“My queen,” Wahabil said the moment I took my seat, “we believe these are the routes the king means to take.” He pointed to the largest map and I could see now that two crimson strings had been laid out upon it, both originating at the port of Ezion-geber at the gulf, both running south the length of the narrow sea before parting ways: one to the east along the southern coast of Saba . . . and one to the west around the southern coast of Ophir. “On this route,” he said, pointing to the western line, “we assume they will make port in Egypt on the return if not the departure.”
“And the other route?”
“We assume they must provision somewhere along our southern coast before sailing for Hidush. But these are Phoenician navigators. Who knows how far or wide they may sail without sight of land?”
“They cannot circumnavigate us altogether,” I said, folding my hands, remarking to myself again how strange it was that I felt as composed as a statue after the wild pendulum of my emotions the last several hours.
Or perhaps it was the wine I had drunk on an empty stomach.
“The eastern-bound ships will need to take on a cargo of incense at some point in their journey,” I mused. “The world will not go without our frankincense. And neither will he.”
“But what is to keep Hadramawt from trading with him directly?” Councilor Abyada said.
“If the ships come to Hadramawt directly, Saba loses tithes and tariffs at every temple and oasis along the land route north,” Khalkharib said. “All of Saba will suffer for it.”
“But that is exactly what he means to do,” Niman said. “Without the overland expense, he stands to profit even more.”
“Saba will also lose the monopoly on the spice and textile market of Hidush and fall into competition with her own kingdoms,” Khalkharib said. “The very existence of these ships threatens Saba’s unified existence!”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I am aware.”
I leaned my chin onto my hand, staring at the map as the conversation continued across the table.
“There is Punt—”
“You are assuming his ships are willing to stop in Punt.”
“Forget the ships. We will ferry goods to Punt and carry them north by caravan to Egypt.”
Save your kingdom.
“Egypt will not deal with us, but only directly with Solomon,” I said, looking up to see who had voiced this last. Khalkharib.
“Who is to say he will cooperate with us at all? He has begun this venture without word or emissary or treaty with us!”
One way or another, we will have words. Not because I command it, but because we must.
Niman shook his head. “Khalkharib is right. It will come to war.”
“He will deal with us,” I said.
“That is easy enough to say!” Khalkharib shook his head as though I were out of my mind. For the first time since entering the room I wanted to slap him.
“And what if he doesn’t agree?” Niman said.
“We will make him agree.”
“With what leverage?” Khalkharib pressed. “He has everything to gain and nothing to lose. And what should we do—ply him with pretty words or whine like children? No. We respond with force.”
You may, as you say, need nothing of the outside world. But it will leave you behind in innovation, if not in your lifetime then in the generation to come.
“We must call for the priest and draw the lots,” Niman said.
“The lots!” Khalkharib agreed.
I shook my head. I myself had never seen the three arrows marked “Do,” “Do Not,” and “Wait.” Nor did I ever want to.
I got to my feet.
“Councilors! You are swift to war. Saba has not seen war—true war—since the days of my grandfather. Our rashness will only appear as desperation, and not gain us time in the end. You are talking about years spent rallying the enemies of a king from the corners of the continent. Of plying them with costly gifts while our caravans go without distribution. Such a war will bring no ruin to Solomon, who has the armies of Egypt and Phoenicia at his side, but only to us. The Pharaoh may be weak, but Egypt is filled with Libyan mercenaries. Phoenicia’s king is old. But they eat because of Solomon. They have iron and copper because of him. We are speaking out of pride, but there are other ways to conquer than to war with three nations. When the rains come down the wadi ravine, do we stand against them or harness their waters for our use?”
“Yes, but those are our waters. These are not our ships.”
I moved toward the middle of the table.
“He has the skill of the Phoenicians at his fingertips. He wants to cut out Saba and deal directly with her subkingdoms. In his position, I would do the same.”
Silence.
“I see for us opportunity. Far markets, and exotic imports—brought not only by camels, those ships of the desert—but by sea.”
Khalkharib gave a caustic laugh. “That is all very well! Except we do not have a fleet of Phoenician ships.”
“No. We don’t. But he does.”
Wahabil shook his head. “Even if he was amiable—which he obviously is not—we do not possess ports large enough to accommodate such ships.”
“Then we need to build them.”
“That could take years.”
“Fewer years than a war, with enough labor. And our caravans will continue in peace in the meantime, undisrupted. Perhaps even more profitably than ever.”
“How would we amass such labor? Our tribesmen are working the fields and incense harvest, shoring up canals and tending flocks and city works . . .”
“Then we will have to make treaty for it. The Israelite king did the same with Hiram of Phoenicia. Why can we not as well? You say yourself that ships—ships capable of carrying what, hundreds of men?—are being built in the gulf even now. Men capable of helping us expand our ports. Ports by which we could trade in quantities much greater than by land caravan alone.”
“What makes you think the Israelite king will even consider treating with us?” Khalkharib said.
I laughed and folded my hands. “Gentlemen. We are the most persuasive of nations. I could say that we are backed by the most powerful of gods. I could tell you that our councilors are the most astute statesmen. This is true. But our argument is far more fundamental than that. The Israelite king seeks luxury. He is jealous for the best of the world. And he has a fleet to pay for. So we will persuade him with the very thing he is eager to get out from under us: our riches. He will agree because he cannot afford not to gain Hadramawt’s incense or to lose Punt’s gold. As long as temples offer prayer to gods, as long as the dead must be prepared for burial, and as long as gold is precious, there will be markets for the wealth of Saba. And we will provide it—as a nation—far better than piecemeal as individual kingdoms, and with far better terms, from Hadramawt to Punt.”
Wahabil sat down hard. “My queen, from all I hear, he is as proud as he is cunning. This is the king to whom you have refused to send emissaries, snubbing since you came to the crown.”
“And so how intrigued he will be to receive them at last.”
“Even so, every account of this king is of a sovereign able to impress his own will upon others until they see no other way but his. They say he is imbued with the magic of his god.”
I laughed again. “Truly, do you believe this, Wahabil?”
He shook his head. “I have spoken at length with Tamrin, whom I have known for many years as stalwart. Even he anguishes when the king denies him and flourishes when he showers him with the smallest attention as though this king were the very sun. What emissary will you send to match wits with him, if he is all that they say?”
“One he dare not turn away,” I said. “Me.”
Would I be fearless or reckless?
I would be both.
FOURTEEN
I was not prepared for the assault of their outrage.
“My queen!” Wahabil dropped his hands to the table. “You cannot!”
br /> “And who says what a queen may or may not do?”
“It is too dangerous,” Niman said. Beside him, Abyada shook his head.
“Your throne will not be safe,” Wahabil said. “What is to keep another from conspiring in your absence?”
In the face of their objection, trepidation flooded me for the first time since I had entered the room.
What had I done? What had I spoken and now committed? Such bravado, once voiced, could not be taken back.
I must be clever. I must be swift.
“No one may do what I am about to do. And who has done it before?”
Even Hatshepsut, the matriarch Pharaoh, had not gone in person to Punt.
“Yes, and who has eaten a poisonous snake while it is still alive? But why would anyone want to?” Wahabil said. “If you would arrange a marriage treaty, my queen, I beg you, let your kinsmen arrange it. It is the way it is done.”
Marriage again.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or to scream at him.
“It is not such a treaty. I go as a sovereign. As one king to another. No one, even you, Khalkharib, will make our argument as vehemently as I, in the way of kings. And yet you will accompany me. You and Niman.”
More protests, but even in the uproar, the pieces came to me, swiftly, without premeditation. I felt it all with a sense of elation.
Wahabil sat back, arms in the air.
“Come now, councilors,” I said, standing before them. “Do you not know that you are saying this to the princess who journeyed with you from Punt’s shores? Who lay down beneath the stars with you, never knowing one night until the next if we would be set upon by north men? Not knowing if the wadis would fill and wash us away as we slept? Did we not march together from the coastal plain of Hadramawt and through the valleys of Qataban to the very edge of the desert?”
Niman shook his head. “That is different.”
“Yes. This journey is a stretching of the legs by comparison. A chance for me to see the northern route for myself. Of course, if you are saying that you do not feel up to the long days of travel . . .”
“I will gladly go on your behalf, as your cousin and kinsman,” Niman said.
“Then as kinsmen, we will go together.” I sat down again. “We are protected in Saba. But we are isolated. We depend on the accounts of our traders to bring news of this foreign court of which they seem so enamored, and to speak on our behalf. Let us see and assess this power—this threat—for ourselves. We have turned our eyes to our mountains and our wadis and mastered the rains. We have turned our eyes to the heavens and built temples to our gods. Now let us turn our gazes to the world. Let us not, in our isolation, find ourselves years from now an antiquated paradise, set apart like the lands of myth. One day, though it may be centuries from now, armies will come to our borders. And we cannot afford to be as innocent as children kept too long in the cradle.”
“My queen, this is not a stretching of the legs but an arduous journey of half a year!” Wahabil said. “Tamrin will attest to its sandstorms and bandits—”
“Do we not have those things here?” I said. “We are a caravan nation. When did we forget that the nomad is in our blood? We live in cities, but we are hardy and not softened by luxury. Well. Perhaps a little.” I smiled. A couple of uncomfortable chuckles issued around the table.
“Our ancestors made no allowance for weakness, and neither do we,” I continued. “And so this is less a journey to some distant land than a quest of remembering who we are. Lesser men make war and invade foreign borders for want or fear. We neither fear nor want, and we shall prove it. Let the chieftains of Edom and the Amalakites and the Pharaoh of Egypt and the kings of Phoenicia and yes, of Israel, be surprised. Would Solomon himself make this journey? He dare not! His northern tribes conspire against his south. What does it say of our kingdom, and of its queen, that she may leave with the full confidence of returning to find it intact? That the journey of a year is nothing to her? I dare any sovereign to do the same!”
I raised my palm before they could protest again.
“This is a campaign more clever than any war. We will make many arrangements. We will journey with such spectacle that he will know he has no choice but to treat with us. We will awe him not with our weapons, but with our wealth. Our incense will be as spears. Our gold as fire, and our ivory like arrows. Egypt has given him land and garrisons. Phoenicia, the materials for his temple, palace, and ships and artisans to build them all. But Saba will offer him the foreign exotic he so craves in quantities he could never imagine, and the possibility of touching the far reaches of the world . . . without leaving his throne.”
Wahabil was shaking his head. “It is too dangerous. My queen, you are without an heir. Anything could happen and Saba would be at the very war you speak against—not outside her borders, but within them.”
“I will make provision of an heir . . . by adoption,” I said, thinking quickly.
They all looked at me then in such shock!
“I will adopt an heir before Almaqah in the auspices of the temple. But I will do it in secret. Even you will not know whom I have chosen. I will seal the name in the safekeeping of the priests—of three priests in three temples. And neither you nor anyone will know which ones, so that only after confirmation of my death will they journey to Marib and break open the seal to announce that name,” I said, deciding it all even as the words flowed from my mouth.
“That—is not done,” Wahabil stammered.
“Nor is it done that a queen gets up and journeys half a world away. And yet, I will do it.”
“Adoption of an heir is not unknown. There is precedent in the adoption of a kinsman,” Niman said.
“And what great relief for you, that you need not know who and find yourself harassed by chieftains taking up sides, but only keep my throne safe in my absence, or my person safe as we journey together.” I glanced from Niman to Khalkharib.
I saw the way Wahabil considered me then, a slight smile playing about his mouth.
“But the tribes—what is to keep them from rising up in your absence?” Yatha said. “Hadramawt stands much to gain if you fail.”
I lifted my hand.
“You. Or do you not think you can control them?” I glanced around the table. “I tell you this, a mighty curse will be upon any tribe who dares in my absence. I will enact it at the temple on the day that I set out upon that road.”
My heart was soaring in my chest as I said all of this. Certainly I had no intention of dying in this venture, and a part of me now felt something I had not felt in years.
Freedom.
“But now I task you all with silence,” I said. “If word of my plan should pass beyond this chamber, I will ferret out the one who betrayed me. And for such treason, he will pay with his life. This journey will be many months, a year, in the planning. No one must know my intention to depart, or even that I have until well after I am gone.”
Now they stared at me and I knew I must be either mad or inspired.
“How is that possible?” Yatha blurted.
“We make it possible,” I said, very quietly. “And if Saba’s throne should be overrun in my absence, you will be cursed along with the tribes that rise up against me. Almaqah himself will deny you your place in the shadow land beyond death. I will inform the priests, and the curse will be put in place before my departure.”
Niman was openly searching around the room and Kalkharib looked frankly scandalized.
“But as Saba prospers,” I continued, “so will you and your tribes. When the Phoenician ships sail, the first choice of every season’s best goods will fall to you in turn. The best bull in my stables will be sent to service your she-camels and the children of your children will study in the far courts of kings. Your lowliest slave will be held in the esteem of other tribes’ chieftains, and your sons will be confidants and council to the federator of our kingdoms after me. You will want for nothing except the answers to questions that those hung
ry, landless, and afraid never have luxury to lay before the gods. And so your greatest problem will be that of what to do with so many offspring and how to distribute your great wealth upon the journey to your forefathers. But now . . .”
I gestured to Yafush and my eunuch came closer. It was early evening. To think I might even now have been crossing the causeway to the temple to marry the god. But the new moon had brought its own agenda.
“You will give me your vow beneath the blade of my eunuch before leaving this chamber.”
Yafush unsheathed his sword and raised it, tip pointed downward over Wahabil’s nape.
“My queen,” Wahabil said, head bowed. “If I have ever given you cause to doubt—”
“You have not, my friend. And so give me your vow, as you live before Almaqah’s Daughter and in the presence of the reborn god himself.”
“Almaqah himself strike me dead if I ever betray you,” Wahabil said.
Yafush moved to Yatha, who stared through his lashes, head bent, at me.
“I vow,” he said.
One by one, they swore their oath to me. Of course they did. I knew this only for grand gesture; any one of them could break it in my absence a year from now. But my spirit was already traveling that incense road, journeying north toward the oases of Yathrib and Dedan, toward Israel. Not for the sake of the king, but because I could no longer contain it here.
When they were done and Yafush stood back once more, Wahabil fairly shouted, “My queen, how will no one know you are gone?”
“I will make my plan known to you. Soon, we will give this king a spectacle that will bring him to his knees.”
By every god, what had I done?
I could not sleep but paced to the window and back. I would not take out the scroll and read it again—a tenth, an eleventh time—by light of the lamp even as Shara slept.
I told myself this audacious plan was for the sake of my kingdom. But the truth was Solomon’s letter had sent my nerves to jangling beneath my skin. Without it, I might have entertained the wooing of his enemies. Now, instead, I must woo—and turn—the ambitions of a king.