As a thousand years of custom demanded, the queen’s court was held each new and each full moon. With Queen Bilqis gone, her nephew, as regent, sat upon the Sun Throne and received petitions and granted justice. And answered questions, or tried to. After half-a-year, answering the ever more frequent questions about the queen’s continued absence grew not only difficult but tedious.
Why do men ever wish to wear a crown?
That, too, was a question Rahbarin could not answer. Serving as the queen’s substitute nearly drove him mad; no longer was his time his own, his actions unfettered. Each word must be carefully weighed, each woman or man who petitioned be granted scrupulous justice.
Now he strove to achieve justice once again, listening intently as two women quarreled over the ownership of a white camel’s calf. “The camel is mine, her calf mine as well!” “Yes, Qurrat, but who twice lent you gold to breed her to the swiftest racer in all Sheba? I, and what have I seen for it?”
“Enough.” Rahbarin lifted the leopard-headed scepter; with the movement, the golden pard’s eyes flashed emerald. “This is the camel’s second calf of a second mating? Answer only yes or no.”
The women eyed each other; greed and misgiving warred at his curt tone. At last one said, “Yes, Prince.”
“And has the loan been repaid?”
“Half, Prince,” admitted the other.
“Then Qurrat, as the owner of the camel, keeps the other half of the gold but gives this second camel calf into your keeping. Scribe, set down the judgment.”
And our Mother spare me from any more cases that could be solved by a village idiot!
The case of the white camel settled to everyone’s partial satisfaction, Rahbarin nodded, and the herald granted the next petitioner permission to approach the Sun Throne. A stout woman dressed in the neat robes of a cloth merchant came forward and planted herself before Rahbarin.
“I am Hawlyat,” the woman announced, “I speak for the Cloth Traders’ Guild.”
“What does Hawlyat of the Cloth Traders’ Guild ask of the Sun Throne?” Thus far both petitioner and ruler spoke by rote, the form laid down many lifetimes ago.
“I ask a question.”
“That is your right.” Rahbarin studied the woman’s face and sighed inwardly. The set of her jaw boded nothing but trouble; even before she spoke, Rahbarin knew what her question would be.
“O Prince, our queen has been gone many moons. This is the thirteenth queen’s court without a queen. When will she return to us?”
I knew it
, Rahbarin thought grimly. The same question had been raised in each of the last half-a-dozen courts.
Who can blame them? She has been gone long months without a word of her return
. No, he could not blame his aunt’s subjects for asking the same question to which he himself longed to know the answer.
But I am tired of bearing it!
He was even more weary of returning evasive answers. But reply he must, so said court etiquette.
“The Sun Throne thanks the merchant Hawlyat for her question.” That much came easily, words laid down for the ruler’s response. The rest was harder, for he had nothing to give but soothing ambiguities. Now the woman—and all the rest who had come to this day’s court—waited to hear what he would say. And Rahbarin had run out of excuses.
So he told the truth. “I do not know,” he said. “Our queen sends word each new moon that she is well—and that she will return when our Mother Ilat wills.”
“And when will that be, O Prince?”
“I have said already that I do not know,” Rahbarin said. “Shall I sit upon the Sun Throne and speak falsely to you? Our queen’s task was set her by Ilat Herself, and the queen will return to us when that task has been completed.”
“What task?” the merchant Hawlyat demanded.
Rahbarin hesitated, weighing choices. The queen had kept the true purpose of her visit to King Solomon secret, known only to her most trusted court officials; now Rahbarin wondered if that had been wise. The queen hoped to return bringing the next queen as her gift to Sheba. Perhaps it was time her subjects knew what their queen endured on their behalf.
Act as our Mother Ilat directs, and as seems best to you
—The Queen’s own command; now he must decide what seemed best.
Play for time.
The words seemed to slide into his mind, serpent-subtle. Mother Ilat directing his actions? A djinn seeking to trick him into folly? Or his own reluctance to
utter yet another placating half-truth? And how was he to tell the difference?
I must say something
. At last Rahbarin said, “The queen will return—”
Voices began to call out “When? How long?” and Rahbarin raised the scepter. Sun-fire flashed from the golden leopard; the great court was silent again, and Rahbarin continued.
“Our queen will return bringing our next queen to us; Hat Herself has promised us this gift. As for when—I do not know. I have told you what Ilat Sun-Eyes revealed to the Sun of our Days, and if you do not like what I have said, you are welcome to tread the path to the Inner Temple and ask the Queen of Heaven for yourselves. And if She answers you, come back to the next queen’s court and tell us all what She has said.”
Silence; at last the merchant Hawlyat said, “I ask that our prince send word north to our queen, telling her we are troubled by her long absence.”
And urging her to come back? Do you think I have not longed to do so these many months?
“Are we fools, that we cannot govern ourselves for a time? Are we infants, that we wail at our mother’s stepping out of the courtyard for an hour? No; I will not send her such a message.” A message that would in any case prove useless. Rahbarin had no doubt whatsoever that the queen would return only with the queen to come after, or she would not return at all. “I take orders from our Mother Ilat, and from the queen. I do not take them from my own fears—or yours.”
After the queen’s court finally ended, Rahbarin rode out into the quiet land past Ma’rib’s walls, hoping to find peace in the placid countryside. But although the land stretched green and fertile from the road to the far horizon, the sight failed to soothe his troubled heart. He turned his horse towards the hill road; the mare cantered easily up the slope to the crest, and there Rahbarin reined her in and dismounted. He laid his hand upon her sleek warm neck and stared out over the land, looking to the north.
Below him stood one of Sheba’s famed incense forests, rows of trees more precious than gold. Beyond loomed the bulk of the Great Dam, the wonder that granted Sheba water for city and for crops. And beyond that—
—beyond the Great Ma’rib Dam stretched the wilderness of sand and rock that guarded Sheba.
Somewhere beyond that expanse of deadly desert lay the kingdom of Solomon.
And that kingdom now holds our queen.
A chill slid down his back, soft and irritating as grains of sand. His sudden tension troubled his mare; she tossed her head; the long tassels dangling from her headstall brushed his cheek.
“Softly, my lady,” he told her, and caught her reins beneath her chin and touched his fingertips to the hot velvet skin of her muzzle. “You are right, I worry over nothing. King Solomon will not hold our queen against her will. She will return to us safely.”
The mare pricked her ears and lipped at his hand; Rahbarin smiled and stroked her muzzle once more. The queen would return; of course she would return.
But when?
Already she had been gone half a year.
Does so long an absence mean she has succeeded—or failed?
Rahbarin could not imagine his royal aunt failing in any task, goddess-given or not. Bilqis reigned always victorious.
Shadows began to stretch longer; the sun nearly touched the western horizon. Rahbarin stared at the rose-gold fire the setting sun sparked in the western sky and tried to summon up an image of the new queen who might even now be traveling the Spice Road to Sheba. But he saw nothing in the flaming sky, nothing but clouds spreading out across the horizon like burning wings.
Perhaps that phoenix-flare was a good omen; perhaps it was only a trick of the dying light. Rahbarin decided to believe it a good omen. For surely Ilat would not send the queen so far if the quest were hopeless.
But that night he did not lie down with an easy heart, and sleep did not grant him its dark caresses. At last he gave up and rose, and went to walk the wall, pacing the time-worn stones, restless as a caged panther.
She has been gone too long
. No matter what pieties Rahbarin mouthed in court, here on the wall he could at least speak truth to himself
Half a year, and no word, save “wait.”
Beneath his feet the wall’s stones glowed warm, still holding the day’s heat close. Above him arched the night sky, the Queen’s Crown a blaze of white fire over midnight. Rahbarin searched the crown’s brilliant stars; vainly, for the cold gems revealed nothing to him.
Please
,
Bright Lady, guide me.
He had made every offering, every prayer, and still no sign was granted. Why would Ilat not speak?
“Because you know already what you must do
. Abashed, Rahbarin bowed his head.
Have I grown so weak I ask the Lady’s aid to do what I should achieve myself?
He knew what his aunt would say to such foolish queries.
“The Lady has granted you a mind and a body. She expects you to use them!”
And had not the queen’s last orders been that he should do as seemed best to him?
What seems best for Sheba, for our kingdom. Not what I wish to do.
For if he did as he wished to do, he would ride north and carry their queen back upon his saddlebow. But that would solve nothing.
No, his duty lay here, guarding Sheba and the throne against the queen’s coming.
And if our queen never returns?
Rahbarin stared up at the white fire of the burning stars.
If she never returns, she will send us our new queen. And I will hold the throne safe against her coming.
And when my new queen rides through Ma’rib’s gate, she will find me waiting here to serve her.
Whenever I think of those days now, my skin always grows hot, and shame at my ungracious actions burns me. I prowled about like a hungry leopard, refused to admit even my handmaidens within the iron circle I drew about myself—and Nimrah and Keshet were dear to me as sisters. I made myself lonely without cause, and let anger eat away my peace. But I was young, and the young are cruel, even to themselves. And I was unquiet in my mind, for no matter what I did, whether I walked in Queen Michal’s garden or rode out upon Uri, spun or studied or tossed a ball for my little brothers, Queen Bilqis’s words sang silently to me,
“You are fit to rule; you were born to be queen.”
Those words had opened a door to thoughts I had long ago forbidden myself even to dream. Now I remembered why I must not listen to that siren-song; it summoned nothing but sorrow.
“Fit to rule”
—without conceit, I knew that was true. I had known since I could walk that I was better fitted to rule than was my brother Rehoboam. Rehoboam was stubborn where I was firm, cruel where I was kind; his temper sparked like dry tinder. And he had no skill for judging men, and even
less for judging women. Rehoboam despised women, thinking them weak—and I suspected he secretly despised our father. Rehoboam mistook tolerance for weakness, patience for fear, compromise for failure. His scorn for others was Rehoboam’s greatest flaw.
Fit to rule—now I saw that all my life I had studied to become so, had seized all the chances my arrogant brother had thrown away. I had hearkened to my tutors, and I had listened well to my father, studying his court as intently as I did my histories. And I listened to all my stepmothers, even the silliest of them. I had lived fourteen years in my father’s palace, and now I knew I had not wasted a day of that time. Each day I had been learning, seeking. Without knowing my goal, I had trained myself for queenship.
“Born to be queen.”
But Queen Bilqis was wrong. My years of instinctive study did not matter. Nor did my skills, my wits, my talents—nothing that I was mattered, set against the fact that Rehoboam was the king’s son, and I—I was only the king’s daughter.
Never would I be such a queen as she. At best, I would become a king’s wife.
That was all I would ever be. And that was not enough.