The Secret Book of Kings

by Yochi Brandes

  He turns his back on me and strides to the door. “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me, and I will allow you to raise the bastard child in my palace. But you will have to hide him. If it becomes known that the king’s wife has given birth to another man’s child, I will be forced to banish him, or perhaps worse. That is the law.”

  * * *

  That very night, the king’s servants came to take Rizpah. She followed them without resistance. She left in the evening and returned in the morning. “He won’t come to me again,” she said upon her return. “I promised to sit beside him on the stage tomorrow during the coronation ceremony, and in return he will permit me to visit my children once a month.”

  I looked at her imploringly.

  “I tried,” she said, her eyes welling up. “I told him that if he would permit you to visit Paltiel, you would also sit beside him tomorrow for all to see, but it didn’t work. He forbids you to leave the palace.”

  I watched the coronation ceremony through the window. The crowds filled the square in front of the palace and the streets all around it, watching in silence as the representatives of the tribes swore allegiance to the king. I focused on the delegates from Ephraim and Manasseh, and even more so on the representative of Benjamin, trying to detect signs of pain or rage on their faces, but their expressions remained calm and serene. The prophet Gad anointed the new king’s forehead, and the entire nation cried in a single voice, “Long live David son of Jesse, King of Israel!”

  There was no apparent difference between the tribes of Rachel and the tribes of Leah. All were merry on this day of celebration. I recalled the things Merab had said about the nation’s short memory, and I wanted to jump out of the window and reproach the nation for its forgetfulness and ingratitude, but I bit my lip and continued to look out in silence. Only when Abner son of Ner handed the crown to the prophet Gad was I no longer able to hold back, and I cursed Abner that he should die by the sword, like Father, but not in a glorious war and not at the hands of an enemy, but rather out in the fields, alone, like a dog, at the hands of someone he trusted.

  That wish was granted in full.

  Only after Abner’s death did the existence of the vicious games in which soldiers from Judah fought soldiers from Benjamin become publicly known. The people of Israel were shocked to hear how the victims of these contests, euphemistically called “Let the Young Men Play Before Us,” were buried surreptitiously so that no one would find out how they had died. The terrible secret might have remained hidden for much longer, but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, no fewer than twenty-four soldiers were killed in one of the tournaments, half from Benjamin and half from Judah. Asahel son of Zeruiah decided to call off the games and eliminate their creator, Abner son of Ner. But Abner, who was more experienced, struck first and put his sword through him. When Joab and Abishai found out, they avenged the death of their younger brother by killing Abner in the fields. David tore his clothes and ordered the people to wear sackcloth and ashes in mourning for the hero Abner son of Ner, who had died at the hands of villains, but the people of Israel knew that the king was secretly happy to be rid of a scoundrel like him, whose betrayal of the previous king had proved that he couldn’t be trusted.

  I thanked God for His benevolence and asked that He continue to show me grace by turning David’s heart to my favor, so that I might give birth to my son in Gallim and raise him with Paltiel, my husband. But this prayer was not answered.

  My only son, Nebat, was born in Hebron, far away from his father.

  * * *

  Paltiel was working in the fields when he received the news of the birth of his son. He got on his wagon and began to ride for Hebron, but the king’s soldiers stopped him as he was about to leave Gallim.

  “I have a son!” Paltiel shouted. “I must get to my wife, Michal daughter of Saul.”

  “Michal daughter of Saul is the king’s wife,” the soldiers replied. “And she has not given birth to any son.”

  “Let me go to the palace,” Paltiel begged.

  The soldiers brought him back to Gallim, and his son remained in Hebron. Paltiel never got to see Nebat’s face, hear his cries, take pleasure in his laughter and his first steps. He never got to hear Nebat call him “Father.”

  But that word was often on my son’s tongue. I spoke it to him from the moment of his birth, as if he were growing up with his father and seeing him every day. I believed that David would eventually acquiesce to my pleas and permit me to go home. But the days went by, and Paltiel only got to know his son through the letters I sent him with Rizpah once a month. I told him everything: when Nebat got his first tooth, how many words he knew, which songs he liked, and whether he had gotten used to the city of Jebus, now called Jerusalem, to which we had moved from Hebron after the king declared it the new capital of his kingdom. I tried to tell Paltiel different things in each letter, but I always ended with the same words: “Stay strong, my husband. Soon we will meet again.” Paltiel always ended his letters in the same manner as well—a heartbreaking vow of love that made my stomach clench and brought tears to my eyes. But he grew more and more desperate with each letter. “I’m prepared to give my life for your release,” he wrote in one of his last letters. “But I cannot die before I see you one last time. Have you done everything you can, my beloved? Is there nothing more to do?”

  This letter upset me more than any of the previous ones had and caused me to burst into the throne room without any forethought or planning.

  “Do you still have need for the daughter of the previous king to affirm your status through her presence in the palace?” I screamed at David in front of his slaves and advisors. “When will you feel secure enough on your throne to release me from my prison?”

  David nodded at his servants, who exchanged looks with one another and hurried to seize hold of me.

  “You are not a prisoner,” I heard the clear voice of the king call after me as they dragged me out. “You are a queen.”

  Desperation led me to conceive of a bold plan. I was certain that Rizpah would join me, but when I told her what I was planning she beseeched me not to go through with it.

  “When David smells a threat he becomes dangerous,” she said.

  “What choice do we have? Nebat is four years old already, and his father has never seen him. We must take advantage of this opportunity. All the tribes of Israel will be in Jerusalem tomorrow. David won’t be able to ignore my distress if he knows that the nation supports me. It’s time to act. It’s now or never.”

  “The nation is fickle,” warned Rizpah. “It cannot be relied upon.”

  “Then go sit on the stage tomorrow with Ahinoam, Abigail, Haggith, and Abital.” The names of David’s four other wives rushed out of my mouth in a single breath. “I can carry out the plan myself.”

  “You’ve forgotten our king’s newest asset,” Rizpah answered coldly. “Maakah, the daughter of the King of Geshur.”

  * * *

  The masses began arriving in Jerusalem that same day, and by the next there was no empty space in the city, not even in its most remote streets. All the tribes of Israel wanted to watch with their own eyes as the Ark of the Covenant was carried by the priests into the new city. In the months that preceded this event, the king’s scribes had been spreading a new lie, claiming that the ark had been in the hands of the Philistines ever since the defeat at Ebenezer in the days of Eli the Priest and that it had been taken to Edom a few years ago, after the Philistines decided that it cursed whoever held it. Only now, so they said, after dozens of years in captivity, had David managed to conquer Edom and free the ark from its captors. I told Rizpah confidently that no one would believe the story, that the nation of Israel would never forget that it was Father who liberated the ark from the Philistines in the early days of his reign. But deep inside I was afraid the nation’s short memory would disappoint me yet again.

  I watched out the window, waiting impatiently for David to get to the s
tage and begin his speech, but he was dancing wildly before the wagon carrying the ark, showing no sign that he would stop anytime soon. The dancing girls waved cypress branches over his head and shook their cymbals, and the crowds skipped and danced to the music of the lyres, harps, and drums. I had to admit that this celebration surpassed the ones that were held in Father’s day.

  “Why are you wearing a new dress?” Nebat asked me. He wasn’t used to seeing me in new clothes.

  I picked him up and carried him to the window so that we could look outside together. “Do you like the dress?”

  He shrugged. “It’s too sparkly.”

  I was moved by the thought that the first king’s modesty had been transmitted to his little grandson. “I’ll only wear it one more time,” I whispered. “Do you know when?”

  He looked at me curiously.

  “When we meet Father.”

  I waited a few moments longer, and when I saw that David had no intention of climbing onto the stage I set Nebat down on the bed and went out to the stairs.

  “Mother!” he called after me. “Where are you going?”

  “To persuade the king to let us go home.”

  My limbs felt oddly heavy. I nearly retreated, but I managed to catch my breath and walk outside. Suddenly I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder, followed by a second one. The guards were holding me and wouldn’t let me go. David was dancing right in front of me, but his back was to me.

  “David!” I called. “David!”

  He stopped dancing and looked backward, a self-satisfied expression filling his sweaty face. Release her, he mouthed to the guards, and spread his arms out. “Queen Michal, I’m so glad you have come to celebrate with us.”

  He turned to the herald. “All hail my wife, Queen Michal, daughter of King Saul, anointed of God.”

  The herald turned to the crowd and called out, “Long live Queen Michal, the wife of the King, daughter of King Saul, anointed of God!”

  The people replied as one: “Long live Queen Michal, the wife of the King, daughter of King Saul, anointed of God!”

  I turned to face the cheering crowd. My heart almost leapt out through the open neck of my dress, but I succeeded in focusing my mind on the words I’d spent the past day memorizing.

  “I am not the king’s wife!” I called out to the crowd. “I am the wife of Paltiel son of Laish.”

  The people closest to me heard my cry. I could see it in their eyes.

  “I have given birth to his son,” I said, straining my voice as much as I could, hoping what I was saying would be heard far away. “My son and I are captives in this palace. Help me persuade the king to let us go.”

  I turned back to David. He was watching me with cold, piercing eyes. I recognized that look. I was overcome with terror, but I didn’t stop yelling: “Help me persuade the king to free my son and me!”

  David walked over to the herald and whispered something in his ear. The herald nodded and turned to the crowd. I was paralyzed by shock. Did David want what I had said to be heard?

  The herald gave a signal to the heralds positioned farther away and yelled out, “Queen Michal mocks the King of Israel for his dancing!”

  All the other heralds repeated after him, “Queen Michal mocks the King of Israel for his dancing!”

  “That isn’t true!” I screamed. “All I want is my freedom!”

  The herald listened intently and then called to the others, “Michal daughter of Saul says that a king who skips and dances with slaves reveals himself to the nation as an undignified and vulgar fellow!”

  The other heralds repeated, word for word, “Michal daughter of Saul says that a king who skips and dances with slaves reveals himself to the nation as an undignified and vulgar fellow!”

  The people standing in front of me, who had heard what I’d said, stared at me in silence, while those farther away began shouting angrily. I couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but their cries did reach my ears. They hated me.

  David held his hand up. “Hear the king’s response!” called the herald, and the crowd hushed at once.

  “I am dancing before my God,” David declared with a smile, “the one who has chosen me and appointed me ruler over Israel. I am most certainly willing to degrade myself for the God of Israel, but dancing with slaves is actually a great honor for me.”

  The heralds cried out the king’s response as loud as they could, and the crowd brayed with laughter.

  “A greater honor than dancing with the daughter of Saul!” someone shouted.

  I hadn’t heard him, but the heralds loudly repeated the joke, and the growing laughter of the crowd pierced my ears.

  In the days that followed, the entire land spoke of Michal daughter of Saul, who had tried to humiliate the humble king by mocking his delightful simple ways. “She will not have a son until the day she dies,” people gloated. “That will be her punishment.”

  And in all of Israel, there was not one person to be found who would be so bold as to remind the nation that this princess, whose haughtiness all were now denouncing, was the daughter of King Saul, the most humble man who ever lived, who had been so harshly criticized during his reign for his excessive humility.

  Rizpah tried to console me with the hope that out of the strong something sweet might come. “The people hate you so much that they might demand that David banish you from the palace. You’ll be able to go back to Paltiel, I’m certain of it. In the meantime, keep writing to him. Your letters are the only way he can get through each month.”

  I asked myself despairingly how many more letters I’d have to write him. Two weeks later, when Rizpah returned from Gallim with her clothing torn and her hair unkempt, I knew that letter had been my last.

  * * *

  My husband Paltiel died alone in the fields. No one saw who stabbed the sword through his heart. No one heard his cries. He was forty years old when he died. The days of his life had been few and difficult.

  “Father is dead,” I told Nebat.

  “Are you going to die, too?”

  I was standing at the window. For a moment, I had the urge to throw myself out and join the ones I had loved and lost. “No,” I said, clutching Nebat to my breast. “I won’t die. I have something to live for.”

  “How did Father die?”

  “They murdered him.”

  “Who murdered him?”

  I let go of Nebat and ran outside, my legs galloping of their own accord, as if I were being blown forward by a storm. It was raining. Lightning flashed, and thunder exploded all around me. I burst into the throne room, wet and leaving muddy footprints on the gleaming rug. The servants tried to stop me, but I reached the platform before any of them even had a chance to move.

  “The blood of my husband, Paltiel, cries out to you from the ground!”

  David fixed his eyes on me. There was neither contempt nor hatred in them, only compassion.

  “You are just like your father. He blamed me for every tragedy that befell him also.”

  He got up from his throne and came down to where I was standing. I wanted to pounce on him and wring his neck with my fingers, but my feet would not obey me.

  “Man of blood,” I managed to whisper.

  “I did not kill your husband, God forbid.”

  “You ordered your agents to kill him, just as you ordered your two servants to murder my brother Ishvi in his sleep years ago. I know you will send your emissaries to Gallim again to murder the seven boys as well, and that you are also scheming to murder my only son, Nebat.”

  He stared at me in shock, paralyzed by the enormity of what I was saying. “Have you gone mad with grief?”

  “Order your scribes to spread the rumor,” I said with scorn. “The people of Israel will surely believe that I have become a mad princess, just as they believed I was mocking your dancing at the celebration of the Ark of the Covenant.”

  He walked over to me and ran the back of his hand down my cheek. I hated myself for the way his tou
ch made me shiver.

  “I apologize for what happened, but I had no choice. I trusted you. I thought you’d come to express your support, but you tried to incite the people against me.” He paused and then added softly, “I am willing to have the seven sons of Saul join me in the palace. You’ll be able to watch over them and raise them together with your son. We’ll tell people he is one of Merab’s so that he isn’t harmed. The boys will be under my protection. No one will touch a hair on their heads, I promise you.”

  “Your promises are worthless to me. You promised not to take another wife. You promised to give me your seed. You promised to come back for me right away. You promised not to take revenge on Father. You break your promises as if they were nothing but foolish prattle.”

  “What can I do to make you believe me?”

  “Swear to the God of Israel that you will not kill off the descendants of Saul.”

  Before I could even finish, David got down on his knees and placed his hands on his heart. “I swear to the God of Israel that I will not kill off the descendants of Saul.”

  “That isn’t enough. I want you to swear before Seraiah, your scribe, and command him to write down your vow in a scroll.”

  A few moments later, Seraiah entered the throne room and sat at the desk. He spread open a scroll in front of him, dipped a feather in ink, and nodded to signal that he was ready. David repeated his vow slowly, and Seraiah took down every word: “I, David son of Jesse, swear to the God of Israel that I will not kill off the descendants of Saul.”

  I thought that the ceremony was over, but then David glanced at me for a moment, closed his eyes in concentration, and added, “And also that I will not wipe out his name from his father’s family.”

  Before leaving the throne room I audaciously asked David why he had added the last part of the vow. His reply astounded me. “That was the vow composed by your father.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Father asked you to swear not to kill off his descendants? When was this?”