Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen

by Edghill, India

  Solomon smiled happily and yowled like a wild cat, and hit the harp-strings, hard.

  “Yes,” I said. “As fine a harper as his father.”

  Bathsheba laughed, then, and took the little harp away. “You are right—I will set this aside until Solomon is older. No, no, my love—you may not have it now.”

  “You must learn to wait for what you desire,” I told Solomon, and scooped him up into my arms and kissed his soft sweet cheek. And Bathsheba gave him a coral to chew on instead of the king’s gift, and so he was satisfied.

  “The king of Ascalon has asked for one of my daughters for his son. What do you think of that, my queen?” David smiled; lamp-lit shadows flickered across his mouth like serpent tongues.

  “That it is a great honor. Which daughter?”

  “Why, do you think he cares? Any king’s daughter will do to seal a bargain. Come near to me, my queen; winter nights are chill.”

  “I am not cold.”

  “Ah, Michal—did you think I saw you so? Never. You are a jewel past price.”

  “Not past price.” I rose up upon my elbow to stare down at him. “I know what you paid for me. What price did the Philistines set upon Saul’s daughter, David?”

  David smiled again and took my chin into his fingers. “You are a king’s daughter indeed, Michal. You know.”

  “I know more than I once did.” I knew what Zhurleen had told me in an idle moment—that the Philistines counted the mother’s blood as great as the father’s. If there were no son to mount the throne, the last king’s daughter held the crown in her own hands; a bride-gift to her husband.

  “Then you know how you are valued, Michal. You are more to me than rubies. Much more.”

  I knew, now. I was more than rubies; I was the crown. Sacred oil and a prophet’s blessing were good; a king’s daughter and Philistine gold were better. Two strings to his bow, always … .

  “Yes,” I said. “I know how much I am to you, David. I will never forget how much; that I swear to you.” And I drew back, out of the lamp’s light, hiding my eyes behind my lashes.

  “See what I have for you, my heart—see, here is a new ball for you to play with.” And I held out a globe of scarlet leather painted with golden stars.

  Solomon sat propped upon cushions; I tended him while Bathsheba bathed in her own rooms. Now he watched the ball, his solemn eyes stretched wide. “Yes, my love, all for you—here, take it.”

  I set the ball into Solomon’s chubby hands; he stared at the toy and then tried to stuff it into his mouth. The ball was too large; he chewed upon its bright leather, and then spat it away.

  “You do not like it? No? Then come to me, my love—come to Michal.” And I sat beside him upon the cushions, and took him onto my lap. “I will sing you a song about a little bear-cub—how will you like that?”

  Solomon smiled and grasped my hands with strong little fists; as I sang and rocked him in my arms, he sucked happily upon my fingers.

  “Hiram of Tyre built this king’s house for me—did you know that, Michal?”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  “Do you know why? Do you know why the king of Tyre did this thing for me?”

  “No. Why did the king of Tyre do this thing for you?”

  David stroked my arm. “Because he had the Philistines at his back, and would put me at theirs. I am in high favor with the Philistine kings, you know.” He paused, to let me marvel.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And Hiram is almost as shrewd as I; he suspected what I might become. And so he built me this fine house—as fine as his own. A gift, from one great king to another.” Again he waited.

  After a moment, I said, “And now you are as great as the king of Tyre.”

  “Greater,” David said, embracing me as loving as if I were the throne itself. “Much greater, as the lion is greater than the peacock.”

  Obedient, I put my arms around him. On the walls beyond the bed, painted lions paced among endless shadows.

  My garden, too, held shadows; sun-shadows for a boy to play with. Sunlight through leaves danced shadow-leaves upon the grass. Solomon crawled after them, patting at the moving shapes.

  “Look, Michal—see how fast and strong he is! No, no, Solomon—you must not put that in your mouth, my love, it is dirty—”

  “Do not tell him so, Bathsheba—take it from him.” And I swooped Solomon up and plucked the pebble from his small mouth. His face puckered up; I kissed his neck, and blew upon his warm skin, and he laughed instead.

  “Ma!” he said, and wriggled like an eel to be set free again.

  “Listen!” Bathsheba caught him from my arms. “A word! Say it again, Solomon—come, speak for your mother—”

  And Solomon smiled sweetly, and pressed his mouth closed, and would not utter another sound for all our coaxing. At last I laughed and bade Bathsheba set him down again. “He will speak in his own good time—and perhaps it was not a word at all.”

  “It was,” Bathsheba insisted. “He called you ‘mother’—I heard it clearly. Oh, he is so very clever!”

  “No,” I said, cold beneath my skin. “You are wrong; it was baby-noise only.” For no matter how I loved him, Solomon was Bathsheba’s son, and not truly mine. His love belonged to her, and not to me.

  Bathsheba set Solomon down upon the grass again; he crawled off hastily, busy as an ant. Bathsheba slid her soft hand into mine. “He knows you love him as much as I, Michal. He knows he has two mothers.”

  And then Bathsheba stretched to kiss me upon the cheek, and smiled. Her eyes were bright as crystal in the sun.

  In the king’s bedroom, David dropped secrets into my ears like jewels into a well, knowing the jewels would be forever lost in darkness.

  In the queen’s garden Solomon clasped Bathsheba’s forefinger in his left hand, and mine in his right, and took his first unsteady steps, balanced safe between love and love.

  Beads upon a golden thread; a necklace of life. I dwelt behind walls of stone and silence, and for a time the world beyond seemed far away.

  And so I cherished Solomon as if he were my son, and Bathsheba as if she were my sister. And for a sweet span of years, while Solomon grew from babe to boy, there was the peace his naming had promised.

  Yes, a sweet span of peace—but a brief one. As Nathan had prophesied before Solomon was born, trouble was bred within David’s own house. King David had too many wives, and they had too many children, and David was too soft with them all. His sons had too much freedom, and his daughters also, and they were all hot-headed and hot-blooded.

  But who could have foreseen how it would happen, or what grief it would cause? Before it was over, many good men lay dead in battle, and David lost two sons, and a daughter too. And for no good cause, save that King David would not heed the whisper of the passing years.

  The seasons had turned once more to harvest-time, rounding a year that had brought a full harvest of power to King David. The summer that Solomon was seven King David had called up his army, well-honed by years of smaller victories, and turned it at last against the Philistines. David’s folly, some had called it before the battle; Yahweh’s will, they called it after. Yahweh’s vengeance upon the Philistines for the slaughter upon Mount Gilboa a dozen years before, when King Saul and his sons had perished.

  I called it nothing; I only smiled, when David was praised before me, and said that I had never doubted. That was true: I had known David would defeat the Philistines. The Philistines had trusted David, and paid the price of that trust.

  King David laid all credit at Yahweh’s feet. It was Yahweh, King David said, who had won this great victory. It was Yahweh who was honored with the great feast and festival that was held in Jerusalem. A great day, and greatness to honor Yahweh.

  But it was not Yahweh who walked the streets of Jerusalem with a golden crown upon his head and scarlet boots upon his feet. It was David. An image flashed behind my eyes; David the king dancing before the sacred Ark, a flame in sunlight. But
that had been long years ago, before Solomon was born. Today the king did not share glory.

  Today King David led a procession through the city in solemn majesty. He was all dignity, all a king; that day David did not dance. He led, and his sons followed, glittering princes all. Even Solomon wore a circlet of gold about his head and walked with the other princes. The youngest, and so least in precedence, but he walked beside King David, and the king clasped Solomon’s hand in his. David knew what men and women liked to see.

  Yes, the king first, and the princes next. And then came the prophet Nathan, and the high priests Zadok and Abiathar.

  I watched all this from the palace roof with the other women. The king’s women made as fine a show as the princes; scarlet and purple swirled about our bodies, jewels hung heavy about our throats. Any who raised his eyes from the king would see the king’s women, and the king’s wealth.

  “Look,” said Bathsheba. “See how straight Solomon walks! Oh, he is the best boy in all the world!”

  “But he is the youngest,” Abigail said. “Solomon will never be king.” Abigail would not speak to me, but she would torment Bathsheba, if she could.

  Bathsheba would not be drawn; she looked puzzled. “But Solomon is much too young to be king, Abigail—why, he is only a little boy!”

  I laughed, and set my hand over Bathsheba’s. “Of course Solomon is the youngest—all men know the king could never look at another woman, once he had seen Bathsheba’s face!”

  “Oh, Michal, you know that is not true!” Bathsheba blushed, and I smiled and kissed her cheek. Abigail flushed and turned away, to Eglah and Abital. I laughed again, and saw Abigail’s shoulders tense.

  “Ah, Bathsheba, you are too good. You should not let her speak so to you.” I stood back from the wall; I had seen David’s pride before.

  Bathsheba’s eyes were soft. “But I am so sorry for her—her son dead, and she cares nothing for her girls—I do not understand why she does not—” Abigail’s son Chileab had been killed in battle two summers ago; David lauded him a hero, and praised him now as he never had while Chileab lived.

  “You are right to reprove me; I should be kinder to her.” I thought of Abigail, aging now, and with neither husband nor son to comfort her. David had little time for her, and her son was dead. Did she wish now that she had stayed with her first husband Nabal, honored in his house? But David had wanted her husband’s wealth, and Abigail had wanted David, and so Nabal died. Now Abigail grew old in the king’s house, no more to him than any other woman.

  “Oh, no—I did not mean—”

  “Of course you did not, my love. But you are right.” I stepped forward again, watching David’s procession wind away from the palace, into the city streets below.

  David the king, holding Prince Solomon’s small hand. Solomon flushed with boy’s pride, walking straight and trying to be solemn and manly. Men called David’s name; women smiled and called Solomon’s, to be kind.

  Prince Amnon, the eldest, drew cheers from men and women both; Amnon smiled, and waved back, and bent to catch up the flowers tossed before his feet. “Amnon!” The call came high and clear from Amnon’s little half-sister Tamar, who pressed against the wall a dozen paces from me. “Amnon!” do not know if Amnon heard or if he only chanced to look up; he smiled, and blew a kiss from his fingertips up to Tamar.

  Tamar flushed, and called his name louder. “Amnon!” And she pulled copper bangles from her wrist to fling them down before him; her mother Maachah caught her hand and the bangles fell instead to the stones at Tamar’s feet. I could not hear what Maachah said to Tamar; the noise from the street below was too great.

  Beside Amnon strode Prince Absalom, the second son—also straight and beautiful. But his pace was measured, haughty as a peacock. Absalom was as proud as his mother Maachah, who was the King of Geshur’s daughter—and had never forgotten it. Tamar did not call out Absalom’s name, although he was her full brother.

  And then Adonijah, and Ithream, and all the rest of the princes. A dozen fine sons still left to King David, even after all the years of war.

  And after all the princes of the House of David came the prophet, and the priests. Once Nathan would have led the victory procession. Now the prophet followed after the king. Does that mean much, or little? Nathan still stood beside David’s throne; the king still gave up sacrifices to the priests and bowed low before them. Does Nathan smile today, as he swallows dust from David’s feet?

  “How things change.” Bathsheba leaned over the wall to watch Solomon out of sight. “Why, it seems only yesterday that I first held Solomon in my arms. Look at him now—why, he is past seven!”

  “Time passing; a marvel indeed.”

  Following Yahweh’s men, Joab’s. Joab, who was to King David what Abner had been to King Saul. Joab paced the streets as if they were a battlefield; behind him came his captains carrying iron swords taken from the Philistines. The captains waved the Philistine swords high so that all might see what had been won. The captured blades glinted sullen in the sun.

  I drew back again, lest Joab look up; I could never bear to look into his eyes. I feared what I might see there—or not see. For battles are uncertain, and in them many men die. And so I wondered, sometimes, if David had ever sent Joab a message concerning the Hittite captain Uriah, who was husband to the woman Bathsheba. Perhaps Uriah had died clean in battle, as any man might. Perhaps if I looked into Joab’s eyes, I would see nothing.

  “Look, Michal—see how the Philistine blades flash in the sunlight! How terrible they look—I could never be a warrior, never. I would die of fright. They are so brave, our men!”

  “Yes, they are brave—and foolish too.”

  “Fools?” Bathsheba was shocked, of course. “Our good brave men?”

  “Yes, fools—what does it buy men in the end, all that blood they spill so easily?”

  Bathsheba looked down at David’s soldiers, and frowned. “I—well, I do not know. But men must be soldiers.”

  “Of course. And the blood makes the crops grow thick.”

  “Michal, you cannot mean that. That is what idolaters think!”

  “And they are right,” I said. “Look at the farms in the vale of Gilboa now, and on the plains of Hebron. Men say such a rich harvest has not been seen since their grandfathers’ times.”

  Bathsheba looked at me, and then away. “Well, if that is true—then at least the dead warriors still feed their children.”

  “Bathsheba!” I stared, and then laughed. “Well, and so they do. You see? You are always cleverer than I.”

  “No, no—I only try to think and speak as you do, Michal.”

  I was silent a moment. “Never do that, Bathsheba. It is you I love, not my mirror.”

  She did not understand, and only smiled. “You have no reason to fear, Michal. They say you are still as beautiful as you were when you were a girl.”

  I laughed. “I was the plainest maiden in all Israel, and I remember that well, even if ‘they’ do not! Tell another!”

  “Well, then—that you are still as beautiful as when you first came to Jerusalem. As if it were yesterday.” Bathsheba leaned out farther. “Oh, I cannot see the princes anymore. Do you think Solomon will be all right?”

  “He will be fine; you must not over-coddle him, my love.” My face was smooth as my silver mirror, and told as little to the watcher. Bathsheba’s careless words coiled themselves into my mind. “As if it were yesterday … .”

  “It was not yesterday,” I said.

  “What was not?” Bathsheba was not attending; she always loved a fine show. “Oh, look—Philistine chariots—see, Michal—”

  And so I spoke only to myself. “It has been ten years.”

  Yes, it had been ten years since King David sent Abner to take King Saul’s daughter from her husband and bring her to Jerusalem. David liked to think himself always the young hero, the beloved. But David was past forty, an aging man; his sons were the young heroes now. Amnon, Absalom, Adonija
h—they were his captains; they rode through the streets in their chariots and the people praised them as they had once praised David when he was a war-captain for my father King Saul.

  I thought of that, later. Many years have passed since that day; I still wonder, sometimes, if King David suspected Amnon of playing young David’s own game. A young hero; a king’s daughter—did David think the next move was a prince’s rebellion?

  Well, and David was right, after all. But Amnon was innocent of anything but unwise love.

  It was Absalom whose heart was rotted through with ambition.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her.”

  —II Samuel 13:1

  Amnon was tall and strong, like all of David’s sons, but far more beautiful than the rest. And Tamar, Amnon’s sister—well, she was young, and he dazzled her eyes like sun on a mountain lake.

  So when Prince Amnon returned from the battles he fought and won for King David, Tamar was there to call his name and garland his neck with flower-chains woven with her own hands. And she would cling to him and kiss him on the mouth. Amnon took the kisses and laughed, and called Tamar his dearest little sister.

  “See how fond Amnon and Tamar are,” David said, smiling upon them. “Why cannot all my children live in peace together as they do?”

  I could have told David that he himself ensured he had no peace under his own roof. David thought he loved his children—yes, so long as they were beautiful and perfect, like painted princes and princesses upon a palace wall. And so he sometimes petted and spoiled them, and sometimes curbed them sharp. They never knew, when they ran to him, if they would be greeted by the father or the king. Uncertainty made them quarrel over his favor, vying for a place in the sunlight of his smile. David liked to be the sun. But too much sunlight, or too little, and the crop withers and dies in the field.