I saw him in the evening when he and Jonathan came for their regular meal with Father and Abner. As they passed through the courtyard, Jonathan winked at me but David gave me no more than a respectful nod. Desperate, I mined it for meaning. Was it a grateful acknowledgement or a gentle rebuff? Or was I worrying unduly before Jonathan had had a chance to talk to him? Feeling sick, I excused myself from the table and escaped to bed, longing to be alone with my thoughts. But I’d reckoned without Mother and her bowl of restorative soup, her concern even more cloying than Keziah's chatter.
My deception threatened to rebound on me the next morning when Jonathan asked Mother's permission to take me to the river where he and David were practising archery. She insisted that I stay and rest, whereupon he picked her up and, ignoring her protests, refused to put her down until she agreed. Both appreciative and jealous of his ability to influence her, I promised to keep out of the sun and not to tire myself. Giggling like five-year-olds, we raced to the gatehouse where David was waiting. Just the sight of him made my heart spin. My rush of sensations made no sense as, all at once, I found myself rising to the firmament and sinking into Sheol.
‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ he said, and my confusion redoubled as I longed both to leap into his arms and run back to hide in my chamber.
We made our way through the streets, and for the first time I felt that the looks of respect, admiration and even envy I attracted were less on my own account than that of my companion. Although part of me was grateful that they acknowledged his worth, another part was frightened of their intruding on my happiness. I was relieved when we reached the meadow, where the only distraction was a flock of sheep. ‘Friends of yours?’ Jonathan asked David. He laughed, but I bristled.
Invoking my promise to Mother, Jonathan made me sit in the shade of a giant cypress, while he and David took aim at a target they’d carved on an oak. I was heartened to see that, despite their rivalry, they were proud of each other's prowess. With new loyalties pitted against old, my hope that their scores would tally was fulfilled unexpectedly when David's arrow hit Jonathan's and, rather than knocking it off the trunk, split it in two, the one's arrowhead lodging in the other's shaft in what felt like the perfect expression of their friendship. Awestruck, they broke off and joined me to eat a simple meal of almonds, figs and bread.
All of a sudden, Jonathan jumped up, claiming to have glimpsed a distant roe. He grabbed his bow and ran off in pursuit, leaving me alone with David. This was the opportunity for which I’d prayed but, as the silence between us grew thunderous, my one desire was to flee.
‘You must love your brother very much,’ he said at last.
‘More than anyone else in the world,’ I replied mechanically.
‘Me too,’ he said. And I loved him for his discernment, while wondering what it would take for it to be extended to me.
Joab said that you have seven brothers.’
‘You asked him about me?’
‘I...I...’
‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. Yes. I’m the youngest. That's why I was put in charge of the flock. Not – whatever Jonathan might say – because of my affinity with sheep.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it.’
‘No, I don’t think he does.’
He gazed at the copse as if willing Jonathan to reappear. I hurriedly bit an almond, which stuck in my teeth. ‘When Jonathan berated Father for forbidding you to marry Merab,’ I said, in an effort to draw him out, ‘you declared that you were just a shepherd and no match for her.’
‘I would never want to marry a woman who didn’t want to marry me.’
‘What about one who did?’
He looked at me so gravely that I thought I’d burst, but then a smile spread across his face. ‘You’re as fearless as your brother,’ he said, and I returned the smile. ‘Our clan has always placed worth above wealth. My father's grandfather, Boaz, married Ruth, a Moabite woman so poor that she gleaned the grain from his fields. He couldn’t have chosen better.’
‘Our clan was unremarkable until Father was elected king. We still live in the house where he was born. The people wanted to build him something larger, but he refused. He was afraid of breeding resentment. I loved him for his modesty.’
‘Where would you like to live?’
‘In a shepherd's hut... in a cave... in the desert like our ancestors. Anywhere, so long as it's with you.’
There! I’d said it and it could never be unsaid. He looked at me again and I willed him to kiss me. It seemed so natural and right that I failed to see why he held back. For a moment I closed my eyes and felt his lips on mine, only to open them and find that it was the breeze. His one move was to clasp my arm and, although I reminded myself that shyness had been among his chief attractions, I was unable to shake off a sense of disappointment. Why didn’t he kiss me? We sat in a welter of unformed, unfulfilled desires, until Jonathan, his arms as empty as expected, strolled back into view.
Despite my disappointment, it felt as if something had been settled between us, but it wasn’t until Jonathan took me aside on our return that I could be sure. He explained that for David himself to propose the match would be disastrous, so once again he’d have to intercede. Blind to my impatience, he added that he had to wait for the right moment, which came sooner than I’d hoped, with the news that Nasib, King of Ekron and Father's lifelong adversary, had died. Summoned to his chamber the next morning, I saw at once from Jonathan's face that Father had consented. Not since the sacrificial ram broke its bonds and butted the priest at Nob had I struggled so hard to suppress a smile.
‘How old are you?’ Father asked me.
‘Fifteen... nearly sixteen.’ Since I was born the month after he became king, I would have expected him to remember.
‘How would you like a husband?’
‘If it pleases you, Father.’
‘Nothing pleases me; but it suits me. You may be surprised to hear that Jonathan has picked one out for you – or maybe you won’t in this new world where sons know better than their fathers.’
Seeing the telltale vein throbbing on Jonathan's brow, I replied quickly. ‘I’m sure that he was only trying to anticipate your wishes.’
Father grunted. ‘What do you say to David?’
Yes, yes, yes! was what I said in my head. Yes, yes, yes, yes! was what I said with every fibre of my being. ‘I’d be happy with him, Father,’ was what I said out loud.
‘Why?’
There were so many reasons, but I knew better than to cite his smile or his charm or his valour or his victories, all of which might be considered threats. ‘I think I’d like a husband who sings.’ When Father laughed and Jonathan sighed, I knew that it was the right answer.
‘How much would you say you’re worth?’ Father asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘David can’t expect to have you for nothing. You saw the treasure that Adriel gave for Merab.’
‘He's not rich,’ I said, alarmed by this new obstacle.
‘Then we’ll have to find something else.’
It wasn’t until later when Jonathan, ashen with anger, sought me out that I learnt that the something else was the slaughter of a hundred Philistines. I was horrified. If he succeeded, our marriage would be built on blood, and if he failed, there would be another corpse to add to the pile: mine.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jonathan said. ‘He won’t fail; he enjoys the Lord's favour.’
‘So did Father.’
‘Then he forfeited it. Now you know why. It's despicable. He pretends that he's testing David's strength, when it's patently obvious he wants him to perish in the attempt.’
‘Will you go with him?’ I asked, so concerned for his safety that I was even willing to imperil Jonathan.
‘No, he's to go alone. With Joab as his armour-bearer.’
The news cheered me since, despite my dislike of him, Joab was far too shrewd to follow anyone – even a kinsman – to certain death.
&nb
sp; ‘Must he bring back a hundred heads?’ I asked, still haunted by the decapitation of the Philistine giant.
‘Of course not,’ Jonathan said. ‘Their swords and helmets will be more useful – and less putrid.’
David set off the following dawn with a terse farewell that attested to his impatience to complete the task and claim the prize. Weeks passed without word of him. For all his assurances, I could see that Jonathan was anxious, but I was afraid to arouse his suspicions by expressing my own fears. I wished more than ever that Merab were here or, at the very least, we had been taught to write. In her absence, I had nobody to confide in but Mother, whose response to my dejection was to fill my days with chores. Then one morning when I was in the olive grove, a bondwoman brought news that David had been sighted in the valley. My hands were stained and my hair tangled but my only thought was to see him – alive – and I ran to the city gate where Father, with Ahitophel at his side, was hearing petitions. Brooking no interruption, he ordered the suppliants to speak even though, like everyone else, they had turned towards the path. Moments later, David appeared, followed by Joab. To my dismay, the packs on their donkeys were too small for the stipulated swords or helmets, yet David showed no unease as he prostrated himself in the dust.
‘My lord and king, I have done as you asked, killing not one but two hundred Philistines.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Father said, with a thin smile. ‘Jiist as you killed the lions and bears that threatened your flock. But we require proof.’
I looked again at the unladen donkey and, setting aside my own hopes, longed for David to leap on its back and ride off, sparing himself the inevitable humiliation. Instead, he beckoned to Joab, who pulled down a pack, untied it and emptied it at Father's feet.
My surprise turned to revulsion at the stench, redolent of fish that had been inadequately smoked. Drawing my veil over my nose, I stared at the pink and grey shrivelled matter, which resembled the crawling creatures that we were forbidden to eat. I presumed that David wished to shame Father for his cruelty but, while applauding the intent, I dreaded the consequence.
‘See,’ he said, ‘I have circumcised the uncircumcised ones. Two hundred Philistine foreskins.’ The gasps from the spectators were replaced by cheers, which faded when Father sprang up, his face grey. ‘Let anyone who doubts me count them.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Father said coldly. ‘You have done what we asked.’
‘Double what you asked, my lord.’
‘Come!’
With a brief bow to me, David followed Father, Ahitophel and the guard. Alone, I gazed at the grisly payment. Although I had attended Ishbaal's circumcision, I’d been too young to understand what it entailed. When Father raised his knife, I’d thought that he was sacrificing the baby and screamed, provoking Mother's scolding and Merab's scorn. Since then I’d learnt that, at eight days old, a boy shed his blood for the covenant. I knew that the rite was performed on the most private part of his body, the part that would be revealed only to his bride on their wedding night, and that, unlike the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Hittites and us, the Philistines observed no such rite. Now David had performed it for them and on full-grown men. Had they been dead or alive? Was it the ultimate degradation? Why hadn’t he just chopped off their fingers?
My reflections were cut short by Joab who, chasing away two drooling curs, plucked the foetid foreskins from the ground and threw them into the sack. Meeting his smile of derision with one of defiance, I returned home. Later that day Father informed me that I was betrothed to David. Nothing could have made me happier – unless, of course, he had come in person, but he’d ridden straight to Bethlehem to tell his family and bring them back for the feasts. With her mind on the storeroom, Mother was relieved that only three of his brothers accompanied him, along with his parents, Jesse and Nizebeth, and Jonadab, his eight-year-old nephew, the most enthusiastic member of the group, whose youthful gallantry was at once endearing and sinister. My only regret was that Merab, now pregnant, was forbidden to undertake the journey.
Mother led me to the spring for the rite of purification. I stood numbly in the water as she explained that I must come back every month to preserve a stainless marriage bed. But the icy immersion would be a small price to pay for the joy of lying with David. We returned home, where Mother and Hodiah helped me to dress for the first feast. I wore a robe dyed from the pinkest hyacinths and a scarlet mantle embroidered with gold and silver stars that Mother had worked in secret during the weeks that David was pursuing the Philistines and which pleased me as much for her faith in him as her love for me. Dismissing Hodiah, whose unconcealed delight in my marriage moved me, she brushed my hair, running it through her fingers as if feeling my childhood slip away.
‘You’re happy today,’ she said, ‘and I’m happy for you. But remember that from now on your happiness must be your husband's happiness. Your body is no longer your own.’ Startled, I turned to face her and she instantly pushed me back, making me wonder when my body had ever been my own. ‘David will break you open like a seal. You understand?’ I nodded, forgetting that she was braiding my hair. ‘You’ll feel pain and humiliation but it will be transformed by love, just as when the Lord blesses you with children, the pain of childbirth will be transformed to joy.’
Her evident discomfort made her remarks hard to follow. I presumed that the seal was the one on the marriage contract but, far from feeling any loss, I couldn’t wait for David to break it and turn me from a single person into half- or, if that were too much to ask, a quarter or even an eighth – of a pair.
Mother completed the braid and concluded the conversation, unlocking her coffer and taking out jewellery for me to wear. Putting on the earrings and nose-ring, the bracelets and anklets and necklaces, which Father had once given her, I felt a renewed repugnance at the payment he’d demanded of David. Unlike Merab, decked out in Adriel's gems, I would have to return these to Mother at the end of the week. As resentment rose up in me, a servant announced that the guests had assembled and the prospect of my noble bridegroom banished the memory of my sordid bride-price.
I saw him the moment I entered the courtyard, wearing a brilliant white robe and a garland of lilies and roses. The depth of my desire for him shocked and even frightened me. What had once been a dispassionate love, happy just to know that such a man existed, was now a desperate longing not only to see and to hear but to smell, touch and taste him. ‘Keep your eyes straight ahead,’ Mother whispered, as she led me first to Father and then to Jesse. I kissed their beards, after which Father kissed me distractedly on the brow and Jesse respectfully on each palm. Circumventing the younger men, we moved to the women, where I sat between Mother and Nizebeth. Despite the richness of the stewed sheep's tail and the beauty of the Ammonite singing, I had never been so eager for a meal to end, not even when, as a girl, I’d had to sit through the revelry at the Festivals of Reaping and Gathering. I sustained myself by surreptitious glances at David, alternately relieved and disappointed that our eyes never met. Then, looking up from a dish of honeyed dates and sesame cakes, I saw that he and Jonathan had left and knew that I wouldn’t have long to wait.
At last Father rose from his stool and signalled to Mother that we should join him. Preceded by four guards and followed by a group of boisterous kinsmen, we processed through the streets to the house that was my wedding gift from Father. Never had I felt so well disposed towards the waiting crowds, especially the girls whose cheers were coloured by their own dreams and desires. As we approached the gate, Father gave me his sword to ward off the evil spirits but, jolted by its weight, I let it fall. Mother gasped, ever ready to detect an ill omen, but silencing her with a frown, Father picked up the sword and returned it to me. Clasping it in both hands, I sliced the air before bringing it down on a pomegranate, which Mother had placed on the threshold.
‘May your children be as numerous as the seeds of this fruit,’ she said, pointing at the pulp.
‘It doesn’t al
ways follow,’ Father said, glowering at Jonathan.
After relinquishing the sword to Father and kissing Mother, I stepped over the burst fruit and entered the house. Father, Mother and Jonathan left with the guard, but the rest of my escort remained, their hoots and howls dashing any hope that I would be spared the cacophony that had marked Merab's wedding night. While I resented the intrusion, David seemed to welcome it. Then, as if rallying himself, he led the way to our chamber.
‘You look very like your brother,’ he said, studying me in the lamplight.
‘Is that good?’
‘I thought so once.’ He turned away. ‘You must be tired. You’ll want to go to bed. I’ll leave you.’
‘What?’
‘To change,’ he said and went out.
I took off my jewellery and my robe and unpinned my hair but kept on my under-tunic in case it was a husband's right – or duty – to remove it. David returned, wearing only his tunic and, with a sidelong glance at me, slipped into bed. After a moment of doubt I followed. He put out the lamp in a misplaced courtesy, plunging the room into darkness. I feared that he would take the heaviness of my breath for dread. He shrugged off his tunic, and the moonlight seeping through the window disclosed whorls of hair on a chest hard as a shield. He gripped my under-tunic and drew it up to my thighs. I tried to wriggle out of it without appearing forward but, when it caught beneath my hips, I gave in and pulled it off. For the first time in my life, I was naked in bed beside someone other than Merab. I wondered if it were the same for him. I had heard guards boasting of the captive women they’d ravished, but that was punishment not love. I had even heard of women who devoted themselves to pleasuring men: not one man, like Rizpah, but many men like Rahab, who had hidden Joshuas spies in Jericho. But as he traced the line of my hips with trembling fingers, he seemed as unsure of my body as I was of his.
The Anointed Page 4
