“Surely not her cane?” I pressed coins into the woman’s hand.
“If it is, someone would have stolen it by now.”
I thanked the woman for her time and walked into the garden where I lounged on a cushioned chaise under a sycamore tree and nursed Menelik.
Overhead, a breeze moved through the branches. An elusive truth rustled, its leaves taunting me with their quivering, urging me to look deeper. To feel more deeply. To gaze into the smoke of deception and see with my heart.
Momma’s words from long ago came back to me. Don’t think. Feel. Let the sensations wash over you.
CHAPTER 60
I summoned the Magus early that evening. “I have been remiss in my duties. You have been in my service and yet I know nothing of you or your family.”
The Magus’s usual arrogance vanished. The tense lines of his face softened and his smile appeared genuine. “They are wealthy rug merchants who live in Shabwa.”
“Why didn’t you go into the family business?”
“That was their plan for my future.” The Magus thumped his chest. “I was a strong-willed boy, and knew my calling before my fifth birthday. When I told my parents they were furious. A magician!” His eyes shone bright with memory. “They tore their hair and clothes that I should even think of such a profession. Most magicians, as you know, are poor amulet makers or water diviners. I was an embarrassment to them.
“Tired of their beatings, I left home at ten years old and made my way to Ma’rib, where I presented my naïve self to the royal magician in this palace and begged to be his apprentice. He humored me, I think, and found it amusing that a rich boy from a good family imagined himself attaining the skill of a royal magician.” The Magus squared his shoulders. “I did learn those skills. And more. Eventually I surpassed the master and grew more powerful than he. I became the king’s magician, and King Hasan’s after that. My status now exceeds my family’s.”
“How do they feel about your success?”
The Magus puffed out his chest. “They boast of my success. My status gives them more success, their carpets worth triple because of who I am.” He dropped his voice. “They claim I imbue every rug with a bit of my magic.”
“What magic is that?”
“Making babies and good business deals. Wealth and fertility: that’s all everyone wants.”
“Do you have children or grandchildren?”
The Magus frowned, yet he did not look sad. “I am the Magus. Such an important royal post leaves no time for a wife and children. The court is my family.” He shifted uneasily.
“Thank you. I appreciate your candor. We should have had this conversation long ago.”
I summoned the Oracle next.
“I have a confession to make.” I sat at my desk. “I have neglected to get to know the most important people in my court.”
The Oracle’s thick black brows jumped to her hairline. “Me?”
“Of course, after all it was you who came to my mother after the sandstorm with the prophecy of my Great Destiny.”
The Oracle swung her cane across the carpet, the sound like a dry leaf scraping against a mud-brick house. “Ismenie had to be told.”
“Tell me, what was your first prophecy?”
The Oracle’s cane stopped swinging. Her face hardened, and her green eyes turned to stone. “I prefer not to discuss those days. Too many bad memories. I’m not hiding anything, your Excellency, it’s just that children with the gift of prophecy are exploited by wicked people.” She pushed down on the cane, rotating it as though it was an awl boring through leather.
“What can you tell me about yourself then?”
“I was born to good parents in a village so small it has no name. A stranger—a prophetess from a distant land—spirited me away.”
“Kidnapped you?”
“She bought me.” The Oracle tucked an errant white strand behind her ear. “The prophetess was good to me. I had a better life than I would have had at that no-name village.”
“You must have missed your parents.”
The Oracle shrugged, and yet her knuckles whitened around the cane. “A small price to pay for learning how to see into the mists of time and feel all that is buried beneath the sea of sand.”
A gale rushed through me. My hands flung out to grasp hold of the desk. The taunting of those quivering leaves I felt earlier that day in the garden returned with a vengeance. The wind abated, stopping as quickly as it started.
The Oracle blinked, unaffected by the spiritual gust that awakened my intuition.
“Do you use a divining stick to foretell the future?” I gestured to her cane. “Or some kind of conduit?”
“This is for balance, nothing more. When one ability is given, the gods take away another. I am often dizzy.” The Oracle clutched her cane with both hands. “Some seers channel their vision through a large jewel or gaze into the eyes of their spirit animal. My mentor showed me a better method. I use a rock.”
“Any rock?”
“No.” She squinted at me, looking for my true intent. Finding nothing but mild curiosity, her face relaxed. “A seer’s rock.”
“I would like to see this rock.”
“Oh, there’s really nothing to see, your Excellency. It’s a polished sphere layered with the earth’s hues.”
“You have piqued my interest. Show it to me.” I stood, strode across the chamber, and tossed Shani a pointed look.
Shani followed as the Oracle and I walked through the palace halls. Ameen, my faithful guard, joined us. Shani and Ameen so often worked in tandem that they communicated with little more than barely discernible hand signals.
The Oracle’s chamber was in the far reaches of the palace. At the time I thought nothing of her request to be on the ground floor past the kitchen. I assumed she needed a place free of interruption. Now I had doubts.
I ducked under a low door into her chambers and stopped short, my eyes widening with astonishment.
Layers of expensive rugs covered every inch of the floor. Zebra and tiger pelts were draped over carved chairs. A bronze statuette, an incense burner, ornate silver bowl, and an engraved bronze hand crowded a small table.
The seer’s rock, a striated lapis lazuli sphere on a copper pedestal, was balanced atop another alabaster-inlayed table.
“Is this it?” My hand hovered over the blue orb.
The Oracle gripped her cane. “Yes, your Excellency.”
“It’s beautiful, it appears lit from within.” I surveyed the room, my instincts raising the hair on the back of my neck. Besides the lavishness, something was off about this room. I stepped backward, my heel pushing against the edge of a carpet.
Carpet upon a carpet. How odd.
“Shani.” I pointed to the floor. “Roll up these carpets.”
“What? Why?” The Oracle dropped her cane.
“Because I can.” I dragged my forefinger over the sphere as Shani rolled up the first carpet.
“Did you want them? I bought them from the Magus—his family are carpet merchants. He gives me a reduced rate.” The Oracle’s gaze darted back and forth across the room.
“How thoughtful.” I watched Shani roll up the second rug.
The Oracle wrung her hands, and each time Shani rolled up another carpet she took a step back toward the door.
“Such fine-woven rugs,” I said, wondering what was hidden beneath them. “Except for that one.” I pointed to a plain dun-colored mat wedged in the corner.
“Oh, that one.” The Oracle flapped her hand. “It is nothing but a memory, the only thing I was allowed to take from my home.”
I nodded to Shani, who lifted it up.
Beneath was a platter-sized wooden lid flush to the dirt floor. The Oracle blanched, then bent over and seized her cane.
My heart thumping in my throat, I kneeled down and lifted the lid. The hole in the ground contained a single leather-wrapped object. Instinct clawed at my throat and I plunged my arm into the hole and ha
uled up the package. A searing heat blew through my skin, permeated each muscle, and soaked into my bones.
I knew what it was.
Hot tears welled in my eyes as I unwound the leather. “Momma.” I pressed her desiccated head to my chest and stroked the thick coarse braid pinned to her head like a crown. Her eyes were empty sockets, the dark skin shriveled like a raisin. I tore my gaze away from the skull to glare at the Oracle. “You have Momma’s head.”
The Oracle stiffened her spine. “I delivered two prophecies the day you were born, Bilqīs. The first was for you. The second for Ismenie.”
“Tell me!” I growled.
“I told your mother that it was because of her death that you would become great—that she must die for you to realize your Great Destiny.”
I stared at the Oracle. Felt her truth in my bones. What mother would not sacrifice herself for her child? Yet this new knowledge changed nothing. “Why do you have Momma’s head?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“There is no better conduit to the Other Side than a jinni’s head.” Brandishing her cane like a sword, the Oracle turned to run.
The old woman was no match for Shani. Shani grabbed her arm and snatched the cane away.
“Where did you get it? Who gave it to you?” I shouted.
“The Magus gave it to me. I swear it! He took it from the murderers.” The Oracle struggled, tried twisting away from Shani to no avail.
“Bring her,” I told Shani as I stalked from the room.
Shani strong-armed the Oracle through the palace, and Ameen kicked open the door to the Magus’s chambers.
The Magus leapt from the bed, his face contorted with terror when he saw me holding Momma’s withered head.
The Magus threw himself down and pressed his forehead to the floor. “I wanted to tell you, I did! I beg of you, your Excellency, I wanted to but I couldn’t . . . I still cannot tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“The names of the murderers sent by King Hasan to kill all known jinni.”
“Give me their names.” My voice shook. It took all my self-control not to attack the Magus and rip out his heart.
“I cannot.” The Magus’s voice broke, and all his arrogance shattered like an old clay pot. “Hasan made me put a curse upon myself if I told anyone. I had no choice. Either curse myself with a horrible death, or he would torture me to death.”
“Give. Me. Their. Names.” Much as I wanted to kill him, I needed him alive.
“Tell her, you old fool,” spat the Oracle. “You’re as good as dead anyway!”
I looked from the Oracle to the Magus. They had been keeping each other’s secrets for years.
The Magus rose from the floor, his body hunched like a ninety-year-old man. He pointed a crooked finger at the Oracle. “The bitch won’t ever find it,” he said in a falsetto. “The jinni whore is too stupid to see what’s under her half-breed nose.”
The Oracle spat at him. “You were the worst fuck I ever had.”
I turned to Ameen. “Kill the Magus.”
Ameen stepped forward.
The Magus covered his head. “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”
The name of the first murderer tumbled from his trembling lips. He swallowed, his head swiveling from side to side as though expecting a demon to appear and slice him in two.
“Who else?”
He confessed the second name, looked around, his brow crumpled with confusion. By the third name he appeared relieved, his initial fear ebbing away. The fourth name he spat as though irritated that his own curse had failed.
The Magus spoke the fifth name. A whiff of smoke wafted from his mouth. He coughed. White smoke gusted forth. Terror carved into his face.
“The curse,” he rasped as smoke emerged from every pore in his body.
Smoke poured out, it billowed gray and thick around him until his body disappeared. We heard him cough, gag, and retch. And then from somewhere in the dense smoke cloud came a bloodcurdling scream.
The smoke vanished. The Magus was gone. A small pile of gray ashes was all that remained.
The Oracle’s jaw dropped, faded green eyes bulging from her head.
The room was silent. Only the vague scent of burnt embers hung in the air.
Was it the curse? Or something else?
Momma, I mouthed. Momma killed the Magus.
Or had it been me? Some dormant jinni power I did not know I had?
I turned to Shani. “Lock the Oracle in the dungeon until I decide what to do with her.”
When they left, I sat cross-legged in the middle of the room and wept. “Now you will have a proper burial,” I whispered to Momma’s skull.
A month later, after my return from Momma’s newly constructed but still anonymous burial site, two important events occurred. The first emptied my heart of a long-held desire for vengeance, the second filled my heart to bursting.
The Serdar told me all five murderers had been found and killed. As proof, he brought their heads for me to identify.
“That’s them.” I closed the foul-smelling sack and gave it back to the Serdar.
“Why didn’t you want to kill them yourself?” asked Duvsha after he left.
“I would not have been merciful. I might have skinned them alive or chopped them into little bits.” I shook my head. “Revenge is a beast I no longer want to feed.” The leaves rustled and a warm breeze caressed my face. I recognized the feeling. It was Momma’s soft touch, and her approval.
“What about the men responsible for poisoning you?”
“They were women.” I nuzzled Menelik’s head.
Duvsha’s brows jumped to the top of her forehead. “What?”
“Two of the fired ministers’ wives. The Old Woman Who Listens found out and told me just before we left to bury Momma.”
“What did you do to them?”
“Nothing. The Old Woman and Gula consulted and . . .” I shrugged. “It seems both wives drank some tainted wine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I worried you would have hacked the wives to bits yourself.”
“I would have,” said Duvsha. “But only with your permission.”
Our conversation had turned to other court matters when the second event occurred.
My hoopoe swooped into the courtyard. With a ruffle of its black-and-white-striped wings, the bird dropped a small rolled scroll at my feet.
My Love, I am on my way to see you and my son. It is a private trip, one I do not wish made known. My heart aches for you.
S.
My bosom grew warm, my heart swelling with happiness. “You will meet your father soon, Menelik.” I kissed the top of his head. He already looked like Solomon. They had the same head shape, intelligent eyes, hair texture, and nostrils that flared when angry, which in Menelik’s case was when he was hungry. His skin, however, was a blend of us both, a luminous dark honey.
“When will Solomon arrive?” I asked the hoopoe.
The bird bobbed his head three times before flying away.
Three days, three weeks, three months, or three years? I did not speak hoopoe.
CHAPTER 61
“He looks like me.” Solomon held up his eight-month-old progeny. Father and son regarded each other with an identical amazed expression. “Menelik, you will be an important king, and one day I will send you the most valuable possession I have.”
“Your golden throne?” I asked.
Solomon tossed me a thoughtful look. “A throne is worldly. I plan on giving my son something much more powerful.”
My hand flew to my chest. “The kingdom of Israel?”
“Better.”
I drummed my fingers on my thigh. What could possibly be better? My eyes widened with understanding. “Your Ark of the Covenant?”
Solomon nodded, kissed Menelik on the head, then returned him to my arms. “It is safe for now, but one day I will move it to a secret location. My Egyptian queen wants me to send it to Egypt.”
Solomon bristled. “My God would not like his commandments kept in a land that worships birdmen, cows, and cats. Menelik is the solution. When he is of age, I will give him the Ark to hide.” Solomon pressed his lips to mine. “I need you, my love. I cannot wait any longer.”
I crossed my chambers, opened the door, and passed the child to the nanny. “I do not wish to be disturbed.”
After closing the door I leaned back upon it. Solomon and I stared hungrily at each other from across the chambers.
“I won’t lie, Bilqīs. Since you left, I have had many women, sometimes several at once. Not one of them eased the pain of your leaving. None of them, no matter how much I tried to pretend, matched the ecstasy of our lovemaking.”
“I enjoyed my three stallions as well. They are poor substitutes for you.” My bosom heaved. “This is the lot given to us by God. A small price to pay for we who have everything.”
Solomon’s eager gaze roamed up and down my body, which was swathed in a fine pink linen I wore just for him.
“Take down your hair,” said Solomon.
“Remove your turban,” I countered, while tugging on my braid. I fanned my fingers through my tresses, which sparkled with hundreds of tiny diamonds woven into the strands.
Solomon unwound his turban and held the lengthy swath of cloth in his hands. “I’m going to need this.” He flashed his thousand-sun grin.
Petals of pleasure blossomed in my delta, which was already wet with anticipation.
A crack of thunder startled us both. Heavy clouds unleashed the downpour promised for days. The wind picked up, sent sheets of rain sweeping across the garden.
Solomon licked his lips. “Take off your clothes, my love.”
I did not. Instead, I removed the long strand of rubies. Solomon took off the flat collar of engraved gold around his neck. I kicked off my jeweled sandals. Solomon did the same.
I untied the wide sash cinching my waist. “For binding your hands.” I winked.
Solomon blew out his eagerness with a shivering groan.
“Your clothes.” I dropped the sash on the floor.
Solomon tore them off. Cast aside each layer as though they were rags. “Your turn.”
Confessions of a Sheba Queen Page 28
