by Naomi Ruppin
“Do you think girls don’t have same the wits to learn as boys?” I pointed the twig at him, as if brandishing a sword. He looked at it, and at me.
“Maybe you do,” he conceded. I didn’t know whether to be flattered for myself, or offended for girls in general.
This is how I first met Moth, for so I have called him since shortly after that day. I would often come to spy on the boys’ lessons, and he was frequently ejected from the class for misbehavior. I believe he would sometimes bring this upon himself purposely so that he could come out and talk to me. We spoke of many things, from my fondness for animals, to his desire to be a great warrior someday, to coriander’s being the one seasoning I couldn’t abide. During one conversation we discovered that we were precisely the same age, as we were both born on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
I would always demand that he repeat the latest subjects he’d learned, as I couldn’t always see and hear all that went on in the lessons, and I missed some altogether. He would complain that I was more exacting even than the priest, but complied good-naturedly. As we grew older, the subjects we learned became more complex and we would argue about justice, morality and human nature. Moth particularly liked to enrage me by reciting the many proverbs warning of the deceitful qualities of women.
§
Now Moth was snoring lightly, and he seemed peacefully prepared to sleep on for hours. His hair looked like a patch of reddish grass, tufts pointing every which way. I stroked it in one direction, trying vainly to impose some order on it.
“Hmmmm. Abigail.” Moth stirred and rubbed his head against my hand but kept his eyes closed. “You were in my dream.”
“Shall I go away and let you sleep?”
“No, no. Stay.” I saw his eyes moving behind his eyelids, as if he were concluding the dream I’d interrupted. Then he opened them and sat up.
“Well? What happened?”
I took a deep breath, then let it out.
“I’m not sure. I showed him the report.”
“Was he pleased?”
“I suppose so. I proved that the taxes for the women’s court are being collected in excess. Then he called for the Queen Mother to ask her about it. The Prophet Nathan showed up with her. I dislike him. What is it between those two?”
“I don’t know. He’s always slinking about the palace like a fox in the bushes. If a man his size can be said to slink.”
“Doesn’t he have a wife to go home to? I know he has sons.”
“Grown sons. I’ve heard he’s twice widowed.”
“Something doesn’t smell right about the way he and his sons are involved in the tax collection.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Moth yawned, got up to take a drink from his waterskin, and handed it to me. The water was warm and tasted slightly of goat leather.
“Did the king ask anything else of you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then I suppose that’s the end of it.”
“Do you think it must be?” I asked wistfully.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe I could be useful to him in some way. Surely he’s seen that. I could be some kind of assistant, or scribe, or something.”
“Calculations official?” Moth smiled.
“For instance.”
“Abigail, I know you don’t like to be reminded but…you’re a girl.”
“So is Bathsheba! A woman, anyway. And she has responsibilities. Why should a woman not use her mind if she can? Oh, I forgot to tell you! I was about to beat the king at Jang-Cheh. We were interrupted one move short of my win.”
“You didn’t!” Moth rolled his eyes at me. “Was that wise?”
“Don’t be silly. He’s the renowned King Solomon. What’s one game to him?”
Moth shrugged and didn’t reply.
§
After the conclusion of my census, I was as idle as before and even more bored. The whole episode might never have happened except that I felt uneasy, as if I were waiting for something, though I couldn’t say for what. After another dreary morning of lounging around the women’s courtyard, listening to gossip and eating, I felt I must find some distraction or go mad. I spent the afternoon in the pottery room and was rude to the craftsmen when they tried to instruct me on how to spin the pottery wheel evenly. Afterwards, all I had to show for my efforts were two lopsided vases, which were so ugly that I threw them over the palace wall when no one was looking, taking some satisfaction in the smashing sound they made.
Next I took it into my head to try to make papyrus sheets, though the plant didn’t grow anywhere near the palace. Knowing the Egyptians were famous for their papyrus, I pestered Khepri to tell me all he knew of the method of manufacture, which was very little. I got up early one morning and wrenched several dried palm fronds off the trees in the women’s courtyard, cutting my hands in the process. Then I stripped the finger-like leaves from the stems. Back in my tent, I followed Khepri’s sketchy instructions, soaking the leaves in water and laying them edge to edge on the smooth side of a sheepskin, one horizontal layer over one vertical. Apparently when real papyrus plants are used, their natural sap serves as a kind of adhesive and no other ingredient is necessary. I could see immediately that my fibers were too dry and that I’d have to glue them together somehow. I begged some flour from the cook and watered it to make a paste, which I poured it over the fiber weave. I kept my pages-in-the-making until they started to rot, smell and draw insects, then threw them away in disgust. I sank back into my boredom, too apathetic to even try to amuse myself.
It was at this point that Khepri came to summon me again to the king’s chambers.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine, dear one,” Khepri smiled. “But you certainly seem to have become a favorite. I’ve never known him to show such an interest any child, let alone a daughter.”
This was enough to jolt me out of my indifference. I ran to find Moth and gleefully imparted the news.
“I told you! I knew he could use me in some way. It’s a good thing after all, that I made him notice me.”
Moth wasn’t as sure as I was.
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “Maybe he’s finally decided to punish you for posing as his envoy.”
“Don’t be silly. Why would he suddenly do that after commissioning my report? No, it will be something good. Something interesting, finally!”
At the appointed time, Khepri brought me again to the king’s chambers. The king was sitting in his carved chair, and I was disgusted to see the Prophet Nathan reclining on one of the divans, propped up on one elbow and holding a cup of wine in his other hand. He looked like a divan himself, with overstuffed cushions. I wondered why he was there again and how he managed to insinuate himself into every situation.
“That will be all, Khepri,” the king said.
Khepri dipped his head, darted a look my way, gave a tiny shrug and left. I was sorry to see him go.
“Be seated, Abigail. I have some good news for you.”
I sat across from Nathan.
“Greetings, princess,” Nathan said. He was smirking at me. A few wiry copper hairs stuck out of his eyebrows like beetles’ legs. I inclined my head in answer.
“Abigail, as you may or may not know, Nathan has been chronicling the history of our land since the time of my father King David. He has need of a scribe to help him with this work, and I thought of you.”
Here was the task I’d been hoping for! But with one unwelcome aspect: it was for the off-putting man sprawled across from me, and required spending time in his company. Still, I was glad the king had thought of me, and even working for Nathan might be better than spending my days making crooked vases. Also, it might be a good opportunity to learn some history.
“I’ll be glad to help if I can, my lord,” I said.
“Excellent.” The king cleared his throat. “There is another matter.”
“Yes?”
&
nbsp; He busied himself with pouring a cup of wine and avoided my gaze. Nathan slurped the last of his wine ostentatiously and set his empty cup before the king. The king ignored it.
“By happy coincidence, Nathan is also looking for a wife. I thought we might kill two birds with one stone, as it were.”
Kill two birds…I felt as if my mind had frozen, but unwelcome comprehension seeped into it anyway.
“I’m not sure I take your meaning, my lord,” I said carefully, praying that in fact I’d misunderstood him.
“Nathan finds you pleasant. He’s asked to marry you. I often marry my daughters to priests and prophets, and in this case, you can be of use to Nathan beyond the usual duties of marriage.”
“We’re turning what might be a disadvantage into an advantage,” Nathan chimed in. “Not every husband wants a wife with…shall we say, unseemly abilities. And now that it’s come to our attention that you wander motherless and unsupervised about the palace, flaunting those abilities and settings a bad example for the other women, well, it’s simply unwise to allow this state of affairs to continue.”
I nearly choked on the swarm of objections fighting to erupt from my throat. Were they really proposing that I should marry this man, at least forty years my senior, and repellant to me in every conceivable way? A man who was willing to overlook my “unseemly abilities”. And my father, whom I’d thought to impress and perhaps get to know better, was willing to hand me over like a bale of grain from which no consent need be asked.
But I stayed my tongue for a moment. I didn’t understand the sway Nathan seemed to have over the king. But making an enemy of Nathan by objecting to him personally might not be wise. I took a calming breath before speaking.
“My lord, I do not plan to marry. At all.”
Both men stared at me as if I had stated my intention to sprout wings and fly.
“Nonsense, Abigail,” the king said. “Why would you not want a husband and family? And what alternative do you have?”
“I…I still need to decide.”
“There is nothing for you to decide. As for plans, I am the one who makes them, for my children as for all my subjects.”
His casual condescension made me forget all intentions to practice prudence. I jumped to my feet.
“You’re cruel! You’re immoral! You acquire women like goods, and discard them like refuse. Plans? You give no more thought to your daughters than to a…a melon grown from a seed you’ve spit on the ground.”
“Recall yourself, Abigail.” The king also stood and his height was daunting, two heads above my own. His voice was quiet but it glinted with restrained anger. “And be thankful you’re a woman and do not suffer the consequences a man would for speaking as you just have.”
“I’ve never been less thankful to be a woman!”
As the king and I stood glaring at each other, Nathan spoke up, still incongruously draped across the divan as if he were in his own bed chamber.
“There, now, Abigail is young and this was unexpected,” he said. “Perhaps she’s worried about leaving the comfort of the palace. I’ll arrange for her to visit my home so she can see I’ll be providing her with every luxury, including ample servants and slaves.”
I’d rather be a slave myself, I thought, than have you lay one finger on me. I ignored Nathan and turned to the king, remembering too late to speak placatingly.
“Please, my lord. Please…father.” The last word felt completely alien in my mouth. “I beg you to reconsider.”
“The matter is settled.” The king sat down again and poured some wine from a silver carafe into his gold, bejeweled chalice. He took a long sip. “Leave us now.”
Though my mouth was agape, ready to let out another torrent of words, I could think of nothing more to say. The king was avoiding my eyes, while Nathan was leering at me in a way that made me feel ill. I left before my lunch could end up on the floor of the king’s sitting room.
I managed to control myself until I got back to my tent. Then I flung myself onto my bed and sobbed. I continued to cry for a long while, until the futility of this activity began to outweigh its calming effect. Then I had no choice but to think.
The king had said I was to marry Nathan. The very thought gave me a physical pain in my stomach. But most people would say this was an inappropriate reaction. What had I expected to happen in the long run? Many of my half-sisters were married, and as far as I knew none of them had had any part in deciding to whom. The king’s daughters were given in marriage to his agents or military commanders who had gained his favor, to priests and prophets, or sometimes to the ruler of a neighboring province or his son. The girls’ attitudes towards their intended husbands varied according to circumstance, but the most common one was pragmatic acceptance, as this was the normal route to children and a household of their own, even if their mate turned out to be less than ideal. The alternative was to remain an unmarried woman in the palace, and this was the fate of some, usually the least attractive among my sisters. In fact, I’d probably only avoided marriage so far because I had no mother to further my interests, as Nathan had pointed out with unctuous concern.
In the nature of things, my sisters’ husbands were usually young. But it was not unheard of for a girl of my age to marry an older man, either a widow or a man who already had one or more wives. In short, there was nothing very unusual about my circumstances. I found this did not lessen my outrage in the slightest degree. What might seem reasonable in the abstract was sickeningly inconceivable in actuality. I imagined Nathan’s puffy, red-veined face across from me at mealtimes. I pictured him coming into my bedroom at night and disrobing…but here my imagination rebelled and I felt ill again. Time-honored custom or not, I could not shake the notion that there was something grievously wrong about the fact that men could choose their mates, while women could not. And the king had chosen none other for me than Nathan! I’d thought the king had taken a liking to me, our last meeting notwithstanding, and he seemed to actively resent Nathan. Why then would he consent to give me to Nathan as a bride?
I felt an overwhelming and unaccustomed need to talk to a woman about this calamity. But who? My mother was no longer living. I had barely exchanged twenty words with my grandmother Bathsheba, and in any case, she seemed to be firmly under Nathan’s thumb. I felt the faint beginnings of regret that I had so swiftly and soundly rejected Keren’s attempt to talk to me, but it was too late. Having spurned her, I couldn’t turn to her now with my own need. As for my other sisters, I had long been at silent war with those of my age. I thought of one of my last conversations with Na’ama, years before when I was still living with her.
“Why can’t I go learn with the boys?” I had demanded one morning for the hundredth time.
She had sighed for the hundredth time and said, “Abigail, it’s foolish to keep asking this question. You may as well ask why water must be wet or winter must be cold. It’s just the way of things.”
This answer had infuriated me and I’d stomped out of the room. Even if I had the courage to speak to Na’ama now, I imagined her answer would be much the same.
I continued to seethe over the fact that men made all the choices, while women were passed around among the men like parcels. What would happen if I refused to marry Nathan? I supposed I couldn’t defy my father and expect to go on living in his household. I thought about the proverbs the priest had taught about children who disobeyed their parents and the punishments they were due. What else could I do? Could I run away? For all my newborn resentment at women being trapped inside the palace, even the thought of stepping outside its walls on my own caused my heart to pound. I had only ever been outside for visits to the temple, and then always accompanied by guards. I couldn’t even imagine how I might survive if I suddenly had to earn my own bread. Also, if I were anywhere in my father’s kingdom, I would almost certainly be found and returned to him. If I really wanted to escape, I’d probably have to venture even farther, into strange lands. But if I could and di
d, could I ever return? And what would make me more miserable: marrying Nathan, or never seeing my home or Moth again?
Chapter Five
The Prophet Deborah
I had again promised to report to Moth after meeting with the king. But my nerves were taut as a bow straining to release an arrow, and I couldn’t face him that same evening. I spent a restless night trying to quiet the thoughts in my head, finally falling asleep near dawn. When I woke breakfast was long over, so I ate some dates and almonds in my tent, then set out to find Moth. I tried the stables, stopping to stroke the horses’ noses and give them some dates I’d saved. My brothers were indeed standing in the oval clearing at the middle of the horse run, but they weren’t engaged in chariot training. I stationed myself in the stable closest to them to watch and listen.
The boys were standing in a half-circle about Gideon, a young army commander who also served as the boys’ instructor. I knew Moth liked and respected Gideon. A pile of long, iron-tipped spears was on the ground in front of the boys. At a distance of perhaps ten paces from them, five thick wooden poles had been pounded into the earth.
“I need two volunteers,” Gideon said.
Moth’s hand shot up first, and others followed. Gideon chose Moth and another boy called Amitai, and positioned them on either of his sides. They both wore short, sleeveless tunics. Amitai’s skin was as dark as Moth’s was pale—they looked like baked and unbaked bread.
“Watch closely. This is what not to do.” Gideon picked up one of the heavy spears and hoisted it on his shoulder. “What’s that you say?” he called, and made a quarter turn toward his left shoulder. Both boys ducked and narrowly missed being knocked to the ground by the spear’s ends. All the boys laughed, and Gideon smiled and waited for the mirth to die down.
“Mind your neighbors and save the spears for your enemies,” he said. Then he proceeded to explain and demonstrate how to throw a spear at a target. I watched him draw back his arm and hurl the spear forward in a smooth arc, and heard the loud thunk as the iron blade bit into the wooden post. It was beautiful to behold.