Bathsheba (14 page)

David grinned at me, joy shining in his eyes and bubbling in his laugh. “Adonai be praised for His goodness and mercy. He has given us another chance. And this son—this baby—will be king after me.”

He clutched my shoulders, drew me to him, and kissed me, a gesture that began with joyful abandon and ended on a more serious note. Before the king’s passion could fully ignite, however, I pulled away and pressed my fingers to his mouth. I wanted to deliver a bit of a speech, so I lowered my gaze and let the words tumble out. “Now that I carry another child,” I told him, “you needn’t send for me so often. I know you’ve lavished gifts and attention on me because you wanted to atone for the past. That is finished now, so you no longer have to pretend. I am quite content, and I wanted you to know that.”

When David did not answer immediately, I lifted my gaze to search his face. The leaping light in his eyes had gone out.

“I see.” David released me and turned to face the fire. When he spoke again, his voice seemed to come from a great distance. “So you want nothing else from me?”

“Only your grace and continued kindness, my lord.”

“Then that is what you shall have.” He tossed a polite smile over his shoulder. “Thank you for sharing your news. You may return to the harem.”

I blinked, stunned by his swift change in attitude, but if he no longer wanted me . . .

I stood and bowed, then turned for the door. As I reached the threshold, he called out one final command: “Before you return to your chamber, send Abigail to me.”

I paused, nodded, and hurried off to obey.

A
YEAR
AFTER
D
AVID
AND
I
PAID
A
HORRIBLE
PRICE
for Uriah’s death, I gave birth to David’s tenth son, a baby every bit as handsome as my first. This chubby, well-formed child was ruddy like his father and exhibited no signs of illness. David and I rejoiced, and at the baby’s circumcision on the eighth day I named him Solomon, meaning
his replacement.
David might have thought I was referring to the baby we lost, but I had proffered the name while thinking of Uriah.

Nathan attended our child’s naming ceremony, and a cold hand slid over my spine when I saw the prophet approach the king’s throne. I wanted to welcome my childhood friend, but I couldn’t help wondering if he had received another dire message from Adonai.

The prophet caught my gaze and smiled with the easy grace that had always been a part of his nature. He came forward and lowered
his head to study our newborn son. Then he looked at David and spoke in a voice pitched for our ears alone. “So says Adonai: ‘Because you have killed many men in the battles you have fought, and since you have shed so much blood in my sight, you will not be the one to build a Temple to honor my name. But this son—this
Solomon
—will be a man of peace. I will give him peace with his enemies in all the surrounding lands. I will give peace and quiet to Israel during his reign. He is the one who will build a Temple to honor my name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will secure the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.’”

A thrill raced through my soul. Nathan had uttered the confirmation I had waited a lifetime to hear.
This
son, this baby boy, would not only do great things for Israel, he would be a great king. For this moment, I had been born and had waited a lifetime.

David silently absorbed the prophet’s private message as Nathan looked into my eyes and raised his voice for the entire assembly to hear: “So says the Lord: ‘This child is much loved of God.’” His voice boomed through the crowded hall. “‘And I will give him another name: he shall be called Jedidiah, or
beloved of the Lord
, for Adonai’s sake.’”

I felt the truth as if the Lord himself had whispered in my ear. I knew it as certainly as I knew the sun would rise on the morrow. I knew it down to the marrow of my bones and the innermost recesses of my heart. Samuel had not prophesied of my first son when he glimpsed the future at my mother’s purification ceremony. He had spoken of this tenth son of David’s. Solomon would be king—not because I schemed or plotted or flattered but because Adonai had willed it years before this baby’s birth.

I remained silent, awed and thrilled by my new understanding. Before I came to the palace, I had lived a quietly prideful life, confident I had been somehow elevated from the women around me. Samuel’s prophecy had filled me with an unmerited sense of worth,
but HaShem destroyed my false self-image when He took my first son. For weeks I mourned the death of my self-centered dreams, but David had helped restore my faith in Adonai and His truth.

Though I knew I held the son of the prophecy in my arms, I would not consider him to be something I deserved, but an unmerited blessing from the Almighty. And because I lived in a harem teeming with jealous, suspicious women, I would remain quiet and do my best to raise my son to be a good man and a great king.

I would cling to God’s promise until the crown rested on Solomon’s head. Not because he deserved it more than any of David’s other sons, but because Adonai loved him as He loved David. Nathan had assured me that my son would be
beloved of the Lord
.

As a ripple of approval passed over the assembled guests, I looked at the king’s other children to see how they felt about their new brother. Eleven-year-old Amnon, ten-year-old Tamar, and nine-year-old Absalom stood closest to us, but only Tamar looked at the baby with any curiosity. The boys seemed bored and eager to be away.

But pretty little Tamar leaned closer and gave the baby her finger, which he promptly pulled to his mouth. She giggled softly and grinned while I gave her my warmest smile.

Unless I was sorely mistaken, Tamar would grow up to be a
tob
woman.

While my Shlomo was still a nursing infant, Joab sent a message to the king, reporting that he had captured the water supply for the city of Rabbah. The Ammonite stronghold, long under siege, had been severely compromised, so if David wanted the honor of capturing the city, he should assemble the rest of the army and hurry to Rabbah for what would certainly be the final battle.

The king sent for the baby and me to kiss us before he left. He did not summon any of the other wives, and I suspected that he thought of me only because Uriah lay buried somewhere in the fields outside that city. I couldn’t blame David for wanting to be finished with this chapter of his life. God had forgiven him; now David wanted to conquer both the city and his past.

The king and his army rode out and merged with Joab’s forces. Together, the armies of David and Joab fought against the men of the beleaguered capital and captured it. David entered the town, killed King Hanun, and took Hanun’s crown from his head, a ceremonial action that proved to be unusual because the gold crown, set with dozens of precious stones, weighed more than seventy-five pounds. The warriors took a great deal of plunder from the vanquished city and set the survivors to work producing bricks, iron tools, and timber for Israel.

The people of Jerusalem would sing about the victory for years to come. Standing on the palace rooftop to watch the triumphant army’s return to Jerusalem, I shifted the baby in my arms and realized that if I were still Uriah’s wife, I would have spent the past two years waiting for his return. I would not have my beautiful baby, but neither would I have plumbed the depths of heartache and despair.

I shook my head and let a curtain fall on my imaginings. Life was a corridor with countless possibilities, and only Adonai knew the doors we would pass through. Sometimes He gave His prophets glimpses of the future, and sometimes they shared those visions and warnings with us.

Ever since my son’s naming ceremony, I had been wondering why the prophet Nathan chose to lower his voice when he declared that Solomon would build the Temple and rule over Israel in a time of peace. My barely defeated pride wanted the world to know that my baby would rise above his brothers to rule the kingdom, but my
conscience reminded me that I would be no better than the other wives if I flaunted my son’s future.

And such an announcement might put my son’s life in danger. David was a man of battle, and Israel was still surrounded by warring nations. If any of them came against Israel during my son’s childhood, they would not only try to kill David but the heir apparent, as well.

Until David died, my task would be to remain silent and guard the future king with my life.

When David realized he would not be the one to build the Temple, he focused on expanding his palace, a project that became necessary as his family grew. Builders knocked down the wall surrounding the harem and built a small house for each wife, where she lived with her children and servants.

By the time I gave birth to Shammua and Shobab, David had arranged for me to have much larger accommodations. I loved being a mother and couldn’t help taking pleasure in the knowledge that I had given David more sons than any other wife. As I suckled my beautiful twins, I began to understand that being a
tob
woman had advantages I hadn’t realized. The king was attracted to beauty, and that attraction resulted in the blessing of children.

My mother was wiser than I had realized.

My fourth pregnancy was not as easy as the first three. My ankles swelled like an elephant’s, and the summer heat drained my energy. After a difficult labor, I gave birth to another son—my fifth—and at his naming ceremony I smiled at a friend in the crowd and announced that he would be called Nathan.

Once the royal children reached the age of maturity, they were given homes outside the palace compound. By the time Solomon
reached his sixth year, Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah, and Shephatiah had houses in Jerusalem. Tamar remained with her mother and would do so until the king arranged a royal marriage for her.

Though I was surrounded by noise and bluster in the harem, I learned to be grateful for aspects of my new life. In the difficult weeks after Uriah’s death I would never have imagined that I might come to admire David, but Nathan’s public rebuke had indelibly changed the king.

Before David’s sin, Michal told me, he had been brash, cocky, and frequently wild in his actions and conversations. After his confession and repentance, his brashness evaporated. The king remained creative, poetic, musical, and unconventional, but Michal believed he no longer considered himself infallible. Though HaShem had granted David an eternal dynasty, the king now seemed to realize that God’s covenant promise did not make him immune to failure. More important—and this the king confided to me himself—David learned that his private sins had the power to inflict great suffering on the people he loved.

Whenever I answered an invitation to join the king in his private chamber, our conversations almost always centered on Solomon, an amazing child and the light of my life. Though my judgment may not have been impartial, I considered Shlomo the king’s most attractive child, but David clearly favored Absalom, who had inherited Maacah’s thick hair and regal features. Maacah’s daughter, Tamar, was without question the most beautiful female in the palace. As I watched her beauty increase with every passing week, I worried about her and prayed that David would pay more attention to her, and to all his children.

As David’s children outgrew their interest in playing around their father’s throne, he left them to their tutors and focused on the younger ones, who still loved to sit and marvel at his stories. The king, I noticed, spent time with his children as long as they
looked at him with awe. When they had matured enough to realize their father was as human as any other man, he let them move into their own homes and rarely sent anything but generic invitations to mingle among the guests and dignitaries at court. Once grown, his sons were given the title of “personal priest to the king,” but I never saw any of them participate in priestly duties or even visit the Tabernacle except during religious festivals.

The only royal wife who cared to befriend me was Michal. I’m not sure why we grew close. At times I thought we bonded because we had both suffered despair and grief on David’s account. Neither of us hid the fact that we guarded our hearts where David was concerned.

Michal had never borne a child, but she had filled her life with the joys of mothering her five nephews. “I see my sister in each of them,” she told me. “Elan, the oldest, has her smile. Boas has her nose and her sense of humor, while Hananel sings with her voice, the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Phineas has her long feet—not a bad thing, since he has grown taller than his brothers—and little Ziv has her eyes. Every time I look at him, I see Merab smiling back at me.”

Michal lived in one of the largest suites in the harem, and the space was constantly strewn with clothing, toys, and dusty sandals. The clutter would have driven me mad, yet she seemed to delight in the mayhem created by five active boys. I had active boys too, though mine were younger and calmer.

“HaShem has been good to me,” she confided one day as we sat in the garden. “Just as Adonai opened unloved Leah’s womb, He has opened my house and filled it with sons.”

“How do you ever get any rest?” I ducked as Ziv threw a ball at Phineas and narrowly missed my head. “Do they ever get quiet?”

“Only at night.” She gave me a rare smile. “Sometimes I sit awake and listen to the sound of them breathing, all in unison. They are
close, these boys. When they first came to me, so soon after the loss of their mother, I wondered if any of us would ever be happy again. But our hearts healed, and we learned to lean on each other. Someday, when I am old and tired, I know they will bring their wives and children to visit me. Who knows? Perhaps David will allow me to go live with one of them, or maybe I will journey from Elan’s house to Hananel’s, then to Phineas’s, Boas’s, and Ziv’s. I who never bore a child will be the most blessed mother in Israel.”