The Anointed

by Michael Arditti

  ‘That's not true!’ I cried out, to general consternation. Detaching myself from Tamar, I strode forward and lifted my veil. ‘My lord, will you allow a steward to slander one of royal blood? Jonathan's son... Jonathan's son,’ I repeated so emphatically that even those born long after my brother's death must have perceived a hidden meaning. ‘He stayed here so as not to hold you back.’ Meribaal emitted a timely gurgle. ‘Even if the king – may the Lord preserve him – had been killed alongside Absalom, he would have had many worthy sons to succeed him. I see them standing before me.’ I bit my tongue. ‘Look at this man, a helpless cripple. How could he sit on the throne? He’d slide straight off it.’ My attempt at levity fell as flat as Meribaal himself, now lying prostrate on the floor.

  ‘Then why should he fear my return?’ David asked.

  ‘Not yours but Absalom's. Absalom who had treated him with cruelty and contempt from their first meeting. Ziba lies; we’d received no news of your victory. We hoped for it; we prayed for it; but we knew nothing of it.’

  David gazed from Meribaal to Ziba to me and back again. ‘How can I know which of you is speaking the truth?’ he asked, a startling admission from one in awe of his own judgement. ‘So I must believe both of you – or neither. When you took flight with me, Ziba, I granted you all your master's lands.’

  ‘You did, my lord, and I hope to share their bounty with my benefactor.’

  ‘Quite,’ David said quickly. ‘But now I am mindful to return half to my brother's son.’

  ‘Whatever my lord wishes,’ Ziba replied. ‘My one desire is to serve you.’

  ‘And mine is for your safe return,’ Meribaal interjected, in a moment of semi-lucidity.

  ‘Come forward, Prince Meribaal, to make obeisance.’

  With Meribaal immobile, Ziba and the servant dragged him up and deposited him at David's feet but, rather than kiss them, he sank back on the floor and snored.

  The strained silence was broken by David's laughter. He turned to me. ‘Jonathan's son, did you say?’ I bowed my head and drew back. Then, with rare delicacy, he tapped Meribaal on the cheek with his toes, before signalling to Ziba and the servants to carry him out.

  ‘You, my lady,’ he said, looking past me to Danatiya, ‘who, I am assured, played no part in your husband's schemes; with whom I’m united in grief, wife and... father.’ His voice faltered. ‘You are to return to Baal Hazor, raising my grandsons, until I see fit to summon them here.’

  ‘I thank my gracious lord,’ Danatiya said, moving forward to pay him homage, but David waved her back before she had time to kneel.

  ‘And Jonadab, you shall accompany her as her steward.’

  ‘But my lord!’ he exclaimed, his face contorted with horror.

  ‘Hushai has informed me of your service – your painstaking service – to Absalom; I trust you to extend it to his widow and fatherless children. Besides, after so many years in the tumult of the city, you deserve the seclusion of the countryside.’

  He thrust out his foot and, for a moment, I wondered whether Jonadab would break the habit of a lifetime and rebel, but, swallowing his outrage, he knelt and kissed it. Then, just as he was set to rise, Joab stepped forward and, with both burly hands, pressed his face back on the foot. Several of the women laughed openly at his abasement. I even caught a flutter of the veils by my side, which ceased when, after Jonadab quit the chamber, David addressed the concubines.

  ‘You women, who shame me by your very being: what am I to do with you?’ It was a question few of them could understand, let alone answer. ‘Do you expect to live here in luxury, enjoying the king's favour, after lying with his son? No, of course not! You shall be taken from here and confined in the gatehouse, never again to see the light of day.’

  Although the faces flanking him were studiously vacant, it was clear to everyone that his leniency to Jonadab had been an exception and he was once again bending the Law to his will. The only ones who failed to detect it were the concubines themselves, granted a few moments’ grace before the prison gates closed on them forever... unless Adonijah or Shephatiah or whichever of his sons succeeded him were to denounce his father's cruelty and set them free.

  A guard, mistaking Tamar for a concubine, approached us but I pushed him away. ‘What fresh device of yours is this?’ David asked.

  ‘Not mine, yours. She is your daughter.’ David looked at the girls standing close to him. ‘Your daughter, Tamar.’ The shock in the chamber was as palpable as if I had brought her back to life. Maacah moaned and buried her head in Nechama's shoulder. David rose slowly and walked towards us. He lifted Tamar's veil and gaped, as if expecting another idol of Ashtoreth. Tamar leant forward and kissed him full on the lips. He recoiled and she grabbed his hand, pressing it to her breast. He slapped her face, but before he could remove his hand, she sank her teeth into the palm. He howled, shook her off roughly and returned to the throne, licking his wound. Tamar leapt about, shrieking and giggling and rubbing her hands up and down her thighs. She stopped short in front of her mother and sister; Maacah turned aside but Nechama reached out to her. Tamar stared at her for a moment with no sign of recognition before scuttling away. To one who had observed her closely, her movements looked forced, even feigned, unless the large crowd of onlookers had disturbed her.

  ‘What is this?’ David asked, clawing at the arms of the throne.

  ‘She's distracted, my lord,’ Hushai said. ‘Prince Absalom brought her to the palace.’ He pointed at me. ‘This lady has been kind to her.’

  ‘Take her away! Take her at once!’ David said to a guard, who advanced on her, but his failure to secure her hands left her free to grab his member. A second guard seized her, pinioning her arms. ‘Should we return her to the women's quarters?’ he asked.

  ‘No, to the gatehouse, along with the others.’

  ‘But Father... my lord – ‘ Nechama interposed.

  ‘Not one word!’ David said, flushed and panting as if it were he who had been attacked. ‘Unless you and your mother wish to accompany her.’

  Nechama made to reply, but Maacah cupped her mouth. David, meanwhile, turned to me.

  ‘And you, my lady, what am I to do with you, the principal witness to my shame?’

  ‘I’ve witnessed so much of your shame; I’m inured to it.’

  ‘Even in his hunger for my throne, Absalom couldn’t bring himself to lie with you. My other women were sacrificed to his ambition, but you were like an offering left out too long to be lawfully consumed.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ His scorn fired me; his smugness strengthened me. ‘How can you be so certain?’

  ‘You told Nathan.’

  ‘But did I tell him the truth?’

  ‘Would you lie to the prophet?’

  ‘I have no love for prophets, as you well know. Yes, I lied. And I lay with Absalom. He held me in arms that should have wrenched the crown from your head. He clasped me to a chest like adamant. And he entered me with a member that would have fathered an army of kings. A member so potent that coupling with him was the greatest pleasure of my life.’

  Glancing at the women, I caught Abigail's look of dismay and Bathsheba's of admiration, but I had no chance to reflect on either for David rose from the throne. ‘You lie!’ he spat.

  I refused to back down, although I knew that I was sealing my doom. ‘Lead me to your chamber and I’ll show you the bruises. A month old and they’ve still not faded! You should be proud to have engendered such a son. A second Samson.’

  ‘What kind of woman are you? The others bore their infamy in silence; you boast of it.’

  ‘I revel in it! Not infamy but pride. Pride to have been possessed by such a man!’

  ‘Guards!’ David shouted, and two seized me without waiting for a further order. He turned to me, his face now white with fury. ‘You pollute the palace; you pollute the throne. You shall be locked in the gatehouse with the others: left there to rot, disgraced and forgotten.’

  ‘But not by you.
How will you ever forget me?’

  ‘Take her away!’

  The guards dragged me out. For all their savagery, I rejoiced to know that my life with David was over and I would be united with my daughter, Tamar.

  SEVEN

  Bathsheba

  For such an impetuous man, the king is taking a long time to die. Absalom's death shot an arrow into his heart as lethal as those that Joab shot into the prince's body. Yet whereas Absalom died in an instant, his father clings to life, as though the wound itself has healed but the barb was dipped in venom, which has been seeping into him for the past three years.

  Despite his infirmity, he refuses to name a successor. After a lifetime spent strengthening the kingdom, he is jeopardizing its future. Loath to acknowledge his own mortality, he fears that others will anticipate it by looking east while he sinks slowly in the west. Abigail, ever loyal, maintains that he prevaricates because there's no obvious heir, incensing Haggith, whose son Adonijah is next in line. He is as arrogant as Absalom, whose excesses he appears to be emulating. He has even appropriated his chariot, in which he careers around the city, through streets so narrow that it can barely pass. He curries favour both with his younger brothers and the tribal elders and has won over Joab and Abiathar, gaining footholds in the army and the tabernacle. He takes care not to criticise his father in public and insists that everything he does is in his name, but he's as shallow as his mother and is sure to slip up soon.

  Even so, there are eleven princes standing between him and Solomon: Shephatiah; Ithream; Ibhar; Elishua; Elpelet; Nogah; Nepheg; Japhia; Jerimoth; Eliada and Eliphelet. Sometimes their names pound my head so violently that I fear it will crack. I dream of their dying all at once, buried in a rockslide or drowned in a flood or killed in a battle – no, not a battle, which would reflect badly on Solomon. Although, by law, the eldest son has the greatest claim to his father's lands, must it be the same with the crown? After all, the king was the youngest of Jesse's sons.

  The longer his father lingers, the greater Solomon's chances of outflanking his older brothers and ascending the throne. Although his cheeks remain dismayingly smooth, it is harder for his rivals to dismiss him as a callow youth now that he has a wife and child. He has me to thank for that – not that he does, of course. My power over the king may have waned now that I am no longer pressed into night-time service – as I struggled to squeeze the sap from his withered stump, my ministrations came to humiliate rather than comfort him. But with kohl to enhance my eyes and almond oil to moisten my skin, I can still beguile him. So, when he proposed last year to marry one of his sons to the Ammonite princess, Naamah, I cajoled him into choosing Solomon. It caused uproar in the harem, with Eglah and Bithiah protesting that Solomon was only sixteen and their sons remained unwed, but I felt no remorse. Unlike his older brothers, as hot-blooded as their father, Solomon is cold... no, not cold, circumspect; apt to question even his most intimate feelings. He needs his mother to safeguard his interests.

  Quiet and unassuming, with small breasts and wide hips better suited to slaking desire than to arousing it, Naamah is the perfect wife for Solomon. As if to confirm it, their son Rehoboam was born almost nine months to the day after their wedding. I dote on him and console his mother when she complains of Solomon's indifference. How strange, given the passion that first drove and then bound his father to me, that Solomon should be so aloof! Is it possible that we expended so much heat in his begetting that there was too little left for his life? Or is it that, having heard how the king's lust drove him to sin, he has determined to quash not only all carnal instincts but any hint of affection? I am accustomed to his stiffness towards me, kissing my cheek in the same way that he kisses Abigail's or Maacah's hands, but I long for him to be more demonstrative towards Naamah, a foreigner and still a girl.

  I understand her need for tenderness. After my firstborn son was taken from me, my one thought was to conceive a second. Choking back my revulsion, I gave myself to the man responsible for the deaths of both my husband and my child. Who would have thought that so much love could spring from so much hate? Since the day he was born, I have felt an attachment to Solomon that nothing – not even the birth of his three younger brothers – could shake. His childhood filled me with constant anxiety. Rooms that had been places of refuge became fraught with danger. Every knife, every vessel, every flame was his enemy. Then he grew up and became, as he put it, his own man, able to do without my protection. The truth is that he needs it more than ever, now that the threat comes wrapped in a brother's smile.

  Adonijah may have Joab and Abiathar behind him, but we have Nathan. Even a prophet is susceptible to charm and, over the years, I have turned my former adversary into my foremost ally. Despite his unjust claim that I was a party to my own seduction and therefore scarcely less culpable than the king, he has found no fault with either my piety or my care for my children, the second of whom I named after him. I prevailed on him to teach them the stories of the tribes, to the consternation of the other wives, whose sons learnt little more than to read, write and make weapons. Huldath sent an outraged Eliphelet back to his lessons, even though, at twelve, his sole ambition was to prove himself in the field. His younger brothers were plodding scholars, but Solomon excelled. He devoured Nathan's stories, filling scrolls of his own with copies and notes. At times I fear that his studies will distract him from his destiny, but I take heart from Nathan's avowal that Solomon is the worthiest of the king's sons to succeed him. He promises to do all that he can to advance his cause, which he promptly disproves by refusing to bend – or, rather, to bolster – the truth.

  ‘Has the Lord ever told you that he favours Solomon?’ I ask hesitantly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Might he have spoken when you failed to apprehend it?’

  ‘A prophet always apprehends the Lord's meaning!’

  ‘Since you believe that Solomon should inherit – that he must inherit – the crown, couldn’t you say – or at least hint – that the Lord does too?’

  ‘Take care, my lady Your son may be worthy to succeed, but you may not be worthy to stand behind him.’

  ‘Forgive me. It's not my will but the king's. He has told me often – so often I’ve lost count – that Solomon is his chosen heir.’

  ‘Are you sure that he wasn’t indulging you?’

  ‘He swore it before the altar. “May the Lord strike me down if I don’t name him,” he said.’ I curse myself for picking a form of words that I’ve never heard him use.

  ‘Then he must proclaim him at once.’

  ‘But he's grown old. His mind is muddied. Who knows how much he remembers?’

  ‘It's up to you to remind him.’ He looks at me so intently that I blush.

  There is no time to lose. Every day Adonijah consolidates his position. His latest move has been to present the king with Abishag, a twelve-year-old Shunammite from his mother's clan, to be his bedmate. Although barely ripe, she fulfils his needs. Despite the fires kept constantly lit in his chamber, he complains of feeling cold, but he no longer summons any of his concubines, let alone his wives, to warm him. It's as if he fears that, with his gross, bristly body, reeking as after a week in the saddle, and the rotting teeth that he refuses to rub with tuber root, he will disgust as much as disappoint us. But Abishag brings neither experience nor expectations, so he has nothing to prove. She attends him day and night, too young even for a monthly respite. I approach her when, on a brief escape to the harem, she sits sobbing among the concubines. I dismiss them and dry her tears, but I cannot afford to pity her.

  ‘What is it? Tell me what's wrong? I promise you’ll feel better,’ I say, as she struggles to speak.

  ‘It's horrible,’ she says at last. ‘Once my brothers put a badger – a dead one – in my bed. I felt it on my feet, all furry and flabby, and when I kicked it out, its juices spurted over my legs. But this is worse.’

  ‘This is the king.’

  ‘He smells worse than the badger. His breath..
. his body. I can still smell him on me now.’

  Her words are drowned in a flood of tears. I summon Matred to wash and scent her with my finest oils, while I braid her hair. Lowering her guard, she recounts her daily ordeal. It is almost touching to learn that he wants nothing more than to lie beside her, clinging to her like a second skin. The closest he has come to defiling her is when he lost control of his bowels.

  I discover, too late, that Adonijah is using her to spy on the king. Having obtained proof of his impotence, he is preparing to act. It's Shobab, more alert to palace intrigue than Solomon, who reports the discussions that Adonijah has had with several of their brothers. ‘What kind of man turns his back on a fresh young virgin?’ he asked, a view with which my fourteen-year-old son clearly concurs. I curb my irritation in the need to find out more. Learning from Absalom's mistakes, Adonijah rejects open rebellion, preferring to reason his way to the throne. ‘As with the girl, so with the kingdom,’ he declared. ‘Our father is old; he neglects his duties. No one loves or honours him more than me. My utmost desire is that he should live out his days in peace and not in the turmoil of war, which is bound to break out when our enemies hear of his weakness and launch an attack.’

  Shobab is not expecting the slap he receives at the end of his account, but his flagrant support for Adonijah's argument enrages me. It is true that a younger man is needed as king, but that man isn’t Adonijah, and I shall spare no effort to thwart him. I swiftly repent my sharpness with Shobab who, rubbing his cheek and glowering, shows no inclination to tell me more. Abjectly apologising, I slap my own hand, as I did when he was a child, and coax him into revealing that Adonijah is hosting a feast, which all his younger brothers (apart from my four sons), Joab, Abiathar, and various of the elders are due to attend. With the blindness of youth, Shobab's sole concern is his exclusion from the gathering. I, on the other hand, am desperate to ascertain its purpose. Is it a council of war or a coronation meal?