There came a night when the bridge finally stretched in completed glory across the City’s river. The following morning, my father would host a ceremony to open it to the public. But for tonight, it was still ours -- mine and Farzin’s.
I stood beside him on the riverbank, marveling at what human mental and physical strength had created.
“Isn’t it amazing? I’m so proud of our team. We must have had some of the best workers in the world.”
I gazed out at the bridge, my eyes sweeping over the enormity of the silver-white stones, standing out against the night sky as if made from moon-stuff. I relished the places where they were solid and strong and loudly proclaimed their right angles, but also the more graceful bits of flair and decoration where flowers and fruits and images of the sun and moon had been carved by more artistic hands. “It’s magnificent,” I agreed. “But it’ll never again be as magnificent as it is right now, in this moment. When I see it in the future, that magnificence will be tempered by sadness. I’ll think of these months we’ve spent together, and the bridge will remind me that we’re apart.”
“Oh, no! I don’t want anything to ruin the bridge. We’ve worked so hard on it. For the sake of the bridge, then, we should never be separated.”
I turned to face him, inspecting his mild face in the moonlight for an answer to this mystery before me. Would he be my brother, or was this something else? “Then do you promise to stay with me? And I’ll be by your side as well?”
He took both of my hands in his. “Enthusiastically!” Heaven knows what expression he read on my face, because he soon added, “What’s wrong?”
The words were out of my mouth before I could even think them. “I’m afraid that I’ll kiss you, and then you’ll throw me in the river.”
I didn’t even have time to get nauseated or loud of heartbeat before he drew nearer and replied in a tone far too jaunty for the moment, “Then why don’t I kiss you, and then you can throw me in the river instead?” And he did. It was quick and unbearably light, like a leaf brushing against my lip as he pounced and retreated.
He hadn’t gone far. I pulled him closer, our lips nearly touching again. “Why are you always such a wiseass?” I felt his breath on my face, and my body was alive with heat like a torch -- no, like a night full of torches.
“I’m ugly and nerdy.” He was so close that I could feel movement from his mouth as he spoke. “I figured if I were extra entertaining, it would make up for it and you’d like me.”
“If you’re ugly, why does my heart beat faster when I look at you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should visit the docto--”
Enough of this; I couldn’t bear it. Against his mouth, open in speech, I pressed my own. He yielded into my kiss and dropped my hands so that he could enfold me in his arms.
He was the first man I ever kissed, and deep within my pleasure I had one thought of clarity: this act, this kiss, it was the same as kissing a woman. In that moment it mystified me why this kiss should be so forbidden where Azar’s had been ordinary and expected.
Then I stopped thinking and just wallowed in the feeling of my tongue against his.
When the kiss broke, he leaned against me. “How I have loved you.”
“Why?” I didn’t mean to say it, but it was the first thought in my head.
“Who couldn’t?” He was all smiles as he beheld me. “You’re adorable, smart, good-looking, kindhearted, hardworking...”
I had expected to be called handsome, of course, and I knew I worked harder than my father would have thought possible -- but all that at once was too much for me. I’d never heard so many nice things said about me at once, and it scared me.
He seemed to sense my discomfort and persisted in a reassuring tone. “Kaveh -- my Kaveh. I know what I’m talking about. I’m smart -- you should listen to me. I’m an engineer!”
“A great one,” I agreed. It would be easier to turn the compliments back on him than to explain.
“You know it.” His face took on the look of a child unwrapping a roomful of presents, and he added, “And I’m such a good engineer that they let me design that bridge. I know there’s a space beneath it, just beside the river...”
“Where we won’t be seen?”
Where he sat against the bridge foundations in the black of the night, and I leaned my back against his chest and let his arms encircle me and caress me as I had caressed myself. Where I leaned my head back onto his shoulder and kissed his neck and his ear and sometimes his lips, if I could reach.
Speaking of bridges, this was one Azar and I had never crossed. But it was even more glorious than the edifice above me.
***
Above him, the wizard Isaac worked deep into the night. The sky was a fuzzy gray when he finally crept into bed beside Rivka, who stirred and wrapped her arms and legs around him in sleepy greeting. “How’s the prince?”
“He’ll live.”
“I knew you could do it.”
“I did it, but I’ve lost my magical abilities for a few days. Too draining.”
“Wow. That’s some serious stuff.”
“But he’ll live.”
She hugged him hard and then fell completely back asleep.
Chapter 5: The Alliance
It was late morning, and Shulamit was pacing by herself in the Hall of Ancestors. White sunlight poured in through the windows and lit up the mosaics as she passed them over and over, studying the faces she knew so well.
She paused to examine her great-grandfather, who was famous for his great love of music. He had commissioned a wealth of dances and ballads from his court composers, and they were still very popular across her kingdom. He had very bushy eyebrows.
Beside him was her grandfather, who looked stern and intimidating in the mosaic, but whom she remembered being gentle and patient with her when she was a little girl. The way he glared out from the portrait made him look as though he could snap you in two by looking at you, but she remembered running across the courtyard and falling down, and him picking her up again as carefully as if she were a paper sculpture.
Next, her father... She wondered if the tears would come, as they sometimes did -- but not today. She looked into the tiled eyes of the mosaic and heard him singing as he lit the royal menorah in Chanukahs past. Would there have been anything else he would have wanted to tell her, if he’d known she would be queen so soon?
At the end of the row of portraits glittered the brand-new tiles of her own likeness. She studied the image, dryly amused by how different it was from all the stern middle-aged men to the right. A young woman with thick black hair parted in the center and braided in two plaits, twisted back up at the nape of her neck and pinned like two coils of rope, looked back at her with as much of a regal expression as she had been able to muster for the portrait sketch.
And then... to the left...
Looking at the blank wall beyond her reign, Shulamit pawed her abdomen slowly and imagined what it would be like to have a little person growing inside her.
From outside the door, Tivon, who was on guard duty, called out, “Your Majesty, Aviva.”
“Thank you.” They still announced Aviva even though the two women slept in the same bed every night.
“The experiment with the tapioca flour didn’t work, so I brought you figs and cheese instead,” said Aviva, placing a platter on a small table near Shulamit.
“Thanks! I’d almost rather have this anyway.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“What? Oh!” Shulamit realized she was still touching her womb. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about Prince Kaveh.”
“So you’re definitely going to ask him... to help you make the next mosaic?” This wasn’t a new topic, but now that the prince’s survival was no longer in question, it had become more practical.
“I’d be silly not to. All this time I’d been wishing for a prince who liked men to come along so I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone wanting to take m
e away from you.”
Aviva squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “Even with a husband you’d need a cook.”
“I know you wouldn’t feel like I was being unfaithful to you, but I would. Although, I realized a long time ago that being queen means I have to make choices that are good for the kingdom, and sometimes that means things that make me uncomfortable. There’s also my complete lack of interest in lying down with men,” Shulamit added. “Every time some neighboring prince or king comes sniffing around wondering if he suits my fancy, my skin crawls. I don’t even know what I’ll do if Kaveh says yes. He’ll still have to touch me -- I know where little monarchs come from!”
“But he’s so pretty!” said Aviva, grinning.
“I’m not like you. I don’t like men at all, not that way. I--” Shulamit covered her cheeks with her hands and rubbed her face nervously. “I need to stop thinking about this. I need to get him to agree to marry me before I worry about how to cope with the next step.”
“Whatever you face, I’ll help you.” Aviva took both of her hands and lifted them to her mouth. She kissed each set of knuckles sweetly, then led Shulamit over to the food. “Some fuel before your hunt.”
***
Isaac and Rivka had carried Prince Kaveh out into the courtyard to breathe the outdoor air. He rested in the shade of a coconut palm, propped up against its fat trunk with the aid of many pillows. To his right sat Rivka, who was mending a piece of her armor, and Isaac stood to his left against the tree.
Rivka hopped up when she saw Shulamit and Aviva come out into the courtyard. “And now, Your Highness, I can properly introduce you to our queen. May I present her Majesty Shulamit bat Noach, and this is Aviva, with whom she shares her life.”
The prince gazed up at the two approaching women with questions in his big brown eyes. Then he looked at Rivka. “Excuse me, are-- is--?”
“Yes, I meant share a bed. You wanted help -- you certainly came to the right kingdom!”
A cloud lifted on Kaveh’s face, and he looked happy for the first time since they’d met him. “Then I’m truly safe!”
“Nobody will hurt anyone for loving someone of their own sex in my kingdom,” Shulamit informed him in her best queen voice. “Pleased to meet you, Kaveh of the City of the Red Clay.”
“Thank you for everything, Your Majesty. I’m sorry to have been so much trouble.”
“I’m just relieved that you’re doing so much better.” She sat down beside him on the grass.
“I never imagined there would be a queen -- or king -- like me,” Kaveh breathed, wonder still in his voice and face. “Your kingdom now seems like a paradise. Farzin and I -- we’d talked about sharing a home after the construction project was over. We would have been happy here. He’s an engineer. He was always good at math in school, and putting things together... You could use someone like that, right?”
“Sure. There’s plenty of work for anyone with either a strong back or a strong mind,” said Shulamit.
“A little house together...” He turned to Rivka sharply. “You’ll rescue him, won’t you? I rode all the way here without stopping because I couldn’t think of anyone else who would help... men like us.”
“I want to help you both,” said Shulamit. “I’m sick inside thinking about what you’re going through, you and him. Traveling this road -- our road -- hasn’t always been easy, but never has anyone tried to kill me or kill Aviva just for loving each other.” She paused strategically.
Kaveh took the bait. “What kinds of problems have you had? I would have thought a monarch could do as she pleases.”
“Mostly, yes,” said the relieved queen. “But queens need heirs, and my line of the family is a straight branch with no twigs. My kingdom goes to my closest blood relation when I die, and I can’t in good conscience let that be someone I don’t love or even know. Kings and princes know this, and they visit me and pay me court. I’ve refused all of them so far -- they all wanted me as a wife, not just an alliance. I’ve always known that it would be wrong for me to lie down with them. I can’t explain it. But to you, I don’t have to.”
“I don’t know,” said the prince. “I think Farzin is like you and only likes men. But I’ve always known I liked more than just one or the other. I don’t see why it should matter what kind of body someone has. Don’t we fall in love with our hearts and minds anyway?”
“I wish it were that simple,” said Shulamit, trying not to be cross with him. “I don’t know what it is about me that refuses men. I have a strange body. It refuses wheat and fowl as well, although I probably wouldn’t be the same kind of ill if I lay down with a man as if I ate a chicken pita.”
“I hope not. That would make this heir business even harder!”
“Mmm. It’s hard enough figuring out what I’m going to do. I need to do something before people decide I’m not ever getting married and then I’ll have to deal with scheming nobles fighting over which third cousin to support for succession.”
“What about-- What’s your name again? Aviva?”
Aviva nodded. “Yes, I’m Aviva. I’m not worried for myself. Climbing vines twist around each other and reach for the sunlight. Butterflies land on them but don’t speak their language. They fly off and don’t matter.”
Kaveh blinked. “What?”
“She knows she has the queen’s heart and all this is immaterial,” Isaac explained.
“She does that,” Shulamit added sheepishly.
“That was beautiful,” said Kaveh.
“Thank you!” Aviva smiled broadly.
“So, whatever your plan is, your real love will always be Aviva, right?” Kaveh confirmed, looking back at Shulamit.
She nodded. “For life. That’s the plan, anyway.” Until my elephant comes along, came the thought with no warning, and she found herself momentarily stony-faced as she forced away the moment of grief. In the years since her father’s death, moments like this had grown fewer and farther between, wild hares instead of a cageful of mice, but sometimes one still ran across her path. At least, that was the way Aviva had put it once.
“And that means, if it were me, you’d let me stay with Farzin, right?”
Shulamit’s plan had worked. “Of course! I’m glad you saw where I was going with this.”
“Are you kidding? I grew up hearing nothing but hate for people like me from my father -- not that he knew -- and hardly meeting another, and then I find this... enchanted place where even the queen has a lady friend. You sit there talking about needing a prince who won’t trouble you too much. Am I enough of a prince for you? I’m only a third son, and the City of the Red Clay isn’t all that powerful, no matter what my father likes to think.”
“You’re definitely enough. Do you mean it? Will you?”
“I will if you rescue Farzin.”
“I’m pretty sure that was our plan, although we hadn’t really worked out the specifics.” She looked at Rivka.
“Isaac won’t be able to turn dragon for a few days,” Rivka reminded her. “Last night wore out his magical strength.”
“Which means we have time to discuss plans,” said Isaac.
“Don’t forget, my father wants to execute him as soon as the Sacred Month is over.”
“That gives us... three weeks?” Shulamit calculated. “Isaac, how long is your dragon-flight to the Red Clay?”
“I can get there in a day, especially if there’s only one person on my back.”
“Why don’t we start with you and another emissary going over there on a reconnaissance mission,” suggested Shulamit, “on the surface, to ask King Jahandar for his cooperation in my marrying his son, but also to figure out where we stand and what we’re up against.”
“You’ve got the superior military power,” Kaveh observed. “Can you also threaten him a bit? Get him to pay all those workers? Farzin might feel like he was deserting his people if he left without getting that sorted out.”
Rivka struck a pose. “That father of yours sounds
like he needs a good kick in the tuchus, and I’ve got two kicking feet right here.”
“You’re not going with Isaac, not this time,” said Shulamit. “I’m sending Tivon.”
“What? Why?” Rivka made a face, though the only parts of which could be seen over the cloth mask were her furrowed brows and piercing gray-blue eyes.
“Because you’re too eager to start a fight,” said Shulamit. “This time I just want information. If you go over there and tip tables over, Jahandar’s likely to see it as an act of war. Besides, I need you here. I need your help with something. I know I have the stronger military and more resources. But I feel like if I think about it hard enough and put enough smart minds to the task, we can come up with a peaceful way -- of both getting Farzin out and getting the king to pay his people.”
“And for that you need your star warrior?”
“I know you’re really well-read about strategy. Well, both you and Isaac are, but I need him over there because he can use one of his forms to sneak around and snoop. Plus, he’s the transportation.”
“Hm.” Rivka folded her arms.
“Don’t worry, Riv; if there’s butt-kicking to be done, I’ll make sure you’re at the front of the charge.”
“If only my father could see him,” said Kaveh happily. “He doesn’t think men with male lovers are any good at fighting. Riv’s so brave!”
Beneath Rivka’s cloth mask, a very female brain remembered her uncle, the baron, saying similar things about women and fighting. “You’re brave too, Highness,” she said softly. “People who aren’t brave don’t ride all the way to a foreign capital bleeding from multiple arrow wounds to beg for help from a stranger.”
“Thank you. Nobody’s ever called me brave before.”
“Bravery isn’t all swordfighting and riding dragons,” said Rivka. “Sometimes it takes bravery just to be who you really are inside.”
Chapter 6: The Army of Brains
Climbing the Date Palm Page 4