David slapped him. “And you? What’s your story?”
“I accept everything about her and never ask anything in return. And I’ll always love her no matter what you do to me.”
“Then that’ll be all you’ll have, a memory. You’re banished from my kingdom. I give you two days.” David pulled out a dagger and cut a line over Ittai’s left cheekbone. “Now you have a mark just like I have for the same woman. Now go.”
David called to Arik, “Escort this renegade to the border. He’s not welcome in my kingdom. In two days, I will have a bounty on his head.”
“Yes, my king,” Arik saluted and grabbed Ittai by the elbow, leading him away.
Marching back toward the house, David turned a corner and bumped into a young man in a chair set on wheels.
The man bent his head. “My king, I’m sorry I was in the way.”
David stopped and stared. The young Jonathan’s face—chestnut hair, a square jaw, and light brown eyes.
He grasped the young man’s hand. “What is your name and whose son are you?”
“Meribbaal, son of Jonathan of Gibeah.”
“I am King David. See here?” David held up his third finger. “I wear your father’s ring.”
Meribbaal blinked and opened his mouth.
David pushed his chair to the parlor. “Do not be afraid of me. Your father was my best friend. How long have you been here? Where is your mother? Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
“It is I only,” Meribbaal said. “My mother passed away shortly after my father died on Mt. Gilboa.”
“Do you have anyone else? Would you like to come and live with me in Jerusalem?”
“I have a young son, Micah. My wife died giving birth. I like living here in the country.”
“Meribbaal, I swore an oath to your father to preserve his seed forever. You must come and live with me, eat at my table. I’ll have the best tutors for your son. He will grow up like a prince. You will be a blessing to my house.”
“But I’m of the cursed house of Saul.” His gaze shifted to his crippled feet.
“I will show you kindness for your father’s sake. I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather. And you shall eat bread at my table continually.” David patted Meribbaal’s shoulder.
Meribbaal bowed his head and thanked him.
The hours crawled by. David paced the garden and punched the wall. Around mid-afternoon, Rizpah set a tray of food in front of him. “My king, have some refreshment.”
“Send Phaltiel to me.”
She nodded and swept her skirts back into the house.
Minutes later Phaltiel arrived and bowed to the ground. “O King. Your servant is present.”
“Get up off the ground and sit with me,” David said. Phaltiel looked like such a lumbering idiot. How could Michal possibly have cared about him?
Phaltiel gripped the table as if it were a shield. He wouldn’t meet David’s eye.
“Tell me what happened,” David said. “Did Michal make it to the wedding?”
“They had not shown up yet. I wanted to hold up the wedding, but Machir’s parents insisted it take place on Tammuz, the summer solstice.”
“If only I had been there…” David wiped his forehead. “Go ahead.”
“Two days later, Ittai appears with Michal. She had been wounded. He tried his best to extract the arrowhead but was unable to cut deeper. The village healer closed the wound and assured us it would not harm her. The arrow was lodged in her left shoulder, in the joint.”
David gripped the side of the table and winced. “Ittai is incompetent. I should never have let him back. You should have sent for me immediately.”
“We thought she’d recover,” Phaltiel said.
“Well obviously she hasn’t. What’s wrong with you? Why did you wait two months to tell me where she was?” David swept the water pitcher from the table, smashing it on the stone floor.
Phaltiel lowered his face. “My king, I apologize. We thought you knew.”
David grimaced. Of course, he should have inquired, but that would have shown too much concern for a disobedient woman. He would have lost face, been the target of gossip. As if he wasn’t already.
“What kind of woman is Rizpah?” David said.
Phaltiel jerked his head and blinked. His mouth opened and closed and opened again.
“By right, she should be my wife. Why did you take her?”
Phaltiel’s brow creased, and he opened his mouth again, but no words came out.
“You have taken two of my wives.” David pounded the table with both hands. “Tell me why I shouldn’t have you executed. Give me one reason.”
Phaltiel’s shoulders quivered, and he wrung his hands. Beads of sweat popped on his forehead. He stared at the table. “Anna, Michal’s daughter.”
“So you admit to adultery? You stupid oaf. Didn’t you know she was my wife?”
Phaltiel remained silent, but his face flushed and the tips of his ears reddened.
“Tell me about Rizpah. Go ahead. I have all day.” David leaned back and trotted his fingers on the table.
“She… she’s… a good woman. She’s had a hard life as Saul’s youngest concubine. After Saul’s death, men abused her, and she’s easily frightened. I love her, and I’m gentle to her. She’s happy with me.” He recited in a flat tone.
“Why isn’t she my concubine?” David’s fingers skittered back and forth across the table.
Phaltiel kept his eyes down. “We have a family and many children. When Michal’s sons came back, she loved them as her own. She also raised Anna. She’s a good wife, and I love her very much.”
Phaltiel’s confession filled David with guilt. Would Michal have been happier if he had left her with him? Why did he feel as if he had to exert his dominance? What kind of man was he compared to Phaltiel?
“You may keep her. I have no intentions of breaking your family again.” He turned away so Phaltiel wouldn’t see the wetness in his eyes. Why couldn’t he have lived peacefully in the countryside with Michal and had many children with her?
His mouth dry, he stalked back to the house and looked through the window. Michal lay on her stomach, her back exposed. An ugly wound glistened on the top of her shoulder blade, raw and bright red, swollen with a black center. The healer’s assistant heated the tiny cups in the flame of the candle. She handed the hot cup to the healer who pushed it down onto Michal’s wound. Michal stiffened and cried out.
Smoky trails of incense swirled in the room. Four young maidens, including Anna, chanted an atonic mantra. The healer applied oil to Michal’s back and moved the cup over her skin while the assistant cleaned the pus that oozed from the irritated wound.
The healer lit a candle in front of wooden goddess that stood on the table. War drums thumped in David’s chest. God would not be pleased and could take his mercy away.
He stormed through the door, grabbed the idol and threw it in the firepot. “You shall not have this abomination anywhere near my wife. She is a daughter of the Law.”
The chanting halted, and the healer pushed herself into David’s chest, her arms crossed low over her waist. “Michal is my daughter. My name is Jada of Jezreel.”
David took a large step backward. Her mother? The woman who provided the gold that Michal gave him was Michal’s mother?
Michal raised her head. “Jada, be kind to my David. No more idols. Let him pray for me.”
David knelt at his wife’s side. Her sweet smile melted him, and he held her hand. “Oh, Eglah. You’re going to be healed. I know it. I will take you back to Jerusalem and take care of you. You shall stay in my tower and never leave it again. You are my precious wife.”
She lowered her head to the pillow. “Am I really?”
* * *
“I have to go away.” Voices dripped over me like tiny raindrops. Who? I struggled in my sleep.
“Michal, I shall never forget you.” Gentle hands tucked me into the blankets I had
tossed. I caught a sob, then another, like drops of blood on my face.
The woman leaned over and kissed me. Wet drops of rain washed her face. I raised her hand. She flickered in my sight like the flame of a smoky candle.
“I know why you did it,” I said.
Blue-green eyes. Veiled with tears. My father’s vision.
“I’ve broken the spell. The goddess is angry at me. I shall never see you again.” She cut a long braid of my hair.
“Call on Jehovah,” I said, “the name of God. Call on Him and don’t leave me.”
Her sobs turned into gasps. “Remember me. Always remember me.”
“I shall never forget you, Jada.” I couldn’t make myself say the word, not yet. “Believe He will save you, call on Him, and I shall meet you by the brook, the brook where you gave me life, the brook where you named me, and the brook where you gave me up.”
“I am so sorry, so very, very sorry.” She wept in my arms. “I have to go.”
“You loved him. You were the only one who really loved my father.”
Blue-green eyes framed in copper.
“My mother.”
The wind and rain howled like a thousand dying women.
The door shut.
Chapter 38
Numbers 32:23 …behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.
>>><<<
David sat at the side of his wife’s bed. “Eglah, I have to go back to Jerusalem. You are still too weak to travel.” He smoothed her hair as she opened her eyes.
“I’m comfortable here. Go ahead and don’t worry about me.” Her forehead shone from the fever. “Why did Jada leave?”
He shrugged. “She left the medicine and the herbs. You didn’t tell me she was your mother.”
“I didn’t know. Where has she gone?”
“I don’t know. She told me to put all the gold I was going to pay her in your father’s name and to dedicate it to the Temple building fund.”
“I miss her.” Michal said.
“Why didn’t you wait for me? I hurried back, but you had already left.”
She took his hand and stared at it. “I’m sorry I disobeyed you. I should have waited.”
“I was angry, but now that I almost lost you…” His voice crumbled. “Look, we’ll be happy again. I promise. I mean it.”
She rubbed his hand on her face and shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “You don’t believe we can be happy together?”
She pressed her fingers on his. “I thought being God’s anointed meant you would be like God, but now, I’ve learned to temper my expectations.”
Her words struck him like a branding iron, searing his conscience. “I have disappointed you.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. No expectations, no disappointments.” She let go his hand and turned to the wall.
* * *
David stared at the parchment.
The message was clear. I am with child. Your neighbor’s wife.
She had to be lying. She came to him. She could have gone to others. Her husband was away, and she lived by herself with her maids.
“Arik, bring the maids of Bathsheba to the palace for questioning. Meet me at Abigail’s house.”
“Yes, O King.” Arik bowed and walked off in a fast clip.
David rushed to Abigail’s house with a queasy feeling in his stomach. He waved off Ahinoam and Maacah as he pounded on Abigail’s door.
She opened the door.
“I need your help,” he said.
“My lord, what is happening?”
“Arik is bringing a few maids to you for questioning. I need to know if their mistress has been seeing men.”
Abigail’s cheeks reddened. “You want me to interview concubines for you?”
“Ah… forget it. When they show up, ask them to go to Maacah’s.” David ran out of her room.
“Maacah. Maacah.”
She turned and smiled at him.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything, my lord.” She touched his sleeve.
“I need you to interview Lady Bathsheba’s maids. Be thorough and don’t let them evade. I know you can do it.”
Maacah’s mouth dropped into a little circle.
He bent down and planted a kiss. “Will you do this for me, my sweet?”
She nodded and made a small squeak when he pinched her behind.
“Give me a full report,” he said. “Uh… and ask about any possible pregnancies and whether she’d seen other men and the timing of her husband’s leave-taking.”
“My lord, I shall do as you say. I’ll leave no stone unturned, no hedge untrimmed, no leaf dangling.” She smiled seductively and pinched his thigh. After a deep, long kiss, she swayed her hips back to her house.
David hid behind a large bay tree. Arik appeared with the two maids. Abigail pointed them to Maacah’s house and slammed the door. He rubbed his sweaty palms and tapped his feet. How could this be? He’d only seen the woman once. Perhaps her husband had been back. But then why would she write him the note? How much gold would silence her?
After the maids left Maacah’s house, David sprinted to her door. Ahinoam and Abital stared after him as they came around the corner with their looms.
“What did they say?” David didn’t bother to remove his sandals. He plopped down on her couch and waved his hands. “Tell me, now.”
Maacah smiled and wound her way to his side. She placed his hands on her waist and smoothed out his lap. Taking her time, she arranged herself across his legs and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him and smiled. “My lord, do you want the long version or the short version?”
“Both, but give me the short first.” David’s lips trembled when he kissed her again. Maacah would extract a kiss for every sentence.
“Mmmm, you haven’t kissed me like that for ages.” She twirled his moustache. “The short story is that she has been with a man who is not her husband. Her husband left home more than two months ago, shortly after their wedding.”
She puckered her mouth, and David rewarded her with another kiss, this time deeper.
“More details. How many men has she been with?”
She leaned in for another kiss. “She has only seen one man since her husband left.”
“Did they tell you who?” He rewarded Maacah with another wet, languorous kiss.
A little breathless, she continued. “On a hot, mid-summer night, muggy with a slight shower, she decided to take a refreshing bath on the rooftop. She stayed up there for a little while. After she had cooled down, men from the palace came and fetched her.”
David stiffened. “Who?”
Maacah pointed to her lips to remind him she expected another kiss.
His stomach turned and churned, and he delivered the kiss with much difficulty.
Maacah perked one eyebrow and ran her fingernail down his cheek. “Oh, my lord, you can do better than that. Try again?”
David kissed her with more effort.
She wet her lips and stared so close she appeared cross-eyed. “They asked her to have a visit with a certain king who wanted to talk to her.” She lingered on the word ‘talk.’ “Is it possible she talked to the King of Israel?”
David waved her away. “That’s not important. Did she see or talk to any other men after this conversation?”
Maacah slithered into his arms. “No, she has not talked to anybody else. And wonder of wonders, she is with child. How does that happen with talking?” Maacah lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’d like some of that talking right about now.”
A slow chill rolled in David’s belly. Maacah took his hand and led him to her bed. He lay down, bathed in cold sweat. Could he even perform?
Stalling for time, he asked, “And how does she know this man she talked to impregnated her? Perhaps she was already with child?”
Maacah touched the tip of his nose. “I left no trail unmarked.” She wiggled
with the anticipation of a terrier growling down a rabbit hole. “By the way, I had to use some of my own silver to gain this information.”
“I’ll pay you every bit and with a bonus too. Tell me.”
Maacah ran her tongue across her teeth and demanded a kiss.
Satisfied, she continued. “She had her monthly blood shortly before her husband left home.”
She leaned forward, and David bestowed another wet kiss on her quivering lips.
“I deserve a big bonus,” Maacah said as she slid her hands down to his crotch. “There was crying, begging, and pleading on Bathsheba’s part to fill her womb. But Uriah refused to touch her. Seems he’s quite the fundamentalist. Joab’s orders came, and Uriah purified himself and refused to sleep with her. Can you imagine what that does to a woman’s feelings?”
A cold chill scratched David’s shoulders, and he removed Maacah’s hands. “You are the goods, Maacah. And I will pay up, eventually.”
He pressed his lips to hers and held it for a couple of heartbeats.
“I’m good, aren’t I?” she said. “You owe me quite a few nights. Now where was I?”
“Is there more?” He kissed her between her breasts, not really wanting to hear but unable to resist.
“Oh, yes.” She moaned and made soft clutching sounds before continuing. “She went to a fortune teller who told her Uriah would come home unexpectedly.”
“So, what does that mean?” David stopped what he was doing.
“She took a preparation of mandrake root and rhino horn powder.” Maacah giggled and tugged his robe open. “It means she was preparing to conceive after her uncleanness. The bath was to purify her for a child.”
David gasped. A hive of bumblebees took up residence in his bowels.
Maacah arched an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me the king is worried.” She wormed her fingers down his abdomen. “You’re quite a good talker. Are you, by chance, the lucky man?”
David’s heart jittered and sweat drenched his forehead. “What should I do?”
“I know where to get the herbs that cleanse the womb. There is a—”
“No, definitely not,” he said. “This is not allowed in my kingdom.”
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