Queen of Sheba (36 page)

Solomon remembered that the queen of Sheba knew Badget, and his small, plump wife was from the queen’s own country. He quickly sent a messenger to invite her to participate in the judgment.

When she came she was told the details and Solomon asked what her decision would be if this were in her country. She quickly came to a decision. “First,” she said, “if this were in my country I would side with the small woman because she is is a native of my own country. However, since I am not in my own country I would be tempted to side with the older woman because she is the man’s first wife and should have more consideration. Also she is too old to have another child while the other woman can have many more children.” She turned to Solomon. “Now, tell me how you will solve this impossible riddle. Undoubtedly you will go about it in an entirely different way and for different reasons.”

Solomon smiled. He was genuinely surprised at the way she went about solving the problem. “You’re right. In this case I wouldn’t go by any set rules or customs, but I must try to determine what is the truth of the matter, who the real mother is.”

“But that seems too difficult. Even if the women themselves know, it won’t help because neither one will admit she is lying.”

“I have been studying the women. It’s obvious to me that between them they know who the real mother is. One of them is lying. All I have to do is find out which one is telling the truth.”

Bilqis was amazed. “That’s impossible. How can you find out such a thing?”

“I can only try.” He turned to the two women and asked them to tell what happened. Yasmit stepped forward holding the child. “Your majesty, we both have children born within days of each other. We were together in the same room with our children sleeping. When we awoke her child was found to be dead, but she insisted it was my child that had died.”

Then Solomon signaled for Terra to speak. It was obvious that she was frightened, but when she spoke it was with assurance. “Your majesty,” she said bowing to the ground and kissing the hem of his robe, then standing
she said, “we both were in the same room sleeping with our children. Her child had been sickly, and in the night it died. She evidently discovered this and took my child and placed her dead child in my arms. When I awoke I found the child I held was dead, and it wasn’t my child. She was holding my child and claiming it was hers.” Terra began to cry and wipe the tears with her mantle.

“So the problem is simple. We may never determine which of you is the true mother, but we can see that justice is done. Bring me a sword.”

A hush went over the people that had crowded in the gate to see what the king would do. Yasmit looked defiant and Terra was obviously frightened. One of the guardsmen had stepped forward and offered the king his sword. “Take the child,” Solomon said, “divide it in half and give half to the one and half to the other.”

Yasmit glanced around the room with a cunning, speculative look. She obviously thought Solomon must be bluffing, and yet she quickly calculated that either way she would win. She cared nothing for the child. With a quick glance at Terra she raised her arms and handed the child to the guard. “That’s fair,” she said, “let the child be neither yours nor mine, but divide it.”

Terra swayed and almost fainted. A cry of anguish burst from her lips as she reached for the child. “No, no,” she cried. “Don’t harm him. Give her the child if you must, but don’t harm him.” She fell at the king’s feet weeping bitterly.

Gently Solomon reached down and lifted her up then turned to the guard. “Put up your sword,” he ordered. “Give this woman the child. It obviously belongs to her.”

Terra took the child and held it gently. She cuddled and crooned to it oblivious to anything that was happening around her. Yasmit, however, was angry. She didn’t dare dispute the king’s decision, but her eyes flashed dangerously and Badget could tell there would be no peace in his house.

He made a quick decision. Stepping forward he begged the king’s pardon and asked to speak. “Let it be known before the king and these witnesses,” he said, “that I’m divorcing this woman. She’s dealt treacherously in my house and brought disgrace upon it. I’ll settle upon her the amount due her from her former husband’s property, but she’ll no longer be a wife to me.”

Yasmit screamed and rushed forward but had to be restrained by the
king’s guards. “Where am I to go? You can’t cast me out into the streets.”

Badget had spotted Yasmit’s sister in the crowd and now he motioned for her to come forward. “You’ll go with your sister and I’ll settle a fair amount on you so you’ll never be a burden to her.”

At that Yasmit broke down. She rushed forward and clung to Badget, begging for mercy, but he was determined to be free of her.

With a nod from the king the guards again came forward and led Yasmit outside the gate. Her sister came and carefully wrapped the dead baby in the winding cloth and carried it out while Badget, breathing a sigh of relief, hurried after Terra.

Within minutes the guard had closed the gates and the courtyard returned to normal. For a short time there was the sound of voices mixed with the braying of donkeys and the shouting of guards and then there was quiet. Solomon and the queen retired to their favorite place to talk on the latticed veranda.

For a while neither one spoke. They were busy rethinking all that had just happened. Finally Bilqis spoke. “I came all this way looking for truth. I have seen that you and all your people have no patience with the manipulations and games of expediency most of us play. You want the truth even if it isn’t convenient. It was interesting to see how you go about finding the truth.”

Solomon looked at Bilqis and noted the seriousness of her expression. He felt a renewed surge of love for this charming queen. How happy he would be to spend the rest of his life with her. He was terribly tempted to accept her on her terms. What did it matter now that he had been rejected by his father’s God? Why should he hold out on principle when she was all he wanted?

Finally the only thing that held him back was the realization that she was a determined woman and a queen. There was no way he could persuade her to stay here in Israel; nor was there any way that he could drop everything and go with her back to Sheba. There was nothing but heartbreak for him if he pursued this relationship. He decided that no matter how difficult it was going to be, he would spend less time with her and would guard his heart from loving her.

D
espite his resolutions, Solomon found he could not tear himself away from the lovely queen, and she, in turn, talked less enthusiastically about going home. A week had passed, and though there had been a steady stream of messengers, pages, and tribesmen urging Solomon to return to Jerusalem, he still lingered in Jericho.

These had been strangely rewarding days in which Solomon tried to answer all the queen’s questions. Her questions never ceased to amaze him. She wanted to know about good and evil, sickness and health, life and death, but most of all she was curious about Israel’s God. “Is He just the God of Israel,” she asked, “or can He also be the God of the people of South Arabia?” They were sitting under one of the palm trees beside the blue-tiled fountain enjoying the sound of the water and the antics of Solomon’s playful monkey.

For a moment Solomon was taken aback. He had never thought of his God as being a God for other people. Finally he told her, “He is the creator God. He created the whole world so He is certainly the God of all He created.”

“Is He the strongest God?” she asked.

“He is the only God. All other gods are false. I’ve studied and learned the mysteries of many religions, and I’ve found their gods are either demons that work some magic or are the creation of false priests.”

As Solomon was answering her questions, an amazing thing began to happen. He found himself reviewing all the aspects of his own faith and discovered to his surprise that it was stronger than he’d thought. He wasn’t just telling her that this was the truth; he was believing it wholeheartedly. He was seeing it for the first time as one outside the faith would see it, and he found it withstood any test.

Though he was becoming used to her questions, at times she still
surprised him. Her next question had that effect, and he hardly knew how to answer it.

“To become a citizen of my country,” she said, “a person has to be very wealthy. It’s quite costly. What must one do to accept your God as his God?”

He saw how her eyes shone with excitement and with what concentration she waited for his answer. “Enter into the covenant,” Solomon said at last, rather matter-of-factly, hoping that would satisfy her curiosity. He didn’t want to have to explain the whole idea of covenant. When he saw that she was going to ask more questions, he added, “Israel has made a covenant with Him. He is our God and we are His people.”

“Covenant! What is covenant?”

“It’s an agreement. We agree to accept His laws. He becomes our God and we become His people. It means we belong.”

And so it went for several days until one day she announced that she was ready to enter into covenant with Israel’s God. Solomon told her all that she must do, and then he said, “Is it so much easier to enter a covenant with my God than it is to enter a covenant with me?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The marriage I spoke of that seemed to frighten you so was just another way of making a covenant together. A belonging.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s very simple. Even though you must go back to your country and I must stay here, we would know that we belonged to each other.”

She thought about it for a few minutes. “And if I belong to you will that mean you will control me?”

Solomon could see that this bothered her. She was a beautiful, sensuous woman and yet she was first of all a queen responsible for a whole country and its people just as he was king. The times when he had reached out for her hand or had in any way tried to show the love that he felt for her, he found her drawing back with a frightened look and a reserve that kept him at a distance. “I don’t want to control you,” he said finally. “I only want to love you.”

“I don’t know about love,” she said. “I don’t know what it means.”

“You’ve never loved anyone?”

“Never,” she said looking at him with her characteristic openness.

“Don’t you want to be loved?”

She broke into a light laugh, as though she were amused. “I really don’t see that I need it. I’ve found it rather bothersome to have people wanting to love me. It has only meant they wanted somehow to control me or get my throne.”

Solomon was frustrated. He had never seen such a woman. Those that he’d known were all cloyingly eager to please him. They wanted his love and his attention. “Why did you come so far? What were you looking for? What have you wanted from me?” he said finally in exasperation.

“I wanted to find truth. I wanted to know things.”

“What did you think I could tell you?”

“If you were truly the wisest man in the world, I knew you could answer my questions; tell me what was true and important.”

For a long time Solomon didn’t answer. He knew her questions were important, but he could see that even with her questions answered she would still feel the emptiness that had brought her to him. It was obvious she knew nothing of the emotions. She had shut them out, covered them up with intellect. She felt nothing, perhaps was incapable of feeling anything.

“I’ve tried to answer your questions,” he said finally. “Have I answered them all?”

Her eyes sparkled and her face became animated. “Yes, yes, you’ve answered all my questions. I’ve learned what truth is and I’ve seen your wisdom.”

“But I’ve not yet told you what is most important, and you said you came seeking to know what was true and important. Are you interested?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “To know what the wisest man in the world thinks is important would be worth the whole journey.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m going tomorrow to Jerusalem. There are matters I must tend to, but when I come back I promise that I’ll tell you what the most important thing in the world is.”

It was late, the moon had gone down, and the crickets out in the garden were at last silent. Solomon stood up and waited for her before he said goodnight, then they followed the servants to their rooms.

The queen dropped off to sleep immediately, but Solomon was awake most of the night reviewing all that had happened since her arrival. He
recalled the anxiety he had felt when he first heard of her coming. He almost laughed as he remembered Badget’s tale of her donkey feet. He would always be amazed that she had actually traveled so far seeking truth. Then finally he had been forced to admit to himself that he loved this woman deeply. He was also aware, however, that there was little hope of her returning his love. She was as remote as the evening star and perfectly happy to stay that way.

In Jerusalem Solomon was immediately plunged into urgent business. But he realized with surprise that during his stay in Jericho some of the problems that had rested heaviest on his mind had temporarily vanished. Jeroboam, he found, was indeed in Egypt, and Tipti had for the time being moved to her palace in Gezer. Naamah was content. She was convinced that with Jeroboam gone her son, Rehoboam, would have no trouble taking over the kingdom when the time came.