The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online

final word before I start my long flight home. My master is not unreasonable. He knows this decision is hard for you. You have two weeks to change your mind. See there?’ The demon pointed through the window, where the moon hung yellow behind the slender mud-brick towers of the city. ‘The moon is full tonight. When it has waned to nothing, have the forty sacks piled ready in the courtyard! If you do not, Solomon’s army will take wing. Two weeks! In the meantime I thank you for your hospitality and your warming fire. Now here is a little blaze of my own. Consider it something to spur your thinking.’ It raised its hand: a bulb of orange fire swelled from the fingers, shot forth as a narrow bolt of light. The top of the nearest tower exploded in a flower of flame. Burning bricks tumbled into darkness; screams sounded across the gulf.
    With a cry, Balkis lunged forward. The young man smiled contemptuously and stepped towards the window. A blur of movement, a waft of wind – an eagle flew out between the pillars, banked around the pluming smoke, and was gone among the stars.
    Dawn came; thin grey veins of smoke still rose from the ruined tower, but the fire itself was out. It had taken the priestesses several hours to agree on the precise demon that should be summoned to fight the blaze, and by that time the flames had been quenched by water carried from the canals by hand. Queen Balkis had supervised this process, and seen the dead and wounded taken to their proper places. Now, with the city numb and quiet, she sat again beside the window of her room, watching the blue-green daylight stealing slowly across the fields.
    Balkis was twenty-nine, and had occupied the throne of Sheba for something under seven years. Like her mother, the previous queen, she met all the requirements of that sacred station, and was popular with her people. She was brisk and efficient in court policy, which pleased her counsellors; she was serious and devout in matters of religion, which pleased the priestesses of the Sun. And when the hill-men of the Hadhramaut came down into the city, with their robes weighed down with swords and silver djinn-guards, and the sacks of frankincense slung upon their camels’ shanks, she met them in the forecourt of the palace, offered them khat leaves to chew, and spoke with them knowledgeably of the weather and the difficulties of tapping resin from the trees, so that they too were pleased and returned to their villages speaking highly of Sheba’s wondrous queen.
    Her beauty didn’t hurt either. Unlike her mother, who had been strongly inclined to fat, and indeed in later years had required four young slaves to help her rise from the soft vastness of her couch, Balkis was slender and athletic and disliked assistance from anybody. She had no close confidants among her counsellors or priestesses and made her decisions alone.
    As was traditional in Sheba, all Balkis’s personal slaves were women. They fell into two categories – the maidens of her chamber, who tended to her hair and jewels and personal hygiene; and the small hereditary caste of guards, whose duty it was to keep the queen from harm. Previous rulers had developed friendships with certain of these slaves, but Balkis disapproved of such notions and kept herself remote.
    The dawn light reached the canals at last; the water flared and glittered. Balkis rose, stretched, and drank a draught of wine to loosen her stiff limbs. Within moments of the attack she had 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