The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen (26 page)

I started to turn away but then added, “Make sure the Desert Wolves wear tunics.”

As they left for the camp with my orders, a wave of anxiety welled up within me at the thought of the coming five days. They would not be filled with rest, but of questioning myself a hundred times and going mad in general in my self-imposed seclusion.

But that is not what happened.

I
was bathing late the next afternoon in the inner chamber of my apartment, seated upon a stool within a shallow bronze basin.

Music drifted to the terrace with the ubiquitous smell of burning meat. “They say this is a day of rest, but it seems the priests are hard at work,” I said as Shara squeezed water over my back and shoulders.

I wondered where Tamrin was, how my men fared in the camp. Wondered, too, what business the king tended on this day of repose. I knew better than to think a sovereign had any such luxury.

One of my girls slipped into the chamber. I was about to compliment the citron of her dress when I saw the thing in her hand.

“My queen,” she said. “One of the king’s men delivered this for you.”

“Which man?” I said, gesturing for her to come closer.

“I don’t know, but he was dressed very fine.”

I dried my hands, took the small scroll, and turned it over.

The king’s seal.

I broke it open and read the short message:

Do you know what sweetness is? Knowing you are within my palace.

Do you know what torture is? That I cannot lay eyes on you. If the months of the last year were as days, these days are as years.

How fair your hands are! How beautiful your feet! Your form is that of a gazelle. Your cheek is lovely with the ornaments of your veil, your neck with strings of jewels. Your eyes are those of an adder—they mesmerize before they strike. Will you poison me, Lady Riddle? Your brows are doves. Will they fly away?

Down the corridor from your chamber there is a small passage. It is always guarded. It is the stair to my garden, open to no one but me, and now to you. But only you.

I lifted my gaze and stared at nothing.

“Bilqis . . . ?” Shara was watching me carefully. She could not read. Even so, I held the note close.

So. He was intent on seduction. Would he summon me like a common woman, or did he mean to convince me to marry? All day I had been looking forward to waging the silent battle of gravities that I had not felt yesterday upon my arrival. But not this. This was
insult. Did he think he would host me, bed me, exchange pretty gifts, and be held to no account?

“It is nothing,” I said to Shara, and meant it. I got up from the tub, went to the incense brazier, and, holding the corner of the parchment to the ember, set it afire. I tossed the remains inside and then returned to the stool. “Send for more water,” I said. “I want to bathe again.”

A few hours later, the first gift arrived: delicate carob cakes from the kitchens. A short time later, a servant delivered goat’s milk and a strange dish of pancakes that the servant called ashishot.

“Some kind of bean or lentils . . . honey . . .” Shara said, taking little nibbles.

“Cinnamon . . .” one of the girls added.

“And oil,” Shara concluded, eating the second half in a single bite.

The next time my girl responded to the door, Shara said, “What now?” But this time the girl returned empty-handed.

“My queen, there is a servant waiting outside. An Egyptian girl.”

I sat up, wrapped the linen sheet around me, and said, “Bring her here.”

She returned with a small nymph of a girl I estimated to be about thirteen. The linen she wore was better than that of the women I had seen serving in other parts of the palace. A wide faience collar sat around her neck nearly to her shoulders and her eyes were rimmed with kohl. When she saw that I wore nothing but a linen sheet, she smiled and took off her head cloth to reveal a simple black wig.

She bowed low and said in accented Aramaic, “My mistress the queen has sent me.” I gestured her closer and one of my girls offered her the ashishot. She slid one of the small cakes off the platter with a shy smile and took a bite.

“She has said—” She caught at the crumbs of the cake, poking them back into her mouth in a way that made me stifle a laugh. “ ‘—welcome, in the name of Israel, and of Egypt.’ She says also that sundown begins the Sabbath. ‘But these customs are not our customs, you and I . . .’ ” She paused and added, “She said that, not me.”

I nodded, straight-faced.

“And she invites you to dine with her, a simple meal, but a simple meal is made pleasurable by exotic company. And so she hopes you will come to her temporary palace—hers is being built—you and your servants and the Nubian, whom she has heard is with you.”

I sat back and regarded the girl as she glanced at the cake in her hand and surreptitiously took another bite. I thought of the king’s plea, which by now only angered me more.

“I will be honored to do so,” I said.

T
he Pharaoh’s daughter—I had a hard time considering her a true queen—sent her litter two hours later. I went out with my women and Yafush, accompanied by four of my armed men, and stepped into the litter without even bothering to close the drape.

Of course this was laughable—the litter carried me across the inner court to the other end of the palace and down a fine colonnade that ended in a great double door. All of this, as though after having traveled from the end of the world I could not walk so far.

Ah, Egyptians.

Outside the double doors a black-skinned guard in a fine linen tunic bowed low as the litter was set down on a carved block that appeared specifically placed here for this purpose.

A horn sounded from the direction of the temple—I assumed to
mark the sundown, as though no one could see the orange spill of that yolk for themselves.

The doors opened on the queen’s chambers seemingly of their own accord, and I nearly gasped.

The painted palace walls, which had been beautiful to me before, paled in comparison to the sight within.

Great columns opened as trumpets to the ceiling, painted like giant palms, and a fresco of green reeds and lotus flowers adorned the wide walls. Bronze bowl lamps flickered throughout the room gilding it all against the settling dusk. Overhead, an opening in the ceiling spilled an indigo and purple sunset more vivid than any painting over a small courtyard. Everywhere there were the colors of Egypt, from the mosaics on the floor to the inlaid tables, great statues of Ra and Seth standing sentinel in the corners. Something uncoiled from behind the idol of Seth and slunk away—an Egyptian cat.

At the far end of the chamber lay a blue-green pool. Fish moved like shadows between floating lilies. I realized belatedly that music was coming from somewhere in the apartment.

Truly, I wasn’t certain that my own chambers in Saba were any more opulent.

Two slaves stepped out from behind the doors and brought us to a side chamber populated with carved, short chairs, an ivory table, and a great, reclining sofa with gilded wings of Isis spread out in either direction from the center of its back.

The woman I had seen in the throne room emerged at the other end of the chamber and spread her hands as she came to us in greeting. She was taller than I had thought, this figure who seemed so diminutive next to Solomon’s throne.

“Welcome, Saba,” she said, smiling and inclining her head. I mirrored her posture, if not quite as low.

“We thank you.”

I had thought her beautiful at first glance and my estimation had not been completely wrong. Her face was round and slightly flat. The green malachite of her lids extended beyond the corner of her eyes beneath prominent, arched brows. The red ocher of Egypt was on her lips and cheeks, a woman as painted as one of her walls. Over her forehead and wig sprawled a golden headpiece—the wings of Isis, crowning her face down past her ears. The entire effect was breathtaking.

“I am Tashere. Do you mind if I call you Makeda? We are the closest thing to sisters in this city now,” she said, drawing me toward the sofa. “You, raised in Punt, and I in Egypt. How is it that we come to find ourselves in this faraway barbarian land?” She smiled then, the expression knowing and girlish at once. I could see now the lines at the corners of her mouth. But of course, she had to be several years older than I.

She sent her slave for beer, then turned back to me.

“I have been looking forward to setting eyes on you since the king first told me of your coming.”

“And I as well.” I smiled. I reached toward Shara, who handed me the small chest she had carried with us. “I have brought these gifts for you.”

She exclaimed over the bracelets and the headpieces, the long girdle of hammered gold set with gemstones. And then she handed the chest to a slave as another brought forward an ivory box.

Inside I discovered the idols of Seshat, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom, and her male counterpart, Thoth. Between them lay a scroll. I glanced at her and lifted it from the box and then, despite myself, unrolled it a little ways with an intake of breath.

“These are the writings of Ptahhotep!” I said with true surprise.

She leaned to look over my shoulder. “Translated into Aramaic
by the king’s own scribe. I have heard from the king that you are a lover of wisdom.”

I wondered what else the king had said about me.

“Thank you,” I said and meant it. I had read the maxims before, though never in their entirety. “These writings are at least a thousand years old.”

“One thousand four hundred.” She smiled. “But who’s keeping count?”

I almost asked how the king came by a copy of the maxims, but of course that was a foolish question. The queen’s father had given him a city—what was a single scroll to that?

“The king reads these writings often. As for me . . .” She sighed. “I find them a bit commonsense. ‘Love your life with passion.’ Well, of course! Perhaps you discern in them far more than I do. But now, I hope you are hungry.”

I lied that we were.

I took down the side of my veil in this company of women. Tashere sat back and openly stared.

“I had not thought the tales were true! Every courtier exaggerates a queen’s charms. But in fact, you are a beauty! Let me look at you.”

I was not accustomed to flattery from other women. All my life I had watched them glance at me from the corner of their eyes, saying nothing until I was gone, hearing only later that they had been unkind. That day, I did not warm to Tashere’s flattery, but to her frankness.

“The king’s own mother was a beauty like you.”

“And you knew her?”

“For a few years, yes.” Her silence after that spoke of something either unfinished or bitter. I wasn’t certain which.

We ate chickpeas, lentils, and onion stew—“the only things I find agreeable here,” she said—reclining on the overlarge sofa together.
“This is made in my own kitchens. The Israelites won’t light a fire to cook on the Sabbath.”

“Who serves the king’s meals on such a day then?” I asked, at which Tashere waved a hand as though to say not to start her on the subject.

When we had finished, she invited her girl to show Shara and my women her private garden. And then she smiled at Yafush and spoke to him in a language I had not heard except a few times in my life and, to my shame, had not learned. His face lit up strangely at that, and with a nod to me, he went after them. But I knew better than to think I would be completely out of sight.

“My eunuch is Nubian also. All the best ones are. He’s been with me since I was ten.” She settled back. “Now I can finally tell you not to be offended if the king is seldom seen these first few days of your visit. He’s recently taken a new wife and there are . . . the obligations.”

I hesitated. And yet he had told me to come to his garden! I wondered what she would say if I told her that?

“How many wives does he have now?”

“Nearly four hundred,” she said, seeming unfazed by this.

“Four . . . hundred.”

“Yes. I know. But he is a king. Every marriage treaty he makes gains his kingdom some prize. A queen cannot afford to be jealous—and why would I? Which of them will have her own palace?” She laughed, her chin tilted toward her shoulder.

“I have seen it in progress. Fine construction,” I said. “I have seen no better.”

“Though certainly larger—ah!” She sat up at the appearance of a figure I at first mistook for a servant. “Here he is, my darling.” She got up and kissed the boy, who looked embarrassed, and brought him around to face me.

“This is my son, Itiel,” she said, her hand on his chest as she smiled. “Itiel, this is the great queen of Saba.” She said it with a pause between each word, breathlessly patting his chest with each one: Great. Queen. Of Saba.

I smiled at the boy, who was not so much a boy after all, as I estimated him to be about twelve, already showing the lankiness of early puberty. He bowed his head and murmured something polite before going away, obviously relieved to be done with state matters for the day.

“He is my joy,” she said, beaming.

“And the king’s heir?”

She sighed and sat down. “That is for the king to decree. But the king is very Egyptian in his ways.”

“Is he?”

“How do you think all of his cedars are cut down in Lebanon, or the quarries dug out or the temple and palace built?”

“The corvée,” I said. The Egyptian levy.

“Yes, the labor is conscripted. Mostly from the north, which they deserve. Always opposing him—one can’t afford to have them all conspiring at once. Even the king’s administration is run in the Egyptian way.”

I was surprised at her knowledge of the king’s government. This was not my impression of treaty wives at all.

“And yet Egypt rejects the idea of a single god and the king embraces it.”

“That, yes. But look to the mount just east of the king’s temple. There you will find high places to Chemosh, the grim god of Moab. And Molech and Asherah and Au and a half dozen others. The place is populated with their altars, carved pillars, and priests.”