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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Queenmaker
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Her eyes were full of questions. I knew she must be longing to know all my tale, although she was too soft and kind to ask.
A part of me longed to tell it and relieve the pressure on my heart, which still ached with every beat. But perhaps I was learning wisdom, for I did not speak. It was bad enough that I had wept bitterly on the doorstep of this house; I would not make my love for David into gossip for its women.
This was sheer folly, for the tale had gone from Dan to Beersheba and back twice over by the time I reached Phaltiel’s safe house. In time, I was to learn that all Israel knew the story—many better than I.
So I lay quietly on Miriam’s breast, and let her say soothing words to me, and pretended I was only weary from the journey. Then we were surrounded by chattering maidservants, and I was taken to be bathed, and combed, and dressed in clean linen. I had not needed to fear the women of this house; no matter what wild tales they might have heard, I was the king’s daughter. They were all as admiring as Miriam—although it was a disappointment to them that I had not arrived in a gilded litter decked with carvings and fringes, and that I wore no crown of silver flowers on my head.
It was very pleasant to be made much of, and petted. So I let them do as they would, for now I was weary in truth, and hardly cared that I was being adorned to please a man I had sworn I would never acknowledge as husband.
I cared later, when the sky was dark and the torches bright, and I stood waiting for Phaltiel. The maids had taken long over me, anxious that the king’s daughter should find no fault in their care. At last, when even my bones felt polished clean, they had draped me in a thin robe that smelled of sun and spices, and brought me to the bedchamber. That room had been readied as lovingly as I. Even the small lamp that kept watch in the wall
niche had been filled with a scented oil. The smell made me feel sick.
The maids withdrew, with much giggling, but Miriam remained behind. She put her arms around me and kissed my cheek. “I am so glad you have come to us, Michal. And—and I wish you joy.”
I could not answer, but she herself was blushing and looking away from me, and so the moment passed. It was just as well, for Miriam had been good to me today, and I did not wish to hurt her by telling her the truth—that I would never find joy with her father, nor he with me.
“There is wine,” Miriam said, and kissed me once more. Then she was gone, and I was left alone to wait.
I had expected Phaltiel to come to me at once, but he did not. I grew restive, and found that it was hard to remain a graven image long. So I roamed about the chamber, keeping my ears pricked for any sound. I did not want Phaltiel to find me prying like a weasel, as if I had a true interest in his house.
Phaltiel was a quiet man; I had warning enough to close the olive-wood chest into which I peered, but not enough for dignity So he came in to find me scrambling to my feet and clutching the thin sliding robe the maids had giggled over so as they pinned it upon me. I settled the robe and faced him tall and silent.
“It was kind of you to wait for me,” Phaltiel said, dropping the curtain over the doorway. “But it is late; you should have been asleep long ago. Go to bed now, child.”
“I will not,” I said. “You are not my true husband, and I will never share your bed.” I held my chin high, to show I meant what I said.
Phaltiel looked at me, and sighed, and then came to stand before me. “I think it is time we had plain words between us, so stop your sulking and listen to me.”
He took my hand; I tried to pull away, but he was a man, and stronger. He drew me over and made me sit beside him on the bed and held my hand so that I could not run away. “Do not look at
me like that, Michal. I will not touch you as my wife if you do not wish it.”
“I will never wish it!”
“Never is a long time, child, and until it comes you and I will sleep peacefully in the same bed. I am neither so young nor so old that your body alone is enough to tempt me.”
“No,” I said. “I—I do not want to sleep here.”
“Little princess, what you want and do not want is not so important as you like to think it. Now listen to me and use the mind that lies behind those pretty eyes. I agreed to marry you because I was sorry for you, and because your brother Jonathan asked it of me. No one else dared, and Jonathan feared King Saul would kill you or send you to a far country if no man could be found who would take you disgraced and dowerless. It is a hard thing for a young girl to be betrayed by those she loves, and harder still to be cast out by her family to go among strangers. I knew that we at least would be kind to you.”
“No one has betrayed me! David loves me and will come for me and put all here to the sword and take me back again and I will not listen to you!”
“Speak softly, Michal—unless you wish to bring the servants to the door. I am not so old a man as you think, but I am old enough to like peace, at least in my own house. If you are wise, you will forget about David and live here happily and quietly—and do nothing to remind your father the king that you still breathe. Now dry your eyes and we will sleep. The day and the way were long, and I am tired, even if you are not.”
 
 
I was not unhappy in Phaltiel’s house. At first, I was a princess wronged; I was young enough to find some solace in that. When you are fourteen, even grief can be a kind of joy.
Phaltiel had children older than I; two sons and a daughter, all well-married and in their own houses elsewhere in the valley. The
eldest, a man nearing twenty, had a son of his own, a babe still in swaddling bands. Then there was Miriam, and Caleb, who was too young to remember his own mother, but was old enough to know that I was not. He looked at me as sullenly as I looked at his father.
The running of the house I left in Miriam’s hands. It was not my house and Phaltiel was not my husband. I told him so when I had not yet been there a week. I stood stiff and tall, glorying in defiance, but he only said calmly that I was doubtless too young, and should run along and play until I was ready for a woman’s work.
“I
am
a woman!” I thought to sound proud and royal, but even to my own ears my voice was only that of a sulky child.
Phaltiel had laughed and left me standing there in my false pride. My cheeks burned; I went and complained bitterly to Miriam of the hardness of my lot. That was not well done of me, for she cannot have liked to hear her father so spoken of. But she was always a good girl, and understood more than I thought. She knew I still grieved for David, and so was kind to me—kinder than I deserved.
Nor was I lonely in Phaltiel’s house, for I had Miriam and the other girls of the village for my companions. None of them had ever gone farther from home than the sheep could wander in a morning, and they liked nothing better than to hear of the glories to be found in the world beyond. They had no experience of great ladies, and thought me impressive. I drooped, and smiled wistfully, and told them I was nothing to my sister Merab. This only made them press me harder for tales of life in the king’s house. Admiration is balm to smarting feelings; I took great pleasure in being what they wished to see.
And they loved to hear of David. I was not unwilling to spin them tales—when I found they knew the story already, I could not see that it did any harm. So I talked more than was prudent; it is always wiser to say little and smile much than to proclaim your ills throughout the land.
So time passed, and days became weeks, and I still heard no word from my true husband. He neither came to take me away with him, nor sent a message, not even so much as one word.
I longed for news, but there was none. Jonathan, alone of all my family, came once to visit me. That was when he told me what had happened while I was prisoned in my tower. That was when I heard how Saul had raged against David, and called Jonathan traitor, and hurled his spear at Jonathan as if he would slay his own son. Then Saul had sent Jonathan away, and even now would not speak to him unless he must.
Jonathan told me also that he had spoken once with David, warning him against returning while Saul’s madness ruled. And that was all I learned, although I pressed Jonathan hard for fresh news of David. Jonathan kept his mouth tight, saying only that David was in the hills.
“And he has not forgotten me? He will come?” Already it had been long, and overlong, I thought; in those days I did not find waiting easy I had already been in Phaltiel’s house many weeks.
Jonathan hugged me tight. “Oh, Michal, how could any man forget you?” Then he kissed me, and went away again. And I cherished Jonathan’s words, thinking they held the meaning I wished them to have.
 
 
“Now there was long war between the House of Saul and the House of David
… .”
—II Samuel 3:1
 
When the weeks had grown into months there were tales told that spread even to villages as small as that in which I now dwelt. A light such as that cast by David cannot be long hidden. His fire had been banked, hidden in the hills. Now he came forth to blaze for all men to see, and to make King Saul look old and weak as a toothless lion—in the tales men told.
David had fled to Philistia, and been captured there. No, he had escaped the Philistine king as easily as he had escaped King Saul.
David had taken two hundred of King Saul’s own men and raised the east against him. No, it was the north. No, he had forbidden any man to lift a hand against Saul.
David had gone to Gath. To Moab. Foreign kings did him honor. The king of Moab had given sanctuary to David’s mother and father.
Some of these were nothing but tales sown by the wind; others were true, and no man could tell one from the other. Tale and truth sounded the same.
So when the news came that King Saul had massacred the priests at Nob, and all the town as well, I refused to believe. All slain, from the tallest man down to the smallest babe, only because
they had given bread to David and his men—that was what was said.
“A tale for fools,” I said when I heard. “My father would never do such a thing!” My father had treated me cruelly—but still I could not think that even he would act as men said he had at Nob.
But the slaughter at Nob was truth—and it turned men against Saul and toward David.
The prophet Samuel strode through the land once more, calling down curses upon King Saul and blessings upon the hero David. Men who were discontent with Saul rallied now to David’s camp in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul tried to take David by force, and then by guile, but it was too late. David knew the wilderness and the mountains, and his men danced circles about Saul’s army.
Saul could catch him as little as he could catch a flame, or a ray of sun. Saul could stop him as little as he could stop time, or men’s tongues.
David was praised by all for his wisdom, his courage, his strength. He had come upon King Saul in a cave, it was said, and done him no harm, but only cut off the hem of his cloak. This proved he meant no treason or malice to King Saul; this proved David a good man.
Perhaps it did. But it made King Saul look foolish in addition to all else. I sometimes think that Samuel held to life as long as he did only to see my father brought low, for the old prophet died not long after men began to say “King Saul” and laugh.
The war that was no war was all that women chattered of at the well and all men talked of in the street. Even children’s games were all of David and his men. I stood at the gate one evening and listened as the small boys ran by, quarreling over who would have to be Saul’s men in their play. No one wished to take Saul’s part; they were all for David. Well, and so was I—but the boys’ thoughtless words made my heart hurt for my father, for all of that.
But my head was high, and my heart full of love and pride for David. I still thought us pledged until death; every man of Saul’s who fell brought David one step nearer to my arms.
 
 
But other arms had been outstretched to David, and he went to them, not to me. Jonathan came to tell me the news himself, running light and swift to reach me before it was women’s noise at every well in Israel and Judah. It was kind of him to do so. Even when he told me, and something died in my heart, I knew he had been kind.
I had greeted Jonathan joyfully; he had kissed me and taken me out of Phaltiel’s house, out beyond the gate, to tell me what he had come to say—that David had married again.
“Her name is Abigail, and she came to David a widow. Her husband Nabal refused to aid David, but she gave David food and drink for his men. She must have been right to defy her husband for David’s sake, for when she told Nabal what she had done, they say he fell as if Yahweh himself had struck him down, and became as one turned to stone until he died.”
I stood as if I too had been struck to stone. Jonathan put his arms around me; I did not feel them. He spoke more, telling how David had sent an offer of marriage to Abigail, and how she hastened to accept and bring him all she had. Nabal had been a wealthy man; his sheep were fat, his lands rich, and his servants many.
“This woman Abigail—” The words echoed cold in my ears, as if a stranger spoke; Michal stood far away.
I did not have to finish, for Jonathan knew what I would ask. “She is still young and unblemished, or so I have heard. But I have not seen her, Michal, and they say all rich widows are good to look upon.
“She has brought him much,” I said. “More than Michal, who is no longer called daughter by Saul the king.”
Jonathan stroked my hair and said words he thought it would ease my heart to hear. “Do not weep, little sister. A man must do things a woman does not understand. This does not mean that David loves you not. He will come for you when the time is right.” He held me tight for comfort, but I would not yield to it.
And I did not weep. Not then. I kissed my brother’s cheek and stepped back to stand with my head high. “David may come if he likes. The wife of Phaltiel knows how to welcome guests to her husband’s house.”
Proud words. Jonathan was not deceived. But he granted me my right to them, and let me act the lady of the household for his benefit. As I have said, my brother was always kind.
I walked back through the gate and into Phaltiel’s house. I called for the maidservants, and ordered a bath for Jonathan, and food, and wine, and all things done that were proper for an honored guest and a king’s son. And when all had been done, I told Miriam that I had looked too long into the sun and my head hurt me, and that I would go to lie upon my bed.
“Oh, poor Michal! No wonder you look so pale—here, lean upon me—and you, Beka, go and soak a cloth in the cold spring for your mistress’s head—hurry!” Miriam fussed like a nesting hen, chivvying maidservants and coaxing me. “Would you like to drink some bryony—no, some willow-bark water would be better—”
I had been proud and dry-eyed for Jonathan. Suddenly I was frozen stone no longer. “No!” I flung off Miriam’s tender hands; their gentle touch would drive me mad.
“Why, Michal, what is the matter?”
“You will know soon enough!” I cried. “Go away!” When she stood there gaping at me, I snatched up a pillow from the bed and flung it at her. I wished it were a stone; I wished it were something that would hurt. “Leave me alone!”
Miriam reached out to me; I turned and threw myself down onto the bed to hide my face. After a moment I heard her run out of the room, and I was able to wail and weep as I pleased. My tears were hot and hard, not the easy grief of childhood, and there was a dull ache in my throat that made it hard to breathe.
David had not waited; David had not come. He had forgotten me in half a year and married a rich widow before her husband had lain forty days dead. He did not want me any more, and all his words of honey had been lies.
And under all my pain was the knowledge, sharp as a serpent’s tooth, that I would look a fool to all the world. Too many knew my tale. I had told them myself.
I wailed again and beat my fist against the pillows. I could see nothing but grief and shame ahead, and I could not bear it.
“Well, my wife, is this a proper way for you to behave with your brother a guest in the house?” Phaltiel came and sat down beside me on the bed. “Come now, stop your weeping—do you wish him to think I beat you?”
I did not look up. “My brother will know why I weep, and he will not blame you for it, if that is what you fear.” My voice was tear-thick and sullen. “You do not understand—everyone will know—I wish I were dead!”
Phaltiel was a good man; he neither laughed nor beat me senseless. “Yes, everyone will know that David has married Nabal’s widow,” he said, and stroked me as if I were a kitten. “Come, daughter of Saul, would you have it said at the well and in the village that you lie weeping for David, who has abandoned you?”
I sat up. “I hate David! May Yahweh strike him dead!”
“You and Yahweh need not concern yourselves, Michal. Men like David will always make their own problems.” He put an arm around my shoulders. “Now dry your eyes or they will be redder than poppies. You are too pretty a girl to weep for any man. Make them weep for you.”
His voice was rough, his words blunt-edged, not supple and sweet as David’s were. Yet they made me turn to him; I hid my face against his chest and wept again. “They will laugh at me in the street! How can I go to the fields, or the well, or—”
“They will not laugh if you laugh first.” Phaltiel set me back and took my chin in his hand to make me look at him. “Laugh, little princess, and hold your head high, and make it a joke before the world does.”
His words warmed me and gave me some hope. I sniffled, and let him wipe my face, and hold me, while I thought. Everyone would know the tale; that could not be helped now. But the blow
to my heart no one could see, if I did not choose to show it. If David cared nothing for me, then the world should see I cared nothing for David.
And David should see and hear that Michal was happy without him. I would not let David think I went with dust on my hair and tears in my gown for love of him.
I looked through my lashes at Phaltiel. It was true that he was not young, and not handsome, and not a hero. But he was a good man, and had been kind to me. Now I would be kind to him, and David would know that Michal preferred her second husband to her first.
And so I flung my arms around Phaltiel’s neck and kissed him as I had learned to kiss a man on my first wedding night. I must have surprised Phaltiel indeed, for he did not kiss me back. I opened my eyes, puzzled and indignant. Phaltiel looked at me and began to laugh. I suppose I deserved it.
But I was young and still raw from David’s betrayal, and I did not think it was funny then. I would have struck Phaltiel, but he did not let me. I was all stiff with anger, but he held me close and kissed me on the brow, and then on the tip of my nose, and then on my mouth.
I stopped saying no, then.
It was no proper wedding night; it was not even dark enough to light the lamps. The chamber was not prepared with fine linen, sweet herbs, and scented oils. The bride had not been bathed and perfumed, nor had the bridegroom.
I had always thought those things important. But I was wrong.
They did not matter.
 
 
The next morning Jonathan left again. He had come only for love of me, to tell me of David’s marriage; he was needed with the army to keep King Saul content with prudence. Saul had forgotten, now, that he did not trust Jonathan. Or at least, so Jonathan told me. I
do not know if it was true. Perhaps it was, and all Saul’s hate was kept hot for David.
I walked hand-in-hand with my brother to the first turn in the road, loath to part with him so soon. When we had to say good-bye, I said, “I have a message for David, brother, if ever you should meet with him.”
“You know that I do.” Jonathan did not look happy; he was a good man, loyal and kind and loving. To be torn between Saul’s love and David’s was not easy. “What is your message, little sister?”
“Tell David—” I had had the words well-prepared, bitter, clever words, I thought them; words that would eat into David’s heart like poison. But something in my brother’s face made me stop. I kissed him and said instead, “When you see David give him that from me, and say that Michal wishes him well. And tell him—tell him that my husband and I are happy.”
And when I said it, the words were true.
Jonathan smiled and some of the trouble left his eyes. He kissed me back warmly. “David will be glad of it, Michal. He never wished to hurt you, that I know. Please Yahweh, this senseless war will soon be over, and we will all be friends again.”
“Yes,” I said, and knew we both were thinking of what David had once told us. The oil was on his head as well as on Saul’s. There could not be two kings in the land.
But this was a thing neither of us wished to say.
 
 
From that day I lived quietly in my husband’s house in the valley of Gallim. Time flowed by, the days all smooth as pebbles in a stream-bed, as sweet to me as apples in wine. My father had cast me out, my first husband had abandoned me. My second husband cherished me, and kept me close, and I loved him for it.
Men might fight and die; it was far now from me and mine.
We heard that David took service with King Achish of Philistia,
who gave him lands in Ziklag. Then it was said that David’s men raided for the Philistines in Yahweh’s name, and all men looked on this with wonder and horror. To me it was more that Phaltiel’s youngest son Caleb learned to call me ‘Mother’, and more still that the name came easily to his tongue.
Men said that my father Saul grew ever stranger, until no man dared cross him. They said Saul’s army spent itself chasing David’s men through the wastelands, until Saul’s soldiers grumbled and began to desert. In Phaltiel’s house we dressed Miriam for her wedding, and the folds of her veil, and how her bracelets settled upon her round arms, were matters real and urgent.

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