Kerah came to stand beside Haggith. “By whose authority is this being done?”
“I am the senior wife in this household,” Michal said. I should have taken this stand sooner.
“Someone fetch Lady Ahinoam.”
“The old hag has gone mad.”
“Michal is not really senior, is she?”
The room fell silent as Maachah entered with Bird waddling behind her.
“Michal, I haven’t given this room to anyone,” Bird said. “And what’s this about a new wife?”
“My son has told me no such thing.” Maachah added.
Look at them, Michal thought as she surveyed the angry faces. They look just like Phaltiel’s women, when they gathered to give me a rude initiation to Gallim. No one here has the courage to tell our husband he has done wrong. Yet they stand ready to peck out the eyes of some helpless woman who may not even wish to be among us.
Michal stood tall and crossed her arms. “Since we have assembled, I’ll take this opportunity to make an announcement. Our Lord King David has taken another wife. I am confident everyone will obey the king’s command to welcome her warmly and help her settle comfortably into our family. She will be here this evening. This will be her bedchamber. Her name is Bathsheba. She is a Hittite. I hope to receive no reports of anyone failing to carry out the wishes of our lord the king in this matter.”
Michal made her way through the stunned gathering. As she walked sedately to her own room, she smiled at the sounds of noisy confusion erupting behind her.
At twilight, Bird appeared at the door of Michal’s bedchamber.
“Good evening,” Michal said. “Come and join me.”
Bird remained standing in the doorway. “Granted, you are the senior wife,” she said coldly, “but someday my son Amnon will be king.” She turned and slowly walked away.
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
“AND DAVID COMFORTED BATHSHEBA HIS WIFE…AND SHE BARE A SON, AND HE CALLED HIS NAME SOLOMON: AND THE LORD LOVED HIM.” II SAMUEL 12:24
“You’re later than usual,” Mephibosheth said. “Most days, you walk down the steps just as the baker begins to make fire in the ovens.”
Michal smiled. “Do you think my age slows me down? No, Solomon made colors for the first time today. He had to try every combination. I don’t understand how the women of this house can be so cruel to such a sweet little boy.”
“He’s half Hittite.” Mephibosheth grinned broadly. “I’ve heard it said there’s some doubt foreigners have souls.”
“Someday, my nephew, you will throw my own words in my face once too often, and I will set the palace guards on you.”
“The guards like me.” He directed a salute to the back of the sentry at the gate. “I treat them like brothers. I have good news, Aunt Michal. The betrothal between Micha and Rachel was sealed today. When Solomon gets too old to play in the stream, perhaps Micha’s child will come and learn to make colors.”
“That’s wonderful, Mephibosheth. I wish you many grandchildren. I pray your son will raise his family in a home filled with peace. He must never take a second wife.”
“Peace is boring. Life is more interesting when the household engages in civil war.”
“You wouldn’t joke about such a thing if you lived in the midst of it. I often think I will pretend to be deaf to avoid listening to their backbiting.”
Mephibosheth patted her arm. “Have you noticed what a fine day this is? How would you like to take a ride in my cart?”
Michal knew by now her nephew’s request to ride together was a way to have a conversation away from the palace. “That sounds most pleasant,” she answered, already starting to wonder what news he brought.
Mephibosheth wasted no time. As soon as his donkey cleared the palace gates, he asked, “How are things between the king’s wives?”
“Bird is determined the king must name Amnon as his successor.” Michal sighed. “Maachah campaigns constantly for Absalom. They trade sly insults when they meet and whisper vicious lies about each other when they are apart.”
“I grant that David may be a difficult husband, but he is the greatest king this world has ever seen. No disrespect to Grandfather. Mighty rulers tremble with fear when our king mobilizes his army. I pray he will wear the royal bracelet for many years to come. But you need to be prepared for the day when the king sleeps with his fathers, God forbid.”
“My husband no longer rides out to war. He walks strong and straight. Why do you think of his death, Nephew?”
“Look to your right, and tell me who you see.”
“How would I know those men who do business at the city gate?” Nevertheless, Michal noticed a familiar face. “Absalom? What is he doing there?”
“Don’t stare. The prince spends many hours near the judgment seat. He cunningly guesses what someone wants to hear, and that is what he says. If a man complains he should have an orchard the king awarded to his brother, Absalom listens soberly and then agrees. Since he has no authority to make decisions, nothing is binding. Yet he curries favor with the people at the expense of the king’s reputation.”
“Absalom has David’s fine looks, coupled with his mother Maachah’s base ambition,” Michal observed. “But Amnon is the elder son. He has administrative skills Absalom will never possess.”
“True enough, my clever aunt. In my opinion, Amnon is a self-indulgent, dishonest rascal. As long as he gets everything he wants for himself, the nation would be welcome to whatever remains. However, you’re right. He might possibly hold the kingdom together for a while. And there are other contenders. Daniel openly acknowledges he will never be king, but Haggith’s son Adonijah has high hopes.”
Mephibosheth stopped the cart at the crest of a hill. “Look at that view. This is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen.” He relaxed his grip on the reins and leaned back. “My point is this, if something happens to David, Israel is in for a rough transition. Anyone could be in danger, especially us. You and me. Micha. Micha’s children, when and if he has them.”
“I know you’re right.” Michal put her hand on Mephibosheth’s shoulder. “Whatever happens to me happens. I should have been dead several times over already. In a desperate situation, I could hide in one of the caves behind the palace. There are places back there where no one would ever find me. Then I suppose I could walk over the old, hidden pass to Bahurim. The most important thing is to know you and Micha are safe.”
“A lame man may not be worth killing. I worry for Micha, though. Few people think in terms of my royal grandfather now, but who knows? Ep’s family would hide my son, but that’s the first place they would go looking for him.”
“You have given this some thought,” Michal said.
“I have.”
“I know you too well, Mephibosheth. There is something you want from me.”
“The woman who used to be your handmaid, Tirzah? She and her husband are good, honest people. I heard him say once he would give you refuge if you needed it. Do you think they would hide Micha for your sake? No one in Jerusalem knows them, let alone where they live.”
Michal looked toward the Holy Mountain. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“What?” Mephibosheth looked puzzled.
“I was again thanking the Living God for His superior wisdom. It seems only right, since I berated Him for separating me from Tirzah. Now I see that the distance between her home and ours could be a great blessing. Yes, I am certain Joash and Tirzah would provide Micha a place to hide. May God grant that he never needs it. Going back to what I said, the king is healthy and strong. Has something set your thoughts in this direction, Nephew?”
“Nothing in particular, just looks and whispers I sometimes hear at the king’s table. I will make some preparations against the day we may need them.” Mephibosheth took up the reins to his donkey cart.
“And now I will ask something of you,” Michal said.
Mephibosheth grinned. “Why would I grant a wish to my fathe
r’s favorite sister, who may have just saved my son’s life?”
“Be serious. If something happens, and if you can do this without putting Micha in danger, take care of Bathsheba and her little boy. They have no one to look after them.”
“You care that much for this child, Solomon, my aunt?”
“I do. You know I have a weakness for smart little boys.”
“And you ask for Bathsheba’s safety as well?”
“I never planned to have anything to do with her, as you, of all people, should know. She irritated me by clinging to me when she first came to the palace. Then she drove me mad asking so many questions about our God. After she became a believer, she shamed me by her simple faith.”
“Interesting information, but not a motive to protect her,” Mephibosheth said.
Michal regarded the city for a long time. “I have my reasons for the things I do. Reasons you have no need to know. And even if you knew, you would not be able to understand.”
“No?” Mephibosheth asked. “My legs are lame, but my heart knows something about the power of love.”
“Take me home,” Michal snapped.
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
“AND SHE ANSWERED HIM, NAY, MY BROTHER, DO NOT FORCE ME; FOR NO SUCH THING OUGHT TO BE DONE IN ISRAEL: DO NOT THOU THIS FOLLY. HOWBEIT HE WOULD NOT HEARKEN UNTO HER VOICE: BUT, BEING STRONGER THAN SHE, FORCED HER, AND LAY WITH HER.” II SAMUEL 13: 12, 14
The messenger stood in the doorway of Michal’s bedchamber. “My lady, Lord Eliab must see you at once in the stable. He says it is urgent.”
Michal thought for the hundredth time that the inconvenience of assuming her rightful position as head wife far outweighed the benefits. Why the stable? Did Eliab want to complain again that a wife broke a cart wheel? Or was another groomsman caught trying to steal a kiss from a servant girl?
She stopped inside the stable, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Eliab sat on a stool, his head buried in his hands. In a dark corner, a girl sobbed quietly. Maachah’s daughter, Tamar? With a soldier’s cloak wrapped around her?
“What—”
The word was barely out of Michal’s mouth when Eliab said, “Tamar has been violated.”
“Violated?” She looked at the trembling teenager and realized the girl’s hair was disheveled. “Oh, poor child!” She ran to wrap the frightened Tamar in an embrace.
“I’m ruined,” Tamar moaned. “Ruined.”
Michal looked over Tamar’s shoulder. “Who dares do this to the daughter of the king?”
“She accuses Prince Amnon.” Eliab rubbed the back of his neck. “King David will discern guilt or innocence. Meanwhile, you must take her to her mother.”
Prince Amnon? Bird’s son raped Maachah’s daughter? Michal fought to comprehend how such a double tragedy could be possible. “Come, child.”
Michal kept one arm wrapped around the shivering Tamar and waved away curious servants with the other. Fortunately, they found Maachah alone in her bedchamber.
“Your face is dirty and your hair is a mess, Daughter,” Maachah said crossly.
“Tamar has been raped,” Michal said.
All hope of keeping the matter quiet vanished as Maachah screamed. “Tamar! My daughter! Ruined! In the bloom of your youth! Soiled! How shall I bear this evil? The king must know of this at once! He will cut off the head of the dog that dared to touch our daughter.”
While Maachah continued to shriek, women streamed into the room. Michal washed Tamar’s face. Bathsheba began to comb the weeping girl’s hair while wives and concubines started speaking.
“A girl isn’t safe on the streets of Jerusalem anymore.”
“Who did it?”
“She asked for it, the way she dresses.”
“I’ll bet it was some foreigner.”
“Tamar? Raped? No!”
Haggith took the comb from Bathsheba’s hand. “Let me do that.”
Maachah, who had thrown herself across her bed, looked around the room as if checking attendance. Her glance flickered past Bird. She wailed, “Speak, Tamar. Who did this horrible thing to you? Who would dare to violate the king’s own beloved daughter?”
The shaken girl looked at her mother with the eyes of a trapped animal, and breathed one barely-audible word, “Amnon.”
“Amnon?” Maachah screamed. “The prince? Your own brother raped you? He is mad! Prince Amnon is an evil madman.”
Bird stood as if she were rooted to the floor of Maachah’s bedchamber. The color drained from her face. “No,” she whispered.
Maachah’s supporters clustered around her and Tamar. Kerah and her group stood back, clucking about the whole situation being an embarrassment to the royal family. The women who routinely kissed Bird’s toes stood looking at each other with uncertainty. Bathsheba put a tentative arm around Bird, who shook it off.
As the crowd dwindled, Maachah rose. “I must be alone with my poor, desolate daughter,” she sighed. “She wants only my comfort.”
Michal led Bird to her chamber. Bathsheba followed at a distance. “Tamar is lying,” Bird said without conviction. “Amnon has been ill. He couldn’t…” Her voice trailed away.
Bird’s distraught handmaid fetched cool water. Michal dipped a rag into the bowl and dabbed at Bird’s forehead. “The king will find out the truth of this matter.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Bathsheba asked in her slightly accented way.
Michal gestured there was nothing and waved Bathsheba away. Her flaming curls shimmered as she strolled down the corridor.
Within days, Bird acted as if nothing happened. Nevertheless, her private war with Maachah burned hot with fresh fuel. Gossip that Tamar seduced her brother circulated through the women’s quarters. On the heels of that story, a rumor claimed Absalom used his sister as bait to discredit Amnon. Maachah was accused of plotting the incident beforehand, as evidenced by her hysterics when told of the rape. “She screamed,” one wag said, “but I never saw a tear.”
One group maintained the rape never happened, that Tamar never went near Amnon’s house. A bold concubine theorized Maachah or Tamar fabricated everything. Someone suggested Haggith bribed Amnon, or Tamar, or both in an effort to improve her son Adonijah’s standing ahead of King David’s older sons.
Maachah noisily arranged to have Tamar moved into Absalom’s house. “For protection from Amnon,” she claimed.
There was agreement on one thing only. King David must take action. The situation demanded fact-finding, judgment, and closure. At least one member of the royal family was guilty of a grievous wrong, but the king remained silent on the matter.
* * *
“Could you possibly convince your husband to deal with his children?” Mephibosheth asked as he drove Michal to the palace after visiting the place of worship.
“I have no influence. He never speaks with me,” Michal replied, waving gnats away from her eyes. “Where do these pests come from?”
“I believe they hatch from eggs. We might be better off if people did the same.”
“I hope you haven’t tried to talk to the king,” Michal said.
“No one seeks the advice of a lame man. Not even his aunt.”
“Good. It is dangerous to speak against his children to David. He will always take their side, even if they’re wrong. He is totally blind to the faults of his offspring.”
Mephibosheth dismissed her statement with the lifting of his eyebrows. “Is there no one?”
“No. David will never stand for criticism of his sons. They are all perfect.”
“And his daughters?”
“They have far less value.”
When they’d left for the place of worship, the usual sentry stood in front of the palace gate. Now there was a group of four armed soldiers barring entrance to the courtyard. “Interesting,” Mephibosheth muttered softly, before speaking up to say, “Good day, gentlemen.”
A familiar-looking soldier looked at Mephibosheth, then Michal. He
peered into the back of the donkey cart. “Sorry to trouble you, sir.” Another soldier swung open the gates.
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Michal looked back over her shoulder.
There was no one in the courtyard. Even the lazy goats that hung around the kitchen were nowhere in sight. Michal helped her nephew transfer his weight from the cart to his crutches. She led the donkey out a side gate toward the animal shelter. “Where is everyone?” she asked the lone stable boy.
“You have not heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Prince Amnon is dead.” The young man took the reins of the donkey.
“Dead? Was there an accident? What happened?”
The young man glanced left and right. “I am not certain, my lady.”
Michal ran back to the courtyard. “I have to go to Bird,” she told Mephibosheth. “A stable boy just told me Amnon is dead.”
Michal found Bathsheba cowering in her bedchamber. “Prince Amnon,” she blurted.
“I just heard,” Michal said. “What happened?”
“Absalom has murdered his brother, Amnon. It is said he did this to avenge the rape of Tamar.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
“BUT ABSALOM SENT SPIES THROUGHOUT ALL THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL, SAYING, AS SOON AS YE HEAR THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, THEN YE SHALL SAY, ABSALOM REIGNETH IN HEBRON. AND THERE CAME A MESSENGER TO DAVID, SAYING, THE HEARTS OF THE MEN OF ISRAEL ARE AFTER ABSALOM.” II SAMUEL 15:10, 13
Michal was dismayed but not surprised when Absalom returned to Israel after two years of self-imposed exile in the land of Geshur, where Maachah’s father was king. David did not challenge Absalom’s return, but banished his son from the palace for a short while. A rumor passed through the women’s quarters that Prince Absalom was pressuring the military commander Joab to intercede for him. Later, Michal heard from Mephibosheth that Joab brought the prince into the king’s presence at a public gathering. David chose to embrace his son, and Absalom was back in favor with the king. Most occupants of the palace acted as if Amnon’s murder never occurred
Daughter of the King Page 25
