by Tosca Lee
And then he was gone, striding away from me on legs as lean as a gazelle’s, the crown of flowers still on his head.
He had included me in many aspects of court life until that point, asking me to rule on several matters of lesser import as a visiting sovereign. But that day he went off with his advisors for hours. I instructed Shara to ready our things, expecting our hasty return to Jerusalem.
I had been well aware of the escalating tensions between Damascus and Israel, and the northern and southern tribes. Of the tension, too, between the wives’ foreign priests and the priests of Yaweh—including the madman of the street who I now knew to be the prophet Ahijah, a man the king actually valued if only because he had the courage to disagree with him. Tension, too, between the scholars and laborers, and the foreign and native Canaanite populations of Israel. Kingdom of conflicts!
And over them all, a king of contradictions. I knew the king now for a poet and merchant, philosopher and businessman. An Israelite who commemorated the exodus of his people from Egyptian forced labor . . . and conscripted his own tribesmen in turn. A king of nomadic blood who urbanized his people and built a house for his tent-dwelling god, who collected the wisdom of the world, then debunked it all with infallible logic. The wise man who pursued the sublime in luxury and craved mystery to match that which was known.
We did not return to Jerusalem that day, though I later learned he had dispatched one of his generals with a company of men.
We dined that night surrounded by courtiers who paid rapt attention to the questions he posed with the arrival of each dish. Some of them riddles. Some of them the seed of some philosophical debate. Every one intended to incite, amuse, or provoke.
Time and again he inverted the reason of his most vocal opposition, inflecting their every argument until they could do nothing but agree with him.
Only I saw the thing like desperation in his eye, as though he exorcised some demon in himself with every rebuttal.
“Tell me we will continue our story,” he said, as he bid me good night. “I command you. I beg you.”
“We will continue,” I said, lifting my hand to his head in blessing.
The next day Niman stopped me in the corridor.
“Let me speak to him,” he said urgently. “Let me approach him as your kinsman.”
“You will not,” I said. First my trader, turned jury against me at the king’s suggestion three years ago, and now my own councilmen, swayed to the king’s best interest in the name of Saba’s own! Niman no doubt imagined he had everything to gain were I to marry for ports, ships—even the horses I coveted. I had been right not to leave him in Saba in my absence but now I wished he had returned to camp.
“What have we come for if not for this? My queen, he will give you all that you ask!”
“No he won’t. Not yet.”
“My queen. Kinswoman. Do you not see the way he looks to you? As a man looks on the very idols he argued for and then against with equal veracity last night! His own men say he’s a man inspired since your arrival. Did you know you are the very reason he would not ride out to the skirmish, even though he sent two thousand men?”
I had no idea. Why did the thought warm and alarm me at once?
“There are too many ears in this place,” I hissed. “We will talk when we return to Jerusalem.”
“Why do you not marry, Bilqis?” Solomon asked me the night after we returned to Jerusalem.
Did the very air have ears?
I gazed out over the low wall of the terrace toward the eastern mount. Fires glowed from several altars and I thought I heard even from here the perceptible beat of a drum. “How is it that you married a Moabite, when your god has decreed against it?” I countered. “And not just a Moabite, but an Egyptian, a Sidonite, an Edomite, and I know not how many others restricted to you by your god?”
“My god declared against it not because of the women—and not even because of the gods they worship—but because there is no limit to what a man who loves a woman will do. My own father venerated my mother as though she were the queen of heaven herself. How much less is it for a man to worship his wife’s god with her when she plies him with soft promises?”
“I see. And so woman becomes the temptress of a man’s downfall?”
I could feel his gaze on me from the seat adjacent, considering me beneath the stars. “A weak man declares a woman a temptress and orders her to cover herself. A strong man covers himself and says nothing. I must have peace with my wives’ people though I do not worship their gods.”
“You must also have peace with your wives, and so you have built them high places to their gods.”
“My god does not call them to worship him. He knows that I am his.”
I did not say the thing I wanted to, which was: “And if your wife goes to the bed of another man, will you still know her heart is yours?”
Instead, I said, “Such a man who bends the law to his will is dangerous indeed.”
Solomon paused and finally said, “I do not bend the law. I understand it. It is far more dangerous to obey a law without understanding. Do we wish our children to do as they are told forever, simply because we told them what they should do, or because they fear punishment? Or do we hope that they grow in understanding to discern for themselves and freely choose right? We are not children and neither can we afford to think like them. One day we allow a man to live in our kingdom. The next, we dare not. And so even though we spared him one day, we must call for his death the next, even though every law in the world says ‘Do not murder.’ ”
Always a clever answer with him. Always an answer that chipped away at the very idea of certainty in me.
Solomon fell silent after that, and captured my hand in his. This had grown common between us, the king taking my hand as though we were children, holding it sometimes tightly, sometimes reverently as he had that first night, like a thing that might take flight.
I waited for him to make his demand—for more of our garden story, to see my face, to escape the palace, for whatever unpredictable thing he would ask of me next.
“Who is this,” he said softly, touching one of my rings, “who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun?” He glanced up and lifted his fingers to my face. But when I thought he might tug at my veil, he only traced the line of my cheek through it with a fingertip.
“You run when I pursue,” he whispered. “I grow cold and you come near. And what you ask of me is not the thing you truly want.”
My breath was stifling beneath the fall of silk.
“Yes it is.”
I took my leave a moment later.
I had not seen Tamrin except a handful of times since our arrival two months prior. How much a lifetime ago those nights together in my palace seemed. But then, even my palace felt like a thing half remembered, as though from a dream.
He bowed low the day I saw him in the camp outside Jerusalem, the courtier in the body of the caravan master, at last.
“Tamrin! All this time I thought you beyond Damascus.”
“My queen is indeed an oracle,” he said. “I leave tomorrow.”
“And so your heart calls you on,” I said.
I had thought his gaze feral once. But now, even as he smiled, I saw it was merely tormented. “I suppose it does. But do not fear; I will return in time for winter.”
Winter.
“Ah, the life of the trader,” I murmured.
“How go my queen’s negotiations?”
“Let us not speak of them.”
“The king is a fool if he denies you anything,” Tamrin said quietly.
I looked away a moment, then said with a forced smile, “Will you come to the palace to dine on your return?”
“I will be famished for decent food and gentle manners even before I return,” he said, but his gaze had already drifted beyond camp. “Ah, but there is my foreman. I beg your leave and your blessing, lady.”
I gave both and watched him wa
lk away.
That night in the rooftop garden, the king gazed out toward the lower city. We were alone, as I had begun to send Yafush away early days ago.
“What will you give me?” he said finally, not looking at me.
“For what?”
“For what you want of me.”
He turned toward me then. I knew the astute face of that businessman well.
“I haven’t even said what I want of you.”
“You need my ships to stop in your ports. Your ports cannot accommodate them. My men have questioned yours at length about the architecture of your cities, your roads, your shores. You need men to expand your ports, and me to bolster your trade by sea.”
“As you say.”
“And so what will you give me?”
“What do you want?”
It was the wrong question, and I knew it the moment it left my lips.
“I will negotiate engineers for your ports and even labor if you will raise half the labor yourself. We will chart together the Red Sea route, and I will give you favorable terms. I have far designs for my ships, and you will share in them.”
“I will see that you have gold from Punt—enough to finish your palace and three more besides, and incense for your temple until the end of the age.”
He said, as though he had not heard me, “Egypt, Edom, and Damascus would like nothing more than to ally with Saba. Phoenicia, too, though they dare not go around me.” This was news to me.
“It would be in my best interest to keep that from happening,” Solomon said. “And the way to do it is to ally with you myself.”
“I agree. As allies, Egypt will never control interest over either one of us. They will not over me, in any case.”
“You don’t know that. The Pharaoh will not live forever, and the Libyans hold power already. There is something else you want, though,” he said.
Why had his demeanor turned so chilly in the stifling evening? And why did I feel no joy in this negotiation, now that he had brought it before me at last?
“Yes. I want scholars and astronomers and mathematicians and priests at my court. The sages and scribes who congregate now in yours—I want a twin capital of learning in Saba.”
“I will treat with you on all of these things. But I have one condition.”
“What is that?”
“Marriage.”
I felt the word like a slap.
“You yourself said you wanted no more wives!”
“I said, what need did I have for another wife.”
“All the same!”
“And yet that is my condition.”
“I am a queen, not a princess to be given in treaty,” I snapped. “And the Sabaeans will never accept a foreign king.”
“You are the queen. They will accept that which you tell them makes sense.”
“It does not make sense to me!”
“Bilqis.” He came to me and seized my hand. “Do you think me a conqueror? I, who have never even seen your face!”
“What else should I think? You expect me to take a husband who will share my bed but once? Or would you simply add me to your collection like a doll?”
“I will give you an heir.”
I could not help the bitter laugh that escaped me then. I did not tell him that no man—let alone a circumcised king—could do that.
“I will not be one of four hundred. And make no mistake: I will not spend my life sleeping alone.”
“Have I seen even one of my wives in the last month since spending all these days and nights at your side?”
“I don’t know. Have you? I certainly haven’t asked it of you.”
“No! Though they send messages and entreaties and though I know they are angry. Do you not think I am well aware that they are jealous? And I forsake them all to spend time with you!”
“How generous you are!” I pulled my hand away. “And what will your mad prophet say of that? Already he says your god is angry with you. Every day he parades through the streets and renounces your wives as worshippers of demons. Already your people look to me with suspicion, except those whom you receive to your table and hall, forced to pay obeisance. Do you think marriage to me will endear you to them? No.”
“I see,” he said coldly. “You say you will not be just another woman to me, but I see I am just another king to you.”
I sighed. “And now you require reassurances from me?”
“Do you think any other king will offer you what I do? Saba’s future is lost without alliance to me. Are you so selfish that you will not marry for the sake of your people?”
“And you are so selfless that you marry again and again and again!”
“Yes!” he roared. “I dole myself out in pieces for the sake of the kingdom—this unified and spiritual kingdom—for the sake of peace and for my god!”
“Well, you are not the only sovereign of a unified and spiritual kingdom. And yet somehow I manage to do it without selling pieces of myself away!” I hissed.
What was I doing? But now the floodgates, once opened, would not staunch their tide. All the tension of the last weeks and months of this limbo, this two-sided dance, flooded my veins at once, bringing me to my feet.
“You say your god is supreme over all. And yet my god is far more forgiving than yours! Yaweh would not approve of your marriage to me, High Priestess of another god. Mine gives me free rein to marry or not, to lie with any man I wish. You, though, must marry again and again to legitimize your unending lust for wealth. But even then, the divine author of your laws does not condone it. And so you explain it away. You think you expand your kingdom, but you are like an animal in a trap, unable to turn one way or the other without some retribution, divine or otherwise. Your prophet treats your wives as harlots. Well, who is the harlot here?”
For a moment, I actually thought he might strike me, he trembled so violently. The look on his face was terrible.
“I thought you wise. I see now that I was wrong,” he said and walked inside.
He left me there, standing on the roof.
It was ruined. Saba was ruined. And I had been her undoing.
TWENTY-FOUR
I had failed. I had lost, all.
On the second day after I roused myself from my torpor, I sent the women given to me out on contrived errands—one to the kitchens with instructions for a Sabaean dish I claimed to crave, one for fresh flowers for the apartment, and the rest to the market for news.
“The wives are jealous,” my eldest girl said, when they were gone and I was alone with her and Shara. “None of them have spent a night with the king in well over a month, except at the dark moon. I heard the Edomite and the wife from Hamath talking. But Naamah and the Pharaoh’s daughter are not worried for that—only for the favor he shows you. If you are to marry him, they worry that any son by you will have more favor than their own. Twice now, Naamah’s girl has asked when we are leaving. She does it under the pretense of wanting to stay with us for as long as she can. But we know the question comes from her mistress, who calls her back under the guise of sending gifts for us and for you.”
“Well, of course, what did you think?” I said.
“I’m afraid, my queen,” Shara said to me when we were alone. “Nebt says that it is not unknown for one of the new favorites to turn ill from poison, and to expel a child before it has come to term.”
“Well, there is no chance of that,” I said. Nonetheless, I had requested my own food taster some time ago.
Now I must decide what to do. I had been rash—reckless. I had been clever, but not clever enough.
I could make my peace with Solomon. But I did not think I could bring myself to ascend that garden stair now even if it wasn’t barred against me already. Nor did I know if he would even receive me.
I could leave. But to do so now and have it come out later that I had failed utterly after all my promises . . . I couldn’t stomach the thought. Not yet, while there was still time.
Neither could
I bear these few months until winter dwindling to days.
Worst of all: I missed the king. No, not the king, but the man who captured and revered my hands. The poet who begged for the story of the garden, of the shepherd and shepherdess. The boy who took me stealing from the palace. The soul who drifted inexorably closer the more I shed the mantle of queen to expose the raw vein of my own loneliness.
Yes. He was a mirror. And I was his.
I told myself I could begin again and ply him with the stories and riddles he so craved . . . but my riddles were exhausted, and the words I had spoken could not be undone.
Or I could consent to his terms.
“I think that I have lost,” I said faintly, when Shara and I were alone. “Even though he offered me everything I wanted. He proposed marriage. And I wanted to accept.”
Despite all that I had said.
I laid my arm around Shara’s shoulders and wondered why I had not confided in her more. I had done her a disservice in protecting her that way, leaving her only to comfort me in silence.
“It is a difficult thing, to keep the favor of a king,” she said, in a stilted whisper.
“No. Only to keep it without losing all.” I sighed, and got to my feet.
Shara sat like a stone, staring at her hands. Her breath began to come in short gasps and she threw her arm out to the edge of a nearby table.
“Shara! What’s this?” I took her by the shoulders.
I had never seen Shara so concerned about any matter of state. What made her panic now?
“This is the business of kings and queens, that is all.” I pulled her against me, looking for my girl to bring wine. “Soon, we will go home.”
“At least you choose and were chosen.” Her hands went to her face and her voice tightened and rose in pitch. “And were never given.”
She trembled violently in the circle of my arms.
“Shara. Shara! What ails you?” I pulled her hands away.
But she would not answer with anything but the pleading in her eyes, some awful need. The look of a person who cannot speak, but must have it spoken for her—or of a woman who has carried a secret one day too long.