Song of Songs Read online

  The king raised a shorn and painted brow, while Huram swatted Yetzer’s head.

  “Go on, young man,” Pharaoh said with a tight grin.

  “The quarriers cut trenches to outline the rough ashlar,” Yetzer explained. “We then wedge the dried beams into the gaps and anoint them with water.”

  “The beams then drink in life,” Pharaoh concluded, “and swell to full potency.”

  “Even so, Lord.”

  Yetzer climbed atop the escarpment on which the block stood rooted, then turned to face Pharaoh and his father. He laid his hand on the stone. Though this was Yetzer’s first season as a shearer of stone, already he knew the timing and temperament of the rock. As he explained the quarry’s workings to the king, he’d noted the pulse of the beams as they grew within their trench. “As the wood reclaims its life, so it imparts life to the stone.”

  Yetzer slapped his hand on the limestone just as the cedar reached its full potential. A crack echoed across the quarry and the newborn ashlar rocked from its bed.

  “Well done, young man,” Pharaoh said. “If your stonecraft equals your stagecraft you shall prove a most skilled mason in time.”

  “Thank you, Lord.”

  “Assemble your workmen, Master Huram,” the king said to Yetzer’s father.

  “Yes, Lord.” Huram climbed beside Yetzer on the escarpment and blew a shrill whistle. Every man paused in his work and looked toward the Master. Huram stood tall, feet together, and stretched his arms out to his sides in the sign of the Ankh, the tree of life. The workmen set down their tools and hurried into formation in the wide, open center of the quarry.

  Yetzer, too, moved to his assigned position near the front of the ranks, behind the water-carriers. Toward the rear stood the rows of haulers and hewers, and behind them all were the apprenticed masons who assisted Master Huram in his measurements.

  While the laborers settled into place, Yetzer watched in wonder as Pharaoh stepped into line among the apprentices.

  If Huram was surprised by this, his face revealed nothing. He simply stepped up to the king, clasped his hand and embraced him in the manner of the more senior masons. Pharaoh returned the embrace and Huram stepped back to the head of the assembly.

  “In the name of the Divine Builder,” he said, and again formed the Ankh.

  The laborers responded, each with the sign of his grade. The boys in front of Yetzer cupped their hands, as though drawing water from a bowl. Along the row of shearers, Yetzer and his companions folded arms across their chests, hands on opposite shoulders. The men behind made signs appropriate to their ranks. Yetzer couldn’t see them, and dared not turn his head to look, lest his eyes be put out as punishment. Huram lowered his arms and the assembly did the same.

  The Master opened his mouth to continue the invocation but, instead of the expected words, a high-pitched whistle rang throughout the quarry. The workers looked about for the source of the noise. Yetzer’s eyes settled on the side of the quarry where the fire blazed before the quartz outcropping. The limestone on the fringe glowed red-orange, while the quartz shimmered behind the veil of heat.

  “Water,” Huram called, and the neat assembly dissolved as men raced for the great leather bladders that sat on either side of the fire.

  Huram had explained to Yetzer how firing the quartz, then rapidly quenching it with water, would make the rock brittle and more easily broken up. That had been his intent. As Yetzer watched, his father’s plan rapidly came undone.

  Steam hissed from the rock face. The whistle turned into a scream. The very earth seemed to bulge around the outcropping. In a moment, Yetzer foresaw what was to happen and knew he was unable to stop it.

  “No,” he screamed anyway.

  He ran toward his father and Pharaoh, who stood between the water bladders. Each skin held a copper tube, which a pair of workers aimed at the furious rock. Other men lowered cedar beams atop the skins to force the water’s flow.

  Huram turned toward Yetzer as he cried out, but the men were already pressing down on the bladders. Water streamed toward the outcropping and the scene was lost in a cloud of vapor.

  “Yetzer, be silent,” Huram ordered, but his shout was overwhelmed as the rock’s scream rose in pitch and volume.

  Yetzer leapt toward the men. Huram tried to block him, but succeeded only in knocking his son into the king. The boy managed a glance at his father, whose face was masked with fury.

  Then the world shattered.

  Nature slowed as Yetzer’s senses raced ahead of the disaster. A storm of destruction rolled toward him, preceded by the invisible fist of some nameless god who punched him in the chest and drove the air from his lungs. The water bladders ruptured and men were thrown off their feet. They hadn’t reached the ground before the next wave struck.

  Steam rolled over the men closest to the explosion, cleansed them of the dust that coated their bodies, and turned their skin sun-red. The flood from the bladders outpaced the steam, engulfing Yetzer and protecting him from the searing wave as it passed overhead.

  A flurry of dust followed and, behind this, a hail of stone shards. The air hummed with the passage of the missiles. Yetzer lifted a hand in feeble defense, even as Huram clutched his throat. A crimson mist enveloped his father just before Yetzer’s upraised hand blossomed with blood.

  3

  Makeda

  I climbed to the roof of the tower house. The height of ten men, the building was the tallest structure in Maryaba. Truly, it was the tallest anything other than the mountains that rose stark and foreboding in the west. From my perch, I would be the first to see Shams rise above the horizon.

  The goddess was both mother and destroyer. After nights so cold I could sometimes see my breath, the smile of the sun goddess was a tonic that warmed me to the core. By midday, however, the people of Maryaba would flee to homes or caves or anywhere they might find a scrap of shelter from Shams’s wrath.

  Even now, that light began to turn night’s blackness to crimson. As the first shadows appeared, one caught my eye. A long shadow, a moving shadow chased by a trail of dust that shone as a tiny halo in the diffuse morning light.

  I forgot about the sun’s awakening. “Umma,” I called down the open ladderway. “Riders.”

  My mother appeared at the foot of the ladder. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell the gatekeeper. The army returns.”

  Two days earlier, my father had led his warriors against the neighboring city of Timnah. No one could have predicted the flood that swept Bilkis away, but he cursed that city’s raiders for her loss, and vowed revenge. His sole heir now gone, he’d proclaimed Mother—until then, his slave and bed warmer—as his wife, and declared me his lawful daughter.

  While Mother washed and dressed to welcome her returning husband, I scampered down the tower house’s ladders and dashed through the marketplace where tradesmen opened their booths. At the foot of the gatehouse, I called up.

  “Yanuf!”

  “I see them, Little One,” the gatekeeper answered. “Come up and see.”

  I climbed the ladder to the platform. Yanuf had long been a favorite of mine. Unlike most people, the old warrior seemed not to care about or even notice my mixed blood, or my eyes of brown so light they were almost yellow. Maybe it was because he was broken, too. I stole a glance at the gatekeeper’s empty left sleeve, then turned my attention to the desert.

  The plume of dust rose higher. The riders came not in a charge, but at a measured pace. As they drew nearer, instead of the donkeys of my father’s warband, I recognized the taller mounts favored by Timnah.

  “They’re not—” I began, but the gatekeeper had already seen.

  Yanuf raised a ram’s horn to his lips and sounded a warning trill. Women and children in the fields dropped their tools. Herders drove their flocks toward the gate as Yanuf repeated the alarm twice more. He deftly climbed down the ladder, despite his missing arm. I hurried after him.

  “What is it?”
Mother called as she approached from the tower house.

  “Riders, Lady,” Yanuf said.

  “Our riders? But why…?”

  She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. I came to her side and clasped her other hand.

  “Not ours, Umma,” I told her excitedly. “Horses. From Timnah.”

  “Can we drive them off?” she asked Yanuf.

  “There’s only me and a few boys with slings,” he told her. “The gates will hold, but our food and water will last not ten days.”

  “Umma,” I complained as Mother squeezed my hand.

  She knelt beside me, kissed my forehead, then smoothed my hair.

  “We will go speak to them,” she said, her voice tremulous.

  “Lady, no,” Yanuf began, but she cut him off with a look.

  “I stand as mukarrib in my husband’s absence,” she said, her voice stronger. “I will not have our people starve for a hopeless cause. Close the gates behind us. Perhaps we may turn the hearts of Timnah to peace.”

  “And if you can’t?” Yanuf said.

  Mother smiled up at him. “Then you and the council will decide the next course.”

  I gripped her hand as she led me through the gate. Women and children rushed past us in the opposite direction, fleeing for safety behind Maryaba’s walls. My feet wanted to turn, to join the townsfolk, but my hand tightened its grip on Mother’s.

  “Ubasti will protect us,” she said.

  I nodded and added a silent prayer for good measure. The lion-headed Ubasti was a stranger to Saba, brought to this land when Mother had been captured and sold to my father. The goddess was not from her homeland of Uwene either, but came from yet another country far to the north, a land of red sands, black soil, and a great wadi that flowed year-round.

  The sound of trotting horses grew louder. I hoped the foreign goddess was not so far from her home that her powers were lost.

  Mother stopped as the gate swung shut. The sound of its closing made me jump. I looked up at my mother and tried to match her expression of calm confidence. That confidence fled her eyes for a moment as the front rank of horsemen arrived and formed a circle about us.

  “The gods’ blessings on all who come in peace,” Mother said.

  The lead rider, only his eyes visible behind the scarf wrapped about his head, looked past us to the city walls.

  “Who speaks for the people of Maryaba?” he called out in a sonorous voice.

  “I speak for Maryaba and for all Saba,” Mother said, her voice soft.

  The rider squeezed his heels and his mount stepped forward. I flinched, but my mother stood firm. The horse stopped in front of us, close enough that I could feel its breath.

  “Who speaks for Maryaba?” the rider called again.

  Mother stroked the horse’s muzzle, then released my hand and took hold of the bridle. She gently pulled the beast’s head down and looked up at the rider.

  “I am the mukarrib,” she said. “I speak for Saba.”

  The rider finally looked down at us.

  “You?” he said, his eyes sparkling with humor. “You dare to speak for Saba, a slave and a woman? Perhaps Maryaba has fallen so low, but Timnah has not.”

  “I am no slave,” Mother said in a brittle voice.

  “You are not of the People,” the rider observed. “That dark skin does not lie. You are of the Burned Ones, fit only for washing pots or warming beds.”

  He pulled his scarf down to reveal a handsome face with a long nose and short beard. “Though as a bed warmer, I daresay you’d serve quite well.”

  Mother stood taller and took a deep breath. “I am Ayana, wife of Karibil,” she said. “I serve as mukarrib in his absence and stand for all the people of Saba.”

  The man’s haughty look faded. He stared at her for a time, then slowly nodded and dismounted. “Then I greet you as your kinsman, for I am Watar of Timnah, your husband’s cousin. And this,” he added, “belongs to you, I think.”

  He pulled a sword from beneath his saddle. Yanuf shouted a warning from his post in the gatehouse, but Watar smiled and winked at me. The Lord of Timnah tossed the sword in the air. I squinted as sunlight flashed upon the spinning blade. Watar caught the sword then extended it hilt-first to my mother.

  She took the sword. The sun’s reflection skittered across the ground as the blade settled into her trembling hands.

  “Then my husband is dead?” she whispered.

  “Alas, Lady,” Watar said, “it is even as you say.”

  I shivered as coldness emanated from my mother. She made none of the wails of grief so common to the women of Saba. She simply kissed the sweat-stained hilt and pressed her forehead to the flat of the blade.

  “He died well,” Watar said after a time.

  “If by well you mean successfully, of that I have no doubt.” Mother’s voice bore a keen edge. “And how many of our sons and brothers followed his example?”

  “Too many.” Sadness softened Watar’s words. “A half-dozen, maybe more.”

  “So few?” Mother said. More than sixty men had followed my father to battle.

  “How many would you have had me kill, Lady?” Watar demanded. “They were my brothers, too. Though I am Lord of Timnah, I weep no less for Maryaba. Karibil was headstrong, but his men showed more reason. Once your husband and his escort fell, the others threw down their weapons.”

  “And what must Maryaba pay to have her sons restored to her?”

  “You have but to open your gates,” Watar replied. “My son and his men were impetuous in their raid.”

  Son? Had this man’s boy been among those in the wadi?

  “The gods have dealt justly with him,” Watar continued. “I come to you for peace, not blood.”

  He turned to the mounted warriors behind him and whistled. The riders nudged their horses aside to make an opening in the circle. Beyond them, flanked by yet more riders from Timnah, stood the defeated army of Maryaba. At its front, four men carried a litter.

  “Does my husband finally bring peace to the land?” Mother said, so softly I almost missed the words. In a louder voice, she ordered Yanuf to open the gates.

  “Come, Lord Watar,” she said as she tucked the sword under her arm and again took my hand. “It appears we have more to discuss.”

  4

  Bilkis

  Bilkis awoke.

  Maybe.

  She had been in utter darkness and now was … not. It wasn’t daylight exactly, nor was it night. Instead of blackness or endless blue or heat-shimmering ocher, her vision was a muted field of shapeless shadows.

  A stench filled her nose. The air reeked of vomit, unwashed bodies, and—and what? There was something in it of new wool, perhaps rubbed in dung and hung to season above a tanner’s pit.

  Bilkis’s stomach ached. From the pressure in her belly and the throbbing in her head, she reasoned she lay on something broad and coarse. And moving.

  She tried to shift her weight, but her wrists and ankles were bound. Fear lurked among the shadows of her heart as the memory of the flood and the raiders clawed its way from the darkness.

  A shrill cry pierced the air around her. Makeda, Bilkis tried to say, but her throat closed against the words. Much as she despised the little demon, the thought of her being abused at the hands of the filthy horsemen made her stomach revolt.

  The cry sounded again, nearer this time. The familiarity of the sound eased her fears.

  Donkey. That was it. Foul, stinking, sweat-flanked ass. The beast made an ungainly stride and the lurch sent a jolt through Bilkis’s middle. Her head pounded, her mouth filled with saliva, and her stomach heaved.

  At least she knew where the vomit smell had come from.

  “All praise to Havah. She lives.” A man’s northern-accented voice came from somewhere—behind? in front? beside her?—and was followed by heavy footfalls on soft earth.

  The donkey jerked to a stop with another bray and a swish of its tail. Hands fumbled at Bilkis’s wrists and feet
, then gripped her under the arms and hauled her roughly over the beast’s back.

  “Abram, the canopy,” the man bellowed. “Rahab, bring water.”

  Bilkis turned her aching head and strained her eyes against the gloom but could see nothing. Thick arms encircled her. The stench of olibanum and sweat made her long for the donkey’s company.

  “Why have we stopped?” a woman’s voice demanded. “It’s early yet. We should press on toward the oasis.”

  “Our foundling lives, my flower,” said the man.

  The whisper of feet on sand gave way to a softer tread, and Bilkis was lowered onto a thick rug. Unseen hands pulled a cloth from over her head and the world burst into a blaze of light, albeit one obscured as through layers of veils. Bilkis put her hands to her eyes and found a thick bandage, wet and sticky with ointment.

  “Rahab, see to her. Abram, direct the encampment.” The man’s command was followed by retreating footsteps and the hiss of whispered argument.

  A slight figure knelt beside Bilkis and unwound the cloth from her eyes.

  “Your face was badly burned when we found you,” a girl said in a wispy voice as she finished with the bandage. “The balm should remove the sting and keep your skin from blistering.”

  “Found me?” Bilkis said, her voice dry and ragged.

  She felt a water gourd held to her lips, and she tipped back her head and drank greedily.

  “On the desert’s edge. What were you doing out there?”

  The sound of pouring water was followed by the touch of a damp cloth scented with lavender. A small hand held Bilkis by the chin as the cloth gently stroked her face and wiped the unguent from her eyes.

  “There, now. Better?”

  Bilkis nodded as a fresh cloth dried her face.

  “I’m Rahab,” she heard as her vision at last cleared.

  The girl was fair-skinned, a few years younger than Bilkis. Her gap-toothed smile seemed genuine, but Bilkis would not be put at ease. She said nothing and glanced about her.