The Judgment

by D. J. Niko

  Solomon took no time to think. “The two daughters of Lot, who lay with their father and bore his sons.”

  Makeda nodded. “You know the history of your people. Now I shall put another question to you.”

  “May the Lord grant me wisdom to answer it.”

  “What are the seven that halt and the nine that enter, the two that put forth drink and the one who drinks?”

  Solomon scratched his white beard. “Seven are the days of menstruation that stop when the nine months of gestation enter. Two breasts put forth milk, and one child drinks it.”

  “That was too simple, perhaps.” She clapped her hands. One of her attendants entered with a group of small children, all the same height and dressed in identical robes, with hair shorn close to the head. “Tell me, wise king. Who among these children are boys and who are girls?”

  Solomon thought for a moment, then signaled to his servants standing nearby with trays of food and drink. The men spread nuts and dates on the floor in front of the children. The young ones bent down and collected the treats. Some tied a few to their aprons; others stuffed great amounts securely inside the hem of their gowns.

  The king called forth all those who tied the nuts and dates to their aprons. He turned to Makeda. “These are the girls. They are too timid to take more than their share and too bashful to lift their skirts so as to tie the treats to their undergarments.”

  The queen of Sheba smiled, revealing teeth as white and shimmering as the breakers crashing on the shores of Tyre. “Very clever, my king. You seem to have a great grasp on the spirit of females. Not all men are able to understand women.”

  Solomon placed a hand on his heart and lowered his head. “My queen, it pleases me to please you even in so small a way.” He looked up. “My days are spent among men, but I delight most in the company of women. Women are like the river reed—delicate yet strong, able to bend with the wind and spring back, so buoyant as to be unsinkable. Knowing the female soul is a great privilege.”

  “Only for the strongest and wisest of men.” She signaled to her attendants, and they fell in line for the exit procession. She stood. “My journey has been long. If you will forgive me, I must retire.”

  He rose and extended a hand. She placed her palm on his.

  “Tell me, wise king,” Makeda said as they descended the throne together. “In which garden should I walk this eve so I can gaze at the stars?”

  Nicaule, who walked behind them, understood the intimation. She had seen it coming. For all Solomon’s flaws and despite his advancing age, he had an aura women found irresistible. His wives, Nicaule excepted, clamored for his favor. Women and girls trembled as he touched their heads during public ceremonies. They all were influenced by his power and wealth, but they were spellbound by his raw sensuality. This queen was no different.

  “The orchards in front of my palace are most fragrant this time of year,” he said. “I beg you come enjoy the beauty of my private grounds. My home is as yours.”

  He kissed her hand and delivered her to her attendants.

  Nicaule stood next to him. “So lovely, this Makeda of Sheba.”

  “Yes,” he said without taking his eyes off the departing queen. “So she is.”

  That night, Nicaule went down to the orchard and hid in the shadows. She had a perverse curiosity about Solomon and Makeda. She didn’t care to spy on her husband. She was more interested in observing Makeda’s ways of seduction.

  The queen’s white gossamer gown gleamed in the starlight as she glided along the cobbled paths, stopping every so often to smell a rose or an apricot blossom. Her golden bracelets, stacked in multitude upon her wrists, chimed in concert with her gentle movements.

  As sure as the stars embroidered upon the midnight sky, Solomon came. Silently he walked behind Makeda, like a hunter stalking his prey. He watched her for a long while before taking an alternate path and appearing before her.

  The queen started. “My king.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, covering her exposed, bejeweled décoletté. “Forgive my immodest dress. I thought I was alone.”

  “I did not mean to startle you. I wanted to bring you a gift.” He handed her a small pot, the type usually reserved for unguents.

  She opened it and sniffed the contents. “What intoxicating scent is this? My nose has never encountered such intense sweetness.”

  “It is spikenard from the Orient—one of the most precious perfumes known to man. Here in Jerusalem, we use its root in worship and the oil to anoint the bodies of high-born mortals.”

  Makeda dipped her finger in the pot and drew a drop of the oil. She applied it behind her ear and made a fragrant trail to her throat. She inhaled. “Exquisite. But why give it to me now?”

  “I watched you from my window. You looked like a night-blooming flower floating on a dark sea—so ethereal, almost divine. I thought, such beauty can only be a gift from God, bestowed by the angels themselves. The perfume of the spikenard, reserved for the most high, belongs with you.”

  “Your words are like music. How can one man be so learned and wise and have a psalmist’s way with language?”

  “For whatever graces have been given me, I am in debt to the Lord Yahweh, God of the Hebrews. He is my rock and my guide.”

  She took a step toward him. “I do not know your god, but if he made you, he is a master artist.”

  He leaned down and kissed her.

  “The kisses of your mouth are better than wine,” she said.

  “Your lips are like honeycombs, and your tongue drips of milk and honey.” He kissed her again, this time more passionately. “With one look of your eye, one turn of your neck, you have ravished my heart.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Rise up, O north wind and blow upon my garden. Rouse the blossoms and awaken the spices, that my beloved, a king among men, may partake of them.” She untied her gown and let it drop to the ground, exposing taut, shimmering ebony flesh with buttocks as round as the moon and thighs like bread loaves. The vague scents of myrrh and aloe floated upon the air. If butterflies fluttered at night, they would have alighted on her fingertips. “Whatever you ask of me, O fair king, I shall give it.”

  Solomon lifted Makeda’s naked body into his arms and, with his eyes fixed upon hers, carried her into his lair.

  Nicaule’s face flushed. She felt the blood rise to her head and throb in her temples. She was suddenly aware of the departure of her youth, of the once-supple skin that now sagged upon her bones, of the cloudy veil that had descended upon her eyes. Time, that wretched thief, had vanished with her beauty and her dreams, and all that remained were the bitter leaves of regret and longing.

  Her husband had loved many women, but none had ensnared his heart. Nicaule alone had that privilege, and it gave her power. That night, all that changed.

  Makeda’s love was different. She genuinely was enthralled by him with an enthusiasm Nicaule never could muster. With Nicaule, Solomon wrestled away love that wasn’t freely given and sometimes begged on his knees for it; with Makeda, it flowed as easily as the mountain water after the spring thaw. That, coupled with the young queen’s exotic beauty, political power, and untold wealth, was a heady brew that surely warmed his soul like spring melts the snows.

  Nicaule felt alone and powerless. She suddenly saw herself dying in the hills of Jerusalem, becoming one with the ochre dust of the land of slaves. Who was the slave now? She fell to her knees and heaved, repulsed by the pathetic shadow she had become.

  19

  During the summer of her stay, Solomon had not once left Makeda’s side. Every day they spent long hours walking together in the gardens, conversing about things Nicaule could only imagine, and every night they spent in each other’s embrace.

  Nicaule had stopped stalking them, for it was too painful to watch two lovers revel in the rapture she so dearly longed for. Many nights she wondered if Solomon would tire of his new consort and call for his beloved lily of the valley. He did not. He had clear
ly found solace in the bosom of another. Nicaule had expected to feel relieved, even liberated, by his absence; instead, she was consumed by thoughts of self-pity that mounted into an anger she had never known in herself.

  It wasn’t anger at losing her husband’s heart. It was an emotion that had been building since the day she left Tanis: the resentment for being yanked from the arms of her lover and the embrace of her country by a man who claimed to adore her, who promised her the stars, but who didn’t have the decency to worship her to the end.

  She was grateful for the day of the queen’s departure. The entire court had assembled at the edge of the city to see off the Sheban caravan as it launched into a desert voyage that could last several weeks or months, depending on conditions. The camels, dressed in elaborate saddles of leather and wool and decorated with necklaces woven of goat hair, were loaded with gifts from the king of Israel: wine, olives, wheat, spices, honey, and so much Ophirian gold it took a score animals to carry it. Makeda’s men, numbering five hundred at least, and ladies-in-waiting, all attired in desert blues from their turbaned heads to their ankles, lined up in front of the city gates, waiting for their queen’s command.

  As protocol demanded, Nicaule accompanied Solomon to the official sending off of the royal guest. As they stood at the open city gates waiting for Makeda, with entourage in tow, to make her way down from the palace, Nicaule watched her husband’s reaction. Though his hair had the hue of the moon, Solomon had a spring in his step. He stood on strong legs without a trace of a slouch, and his chest was puffed like a peacock’s, as it had been when she first met him.

  His gaze was riveted on Makeda as she walked toward him. His expression was not one of longing or angst over the impending separation, as Nicaule had expected, but rather one of peace. And perhaps a bit of sadness. For the first time in Solomon’s life, he would experience the unbearable weight of loss. A part of Nicaule rejoiced at the justice of it.

  Makeda, shielded from the summer sun by a silken canopy held up by her attendants, was a vision to behold. She was dressed not to take a long desert journey but to attend a royal feast. A gown of scarlet silk embroidered with golden leaves clung to her curvaceous frame, teasing the imagination. A short mantle of leopard’s hide, fastened with a tiger’s eye as big as a child’s fist, hung over her shoulders. Her hair was pinned high on her head and draped with a transparent spiderweb veil that covered her face like the cool mist of a waterfall.

  Nicaule felt the familiar gnawing at her core. She averted her eyes, lest they be blinded by that intolerable beauty.

  The queen approached Solomon and took his outstretched hands. “It pains me to say good-bye,” she said.

  He was silent. Nicaule imagined he was overcome with emotion.

  “You have taught me much,” Makeda continued. “Your kindness and generosity are unprecedented. Your wisdom knows no bounds.”

  He bowed. “I cannot take credit for gifts bestowed upon me by God.”

  “I will not forget the teachings you have shared with me. I will take them to my people, that their hearts may be fortified. And I will go forth a follower of Yahweh, for any god that made you, dear Solomon, is a god worthy of worship.”

  Nicaule’s brow furrowed. Had Solomon, whose faith had faltered so obviously of late, regained the favor of his god? Had he converted Makeda?

  “It pleases me to know this,” he said. “It is you, O splendid queen, who restored my faith. In you, I have known true amity. I am forever bound to you.”

  “And I to you.”

  Nicaule felt bile rise to her throat. She begged the sun god to put an end to the unbearable charade.

  “There is one more thing I must ask of you,” Solomon said.

  “I will do anything.”

  He signaled to one of his officers. The man approached, presenting a small package wrapped in pristine white linen. Solomon took it from him and unwrapped the linen, exposing a small alabaster box stamped with his royal insignia. “This is the message of which I spoke. I beg you carry it back to your kingdom and keep it safe.”

  She accepted it. “I will do as you command. I will guard it until he comes to claim it.”

  What did she mean? Who was he? And what was this message? Nicaule felt like a disinherited child, suddenly left on the streets without a crust of bread while the rest of the clan feasted.

  Solomon and Makeda touched foreheads. Nicaule thought she saw tears glisten through the queen’s silken veil.

  “May the Lord accompany you on your journey,” Solomon said.

  “Will I see you again?”

  He stepped back. “The years have mounted, dear Makeda, and I grow old. I do not know how much longer before the angel calls to me.”

  She placed a hand on her abdomen. “Come what may, the grace of Solomon will be with me forever.” She bowed and walked toward the gate.

  Solomon and Nicaule watched as Makeda entered her palanquin and was carried into the caravan. The blue riders spurred their camels, and the royal procession was on the move.

  Nicaule turned to her husband. “Perhaps now you will come back to me.”

  His eyes were riveted on the departing caravan. “Do not wait for me, Wife. There is a long journey I must take. I will be gone by morrow.”

  “A journey? To where? And with whom?”

  “I will go alone. I cannot say where.”

  For the first time in their marriage, he was shutting her out. The insult made her furious. “At your age, such things are folly. I beg you reconsider.”

  He turned to her. His gaze was distant. “Worry not about me. The Lord will be my anchor and my ballast.”

  She could no longer hold back. “Look around you, Solomon. Jerusalem is crumbling to dust. Anger is seething among the people. Your enemies are circling you like birds of prey, and you don’t even know it. Open your eyes! Your Lord has abandoned you. Or should I say, you have abandoned him?”

  He swung the back of his hand as if he would strike her. Though he didn’t touch her, Nicaule instinctively stumbled backward and fell on her backside.

  Solomon’s face was stern and unyielding as he walked away. She knew it was the last time she would see him.

  Humiliated and bristling with rage, she got to her feet and hastened toward her palace.

  Desperate to talk to someone, Nicaule entered Irisi’s chamber as she took a midday nap. She walked to the writing table where the scribe’s instruments were spread about. A reed dipped in ink lay on the wood, black drops splattered around it. A stick of beeswax sat atop a stack of papyrus sheets next to an unlit oil lamp.

  Two stones—one flat with an indentation, the other the size and shape of a pomegranate—caught Nicaule’s eye. Unsure of their function, she picked up the round stone. Surprisingly, it weighed as much as a summer melon. On its underside were minute copper filings. Irisi must have mixed them into the ink to make it fast. She replaced the stone on its flat counterpart without taking care to be quiet.

  Irisi woke at the sound. “My lady,” she croaked. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry to wake you. I needed to talk.” She walked to Irisi’s bed and helped her to her feet.

  Irisi had become so frail. Her spine no longer held up her body, and she bent at the waist as she walked. Her limbs, spindly since her youth, were reduced to skin and bone. Despite her physical limitations, however, her eyes still sparkled with curiosity, and her hands were steady as ashlars in the wind.

  The two women sat on a rough-hewn wood bench next to the scribe’s table. Nicaule took her friend’s hands and began with a sigh. “O dear Irisi, how life has changed. I once was the rose among thorns, the lily of the valley, the song of the dove at dawn. And now I am nothing, a grain of sand in the desert. If not for you, my dear old friend, I would be completely alone. Shoshenq, I fear, has forgotten me. My daughter does not speak to me. And now, with the arrival of that woman” —she spat out the words—“even Solomon has abandoned me.”

  Irisi smiled. The
re was kindness in her eyes. “You still are as you have always been: Nicaule Tashere of Egypt, daughter of kings. No matter what life brings, this no one will take away.”

  Nicaule scoffed. “Old age has turned us into paupers, though it is not material wealth we want. We are poor in beauty and vigor and therefore deprived of society’s favor. Once we made men’s hearts stop by merely gazing out our windows, and now the only glances we receive are of pity. No one wants an old woman, Irisi. No one cares about us.”

  “My lady, old age is merely a reflection of the way we lived our lives, of the choices we made when we were younger. Those who have lived righteously have nothing to fear. No one dies alone who has peace in her heart.”

  Nicaule bristled at the words. Whether by design or by circumstance, she had not known peace. For a fleeting moment, she considered she might have been to blame. Had she accepted her fate then, had she not tried so hard to swim against the current, she might have grown old without despair.

  No, she told herself. She could not be condemned for holding on to her dream. Any woman of principle and steadfast soul would have done the same. It was the most noble of endeavors, and anyone who stood as an obstacle to it was the personification of evil.

  The thought was like wood in the fire of her hatred for Solomon, the architect of her misfortune. She shook off the unwelcome sentiment by changing the subject. “I envy you, dear friend, for not having known a man’s love. Love is like the khamsin that stirs the sea, casting everything upon it into turmoil. In the face of such fury, even a boat with good ballast and sound sail is upended. You are blessed not knowing the power of such a storm.”

  “It may be long ago, but I have known love. When it is true, love is not a tempest but a woolen cloak that keeps out life’s chill.”

  Nicaule’s face collapsed into a look of pity. “O Irisi . . . an arranged marriage has little to do with love. It is merely a comfort for the weak.” The thought that crossed her mind was wicked, but she voiced it anyway. “Love is when someone chooses you, not when one is chosen for you.”