Song of Songs Read online

  Blank Slate Press

  Saint Louis, MO 63116

  Copyright © 2019 Marc Graham

  All rights reserved.

  Blank Slate Press is an imprint of Amphorae Publishing Group, LLC

  a woman- and veteran owned company

  www.amphoraepublishing.com

  Publisher’ s Note: This book is a work of the imagination. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. While some of the characters and incidents portrayed here can be found in historical or contemporary accounts, they have been altered and rearranged by the author to suit the strict purposes of storytelling. The book should be read solely as a work of fiction.

  For information, contact:

  Blank Slate Press

  4168 Hartford Street, Saint Louis, MO 63116

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Cover photography and graphics: Shutterstock

  Set in Adobe Caslon Pro and Avenir Light

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934154

  ISBN: 9781943075577

  For Laura, who makes the journey worth taking

  Author’s Note

  The astute reader will note that I have made the period of transition between Egypt’s 18th and 19th Dynasties coincide with the building of the first Temple of Jerusalem, whereas conventional scholarship imposes a span of some three centuries between them. I’ve based my timing on the New Chronology paradigm, which convincingly applies archaeoastronomy and the latest interpretations from the El Amarna tablets to revise the accepted timeline.

  While the academic jury is still out as to who will prove correct, I trust the reader will pardon my little heresy for the purposes of this story. For a detailed and engaging presentation of supporting evidence, I refer you to From Eden to Exile: The Five-Thousand Year History of the People of the Bible by David Rohl.

  Further, as I note in the Glossary of Principal Names and Places (included at the end of the book), I’ve tried to use the names of places, people, and gods as they would have been at the turn of the first millennium BCE, prior to being changed by Hellenic, Roman, and Arab conquerors. This was not done simply to make for more challenging reading, but to provide a more authentic feel to the story.

  Memory’s flame burns low. Fleeting shadows dance before my inner eye, my natural ones having long ago grown dim with time and tears. Distant faces of children and husbands, lovers and tormentors are my sole companions as I await the final journey that all must take.

  Fading though they be, these images remain nearer to the truth than what your histories presume to tell. Place-names change as powers rise and fall. People are remembered by titles, if they are remembered at all. And the parts they played, for good or ill, are shaped by the whim of those who weave their tales.

  Though my voice be dry and brittle as the dragon tree, yet will I sing for you my story as it was. History calls me Queen of Sheba, though my country was named Saba. We had no kings or queens, only mukarribs who served as judges and priests.

  I am Makeda umm-Ayana. Long before I became legend, I was a mere woman. And before that, I was but a child.

  And a thief.

  A Song of Beginnings

  1

  Makeda

  I sheltered in the vineyard beneath a sky pregnant with doom. In all my seven years, I’d never seen Saba’s gods so angry. Elmakah, bringer of rain, rumbled and flashed atop the distant western mountains. The sun goddess Shams hid her face behind Elmakah’s cloudy cloak. And Athtar—the most high, whose voice might be heard in the slightest breeze, he of whom all other gods were but dim reflections—held his breath and uttered not a whisper as I huddled among the barren vines.

  “I know you’re here, Makeda.” Bilkis, my half-sister, stalked along the dusty rows. I watched her pacing feet through a cluster of brown leaves. “Give it back, you little demon.” She swung a broomstick through the vines, shattering the twigs like desert-parched bones.

  I squeezed the stolen treasure in my hand. The silver comb, adorned with a dragonfly of gold and lapis, had been a gift from our father to Bilkis on her reaching womanhood. Since spring, the comb had lain beneath better-favored rings and bracelets and necklaces, ignored until I’d caught the gleam of its wings and, with them, took flight.

  Another rattle of branches echoed off the rocky outcroppings of the wadi behind the vineyard. Bilkis screamed a curse and raced toward one end of the field. I shied away from my hiding spot and scuttled in the opposite direction. As I ran, the hem of my robe dropped about my ankles. Before I could slow myself, the stitching broke loose and the generous hem spilled from beneath my robe. Feet tangled in the woolen cloth, I sprawled across the ground.

  “If you’ve broken it, I’ll give your hide to the tanner,” Bilkis yelled.

  I turned to see her sprinting down the length of the vineyard. I groped at the dirt until one hand found the comb. With my other hand I hitched up the oversize robe. Then I ran.

  The Wadi Dhanah lay just beyond the edge of the vineyard, a broad, ragged scar on the land’s face. If I could reach the dry riverbed before Bilkis caught me, I might escape. Bilkis’s legs were longer than mine, but my feet were surer in the rocky wadi. Once there, I could follow it into the hills and lose myself among the outcroppings and caves.

  I took a deep breath as I neared the steep bank. My feet left the ground, but instead of leaping forward, I flew back. Bilkis grasped the loose cloth of my robe and flung me to the earth.

  Tears clouded my eyes as I looked up at my sister. Her figure was lean and straight, though the curves of womanhood showed where a slight breeze drew her silk robe tight to her body.

  Bilkis’s cheeks, flushed with anger, matched the hue of her full lips. The rest of her skin, smooth and taut, was the color of polished bronze, while mine was dark, dull, tarnished.

  “Give it to me,” Bilkis demanded, the broom raised over her head.

  “You don’t even like it.” I surprised myself with the defiance. “You never wear it.”

  “It matters not. Father gave it to me. Today I wish to wear it. Tomorrow I might bury it or crush it or throw it in the dung pit. What I do with it is none of your concern. Now give it to me.”

  I cuffed at my nose and thought to run, to roll toward the wadi. I might find shelter among the rocks, but would have to return home eventually. Bilkis would win in the end, and the longer I delayed that fate, the more bitter my defeat. Better to end it now.

  Gathering the scraps of my dignity, scattered like the dried grape leaves that danced along the vines under the growing wind, I raised the treasure in defeat, averting my eyes from Bilkis’s victorious glare.

  Above the mountains, the sun goddess Shams had given herself over to the storm god. Elmakah grew with the influx of her power. He rose dark and menacing, flashing silver streaks of fury.

  Still the comb remained in my hand. I chanced a look at my sister. Though the broom still loomed over my head, Bilkis’s eyes stared not at me, but at something behind me.

  “Give me your hand.” Bilkis’s voice caught in her throat like stones in the mill. When I was slow to respond, Bilkis took one hand from the broomstick and shook it insistently at me.

  “Now,” she hissed, and grasped my wrist. She jerked me to my feet so abruptly I lost hold of the comb, and it fell to the ground.

  The great god Athtar, roused from his brooding, howled from the mountains. A low moan rose from the wadi’s birthplace, and Bilkis pulled me toward the embankment. I chanced a look over my shoulder toward my city to see men, women, and children running from the ravaged fields toward the high mudbrick walls of Maryaba, harried by white-robed horsemen whose bronze blades glinted in the failing sunlight. Three blades flashe
d brighter than the others, and my heart trembled when the trio of riders urged their mounts toward us.

  Bilkis pulled me down the embankment, and we ran along the stone-littered bed of Wadi Dhanah. Rather, I ran while Bilkis stumbled and cursed her way across the uneven ground.

  Men’s shouts boomed behind us, underscored by the beat of horses’ hooves. The very earth seemed to shake with their thundering.

  “Shams’s teats,” Bilkis screamed as she tripped on a rock.

  She went down, dragging me with her. Bilkis broke my fall, but a sickening crack echoed through the wadi as her head struck rock.

  I clambered to my feet and untangled the folds of my too-long robe.

  “Get up, Dhahbas,” I cried as I tugged on Bilkis’s hand, using our father’s pet name for the favored daughter.

  Bilkis’s eyes fluttered open, but her gaze floated about as when she’d drunk too much beer. I helped her to a seated position, and coughed with the dust that rose from the wadi’s bed. I marveled as the smaller stones danced upon the ground, but there was no time to think on it.

  The raiders appeared at the edge of the wadi, the ends of their headscarves lashing at the wind. The horses shied away from the bank and the men dismounted, shouting all the while.

  “You must go,” Bilkis said.

  “Get up,” I pleaded. “Come with me.”

  Bilkis freed herself from my clutch and pushed me away.

  “Get to the rocks. Hide.” She slurred the words, but her tone was sharp.

  The men reached the riverbed and stalked toward us like wolves after a goat’s kid. I backed away, took a last look at Bilkis, then turned and ran up the wadi.

  Behind me, Bilkis cursed yet again. Her shouts were accompanied by the raiders’ laughter. I forced myself to ignore the men’s jeers and Bilkis’s cries. I pressed ahead, fighting my terror and the wind that screamed from the mountains beyond the wadi. Athtar’s breath bellowed through the gorge, violent and cool and—damp?

  I slowed, despite the racing footfalls behind me. The earth trembled now, so that the larger rocks danced with the smaller ones as the source of the tremors appeared.

  My mother had told me how Elmakah poured out his blessings on the western highlands. His holy waters, preceded by the breath of Athtar, streamed through the gorges to flood the wadi and bring life to the people of Saba for another season. Such a miracle had not occurred during my lifetime, and I wondered how what I now saw could be a blessing.

  Sullied with scrub brush and rocks, mud and carcasses, the flood surged toward me as carnage raced along the rocky trace of the wadi. Its edges frothed with foam, this water of the gods carried not life, but destruction.

  Fear screamed at me to run for the wadi’s bank, but a deeper voice urged me forward. I ran across the lurching earth toward a boulder in the middle of the wadi. Placed there by my distant ancestors, the giant stood sentinel over the dried riverbed. It towered over me, but the wall of water loomed higher still. Even as the flood bore down on me, I threw myself against the boulder. I pulled my knees tight to my chest and looked down the wadi.

  The raider who had been chasing me raced back toward his companions who stood beside Bilkis, her arms pinioned between them. Three pairs of eyes traced heavenward toward the wave’s crest.

  Then they were gone.

  Athtar, save me. I’d meant to scream the words, but my breath refused to come. Even so, the god’s protective hand enfolded me. The waters swept around the boulder, but I remained untouched within its lee.

  For countless heartbeats the storm raged around me. Though the roar dulled my ears and mist stung my eyes, I sat in awe of this display of the gods’ power. Until this day, I had only seen tamed water, resting in a bowl or winking from the depths of a well. Never had I seen a flood so angry. Angrier even than Bilkis.

  Sorrow swept through my heart. Though Bilkis could be mean as a scorpion tending her brood, she’d never failed to protect me. Whether from our father’s wrath or the teasing of other girls who mocked my mixed blood, Bilkis reserved to herself alone the privilege of abusing me, right to the very last.

  A cold finger ran down my spine. I spun away from the boulder and looked up to see a stream of water spilling over its edge. The flood slowed and, as it did so, its waters invaded my little haven. At my feet, the trickles grew larger until the earth became as dark as my skin. The rising waters swept me off my feet and washed me along the wadi with the rest of the storm’s debris. I beat against the surface of the flood, but I might as well have tried to hold back the wind with a pitchfork. I gagged on dirty water and managed only a feeble gasp before my sodden robe dragged me beneath the surface.

  I fought the wool’s grip. For once, I blessed the generous cut of the robe. I fumbled with the laces at the collar until its clutch loosened about my throat. I wriggled my shoulders through the neck opening, slithered through the cloth, then thrashed to the surface.

  Coughing and sputtering, I slid along with the stream. My ears were numb from the roar of the waters, but I thought I heard a shout and a splash. I again sank under the water before something tugged my hair and dragged me to the surface. A thick arm wrapped about my waist and towed me to the wadi’s edge.

  “Fear not, little one,” said the familiar, gruff voice of Yanuf, the city’s gatekeeper.

  As we reached the bank, my mother ran to us. She swathed me in the folds of her robe. I wrapped my arms about her neck and sobbed.

  When at last I caught my breath, I peeked over her shoulder. My father Karibil, Chieftain of Maryaba and Mukarrib of all Saba, scanned the river with a sharp eye. A dozen warriors formed a screen of spears between the wadi and the city’s gate, though the only sign of the raiders now was a cloud of dust on the horizon.

  “Where is Bilkis?” my father demanded.

  I looked at him, his brow heavy with anger, eyes lined with concern. I shied away from his stern gaze and again buried my face in my mother’s robe.

  “It’s all right, little one,” she cajoled me. “Where is your sister? Speak.”

  I raised my chin, looked first in Mother’s eyes, then to my father’s. I tried to speak, but the words came out as a mewling sound. Instead, I shifted in my mother’s arms, reached out a trembling hand and pointed toward the wadi, whose dark and sullen stream flowed silently toward the desert.

  2

  Yetzer

  Yetzer abi-Huram cursed the burning sky.

  He cursed the burning earth.

  He cursed his burning hands and shoulders, tongue and eyes. Most of his fourteen summers had been spent in this quarry of Bakhu, amid the wastes of Kemet, land of Pharaoh. In all that time, he could remember no day so hot as this. Oh, there were days when the great river, Iteru, filled the quarry with her stench. Days when the air was as thick as the dung-laden mud that lined the water’s edges, and thicker with the flies that feasted on her flanks. This day was all that and more.

  The sun blazed overhead in a barren sky. To the quarrymen of Kemet, it was the embodiment of the god Ra. To Yetzer’s father, Huram, the orb was Shapash, princess of heaven. But to Yetzer, it was a bane, a curse sent by whatever god ruled over this land of choking dust and fetid water and scorching rock.

  “Mind your step, Lord.” The voice of Yetzer’s father came from behind. Yetzer rested his maul and turned to see Huram’s hand outstretched toward the regal figure descending the limestone steps into the quarry. Pharaoh Horemheb, Lord of Upper and Lower Kemet, waved off Huram’s help and stepped down from the steep riser.

  “How goes the work, Master Huram?” the king asked as he surveyed the laborers with his falcon-sharp eyes.

  “Well enough, Lord,” came Huram’s reply, even as his eyes flicked toward Yetzer. “See to your work!” The lad turned away, heat rising in his cheeks. Yetzer raised his maul and continued to drive a cedar beam into a narrow trench in the limestone.

  “The fire?” Pharaoh asked Huram. He gestured toward the flames that engulfed one side of the quarry and added to
the swelter.

  “Quartz,” Huram said.

  He explained no further, and the king did not press him. Instead, both men grunted laconically and watched the workers.

  The stone pit resounded with the guttural chanting of the quarriers and the chime of copper pickaxes and saws. Yetzer found himself swinging his maul in tempo with his fellows, a measured pace that allowed the men to labor through the long, hot days without exhaustion.

  “Water,” Yetzer called as he finished wedging the last of his beams into the trench.

  A boy came running with a pair of goatskins hung from a rod across his shoulders. Yetzer gazed at the glistening, dripping skins, but they brought no refreshment for him. He and the boy spilled the water over the beams. The dry timber soaked up the moisture, groaning with pleasure as its thirst was slaked. When both skins were empty, Yetzer and the boy hopped down and moved to the side.

  “Free stone,” Yetzer called, hands cupped around his mouth. “Free stone,” he repeated in the other direction, warning all those around of what was about to happen.

  “You drove them to full depth?” Huram asked as he led the king to where Yetzer stood.

  “Yes, Father.”

  Huram gave him a hard look.

  “Yes, Master,” Yetzer corrected himself. Huram might be his father in their home across the Iteru, but once they set foot in the quarry, he was Master of Masons, Overseer of Pharaoh’s Works.

  “Why do you anoint the stone with water?” Pharaoh asked.

  Yetzer looked from his father to the king, Exalted among the Nations, Lord of the Two Lands. Pharaoh Horemheb stood lean and tall. The king had dispensed with his headdress and ceremonial beard, but as the sun cast an aura about his shaved head, there was no question that he was the Beloved of the Gods.

  “You see, Lord,” Yetzer began, but his voice cracked. “Pardon, Lord. You see, the beams are taken from our cedars of Kenahn. In life, they are full and rich and strong. When they are cut their vigor leaves them. They shrink and become dry as, no doubt, my lord has experienced.”