The Ring of Solomon

known in her heart the policy she would follow, but it had taken all night for her to analyse her decision. Now, having done so, she moved seamlessly from thought to action. Crossing the room to the little cabinet beside her chair, she removed the alarm globe and crushed the fragile crystal between her fingertips.
    She waited, staring into the fire; within thirty seconds she heard the running footsteps in the hall beyond and the door spring open. Balkis, without turning, said, ‘Put away your sword, girl. The danger has passed.’
    She listened. She heard the sound of metal sliding in the leather sheath.
    Balkis said: ‘Which of my guards are you?’
    ‘Asmira, my lady.’
    ‘Asmira …’ The queen gazed at the leaping flames. ‘Good. You always were the quickest. And the most skilful too, as I recall … Do you serve me in all things, Asmira?’
    ‘My lady, I do.’
    ‘Would you lay down your life for me?’
    ‘I would do so with joy.’
    ‘Truly,’ Balkis said, ‘you are your mother’s daughter. One day soon, all Sheba will be in your debt.’ She turned then, and rewarded the girl with the full radiance of her smile. ‘Asmira, my dear, ring for the servants and have them bring us wine and cakes. I wish to talk with you.’
    When in due course Guard Captain Asmira left the royal chambers and returned to her little room, her solemn face was flushed and she was breathing hard. She sat for a while on the edge of her trestle bed, staring first at nothing, then at the old familiar cracks in the mud-brick that ran from ceiling to floor. After a time her heartbeat slowed a little and her breathing quietened, but the pride that threatened to burst within her lessened not at all. Her eyes were filled with happy tears.
    She rose at last and, reaching up to the high shelf set into the wall, brought down a wooden chest, plainly adorned with the symbol of the midday sun. Placing the chest heavily upon the bed, she knelt beside it, cast off the lid, and took from within the five silver daggers that rested there. They glinted in the lantern light as she picked them up, one after another, inspecting the edges, testing the weight. She set them neatly side by side upon the bed.
    Balancing easily on the balls of her feet, she squatted low, reached beneath her bed and drew out her travelling cloak, her leather shoes and – this required an awkward moment or two of grappling in the remotest corners – a large leather drawstring bag, dusty with disuse.
    Asmira emptied the contents of the bag upon the floor: two large, roughly folded cloths, oddly stained and charred; several candles; two lighting flints and tapers; an oil lamp; three pots sealed with wax; and eight small weights of carven jade. She considered the items a while as if in hesitation, then shrugged, returned them to the bag, stuffed the silver daggers after them, tightened the drawstrings and stood up.
    Time was passing swiftly; the priestesses would be gathering in the forecourt to perform their summons, and she still had to visit the temple to get the Blessings of the Sun.
    But she was ready. Her preparations were complete, and she had no one to say goodbye to. Unstrapping her sword, she laid it on the bed. Then she put on her shoes, picked up her cloak and shouldered the bag. Without a backward glance she left the room.

6
    H igh above the Earth the phoenix soared, a noble bird much like an eagle, save for the reddish tint to its golden feathers and the iridescent flecks on the tips of its outstretched wings. It had a crest the colour of brass, claws like hooks of gold, and jet-black eyes that looked forward and back across eternity.
    It also had a narked expression and was carrying a quarterton of artichokes in a big string net.
    Now, the great weight wasn’t the only thing that annoyed me about this job. The early start had been a pain in the plumage too. I’d had to set off shortly after midnight to get from Israel to the northern coast of Africa, where the finest wild artichokes grew, just so (and here I quote the specific terms of my charge) I could ‘pick the juiciest specimens in the crystal dews of dawn’. I ask you. As if it made a blind bit of difference.
    Digging up the wretched things had been tiresome enough as well – I was going to have soil stuck beneath my claws for weeks – and carrying them back fifteen hundred miles into a mild headwind hadn’t been a picnic either. But I could cope with all this. What really stuck in my fiery