by Ann Burton
I did not answer him. I thought only of going to David and confronting him. I would make him see that he could not kill innocent people in his anger. As I pulled my samla tightly around me, I cursed Nabal and David. They cared nothing for the lives of Yehud, his sons, or the dal. They were both arrogant fools.
In that moment, words I had heard before whispered inside my mind: One king fool, one fool king.
The prophecy of the m’khashepah—but how could she have known that I would now be caught between such men?
Whose shall you be? Whose truth shall you speak?
Lightning flashed in the sky overhead, although there were no storm clouds or sign of rain. Rivai cringed and then looked up. “What was that?”
I was lost in the words of the m’khashepah, remembering everything she had predicted. Seek mercy where none is deserved. Cry mercy when none is earned. Stand and you shall fall. Kneel and you shall rise. Search for it, bargain for it, crawl for it. . . .
I could not be sure of the meaning. What was happening now might have nothing to do with her words. There was one possibility, but it meant that I had to give both men not what they desired but what they deserved.
When you doubt, go back to the wheel. Turn the wheel.
“I need the clay first,” I said to myself.
“Abigail, what are you talking about? You do not need clay at a time like this.” Rivai looked frightened. “What is wrong? Why are your eyes so wild?”
I took his hand and held it so that I could climb up onto the wagon. “I may not return. Tell Mother and Father and Cetura that I love them dearly. As I do you, Brother.”
I could still hear Rivai shouting after me as I drove the wagon through the city gate and took the road leading to Maon.
I did not drive the wagon up to the front of Nabal’s house. I was determined, but I would do no one any good dead. Instead, I drove it around to the back, where the shearing sheds stood.
I found Yehud and his sons eating a hastily prepared meal in the midst of the bundled fleeces they had shorn that day. The smell of wet wool and lye was thick in the air, and the men wore shearing clothes so covered with bits of wool and dirt that I hardly recognized them.
Yehud rose when he saw me. “Abigail? Have you gone mad?” He looked up toward the house and back at me. “You cannot be here. Your friend, the serving woman, was beaten and dragged from here. Your husband has vowed to do the same to you the moment he sees you.”
“Rosh, there are more important things amiss now. Please, can you tell me what was said between my husband and David’s men?”
“David sent his messengers to greet our master, and we went to stand with them, as they have become our friends these past months,” one of Yehud’s sons said, “but he reviled them. We told the master that the men were very good to us while we grazed his flocks in Paran, and that as long as we accompanied them when we were in the fields, not a single animal went missing.”
“I did not ask for them, but they were a wall to us day and night,” Yehud agreed. “This I told Master Nabal, and he only laughed and said it was free service. There is nothing to be done, child. If David means to harm our master, it would be his due. He is such a fool and a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him.”
I had no time to deal yet with my husband. “I need you and your sons to help me load this wagon.”
“What do you put into it?”
“That which might persuade David not to attack.”
As I suspected, there was no one but the kitchen servant inside preparing food, and red blotches from weeping still covered her face. When I came in with the herdsmen, she squeaked with alarm.
“You must not be here,” she warned, trying to push me back through the door. “The master wishes you dead.”
“Do not cry out my name,” I told her. “Where is my husband’s steward?”
“He has gone into town to gamble. He stays the night with a woman there.” She saw Yehud’s sons carry sacks out of the storage room. “What are you doing?”
“We are taking what we need,” I said. “Say nothing to the master of this.”
“But you cannot take all of that,” she wailed. “He will find it missing and have me beaten as Keseke was.”
“I shall be back in the morning to give him what he is due,” I promised her. “For now, you should go and stay in the shearing sheds. Yehud’s sons will protect you there.”
There was too much to fit into one wagon, so I sent three of Yehud’s sons to appropriate more mules from Nabal’s stables. Yehud helped me to finish packing the wagon and the mules and then regarded me silently.
“He shall not kill me,” I promised him. “Not right away.”
“You understand how proud David is.” Yehud gestured to the wagon. “This may not be enough, Abigail.”
“It is not all that I mean to give.” I took one of the mules and climbed onto its back, settling myself between the heavy packs suspended from its saddle. “Send the others and the wagon after me. I must go now if I am to stop them in time.”
I slapped the reigns and started the mule toward Paran, and David.
CHAPTER
18
I did not reach David’s encampment in time to stop the army from marching. I met them halfway to Maon, coming up the road in orderly ranks. I had never seen them all together before, and although they were thin and poorly dressed, each man carried a spear, a sword or knife, and a shield.
I saw them from the top of a hill. They did not see me, or did not care that I was in their path, for they did not stop moving forward. I guided the mule down the sloping road, and then stopped and looked back toward Maon. I could see the other mules and the wagon slowly making their way toward us; they would arrive in a few minutes.
That gave me time to speak to him. I could not speak to him as we had at the spring. He was no longer the shepherd who had sung to me and danced in the rain. He was David, warrior son of Jesse, anointed by Samuel, blessed by the Adonai.
He was my king.
I removed my head cloth and replaced it with the one I had taken from the kitchen girl at my husband’s house. I had never worn the head cloth of a servant, but I draped it as a servant would wear and started forward, guiding the mule toward the army.
I heard David speaking to one of his captains as I approached.
“You would think we had raided his flocks, instead of protecting them,” the captain was saying.
“Surely in vain I have protected all that this Nabal has in Paran, so that he lost nothing,” David said. “And this is how he repays me, with evil for good. May the One and True God do so, and more also, to my enemies, if by morning light I leave one male of all who belong to him.” He stopped as he caught sight of me on the mule, and called the army to halt.
I dismounted quickly from the mule and hurried forward to prostrate myself before him. I did not merely kneel; I lay facedown at his feet, the most humbling position I knew. “Let this iniquity be upon me, my lord.”
He reached down for me. “Get up.”
I did not move. “Please, let your maidservant speak to you, and hear my words.” His hands left my arms, and I continued as if we were complete strangers. “Please, my lord, do not give any regard to this scoundrel, Nabal. For as his name means fool, so is he a fool bent on folly.”
The mention of my husband’s name made him hiss something under his breath.
“You must understand, my lord, that I, your maidservant, did not see the young men whom you sent to my husband. As the Adonai lives, so you live. I know He has held you back from coming to bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hand. Let your enemies and those who seek to harm you be as Nabal. Fools engaged in folly.”
“What do you ask of me?” I heard him ask through clenched teeth.
“To give this present which your maidservant has brought to you.” By now he surely saw the packs on my mule, and the others coming over the hill. “Let it be given to the young men who follow you, my lord, as
your army. Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant for not attending to you and your needs. For the Adonai shall certainly make for you an enduring house, because you fight the Adonai’s battles, and no evil will be found in you throughout your days.”
“A house cannot endure with a dead master,” David said softly.
He was telling me that King Saul still hunted him. “A man pursues you and seeks your life, but you are wrapped in the arms of the Adonai. The lives of your enemies He shall sling out, as you have sent rocks from the pocket of your sling. It shall come to pass,” I said, lifting my face to look upon his. “When the Adonai has done as He has promised for you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, that this matter will be no grief to you, nor offense of heart to you, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that you have avenged yourself.”
I knew what I was asking of him. To remind him that he was better than this, above personal, petty vengeance, was a risk. It was also the only way I could salve his pride.
“I say again, maidservant,” he said, “what do you ask of me?”
I could demand nothing. What food I had brought might satisfy the debt my husband owed him, but what David and I had shared could not be satisfied. We would forever be in debt to each other.
I pressed my cheek to his feet and closed my eyes. “I ask only that when the Adonai has dealt well with you, my lord, that you might remember your maidservant.”
My memory was the only thing I could give him now.
I did not resist David’s hands as he drew me to my feet. I dared not look into his eyes. He might strike me and cast me aside for daring to come to him. He might toss me to the nearest man and have me bound and gagged so that I would give no warning to Nabal.
“Abigail.”
I barely heard the whisper, but it brought my eyes to his.
Still holding my hands, he smiled down at me. “Blessed is the Adonai, the One and True, who sent you this day to meet me.”
I did not dare ask him what he meant. I only held onto his hands and waited.
“And blessed is your advice and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand.” He turned to face his men. “For indeed, as the Adonai lives, He has kept us back.” As the men cheered, he lowered his voice. “You were very bold, but very wise, little dove. Had you not hurried and come to meet me, I would have left no man in that house alive.”
“I know, my lord.” I let out a long breath. “Yehud and his sons are there shearing. I did not think they would have been recognized in time to be spared.”
David went still. “I swear to you, I did not know them to be there, Abigail.”
“That is why I came.” I stepped back and bowed low. “Your maidservant thanks you, my lord.”
His men were surrounding us, exclaiming over what I had brought for them on the mules. Yehud’s sons came to greet their friends and called to David.
I looked into his eyes and saw his frustration. “I must go, my lord,” I said.
“Then go up in peace to your house,” he told me. “I have heeded your voice and respected your person.”
I would have gladly thrown myself back at his feet and begged to stay with him as his servant, but there was other work left to be finished. I bowed again and went to my mule, which had been unloaded. Together we started back for Maon.
I thought a great deal before I reached my husband’s property. I thought of David, who had shown himself to be all that was said of him, and more. My praise had not been solely for the benefit of his men or in vain. His actions proved beyond a doubt that he would be a great king, and his house would endure with the blessings of the Adonai.
Did David know me better now? Had I proven myself to be what I truly was? What was that? Who had I become?
A common potter’s daughter with the cold and calculating heart of a merchant. A liar and thief who dared to bargain with a king to save the life of a wealthy, evil fool.
That was my truth, and that was what people would remember of me whenever my name was spoken.
I did not like knowing myself like this. I had not been this, before Nabal. He had shaped me into this thing that I had become.
The mule was tired and only moved faster than a walk when it saw the front gate. I stopped the mule there and tied it to a post so that I could walk the remaining distance to the house.
It was silent, with several of the servants sleeping out by the spits. They must have been exhausted from the long night of providing meat for the feast. Half a carcass still hung from one rod, now a banquet for the flies. More waste in the name of Nabal.
The house was silent as I walked in, but the smell of strong wine and roast meat was still thick in the air. I followed the smell to the great room and had to step over several richly clothed men as I went. The feast must have been a success for my husband’s friends to drink so much that they fell asleep on the floor with the dogs.
One of the Edomites stumbled out of Nabal’s bedchamber and directly into my path. She looked at me through bleary eyes ringed with smeared blue paint. “The master will see you dead this day.” She smirked. “Then he will give me your garments to wear.”
I might have drawn my hand back and struck her full across the mouth, but she was really no different from me. Her crime was in selling herself so cheaply. Part of me understood her eagerness to bed Nabal, too. “Do you yet carry my husband’s child?”
Her mouth pouted. “Soon he will plant a son in my belly while you rot in the ground.”
“I would not try on robes or choose names as yet,” I advised as I moved past her and into the great room.
More men were piled on cushions and floor mats, nearly all in drunken slumber. One stalwart young man was doing his best to rouse the other Edomite, but she snored through his ardent caresses.
My husband was the grandest spectacle in the room. To entertain his friends, he had worn his finest robes, intricately embroidered vestments like those the holy priests wore to the ceremonies at the bamot. A bejeweled circlet of pure gold glittered on his hairless head, and his eyes were outlined in kohl in Egyptian fashion. Something swayed, hanging from his two chins, and it took a moment to realize it was one of the false beards fashioned of turquoise, as worn by the pharaohs.
He was not asleep or drunk. He was waiting and smiling pleasantly.
“Friends, business partners, debtors,” my husband announced loudly, startling some of the sleeping men. “Greet my new and very errant wife, Abigail, late of Carmel.” He clapped his hands, and waited.
It woke the Edomite, who shrieked and pushed the man atop her to one side, but no one else came into the room.
“Where is my steward?” Nabal rose from his chair and clapped his hands together, this time louder. “Takis! Attend me.”
“He is in town, Master,” the Edomite said, slapping at the eager hands of her admirer. “The others are out sleeping by the cooking pits.”
“Go and wake them,” he told her. “I have need of two stout men, a length of rope, and my cudgel.”
The Edomite gathered up her robe and held it to cover her naked front as she hurried out.
By now the other men in the room had awaken, and were looking from Nabal’s benign smile to me. With muttered excuses and hasty thanks, my husband’s friends rose and left, one by one, until we were alone.
“I did not think you would dare return,” Nabal said. “The debts from those dog merchants in Carmel made me angry.” He looked up as the Edomite peered around the door. “Well? Where are they?”
“They are afraid to come,” she whined, “because of what happened the last time you sent for such things.”
I thought of Keseke, dying in my arms. Of Malme, and how close she had come to death. Of Rivai, and the crushing weight of a debt he had been tricked into assuming. Of Nabal’s family, killed in the middle of the night so that he could have all that was theirs for himself.
No more lives would b
e sacrificed on the altar of my husband’s greed.
I went to the door and shoved the Edomite’s face out before I closed it and dropped the bar. No one else would intrude.
“So I must do this myself. Lazy servants, I shall dismiss them all later.” He stepped down from the platform surrounding his chair. “How was your time in the hills? Did those goatherds teach you anything about how to please a man?”
I met him in the center of the room. Despite his finery, it was evident that he had grown fatter and whiter of skin since the last time I had laid eyes on him. Before this he had only been mildly repulsive, that much I could admit to myself, and now he resembled the maggots that infested old meat.
As he raised his fist to strike me, I smiled. “Men came to see you yesterday. Men to whom you owed a debt.”
“I saw no such men.” He lowered his fist and picked a particle of food from between his front teeth, flicking it at my feet. “I remember some runaway slaves who came without invitation. They sputtered some nonsense about my flocks, but they were obviously beggars. I threw them out of the house.”
I would not scream at him. I would not. “Those men you insulted and turned away belong to David, son of Jesse, the anointed of Israel. Do you know who he is?”
“Some outlaw shepherd who desires the throne. The king wants his head.” Nabal shrugged. “What of him?”
“The men came back to David and repeated your insults. He called his army of four hundred to arms and ordered them to gird themselves with their swords. To march upon you and your house. To come here and slay you, Nabal, and every man of your household.”
My husband jerked back. “By Adonai, you brainless woman, go summon the shamar. They might be at the gates now—I shall not be slain by outlaws under my own roof.”
“There is no need to summon anyone, for David has called back his men and returned to his camp.”
“What?” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I went to them in the night. I spoke to the man who will be our king. I threw myself at his feet and called myself his servant. I pleaded with him to spare your household and made an offering to sway him.”
