The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen by Tosca Lee

Author:Tosca Lee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Howard Books
Published: 2014-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

The day we departed, the priests sacrificed a bull in the courtyard of the Marib temple at dawn. It was cold; even wrapped in a heavy woolen shawl I shivered in the pale light. Reading the steaming liver, Asm hesitated before declaring our journey profitable, his forehead drawn.

I drew him aside afterward. “What is it?”

“The return, my queen. It will be . . . more difficult.”

It was an omen I could live with.

I took my leave of Wahabil there in the temple and to all eyes it must have appeared as though he brushed noses with a slave girl. I had exchanged my purple gowns and carmine silks for a simple tunic, my head cloth and veil obscuring all but the barest part of my eyes so that I was indistinguishable from Shara or my slaves.

“Care for my kingdom,” I whispered.

“I shall do so as though your eyes are upon me always. Return safely next year, my queen. Almaqah speed you. Almaqah grant you favor. Blessings on the camel that carries you.”

He had grown precious to me, my stalwart councilor, my friend. I embraced him then and kissed him as a father.

Before I left the temple complex, I stopped at the mausoleum to stand before the limestone plate of my mother’s grave and the alabaster face of the funerary mask set within it. I sighed and touched the vacant eyes. They were cold.

At twenty-four I was now the same age she had been when she died. Did she know that I was queen? I stroked her carved cheek.

I lingered a moment more, wishing—hoping—that her voice might come to me. But there was only the wind and the snarling of camels in the distance. At last, I drew away and followed the others across the causeway where the men and camels waited. Four hundred camels. Seven hundred men, including twenty Wolves of the Desert. Half the caravan, prepared to journey north to Tamrin’s tribal lands where we would meet up with nearly three hundred camels and as many men more.

As we crossed the oasis through which I had marched just six years ago, I looked back at the tiny procession of Wahabil and his slaves wending their way back to the capital. Morning had broken, infusing the brick buildings of Marib with golden warmth, turning the alabaster windows of the palace ruddy as fifty new suns. Willing the sight of them to memory, I turned my face north.

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