The Secret Book of Kings

by Yochi Brandes

  That’s how it is. The nation has a short memory.

  * * *

  Only King Solomon and the queen mother did not forget who it was that dwelled in the Palace of Candles. But they didn’t fear her. The mad are as good as dead. If she wants to go on living, let her live. She must be too mad to understand that she has nothing left, and that she has nothing to live for.

  * * *

  But Michal daughter of Saul does have something to live for.

  Twenty-Two

  I have finished my story, my beloved boy. I have nothing more to tell you. I only want to hug you, to hold you close, to feel what I’ve been waiting twenty years to feel.

  You are looking at me intently. The effort has etched two tiny lines in your high forehead. Your beautiful eyes have darkened, and they hang on me in supplication. You’re biting your lip. Fear grips your throat.

  “Did any of the boys have a family?”

  “Not a single one of them was able to marry. They were prisoners in the palace.”

  The tension in your face eases in relief. I need to turn my heart to stone and find the strength to say the words that will bring the dark shadow back over your eyes. “But my only son, Nebat, had a lover.”

  Your brow furrows again.

  “Her father was the leader of the tribe of Ephraim. She once came with him to the palace and met Nebat. Their love was kept secret.”

  Your thoughts have paralyzed you. You stare at me and say nothing.

  “Ask me her name.”

  Traces of anxiety slip into your voice. “What was her name?”

  My voice betrays me. I want to give it all up and say nothing. To say nothing so that you can be free to live a simple life. To say nothing and not to cast upon your young shoulders a burden too heavy to bear.

  I catch my breath and, with effort, pull out the word that will change your life. “Zeruiah.”

  The walls of the room collapse.

  “The beautiful, brave Zeruiah, the prettiest girl in Ephraim.”

  A current slices through your body. You smile a twisted smile, and your mouth gapes open in a wail that threatens to tear your lips apart. The scream is silent, piercing directly into my heart.

  “Zeruiah bore Nebat a son, but he never got to meet him. My grandson was born after the death of my son.”

  Your eyes are squeezed shut. You’ve dropped your head and are gasping for breath. You’re unable to straighten your neck to look at me.

  I stand up, my feet dragging as I make my way to you, and I collapse onto the mat in front of you. “Ask me the name of my grandson.”

  Your face twists in pain. The horror cleaves it in two.

  “Ask me the name of my grandson!” I cry. “Ask me the name of my grandson!”

  Tears flood your eyes. You try to make a sound, and then immediately go quiet, as if the sound of your own voice makes you afraid.

  Ever so slowly, I lean toward you and bring my lips to your ears, and I whisper the words that have been bubbling inside me for twenty years. “Shelomoam, my grandson, my only grandson, whom I love.”

  The King

  One

  When I was a child I liked to embellish. I felt trapped within a life of gray, and I wanted to add some color to it. I wanted a more interesting life.

  I know now that my life is beyond what any embellishment could possibly have made up.

  It’s hard to believe, but that was the first thought I had when the Mad Princess finished telling me the story of her life and I realized it was my life story, too. At that moment I had only thoughts, no feelings. I didn’t need to freeze myself to dull the pain, for I felt nothing.

  The lips of the Mad Princess were nearly up against my cheek. Hadad sat across from us, watching. I could see that he expected me to fall into her arms in a tearful embrace, and to be honest, that’s what I’d expected of myself as well. But I had no feelings, not love, and not joy or sorrow. Not even compassion.

  Hadad continued to watch me expectantly, waiting for me to at least say something.

  “I want my Aner back.”

  A deep silence fell over us, the kind you only hear when you’re holding your breath alone in the middle of the desert. The silence weighed heavily on me, and I tried to come up with something better to say, but suddenly the Mad Princess burst out laughing. A moment later Hadad joined her. He laughed wholeheartedly, the way only he does, his fat body jiggling, his face turning red, and the veins in his neck swelling up. At a certain point I, too, joined in the laughter.

  The servants who rushed in stared at us in shock. Even the Benjaminite thugs were astonished when Hadad called them in and ordered them to return Aner to me.

  “Did she finish telling the story?”

  Hadad nodded.

  “And?” They gestured toward me with their heads. “What does he say?”

  “He says he wants his horse back.” Hadad was actually choking with laughter. “That’s what he says.”

  Hadad then led me to a side room at the end of the hallway, as the Mad Princess followed me out with her eyes. I didn’t turn to face her. The room was small, but it had everything I needed: a large lamp, a nicely made bed, and a warm meal on the table, richer and more delicious than anything that I’d been served over the full day I’d spent listening to the story.

  “Sleep tight,” Hadad said softly. “Don’t let anything disturb your sleep. You know how to block out unwanted thoughts.”

  I stayed inside that room for almost a week. That’s what Hadad told me, anyway, when I finally came out. I remember very little of those days. Most of the time I was in a haze that did not abate even while I was eating the meals the servants brought me. I wasn’t able to think about the Mad Princess’s story. Every time I tried, I was quickly enveloped by a darkness from which I would later awake with a sudden start, breathless. I stayed awake for entire days, but I have no idea what I was doing; it all faded into oblivion. I remember only one moment, which I think took place on the fifth day: I was standing in the center of the room, waving my fists in the air and screaming, “I have a father!” Then I collapsed onto the bed and whispered over and over to myself, “I am the son of Nebat. I am the grandson of Paltiel. I am the great-grandson of King Saul.”

  Another day, maybe two, passed before I felt ready to come out. I was sure the room was locked, as I had grown so used to being imprisoned, but the door opened easily and I found myself back in that dark hallway. The servants rushed to summon Hadad.

  “Take me to my grandmother,” I told him. The words “my grandmother” slipped out of my mouth as naturally as if I’d been speaking them my entire life.

  Tears flooded his eyes. I could see them twinkling in the dim light of the torches.

  “First come see your horse,” he said.

  I accompanied him down the stairs, and we made our way to a large barn. Aner was standing at the trough, drinking peacefully. His brown coat aroused an irresistible feeling of yearning from within me, but I waited a few minutes before I fell upon him. I didn’t want him to get spooked. I took in his scent and stroked his whole body. I knew that he was the last remnant of my old life, and I needed to make sure that at least one thing had remained the same.

  “Now we’ll go see Grandmother,” I said to Hadad.

  “It’s nighttime. She’s working.”

  I stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Why are you so surprised? Your grandmother works very hard. Have you ever tried to scream and light candles all night long?”

  I wanted to cry, but instead I began asking him questions. They helped me sort out my feelings, which had started returning to me. I bombarded him with the questions one after another, not even waiting for his answers. Hadad seemed pleased, telling me that he’d been concerned that it might be many more days before I’d recovered from what I had heard and was ready to face new revelations. He said he was glad to see that I already had the strength to hear the truth about his life.

  “Tell me about your life some
other time. Now I want to get the full picture of mine.”

  “Your life and mine are connected. Do you think that I just happened upon your grandmother?”

  We climbed the stairs and entered a large, well-lit hall. Hadad began telling me his story while we were walking, but when I laid my hand on his shoulder for a moment, he stopped talking and embraced me. His embrace is what released my pent-up tears. Hadad cried, too. It was a long time before he was able to pull himself together and go on with what he was saying.

  “When I told you I was married to an Egyptian princess, you didn’t ask me what had led me to be living in Egypt. You must have assumed I left my homeland in order to marry Lady Eno, sister of Tahpenes, wife of the Pharaoh. But the truth is that I came to Egypt at the age of eight, a bit too young to marry, and far too young to be alone in the world. My father, the King of Edom, had been murdered, along with my mother and the rest of my family. All the males in the large cities of Edom had been murdered with them, including children and the elderly. The slaughter lasted almost six months, and by the time it was over, very few males remained in Edom.”

  Hadad paused for a moment to see if his words were making any impression on me. I wanted to confess that I’d heard too many tales of slaughter of late and that I’d become immune to them, but I chose instead to keep my eyes focused on him, attentive and silent.

  “I was saved thanks to my father’s slaves, who’d managed to hide me. They brought me to Egypt, where the Pharaoh Siamun agreed to grant me refuge. I grew up in the palace with his sons and was given the education of a prince. I learned all the languages of the area—Moabite, Ammonite, Aramaic, Hebrew, and, of course, Egyptian—and I was trained in all the fighting methods of Edom and Egypt. When I grew up, the Pharaoh appointed me as the commander of the training program for his army’s elite units and gave me his wife’s sister as my wife.”

  Hadad paused again and waited for me to ask him something, but I had trouble uttering the one question that had occurred to me.

  “Who slaughtered the Edomites?” I finally asked.

  Hadad gave a huff of contempt. “Have you forgotten that I can read you? Ask the question the way you have it formulated in your mind.”

  I took a deep breath. “Was David son of Jesse behind this slaughter as well?”

  “It was carried out by Joab son of Zeruiah and his soldiers. David, as usual, declared sadly that it had been done without his consent or knowledge, but my father’s slaves told me the truth, imbuing me with the aspiration to liberate my vanquished land and take revenge against the man who murdered my parents and my people. But an aspiration is not enough. You need power to realize an aspiration, and Pharaoh Siamun declined to assist me in going to war against Israel. I tried to find other partners in my quest for revenge. There were plenty. Almost all of the neighboring kings, with the exception of Hiram, King of Zur, and Siamun, King of Egypt, wished to be released of David’s yoke and avenge his cruel conquests, but none was prepared to take the risk of rebellion. The only man that had the necessary courage and will was not a king: Rezon son of Eliada, commander of the army of Aram Zobah, which had been destroyed by David. Rezon was able to take refuge in Aram-Damascus, or what was left of it after David’s conquests, and planned his revenge from there. But in my estimation, his small army wasn’t going to be able to overpower the army of Israel, so I searched for another partner.

  “At that time, word of David’s slaughter of the descendants of Saul was spreading throughout the area, and I had a brilliant idea: instead of searching for an army that could stand up against the invincible army of Israel, I would be better off joining forces with the House of Saul and assisting them in rebelling against David son of Jesse in return for the liberation of Edom. That way, I could kill two birds with one stone: I would both take revenge on my parents’ murderer and also take back my homeland.

  “The gates of the Kingdom of Israel opened wide to welcome a relative of Pharaoh, even if he was an Edomite, but I quickly came to see that my plan would not work. Saul had only one descendant left, a cripple, unsuitable to take the crown. At first I thought of consulting with Rizpah daughter of Aiah, Saul’s widow, who stood atop the mountain in Gibeah, guarding the bodies, to find out if she wished to be queen; but when I saw her I realized that she no longer wished for anything other than a proper burial for her sons. That’s how I got to Michal. The people who were gathered in Gibeah told me that Rizpah was the mother of two of the hanged boys, while the five others were the adopted sons of Michal daughter of Saul, born to her sister, Merab. My heart pounding, I asked them where I could find this adoptive mother, afraid she might be dead like the rest of Saul’s descendants, and I was shocked to hear that she lived in Jerusalem with her husband, David son of Jesse. My initial thought was that I should return to Egypt and search for other allies, but before I did so I decided to pay a quick visit to the palace.

  “The king was happy to play host to the Pharaoh’s brother-in-law and instructed his slaves to fulfill my every wish. Crafty man that I am, I took advantage of his generous hospitality in order to meet with his first wife and try to determine whether she was willing and able to replace him on the throne. One meeting was enough. I knew that the miserable woman was not capable of ruling her people. But then, just as I was about to give up, I heard that there were rumors of a girl from Ephraim who had been the lover of one of Saul’s descendants and was carrying his child. I decided to take my chances and tell Michal why I had come to Israel. I suspected that she wouldn’t inform on me to the man who had killed her two brothers and five adopted children. It wasn’t easy gaining her trust, but ultimately she couldn’t resist my charms, or perhaps she saw me as her last lifeline. Either way, the important thing is that she confirmed the rumor. I must admit that, until that very moment, I hadn’t allowed any emotion other than revenge into my plan, but when she told me that one of the dead boys was actually her own son, and that the last scion of the House of Saul was in the womb of his lover, I couldn’t hold back and cried like a little child. Now do you understand what you are to us? We’ve been waiting for you for twenty years. Twenty years!”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Hadad looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.

  “Don’t you understand?”

  “I don’t want to understand. The fact that I’m the last scion of the House of Saul doesn’t mean I need to sacrifice my life for your plans.”

  “You need to become king. That’s what you need to do. ‘Need’ actually isn’t the right word. It’s your destiny.”

  “No one can decide my destiny for me. I know that you and Grandmother have been hanging your many hopes on me, perhaps all the hopes you have left, but you’ll have to find someone else to fulfill them. I’ve suffered enough. Now that I’ve finally uncovered the secrets that have tormented me all my life, I intend to start living.”

  “You are speaking out of fear, and I can certainly understand you. I would also be afraid if someone suddenly ordered me to lead a rebellion against the king. But when you hear our plan, I’m confident that you’ll be convinced it’s a winning one.”

  I didn’t want to tell Hadad that I wasn’t only speaking out of fear, but out of disappointment, too. I was disappointed to hear that my grandmother hadn’t brought me to her in order to get to know the only descendant she had remaining, but merely in order to use me as an instrument to achieve her goals. I recalled what she told me about David, who had used her as a stepping stone to reach the palace, and bitterly thought to myself that she was doing exactly the same thing. I was afraid that Hadad would read my mind and begin poking around at my emotions, but he was entirely focused on the success of the plan. That wondrous ability I’d thought he possessed must not have existed after all; it was just that his spies had collected detailed information about me, and that was what had given me the impression that he could decipher the secrets of my heart.

  “We’ve waited twenty years for you to grow up, but we h
aven’t been idle. Your grandmother’s madness has afforded us the privacy we needed. That was my idea. I explained to her that if she learned how to freeze herself, the queen mother would become convinced that it was no longer necessary to watch us so closely. No threat can possibly be posed by an empty and hollow shell under which nothing is hiding.”

  “So you tortured her, too? Did you bury her alive? Did you starve her to death? Did you force her to slaughter an animal she loved and eat its flesh?”

  Hadad blushed. “Your grandmother has a natural talent for disengaging. I’ve never seen anything like it. I only gave her a few exercises, and we were ready to get started. We didn’t have much time, either. Don’t forget that we only had three months between the time I arrived and when she turned into a frozen block that awakens only at night.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been better for her to remain frozen all hours of the day and night?”

  “That’s what I thought, too, but she decided she wanted to create a loud ruckus that wouldn’t allow the nation to forget the slaughter of the House of Saul. She hoped that everyone would remember that her screaming and candle lighting had begun at the precise hour of the royal funeral David held for Saul and his descendants in Gibeah. But the nation has a short memory and a great ability to adapt. No one gets too excited about her madness anymore. If you go out on the street and ask the older residents of Jerusalem when the Mad Princess lost her mind, most of them will tell you she’s always been mad, and the few who remember will tell you it had something to do with the first rain that came down after many years of drought.”

  “So, when did you create the army of the Palace of Candles?”

  “Only after Solomon took the throne. When David died, I returned to Egypt and tried to persuade Pharaoh Siamun to invade Israel and liberate Edom for me, but he preferred to form an alliance with Solomon and give him his daughter Hatshepsut as a wife. His wedding gift to the young couple was the town of Gezer in the land of Ephraim, which he’d conquered from the Canaanites. I understood that he would not be any help to me and suggested that Eno and I go with Hatshepsut to Jerusalem to help her settle in and not be lonely. After we brought the Pharaoh’s daughter to Solomon and gave him the town of Gezer, it was quite easy to convince the queen mother to appoint me captain of the guard of the Palace of Candles and to give me soldiers and money so that the Mad Princess could have enough playthings to keep her busy. Bathsheba was surprised that I would request such a worthless position, but I explained that I’d worked hard enough in Egypt and now wanted to rest. Ever since, I’ve dedicated my entire life to one thing and one thing only: making you king. Everything is ready for the rebellion. I’ve got trained soldiers, mostly from the tribes of Rachel—you’ve met four of them in person, and the memories of that encounter will remain etched into your leg forever; I have spies throughout the land; and, most importantly, I’m about to be joined by the most powerful country in the world.”