At the door Pelli kissed him on both cheeks, wishing him godspeed, and Badget urged him to have Terra ready just before dawn, when he would come for her.
Badget had done all that he promised and more and found to his amazement that Terra was indeed one of the best bargains he ever made. By day she rode among the colorful, scented cushions of the howdah but at night she shared his dinner and his tent. They lay in each other’s arms and watched the majestic movement of the stars while Badget taught her the simple words she’d need to manage in Jerusalem. He was happier than he’d ever been, so happy he hesitated to tell her of Yasmit.
Each night he tried to bring himself to explain just what she would face in Jerusalem, but over and over again he found he couldn’t risk losing this newfound happiness.
At times he rationalized and fantasized that Yasmit would have grown reasonable. Of course he knew it was impossible. She wasn’t the kind of woman to accept anything in life she hadn’t planned or could somehow manage to control.
In Jericho he experienced the supreme joy of finding Terra to be pregnant. At all costs he wanted to protect her. He yearned to keep her to himself. He had always been a man of action and now faced with this dilemma he found himself undecided. He thought of sending a messenger ahead to tell Yasmit of his marriage. Maybe if she heard the news she’d leave, go off with one of the men he’d heard she entertained while he was gone.
Instinctively he knew this wasn’t possible. If she was warned, she might be angry enough to kill them both. It was better after all, he reasoned, to surprise her. Surely he was man enough to face this woman and tell her just as other husbands had done before him that he was married to a second wife. It was done and finished. What could she really do? Surely she would realize that this time the matter was out of her hands.
The next day as they prepared to travel the last few miles to Jerusalem, Badget wasn’t as confident. He’d faced wild animals, hostile foreigners, and been known as a hard bargainer. But to face Yasmit with a new wife was entirely different. He found himself irritable and anxious. The day was overcast, and all the signs he depended on as a trader and traveler were ominous.
At the last minute he decided to leave Terra with the wife of the innkeeper. He paid handsomely for a whole floor in the inn and for servants to wait on her. When he realized how frightened Terra was, he gave the innkeeper more money to pay for runners who would come twice a day and report on her health.
Last of all he told Terra about Yasmit. “She is a difficult woman, not one to accept a second wife without a struggle,” he said as he nervously paced the narrow hall between the upper rooms.
“A wife?” Terra burst into tears and could not be consoled. “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.”
“I meant to keep you in Marib, then it wouldn’t have mattered. You were the one who insisted on coming with me.”
At that Terra threw herself down on the mat where they’d spent the last night together and burying her head in her hands wept bitterly. Badget was at a loss as to what he should do. He tried to reason with her and tell her that Yasmit had given him no children. “You’ll be the one to give me a son,” he said.
When he offered to let her live in her own house in Jericho where she would never see Yasmit, she seemed to regain her composure. She sat up and dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her mantle. “Do you truly love me as you have said?” she asked, looking away so as not to see his reaction.
“Oh, yes, yes, you know that I do,” Badget said as he hurried to take her in his arms and proceeded to dry her eyes himself with her mantle. “Haven’t you listened to what I’ve told you over and over again?”
“You’re a man who has a way with words.”
“Look at me. Look in my eyes,” Badget said turning her head so she had to look at him. “I’ll go to Jerusalem if that is your wish and I’ll settle this thing so you can be with me there.”
At that she smiled. “Don’t worry. I have your child to think of. I can manage.”
Badget spent another hour making sure the wife of the innkeeper would bend every effort to make Terra’s stay pleasant, then he rounded up his caravan and headed up the road toward Jerusalem.
He tried to dismiss all thought of Yasmit. He had no idea what would happen when he told her of Terra, but it would do no good to try to anticipate her reaction. He decided to face the problem head-on when he encountered it.
He had the message to deliver to the king. He must do that as soon as possible. If Yasmit was very angry, he could stay at the guardhouse just outside the palace. Certainly she wouldn’t stay angry for long.
That evening when Solomon had said goodnight to his friends at the pillared portico of the Hall of Judgment he walked slowly up the long marble stairs to a pavilion on the roof above the women’s quarters. Most of his guards and retainers were left in the courtyard below with only his personal servants following at a discreet distance behind him.
He breathed a sigh of relief as the servant drew back the heavy goathair covering. Just inside he stopped and looked around at the colorful banks of cushions and softly billowing draperies that covered the walls. The roof of black woven goathair moved gently in the spring breeze causing the tent poles that held it in place to sway hypnotically.
There were no torches here, only the small lamps carved of alabaster with their bit of fire at the end of the twisted sheep’s wool that curled down into the rich olive oil. The light was dim but magical, transforming the bright cushions into rubies and emeralds and the gold and silver goblets and trays into gleaming particles of captured light.
He was about to call for one of his favorite harpists when a small, bent figure seemed to emerge out of the shadows. “Your lordship,” the voice was almost a whisper as the figure with rather slow, painful movements prostrated herself at his feet.
He wanted to laugh as he recognized one of his old nursemaids. She who had been so bold and had wielded a very effective switch on his bare young legs was now almost frightened to approach him. She who had fed him with her own fingers and told him funny stories to make him forget a skinned knee had become distant and formal as though his being king had wiped out all the past between them. It was obvious that to her he was now someone remote and unapproachable.
“What is it you wish to tell me?” He tried to say the words in a gentle way, hoping she would relax and be her normal, humorous self.
“Your lordship,” she said again with a trembling voice.
“Come, come. Enough of this formality. Let me get a look at you. I haven’t seen you all year.” He reached down to help her to her feet and a servant rushed forward. “I can at least help this old one to her feet,” he said as he motioned the servant away. “She helped me often enough when I was just a little fellow.”
The old woman stood trembling before him, her eyes on the floor and her hands nervously twisting the tassel of her mantle. “Come,” he said, “look at me. Have I grown so frightful?”
“Your lordship, your mother wishes to see you. I’ve only come at her bidding.” Her eyes were still looking down at the floor as though she could not look at him.
“So it’s my mother who’s sent you. You didn’t just come to see if your little charge is behaving himself.” He looked at her and could hardly recognize the jolly, tender, caring woman she had been. She seemed so stiff and formal with no trace of the person she had been.
At his words she looked up and he saw just a flash of surprise that he had spoken so familiarly to her. Then just as suddenly the mask again descended and a look of fear and awe took its place. This was the thing he hated most. Almost everyone treated him as though he were some royal object. He could have been a golden idol in a Canaanite temple for all the human warmth anyone displayed.
“Where’s my mother?” he again asked gently so as not to frighten her.
“She’s waiting below in her sitting room.” Her voice was low and he had to bend down to hear what she said. He was so frustrated, he was tempted
to force her at least to look at him. To see the little boy he’d been still hiding behind the elaborate finery—if she could only see him.
With a sigh he called one of the scribes to him. “Write an order for the keeper of the king’s treasury.” He waited while the man did obeisance and then sat down and began fumbling with his parchments and reed pens. “This woman is to be given a golden ring and pendant from the king’s own treasures.”
At these words the old woman fell to her knees and wept, while Solomon, ignoring her, now pressed his seal into the soft red wax making the order official. “Come. It is little enough the king can do to honor the woman who dared whip his legs with an almond branch.” Solomon lifted her to her feet himself and handed her the parchment. This time he was the one who looked away. He couldn’t stand to think that he’d again find fear written in her eyes at his little joke.
He dismissed her and then stood for a moment pondering the whole episode. His father, David, had somehow been able to command the respect of his subjects and friends without this terrible alienation from them. How strange it was that men fought and struggled to gain power and prestige and then found it to be such empty isolation. Vanity, all is vanity. The words drummed in his head like an ominous knell summoning in the depression he suffered from so often lately.
He motioned to one of his pages. “Take this to the court of the queens and hand it to my mother personally.” He handed his royal scepter to the page and knew that when his mother received it she would know that he was waiting for her.
Bathsheba had heard rumors of trouble with the Egyptian princess and her cat and then the threats Naamah the queen was making against her Egyptian rival, but she had kept the more serious trouble to herself until she was sure of all the details. Now it was time to speak if disaster was to be averted.
She took the jeweled scepter from the page and followed him back up the dark, winding stairs to the king’s pavilion. It was part of Solomon’s new palace; in fact, this was the only really comfortable, casually elegant part of Solomon’s new quarters. The rest was such a mixture of stark Egyptian and Phoenician opulence that Bathsheba never felt at home in any of the rooms. Black ebony couches with actual heads and tails of wild animals carved into their sides, small tables of gleaming mother-of-pearl, and stools and chairs all richly carved but vastly uncomfortable were placed according to some unfamiliar pattern on the marble floors.
The curtain parted and she saw her son before he saw her. She was shocked to notice how dejected, even sad, he looked. His hair was closely cropped, his beard trimmed. His crown was glinting and gleaming in the dim light. He wore a tunic that seemed to be belted with huge jewels that made his short sword seem smaller than it actually was. His legs were laced with otter skin and the thongs of his sandals were washed in gold; he was the very image of health and success, all that she had imagined he might become and yet he was obviously far from happy.
She sighed. She had no good news to impart and she regretted having to tell him anything that would burden him further.
She cleared her throat so he would know she had arrived and then swept toward him holding the golden scepter in her right hand. He turned, and seeing her, smiled. He took the scepter and tossed it into the cushions beside the makeshift dais and throne. “My mother,” he said, leading her to a seat on the low mats next to the dais, “is it good news or bad that brings you out at this time of night?”
She didn’t answer at once but let the servant help arrange the pillows behind her and bring an armrest for both her and her son. He had dropped down rather informally beside her and she noticed with astonishment that his arm leaning on the rest was circled above the elbow with a large, jeweled serpent. She drew back and stared at the ugly thing with its gleaming eyes and golden fangs. “What’s this that seems to have taken the place of your phylacteries?” she said, leaning away from the creature.
Solomon looked to see what she was pointing at. “Oh,” he laughed, “it is a gift from Tipti. She said it would bring me untold power, help me to read the minds of my enemies, and make me irresistible to women.”
“But, a serpent! An ugly serpent! You probably would eat the forbidden fruit if Tipti gave it to you.”
“Don’t be so worried. I wear my phylacteries at prayer time, but they depress Tipti. She can’t understand why they have to be black and so, so ordinary.”
“I wanted more than anything for you to be king and to marry a princess and now you have it all and …”
“And what?”
“This isn’t the way I had imagined it would be.”
Solomon grew serious. “I know. Nothing is ever the way we imagined it. Sometimes it’s better, but most of the time it’s worse.”
“I hear you have been depressed and moody.”
“You’ve talked to Nathan.”
“Not only that. Everyone watches a king. If you should not eat as usual, if you want to be alone, if you have added beautiful girls to the harem and then haven’t called them …”
Solomon raised his hand. “Enough. I know. I can imagine. I hate being watched all the time.”
“You didn’t used to mind it.”
“I didn’t used to have anything to hide. I didn’t care what they said because I was busy and happy.”
“And now you aren’t?”
“Let’s forget about me. I don’t want to talk about it. What did you want to tell me?”
Bathsheba’s face grew pensive. “There are several things, but the most serious involves your beloved Tipti.”
“Tipti? Do you mean about the cat and the stolen sacrifice? I already know about that.”
“No. This is something more subtle, more dangerous.”
Solomon braced himself for whatever revelation his mother had come to bring. She came to see him at night only if there was need for secrecy. “You think she’s a spy for the pharaoh.”
“I know she’s a spy. There’s proof now, and it’s more dangerous than even I had suspected.”
Solomon looked away. His face seemed to harden as though he was preparing himself for the worst. “You know she’s a spy?” he asked at last. “Tell me. I’m ready to hear whatever it is.”
“It’s not only Tipti, but your favorite young friend Jeroboam.”
“Jeroboam!” Solomon exclaimed with utter disbelief. “He’s like my right arm. He’s organized the work crews, stood up to my enemies, even smoothed over the problem with Tipti and the cat.”
“Exactly. He could smooth over the problem with Tipti because he is in league with her. He’s one of the main sources of her information.”
Solomon almost jumped to his feet. “He wouldn’t do that. What benefit would it be to him?”
“Listen, my son. This is important. Jeroboam is of the tribe of Ephraim. Now think. The father of that tribe was Joseph and the mother of the tribe was an Egyptian woman named Asenath, the daughter of the priest of On. I am told that Tipti has been telling Jeroboam of the glories of Egypt and convincing him that he must not ignore his Egyptian blood. When he went to Egypt he visited On and enquired of the priests. They told him some amazing things that have made him proud and defiant. He now says he sees nothing wrong in worshiping the bull as a visible symbol of Yahweh.”
“He’s young and Tipti can be quite convincing.”
“Solomon, it’s not his faith I’m worried about.”
“Then what are you worried about? I thought that was the concern.”
“No. That’s bad enough, but worse is that he’s critical of you and is telling his friends of an Egyptian plot to rob your treasury and the temple, take over the country, and put him in charge.”
“Impossible. Why would Shishak devise such a thing? Why Jeroboam?”
“Don’t you see? Jeroboam is a good servant but not a leader. He would do just as Shishak ordered. If Shishak told him not to carry out plans for a trade route going down the Red Sea, Jeroboam would listen. You won’t.”
“So it’s the trade route that has the
pharaoh all stirred up. I did tell Tipti about it. A king can be ruined by the foolish use of his own tongue. I know that.”
“It’s not just the pharaoh. He’s gathered all your neighbors. They’re all coming to surprise you.”
“Who?”
“Prince Hadad of Edom for one, Rezon of Damascus for another, and now it is rumored that they have joined with the new queen of Sheba. All of them are angry about your bypassing the old trade route and starting your own sea route.”
“Why not attack my ships? Why come to Jerusalem?”
“My son, don’t you see? They’ve heard of your wealth and the beauty of your new temple and the palace. Pharaoh is secretly telling them that it would take years of gathering tribute to glean as much gold as could be had in one raid on Jerusalem.”
“The old goat. He’s really jealous.” Solomon threw back his head and laughed.
Bathsheba hadn’t heard him laugh in a long time, but she didn’t join him. Instead she clutched his arm. “It isn’t funny. Of course he’s jealous and he’s also greedy. He’ll do just what he’s planned if you don’t take quick action.”
Solomon grew serious. He pushed his crown back on his head and locked his fingers around his short sword. “Are you sure this is right? Who told you?”
“I have a very clever maid who waits on Tipti. She hears everything and reports to me.”
“I suppose she also reports on the visits of your son to the princess.”
Bathsheba blushed and dropped her eyes. She was embarrassed. “Yes, yes, there have been times, but most of the time it is concerning her other contacts and activities.”
“What interesting listening that must be. It must provide you with endless entertainment.” Solomon’s voice had that sharp edge to it that warned her of the dangerous ground she was treading.
“Not entertainment, my son. It’s for you. I don’t trust her.”
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