The Secret Chord: A Novel (21 page)

He made me no answer but just kept trudging. So I threw a waterskin at his feet, booted my mule and rode on. When I drew abreast with Avner, he turned to me. “Someone better shut that howling dog up, or I will.”

Not long after, when Palti cried out again, one of the younger soldiers—a good mimic—started echoing his calls in mockery. Another youth took up the game, answering in a high-pitched voice. Soon a band of them had taken up the call and response, adding ribald suggestions. I turned to Avner.

“You’d better stop this. It’s not fit to have the king’s wife referred to in this way.”

“You’re right.” Avner turned his mule and rode back to Palti. Palti did not even glance at Avner, but just kept moving forward, though it was apparent his whole body shook from the effort. Avner steered his mule across Palti’s path. “Enough! Turn around, get on home.” Still, Palti ignored him. Without looking up, he stepped sideways, as if to pass in front of Avner’s mule. Avner took the butt end of his spear then and thumped Palti hard just under his shoulder blade, so that he fell backward, raising a cloud of dust. Immediately he put his hand behind, to push himself back up onto his feet. Avner brought the spear butt around swiftly and laid it into the side of Palti’s head, sending him sprawling in the dirt. Blood ran from the cut above his ear.

“I won’t say it again. Turn around and walk away. The next time I use this spear, it’ll be the blade end you feel.”

Palti groaned and struggled to his feet. The train had stopped now. Every man in the detail was watching, waiting to see if Palti would turn or take another step forward and be slain.

Suddenly there was a movement. Mikhal had thrown aside the curtains of her litter and stepped out, blinking in the strong light. Her veil slid to her shoulders and her unbound hair streamed behind her as she ran to Palti. I think she would have run straight into his arms had Avner not kicked his mule in between them. She lifted her tear-streaked face. “Do as he says, Palti. Go back to our children. I will beseech the king. I will find a way to come home to you.”

Palti’s eyes searched her face. “Swear it,” he said.

“I swear it.”

Then Avner jumped from the mule and grabbed her arm. “Shame!” he cried. “You dishonor your husband the king! Be glad if word of this does not reach him.”

He pulled her in front of him, her arm twisted up roughly at her back. Then he marched her to the litter and almost threw her back inside. He should have a care, I thought. She would remember this. Avner called out gruffly, giving the order to move off. I turned in my saddle and saw Palti, on his knees in the dust, keening. And I saw her pale hand, through the curtain of the litter, reaching out to him. Then we crested a small rise, and turned onto the Hevron road.

It was near dusk when we arrived at the city walls. Inside, I handed off my mule to the stable lad and went to the litter to fetch her. She had replaced her veils by then, but I could see her eyes. They were not sad anymore. All I could read there was fury. A serpent of anger, coiled up inside her.

When I brought word to David that she had arrived, he seemed in no hurry to see her. I was surprised—curiosity, at least, I thought, would have goaded him. But also I was glad. I did not want him to have her brought to him as she was, travel stained, tear streaked and weary to the point of exhaustion. He asked how Palti had taken the news.

“Badly,” I said. “He walked behind us all the way to Bahurim.”

“Did he so? I’m sorry for it. Have him sent a ram from those Ziklag sheep with the long-staple fleece such as everyone prizes, and a pair of oxen, and some other gifts as seem good to you. I don’t need an enemy there, if I can avoid it. He should know that I do not blame him in this matter.”

I hardly thought a gift of livestock likely to placate Palti, and I wondered that David could be so callous as to suggest it. It was not as if he were a man without experience of deep affection. Where, then, was his empathy? Buried, I supposed, beneath his self-regard. I waited, girded, for his next inquiry, as to how Mikhal had received the order. But he did not ask. Instead, his thoughts were all on Avner, and his outreach to the Benyaminites. This night, it seemed, he was a king before he was a man. At the time, this troubled me. Later, I would have cause to wish that it were always so.

“I plan to feast Avner and his men tonight. You may send to Mikhal that I don’t expect her. I shouldn’t think she will be minded to attend a soldiers’ feast.” He paused a beat. “After such a long journey.”

And after being wrenched from her children and seeing her husband of ten years almost cut down in front of her, I thought. But what I said was: “Will Yoav and Avishai be at this feast?”

“By chance not. They are away. Raiding party.”

“Just as well,” I said. David nodded.

“You’ll have to deal with it at some point. And soon.”

“I know.”

It was one of the more lavish feasts, the wine abundant, the air thick with the delicious aromas of fat lambs turning on the spits and succulent fowl roasting in the clay ovens. As dark gathered and the torches came in, the flames seemed to dance with extra brightness. The music, too, was remarkable. David had invited some players from Avner’s own tribe, in his honor, which delighted him. There was not a song he called for that they did not know, often in some lively and original variation.

David was at his best in such settings, soldier enough to join the raucous jests, king enough to make it matter that he remembered some moment of bravery or sacrifice, and praised each man accordingly. To Avner, he was generous, standing on no precedence but offering instead the deference that a young man owes an elder. Everyone present in the hall was allowed to understand that this man was esteemed, even loved, by David. It was clear that the young king and the old soldier were ready to reconcile. Avner basked in the attention. I imagine his recent years at the side of Shaul, alert always for the signs of madness, could have offered few such pleasurable evenings. Late that night, Avner stood up in the hall. He was flushed and unsteady from the drinking, and more than one person looked sideways at his neighbor, wondering what was coming. Avner raised his cup, toasting David.

“We are your bone and flesh. In times past, you led us out and you brought us home. So let it be again. You are the one who will shepherd all our people. I promise you, the next time we meet, I will deliver all Israel to your banner.”

The hall erupted in cheers, men thumping on the boards, as David rose and embraced him. More than one warrior dashed the back of his hand to his eyes at the sight of the graying general offering his love and loyalty to his new king.

Avner departed the next day at noon. Not an hour after, Yoav and his men rode in from the other direction, leading a long train of carts filled with plunder. David sent for Yoav to honor him for his successful raid, but by the time Yoav made his way to David’s apartments he had already learned that Avner had come and gone. He had also likely heard, or gathered, that the tone of the feast had been more than congenial, and that Avner had been treated with distinction. Yoav was a soldier, not a diplomat. He had never learned to school his face. He burst into David’s room, and the expression written there was the same plain rage I had seen as a boy when he flung me against the wall of my father’s house.

“You had the enemy’s commander in your hands, and you let him go?” He did not pause for David’s response, but blustered on. “How can you think to trust him? All this talk of uniting the kingdoms. You can’t possibly believe he’ll go through with it. He came here to study your dispositions and assess your strengths. He’ll be back with an army behind him.”

He turned on me then. “Natan, how could you not counsel the king on this? Surely you, at least, can see?”

“Yoav, what I see is a bereaved brother, who harbors a thirst for revenge. But remember, Asahel attacked Avner first.”

“That has nothing to do with it!” Yoav was spitting now, his anger uncontained.

“If that’s so,” said David, “then this outburst of yours is unwarranted and offensive. You are a fighter, not a politician. Do not cross me in this. Avner knows that the tribes must unite, and he needs me to do it. He, at least, is able to put aside personal feelings, and see the broad strokes.” David turned away to pour more wine. “Experience counts in these things.”

Because he had turned, he didn’t see the expression that crossed Yoav’s face at the mention of the word “experience.” It was not like David to misjudge a man. Later, I wondered if this remark was, in fact, the result of misjudgment or rather a calculated goad, to bring about just such a result as it did. But at the time, I thought only that he lacked tact. When David turned back with two cups of wine in his hand and proffered one to Yoav, Yoav, uncharacteristically, waved it off. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m too tired to discuss this now. Let me take my leave.”

David shrugged, and passed the cup of wine to me instead. Later, he demanded to know why I did not see what would happen that night and the next morning: why I sat there and offered no warning. I could have asked the same of him. One didn’t need to be a seer to understand Yoav’s anger and jealousy, and to foretell that something grievous might come of it. Men raised in a culture of blood revenge do not change in a day.

•   •   •

In the morning, Avner lay dead, just inside the gates of Hevron. Yoav had gone straight from the king’s chamber and dispatched a messenger, supposedly at the king’s request, to find Avner where he had camped for the night at the cistern of Sirah. The message was that David desired him to return to Hevron. Avner, no doubt still basking in the good feelings of the previous evening, made haste to answer the summons. Yoav waited for him. No sooner had Avner entered the gate than Yoav took him by the arm, pulling him into the shadows, saying he must have a private word. The “word” was a dagger in the belly; a brother’s blood debt repaid.

David called for me just after dawn, when the change of watch discovered the body. He was casting off his night robe and fidgeting as a servant strove to help him into a tunic. “Leave it, I can do it myself,” he said impatiently, pulling at the fine fabric until it tore in his hand. “Never mind. I will have to rend it anyway.” He turned on me then. “
How
can you not have foreseen this?”

I knew those blank, empty eyes. I knew what his anger looked like. I’d felt it before, in the caves of Horesh, the day I was unable to interpret the prophecy about Yonatan. Now I felt it again, hard and bright and searing. I struggled to make my own face a mask of composure, although inside I was roiling.

“I might put the same question to you, King. Yoav has been your loyal fighter at Adullam and in the wilderness of Ziph and in the stews of Ziklag. He’s followed you in your exile, stood by you in your disgrace. Now, when everything you have fought for—together—is about to fall into your hands, he learns you’ve been feasting and embracing the man who hunted us. The man, moreover, who slew his brother. Yoav knows you mean to make him underling to this man. And yet, when he came to you last night, instead of a kind word, a gesture of reassurance, instead of drawing him close, as his uncle and as his lifelong friend, you insult him and push him away. So I ask you: how did
you
not foresee this?” I had never spoken to him like this, not in my own voice. I could see the vein throbbing in his temple, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. His eyes, wide with surprise at my words. I braced myself for an outburst.

Instead, he dropped his head. When he spoke, he was still angry, his lips compressed. But there was no eruption. His voice was low, contained, but he spat out his words as if they tasted bitter. “You, Natan, are the only one brave enough to speak the truth.” He raised his head and gathered himself up. “Walk with me. I go to the gates to see to the body.” He turned and I followed, sweating with relief.

“Is that wise?” I asked as we walked. “Should you not stand apart from this murder?”

“How can I? This reckless act of Yoav’s puts all at risk. The Benyaminites will never join with us now, without Avner to persuade them. They will say I committed basest treachery.” I struggled to keep up with him as he pounded through the hall.

“You’re wrong. They will join you. The Name has said it. But you must act now. Make Yoav pay, and pay dearly, for this.”

“But how can I?” he repeated. “I can’t spare him. Not with Avner dead. You’re right. You’re always right. I
was
going to put Avner over him. It was necessary. But now Yoav is the only capable general I’ve got. Our wars won’t end just because the tribes unite
. If
they unite, after this night’s work. That will be but the beginning. I need a seasoned general to send out against the Plishtim, and all the others who scent our weakness and covet this Land. I need Yoav.”

“I don’t say kill him. The Benyaminites, of all people, can be made to understand this, if you cast it as a blood debt. But you must stand aside from it. You must lament it. And you must find a way to punish Yoav and yet keep him in your service.”

“Thank you, Natan.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Thank you for laying out this clear and easy path for me.”

It was a bright morning, and I blinked as we emerged into the square. The streets were crowded, the usual early bustle congealing into clots of people standing about, whispering news of the killing. David did not look right or left, nor greet any person, but continued his fast stride to the gate. There were guards around the body, holding back gawkers, but they parted as David approached.

Avner lay as he had fallen, his legs twisted one around the other. His head had shattered when it hit the ledge of stone, which now bit right into his skull. The fall had probably killed him before the slash in his gut had a chance to do its work.

David dropped his head for a moment and covered his eyes with a hand. He spoke quietly, so that only I could hear him. “Should Avner have died the death of a churl?” He crouched down beside the body, and took the shattered head between his hands. A clear yellow liquid spilled between his fingers, but he did not seem to mark it. “Look at you,” he said to the corpse. “Your feet were not put in fetters, your hands were unbound. Yet you fell as one falls before treachery and betrayal.”