"Solomon and the Queen of Sheba" by Angelisa Fontaine-Wood
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
by
Angelisa Fontaine-Wood
Solomon coveted Sheba, a small kingdom, but precious with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. For lack of the land itself, he married its maidens, again and again, seven hundred times. Ambassadresses, they came to Jerusalem for reasons of state, of alliance, of trade. But once he discovered their names, their true names – the hidden ones whispered in the women’s quarters to each other (O Bilqis, Oloye, Nicaula, Makeda, Lilith, Saba, Nessa, Candace, Azeb, Miryam…)-- they had no say in the matter but must obey.
For Solomon knew how to raise spirits, knew the names that would conjure them to do his bidding. Women were a jot and tittle more difficult than the djinn, but with the secret of their names they too were his to command. He loved them for the stories of their homeland, but mostly for the tales they told of their Queen. Her skin of gleaming ebony under her high braided black hair dancing with pearls, her swan’s milk baths, her gowns of white samite, her speckled iridescent serpent Arwen, the hanging gardens of amber trees where wild peacocks wandered. All these though were but minor points. Her riddles stood as her true marvel. The Queen could riddle a man out of his kingdom and into tears.
The Queen had heard tales of this wisdom of his and in turn coveted it. Tempting fate, she sent a pigeon proposing a visit. Solomon panted at the chance of Sheba served to him on a silver platter. Could he but discover her true name then she would join the wives and the realm, and its many riches would be once and for all his own.
She went to meet him. Her caravan of hundreds marched across the sands under the moon now waxing now waning, now waxing again. The orb was holy to her. The camels were laden with royal gifts of balm and balsam, cinnamon, spikenard, saffron and aloe wood. They carried sculptures of ivory, large and small, the gold of Ophir and gems brilliant as the dark, sparkling doe eyes of the Queen herself. Finally the last camel bore a pillar with all the knowledge of men and the world entire engraven in its marble. When the caravan came into Jerusalem, he greeted her with honeyed wine, raisin cakes, roses of Sharon and lilies of the field. The air was thick with djinn, clouds of them, sparks flying in the air. She could smell their smoky sulphur past the lilies, past the scent of new cedar from the Temple.
In touring this rising construction she tripped on a stray plank and Solomon spied her leg - furred, with claws where toes should be. The mystery surpassed his understanding. Now he must have her or die.
He opened the games of wit.
‘My kingdom for a riddle! Two harlots and a newborn: both claim him- what is to be done?’ Even at the ruse of it, she was incandescent at his answer, ‘Half a child cannot be! Show me the woman of wily words whose speech is long : she is the liar- At the loss of her child the true mother cannot give voice to her sorrow.’
Her turn came and she asked how a woman might turn into a pillar of salt and how that salt might lose its savor. The King begged time to reply.
Between puzzles, he took her to the olive groves, the cedar woods, among the date palms, then to the vineyards where the little foxes pranced at their heels. He called down the grapes to dip their heads in her honor. The stray plank he laid to cross over a stream for her, where once again her furry ankle and taloned toes produced wonder and lust.
Nights, she stretched the length of herself. Her belly lay cool upon the marble and the silken cushions, elbows folded beneath her breast and chin forward, for she was from Sheba and knew how a body might in turn answer a king given to enigmas.
There were other names by that time: ‘Honey Almond,’ ‘Figgy Kiss,’ but a fortnight into their puzzlings he still did not know the name she answered to in her inmost heart. If he could but learn it, both Sheba and its furry legged ruler would be his own.
He called a djinni to discover her name, but the Queen knew how to speak to the creatures, cajoling and coaxing, knew in just what way to cast her glance, ways unknown to Solomon. This ifrit had already become her lover, carried messages from her to the wives, her subjects, redolent of their homeland. With the strength of its devotion to Sheba’s sovereign, it remained silent at the demands of the king. Outraged, Solomon stopped him into a bottle, sealed with his royal seal and cast him to the seas.
Then on his throne he sat, head upon hand, elbow upon knee. The smoke over the moonlight that the djinn left behind taught him she had not one name, but ninety-nine. The other djinn knew too, the ifrit and the satayin, this incantation of names, as did the women hidden in their quarters. They knew every one of her names and recited them one after another - the sound of them floated upwards, at the rhythm of votive beads to the moon above. Solomon swore upon the ark that he would learn this name, he would make her his own, and all Sheba along with her or forswear the tetragrammaton.
In her tent meanwhile, she picked up her stylus, licked its end and began a letter to her cousin, Pharoah’s daughter, telling of her sojourn in this place. For all the wonder of his temple, the king would split a baby down the middle, but knew not the ways of women in truth or lie. His ignorance of perfume astounded, nor could he read the eyes freckling Arwen’s scales, their mood, and the Moon to him was but means to mark the time. “I intended the pillar for him, dear cousin, but he could never read it, for. as you know, only under moonlight do the writings turn to sense.”
After all was starlight and the moon dark, she crept into the women’s quarters. (O Bilqis, Oloye, Nicaula, Makeda, Lilith, Saba, Nessa, Candace, Azeb, Miryam…). The djinn hushed the eunuchs to sleep at her wish. She wove her way past the curtains, amongst fountain and garden to find them. To each she whispered the name given her by her mother, like a waft of attar, and the women tossed and turned, dreaming of the weeping myrrh trees of home. She bore an ivory pomegranate inscribed ninety nine times over with the moon’s appellations, slipped it under a pillow, and departed all unseen.
A little over a sunset later, the silver sliver of moon shown like a necklace over flesh of jet, a neck majestic and like unto the towers of David.
What is, he asked, the name of Sheba’s queen?
She danced with her strange feet and in dancing she answered, a guttural cry, with her tongue reaching back into her throat. The utterance conjured djinn in the air, spangling cypress boughs with their flames.
He commanded.
She refused.
He wept and promised her up to half his kingdom.
The djinn sparked, eyes like moonlight through a sandstorm.
Arwen twisted his purple scales upon his silken couch.
Behind her curtained tent, the pillar cracked.
The wives as one held their breath
One among them rolled the ivory pomegranate the length of the table. He took it up and read for one and all the names then of the Lady Moon - names came to his lips that had been on the tip of his tongue since the Queen’s arrival in Judea. Came a fragrance unspeakable poured forth from some vessel, compelling his heart to break in two and tears to fall from his royal eyes.
Why she asked, Why might a woman have a befurred foot? Talons for toes?
Solomon had no answer, only the names of the lovely moon above.
Later that night he went to his favorite’s chamber only to find it empty, that and the one next to it as well as the one after that. He wandered, only to find the entire women’s quarters deserted. There remained but a scent of frankincense. Had he ever known the queen, in whatever sense, she had left him, palanquins on the camel backs full of her damsels, destined for the crying myrrh trees, destined homeward once and for all.
“Solomon and the Queen of Sheba” first appeared in Myths Subverted, May 2022 (ed. Dimitar Dakovski).
If you want to read it along with others in the anthology it came from, click here
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