by Tosca Lee
Maqar shouted toward the clamor.
I squeezed shut my eyes and opened them, willing them to see truly. I stared as the right flank shrunk in on itself, collapsing against the men of Qataban. What had happened?
And then I knew.
The men of Aman had betrayed us.
Ahead, the mounted charge had reeled left toward the onslaught of north men. In moments, we would be flanked.
“Princess!” The voice of Yafush, who might go days without speaking, startled me. Never had I heard it raised in alarm. He grabbed for me and I knew he meant to spirit me from the field before the north men reached the causeway and my escape became impossible. I jerked on the rein, too late. The large Nubian had grabbed a handful of my tunic even as my camel darted ahead.
I swung, airborne, crashed hard against the side of his mount. We fell back and Maqar’s head swiveled toward us. With a last look at me, he abruptly broke right with his father’s men.
Yafush hauled me over the neck of his camel, bent low as the volley came at last. Men staggered to the earth around us, arrows protruding from chest, thigh, and throat.
I craned to see the widening gap in our number as Nabat and the men of Saba crashed into the oncoming north men and the Qatabans fell back against the traitor tribe of Aman.
I took all of this in, vaguely aware that I couldn’t breathe, jarred by every footfall of the loping camel.
Yafush veered from the field toward the narrow causeway as a clot of north men rushed to intercept us.
Maqar. Where was Maqar? In the breach I saw the fallen, camels nosing at their unmoving masters or milling among the wounded. There—the robed figure of Asm, clutching at his leg.
And then I saw it. Aimless, head lashing to the side: the white bull camel carrying the markab.
With a violent twist that rent my gown from my shoulders, I tumbled free. No airborne moment this time—the earth tilted and slammed the breath from my body. I groped in the mud, gaping for air with lungs that refused to expand. Pain shot through the iron case of my ribs. For a moment I thought I had been struck with an archer’s arrow.
Somewhere, the cry: Saba and Almaqah!
The rain was in my eyes, stars where there should be none in a twilight that did not exist.
I spotted Yafush surrounded by north men, the clash of their swords a distant thing in a world slowly losing sound. I thought: I die. Better here, like this, than before Hagarlat’s court. Mud against my cheek.
But Maqar was on that field. Asm. Yafush, and thousands of men in a bargain I had struck with Almaqah himself.
Get up.
Breath, when it came, was an excruciating wisp, my rebellious lungs incessant at last.
The clamor of the field came roaring back.
I rolled and pain shot down my arms, sent my heart hammering into my ears. I shoved up from the ground, heavy and weightless at once, the earth spinning beneath me. Before me in the oasis, bodies sprawled like bloodied runes.
One object towered over them all: a golden ark atop a flash of white, reins trailing in the muck. I staggered . . . and then ran, nightmare slow, for the markab.
I grabbed for the bridle, missed as the snarling bull swung away, and then dove for the reins. I jerked his head around and down with all my weight. An eternity passed as my foot found purchase on his neck—I could not afford to couch and mount him—and then I was lifted up. I grabbed hold of the acacia frame, clawed my way into it, the reins wound around my hand.
“Daughter of Almaqah!” It was one of the tribesmen. I had no chance to see his scabbard—only that he was visibly in pain but holding up his riding stick to me.
I grabbed it and, clasping the acacia frame, urged the bull into a run.
Chaos. I made for the broken flank, heart thundering. I screamed for Maqar and, when I could not find him, for every god whose name I knew. A rallying shout—ahead of me, the renewed cry.
Almaqah!
I did not see the line of north men falter. Barely registered the blast of my kinsmen’s horns. With all my strength, I got to my feet in the markab.
One sight—one face—mattered to me now.
Only at the last moment did I catch sight of Maqar, hair matted to his gore-smattered face, going down just as the tribe of Aman buckled.
They say that I called down the power of Almaqah from the crescent-horned cradle of the markab as though it were a throne. That I ripped my gown, like the war-virgins of old, shouting encouragement to my warriors until the north men fell.
The truth is that Yafush reached me as I collapsed from the camel. That even after they bore me into the city and proclaimed me queen, I lay in bed with broken ribs for weeks, unwilling to wake.
My lover was dead. The crown was mine.
Hagarlat, my half-brother, Dhamar, and their influential nobles were strangled at the order of Wahabil, my new chief minister. I gave permission to Niman and our tribe-kin to raid Nashshan, Aman, and their allies in retribution. They surrounded their wells, claimed thousands of camels, and took as many slaves to be sold as far as Damascus with the first traders’ caravans.
My kinsmen returned exultant but I felt no triumph. I had gained a kingdom poisoned with regret.
I drifted between consciousness and the merciful sleep of the physician’s draught. I spoke often with Maqar in those hours until he became not a man but an ibex, his blood in a golden bowl.
At last, I woke and dashed the bottle of draught to the floor.
When Asm presided over the sacrifice of five hundred bulls and three hundred ibex at the temple in celebration, I sent a young virgin in my stead to gaze into the morbid cauldron. Asm, I knew, was puzzled that I would not divine it again and I never told him the truth: the day in the clearing I had called for incense, knowing myself close to fainting.
But as I gazed into the bowl, I had seen nothing.
FIVE
Marib, jewel of Saba, sat at the crossroads of the world. Her caravan route stretched from the highlands of southern Hadramawt north to Damascus, her sea routes from Ophir to the eastern Indus River. Anyone dealing in passage of spices, slaves, gold, ivory, incense, textiles, jewels, or exotic animals had dealings with Saba’s roads and ports. Which meant they now had dealings with me.
In my first months as queen, I sent colonists from Saba north to the great Jawf Valley, where I bestowed on them the choice fields of the traitor tribes of Nashshan and Aman. They, in turn, provided labor for the building of garrisons and new temples at the oases. The trade route—that all-important artery through the heart of Saba’s unified kingdom—was secure.
I took into my service men from the tribes and kin-tribes of those who had fought for me and a handful of Desert Wolves. I summoned the most powerful nobles of the tribal kingdoms to ritual feast within the temple complex to make pacts of federation within its auspices.
The rains had come in abundance; the fields were green with sorghum and millet. At desert’s edge, the tamarisk and mimosa were in pink bloom, the sands awash with blue heliotrope.
I funded a corps of engineers to repair the canals and stave off the ever-present silt. I consulted with Wahabil on the appointment of new ministers and vice-ministers of trade and treasury, and councilmen to the colony of Punt across the sea.
I dedicated a bronze figure of Maqar to the temple and had it installed opposite those of my mother and father—and had those of Hagarlat and my half brother ritually relieved of their curses and removed. But unlike the statue of my father, which listed his many services to the cult of Almaqah, and my mother’s, which eulogized the glory of the gods in her beauty, Maqar’s bore only the word “heart” in reminder of what Almaqah had taken from me.
I did not allow myself to think of Maqar by day. But at night, Shara, my childhood friend, held me as the tears broke like an earthen dam. I clasped the alabaster jar with the dust of his grave to my chest. It was meant to be drunk with wine for the soothing of grief, but I could not bring myself to do it, the wine in any cup too like t
he blood in the bowl.
It did not help that the aged eyes of Maqar stared out at me from the thin eyelids of his father, Salban, each time my council convened so that I could barely meet his gaze anytime he spoke. Nor when my councilors began to debate the merits of my latest marriage proposal and the question of an heir.
“I am barely upon this throne,” I said one day. “Would you see me gone from it so soon that you plan for my death?”
“Never, my queen.” The portly Abamar of Awsan bowed his head. “May you reign a hundred years.”
“And yet,” Salban said quietly, startling me. He had remained mercifully silent on the matter to date. “You considered alliance with another clan once before. Will you not consider it now?”
My fingers went cold.
I had spoken my earlier intent to marry Maqar to no one but him.
“I presume . . . that you mean my brief betrothal when I was a child,” I said, very carefully. I would not speak Sadiq’s name.
He inclined his head—too late. The question so long put to rest that night before Maqar’s death had reared up within my heart once more.
“Almaqah has set me upon this seat, as I have set you upon yours,” I said, looking meaningfully from one man to the next. “Almaqah will make the future known. For now, we have far more pressing matters.”
That summer, as gum flowed in the trees of the foothills and the frankincense farmers went out to make their cuts in the papery bark, I accepted young women from the noble families of Saba and Awsan to tend my chambers, men to oversee the stables, and priests and priestesses from entire pantheons of gods to serve my household.
I did all these things, barely reckoning the hour of the day, and the month only by the capricious moon through my window as I lay down each night.
That autumn, as tears of white resin were gathered from the frankincense trees and the rains returned again, grief ceased its nightly visit. Duty remained in its stead. I slept rarely, and when I did it was only to dream of a body-strewn field, the ibex in the clearing. At times I thought I heard the keening of souls as I woke to the wind howling through the stone mouths of the lions beneath the palace cornices. In a sweat, I went to my table to pore over the accounts of disputes settled in my name and the temple tithes gathered for public works.
“My queen,” Shara said, pushing up from the silk pillows of the bed where she slept beside me. “Will you not rest? The records will not have changed by tomorrow.”
“Soon,” I said, as I did every night.
I could not tell her that I dare not. That the office I wore like a leaden mantle had been purchased too dearly and I must wield wisely this power I resented so well. Worse, Salban’s comment had brought to barbed life the question of Maqar’s intention I had thought long buried. A thousand times I nearly sent for his father, to demand answers to questions dignity forbade me ask. It was a riddle with no answer at any rate: no confirmation of Maqar’s duplicity could ever dissuade me of his love, no denial ever put my heart to rest.
And neither would return him to me.
I knew only one thing for certain: I was queen now. And I knew nothing to do but labor all hours or go mad.
“My queen,” Wahabil said one early evening as I met with my privy council. I glanced up with a start, only then realizing that I had nodded off where I sat.
“Forgive me,” I said. “Pray continue.”
“We have held you hours in session. Perhaps a short recess,” he said, nodding to the scribe sitting in the corner. To my right and left, the others made to rise.
“No,” I said sharply. And then, “Councilor Abyada is newly married. Let us finish our business and speed him to his young wife, where his mind is, no doubt, already.” Chuckles from around the table.
“Ah,” Abyada said, with a cant of his aging head, “it is true. And yet, I am not a young man and she is vigorous for want of a child. I beg you, delay me, that I may rally my strength.”
I smiled but said, “We will continue.”
Farther down, Niman and Khalkarib exchanged glances. Yatha studied his folded hands.
“Well?” I said.
Wahabil slowly rose from his seat at the far end of the table, walked its length, and came to lean in before me, obscuring the others from view.
“My queen,” he said quietly, laying a ringed hand on the table’s polished ebony, “you are exhausted.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “I do not have the benefit of that fine qat you and Yatha favor so greatly.”
Polite laughter from the others. But Wahabil straightened and shook his head.
“We worry for your majesty. You wear yourself away. The servants say you hardly sleep, refuse all but the smallest amount of food . . .”
“My servants are women, councilor. No doubt your own mothers and wives say the same of you. They are not interested in land disputes or the condition of the dam or the southern canals or trading vast sums of myrrh for Egyptian horses.”
“And yet it is apparent to us as well. My queen, if there is some unease that keeps you from food or rest, let me send for the physician, I beg you.”
The table was silent as I felt the weight of their eyes upon me. Niman, my cousin. Abyada. Khalkharib and Yatha. Nabat, captain of my guard. Abamar. Their forbearance and impatience in varied mosaic.
“I assure you I am well,” I said. “Perhaps we should take that recess after all.”
“You are the unifier of Saba. Your person is precious to the kingdom, especially as you are without an heir. You must look to your well-being. If not for your own sake—”
I slammed my hands on the table and stood.
“What do you want of me? What have I not given to you, to Saba, that is mine to give? In what way have I failed you that you chastise me? My duty! My obedience! Myriad lives! What more do you ask?”
“My queen,” Wahabil said, “perhaps if you were to marry, it would ease your burden. And the security of an heir—”
“I will not speak of marriage!” I said, dashing a pile of parchment along with my gold cup to the floor.
I was shaking with a fury I did not understand, welled up from a source I had long thought dry.
“You, who summoned me because you did not want a Nashshan pawn on the throne.” I stared at each man in turn. “Do not think to make a man among your nobles king through me. I am queen, and by Almaqah, I will rule!”
With a last look around the table, I shoved back my chair. “This meeting is finished.”
That night, Asm came to visit me in my private chamber—the same one that had once belonged to my king father.
“Wahabil sent you,” I said wearily. Outside, drizzle fell in a constant drone. I could just make out the dull roar of the corbel lions through the sputter of a rainy season nearing its end.
“No man may send the chief priest of Almaqah anywhere,” he said. “But he did ask.”
I looked away.
“Have you come to chastise me, too?”
It had been my custom in Punt to visit during the dark moon, to observe the nightly sacrifice for Almaqah’s return to the sky. But I had not walked that narrow temple causeway since the ritual feast months ago.
“For what would I chastise you? Almaqah’s Daughter must do as she will.”
I gave a soft laugh.
“You do not believe that?”
I did not know how to say that being queen was a death sentence of loneliness. That I felt every finger’s breadth of the ever-widening gap between those closest to me and the isolation of my own counsel and the thoughts I could not, dare not, share.
Nor would I say that I had never felt more a slave or less remembered to the gods.
And so I said nothing.
“Perhaps she must remember who she is.”
I considered Asm where he lounged on the low sofa adjacent mine. He had never adopted the silver hem and hood of the other priests, his simple robe lending gravity to his position more than any flamboyance would have. He had seemed agele
ss to me always, nearly immortal except for the injury to his leg that day on the field, and the limp he would now walk with forever. The low flicker of the lamp on the gold table between us—my mother’s table, reclaimed from Hagarlat’s apartment—illuminated the rich earthen hue of his skin. It was the color of Punt and my kinsmen there, their skin a bare shade darker than my own.
“She is the queen,” I said at last, reaching for my wine.
“And beloved by her people.”
“They love me for what I might do for them,” I said. “Because they want land and trade tariffs and disputes decided in their favor.” I glanced up and he gave a slight shrug of acquiescence. “So, I think sometimes, must the gods say of us as we intone prayers of supplication. The barren woman for children, the sick for health, the farmer for rain, and the merchant for fair weather and safety.”
“The queen, for the favor already evident upon her.”
I was silent a moment before I said: “I did not know favor came at such cost.”
The priest said quietly, “There is always a price. Do you yourself not reserve your best favor for those who prove their devotion through the costliest ways? Those who send men to march for your throne even though they may die . . . who go at your bidding to build your garrisons and offer routes through their land with the best terms at their oases?”
“If what you say is true, then our worship is nothing but the brokering of deals. No man who comes into my hall does so without hope of some gain. And neither do we offer devotion except for hope of what we want. No wonder the gods scorn our attempts to control them with our piety. No wonder they strike us when we least expect it, if only to prove that we cannot,” I said bitterly.
“Do you truly think the gods so petty?”
“It is the only thing that makes sense to me,” I said. “That they act out because we have never given them what they truly want.”
