Bathsheba (8 page)

F
OR
DAYS
I
HEARD
NOTHING
FROM
H
A
S
HEM
.
I fasted and prayed and went about my daily work with an ear cocked for Adonai’s voice, certain the Lord had a reason for showing me what the king had done. I went to the palace and mingled with other men in the king’s courtyard. I watched counselors and courtiers and priests when they spoke openly and when they whispered in dark corners. None of them displayed any outward concern about the king’s character, and after a while I wondered if they would even care if their anointed king fornicated with a woman who was not his wife.

Adultery was a grievous sin in Israel, resulting in a death penalty for both the man and woman. As a married man and woman were meant to be faithful to each other, so Israel was meant to be faithful to HaShem.

But we had not executed anyone for adultery in years, perhaps generations.

One afternoon as I visited the palace, I spotted Ahithophel crossing the courtyard. My spine stiffened. If my vision could be trusted—and I had no reason to believe it could not—this righteous man either suspected or knew that the king had transgressed. What, if anything, had he done about it?

I stepped out of the shade where I had been standing and greeted the king’s counselor. “Well met, Ahithophel.”

He hesitated, then nodded in return. “Good day, prophet. I trust you are well?”

I gave him an honest answer. “I have been greatly troubled of late. I have difficulty sleeping, and when I do sleep, I wake to find my pillow watered with tears.”

Ahithophel tilted his head slightly. “For whom do you weep?”

“For the king. And for Israel.”

The old man’s brows flickered. “Why would you weep for our king?”

“I have had a vision.” I lowered my voice to reach the chief counselor’s ear alone. “I saw the king looking out from his rooftop balcony. He spied a young woman at a house below and sent for her—a woman who did not belong to him. For all I know, she may have been another man’s wife.”

“And for all you know, she may have been a virgin the king plans to marry next month.” The old man showed his yellowed teeth in an expression that was not a smile. “Why have you approached me about this matter?” His eyes narrowed. “In this vision of yours, the woman lived near the palace?”

“She did.”

“Could you identify this woman? Did you see her face?”

I lifted my gaze to meet the older man’s. “I did not.”

“Ah. Well.” The counselor looked away and pressed his lips into a
thin line. “I would not worry about the matter. The king has always had a keen appetite when it comes to beautiful women. Good day.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away.

I stared after him, speechless. In my vision, Ahithophel had been clearly suspicious of the king’s activities. He spoke to David nearly every day, so had he said anything about the king’s actions on that night? The counselor was known as a virtuous man, so why hadn’t he said something to David?

Perhaps he had, and the king had repented. If so, why had Adonai allowed me to glimpse the king’s lust? The Lord did not reveal hidden things for His own amusement. He expected something of me, but what?

Perhaps Ahithophel had determined that the king intended no harm by sending a messenger to the woman at that late hour. But only a fool would come to that conclusion, and the king’s counselor was no fool.

If Ahithophel had been suspicious, if he had witnessed the arrival of an innocent woman intended for the king’s pleasure, and if he had said nothing to the king, my mind could form only one conclusion: perhaps the counselor was hoarding his knowledge, holding it close to his breast, either out of love for David or out of personal ambition.

Which was it? I waited, hoping Adonai would grant me some insight, but the Spirit of Adonai did not answer.

T
HE
TRUTH
ARRIVED
,
not as an exhilarating burst of mental illumination but as a sliver of understanding that connected to a moment of revelation and an inescapable feeling of guilt. Willingly or not, I had enticed the king to commit the act that haunted my sleep and filled me with disgust. Because I was a
tob
woman, I had to bear the blame and the shame for everything that happened.

My emotions vacillated from one extreme to the other after that fateful night. For Amaris’s sake, and for Elisheba’s, I tried to pretend nothing had happened and I had not been changed. But in the midst of my daily activities I would close my eyes and see the patterned canopy over the king’s couch. I would wake feeling nauseous with memory, so my appetite waned. Often in the course of a day I would inhale a scent I had breathed on that rooftop—a honeysuckle vine, or a perfumed oil—and my stomach would churn.

I cried easily. I wanted to sleep longer than usual, and little
annoyances infuriated me to the point that I once picked up Elisheba’s favorite oil lamp and flung it against the wall, shattering it.

Though Amaris gaped at my uncharacteristic display of temper, Elisheba did not rebuke me, but picked up the broken pottery and urged me to lie down. I had never spent so much time sleeping, but what else could I do with the rest of my life?

As the time for my monthly courses drew near, I dreaded the thought of my ritual bath. Elisheba would not want to move the heavy mikvah into the house, but I would never again be able to bathe in the back garden. The goat might not care if the king spied from above, but in the past month I hadn’t even been able to go out and milk her. Amaris had taken over the chore after Elisheba said I missed Uriah too much to spend time in the courtyard, where we used to watch the stars together.

Though my bruises had faded, my wounds remained. Exacerbating them was a growing fear that I would not be able to greet my husband without giving away my secret. How could I let him hold me without feeling the king’s hands on my arms? How could I let him look at me without remembering the king’s scorching stare? My future looked hopeless, and I dreaded the day I would see Uriah again. How could I welcome him, soiled and shamed as I was?

Days passed, and yet my courses did not flow. I told myself that my emotional upset had confused my body. I thought I would eventually return to normal, but until then I would continue to sleep like a dead woman and sicken at the slightest memory of the king.

After seven weeks had passed, Elisheba sent Amaris out to milk the goat, then she caught my arm. She had been watching me with wary eyes, and with a firm voice she bade me sit.

“You have not bled this month,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. “I fear you are with child.”

For the briefest instant, my heart expanded with exhilaration. I’d been praying for a baby, and Adonai had finally answered.

But Elisheba’s sober expression reminded me of what I had momentarily forgotten. I wanted
Uriah’s
baby, and this child wouldn’t be his. I had been bleeding when he departed, so when my husband learned about this pregnancy, he would have every right to turn me out or have me stoned for adultery. Serious consequences, but more awful than death was the realization that my beloved Uriah would believe I had willingly gone to another man’s bed.

“Elisheba, what shall I do?” The words broke from my lips in an agonized cry. “Uriah will know, and the news will kill him.”

Elisheba pressed her lips together and dipped her head in a decisive nod. “I have been thinking about this, and I believe you have only one recourse. You did not willingly commit this sin against your husband; the blame belongs to another. So you must send word to that person and tell him what has happened. If he possesses even a shred of righteousness, he will do the right thing.”

“But what is the right thing? Will he ask Uriah to divorce me? I don’t want Uriah to know about this. I love him. I don’t want to hurt him. I want to have
his
babies.”

Elisheba sucked at the inside of her cheek for a minute, her brows working over her eyes. “I don’t know what the king will do. But the blame is his, so he should shoulder this responsibility. You must send word to him at once.”

“I’m to blame.” I paced in front of her, clenching and unclenching my hands. “I should not have been bathing when the king was outside.”

“How were you to know he was on the roof?”

“If we’d placed the trough in the
front
courtyard—”

“Then some other man might have seen you. Where else were you supposed to put the water trough, in the house? You were bathing inside your own courtyard. You were not exhibiting yourself.”

“But I must have done something. I am a
tob
woman—”

“Stop.” Elisheba grabbed my hands and held them as if she could
still my frantic thoughts. “Do not do this. You are innocent; he is guilty. You are a beautiful woman, but he is a king who should follow Adonai’s Law. Do not take his sin upon yourself.”

I wanted to believe her, but the rock of guilt in the pit of my stomach had not eroded with the passing days. “But Uriah is also innocent, and he will suffer for this. He will believe I was unfaithful. He will think I didn’t love him, that I wasn’t willing to wait for him—”

“Not if the king confesses the truth.” Elisheba reached out and smoothed my tear-stained cheek. “I don’t know what possessed our king in this moment of folly, but your father always said that David truly fears the Lord. So trust the king to do the right thing, child. Trust your husband to know how much you love him. And trust in Adonai. His ways are far above our ways.”

I chewed my bottom lip. I
wanted
to trust, but how could I be sure I wouldn’t be cast off or forsaken? The only completely trustworthy person I knew was Elisheba.

Slowly, I met her gaze. “Will you come with me? If I go to the palace?”

“I will, child.”

After a long moment in which I fought for self-control, I squeezed Elisheba’s hands, plucked my cloak from the hook by the door, and called to Amaris in the back courtyard, “We are going out, sister. We’ll return soon.”

With Elisheba by my side, I walked to the palace and waited outside the gate until I saw the guard who had escorted me to the rooftop. After catching his attention, I pulled him to the side of the road and gave him a message for the king. “Tell no one else,” I finished, glancing around to be sure no one watched us. “And tell the king I’ll be waiting for his reply.”

The man glanced from me to Elisheba, whose face had gone fierce with protective love, then he left us.

Without the surge of courage that had propelled me to the palace, my knees went weak. I clung to Elisheba’s arm and prayed she was right about the king’s virtue. Though I couldn’t see any way to salvage the situation with my honor and dignity intact, I would be content to safeguard my husband’s love. If the king would summon Uriah and accept the blame for this pregnancy, Uriah might be able to forgive his king and accept this child as his own.

And in time, perhaps I could do likewise.

The next day I wandered restlessly through the house, my nerves as tight as harp strings. Every time I heard a voice in the street I hastened to the window, but hours passed with no sign of the guard who’d carried my message to the king. What if he had ignored my request? What if the king had ignored my message? How long should I wait before I took some other action?

I quietly decided that if the king did not respond within three days, I would leave the city. As a pregnant adulteress, my life in Jerusalem would be destroyed, my husband shamed, and my grandfather humiliated. So I would rise early and slip out of the city as the sun rose, walking north until I could walk no farther. I would be like Hagar and plan to die alone in the desert, but no merciful angel would appear to me. I would perish, and my shame along with me.

The second day passed like the first, and my pacing did not go unnoticed. Amaris asked why I was so jumpy, and Elisheba stared at me with speculation in her eyes, but I did not respond to either of them. If I had to leave Jerusalem, the less Elisheba and Amaris knew, the better off they’d be.

On the morning of the third day, I heard the creak of our courtyard gate. I hurried outside and met the guard, who regarded me not with the respect due a soldier’s wife, but with a smirk.

Embarrassed, I drew my mantle closer. “You have a message for me?”

The smirk deepened. “No message, but something else. This.” He held out a basket covered with a white cloth.

I stared at it, bewildered. The king had sent a basket, filled with what—an adder?

“Take it, woman.”

I accepted the odd gift, cautiously peeking under the covering. I saw a salted roast, a loaf of bread, and a few
lebibot
, delicate heart-shaped cakes. “What is this?”

Again the sly smile. “A gift for you and your husband.”

“But my husband is at Rabbah.”

“Not anymore.” The guard rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “The king sent word to Joab yesterday, commanding him to send Uriah the Hittite back to Jerusalem. My guess is he’ll show up here later today.”

I blinked, baffled by this turn of events. At that moment Elisheba stepped out of the house. From the expression on her face, I knew she’d heard everything.

“Thank you,” she told the guard, gripping my arm. “Thank you for letting us know. We’ll prepare a good dinner for him.”

As the guard strolled away, I turned to her. “I don’t understand what any of this means.”

Elisheba slipped her arm around my shoulders and led me back into the house. “Child, you are far too inexperienced. The king has decided to send your husband to you. Uriah will come home and you will sleep with him. When the child is born, everyone will believe the babe is your husband’s. No one need ever know the truth.”

Relief and regret warred in my heart as I stared at the basket. “That . . . makes sense,” I admitted, grateful the king had found a way to prevent Uriah from knowing I’d been with another man. “But the king . . . well, he’s lying.”

“Would you rather your husband know what happened?” Elisheba gave me a sharp look, and I had to admit she had a point. I didn’t want to believe our king would prefer to cover his sin rather than confessing it, but for Uriah and me the consequences of a lie would be infinitely less painful than the truth.

“So, let’s see what we have for dinner.” Elisheba peered into the basket, her smile broader than it had been in days. “A nice roast. The bread looks fine. And
lebibot
—how romantic. I have some vegetables I can add, then perhaps we could have a stew. Would you check to see if we have enough oil to fry some barley cakes?”

Still numb with shock and confusion, I moved to the corner where we kept jars of flour and oil.

“The bread smells wonderful,” Elisheba said, sniffing the loaf’s crusty exterior. “I wonder what kind . . .”

She cracked the loaf, and I flinched when I recognized the bright yellow fruit inside: mandrakes, a plant believed to stimulate a man’s passion and aid in a woman’s ability to conceive. Did even the king’s cook know about my shameful predicament?

“Throw it out,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I will make another loaf, but throw out that one.”

Four hours later, we had a lamb roast, fresh bread, and a bubbling pot of vegetables ready for dinner, but Uriah did not come home.