Michal (41 page)

Her jaw clenched at the annoying thought. Paltiel had spent years keeping her from David. If he’d been any kind of decent man, he would have never taken her to be his wife. The thought surprised her. Had her love for Paltiel been mingled with this resentment all along? How quickly David had made her forget the man, reawakening the dreams and ambitions of her youth. If she could only convince David to do as she asked . . .

She heard David’s feet march across the wooden floor and stop in front of her. “I’ll see you tonight, my love.” His promised warmed her, and she lifted her chin to accept his kiss before he strode from the room.

Michal hurried along the corridors of the king’s house, sandals slapping along the tiled floors to the door of her apartment. She yanked the latch, grateful she’d managed to avoid the perusing, glaring looks of the other women in the harem. If she had her way, she would never be forced to deal with them, at least without having some advantage to hold over them. Becoming David’s favorite would certainly hold privileges for her.

“Help me dress quickly, Keziah.” Michal caught the woman smoothing a freshly washed tunic. “I must look my best today. I think my brother is coming.”

“Good thing we cleaned your best robe yesterday, my lady.” Keziah took Michal’s night robe from her outstretched hands.

“Yes, well, soon enough I will have sequined garments and priceless jeweled robes to replace these old things. A king’s wife needs to look her best.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Silence settled between them as Michal allowed Keziah to comb her hair and lace it with jeweled combs. Michal took a pot of rouge from the wooden table and began to apply it to her already flushed cheeks, noting the thin lines at the edges of her eyes. It took more kohl to cover the flaws than it used to.

“Please, my lord, reconsider!” The shout came through the open window.

“We were only trying to help . . .”

Anguished cries split the stillness, and Michal’s fingers froze in a clamped position around the clay pot.

“What is it, my lady?” Keziah whispered.

“I can’t imagine.” But a sick feeling settled in Michal’s stomach. She forced her fingers loose, set the makeup on the table, and walked to the window.

“I can’t see a thing from here. I’m going to the audience chamber.” She raced back to the bedroom and lifted the bronze mirror to gaze at her reflection, then turned to Keziah. “Do I look all right?”

“You look beautiful, my lady.”

Michal set the mirror down with a thump and slipped into her sandals, and Keziah bent to tie the laces. She lifted her skirts and hurried along the halls again.

The audience chamber was filled with men speaking in low tones. David sat on the raised dais, face ashen, head in his hands.

The sick feeling knotted her stomach. She moved like a sleepwalker across the long room, brushing past David’s counselors and dignitaries, until she was within a handbreadth of a blood-spattered sheet spread on the floor in front of David. Her eyes followed the path of blood to discover the round, hairy head of a person, his eyes staring vacant. The soft gray curls still bore a silver crown.

Michal’s head swam, and her knees buckled. She knew she would see that face in a thousand nightmares to come.

Ishby!

“No!” she cried, sinking to her knees. “No! No! No!” Her fists pounded the tile floor. “No!”

“Michal.” David’s voice reached her ears, and she felt herself being lifted from the floor and cradled in strong arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Ishby.” The word pushed past her aching throat. “Why?”

“Two of his guards murdered him. Their bodies are now hanging by the pool in the center of Hebron. We will bury Ishbosheth today in the tomb of Abner. I’m so sorry.”

She heard the words but fought the reality. She’d lost them all. Every sibling lay buried somewhere. A roaring in her ears began until the sounds around her floated above and below, just out of reach.

“Michal, can you hear me?” The urgency in David’s tone faded, and she felt her body being lifted again. “Take her to her apartment and send for a physician. I’ll check on her after we bury her brother.”

“Yes, my lord.” The words faded further still until Michal’s world became utter blackness.

32

“My lord, Michal is awaiting an audience with you.” Benaiah leaned close to David’s ear as the two walked to the royal house from the pool of Hebron, where they would hold part of the coronation celebration. “She sent word. It sounds urgent.”

David released a deep sigh and rubbed one hand along the back of his neck. Recent days since the death of Ishbosheth had proved fruitful. God seemed to be pouring blessing upon blessing down on him. The familiar sense of humility spread through him like warm oil spilling over his hair and trickling into his beard. He would feel that sensation literally in two days when all Israel anointed him king.

“Did she say what she wants?” David forced himself to focus on Benaiah’s words.

“No, my lord. But I suspect you’ll find out soon enough.” He hadn’t spoken with Michal in days. Hadn’t seen any of his wives or children, for that matter. There was only so much a man could give, and his multiple wives and children tended to drain the last remnants of his energy.

David looked up as he crossed into the royal courtyard. Michal sat on one of the stone benches, her arms folded over her chest, her shiny dark hair tucked behind a sky blue veil.

“I guess I will.” He slowed his pace and stopped within an arm’s length of her.

“Hello, my love. Benaiah said you wished to speak with me.” He lowered his exhilarated yet weary body onto the bench beside her, turning to look at her. “What can I do for you?”

Michal’s dark lashes lowered, and she clasped her hands in her lap. She cleared her throat and looked at him. “Your coronation is almost here, my lord. Have you chosen who will stand at your side as queen?”

So that was it. Did she want political position more than love? Was that why she made no fuss about coming home to him, never mentioning the man who had claimed her to David’s disgrace? He’d made sure Paltiel could never come close to her again, barring him from ever leaving Mahanaim on pain of death. The man was fortunate David hadn’t had him executed. Did Michal still think of him?

David studied her dark eyes, searching for some motive behind her words. “Isn’t my love enough for you, Michal?” He watched a surprised expression cross her beautiful face. What he wouldn’t give to undo the past and start over again with only her. Couldn’t she see that?

Michal fidgeted with the sash of her robe, all the while holding his gaze. “It would be enough if I were your only wife, my lord. But as it is, you have taken my position and given it to six others, then snatched me from a home where I had no competition. The least you can do is give me a place of prominence in your life.”

So she did still think of him. “We have no heir, Michal.”

There, he’d said it. The nagging thought had troubled him whenever he’d contemplated her request over the past two weeks. In the first year of their marriage, she had miscarried once. And in seventeen years with another man, she had remained childless. What if God never gave her a son?

He watched her tanned cheeks sport a rosy hue. “You have given every other wife a son, David. You could give me the same courtesy and devote yourself to me until we do.” The heat in her face traveled to fire in her eyes.

“Do you think I am God, Michal? I cannot promise you this. A child is His gift, not mine.” David wiped one hand over his mouth and beard. This was not the discussion he needed right now. “Nevertheless, until you have that son, I could hardly name you my queen. In fact, I’ve given this a lot of thought, Michal, and I do not plan to name anyone in that position for now. There is no rush, and I have too many things on my mind. Enjoy the privileges I’ve given you and leave it at that, all right?”

He watched the anger in her eyes turn into a smoldering ember. She released a disgruntled sigh.

“You won’t name anyone then?”

He shook his head. “Not until the Lord gives me direction.”

Her second sigh seemed more at peace. She lowered her lashes again. “Or until I bear a son?”

David’s heart warmed with sudden compassion. How hard it must be for her to live among so many women with children. He must remember to make it up to her somehow. “Until then, my love.”

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard.”

David’s fingers strummed the strings of his lyre, the song springing gratefully from his lips. Hours after the last tribal elder had returned to his tent, the spicy scent of cinnamon still clung to him from the oil permeating his hair and beard. It had been a good coronation day.

“They are still singing that song throughout the city,” Benaiah said, taking a seat opposite the king in the cozy receiving chamber kept for David’s private use. “You’ve won the hearts of the people with peace, my lord.”

David placed the lyre in his lap and lifted his head. A handful of his counselors remained after the day’s festivities, as if none of them wanted to see it end.

“There was a time when I never thought this day would come.” David leaned back on his gilded couch and accepted a goblet of wine from a Cherethite servant, a defector from the Philistines.

“Even when you were among our people, we could tell you were called to greatness, my lord. Your God has surely brought this to pass.” The speaker, Ittai the Gittite, had followed David seven years before when he left the protection of the king of Gath. His six hundred men now served David as mercenaries.

“Thank you, Ittai. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is good.” He sipped the chilled, tart liquid and sighed. “Peace at last.”

“I’m not sure we can claim that for long, my lord.” Hushai spoke up from a far corner of the room. He moved closer and perched on a low couch. “Despite the joy in Israel, there are rumors of discontent between the tribes. It seems that Israel wants to argue with Judah over who has more claim to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Benaiah said, crossing one ankle over the other. “Judah crowned him king first, and they share his blood. What claim do the other tribes have at all except that they come from Jacob’s loins? They followed Saul’s house all these years.”