Bathsheba, Reluctant Beauty

by Angela Hunt

  I quietly decided that if the king did not respond within three days, I would leave the city. As a pregnant adulteress, my life in Jerusalem would be destroyed, my husband shamed, and my grandfather humiliated. So I would rise early and slip out of the city as the sun rose, walking north until I could walk no farther. I would be like Hagar and plan to die alone in the desert, but no merciful angel would appear to me. I would perish, and my shame along with me.

  The second day passed like the first, and my pacing did not go unnoticed. Amaris asked why I was so jumpy, and Elisheba stared at me with speculation in her eyes, but I did not respond to either of them. If I had to leave Jerusalem, the less Elisheba and Amaris knew, the better off they’d be.

  On the morning of the third day, I heard the creak of our courtyard gate. I hurried outside and met the guard, who regarded me not with the respect due a soldier’s wife, but with a smirk.

  Embarrassed, I drew my mantle closer. “You have a message for me?”

  The smirk deepened. “No message, but something else. This.” He held out a basket covered with a white cloth.

  I stared at it, bewildered. The king had sent a basket, filled with what—an adder?

  “Take it, woman.”

  I accepted the odd gift, cautiously peeking under the covering. I saw a salted roast, a loaf of bread, and a few lebibot, delicate heart-shaped cakes. “What is this?”

  Again the sly smile. “A gift for you and your husband.”

  “But my husband is at Rabbah.”

  “Not anymore.” The guard rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “The king sent word to Joab yesterday, commanding him to send Uriah the Hittite back to Jerusalem. My guess is he’ll show up here later today.”

  I blinked, baffled by this turn of events. At that moment Elisheba stepped out of the house. From the expression on her face, I knew she’d heard everything.

  “Thank you,” she told the guard, gripping my arm. “Thank you for letting us know. We’ll prepare a good dinner for him.”

  As the guard strolled away, I turned to her. “I don’t understand what any of this means.”

  Elisheba slipped her arm around my shoulders and led me back into the house. “Child, you are far too inexperienced. The king has decided to send your husband to you. Uriah will come home and you will sleep with him. When the child is born, everyone will believe the babe is your husband’s. No one need ever know the truth.”

  Relief and regret warred in my heart as I stared at the basket. “That . . . makes sense,” I admitted, grateful the king had found a way to prevent Uriah from knowing I’d been with another man. “But the king . . . well, he’s lying.”

  “Would you rather your husband know what happened?” Elisheba gave me a sharp look, and I had to admit she had a point. I didn’t want to believe our king would prefer to cover his sin rather than confessing it, but for Uriah and me the consequences of a lie would be infinitely less painful than the truth.

  “So, let’s see what we have for dinner.” Elisheba peered into the basket, her smile broader than it had been in days. “A nice roast. The bread looks fine. And lebibot—how romantic. I have some vegetables I can add, then perhaps we could have a stew. Would you check to see if we have enough oil to fry some barley cakes?”

  Still numb with shock and confusion, I moved to the corner where we kept jars of flour and oil.

  “The bread smells wonderful,” Elisheba said, sniffing the loaf’s crusty exterior. “I wonder what kind . . .”

  She cracked the loaf, and I flinched when I recognized the bright yellow fruit inside: mandrakes, a plant believed to stimulate a man’s passion and aid in a woman’s ability to conceive. Did even the king’s cook know about my shameful predicament?

  “Throw it out,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I will make another loaf, but throw out that one.”

  Four hours later, we had a lamb roast, fresh bread, and a bubbling pot of vegetables ready for dinner, but Uriah did not come home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nathan

  A DELICIOUS WARMTH SPREAD THROUGH MY LIMBS as I left the house and walked the road to Jerusalem. Above me, a hawk scrolled the updrafts, mindlessly circling, doing what Adonai had created him to do. Just as I was.

  Nothing in the setting or the landscape signaled that the day would prove to be a turning point for David and the kingdom of Israel.

  I passed the houses of my neighbors, most of whom were already at work clearing their fields, and waved at their distant figures as I took care to avoid stones that might cause me to turn an ankle on the road. More mothers than fathers worked those fields, for many of the men were still at Rabbah, enforcing the siege. Had they engaged the enemy at all? Perhaps I would hear news at the palace.

  After reaching the king’s house, I walked through the gate and approached the well, where I could wash off the dust from the journey. I had no sooner finished splashing my feet when I glimpsed a familiar face.

  I turned, my jaw dropping. I expected all of David’s elite soldiers to be hunkered in the hills outside Rabbah, so a shiver of shock rippled through me when I saw Uriah the Hittite striding across the courtyard. I stared as the warrior embraced Bathsheba’s grandfather and kissed him on both cheeks.

  Why wasn’t the man with Joab?

  Adonai had not spoken to me in days, so I moved closer to eavesdrop. By the time I positioned myself in a pillar’s sheltering shadow, Uriah and Ahithophel had finished exchanging greetings. “The king sent for you?” I heard Ahithophel ask. He pinched the end of his oiled beard and twirled a portion of it between his fingers. “Do you know why?”

  Uriah shrugged, his face shining with his customary good nature. “He wanted to know how the siege progresses.”

  “And how does it progress?”

  Uriah laughed. “A siege doesn’t accomplish anything unless the enemy surrenders or attempts to fight. So we have been sitting and waiting, reserving our strength for when the enemy emerges. We do not expect the Ammonites to surrender without a struggle.”

  Ahithophel’s eyes narrowed even as his lips curved in a smile. “I suppose you will go home now. Bathsheba has been unbearably lonely since you’ve been away.”

  “The king also urged me to go home,” Uriah acknowledged, grinning, “but a night with her would leave me unfit for anything but singing her praises. Then what good would I be to the king?”

  Ahithophel continued to study his granddaughter’s husband, but I couldn’t tell what the older man was thinking. His smooth face remained utterly unreadable, a quality that undoubtedly served him well in the king’s court.

  “Good-bye, son.” He clasped Uriah’s shoulder. “May God keep you until we meet again. Serve the king well.”

  “I do my best.”

  “I have never questioned your devotion to David. And I know how deeply you are committed to my family’s welfare. You have been kind and generous to both Bathsheba and Amaris.”

  A shadow crossed the younger man’s face. “I’ve been wanting to tell you . . . we feel your son’s absence most keenly. I wish Eliam was still with us.”

  Despite an obvious effort to retain control of his features, a spasm of grief knit the counselor’s brows. “We have our plans, and Adonai has His. I have stopped trying to predict what HaShem, blessed be His name, will do. Go in peace, son, and remain safe.”

  The two men parted. Ahithophel moved toward the palace gate while Uriah hailed another soldier across the courtyard.

  I turned toward the stone wall to sort through my thoughts. Uriah and Ahithophel, Ahithophel and Uriah—two men united by their service to a king and by the woman who had haunted my heart for years. Bathsheba had been the center of my youthful dreams, the sun around which I orbited, the answer to every longing of my heart . . .

  In a flash that was barely comprehendible, I saw the truth as if it had been painted on the stones in front of me. When I spoke to Ahithophel a few days earlier, he had not only asked if I’d seen the woman’s face in my v
ision but if her house was near the king’s palace, a house he knew well because his granddaughter lived in it.

  A whimpering sound escaped my lips as my knees buckled. Down I went, my hand slamming against the cobbled stones, my knee scraping the rough edge of a rock.

  The king hadn’t summoned just any woman to his bed that night, he had called for beautiful Bathsheba. Ahithophel must have lingered in the shadows until he saw his own granddaughter being escorted to the king. He could not have been happy about David’s lechery, but even now he managed to maintain a countenance smooth with secrets.

  Now I knew what he knew, yet this knowledge had not come from Adonai, but from an undeniable reality—men who looked upon Bathsheba wanted her, and not even the sanctity of marriage could protect her from those lecherous gazes.

  “Prophet, are you all right?” One of the king’s guards hurried over to assist me. “Here, take my arm and let me help you.”

  I pulled myself into a sitting position and sat on the ground, knees bent, head bowed, and eyes filled with tears. Around me, voices flowed like water over a rock: “Is he ill?” “He has been out in the sun too long.” “Should we send for the physician?” “Perhaps HaShem struck him down.”

  The last comment elicited a wry chuckle from me. I had been hard on David for lusting after Bathsheba, but hadn’t I been guilty of the same sin for years? I had not gone so far as to take her to my bed, but I had never had the power to do so. If I were king and David a prophet, would the situation be any different from what it was?

  I shaded my eyes and looked up, then saw Uriah peering down at me, compassion stirring in his eyes.

  “Do you need help?” He extended his broad hand. “Come sit in the shade. We have water and bread—”

  “No, thank you.” Using my own hand for support, I pushed myself off the ground. Once upright, I looked around the circle of concerned faces and waved them away. “I’m fine. Let me be, please.”

  I stood in awkward silence as the onlookers reluctantly walked away. At least Ahithophel had not been among them. I did not think I could bear to look in his eyes and see the confirmation of what I had just intuited. The king had taken Bathsheba to his bed. So what did the wise and powerful royal counselor intend to do about it?

  I didn’t know, but before Uriah could rejoin his companions in the courtyard, I caught his arm and looked directly into his eyes. “I’m going home to comfort my wife,” I told him. “You should do the same.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bathsheba

  I WAITED, MORE NERVOUS THAN A CAT, until the sun set and oil lamps glowed in my neighbors’ windows. Amaris and Elisheba waited too, and when the knock finally came, all three of us jumped.

  I wanted to fly to the doorway to greet my much-loved husband, but shame and guilt weighed me down. Elisheba must have guessed what I was feeling, for she went outside to the courtyard gate. She returned a moment later, not with my husband but with a parcel.

  “From your grandfather,” she said, her voice flat and passionless. She set the parcel on a table and cut the string around it. When I unfolded the fabric cover, the three of us stared at the gift: a new tunic. In royal blue.

  “Grandfather sent you a tunic?” Amaris squeaked in the silence. “Whatever for?”

  I had not believed my humiliation could grow any deeper, but in that moment I knew my shame would never be alleviated.

  When not at his farm in Giloh, my grandfather lived and worked in the king’s palace, and lately he had been staying in Jerusalem to advise the king. Grandfather was in Jerusalem now, and so was my husband.

  Grandfather sent the tunic as a message; he knew what happened to my old one. He sent it now because he’d seen . . . and he knew.

  A wail rose within me. I pressed my lips together and tried to imprison the sound, but failed. I began to sob in earnest, keening over the knowledge that Grandfather knew of my shame, and not even Elisheba’s frantic shushing could comfort me.

  “Bathsheba?”

  Through my tears I saw Amaris’s wide eyes.

  “Won’t someone tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Go to bed, little one.” With her arms wrapped around me, Elisheba could only nod toward the corner where our sleeping mats waited. “Your sister is fine, she’s just . . . overcome.”

  For once, Amaris did not argue, but hobbled to the corner and rolled out her mat. She stretched out beneath a blanket, yet I knew she wouldn’t sleep until we did.

  “Come, child.” Elisheba drew me to the far corner of the house, then stood me against the wall and looked up into my eyes. “Tell me. Why has this gift upset you so?”

  I hiccupped a sob, then swiped the back of my hand over my cheeks. “Grandfather knows.”

  “How could he?”

  “He knows, I tell you. He’s never sent me a tunic in his life, and now this? He knows, and he sent it because he saw my husband today. He’s going to tell Uriah what happened.”

  Elisheba gasped. “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t know about the baby—”

  “Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t know about that. But he must have heard that the king sent for me, and he’s going to tell.” My voice cracked as I clung to the possibility that my instincts were wrong. But I knew Grandfather, and I knew that men took inordinate delight in staking out their territories. Grandfather wanted Uriah to know he’d been betrayed by the king he served so selflessly. This tunic was a battle flag, a warning that Grandfather was about to avenge me. He was sure his news would enrage Uriah, and then my husband would—what? Strike the king? Murder David on his throne?

  My eyes welled with fresh tears, and I trembled at the thought of my husband killing the anointed king to defend my honor. He would scarcely have time to thrust with his sword before the guards would strike him down.

  “Come now,” Elisheba whispered. “It’s a tunic, child, nothing more. Your grandfather spoils you because he loves you.”

  I shook my head, realizing that Elisheba might never understand. But I had grown up in my father’s and grandfather’s shadows. Grandfather wielded powerful words in the king’s court, and Father had wielded a strong sword in the king’s elite corps. They were strong men, proud men, and Uriah was cut from the same cloth.

  How could Grandfather do this? Why hadn’t he talked to me? Did he care so little for me that he wouldn’t ask how I felt about what had happened or what should be done?

  Or . . . merciful heaven, did he think I had gone to the king willingly? Did he suspect me of trying to attract the king’s attention?

  Avoiding Elisheba’s confused gaze, I drew a deep breath and struggled to make sense of my whirling thoughts. No matter what Grandfather believed, he would never have talked to me because I was female. In his eyes I was a woman destined to have a great son for Israel, not a woman who would be raped and set aside. Grandfather could have only one reason for telling Uriah about what the king had done—he wanted to make David pay for his crime.

  Grandfather wasn’t thinking about the prophecy; he was thinking about our family’s—about his—honor. He wanted revenge.

  And as a woman, I could do nothing about his intentions.

  Some time later, after the lamps had been doused and Elisheba and Amaris slept, I stood at the window and searched the darkened street for any sign of Uriah on his way home. Nothing stirred but a stray dog in search of scraps. For a moment I considered throwing him the fertility bread from the king’s cook, but the last thing the city needed was another litter of puppies.

  A cock had begun to crow by the time I crept to my mattress, my eyes sandy with fatigue. No one had come to the house, no one at all. I couldn’t know if Grandfather had spoken to my husband, but with every passing hour I became more certain that I would never see Uriah again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nathan

  MY FEET FELT HEAVIER THAN USUAL as I trudged to the palace the next morning. Something in me wanted to learn if Uriah had torn himself away from his comrades and followed th
e king’s suggestion to go home, but something else in me was certain I’d find the man exactly where I’d left him.

  I entered the palace courtyard with a growing sense of trepidation. The guards had cleared away their blankets and packs, and several stood at a basin where they drank and splashed their faces. I was beginning to think Uriah had gone home, but then I spotted him eating breakfast with another soldier. They were sharing bread and cheese, a soldier’s typical morning meal. Uriah had already laced up his sandals and put on his mantle.

  Was he preparing to go back to Rabbah?

  While I watched, Ahithophel came from the direction of the throne room and tapped Uriah on the shoulder. The warrior finished his bread in a great hurry, dusted his hands, and followed his wife’s grandfather through a hallway. I trailed after them, but when I saw the two stop to converse in a small alcove, I knew I could go no farther without being noticed.

  I returned to the courtyard and sat, only half listening to the conversations around me. The area filled with the bustle of a new morning—merchants bringing their wares to the king’s steward, guards changing shifts, donkeys loaded with fabrics and trinkets to tempt the king’s women and children. Zadok, one of the priests at the Tabernacle, caught my eye and nodded in greeting, but did not stop to talk. He was probably looking for Gad, the king’s seer, to inquire about the king’s daily sacrifice.

  A good thing he wasn’t looking for the king’s counselor.

  I drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, then from the corner of my eye I saw Ahithophel approaching. The counselor smiled at Zadok, then took the priest’s arm and led him away to discuss whatever counselors discussed with priests.

  I didn’t care about the old man; I wanted to know about Uriah.

  I did not see the soldier for several moments, when finally he emerged from the hallway and staggered to a bench against the wall. He fell onto it, staring at nothing while wearing a look of deep preoccupation. His face had gone deathly pale except for two red spots, one glowing in each cheek, as if cruel fate had slapped him again and again.