Bathsheba (18 page)

“It will only give the people less to gossip over. He sits holed up in that palace and never pokes his head out. I wish he would hold a parade or invite us to another banquet or something. Maybe you are right—it is time I visit my aunt again. Chava will drool over your work, but you mustn’t paint her feet even if she begs you.” Bathsheba pursed her lips, enjoying the thought of seeing Chava pout over Tirzah’s gifts, which Bathsheba happily employed.

“I would not even consider such a thing, mistress.” She gave Bathsheba a conspiratorial look as she placed the last line along the inside edge of Bathsheba’s foot, then blew on the henna and waved a hand over it to help it dry. “Your feet are fit for the king himself!”

Bathsheba giggled at Tirzah’s bloated face as she puffed air over her feet. “Unfortunately, Chava will have to do.” They had not seen the king since the day she and Chava had watched him return from the war, when they had stood and enjoyed the fanfare from her grandfather’s roof.

A knock on her bedchamber door stopped her laughter. Tirzah slowly stood and took her time to answer. Bathsheba sat up and wiggled her feet, trying not to smudge the paint, willing them to dry faster.

Anittas stepped into the room and dipped his head in respect. “Mistress, you must dress quickly in your best robes and come at once. Messengers have come from the king. Your presence at the palace is requested immediately.”

Bathsheba gripped the edge of the bed, her breath growing still. “The king? Is asking for me?” A nervous quiver worked through her. “What could he possibly want?”

“I don’t know, mistress. I hope nothing is wrong. The messengers didn’t say.” Anittas’s stricken look brought her thoughts up short. Uriah! Why hadn’t she thought of him first?

“You don’t think . . .” A sick feeling replaced the shudder. “He must be all right. He’s strong, a mighty warrior . . .” She searched for words to convince herself her husband was not injured or worse. “But why else would he ask for me unless . . . could it be Father?” Her mother had died long ago, so if her father had been killed, she would be the first to know, except . . . no, her grandfather would be told first. It had to be Uriah.

Emotion pricked her throat while fear and excitement set her mind spinning. The king had sent for her! She must dress. She lifted one foot and touched the paint. “I think it’s dry.” She glanced at her hands. “But you never got a chance to stain the nails.” She looked at Tirzah, beseeching.

“I will leave you two alone. I suggest you choose your best clothes, my lady. No need to wear the black sackcloth of mourning until you know why he has called for you. Perhaps it is nothing.” But Anittas’s words did not match the glimmer of worry on his lined face.

Tirzah was already snatching jewels from a box on a table in the corner and pulled Bathsheba’s green-and-blue-striped robe from a peg along the wall. “Do you want to keep that tunic? It’s fresh, but it’s not your best.” Tirzah moved to a basket and grabbed two pairs of sandals. “Which ones?”

Bathsheba touched the white linen tunic covering her body. “Give me the blue tunic.” The pale blue matched the robe better. “And the golden leather sash for my waist, and the yellow leather sandals—they’re the closest fit to complement the belt.”

Tirzah nodded and had Bathsheba dressed quicker than she expected. “What about my hair?” They had just finished combing the tangles from each strand. It hung full and thick to her waist, but she couldn’t possibly wear it down to see the king.

“I’ll pull it up with your jeweled ivory combs.” She handed the blue scarf to Bathsheba, the same fine pale linen as in her tunic.

Bathsheba sat obediently, allowing Tirzah to dress her hair and dab a small amount of kohl on her eyes, then carefully place the head covering over her head, draping it loosely across her face. Excitement raced through Bathsheba as she walked to the door, her pulse pounding, her fear mounting.

Tirzah squeezed her hand. “You’ll be fine,” she whispered as the king’s messengers met her in the outer courtyard.

They looked at her, their gazes assessing.

“Do you want me to accompany you, my lady?” Anittas came up beside her, giving the king’s messengers a stern glance. Did he think she needed protection from the king’s own guards?

“The king requested her presence alone,” one guard said. He carried a torch to light Jerusalem’s dim streets and turned abruptly to walk away. Bathsheba gave Anittas an apologetic look and hurried to follow while the other guard came along behind her.

They walked in silence, the sound of their marching feet barely drowning out the drumbeat of her anxious heart. At the gates to the palace, they did not pause but passed by the guards who appeared bored and uninterested.

The banquet hall came into view, and Bathsheba recognized the cedar carvings on the doors and the marble columns along the portico. The lion’s head symbol of Judah greeted her on wall tapestries, and fig leaves adorned the edges of oak tables in the anterooms, where scribes sat recording something on scrolls and servants milled about cleaning and refilling oil lamps.

After several turns in the hall, they came to another carved door, where the lion’s head boasted a proud look daring all who might enter to remember who guarded this place. Was this the king’s private residence?

One of the guards knocked twice, and the door was opened by another guard whose stern look nearly stopped her heart. He bid her enter, then both men stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her and leaving her alone.

Nervousness made her palms moist. She took cautious steps into a walled garden. Set stones made a cobbled walkway, while a variety of trees and bushes of almond, fig, and sage sat among potted plants whose flowers were long past the bloom of spring. Water sat in pools of marble, and tall sconces held covered torches. Even in the heat of summer, the garden took her breath, its beauty unequaled to any she had seen in Jerusalem.

Music drifted to her from across the court and out of sight. She moved slowly forward toward the sound, the minor chords pulling her with unseen hands. Where was she? And then she saw him, and her knees grew so weak she searched for a place to sit. A stone bench seemed to await her, opposite him where he sat strumming his lyre, his gaze taking her in.

She reached the bench and sank down, her hands clutching the edge, her back straight. His dark eyes held her bound, his look possessive as if he knew her . . .

Her breath hitched, and her hand moved to her chest to somehow still her racing heart. He did know her. He had seen her. The realization drained her blood. She was always so careful.

Shame brought the blood rushing back, and she stood with such force she nearly lost her balance. She whirled about, her cheeks blazing. She took two steps forward, but her limbs felt leaden, useless.

“Don’t go.” His words were soft, like a caress.

The music ceased, and she sensed he had risen, but still she could not make her feet obey to turn and face him or run back along the cobbled path to the door, through the palace halls, and to the safety of her own house. How could she run from the king?

His touch on her arm made her middle turn to liquid. He fingered her head covering. “I heard your music. Your tunes were haunting.” He turned her slowly to face him, and she was unable to stop him. “And I could not pull away.”

His gaze searched hers, his dark eyes assessing, almost . . . vulnerable. Night breezes lifted the tassels of her scarf, and when his hand moved to pull the blue fabric from her face, she lowered her gaze, the action humbling her. “I share your loneliness.”

Butterflies took wing inside of her. Warmth crept up the back of her neck, filling her face. Her heart thudded faster as she felt the combs coming loose from her hair and his fingers sift the strands away from her face.

“Look at me, Bathsheba.”

She lifted her head, and his hands moved to her waist, expertly undoing the knot of her belt. “You know my name.”

“I know more than your name, beloved.” He let the belt drop to the stones and placed his hands on her arms, slowly moving them until he cupped her face and lowered his lips to hers.

His kiss was gentle, but when it deepened, images of Uriah flitted before her closed eyes. She flinched.

He pulled back, looking at her. “Do I offend you?”

Did he? She should say yes, of course he offended her. She had a husband who went to great lengths to protect her, and here she was throwing away all he had worked to do, with a man whose very look stole her breath. What was she doing here?

“Why did you call for me?” It was a foolish question, one she could already answer, but she needed to think, and she couldn’t do so with him standing there looking down at her, caressing her.

He stepped back from her then, and she noticed the royal insignia on his robe, the circle of gold on his head. He had dressed as a king, not a lover. To remind her he expected to be obeyed? Would Uriah suffer if she did not do as the king was asking her to do?

“I think you already know the answer to that question.”

And he would take what he wanted because he had the power to do so. This was not love. Love was at home with Uriah.

“I want you, Bathsheba.” His words were a mere whisper, their meaning sinking deep, wooing her, softly stripping her resolve. “Though in truth I must sound to you like a callous fool.” He moved to the bench and sat, picked up his lyre, and strummed, the music coming in soft, gentle tones, a melody tender and poignant, drawing her in.

Her heart stirred at the sound, and she sank down on the bench again, her gaze fixed on his. Shadows bathed his face, the flicker of the lamps illuminating the dark eyes and the boyish tilt to his brow. His look assessed her with familiarity and longing, and her heart skipped like a skittish gazelle, then slowed as though realizing she was caught with no way to escape.

“I don’t think you are callous or a fool,” she said at last. She studied her hennaed feet. “I think you are often misunderstood . . . as am I.” The admission heated her face again, and she drew in a breath when the music stilled once more.

“Where did you learn to play the lyre?”

She looked up. He had not risen or sought to touch her again, but she could not escape the desire in his eyes. “My cousin taught me to play when I was a child and built a small lyre for me as a gift. My father and my husband do not care for it overmuch, so I play most often while he—while they are away.” She glanced at her hands and gripped her robe, kneading the fabric between her damp palms. Why was she telling him this?

“You play beautifully. I should enjoy hearing you sing. Will you play for me?”

The question startled her, her gaze snapping to his. “I am not very good.”

“On the contrary, you are quite good.” The lines around his eyes softened, and he leaned against the bench, his lyre resting on his lap. He studied her for a long moment, the fire in his eyes growing to embers, and his smile melted her insides. His distance was doing strange things to her senses, his silence unnerving.

“I have made you uncomfortable calling you here.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t know how to respond. “Most people do not speak easily with me, their king.”

Her hands stilled from pleating the folds of her robe. “I found you quite easy to talk to that day on the roof.” Did he remember?

His gaze sparked with recognition. “Ah yes, last year, when the war with Ammon first began. You were the woman I could not forget, who haunted my dreams many nights afterward.” His mouth tipped at one corner, and he suddenly looked far more like a young boy than a king.

“I looked for you after that, but you stayed away.” What was it about him that made her tongue so loose?

“It did not seem proper for the king to talk to a married woman across rooftops, so I did my best to forget you.” His admission unsettled her even further. “But I am finding that task much harder than I expected.”

She looked behind him, then down at her feet, anywhere but directly at him, but his silence only heightened the air between them until she at last met his gaze. “I have thought of you often.”

His slow smile brought the flutter back to her middle, but still he did not move from where he sat. What were his intentions? But surely she knew.

“Your husband is gone quite often, is he not?”

The frankness of the question startled her. She nodded, surprised at the emotion suddenly filling her throat. “As often as my king sends the troops to war. Uriah never misses an assignment.” She heard the bitterness in her tone and wondered what he thought of her now, knowing her resentment was aimed partly at him.

Tension pulsed between them until at last he stood again and took the seat beside her. Her heart quickened as he traced a line along her arm and shifted to face her. “You have reason to resent your king.”

She could not speak past the knot in her throat.

He tucked her hair behind her ear and bent to kiss her throat. “I am sorry to have caused you such pain and loneliness, Bathsheba.” His kiss sent little shocks through her, making her sense of reason muddied and distant. “Will you stay and accept my love as a token of my apology?” He slipped the robe from her shoulders, his hands probing in places only Uriah had dared to go.

She should not be here. But she could not stop the longing, the desperate need to give herself to him, to know him as she was fully known.