The Ring of Solomon

impossible dream – but destroying Khaba’s reference library made me feel good. Every little helps.

Part
Three

21
    A smira stood close beside the panelled door, listening to the soft footsteps of the servant die away. When all was quiet, she tested the door and found it unlocked; opening it slightly, she peered down the corridor outside. The oil lamps flickered in their recesses, the bright tapestries hung upon the walls; along the floor the tiles of polished marble shone and glittered. No one was near. No one, at any rate, that she could see .
    She closed the door again, and with her back against it considered the guest room she had been given. It was, at a rough estimate, five or six times bigger than her little bedchamber in the guards’ annexe in Marib. Its floor, like the corridor’s, was formed of intricate marble tiles. Along one wall stretched a silken couch of a luxuriousness rivalling that of the chambers of Queen Balkis. Lamps glowed warmly on wooden cabinets; behind two drapes a basin of water gently steamed. On a plinth beside the window sat a statue of a boy playing a lyre, fashioned from strips of beaten bronze; from its strangeness and evident fragility, she knew it must be very old.
    Leaving her bag on the couch, Asmira crossed to the window, pulled aside its drapes and scrambled up onto the ledge. Outside was starlight, cold and clear, and a sheer drop down the side of the palace wall to a patch of rocks and boulders on the eastern side of Jerusalem’s hill. She craned her neck for nearby ledges, or other windows she might inch over to in time of need, but saw none.
    Asmira drew her head inside, aware suddenly of how weak she felt. She hadn’t eaten since the morning. Alongside that, however, she felt a cold elation: ahead of schedule, with two days yet to go before Sheba’s time ran out, she was inside Solomon’s palace, somewhere close to the wicked king.
    With luck she might be brought before him within hours.
    In which case, she must prepare herself. Shaking off her weariness, she hopped down from the sill, went to the couch and opened her bag. Ignoring the candles and cloths wedged at the bottom, she removed the final two daggers, which she fitted next to the one already secreted in her belt. Three was prudent, if probably unnecessary. A single dagger-thrust would be enough to do the job.
    Letting her robes fall forward to conceal the weapons, she smoothed back her hair and went to wash her face. Now she must make herself look the part once more: a sweet, naive priestess from Himyar, come to ask the aid of wise King Solomon.
    If he was anything like the loathsome Khaba, it was a ruse that would fool him well.
    After its final descent into the palace, the magician’s carpet had come to a halt before two great closed doors. They were twenty foot high, and made of black volcanic glass, smooth, featureless and shining. Six giant copper hinges anchored them into the fabric of the wall. Two copper door-knockers, shaped like twisting serpents biting their own tails, hung slightly out of human reach; each was longer than Asmira’s arms. Above and around the doors was a crenellated gateway, its portico decorated with raised reliefs in blue-glazed brickwork, depicting lions, cranes, elephants and terrifying djinn.
    ‘I’m sorry that I must bring you to this little side entrance,’ the magician, Khaba, said. ‘The main doors are reserved for King Solomon, and for occasional state visits by his client kings. But I shall ensure that you are met with all due courtesy.’
    At this he had clapped his hands, a slight and brittle noise. At once the doors swung inwards, swift and soundless, moving on oiled hinges. Beyond, in the revealed dimness of a vast reception hall, twin teams of straining implets laboured on pulley ropes. Between them, rows of lantern-bearers stood left and right, supporting, with the aid of chains, long wooden torches that jutted from their belt-cusps. Bright yellow fire danced at the torch ends. They bowed their heads in welcome and moved aside; the carpet eased forward and descended to the marbled floor.
    To Asmira’s annoyance, she was not shown instantly to Solomon’s presence. Instead, soft-voiced servants hastened from the shadows, and she and Khaba were ushered away to a high, pillared room strewn with silken cushions, where smiling, bright-eyed children – whom Asmira doubted were quite as human as they appeared – served them glasses of frosted wine.
    The