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she felt their presence like needles in her skin. Yet, Tashere loved Solomon. And at night when she was alone, she reminded herself that she was his first true love and that, regardless of the numbers of other wives and concubines, none of them could feel this way.
    Tashere stopped herself at the great doors to the throne room and waited until the king was walking along the corridor. He saw her, opened his arms and embraced her, but she knew from long experience that his embrace lacked the warmth it once did.
    â€œWas Naamah pleasing to you last night, my king and husband?”
    â€œYes,” he replied flatly.
    â€œIt saddens me that you no longer allow me to pleasure you, Solomon.”
    He stood back and pulled away, looking closely at her. “Shall I come to you tonight?”
    She shook her head. “Tonight is not a night for us. The moon god, Khonshu, has traveled again from Egypt to Israel to visit my body and my blood flows. And besides . . .”
    â€œWhat?” he asked with a thinly disguised note of annoyance.
    Tashere hesitated. “Nothing.” She looked at him and smiled.
    The king seemed to soften as if remembering her as she once had been. “I know that I have a place in your heart. That is all I need,” he said.
    The compliment stung Tashere like a whip and she drew away from him.
    â€œNot everything is pleasure, my king. You spend so much time looking up to the mountain that you may not see what is at your feet.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” he asked.
    â€œI have no power but what you have given me. No wealth but what you allow me. My dowry has already been spent on the timber and the stone of this palace. All I have is your firstborn son, Abia, your heir. And my task is to protect him, to protect your legacy.”
    Solomon viewed her with dark, intent eyes but said nothing.
    â€œThere are those, Solomon, who look upon your son with treacherous thoughts. Sons will kill other sons and it is their mothers who give them the knife.”
    Solomon leaned back and exhaled slowly. She was unsure of what he might say or do because of what she’d just told him. She waited in the silence, dreading his response, but for the life of her son—and her own life—she had to speak out. Then he bent down and kissed Tashere on the forehead.
    â€œThe day is early and my mind is weary already. I don’t needsuch girl-like thoughts from you, my dear first wife. You see shadows where there is only daylight.” And with that, he walked away toward the doors of the throne room, which were opened with a waft of air that ruffled Tashere’s gown. Silently, her lips barely moving, she said to herself, “But, Solomon, you killed your own brother so that you could sit on your throne . . .”
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October 18, 2007
    E VERYTHING HURT. When he moved, his back hurt. When he twisted his body to look out of the hospital window at the panorama of the Old City of Jerusalem, his neck hurt. His head hurt all the while with a pounding and throbbing ache exacerbated by his dry mouth. And surprisingly his arm and wrist hurt from the handcuffs that secured him to the iron frame of the bed.
    Bilal had woken from the operation an hour earlier with the noise of the nurse checking his vital signs and taking his blood pressure. Instinctively he’d tried to move his body, but it was an agony to shift positions in the bed, made worse by being tethered like a dog. He’d fallen back into a narcotized sleep, but the noises from the ward kept bringing him back into the present.
    Still suffering the effects of the anesthetic, Bilal struggled to recall who he was, where he was, and why he was there. He remembered lying on the pavement underneath a white wall. There was a mosque nearby. He remembered the pain in his arm and leg, now numbed by the morphine coursing through his body. He remembered falling down into a tunnel and the excruciating agony of an