by Tosca Lee
Something niggled, a memory of years.
The night of the banquet, when I announced she must not be invisible, and dressed her in my own gown. You will not give me away. And I had sworn that I would not.
Chosen and not given. Given to whom?
All those days of plain dress. Her hatred of Hagarlat, who ingratiated herself to my father and his fruitless spiritual pursuits . . . who never begrudged him even his concubines if only to placate him for the securing of favors. Hagarlat, who did not flinch at the ruin of others if it furthered her own purposes . . . who first turned, I knew in my heart, the eyes of her degenerate brother my way.
“You cannot mean Sadiq . . .”
She shook her head, near to hyperventilating. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”
If not Sadiq, then for whom did she ask forgiveness? The only other man in my life at all had been my father.
My arms fell away.
Shara slid from the sofa and fell at my feet. She clutched my hems with a terrible wail. My stomach turned and threatened to empty.
My own milk sister . . .
My father’s concubine?
But even I had not known or heard the names of those women—either in Saba or across the sea. Hagarlat was far too proud, far too ambitious to share the king’s favor, especially after a queen who shared it not at all. But Shara was not one to make herself seen. And Hagarlat knew it.
“All this time,” I whispered. “Why did you not tell me!”
“How was I to tell you?” She hitched a breath. “Every day I have known—the hour would come when you would despise me. Every morning . . . I wake and wonder if this is the one and how I will bear it one hour more. Do not hate me—Bilqis, my sister, my queen, whom I love! I dared not tell you—how could I tell you, knowing you would cast me away?”
Her words jarred me from revulsion.
I knew that feeling. I knew it well.
How long had I carried the secret of Sadiq, speaking it to not a single soul . . . wondering every night as I lay with Maqar how he might recoil from me if he knew, and wanting only to be known—and loved—in full?
I grabbed her fiercely then, not knowing until that moment that I would. I clasped her to me and she fell into my arms.
I was horrified, overwhelmed with I knew not what—aversion. Compassion. The urge to protect her against another, years dead, and a past I could never erase even as she shuddered in my arms.
Shara, too, longed to be fully known.
She was laboring to breathe, her lungs refusing to expand. “She gave me to him to spite you. And I—what could I do but take my life, and I—without the courage even for that!”
Her eyes rolled back and I shouted for my girl as she slumped in my arms.
I sat out on my terrace that evening, listening to the night sounds of the city. The bark of a dog. The cry of a child. A group of men singing as they ambled down the street. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the gardens of Saba as they had been before the locusts came. They would be lush again by now if there had been a good spring rain, the mimosa trees sending yellow stems of flowers to the ground. Overhead, the moon drifted against an inky sky, a waning crescent hung by invisible threads.
Had Shara gone willingly, I wondered? Had a small part of her hoped to find favor, to elevate herself above her station—to get back at Hagarlat, perhaps, or to steal something from her for herself or even in retaliation for her cruelty to me? Had my father been cruel to her to make her cringe the way she did, or kind enough to drown her in guilt all these years?
I had thought to ask every question. Later. Tomorrow. On the journey home, perhaps, if only so that I could reconcile it all—if indeed I could. But as I stood on my terrace that night, I realized that Shara’s answers would change nothing.
She was not my enemy. She was not my competitor. She was not mine . . . to give or take. If anything, she had suffered for her loyalty to me. When she woke, I would shower her with love. I would erase the face of Hagarlat—and even that of my father—from my mind, and in so doing, abolish it from hers.
A step sounded behind me.
“Yafush.”
“I am here, Princess.”
I exhaled an exhausted sigh and found myself sagging where I sat.
“I think . . . it is time to return home,” I said. I knew no other course. The gods must do as they would.
“This is not the princess I know,” he said. I lifted my eyes to find him standing off to my side, gazing up at the stars.
“Who is the princess you know?”
“She is strong. As strong as a man. Stronger.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know where that woman has gone.”
“I do not think she is gone. She has only forgotten who she is.”
I dropped my head against the chair’s curved back. “Yafush, what is the thing you want most?”
“I want to see the face of God.”
I smiled just a little. “And which god would you like to see? There is a small shelf of them inside. I can fetch one for you . . .”
“I do not think God is in those statues, Princess.”
“Neither do I,” I said quietly. “But do not tell me now that you are a monotheist . . .”
“I think God must have many faces.”
“One for the sun, one for the moon?”
“Yes. I think it must be so. And many more.”
“And where does this god live?”
“I think God is there,” he said, pointing at the stars. “And here.” He tapped his chest. How beautiful he seemed to me, the moonlight drifting over the dark curves of his face. I looked from him to the stars.
So wise, my Yafush.
“Yafush . . . why was it done to you?” I had never asked him.
“There were some men. They did these things.”
I closed my eyes.
“I was a boy. My family sold me to those men.”
I opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Yafush.”
“I am not.”
How did a man mutilated by his family say such a thing?
I took his hand, twined it with mine, and then lifted it to my lips. I thought of what Solomon had said, of how we injured one another and so aggrieved his god—the god whose image we violated, offending ourselves in the end. Yes, I thought. I see. So many hurts. So many hurting. Shara, Yafush, Solomon himself. I wondered what secret wound required the poultice of never-ending acquisition.
“Yafush, do you want to return to Nubia?”
He was quiet for a moment before he said, “I do not think I will go there.”
“When we return to Saba, you will be free,” I said. It hurt to say it. It hurt and was beautiful at once.
“I already am, Princess.”
I stared at the sky for a long time after he went back inside.
TWENTY-FIVE
After three days, I wrote simply:
Let us talk. Face . . . to face.
But the messenger returned and said that the king could not be disturbed, that he had gone to visit his Egyptian wife.
I went down that evening to the Sabaean camp with Shara and Yafush, clothed so simply that no one would have mistaken me for the same queen who had traveled these streets innumerable times before.
Within my tent, I felt at least that I could breathe once more. Perhaps there was still some nomad left in me as well.
That night I took a simple meal with Asm.
“How do you find your time in Jerusalem, my friend?” I said. He had changed, I could see that, though I couldn’t discern how.
Something had happened to me, too, in the space of the last day. I had failed. But in failing, I felt as though a great burden had rolled from my shoulders.
“I am troubled. There is something I must tell you.”
“And what is that?” I did not think I could bear the weight of another confession.
“I have met with the priests of the gods of Molech, Asher
ah, Baal, and Chemosh . . . and I have met with these Israelite priests.”
“And? Have you new wisdom to share with me?”
“The priests of the high places are glad for your presence, and the presence of the god that is with your camp. But the priests of Yaweh . . . are eager to see you gone, my queen.”
For some reason this surprised me.
“They are fearful of your influence over the king.”
“Well.” I laughed. “They need not worry about that now. What else did you learn from the priests?”
I listened to him talk at length about omens and ritual, of sacrifice and oracle.
“None of them, my queen, has known an oracle such as you.”
I lowered my gaze.
“They confide in me that they often recast their runes, that they often guess when they read livers, and that they doubt or do not understand their visions. These, the priests of gods older than Almaqah, whom I have revered from a great distance all my life! How it has shaken me to my core to hear this from them!”
Great compassion for him welled up within me.
“Tell me, Asm, have they described what it is to have a vision—a true vision?”
“No, my queen, they have not. Only that they dream strange dreams, or that they may think they see something and realize it is not there or that their eyes seem to have erred.”
I thought back to my day at the temple, the apparition of the cauldron spilling to the ground. Of how my vision had clouded and I thought I might faint, but not before the great bronze bulls seemed to strain in the wavering air before breaking apart from their invisible yoke.
“I have had a vision here.”
Asm leaned forward as though he would peer into the wells of my eyes, as though I were not a woman but a golden bowl. “Speak it, Daughter of Almaqah!”
“It is for the king’s ears only, because it came from the god of this place.”
His brows drew together. “Are you certain? Almaqah takes many guises.”
“I am. Do you remember our conversation my first months as queen?”
“I do,” he said, looking troubled.
“You said that if Almaqah did not speak to me, whom would he speak to?”
“I did. But he does speak to you, and fortunate is Saba because of it.”
“Asm.” I didn’t know whether it was that I had already lost all for Saba that made me want to set aside this, too, or if in seeing Shara’s face this morning, renewed, I also longed to be free. Perhaps I was only tired. So very tired. “When we return to Saba, I will relinquish my office as High Priestess.”
“My queen! Why?”
“A god saved me when I was young. But I do not know what god it was.” I had never spoken of Sadiq to him and did not expect him to know what I referred to now. “I called upon Almaqah but I know now Almaqah did not call to me. I called to him, I dedicated myself to him, and he was silent. He has never spoken to me, I think because he does not recognize me. I was made in another image.”
Who are you really? Solomon had asked me. I knew my titles. I knew my positions. But I had not known the answer to his question.
I thought back to the night I had stood beneath the rain—crown, title, position forgotten, Heaven so vivid in my mind. Of Yafush whom I knew no better way to keep than to free. Of Shara, whom I knew no better way to love than to take her hurt into myself.
“But which god do you speak of? There are many gods in this place—here, and on the eastern mount—old gods of this place, and those that journeyed here,” Asm said, visibly confounded.
“The mysterious one.”
For that much, at least, I could thank Solomon.
The next day I sent my message to the king again. And again, the messenger returned, saying that he was with his Moabite wife.
And again the next night, and again he was with one of his wives.
This time I laughed. Yes, how very loudly I received his message even if he did not receive mine! And then I slumped against the door after closing it and covered my face.
“Show me a way,” I whispered, I knew not to whom.
The night after the rite of the dark moon I prepared to return to my apartment in the palace. But before I left, I received Abgair—surprised and relieved to see that he had gained weight in the time since our arrival.
“I wish that we would be going soon,” he said with a smile.
“Are you not happy in your time here?”
“These people beat their camels.”
“Soon enough, we will go.”
“I wish that I would see this king again before we go.”
“I will see what I can do about that. But why do you want to see him?”
“I want to see the face of the man with so many enemies.”
I blinked my surprise. “Why do you say he has many enemies?”
“People talk when they do not think others can understand them. I am just a wolf at the well. But I have learned this language.”
“Who are these people, Abgair?”
“There is a man in the king’s house. An important man. I have seen the tracks of their animals with his. Twice this month he has gone and come back from the north with workers.”
I squinted. “The conscripted workers?”
“The ones who complain so much. They say they are gone from their homes for a month, that the king does not treat them well. But this man says soon this will all change. That his god has said so, and he will be king.”
“To the north and back—are you certain?”
He gave me a look.
I searched back through the myriad days, the dinners, the faces at court in Jerusalem, Gezer, Megiddo. What name, what face—a young man, with whom he joked. The promising young man over the corvée workers, in whom Solomon showed such pride.
Jeroboam.
I returned swiftly to the palace.
“Deliver this to the king and to no other,” I said to the steward’s man, pressing a message in his hand. It said merely, Jeroboam means to betray you.
Three days passed. On the fourth, a messenger delivered the simple note:
Come to the garden.
I left immediately, leaving Yafush behind as I ascended the narrow stair.
I closed the door at the top, looking swiftly around me. When I did not see him, I went boldly into the king’s apartment. For all I knew, I’d walk in on one of his wives, or worse, the two of them together. But the moment I entered, there he was, standing in the center of it.
His hair was disheveled, his clothes rumpled. I saw that a wine jug and cup sat on the edge of the carved table.
“Jeroboam has fled,” he said, not moving.
I knew he was fond of the young man, but I was surprised at the measure of his distress. And then I understood: For all of his children, Solomon had loved this one as a son.
“My own prophet . . . has had a vision. My kingdom will break. My own prophet, Ahijah! Who did not come to me, but went to a boy with visions of my kingdom breaking apart. He told the boy he would be king!” His arm swept out and dashed the wine jug from the table, sending a spray of crimson across the floor. And then he was throwing over the chair, and then the table, until he staggered and slumped against the wall.
I crossed the floor swiftly and clasped him by the arms. He stared me in the face like a wild man.
“No vision is static, the stars are not so set. You are the king. Whatever tomorrow brings, you are king today.”
He shook his head. His eyes were swollen. “Do you know . . .” he whispered, “that you have ruined me?”
I let go of him. Surely he did not blame me for the actions of this boy?
“You have ruined me,” he said again, his expression desolate. “They say my kingdom will break apart. But I will not let it. I will not allow it! But I am the one ruined.”
“Then I will leave—”
“No!” He seized me by the shoulders. “Don’t you see? I cannot let you, even as I must! My kingdom will bre
ak, the prophet has seen it, and I must not let it! And yet every hour of these days, I have wanted nothing but you by my side. To rage at you, to consult with you. To weep upon your knee like a boy. Do you not see? You have conquered me! I, the lion of Judah!”
I was trembling, my heart living and dying with each beat in my chest—ships, ports, Saba forgotten.
He took my face between his hands. “I cannot eat. I cannot sleep . . .”
“Because you have been with your wives,” I said, faintly. But he would not let me pull away.
“Have I? I went to see Tashere, though I was not present even as I ate at her table, and she is angry with me. I sent for my wives . . . But I cannot talk of my heartbreak over Jeroboam to them—he, whom I must put to the sword if I ever lay eyes on him again! I cannot be other than a king to my wives and I cannot weep in the company of my council or brothers.
“I was given discernment. I have spent it like gold. But you . . . you have chased it. And you spend it wisely, as the son born not to the rich man but the poor, who earns his wealth. I am the son of a rich man. But you are the one who has entreated the gods. How can that be? You who worship the moon! And now you will leave me, too. And I will give you all that you desire. And what will I have in return? I pursued you, and you kept your face hidden from me. I have come at you with arguments, and now I am the one to lose.”
“You do not lose,” I whispered. “But gain the thing you cannot get from a treaty wife, or a vassal, or anyone who calls you ‘King.’ You seek me because I am none of these. You ask me about love. I have been loved—beautifully. Mightily. Selflessly. But what is love to one who wants, more than anything . . . to be known?”
He covered his face.
“How can I let you return to Saba?” he cried. “I have driven you away with my demands. With every argument to hold you to me. You, who have ruined me . . .”
“I, who love you.” Imperfectly, selfishly and selflessly.
He took my hand and clasping it, said, “Then do not leave. Not yet. Stay.” He drew me to a chair and sank to a knee in front of me. “Stay, and I will give you everything I am. If only you will allow me to serve you. ”
“I will stay,” I said. “Until winter.”