Our wiser heads know that turning to steel now would harm all sides Sheba is still bound by great trade pacts with distant kingdoms, and civil war would bleed both tribes and crown. Thus, we wrestle within ourselves: preserve the outward peace, or grasp the reins outright.
For my own part, I lean toward testing Balqis in the arena of wit. If she can parry us with cunning and tact, I may however warily reconsider. But if she blunders and yields the vital powers, she will remain nothing but a puppet in Khazabla hand, and we shall steer the kingdom from behind her veil. In every case, whoever seizes the true throne, man or woman, must prove the strength to face customs rooted deep as time.
Now I sit in my wide tent, in a diwan hung with swords and shields of my forefathers, drinking coffee spiced with cardamom and conjuring the scene to come: the queen, in full majesty, proclaiming her vision before the gathering, while we sit in the foremost rows, trading glances and comments, awaiting the moment for a quiet pounce or a gentle strike just as we agreed.
Tomorrow may witness Sheba reborn beneath female rule, or it may witness the opening clash of a struggle that redraws power's very face. Whatever unfolds, I, Hamdan ibn Riyan, with my fellow sheikhs, have sworn we will not stand mute before a storm that scatters the pillars of our forefathers. We shall be watchful, our eyes on the throne, our whispers beneath dim lanterns, our hearts leaving nothing to chance. If the woman triumphs by craft, then we shall speak anew; if she breaks, the crown returns to men as before. So, we vow in our secret hearts, and so shall the coming days inscribe Balqis's name upon the chronicles of Sheba either as one who burst the strongest traditions, or as a fleeting mark in a long-aged realm.
"Life in palaces is but a shuttling of power from hand to hand; kingship belongs to the one who endures deceit and rides the currents of the tribes. He whose guile prevails shall rule; he who falters sinks into the caverns of oblivion."
So, I whispered to myself at the close of a day rich in plots and counterplots, leaving room for the chance that Balqis may prove keener than we reckon or fall an easy prey to those who show no mercy. Only the days will unveil the end of this simmering contest.
That bleak evening ended beneath a veil of golden dust, and a disquieting hush ringed us, as though the spirits of the ancestors watched from behind secrets spoken only by the ancient temple walls. I readied myself for the queen's summons in the great sanctuary. I, Sheikh Hamdan, have long leaned on those venerable religious texts declaring that a woman may not wield a kingdom founded on the covenant of sky and earth. We all believed Balqis wounded by her father's death would wield no stratagem before a phalanx of stern elders and unyielding scripture. But that certainty began to sway the instant the drums rolled to herald her coming.
She entered at the head of a silent column of soldiers in armor emblazoned with suns; torches flared as though reviving al Haddad's spirit, while ancient verses were murmured around the periphery. The temple seemed a theatre of mysteries, its soaring columns fused to a sky fretted with hushed stars, as though the wakeful gods themselves kept watch. The queen stepped onto a marble dais amid the assembly's awe, and behind her stood Khazabla, his face a stone mask that betrayed nothing of the thoughts within.
Some among us believed this night would mark our coup. Pockets bulged with scrolls forbidding any surrender of "man's right" to tribal mastery, and texts citing the "ancient covenant" which decrees that only a man born to war and blood may be king. Yet Balqis, with a confident smile and a visage mingling grace and resolve, began to recite what sounded like royal incantations. She spoke of al Haddad's exploits, of his reign etched upon golden tablets and temple walls, paving the way to declare her hereditary claim as the sole child of him who was called the Son of the Sun.
In that instant it occurred to me she might, with graceful craft, draw us into a square where we became ceremonial partners while she retained the substance of power. We did not tarry in pressing our demands. Sheikh Malik ibn Riyad rose and declared bluntly that the sacred texts assigned the army's command to men alone. We were stunned by Balqis's reply more riddle than decree as she said the ancient gods enjoined the uniting of ranks and hearts, and that she would not oppose naming a military chief from among the sheikhs, provided the crown's supreme authority remained inviolate. At first blush it seemed a surrender of royal dignity, yet I perceived that in truth it kept the final word in her hand.
Some elders wavered. They had hoped to wrench power up by its roots in the name of temple law; the queen instead summoned the very spirit of scripture, bending it to her cause and casting herself as guardian of tradition rather than its critic. Her words fell like a reader of forgotten mysteries searching sun and moon for symbols that favored her: praising her father al Haddad one moment, inviting the sheikhs to join a "High Advisory Council" the next an organ sworn, by a vague passage she cited, to share counsel but not command.
We had wished to hem her in by arguing no woman may rule alone; instead, she opened a doorway that made us neither heroes nor kings but counsellors orbiting a realm of her making. Worse for us if we spurned public consultation, we would be snared as rebels against the tribes' sacred concord. Thus, the temple gathering, outwardly a ceremony for unity, became in truth a field where Balqis played cards we thought ours alone.
The assembly broke near midnight. Torch light etched crossing shadows on the temple floor like letters from some cryptic scroll warning us against excess. I saw tension on the sheikhs' faces: some convinced the queen had won a real advance in legitimation, others fearing her advisory bait would trap us in a circle where the throne remained beyond our reach. I stood wondering whether the blood of al Haddad had drawn power from the sun's worship, or whether Khazabla old cunning had steered her thus.
Balqis did not emerge wholly victorious for we compelled her to promise she would return to us on all grave matters, especially war and peace. Yet she in turn shattered our plan for swift rebellion: who can raise the banner of enmity against one who grants us formal voice and crowns us venerable advisers? She wielded the heritage of sacred writ as her shield, transmuting the very covenant of men's supremacy into a nominal ally that wields but partial power.
That night, before I left the sanctuary, I studied long the ancient carvings upon its walls: the sun's birth blazing at heaven's center, and marginal verses telling of an age when a mountain shook entire as punishment for a people who violated ancestral law. A troubling certainty spread through me: we are not safe from ruin should we unsheathe a harsh war upon al Haddad's daughter, nor can we be sure a woman's reign will endure in tranquil peace. The days will reveal whether this frail balance holds, or whether winds will rise anew to strip the leaves from this "enlightened queen" in a fierce contest where the very scripture we cite might be turned to cast her down.
I departed with a hidden sting, sensing we no longer grasped the rudder as we had imagined. We tread now a dusky road where our dread of shattering heaven wrought customs mingles with a secret hope that Sheba may yet enter an age restoring tribal unity and strength. And before all that stands Balqis's face ambitious, summoning royal spells and ancient texts alive with a strange defiance, a face that hints her full radiance has not yet blazed: a power that may scorch the shadows or dissolve into the horizon of some yet unshaped reign. Was it we who mastered her tonight, or she who mastered us? Only the sun itself, enthroned in Sheba's temples and the books of the ancients, knows which truth will surface in the chronicle of days.