It took the rest of the forenoon to reach the gates of Jerusalem and then to climb its crowded streets to the upper city where the king’s s house crowned all. There was much stopping and waiting, for the marketplaces were full, and the streets also. Sheep and donkeys and old women hauling water from the well move at their own pace, and even the king’s name will not hasten them. Delay did not trouble me, for I was in no hurry.
The crimson leather curtains were drawn tight closed; I could not see Jerusalem. But I could hear it, city noises louder and more varied than anything I remembered from my father’s city of Gibeah. And when we stopped, I could hear the street-talk clearly—ones own name will always catch the ear.
“It is the Princess Michal,” they told one another. “Mad Saul’s daughter. King David’s queen.” They sounded pleased and proud, as if David, or they, had done something clever or had a debt well paid.
I wondered what tale David had spun that my coming seemed to bring the people pleasure. I heard more and more talk of me as I was borne through the streets. “David’s wife, returned to him at last.” “She saved his life, they say” “Her father was mad; what of the daughter?” Once again I was thankful that heavy curtains veiled me from curious eyes.
At last we were at the gates of the king’s house on the hill; soon I would see David. And I wondered now what tale David would weave for me.
It did not matter; I did not care. So I told myself, as I had all the long way from Gallim—but now my blood beat hard and thick and slow under my skin; a serpent tempted to rouse from a winter’s long sleep.
Through gates and through courtyards, until at last my litter was set down and the curtains pulled back. My journey was over. I stepped out into a quiet courtyard and a horde of chattering maidservants. Giggling all the while, they bustled me in through a wide doorway before I could even look about me and draw a deep breath.
No one came forward to say that she was David’s wife, and bid me welcome as a guest should be. That was ill done; David had half a dozen wives now, and more concubines. Someone should have been here to greet me properly, and see to my comfort.
Oh, I stood in a fine room, that I would grant. On the walls new-painted swallows flashed bright among poppies and wheat. Carved cedar shutters were hooked back from two large windows; the room was full of light. But painted walls and wide windows, however fine, are not food or drink or rest.
The maids who surrounded me seemed to have no proper notions at all; they tugged at my gown and urged me to hurry, hurry, for the king would see me. The serpent under my skin slid cold beneath my heart and coiled there, and waited to see what Michal would do.
I counted three, and breathed deep and slow, and then I flung back my veil and spoke sharp words. “See King David like this, with dust up to my eyes and my hair a nest for bees? Is that a fit way for him to welcome the daughter of Saul—or for her to greet the king of Judah?”
They stood all round-eyed; I stamped my foot. “Fools, do you truly not know how to serve a woman weary with travel? I will see the king, but not until I have washed my body and oiled my hair and changed my linen. Now go and ready a bath, that I may prepare myself to receive King David.”
I clapped my hands hard and the silly girls scattered, noisy as partridges, to do my bidding. For all its fine scarlet columns and gilded lintels and purple curtains over doors, it was not a good house; I did not think overmuch of the way David’s wives kept his state. I did better for Phaltiel with less—and my handmaids did not gape and giggle at visitors.
Still, the maids did well enough, though it took them their own good time to bring the brightly painted bath and fill it. with water. I had no wish to hurry, so I smiled upon them and spoke as a foolish woman will, worrying over what I should use and wear and say, and then changing my mind and asking what they thought. They were most willing to advise me, and happy to quarrel with each other. It was another sign of an ill-run house, but the manners of these maids were no concern of mine.
At last the bath was readied to their liking. They drew out the pins from my travel-used gown and took it away; I stepped into scented water. Water that tasted of roses and lilies was poured, and ran cool over my hot skin.
Water spilling over me, and women’s talk. I closed my ears to the idle chatter and my eyes to the light. I would not think now. I would only rest, and wait.
Water poured, and silence. Water that slid over my body like oiled silk. Silence of breaths drawn deep and held, movement quickly stopped.
I did not have to open my eyes. I knew.
“Leave us, all of you,” I said, and listened behind my lids as the maids went from the room on soft-padding feet. There was little sound from them now; a skirt rustled, a bangle chimed. The heavy curtain flapped and sighed; it fell with a final thud across the doorway and they were gone.
I opened my eyes and looked into David’s.
“You have not changed, Michal. I would have known you anywhere.” He was older. There were thin lines around his eyes and mouth that had not been there when I last had looked upon his face—well, that had been ten years ago; he was near thirty now. But his voice was still as beautiful as harp-song, warm as love in winter dark.
“How, among so many others?” I said the words as if what I most wished were true, and I cared nothing for David or for what he might do. But it did not matter what I said, or how; David smiled, and my heart twisted in my breast.
“By this,” he said, “and this, and this.” His hands were soft and free as water on my wet skin. “We had only our wedding night, Michal, but it would take forty times forty women to make a man forget you.”
My skin trembled under his touch as the serpent woke full and sank its fangs deep. I could hardly breathe; I could not move. I was no unripe girl now. My body knew what it would have, for my loving husband had taught it well—
“No!” I cried, and turned away, pulling my hair around me. It stuck and clung wet, and did not cover much. But I tried.
David laughed. I had forgotten how he laughed; rain after summer heat, spring leaves in the wind.
“May a man not touch his wife, Michal?” His hands slid over my shoulders, lifted my hair damp from my neck. “It has been too long since you looked at me with love in your eyes, sister of Jonathan. I have missed you as I miss him. He is gone, but you are still here to walk and talk with me. Turn your eyes on me again, and we will start anew.”
Sweet words. But David’s song came too late; I was wiser now, and would not be drawn to that lure. I swore I would not. “No,” I said again.
This time I moved farther, out of reach of his hands. I stepped out of the bath and caught up a length of drying-linen to wrap and shield me. “You do me too much honor, great king. But I am another man’s wife. Would you see me stoned at the wall?”
“You were mine first.”
“And I am Phaltiel’s now.”
“There are no children; he is old; you were not willing. Such a marriage can be set aside.”
“I have been married ten years,” I said.
We faced each other across the now-still water in the painted bath. Once, long ago, I had been a princess and he a shepherd’s son. Now I was a farmer’s wife and he was a king; a lion to do as he willed. And he willed me to bend freely, for love of him, and so he smiled, and held out his hands.
“Ten years is nothing to the heart. Come back to me, Michal. As I loved your father Saul and your brother Jonathan, so and more do I love you. Whatever you wish, that you shall have—you are my first wife, and I will put aside all others if you ask it. Come, and I will set a crown upon your head and you will walk first among all the women of Israel and Judah.”
I stood there in my linen sheet, the scented water drying from my skin. I looked on him, and listened to words like honey from the heart. David had always had a way with pretty words. But I had learned that love was not made of soft hands and pretty words.
“Ten years is much to a woman, David. Let me go back to my husband,
who is a good man, and loves me.”
“And do you love him, Michal?”
“Yes,” I said.
“As you did me?” David came to me again, walking slowly around the bath of cooling water. I watched him come and could not move, even when he stood behind me and put his arms around me to hold me close against him. “Do you love this old man as you did me, when we both were young?”
I would not struggle against David as if I feared his touch had power over me still. “No,” I said. “I love him better. He took me in when no other would, and was kind. I loved you long ago, and you love many others now. Be content with them, and let me go home. You may be king of all the world with my good will, and I will tell all men so from the marketplace if you ask it.”
“I ask only you,” he said, and set his lips against my neck.
“No.” My skin chilled, burned. “No. It is too late, David.”
“How too late, when we both are here and your heart still beats hard for me? See here, under the skin, how your blood leaps to meet my hand—”
I knew I had no choice; it was my mind only that would deny him. The body and the heart are stronger.
CHAPTER 8
“ … who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights … .”
—II Samuel 1:24
David was right; my body and my heart were still hot for him. But I was right too; it was too late for us. And when we came together, our bodies twining and clinging in the semblance of love, I knew it, even if he did not. He seemed pleased enough, after. But I had lain ten years with a husband whose caresses were for Michal; David’s hands and lips and body were for pleasing any woman.
And so afterwards, when we rested beside one another on the damp linen sheet and David asked again, sure of my answer, I still said no. That did not please him at all, though he tried to hide it, and laughed, and stroked my body anew to show me that I must bend soft to his touch.
“No, again? You do not mean that, my Michal, and it is unkind to torment me after so many years.”
I lay quiet under his hand; he could set my body alight, as he said, but he could no longer content Michal. On our wedding night David had taught me love; today he had taught me lust. Phaltiel had taught me to know the difference.
“The years were not my doing, and you have found many other consolations.”
“What, are you jealous? You need never be that; I have told you that you will be first, and only, if you ask it of me. You may have anything you desire, my queen, if only you will come to me and take it.”
I turned my head to look at him, and he smiled, and took up my hair to twine in his fingers. “Your hair is a skein of silk, it is wheat in the wind. See, the king is caught in its net. What jewels can he give that will not be lost in its glory?”
Once, long ago, I had been called a princess. Now, if I chose, I could be that again—more, I could be a queen. David offered all a man thinks a woman could desire; he was cleverer than most men, for he promised love, too.
But I knew better, now, than to cry after the moon, for David himself had shown me what the moon’s cold love was worth. I would happily thank David on my knees for the lesson if only I might then go home to my husband Phaltiel and never more look back.
“Come, do not be silent—you have only to speak and whatever you wish for will be granted.”
“Send me home. Send me home to my husband.”
David laughed again. “And would he take you back, after this?”
I thought of Phaltiel, and how he had looked at me when we said farewell. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he would take me back.”
“Even if all the land knew his wife had lain with the king?” The lion showed claws now, and fangs: see what I could do, if I would.
“Even so,” I said.
“Then he is a fool, and you are a greater one.” David’s voice wooed no longer; kings have no great store of patience with denial.
“Perhaps I am, but not such a fool as to think ten years can be wiped out with a word.”
“A king’s word,” David said. “A king’s wishes. Who are you to set yourself against the king?”
“A woman,” I said. “A woman with her rights under the Law. I am another man’s wife and I do not come to you willingly, nor does my husband set me aside. You have no right to keep me here. Even the king is not above the Law, David.”
“The king is the Law, Michal.”
“Did Yahweh tell you that?”
I thought he would be angry, but he only laughed. “No, it was Samuel and Saul between them who taught me that lesson.” David took up my hair again, smoothing it between his hands, and twined its length twice around my throat. “You must learn it too, Michal, and then we will be happy together.”
David was clever. I had always known that. But now he was cunning as well—and that I only learned when it was too late. And so when I would ask only to be sent back to Phaltiel, David did not rant, and rage, and swear I should do his will or have all my bones broken, as my father would have done. No, David was all soft smiles and sweet words and lavish gifts.
That day I was given rooms with cool tiled floors and walls painted with birds and flowers and monkeys in yellow and red and blue. The rooms were full of riches hoarded against my pleasure. Sandalwood and cedar chests held gowns of scarlet and purple. Ivory boxes held rings for my ears and fingers. Glass vials held gold dust for my hair.
Everywhere I looked I saw more wealth than I had ever heard of, save in harper’s tales. I remembered my father’s house, and how large and grand we had all thought it because it had two courtyards and a tower three rooms high.
I was still stretching my eyes wide at my rooms when David’s s wives came to me and gave me more to wonder at.
I heard them before I saw them; a noise like winter branches in the wind. Then half a dozen women burst upon me in a jangle of bells and bracelets and gold-fringed skirts. They stared at me as if David had never before brought home a woman.
I had more cause to stare than they. I had heard of them all, from one tale-teller or another. Abigail, Ahinoam, Eglah, Haggith, Abital, Maachah—David’s wives; the mothers of his sons. Farmers’ daughters, merchants’ daughters—all save Maachah, daughter of the king of Geshur. These women had followed David through the wilderness, had kept his tents in the desert. To see them now, you would think them all Egyptian harlots.
Eyelids were painted green as beetle-wings; eyes were ringed dark and heavy with kohl; lips and fingers were stained with red henna. Wrists and ankles were heavy-laded with gold and silver. And they wore clothes my father’s women would have thought almost too fine for a king’s marriage-feast; stiff-pleated gowns bright with dye and heavy with gold fringe and tassels.
Gaudy as jays, they were. With the same manners, too, I thought then, and I never afterwards had cause to change my mind. Perhaps they had been good enough women when David was only a great warrior in the hills. But being a king’s women had spoiled them. They wanted now what they once could not even have dreamed existed.
“King David sent us to make you welcome,” one said at last—a comely enough woman, but no longer truly young. Discontent lined her face; this woman desired what she could not have.
“That is kind,” I said. “I am Michal, wife of Phaltiel of Gallim.”
They stared again; one laughed; one whispered to another. The woman who had spoken to me tossed her head, making her earrings dance hard against her cheeks. “I am Abigail, wife of King David—we are all David’s wives here—”
“—and Abigail does not speak for us!” snapped another.
“I have been longest married to King David, Eglah.” Abigail turned her shoulder to Eglah.
“Not so long as Michal.” That was the tall dark one; Maachah, I learned later.
“I am not married to King David,” I told them patiently. “I am the wife of Phaltiel, as I have said.”
“Oh, yes, we all know the tale,” said Abigail. Her red-dyed mouth was pinched at the corners
, as if she had bitten too hard into an unripe quince.
“We all know many tales,” Maachah said, and looked hard at Abigail. “It is better not to tell them, lest another know even more.”
I did not know then what Maachah hinted at; I thought that she at least had no love for tale-bearing and gossip. So I smiled at Maachah, and would have spoken to her, but Abigail pushed herself forward again.
“Who has dressed you? That is no gown for King David’s queen—and where are your bracelets, your jewels?” Abigail frowned and clapped her hands. “Where are the maids? They are a flock of useless, lazy girls—you must not let them be idle, Queen Michal.” She spoke as if the words were dust thick enough to choke her.
“They dressed me as I bade them, and I sent them away. I am a farmer’s wife. I am not used to such fine things.”
Maachah laughed; she had fine teeth that gleamed white against her painted lips. “You will be. David has said--”
“King David,” Abigail corrected her.
“I can speak for myself, Abigail!” Maachah turned back to me. “David has said that you are to be called queen, and we are all to bow to you and do as you bid us. What is your bidding, O Queen?”
They all stared at me like angry cats. They were united at least in this—they hated me. I could not blame them. David should not have spoken so; it made them as nothing.
“Shall we deck you with gold and gems? Shall we comb your hair, or wash your feet?” Maachah now spoke for all of them in her hurt pride.
I shook my head and spoke calmly, as if I did not hear the vinegar in Maachah’s words. “I thank you for your welcome, but I need nothing—except perhaps some goose-fat for my hands.” I held my hands out, palms up. “You see how they are.”
“They will not be so long. Tell your maids to tend them.” Maachah tossed her head; her braids moved on her shoulders like dark snakes.
Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen Page 9