Michal

by Jill Eileen Smith

  Footsteps marching up the stone walk could be heard through the open windows. David’s gaze followed the sound. Two men hurried to the door and knelt before Benaiah.

  “We have a message for my lord, King David, from Abner, son of Ner.”

  Benaiah nodded and stepped away from the door. David sat straighter as the two men walked the length of the room, sandals echoing across the tiles, and fell prostrate at his feet.

  “You may rise,” David said after a lengthy pause. “What message do you bring?”

  “Abner, son of Ner, has sent us. He says, ‘Whose is the land? Make your covenant with me, and indeed my hand will be with you to bring all Israel to you.’ ”

  David held the speaker’s gaze, his mind whirling. Abner was obviously seeking a place of prominence in his kingdom, or he wouldn’t make such a statement. After all these years, the uniting of his house with the house of Saul would finally come to fruition.

  Which meant Michal could be returned to him at last.

  What better way to show unity of the tribes? Michal represented his past and Israel’s first kingdom. To bring her back would right the wrong done to him and give the nation greater cause to accept him without question.

  His look shifted from one man to the other, and he leaned forward, clutching the arms of the chair.

  “Tell Abner, ‘Good. I will make a covenant with you. But one thing I require of you: you will not see my face unless you first bring Michal, Saul’s daughter, when you come to see me.’ ”

  He dismissed them then, and when they were gone, he clapped his hands, summoning Benaiah.

  “Yes, my lord.” Benaiah bent one knee and bowed his head.

  “Send my own messengers to Ishbosheth. Since Abner is so quick to seek my favor, let the king of Israel do the same.”

  “What shall the messenger say, my lord?”

  David stroked his beard, his thoughts dancing through a handful of memories. “Tell him . . .” He paused, struck by the enormity of what had just happened.

  Michal was coming home.

  “Tell him,” he said after a lengthy silence, “ ‘Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines.’ ”

  Benaiah met David’s gaze and nodded. “As you say, my lord. It will be done.”

  Michal sat in a corner of her home, mending one of Jacob’s torn tunics. The needle dipped into the fabric to the sound of the children’s squabbling and laughter in the yard. Michal toyed with a smile as she tugged on the thread. A month had passed since Abner had gone over to David’s side, yet nothing had changed. Perhaps her life would turn out all right after all.

  Keziah stood at the table in the kitchen, rolling dough into square sections, filling them with a handful of dates, and drizzling them with honey. At the sound of men’s voices in the courtyard, Keziah looked up from her work, and Michal’s fingers stilled.

  “What is it, Keziah?”

  The young woman looked out the window, and at her worried expression, Michal set the tunic in a basket and stood, smoothing her robe with trembling hands. Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden pounding on her door.

  Michal looked to Keziah, who shrank toward the corner. She would be no help. Michal released a slow breath and willed her timid feet forward. When she opened the door, the sight of Israelite guards startled her.

  “Yes?” Her gaze swept the men before her, noting her brother’s kingly insignia on their outer robes and tunics. These were no ordinary guards.

  “King Ishbosheth has commanded that Michal, Saul’s daughter, prepare to leave Mahanaim. She will accompany Abner, son of Ner, to Hebron to be reunited to her husband, King David.” The guard said the words in a stiff monotone, as though he’d rehearsed them many times.

  Michal stared at the man, barely noticing another figure running toward the house from across the field. “I’m to return to David? Now?” This couldn’t be true. Besides, she couldn’t leave. She had a life here, and Merab’s children needed her.

  “Yes, Princess. Abner sent messengers to David, whose first words were that Abner could not see his face unless he brought you with him. Then David sent messengers to Ishbosheth, bypassing Abner, to command your return. Your brother sent us to you moments after David’s men reached Mahanaim.”

  David wanted her back? Before another thought could pass through her mind, Paltiel reached her side, out of breath.

  “What’s going on here?” He faced the guards, stepping in front of Michal and blocking her view of them.

  “King Ishbosheth has sent us to take Michal to Abner. She is going with him to Hebron to be returned to King David.”

  Michal heard the words again, but they had yet to truly penetrate her conscious thought. But when she watched Paltiel turn toward her in fear, reality awakened her senses.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” His face contorted in misery, and Michal’s heart lurched in pain. “I told you we should leave Israel. I knew David would do this. Didn’t I tell you?” He pushed Michal into the house and swung the door shut in the guards’ faces. Michal stumbled backward, barely catching her balance. She braced herself against the edge of the table, staring at Paltiel in a mute stupor. Paltiel stepped forward and fell to his knees, clutching her feet and weeping.

  “You can’t go, Michal. I’ll bribe the guards. We can run away. Please, don’t leave me.”

  How could she? How could David expect her to leave the man who had been her husband for nearly seventeen years? Her marriage to David had happened so long ago that it seemed like a passing dream. She had been just a girl then. A girl with ambition and longings she thought David could fulfill. But her father had snatched her dreams away when he thrust her into Paltiel’s arms. Too much time had elapsed for her to ever think she could capture them again.

  A pounding at the door interrupted her troubled musings. The guards weren’t leaving. Paltiel still clutched her feet and wept, and Michal stood immobile, her emotions a twisted mass.

  “Shall I open the door, my lady?” Keziah whispered in Michal’s ear. Michal hadn’t heard her quiet approach. She looked at her, then glanced at Paltiel. The incessant pounding continued.

  “If you don’t come out, Princess, we’ll take you by force,” one of the guards shouted.

  Michal nodded at Keziah, and she tiptoed around Paltiel and pulled the door open. The guards stepped through, and one plucked Paltiel’s fingers away from Michal’s ankles. Michal stepped back and turned toward the bedroom.

  “Let me get my things,” she said over her shoulder.

  Spurred by sudden urgency, knowing now she had no choice, Michal grabbed her spare tunics from pegs on the wall and scooped her pots of makeup into a straw basket. The blankets and bedding, cooking utensils, and cleaning supplies would be unnecessary items for a princess in a palace. She glanced around the room again, then picked up her basket and satchel and walked into the sitting room. Her eyes scanned the small area and stopped when she spotted her sewing supplies next to the chair in the corner. With brisk steps, she walked over and picked up the sewing basket, pulled Jacob’s unfinished tunic from it, and left the tunic in the chair.

  She searched every section of the house as she hurried through each room. Paltiel sat crumpled in one corner, his face a mask of misery. She allowed herself one last longing glance at him, then nodded to the guard.

  “I’m ready,” she said, forcing her eyes away from the silent sobbing of her husband. “No, wait.” She turned to Keziah. “You’re coming with me. Pack your things.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  The guard started tapping his foot in an act of impatience. “Abner is waiting.”

  Michal pursed her lips in annoyance. “Let him wait. My maid is coming with me.”

  Keziah ran through the house and was back at Michal’s side within moments. “We can go now, my lady.”

  Michal followed the guard past Paltiel and out of the house. Merab’s two younger children were still running around playing bury and hunt
in the neighboring field. She stopped. How could she leave them? How was it possible that what began as a burden dumped on her by her dying sister had turned into a duty she would miss? The sudden sting of tears made her throat ache. Jacob and Joel in particular had wrapped their little arms around her heart in love.

  “Can I say good-bye?” she asked when the guard stopped to look at her.

  He gave her a curt nod, then paused. Cupping both hands to his mouth, he shouted to the children to come.

  “What’s going on, Aunt Michal?” Joel asked.

  “Yeah, why’d you stop our game?” Jacob looked at the guard, scowling.

  Michal knelt to meet them at eye level, emotion nearly choking her. She set her baskets on the ground and tugged the children toward her.

  “I’m leaving, and I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” Tears threatened, but she quelled the urge to break down in front of the children. Instead she held them tight, then quickly released them.

  “Why are you going, Aunt Michal?” Jacob asked, sniffing back his own tears. “You can’t leave us. Who will fix my scrapes?”

  “Or make us raisin pastries?” Joel cried unashamedly.

  “Or fix my tunics?”

  “Or nurse us when we’re sick?”

  Michal held up her hand to stop their protests. “I’m going back to my husband, David. You remember I told you how your grandfather, King Saul, took me away from him?”

  They nodded in unison.

  “Well, Grandfather Saul had no right to do that. You see, David paid a high price to marry me, and now that Abner is on David’s side, David wants me back.”

  Jacob’s scowl deepened. “I don’t like David.”

  “King David,” the guard corrected. “And you’d better like him because he’s going to be in control of the whole kingdom. He won’t like nasty little boys.”

  Michal winced at the hurt, angry look in Jacob’s eyes and turned on the guard, heat rising in her face. “I doubt you have any idea who or what David will like. I suggest you keep your own nasty comments to yourself.” She couldn’t believe she was speaking like this, but the thought occurred to her that she just might wield some authority as David’s wife. No reason why she couldn’t assert a little now.

  She whipped her head away from the guard’s startled expression and looked at the two somber boys. She brushed the hair from Jacob’s brow, then cupped Joel’s cheek. “If I can, I’ll ask King David to let you come visit me sometime. Would that be all right?”

  They nodded mutely.

  “But if I can’t, be good for your father. He’ll need you to be more grown-up now, and your grandmother will probably come and stay with you. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” Joel said softly. “But I’d rather have you.” He threw his small body into Michal’s arms, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears. She held him in silence as Jacob looked on, his expression sour.

  “Is that all right with you, Jacob?” she said at last, setting Joel away from her.

  He shrugged, but when she beckoned, he clung to her neck until she thought he would choke her. “I still don’t like David,” he whispered. “When I grow up, he’s going to be sorry he took you away.”

  She held the boy at arm’s length, stunned. Before she could think of something to say, Jacob whirled around and raced across the field without looking back. Joel looked at her, indecision written on his fine features, but at last he turned and ran off after his brother.

  Paltiel stumbled out of the house, eyes blotchy. “Don’t go, Michal.” The words came out choked, barely audible. The agony of leaving him sent a dagger through her heart. She cared deeply for Paltiel. After seventeen years, despite their beginnings, how could she simply forget all they’d shared?

  “I’m sorry.” She touched his cheek, feeling the dampness of his beard. Tears still lingered in his eyes. “There is nothing I can do.”

  His look told her he didn’t believe her, and yet she could not have done as he had asked and leave Israel. Somewhere deep within her soul, she still loved David. The fact that he wanted her back had changed the way she’d come to feel about him. He hadn’t forgotten her. Maybe he loved her too.

  She picked up her baskets and followed the guard to the waiting donkeys, allowing the men to fasten her belongings to the sides. Paltiel’s soft weeping continued behind her, and she glanced back. Their eyes met, but she looked swiftly away.

  “Let’s go,” she ordered, mounting a donkey. Keziah sat on another one at her side. “Take me to David.”

  PART IV

  Therefore all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel.

  2 Samuel 5:3

  Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

  2 Samuel 6:16

  30

  From the vantage point of his roof two months later, David caught a faint glimpse of Abner’s caravan plodding toward Hebron’s city gate. He lifted one hand to shade the half-risen sun from his eyes and counted the donkeys, searching. Abner’s red-crested robe stood out among the rest. David allowed himself to study the man’s stance as he approached the guard, almost afraid to focus on the object of his desire—the woman riding directly behind Abner.

  Michal.

  When he pondered her name, his eyes moved toward her with a will of their own, like a moth drawn to an alluring flame. She was too far away for him to see the details of her face clearly, and as the group passed through the wooden doors toward his palatial home, David stood back a pace, not wanting her to see him. Not yet. He would see her soon enough.

  He watched the caravan until it reached the outer court of his home before he turned and walked down the steps toward the door of his audience chamber, Benaiah at his side.

  “Would you like Princess Michal brought to your chambers right away, my lord?” He looked at David, his face a stoic mask.

  David paused at the door, where flag bearers and trumpeters awaited to announce his arrival. “Show her to the apartment I have prepared for her. I’ll call for her when I’m ready.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  David took his seat on the gilded throne while his scribes and servants took their places at tables or posts around the room. Moments later, Abner, followed by twenty leaders from Israel, crossed the tiled floor and fell prostrate at David’s feet.

  “May my lord, King David, live forever.” Abner rose to one knee, head bowed.

  David extended his royal scepter to the man. “Do you come in peace, Abner?”

  “Yes, in peace, my lord. I have brought your wife Michal with me. And I will do more than that. I will arise and go, and gather all Israel to my lord the king, that they may make a covenant with you, and that you may reign over all that your heart desires.” Abner’s dark eyes held David’s for a brief moment, then lowered again in respect.

  David clapped his hands together. A servant scurried to his side.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  David glanced at Abner, then at the servant. “Prepare a feast for our guests. We will dine together for the midday meal.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The servant hurried off.

  “You will join me for a meal,” David said, smiling. “Then I will allow you to do as you have requested.”

  Abner looked up again and stood. “Thank you, my lord. We gladly accept your hospitality.”

  “Princess Michal, you are to come with me,” a guard said.

  Michal nodded, too nervous to speak. The guard removed the satchel and baskets draped to her donkey’s sides after helping her dismount. Keziah followed close behind, and the two walked in silence across the walled brick courtyard. Cultivated flowers graced the perimeter of the walkway, and they stopped at a narrow door in the wall. The guard knocked twice. A short, weathered older
woman appeared, dressed in a simple olive green and reddish brown robe tied at the waist with a brown sash. Her matching striped veil covered most of her wispy gray hair, and her arms were folded across her chest in a no-nonsense stance. She scrutinized Michal from head to toe, then sighed.

  “Another wife, Elias?” She shook her head. “Where are we going to put this one?”

  The guard cleared his throat. “This is Princess Michal, Hannah. The king has been expecting her.”

  Hannah’s head bobbed in understanding. “Yes, yes, of course.” She dismissed Elias with a quick swish of her hand as though batting a fly and looked Michal up and down again. “You will want to bathe in the mikvah and change out of those dusty traveling clothes before your visit with the king. Come.”

  Michal followed the old woman across another courtyard, past a maze of connecting rooms.

  “This is the family courtyard.” Hannah’s arm circled to include the enclosed court where a number of doors opened into the same spacious gardenlike area. “This is where the king comes to meet with his wives and children.”

  Wives and children. She knew that. All the way from Mahanaim, through Paltiel’s loud weeping as he followed them to Bahurim, where Abner finally sent him home; over the hill country leading to the Jordan River; across the river; and past Jerusalem and David’s childhood home of Bethlehem, to Hebron, Michal told herself she would not be David’s only wife. But telling herself and seeing evidence of it firsthand were two different things. What would she do when she was forced to share their table and David’s love?

  “And this is your apartment.” Hannah pushed open the door, then stepped back.

  Michal entered with caution. Would David be waiting for her inside? But that was ridiculous. He was meeting with Abner. She looked around, noting with appreciation the gilded couches and cushioned chairs sitting beside ornate tables topped with decorative oil lamps. Soft lamb’s wool cradled her sandaled feet, and light came from opposite windows, giving the room an open appearance.

  She walked over to one of the windows and looked out at a small garden blooming with brilliant colors—a stone’s throw from her back door.