Queenmaker (37 page)

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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Queenmaker
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And then we looked into each other’s eyes, and laughed. “No, I suppose they are not,” I said. “As for the rest—of course the king will like her. And if he does not he will say he does, to prove himself still a man.”
Bathsheba sobered and drew near to me. “The king is very ill.” She took my hand, seeking comfort. Change drew nearer with each day that passed. The palace air pressed heavy with it.
“Yes, he is very ill.”
“And Adonijah spends much time with him.”
“As much as King David will allow.”
Bathsheba laced her fingers tight through mine. “What does Nathan say?”
“What does Nathan ever say? Wait; Yahweh will speak in his own good time.”
“I would rather hear King David speak,” Bathsheba said, and her voice trembled with her own daring.
“So would we all, my love. Failing that, I would know what King David thinks. Perhaps Solomon’s girl will be able to tell us.”
“I do not think,” Bathsheba said, “that Adonijah will like it.”
“If he does, he is a bigger fool than even I think.” And I thought Adonijah a bigger fool than Absalom had been. Now that King David lay dying, Adonijah gave himself a king’s airs. Driving his chariot through the city to show himself, with men running before
crying ‘Long live Prince Adonijah!’—did he think no one from the palace saw, or knew, or cared?
Absalom once had done as much. But unlike Absalom, Adonijah did not court the people’s minds and hearts. There was no tending the poor, no granting justice. There was nothing but a great show. Adonijah sought only to flash kingfisher-bright before men’s eyes.
Yes, Adonijah was a fool. That did not make him any less a danger.
“Do you think Adonijah looks so very much like—like Absalom?”
“Yes,” I said. “He is very like.”
“Perhaps the king will see that.”
“Perhaps he will. Ah, listen—the rain has started.” I rested my cheek upon Bathsheba’s hair, and for a time the only sound was rain falling hard upon the city.
“But where is Solomon to find such a girl?” Bathsheba asked at last.
“Bathsheba, my dearest sister—Solomon is a prince, and very good to look upon, and gentle and kind as well. Somewhere in all the land he will surely find
one
maiden willing to take him as he is!”
 
 
“She is beautiful as the day,” Solomon told me as we walked among my lilies. “And modest, and well taught.”
“And does this paragon among women have a name?”
“Her name is Abishag.”
“And where is she from?”
“From Shunem.”
“From Shunem. And how did you happen upon this maiden, my heart?”
Solomon looked down at me, and smiled like a small boy who has eaten a plate of honey-cakes and hopes to be forgiven. “I tried
to be wise, as you would be. I sent a trusted servant to seek out a fair maid to serve and please Queen Michal. It was he who found Abishag in Shunem.”
“I heard nothing of this.” I would speak to Narkis; I did not like secrets that I myself did not keep.
Solomon spread his hands wide. “I said it was to be a pleasing surprise for you. Well, I did not want my search gossipped of throughout the palace. Since it was for
your
pleasure, I knew my man would hold his tongue.”
“Solomon—” It was no good; I laughed. At last I sobered and slid my arm through his. “Now, tell me of this girl Abishag. You have seen her yourself?”
“Yes.” Solomon’s eyes were bright. “I have seen her.”
“And which day is she as lovely as?” I could not help teasing him; no mother could have.
Solomon smiled, himself fair as a summer day. “The hair of her head is like purple; thick and rich and dark as dusk. Her skin is apricots ripe in the sun. Her teeth are matched pearls. Her eyes are the night sky bright with stars.” He paused, and added, as if it were a cherished secret, “And she smells of soap and cinnamon.”
“So she pleased you?”
Solomon laughed, and turned to face me. He set his hands upon my shoulders and kissed my forehead. “Yes, Mother. I saw her for a short time only, but she pleased me.”
“Well, that is good. Now bring her to me, and I will speak with her—and make all clear that you did not!”
 
 
Abishag was fair indeed; Solomon had not overpraised her. That was good, for David liked any pretty woman. And Abishag was comely in the fashion David favored above all others. Her slanting eyes were sloe-dark, her mouth moist and pink as a ripe peach, and she was round-breasted and round-hipped, and tied her scarlet girdle just tight enough to show this.
She was younger than I would have chosen—very young, and much impressed by the king’s city and the king’s house—and by the queen. She studied me as closely as I did her; I smiled, and bade her rise and sit beside me.
She rose up graceful as a willow in the wind, and spread her skirt carefully so that the embroidery was displayed to best advantage. A pleasing pattern; suns and moons worked in bright thread. I asked if it were the work of her own hands, and she said that it was.
“And the design is my own as well. I have been well schooled in all a woman’s arts, O Queen.” She spoke with a proper pride, neither too much nor too little.
“In
all
a woman’s arts?” I asked, and smiled upon her.
“Oh, yes—I can do anything you ask of me!” She was all eagerness to please. All eagerness to live in the palace and serve the queen—or so it seemed.
“Then I ask an answer. How is it so fair a maid is unwed, and unspoken for? Tell me truly, Abishag—is there no man who makes your heart beat hard and fast?”
“I am unwed and unspoken for. For the rest, that is not for me to say.” But she blushed hot as she spoke the words, and for the first time seemed as uncertain as any young girl.
“Then I will say it. It is Prince Solomon who has taken your heart. Oh, come, child—I am as a mother to him, and he has already spoken of you. Do you think I gossip with any maid chance brought to me as if she were my daughter?”
“What did the prince say of me?” Eager words, eager spoken, and cheeks red as poppies; yes, Abishag cared. Well, and how could she not? There was no prince like Solomon for wisdom and beauty in all the land. No, and no man either.
“Why, he said that he had met at last a sweet and clever maid, one fair as a queen.” And I watched Abishag close as I spoke, and was satisfied with the wisdom of Solomon’s choice.
For Abishag was a clever girl, and ambitious, which was not a bad thing. The queen’s finery I wore, the hint of a crown for her
brow, warmed her eyes. But Solomon’s name was the spark that kindled fire there.
And so I smiled upon Abishag, and kissed her hot cheek, and lifted a twisted braid of pearls and coral from my own neck and hung it about hers. “So take this, with my love—it was brought by a trader from Tyre, and he said it had come farther yet. But traders cannot tell true to save their throats from slitting! And this jewel was meant for a young neck, child—yes, that is the setting it should have. Solomon was right to praise you so highly—it is long since I have seen a girl as lovely as you.”
Abishag was flattered, of course, and blushed again, and stroked the necklace and coiled the sea-gems about her plump fingers. “The queen is too kind. There are many more beautiful than I. All men know that true beauty lies only under King David’s roof, and that the queen outshines all others as the moon outshines the stars.”
“Pretty words,” I said, and smiled. “But I have a mirror, and a board to tally the years that have passed since I was born. Now tell me truly how you reckon your beauty.”
Abishag looked at me, and her sloe-eyes were shrewd. “It has caught a prince,” she said at last. “Or at least I am told it has. So either my beauty is great indeed or Prince Solomon has deceived me.
Solomon had made good use of the ‘short time’ he had spent with Abishag. And so, no doubt, had she. I pressed my lips together, firm, and did not laugh.
“Prince Solomon has not deceived you,” I said, and took her hand. “So you have caught a prince, Abishag. Will you dare ensnare a king?”
 
 
Abishag would dare; of course she would dare. To care for an old man and bring me news of what he said—that seemed to her little enough. And the reward was great.
“I will
make
King David like me,” Abishag told me, firm as a
cat. “I tended my grandfather, when he was ill before he died. I shall tend the king as carefully and well, O Queen.”
“Yes—but do not tell the king about your grandfather, Abishag!”
Abishag swore she would not, and listened close as I spoke to her of King David, and of what he liked, and did not. “And I know you go a maiden to the king, Abishag, and I think you will go to Prince Solomon still a maid. But I may be wrong; will that trouble you?”
Abishag looked down at her fingers; she touched a turquoise ring that I knew had been a gift from Solomon. “If it will not trouble Prince Solomon,” she said at last, “then I will not let it trouble me.” She lifted her head and looked at me straight. “Is that a queen’s answer, O Queen?”
“Yes, Abishag,” I said. I curled my fingers in the thin chains of the brass-and-crystal bracelet Bathsheba had given me so long ago. “I am very much afraid that it is.”
 
 
Abishag was good to David. She stayed close by him always, and slept beside him in his bed, and tended to him most faithfully. But she lay with him chastely. So she said, and I believed her.
Still, David valued Abishag highly for her youth and warmth, and for the way she would listen for hours to his tales, sitting still as a cat while he rambled on about long-past battles and long-dead men. He thanked me often for my gift, and swore I was worth any dozen other women.
“Have I not always said so, and have you not proved it forty times over?”
“The king is too kind, and I cannot take praise that belongs to another. It was your son Solomon who thought a young maid would please you, and warm you in the night.” I thought it time to show David how Solomon cared for him, before Adonijah came whining to him with the tale that Solomon had sought out Abishag and brought her to me.
“A kind thought,” David said, and patted Abishag’s hands as they lay folded and quiet in her lap. “Yes, a kind thought. Solomon has always been a good boy.”
“He is a boy no longer, David. He is a man, and a good one. He is almost what you were, at his age.”
David was never too proud or too old to lap up flattery like honey from the hand. “Well, if that is true, Michal, then he will be a fine man indeed. Yes, a fine man.”
“A fine man,” I said, “who would make a fine king, fit to follow the great King David.”
But I had gone too far. David became sullen and suspicious, and said that I wished to see him dead.
“You have always wished it. You are a hard woman, Michal, and your heart is stone. You were always too proud—you never loved me truly, as your brother Jonathan did.” And he began to weep, for his own words had always had the power to touch his heart. The old are frail, and David seemed very old, now.
He groped for Abishag, who came forward onto her knees and put her arms around the king’s thin shoulders. “Jonathan—have I told you of Jonathan? King Saul’s son, he was, and we loved each other well—have you heard the tale?”
“Tell it to me,” Abishag said, and stroked his white hair. She gave no hint that she must have heard the tale a dozen times. As King David’s life faded, that early friendship with my brother Jonathan grew stronger in his mind, truer with each telling of the tale and singing of the song, until even David thought their love outlasted time and death.
I knew that he no longer saw me sitting there; he lived again in his glorious youth, embraced in youth’s arms. And so I rose, and smiled over his head at Abishag, and went quietly away. If anything was said that I should know, Abishag would come and tell it to me later.
 
 
Soon. All men knew it would be soon. King David could not outlast the year. So ran gossip in the city I did not think he could outlast the summer.
Soon—and King David still would not say either
‘It will be Adonijah’or ‘It will be Solomon’.
Many thought Adonijah would be king after. Adonijah was the eldest prince, now that so many others lay dead; he was Absalom’s full brother, and David had always loved him for that, if for nothing else. The high priest Abiathar favored Adonijah as well, and so Adonijah walked meek before him; Abiathar could anoint Adonijah truly as king. And many of the war-captains thought Adonijah a fine prince, who would make a finer king.
But the man whose support Adonijah desired above all other men’s was Joab, for Joab could bring half the army as dower to the next king.
Prince Adonijah had always held his head too high to see Joab when he walked by—now Adonijah courted Joab, wooing for his favor. But Joab kept his face smooth as stone; Joab would say nothing, save that he served David and David’s kingdom.

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