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Authors: India Edghill

BOOK: Queenmaker
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David’s songs were sung from Dan to Beersheba; no one else had his easy way with words. All men said so, and all women too. A harper had only to say a new tune was from David’s lips to be sure of a warm welcome and a good meal at least. There were many new songs to sing in those days—and as Phaltiel once said, perhaps some of them indeed were David’s.
I heard that David had married again—and again. I told the teller of the tale that I wished David joy. “Only think of roaming the hills with so many wives! David is a hero indeed!” I laughed, and meant it. David’s wives were nothing to me now. I was Phaltiel’s s wife; that was enough.
Even when I heard that David had married another king’s daughter I only marveled as any might that David the rebel had wed Princess Maachah, freely given by her father Talmai, King of Geshur. It was another and clearer sign that David’s star rose ever higher.
And because I was happy with my husband and my lot, I did not even wonder that David now took so many wives into his life of strife and danger, when once he would not risk even one. Those who live content do not ask such questions, even when they should. And I was full content.
I do not say I was happy and heedless as I had been with David, for he had made time shine like glass at noon. But I was content—and useful, which I learned to value more. With Miriam
gone the household was mine to order as I thought fit, and to do so gave me more pleasure than I had expected to find in such work.
I had the raising of young Caleb as well; he was a good boy, and caused me little grief, for I was still young enough only to think it a good joke when he danced upon the rooftops after wild rock doves, or came home well-bitten by a fox-cub he had somehow caught in the fields.
“But Mother, it followed me home!” He was panting and dirty and clinging tight to the small furious thing he had wrapped in his tunic for safekeeping. The cub growled and sank sharp white teeth into Caleb’s thumb; Caleb yelped, the maids shrieked, and I laughed until tears dropped off my cheeks to make holes in the dust.
“You may keep it if it will stay of its own wish,” I said at last. Released, the fox-cub ran off as if its tail were afire. I laughed again, and this time the maids laughed with me. Caleb stopped sulking when I recklessly promised him a spotted hound puppy in the fox-cub’s stead, for I could not bear to see him sad.
Phaltiel, when I explained and begged his aid, agreed to procure the dog for his son, and praised my womanly wisdom. I knew he laughed at me as well as at Caleb, but this I no longer minded.
I became friends with the village women, for their joys and griefs were those of all women and I shared them too. I was no longer ‘Princess Michal’; I was Michal, the wife of Phaltiel. I was another woman to talk with at the well, or to call upon for aid when a woman was in hard labor. I was often called for by women in childbed, once they knew I was not too proud to help. I had good hands, they said—but in truth, children birth themselves if they are but let.
One thing only fretted me as my time in Phaltiel’s house steadily lengthened into a well-woven strand of years. I had all my rights of Phaltiel, and he his of me. He came in to me often, and our nights pleased us both, for he was patient and loving and I
young and curious. But no matter how often we lay together, no child quickened my womb.
At first I did not worry. I was young, I told myself Children would come. I had only to wait.
I waited, but full moon after full moon shone over the valley and still I was not with child.
“Be patient,” my husband told me. “All things come in their own season, and you are not so very old yourself.”
But I still had not truly learned to wait. I had been Phaltiel’s wife over five years, after all; I wished to give my husband the sons that were his right. I wished to hold my child in my arms—Phaltiel’s child.
Anxious, I consulted the other women in the village. They had many suggestions to make and remedies to offer: prayers and charms and herbs. I even, against all warnings, consulted Hastar, a hot-eyed foreigner who was said to have come from a land beyond Moab, where she had learned many strange and useful things.
Hastar listened, and then said frankly that many would pay well for the barrenness I wept over. “Your husband has sons of his first wife, has he not? Well then—why quarrel with your luck? Better to be an old man’s darling, they say—”
“My husband is not old!”
Hastar smiled, and the long lines painted past her slanting eyes wavered and wrinkled. “No husband is old to a loving wife. Well, you are a good girl, Michal, and as you wish it for yourself I will tell you what I can. But it may not work, and if it does not, do not complain of me to all the village.”
I swore I would not, and listened well. But it did me no good, for her advice proved as worthless as the prayers and charms and potions of the others. The best that could be said for Hastar’s foreign wisdom was that it found more favor with my husband than did that of the good wives.
At last his patience with my folly ended, and Phaltiel made me throw away the charms and amulets, and pour the herbal potions on the midden. “Wife of my bosom, I and my children love
you and you make me laugh, and I care not if you ever risk yourself in childbed. I lost my first wife so, when Caleb was born—your sister Merab died giving a fifth son to a man to whom she had already given four. I have sons and daughters a-plenty, so let me hear no more of this.”
But he agreed that there was no harm in what Hastar had told me, and each new moon we tried once more. It did not work. I remained barren.
Sometimes I wondered if it was my father’s curse that kept me childless. Later I knew it had been his blessing.
 
 
It was beautiful, that last day I ever saw my brother Jonathan. As beautiful as one of Jonathan’s smiles.
Sweet spring would soon be hot summer; the air was soft as lovers’ hands. I was lazy, that day; I sat beside the courtyard spring, and let the water run winter-cold over my fingers, and counted over my little joys like jewels.
Once I had run hot after David; now that I had been eight years married to Phaltiel I knew how foolish I had been. What would there have been for me with David? Nothing but weariness and loneliness and grief; going from wilderness to foreign court and back again, always knowing that of my father and my husband, only one could live if there were ever to be peace.
No, this was better—this warm content. I thought I knew now what love was, and peace. I thought I knew how to value them both.
But I had not truly learned that harsh lesson. Not yet.
And so I played the water sparkling from my fingers, and laughed, and rose easy in my mind when a maid came to tell me there was a man striding down the road that led only to Phaltiel’s house.
The man at the gate was dust-covered and road-weary, but I
knew him at once and ran to him with my arms outstretched. “Jonathan! Oh, my brother, be welcome!”
He let me clasp him close, and I was startled by his thinness. It seemed my arms circled bone. Frightened, I began to scold him.
“Jonathan, what have you been about? You will be ill if you keep this road! Come into the house and let me feed you! And you will bathe, and rest, and I will not have you say me nay!”
“What, is this proper goodwife my little sister Michal? Country life has changed you, Princess.” It was meant for a jest, I think, but his words fell flat and heavy on the ear, as his arm lay heavy on my shoulders.
“I am no longer a fool for temper and pride, if that is what you mean—now do as I say, brother, and save your news for later. I will listen to nothing until you have eaten and rested.”
“You are still as stubborn as a rock in the road.” Jonathan smiled a little, but he was too tired to argue, and so did as I bade him.
I had meant my words, too, and so it was not until well into the day, when the shadows began to reach out across the valley, that I heard what had brought Jonathan to see us now.
We sat in my little courtyard where the spring welled endless from the rock—Phaltiel, and Jonathan, and I. Jonathan was clean now, his hair combed and oiled, his clothing fresh from a cedar-wood chest. He had slept; I had sat beside his bed myself to make sure. It had made no difference. He still looked like a man whose wound is mortal, and who knows it and does not care.
I pretended I did not notice, and chattered on like a silly squirrel about this and that—my new gown, a recipe for stewed dates in cream that no one had liked, how much Caleb had grown—until Phaltiel put his hand over mine and bade me cease.
“Boys of his age grow, and always have and always will. This is not why Jonathan has come to us now.”
“Let my sister speak, Phaltiel. It has been too long since I have had time to listen to house-talk. I am tired of war and fighting men. Caleb looks to be tall, you say? I would see him, before I
go—my boy Meribaal is nearing five, and I think of him as still clinging to his nurse’s hand. I have not seen him since the winter.” It was late spring now.
“Oh, Jonathan—is it so bad then?” I knew it for a fool’s question before the words left my lips, and could have cried.
He did not seem to hear. “I do not know why I came, save that it has been long since we met and I would see you once more. I have seen David, and now I have seen you, Michal.” He smiled at me and held out his arms. “Come and kiss me, little sister, and then I would talk with your husband.”
Phaltiel looked at me in the way that meant I was to be biddable and obedient, and Jonathan looked so tired I did not argue, but kissed him and went away. I knew he must be troubled in his mind indeed to speak as he had done; David’s name was not often spoken in Phaltiel’s house.
 
 
It was not until Jonathan was gone that I learned what he had said to Phaltiel that day. He had made Phaltiel swear not to tell me sooner.
“He would have it that you should not know at all, but that I would not promise. Put that distaff down, Michal, and come and sit with me, and I will tell you.”
As Phaltiel told it to me, the tale was simple; he did not try to wrap it in sweet words, but told me plainly.
During the years King Saul had hunted David through the land, we had been fortunate beyond measure; the Philistines had not attacked. But now King Saul was known to be mad in truth, and the kingdom divided against itself. And now the Philistines had declared open war on Israel. The Philistine army was massing near the plain of Jezreel.
“David is not there—the Philistine leaders do not trust him overmuch, it seems. Well, I would not.” It was the harshest thing
I had ever heard Phaltiel say of David. “Jonathan will not have to face David across a spear, at least.”
I was glad of that, for both their sakes. But there was more, and worse. Jonathan had not come all this way only to tell us that. He had come to say good-bye.
My father had never before feared battle—mad or not, he still knew how to fight—but this time he had grown uneasy in his mind. He had gone to consult a necromancer, a woman who lived at En-dor. Saul wished to speak to Samuel; the mad consulting the dead.
This had caused great wonder and talk, for Saul himself had ordered all witches and necromancers and oracles banished from his kingdom long since. Yahweh would no longer come to Saul in dreams, or answer his prayers, or speak to him through prophets—and so no one in all the land might seek solace or wisdom through those means.
But now Saul himself had need of counsel; well, he was given it freely enough. Samuel appeared to him and told him what many living could have told as well, had they dared, with no need for sorcery: Yahweh had abandoned Saul long since, and the prize was David’s now.
“That would not have brought Jonathan so far, only to stay a day and a night. What else, Phaltiel?”
He held my hands tight while he told me. Samuel had indeed had more to say; in death as in life, the prophet Samuel must always have the last word. Because Saul had disobeyed Yahweh, he had already suffered much, and now would lose what he had left to him. In the coming battle the Philistines would conquer; Saul and his sons would die.
Is it better to have warning of the blow, when it cannot be halted, or to walk serene and unheeding until the knife cuts deep? I have suffered both; I still have no answer.
“No! My father is mad—all men say so—this is one of his ravings.” But I had seen Jonathan’s face, and my words did not comfort me.
“Whether King Saul spoke with Samuel or only with his own fears I do not know, Michal. But Jonathan says that Saul believes, and the men believe. And that is half the Philistines’ work done for them.”
“And Jonathan went—you let Jonathan go to be killed—why did you not stop him? I will send after him—no, I will go myself and bring him here, where he will be safe—” Now I raved, and knew it, and could not stop myself.
“Yes, he went to fight beside your rather—to save him if he can, to help win the battle if it can be won. Who is to say if Samuel’s ghost spoke truth or lies? Jonathan is a warrior; he might have lain dead after any battle, and with no help from prophecy. When all men fight, some men die. Can you guard a man from the future?”

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