Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba

by Edghill, India

  “I am learning to control a great creature,” I said. “When I ride with the wind blowing through my hair, I feel free.”

  But that only reminded Keshet that I returned from my rides with my hair a-tangle and my clothing awash in dust. And if Nimrah grasped what I revealed when I spoke of freedom, she betrayed no sign that she understood. What I sought, I sought alone.

  Abishag

  King David himself was little trouble to me, and my duties were not hard. The past was all he cared for, now. When I first stood before him, and the ancient serving woman who attended me unpinned the brooches at my shoulders so that the bright thin gown slipped down my body like water, I knew I was safe. Even the sight of my body gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight could not brighten those old eyes. King David wished only for someone to sit and listen to his endless tales of war and conquest and men long dead.

  But I did my best to please him; I had been well-taught by my mother, who was the wisest woman living and knew everything about men and their ways—or so it seemed to me, when I was young. So I comforted the dying king, listened to him tell of the days when he was young and his world bright. I coaxed him to eat slices of melon from my fingers; I laughed at his jests.

  And I slept beside him, offering my young heat to warm his fading body. But King David had grown still and cold as a lizard; I lay untouched.

  Nikaulis

  Familiarity breeds content; so claimed an old proverb. Until she had come to Jerusalem, Nikaulis had never questioned that proverb’s wisdom. But now she knew the comforting words lied, for no matter how long she dwelt here, she never became content to do so. This city grows worse, not better. I loathe it more each sunrise. And today—

  Today, she had learned what it was to be less than dust, helpless before the force of men’s lusts.

  She had passed through a street in which a crowd had gathered—a crowd of men noisy and excited as small boys tormenting a lizard. And she had made the mistake of pushing past, refusing to allow their presence to alter her course.

  The object of the men’s torment had been driven with stones and shards towards the Dung Gate, the gate in the southern wall that night soil and other refuse was carted through on its way to the city middens below the walls. At first Nikaulis thought the woman old, but a moment later she saw that what had seemed age was only dust-streaked hair and a body drawn in upon itself, seeking to escape the small stones and bits of broken pots that struck unprotected skin.

  A mob and a woman—Nikaulis grabbed the arm of the woman standing in the nearest doorway, forcing her to turn from the deadly gathering of men in the street. “Summon the king’s guard. I will stop them. Go.”

  The woman stared at Nikaulis and then laughed. “Summon the king’s guard over a whore? Stop them? You? I can tell you’re a stranger, so I’ll give you a guest gift—go away before you’re next.” She pulled out of Nikaulis’s grasp and backed into the house; the leather door-curtain fell across the opening a moment later.

  So brief an exchange, but by the time Nikaulis looked back to gauge her chances of aiding the woman, she saw only the backs of the shouting men. The fleeing woman and her tormentors had reached the inner gate; the bulk of the men stopped there, content to allow the woman to escape if she could. They milled about, restless and looking for more amusement. Nikaulis knew if they spotted her, she would be their next target.

  And that would bring trouble crashing into her queen’s courtyard. Her first duty was to the queen; Nikaulis retreated calmly, moving with quiet ease that would not catch a watcher’s eye. Once she turned a corner, she moved more quickly, for now she did not care who saw. And she wished to return to the Little Palace as swiftly as she could. Only there would she be able to know peace—as much peace as she could in this city of stone and hatred.

  Walking through the city’s narrow, dust-hot streets, Nikaulis felt trapped—worse, she felt outcast, unclean. Even the women glared at her, or slid their eyes away as if she were filth to be avoided. Especially the women. The women of Jerusalem despised her—even the temple harlots watched her pass with wary eyes.

  But it was the men who troubled Nikaulis most. The women would glare and spit and mutter—but that was all. Chained and bound by tradition to meekness, they would not act. Action was for men. It was the men of Israel who sparked Nikaulis’s warning sense.

  Many of the men watched her with guilty greed, anger and lust kindling a covetous desire she felt as slime upon her skin. Seeing her freedom, they thought her free with her body as well. Her denials angered them—and her ability to enforce those denials with sword and strength frightened them. Anger and fear, a potent mix that brewed hatred.

  So. The women despise me and the men hate me. Well, I shall not be here long to trouble their small worlds. And until my queen departs for her own land, I shall walk prudently.

  So she told herself, knowing that prudence and caution would not be enough. Soon or late, some man here would challenge her chastity with a force that could be denied only with heart’s blood. Soon or late, I must kill a man—unless I can avoid the trap.

  But how, when this city, this very land, was such a trap? To be a woman in Israel is to be a pawn forever. In this land, even queens were nothing but the king’s women.

  She could not imagine such an existence. How do they endure their lives?

  So thinking, she passed beneath the gate into the women’s palace, noting as she did so how little regard was taken by the guardians of that gate. Soft men, eunuchs, who cared nothing for man or woman, having no future to ensure but their own. As Nikaulis strode by, they never ceased their low-voiced gossip, nor did they give her more than fleeting, scornful glances. Tempted to shake proper caution into them, she regarded them with cool disdain; incompetent servants were worse than none at all.

  She strode on—and as she turned the corner into a colonnaded alley and disappeared from the eunuchs’ sight, she heard one say, “And we are called unnatural!” and then high-pitched giggling. So they took notice of me after all. Someone should warn them that high voices carry like arrows.

  But she would not be the one to deliver that counsel. She was the target of enmity enough without seeking more. She walked on, through the shaded portico, debating whether to tell her queen what she had seen that day in the city.

  Perhaps I need not, for she must know as well as I what this kingdom is like—No, that is coward’s logic. She counts upon us all to serve as her eyes and her ears. I must tell her; then the matter rests in her hands. But what could the queen do? The judgment had been passed, the unlucky woman already thrown out the Dung Gate with no more than she wore upon her body. Still, she is fortunate not to be now lying dead beneath a pile of sharp stones. What kind of king permits others to act so? No judge, no court—only hatred.

  Again Nikaulis asked herself what she was doing here, in this land of hard men and harder laws, knowing the answer would never change.

  The queen commands; I obey. That was her law. Too late to wonder if her choice had been for good or for ill. Vows bound her. Life was duty; duty was honor.

  For Nikaulis, Queen’s Guard, there was nothing else in life.

  Benaiah

  She did not see him as she walked by—paced by, sleek and lithe as a panther. Nor did Benaiah call to her; what would he say? For now, watching contented him. It was always wise to study an opponent before engaging.

  Benaiah gazed after her, noted how she slipped effortlessly through the crowded street. She moves like a wolf, like danger. How did she transform herself into such a creature?

  Even the Queen of Sheba, a woman ruling a kingdom in her own right, was easier to understand than the captain of her guard. There had been queens before, and all men knew the kingdoms of the south had strange customs. But Nikaulis—she was beyond easy comprehension, for there had never been anything like her in any land men knew. A woman keen and shining as a sword blade.

  A woman strong and fierce as a hard campaign.

  A warrio
r.

  Never before had Benaiah seen such a thing. No doubt the prophet Ahijah would rage and call it abomination. But Benaiah’s blood heated, his bones yearned, at the thought of her.

  Warrior and woman both. Sword-bride.

  For the first time in many years, Benaiah permitted himself to dream. Allowed himself to wonder if there might be more awaiting him than dry old age, and a soldier’s grave.

  Benaiah knew himself a good commander, fair and just. He knew also that he lacked greatness; that swift fire from heaven did not burn within him. But he soldiered competently, and if he did not blaze star-bright, he led men to frugal victories. Benaiah disliked losing battles or men, fought prudent campaigns. Nor was he overcautious, a trait which in the general’s seasoned opinion cost more men than daring.

  Men respected Benaiah. His soldiers trusted him not to spend their lives heedlessly. But what would a woman think of him? What would the Sheban queen’s captain think?

  What would the woman Nikaulis think of the man Benaiah?

  Would she think of him at all?

  Baalit Sings

  Womanly crafts were regarded highly in King Solomon’s palace; Queen Michal had set that fashion long ago. Although each queen, each concubine, had her own servants and slaves, few settled for merely overseeing their handmaidens’ work. In King Solomon’s court, even queens spun and wove and sewed cloth into garments for themselves and their children.

  There was a great deal to be said for the custom, as it brought together women who owned nothing else in common save their husband. On fine days, groups of women would choose places in the garden or upon the rooftops; on unpleasant days, the chosen venue might be the queens’ gallery, or one of the long pillared porches. Each woman would bring the work of her hands, and there sit and spin and sew—and gossip. Malice created true amity.

  That summer there was only one topic spoken of when women gathered: the Queen of Sheba. Nothing else was worth words; the southern queen was too enticing a subject.

  Today’s gathering was no exception—save that today no one had a good word to say about the Sheban queen or her kingdom—or its gods and goods, its spices and servants. Nothing Sheban pleased. Well, that was not hard to understand; since Queen Bilqis had set her jeweled feet upon King Solomon’s land, he had had eyes for no one else.

  It was the first time I had ever known my father to set aside his own iron rule—to favor no woman above another. The Spice Queen sat beside King Solomon in the great court, rode out with him to oversee the building of new roads and fortresses. Bilqis and Solomon walked the palace gardens; close as lovers, they strolled among the roses and lilies. She sat beside him at banquets, tested his wit against hers. Riddles, too, became the fashion.

  And he visited her in the Little Palace, and no one knew what passed between them there. Sheba’s servants did not gossip—at least, not about their queen and our king. Solomon’s wives did not curb their tongues when discussing either.

  “The king sees no one but her, hears no words but hers,” Dvorah mourned. “It is not fair; it is not just; it is not as if she is his wife!”

  “She is too old to be his wife,” said Jecoliah, “too old to give him children.” She looked down at her spindle and sighed; her attention had wandered from her fingers, and the thread had thickened and knotted.

  Yeshara jerked her thread so hard it snapped. “That woman! Queen of Sheba—who among us has even heard of the place? She’s nothing but a harlot, flaunting herself, making a fool of our king! She should be stoned from Jerusalem, she and all her unclean followers.”

  “I have heard they sacrifice children to the sun.” Rahab frowned. “Or was it to the moon? That is why she has come—seeking children, as they have slain all their own.”

  “She sleeps with dogs!”

  “Better dogs than some men.”

  “Do you call King Solomon lower than a dog?”

  Long practice kept me smoothly stitching, red silk pulling through creamy linen, filling in another pomegranate in my design. I did not leap to defend the desert queen, or even my own father. So long as I remained silent, occupied, none of the women would notice I was there. And they would speak freely, without weighing their words—something I instinctively knew was always dangerous, a risk taken only at need.

  “I do not say so! But how wise is it for our king to consort with that woman? She will corrupt him with her foreign ways.”

  As if half the women in this courtyard were not foreign to Israel, and their ways likewise! No sign of thought marred my face, nor did my eyes leave the pomegranate growing, blood red, upon my cloth.

  “What do you think they do, when they are alone?”

  “I have heard she knows tricks of love unknown even to Asherah’s priestess.”

  “She was raised by desert ghosts, and is half ghost herself, and so her feet are like an ass’s. My serving maid had it from the slave who tends the Sheban’s bath.”

  “You are such a fool you’ll believe any tale—we’ve seen her feet for ourselves—and we’ve seen you copy her sandals, as well! Pearls on your feet, as if they were worth staring at—”

  “She conceals her hooves with magic,” Halit said, stubbornly refusing to concede the point.

  Yes, never allow truth to impede your argument! I pressed my lips together, and knotted off the red silk; I pulled too hard and the thread snapped off short. That is what comes of too much anger, too much haste. Sighing, I rethreaded my needle and then, slowly, began outlining another pomegranate in gold.

  “Perhaps she is a sorceress,” Ruth said. “No man spends so many hours with a woman only to hear her talk—however clever he thinks she is.”

  “She has snared him with her quick tongue,” Rahab said, and half the women laughed; others’ cheeks reddened. Dvorah shook her head, as if in reproof—but a smile shadowed her lips.

  I hoped that the veil self-control wove hid my face; hid it well enough that no one watching me would know that, in truth, I was as curious as any other woman in King Solomon’s palace. That I, too, wondered what my father and the Queen of Sheba did, during those long hours they spent alone together.

  We all thought we knew—and we all were wrong.

  Bilqis

  Although no man and few women would have believed it, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had not yet touched more than each other’s fingertips. True, the air trembled between them; fire kindled beneath those courtly brushes of hand upon hand. But that was all, and there might never be more. For fair though Solomon was to look upon, Bilqis knew him young enough to be her son—which mattered nothing to her, but she feared those years between them meant much to him. Although she knew it for vanity, she did not wish to look into his eyes and see an old woman mirrored there.

  Or even worse, a son’s respect for her greater years. If there is anything I may ever wish to be to you, Solomon—it will not be your mother!

  And so their meetings sparkled, bright as crystal, and they curbed whatever desires smoldered within them as strongly as they would unruly stallions. Friendship alone must suffice—and even that seemed false, when she knew herself the thief who would steal away that gem he valued above all others.

  But I will think of that later. Today friendship still glowed golden as the summer light over Jerusalem; she smiled as she walked through Solomon’s rooms, out onto the king’s balcony that overlooked the houses below. As she came out into the open air, she paused, for the song of a harp lifted wistful and lilting, and white doves wheeled and swooped over the rooftops as if they danced to its music. She stepped out onto the sun-warm stones and saw that the harper was Solomon.

  Surprised, she walked across the balcony and sank down to sit coiled at his feet, as if she were a young girl still. “So you play, and no doubt sing, as well as you do all else, O King?”

  Solomon smiled and shook his head. “No, you think of my father, King David. He was the songmaker, not I.” He made as if to set the harp aside; she laid her hand upon the smooth
gilded wood.

  “You sing far sweeter songs than his.” Flattery, honey-smooth. Is Wise Solomon vain enough to eat empty praise?

  “And the Queen of the South knows this how?” Solomon smiled down upon her, testing her character in his turn. “For if ever you heard Great David sing, O Queen, it must have been in dreams—or perhaps you raised his ghost from the dust, as King Saul once raised the prophet Samuel?”

  Wise indeed. Now it was her turn to smile, slanting her eyes at him; studying this man so certain of his own virtues he need not desire or accept false praise. “Just so, O King. Ghosts sing to me in dreams, that I might weigh their songs against your own.”

  “Then you must know already that the dead sing always sweeter than the living.”

  Attuned to nuance, she sensed bitterness shadowing his light words. So there is something that ripples that smooth pond. Good; she need only discover what djinns haunted this man, and turn them to tools in her hands.

  But now she wished to coax him to her will, even in so small a matter as a song. So she laughed, and laid her hand soft upon his thigh; his muscles hardened beneath her fingers, but he did not flinch away—nor did his expression change. Still he smiled down at her with gentle courtesy.

  “The Queen of the South tries to lure Israel’s king? He is honored.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Your harp is too well-formed to lay aside.”

  For long moments he stared down at her, studying her as she had studied him. Then he laughed. “My gracious thanks, O Queen. Now may we speak plainly?”

  “Plain speech between man and woman?”

  “It is unusual, I know—but I am not a boy, and I weary of eternal games.”

  Yes, this man is weary—and lonely. She permitted herself to open her senses, seeking to understand, but she knew him too little as yet. Soon. For now, she would offer him small comforts. “I care nothing for your father’s songs; I would hear yours. Sing for me, Solomon.”