by Marc Graham
“Both boys?” the queen asked, and the women’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, Lady,” Taniri replied.
“I’m sure Prince Auriyah would have been pleased. They are healthy? Feeding well?”
“Yes, Lady.”
“Good. If you need anything of me, you have but to ask.”
“Thank you, Lady,” both women muttered.
They shied away as Bilkis approached, but relaxed when she laid her hands upon the tiny heads.
“Havah’s blessings upon you both. May your sons find worth in her service.”
The harem fell silent as Bilkis intoned her blessing. She turned away from the young women, nodded to the elders, and left the room.
“Your son’s children thrive,” Bilkis told Tadua later that evening.
The king bounced a gurgling Yahtadua on his knee, supporting the fragile head with one hand. At her words, he ceased the motion.
“They were to have been my sons,” he said glumly, “to cheer me in my waning years. Instead, the gods have heaped ashes upon my head. A man’s sons should lay his bones in the earth. As it is, I have buried half of my boys.”
Yahtadua wrapped a pudgy hand in the king’s beard and tugged the wispy hairs.
“Your son corrects you,” Bilkis said. She went to her knees before the king, laid a hand upon his thigh and stroked his cheek with the other.
“My lord, this is the gods’ blessing. Here is their reward. The son of your dotage rests upon your knee. Your loyal queen kneels before you. It is you and I who will raise him up in the way he should go, to be true and wise, faithful to you and to the gods.”
Tadua smiled, but his soft eyes belied the expression.
“If the king’s other sons are wildlings,” Bilkis added, “if they strike out against your will, you must not think it a failing of yours. You must not fear for their love. As a warrior you built your kingdom, with the sword you founded it. Your sons were raised to the bow and the spear. Their natural inclination is to violence, which is a blessing when violence is needful, but a curse in time of peace.”
Yahtadua reached for his mother, and Bilkis lifted him from the king’s lap.
“You now reign in peace,” she continued, “but your other sons know only how to rule with sharpened bronze. If you would preserve what you have built, if you would have your name and your deeds live forever, let Yahtadua be your heir. Let him be trained in the ways of peace, that your greatness may be known among all the nations.”
“Make Yahtadua my heir?” the king said, his brows knitted together. “But he is only an infant, the youngest of all my sons.”
“Was not my lord the youngest of Yishai’s sons?” Bilkis said, delivering Abdi-Havah’s prepared response for this objection. “And have you not surpassed all your brothers? Should not the seventh son of a seventh son follow in his father’s steps?”
The king leaned back and combed trembling fingers through his beard. His eyes shifted downward as Yahtadua caught hold of Bilkis’s gown and tugged away the silk to reveal a plump breast. The queen cooed at her son but made no attempt to cover herself.
“My lady’s lips are sweetened by her words of wisdom,” Tadua said, then wiped a hand across his mouth. “I would taste more.”
Bilkis allowed a slight smile.
“Rahab,” she called, her eyes never leaving the king’s.
The girl had sat silently near the hearth, spinning out wool. She set down her spindle and came to Bilkis’s side.
“Take Yahtadua to his nurse, then put him down for the night,” Bilkis told her. “The king and I have much to discuss.”
Rahab took the boy, who fussed and reached for his mother.
“Yes, Sister,” she replied, then bowed to the king. “My lord.”
Tadua made some gesture of dismissal, and Rahab carried the prince from the chamber. Even before the door closed behind them, Bilkis slipped the gown from her shoulders and let it fall about her waist. She stooped to kiss the king’s feet, then looked up at him from between his knees. Tadua’s breathing grew heavy as Bilkis eased her hands beneath his robes and slid them up his legs and along his thighs.
“What more would my lord discuss?”
26
Bilkis
Wails sliced through the curtain of Bilkis’s dreams. She opened her eyes upon the half-light of dawn. Her first thought was to have Yahtadua’s nurse beaten and cast out of the palace for allowing the prince to cry so. As sleep’s veil parted, she recognized not an infant’s petulance, but the grief of grown women.
Tadua stirred and made a guttural sound.
“Rest, Husband,” Bilkis said. “I will see what disturbs your peace.”
She disentangled herself from the sheets, slipped into her gown, and stuffed her feet into sheepskin slippers. The palace stewards had yet to kindle the hearth, so she threw the king’s heavy scarlet mantle over her shoulders. She opened the door to find Rahab in muted argument with the guard posted outside Tadua’s chamber.
“What is happening?” Bilkis demanded after she pulled the door closed.
“There is trouble in the harem,” Rahab said.
“Do not let anyone disturb the king,” Bilkis ordered the guard. “He needs his rest. What trouble?” she asked as she led Rahab along the corridor.
Rahab shook her head. “I only heard the screams from the women, then came to find you.”
When they reached the harem, the guard bowed low before Bilkis. She pushed past him and flung open the door to the women’s quarters.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “You’ll disturb the king and wake the dead with your noise.”
All the women had gathered at one end of the chamber, where space had been set aside for the nursing mothers. Taniri held a child protectively in her arms while she cursed and screamed at Pudu-Estan. The Hatti princess’s face was streaked with tears, but she returned insults and had to be restrained by the other women who added their shouts to the fray.
Mikhel sat quietly apart from the others. The erstwhile great royal wife of Tadua nestled the other infant in her arms and rocked to and fro. The former queen, alone among the widows, had borne no children, but she cuddled and kissed the fair-cheeked babe as if it were her own.
A cold voice whispered in Bilkis’s ear that all was not right. She stepped toward Mikhel, whose tears anointed the boy’s face. The baby did not fuss. He simply lay still, pale, unmoving. A shudder rippled along Bilkis’s spine when she saw the blue tinge around the tiny, pursed lips.
“What happened?” she asked. Mikhel did not respond, and it took a moment for Bilkis to realize she couldn’t be heard over the bickering women.“Quiet, you bleating goats,” she shouted. The women fell silent, save for the stifled sobs of Pudu-Estan and Haggit’s whispers of comfort.
“What is the meaning of this?” Bilkis demanded once more. The older women held their tongues and looked away. Pudu-Estan’s words remained choked with tears. Only Taniri found voice to answer the queen.
“This cow,” she said, balancing her squirming child in one arm and pointing to the Hatti, “rolled onto her son as she slept. Now she tries to claim mine for herself.”
“Not so,” Pudu-Estan objected. Between her accent and sobs, Bilkis struggled to understand her. “The demon Lilit came for her son in the night. As I slept she exchanged her dead boy for my living one. See his ruddy skin? His dark hair? Surely I know my own child.”
“Yours was the fair one,” the yellow-haired Taniri claimed. “You speak with a serpent’s twisted tongue.”
Pudu-Estan might have gouged out the other’s eyes had the older women not caught her about the waist and restrained her. “You are a murderer of children and a slayer of truth,” she spat.
The room erupted into chaos once more, and Bilkis rubbed her fingers against the ache that crept from her temple to her forehead.
“Quiet,” she shouted again, but the women were beyond hearing her.
Clearly, one of the women was lying
. The dead child’s hair did resemble Taniri’s, but did that make certainty? Another whisper sounded in Bilkis’s ear, and she cocked her head. The message—what could only be the voice of the goddess—repeated.
Bilkis stalked to the door and jerked it open. She yanked the sword from the scabbard of the startled guard, then slammed the door closed. When she swung the heavy bronze blade through a water jar, the women gave her their attention. Even Mikhel, whose focus had been entirely on the dead child, looked up.
A tightness gripped Bilkis’s stomach, clawed along her throat, and squeezed her heart and lungs. The sound of a hundred mosquitoes filled her ears as she looked from one woman to the next.
Protect your throne, the goddess whispered, her voice alone rising above the din.
“Rahab, bring me the child,” Bilkis ordered.
The girl nodded and stepped toward Mikhel.
“Not him.” Bilkis pointed the sword toward Taniri with her mewling infant. “That one.”
“Sister—”
“Do it,” Bilkis snapped.
Rahab looked from Bilkis to the women, then slowly obeyed. She lifted the child from Taniri’s arms. Pudu-Estan began to protest, but the other women hushed her.
“Put him there.” Bilkis indicated a low brass table, wet and littered with fragments of the water jar.
The girl did as she was told, then stepped away. The infant squalled in protest at being left alone on the cold, wet metal.
“Does anyone speak for one of these women?” Bilkis asked, her words slow and measured. “Does anyone call the other a speaker of falsehood?”
“She lies,” Pudu-Estan declared. “Please, let me have my son.”
“The child is mine,” Taniri countered. “That Hatti whore is the one who lies.”
Bilkis raised her empty hand. “Enough.” The young women glared at one another, but said no more.
“No one else speaks?” Bilkis prompted, and received only silence. “Very well. As we have but these two competing claims, it is left to us to decide.”
The queen stood over the child and gripped the sword’s hilt with both hands. She raised the blade over her head, the scarlet mantle falling to the floor as she did so.
“As both of you claim this child, you each shall have a share of him.”
“No,” Pudu-Estan cried. “It was me. I lied. The child belongs to Taniri. Let her have him. Only let him live.”
“The queen has spoken justly,” Taniri countered. “Let her do as she deems best.”
Bilkis paused. Her eyes flicked from one woman to the other, the truth made clear by word and deed.
Another truth stood plainly before her. One potential rival to Yahtadua’s future—to Bilkis’s own future—lay dead in Mikhel’s arms. Another lay squirming upon the table.
Protect your throne, the goddess again advised her. Bilkis had given up a child of her own, given a son to the goddess so that her other son could gain that throne. But could she ask another woman to make a similar sacrifice? The sword wavered and grew heavier in her hands.
“Do it,” Taniri shouted.
The room again burst into a storm of voices, Taniri’s calling for blood, the others pleading for mercy.
“Sister, please.” Rahab’s voice slashed through the cacophony like lightning through a storm cloud, but another voice flashed even brighter.
Protect your son.
Bilkis swung the sword.
A SONG OF GATHERING
27
Makeda
Seasons passed. Stars, moon, and sun tracked their courses. Three times the Wadi Dhanah flooded. Three times devastation transformed to life as the floodwaters fed the fields of Maryaba.
The Council of Elders, bolstered now by emissaries from Timnah and Qani and Nahran—even a pair of Bedou from the desert tribes—formed the Grand Council of Saba. In the absence of a Mukarrib, the old men sat and argued, chewed their bunn berries and drank their beer, while all of Saba shared in the labor and the bounty of Maryaba’s oasis.
And I thrived. Not yet a woman, I was still too young to marry Dhamar of Timnah and take my place as Mukarrib. I spent my days among the crops, studying the plants and the creatures—animal and human—that tended them. By night I tracked the moon and stars until I knew their cycles, their risings and their settings.
Shayma, an old widow who’d moved into the tower house to look after me, told me the names of the Star Dwellers and the stories of their origins. I’d listened dutifully, more interested in their importance to my people than in the myths. When the stars of the Maiden appeared in the evening sky, Elmakah’s storm clouds would soon form in the west, presage of the flooding of Wadi Dhanah. With the arrival of the Archer came the time for the first harvest.
“You should be resting,” Shayma chided me, as she did most mornings, “not spending your night in the cold, looking at nothing.”
“How can you say that?” I asked as I sat at the table. “You taught me about the Star Dwellers. Am I now to ignore them?”
“I taught you those stories so you could tell them yourself one day.” Shayma sat down and wrapped thick, callused fingers around mine. “The tales are meant to be shared around the hearth with children. Or on a lover’s pillow.” She waggled one hairless eyebrow and gave a toothless grin. “Don’t forget your pomegranate.”
I eyed the pomegranate, could almost taste its juice, feel its pulp burst on my tongue. I craved it, but, since learning Shayma’s purpose in serving it to me, refused to indulge myself.
“Lord Dhamar arrives today, yes?” Shayma asked, as though sensing my thoughts.
The sowing equinox was in three days’ time and was one of four yearly festivals when the lords of Saba convened at Maryaba. Here they would worship the gods, make new laws, and pledge fidelity to one another. Their real intent, I knew, was to inspect the dam and the fields, and to ensure each received a proper share of the harvest.
For Watar of Timnah, there was another reason. Along with the dam and the crops he would also inspect me, to determine whether I was ready to marry and produce his grandchild who would become Mukarrib of all Saba.
“I’m going to the vineyards,” I said, ignoring Shayma’s question.
“Don’t forget your pomegranate.”
I started to protest but checked myself and picked up the fruit. Easier simply to take it and placate the old woman. I could always give it to a beggar.
I climbed down from the tower house—the old wooden ladder having been replaced with a mud-brick stairway—and wandered toward the city’s gate. Crowds swarmed the streets of Maryaba. The city’s population had nearly tripled since the dam’s completion. Scores of children had been born and more than half survived, thanks to the increased food stores. The majority of the influx, however, were immigrants from across Saba, from the desert tribes, even from Uwene beyond the sea. All were drawn by the prosperity wrought by the dam and fields, and by the peace that reigned throughout the land.
In the marketplace, carts and stalls held all manner of foodstuffs, crafts, and wares. It had been more than four years since a trade caravan had come to Maryaba, so there were no exotic silks or gems or spices. A few luxuries arrived from Uwene, but those ivories and pelts were quickly snatched up by the wealthier elders.
I ignored the merchants and passed on to the great wooden gate. Yanuf sat behind a table, a brightly dyed awning stretched over him while he collected tolls on the goods that entered the city.
“The shara’s husband arrives today.” Yanuf spoke to the merchant who stood before his table, but his voice was raised so I knew the words were for me. “An ugly toad of a man. All warts and pocks, but at least he’s a weakling.”
I stopped and glared at Yanuf.
“Oh, of course he has good qualities.” The old warrior scratched under his beard as he tried to think of some. “He’s old,” he finally offered. “Must be nigh on twenty years, so he shouldn’t vex his wife for too long.”
I hurled the pomegranate at Yanuf. Th
e waiting merchant chose a poor time to shift his position, and the juice-laden fruit took him full in the back. Yanuf’s laughter echoed through the marketplace, while I slunk behind a donkey and sidled out the gate.
Yanuf’s jests burrowed into my heart as I followed the pathway that led to the dam. I despised Dhamar, dreaded the very notion of becoming his wife, but saw no alternative. The great dam had been built and the crops secured by the peace between Maryaba and Timnah. A peace brokered between Mother and Watar as the dowry for their heirs.
I’d discussed the matter with Yanuf, who had become a father to me. The old warrior could see no other way—none that kept the peace—than for me to fulfill my mother’s bargain. He’d consoled me, then set about a series of jests and teasing that appeared to have no end.
The strategy had worked, I admitted. My irritation with Yanuf’s continual jibes kept my thoughts from the dread that soured my stomach, a dread that Shayma dismissed.
“Any woman should be fortunate to win such a man as Dhamar,” the old woman repeatedly told me. “Spun on the wheel of the gods, that one.”
She made a point. Dhamar was the very image of manhood. His limbs lean and muscled, he moved with a lion’s grace. He could outrun, outfight, and outshoot any other man. More than a few girls of Maryaba claimed the lord’s attentions. I drew their looks in the market as Bilkis had so long ago. Looks of awe and envy from the young women who craved my fate.
They could have it. For all his manly grace, Dhamar of Timnah was an ill-formed wretch. A black emptiness sat in him where in other men dwelt honor, duty, gentleness. Without these, he was nothing more than an eye-pleasing beast. Men might admire him, women desire him, but he would never win the hearts of his people—or the love of his bride.
A pang of anxiety twisted deep within me, and I gasped with the suddenness of it. I pressed a hand to my belly as I continued up the path to the vineyards, then turned off the path when I reached the rows of grapevines.
