Solomon’s whole demeanor had changed, but Bathsheba wasn’t convinced. “That won’t be nearly as easy as you seem to think. For instance, what information can you give Tipti that will make the pharaoh give up his plans? It’s too difficult. Tipti knows everything.”
“Well,” Solomon said, stroking his short beard impatiently. “Let me think. Surely there’s some bit of information that would be difficult for Tipti or her spies to check and yet would be totally discouraging to the pharaoh.”
“It is impossible. Tipti has ways of discovering everything. Just think of one thing that would be impossible for her to ferret out.”
Solomon liked a challenge of wits. “The one thing that no one can find out,” he said almost to himself, “is what I am thinking. Am I right?”
“Of course,” Bathsheba agreed.
“It is also true, I’m told, that I am known for my ability to have women fall in love with me.”
“Unfortunately, that is also true, but what has that to do with the problem?”
Solomon laughed a mirthless, harsh laugh as he explained.
“What do you think would happen if Tipti was told and the pharaoh informed that the queen of Sheba had fallen in love with Solomon and that Solomon for a change had fallen in love with her?”
“They wouldn’t believe a word of it. They would know it wouldn’t last. None of your relationships with women have lasted. You’re always tiring of them.”
Solomon didn’t answer for a moment, and when he did he was no longer joking. “There was a woman once that never bored me.”
“Shulamit?”
“Yes, Shulamit. But since she died nothing has been the same.”
“God doesn’t make mistakes, my son.”
Solomon looked over at her and his eyes were dark with pain, his mouth tense. “Actually I’ve often wondered how God could have made such a botch of things. To give the son to Naamah and only daughters to Shulamit. I’ve never understood.”
Bathsheba was shocked. Though she had often thought about the strange turn of events that had given Naamah, the Ammonite queen, the son that would rule Israel, she hadn’t imagined that Solomon had also pondered over the strangeness of it all. She felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered that she had been the one that had urged his marriage to Naamah. “I did wrong to force the marriage,” she said. “I was so ambitious. I wanted you to be king at any cost.”
Solomon turned away. He knew that what she said was true, and yet it did seem that God could have intervened.
Bathsheba sighed and began to reach for her cane. “So, you think the pharaoh will be utterly discouraged if he hears you are in love with the queen?”
“He would know that if the queen should fall in love with me, his coalition would be demolished, and without one battle being fought. Just gossip would accomplish everything. Tipti’s displacement and the pharaoh’s plans foiled.”
Bathsheba shook her head dubiously. “That’s what you have always done. It never ceases to amaze me. You are always marrying your worst enemies.”
“This will be a little more difficult.”
“Really!”
“Yes. I’ve good evidence that the queen has a lovely face and is quite accomplished, but she has one flaw.”
Bathsheba was leaning forward eagerly. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “A flaw?” she questioned.
“Yes. Badget the trader has seen with his own eyes that she has the feet of a donkey.”
Bathsheba gasped in shock. One hand flew to her throat and the other grasped the armrest of the throne. “It can’t be true.”
For a moment Solomon was almost enjoying himself. He loved to astonish his mother. “He swears it is true and I intend to examine her feet before I make any proposals.”
“I should say you must. But how can you do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but given months to think I shall come up with something. In the meantime I’ll begin to give Tipti information that will make it seem utterly plausible that the queen and I are in love with each other.”
Bathsheba turned with anxious eyes and grabbed his arm. “And the treachery of Jeroboam. What will you do to him for daring to dine with your queen?”
“In time. Everything will be settled in time. I have found there is a time for everything under the sun.”
“Be careful. It’s dangerous to toy with a queen’s heart.” With that she motioned to her bearers and her pages. The curtains of the palanquin were pulled back and Solomon helped her to rise. She went down the steps with the same regal dignity with which she arrived. She refused the hands that reached out to help her and by herself entered the palanquin.
Solomon stood watching until the ebony box and its carriers had disappeared. His thoughts were mixed. His outrage at Tipti was cooling as he thought of the intrigue and complexity of their new relationship. He almost preferred this to her love. The challenge was at least invigorating. It was like the game of jackals and hounds. The queen of Sheba would be his piece to play against her jackal, Jeroboam.
He was sorry for his outburst of bitterness toward God for giving Naamah his firstborn son. He had hidden his resentment all these years and had not imagined it would burst out at such a moment. He was doubly angry at himself as he realized his mother was blaming herself for all that had happened.
Down in the old city just outside the palace gate at the house of Badget the trader, an interesting game of wits was also being played by his two wives. Terra, the new wife, was happily pregnant with Badget’s first child while Yasmit mulled over various plans to regain her lost position of importance.
Yasmit was astounded at the attention this plain, unassuming little woman seemed to have attained just by being pregnant. It rankled and galled her that Terra with no real effort on her part should have gained Badget’s complete devotion. Everything that she had learned and practiced in the art of attracting a man’s attention seemed of no effect against this new menace.
To make it all more difficult, she found it impossible to hate Terra. The woman was like a ray of sunshine. She didn’t even notice when she was slighted. She seemed to be just naturally happy and content.
It wouldn’t be easy to discredit Terra or get rid of her, Yasmit decided. She would have to think of some other way to regain her lost position. Gradually a plan began to form in her mind and the more she thought about it the more she was pleased with it. It would have to involve the old apothecary who had his shop at the very edge of the marketplace. She knew she could trust him not to divulge her secret.
The next day she ordered her mule saddled while Badget was out and then very carefully made her way down the back lanes of the city until she came to the shop. The old man was sitting way at the back on a raised wooden platform covered with a richly woven tapestry. The shutters of his floor-length windows were flung back so he could take in the colorful activity in the marketplace that spread out below his window. He was drinking his regular barley gruel while his two assistants sat on the floor at some distance working with mortars and pestles to fill an order for the king.
When Yasmit arrived, one of the assistants tied her mule to the doorpost and led her back to where the old man was sitting. They knew each other well and he quickly ordered a cushion and honeyed drink for her. “Now what can I do for the wife of my good friend Badget?” he asked.
That evening as Terra and Yasmit sat together waiting for Badget to come home, Yasmit said, “I have some exciting news to tell our husband when he comes home. It is quite unexpected. He’ll be surprised. In fact I can hardly believe it myself.”
Terra had just started to dip a piece of bread into the rich brown sauce in the black earthen bowl that sat between the two of them. “It’s good news then.”
“The very best of news. If you promise not to tell our husband, I’ll let you be the first to know.” Terra’s eyes shone. “How very kind you are to me. Of course I’ll keep your secret.”
“At my age it rarely happens, and
after all this time, but …”
Terra dropped the piece of bread and leaned over so she could whisper and not be heard by the maids. “Can it be that you are expecting a child too?”
Yasmit nodded and smiled. “How did you ever guess?” she said almost blushing.
Terra impulsively hugged her. “How wonderful. You must tell our husband at once. He’ll be so pleased. Two children to look forward to. We’ll plan everything together.”
Yasmit again nodded and smiled as she readjusted her mantle under the gold coins that framed her face. She didn’t want to discuss it, and she was more than surprised at the response she had gotten from Terra. The girl had not an ounce of jealousy in her, it seemed. She was genuinely pleased. It made Yasmit feel somehow craven and mean. It had taken all the joy out of her triumph.
That evening as Solomon waited in the chamber of the eastern gate for his son Rehoboam to join him for evening prayers, he thought again of Tipti’s careful plans to replace him on the throne. He was no longer so sure he could thwart them. He was reminded of the way he had been chosen to rule and then his amazing encounter with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It had been so real and he had been promised so much if he was willing to obey God’s rules.
Somehow he’d done everything wrong, made all the mistakes possible. Worst of all, his son Rehoboam was weak and unfit. It made him sick to think of it. Of all his failures this was the biggest. “The father of a fool has no joy,” he muttered to himself.
In despair he found himself praying, “O God of my fathers, is it possible that you can still bring some good thing out of this chaos? With all my wisdom I’ve failed in the most important areas of my life.”
At the last moment a messenger arrived saying that his son was entertaining some friends and couldn’t come. Solomon, with a determined set to his jaw and considerable anxiety over the choices this son was habitually making, moved off toward the temple surrounded by his counselors and tribesmen.
Bathsheba was not the only one with spies in the house of the Egyptian princess. It was well known that Naamah, as the ruling queen, was obsessed with the need to know even the most intimate details of life in her rival’s palace. It was a fact that several of the servants had risen to dizzy heights of power within the confines of the harem just by giving her some choice bit of news about the Egyptian.
Now on this, the ninth day in the month of Elul, during the olive harvest, Naamah, concerned about the reports from her spies, set out for the grotto of the ugly god Moloch. She was convinced that Moloch could frustrate any plans the Egyptian queen might have.
The grotto had been constructed with Solomon’s reluctant blessing in the Valley of Hinnon not far from the city’s Dung Gate. Here since time immemorial the refuse of the city was burned and there was a continuous pall of malodorous smoke hanging over the area. After much discussion, and considerable objection from Naamah, the grotto had been placed here so the burning flesh of small children would not bother the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
On this particular day Naamah rode one of the white mules but kept her face covered and wore garments of dull gray, like a peasant woman, so no one would recognize her. Slung from the pommel of her mule’s saddle was a large woven basket that she protected from the glaring sun with a piece of finely tooled leather.
When she reached the steps that led down into the cave she surprised the maidservant that rode with her by insisting on carrying the basket herself and presenting it to the chief priest. “My lord,” she said, “I’ve brought the jewels you requested. Now may the god grant me success when I go to confront the Egyptian.”
The priest had the look of an ordinary man with heavy eyebrows that flared out partially obscuring his small, deepset eyes. His garments, in contrast to his appearance, were richly embroidered, almost garish. He reached for the basket, but Naamah shook her head. “Not yet. I myself must present them to the god.”
The priest turned and led the way down the steps into the dark interior, where the only light came from a fire in the belly of the huge idol. The fearful creature sat cross-legged, with metal arms outstretched over leaping flames always greedily waiting to receive the next victim.
The priest bowed, then prostrated himself before the idol. When he finally rose, he proceeded to throw incense from a leather pouch that hung from his waist by a braided cord.
Naamah also prostrated herself before the ugly form. For a few moments there was only the crackling sound of the flames and a hissing noise as more incense was thrown on the fire by the priest.
Slowly Naamah raised herself, and lifting her head so she could look up into the glass-fixed stare of the idol, she chanted, “O Moloch, you are far greater than the cat god Bastet of Egypt. You must not let the cat and her devotee the Egyptian succeed in their evil plans. It is my son, Rehoboam, who must rule Israel.”
She sat back on her heels, a plump, ordinary-looking woman whose face was turning crimson with the heat. Her gray hair hung in damp spirals from under her mantle and there was just the barest hint of a small, gold crown on her brow. Sweat poured down her face, running freely in the deep creases, but she was oblivious to all this. Her whole attention was focused on the image.
“See,” she said as she rummaged in the basket, “I’ve brought you jewels given for the temple of Israel’s God. I stole them for you. We’ll make a crown for you and you’ll honor my son and make him the next king of Israel.”
At this the old priest hurried forward and put out his clawlike hands. “Yes, yes, Moloch needs a crown. A crown of gold and jewels more glorious than the king’s own crown. We’ll have it made.”
Naamah looked at him questioningly before she put the jewels in his hand. “Old one, there is a plot afoot; a plot designed by the Egyptian to overthrow Solomon and put the upstart Jeroboam on his throne. My son would be ignored. Promise me this will not happen.”
The priest had drawn back at her sharp words and daggerlike stare. His hands were still held out, but his eyes had taken on a frightened, haunted look. “Give Moloch the jewels for his crown and everything will be yours.”
“Everything?”
“I swear, everything.”
Naamah breathed a sigh of satisfaction. “Tell the god, when he’s in a mood to listen, I want the Egyptian out of my way. Back in Egypt or better still dead of poison or a broken heart.”
The priest’s eyes glinted with greed as she dropped the large, finely cut jewels in his hand. “Take care that no one steals them,” she said as she removed the lid of the basket and felt around for more. She handed them to the priest, but when she turned to put the lid back on the basket, the head of a huge snake appeared above the rim and filled the opening. It was obviously temporarily crazed by the light and heat of the fire. “Zizi has guarded the jewels well,” she said with a coarse laugh. “None of the women would dare open any of my baskets.”
With a swift movement she nudged the snake back in the basket and fitted on the lid, then rose and turned to leave. “Remind the god that I have given jewels worth a kingdom for use in his crown.”
As she lumbered heavily up the steps, she was tempted to look back. She yearned to know that the god had at last forgiven her for not sacrificing her firstborn to him. All these twenty-four years since Rehoboam had been born she had been thinking of new and better ways to buy him off, settle the debt.
It was true that Solomon had built this shrine at her insistence. At the time she had hoped Moloch would accept this in exchange for the life of her son. But Moloch was greedy. He was always wanting more. Never satisfied.
The God of Israel never asked for human sacrifice. A payment of shekels in exchange for the life of a firstborn son was the only requirement. How easy it was to worship the God of Solomon. In spite of this, she would never give up Moloch for the God of Israel. The God of Israel couldn’t be seen or bribed, and what good was a deity that couldn’t be bribed?
At the top of the steps she paused to catch her breath and wipe the dripping sw
eat from her face with the end of her mantle. She hung the basket back on the pommel and let her maid help her onto the mule. Then with a sharp command she ordered the mule forward out of the sacred grove and up the rock-dusty trail toward the Fountain Gate.
Back in the court of the women she found her son Rehoboam impatiently waiting for her. “I heard you wanted to see me,” he said rather sharply.
“Is that so strange?” She undid the basket and lifted the great snake out. “There, there, Zizi, you’ve been terribly uncomfortable. I understand.”
Rehoboam drew back. “It’s always the snakes. It’s peculiar. No one else …”
Naamah’s eyes flashed dangerously as the snake wound itself around her shoulders. “Your father has all sorts of animals running through the palace. Are you critical of him too or is it just me?”
“He says he’s studying their ways, but snakes …”
“Zizi has just protected a fortune in jewels. They sat right here in this basket within reach of everyone and no one dared touch them.”
“A fortune in jewels! I could use a fortune right now. I need a new house for one of my wives.”
Naamah smirked. “Your wives are all spoiled and selfish. I don’t approve of anyone of them.”
While she had been talking, Naamah had walked through the courtyard of the harem to her own place of authority. At the far end of the court a dais with a canopy had been built and fine tapestry carpets spread over the stones and out some distance in each direction. There was a cushioned throne that had been designed much like the king’s throne except there were no carved lions and the gold and ivory inlay had been used more sparingly.
Naamah settled herself on the low-cushioned seat and patted the space beside her for Rehoboam. “We must talk,” she said.
Rehoboam found there wasn’t much his mother didn’t know. She already knew of the coalition plotting to come against Israel and that the queen of Sheba was still uncommitted. She knew that Solomon was building another fortified city at Tadmor for trade beyond Damascus. She even knew that the king was often depressed these days and instead of calling for women from the harem, he was spending time with his brother Nathan. “I have heard,” she said, “that he goes around muttering, ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.’ What does he mean by that?”
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