astonishing was their understanding of building in stone. The queen was the founder of great schools to teach such art and architecture, and the sculptors that served her were able to create images of gods and men in stone that were of exceptional beauty. Her people were literate and committed to the written word and the glory of writing. Poetry and song flourished within her compassionate realm.
A virtuous people were the Sabeans. Their fiery sun queen reigned in her kingdom with warmth, light, and love, and they were therefore possessed of every kind of abundance: love, joy, fertility, wisdom, as well as all the gold and jewels anyone could require. Because they never doubted the existence of abundance, they never knew a day of want. It was the most golden of kingdoms.
It came to pass that the great King Solomon learned of this unparalleled Queen Makeda by virtue of a prophet who advised him, “A woman who is your equal and counterpart reigns in a faraway land of the South. You would learn much from her, and she from you. Meeting her is your destiny.” Solomon did not, at first, believe that such a woman could exist, but his curiosity caused him to send an invitation for her, a request to visit his own kingdom on holy Mount Sion. The messengers who came to Sabea to advise the great and fiery Queen Makeda of Solomon’s invitation discovered that his wisdom was already legendary in her land, as was the splendor of his court, and she had awareness of him. Her own prophetesses had foreseen that she would one day travel far to find the king with whom she would perform the hieros-gamos, the sacred marriage that combined the body with the mind and spirit in the act of divine union. He would be the twin brother of her soul, and she would become his sister-bride, halves of the same whole, complete only in their coming together.
But the Queen of Sheba was not a woman easily won and would not give herself in so sacred a union to any but the man she would recognize as a part of her soul. As she made the great trek to Mount Sion with her camel train, Makeda devised a series of tests and questions that she would put to the king. His answers tothese would help her to determine if he was her equal, her own soul’s twin, conceived as one at the dawn of eternity.
For those with ears to hear, let them hear it.
T HE LEGEND OF S OLOMON AND S HEBA,
PART ONE, AS PRESERVED IN THE L IBRO R OSSO
Château des Pommes Bleues
Arques, France
present day
B ÉRENGER , R OLAND, AND T AMMY sat around the large mahogany table in the library. The object of their scrutiny was what appeared to be an ancient document, a long scroll on a type of parchment that was badly deteriorated with age. The scroll was sandwiched between two panes of glass in an effort to preserve it and to hold together the crumbling segments of what looked like a medieval jigsaw puzzle.
The box containing the fragile document had been delivered in the early morning to the château, addressed to Bérenger Sinclair in care of the Society of Blue Apples, and left by an anonymous courier who did not wait to be identified. The housekeeper who received the package said she believed the courier may have been Italian because of his clothing, car, and accent, but she was uncertain. He was most assuredly not local.
“It’s a family tree,” Tammy commented first, as she ran her hand from the name at the top of the glass. “There’s some Latin here at the top, and then it starts with this man. Guidone someone or other. Born in 1077 in Mantua, Italy.”
Bérenger, gifted with an aristocrat’s classical education, squinted to read the fading Latin at the top of the scroll. “It looks like it says ‘I, Matilda…’ At least, I think it says Matilda. Yes, it does. It says, ‘I, Matilda, by the Grace of God Who Is.’ Strange phrasing, but that’s what it says. The next sentence says, ‘I am united and inseparable with theCount Guidone and his son, Guido Guerra, and
Hilda Newman and Tim Tate