The Ring of Solomon

by Jonathan Stroud

  With a twirl of his staff, the vizier beckoned the circle forward; each magician, in turn, bowed low before the throne.

  Solomon considered them a while, then spoke: ‘Khaba.’

  Deliberate, stately, soft-footed as a cat, a man stepped from the circle. ‘Master.’

  ‘You have a sombre reputation.’

  ‘Master, I do.’

  ‘You treat your slaves with appropriate severity.’

  ‘Master, I take pride in my harshness, and I do well to do so, for demons combine ferocity with infinite cunning, and their nature is vindictive and malign.’

  Solomon stroked his chin. ‘Indeed … Khaba, I believe you already have in your employment several other recalcitrant spirits that have recently proved troublesome.’

  ‘Master, this is true. Each loudly regrets its past audacity.’

  ‘Will you agree to add this wicked Bartimaeus to your roster?’

  Khaba was Egyptian, a man of arresting appearance, tall, broad-shouldered and strong of limb. His skull, like all the magician-priests of Thebes, had been shaved and waxed until it shone. His nose was aquiline, his brow heavy, his lips narrow, bloodless, tight as bow-strings. His eyes hung like soft black moons in the wasteland of his face, and glistened perpetually as if they were close to tears. He nodded. ‘Master, as in all things I follow your requirements and your will.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Solomon took a sip of wine. ‘See that Bartimaeus is brought to heel and learns respect. Hiram will bring you the relevant cylinders and tablets when Ezekiel’s tower is cleared. That is all.’

  Khaba bowed and returned to his place amongst the crowd, his shadow trailing like a cloak behind him.

  ‘With that settled,’ Solomon said, ‘we may return to other matters. Hiram?’

  The vizier clicked his fingers. A small white mouse somersaulted out of the empty air and landed on his hand. It carried a papyrus scroll, which it unfurled and held ready for his inspection. Hiram studied the lists briefly. ‘We have thirty-two judicial cases, Master,’ he said, ‘that have been referred to you by your magicians. The plaintiffs await your judgement. Among the issues to be dealt with are a murder, three assaults, a marriage in difficulties and a neighbourly dispute regarding a missing goat.’

  The king’s face was impassive. ‘Very well. What else?’

  ‘As always, many petitioners from far afield have come to ask your aid. I have chosen twenty to make formal appeals to you today.’

  ‘I will hear them. Is that all?’

  ‘No, Master. Word has come from our djinn patrols in the southern deserts. They report further attacks by brigands. Remote farmsteads have been burned and the inhabitants slaughtered, and there have been depredations on the trade routes too – caravans attacked, and travellers robbed.’

  Solomon shifted in his chair. ‘Who controls the southern patrols?’

  A magician spoke, a woman of Nubia, dressed in a robe of tightly wound yellow cloth. ‘I, Master.’

  ‘Summon more demons, Elbesh! Track down these “brigands”! Discover the truth: are they simple outlaws, or mercenaries working for foreign kings? Report to me tomorrow.’

  The woman grimaced. ‘Yes, Master … only—’

  The king frowned. ‘Only what?’

  ‘Master, saving your pardon, I already control nine strong, unruly djinn. This takes up all my energies. To summon yet more slaves will be difficult.’

  ‘I see.’ The king cast his eyes impatiently across the circle. ‘Then Reuben and Nisroch will assist you in this little task. Now—’

  A tousle-bearded magician raised his hand. ‘Great King, forgive me! I too am presently somewhat stretched.’

  The man beside him nodded. ‘And I!’

  Now the vizier, Hiram, ventured to speak out. ‘Master, the deserts are vast and the resources of we, your servants, are limited. Is this not a time when you might consider aiding us? When, possibly, you might—’ He halted.

  Solomon’s kohl-rimmed eyes blinked slowly, like a cat’s. ‘Go on.’

  Hiram swallowed. Already he had said too much. ‘When … perhaps you might consider using’ – his voice was very faint – ‘the Ring?’

  The king’s expression darkened. The knuckles of his left hand gripped white upon the arm-rest of the throne. ‘You question my commands, Hiram,’ Solomon said softly.

  ‘Great Master, please! I meant no offence!’

  ‘You dare pronounce how my power might be used.’

  ‘No! I spoke without thinking!’

  ‘Can it be you truly wish for this?’ The left hand shifted; on the little finger a flash of gold and black obsidian caught the light. Below the throne the lion-afrits drew back their lips and made snapping noises in their throats.

  ‘No, Master! Please!’ The vizier cowered to the floor; his mouse sought concealment in his robes. Across the hall the assembled watchers murmured and drew back.

  The king reached out, turned the Ring upon his finger. There was a thud of sound, a buffet of air. A darkness fell across the hall, and in the centre of that darkness a Presence stood tall and silent beside the throne. Four hundred and thirty-seven people fell flat upon their faces as if they had been struck.

  In the shadows of the throne Solomon’s face was terrible, contorted. His voice echoed as if from a cavern in the earth: ‘I say to all of you: Be careful what you desire.’

  He turned the Ring again upon his finger. At once the Presence vanished; the hall was filled with sudden light and there were birds singing in the gardens.

  Slowly, unsteadily, magicians, courtiers, wives and supplicants got to their collective feet.

  Solomon’s face was calm again. ‘Send your demons out into the desert,’ he said. ‘Capture the brigands as I requested.’ He took a sip of wine, and looked towards the gardens where, as so often, faint music could now be heard, though the musicians were never seen. ‘One other thing, Hiram,’ he said at last. ‘You have not yet told me of Sheba. Has the messenger returned? Have we heard the queen’s response?’

  The vizier had risen and was dabbing at a trickle of blood coming from his nose. He swallowed; the day was not going well for him. ‘Master, we have.’

  ‘And?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Once again, unbelievably, the queen rejects your offer of marriage and refuses to be numbered among your exquisite consorts.’ The vizier paused to allow the expected gasps and flutterings from among the assembled wives. ‘Her explanation, such as it is, is this: as the actual ruler of her nation, rather than the mere daughter of its king’ – further gasps sounded at this juncture, and several snorts – ‘she cannot possibly leave it for a life of leisure, even to bask in your glorious radiance in Jerusalem. She deeply regrets this inability to comply, and offers her eternal friendship, and that of Sheba, to you and your people until, and I quote’ – he checked the scroll once more – ‘“the towers of Marib fall and the eternal Sun goes out” … Essentially, Master, it’s another No.’

  The vizier finished and, without daring to look towards the king, made a great business of rolling up the scroll and stuffing it back into his robes. The crowd stood frozen, watching the silent figure on the throne.

  Then Solomon laughed. He took a long draught of wine. ‘So that is the word from Sheba, is it?’ he said. ‘Well, then. We will have to consider how Jerusalem responds.’

  5

  Night had fallen and the city of Marib was silent. The Queen of Sheba sat alone in her chamber, reading from her sacred texts. As she reached for her wine cup, she heard a fluttering at the window. A bird stood there, an eagle, shaking flecks of ice off its feathers and regarding her intently with its cold, black eyes. The queen watched it for a moment; then, because she understood the illusions of the spirits of the air, said: ‘If you come in peace, step inside, and be welcome.’

  At this the eagle hopped off the sill and became a slim young man, golden-haired and handsome, with eyes as black and cold as the bird’s had been and a bare chest studded with flecks of
ice.

  The young man said: ‘I bear a message for the queen of this land.’

  The queen smiled. ‘I am she. You have come far, and at high altitude. You are a guest of my house and I offer you all I have. Do you require refreshment or rest, or some other boon? Name it, and it shall be so.’

  And the young man said, ‘You are gracious, Queen Balkis, but I require none of those things. I must speak my message and hear your answer. Know first that I am a marid of the seventh level, and the slave of Solomon, son of David, who is King of Israel and the mightiest of magicians now living.’

  ‘Again?’ the queen said, smiling. ‘Three times I have received a question from that king, and three times I have given the same answer. The last occasion was but a week ago. I hope he has accepted my decision now, and isn’t asking it a fourth time.’

  ‘As to that,’ the young man said, ‘you shall shortly hear. Solomon offers you his greetings, and wishes you health and prosperity. He thanks you for your consideration of his last proposal, which he now formally retracts. Instead he demands you acknowledge him as your sovereign overlord and agree to pay him an annual tribute, which shall be forty sacks of sweet-scented frankincense from the forests of fair Sheba. If you agree to this, the sun will continue to smile upon your domains, and you and your descendants will for ever prosper. Refuse – and frankly the outlook is less favourable.’

  Balkis no longer smiled. She rose from her chair. ‘This is a most impudent demand! Solomon has no claim on the wealth of Sheba, just as he had no claim on me!’

  ‘You may have heard,’ the young man said, ‘that Solomon is master of a magic ring, with which he can raise an army of spirits in the blinking of an eye. For this reason the kings of Phoenicia, Lebanon, Aram, Tyre and Edom, among many others, have already sworn him fealty and friendship. They pay vast annual tributes of gold, timber, skins and salt, and think themselves fortunate to be spared his wrath.’

  ‘Sheba is an ancient, sovereign nation,’ Balkis said coldly, ‘and its queen will not bend her knee to any foreign infidel. You may return to your master and say so.’

  The young man made no move, but spoke in conversational tones. ‘In truth, O Queen, is Sheba’s suggested tribute really so terrible? Forty sacks among the hundreds that you harvest every year? That will not bankrupt you!’ White teeth shone in the smiling mouth. ‘And besides, it is certainly a lot better than being driven in rags from your ravaged land, while your cities burn and your people perish.’

  Balkis gave a little gasp and took a step in the direction of the insolent creature, but held back when she saw the glitter in the blank, dark eyes. ‘Demon, you far exceed your duties,’ she said, swallowing. ‘I demand you leave this chamber on the instant, or I shall call my priestesses to snare you in their silver nets.’

  ‘Silver nets mean nothing to me,’ the spirit said. It walked towards her.

  Balkis backed away. In the cabinet by her chair she kept a globe of crystal that, on breaking, sounded an alarm that would bring her personal guards to her. But each new step took her further from the cabinet and further from the door. Her hand strayed to the jewelled dagger in her belt.

  The demon said, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Am I not a marid, who by my whispered word can summon storms and raise new islands in the sea? Yet, despite my strength, I am the least and most miserable of the slaves of Solomon, who stands supreme of all men in his glory and his pride.’

  It halted; Balkis had not yet reached the wall, but she sensed the bricks close behind her back. She stood erect, hand upon the dagger hilt, keeping her face impassive, as she had once been taught to do.

  ‘Long ago I served the first kings of Egypt,’ the demon said. ‘I helped raise their tombs, which still remain as marvels of the world. But the greatness of those kings lies like dust before the power that Solomon now enjoys.’

  It turned away and with negligent steps crossed to stand beside the fireplace, so the remaining ice upon its shoulders melted swiftly and ran in rivulets down its long, dark limbs. It gazed into the flames. ‘Have you heard what happens when his will is crossed, O Queen?’ it said softly. ‘I have seen it from afar. He wears the Ring upon his finger. He turns it once. The Spirit of the Ring appears. Then what? Armies march across the sky, city walls crumble, the Earth opens and his enemies are devoured by fire. He brings forth spirits uncountable, faster than thought, so the midday hour grows black as midnight with their passing and the ground shudders with the beating of their wings. Do you wish to see this terror? Resist him, and it will surely come to you.’

  But Balkis had gathered herself; she strode towards the cabinet and stood there, stiff with fury, one hand on the drawer where the crystal lay. ‘I have given you my answer already,’ she said harshly. ‘Return to your master. Tell him that for a fourth time I refuse him, and that I desire no further messengers. Further, that if he persists in his cruel avarice, I shall make him regret that he ever heard my name.’

  ‘Oh, that I very much doubt,’ the young man said. ‘You have hardly the sniff of magic about you, and Marib is no great centre of sorcery or of arms. A final word before I start my long flight home. My master is not unreasonable. He knows this decision is hard for you. You have two weeks to change your mind. See there?’ The demon pointed through the window, where the moon hung yellow behind the slender mud-brick towers of the city. ‘The moon is full tonight. When it has waned to nothing, have the forty sacks piled ready in the courtyard! If you do not, Solomon’s army will take wing. Two weeks! In the meantime I thank you for your hospitality and your warming fire. Now here is a little blaze of my own. Consider it something to spur your thinking.’ It raised its hand: a bulb of orange fire swelled from the fingers, shot forth as a narrow bolt of light. The top of the nearest tower exploded in a flower of flame. Burning bricks tumbled into darkness; screams sounded across the gulf.

  With a cry, Balkis lunged forward. The young man smiled contemptuously and stepped towards the window. A blur of movement, a waft of wind – an eagle flew out between the pillars, banked around the pluming smoke, and was gone among the stars.

  Dawn came; thin grey veins of smoke still rose from the ruined tower, but the fire itself was out. It had taken the priestesses several hours to agree on the precise demon that should be summoned to fight the blaze, and by that time the flames had been quenched by water carried from the canals by hand. Queen Balkis had supervised this process, and seen the dead and wounded taken to their proper places. Now, with the city numb and quiet, she sat again beside the window of her room, watching the blue-green daylight stealing slowly across the fields.

  Balkis was twenty-nine, and had occupied the throne of Sheba for something under seven years. Like her mother, the previous queen, she met all the requirements of that sacred station, and was popular with her people. She was brisk and efficient in court policy, which pleased her counsellors; she was serious and devout in matters of religion, which pleased the priestesses of the Sun. And when the hill-men of the Hadhramaut came down into the city, with their robes weighed down with swords and silver djinn-guards, and the sacks of frankincense slung upon their camels’ shanks, she met them in the forecourt of the palace, offered them khat leaves to chew, and spoke with them knowledgeably of the weather and the difficulties of tapping resin from the trees, so that they too were pleased and returned to their villages speaking highly of Sheba’s wondrous queen.

  Her beauty didn’t hurt either. Unlike her mother, who had been strongly inclined to fat, and indeed in later years had required four young slaves to help her rise from the soft vastness of her couch, Balkis was slender and athletic and disliked assistance from anybody. She had no close confidants among her counsellors or priestesses and made her decisions alone.

  As was traditional in Sheba, all Balkis’s personal slaves were women. They fell into two categories – the maidens of her chamber, who tended to her hair and jewels and personal hygiene; and the small hereditary caste of guards, whose duty it was to keep the queen from ha
rm. Previous rulers had developed friendships with certain of these slaves, but Balkis disapproved of such notions and kept herself remote.

  The dawn light reached the canals at last; the water flared and glittered. Balkis rose, stretched, and drank a draught of wine to loosen her stiff limbs. Within moments of the attack she had known in her heart the policy she would follow, but it had taken all night for her to analyse her decision. Now, having done so, she moved seamlessly from thought to action. Crossing the room to the little cabinet beside her chair, she removed the alarm globe and crushed the fragile crystal between her fingertips.

  She waited, staring into the fire; within thirty seconds she heard the running footsteps in the hall beyond and the door spring open. Balkis, without turning, said, ‘Put away your sword, girl. The danger has passed.’

  She listened. She heard the sound of metal sliding in the leather sheath.

  Balkis said: ‘Which of my guards are you?’

  ‘Asmira, my lady.’

  ‘Asmira …’ The queen gazed at the leaping flames. ‘Good. You always were the quickest. And the most skilful too, as I recall … Do you serve me in all things, Asmira?’

  ‘My lady, I do.’

  ‘Would you lay down your life for me?’

  ‘I would do so with joy.’

  ‘Truly,’ Balkis said, ‘you are your mother’s daughter. One day soon, all Sheba will be in your debt.’ She turned then, and rewarded the girl with the full radiance of her smile. ‘Asmira, my dear, ring for the servants and have them bring us wine and cakes. I wish to talk with you.’

  When in due course Guard Captain Asmira left the royal chambers and returned to her little room, her solemn face was flushed and she was breathing hard. She sat for a while on the edge of her trestle bed, staring first at nothing, then at the old familiar cracks in the mud-brick that ran from ceiling to floor. After a time her heartbeat slowed a little and her breathing quietened, but the pride that threatened to burst within her lessened not at all. Her eyes were filled with happy tears.