Changeling, and Other Stories
things grow outward, as a tree grows outward, to fill up the empty
spaces of Death....
"No! no! I shall go on."
Up in the cool mountains decision had seemed so natural, action so
easy. But below in humid Egypt subtleties of thought seemed native to
the weak Nilotic breeze, and she could see herself as though she were
another woman. She could see her orphaned childhood, when the care of
all her counselors was to have her gracious and kind, and sweet as a
small bird's song. They had instructed her that queens are not made by
crowns, but by graciousness and strength and courtesy, so that any
beholder might know she was a queen were she dressed in the garments of
her humblest slave. And she had grown older into young maidenhood, and
wise old heads had helped her govern and take care of her wild mountain
folk, and came a few years more and she was twenty-two, and the
counselors were too old to counsel, being either querulous old men or
dotards, living in forgotten days, and Balkis herself had to rule,
being queen. To be queen alone would have been simple.
But being queen, she was lonely, and being gracious and just, she was
wise, and being wise, questions arose in her like a spring of well
water. Thought rose like a hawk and swept in widening gyres, but
arrived nowhere. Thought and emotion were with her in the red Afric
dawn. Thought and emotion were with her like the flickering lightning
and terrible thunder of the Abyssinian hills. Thought and emotion came
with blue mountainy twilight. And there was none to share them. None
to ask. None to satisfy. Being a queen, there was none she might
consort with but kings and queens, and the kings of the states about
her were shrewd political men, who could not understand what a young
girl felt, and her young womanhood quivering like the jessamy bough....
Their eyes would be on the riches of Ethiopia; so they were out....
And the queens of Africa, outside herself, were not queens, but tribal
chieftainesses, half priestess and half prostitute, Amazonian,
untutored.... She could not talk to them.
And so she had decided there was nothing for her to do but to govern
justly, to grow old gracefully, to weep a little in private, to find it
hard to go asleep of nights, to look forward to death as a sentry
awaits the dawn, until a swart Egyptian trader had brought word of the
new king of the Jews, now David was gone. A boy he was, they said, a
strange dreaming boy, with none of his father's delight in war, and
with a gift of strange inspired wisdom. She was told the story of two
women, that were harlots, and how they each claimed a certain child as
theirs, and of Solomon's judgment.
"And how old is the young king of the Jews?" Sheba asked.
"Twenty-three or twenty-four."
"A year or so older than I."
And she was told how Hiram, King of Tyre, that shrewd man, was a friend
to the young prince, and how the arrogant Pharaoh of Egypt conceived it
worth his while to make a treaty with him.
"And is he married?"
"No, Sheba, he is not married," the trader vouched....
II
The girl in her said: "Go back. They will think you are seeking love.
They will think that with your white teeth, your sloe-black eyes, your
color of fine bronze, your body, lithe and sleek and graceful as a
cat's, you want love from the king of the Jews." And all her face
flushed at that thought, and she debated whether she should send for
the captain general of the fighting men and tell him to face his troops
about and return to her Ethiopia. But the queen in her rose and said:
"What care I what they say? Does Sheba need the love of any lowland
king, or plead for alliance? Sheba is Sheba, and what Sheba does is
Sheba's business." And the woman of her brooded softly: "I will go on.
Somewhere there is an answer to all the questions, and if he does n't
know the answer, perhaps he can help me to find them."
"And perhaps he has questions of his own," she said, "and I can help
him answer those." A sad boyhood, she had heard his was, with his
father David droning psalms in his latter days, busy at his prayers as
a potter at his lathe, calling for mercy for his own soul.... And his
mother, the queen, who had once been wife to Uriah the Hittite, a
strange, mad old woman who walked about the palace, gibbering to
herself, her face and fingers twisting, all the white beauty that had
dazzled David upon the roof of the king's house turned now to an
awesome gray rugosity.... A house of fear, Sheba thought, a house of
silence, and she understood how Solomon could have become so wise, for
wisdom comes with the quiet tongue....
Wisdom he had, according to all reporters, but the wisdom she had heard
about was wisdom of the head and of the body. Had he wisdom of the
heart? Did he understand why one was now quiet as a well, now
turbulent as the sea? Did he understand why peace should come in a
soft blue garment, and suddenly irritation rise in angry red? Did he
understand what it was that dragged at the heart so, pulling it, it
seemed, toward the furtherest star? And could he resolve her what she
was to do with herself? Govern she must and govern wisely, but outside
of that was she always to be so lonely--she who was so young and strong
and beautiful? The slave girl with the fatherless baby had more than
she, the queen. The housewife grinding the family corn. Each could
escape into some one else, had a refuge--all but Sheba, the queen....
"I must go on."
And so her great and gorgeous train went on through the desert, crunch
of camels' pads, shuffle of marching men, thud of lumbering elephants,
screaming of peacocks, chattering of apes.... They passed the
shimmering sands, and came to the black high rocks. They passed
sluggish Nile, and came to the roaring cataracts. They came to the
city of hawks and the city of Venus and the city of sacred crocodiles.
They came to Thebes with its gigantic figures, each of a single stone.
They came into the desert again, steering at night by the stars as
mariners do. They came to the great Lake Moeris, which the Egyptians
control by locks. They came to Memphis. They passed the giant
labyrinth. They passed the three great pyramids. They passed the
Sphinx. They came to the Great Delta. They crossed to Ais. They came
to Joppa. They wended toward Jerusalem in the cool of the dawn....
III
She was in no wise impressed, somehow, by his ceremonial officers.
They lacked dignity and were familiar. Nor did Solomon's great
captains please her. They were not fighters; they were strategists.
They played with companies as the Persians played chess with pawns.
Her own men were her ideal of soldiers, copper-colored, muscled like
panthers; they would crash into an opposing army like their native
lightning, or they would die doggedly, their backs to the wall, their
heads broken, the blood streaming into their eyes.... Nor did all the
magnificence of the king's house please her.... There was too much,
too quickly acquired, and jumbled, no composition. The Egyptians had
more magnificent things, and grouped them better. Her eyes flickered
from the hall to the pale young king on his throne. Beside him,
standing, was Nathan, the principal officer, and the king's friend, a
great frame of a man, fanatical. And there was silence.
"I am Balkis, Queen of Sheba," she said and threw back her veil.
Solomon cast an uneasy glance at the prophet by his side.
"She is come to prove you with hard questions," Nathan spoke.
For an instant Balkis all but laughed. Behind her stood her fighting
men, in exact ranks, rather contemptuous. Around the hall the men of
Judah and Israel fluttered. Winked at, nudged one another. "From
Abyssinia she comes, to ask him questions. See what a king we have! A
great people, we!" It was so like a showman with a marvel to exhibit!
"Ask him, ask him anything you like. Go on. Ask him." The cadaverous
prophet! The white, young king. A swift stab of pathos went into
Sheba's heart. Poor lad! Poor king! Poor mummer!
She smiled in the corner of her veil. She was supposed to ask
questions, he to answer them. Well, let the mummery go on!
"O King," her voice rang out, "what is sweeter than honey?"
"The love of pious children."
"O King, what is sharper than poison?"
"The tongue."
"O King, what is the pleasantest of days?"
"The day of profit on merchandise."
"O King, what is the debt the most stubborn debtor denies not?"
"The debt is death."
"O King, what is death in life?"
"It is poverty."
"O King, what is the disease that may not be healed?"
"It is evil nature."
She was rather ashamed for herself and for him, and her great
Ethiopians were puzzled. But it was so evident that the poor white
king's hold on his people was this trick of wisdom. She must help him.
She remembered quickly what history she knew of his folk.
"O King," she asked, "what woman was born of man alone?"
"Eve was born of Adam."
"O King, what spot of lowland is it upon which the sun shone once, but
will never again shine until judgment-day?"
"The bottom of the Red Sea, which clave asunder for Moses. Then the
sun shone on the bottom and will never again shine until judgment-day."
"O King, what thing was it whose first state was wood and whose last
life?"
"The rod of Aaron, which became a writhing serpent."
She spread her slim copper hands, she bowed her sleek black head, as in
homage.
"It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of
thy wisdom.
"Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came and mine eyes had seen
it, and behold the half was not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity
exceedeth the fame which I heard.
"Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand
continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom!"
And all through the king's hall went the flutter of his subjects: "Did
n't I tell you? Did n't we say so? A fine king we 've got. All the
way from Abyssinia she came to prove him. And he answered her
everything. A great king! A fine king! Make no mistake!"
She moved toward the troubled young king with a smile.
"I would now commune with you on what is in my heart, great Solomon.
Let us commune alone."
His eyes probed her. He saw her kindliness to him. A fleeting little
smile answered her smile. He rose to meet her. The giant prophet
caught him by the wrist.
"My son, attend unto my wisdom," he whispered fiercely....
"The lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is
smoother than oil.
"But her end is bitter as wormwood--"
She caught his whispered words, and her proud head went up, her
sloe-black eyes flashed.
"I am Balkis, Queen of Sheba."
For an instant they regarded each other with hatred in their eyes.
Sheba turned.
"Men," she called to her bodyguard.
The slim brown Ethiopes tensed their statue-like pose. There was a
_swish_ as the short Abyssinian swords came from the oxhide scabbards.
"But I said nothing of you, great Balkis," Nathan suddenly fawned. "I
spoke only of bad women. You are a good woman, Balkis, a virtuous
woman. And a virtuous woman is like a crown, great Balkis, of gold,
yea of fine gold--"
"So!"
IV
They went out alone into the garden of the figs and pomegranates. The
bright sun of early noon came down like a shower of gold. The doves
made their faint thunder. The locust span his tiny wheel. From afar
off, where the temple was a-building, came the clink of hammer on
stone, the thud of ax on wood, the yo-hoing, the grunts, the curses of
the workmen as they hoisted a beam into place.... And Solomon was shy
as a girl....
"You are wondering why I came," Balkis said. "Will you sit down with