Work Text:
“Your youngest son, the one with two heads: is he one person or two?” the king asks me. I do not know how to answer.
The king is older now than when last I saw him, and his beard has grown long. He is not so young and arrogant as when he turned to Ashmedai, the King of Demons, and demanded, “Bring me something I have not seen before.” And I have heard – though I do not know if it is true – that the demon Ashmedai reached down into the center of the earth and brought forth a man with two heads. King Solomon was delighted by this and immediately began to ask the man all sorts of questions: what they ate, how they grew crops, what sort of laws they had, whether they worshipped the Lord as we do. When he had asked questions and had them answered to his heart’s content, the king turned again to Ashmedai and said, “Very well. Now send him back where he came from.”
And the demon said, “I cannot, O king. That is beyond even my power.”
The king and the man with two heads looked at each other. Then the king said, “Do not be distressed. For I will give you a house and land and find you a wife from among my people, and I will do everything for your good.” The man with two heads agreed, for what else could he do?
I remember this as I stand before the king. I remember too how my father came home one day and said he had arranged a betrothal for me, to a man highly in favor with the king. But he would not meet my eyes.
The first time I saw the man who was to be my husband, I barely suppressed a scream. I was thankful for the veil which hid my face, but he must have seen my startled movements.
“Is this betrothal contrary to your will?” he asked.
I said, “I have only one question. They say that you were brought here by a demon. Are you truly a human being and not a demon yourself?”
“I am a man,” he said, "and not a demon." But still I hesitated.
Then a richly dressed man in the garb of a prince came forward. “O king,” he said, “command me to speak the truth.”
The king raised his hand, upon which there was a ring inscribed with the most holy Name of God, and said, “By the power of this Name, Ashmedai, speak only the truth to her.” And I trembled, for I realized this must be the very King of Demons.
The demon smiled, as if he thought himself very clever, and said, “The man with two heads is a human being just as your father is, or any of the people of Israel.”
The king said, “Are you content to marry him?”
I looked at my intended husband, this odd creature to which my father wished to bind me, and both his faces bore the same expression: proud and ashamed and wary and a little lonely. And I thought, he is a stranger here; and were we not strangers in the land of Egypt? I said to the king, “I will marry him, if it is the king's will and my father’s will.” And we were betrothed according to the laws of Moses and Israel.
