The Secret Book of Kings

by Yochi Brandes

  “You’ve managed to convince Pharaoh Siamun to help you bring Solomon down?”

  “I haven’t and I won’t, but the military will soon seize the throne of Egypt, and Pharaoh Siamun will be replaced by a Libyan warlord named Shishak, the leader of the Libyan mercenaries in Egypt, who will become the new Pharaoh. Genubath, my son, has returned to Egypt to help Shishak bring down Siamun. In return, he’s been promised that the great Egypt will support the rebels against the House of David and will help the new king of Israel establish himself on the throne.”

  I had a hard time believing what I was hearing. “But Pharaoh Siamun is like a father to you!” I cried. “He gave you refuge in his land, and your wife is his wife’s sister. How can you betray him?”

  Hadad’s face grew hard. “I’m willing to betray everything that’s dear to me, even my wife and son, as long as it helps me liberate Edom and take revenge on the House of David.”

  I was stunned by the cruelty in his voice. It was more than I had the strength to bear.

  “You are exactly like David,” I finally said.

  “True,” he said. “To defeat your enemy, you must become like him.”

  Two

  Hadad was confident that my grandmother would do anything in her power to pressure me into becoming the next King of Israel. For twenty years, it had been all she had to live for. How could she give up on the only dream she had left? He trusted her powers of persuasion, as well as the natural compassion a young grandson feels when facing his old grandmother, whose entire life was incomparable agony.

  His error became clear to him the very next time we all met together, when he saw how she accepted everything I said with a proud smile and a look of adoration, as if I were speaking rare words of wisdom.

  “Yes, Shelomoam.”

  “Correct, Shelomoam.”

  “You’re right, Shelomoam.”

  “He doesn’t want to be king!” Hadad shouted. “Do you understand what that means?”

  “It means he’ll do what he wants,” Grandmother said with a smile, never taking her velvety eyes off me.

  Hadad’s perfect self-control fell apart all at once. He was wild with disappointment. His pain made me feel sad, and I tried to cheer him up as best I could. Later, it occurred to me with surprise that I hadn’t ever paid attention to other people’s emotions before. I had been concerned only with myself.

  “You’ll find someone else to rebel against Solomon and be King of Israel,” I tried to console him.

  “There is no one else. Don’t you see? You are the last scion of the House of Saul.”

  “Not all kings come from royal families. Shishak is not a descendant of the Pharaohs. You need to seek out a young and attractive man of the tribes of Rachel with a lust for leadership. Even Ithiel admitted that leadership qualities are more important than a royal lineage.”

  “That viper! That accursed redheaded fox!” Grandmother’s lips twisted in loathing. The mention of Ithiel’s name turned her all of a sudden from a loving grandmother into an angry lioness.

  “He’s my best friend. I miss him.”

  The roar that burst from her mouth petrified me, but, oddly enough, her fit of rage also aroused in me a hint of longing for her father, my great-grandfather, whom I never got to meet.

  “Promise me you won’t put your trust in him.”

  “The fact that he’s David’s grandson doesn’t make him a viper. You told me yourself that his father, crown prince Adonijah, was an honest man.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Shelomoam,” she said, her voice softening. “Ithiel is Solomon’s spy. Do you think he just happened to find the tunnels we dug for you?”

  “If we tell him who really murdered his father at the altar he will become Solomon’s greatest enemy.”

  Hadad almost fainted at these words, and he made me swear not to reveal my identity to anyone, and certainly not to one of Solomon’s spies. “The king’s soldiers have been searching for you since before you were born. Do you think your poor mother decided to imprison herself in a cave and cover her face with a mask for no reason? Have you ever heard of Sheba son of Bikri?”

  “They told me my mother was the commander of his rebels in Ephraim and that was the reason she needed to hide in the cave, but I know it isn’t true.”

  “You’d be surprised, it actually is somewhat true, but it’s more interesting than what they told you. David had hoped that the royal funeral of the House of Saul would quiet the voices of protest over the murders of the seven boys. He was only partially right. The protest did weaken, but it didn’t die down entirely. Sheba waved the flag of rebellion and swept up tens of thousands of young people from the tribes of Rachel.”

  “Bilhah told me about that rebellion.”

  “Do you know who Sheba son of Bikri was?”

  “Some man from Benjamin.”

  Hadad swallowed a little smile. “Your grandfather.”

  I look at him in confusion. “Which grandfather?”

  “The father of Zeruiah.”

  “That can’t be. Mother’s father was the leader of the tribe of Ephraim, but Sheba son of Bikri was from Benjamin.”

  “That’s what he wanted people to think. A man who initiates an attempt to overthrow the king doesn’t want his identity revealed, at least not in the early stages.”

  “Bilhah told me that Zeruiah ran away from home and joined the rebellion against her father’s wishes.”

  “That’s a very nice story, but the truth is her father, Sheba son of Bikri, was the one who instigated the rebellion. After the seven boys were murdered, he realized that his daughter was carrying the last scion of the House of Saul in her womb, so he decided to rebel against David and sit on the throne himself until his grandson came of age and was able to inherit the crown. But, as you know, the rebellion failed. Your grandfather died in Beth Maakah, and his body was thrown to the soldiers who were surrounding the city.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “Bilhah told me about the failed rebellion, but I didn’t know he was my grandfather. So, when did my mother go to the cave?”

  “David’s spies searched for her everywhere. David was determined to put an end to the hopes for a king of the line of Saul. The lepers’ cave is the only place where a person can erase her identity and keep her face concealed. It’s been twenty years, but the danger has not yet passed. That’s why we brought you to the Palace of Candles in such a violent manner. I always thought that when you reached adulthood we’d reveal your identity to you, and then, when you were ready, we’d initiate the power play that would put you on the throne. But to our great distress, we learned that your anger and rebellious nature were leading you right into the lion’s den in Jerusalem. You can imagine how frightened we were. A reckless word here, a slip of the tongue there, and someone in the king’s court might have put the pieces together and discovered who you were. We had to stop you before you reached Jerusalem and bring you to my excellent training cells. Your training wasn’t only meant to provide you with fighting skills, but also, or mostly, to teach you to keep yourself under control even while being tortured. No one can know that you are the last scion of the House of Saul.”

  “For how much longer? I want to get out of the thicket of secrets of my childhood. I want to proudly carry the name of my ancestors. I want my mother to be able to feel the light of the sun on her face.”

  “Until you are king. Only then will we be able to reveal your true identity to the nation. You’ll have a big, strong army to protect you and to get rid of your enemies.”

  “This isn’t going to do you any good, Hadad. I will not be king.”

  “Doesn’t the lust to avenge your ancestors burn inside you?”

  “The people who murdered my ancestors are long dead. The only lust burning inside of me right now is the lust for life. I want a simple, peaceful life, without wars or struggles. If I could turn back time, I’d return to Benaiah’s vineyards and never join the army. But what’s done is done, and now I have
to report to the examinations you’ve arranged for me and become a commander. And I intend to carry out my military duties in the quietest way possible.”

  “When I met you two years ago you were a ruthless and bitter savage even though you had no reason to be that way. Your adoptive parents raised you with love and gave you a life of comfort that other children in Zeredah or anyplace else could only dream of. So what if they had a few secrets? Was that any reason to become so vile? And now that you’ve heard your grandmother’s story, instead of becoming vicious and vengeful, you suddenly turn into an innocent and placid little lamb without a hint of anger at anyone. What’s happened to you?”

  “I know who I am and who my ancestors were. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “And your ancestors are calling out for you to avenge their blood.”

  “I want to live, Hadad. I don’t want to waste my life in schemes for revenge, like you have.”

  “Live, Shelomoam,” Grandmother said, putting an end to the argument between Hadad and me. “That is the greatest revenge you can have against the House of David.”

  * * *

  Hadad had it all wrong. Grandmother’s story hadn’t made me calm and serene. My nights were plagued by horrifying nightmares that left me with dark shadows under my eyes. But he was right about one thing: I didn’t feel any desire for vengeance whatsoever. I don’t know if it was because David and Bathsheba were long dead, or because I didn’t perceive Solomon as someone worthy of hatred. It’s true that when I was a child, I abhorred his tyranny and couldn’t forgive his destruction of the temples and his imposition of such a heavy tax burden, but the stories I had heard about him made me see him now as a ridiculous character, unworthy of hatred. More than anything, I despised the stories his scribes had made up. Of all of Grandmother’s and Hadad’s secret assets—spies, soldiers, arms, and allies—I was most excited about their undercover scribes. I wholeheartedly believed what Bilhah had taught me in my childhood about stories being more decisive weapons than any other. My belief in the great power of stories lived on into my adulthood, even as I exchanged literary embellishments for fists and spears, and so I asked Hadad to introduce me to grandmother’s undercover scribes in the hopes that I could hear more details about the stories they were planting in the king’s book of chronicles.

  “Our scribes are out of work,” Hadad said, yawning. “They have nothing to fight against.”

  “Does Solomon have no scribes?” I wondered.

  “He has many, but he’s such a boring king that stories about him aren’t worth fighting against. They’ll put future generations to sleep anyway.”

  “That bad?”

  “Far worse. Most of the stories are basically endless lists of the materials used to construct the great buildings that have been built for him, especially the Temple and his private palace, which was only just recently completed after thirteen years of hard labor. Sometimes, for variety’s sake, of course, the stories also detail the precise weight of said materials, the types of sacrifices that were made on special occasions, the dimensions of the ten copper sinks in the Temple, and, most fascinatingly, the number of steps leading to the king’s throne and the exact shape of the animals carved into them. I’d rather listen to his father’s horror stories, believe me.”

  “But they say he’s the wisest of all men.”

  “That’s another one of the queen mother’s brilliant ideas. Bathsheba knew who she was dealing with and used that to elevate her own status. She was the one who ruled the kingdom, while her genius son devoted all his time to solving riddles, building palaces, buying horses, and what he loved more than anything else: collecting women. As we speak, his collection has reached seven hundred and fifty items, and he’s still going strong. In order that his subjects wouldn’t ask too many questions about the king’s odd pastimes, his mother declared him the ‘wisest of all men’ and spread a sweet little story about how he judged a dispute between two prostitutes over a baby, at the end of which the people were left in awe of his great wisdom. It’s the only interesting story that has been written about him to this day, perhaps because ever since deciding that case he’s been mostly concerned with the shovels and fountains his good friend Hiram, King of Zur, has been making for him, with the three thousand fables of beasts and fishes that he has been busy writing, and with the fifteen thousand songs he is working so hard to compose in celebration of the cedars of Lebanon and the hyssop on the walls. Poor Ahithophel—if he ever met the great-grandson who inherited his nickname, he would want to go right back to the underworld.”

  “And who’s been ruling the kingdom since Bathsheba died?”

  “His wives.”

  “All of them?”

  “A select team of foreign women, mostly Moabites, Sidonians, and Hittites. Their leader is Naamah the Ammonite, mother of Rehoboam, the crown prince. She married Solomon when he was sixteen, even before he became king, and is considered the most powerful woman in the kingdom. And do you know who her second-in-command is?”

  “I can guess: Hatshepsut the Egyptian, your wife’s niece.”

  “Solomon admires her more than all his other wives. After you finish your examinations in the new palace, don’t forget to stop by the house he built for her. He hasn’t built a house like that for any of his other wives. Which means I’ve got a mole in the most intimate circle of the king’s court. Now do you see how easy it would be to take down the king? Just say yes, and the crown is yours.”

  “No,” I said. “No. No. No!”

  Three

  Grandmother’s story turned me old before my time as well. It was as though the sixty-five years that were unfurled before me over the course of a day and a night had been added to my own life. I had no energy. I also considered the upcoming examinations at the palace an irritating burden, but I knew that I had no choice. Hadad had set the date, and I couldn’t disappoint him again. He’d invested so much in me and wasn’t getting the return he’d expected. This was the least I could do for him.

  “Show them what you’ve got,” he said, unable to disguise the trembling in his voice.

  “It’s nothing for me,” I said, trying to appear fresh and energized. “After everything you’ve put me through, these examinations will seem like a party.”

  After about an hour, two servants came to take me to the new palace. Rumor had it that the palace was even more magnificent than the Temple, which was considered the most beautiful building in the world. Up to that point, I had only been able to get a sense of the size of the palace because a high wall surrounded it on all sides, concealing it from outsiders. I was glad for the opportunity to see it from the inside. When I passed through the first gate, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary and was prepared to dismiss the rumors as exaggerations, but after we passed through the fifth gate, a castle of gigantic proportions came into view, unimaginably beautiful and glamorous. We entered the outer courtyard, and my breath caught at the sight of the garden. The carpets of multicolored flowers resembled spectacular mosaic floors, and small animals I’d never seen before were playing among the rare trees. There were birds of every feather, tiny monkeys, and bizarre fish swimming in a lovely pond with waterfalls. The walls of the castle were made of giant cedar beams interrupted by at least thirty arches lined with gold that gleamed blindingly in the sunlight. We walked into a large hall whose walls were adorned with precious gems embedded in enormous bricks. I couldn’t figure out how they had transported bricks of that size, how they had made the steps gleam like polished sapphire, how they could have woven thread of gold and silver into the rugs, and how they had sculpted the lions to look so real.

  But this palace filled me with an unpleasant feeling that increased the longer I observed it. I thought about the high taxes that had been required to build it, of the children who had been forced to leave behind their childhood games and go to work to help feed their families, of the women getting callouses on their tender hands clearing stones from the fields, of the men b
reaking their backs plowing and threshing, and I couldn’t help but ask myself what my great-grandfather King Saul, who had gotten so angry when his pretty daughters wore elegant dresses to victory parades, would have said of such splendor.

  * * *

  The examinations began right away, without any warning. I walked into a closed room, and before I could tell what was going on, an armed fighter attacked me, engaging me in prolonged and persistent combat. I fought ceaselessly for hours without so much as a water break. Each fighter they put in against me was stronger and more skilled than the one before. One of them even managed to hurt me, but it was a tiny cut, and I didn’t need to freeze myself to keep fighting. I was allowed to sleep at night, but only for a few hours before they woke me up to solve arithmetic problems. I solved them instantly. They were easier than the ones I had been given by my teacher in Zeredah. Then I was instructed to write on three different kinds of parchment. They asked if I knew any languages other than Hebrew, and when I said I was fluent in Egyptian and knew a little bit of Aramaic, an awed silence filled the room. At the end, I was once again subjected to hand-to-hand combat, this time against two fighters at once. That fight wasn’t easy, but after the simple examinations I had just completed, I couldn’t really complain.