The Secret Book of Kings: A Novel

by Yochi Brandes

  Father stared at me as if I’d gone mad. “And do you think it’s merely a coincidence?”

  “What?” I spat scornfully. “Do husbands choose their wives based on their names?”

  “Husbands don’t, but the son of Jesse does! Everything he does is focused on a single objective: to sit upon the royal throne. Do you truly believe he killed Goliath by chance—that he just miraculously happened to run into him?”

  For a moment I feared that the tale of Elhanan son of Jair had reached Abner, but then I relaxed. Father ascribed malicious intent to everything David did, but he still believed that he actually killed Goliath.

  “The son of Jesse carefully planned the whole thing after all his other plans had failed. First he tried to join my army, assuming that impressive military victories would win him the adoration of the people and give him a chance to gather a group of loyal fighters around him who would stand at his side when the time came. Luckily, my experienced army commander saw right away that the ambitious young man wasn’t going to amount to a great fighter and told him to go back to his sheep. At that point, the son of Jesse devised a new plan, invading the palace by way of his skilled fingers with the aim of winning the heart of the elder princess and becoming the king’s son-in-law. But that hope, too, was crushed. My wise daughter demonstrated mature judgment and farsightedness, declaring disgustedly that she wasn’t impressed by the royal musician’s strained efforts to charm her. But a man like that would never allow such trifles to stop him. The princess doesn’t want him? Then we’ll take her by force! And so, equipped with my hasty promise of a reward, the son of Jesse roamed the pathways of Judah that he knew so well and managed to track down Goliath and kill him in his sleep. He was certain that the uncooperative princess would be forced to marry him against her will. How disappointed he was when he discovered that it had all gone awry and that she’d already been given to another man. Only then, with no other options remaining, did the son of Jesse take the younger princess, who gave him her heart and cleaved to him with her love, only to receive goblets of venom and arrows of bitterness in return.”

  At that point I couldn’t hold back any longer and suggested to Father that he forego the rest of his detailed description of the events we all knew and get to the matter of the name Ahinoam already. He shot me a withering look but managed to contain his fury, and he asked me what I thought was the most important thing a man trying to take the throne needed to do. I answered coolly that I’d never considered the question.

  “He has to sleep with the king’s wife,” Father explained patiently, as if he were teaching a class in the laws of usurping the throne. “And it is preferable to do it openly, in the light of day, for all to see. With us—the nation of Israel—that has never happened, perhaps because we’ve never had a king before me, but it’s a common phenomenon elsewhere, practically routine. Almost every king who doesn’t inherit the throne sleeps with the previous king’s wife. That’s the rule: if you’ve conquered the king’s wife, the throne is yours!”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with David,” I hissed. “Just because his third wife has the same name as the queen doesn’t mean that…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Father gave me a long look. “You understand,” he said at last. “I know you do.”

  I stumbled toward the door. “I’d better be going.”

  “We aren’t done yet.” His voice was harder than ever. I turned to face him.

  He fixed a cold stare on a point somewhere above my head, trying not to look at me. “In a week I will give you to another man.”

  The world heaved beneath my feet, and the room started spinning around me. I put both hands against the wall. I couldn’t think.

  “You’re so young, Michal. I can’t allow you to live your life as an abandoned wife. Your sister has already given birth to four boys. What about you? Do you want to remain childless? I see the way you look at the children of Merab and Rizpah, and it breaks my heart.”

  I felt the anger rising and bubbling up through every part of my body. “Liar,” I whispered in a hushed voice, then in a great scream: “Liar!”

  His face froze hideously. “What did you say?”

  “You don’t care that I’m an abandoned wife. You don’t think about anything but David. You meditate on him day and night. The distant image of him plagues you by day and haunts your sleep at night. He’s your demon, the object of your fears, the source of your nightmares. David is your disease, but instead of seeking a cure, you’ve banished the only man who could ease your suffering with his music. You say that he used me to fulfill his ambitions? That’s exactly what you are doing to me. I’m nothing but an instrument in your war against David—or the son of Jesse, as you call him. I’m the trap meant to bring down your enemy. You don’t see me as a daughter, nor do you care about my feelings or my agony. You see me as a snare, nothing more.”

  He listened to me in silence and didn’t interrupt me even once. I expected him to summon his servants and order them to put me on trial for the crime of contempt against the crown. No one, not even a princess, is allowed to speak to the king that way. Deep in my heart, I wanted to stand trial. I preferred to fight openly to stay true to my husband than be led to a wedding like a lamb to the slaughter.

  I fell to the floor and looked away from him. “Never,” I swore out loud, “Never will I have another husband. David was, is, and always will be my one and only husband. You can give me to anyone you want, but it won’t do you any good. I will never be his wife.”

  I got back to my feet and groped my way back to my house. “Husband, husband, why have you forsaken me?” I whispered to the empty room. “Why don’t you come back to take me away, like you promised? I’m no longer the spoiled princess I was at the beginning of our marriage. Today I’m willing to follow you anywhere: to the arid desert, to the isolated border regions, even to the great sea—wherever you desire. I will always be at your side. Take me, my love. I’m not asking for your love, I’m not asking to be your only wife, I’m not even asking for your seed any longer. I only want to be with you.”

  I sat on my bed and hugged my knees to my chest, laying my cheeks against them. I don’t know how long I sat that way. I lifted my head only when I heard the sounds of Jonathan’s footsteps. He stood across from me and said nothing. We stared wordlessly at one another.

  “Father is giving me to another man.”

  I heard myself saying the words, and they made me sick. My anger was ignited once again.

  “Oh, God,” Jonathan whispered.

  I took a deep breath. “It won’t do him any good. No strange man will touch me.”

  “Oh, sister of mine.” The touch of his fingers against my cheek sent a shiver down my back. “You may be an independent princess, but the rules of society apply to you, too, just like they would to a commoner. A man sleeps with his wife. That’s the rule.”

  “Our family has other rules. Father doesn’t sleep with Rizpah, and you don’t sleep with Jaarah. Adriel is the only man in our family who sleeps with his wife.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that David barely ever slept with me, either, so the family principle also applied to me. I was surprised to find that the thought no longer pained me. It only brought up a nagging feeling of curiosity, as if it were an irritating riddle that couldn’t be solved.

  Jonathan’s face was on fire. I knew I’d insulted him, but rather than apologize, I straightened my back and, in a clear and strong voice, repeated the vow I’d made to Father: “Never will I have another husband. David was, is, and always will be my one and only husband.”

  * * *

  The night before the ceremony I lay in bed. Being able to fall asleep seemed inconceivable, but sleep was the only thing my body craved. I woke up before dawn and couldn’t remember anything at first. Then the dream flooded over me:

  I’m fashioning a long ladder out of sheets, tying it to the window, and climbing down quickly, but the ground beneath my feet keeps mo
ving farther away. I suddenly find myself on the desert sands, watching David from afar. He is standing with his back to me, and my heart aches for him. I try to run to him, but my feet are heavy and weak, and they will not respond. I call out his name, but my voice doesn’t reach him. Suddenly he turns to face me, and I see that it isn’t him. A strange man is reaching his hand out to me.

  An unexpected knock at the door cut off my reverie. The maid apologized for interrupting me at such a late hour, telling me excitedly that my fiancé had come to see me before the wedding. I didn’t want to know whom Father had chosen for me, but I thought that if he was already there, I might as well take the opportunity to try to persuade him to give up the ridiculous charade that awaited us the next day.

  “Let him in,” I said.

  I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders and sat on the edge of the bed.

  * * *

  He walks in softly, a strange and distant man. I glance at him quickly and turn away. “I already have a husband,” I mutter. “No ceremony can change that.” I try to quote a few more of the statements I’ve been rehearsing all week, but I’m not able to recall them.

  He comes closer, but I can’t see his face in the darkness. I strain my eyes. High cheekbones stand out even through the gloom. Soft velvety eyes glimmer in the dark. I have no need of candlelight to know who he is. I can see that distant image, when the sun blinded me and made me turn toward the chiseled-faced soldier with the long hair riding at the edge of the convoy.

  “Michal,” he whispers. “My princess.”

  The familiar words make my stomach turn.

  “I’m not your princess. I’m David’s princess. I always will be, even if he doesn’t come back for me.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you for seven years, Michal, just as Jacob waited for Rachel.”

  Being this close to him makes me shudder. It isn’t love, I tell myself. It’s something else. A longing for long-gone days, when I was still a young, innocent, happy girl, and when my entire family loved me. Before everything went wrong.

  “My love belongs to David, only to him. A woman cannot love two men.”

  “A man cannot love two women, either. He can marry two, or sometimes even more, but he will always love only one. Jacob loved only Rachel, the mother of our ancestor Benjamin, and Elkanah loved only Hannah, the mother of our prophet Samuel.” He pauses for a moment and then comes a step closer. “And some men cannot love at all, not a woman, not their parents, not even their sons—like Abraham, who abandoned his parents, deserted his wives, and was prepared to kill his two sons. Some men cannot make anyone happy, especially not those closest to them, and anyone living with them is condemned to a life of misery.”

  I understand very well who he means. “Abraham didn’t desert Sarah of his own accord. He was forced to leave his home and his people and to wander alone through a foreign land. Two strong kings, each one in turn, took his wife from him.”

  The soft velvety eyes cloud over. “Let’s not discuss the patriarchs. Let’s discuss ourselves. I am a man, and I love one woman. Only one. I’ve always loved and always will.”

  “I’m not the same girl of fourteen you once knew. I am twenty-two now, having spent three of those years as a married woman, and four as an abandoned wife. Life has worn me down and turned me into someone else.”

  “I loved you at fourteen, I love you at twenty-two, and I’ll love you at eighty.”

  “I have no love to give you in return.”

  “I’m not asking for your love.”

  “I won’t give you my body, either.”

  “I’m not asking for your body.”

  “Then what are you asking of me, Paltiel?”

  “I ask nothing of you, Michal. I only want to be with you.”

  Fifteen

  Immediately after the ceremony, which everyone viewed as my second wedding, Father made Paltiel part of his leadership team, which also included his three sons and his other son-in-law. Father’s eldest, the crown prince, was left out. The people of Gibeah gave them the nickname “The Six Days of Work,” and spoke proudly of the select group that ran the nation’s affairs from the palace and brought the people of Israel security and prosperity as never before. “And who is the seventh day?” someone once joked after hearing the nickname. The seventh day was Abner son of Ner, came the smiling response, for he was resting from any labor and occupied himself only with spying on David son of Jesse. To Father’s chagrin, the joke quickly spread throughout the land. Father continued to insist stubbornly that Abner’s spies were no less essential to keeping the peace than the soldiers who guarded our borders, for the son of Jesse had become Israel’s most dangerous enemy.

  When this “Seventh Day” told me the new information his spies had delivered, I put on a casual expression, even managing to choke down a dismissive smile, as if what he said had made no impression on me. Only when he walked out the door did I allow myself to cry. I tried to stifle the sounds, for I didn’t want the servants to call Paltiel out of the throne room, as he’d ordered them to do anytime they thought my mood was deteriorating. I buried my face in the blanket and bit down hard on it, my teeth nearly breaking from the effort, but after only a moment, my sobs erupted out of me with all their might.

  Paltiel arrived immediately. He knocked on the door, and when I didn’t answer he opened it and came inside. Until that moment he’d kept his promise not to come to my room.

  “Ahinoam and David have a child,” I wailed over my shoulder.

  “I know. His name is Amnon.”

  My crying ceased at once, replaced by a terrible fury that momentarily dulled the stabbing pain in my ribs. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me hear it from Abner?”

  “Your father and I decided to spare you the pain. We never imagined Abner would be so bold as to go behind our backs. He must be disciplined. That man really takes pleasure in upsetting you.”

  He sat beside me on the bed and leaned his head toward me. His long hair fluttered against my cheeks. I felt the heat of his body against my thigh. My hand reached for his arm, and I pulled it back with great effort, which made my muscles ache as if I’d been lifting a heavy load.

  “You aren’t barren, Michal. You could have a child, too.”

  I turned to lie on my back and looked up at him. My lips fell open slightly and came near to his on their own accord. At the last moment, I pulled my head back.

  He reached his hand to my face. My body shuddered. “No!” I cried out louder and more harshly than I’d intended. “I am a married woman. You are forbidden to touch me.”

  His hand hung in midair. He let it fall and said distantly, without looking at me, “Did Abner also tell you about Abigail’s pregnancy?”

  I felt like I was choking.

  “Amnon will soon have a little brother. It appears that the happy father is a very fertile man.”

  “Stop it!” I cried.

  Tears welled up in his eyes. “Let me give you a child, Michal, and then I’ll stay away from you. I swear.”

  I got up and dragged my body to the edge of the room. “There is only one man who can give me a child, and he isn’t you.” I held on to those cruel words with all my strength. Without them, I didn’t think I’d be able to stand my ground.

  He looked at the ground with a wounded, helpless expression. “You won’t ever have a child from him. Surely you now realize what everyone else realized long ago: the son of Jesse doesn’t want a son from you. He wants to form his own dynasty, one that carries his own name, not Saul’s.” He looked up at me slowly. “I must tell you something else. Do you know where he is right now?”

  What difference does it make, I wondered, where my beloved is roaming? Does it matter if he is in the desert of Maon or in the desert of En Gedi, at the strongholds of Horesh or at the Hill of Hakilah, in the wilderness of the Arabah or of Jeshimon, in the region of Carmel or of Ziph? What matters is that he is alive. I suddenly saw a terrible image that gave me pleasure. I saw lit
tle Amnon dying of thirst in the arid desert, just like the son of Hagar, except that no angel came to Ahinoam to raise up a well for the child. I was appalled by the possibility that jealousy had turned me into a monster, just like it did to Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, who had wished for the deaths of the sons of Peninnah, her rival wife.

  “He is in the palace of Achish, King of Gath,” Paltiel went on.

  At first I thought he was joking, but his handsome face was serious. I must have burst out laughing anyway. I couldn’t tell that I was doing it, but the offended Paltiel commented that the ridicule Jonathan and I expressed couldn’t counter the solid intelligence that was delivered by Abner’s spies.

  In spite of the wave of rage that flooded over me, I remained outwardly serene and broke into a disparaging description of David’s travels in the city of Gath, hoping that Paltiel would see how baseless the rumor really was. “Achish must have been very excited to receive the famous guest who’d killed his strongest fighter. He must have opened the palace gates wide for him and ordered his servants to give a warm welcome to the young Judean who killed Goliath. At the same time, he must have also taken the opportunity to remind them of the famous song the women of Israel had composed for the occasion: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.’ He only forgot to mention that those thousands and tens of thousands were his own dead soldiers.”

  “The report we’ve received from the spies is even more amusing than your version, and if we weren’t talking about a real threat to the security of Israel, we might have all had a good laugh. The son of Jesse was forced to flee to Gath after Abner’s soldiers spread out across the land, and he had no place left to hide. He was hoping that no one would recognize him in the kingdom of the Philistines, but he underestimated his notoriety. When he was captured and brought to trial before the king, he made incomprehensible grunting noises and drooled all over his beard. People said Achish almost threw up in disgust and ordered his embarrassed soldiers to stop bringing him lunatics. Or, to quote his juicier phrasing: ‘Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?’”