I held the golden circle in my hands; I held my queen’s crown out, over the waist-high wall; I opened my hands and let it fall. The golden crown glittered as it spiraled down through the clear air. There was no noise when it hit the stones by David’s feet. There was too much rejoicing for so small a sound to be heard.
David saw, but his mad dance never faltered. He only clapped his hands harder and danced on, leading the Ark away, toward the high hill. It had been only a moment, after all; a few heartbeats between one turn of his dance and the next. No one had noticed. Only Michal, and David, and the ghosts who went before him, clearing the path for David’s dancing feet.
David came to me afterwards, swollen with pride and demanding my praises, as if he had no other wives to flatter him. As if only my admiration would content him.
“This day went well, my queen—you saw how the people loved me.”
“Yes, I saw.”
He took up a braid of my hair, his fingers working it free of the woven knot my maids had taken so much trouble over that morning. “And they saw how you loved me, Michal. How you took the very crown from your head and cast it before me, that I might tread upon it as if it were less than the dust beneath my feet. That the good people might take its gold up for themselves, a gift from my generous queen.
Once again he shaped truth with false words. I said nothing. David toyed with my braid, began to unweave my close-twined hair. I did not move. “But was it a wise gift, Michal?”
He did not say more; he did not need to. I knew what he meant. David could make my act a proof of my love for him—or only another proof of madness.
“No,” I said, past pain that I thought would rip my throat open; words were tearing teeth. “No, it was not wise.”
My braid was now only a loose skein; David let my hair fall and smoothed it over my breast. “Do not let it trouble you, my love. It was unwise, but wisdom can be learned. And you will learn it, as I did.”
Never, cried my heart. Never would I learn David’s wisdom. But there was another voice within me. A voice that whispered soft, like silk being drawn through rough fingers, like an adder sliding over sand. You must.
Bow before him, that soft voice told me. Give him what he wants now, and wait. Someday, it hissed. Someday.
But to obey that command I needed skills I did not own; I thought of Zhurleen, of how she had walked to silent music. Yes, Zhurleen’s skills were what I now must have. I slanted my eyes down, and then up. I smiled.
“How glorious was the king this day! Surely there is no dancer like the king in all the land.” I made my voice sweet as poppy-syrup. I raised my hand and placed it over David’s where his fingers lay heavy upon my breast. “But was it wise of you, O King, to show yourself so before all the maids of Jerusalem?”
David laughed, and turned his hand under mine to catch and hold it. “What, are you jealous? But yes, it was wise, Queen Michal—to dance before all the people, for the glory of Yahweh—”
“And for the glory of his king?” It was easy to shape words to please David. Phaltiel had liked me to speak my mind; David liked me to speak his.
“You are still clever, Michal.” He pulled me close, to hold me beside him as if we were loving man and wife. “Yes, the people must see how great the king is as well, and how Yahweh smiles upon him.”
I looked sideways through my lashes, in the way that shows a woman thinks a man handsome as well as wise. “Surely all can see David’s greatness, lord?”
“Not everyone,” David said. “Not yet. But they will, for I have right and might on my side—and the Ark within the walls of Jerusalem.”
“With the city you hold the land, and with the Ark you hold the people. You have good reason to be pleased—all my father ever won were battles.” And even those words fell pleasant from my lips.
“King Saul did well enough for his day, but I mean to do better for mine, and leave a true kingdom for my son and my son’s sons. Now come, let the king and queen dance their own dance to the glory of the Lord. If ever there were a day for the king to beget a king, it is this.”
And I smiled again, and turned within the circle of David’s arms. I reached up, and cradled his face between my hands. I thought again of Zhurleen, whose hands had been bird’s wings, and waves. Zhurleen, who had tried to teach me, and now was gone.
“Yes, this is a great day, David. Let us see if Yahweh loves you as much as I.”
I was not cold when we lay together; I was not quiet and accepting. That day my blood ran hot, as if I were a warrior whose enemy fled close before him. Hot for victory, and the kill. That day I learned that hate, too, is passion.
Hate drove me harder than love ever had. I was fierce and wild as a wounded leopardess; I marked David as a hunter marks prey. I let him have nothing from me that he could not earn. And that was nothing at all, in the end.
It was a battle between us—and David never knew he fought it, or what he had lost. He could not tell love’s fire from hate’s. That was when I first wondered if David knew the difference between them.
In that raging hour, I held power David did not. In the end, I was stronger than he.
David got no son upon me that day, either. I had prayed daily that he would not; I took joy in telling him as soon as I was sure. The news hurt him, as if he had been denied a gift his by all right.
“Perhaps Yahweh did not care overmuch for your dancing, my lord king.” I rejoiced too much; my voice betrayed me.
That was the only time David ever struck me. I deserved the blow, if only for my sheer folly.
I remembered Zhurleen; I wept, and flung my arms around his knees, and blamed the words on my own sorrow at not giving him what he most would have. It was no more than any proper wife would say and feel; David forgave me easily, for he liked always to be the granter of favors.
I was not so foolish a second time. Wait, my hate told me. Watch, and wait. And I obeyed that inner voice.
Long days slid by, and hate walked with me always. A silent companion, a cruel one. Love feeds the heart; hate poisons it, and leaves it still empty.
Long days, and then long months, and the hate that had seemed so strong, that had promised so much, proved itself as faithless as David himself For as slow time passed and still it seemed I could do nothing, I began to wish for less.
Autumn passed, and winter, and then spring again. And all the while King David basked in the sun of the people’s love, the priests’ approval.
I watched, and waited—and the hate that I had cherished so dear grew weary. It forsook me, sliding away to coil beneath my heart, a viper sleeping beneath a rock.
Slow time; full moon after full moon, until a year had passed since Phaltiel’s death. My grief was a poisoned sore that would not heal; hatred had betrayed and abandoned me. Without its power, I was too weary to do more than lie upon my bed, or to sit upon my balcony.
Once I had wished to see David stoned to death at noon before the city wall. Once I had wished to sharpen the stones myself until they would slice his flesh like razors. Now even a pebble to bruise his foot would have pleased me, and made me smile.
And that was when Yahweh granted my prayers at last, when I had ceased to pray. But he did not send stones to my hand.
He sent Bathsheba.
King David did not sit idle upon his throne while I waited a year away. He had told me he wished to leave a true kingdom to his sons; during that year I learned what that meant, and so did all Israel. A true kingdom meant war.
Oh, my father King Saul had waged war, and almost every season, too—but only when we were threatened. In my father’s time, we had waited to be attacked before striking.
Now all that was changed. Enemies surrounded his kingdom, King David said. If they had not yet attacked, they soon would. Israel, said King David, must strike first.
And so King David raised up an army. And he called to him not only our own people, but foreigners. Any man who could fight hard was welcome to King David, whether
he was a follower of Yahweh or not. Any man who brought his own weapons was twice welcome. And a man such as Uriah the Hittite, who came to King David with ten well-armed fighting men at his back, was embraced and kissed as a son, and given high rank in the hosts of Israel.
Now no nearby land was safe. Aram, Edom, Moab, Zobah—David swooped down upon them and made them a high road for his chariot wheels. Already his kingdom was twice that of Saul’s, and still David was not satisfied.
“I have much,” he told me once—David liked to come and spread his triumphs before me, like a trader displaying goods for sale, “and Yahweh will give me more.”
“What more?” I was a dutiful wife to David; I asked the right questions. “You hold all the land from Dan to Beersheba now.”
“Ah, but our land is not all the land there is, Michal. Your dreams are too narrow; mine spread wings as the eagle’s.”
You know nothing of my dreams, I thought, and kept my face smooth. “You fly high, David—do you never fear to fall?”
“Yahweh is my strength,” said David, and smiled, and stroked his beard. His eyes seemed to slant; cunning, like a fox’s.
“Pious words—but will words breed warriors? Will words hold back the Philistines?” I made my words light; baubles for his pleasure.
David only laughed. “There are warriors a-plenty, more each day—and the Philistines will not attack, my queen—not this season!”
“Did Yahweh say so?”
“I have his word on it,” said David, laughing and careless, like a boy. “It is not the Philistines who threaten us. Victory breeds victory—and peace. Already the Moabites and the Aramites send tribute to my court. You have seen this for yourself.”
“Yes, I have seen.” Sometimes I stood in the new gallery that overlooked the king’s great hall and watched as men came, and went, obedient to a wave of David’s hand. Sometimes, too, words floated upward to my ears from those who waited. Not, all such wayward words spoke of meek obedience. But that I did not tell King David.
“A great kingdom.” David’s eyes were half-closed, like a sated lion’s. “Tell me what trinkets you would have, my queen, and they shall be brought to you—yea, though they come from the world’s end.”
I shook my head. “Nothing, lord king. I am content only to see how all men honor you.” And I smiled, and smoothed the folds of my gold-fringed girdle, and thought myself patient and cunning. I did not know, then, what a fool I still was.
A great kingdom, bought at great price. That was what David forged from the union of Israel and Judah that second summer. I thought David’s conquests nothing to me; I waited veiled and silent, a queen’s image. But I wondered, sometimes, when David came to me with tales of new glories, what would satisfy David’s lusts.
Gold, land, women—all these he had in plenty, and still it seemed he must have more, and more. He had taken a fine fertile land to rule—now that was not enough, it must be a vast kingdom, it must stretch from Egypt to Tyre. He had a fine king’s house—now it was called a palace, and the roof must be gilded to be fire in the sun and make all men marvel. He had six wives, who had given him strong sons—that had not been enough. He must have a queen; what other kings had, so must King David also have.
King David was taking another wife; her father ruled two villages and a lake somewhere—a treaty-bride, poor girl. The women slid their eyes about a great deal when they told me, as if afraid that I would strike them for their news.
“The bride is to be wed from the women’s quarters here,” Chuldah told me. “King David wishes you to greet her kindly, for his sake.” She bowed her head, as if she brought news of a funeral, and not of a wedding.
“Someone must,” I said. “And the king knows what I will do for his sake.” And then I laughed; well, they all looked so like dying sheep that I could not help it. “Do not believe each song you sing,” I told them, and turned away. I heard them whisper behind me as I walked out into my garden. They sounded like mice in the eaves.
King David’s wedding was an affair of royal state, with as much gold and purple and scarlet as if such riches cost nothing in money or blood. There were guests enough to make Jerusalem a city twice again as large. There was no room for them all even in the king’s great house, and so gilded and silvered tents spread all down the hills and through the valley below the walls of Jerusalem.
When the bride arrived, I did my part to make her welcome, as David had ordered. I greeted her as sister, and kissed her mouth. I did my best to be kind, for I felt sorry for her. She was plain and over-proud; I did not think she would be happy.
But my kindness went for nothing. I saw Abigail take the girl aside—and later, when I smiled at the girl and spoke some pleasantry, she tossed her head and turned away. I shrugged, and let Abigail and the others escort the new bride to her new rooms. And I told myself I did not care; I lied, and knew I lied. The slight had hurt me.
I went to my balcony and stared out over the rooftops of King David’s city The air above the city roofs shimmered in the sun; it was early summer again. I looked, and counted back over the seasons.
Even slow time passes; the year had spun full round, and half again, since Phaltiel’s death. A year, and more, and I had done nothing to avenge my dead—for there was nothing I could do. I could only walk quiet and grow old in this house that I hated, and that hated me.
And I was weary of hate, weary of bored women and their venom-dipped tongues. David’s new bride would be no better than the others; she was neither sweet nor clever. She might learn softer ways, no doubt, but the lesson would not come from me. Who was I to teach lessons, after all?
That was when I looked down from my queen’s balcony and saw that the house on the hill below was no longer empty. There was a woman, young and fair, who sat upon the rooftop. I watched her comb her rippling hair; it shone dark as wine in the noon sun, and fell below the bench where she sat.
“Whose house is that?” I asked one of the maids. “Who is the woman?”
My waiting-maid did not know; plainly, she did not care. Her shrug and outspread hands angered me, made me thorn sharp. “You are Hageet, are you not? Well then, go, Hageet, and find out what I wish to know,” I told her. “Yes, go now!”
She went wide-eyed, in haste; I rarely asked or ordered. My servants treated me as if I were a woman of glass and ivory—with care, lest I shatter and they be blamed for the mishap.
Hageet was soon back to tell me well-gossip and street-news. I soon learned that Hageet was glad enough to chatter to the queen, if only the queen would listen.
The house below was now the house of Uriah; the woman was Bathsheba, his wife. Uriah was a foreigner, a Hittite who had come to serve the King of Israel and Judah. Uriah was a mighty warrior; Uriah was the captain of ten men, his own men; Uriah was seldom home. His wife was young.
“And so must be close-watched by her neighbors who are not?” I said, and laughed. “Poor girl! Take her a basket of oranges, and say that Michal the queen greets her and wishes her well in her new home.”
“Oranges?” Hageet was scandalized; oranges were a new thing then, and rare, and even King David had only half a dozen trees of them. “I will ask Chuldah if it may be done.”
This time my anger flared high, scorching as fire. “Is Chuldah queen now? You will do as I tell you, and you will do it quickly.”
She gasped, and backed away “Yes, O Queen. It shall be done.”
“And I will know if it is not,” I said, and now my voice was cold, like stone in winter.
“Yes, O Queen!” Hageet bowed, and ran off like a frightened cat. She must have believed me; I do not know why. I knew only what David or my women chose to tell me.
I thought I did it for kindness. But I did it for anger, for loneliness, for spite. For no good reason, save that a maidservant had said that I might not.
That was why I sent oranges to Bathsheba.
CHAPTER 14
“Is this not Bath-sheba … the wife of Uriah the Hit
tite?”
—II Samuel 11:3
She was married to a foreigner, and she was very pleasing to men’s eyes, and so she was not well-liked by women. Her husband was with the army in the field; she was alone in a city strange to her; the little kindness called her to my hand as easily as honey brings the bee. Well, she was a friendly thing—and I was the queen, after all.
Bathsheba sent me back her thanks, and begged me to accept her favorite wrist-bangle as a token of her gratitude. The bracelet was a common thing, brass chains and river-crystals—her husband was either poor or ungenerous, if this was her best. And she would have sent nothing less, though even she must have thought proud Queen Michal would only toss this cherished treasure to the nearest serving-girl. Poor thing, I thought.
Then I looked at the bangle lying in my soft jeweled hand. No, not poor. Bathsheba’s message—Hageet swore it had been retold to me faithfully, each word the same—had called the bracelet her favorite … love-token, perhaps, given when her husband could afford that only, and so worth more than gold itself. I could almost see Uriah clasping the cheap trinket about Bathsheba’s wrist. My throat ached; tears stung my eyes.
“I have grown too proud,” I said. “I will wear this to remind me of that.”
I clasped the brass bangle about my own wrist and sent Bathsheha a spangled girdle in return. And when next I saw her on her rooftop, I waved, and the cheap crystals flashed oil-bright in the sun. Bathsheba smiled, and waved back, and it all began as simply as that.
I should have kept my heart cold as rock and hard as law, but I was lonely too. We waved to each other, and smiled across the air between my balcony and her roof And so we became friends.
For almost a week I saw Bathsheba daily; she came to her rooftop each morning, each afternoon. She would look up, and if I waved she would smile and wave her hand in return. A smile, a wave of the hand; little things, but I came to look forward to seeing her there on the roof below.
Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen Page 17