They know better than to say anything, and Jonathan knows it too, but this time he dares to try again.
“About David,” he says. “Remember your promise—”
“Promise?”
“Do not sin against him.”
At this point Saul does not even care to wave his hand again, nor does he ask his son for any more clarifications, because sin is the king’s right, not to be challenged by anyone. The only sound coming out of him is the long drawn out grinding of his teeth.
With great urgency, the princess steps in between father and son.
“Daddy,” she curtsies, wearing her smile again. “You were saying?”
For a moment, the king struggles to pick up where he has been interrupted earlier.
“Where was I?” he grumbles. “Oh yes, Michal. I don’t know what you have in mind, but whatever it is, you’re right.” He presses his hands to his temples, and with a deep sigh he wipes off the sweat. “Oh hell, the torture is back. It’s unbearable.”
“Indeed,” she says. “It’s too much, even for a king.”
“I’m willing to try anything.”
“In that case, guess what? I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?”
“Indeed!” she exclaims. “Prepare to be entertained!”
And the moment she says that, I know exactly what she has in mind. Like every newly married woman, she hopes to change her man. She knows all too well that as commander in her father’s army, I would be sent away to this or that battlefield, far out of her reach. Even worse: with countless victories under my belt, my fame would surely increase. Alas, it would get completely out of hand.
The only way to contain it would be to demote me, to make me take a step back into my previous position, which I held as a child: a court musician. This is who she fell in love with in the first place, and so, this is how she wishes to keep me.
Michal claps her hands, and from the back of the dining hall comes a sound, a rumbling sound louder than the boom of thunder rolling in from outside. Out of a dark corner, two servants come into light. With great labor they wheel in a large, shrouded thing behind them.
“What the hell is this?” demands the king.
The princess curtsies. “What better instrument to entertain you, daddy, than this?”
With an ornate gesture she unveils the harp, even plunks a few strings. A few notes bounce aimlessly and wander about in the air, then fall flat into silence. Without missing a beat Michal runs back here, to where I am standing, and with great flare she flings her father’s mantle off her shoulders, and onto mine.
She even ties it around my neck.
Now all eyes are on me.
“The harp!” she cries out. “Who better to play it, than the most incredible entertainer in the entire land of Canaan, from sea to shining sea? His poetry is inspiring! Indeed, so is his music!”
And I mumble, “Michal, really… I don’t deserve you.”
To which she confides in me, “Indeed. You don’t.”
And to the crowd she says, “Everyone, please welcome him: my groom, David!”
To me, this is utterly flattering—but with her I know my place. So I bow my head in the proper manner, to show humility.
Meanwhile, Jonathan leaps to my other side.
“I tried, David,” he puffs into my ear. “I really tried to stop it, stop this show, because everyone, every single servant here knows: it’s not going to end well...”
So I take a look around. Every face—servants and guests alike—seems strangely blank. Perhaps they are masking their expression because they are under the king’s gaze.
“There’s no time,” Jonathan whispers, as he keeps trying to spur me into action. “Run! Run away, David, before it’s too late, and may God be with you.”
And Michal says, “Stay with me!”
And he says, “Go!”
And she says, “Stay!”
I look left and right at the two of them. Then in a blink I make up my mind, and shake my hands free of both sister and brother. I have been pushed around long enough. At long last I know what is in my heart, what I want to do. Who cares about danger, and who cares about that odd look in the king’s eye.
There stands the harp, and my fingers ache for it.
I lay the fingertips of my first four fingers over the silk strings, and with force that comes from the arm—and even higher up, from the upper body, and from my mind—I pluck them.
I try to express the different tone colors of the harp through my hand gestures, so that even an ear-deaf crowd—such as the Kish clan—may absorb its sonorous meaning, simply by watching me. With every movement, the folds of the king’s mantle sway over my shoulder and dance around my arm.
Notes start trembling in the air.
At first they sound like stifled, uncontrolled sighs. Gradually they rise in pitch, because in my mind I imagine climbing a bridge over a river, the river of misery and pain, which I have inflicted upon others in this bloody war. Only then—at the height of the passage—can I catch sight of the other shore, which makes me yearn for what I can no longer reach: my innocence, my happy childhood, forever lost to me.
While I play, dinner is being served. Servants run to and fro around the table, ladling some aromatic broth into one bowl after another. One guest after another starts sobbing into the soup, because alas, my music is too powerful, and without any warning it hurts, it squeezes the heart.
“What the hell,” the king blurts out. “I thought his playing was supposed to heal me—and yet here I am, more depressed than ever.”
To which Merav says, “David’s music sweeps me off my feet, daddy. Truly, it comes from another world.”
And Michal says, “Indeed. It is utterly divine...”
“Perhaps so,” says the king. “What a shame that it comes from the fingers of this devil.”
At hearing this I know I must cheer him up in a big hurry, so I speed up my rhythm. Sadness is left far behind, and now my music comes to a surge. With great joy it flows over the bridge and out into a vast expanse of water, each note a wave, each wave coming in over the crest of another, all rising together as an immense swell.
And riding in and out of these swells, you find yourself sailing into an unnamed ocean, where one horizon is opening before you after another, revealing the heavens shimmering with countless stars, forevermore...
And just before I bring the music to its glorious conclusion, there comes a groan, which I barely recognize as Saul’s, because it is utterly tortured.
“The mantle that weighs me down,” he says, with a cracking voice, “seems so light on his shoulders! What else does the devil want? What else but the crown?”
Michal cries, “Daddy—”
Over which Saul barks, “I’ll smite him, even to the wall!”
I raise my eyes to glance at him, and through the strings of the harp I see a flash of lightning. And there, there comes his spear, flying straight at me with a long, menacing shriek—
But by the time it hits the wall, which echoes the clap of thunder across the skies, I am no longer there.
I Go, and Flee, and Escape
Chapter 16
I admit, I have no understanding of women, least of all my new bride. We had no more than seven nights together, which may be just enough time for learning her expressions—but not for knowing her heart. Can I trust her? Can I put my life in her hands?
Somehow I doubt it. I sense that Michal hates me because she hates herself for loving me, and because she reads the look in my eyes, the look that tells her I don’t love her back. If this is confusing to you, double that and you will be close to knowing how I feel.
As for her loyalty, that is something that has never been put to the test, and why should I do it now, when my life is threatened by her father?
So no need to tell me... I know that her chamber is the last place I should choose as a hideout—but in spite of myself, it draws me in. I have come to love the clean,
pristine smell of her sheets. Besides I have no other place I can call home. The closest thing to it is that pillow of goat’s hair which she tosses from her bed into my hands every night, so I would have to embrace it instead of embracing her.
Drenched to the bone by rain I look over my shoulder at the dining hall windows, where the soft glow coming from the fireplace is interrupted by shadows, sharp shadows running to and fro, crossing each other in what seems like utter confusion.
And there, out of the ledge of that window from where I have leapt out, rises the silhouette of the crown as the king leans out, peering through the darkness to find me.
For a moment I give thanks to my lucky stars, even though none can be seen. In their place, frequent flashes of lightning streak across the night sky, and I hope and pray that they blind him.
Lord, I pray, see how my enemies persecute me! Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death…
A thunderbolt zigzags down, zooming into the soil, searing it right here, at my feet. Startled I dart off. Another one hits down just ahead of me, as if some divine powers are trying to set my path ablaze, or mark it with embers. I hurtle sideways.
A voice cries, “You seen him?”
And another voice calls out, “There, there he is!”
“No, look over that side—”
“David! Come back!”
“Run! Run away!”
“Where are you?”
“Beware...”
Armored soldiers come striding out of the palace gate, pointing their torches at this blurry shape or that. I take cover, plunging into the bushes, into the arms of darkness. From there I watch, as one line of them crisscrosses the other, which turns the royal garden into an eery scene of preparation for a hunt.
I press my back into the palace wall, and control my urge to dash away. Instead I move my arms and legs at the same rate as the branches of the trees and shrubberies that hide me. I am the shadow passing behind the trunks of the pomegranate trees.
Heavy with fruit, their branches sway slowly and sigh in the wind. Now here is a clearing, so I fall to my knees and crawl, till I reach the prickly rose bushes. I am the shadow passing behind them.
A gust of wind comes through. I allow myself to slide faster through the mud, and head towards the tower, towards Michal’s chamber. Never before did I imagine that the smell of purity and the sleek touch of sheets can have such an incredible pull.
The first thing I note when I open her door is the small window back there, opposite me, with floral curtains draped over it, pulled apart by ribbons left and right. I note it more clearly than ever before, perhaps because as a fugitive I have already changed.
My instincts tell me what I wish to deny: this is not a place of refuge. And even if it were, look out. Look for an opening, a way to escape.
From outside, a sound of pouring rain can be heard, and another sound beyond that, somewhere in the distance, perhaps the bark of a dog.
Wrapped in a long robe Michal sits at her large, ornate mirror and with a little dab, she powders her nose. “Ah!” she says to no one in particular. “What a surprise! Here is David, empty handed as usual. What, not even a rose?”
I ask, trying to sound playful, “What’s a rose between us?”
“Indeed, you’re right: it’s not the rose—but the giving of it. What’s missing here is one thing: love.”
“You’re the one I trust. That must mean something to you.”
“It means one thing: you’re too sure of yourself. No one but you would have the balls to give me foreskins for a wedding gift, and no one but you would dare come to me—”
“What else can I do, Michal? This is my hour of need,” I plead. “You have the power to save me, save my life.”
She sneers, “Life? What do I care about a life without feeling, without a connection between us?”
And I say, “Building a connection takes time. Help me, help me now.”
And she says, “Why should I? Give me a reason!”
So what choice do I have but to take her in my arms, and kiss her long and hard on her lips till they soften, till her knees give way under her, and she loses all control of herself and collapses onto her bed, hugging me. This has been so much easier than I have imagined before.
Why have I waited seven nights? Is it too late for us?
Down in the garden, yelps of dogs and shouts of soldiers are getting sharper and more pronounced by the minute—but somehow she hears nothing of all that.
I breathe in her ear, “Michal darling, I’m in your hands.”
She lays there in total abandon, and her eyes are sparkling as I have never seen them before. Alas, I have caressed her too well for my own good.
To my surprise she has neglected to complain about my wet, muddy feet leaving traces on her floor, or about my clothes soiling her sheets, or about me not deserving a fine young woman such as herself.
Instead, “I’ll never let you go,” she murmurs.
To which I beg, “Help me.”
“I will,” she says, still in a dreamy tone, “if you don’t leave me.”
“I think I must, because of your father.”
“Don’t you worry. He’s not going to lay a finger on you.”
“Didn’t you hear him say, I’ll smite him, even to the wall?”
“Oh, David, this was all in good fun. I don’t think my daddy really meant it.”
“Listen, can you hear? His soldiers are after me... And so are his hunting dogs.”
“But,” she says, “if you go now, if you flee from him, you’ll be branded a traitor. That’s going to be an indelible blemish on your record, dear.”
“I’ll worry about that later,” say I. “It all depends on who is the one writing the records, right? Given enough ink, any blemish can be covered.”
“You forget one thing: the historians in our court answer to my father—not to you. So if you have any ambitions in your heart—which I believe you do—do yourself a favor: stay with me. Don’t let them describe you, describe who you are according to them, while you’re absent.”
“Better to be branded a traitor than announced dead.”
“You don’t get it, do you.” She sits up, and her voice turns dry. “This is not only about you. If you run away, then I would become a traitor’s wife, which is not a good role for me, nothing I wish to play.”
“Would you rather play the widow?”
“Oh,” she waves her hand at me. “Things won’t come to that. I know my daddy, he’ll surely listen to me. With a little bit of sweet talk he’ll forgive you and all would end happily ever after.”
I rise from her bed and start pacing around her chamber.
“What d’you mean, he’ll forgive me?” I cannot help blurting out. “For what? What have I done?”
She tosses the pillow of goat’s hair into my hands, with great anger. I toss it right back to her.
“Your music is to blame,” she cries. “It took him back to the days of his youth, and when he awoke to the present, it made his heart stop, and hammer, and race madly between joy and sorrow.”
“If this is my crime—”
“Stop,” she stands up, quite abruptly, and puts a finger to my lips. “Hush...”
She cups her ear in her hand and freezes in place, to listen.
And now I hear it too: a thump of many boots approaching, then coming to a halt at the bottom of the stairway that leads up here, to her door.
Careful not to make a sound, Michal sneaks out the door, tiptoes to the iron railing and bends over it to glance down. There is a sudden glimmer, a torch flares up, but a second later it has been extinguished, and all is dark.
Michal tiptoes back, and with the slightest of clicks she closes the door behind her. Her lips are trembling, so she bites into them. To my relief I hear no more arguments from her about blame, blemishes and historical records. Without a word, she wraps her arms around me. When I step back from her I see that her face has turned white.
“They’re here to watch you, and to slay you in the morning,” she breathes into my ear. “If you save not your life tonight—”
“Michal, if you don’t save me—”
“Then, tomorrow you shall be slain.”
I have not a moment to lose, because a loud knock is heard at the door.
“Open up,” says a voice.
“Wait,” she answers, in her usual, commanding tone of voice. “Let me put on my robe.”
“Hurry up, then.”
She pushes me into a corner, a dark corner crammed with gowns, so now I am concealed, more or less, behind them. Fancy folds and ruffles and feathery frills flutter all around me. They tickle my nose, so for fear of sneezing I hold it. Barely breathing I rise up to my toes and sneak a quick peek over the hangers.
There she is, next to her bed, above which icons of gods and goddesses of all sizes and shapes are displayed. She takes the largest of them, the Baal, in her arms, and lays the thing ever so carefully in her bed, and puts the pillow of goat’s hair under its head for support, and covers it, so it is tucked neatly under her blankets.
I cannot help thinking that things might have looked different between us, had she treated me from the beginning with such care, instead of hurtling a mad look at me every so often, and repeating the phrase, “You don’t deserve me.”
I sneeze.
“Don’t let me wait,” says the voice.
Before he has time to turn the handle, she flings the door wide open.
“Where is he?” demands the officer.
“David?” she asks, and immediately answers, “So sorry to tell you: he can’t come to the king, not right now.”
“Why?”
She points a finger at the bed. “There, see? He’s sick.”
A look of confusion comes over him, and his face reddens. The officer bows down before her, gives a military salute, bows down again and finally stumbles out the door, closing it behind him to consult with the others.
Rise to Power (The David Chronicles) (Volume 1) Page 12
