by D. J. Niko
“As we stand here, my ally, Jeroboam, son of Nebat, is being crowned king of the ten tribes of Israel. He will make his palace in Shechem and will rule the Israelites with the guidance of Egypt.” His biceps rippled as he crossed his arms. “The tribes of Judah and Benjamin have been less cooperative. They seem to be loyal to you. But my men have weakened them. They have killed their sons and raped their women, burned their homes and taken their horses. It will not be long before they turn from their leader”—he smirked—“the one who is not strong enough to protect them from their adversaries.”
Rehoboam spoke through clenched teeth. “What is it you want, Shoshenq of the Ma?”
Shoshenq drew his sword and ran his fingertip across the edge. “Two things. All the gold from the house of your god”—he nodded toward Nicaule—“and the woman you hold prisoner.”
Her heart leapt. He had come for her, after all. The elaborate campaign, the atrocities and demands, all were ruses to mask what he really wanted: the woman who had seized his heart and held it captive all those years. She was desperate to run to him but could not for her bonds.
Rehoboam looked over his shoulder at Nicaule, then back at his rival. “If I do this . . . what will I receive in exchange?”
“What remains of your kingdom. You will continue to reign over Benjamin and Judah in this new, divided Israel.”
“And if I do not meet your demands?”
“My honor commands that I fight you to the death. We shall draw swords, and he who remains alive shall keep the spoils.”
“I require a moment to speak with my council,” Rehoboam said. Shoshenq nodded, and the king retreated to a huddle of men.
Nicaule did not shift her gaze from him. He rewarded her with a glance and a half smile, then looked straight ahead. Whatever Rehoboam’s decision, she was certain she would soon be in Shoshenq’s arms. Even if the Hebrew king chose to fight, he could not win against a man bred for war. Shoshenq’s ability with the sword and his battle instinct were legendary in all of Egypt and across the deserts of Libya. He had skewered opponents far worthier than Solomon’s fainthearted son.
Rehoboam stepped out of the circle and walked toward the pharaoh. “Take the gold and the woman, and leave me my crown.”
Nicaule was not at all surprised. She expected no more of the weakling who reigned in Jerusalem. A king who chose not to fight for his honor or on the moral ground of his faith: it was a spectacle worse than a massacre.
Rehoboam motioned toward her. “Release her.”
Behind her, hands cut her jute bonds. She stood on shaky legs and regarded the man for whom she had waited so long. There was no tenderness in Shoshenq’s eyes, only the hard glare of a warrior. She searched her depths for the emotion she had expected to feel at that moment, but it would not come. Time had robbed her of even this.
She went to him. They stood in silence before each other for a long moment. “You came for me. After so many years, I thought—”
“The men of the Ma do not forget their promises,” he said. “Where is my son?”
She lowered her gaze. She felt ashamed for the lie she had told in a moment of weakness and never retracted. Irisi’s prophetic words, spoken as she committed the invention to a scroll of papyrus, floated to the forefront of Nicaule’s consciousness: You cannot escape your fate, my lady. Whatever it is, it will hunt you and draw level to you. Even if it meant ruin, there was nothing to do but tell the truth. “There was never a son. A daughter was born unto me of your seed.”
“You have deceived me.” His voice thundered like stones tumbling in a quake.
“Do not judge me, my lord. I wanted only to hasten our reunion. If you had known the child born of our love was a girl, I feared you would not come.”
“Did you not trust in my integrity? Did you not know I would keep my promise regardless of circumstances?” His face was tight, his kohl-rimmed eyes narrow, his fists clenched. She thought he might strike her.
“Never have I questioned you, my lord; you must believe that.” A knot rose to Nicaule’s throat, causing her voice to shake. “Our daughter’s name is Basemath. She is in the North, taken prisoner by your men and held in Jeroboam’s custody. I fear for her fate. She is a spirited one, like her father.”
He called to a soldier from his personal guard and had a conference in private. The soldier nodded and mounted his horse. He galloped down the mountain, leaving behind a cloud of red dust.
Shoshenq turned to Nicaule. “Go into my chariot. We ride for the Jezreel Valley.”
She took his hands in hers and bowed. “Thank you, my lord.”
“I am a man of my word. I will take you and my child back to Tanis. But your trickery I cannot forgive.” He pulled his hands away.
His words stung like a strike across her face. She had been granted her wish to return to her homeland, but without his favor it was a meaningless victory. She searched his raven eyes for any trace of the lover she knew. “What will become of us?”
“There is no returning to the past.”
Her body tensed, and her breath was trapped inside her lungs. “Do not speak such things. I have been a wife to you, if not in flesh, in spirit. I have grown old waiting, not once wavering in my devotion.” Her words were not getting through. His unyielding expression made her feel like a beggar.
His gaze traveled down her body, and she felt the heat of his judgment. “You have acted dishonorably. The code of my ancestors requires me to exact retribution.”
She swallowed hard. There was nothing left to say in her defense. Whatever he dealt, she would have to accept.
His words came down like an iron hammer. “You will live in the royal court as a servant to my first wife.”
She lowered her head and wept. A high-born Egyptian ministering to the whims of a Meshwesh tribeswoman: it was the ultimate indignity. She imagined tending to the woman who shared Shoshenq’s bed—drawing her perfumed baths, stuffing her into dresses for feasts and state visits, applying unguents to her russet skin—and wanted to fall upon his sword. What purpose would there be to such a life?
Perhaps it was the punishment she deserved. She had brought this upon herself. All the lies and deception, executed in the name of loyalty to her country but really done for the favor of a man, had trapped her in a fiery circle of betrayal whose flames she had lit and now could not escape.
Images of Solomon, serene-faced and young, flashed in her mind. He had loved her unto his death, yet she rewarded his affection with spite, selling his secrets to his enemies at the cost of her own soul. All the while, she was a pawn in a man’s game and could not see it. At that moment, when the curtain at last was lifted, she cursed the hubris that had blinded her to the truth in all its ugliness: Shoshenq desired her when he was young and naïve. As time had passed and power shifted, she’d become more useful to him as a spy than a lover.
Shoshenq’s voice boomed as he addressed his men. “Pillage the temple of Solomon. Leave no gold unclaimed.”
“What of the city, my lord?” one soldier asked.
Shoshenq gazed at the temple, then at the settlement tumbling down the hillside. “Leave it be.” He turned to Rehoboam. “Keep your kingdom.” With a sneer, he added, “Such as it is.”
With swift steps he walked to the chariot. Nicaule followed without hastening her stride. As the fragile pewter light broke through a gathering of clouds, she gazed at the smoldering ruins of Solomon’s city and felt the claws of regret pierce the armor of her heart. She knew it as surely as the breeze stirred from the east: the gods demanded her atonement.
22
Jezreel Valley
The rustling of fabric had never sounded so profane than at the moment Jeroboam entered the tent of captivity.
Basemath stood at the far edge with her arms wrapped around her, gritting her teeth. Her gaze was nailed on his as he approached with slow, arrogant steps.
He stopped a few palms’ width away from her. “The night is long, yet morrow comes too swiftly
for the hunted.”
She stared at him with hard eyes.
“Day breaks, and your judgment is upon you. What is your decision?”
She had made up her mind but was not ready to utter the words. “I want to see my daughter.”
“She may be otherwise engaged.” He smirked. “Passing by the officer’s tent last night, I could hear her cries, like a dog howling at the moon.”
Searing blood filled Basemath’s face. Through clenched teeth she said, “You lie.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
With a primal yell she lunged at him, striking him with her fists.
He grabbed her wrists and bore down on them until she shrieked with pain. He hurled her onto the ground.
She landed hard on her side. At that moment she felt defeated, as if all hope had left her. She wanted to die.
Trembling, she sat up. “Tell me, Jeroboam.” She spat out the words. “How does it feel to forsake your people and sell your soul to the enemy?”
He tossed his head back and laughed loudly. “You dare ask me this? The only one who forsook his people, Princess, was your father. He did not heed their cries against oppression but tightened their yoke instead. I am fighting for the tribes of Israel in the name of God, who has appointed me. The alliance with Egypt is nothing but a means to an end. Of all people, you, who were born of such an alliance, should understand this. But I suppose you are too taken with your childish idealism and your blind loyalty to the house of David, even though it is woefully bereft of glory.”
“You know nothing of loyalty, traitor.”
“Enough!” he barked. “I am here to get your decision, nothing more. What will you have—exile . . . or death?”
The sound of horses’ hooves came from the distance. It grew loud and steady, like a drumbeat. Jeroboam parted the tent flap and peered toward the commotion.
“The pharaoh’s horsemen.” He turned to her. “Wait here.”
Basemath exhaled. Thoughts of Ana swirled in her mind, heightening her anxiety. She wanted to believe Jeroboam lied to weaken her spirit, but she knew better. She put nothing past the Egyptian barbarians. She shivered as terror’s cold hand gripped her body. Whatever fate she chose for herself, she could not leave her daughter to the savages.
She missed Ahimaaz. Though she did not regret sending him off to Jerusalem to warn the king, a part of her longed to have him by her side at this critical moment. It grieved her to know she would never see him again. She had grown to love him and, perhaps more importantly, to respect him for his piety and steadfastness. It took an extraordinary man to have the heart of both a warrior and a holy man.
Surely Ahimaaz had reached Jerusalem. Had he gotten to Rehoboam in time? Was the holy city under attack? She recalled her father’s words—I fear the day will come when my heirs will see the Lord’s house destroyed by Jerusalem’s enemies—and realized for the first time Solomon was a prophet. By divine guidance, he had foreseen this moment. He knew the future just as he knew the nature of all things. She was grateful he had the foresight to hide the treasures of his kingdom. Even if it would take a thousand years, the moment would come when Solomon’s righteous heir would find them. It gave her comfort to believe it.
“The captain calls for you.”
The Egyptian guard’s booming voice startled her. Basemath drew a deep breath to steady her nerves and exited the tent at his command.
Morning’s brilliant white light flooded her eyes, and she raised a hand to shield them. She squinted to focus on the guard’s spear, which pointed to a group of men standing by the spent campfire. She straightened her tunic and felt the hard outline of Ahimaaz’s khopesh resting against her hip. She was ready.
With the guard’s spear in the small of her back, she walked toward the four Egyptians dressed for battle in fish-scale leather chest armor, white linen kilts, and tasseled leather helmets. Jeroboam was standing among them, clutching a papyrus scroll. His forehead was pinched, the corners of his mouth downturned.
The guard delivered her to the circle of men. She stood stone-faced before her captor. The morning breeze blew coarse ungroomed strands of hair across her face, and she did not bother to push them away.
“There have been some interesting developments.” Jeroboam held up the scroll. “It seems your lot has been decided for you.”
Basemath parted her lips, but no words came out. Obviously the scroll was a decree from the pharaoh. But why would the Egyptian king care enough about her fate to send his messengers to the Jezreel camp?
“The pharaoh and his men reached Jerusalem in the night,” he continued. “They have plundered the palace and the temple and taken the treasures back to Tanis. Solomon’s imprint on the city of the Lord has been obliterated. The generations to come will know nothing of his glory.” He grinned. “As it should be.”
She shifted her gaze to the magenta-plumed sky. She could no longer bear to look at him.
“As we speak, Pharaoh Shoshenq rides toward Jezreel . . . with your mother.”
She snapped her head toward him. “What did you say?”
“She will return with him to Egypt. It has been her wish since she married your father.”
“Do not profess to know my mother’s wishes.”
“Perhaps you are the one who doesn’t know your mother. In fact, there is much to which you are oblivious. Let me lift the shroud from your eyes, Princess.” He revealed Nicaule’s long-held secret.
The bitter potion of the past rose to Basemath’s mouth. Though she did not justify her mother’s behavior, she finally understood it.
Had Solomon known of his wife’s love for another? His wisdom and foresight were unmatched among mortals; surely something so grave had not escaped him. But if he had recognized the trap, why had he allowed himself to be ensnared by Nicaule’s cruel heart?
She thought of the words her father spoke in the wilderness. Stand by your mother, in spite of her flaws. He knew what she was, but he could not help loving her. A wise man was still a man.
Jeroboam crossed his arms. “Have you nothing to say?”
Basemath did not want to reward the traitor with a reply.
“No? What if I tell you that her lover, Shoshenq, had promised all those years ago to release her from her bondage to the Judahite king and reclaim her as his own? This is the day of her liberation.”
Basemath’s throat convulsed, and she raised a hand to her mouth to contain the reflex. Jeroboam’s words marched in her mind like bone diggers, unearthing the skeletons of the past. She recalled her mother recounting a terrifying encounter with Hadad the Edomite in the wilderness of Zin while she was journeying to her dying father in Egypt. A few hours after, Hadad’s men had attempted to storm Solomon’s palace.
Images flashed in her mind of emissaries constantly riding from Jerusalem to Egypt, supposedly to deliver news of happy occasions in the royal household. None but Nicaule and her scribe, Irisi, knew what words were really written on those papyrus scrolls.
It was all coming together. It wasn’t Hadad or Rezon of Assyria or even Jeroboam who was Solomon’s worst nemesis; it was the woman who shared his bed.
Jeroboam shook his head and laughed in his usual mocking tone. “Not what you were expecting to hear, is it? Perhaps you’d hoped to blame the brutality of the Egyptians rather than the treachery of your own blood. It is a shame indeed when those we trust are, in truth, the perpetrators. It illuminates the wickedness of human nature. And lo, you will witness it every day for the rest of your life.”
Her forehead creased. “What do you mean to say?”
He unfurled the papyrus scroll and read from it. “Let it be known that the pharaoh Shoshenq orders the preparation of Basemath, daughter of Nicaule Tashere, for immediate removal from Israel and relocation to Tanis.”
Basemath’s eyes grew wide. She shook her head. “No. I will not.”
Jeroboam took two steps toward her. He crumpled the papyrus. “It seems to me you have no choice. T
he pharaoh has spoken.” He turned his head toward the Egyptian officers. “Men!”
The four approached. Two grabbed Basemath’s arms and pulled her away.
She dug her heels into the dirt and struggled against them. “Let me go, pigs! I will not follow. I would sooner die!”
The men clamped down on her arms. One spat out something in Egyptian she did not understand or care to. She kicked his shin. He drove an elbow into her midsection.
On her knees and doubled over, she let the tears trickle down her cheeks. She did not mind being crippled or killed, but the loss of her freedom was an indignity she was not prepared to suffer.
“It is said life comes full circle,” she heard Jeroboam say. “It happened to your mother all those years ago: leaving the land of her fathers and the man she loved for a strange, unfamiliar place where she would be held captive in a prison of gold. Now it is your turn. Your history and your destiny are one and the same.”
Hatred flashed in her eyes. “Curse you, Jeroboam. May your altar be scattered to the four winds and your house perish as wheat in the jaws of locusts.”
Jeroboam ripped off her veil and hoisted her by the hair. His mouth was twisted in a snarl. “Evil whore, I ought to kill you here and now. But it would give me greater satisfaction to watch you die slowly of the worst kind of affliction . . . subjugation and bondage.”
“Let her go.”
Jeroboam looked over Basemath’s shoulder toward the voice. “My lord.” He released his clutch, and Basemath’s long raven locks spilled around her face. He dropped to one knee and lowered his gaze.
“Face me.” The voice behind her was deep and resonant.
She turned slowly and met the pharaoh’s austere gaze. Shoshenq stood on a golden chariot pulled by two black horses wearing blankets of fish-scale leather and feathers upon their manes. The middle-aged pharaoh was dressed in royal blue leather armor with a gilded and enameled breastplate covering his chest and shoulders. The khepresh, the blue crown worn by Egyptian kings in battle, rested upon his bald head. A quiver full of arrows was slung across his back.
