The Anointed

by Michael Arditti

  On the night of his departure, which, to my delight, he spends with me rather than Ahinoam, he wakes from a dream, screaming in terror. I quieten him, fearful that his voice will carry into the streets where the men are starting to gather. He shrugs off my concern as brusquely as my caress. ‘I was on the battlefield, slaughtering our men – ‘ I don’t need to ask whose – ‘when I found myself face to face with Jonathan. As I raised my sword, he flung his to the ground. I tried to wake myself up – somehow I knew that I was dreaming – but I was rooted to the spot and, before I could stop myself, I brought my sword down on his head. His body split in two, like a log, half on either side of me.’

  It was a dream.’

  ‘‘But doesn’t the Lord speak to us in dreams? Didn’t I ask him to speak to me as he did to Samuel?’

  I lull him to sleep in my arms, until Joab comes to collect him at dawn. Like the rest of the men, whose loyalty is first to themselves, then to David, and lastly to their comrades, he has no qualms about fighting his fellow countrymen. After years of skirmishes, he declares himself spoiling for a full-scale battle, flaunting his enthusiasm at David like a goad.

  We women play our age-old part, crowding the gate to wave the men off with cheers and chants. As the footsteps fade, I walk back into the garrison that I am to command in David's absence. Believing the enemy tribes to have been subdued, he has left a mere handful of men to guard us, an error that is exposed later in the day, when we are attacked by an Amalekite horde. The guards, either resentful of their charge or reckless of our safety, are caught unprepared and hacked to pieces by brutes for whom butchery is sport. I run to the rooftop and watch as, unimpeded, the Amalekites swarm through the town, seizing women and children. To my amazement, they don’t kill us – even a woman who bites her aggressor's wrist has her head cracked with an axe-handle rather than slashed with the blade – but my relief turns to horror at the prospect of protracted torment. I search desperately for a refuge and, with none in sight, my only recourse is death. I walk to the edge and am about to jump, when I see Ahinoam dragged screaming from a doorway and know that I cannot abandon her. The next moment, an Amalekite climbs the ladder and ogles me. As I gaze at his snarl of hair and the blue markings on his arms, I am thrust back to my girlhood. Sweat streams down my neck and breasts, seeping through my robe. I register the mixture of disgust and arousal on my enemy's face and, for an instant, I become David, leaping forward and kicking him off the ladder before he can gain a foothold on the roof. He falls back with a resounding howl, and I pass out.

  I wake to find myself lying outside the garrison walls, my head in Ahinoam's lap. As she holds a damp rag to my cheek, I realise that I am bleeding even before I feel the smart. It is swiftly compounded by a stab in my calf as an Amalekite orders me up. Ahinoam protests and is punched in the shoulder. I struggle to rise, although my legs feel as if they are made of broken pots. Despite the open terrain, the Amalekites force us into a knot and prowl around us with bestial relish. Children scream and their mothers stop their mouths as the men grab at our mantles, signalling that we should throw them off. Next, they reach for our robes, tugging them over our heads and beating us if we falter. When they pluck at our tunics, several women resist and a young boy runs to their aid, butting a brute in the groin. While his cronies laugh, the man unsheathes his sword and is poised to strike but, at a shout from the headman, he replaces it and contents himself with kicking his assailant in the chest. The boy lands at our feet, and, to prevent a recurrence, we hasten to obey the command. Stripped to our under-tunics, we cross our arms bashfully over our breasts. Conscious that I must show myself worthy of David's trust – and banishing the fear that I’ll never see him again – I address my fellow captives.

  ‘Don’t be ashamed! These men are no more than rats that have crept into our chamber. They’re beneath our contempt... unworthy of notice.’

  A stinging slap gives the lie to my words. My one solace is that the men have allowed us to undress ourselves. If they intended to ravish us, they would have done so where we stood, tearing our clothes as a prelude to mauling our flesh. Instead, their aim appears to be to degrade us, with only a casual pawing and poking at our breasts – swiftly curtailed by the headman – to slake their lusts.

  Yoked together like cattle, we march through the night into the desert. The Egyptian slaves, impassive witnesses to our ordeal, bring us water at intervals too irregular to anticipate, but they – or, rather, their masters – refuse to let us stop to drink, so that as much slips down our chins as into our mouths. With no breaks, we are forced to ease nature on the move, while the Amalekites laugh like children watching terrified goats foul themselves in the sanctuary. Three women faint, pulling down their companions as in a game of pins. Their mild beatings are further confirmation that our captors wish to keep us unharmed.

  The headman calls a halt at dawn. Overcome by hunger, I gulp the porridge a slave pours into my hands, like a donkey with a feedbag. As the chill air penetrates my bones, I huddle up to the five women to whom I’m bound and wait in dread for the morning sun to burn my skin and inflame my blisters. Staggering up with the others, I beckon the headman, who must have some notion of my rank from the rings he tore off my fingers. I shudder violently and blow on my hands to simulate cold. Then, ignoring his leer at my quivering breasts, I point to the insect bites on my arms and thighs and shade my eyes from the rising sun as if its watery rays were blinding. He watches indifferently before shrieking orders to his men who fetch our robes from the carts. Unable to pull them over the ropes, we are forced to step into them, further amusing our tormentors as we squat in concert to ease them on to our shoulders. The return of the clothes is no simple act of kindness, as I discover in the afternoon when I snatch a few words with one of the slaves. I ask if he knows where we are heading. He looks bemused and I fear that I’ve mistaken either his language or his race. Then, taking pity on me, he whispers that we are to be sold as concubines to the king of Midian. His voice isn’t soft enough to escape the headman, who drags him away by his hair, relishing the women's screams as if they were cheers. After beating him ferociously, he calls two of his men who lift the lifeless body between them and toss it aside like refuse.

  I must now add guilt to the pain, fear and exhaustion that assail me as we resume our trek through a landscape so unchanging that only our torn feet and aching bodies attest to our progress. When we stop to rest at daybreak, the women's resentment is no longer confined to the Amalekites but extends to our own men and, above all, to David for leaving us unprotected. From time to time one relents and expresses the hope, however faint, that he’ll rescue us.

  ‘Never doubt it!’ I say. ‘When has he failed us? As soon as he returns to Ziklag and discovers that we’re gone, he’ll come after us.’

  ‘How, in this desert?’ someone asks. ‘Our footprints are buried in the sand.’

  ‘The Lord will guide him.’

  ‘The Lord has abandoned us,’ she replies. ‘We are no longer in his realm but subject to foreign gods.’

  ‘He is mightier than all of them,’ I say. ‘Remember how he delivered our forefathers from Egypt!’

  ‘Our forefathers, quite!’ another says. ‘He won’t raise his hand for a group of women.’

  I can find no answer that won’t ring hollow, to myself as much as to them. So, urging her to sleep, I lie down beside my fellow captives like a bead on a chain. I have just closed my eyes when Ahinoam leans over me and murmurs: ‘You say that David will save us... that the Lord favours him above all men.’

  ‘I do,’ I reply. Took how he vanquished the Philistine – you saw the size of his brother! Look how he escaped from Saul!’

  ‘Then how can he deny him the chance to see his son?’

  I try to hold her but she recoils. Ahinoam, I’ve reached an age when it's hard – perhaps even impossible – for me to give him children.’

  ‘Not you,’ she says, and her anguished expression makes me wish that it were still night
. ‘Me! I’m bearing his child. It has been four months since I bled.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, sobbing. ‘I was afraid you’d be jealous.’ Shock and confusion, fear for Ahinoam and her child, together with doubt that he or she – but surely he – will ever know David, tussle in my mind, but I don’t feel a tinge of jealousy To be jealous of her youth and fecundity would be to be jealous of time itself. ‘It should have been you. You wanted it. David would have wanted it. Nabal's wife, a great lady.’

  ‘Greater by far for being David's wife, as you will be too.’ I picture their child, graced with his nobility and strength, her sweetness and innocence, and their combined beauty. ‘I’m happy for you. You’ve given him what he wants more than anything else.’ I forbear to add after the crown. ‘And you’ve given me hope. Now I know that the Lord will guide him to us so that he can save his unborn son.’

  After eight days my faith is rewarded: days in which only the sight of Ahinoam's belly has kept it alive. At dawn we arrive at the mouth of a canyon, where the Amalekites set about carousing, their clamour joining with the chafing ropes, blistered skin and blazing sun to stop all but the youngest and weariest of us from sleeping. By mid-afternoon they finally tire, leaving only their snores and the odd youthful whimper to break the silence. Suddenly, the air is thick with dust as an armed band sweeps over the rock, their wild roars filling me with terror until I realise that they are aimed at the Amalekites. I grab Ahinoam and pull her as close to me as our tethers allow. Swords clatter; flesh rips; men, women and children scream; donkeys stamp and bray. Gradually, the cries of fear and pain give way to laughter, cheers and a cacophony of voices calling our names. I hear David calling mine and shout back with the force of twenty Abigails. Moments later, he's beside me, taking me in his arms, while Ahinoam clings to us both. All around us, men are untying the women and children, but David, impetuous as ever, slices the rope that binds each of us to the other. I untwist the loop from my neck and cup his face in my hands, as much in wonder as in gratitude, and give thanks to the Lord for guiding him through the vastness of the desert.

  ‘How did you get here?’ I ask, eager for a human as well as a divine explanation.

  ‘We returned to Ziklag to find the garrison sacked, the men slaughtered and all of you gone. We set out at once, and the next day came across this slave, lying bleeding, dying of hunger and thirst.’ He points to the Egyptian standing behind him, his face livid, his chest and arms crudely bandaged. ‘He told us that the Amalekites were taking you to Midian. So here we are.’

  ‘Thank you, my friend. You shall have a place in my household,’ I say to the Egyptian, who falls to his knees, his reply lost in the ticklish kisses he plants on my toes.

  All my guilt at his punishment dissolves, for, if I hadn’t questioned him, he wouldn’t have been cast out and, if he hadn’t been cast out, David would never have found us. To crown our blessings, every Amalekite has been killed and not one of our men suffered more than a flesh wound. Joy abounds but, while sanctioning the celebration, David fears that the men are making too free with the looted wine to start back at nightfall. He orders them to gather the remaining supplies and load them on the carts. I take the opportunity of a moment alone to walk through the canyon, gazing down at the carpet of corpses. I contemplate the faces, some twisted in agony and others strangely peaceful, as if the swords had swept down on them like feathers. Now and then I see a twitch and hear the empty, eerie sound of a dying breath. I turn away, not wishing to intrude, since even my mortal enemies deserve dignity in death. I recall the corpses strewn across my family's courtyard but draw little comfort from the reversal. If this is vengeance, it feels hollow.

  ‘This is no place for you,’ David says, pulling me away. I hear the disapproval in his voice, as if I’ve chanced upon a mystery concealed from every Israelite woman except for Deborah. ‘I’ve reorganised the baggage so that there's a donkey for you.’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘The carts are crammed. The men won’t be happy if we abandon any of the spoils.’

  ‘Then you should give it to Ahinoam. She needs it more than I do.’

  ‘Why? She's young... healthy. What are you trying to say?’

  The moment he asks, he knows the answer. Without waiting for me to speak, he rushes to find her and a happiness that I can never share. My woman's blood has been dry for three months; I rage at the least inconvenience; and even before the abduction, I ached with fatigue. I wait beside the donkeys, just another encumbrance on the journey, until David and Ahinoam arrive, rejoicing in an event that appears as miraculous to them as the rescue. He lifts her on to the one untethered donkey, tenderly spreading the blanket beneath her, and starts out, keeping hold of the reins, negotiating every bump in the rock and shift in the sands with the utmost care. He sets a slower pace than usual, as though an extra day's journey matters nothing compared to the comfort of his wife and unborn child. Night falls, and as Ahinoam dozes, he turns to me, tramping beside him, and relates his unexpected return to Ziklag.

  ‘We met up with Achish at Aphek. But the other Philistine kings refused to fight alongside us. They berated Achish for summoning us, convinced that in the heat of battle we’d defect.’

  ‘Maybe they were right?’

  ‘Maybe. But now I need never find out. With four voices to one, Achish was obliged to back down. He apologised abjectly, declaring that I’d proved my loyalty time and again and that his fellow kings were fools. I protested so violently that, for a moment, I feared I’d convinced him to defy them. But he bowed to their demands and sent me back to Ziklag. How can I ever have doubted the Lord? He – and he alone – saved me from having to choose between an alliance that would have damned me forever in the eyes of my people and a betrayal that would have left us exposed to Philistine revenge. What's more, if we had stayed a week longer, who knows if we would have ever caught up with you?’

  We return to Ziklag and the third of David's force who have remained to repair the damage. Their delight at seeing their comrades back with their women and children is tempered by the suspicion that the family reunions will be coupled with material reward. But David surprises everyone by announcing that the plunder is to be divided equally among all his men, irrespective of whether they accompanied him into the desert. ‘We are brothers, and those who’ve laboured to prepare for our homecoming deserve recompense just as much as those who took part in the rescue. Are not your wives and children more valuable to you than any amount of riches?’ he asks, silencing the rumble of discontent from the returning fighters. ‘I know mine are. Which is why I shall send my share of the spoils to the towns and villages where we camped on our march through Judah. For they too are my brothers.’

  The men applaud his generosity and I applaud his acumen, since I know that he is looking to the day when they are no longer his brothers but his subjects. How soon that day comes may depend on the course of the current battle. Banished from the field, he can do nothing but wait for news and sends Joab to Gath to report back the moment that he hears any. Each day's silence leaves him more uneasy. Despite – or because of – Ahinoam's condition, he spends most of his nights with me, although his listless embraces make it clear that his mind is elsewhere. My sleep is as broken as his and, after a dream in which I am trapped in a blood-filled cave, I wake to find him staring out of the window, as if the sky's darkness were an expression of his own.

  ‘Who do you want to win?’ I ask. ‘The Philistines or Saul?’

  It's in the Lord's hands; he will decide,’ he replies, cloaking his equivocation in piety.

  After two more days in which his agitation reduces me to silence and Ahinoam to tears, a sentry brings news of a solitary rider heading towards us. I follow David to the gate where, as the rider dismounts, I see that he's an Amalekite in Achish's service. Croaking with thirst, he grabs a goatskin and pours water down his throat. Seemingly unaware of David's impatience, he moves without a word to
his camel and takes a crown from his bag.

  ‘King Achish sends you this, my lord,’ he says, kneeling and presenting the crown to David.

  ‘Achish sends you his crown?’ I ask. ‘Why? Has he been defeated?’

  ‘No, the crown is Saul's. I remember it well.’

  ‘We have won a great victory,’ the Amalekite says. ‘The Israelites are routed. Saul is dead. Your sovereign lord, King Achish, appoints you to rule your people in his name.’

  ‘And Saul's son... sons?’

  ‘I know nothing. But surely they must perish alongside all the king's enemies.’

  ‘And all of mine,’ David replies, drawing his dagger and stabbing him in the chest. Then, holding the crown as solemnly as if it had been given to him by Samuel himself, he walks into the garrison. I remain staring at the corpse, my lifelong loathing of the Amalekites buried in the shock of David's rashness. I understand that he was horrified by the death of an anointed king; I understand that he was anxious about his dearest friend. Nonetheless, I fear Achish's fury at the murder of his servant.

  I follow David to his chamber, where he stands, gazing at the crown as though it were a scroll in which to read his future.

  ‘Whatever possessed you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why did you kill him?’

  ‘A slave!’

  ‘But Achish's slave! He’ll be enraged. We must find a plausible excuse. What if you said that he boasted he’d killed the king and brought you the crown of his own accord?’

  ‘Woman, you know nothing!’ I recoil, from both the tone and the epithet. ‘Why do you suppose Achish sent that slave rather than one of his own men? Because he knew that if I am to secure the loyalty of my people, I must show that I played no part in Saul's death – indeed, that I was so appalled by the news that I slew the bearer. Yet, if I had slain a Philistine, he would have been forced to retaliate. Now leave me.’