My father grudged nothing for my wedding-day—not the bride-clothes, nor the fatted lambs and calves for the feast, nor the honors for my bridegroom. Saul was the open-handed king to all the world, now, to prove his joy. The wedding festival was to last for seven days and seven nights. A king’s daughter did not wed a hero every day, Saul said. How could he do less?
Indeed, how could King Saul do less for David? Of myself, I did not think much. I was so enraptured that I saw the world already as through my wedding veil, golden and beautiful.
On my wedding day I awoke at dawn and watched the sun claw its slow way over the hills to spill shadow and light over the land. The day shone like glass, echoing the joy in my heart; I danced around the room in the pale light until the women came in to catch me and make me stand while I was adorned to delight my husband’s eyes.
All the women of the house wished to help deck the bride for this wedding. There were so many helping hands that it took half the day to dress me; plaiting my hair alone took all the forenoon. I was little help to them, for I could not be still. They would have been cross with me on any other day, but it was ill luck to scold a bride, and so it was all jests and laughter. Even when I shook my head to hear the coins ring and there was half the braiding to begin anew they only laughed, and slanted their eyes at each other and teased me for being too eager.
Their voices hinted at things I did not yet know, but was hot to learn with David. Still, I was young enough to blush and duck my head, to keep my face from their eyes.
“And wouldn’t we all be eager if such a man waited for us on the other side of the veil!” said Rizpah briskly. “Now stand still, do, child, and let me finish with your hair, or you’ll be a maid another season!”
“Not she!” another said. They all laughed, and nodded wisely to each other.
I liked to be mocked as little as any girl at such a time; then each experience is new, and some are sacred to your own heart. “It is only proper for a woman to submit to her husband,” I said with great dignity, trying to sound more knowing than I was.
That set them off again, their laughter rising like the shrieks of hoopoes, until my face was as hot as the roof-tiles at summer midday.
And then I was ready, or so the women said. When they pulled down the veil and tugged at my hands, crying that my bridegroom awaited, there was a moment when I would have died rather than follow.
It passed, of course; bride’s fears are well known and there are always many hands to help her along the way. And once I was moving all was well again, and I was as eager as before.
All the long day there was noise; people singing and chanting and playing every kind of instrument that would clash or chime or jingle. I was not allowed to put back my veil, so I saw it all as a yellow haze of sunlight and sweet incense smoke. That is what I remember about my first wedding day—music clanging in my ears and golden mist dazzling my eyes. I do not remember seeing David at all, though we must have met in the public courtyard when he claimed me as his wife before the people.
Later there was much wine and spiced fruit, and more singing and dancing. I was not let to dance; I was the bride—
“And must save your dancing for your husband,” my sister Merab whispered into my ear. She was full-round with her first child; now she laughed and patted her belly. “It will be your turn next year if your husband is truly good with his spear!”
Merab’s was not the only bride-jest. I sat among a flock of women who all talked and giggled as though my bridal veil made me deaf, or invisible.
Later still it was night at last, and I was taken in a roar of torches and banging of cymbals to the tower room that had been made ready for us. And then it was quiet and dark, and David my husband put back my veil.
I had dreamed of this moment when I thought I would never know it; I had thought of nothing else since my father had promised me to David over half a year ago. David would free me from my veil and I would go to him and we would know great joy together, as all the songs and stories promised. I had now what I had longed for most in all the world. David stood before me as my husband.
I looked at him as if I were a ewe-lamb and he held the slaughter-knife. David did not let me stand there cold afraid, but took me into his arms.
“Poor Michal,” he said, and held me close. His heart beat under my ear louder than morning drums. “Yahweh save me from another wedding! Better forty battles! And now you are tired, and afraid.”
“I am not!” I wished to sound regal, but my mouth was as dry as if I had eaten dust, and I squeaked like a mouse. “But—oh, David—I—I am not beautiful, as Merab is—”
David smiled at me and stroked my hair. “No, you are not beautiful as Merab is. You are beautiful as Michal is. And that beauty is marvelous to my eyes.” And then he made a song, and sang it to me, softly, as we lay down together in the thin lamplight.
The song was all of me. He sang of my hair, and my eyes, and my breasts—there was no part of me he did not praise. His words flowed freely as the wedding wine until I was giddy with love, and when he stopped singing and kissed me, I was soft to his hands as spring rain.
And when it was over, I thought myself a woman who knew all there was to know of love.
The lamp-flame was long drowned when Jonathan came in thief-footed. I awoke to his touch on my shoulder.
“Wake up, little sister. Wake, my brother. I must talk to you, and now. No, do not light the lamp, David. Those who wait outside think I have come to leave a morning jest-gift. They must not know that we have spoken.”
“What is it? What is wrong?”
“Hush, Michal.” David’s voice was calm in the dark. “Jonathan will tell us. Well, my brother? You did not join us on our wedding-night only for a jest.”
“No, no jest, although I told the men who now guard the stair I would oil the floor thickly for your morning rising. They let me pass for that, and because I am the king’s son—and because they do not know I know why they are there. David, you must leave, quietly, and at once.”
“What?” I clutched at David. “Jonathan, are you mad?”
“No, but I fear our father is. David, he has set armed men to wait for you at the bottom of the stair. A guard of honor, he says. But in the morning—”
“I will go so far, and then no farther?” David sighed, and put his arm about me so that I might cling close. “I was afraid it would be so. I had hoped that it would not. Poor Saul—he must sleep unquiet with such hate tormenting him. You are right, Jonathan. I must go away for a time.”
“No—oh, no! Our father would not do such a thing to me!” I knew our father had grown strange—but that he would do this on my wedding night I could not believe.
“Oh, would he not?” Jonathan reached out in the dark and put his hand upon my cheek. “Ask those at whom he has thrown his spear before you say so. Strange angers rule him now, Michal; he shows first one face and then another.”
“I have heard men say he is possessed by an evil spirit, but I do not think that is true.” David’s voice was low and soft, and he stroked my arm to quiet me.
“Then why else should he hate you, who love him as a son and have done nothing but for his glory and his good?” Bitterness sat ill on Jonathan’s tongue; he liked to speak only fair words.
“You are wrong—you must be! You saw what he gave for my wedding! He cannot hate you! It is not fair!”
Again David bade me hush. “Be still, Michal. King Saul thinks he has reason, and who am I to say he is wrong?”
“What reason, brother?” Jonathan demanded. “What reason could he possibly have?”
“None,” I said. “Oh, he can have none—you are right, Jonathan, he must be mad!”
“He is not mad, he is afraid, although he has no need to be. I would never harm Saul or any of his blood; I love them all too well. Sit here beside us, Jonathan—it is time, I think, that I told you both the tale. It is only right that you should know.”
And there in the dark, sitt
ing on our marriage-bed, David told such a tale—well, if it had not been David, I would have laughed. If it had not been David, I would not have believed.
“It was a fine day, and the sheep were quiet. I was sitting on a rock, and restringing my harp, when my father sent for me—one of my brothers, running—I thought some disaster had struck the house. But it was only a guest, and I was bidden come at once, for he wished to see me. I could not think who or why, but I left the sheep under my brother’s eye, and went.”
The visitor had been the prophet Samuel. He had looked David up and down, and nodded. And then Samuel had told David that Yahweh had chosen him as the next king over Israel, and made him kneel down there before his father and his brothers, and blessed him, and poured the sacred oil upon his hair.
Beside my ear Jonathan drew breath sharply; a snake-hiss in the dark. “Samuel anointed you as king—with the king still living?”
“As the king to come after,” said David. “I thought King Saul knew nothing of it, and I swore then that he and his house would take no harm from my hands. And so later when I heard that a man was sought to play sweet songs for our king and ease his mind, I came to serve him. But he has been told, or has guessed, and now he fears me.”
Then there was silence between us in the dark room. I did not know what to say, or think, or feel. It seemed only right to me, in my love, that David should be honored above all men—but to let Samuel anoint him while King Saul still lived in the land—! Even I knew that two kings living meant war, and many men dead. Kings were new to Israel and Judah, but the bloody histories of our neighbors told tales plain and brutal.
“Well,” said Jonathan at last, “so that is where Samuel went when he quarreled with our father, and that is what he did.”
“Yes, that is what he did. But Saul is still king while he lives—and I have no wish to shorten his days for him. But now it seems he would shorten mine—”
At that I cried out softly. “No! Oh, David—Jonathan is right, you must go—we will run away until it is safe—”
“It is Jonathan who must go, for I think you have already stayed over-long, brother—even for oiling the floor! No, do not argue with me—be easy, I will not stay to be taken like a stalled ox.
“How? This room was well-chosen for a trap, David—there is only the stair and the window. Men watch at the stair, and as for the window—it is very far to the ground, and I could not bring a rope.
“Only a jug of oil?” David laughed; I did not know how he could. Then he leaned across me to clasp Jonathan in his arms. “Do not fear for me, for Yahweh will protect me, and I am forewarned of what my enemies would have kept secret. For that, and for all the rest, I thank you, brother. Now go, before you come under suspicion as well.”
They kissed, and Jonathan went away as quietly as he had come.
I was not quiet; I flung myself weeping into David’s arms. “No, no, I do not believe it! Who—who would do such a thing? No one would harm you, David—everyone loves you!”
“No, not everyone—and some fear King Saul more than they love me. There are always men willing to do evil. Why? Why, they may think good will come of it, or they may be paid in one coin or another. Now hush, Michal—weeping and wailing will not help us.”
He set me aside and went to the window. I could see him outlined against the dark sky beyond; it was no longer deep night. We had little time left.
“Can you climb down?” It was a foolish question, and I knew it. This was a new tower, built onto the old house only since my father had become king; the stones were smooth-fitted still.
David laughed. “No, Michal, I can not—nor can I fight barehanded past men well-armed, and I will not try. But your father is generous—he has provided the means to my hand. Come, wife, and help me with our bed-linen—and let us trust it is indeed the best!”
I saw then what he would do, and flung myself out of the bed to pull at the linens and blankets. All was new for my marriage-chest, and all of the finest; fit to support a man, if the knots were tight.
“Oh, yes—oh, David, you are so clever! Where shall we go, and what shall we do? Will your parents take us in, or—”
“Be silent, my heart, for this is not a time for talk. We must hurry if the rope is to be ready in time.”
I knew he was right, and so I made haste to do as he told me. There would be time enough to talk once we were away and safe.
It was not so easy as all that to make a rope of bedclothes. Knots that seemed tight and fast fell to nothing when I pulled on them; blankets were too thick to tie at all. But at last we had a length that would hold, at least when we pulled at both ends as hard as we could. So David said it was ready.
“I will go first—I am lighter.” The danger thrilled my blood as had David’s caresses; it was a night of strange excitements and I could not be calm, or think as I ought. I never once dreamed that I would not go with him, away out the window and down the road to meet whatever new joys life sent us. I was young, and so could not believe life would not go all as I would have it; that anything would truly harm me or those I held dear.
“No, Michal. You will stay here, where I can find you, where you will be safe.”
“But I wish to go with you!” I could not believe he meant it.
David sighed and took me in his arms and held me close. “Look you, my dear sister, my dear wife—a man may take a road too hard for a woman, and I will not risk you so. You are Saul’s daughter, whom he dearly loves—you must stay, and speak kindly of me to your father while I am gone.”
“But David—” Surely he could not mean to leave me behind! Not on our wedding night—not when I would bear any hardship gladly, only to be with him!
“No, I will hear no more disobedience from you—and you have not thought, Michal. I must leave here quickly and quietly—if you go too, who will bring up the rope again? And if it stays—”
If it stayed, linen pale against the tower stones, the city watchmen would see it and raise the alarm. David was right; someone must bring up the rope again, to give him time.
I swore I would do it. “I will always do whatever you ask—I I love you beyond death!”
We kissed, and held each other close, and said many foolish things—at least, I did. David’s words were never foolish, but worked always to an end.
Then he was gone, down the rope we had made together from the linens of our marriage-bed, and I was left alone in the tower room. As he had told me, I drew the rope up again, and then sat and carefully undid our careful knots, and thought of all David had said that night.
It was hard to believe, now that he was gone, just as it was hard to believe that I was now a woman, and so must be wiser than I had been as a child. But this was a night of strangeness, one no more so than the other. Sitting there alone in the dark, I half-thought I might have dreamed it all.
But I had not—and for all my thinking, I had not thought of what was to happen to me when my father Saul found out my husband was gone.
David had needed my help; that was enough.
CHAPTER 3
“And Saul said unto Michal, Why hast thou deceived me so … ?”
—I Samuel 19:17
It was not enough the next day, when men ran to my father crying that David had vanished from the guarded tower, leaving no trace. Eager to avoid blame, they told the tale I had hoped for, the tale that would absolve me also. For I knew some such tale would be needed, and so after much thought I had made a figure under the blankets, using a goat-hair pillow, and had feigned sleep beside it. When the men grew tired of waiting and came to take David, I pretended to wake, and be confused, and tried to shake the pillow awake. Then I screamed.
I did not say it was sorcery. But I made my eyes wide, and trembled, and put my hand to my mouth as I stared at the pillow beside me. And as they took me to my father, I asked many times how any man could have slipped past the stairway guards unseen. I thought myself very clever. I planted the seeds; their own fears ripened th
ose seeds to fruit.
So when Saul roared his angry questions, his men stammered of demons and magic. He fell silent at that; his breath rasped loud, echoing from the cool brick walls, making the room itself seem a living thing. His face paled from its mottled crimson, paled until he looked old, and ill.
The time stretched long before he spoke, and I knew that I had lost, for a man who defied prophets would not believe such a tale. I should have thought of some lie; I should have said that David had threatened me, that I had been too afraid to say him nay. Now it was too late.
“Witchcraft is it, you simpleminded fools? Well, I know where stands the witch.” His voice was very soft, as I had never heard it, and I trembled now in earnest. “A rope, eh, Michal? Yes, yes, it must have been—a rope you stole and hid, and used to help your father’s enemy escape from him? Now why should my daughter—my own little daughter, whom I loved as my own heart—do this thing?”
He looked straight at me. I had never seen anything like his eyes. They were not my father’s eyes; if there were demons here, they lived in King Saul.
I had thought I was clever; I had believed I was brave. Now I knew I was neither. I had planned to speak out and defy all the world for David. But David was gone and I was here alone to face King Saul’s wrath, and fear was so cold in my blood that I could not even answer my father to defend myself.
Saul came to me, walking stiffly, like an old man. His hands fell heavy on my shoulders. “Michal, my little dove, do you know what you have done? No? Well, child, you have killed your father. Yes, yes, that is it—you have killed him as surely as if you used the spear.
He stroked my hair, and stared at me, and I tried to speak. “Father—”
“No, no. After this you are not my daughter.”
I had expected anger, but he sounded only grieved. I would rather he had raged and beaten me until my bones broke.
He patted my head, as he had done when I was small, and backed away. “I must think what is to be done with her. Yes, take her away, until I decide.”
Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen Page 4