Bathsheba (12 page)

Dazed, I turned in time to see the midwife wrap a linen square around the child, then use a corner of the cloth to wipe the mucus from its nose and eyes.

“A boy,” she said, smiling at the infant. “The king has another beautiful baby boy.”

I sank to the floor as the room spun around me. Was it possible we had both survived?

Another servant stood by to catch the afterbirth, but I was beyond caring about what happened to me. But we were both alive—me and the son I’d been given. Perhaps Adonai did hear the prayers of a
tob
woman.

The servant helped me onto my bed as the midwife washed the baby, rubbed salt over his skin, and wrapped him. When she had finished, she placed the swaddled child in my arms. He lifted pink eyelids and caught my gaze for a second, then rooted around for my breast.

I found myself smiling through tears.

“I will tell the king,” the midwife said, washing her hands in a basin. “Have the servants comb your hair, lady, and prepare you for your husband. I daresay he will soon be on his way.”

I wanted to correct her, for the king had never darkened my door, but thought it best to remain silent. This baby might always remind the king of unpleasant circumstances, so I would understand if he never wanted to see the child.

But since Adonai heeded the prayers of a shamed
tob
woman, I could—and would—love this baby boy, this promised prince.

The first day of my son’s life was very nearly perfect. By the time the king heard that my son had arrived, the servants had combed my hair, washed my face, and dressed me in a fresh tunic. They eased me into a chair with the baby nestled in my arms, so I must have looked fairly presentable when the king arrived.

I didn’t know what to say when he came through the door, so I simply sat there, tongue-tied and exhausted. The king hesitated at my threshold only a moment. Once he glimpsed the child, he strode forward and fell to his knees at my side. With only a smiling glance at me, he thrust a finger toward the baby’s curled hand. The boy, intent on my breast, nonetheless wrapped his tiny digits around the king’s finger, eliciting a broad smile from the man next to me.

Something in my heart softened at that simple sign of joy. The king’s delight was as real as any emotion I had ever seen on a man’s face, and in that moment I realized I need no longer fear him. He was a man like any other, and as prone to sin when not focused on pleasing Adonai. But this baby delighted the king, and when David lifted his gaze to meet mine, in his eyes I saw a wordless appeal for forgiveness.

I looked away, unable to forgive or forget . . . yet.

We sat together until sunset, marveling at the beauty and perfection of our child. We talked about possible names, though the decision wouldn’t be final until the baby’s circumcision on the eighth day, and we argued gently about whether he had my nose or his father’s. I watched as the king gingerly lifted the child in his rough hands, and I marveled that a man who had fathered so many children could still be exhilarated by the miracle of birth.

As my son dozed on his father’s bare knees and my eyelids drooped with exhaustion, the servants entered to light the lamps. The king—David—stood and apologized for being selfish and keeping me from my rest. He gently placed the baby in the nurse’s arms, touched my cheek, and left my room.

But while the door stood open, I glimpsed him in the hallway, where he stopped to say something to Abigail, one of the older wives. She lit up with an answering smile, then threw her arms around him. He drew her into an embrace, and then the door closed and blocked the sight.

Odd, that the thought of David with another woman had the power to rouse a spark of jealousy within me. But exhaustion doused it as I crawled into bed and curled up on my side.

I was not in love with David, so why should I care if he loved Abigail? I should be grateful that he had other wives to satisfy his needs. I had a prince and the prophet’s promise, and I needed nothing else.

O
VER
THE
COURSE
OF
SEVERAL
MONTHS
,
I watched several significant events unfold. I stood outside Uriah’s house and heard the ululations of mourning for the Hittite warrior. His wife, his wife’s nurse, his sister-in-law, his wife’s grandfather, and his neighbors keened mightily for the murdered soldier. I did not know how sincerely Bathsheba grieved for her husband—did she mourn him out of true sorrow or out of some secret guilt?—but her eyes remained red and swollen throughout the seven days of mourning.

At the end of that week, I watched as David’s emissaries came to the house to escort Uriah’s wife to the palace. Hidden in a sheltered alcove, I saw Bathsheba embrace the older woman and her young sister before surrendering to the guards and walking up the hill to her new home. Word spread like a wildfire: David the king had taken Bathsheba, widow of Uriah the Hittite, to be his wife. Some people said he married her to honor Uriah’s sacrifice and provide
for the warrior’s widow. Others said he only wanted to honor his counselor Ahithophel, the woman’s grandfather. Widows subsisted on charity unless they had sons or brothers to support them, and Bathsheba had neither. But as one of the king’s wives, neither she nor the two women she left behind would have to worry about being fed, clothed, and sheltered. David, the people assured themselves, was a most generous king.

Seven months later, two days after the birth of Bathsheba’s child, Adonai woke me with a command. The time for confrontation had come.

I dressed in a clean tunic, picked up my staff, and walked the road to the palace, my steps heavy with trepidation. On many occasions I had made the journey with no greater intention than observing the king’s court, but this time Adonai had given me a message and a mission. This time I would speak HaShem’s words, and the result would depend upon the receptivity of David’s heart.

I found the king’s throne room filled with the usual mix of travelers, dignitaries, supplicants, and counselors. A festive air permeated the gathering, for the king was accepting gifts and congratulations on the birth of his newborn son. I shouldered my way through the center of the assembly, then stopped before the king and brought my staff down, hard, on the stone floor. David looked up from the parchment he’d been reading, and his eyes widened when he recognized me. “Prophet?” His gaze flicked at me, then he smiled at young Absalom, who sat on a cushion at the king’s feet. “Have you come to congratulate us on the most recent son born into our household?”

I slammed my staff down again. In the past, David had sent messengers to fetch Bathsheba, to recall Uriah, and to escort his new wife to the palace. Now God had sent a messenger to David, and I would not be taken lightly. “Adonai has commanded me to speak to you.”

Confusion flitted in the king’s dark eyes. He set his parchment aside and gripped an armrest of his throne. “I am listening.”

Praying that I had chosen the right approach to the hard rebuke I had to deliver, I drew a deep breath and tightened my hold on my staff. “In a certain city there lived two men, one rich, the other poor.”

At this innocuous beginning, as I spoke of ordinary men in ordinary circumstances, David relaxed and slouched into a more comfortable position. He crossed one leg over the other and watched me, his eyes alight with speculation. As king, he was obligated to settle disputes and administer justice, so he probably thought I had disrupted the festivities in order to present a case for judgment.

“The rich man had vast flocks and herds,” I continued, sensing the invisible circle that had formed around me, a holy space no man would dare crowd. “But the poor man had nothing except for one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and reared. It had grown up with him and his family; it ate from his plate, drank from his cup, lay in his lap—it was like a daughter to him.”

“I had a lamb like that once,” the king interrupted, smiling at his son Amnon, who leaned against the back of his father’s chair. “When I kept the lambs for my father, one became quite attached to me.”

I shot the king a reproachful look. If he had only taken Bathsheba into his harem, my story would have ended with the rich man placing the ewe lamb in his own flock. But David had done far more, and Adonai was about to reveal his sin to the world.

I drew a breath and continued: “One day a traveler visited the rich man, and instead of choosing an animal from his own flock to cook for his visitor, he stole the poor man’s lamb, slaughtered it, and boiled it for his guest.”

Gripping my staff, I waited for the story to take hold. A lamb was only a lamb, but the context of the tale should prick David’s repressed conscience.

I did not have to wait long. Almost immediately our shepherd
king’s face flushed with fury. David sat upright and uncrossed his legs. “As Adonai lives,
doomed
is the man who has done this! And because he had no pity, he shall pay the poor man four times as much as he stole.”

Four times? I sighed in regret, knowing that David had just pronounced his own sentence.

Every eye in the room swiveled toward me. The onlookers probably expected me to bow and thank the king for his righteous verdict, but I had not entered the king’s chamber to invoke a judgment against other men. David had rightly responded with rage, but he had missed the truth in my tale.

My gaze locked on David’s. “
You
are the man.”

Adonai’s words filled the hush, and every man present, even the king’s young sons, remained motionless as my voice reverberated in the room. “Here is what Adonai, the God of Israel, says,” I said, not taking my eyes from the king’s. “‘I anointed you king over Israel. I rescued you from the power of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives to embrace. I have given you the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have added to you a lot more.’”

David stared, his face as pale as a death mask.

“So why,” I continued, “have you shown such contempt for the word of Adonai and done what He sees as evil? You murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife as your own; you put him to death with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never leave your house because you have shown contempt for Adonai and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own wife. Here is what Adonai says: ‘I will generate evil against you out of your own household. I will take your wives before your very eyes and give them to your neighbor; he will go to bed with your wives, and everyone will know about it. For you did this secretly, but I will do this before all Israel in broad daylight.’”

Someone behind me gasped as the guard nearest David raised his spear. All the king had to do was nod in my direction, and I would be murdered as surely as Uriah had been.

I waited, a chill in the pit of my stomach, until David lifted his hand and glanced at the guard, wordlessly commanding him to lower his weapon. Emboldened by this positive sign, I walked forward, climbed the steps, and came within inches of the king’s ear. “Through the power of the Spirit,” I whispered, staring at the guard stationed behind the king, “I watched you spy on her.”

“I wanted her,” David said.

“
Every
man wants her,” I answered, barely able to bridle the resentment in my voice. “But they do not take her.”

I backed away, leaving him with his head propped on his hand, his eyes closed.

I returned to my original position and waited to see what effect my words would have on the king. After a moment, amid a silence that was the holding of a hundred breaths, David shuddered. “I . . . have sinned against Adonai.”

The hush in the room deepened as the king’s words echoed over the assembled court. I could almost hear the snap of breaking hearts and the crack of shattering illusions.

David had committed his sin in private, but within hours all Jerusalem would know about it. From this moment on, the king who had been much loved and much celebrated would be viewed with wariness. With this murderous act, David had proven himself to be like any other man—and worse than many. But with his confession, he had demonstrated that he remained a man who loved and revered HaShem.

I drew a deep breath and softened my voice. “Adonai also has taken away your sin, so you will not die. However, because by this act you have so greatly blasphemed the Lord, the child born to you by Bathsheba . . . must perish.”

I bowed my head as the awareness of God’s heavy judgment descended on the crowd. I felt the heaviness too, but in a different context: David deserved judgment in his sin, but Bathsheba, the ewe lamb, had not transgressed against Adonai or her husband.

Yet she, too, would suffer.

My throat ached with unhappiness as I turned in a circle of stunned silence and left the palace.

I
WAS
NOT
PRESENT
when my childhood acquaintance confronted the king, but I felt the effects of the prophet’s pronouncement almost immediately. I caught servants whispering to each other in my presence, and when I looked up, they fell silent. From my doorway I spotted several concubines buzzing while they stared toward my chamber, though no one would tell me what had set their tongues to wagging.

Later that afternoon, while the baby napped, I strolled into the harem courtyard and approached Michal, Saul’s daughter and David’s first wife. My handmaid had told me that Michal lived for her children, five strapping boys who had been born to her sister, Merab. When Merab died giving birth to a sixth son, who perished as well, her grieving husband, Adriel, brought her five surviving sons to Michal, knowing they would lack for nothing if reared in David’s household.

Michal was several years older than me and appeared about as friendly as a porcupine, but since she did not seem close to any of the other wives, I thought she might be willing to engage in conversation.

I found her by the fountain with a harp in her lap. Though she had to sense my presence, she did not look up right away. Finally she lifted her head and took in the paunch at my soft belly with one raking glance. “So you are Bathsheba,” she said, turning her attention back to her harp. “The woman so irresistible that David was willing to earn a curse from Adonai in order to take her.”

My heart began to pound in an unsteady rhythm. “Did you say
curse
?”

“Have you not heard?” A twisted smile crept to her lips. “Half the kingdom is whispering the news. David the king, who has more wives than he could possibly handle, stole the wife of Uriah the Hittite and murdered the inconvenient husband. For his sin, Adonai has cursed him with violence and”—she looked again at my swollen belly—“other unfortunate events.”

I sank onto the empty bench next to her. “So everyone knows?”

“Everyone knows, everyone is horrified, everyone grieves for the poor, cursed king.” She pressed her hand on the vibrating harp strings and eyed me with a sharp look. “I will always be mystified by David’s ability to triumph over dire circumstances. He can walk through a river of cattle dung and smell of blossoms on the opposite shore. He will pay for his sin, of course—Adonai’s prophet has declared it. You will pay, too. But a month from now the people will have forgotten about David’s sin and feel nothing but compassion for him. The common people will always love him, because he behaves more like a shepherd than a king.”

Her words evoked the memory of David dancing in the streets as priests carried the Ark to the Tabernacle. Soon after the event, my father had confided a corollary to the story. Michal, who observed
the king from a palace window, had upbraided him for behaving like an exhibitionist in front of twittering servants and slave girls. Infuriated, the king retorted that Adonai chose him over her father, so if he wanted to make himself even
more
contemptible, the slave girls would honor him for doing so.

At the time I heard the story, I wondered if Michal and the king would ever mend their relationship, but one look in her glittering eyes informed me they had not.

“Everyone loves David, but David does not love everyone.” Michal lowered her harp and propped her chin on her hand. “Tell me, do you love David? All the other wives seem to.”

I caught my breath. Lately my emotions had veered crazily from grief to fear, from loneliness to joy over the baby’s birth, but I had spent so much time mourning that I could scarcely remember the happiness of love. “In truth—” I struggled for the right words—“I do not know him.”

Michal lifted a brow, then pressed her lips together. “He sleeps with you but does not speak to you? He is even more brutish than I realized.”

“He has never been brutish,” I hastened to add. “When . . . the child was conceived, he promised he would not hurt me. And he does not sleep with me. Not anymore.”

“Ah, the singular vanity of men. They take you for their pleasure, thrust and stab, and then walk away without realizing they’ve left fatal wounds on your heart.” She sat silent for a long moment, her eyes focused on the fountain’s flowing water. At last she turned to me. “I know you have been wronged—and no one else will tell you, especially not the king—but this morning the prophet not only predicted violence for the house of David, but some are saying the king’s action will result in four deaths.”

Her words tumbled and twisted in my thoughts. “Why would anyone say such a horrible thing?”

Michal managed a tremulous smile. “Because after the prophet told his story, David declared that the guilty party should repay the debt fourfold, and the king’s word is law. The reparation for one murdered husband equals four deaths from David’s household . . . including your son, I am sorry to say.”

A confusing rush of panic and dread whirled inside me, but Michal’s eyes were open and honest, her countenance free from malice.

She reached for my damp hand and held it tight. “I know,” she whispered, leaning closer. “I know how it feels to suffer for a man’s foolishness. My father could have established a dynasty, but he disobeyed Adonai and forfeited his future. David could have given me children, but when I rebuked him for behaving like a fool, he shut me out. Now David can’t stand to look at me. But better to remain barren, I think, than to have a son and watch him die because his father sinned against HaShem.”

My lips parted in horror. Through all the sadness and pain, I had dared to trust the prophecy, to believe that my child would be a special blessing from God and a gift to Israel. But if my baby died . . . had all my pain and grief been for nothing?

My hand fell to my empty belly.

“The king loves children, as do I.” Michal’s gaze moved to some interior field of vision I couldn’t see. “Though he ignores the sons I am raising, he adores his boys and dotes on his daughter. I have never been able to bring him much joy, but the other wives have succeeded remarkably well.”

My thoughts continued to jostle and shove, pushing aside opinions I’d formed long ago. I used to believe that HaShem never repented of His decisions, but now . . . “Isn’t it possible,” I sputtered, “perhaps . . . couldn’t Adonai change His mind about my baby? Could the prophet return and tell us that HaShem has reconsidered? If the king confesses and repents, perhaps—”

“David has confessed,” Michal said. “He confessed his wrong
doing before the entire court. The prophet said Adonai has taken away David’s sin, yet forgiveness comes at a price. Without the shedding of blood . . .” She shrugged, then gave my hand a final squeeze.

As I sat in stunned silence, Michal lifted her harp and ran her nails across the strings. “I remember another time the prophet Nathan paid David a visit. He said many things that day, but I particularly remember him saying that if David strayed from the ways of the Lord, Adonai would punish him with a rod and blows.” She cut me a quick glance. “Welcome to the king’s house, where we all bear David’s bruises.”

Strumming her harp, she began to hum a melancholy tune. Tears flowed over my cheeks as I listened. Finally I stood and went back to my room, where the baby had begun to cry.