Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba

by Edghill, India

  “Someday you will understand,” she said, and for once she did not laugh. “Yes, of course I love you, child—but I am old now, and the friends of my heart are gone. I weary of living in a strange land.” She set her hands upon my shoulders and held me away from her, gazing steadily into my tear-wet eyes.

  “I wish to go home, Baalit. I wish to return to my own people and my own gods. And—there are other reasons.” But what they were, she did not tell me then.

  “But what will I do without you?” I wailed; then at last she laughed, softly.

  “You will do very well, child.” She kissed me upon the forehead, her lips cool and soft upon my hot skin. “Now dry your eyes and remember I shall not be in my grave but in Ascalon. Nothing is forever, little goddess.”

  All three, gone between one full moon and the next. Only their words remained, veiled memories, spoken now only in dreams.

  But in the ivory casket I held a tangible past, a gift from the women who had come before me; a treasure given into my hands now that I too was a woman.

  Rivkah did not say that the casket was a secret gift, but somehow I sensed that my father would not like to see it, and so I kept the little box beneath my bed—not hidden, but not flaunted either. And from time to time I would pull the casket out and take up my mother’s small treasures and hold them, weighing them in my hand, waiting to see if they would reveal her to me.

  For what did I know of my mother, after all? Nothing, save what I had been told. Told by my father, her husband, who had loved her well. Told by my father’s wives, who had envied her. Neither love nor envy told truly; such emotions created their own reality. Joy and love, sorrow and hate—none of these cast a true image. Passion was truth’s enemy.

  Gradually it became my habit each month, when the moon rose full and silver light poured down into the courtyard garden that had once been Queen Michal’s and now was mine, to lift my mother’s gift from where it lay waiting beneath my bed and carry it out into the moonlight. There I would tell over the remnants of her life that my mother had left me, each in its proper order:

  Veil, necklace, vial, mirror, bracelet, goddess. Six memories. I would hold each, striving to see the past they embodied. But I never could, and at last I would grow sleepy, and pack my treasures carefully away again.

  There was a seventh memory: a spindle of ivory with a whirl of amber. But the ivory spindle did not rest within my mother’s treasure box; I had not set eyes upon it since I was seven. I remembered Queen Michal sitting, spinning the pretty toy. “It helps me think,” she told me. “Someday it will be yours, and it will help you.”

  But the ivory spindle had been lost.

  I had a spindle of my own, of course, a pretty thing of smooth-polished olive wood. Queen Michal had been right; spinning aided thought. Once I had learned to spin a smooth thread, the steady rise and fall, the endless whir as wool lengthened into thread, calmed my mind. Outwardly I seemed both dutiful and diligent, while my mind roved free.

  Sometimes I wondered why Queen Michal had needed such solace, or my mother either, for surely they had not been shackled by custom as I was. I was only the king’s daughter, they had both been queens. Surely they had never suffered the restless cravings that ate my peace.

  Today I needed the calm spinning would summon. Carrying spindle and wool into my garden, I stood beside the bed of lilies and flicked the whirl to set it turning. Well, and so should I be a queen, one day. For I must marry, and as a princess, I was a playing-piece in the games of kings. A valuable piece, for my father prized me. I would marry a great king, and then I too would be a queen, as my mother had been before me. Staring at the turning whirl, I tried to summon up a vision of myself as a great king’s queen. A queen clothed in purple linen dark as storm cloud; a queen adorned with chains of gold and gems. A queen who had only to lift her soft hand to have her lightest whim granted … .

  But the brilliant image would not form; I saw only the slowly turning disk of wood, the growing length of pale thread. My mind was too unquiet to play that game.

  And a queen is more than gowns and gold. The words slid unbidden into my mind, familiar as if I had often heard them said. You have a woman’s power—A soft voice; a ripple of laughter—my mother? But I had never heard her voice … . I shook my head, and that inner voice fell silent.

  Then I was sorry, and tried again to hear those faint, laughing words. But the moment had passed. I had no more success listening to the past than I had visioning the future.

  I sighed and fed more wool to the spindle, spun the whirl again. Abishag, daughter of Zhurleen; Queen Abishag, wife of King Solomon. Abishag, mother of Baalit … . I would never know my mother, she would never speak to me, save in dreams.

  The soft voice I sometimes heard was only the whisper of my own heart, the echo of my own longing for a love I had never known. All that remained to me of my mother lay here, enclosed in an ivory box.

  In the end, I must live my own life. Not hers.

  Helike

  Her father was Horse Lord, king over the herds that roamed the windswept plains once ruled by long-dead Troy. Like all his children, she had ridden before she could walk. By the time she was seven, she could control the wildest mare, soothe the most high-strung stallion.

  “The girl rides like a centaur!” That was the best her father could say of any child of his. She had basked in that pride as if it were the sun.

  Her skill with horses shaped her life. As a child, she had been dedicated to Hippona, goddess of horses; seeing her gift of horse-mastery, her father had fostered her with Doromene, queen of the tribe of women known as Amazons, the Sword Maidens.

  With the Maidens, she had ridden before the wind, learning the ways of Hippona’s children. She had grown straight and supple as a young cedar, shaped by wind and sun and long hard days into a woman fit to command warhorses, or warriors.

  At fourteen, she had vowed herself to the Sword Maidens. She would live all her life calling the wide golden plains home, wedded to no man, faithful to her sisters and her goddess.

  I forgot a woman may make only the vows a man will let her keep.

  For a faraway king needed horses, and her father needed strong allies. And so one day her father had sent to the Sword Maidens and summoned his daughter. Curious, she had ridden back with the messenger; she had not seen her father in a decade, and knew a wish to stand before him and feel the warmth of his pride in her once more.

  Had I known, I would not have gone. Even now, she knew that for a lie; her father would have threatened to seize her by force if he could have had her no other way. The Sword Queen would have defied him—And I would have obeyed him. I could not let my sisters die defending me. The Sword Maidens could not withstand the Horse Lord’s warriors. But had I known I never again would set eyes upon my sisters, I would have taken greater care with my farewells.

  When she had ridden into the Horse Lord’s city, it had been as a woman of pride and honor, a woman all those she rode past eyed with awe and envy. Small girls stared up at her, their young eyes wide as full moons, longing to become what she was. She rode up the wide king’s way to the palace and into the palace courtyard where her father awaited, smiling. She dismounted and bowed before him, and smiling still, her father raised her up and kissed her cheek.

  “You have grown beautiful, my daughter. Your foster-mother raised you well; I am pleased.”

  Her father then asked to see the sword she carried, and she drew the blade from its deerskin sheath and gave it into his outstretched hand.

  “I have learned to use it with skill and honor, Father. My queen is pleased with me, too.”

  “You are a good girl, Helike. You always were the best rider of all my children.” Her father smiled again, and she smiled back, pleased by his praise. That was the last moment she had known unblemished pleasure.

  “Now go with the women, Helike. They will prepare you to meet the emissaries of King Solomon, who wish to see you before accepting you for their ruler
. No one buys a mare sight unseen!” And her father laughed; she did not, staring at her father until his laughter faded.

  “King Solomon?” she said, grasping at the hope she had misunderstood. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Who else? All your elder sisters are already wed—to your good fortune now.” Her father’s eyes shifted, unwilling to meet hers.

  She would not collude in his pretense that she must be pleased. “Do you not remember I am vowed as a maiden to Hippona, I am sworn to the Sword Queen?”

  “And do you not remember you’re my daughter, owing me obedience?” Clever, he said no more, but motioned the waiting women with a wave of his hand. And the women gathered about her and swept her along with them, out of the Horse Lord’s courtyard and into their own cloistered world.

  Her father had taken her short bronze sword. Now the women took away the rest of the garments that proclaimed her a Sword Maid. Her high laced boots, her doeskin trousers. Her bead-sewn fringed tunic. Her broad belt with its loops for sword and dagger. Her quiver and arrows. Her moon-curved bow.

  When they took away the band of silver a handspan wide that protected her throat, the Sword Maid vanished. All that remained was a slender girl whose body was hardened by riding and hunting, and whose pale hair was bound into a single braid.

  And then one of the waiting women untied the leather cord and shook Helike’s hair free of the tight-woven braid. Her hair rippled down her back like water, washing away the last token of her freedom.

  All her life she had ridden one road. Now that high road was barred to her forever.

  “Come, Lady Helike,” the chief of the women said, “it is time to prepare you to meet those who will take you to your husband.”

  That evening she had been taken before half-a-dozen men whom her father said were King Solomon’s emissaries, been displayed before them like a brood mare. Her father extolled her good points—her long sun-gilded hair, her clear sun-browned skin, her fine white teeth.

  “My eyes tell me she’s comely enough,” the king’s ambassador said when her father ceased counting over the charms of her face and form. “What of her character?”

  Her father stared at that; if a princess were fair to look upon, what else mattered? “She has lived these last ten years with the Sword Maids, who pledge themselves to chastity,” he said at last. “What better guarantee of her virtue can I offer?”

  “Not that it matters,” her father informed her the next morning, “for King Solomon has such a great need of my horses he would overlook a greater fault in you than wantonness.”

  She said nothing, fearing to weep before him. She had not slept, but spent the long night vainly seeking a third path for herself.

  If she obeyed her father, she violated her vows to Hippona the White Mare, and to Artemis the Huntress, and to the Sword Maidens.

  If she rebelled against her father and fled, she condemned her blood-sisters to the Horse Lord’s wrath—and King Solomon’s as well.

  A third path lay between those two choices: death.

  And even that was an uncertain road. I might slay myself; then I would violate no vows. But the cheated king might still take vengeance against the Sword Maids—and death was hard to face in cold blood. She had lacked the courage to turn a blade into her own flesh.

  And so she had wed as she had been ordered, her body offered up to seal a treaty of trade and trust between the Horse Lord and the King of Israel and Judah.

  Now she who had ridden the broad plains that flowed across the world like a sea of grass, who had called the wind her home, dwelt prisoned within walls of wood and stone.

  Sometimes she wished she had possessed the courage to take the third path. Now—

  Now it was too late.

  Baalit Sings

  But although my grandmothers were gone, and I missed them sorely, do not think I paced solitary as a cat; a princess is rarely alone. Nor was I lonely, which is a different thing. I was fortunate in my handmaidens, for they had been given me when they and I were still in our cradles. Although we were mistress and maidservants, we grew up almost as sisters. And although three girls could hardly be more different, we loved one another dearly.

  Nimrah was my elder by nearly a year; sleek and elegant as the leopardess for which she was named. Although her family came from the faraway northern lands—“Or so my father’s mother says!”—Nimrah herself had been born in Jerusalem. Nimrah was tall as a boy and pale as bone, and it would be hard to find a good husband for her. I knew I must bestow a dowry upon her generous enough to transform Nimrah from an ugly foreigner to an exotic bride.

  Keshet was nine months younger than I, as rounded and dark as Nimrah was slender and fair. Her mother had wed one of my father’s brothers, and when he had been killed leading his men into battle, his wife had begged King Solomon’s aid and been granted asylum in the king’s house. Keshet had been born soon enough after his death to be counted Prince Shobab’s daughter—and late enough for it to be whispered she was King Solomon’s.

  I thought it possible that she was my half-sister; that my father, grieving the loss of my mother, had taken comfort where he had gone to offer it. But I was not sure; my father had never acknowledged Keshet, after all.

  Keshet herself seemed untroubled by the whispered tales. “Either I am the daughter of a prince or of a king, and in either case, King David is still my grandfather! That is what counts.”

  I could not imagine a life without Nimrah and Keshet; I believe they felt the same. I could never have stolen so many hours without their aid, nor wandered so freely.

  For it is hard to live one’s own life when so much is forbidden; truly, it is simpler to live in memories and dreams. When I was a girl, little had been denied me—or so I thought. For what does a child demand, after all, but childish things—a bright toy, a pretty sash, a handful of glass beads? The year I became a woman, I learned that even a princess is chained. Oh, because I was King Solomon’s pampered daughter, my chains were bright with gems and weighed lightly upon my childish will—but they bound me just the same.

  That year I learned to loathe the word forbidden. For so much was now forbidden to me that my brothers enjoyed at their will. They might run about as they pleased; I must walk modest and quiet. They might learn whatsoever they wished; I must confine myself to those studies thought fit for one who was only a girl. Some traditions bound even a king’s beloved daughter. My father indulged me, eased the tightness of the invisible chains that bound me—but even he could not remake the world.

  And that was what I longed to do, to shape the world to my desire.

  “Why may my brothers choose, and I may not?” I demanded of Rivkah. “It is not fair! I am as clever as they—cleverer! And—”

  “And the world is as it is, and no use struggling against it.” That was Rivkah’s placid argument. Nor were my handmaidens Nimrah and Keshet any less bound by tradition.

  “Why do you wish to ride out with your brothers? You will come back covered in dust and your gown will be ruined.” Tidy as a cat, Keshet could imagine few worse fates.

  Nimrah understood my restless urges better, but she, too, urged prudence. “Do not give your father’s wives cause to complain of you, Princess. You go your own way easily enough; why force the king to see it?”

  I knew she was right, for my father hated to deny my whims—nor would he forbid activities he did not discover.

  That was the year I learned to keep my wild hair smoothly bound and my restless eyes downcast—and my unruly thoughts silent. Outwardly I paced tranquil, the image of a tame and dutiful daughter—for I did not wish to pain my father, who loved me so much and understood me so little.

  My true self remained veiled. Veiled from my father, from my stepmothers, from my handmaidens. Veiled, although I did not yet know it, even from myself.

  I took care with my secrets, entrusting them to no one. Even Nimrah and Keshet did not know all I dared. More than one person cannot keep a secret, even when life rides up
on silence.

  And there were things I might dare, and be forgiven, and those I might not. Even my father, who loved learning and who permitted his foreign wives to worship as they wished, would not have been pleased to know his own daughter visited the temples of alien gods.

  Oddly enough, it was the woman’s veil I so despised that permitted me such freedom, the veil I sulked over when obliged to cover myself with it as befit a king’s daughter, complaining that its enslaving folds stifled me.

  I learned that while it is true a veil confines, transmutes a woman into a shadow sliding unnoticed through life, a veil also grants freedom.

  A veil transforms one woman into any woman. Hidden behind a veil, a woman might pass by unrecognized even by her own brother.

  Veiled, I slipped easily from the king’s palace. Veiled, I was but one more woman, unknown and unknowable. Veiled, King Solomon’s daughter wandered freely, unhindered.

  Veiled, I learned the city’s limits. Veiled, I studied the life of my father’s people, their loves and angers, their hates and joys.

  Veiled, I learned myself, and my desires.

  King David’s City, once the abode of Lord Yahweh only, now held dozens of temples raised to honor alien gods—and goddesses as well. Baal, Anath, and Astarte, Dagon and Bast—all now were housed within Jerusalem’s sheltering walls.

  The prophet Ahijah raged against these alien idols, but few took notice of his protests. In a time of peace, a time when the rains came in their season and the harvests were bountiful, who could believe the Lord angered? And did not the Lord’s Temple, the Great Temple that housed the sacred Ark, crown the highest hill in all the city? Did not that prove the Lord’s dominion over all other gods?

  So the foreign temples stayed, and their gods flourished. The temples were good for business as well, for travelers to Jerusalem liked finding their own gods dwelling there. Cheerful traders spend more freely than do those who dourly count the days until they see home again. Jerusalem prospered.