The Sons of Isaac(135)

“Tomorrow the high priest will come for his answer,” she thought. “He wouldn’t press me so if it weren’t important. I must decide. There’s no one who can help me. I must decide what I’ll do. Surely it is only the Jinn and Afreet that would harm me, and Ilumquh can protect me from both.”





Bilqis slept poorly that night. She had experienced two frightening nightmares in which the great dam that supplied all the water for her city had burst. Dreams were often prophetic, and she could not afford to ignore a dream that could spell such disaster to her whole kingdom. Long before morning, she was up getting ready to ride out and inspect it for herself.

The High Priest and her tribesmen would all expect her to be at the temple to chant and fast, encouraging the moon to rise again by their sacrifice and prayers. However, that was just where she didn’t want to be.

The High Priest had said he would expect an answer today in regard to her marriage, and she hadn’t decided yet just what she would do. She felt cornered, trapped. There were no choices she could accept and yet she knew the pressure would mount until she made some decision. She needed to get away, escape, if only for an hour.

The ride to the dam was out across the fertile valley and far enough to require riding in the regal howdah on the back of a camel. She liked that. In the howdah she was alone and could think without interruption.

Once on the way to the dam, she settled back into the cushions and breathed a sigh of relief. No one but her guards and a few of her servants knew she was going.

Of course they would miss her at the ceremonies. If it seemed necessary she could tell them about the dream. No one questioned the importance of the dam.

Before the dam was built, this valley was always subject to drought. There were stories almost hard to believe of the people’s dependence on Ilumquh for every drop of water and even the food they ate. By their cunning her ancestors had built the dam and foiled the gods. She liked to think that in the same way she would triumph over this king who had set out to change the trade route.

This was her favorite hour of the day and her preferred way to travel. She loved to hear the jangling of the camel’s bells and the creaking of leather against leather as the howdah shifted and settled on its base. The gentle swaying motion gave her a feeling of peace, and she could enjoy the fresh breeze that blew through the fragile curtains of the howdah.

Behind her towered the jagged, rose-colored mountains that led off to the ancient city of Sana while before her were the familiar humped mountains of Balak Al-Kibli and Balak Al-Ausat between which stretched the dam. It had at first been just a huge bank of earth eighteen hundred feet long. Later one of her ancestors had made it more secure by facing the upstream side with stones set in mortar. Spillways and sluice gates for irrigation had been out into the sides of the mountains long before the dam was built.

The water was channeled out into what was known as the North Garden and the South Garden. She wondered briefly where the plot of land owned by the boy and his mother had been. How strange of Badget to say that Solomon would have ruled in favor of the boy.

The more information she gathered about Solomon, the more she found herself disliking him, but on the other hand, the more interested she became. He seemed to have an insatiable desire for women. Seven hundred wives was more than any other king or pharaoh boasted.

His palace was supposed to be splendid and his gardens magnificent. Kings gave him their daughters to wed and even Pharaoh thought him important enough to marry his own sister. More surprising was the fact that Pharaoh had sent his army up to take the town of Gezer so that he could give it to Solomon as his sister’s dowry.

No one said much about how Solomon actually looked. He was undoubtedly short and fat with a large semitic nose and puffy cheeks. Otherwise why would they talk all the time about his wealth, his wisdom, and his many wives but nothing really personal about him. “Solomon” meant “peace” and she had been told he loved peace. She had never heard of his fighting a war. He seemed more inclined to marry the enemy than fight him. She had to smile. If she were a man, that would also be her choice.

She was surprised to find that they had reached the dam so soon. She insisted on getting down and walking out on the rampart above the sluice gates. She loved this view from the dam with the early sunrise lighting the whole fertile valley below her. There were those who acclaimed the dam a feat as miraculous as the pyramids in Egypt. When anyone asked her how it had been built, she always told them it was the work of the Jinn and magic.

For just a short time she stood looking down at the valley. She loved this green oasis with its palms and fig trees bordered by hundreds of small irrigation ditches that circled off the Dahana River. Because of the dam, the river flowed all year and kept her valley green.