Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen

by Edghill, India

  “No,” David said. “No.” He shook his head, and coughed. I waited until he was quiet once more.

  “That is what happened, David.” The serpent shifted, coiled. “It is what happened because I say it did, and because no one can deny it.”

  “I can. I am king! Tell such a tale, and I will rise from this bed to tell all the court that you are mad. Mad Saul’s daughter—” David struggled to raise himself up, but his body was too weak to obey him, and he could not rise even to his elbow. I smiled as he fell back, defeated by his own feeble body.

  “Rise from your bed if you can,” I said. “Go and tell all the court if it pleases you, O great king. And I will follow behind, shaking my head sadly and saying that King David is too old, too ill, to know what it is he says. That King David is mad.”

  He stared up at me, and something flickered behind his eyes. But he laughed, or tried to; truly he was very weak in body. “No one will believe you, Michal. You are only a woman, and I am the king.”

  “The old king,” I said. “The ailing king. And I am Michal, the first lady of the palace, the queen of King David’s heart, the woman who loves David better than she loves life itself. All men know those things, for you yourself told them they were true. So when I, Michal the queen, say David the king is half-mad with age, men will believe me, David.”

  Again he tried to rise up, to speak, but the effort made him choke and gasp for breath. All he could say was, “No—” and “I—king—”

  I smiled down at him. “You see? You rave, David.” The serpent danced; my blood throbbed hot at my throat and the taste of power was sharp as cinnamon upon my tongue. Ah, yes, this time it was Michal who would be believed—and David who was watched with pitying eyes.

  “No.” David lay very still, a rabbit before a serpent’s gaze. “You are wrong. My people love me—they have always loved me—they will not believe—” He paused and his eyes narrowed, canny; I saw a ghost of David the fox. “My Bathsheba will not believe—”

  “Bathsheba?” I laughed, and saw him flinch. “Bathsheba loves me better than she does you, David—and that by your own fault. Once she loved you well; if she does not love you now, it is through your own folly.”

  All David’s women had loved him, and he had tossed their love aside. Just as once, long ago, he had tossed aside mine, as if love were no more than a pretty toy that he might scoop up to play with again whenever he wished.

  But women’s hearts are not trivial playthings, and it is never wise to throw love away—if only because its warmth may be needed in the cold future.

  “As for your other women—who will they wish to see king, David? Solomon, whom they know to be both kind and clever, or Adonijah, who will see threats behind every brother’s smile?” Now I shook my head, slowly, as if saddened by what I must next say. “No, David. If I speak against you, this time it is I who will be believed.”

  “I am the king,” he said again. But his eyes shifted away from mine and I knew that I had won. Now, at last, I held in my grasp what I once had prayed for with every beat of my heart—power over David.

  I smiled and shook my head again. “You are king, but I am queen. Your own well-loved queen, for whom you dared so much. All the world knows that truth—you remember your songs about us?”

  “They were good songs, were they not?” David clutched at the golden past as if it could save him now. “Good songs. Men still sing them, Michal.”

  “Oh, yes, they were good songs. And now I too know how to sing. You cannot leave your bed; all men know your mind wanders where it wills. When I go from your room with the king’s seal and the king’s blessing on Solomon, who will not believe whatever tale I choose to spin? Whatever tale I choose, David.”

  The serpent within swayed to the hard slow beat of my heart. I bent low over David, to make sure he heard my words clear. “Do you remember a day when you took me from my husband Phaltiel—when you told me what I must learn, to be queen and happy both? Well, I have learned, King David. Harper David. Hero David.”

  “Ah, have you come for your revenge? Have you come to kill me at last?” David’s voice quavered but his faded eyes gleamed with strange expectation. His hand reached up, shaking with the effort; his fingers closed bone-hard about my wrist. “Kill me, then, but you will never be free of me. Never, Michal. I was everything to you. Everything. As I was to Saul, and to Jonathan … .”

  And suddenly I understood. I knew this was truth at last. And at last Michal understood what Saul’s daughter, Phaltiel’s wife, David’s queen, never had. Oh, yes, David knew what lay behind my eyes—he always had. David did not care if it was all the world’s love or all the world’s hate, so long as all was his. So long as he and he alone was the lodestar of my existence.

  Of all the world’s existence. Even Yahweh must love or hate David more than all the world. Nothing less.

  And so never would David be content. Never would anything be enough. Never, though he lived a thousand years. ‘You see? Men like David will always make their own problems, little princess.’

  “Yes,” I said. “I see. I see everything now.” For I knew at last what I truly desired. And what I desired was not power, but freedom. Not to rule David as he had ruled me all these long years—but to be free of him.

  A great stone seemed to roll away from my heart; a weight I had not known I carried lifted from my bones. For I looked at David’s face, and listened to David’s voice, and I felt neither love nor hate. There was only indifference, as if he were a stranger. I did not know when I had ceased to care or how long had it been since my hate was more than habit. I knew only that at last I saw clearly.

  I saw that I was free and David chained, and he did not even know it. And I looked down into David’s bright triumphant eyes, and I laughed; laughed until I felt tears splash upon my cheeks. I touched my fingers to my wet cheeks and tried to remember how many tears I had shed because of David. A river of them, I supposed; they no longer seemed important.

  “No, David,” I said, and I heard my voice kind to him—kind, but careless, as one speaks to a begging dog. Easy kindness to one for whom I cared nothing. “I have not come to kill you. Why should I? What are you to me that I should kill you?”

  David stared up at me, his eyes narrow with a king’s anger. “You—you—” But he was too weak to strike; his body began to shake, and for long breaths he was unable to force more words past his rage. At last he calmed, and said, “Do you think I loved you, Michal? You were never more to me than King Saul’s daughter.”

  “You do not understand, David.” I spoke patiently, without heat. “You are not important—hate me or love me, I do not care. The only thing I care for is that Solomon should be king. King now. King because I say he shall be.”

  I looked down at David and I smiled at him for the last time. “Give me the king’s seal-ring, David.”

  As I spoke I put my hand on David’s; his fingers closed over mine, as hard as the past we shared between us. He looked puzzled, like a small boy who does not know how he has erred.

  And his eyes were bright no longer; they had clouded with years and memories, and with defeat. But still he tried to make his voice ring firm, as if he once more commanded warriors in the field. “Do you think you can take the king’s ring, Saul’s daughter?”

  “Oh, David,” I said, “I already have. I am no longer yours; you lost me long ago.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “ … thy love to me was wonderful … .”

  —II Samuel 1:26

  When I went from King David’s rooms I found Solomon waiting for me in the hall beyond. He was calm as always, even now, when all hung uneasy in the balance.

  “Does my father know what Adonijah would do? Is Adonijah his choice?”

  “He knows.” I smiled and held out my hand flat; the king’s great seal-ring lay coiled there. “This is his choice, Solomon. Use it wisely.”

  Solomon held out his hand and smiled at me; I slid the seal-ring onto his finger. The pl
ace beneath my heart was now warm with life, with love; never again could a poison serpent sleep there, cold and waiting.

  Solomon stared at the ring for a moment. “The king does me great honor; I will try to be worthy.”

  “Yes, of course—but you need not say such things to me. Save them for those who do not know you as I do, my heart.”

  “Yes, I must move quickly now.” Solomon smiled at me. “Did my father have any words of wisdom for me? Did he say, ‘tell Solomon to show this ring to Benaiah and to Nathan’?”

  “He did.”

  “And did he say that I should ride the king’s own white mule to the marketplace, so that Nathan might pour the holy oil upon my head for all men to see?”

  “Those were his very words,” I said.

  “I thought they were what he would say. I know they are what you would say, Mother, in his place.” Solomon smiled at me, his eyes clear as sunlit pools. “Now I must do as my father bid me if I am to be king by sunset.”

  I held him only long enough to kiss his cheek. “Go with my love and blessing—and your father’s.”

  Then I watched him stride away from me. Had David ever been so tall and straight and beautiful? I had thought so once, but long years stretched between then and now.

  Long ago was gone. Now was Solomon.

  “King Solomon,” I said. I looked back, once, at the door to the room where King David lay, and smiled. And then I went to tell Bathsheba that our boy was truly king.

  All went as smoothly as one of David’s own songs, after that. As King David had decreed, Prince Solomon became King Solomon that day, to reign beside his father as equal.

  Adonijah’s friends proved as false as their master, and fled his side when they heard the trumpets and the shouting for Solomon. I later heard that Joab watched all this and only sat and drank his wine; Adonijah had wooed in vain.

  Adonijah fled as well—to the nearest altar, to cling to its horns in hope of sanctuary there. He feared for his life, as well he might. Another than Solomon would have slain him out of hand.

  But Solomon was always a man of peace, and so he had his brother brought from the altar to stand before him. Adonijah thought himself dead, then, until Solomon smiled and bade him rise.

  “Our father has made his choice, and Yahweh has confirmed it,” Solomon told Adonijah. “No, do not fear me, for I bear you no ill will. Kiss me, brother, and go live quiet in your own house, and we will stay friends, as we have been.”

  And so Adonijah kissed his brother and went away, and was glad to do so. I thought there might be more trouble later, for there was bad blood in that line of David’s sons. But now there was peace in the land once more—and Solomon was king at last.

  The true king, for King David was all but dead. The crown, and the future, belonged to King Solomon.

  And when I was summoned to the great court and saw the son of my heart seated upon the gilded throne, I knew this was worth even the pain I had once endured. The pain, too, was long ago.

  Now I saw Solomon as the great king he was meant to be—and because I was a woman, I saw him as the father of children who would climb upon my lap, and call me ‘grandmother’ as if I were their own. And I would tell them tales of how it had been long ago, when I was young. How it had been when Saul was king, and David only a shepherd with a gift for song, and the great King Solomon not yet born.

  But that was for tomorrow. Today I knelt before King Solomon in all his glory, and my heart was so full it ached. And Solomon rose, and came down to me, and lifted me to my feet.

  “Never kneel to me, Queen Michal, any more than my mother does. I would have all men see in what honor King Solomon holds you.” And he kissed me before all the court.

  I kissed Solomon’s hands, as subject, and his mouth, as mother. And I wept for pure joy, and the salt tears were sweet as love upon my lips.

  Adonijah went into his house, not to live in peace and give thanks for doing so, but to plot against both kings, the old and the new. Less than a month had passed when he asked Solomon for Abishag when King David should no longer need her. And he was fool enough to do so in open court, before us all.

  Adonijah might as well have asked for the crown outright as for one of King David’s women. So all men knew, and so Solomon told him; being Solomon, the words of reproof were quiet, measured things. Being Solomon, he might even have pardoned Adonijah again. Adonijah was his brother, after all.

  But Adonijah could not bow his head and leave well alone. He argued against Solomon; accused Solomon of plotting against him and against King David; accused Abishag of harlotry.

  “Stop, brother. Do not let anger speak for you.” So Solomon warned him; Solomon did not want his brother’s blood on his hands.

  But Adonijah would not stop; next he began accusing Bathsheba, and me—I do not know of what, for Adonijah did not live to finish his slanders. For Joab sprang forward and struck Adonijah down before Solomon’s throne. To the end of his days Joab had a taste for murder in the king’s name.

  No one was surprised, save perhaps Adonijah himself. Certainly no one blamed Solomon—save Solomon.

  “He was too quick to strike,” he told me after. “I should have foreseen it—I know what Joab is. There was another way.”

  Perhaps there had been, but I would not say so—no, not even if I must swear Joab had done right, for I could not bear to see Solomon’s eyes so troubled. I took his hand and laid it against my cheek. “No, Solomon; there was no other way.”

  “Adonijah was my brother; I should have treated him more gently.”

  “Did he treat you gently? No, my heart—and it was better quickly done. If Adonijah had risen up against you, many men would have been killed—many women left husbandless, and many children fatherless. It was cruel, yes—but kinder than what would have come after, had he been spared.”

  Solomon smiled, then, and kissed me. “I know you are right—you are the wisest of women.”

  “No,” I said. “I was taught my lessons well, that is all. Do not grieve for Adonijah, Solomon—he would not have shed one tear for you.”

  “Or for those who followed him, to their cost. I know he would not; I knew my brother.”

  “And Adonijah did this for you—he showed you where Joab’s loyalty now lies. With the anointed king.”

  “Joab is too quick to strike,” Solomon said again. He embraced me, and then sighed. “Now I must go and tell my father—it is only right that he hear of this from me.”

  Once I would have rejoiced to give such news to David. It was hard, now, to remember how fierce such hatred burned. Now I was only glad that I was not the one who must go and tell David that his son Adonijah was dead.

  And King David too died less than forty days after Solomon was seated upon his throne. The old king’s clutch at life was feeble, almost uncaring, now; it was Adonijah’s treachery and death, I think, that truly killed him.

  When David heard of the death of his last rebellious son, he turned his face to the wall and would no longer eat or drink. He was dying fast, now; each sunset we thought he could not last the night.

  And then one sunset it was true.

  When Bathsheba was told the old king would be dead by morning she wept so hard I forbade her to enter David’s room. For all David’s faults, to Bathsheba he would always be the king who had once loved her hot through summer nights.

  “No, Bathsheba, you must go and rest,” I said. “David would not want to see you weeping here. He loved always to see you smiling; let him go remembering that. I will stay with him.”

  Men now sing of what King David said as he lay dying. They tell of sage words giving advice and wisdom to the living; of praise sung to Yahweh; of prophecies for the kingdom. Men say all this, and believe it, too; well, that is what David would have wished. It is a better tale, after all, than the truth. I sat beside David all that last night, and so I know.

  David spoke—but of the past, not the future. He spoke of Saul, and of Jonathan; at the
last, he spoke of me. Yahweh he did not speak of at all.

  “Jonathan loved me dear. Dearer than life.” His voice was already a slow whisper from beyond the grave; almost unheard unless one chose to listen. “I was everything to him. I was everything to Saul. More to him than his crown. More than his children.”

  Then David turned his head on the thin pillow, and looked at me. “You are wrong. I was everything to you, Michal. Everything.” The voice was insubstantial as smoke in the darkened room.

  I sat there with my back straight and my hands folded in my lap. I said nothing. After all the love and hate and years, there was nothing left to say between us. And so I sat, and watched as the lamps guttered low and David’s thin-threaded voice spoke on and on against the coming dark.

  “Everything,” David said. “I was everything—”

  No, David, I thought. You were nothing; you have nothing. There is nothing without love, and that you never had. You yourself threw love away and trampled it into the dust beneath your feet.

  Everything; David demanded everything. But love was the only thing worth having, and love is giving, not taking. And that was something that David would never know.

  “Come and sit beside me, daughter of Saul—sit, and I will sing for you—”

  I sat and held his hand as he talked, and as the night ended, and as he died. And I wept for David, almost as much as if I loved him.

  EPILOGUE

  “the crown of the wise … .”

  —Proverbs 14:24

  Love is giving, not taking. I thought of this the day King Solomon’s temple to Yahweh was dedicated. I stood upon the king’s balcony with Solomon and Bathsheba, and watched as the priests bore the sacred Ark high through the streets of Jerusalem to its new home in the great temple.