Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba (6 page)

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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba
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When my father died, my mother packed all vve owned and took me to dwell in Shunem. In those days Shunem was a prosperous town, a decent place for a widow to raise her daughter. Shunem stood at a crossroads; the King’s High Road ran past the town’s walls. So as well as a good marketplace, there was also a temple to comfort foreign travelers, and a Grove,
My mother need not have remained alone after my father died, for she was beautiful still, and my father had left her enough to dower her well. But she turned away all men who came seeking her favor.
“You do me too much honor,” she told those who sought her as a wife. And to me, when we were alone, “Never again; I have had enough of men. Now I may live my own life and ready you for yours.”
“But I thought you happy with my father,” I said, and my mother smiled and wiped tears from my cheek with her slender fingers.
“That is because I was happy with him, Abishag. He was a good man, and kind, and he fathered you, for which I would forgive him much. But no more men for me
—
at least, not here, where they all smell of grapes and of sheep!
”
Then she laughed, and when my mother laughed, it was impossible not to laugh with her.
After he left the queen, Prince Rahbarin headed straight for the great Temple, seeking solace and guidance. Easy enough for his aunt to say
“Stay, and guard Sheba
—” As if he had the knowledge or the cunning to do so, need only lift his hand to accomplish wonders, to replace the Queen of the Morning at a word.
Sometimes he thought his aunt was too confident of others’ abilities. She herself was fearless and wise, and believed others as skilled as she herself. Witness her placid instructions to him!
“Act as the goddess directs”;
that was simple enough. But for the rest of it—
How am I to know what is best to do?
Not for the first time, Rahbarin wished that his aunt would not place such faith in him. Someday he knew he must disappoint her, and that would be hard to bear. But if the queen wished him to guard Sheba in her absence, he would obey.
And he would try to have faith in her mission—hard though it was to believe that such a journey was the goddess’s wish, and not the woman’s. But if the queen did not hear the goddess truly, then what hope was there for her, or for Sheba?
Goddess-sent or no, I pray she finds a new queen on this quest. For if she does not
—Without an undoubted heir, Sheba would succumb to the same disease that ravaged so many surrounding lands.
War. War
setting family against family, brother against sister. In such conflicts, there were no victors.
To avoid that fate, the queen would fight any battle she must. And if he could do nothing more to aid her, he could at least follow her orders to the best of his ability.
As he stood before the image of the goddess, Rahbarin opened his heart to Ilat and prayed that he would rule well in his aunt’s absence—and that the queen’s prayers would be granted.
And failing that, Rahbarin prayed for peace, and for his aunt’s safe return.
The men from the north stalked grimly through Ma’rib’s streets, hard and cold. Rahbarin could not imagine them ever smiling, laughing, enjoying life’s soft pleasures. Nor could he envision a land full of such men welcoming the Queen of Sheba warmly and with pleasure.
Let her go and return safely,
he begged the silent image of Ilat.
Let her return unharmed to Sheba
—
with or without an heir.
“Another chest? Stow it aft, with the others—no, not there, fool! Do you want to unbalance the ship?” Swearing in half-a-dozen languages, Hodaiah, captain of King Solomon’s merchant fleet, grabbed the confused porter’s tunic and thrust him towards the right section of the deck.
I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.
Sailing was unchancy enough without adding a foreign queen and all her finery, her slaves and her servants and her endless treasure chests, to the cargo. But no one had consulted him; no, he was simply expected to provide accommodation for the woman and all her chattels and goods. No matter that the Tarshish ships were designed for slow, steady transport of bulky cargo, not the swift conveyance of royalty. The Queen of Sheba commanded, and even foreign captains must obey. Hodaiah spat, clearing his throat, and continued his vigilant supervision as the loading continued.
Chests of gold and cages of apes; bolts of fine cloth and jars of spices; if pirates spot us, we’ll be slaughtered like wingless ducks. And then there are the women
—
And such women! Flaunting themselves like harlots, striding about like men—Hodaiah had sailed from Tyre to Troezen, Knossos to Massilia, and never had he seen such women as dwelt in the land of Sheba.
“You there—take those bales of cloth to the other ship! No more on this one!”
Idiots, fit only to feed to the sharks.
Hodaiah turned to the flagship,
Jael.
Upon
Jael’s
deck, slaves were erecting a pavilion, a sanctuary for the Queen of Sheba and her handmaidens during the voyage north.
As if the sea cares she’s a queen!
If anything, the sea, always a harsh mistress, would be twice as jealous of a queen as of a common woman. It would be a chancy voyage, with women aboard, with the sea lying always ready to claim her rivals.
But master of ships or no, his opinion didn’t count, not laid in the balance against a queen’s whim. And what did it all boil down to but another woman for King Solomon
—as well send a honeycomb to a beehive!
And here was the queen herself, riding down to the dock on a horse—a woman sitting upon a horse, whoever heard of such a thing? Beside her rode a warrior; an Amazon—
long years since I’ve seen one of them. She’ll not like sailing; her kind doesn’t favor water.
A gaggle of women followed, all aflutter in bright garments of cloth so fine the wind from the water pressed the fabric against their bodies close as a second skin.
There were some men as well—eunuchs, guards, grooms—but mostly there were women. Too many women.
At the foot of the gangplank, the Queen of Sheba dismounted, handing her horse’s reins to the nearest sailor, who was so startled he took them. Followed by a slim pale hound, she walked up the planks to
Jael’s
deck.
“The Queen of the South greets you, Captain, and thanks you for your care and kindness.” She caressed her hound’s long silky ears. “The journey will go well.”
“With luck,” Hodaiah added hastily; it didn’t do to let the sea think you scorned her power. “And with Yahweh’s aid.” Sailors lived and died on the lift of fortune’s waves; Hodaiah clung to the old way of calling upon his god by name, that there might be no question whom he petitioned.
“Always with the favor of the gods.”When the queen smiled, lines creased
the skin at the corners of her eyes; in the bright sunlight, you could see she was not young.
But it didn’t matter. Young or not, the Queen of Sheba’s smile kindled a slow fire in a man’s blood. Hodaiah hoped the queen’s own blood ran cool, or the voyage up the Red Sea would be endless trouble.
“Almost everything’s aboard,” he said. “The pavilion’s nearly ready for you and your women.”
“I—and my women—thank you. Now we have only to load my servants and my courtiers, and my horses, and then we may begin our journey as soon as wind and tide are propitious.”
Even as he agreed, Hodaiah’s heart sank.
Asherah’s eyes, I forgot about the damned horses!
“Do not look so dismayed, Captain.” Laughter rippled through the queen’s voice as sunlight danced over waves. “All will go well, and our voyage will prosper. Can you doubt that the gods look with favor upon this enterprise?”
“I can doubt anything,” Hodaiah said and strode down the gangplank to the dock, to find his quartermaster and begin the process of loading the queen’s horses upon the ship that had been prepared for them.
Horses and hounds and harlots. When I turn this voyage into a tavern tale, no one will believe me.
He only hoped that when the Tarshish fleet at last docked at the port of Ezion-geber, the city governor there would be put to even half the effort and expense Hodaiah himself had been.
And that King Solomon found the Queen of Sheba’s visit worth its cost.
So much water.
Until now, the greatest expanse of water Nikaulis had ever seen had been the Goddess’s Mirror, the lake that lay at the feet of the Shining Mountains. The Mirror was pure and cold as ice, a daughter of mountain streams. Nikaulis had grown to womanhood beside the Mirror, played games of the hunt and the quest upon its shores.
But the Mirror was a small thing; even a child standing upon the Mirror’s edge could see the far shore across its smooth water. The sea was different.
The ship floated upon water as changeable and restless as clouds. Water rippled about the hull, flashed phoenix-bright as wavelets shifted and danced in the sun. To the east, Nikaulis could watch the land as the ship slid past,
but to the west, water covered all the world, shimmered and glinted to the far horizon. She knew there was land beyond this sea; the kingdoms of Cush and Egypt. But staring out across the expanse of restless water, it was hard to believe.
“A pomegranate seed for your thoughts.”
Almost startled—the water’s constant slap against the wooden hull, the creaking of boards and rustle of canvas hid lesser sounds; she had not heard Khurrami approach—Nikaulis swiftly turned, her fingertips just touching her knife’s hilt.
“Peace, Nikaulis,” Khurrami said, “it is only I.”
Nikaulis inhaled slowly. “I did not hear you, that is all.”
I am too tight-drawn. I must ease myself, or I shall snap as hard as a dry bowstring.
Khurrami moved closer, smiling, and put her hands upon the rail. “What do you think of the sea? Is not so vast a quantity of water a miracle? And salt too—I tried a mouthful, and the water truly is salt enough to poison one. I wonder how the fish survive it?”
“Doubtless they are accustomed to the salt.”
“Perhaps they find it pleasant.” Khurrami stared down into the lucid water. “So many fish, and so pretty; do you think the queen would like some for the palace fountains?”
“They would die there.” Nikaulis watched a school of fish swirl past. Blue and red and yellow—an invisible signal sent the fish flying back the way they had come, dashing beneath the ship. Forward and back, side to side, a pattern as explicit as dance … .
“Perhaps.” Khurrami leaned forward; a bead slipped from her braids and fell into the sea below. A dozen fish broke ranks, converging on the sinking bead. An instant’s flurry, then the fish merged into the larger group once more. “Do you suppose they ate it?” Khurrami asked.
“Perhaps.” Nikaulis glanced sidelong at Khurrami. The queen’s handmaiden was teasing another bead from her elaborate braids, plainly willing to lose a second bauble for the pleasure of teasing the hopeful fish. Khurrami freed the bright bead and tossed it overboard; again a small group of fish flashed toward it, tested the offering, abandoned it as inedible, vanished among their brethren. Then Khurrami said in a low, steady voice, “What think you of our queen’s quest, Nikaulis?”
Is this a test?
Everyone knew Khurrami was the queen’s eyes and ears—
So
even she must know her idle queries carry much weight.
And test or no, courtesy demanded an answer.
“It is not my place to think anything. It is my place—”
“To guard and to obey. Yes.” Khurrami’s fingers twined in the end of her long plait of beaded braids, fretting the prisoned hair free. She glanced sidelong at Nikaulis. “Nothing more than that, Queen’s Guard?”
Something in Khurrami’s tone—a subtle undertone of mockery, barely sensed—rasped harsh as salt on skin. “What more should there be? The Queen of the Morning commands we journey to a far land so she may face the King of Wisdom. We journey.”
“Our Mother commands.”
Khurrami’s correction pricked light but sharp; Nikaulis countered with a query of her own. “And you, Queen’s Lady? What do you think of this venture?”
“I?” Khurrami’s painted eyelids swept down like glittering green wings, hiding her cat-pale eyes. “Oh, I think nothing—save the journey is long and the sea wide—and the men from the north coarse and strange. I wonder what their king is truly like; his servants are uncouth, unsubtle. Can their king be better?”
“Even if he is not, Ilat Herself has commanded our queen to seek him out.”
“Yes.”
“To ask his aid?” Nikaulis heard the question underlying her words, betraying the fears that troubled her dreams.
It is time to ask plainly.
Odd how speaking out could be the greatest fear of all. “My lady Khurrami—do you think this journey wise?”
To question her queen’s command, her goddess’s oracle—
Truly I am uneasy in my heart. Danger lies ahead. Am I the only one who foresees evil at journey’s end?
Apparently enchanted by the water dancing below, Khurrami did not move. At last she said, “Do you think it folly, that our queen should obey Ilat’s will and court the King of Wisdom?”
“And when we enter the realm of this wise king? What then?”
Without looking up, Khurrami shrugged; sunlight rippled over her skin, supple as the water below her. “Why, then the queen will do as she must, and so will we.” Then she glanced slantwise at Nikaulis. “Do you think I know the goddess’s mind, or the queen’s?”
“I think you know.” Nikaulis stared into the crystal water. Fish flashed bright, fleeing a larger shape; danger lurking in the shadow of the ship. “And I think you will not tell.”

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