“Yes,” he said. Then he turned and started walking east.
I stared after him.
He paused and turned back to me. “Are you coming, boy?”
I took a deep breath, swallowed my anger, and hurried to follow.
For an hour I walked sullenly behind him. Sand and rock crunched under my sandals, or found its way between my toes and chafed. The sun beat down on me as though it were angry to see me leave the city, and sweat began to pour in rivulets down my neck and into my tunic. Ahead of me, Uriah plodded, silent, unfriendly, and reeking of unwashed linen and spilled wine.
I thought of palaces, of cool marble underfoot, of cool sweet wine rolling down my throat. I thought of dark-eyed women. I thought of the kalanit in the field. As we headed downhill, I brooded and trudged along behind the filthy warrior ahead of me.
Eventually, my anger was turned to boredom as the heat of the day drew on and the narrow road stretched endless ahead of us. I reached into my satchel and fiddled with the long, smooth slab of pottery inside, where the chief scribe himself had inked the message I carried. The corners and edges were rough, but the face of it was cool and my fingers stroked it as though they had found an unexpected pool of blue water.
I smiled as I recalled the words of the message.
To Baruch: And now, send three homers of wine and a seah of grain from the royal stores to the forces at Rabbah. Pack it on donkeys and do not delay. If there are raisins and bread, send them as well.
The king sent only his most trusted scribes as messengers when it came to military matters. I was carrying a missive that could change the outcome of the war, if it were delivered quickly and safely into the hands of Baruch.
My stride regained some of its normal spring and a smile curved on my face. I wondered if my father would throw a feast for me when I returned home.
“Do you have sons?” I asked the man in front of me.
He threw a look over his shoulder, hard eyes under shaggy brows. It was difficult to tell if surprise or irritation was most prominent in his expression. “No,” he said.
“Ah,” I said. “Perhaps soon.”
“Perhaps,” he said, as though he did not think it likely, and lapsed back into silence.
“Have you no wife yet?” I said doggedly.
That earned me another look, though his eyes had softened.
“I have a wife. She is the most beautiful woman in all the land.”
“Ah,” I said again, smiling to myself as I pictured a gawky girl in common clothes, the sort of maid who would take the sheep out into the fields when her brothers were taking the wool to the market, and have nothing but smiles when her husband came home from the war smelling of piss and sour wine. “Did you see her when you were at home?”
“Only from afar,” he said.
I revised my mental image to give the girl crooked teeth, with more scolding and less smiling at his appearance.
“She looked well,” he said, his voice nearly as soft as his eyes. Then he cleared his throat and lengthened his stride.
I sighed and followed, scrambling over the rocks of the road like a young ram. I was glad my father was not there to see me.
Uriah paused after another hour and dropped his shield and satchel on the ground. “Stay here,” he told me, taking his sword with him, and wandered off the road for a bit of privacy.
I squatted on my haunches and traced a finger over the rough wood of his shield. I looked over my shoulder in the direction he’d gone. Then I turned back, grasped the shield to see how it would feel on my arm—and hopped aside, startled, as my motion caused a dull clunk inside his bag. I frowned. My fingers dipped into my own bag to touch the cool ceramic message there, and then crept out toward his.
The crunch of sand came from behind me, and I dropped my hand, pretending to adjust my sandal. Uriah said nothing as he shouldered his burden and stepped out down the road again, though he rummaged in his satchel, pulled out a wineskin, and passed it over to me.
I sipped and handed it back and nodded my thanks, but my mind circled and circled around that thunk and the wrapped, secret message it surely betokened.
The chief scribe had given a message only into my hands, not into Uriah’s as well. And Uriah, it was said, had come directly from the king that morning. Had King David entrusted an even more important missive to his Mighty Man? Was there suspicion and treachery in the court, that I could not deliver the king’s words? Or was Uriah himself treacherous, bringing ruinous information to Joab and the army in an attempt to better his own station somehow?
My thoughts scurried and leapt around corners like our speedy brown lizards around rocks. How could I find out what his message said?
I eyed Uriah and his ropy muscles and his notched, heavily used sword. Wresting the message from him by force was surely not an option. But by persuasion instead…?
“Why did you return home from the war?” I asked into the dusty silence.
“My king asked to speak to me,” he said.
“About what matters?” I hoped that the snatches of conversation I could drag from him would give me a hint about the message he bore.
“He asked how the war was going.”
I frowned, forgetting to be clever and silky-tongued. “Does he not have messengers for that? Must he call away one of his Mighty Men from the field for a simple report?”
He stopped and turned to face me. “I serve my king,” he said, his voice hard. “When he says come, I come. When he says go, I go. That is what it means to be a soldier.”
He began to walk again.
I growled under my breath at my failure of words and wit, and hurried after him. Conversation and coaxing would not work with this man, this soldier. I needed to take the message from him and read it myself.
I resolved to bide my time. Until I knew what the message said, I could not make a choice, could not plan my actions to serve my king and further my own station. If, for instance, Uriah could not read, and the message was a treacherous one slipped in from a courtier to a leader in the army, perhaps this Mighty Man would be grateful to me for saving his reputation, and would speak a good word into the king’s ear. Or if it contained secret military orders from King David, perhaps I’d be able to lead Uriah by a safer route through the army camp to Joab himself, so his message would not fall into the wrong hands, earning me a smile and a nod of thanks from the great man who was over the whole army. Or perhaps…
I shook my head and focused on placing my feet, one after the other, again and again, on the rough, warm stones of the road. It worked to distract me for a few moments, and my mind flitted back to the court.
Now the women would be bringing out fresh, steaming bread and jugs of olive oil for the late morning meal. Platters of the earliest plums and apricots would be placed next to towering heaps of raisins and last summer’s figs. If the king wished it, there would be soft cheese and yogurt and toasted grains of barley, and a comb of honey on its own plate near the king’s seat. Wine would splash into cups and be handed out, and from the kitchens, the first, soft aromas of that evening’s roasts and stews would waft into the court, growing in intensity and complexity until evening.
My stomach rumbled in jealousy, and I took a raisin cake from my bag to curb my hunger pangs.
My mind returned to the court. Would the king’s wives have brought out their spring finery, their jeweled rings and wristlets that flash in the sunlight and wink by candlelight at night? And what of the king’s new woman, Bathsheba of the dark hair and the soft round limbs and the red lips? Would he adorn her with a diadem, bright against her curls, or clasp a gold and emerald pendant around the nape of her neck so it could hang, delighted, between those sweet breasts?
I began to compose a poem for her, should it please the king when I returned, starting with her dark doe eyes that betrayed a mysterious and complex personality. I walked happily behind Uriah, wrapped in the fine gold netting of language, beautiful and shapely, my first and best love.
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Uriah did not stop again until the sun was high above us. I blinked, remembering my other purpose, and slipped out of the embrace of my words like a man rising from his sleepy lover to go out to the fields.
But Uriah did not walk away for privacy. Instead he squatted and rummaged in his bag and pulled out the wineskin and three wrapped bundles. My heart leapt into my throat, but it was only bread, and dried fruit, and cheese.
He passed me the wineskin again, so I offered my raisins and dried lamb to him in turn. We ate in a silence that might have been companionable, had I not been racing to find a way to separate him from his satchel so I could look inside. I even went aside to relieve myself in privacy, hoping to remind him to do the same. But instead he shouldered his burden and began to walk again, in that long, implacable stride.
I thought of other options for our next stop. Could I wrap my message in a cloth and switch it with his? My deftness of tongue was greater than my deftness of hand, but I was not altogether lacking in grace. But how could I make room for such a switch? A stumble into him, sending us both sprawling onto the road? I eyed the man and his even stride. Likely he would be surefooted enough to stay standing even if I fell into him, leaving me ashamed and no closer to the message than before. Or perhaps bandits would descend upon us and—
I should not have thought such a thing. Because just as the thought went by, Uriah stopped stock still, and I pitched into his back. He did not go sprawling—he stood firm, one hand absently steadying me as the other pointed ahead.
Not bandits, but a sandy-colored horned viper lay across the road ahead of us, spread in a lazy, menacing double-curve, dark hard eyes upon us. Between the drop to our right and the upraised rocks to our left, there was no room to ease safely past it on the narrow road.
“We will climb up and around,” Uriah said after a moment. “Give me your things. I will throw them up to you when you have reached the top.”
My hackles rose like an angry cat, for who was this man to ask one of the king’s most trusted scribes to scrabble and hop like a chattering ground squirrel? And besides, my own message was in my satchel. Should I let it fall into his hands? But then I remembered that I wanted above all else to see in his satchel—
No, I wanted above all else to be back in the cool, beautiful palace in Jerusalem.
But since I could not be there, I wanted to see in his satchel and read the hidden message he had there. So I nodded my assent, handed him my bag, and scrambled up the rocks that rose to our left. He tossed my bag up to me, followed by his own, and then his sword and shield. Then he began to climb, and I darted forward as soon as his view was blocked.
My hand in his bag, the touch of my fingers against cloth and something hard beneath it, draw it out, unwrap it, switch it with my own message, tuck them back into the satchels—
When Uriah clambered up next to me, his expression changed to one of concern. “Are you hurt?”
I looked down at my hands, shaking with the rush of excitement and terror. “No,” I said, looking away, flustered. “I’m— I have a fear of snakes.”
Uriah grunted, without judgment, and picked up his things, tracing a careful path along the top of the rocks until we could clamber down again on the other side of the viper. He extended a large, rough hand to help me down the last rocky patch, and I nodded absent thanks to him.
All my mind was on the message. It seemed to burn through the leather of my bag, through to my skin, tantalizing me. I could not draw it out and read it while we walked, so I had to wait until our next stop. But my fingers traced its smooth surface over and over, as though they were literate and could send the message up to my eyes and mind.
The day grew hotter and Uriah passed back his wineskin more often. Three gerbils darted across the path just in front of him and I saw him pause in his stride to give them space to scurry safely to the other side.
Just when I was about to beg a stop, out of both rising excitement and fading energy, I heard shouts up ahead. Uriah froze, and so did I.
The road to Jericho is known for its vicious bandits, and larger groups could perhaps even dispatch one of King David’s Mighty Men. For some reason, imminent battle was not as colorful and poetic as I had imagined it. Mostly, the prospect made my bones rattle with fear.
Something long and sharp and deadly shot past us with a whistle, and my heart nearly stopped. Uriah, though, calmly turned to me, handed me his shield, and clapped me on the shoulder. I nearly smiled back, even through my terror. Then he turned, drew his sword, and let out a mighty roar as he charged downhill, in the direction of the bandits.
I cowered beneath his shield and waited. There were two more hisses of arrows, several bellows, and then silence. Footsteps came back toward me. I tried not to curl into a tighter ball, but I couldn’t help letting out a squeak when the shield was lifted away.
Uriah extended a hand to me. “They’re gone.”
“Did you kill them?” I asked, putting my hand in his and letting him pull me to my feet.
“No,” he said. “They ran away.”
I swallowed, thinking the bandits were wise to run. Then I said, “I thank you.”
He looked back at me, his expression surprised. “I serve my king. He ordered me to bring you safely to Jericho. It is my duty to do so.” Then he continued east.
I followed him. Slowly, my heartbeat returned to normal. Slowly, my hands stopped quivering. I covered the last shreds of my terror with my words, with my poetry, constructing elaborate metaphors and delicate whorls of meaning. I returned to Bathsheba, her virgin skin, the soft swell of her belly under her rich robes.
And when we stopped and Uriah went aside for privacy, I stood there for awhile, a smile on my face, staring into the distance and seeing letters and lines float before my eyes.
Then, with a start, I realized my purpose and my opportunity to read Uriah’s message. I fumbled quickly in my bag, drew out the piece of clay, read it—
I am fortunate that my hands are cleverer than I give them credit for. For while my mind tossed the inked words back and forth, reluctant to hold them in any one place, while my own gift of language failed, my hands stowed the message away again.
When Uriah returned, his expression changed once again to concern. “Are you ill?”
“No,” I said in a quiet voice.
He grunted and took up his bag, his shield, his sword, his obedience, his responsibility, and put them all on his broad shoulders.
Weak-kneed, I followed him.
Uriah’s message hadn’t been orders to move the army, or secret plans for defeating Rabbah. It hadn’t been evidence of a plot against the king by a scheming courtier, or something that would bring Uriah personal glory and honor.
It was something altogether different.
To Joab: swam the words unbidden in my mind. Send the man who bears this message into the thickest fighting and then withdraw from him, that he may be struck down and killed.
My mind shied away from it, refused to trace the royal hand in the shapes of the letters.
Perhaps there was something here I did not understand. Perhaps Uriah was a traitor, and would not know his treachery was discovered until he died on the battlefield. Perhaps a scoundrel, perhaps even Uriah himself, had forged David’s hand on the message to incriminate my king. Or perhaps…
I forced myself to return to my poem for Bathsheba, my sweet distraction, tracing its lines and curves, trying to lose myself in their beauty once again.
It worked for a moment or two, and I added line after line, my breath evening out.
But unbeknownst to me, my mind, while feigning one purpose, was treacherously carrying out another, linking small clues I did not want to see into a picture I could not bear to view.
Uriah’s beautiful wife, whom he’d only seen from a distance while he was in Jerusalem. King David’s new woman, who had been away from court the previous two evenings. Uriah’s strange summons home, and his stranger return to the war. The king’s p
enchant for solving two problems with one solution. The lady’s troubled—not mysterious—eyes in her smiling face.
I walked in silence for an hour, my mind by turns racing and blank, as I worked up the courage to ask one question. It wasn’t until we’d passed a group of rock badgers, who scolded us before darting away, and until the sun was firmly in the west and our shadows stretched before us, that I managed it.
“You said you have a wife.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And that she is beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said.
I hesitated, then bit my lip and pressed forward. “What is her name?”
“Bathsheba,” he said, and Bathsheba, my lips said silently along with him.
I wept then, silent tears running down my face. I wept for David and the dark spreading stain on his honor. I wept for Bathsheba, caught by the tenuous pull of her beauty in forces far stronger than she was. I wept for Uriah and his unknowing journey toward his own death.
Except—
I raised my face then, and noticed the sun was nearing the horizon behind us. Jericho was visible in the distance, surrounded by great lakes of sand and stands of spiked trees.
Perhaps Uriah’s journey didn’t have to be unknowing. Perhaps his journey did not have to be toward his death at all.
I had the gift of language. Perhaps I could use it for something more than stringing endless empty glass beads onto a cheap ribbon for hollow courtiers and besmirched kings.
“Uriah,” I said. My voice was rough. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Uriah.”
“Yes?” He didn’t turn around. His steps never slowed, his stride never shortened.
“You bear a message from the king, do you not?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Did the king tell you what it said?”
“No,” he said.
I placed my feet carefully, chose my words even more carefully.
“Do you wish to know what it says?”
He stopped then, sighed, and turned to face me. He tried to narrow his eyes at me, but they were soft despite his efforts as he said, “I serve my king.”
Saxifrage & Starshine Page 15