The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen (4 page)

A rustle of bedsheets and I was alone on the mattress.

“Where?”

We had left the palace in the middle of the night countless times, sneaking away like children to bathe in the garden pools by starlight or make love in the orchards until the first light of dawn as curious hoopoe birds watched from the moringa trees.

“A great new adventure.”

“Can’t you see you’ve exhausted me?”

He laughed softly. “I thought it was the other way around.”

“You are the urn that never empties.”

“And you are the well that never dries. But come now.”

I lolled onto my side. Standing like that he might have been a bronze statue in any temple alcove. By every known and unknown god, he was beautiful.

“Tell me you love me.” But when the corner of my mouth turned up in a smile, he did not reciprocate.

“You know I do.” But a strange shadow drifted through his eyes. Was it a trick of the lamp, sputtering in the last of its oil, or had the lines across his forehead deepened?

The bed curtain fell behind him. He began to gather his clothes.

I gave a quizzical laugh. “What adventure is this that will not wait until tomorrow night?”

“You will see.”

A soft scrape sounded outside my chamber. The eunuch given me by my great-aunt always slept outside my upper-story door. Why did he stir at this hour?

I pushed up on my elbows, fully awake now.

Maqar returned, my embroidered caftan in one hand, his other extended to me.

I frowned and rose from bed.

“Quickly,” he said, stepping out through the curtain again. I watched as he wrapped and belted his sarong over those lean hips.When he reached for his sword I knew we would not be bathing. I slipped into the gown.

Maqar came and knelt with my slippers, sliding one and then the other onto my feet. Just before he rose, he looked up at me. Those were the same eyes that had followed me as though I was the sun
itself when he first arrived to captain the garrison—and soon after, the palace guard. But tonight there was more, some strange hope within them.

“My love, what is this?”

“Come.” He stood, and handed me my veil.

Outside, Yafush was not only awake but waiting, torch in hand, firelight glancing off his rich Nubian skin, the gold ring glowing in his ear. I glanced from him to Maqar. Since when did my lover act in concert with my bodyguard?

Suddenly I wondered if Maqar had arranged to secretly marry me this night. How many times had we talked about that very thing in our garden bed beneath the stars?

A princess did not choose her own husband. But neither had my father, in the six years of my exile, made any other arrangement. For all I knew, Sadiq had shared the secret of my ruin before his death. For all I knew, Hagarlat had orchestrated the entire thing. The thought had occurred to me.

Maqar, my healer, knew I had not come virgin to his bed. Nor had he ever asked about my first tearful flight from it. When I went into his arms at last, I found myself grateful for all that had conspired to bring me here, the beauty of these days far outweighing the horror of those nights. Maqar’s noble ties were wasted on me, an exile. And I could not win him favors—Hagarlat’s kinsmen had all but taken over the council and Saba’s most prestigious positions. But he would never want for wealth through me, here in Punt. And I would not want for love.

All of these thoughts occurred within the space of my first three steps beyond my chamber.

A secret wedding. I smiled to myself. No more questions, then.

I followed them down the corridor to the ground floor courtyard
and out through the colonnade. The gardens were lit, cicadas in full symphony. I reached for Maqar’s hand. He lifted my fingers to his lips without looking at me.

I glanced sidelong at Yafush. One might not know at first sight of his muscled arms and impassive face that he was not a man intact. But what had Maqar said to him, that his brow was so somber? Was this not a joyous occasion? Why then did neither of them look glad to lead me where they did?

Something was wrong.

By the time we passed through the smaller north gate, my heart was drumming against my ribs and I had no more romantic notions about moringa trees or weddings.

I refused to go farther.

“Where are you taking me? Tell me now.”

Maqar turned, and for a moment I didn’t recognize him. I had never seen him without a smile for me playing in his eyes if not on his lips. But now in the torchlight—this was not the face of a man about to marry his lover, but a man wrestling with something within himself.

“To the temple. A ship arrived yesterday at port.”

A ship? It was late into the season for ships, even from Egypt. “What has that got to do with us?”

“It is better that you see and hear for yourself.”

I looked from him to the rocky plain, its uneven grade flinty by moonlight, the faint glow of torches on the hill beyond snakelike along the temple path.

“Makeda,” he said, and hesitated. When I turned back, anguish was plain upon his face. “Only remember: I have never played you false.”

I stared at him, amazed by this statement.

“I think you’d best go to the temple, Princess,” Yafush said.

I glanced between the two of them, but they would say no more. “Neither of you will speak? Then let us be done with this charade!”

I gathered the hem of my gown and struck out ahead of them, heart pounding in the cage of my chest.

I ascended the temple path, past the stone steles of my ancestors, my footfalls too loud against the drone of insects, each step both too swift and slow at once.

A figure waited atop the hill, black against the evening sky. A priest, by his robe. The chief priest by the glow of the moon against his shaven head. Was he party to this as well? He raised his palm in blessing as we arrived, his voice gravel against the night.

“Princess.”

The fortress temple rose up behind him, its ibex friezes shrouded in shadow. The carved wooden doors lay open. Torchlight shone from within like a great, glowing eye.

What waited through those doors here, in the dead of night?

When I looked at Maqar, his only response was a silent nod. And I understood that whatever waited inside, I must meet it first.

For a wild moment I actually entertained the thought of running back down the path—not to the palace, or even the gardens, but the dark field of steles. There, at least, I need only confront the scorpions. But it was as though the act of coming here had barred the way back already.

I lifted my gaze to the moon, full and high in its zenith.

And then I walked into the temple.

Five forms stood within the inner court. I blinked against the torchlight as their faces coalesced from the shadows.

Hassat, head of the council in Punt and distant kin to me. Beside him, Nabat, captain of the garrison. Neither gave any indication he had stirred from his bed this night, if he had gone to it at all. Next to Nabat stood three men in Sabaean dress, their
daggers tucked in their belts against their bellies, swords on their hips.

“Princess,” Hassat said, inclining his head.

“Councilman Hassat,” I stammered. Even without knowing what to expect, I was surprised to see him waiting here, apparently for me.

“I apologize for summoning you here like this.”

I clasped my hands together to stop their shaking.

Hassat moved toward me, firelight playing over the severe panes of his cheeks. He indicated the three others. “These men have come to you at great risk.”

“Indeed—” I paused to clear my throat, which had all but closed up. “Indeed, if you have come from Saba. It is nearly time for the rains.” Only a fool crossed the sea during the rainy season . . . or a man on desperate errand.

“Princess,” one of the others said. “I come from the noble tribe of Aman.”

“Of the great Jawf Valley,” I said slowly, the place name having become foreign to my tongue.

“A formidable clan with ties to the powerful traders of Gabaan,” Hassat said. “And this man is Khalkharib, blood kin of your father’s most senior councilman, who walks now in the shadow world. And this one is Yatha, kin to your father’s councilman Abamar.”

A trickle of sweat slid between my breasts. The tribal lands of these three men formed a nearly perfect north–south line through Saba between the mountain range to the west and desert to the east.

“I have not laid eyes on your kinsmen in many years,” I said carefully. “Though I know my father has trusted them well. But what do you want with me?”

“Plague has come with the traders’ caravans to Marib,” Hassat said.

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

I looked from one of them to the other in rising confusion.

At last, the one called Yatha stepped toward me.

“Princess, sickness has taken the palace. Your king father is ill. He was ailing before even this. We have not known since we left whether he lives or dies.”

I staggered a step. But when I turned toward Maqar, who had entered behind me, I spun back.

“The king was alive when you left. Then why have you come? Better that you had waited until there was news of my father, whether he lived or died!”

“The monsoon is coming. We dare not wait.”

“And so you come to say only that he is ill?”

But no. They would not have risked the crossing only for that.

Did I imagine it or had the cicadas fallen silent? Was there less magic in the shadows of these walls, as though the sanctuary itself had become mere limestone and mortar at the arrival of this envoy?

“There is more,” the man from Aman said. “Hagarlat has seen to it that her tribe-kin occupy every position of power.”

“I am aware.”

“But there are many tribes, ours included, who will not stomach the rise of the Nashshans and their allies. The king is advanced in age. Whether he lives days or even a year more, there will soon be war for the throne.”

“But my brother—”

“Is only ten and a Nashshan pawn.”

“And yet he is the heir!”

Maqar came to stand at my side. Very quietly, he said, “Makeda . . . he is not the only heir.”

I stared at him as my skin went cold in the stifling air of the sanctum court.

“The tribes of Aman to the north and many as far south as Hadramawt are ready to support your claim,” Yatha said.

I heard these words without comprehending them.

“As will Punt.” This from Nabat, silent until now. “Who would see the granddaughter of Agabos on the federated throne.”

Is this how it is done?

“My brother is the grandson of Agabos,” I heard myself say. “Why would Punt support the claim of one sibling over another?”

“Hagarlat has no loyalty to Punt and we have none to her,” Hassat said. “She cares only for the gold and goods we export and the tariffs her kinsmen reap from them as they travel the trade route north through Nashshan lands.”

“But my father—”

“Forgive me, Princess,” Khalkharib, the tallest of them, said, “but your king father may even now lie dead. If you do not return, others will assert their right—by force if not by bloodline. No one will expect your return until after the rains. If we move quickly, we will prevent war and secure your throne.”

“Saba has not had a ruling queen in generations!”

“Almaqah willing, she will have one again. Our tribes are ready. We have prepared for this moment for years.”

An hour ago I had been drunk with sleep and the contentment of life in Punt, and Saba had been a distant thing, the torrent of her rains remembered only in dreams. But now it came to me: The strife of the northern tribes in their struggle against Nashshan’s increasing influence. My own tribe’s desire to retain power and the southern bid for new favor. How swiftly they moved! And for what?
The promise of future favors owed or hope of a marriage alliance with the throne?

Then I understood. They did not mean for Saba to have a ruling queen, but for its queen to bring one of them to kingship.

And here stood Maqar . . . conveniently sent to me two years ago by his father with a company of warriors.

I stared at him with new eyes and he shook his head just perceptibly. And though I heard his unvoiced thought, I saw only a stranger wearing that beloved face.

Who am I, if not his lover?

A queen?

A pawn.

“My men assemble at the port even now,” Nabat was saying to the others, and then they were talking all at once about provisions for the return.

“My father may yet live!” I said, cutting them off.

Khalkharib glanced at me as though just remembering I was there.

“By the time we return, Princess, he may not. And Hagarlat and her Nashshan councilors will have seized the federated throne and begun to raise force enough to defend it. The monsoons are coming. Almaqah has smiled upon us. But we must leave immediately.”

T
hat night, I railed against Maqar.

“What else have you kept from me? What other schemes have you worked behind my back these last two years?”

He caught my fists when I came flying at him, and pulled me against his chest. Zabib, my maid, flinched as though to make herself unseen even as she scurried about the chamber packing my jew
elry, my gowns, my precious wealth of scrolls. Dawn was breaking, the morning sky ominous. Outside my door palace slaves and armed men carried my belongings to the convoy waiting in the palace courtyard—an escort arranged I knew not how long ago, and without my knowledge.

“You call my brother a Nashshan pawn. And yet here you are—you and these men come to summon me after plotting behind my back for years! Any one of you might have been found out at any time. You do not know Hagarlat as I do! How long has my life been in danger, and I, none the wiser?”

“Makeda,” he said urgently, holding me tight. “Every man here has been sworn to your protection. The garrison. My men here in the palace. Yafush, who sleeps outside the door of your chamber—”

“You, who sleep in it. What a fool I’ve been! And to think that for a moment tonight as you took me from this chamber I thought you meant to marry me in secret!” I laughed, the sound cruel, but then covered my eyes in angry humiliation.