A Garden Locked

by Naomi Ruppin

  We waited in silence. Finally the Hall’s main door opened and the king strode in, flanked by two guards and followed by Bathsheba and Hannah. They hadn’t been on my list. I didn’t know what to make of Bathsheba’s presence, but I could hardly object to it. I was glad enough to see Hannah, knowing of her antipathy towards Nathan. The two guards were each carrying a chair, which they set down for Bathsheba and Hannah. Hannah gave me a tiny tense nod and I nodded back. As usual, whatever was going on in Bathsheba’s mind was happening far, far behind her dark vacant eyes.

  One of the guards circled round the Hall, closing the shutters on the many windows. The other guard lit the row of torches standing at the edge of the stage. The king mounted the stairs leading to the stage and then the steps of his marvelous throne, the gold lions rising to salute him as he passed. When the guards finished with their tasks, they seated themselves close to the walls on either side.

  “Abigail, you may proceed,” the king said.

  Khepri squeezed my hand. I took my notes out, walked to the middle of the room and cleared my throat.

  “My lord. You have charged me with finding the father of Amisi’s child.” I turned to my right and locked eyes with Nathan. “He sits here before you. It is the Prophet Nathan.”

  “An absurd lie,” Nathan drawled, complacent as ever.

  I looked at the king. He remained tensely motionless but something glinted in his eyes. Instinct told me that the accusation was news to him. He probably relied on Khepri for court gossip, and I knew Khepri hadn’t told him. I ignored Nathan and spoke to the king.

  “Sir, I ask that you allow me to direct the inquiry.”

  “Please do so,” he said. “The rest of you be silent unless Abigail or I speak to you.”

  I walked back to stand before Amisi.

  “Amisi. Please tell us what happened on the night of the Feast of Aviv.”

  Amisi was trembling. Khepri took the baby from her and she clasped her empty hands tightly. She kept her green gaze only on me.

  “I was at the feast with the other wives. I saw the prophet staring at me as I ate. The hall was crowded. As the night went by the people grew loud with wine and song.”

  She paused to compose herself and went on.

  “After some time I went outside to relieve myself. As I passed the bushes on the way back from the latrine, he—the prophet—stepped out and grabbed my arm. He pulled me behind the bushes. I tried to call out but he pushed me down and covered my mouth. He smelled of wine. He tore my robe open. And then he…he violated me.”

  “Did he speak to you?” I stared at her intently, willing her not to mention Gideon.

  “Yes. He called me a heathen whore. He said if I told anyone about him I would die.”

  Shoshana hissed softly and I shook my head at her slightly.

  “What happened then?”

  “I went back to my tent. I tried to forget that it happened. But then I found I was pregnant.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone about the attack?”

  “I was afraid. He threatened me with harm. And I was afraid no one would believe me.”

  I looked at the king. I couldn’t read from his expression whether he believed Amisi or not. He spoke to Nathan.

  “Is this true?”

  Nathan’s lips were pursed in an amused, disdainful smile.

  “Of course not, my lord. I am your most trusted advisor; I’ve served you since you were crowned and before. Do you imagine I would be so treasonous and so foolish as to touch one of your wives? These are filthy lies. While I would never use the words she puts in my mouth, I have heard from more than one person that this woman has been unfaithful to you since she arrived in the palace.”

  “Have you?” I pounced. “If that’s the case, why have you kept it to yourself all this time? If this were true, wouldn’t it be your duty to inform the king?”

  “Which is what I’m doing,” Nathan replied calmly. “I have only just learned of this in the past two days after making my own inquiries. The woman is a long-time adulteress and she’s fabricating this ludicrous story to save her skin.”

  “Have you any evidence of this?” the king demanded, leaning forward on his throne. His face reddened and his eyes narrowed.

  “I do,” Nathan said. “I have a witness—Daniel, who works in the stables. More than once he’s seen the heathen woman meeting with Gideon, the army commander. I’m sorry to have to inform you that he was a traitor, my lord. But perhaps there is less reason than you thought to regret his death.”

  Behind me I heard Moth uttering a curse under his breath and I was tempted to do the same. It had been too much to hope that Nathan would keep this to himself.

  “With your majesty’s permission, I will invite Daniel in to testify,” Nathan continued. “He’s waiting outside.”

  “We’ll have him brought in later if necessary. Abigail, what knowledge do you have of this?”

  I had no choice. I turned to Amisi.

  “Amisi, please tell us what relationship you had with the commander Gideon.”

  Amisi sat up straighter and I knew by the set of her chin that she was going to make things as difficult for herself as possible.

  “Gideon and I met in the stables, this is true. We became friends. And later we loved each other as man and woman. But we did not lie down together. I did not betray the king in this way.”

  “Your majesty,” I broke in, “Gideon was in Midian continuously throughout the months of Peshet, Aviv and Ziv, first on a mission and then recovering from an injury. Hundreds of men can attest to this. He could not be the father of Amisi’s child.”

  “That’s as may be,” Nathan said calmly. “But you’ve heard from the woman’s own lips that she’s unfaithful to the king. She’s probably had any number of lovers.”

  “I’ll thank you to confine your remarks to answering my questions,” I snapped.

  I began pacing back and forth, realizing as I did so that I was copying the king’s own courtroom habit. I stopped in front of Nathan.

  “Tell us everything you did on the day and the night of the Feast of Aviv.”

  Nathan took his time arranging a cushion on the arm of his chair and rested his left elbow on it before replying.

  “I went to the ritual bath in the morning. I spent the day in prayer at the temple. I arrived at the palace just before nightfall and attended the feast. It was not I who stared at the heathen woman but the other way around. I remember wondering at her boldness at the time. Now I understand that she was selecting me as the victim of her libelous tale.”

  “Did you leave the table at any time during the feast?”

  “No. I was seated throughout the feast and only left at its end.”

  “Can anyone attest to the time you left?”

  “Certainly. I left the hall together with Queen Bathsheba and spent the night in her court.”

  I swung around to look at Bathsheba. So this was why she was here. She no longer looked apathetic and she quickly dropped her eyes to her lap. I had not prepared for this. I hated to improvise, but clearly I would need to question Bathsheba and Hannah. But I had to finish with Nathan first. I felt a heavy weight of foreboding in my stomach. Here it was as I had dreaded—Nathan’s word against Amisi’s. He had an answer for everything. Would anything disturb his odious composure?

  “You’re lying,” I said. “You raped Amisi, and it’s not the first time you’ve committed such a crime.”

  I turned to the king.

  “My lord, two slave women have testified that Nathan raped them too, right here in the palace. Two years ago and eight years ago. And these are just the ones who have come forward. I’m sure there are others. Clearly this behavior is a habit.”

  “Indeed? Who are these women? And where are they?” Nathan asked.

  “They’re afraid to be named. They’re afraid you’ll hurt them again.” I clenched my fists so hard that I made a hole in my scroll of notes.

  “And we’re supposed t
o simply accept this as truth?”

  “What reason do they have to lie?”

  “It’s you who have reason to lie. And if you knew anything about court procedure, you’d know that second-hand testimony can’t be accepted.”

  My cheeks burned. Of course I knew this, but it would hardly aid my cause to say so. Nathan was smirking at me and the silence in the Hall lengthened. For a moment my eyes met the king’s and I had the strangest feeling that I could hear his thoughts. Don’t rush to speak, Abigail. Take your time and consider. I took a calming breath and looked down at my list. It was hard to read in the dim torch light but I knew it well enough to need only a faint reminder. Yes, there it was. I turned back to Nathan.

  “You have a brown birthmark, the size of a fist, above your ribs on the right side. Both of the slave women you raped saw it. Do you deny that you have such a mark?”

  “No.” Nathan shifted to lean on his right elbow.

  “How would I know this if they hadn’t seen it and told me?” I asked triumphantly.

  “Any number of people could have seen it in the ritual bath and passed on the word.”

  I whirled and paced away from him quickly to hide my frustration. With no witnesses and no proof, how easy it was for him to brazenly lie. Would it be as easy for Bathsheba?

  “Your majesty, with your permission I will question the queen now.”

  The king inclined his head in assent.

  “Queen Bathsheba, Nathan has said that on the night of the Feast of Aviv he was in the dining hall continuously until he left in your company, after which he spent the night in your room.”

  Foolish mistake. I was doing everything wrong. The king posed his questions in an open-ended manner in the fewest words possible, making the witness do the work, often with the welcome result of having the witness trip himself up. I started again.

  “Please tell us how long you were in the same room with Nathan on the night of the Feast of Aviv.”

  Bathsheba stared not into my eyes but straight ahead, as if addressing herself to a spirit only she could see.

  “It’s as he said. We were in the dining hall together for the length of the feast, then we left together. He spent the night in my court.”

  “Did he leave your sight at any time after the feast began?”

  Now she looked at me and her eyes were bottomless wells.

  “No.”

  I silently cursed Nathan and his control over Bathsheba.

  “Hannah,” I turned to her in desperation. “Do you confirm that Nathan spent the night in the queen’s court?”

  I prayed that she could do the opposite, and that her loyalty to Bathsheba didn’t extend to lying for her in court. Hannah shook her head.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny it. I was given leave for the holiday. I did not accompany the queen to her court that night.”

  I looked at my list, but I didn’t really need to. There were only two more items on it. I walked to the left-hand bench, put the list back in the sack I had brought, and drew out the shoe. I walked back to Nathan, keeping the shoe behind my back. When I reached him, I whipped it forward.

  “This is your shoe, the shoe that you lost when you raped Amisi in the bushes.”

  I watched his face closely as he looked at the shoe. His expression didn’t change and there was only the briefest of pauses before he answered.

  “It is not mine. I’ve never seen it in my life.”

  Either the shoe really wasn’t his or the man was a master dissembler.

  “Put it on!” I demanded. I hadn’t planned this move, but I had nothing to lose, and maybe it would rattle Nathan’s composure.

  “My lord, this is too absurd!” Nathan turned to the king.

  The king spent a long moment gazing at me, standing with the shoe in my outstretched hand, then at Nathan.

  “Please do as Abigail asks,” the king said.

  Nathan rolled his eyes, snatched the shoe from me, dusted it off fastidiously, took off his own left shoe, then made a great show of grimacing with effort as he pulled the red shoe onto his foot.

  “It is tight, but I can wear it,” he said, “as I’m sure nine men out of ten could, it being cloth and easily stretched. What of it? This has no meaning whatsoever.”

  I could not rationally argue otherwise. My mind was a blank. What was I supposed to be doing, saying? Was it over?

  “Abigail.” The king spoke softly. “Do you have any more questions for Nathan?”

  “No.” I gazed at the king fearfully.

  “Do you have any more witnesses?”

  “Do I…yes. Yes, I do.”

  I walked back to the left-hand bench. I lay the shoe down on the bench and now my empty hands were shaking. Shoshana, Moth, Amisi and Khepri were all looking at me with differing shades of pity and fear.

  “Shoshana, please tell us what happened in Amisi’s tent four days ago.”

  Shoshana shifted her considerable weight and the bench creaked beneath her.

  “One of the concubines came to tell me that Amisi had eaten Bane of Sodom. I took my emetic tincture and hurried to her tent. You were there.” Shoshana turned to speak directly to the king. “Abigail was there. Amisi was in a swoon and she had the red rash on her face that is typical for those who’ve eaten the Sodom fruit. I gave her the tincture and made her vomit, then gave her milk to dilute the poison and settle her stomach. She’s made a good recovery.”

  Shoshana shook her head severely at the king and went on, “I think it’s shameful, the way the poor girl has been hounded such that she thought this was the only way out.”

  I nearly clutched my head in despair right there in front of the king. Why had I not practiced Shoshana’s testimony with her?

  “My lord, Nathan sent someone to poison Amisi to keep her from exposing his crime,” I said loudly. I sounded defensive and panicked even to myself.

  “Your inventiveness knows no bounds, Abigail,” Nathan said. He looked insufferably pleased, as if I had just poured him a cup of the finest wine and he was settling down to enjoy it. “Your own witness has just said that the heathen tried to end her own life, now that she’s been revealed as an adulteress. I’m innocent of this absurd charge, just as I’m innocent of your other accusation—the queen herself has attested to that. All you’ve presented as evidence is a collection of outlandish, unprovable tales and an old shoe.”

  The distorted landscape of my recent dream rose before my eyes; walls growing to threatening heights and people turning away from me in incomprehension. I had the same nightmarish feeling that everything I did could only end in failure.

  “Abigail, do you have anything to add?” the king asked.

  I looked desperately over at the left-hand bench. Moth’s amber eyes were blazing and I could almost hear his body humming with tension; he looked like a lion about to spring. Amisi was deathly pale; Khepri’s arm was around her shoulders and his head was bowed as if in mourning. Shoshana was shaking her head in consternation.

  No, I realized.

  “No,” I said.

  The king rose from his throne and walked down to the edge of the stage.

  “Nathan denies the accusation of rape,” he said. “The queen says she was with him the entire night of the feast. Amisi has admitted to betrayal. I see no choice but to…”

  “I did it!” Moth jumped up and shouted. All eyes were on him. “I confess. I raped Amisi in the bushes on the night of the feast. It was dark and she couldn’t see. Amisi is innocent.”

  We all gaped at him. He’d clearly taken leave of his senses. The king recovered first.

  “I suggest we take a pause,” he said, “to give Abigail some time to look into this…new evidence. We’ll reconvene after the midday meal.”

  The king exited the Hall, followed by his two guards. Nathan rose and offered an arm to Bathsheba and they too left, trailed by Hannah. Nathan’s deep-throated laughter echoed off the Hall’s high ceiling.

  I tried to collect my frayed and ta
ttered wits.

  “Shoshana, thank you, I don’t think we’ll be needing you again today. Khepri, please take Amisi to eat something.”

  I turned to Moth, whose freckles were unusually stark against his pale face. I gripped his wrist.

  “You come with me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Judgment

  When we moved from the torch-lit gloom of the Hall to the bright winter sunshine outside, I was amazed to find scores of women standing to the sides of the path and sitting under the palm trees. Wives, concubines and sisters surged towards us and crowded around us. Keren came up and clutched my arm.

  “How did it go, Abby?” she asked. “The king looks angry. And Nathan looks pleased with himself.”

  “Badly. Really badly.”

  “Is it over? Have we lost?”

  The word ‘we’ touched me as much as the anxious crowd of women, there to offer their silent support.

  “Not quite yet. But we’re about to. I need to go and think.” I looked around and smiled at the women. “Thank you for being here.”

  I continued to tow Moth by the wrist until we entered the palace; then he shook off my grip and took my hand in his. My eyes were stinging with tears, whether because of what Moth had done or because I was about to fail, I didn’t know. I hadn’t realized that I’d been leading the way to Moth’s room, the way through the palace that I hadn’t gone since we were children, until we arrived at the entrance to the men’s court. A guard was leaning against the hallway wall, picking his teeth with his fingernails. When he saw me, he stood up straight and said, “Lady, you may not enter.”