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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Queenmaker
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I leapt to my feet and backed away. “But you will not have them with me.”
“Do not be unkind; I know you are the gentlest of women. Show me your sweetness, honey-heart; make us both as happy as stars.”
“How happy are the stars, David? Are they as happy as a king? No, do not—I beg you, listen to me.”
He stood back then, all tolerance. “You command and even a king must obey. Speak, my love; give me your wisdom.”
“You jest with me, but it
is
wisdom I speak. I have been here two days, and I have looked and listened, as you bade me. And I have learned, as you also bade me.”
“And what have you learned?” David’s face was smooth as swept sand.
“When we were young together we all sat upon the roof at night and spoke of dreams—do you remember?”
“You, and I, and Jonathan. Yes, Michal. I remember us all together in the summer nights.”
I drew a long breath, and chose my words with as much care as if each must be paid for in coins of gold. “I know your true dream now, David. You wanted to be king. You must always have wanted it, even when you lived beneath my father’s roof and ate his bread. It was why you married me, because I was King Saul’s daughter—oh, do not deny it! I am no fool, and you are not either.”
He made no more denials. He said nothing, but stood quiet, pulling the end of his sash through his hand. It slid through his fingers like a crimson snake, endlessly circling, as I spoke.
“Now you have your dream—you are king. I rejoice for you; live forever, O King, in your house of wonders. But I am no part of that dream, David. You cannot hold all the world in your hand; you must let me go.”
David stood quite still, then. The end of the sash lay motionless in his hand. At last he said, “And if I say I need you, Michal? That I must have you for my true queen, to keep this great house and all you have seen within it? If I beg you to stay with me, and to take all that I have offered you?”
For a moment my blood ran hard; later I knew that throb of blood had been a warning. But that day, when David spoke so soft and quiet, I only feared his words had tempted me against my will. And so I clung to virtue, and laughed.
“Oh, David, do not make a song of everything! You have shown me what you have, and I have said it is not enough. There is no bargain. Send me home to my husband.”
 
 
“Behold, the king hath delight in thee … .”
—I Samuel 18:22
 
Yes, I was a fool, and worse than a fool. I thought David had heeded my words at last, for he left me alone after that. I saw him neither by day nor by night, although he sent me gifts enough to make my maidservants coo like setting doves. I did not want the gifts, and so I let the women take what they liked for themselves; it was nothing to me.
Now I let the maidservants dress me and jewel me and paint me as they wished. My gown did not truly matter, after all. To garb me finely pleased them—and there was nothing for me to wear, save what David had given.
I also ceased to protest when they called me queen. For each time I did, each time I denied the tale that made me David’s wife, his queen, his dearest love, there would be a pause, and they would all look at each other, sharp and sly. And then there would be a quick bright torrent of words as if I were a nervous ewe that must be soothed.
And there would be eyes looking at me, slantwise and uneasy. I did not like those cautious eyes, and so I stopped speaking of Phaltiel. I ceased denying David. Silence was easier, and seemed safe enough. For now I need not see his face, or hear his voice, or feel his hands upon my body. And I grew tired of saying words that were never heeded.
So I let the queen’s women do as they would with me, and smiled, and waited in peace for Phaltiel to come. I knew I would not wait for him long. Phaltiel would come as soon as he had my words in his ears.
And the waiting was not unpleasant, now that David no longer came to trouble me. Well, what woman would find it unpleasant to be petted, and tended, and spoiled as if she were an only daughter and everyone’s darling?
So I waited, and idled the days away. It was no more and no less than the other women did; there were so many servants underfoot that King David’s wives and concubines spent their time with games and gossip, and not with the work of their husband’s house. It had not been so in the house of King Saul, and I did not think it a wise way to order a household. An idle house lacked peace and purpose. David’s wives were all quarrelsome as sparrows, and David’s concubines were no better. They quarreled over everything, and over nothing; Zhurleen told me that no day went by without harsh words.
“But they are many, and even the king is only one man—he has a fine eye, but it roves.” David’s faithlessness did not seem to trouble Zhurleen as it did his other women.
“It is folly,” I said, righteous where I did not understand. “And you are right, there are too many of them for any man. How many women can even a strong man desire?”
“Why, all of them!” Zhurleen laughed, and made her hands dance desire through the air. All her moves were supple as the water she had once dwelt beside. I wondered if Zhurleen longed for the sea; if she did, she never said so. She had always a jest ready to fling out, or a laugh as easy and practiced as her swaying walk.
But I had looked upon David’s house and upon David’s women, and I thought I was right, and Zhurleen wrong. There were too many women. There was too much of everything. I could not imagine what reckoning paid for all that I saw. I might only be a farmer’s s wife, ignorant of kings and courts—but I knew that what was
bought must be paid for, in coin or in kind. Who knew that better than a farmer’s wife?
Still, King David’s follies were nothing to me. That was what I told myself, all those days that I dwelt in idleness and in comfort. The only thing I was denied was freedom; I might roam the women’s quarters as I pleased, but I might not set my feet beyond the brass-bound gate that led to the world beyond. I had tried, once, and been turned back by armed men—guardians of the women’s gate, they said. They bowed low, and they too called me “great queen”, but they would not let me pass.
I was sorry, for I would have liked to see the famous city. Still, perhaps Phaltiel and I would walk Jerusalem’s wide streets before we left David’s city together. But seeing the city was not important. Soon I would be home, and this half-life in the king’s house would be nothing more than a glittering memory to recall on a dull winter’s night.
And so my days slid by, easy as pleasant dreams, each slipping away into the next like oil pouring from a jar. A dream means an awakening. But as I waited through my days in David’s house, I did not even know I slept.
 
 
My waking was cold and harsh. One evening after my maids had undressed me and combed out my hair for the night I went to my window and watched the moon rise pale and smooth over the hills beyond the city. Moonlight washed silver over the day’s dust-gold; the moon was just past full.
Just as it had been the first night I had spent beneath this roof, within these walls.
A month.
I had been here a month—how could I have stayed so long content? A month since I had come here; a month since I had sent word to Phaltiel.
A month since Zhurleen had sworn she had sent that word.
Anger filled my throat; I turned away from the window and
caught up a veil to fling about me. At the door out to my courtyard one of my maids barred my way.
“What troubles you, Queen Michal? Where do you go so late?”
“Let me pass,” I said. I had no time now for the maidservant and the airs she gave herself.
“No, no,” she said, patting my arm. “It is late—you must sleep now, O Queen.” Others of my women, hearing her noise, came hastening out of the shadowlight to bar my way. They murmured soft words, urging me back to my proper place.
“I do not care what hour it is,” I told them, and sharply, for I had lost all patience with them. “I am going to see the Lady Zhurleen. Oh, do not be sillier than you must—no harm will come to me within the women’s quarters! Now let me by!”
“Be calm, Queen Michal.” It was Chuldah who spoke; a woman older than I, with eyes as sly as the weasel she was named for. “If you wish to speak to the concubine Zhurleen, she shall be brought to you.
“Now,” I said. My anger choked me; I could not wait. “Bring her to me
now.
”
“Yes, of course. Now.” Chuldah’s voice was butter-smooth. “Go, someone, and fetch the Lady Zhurleen, as the queen bids. And tell the Philistine woman to make haste.”
 
 
I stood by my window and watched the telltale moon as I waited for Zhurleen to come to me. I did not wait long; the moon still hung low and golden over the eastern hills when I heard her step into the room behind me.
“O Queen, live forever. You wished to see me?”
I turned away from the window. Zhurleen bowed before me. “Yes,” I said, and my voice sounded thick and ugly in my ears. “I wished to see you. You swore you would be my friend, and you have betrayed me.”
Zhurleen straightened. “How have I betrayed you, my queen?
And who is it who says so?”
“You did not send my message to my husband Phaltiel—and it is the moon that tells me so. It has been a month, and he has not come. A full month.” My throat ached with my anger at my own betrayal as well; I had not noticed as time bore me gently on, away from Phaltiel and toward David.
“Ah.” Zhurleen’s eyelids lowered over her long eyes. Then she lifted her head and looked at me straight. She too was ready for night and for sleep; her face was washed clean. For the first time I saw her plain, without her mask of paint.
“Will the queen let me speak?” Zhurleen’s voice was as soft as I had always heard it.
“What can you say? I know the truth now. You did not send my message.” And Phaltiel would think I had chosen a king’s riches over my life in his good plain house in Gallim.
“Please, Michal. You must let me speak—yes, and you must listen, too.” Zhurleen had never spoken so before; I was always the queen to her.
“Very well,” I said grudgingly. “Speak, and I will listen.” But I did not sit, nor did I bid Zhurleen to do so.
She stepped forward, close to me. “I sent your message, each word, the day you asked it of me.”
“You did not,” I said. “If you had, Phaltiel would have come. The road to Jerusalem is not so long as that!”
“I spoke your words to the messenger myself, and heard them back from him three times. Michal, did you truly think such a message would be carried any farther than from the women’s gate to the king’s ear?”
I stared at her; my blood pounded hard behind my ears and in my throat. “Do you mean that David—”
“Will hear all your messages and send only those that please him? Of course; he is the king.”
I believed Zhurleen; she might have lied, but I did not think that she did. “I do not care what David is. I am not his wife and I have told him so.” When anger goes it leaves weariness in trade; I
sat down upon my bed. “But it does no good—I told him no, and no again, and he would not hear.”
I thought of another thing; I had not seen David since the first days I was in his house. I told this to Zhurleen, although she must know it as well as any in that house of tale-bearers. “Now I cannot even deny him, for he will not come to hear me. What am I to do?”
“When a woman speaks, men hear only those words they wish. And never will they heed denial.” Zhurleen sat beside me and took my hands between hers. “It is plain that your mother never taught you wisdom, Michal—will you learn it from me?”
It was the first time she had spoken as if we were only two women together, not queen and concubine. I was glad, for she was the one who kept distance between us; Zhurleen never presumed upon the friendship she had asked of me.
And so I nodded, and asked her what it was that she would tell me. “For I have sore need of advice now—yes, and of your friendship.”
“You will have both,” Zhurleen said, and smiled. “It is simple, truly—you have only to remember that your David is both man and king. If he will not let you go—well, one man is much like another, save that some are rich and generous, and some are not! King David is both; you may have all you ask for—”
“I have asked to go home,” I said. “If he will not grant that, I care for nothing else.”
“Are you dead, then, that you have no other desires? All that you ask, I tell you, if only you will choose carefully what you ask of him, and how. He will be a great king, your David, all men say so—yes, even the kings of Philistia. He will have power, great power—but it will be a man’s power.” Zhurleen stroked my hands, and smiled in a way that made me remember my first wedding day, the day that I had married David. It was the way all the women had smiled at me as I sat behind my bridal veil. As if they knew a secret that I did not.
“You have a woman’s power, Michal. Only find what David wants of you, and give it to him—and it will be some easy thing,
for men think women have nothing, and so they ask for little when they could have much. And when you know what the king desires from you, why, make it a gift to him, and give it graciously. Then he will spread the world before your feet for you to tread upon.”
I stared at her, for I did not understand her at all. I had thought Zhurleen would help me; she had said she was my friend.
At last I said, “But David has nothing that I want, Zhurleen. I love my husband Phaltiel, and he loves me. That love is what I want; if the king gives me that, I shall be content.”
Zhurleen stared back at me and for a moment her eyes were dark pools; unreadable. Then she smiled again, her eyes alight once more. “Think what you can do for your Phaltiel, then. He is a farmer? Well, then—ask the king to reward him finely for the loss of you. More land, more sheep, more of whatever a farmer needs—and fewer taxes!”
“Taxes?” It was my turn to smile. “This is not Philistia, Zhurleen—our people do not tithe to kings, only to the priests.”
She did not argue that; she was right, of course, but that too I only learned later. Well, had not Samuel himself warned our people long ago what harvest a king would reap? Zhurleen had never known Samuel, but she knew what the prophet had known: kings demanded payment.
And so I went on, “And what Phaltiel needs is me. I am his wife, I keep his house for him. He has no one else; even his youngest daughter is married now—Miriam, I have told you of her.”
“The one who will bear her next child at harvest-time? Yes, you have told me. You could do much for her—you could make all easy for all those you love. And as for your Phaltiel—” Zhurleen paused, as if she thought, and then laughed.
“Oh, yes, that will do very well! Now see, Michal, you must send word to King David and say that you would see him—David will come, for you have never asked before. And when the king comes to you, you will beg a favor—”
“What favor? David will not send me home, and that is all I want of him.” But I hoped in spite of myself, for Zhurleen’s voice
was rich with happiness now, as if she had at last unknotted a badly-tangled thread.
“Yes, and you have said so loud and often; no one can say Queen Michal is not virtuous and law-abiding, even your sour-faced priests! Now they will say she is generous as well—no, listen to me! You will beg the king’s favor, and when he asks what you desire, you will say to him that the man Phaltiel deserves much for having kept you safe all these years.”

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