The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen (28 page)

I needed ports. A share in the ships. I donned the gown.

But I would not sell myself for them even though I had ascended the stair behind me, alone and as furtive as a harlot.

Fearless or reckless . . .

Almaqah, I was certain, had long abandoned me—the moment I left Saba’s borders, if not in Saba itself. But any god must recognize me if he were a god at all. And so I prayed silently to the gods of this place, including the Nameless One.

I expelled a breath and turned the latch. It moved easily. I pushed open the door.

The sun was setting, bloody against the west. Almond blossom and rose filled my nostrils.

I strode out onto the terrace and a vista of verdant green unfolded before me—a high garden before an apartment perhaps three times larger than my own. Lamplight glowed through carved limestone window screens. Sheer drapes, illuminated from within, billowed softly with the wind in its open double doors.

There was no sound. Nothing but the hiss and sputter of torches in the late twilight of encroaching summer.

Was the king within? It didn’t matter; I would not risk the scene I might come upon there or be discovered waiting in his chamber like a wanton.

I angrily turned to leave.

“Wait.”

The voice startled me—I had not seen any figure. And because it was not the voice of a king.

It was
his
voice. But there was nothing of the king in it.

I turned back slowly in time to see the figure rising from the shadows in the farthest corner of the garden.

“What game do you play with me?” I called out, chin lifted. “How will this appear to your courtiers, should they come to your apartment? To your new wife, to anyone who sees my eunuch on the stair?” My anger, contained all this time, came out at last.

He moved toward me and I could see now that he wore none of the finery he had the first time—the only time—I had set eyes on him. Only a simple linen tunic and mantle, and a gold ring upon his finger.

Now I knew who had inspired Tamrin in his tastes. And so this king influenced everyone around him in even the littlest matters.

“Call for your eunuch,” he said quietly.

“You said I was to come alone.”

He came within an arm’s length of me.

“Woman of mystery,” he whispered. “You filled my hall the moment you entered it. You towered over the shallow pool. And yet I find you are a tiny thing. Will you let me touch your hand before you call for him?” With a slight smile, he said, “He seems a formidable fellow.”

“It doesn’t seem the custom for your men to touch women except for their wives,” I said. “Why do you make these unseemly requests?”

“It is unseemly before the eyes of others. A custom to give no scandal to the one who sees it. But we are not seen. I would only touch the hand that penned such words to me. The hand of the Riddle. I would count it greater than any gift you carried here across the sands.”

“Is it not enough that I came from the edge of the world? That I stand here alone on your terrace, against all judgment, after you have keep me waiting all these days?”

He looked down.

“I thought . . .” He shook his head. “I’m foolish.”

“You thought what?”

“I thought you would return a message to me. Anything—even a note of thanks for my gifts. I waited.”

“Why, when I am here? For what have I come if not to speak face-to-face?”

When he lifted his head, his eyes were stark. “Do you truly not know how your words have brought me to life? How they have revived me—yes, with the echo of my own? Or are you so fresh upon the throne and to the rigors of kingship that you know nothing of loneliness?”

I looked away.

“Ah.” He came a step closer. “Why do you think I commanded you to send your emissary? You, who rebuff kings with silence?”

“Because against all logic, provocation wins more regard than flattery.”

He laughed softly. “So you see, I am a boy, tugging your hair. And in return you slashed me. Hauteur, flattery, flirtation—any one of these I would have tossed aside. Instead, you slay me with a story of a garden.”

I dare not say that writing those words had nearly broken me. After a long moment I lifted my hand between us.

A soft sigh escaped his lips as he took it by the fingertips—carefully, as though it were a bird that might, at any moment, fly away.

He touched the hennaed nail of one finger with his thumb, seemed to read the design on the back of my wrist. He brushed his thumb over these, too, as though he had never seen such a thing before.

I drew my hand away and he stood staring at his, empty, where it had been. At last he dropped his arms to his sides and said, “Call your eunuch, if it will put you at ease.”

I went back to the stairwell and pulled open the door to find Yafush standing exactly as he had been. At sight of me he took the stair with swift, great strides.

“Peace,” I said. “All is well.”

I returned to the garden, not wanting to admit even to myself that I felt more settled as Yafush closed the door behind him.

The king walked a little ways away, and I followed with him. When he did not speak, I said, “What were you doing here, sitting in silence?”

He placed his hands on the terrace wall and looked out over it. “I have come here every night since your arrival. I told you, I was waiting.”

“What does your newest bride think of that?”

“She is, I am certain, glad to be relieved of my company.”

I almost asked if he was so bad at the bed arts as that, but bit it back.

“Why have you sent my nobles away without a word?”

“Because,” he said sighing, not looking at me. “Because I know what you have come for.”

He came to me then and it seemed he would reach for my hand again, but he stopped himself.

“I want to show you my kingdom,” he said earnestly as a boy.

“As you are showing my nobles your prize city of Gezer?”

He waved this away.

“Your man, Khalkharib, is loyal but shortsighted. Your kinsman Niman is ambitious. I see it very well. I have no use for them. But you, Lady Riddle . . . you remain a mystery to me.”

“To the great wise king? I am no mystery. I am Saba, and your new fleet threatens my future and my caravans. But if we could negotiate together, for the building of p—”

He lifted his palm.

“Time enough for that. There are things I want to know of you.”

“In my country that is the posture of petition.”

“Then I petition you,” he said with soft urgency. “There are things I want you to understand. Tomorrow I want to show you my city. And the night after, I will throw a banquet for you and your retinue.”

“I wasn’t informed of this banquet,” I said, feeling my irritation rise again, realizing that each time it did, it was more out of a sense of helplessness than true anger. I was accustomed to deciding the timing of everything I engaged in. But with this king, I felt as though I butted up against a wall.

“I’ve just decided it.”

“I will go with you into your city,” I said. “But you must do one thing for me.”

“Yes?”

“Do not think to lead me by the nose or continue to insult me by asking me to come to you like this.”

“You think I insult you?” His brows lifted, and I couldn’t tell if his surprise was genuine or manufactured. “I have no privacy anywhere else!”

“You are a man in a man’s kingdom. Were I Baal-eser of Phoenicia, we would not be having this discussion. Surely I do not need to explain this to you.”

“Were you Baal-eser, I would not have invited you to my garden.”

“Exactly.”

“I am not a molester of women.”

“I didn’t suggest it.”

“And yet you are more brave with your eunuch nearby.”

“Would you have kept Baal-eser’s advisors from him? And he from your council chamber?”

“Do you not see? I am weary of treaty! Of negotiation. And so are you, I can see it.”

And to think it only took four hundred wives for him to tire, I thought sardonically.

“What have I come for, if not that?” I said. “You demand my emissaries and threaten the future of my kingdom. Well, I have given you better than an emissary. But do not think I came to sample delicacies.”

His expression changed and for an instant he appeared injured.

“We are two of a kind, you and I. But if treaty is all you have come for, then my answer is no.”

I blinked.

“You cannot mean that.”

“And yet I do. It is no. You may try to move me, but I promise you it will take a great deal of persuasion on your part. Persuasion I am not certain you are capable of, even if you are willing.”

My mouth opened beneath my veil.

“Now that that is done and there is no gain to be had, either way, will you see my city with me tomorrow?”

“Your temple will have no incense to burn! Is it not a command of your god that you do so? And how will he exact his revenge on you if you do not?”

“Do you think I cannot find incense anywhere else in this world?”

“You will have none of Saba’s gold—”

He spread his hands out toward the palace and in the direction of the temple. “What need have I for gold?”

“You cannot mean to have another wife!”

He laughed at this.

“Of all things, what need have I for another wife!”

“Then for what did I make this journey?” I demanded.

“I had thought you wise,” he said, turning away.

“I cannot go back empty-handed. You know this as well as I. My council will cry for war.”

He waved his hand. “I will send gifts to astound your court. And there are other routes for your caravans. East, toward the great gulf, between the two rivers—”

I forced down panic, searching for even the smallest lever to turn his capricious mind. I had prepared for so many contingencies. But I had not prepared for this.

I imagined the Senet board between us, the pawn sacrificed upon the square. I laid my hands on the wall. “As you are tired of treaties and negotiations, I am tired of gifts. And so it seems we are at an impasse,” I said simply, trying to quell the rising sense that I might be ill.

“So it seems,” he whispered.

Somewhere in the dusk a bird trilled its night-song and a mother called her children into the house.

“I cannot leave until late autumn. And so we might as well take in the city and feast as though we die.”

I felt, more than saw, him look over his shoulder at me.

“Until tomorrow, King Solomon,” I said, taking my leave.

Let him think he had won.

T
hat night after I returned to my apartment, I closed myself into the inner chamber and fell back against the door, pinching my forehead.

A moment later I pulled my veil free and promptly vomited in the night-pot.

TWENTY-TWO

I
had been fearless. I had been reckless.

Now I must be wise.

Egypt was weak. Baal-eser was newly on the throne. The ships were not finished. And I, I was certain, would never make this journey again.

How was it possible that after a single conversation I had less than when I had first arrived—than if I had never made the journey at all?

I had six months. Six months to change an enigmatic king’s mind. To secure Saba’s future.

But as I lay awake that night, I found no purchase. He would not be moved for incense or gold. He tired of treaty. He disdained flattery. I wondered how many women had repelled him in attempting the usual wiles.

He was eager to show me his city. But not for my praise, surely—he had, no doubt, plenty of that.

He had studied my hand as though it were a marvel.

So he wanted something to worship.

But he himself claimed his god above all others.

He tired of gold and wealth, and yet he pursued it as one addicted.

So then he wanted worth. But that, he had.

I pulled at my hair and went out on the terrace to gaze up at the impassive moon. What might move a king for whom the luster of conquest had dulled?

I sighed and drew back, about to go in when I noticed movement on one of the rooftops below. A man, pacing to its edge, looking up at the sky as I had just a moment ago.