She bowed once again.

  “Speak, woman.”

  “It is a girl, Kohain.”

  Zadok closed his eyes and silently thanked the Lord. “Send word to the king. Do it quickly.”

  She bowed and took her leave.

  Zadok walked to the office of the court scribe at the opposite end of the palace. Elihoreph, bent over an earthenware jug, looked up with a start when Zadok entered without knocking. He stood and approached the priest, taking his right hand in both of his own and touching his forehead to it.