The Ring of Solomon

then?’
    Asmira had hopped and capered with excitement, for she knew the answer. ‘Frankincense, Mother! The stuff the hill-men stink of!’
    Her mother had placed a steely hand upon her daughter’s head. ‘Not so much jigging about, girl. A palace guard does not cavort like a dervish, even at the age of five. But you are right. This incense is our gold, and makes our people rich. We trade with distant empires far away beyond the deserts and the seas. They pay well for it, but they would steal it if they could. Only the great sands of Arabia, which an army cannot cross, have shielded us from their greed.’
    Asmira had stopped her spinning. She frowned. ‘If enemies came here,’ she said, ‘the queen would kill them. Wouldn’t she, Mother? She keeps us safe.’
    ‘Yes, child. Our queen keeps Sheba safe. And we in turn keep her safe – the guards and I. That is what we are born to do. When you grow up, dear Asmira, you too must protect our blessed lady with your life – just as I have, and our grandmothers did before us. Do you so swear?’
    Asmira was as still and serious as could be. ‘Mother, I do.’
    ‘Good girl. Then let us go down and join our sisters.’
    At that time the old Queen of Sheba had not yet grown too heavy to leave the palace, and was accompanied wherever she went by an escort of her guard. As its leader, Asmira’s mother always walked right behind the queen, close as a shadow, curved sword hanging easily at her waist. Asmira (who particularly admired her mother’s long and shining hair) thought her far more beautiful and regal than the queen herself, though she took care not to mention this to anyone. Such a thought was possibly treasonous, and there was a place for traitors on the bare hill beyond the water meadows, where their remains were picked over by little birds. Instead she contented herself imagining the day when she would be First Guard and walk behind the queen. She went out to the gardens behind the palace and, with a severed reed stem, practised savage swordplay, putting ranks of imagined demons to full and awful flight.
    From the earliest age she joined her mother in the training hall, where, under the watchful eye of the wrinkled guard-mothers, who were now too old for active service, the women of the guard daily learned their craft. Before breakfast they scaled ropes, ran around the meadows, swam in the canals below the walls. Now, their muscles readied, they worked six hours a day in the echoing, sunlit rooms, sparring with swords and twirl-staffs, duelling with knives and whirling fists, throwing discs and daggers into straw-stuffed targets across the floor. Asmira would watch it all from the benches, where the guard-mothers bound wounds and bruises in cloths lined with soothing herbs. Often she and other girls would pick up the little wooden weapons laid out for them, join their mothers in gentle play-fights, and so begin their training.
    Asmira’s mother was the most accomplished of the women, which is why she was First Guard. She ran fastest, fought most fiercely, and above all threw the little shining daggers more accurately than anyone else. She could do this standing, moving, and even on the half-turn, sending the blade hilt-deep into any chosen target far off along the hall.
    Asmira was mesmerized by this. Often she scampered up, holding out her hand. ‘I want a go.’
    ‘You’re not old enough,’ her mother said, smiling. ‘There are wooden ones that are better weighted, so you don’t do yourself a mischief. No, not like that’ – for Asmira had prised the dagger from her grasp – ‘you need to hold the point lightly between the thumb and forefinger … like so. Now, you must be calm. Close your eyes, take a deep, slow breath—’
    ‘Don’t need to! Watch this for a shot! Oh.’
    Her mother laughed. ‘Not a bad attempt, Asmira. If the target was six paces to its right and twenty paces nearer, you would have hit it square on. As it is, I’m glad I don’t have slightly larger feet.’ She stooped, picked up the knife. ‘Have another try.’
    The years passed, the Sun God worked his daily passage through the heavens. Now Asmira was seventeen years old, light of foot and serious of eye, and one of four newly promoted captains of the palace guard. She had excelled during the latest rebellion of the hill-tribes, and had personally captured the rebel chief and his magicians. She had several times deputized for the First Guard in standing behind