‘I can imagine.’
‘As I feared, my brothers made crude jokes – even the older ones, who were married with sons of their own – about why Samuel had favoured me. Jokes which I barely understood and have no wish to repeat. But his intentions were entirely innocent. Once we reached the flock, he scarcely gave it a second glance. Instead, he revealed that the Lord had commanded him to visit my father and anoint one of his sons as king. “Which one?” I asked, presuming that he wanted my help, although I had no idea why. “You,” he replied. “The moment I purified you, I knew for certain.”‘ I long to tell him that it was the same for me when I hailed him as king, but I’m afraid to interrupt. ‘I was confused. We had a king, our first king, and although I’d heard my father complain that Saul was capricious, he looked to the day when Jonathan, whom everybody admired, ascended the throne. But Samuel insisted that I was the one who would succeed, rule over my people and lead them to glory.’
‘He spoke for the Lord,’ I say, with both pride and apprehension.
‘He made me promise to tell no one, not my father or mother and especially not my brothers. He reminded me of the story of Joseph.’
‘The part where his brothers throw him into the well?’
‘Yes. When I first heard it, I took their side. Joseph was so vain, boasting that they’d all have to bow down before him. And who's to say that, as a boy, I wouldn’t have been as bad? Samuel was adamant that I run no risks. So I kept his prophecy to myself. My only subjects were my sheep, to whom I issued regular edicts. From then on, I waited for word from Samuel but it never came. Over time the memory faded. I even wondered if I’d made it up, the way I make up songs. Then five or six years later, my kinsman Joab, who was armour-bearer to the great general Abner, summoned me to Gibeah, where the king was possessed by an evil spirit. Music alone had the power to relieve him, so Joab thought I could help.’
‘You’re also a musician?’
‘I’m the musician,’ he replies, with a laugh. ‘At any rate I enabled Saul to recover. I began to suspect that I’d misheard or misunderstood Samuel and what he’d said wasn’t that I was to be a king but to heal one. I certainly couldn’t envisage a worthier king than Jonathan, who honoured me with his friendship. But with Saul himself again, there was no reason for me to remain in Gibeah and I returned to my sheep.’
‘Until you joined the army.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because you defeated the Philistine giant.’
‘It was my brothers who joined the army. Three of them... the three oldest. My father wanted to send them provisions and, mistrusting anyone outside the clan, he dispatched me to ensure that they weren’t purloined along the way or in the camp. As soon as I arrived, I heard about the Philistine who’d struck terror into our troops. He’d issued a challenge to settle the battle by single combat, which Saul – and whatever else he may be, he's no coward – refused. Moreover he ordered all his officers to do the same. I knew at once, with the same absolute certainty Samuel had described, that I was the one who must fight him. I’m not a tall man.’ I start, amazed he should think that I might not have noticed. ‘But the Lord guided my hand and... well, you know the rest.’
‘Everybody knows the rest.’
‘The king acclaimed me as the saviour of the land and rewarded me richly. But, once we returned to Gibeah, he changed... or, rather, chopped and changed. Half the time he praised me and wanted me by his side and the other half he reviled me and wanted me out of his sight. Jonathan, ever the peacemaker, explained that, some years earlier, Samuel told Saul that the Lord had abandoned him and chosen his successor. The king – and the queen as well – were increasingly convinced that I was the one. I don’t know – I doubt he does himself – whether he finally allowed me to marry Michal so as to ensure my loyalty or to render me harmless. Of course I didn’t breathe a word of what Samuel had told me. I even swore that I’d never met him, which fills me with shame.’
‘Why? He might have killed you.’
‘Not on account of Saul – I owe him nothing – but of Jonathan. I lied to the man to whom I swore always to speak the truth.’
‘But your ultimate loyalty is to the Lord and you had to protect that.’
‘He would never have betrayed me. He would gladly have given up the throne for me. I know he's the better man.’
‘But would he be the better king?’
‘Maybe. Who can tell?’
‘The Lord.’
‘The Lord, yes.’ He breaks into a smile. ‘The Lord. When Saul's jealousy grew murderous, Jonathan helped me flee. Although it was Michal who brought me the warning. Without her, I’d be dead... I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I commend anyone who saved you.’
‘I wish I could have spoken to her as I speak to you. I wish I could have felt for her what I feel for you.’
‘That makes me happier than I can say.’
‘For the past two years I’ve lived like a hunted animal. Saul has scoured the land to find me and kill me. And he came so close. Though not as close as I came to killing him.’
‘What? When?’
‘In a cave at the spring of Ein Gedi. My scouts spied him leading an army of three thousand men against us. Our force amounted to a mere tenth of their number, so we took refuge in the caves. I was hiding near the mouth of one when Saul came in to piss... relieve himself.’
‘Wasn’t it dark? How did you know it was him?’
‘By his height; it's unmistakable. And the glint of his helmet. With one thrust of my sword I might have put paid to his persecution forever.’
‘What stopped you?’
‘That's what I’ve asked myself. And what my men asked me – far less politely. It's no small matter to strike down the Lord's anointed, even for one whom the Lord has anointed in his place. I can only assume that the Lord himself stayed my hand, keeping me from taking on the guilt of Saul's death, just as he sent you to keep me from taking on the guilt of Nabal's.’
‘You think that he sent me?’ I ask, seeing myself in a new light.
‘I’m sure of it... Sparing Saul's life cost me another year and a half in the wilderness, even moving down into Sinai.’
‘And across into Philistia?’
‘So you’ve heard about that? I was desperate. Caught up in a kind of madness – and not only the madness I feigned. But through it all, the one thing that sustained me was my visit to Samuel at Ramah. I was worried about putting him in danger, but I doubted that even Saul would raise his hand against the prophet, and I needed to know the truth. I arrived just in time. He was lying in bed, his hoary beard and milky eyes reminding me of the ancients who lived for hundreds of years. He wanted to get up, but his wife forbade it. Once again he laid his hands on my head, although now it was because he was blind. He admitted that he was dying full of regrets, and I thought: if Samuel dies full of regrets, where does that leave the rest of us? One regret was his sons, whom he’d trained to carry on his work but who’d turned out to be corrupt. He begged me to beware of loving my sons too much, which perplexed me since I had none. But his greatest regret lay in choosing Saul.’
‘It was the Lord who chose him. Samuel was merely his voice.’
‘That's just what I said. “At times the Lord gives a man more than he merits in the hope that he’ll prove worthy of it.” But he refused to be consoled. He repeated what he’d prophesied all those years ago and told me that the hour was fast approaching. I left him to sleep and, when I returned, he was dead. His wife insisted that he’d kept death at bay until I arrived.’
‘Had you sent word that you were coming?’
‘Not at all. I had no one to send.’
‘Then how?’ He looks at me knowingly, and I see what it means to be favoured by the Lord.
‘In the absence of his sons, I laid him to rest. I left, reassured that the words I’d carried inside me all these years were true. But, with his death, I can only prove them by the sword.’
/> I yawn and apologise; he laughs and kisses me. The next thing I know, I’m waking up with my arm stuck to his chest in the sultry afternoon heat. I study his face in repose, but, alert to the gentlest glance, he opens his eyes, grabs my shoulders and pulls me on top of him in a prelude to further coupling. Our sighs and moans mingle with the indistinct voices of the servants preparing the evening's feast, and the freedom I feel in his arms is enhanced by my release from drudgery. As the sun goes down, we slough off our sluggishness and start to dress. To my amazement, I’m not ashamed to stand naked in front of him, even when washing off his seed. Decked in Shirah's sequestered jewels, I go downstairs to take my place among the women, relishing the resentment, envy, prurience and rage that play on the various faces. With icy courtesy, Shirah asks if David had everything he needed and Zillah giggles, receiving a glare from Machia as though she’d broken a pact. I affect not to notice and, knowing that nothing will anger them more, prattle on about David's plans for the clan of which he is now chief.
We suffer one another's company for a further five evenings, since David has decreed that, despite the truncated betrothal, we are to observe the full week of feasting. In-between, he and I keep to our chamber, turning day into night and night into day, measuring time solely by pleasure. We share intimacies of the past as well as the present. He asks about my family, as though charting his future sons’ lineage, and I admit that, although I was fourteen or fifteen when Nabal's men rescued me, I recall nothing of life before the Amalekite raid.
‘For years I sought a remedy, making regular offerings in the sanctuary and even secretly visiting the wise woman of Beth-Anoth, until Shirah found out and Nabal beat me. In the end, I decided that my parents, my sisters and brothers, had taken my memories with them to Sheol, in order that I might live on in the world, free from regret.’
‘So, the first thing you remember is what?’
‘Terror, as the Amalekites swept into the courtyard. Somehow I managed to scramble, unobserved, into the cistern, biting my lip as scaly creatures scurried about my feet. The next is hearing voices – Israelite voices – and being hauled up into a world that was at once familiar and monstrously new. I gazed at the ground strewn with butchered bodies, uncomprehending... numb, until I saw a hand, which I recognised at once as my brother Sagiv's, without the little finger he’d lost chopping wood. The sight of that hand... the lack of that finger tore at my heart and I screamed. I’m told that I didn’t stop until several days after they’d brought me here. Shirah took care of me, more kindly than at any time since, although I later learnt that, denied Amalekite captives, she intended to keep me as a servant. But she reckoned without Nabal, who decided that the time had finally come to take a wife. Perhaps he thought that my gratitude would outweigh my revulsion – and for a while it did.’
David comforts me, first with kisses and caresses and then with promises that no one, friend or foe, will hurt me ever again.
At the end of the week the daylight world reasserts itself. Spies report that, having driven the Philistines out of Ephraim, Saul is preparing to march against us. Any hope that we might win over Nabal's clan and live here in peace has to be set aside. Joab urges David to escape to the hills, arguing that, while well-supplied, Carmel lacks viable defences, and that the Calebites are sure to prove treacherous, delivering him to the king in return for Nabal's land. To Joab's undisguised irritation, David refuses to decide without casting the sacred stones and summons Abiathar, the priest from the camp at Maon.
‘Why didn’t you invite him to the wedding?’ I ask David, pained to learn that, despite his proximity, he failed to attend. ‘Or did he have scruples?’
‘Of course not. What about?’
‘My remarrying so soon; your marrying someone much older.’
‘Not at all,’ he says, with a sigh at my mention of age. ‘He's utterly loyal. But he was the last man I wanted there. He's Ahimelech's son.’ I look blank. ‘The high priest Saul slaughtered at Nob. Abiathar was the only one to escape alive. I can never see him without remembering that I’m to blame for the deaths of his father and eighty-four of his fellows.’
‘Not even one of them! The blame rests entirely with Saul.’
‘It was me who put them in danger. Moreover I lied, claiming I was on the king's business so that they’d feed me.’
‘You were desperate; you had to eat.’
‘There's worse. The only food they had were the twelve sacred loaves laid out in the sanctuary. So I told them that my men and I were ritually pure. We’d known no women for three days.’
‘Was that another lie?’ I ask, striving to sound dispassionate.
‘No, it was the truth. At least for the men. But for me it concealed a graver lie.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Nor should you.’
His grim expression deters further questions. It softens when Abiathar approaches, resplendent in a gold-embroidered tunic and jewelled breastplate, which I’m awestruck to learn had been worn by Aaron in Sinai. David introduces us and I discern a warmth in Abiathar's eyes, as if he senses that I too have endured indescribable horrors, even though he knows nothing of my past. At David's bidding, he takes out the Urim and Thummim, the sacred stones that he rescued from Nob and entrusted to David's safekeeping. It's David's fondest wish that the Lord should speak to him as he did to Samuel; but, while he may be the Lord's anointed, he is not his prophet and, like Joshua and Gideon before him, he must ascertain his will from the stones. I watch, eager to discover whether the white or the black stone prevails when the priest asks if David should remain in Carmel (black), if he should remain in the land (black), if he should seek refuge in Zobah (black), Moab (black), Edom (black) and Ammon (black). It's only when, almost as an afterthought, David proposes Philistia that the white stone falls face up.
Joab objects that David is no more likely to be welcomed there than on his previous visit, but David overrules him, saying that only a fool would dispute the will of the Lord. I am grateful that he didn’t think to ask the stones whether I should accompany him, since the sole will I must dispute is his when, as I anticipate, he charges me to remain in Carmel. He maintains that travelling so far from home is too arduous for a woman. I remind him of his own great-grandmother, Ruth, whose story has been transmitted from tribe to tribe. When she abandoned her clan in Moab for the sake of her mother-in-law, how much more should I do so for the sake of my husband! ‘Women's arguments,’ he says peremptorily, although I can’t tell if he means the women in the story or the woman who has invoked it. So I remind him of Joab's warning that the Calebites will align themselves with the king and demand Nabal's land in exchange. What's to stop Saul defying the Law again and marrying me to Yimnah? Indeed, what's to stop him rebuffing the clan and marrying me himself to establish a foothold in Judah?
‘How would I live without your foresight... your acumen... your wisdom?’ he asks, granting my request.
‘And how would I live without your honour and courage?’ I reply, although, in truth, it's not his virtues that I would miss most.
Before we leave, he must attend to his parents. Ever since fleeing Gibeah, he has been fearful that Saul will punish them. The man who spared the Amalekite king has been replaced by the man who showed unconscionable cruelty to the priests at Nob. When we’re away in Philistia, who's to say that he won’t wreak revenge on Jesse and Nizebeth? David initially plans to take them with us but, after consulting Joab who, with a pointed glance at me, declares that we’re already overladen, he resolves to place them under the protection of the king of Moab. Not only will he esteem any enemy of Saul, who routed his army twenty years ago, but Ruth's clan will be keen to claim her descendants.
Escorted by ten of David's men, we travel north to make the arrangements, riding through a landscape that shifts imperceptibly from dusty slopes dotted with olives and vines to lush wheat fields and verdant meadows. Approaching Bethlehem, our retinue swells as villagers of all ages come to cheer Jesse's c
elebrated son, some running up to clasp his hand or touch his robe, others simply standing at the wayside, gaping. Two of his brothers emerge from a copse and greet him awkwardly before conducting us to the house, where, after kneeling for their blessings, David presents me to his parents. Stung by their reserve, I’m convinced of their preference for the younger, prettier and more noble Michal, but, when I put it to David, he insists that their only quarrel is with him.
Although astounded that they could find fault with one who has brought such renown to their clan, I see it for myself when, joined by three more of his brothers and various wives, sisters and children whose names I struggle to retain, we sit down for the meal. Wasting no time, David spells out the danger posed by Saul. He states bluntly that his brothers can take care of themselves but, as a dutiful son (Jesse crumbles a crust), he intends to take his parents to the safety of Moab. His brothers endorse the scheme but, far from thanking him, Jesse rails that, by betraying the king and plundering the land, David has brought shame on his grey hair, a hank of which he plucks out for emphasis. He pleads to be allowed to die among his ancestors, whereupon David, losing patience, replies that he won’t have much choice if Saul marches on Bethlehem. He swears that the exile is temporary and, if not, his father can die among his Moabite ancestors, a proposal that fails to placate him.
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