Joab’s brow lifted, his eyes glinting. He shook his head and waved him off as though he were nothing more than a pesky insect. Daniel paused, stung, his anger rising with the hurried steps of his feet.
“You, you, you, and you.” Joab pointed in quick succession to four men, who were quickly joined by eight others Daniel recognized—four each under the command of Joab’s brothers. The twelve straightened their military tunics, checked the swords and daggers strapped to their sides, and moved to the edge of the pool.
Flushed and angry, Daniel grabbed hold of Joab’s sleeve and garnered a murderous stare for his action. “Listen, Captain, there is no reason for you to treat me like this. I am willing to fight, probably more so than some of the men you just sent. So why do you ignore me as though I am of no consequence? I am the king’s brother-in-law!” He didn’t often fling his relationship to Abigail around, and a part of him loathed himself for doing so now, but he was tired of being ignored as though he were nothing. “That reason alone should make you take notice of my ability. I’m as good a soldier as the next man.”
Joab bared his teeth, and for a moment Daniel had the impression that if he were a lamb, then Joab was a lion and would rip him in two. “That reason alone is why I ignore you, Daniel ben Judah. How would I face the king again if I was responsible for the death of his wife’s brother? Be grateful that the king values your hide so much and stop acting like a lost pup looking for its mother.” He whirled about and stalked off before Daniel could respond.
Heat poured into Daniel’s face as he glimpsed the smirks of the men around him. There would be no end of taunts toward him now. His humiliation could not be more complete. Why had he been such a fool? Joab was a hard man, and few came against him and walked away with their lives or their reputations intact.
Daniel ground his teeth and slipped away from the onlookers, but stayed close enough to watch the contest that should have been his.
Joab’s twelve moved away from the pool to a grassy spot closer to Abner’s forces, meeting Abner’s twelve face-to-face.
“When I blow the trumpet,” Joab shouted, “let the contest begin!”
Daniel’s breath suspended, the air prickling, snapping like the prelude to a thunderstorm. The shofar sounded, jolting air into his lungs, He stood, his feet frozen to the dirt. First one, then two, four, six—his gaze darted from one man to another.
Arms thrust out, heads yanked forward, swords plunging. Terrifying, haunting screams pulsed in the sun’s heat.
Blood spilled onto black earth.
Screams slowly stilled into silence.
Daniel’s heart thudded like thick mud, weighting his arms, his legs, sickening him. An eternity passed, or was it only a moment? Shouts awakened his dead ears, and the shofar sounded again.
“Let the war begin!” Joab’s battle cry jolted him, freeing his limbs. Daniel surged forward in pursuit of the enemy.
30
David stood at the window of his bedchamber, looking east toward the slowly rising sun. News of the battle had begun to trickle into Hebron, but he was still waiting for a report from his nephews, and the delay had filled him with an uneasy sense of dread.
Abigail stirred in the bed behind him, and servants moved about in the halls, their muted whispers and quiet footfalls breaking the silence of oppression that had settled about him like a cloak. Birdsong greeted him as the pink hues of dawn cast a pale glow over Hebron’s mud-brick homes and distant, grass- and sand-covered hills. If he didn’t hear something by the time the sun broached midday, he would send scouts out himself to see what had happened to Joab and his brothers.
“David?” Abigail’s gentle voice pulled him from his irritating thoughts. He turned to find she had wrapped a thin robe about herself and stood at his elbow. “Is everything all right?”
He drew her to him, encasing her in his arms. There was a sense of rightness about having her here, and not for the first time he wished he had known only her. Keeping her with him these past few days had made it almost possible to blot out the constant need to appease his other wives. If only for a time, he could forget the kingly demands that obligated him to keep peace with tribes and nations through marriage contracts with their daughters.
A sense of uneasiness crept over him, and he wondered again if he was doing the right thing. Hadn’t God told kings not to take many wives? And yet he seemed powerless to deny the requests put on him, or his own faithless desires. The kings of surrounding nations had far more wives at their disposal than he would ever allow, and he assured himself that he would never let his wives lead his heart from Yahweh.
He kissed the top of Abigail’s head, then rested his chin there. He momentarily appeased his conscience, enjoying the way she fitted against him, as though she was made for this space nearest his heart. “Everything is fine, beloved.”
He absently stroked her back, felt her shiver beneath his touch, and was reminded again of how she had loved him at first with such reservation because of the abuse she had once endured. He vowed to never hurt her that way, to never again allow her to feel the brunt of any man’s wrath, to protect her from any further pain life had to offer.
If only he could.
“Something troubles you, David. You tossed and turned in the night, and I wonder if you slept at all.” She leaned away from him and looked up, meeting his gaze. “Has something happened with the battle?”
He shook his head, looked at her for a long moment, then glanced beyond her out the window again, which allowed him an expansive view of Hebron and the path leading to the city gates. “Only a few rumors of victory over Abner. But Joab has yet to return.”
“A victory should not rob you of sleep. You fear something.” She touched his cheek, stroking his beard. “Surely you have nothing to fear. Adonai is with you.”
He looked down at her again, the warmth of desire for her filling him. He shifted closer, took her face in his hands, kissed her soft, delicate lips, and sifted his fingers through her rumpled hair. This kiss awakened his need of her yet again, and when she wrapped her arms around his neck in response, he lifted her and carried her back toward his bed, deepening the kiss. He placed her among the soft pillows and slipped his arms from the sleeves of his lounging robe, letting it fall to the tile floor.
An urgent knock at the door jolted them both, bringing David’s initial fears of the battle’s outcome rushing in on him once more. He pulled away, frowning. “I’m sorry, my love.” He released her, snatched the robe from the floor, and donned it as he walked briskly to the door.
Joab and Abishai stood before him, bloodstained, ash-coated, and disheveled, putting David’s heightened emotions immediately on edge. “What happened?”
Joab’s hard features, always commanding and often bordering on disrespect, looked weary and drawn. His mouth was pulled into a tight line, his cheeks hollow from lack of sleep. But fire snapped in his round, dark eyes, and his hands flexed in and out, his whole body poised like a coiled snake, as though he could barely contain his rage.
“We’ve walked all night from Bethlehem.” Abishai spoke for his brother, glancing beyond David into the room. “But this is hardly the place to discuss these things.”
David looked from one nephew to another, reading in Abishai’s expression a confirmation of the dread that had awakened him before dawn. “Let me dress.” Anticipating his thoughts, his manservant appeared from the hall and quickly retrieved fresh clothes for David to put on. He was vaguely aware of Abigail’s soft footfalls and looked up to see her approach.
“Do not trouble yourself to leave on my account, my lord. It is I who should go.” She placed a comforting hand on his forearm, her warmth momentarily soothing the beating of his anxious heart. “Call me if I can be of help to you.” With that, she turned and walked to a side door, where her own maidservant appeared and ushered her out of David’s chambers. A sense of disquiet settled inside him, and it surprised him that he should miss her so quickly, so completely.
Giving himself a little shake to clear his head from the distraction of his beautiful wife, he turned to his servant and allowed the man to help him dress, while Joab and Abishai moved into the room, shutting the door behind them. David deftly tied the belt at his waist and walked across the room to face them. He motioned for them to sit and commanded the servant to bring food and drink to his nephews.
“Now tell me everything,” he said, taking one of the cushioned couches opposite them and tenting his fingers beneath his chin. “Things did not go well, if your appearances are any indication.”
Joab cleared his throat, but it was Abishai who leaned forward, his gaze intent on David. “The battle was bloody and not without casualties. Abner lost three hundred sixty men. We lost twenty.”
David released the breath he’d been holding. “A victory then.” But by the look in Joab’s eyes, not one to rejoice in. “What else?” He placed both hands on his knees, bracing himself for whatever news his nephews were slow to tell him.
“Asahel is dead. Abner killed him.”
Murder seethed from Joab’s dark eyes, and David almost flinched. He wasn’t sure which troubled him more—that the lanky, fleet-footed Asahel with the quick wit and easy smile was dead, or that Abner had killed him. Joab’s bitter glare made him pause, and he had to remind himself that Joab was on his side. His fierce loyalty was one of the only positive things about the man.
“Tell me what happened.” Perhaps the telling of it would ease a bit of the burden and exonerate Abner somehow, who was as good as dead if Joab ever got hold of him.
“Asahel’s armor bearer saw it,” Abishai said. He raked a hand through ash-coated hair, sending flecks of dirt onto the bearskin rug beneath their feet. “Asahel chased Abner from the battle, almost caught him too. Abner warned him to stop, to go after one of Abner’s men instead, but you know how stubborn Asahel can be . . . could be.” Abishai looked down and twisted the fringe of his cloak between his large, rough hands, as though the very words were being wrenched from someplace outside himself.
Joab stood despite his obvious weariness and moved behind the couches to pace the open area between the window and the furnishings.
“Asahel would not stop,” Abishai continued after a silence so brittle that the air crackled with it. “Abner shoved the butt of his spear into Asahel’s belly, and it came out his back. He died on the spot.” Abishai looked up, his gaze only half as murderous as Joab’s. Exhaustion was evident in dark circles beneath his sober eyes. “We walked all night to Bethlehem to bury Asahel in our father’s tomb. Then we continued to return here.” He leaned back in the chair, shoulders slumped.
The heavy weight of dread made sense now, and the grief that followed knotted David’s stomach. He covered his face with both hands, listening to Joab’s incessant pacing and wondering how the man had a fragment of energy left to move.
“There is more, David.” Abishai’s quiet voice carried a different tone, one less angry but with equal foreboding. He lifted his head, surprised to see that Joab had come back to the seat and practically fallen onto the couch, his strength finally spent.
“Worse than Asahel?” Though he couldn’t possibly imagine what, since his top two commanders were sitting here facing him.
“For you, perhaps. For your wife, yes.” Abishai folded his hands in his lap, no longer twisting them in his cloak.
“The man was a fool from the start, so one can hardly wonder that he would be among the fallen. He volunteered to be part of the contest that started it all, but it ended up being Helkath Hazzurim.” In Joab’s mouth, the name sounded like a curse.
“A field of daggers.” Awareness tightened David’s gut. So they held the contest he’d suggested after all. “The outcome?”
“Every man died at once. A fool’s play. No strategy to such a thing.” Joab’s mouth twisted in a grimace of disgust. “Her brother begged me to let him be part of it. Of course I denied his request. I knew you would hold it against me to put the fool in the front lines. But he had as little sense as Asahel and Abner.”
“Who had such little sense?” Though David already knew the answer, he needed to hear it firsthand from them.
“Abigail’s brother, Daniel.” Abishai lowered his voice and glanced at the door where Abigail had retreated. “He was among the nineteen besides Asahel we found among the dead.”
David gripped the edges of the couch until his knuckles grew taut, anger and remorse coursing through him. Daniel ben Judah had tried to win his approval from the first time they’d met, always anxious to prove himself, and David had respected his strength and his ability to hold himself in check. But he’d held back from naming him to the thirty, though he knew Daniel wanted the position. Was that what happened? No doubt he meant to do something grand to gain David’s notice. And it had gotten him killed.
Foolish man. And yet he wondered who was the greater fool—Daniel for having pushed to achieve what he wanted, or David for not giving him the acclaim he craved early on, to keep him from doing something rash.
He stood, dismissed his nephews with a nod, and walked to the window, where the sun fully shone now over the horizon. This battle had hardly been a victory. And what of the 360 men of Benjamin who had died because Abner would not submit to his rule?
Irritation tightened his muscles again, and a headache began at the base of his neck. Somehow he had to break the news to Abigail and her family. He whirled about and walked to the door to his side chambers where Abigail surely waited for him. No sense putting off a difficult task. He closed his eyes, breathed a prayer for strength, and opened the door.
Abigail stood at the window overlooking the family courtyard where David would meet with his wives most evenings or the women would gather to work or gossip. Abigail had often met with her parents there, and sometimes Daniel would bring Talya and Micah to visit for a day. But the visits had only managed to heighten her sense of loneliness and the longing for a normal family of her own.
She chided herself for being so ungrateful, for thinking anyone could compare to David or give her what he could not. She had lived with wealth and been the lone wife to a powerful man, at least on the surface, and nothing in that situation had satisfied her either. For David to even want her had seemed impossible when Nabal first died, for she feared no man would ever want her again. So why did she find sharing him so distasteful? Did she honestly think she was worthy of his love alone? He was the king! Kings took many wives. She’d known it from the beginning and accepted her lot with joy—at first. She had no right to be jealous of Talya’s singular relationship with her brother now.
Truth be told, when she examined her heart she found it squirming with similar selfish thoughts. David had already taken to wife Maacah—a princess from Geshur, a foreign people—and Haggith would soon join their ranks. But it was Michal whose heart he still yearned for. She knew it whenever she glimpsed that faraway look in his eyes and on the few occasions he had spoken her name. Though he had reassured Abigail that he wanted Michal’s return simply because she belonged to him and he needed to strengthen his kingdom, Abigail knew better. Michal still held a piece of his heart—a piece she wished belonged only to her.
She turned at the sound of the opening door and footsteps crossing the mosaic tile. Her heart leaped at the sight of David standing there dressed in full royal garb, his handsome face wreathed in concern and his dark eyes glinting in sorrow. She could not deny her attraction to this man or suppress her longings for him when he wasn’t at her side. Even in his presence she felt a giant need to cling to him, to feel his strength, to impress on her heart and mind every detail, every word spoken, every quick smile or loving look, every comforting touch.
She stepped away from the window and moved slowly toward him, meeting him in the middle of the room. He reached for her hands and clasped them in his own, his fathomless gaze searching hers.
“What is it?” Something troubled him, and she was glad she was here and that he had sought her out in his
time of need. “You know you can tell me.”
He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, then stroked her face with his fingers. “Come sit with me, Abigail.” He led her to a cushioned couch and settled close to her, again taking her hands in his. His stance and the look in his eyes sent waves of caution through her. Something was wrong. Terribly so.
“What?” She choked out the question this time, an unnamed fear snaking through her.
His gaze never wavered, and he squeezed her hands as though to keep her from pulling away. “Joab and Abishai returned from the battle.”
“Yes, I know.”
He nodded. “They brought news . . . My nephew Asahel is dead.”
Compassion filled her, along with a bit of relief. But why did he act as though she should be so disturbed by such news? She liked Asahel well enough, and at one time he had been interested in her maid, but it wasn’t like she knew him beyond a cursory relationship. Was David looking to her for sympathy for himself?
“I’m sorry to hear that, my lord. I know you were fond of him.” She gave his hands a little squeeze to convey her sympathy. She was unnerved by the steady look he gave her that told her he was looking for more than comforting words, but she was at a loss as to what. “Is there something else I can do for you, David? How can I help?”
“There’s more, Abigail.” At this he released her hands and rested one hand on her knees. He averted his gaze briefly, his throat working as though he were searching for the right words.
“Please, just tell me.” She worried the belt of her robe, trying to ignore the tight knot in her stomach.
“The battle was fierce. Abner lost three hundred sixty men to our twenty, including Asahel.”
“That’s good then, right? Though I’m sorry for Abner’s losses, it is good for you that we lost so few.”
He regarded her with interest, as though a woman shouldn’t understand such things or be interested in aspects of war. “Yes, of course, but sometimes losing a few is worse than losing many, if you love the few who are lost.”
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