Free Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba by India Edghill Page B

the others, say the same words — No. I must not think this way. I have many women, after all, and they have only one husband. This new wife, too, must be greeted with respect.
    Though not with love. Love had belonged only to his first wife, the bride of his heart. He could not grant that love to another.
    But respect—yes, each woman was entitled to respect.
    And so King Solomon must wait in all his glory upon the Lion Throne, although the sun neared its zenith and there was no sign yet of the king’s latest bride. The caravan from Colchis should have reached the city gates by now, that the procession might wind through Jerusalem’s streets while the late autumn sun still shone bright. Now the new queen’s arrival at King Solomon’s court would be less than perfect—
    “But it is not our fault, my lord king! Forty times did we warn them that they must break their camp early, to arrive at the appointed hour. But nothing would do for the Colchians but they take their own omens, and delay until the princess sacrificed to her outlandish gods. Now the flowers will be wilted and the onlookers impatient, and—”
    Solomon held up his hand. “Enough, Ahishar; no one blames you. I least of all.” The king smiled. “Now calm yourself. Patience is a virtue.”
    The palace steward bowed his head. “Yes, my lord king. Shall I go and tell the king’s wives that there is no sign of the new queen as yet?”
    Surely they have guessed that by now. Solomon glanced up at the queens’ gallery that overlooked the great court. Shadowed gems flashed, gold shimmered; his wives, too, must have grown restless from the long delay. Solomon sighed, and nodded. “Go and tell them, but I charge you not to turn a delay into a disaster.”
    “As the king says.” Ahishar bowed again and hastened off, stiff with indignation.
    The steward Ahishar loathes disorder as the prophet Ahijah loathes sin. With the palace steward safely out of sight, Solomon permitted himself a rueful smile. Each time he took another royal bride, the same rituals were observed—yet poor Ahishar fretted over the ceremony of each of the king’s marriages as if it were the first, as if no precedent existed to aid him in his task. And as if one misstep would bring the sky down around us.
    Still smiling, Solomon rose to his feet and laid the lion scepter upon the throne. “As the bridal procession has not yet reached the city, I will return when I hear that it has passed through the Horse Gate.”
    Having escaped the throne room, Solomon chose to retreat to the rooftop above, hoping to find a moment’s peace. He laid his hands upon the stones of the wall, stones smooth-fitted and sun-warmed beneath his skin. From the city below rose an ebb and flow of noise, a sound steady as ocean waves. The sound of peace, of prosperity. Jerusalem boasted two marketplaces, a modest one in the Old City and a bazaar larger than many villages by the Sheep Gate. Anything in the world could be procured in the King’s Marketplace, from iron arrowheads to silvered rose petals.
    Solomon gazed down at the bazaar, watched colors shift as men moved bales of cloth and baskets of fruit through the market, noted bright flashes as women walked through the crowds, seeking bargains. Then he lifted his eyes
beyond the bazaar to the Street of Gods. Foreigners who lived and worked in Jerusalem desired to worship their own gods in their own fashion. Solomon had granted their petitions to build shrines and temples of their own—and had pulled the fangs from any opposition by requiring those shrines and temples to pay a tithe to Lord Yahweh’s Temple and priests.
    And so everyone prospers and is pleased enough to keep the peace. Solomon smiled wryly. Almost everyone. Alas, nothing pleased the prophet Ahijah.
    Not even the Lord’s great Temple pleases him. Certainly I do not, nor any of my laws.
    He stared across the city to the Temple. The holy building crowned the new city; so much gold had gone into