The Book of Heaven: A Novel (45 page)

“In a month, we will be living here together. Dream of love,” she said, the traditional Sheban good-night wish. They smiled twin smiles, and kissed lingeringly.

Sheba went inside, closing the door, but opening the windows to draw in the perfumed breezes of the courtyard. She walked through the rooms, slowly, in communion with the house. It had already undertaken the task of houses, which is not only to shelter the inhabitants, but to make them see things from ever fresh perspectives, to change the ways they move, and speak.

Tonight, the house offered her the golden letters of the alphabet sculpted by the last of the sunset, the breezes lifting them into words that formed momentarily, and then vanished.

When it was dark, she laid out her bedding in the half-furnished room, lit her incense clock, and prayed that she would dream true. She tried too hard at first to fall asleep, and stayed awake for a frustrating hour, defeated. At last, without realizing it, she found among the doorways that opened to new thoughts, or fears, tomorrow's tasks, or memories, the one that led to sleep, and entered it.

In her dream, she was walking at night in a mountainous landscape she didn't recognize. A child appeared and gestured to her. It was dark-skinned, like her, and seemed to be a boy, but she could not see his face. She excitedly moved closer, and called to him. “Let me hold you, love. Let me hold you, so when you are born you can recognize the first face you will see in the world.” He began to play catch-me with her, like a real boy, looking over his shoulder from the shadows to make sure she was following. She began to run, but he picked up speed whenever she drew near.

She had nearly caught up with him, stumbling over the rocky path, when he swerved sharply to the left. She looked down, and tripped fortuitously, just before she ran off the ledge where he had led her, into a sheer fathomless drop off the edge. She fell, not into space, but to her knees, the pebbles she dislodged in her fall spraying into the chasm.

“Be careful,” he called to her. Now he descended at breakneck speed, to the base of the mountain and led her running, across a beach of shining black sand. “Follow me,” he called, “or you won't find me.” He raced across a dock, and in the way an experienced cavalier mounts a horse, leapt into a waiting boat, unmoored the vessel, and waved to her to hurry. “Get in, get in,” he called from the boat, “they're coming for us.”

She followed him breathlessly, looking over her shoulder behind her. She plunged into the water to swim to the waiting boat. She dove underwater so as not to be obstructed in her course by the strong winds suddenly stirring up. And as she pushed deeper into the water, she saw five black sharks with golden fins, rising to force her into the center of their circle. She swam upward again, but they were faster. She hurled herself onto the beach, but these sharks followed her even onto dry land, and surrounded her, rearing upward, forming a stockade around her. Their teeth gleamed red in their mouths, lit by the five fiery suns that burned overhead, reddening the coarse, clotted black sand she lay on. The boat carrying her child was far out to sea already, sailing out of the world.

She tried to scream, but could not make the piercing sound emerge from her dreamer's throat. With two more panting efforts, she managed a guttural moan; projecting the sound out of the dream and into the world began to wake her. She half-opened her eyes, then closed them again, blinded by the red suns she could still see. “Get up,” someone said, and shook her shoulder.

She opened her eyes, now fully awake. Five red torches burned above her. The dream had moved from one world to another, and reassembled itself around her bed. One of the deepest archetypal fears of women had come to life. She lay in her bedroom surrounded by five strange soldiers. They wore black uniforms, and on their left shoulders, the golden spoke of the five Zealot arrows flickered in the torchlight. “Get up and get dressed,” the first soldier repeated. “Are there others of you here?”

She was afraid that saying no would render her even more defenseless, but in fact, so would saying yes. Either way her risk was pure and absolute. She was lost in this knot of soldiers as in a forest. And there must be more of them. She could not escape them through a discoverable lie. She took the truth as a compass, a useless defense, but a possible pathfinder: “I am the only one here.”

“Your name?”

“Sheba.”

Another soldier handed him a sheaf of papers, and he leafed through it, as precise with the sheets as a card player. “Get dressed quickly, please. We are a nation of soldiers. We are used to women dressing and undressing without ceremony. Our women are soldiers like us and are trained out of false modesty. We drill them naked as children to prevent it.”

Perhaps the women were trained to ignore the assessing stares of the men, but the men had not been trained not to examine the women in insulting detail. They watched her as if they were mapping her; two of them indulged in cartoonish facial expressions, grading her body, without provoking any response from their superior officer.

“If you are Princess Sheba,” he stopped at the page he was holding, “then you are the daughter of the King and Queen, sister of Prince Quiran, and the niece of the Foreign Minister, Kito. Correct?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, “except we have no princesses or princes. Our Kings and Queens are chosen every year at the festival of the Tellings. There is no dynasty, only a changing crown, and the honor of having worn it. I have answered your questions. May I ask one of my own?”

“We are permitted to answer certain questions.”

“Why have your soldiers come here? Your embassy represents you here, not your army.”

“Our embassy is also our army, Princess. Our ambassadors are soldiers. Our teachers are soldiers. Our artists are soldiers. Our children are soldiers. Our dead are soldiers. But we are here in force because there has been a change in government. We are here to protect you. We are here to ensure that the transition that is now taking place occurs without any violence that could affect our people or yours. Come with us now. We are going to take you to safety.”

She cast an involuntary look around the rooms as they passed through them, looking with momentarily unguarded yearning at the costume chest that held the costumes for the first three roles she had been assigned, when Noctis the Bridge had held her two hands and whispered the initiation secret in her ear.

“Don't be concerned. This will all be sent after you once we have escorted you to shelter. We are soldiers. We are not thieves. We ask that you follow us now, and refrain from speaking until we have taken you to your assigned shelter.”

They led her out into the courtyard, where hundreds of silent women and children under Zealot escort were being led to unknown destinations. Older boys were efficiently separated from their mothers, and led elsewhere. There were no men visible except for the soldiers. The soldiers were, despite the officer's claim, stripping the jeweled trees of the courtyard of their gems by the handful.

“I thought you said you were not thieves,” Sheba said to the officer.

“We will not requisition personal property. But these jewels, which you treat as some sort of mystical charm, are nothing more than money to us. The soldiers have permission by law to collect them. They must serve to pay the expenses of coming to your defense. I ask you again not to speak until we have reached your shelter.”

Sheba was, in fact, led back to the Tellers' compound nearest the Arena. There, in the courtyard, were her mother, along with Noctis the Bridge, and most of the famous women Tellers and Sages of the epics. She could see among them some of the singers still in costume who had been playing that night.

She recognized two of the greats, Nira the Heron, and Rasanna the Sea, superb in their costumes and the heavy makeup that made their faces gleam like planets, visible to the farthest tiers of the Arena, and even, according to Sheban folklore, to the angels in the heavens who watched their performances, and applauded by throwing handfuls of stars when they were pleased.

The soldiers apparently knew exactly which woman was Sheba's mother. They took her directly to the corner of the courtyard, past a knot of children whose mothers were singing a question-and-answer song with them to keep them calm.

The Queen was sitting on the edge of a silkworm pool. Sheba was delivered to her mother, who stood up and fell toward her daughter with a passive force, as if she were driven by a strong wind. Sheba caught her as a child catches a falling leaf. She was shivering in the mild summer night. A sharp cry echoed powerfully through the courtyard, which like all Sheban architecture featured sensitive acoustics. A woman had gone into labor; she walked haltingly from the courtyard supported by her companions, under armed guard.

“A bit excessive, such a squadron for a woman giving birth. Do they think the baby will be born fully armed?” At their feet, Noctis the Bridge, obviously in pain, lay on cushions brought from one of the houses. Several soldiers had consented to bring the pillows out to her when a delegation of the women approached them.

Sheba knelt by her side; ever liberal with affection, especially for her apprentices, Noctis touched her cheek. “I would have prevented them if I had known the request had been made. They transform us into suppliants, so that every request fulfilled becomes an exhibition of magnanimity. It is a classic posture of false love, to steal in private, and then to bestow in public. Any child of our kingdom recognizes it. You remember the song of the Philanthropist in the Notios cycle?”

“I know it by heart,” Sheba said, with the absurd reflex of a student eager to please her teacher, even though they were now confined together out of doors under the vigilant eyes of black-uniformed soldiers. She leaned forward as if to adjust a pillow, and whispered, “Where are the men?”

“Held in the Arena, with soldiers posted now at every entrance and exit. Your father and Far are there, I saw them both,” Noctis answered. “It began during tonight's Telling. Your mother and I were sitting together in the audience for the performance. I had my notebook on my lap, as always, and was writing the comments to be delivered to my performers in the morning. Halfway through the second act, two thirds of the audience stood up and stormed the stage. The rest stayed calmly in their seats, thinking this was an experimental choreography. I knew it could not be, but what could I do against this universal disbelief? What could I do?

“Then, abruptly, the lights were extinguished and we were in thick darkness; from the top tier of the Arena descending to the ground, the entire Arena was ringed with countless golden triangles, in precise formation. It was like being trapped in a kind of musical staff, with only one note, repeated again and again.

“When the lights were restored, we saw that the triangles were the golden tips of the arrows of Zealot soldiers, each flourished aloft in one hand, ready to be fitted to the bow. The stage had been cleared.

“Your uncle Kito, who speaks their language perfectly, was escorted to the stage flanked by two Zealot commanders. They spoke, one after another, and he translated their speeches. He was fluent, but evidently speaking under strain. They obviously had told him what he might say.

“‘The Kingdom of Sheba is in the grip of a rebellion,' he said. ‘Our allies have come to our assistance. I beg you to cooperate with them until we have arrived at a better understanding of what is happening. Go with them as they direct. I ask this of you in concern and love. I love you all. I wish for nothing but your safety and prosperity. Good night.' And then we were brought here.”

Sheba heard a rare rasp in Noctis's carefully tended voice, and stood up to find her a pitcher of water. In a few steps, she found herself confronted by the officer who had supervised her waking.

She asked for water, and he went himself to fetch a pitcher, presenting it to her with exaggerated gallantry.

“Permission for water,” Noctis said bitterly, “permission for water in our own courtyard.” Nevertheless, she was parched, and she drank. They could just hear noises coming from the direction of the Arena. There was a kind of collective gasp, as of dazzled admiration, and then burst after burst of applause.

A young soldier hurried into the courtyard, and approached the commander. The boy was clearly awed by his contact with someone of such high rank, and his face was contorted with the effort to deliver his message concisely. His mouth moved with a snapping motion, and his hands jerked spasmodically, though he kept them at his sides. The commander nodded meditatively, and, in contrast to the boy's agitation, moved slowly, almost langorously, to the center of the courtyard and addressed them.

“We find ourselves in a surprising and suspenseful situation this evening. However, in one instance, we have been given an unexpected gift. We also find ourselves in the company of great artists. It is an opportunity we would be foolish to waste. We ask you to oblige us by singing for the company, to share with us some of the Sheban music that we so admire. We know it is your wedding season. It would be a sublime favor if you would perform for us some of the renowned Sheban wedding songs. Come forward, please, into the center of the courtyard, and do us the honor of performing for us those songs of celebration.”

He turned to the young soldier, and spoke quietly to him. The boy began to make the rounds of the courtyard, handing seated women to their feet, and gesturing for them to follow him. Several of the women followed resignedly, and began to position themselves in their choral groups. Groups of soldiers followed his lead, herding the women into the central plaza.

The commander gestured pointedly toward Sheba and her mother; the boy hurried off to fetch them. He took the Queen's arm; she cast a helpless glance at Sheba, who was talking with Noctis, and gestured to them to follow. Sheba half obediently, half protectively stood up to go with her mother.