The Secret Book of Kings: A Novel

by Yochi Brandes

  But what frightened David most of all was Ahithophel’s betrayal. He knew that whoever had the good fortune of that man’s counsel would be assured of victory. “The advice of Ahithophel is like the word of God,” the king told his people. “That man is cleverer than any other. If we can’t find a way to thwart his ability to advise Absalom, we’re doomed.”

  David’s terrified men were beside themselves. The only one who was able to get himself under control was Hushai the Arkite, one of the court advisors, who was not about to miss the opportunity that had befallen him to inherit Ahithophel’s lofty position as the king’s master of secrets.

  “I’m willing to go frustrate the advice of Ahithophel,” Hushai told David. “Absalom will believe I’ve joined him, too, and he will listen to my advice.”

  Joab and Abishai, the sons of Zeruiah, were afraid that Hushai wasn’t clever enough to formulate his own plan, but the king assured them that cleverness was not necessary to frustrate Ahithophel’s advice. “It’s very simple,” David explained to Hushai. “You need to listen very carefully to Ahithophel’s advice and then say the opposite. Absalom likes convoluted advice, so try to prove to him that your advice is more complicated than Ahithophel’s.”

  Absalom received Hushai with suspicion but eventually took him into his confidence and revealed that he planned to follow Ahithophel’s advice and pursue David and his men that very night.

  “That is not good advice,” Hushai declared.

  “David’s soldiers are panicked and confused,” Absalom explained. “This is a golden opportunity that we can’t afford to miss.”

  “Panicked soldiers are dangerous soldiers,” Hushai said confidently, and he launched into a long lecture, seasoned with proverbs and analogies to the world of nature, explaining to his perplexed audience that Ahithophel’s plan should not be carried out precisely because it was so simple and logical. “David’s soldiers are certain we will track them down tonight. When they see that we aren’t attacking them, they’ll assume that a plague has swept through our army, and they’ll complacently disarm, which is when we’ll attack them and kill David.”

  Hushai described his convoluted plan to Absalom and his men for a long time, and when he was finished they called out excitedly, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite is better than that of Ahithophel!”

  Ahithophel realized that the fate of the rebellion had been sealed and didn’t need to use much imagination to know what David would do to him upon his return to the palace. He didn’t wait for Absalom to meet his own spectacular death upon the oak tree and for Absalom’s defeated soldiers to declare their surrender. Instead, he saddled his donkey and set out for his hometown of Giloh, and he hanged himself.

  And Bathsheba?

  Bathsheba waited at the home of her father, Eliam, until the rumors of Absalom’s death were confirmed. Then she hurried back to the palace, along with her son Solomon, to welcome home her husband the king, who had returned to the throne.

  * * *

  But the events of the rebellion sapped David of his strength and turned him old before his time. His wives had nothing but contempt for the young girl from Shunam, who had been brought to his bed to warm his wizened body. Only one of the wives treated her kindly: Bathsheba. Abishag the Shunamite would have done anything for her, but Bathsheba asked for only one thing: to be the first to find out of the king’s death. Abishag wanted very badly to fulfill Bathsheba’s wishes, but unfortunately the king’s soul returned to his God while Joab son of Zeruiah and Abiathar the Priest were at his bedside, and by the time Bathsheba heard about it, the heralds had already spread the word throughout the kingdom that the coronation ceremony of the crown prince would be held that very day, even before David’s funeral, in order to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the vacancy and trying to take over by force.

  The masses gathered in Jerusalem, crying, “Long live Adonijah son of David, King of Israel!” as they excitedly looked at the red-haired man with the beautiful eyes who so resembled his dead father.

  Abiathar the Priest anointed Adonijah’s forehead, and the commander of the army, Joab son of Zeruiah, placed the crown atop his head.

  At that very moment, Nathan the Prophet and Zadok the Priest leapt onto the stage, accompanied by dozens of armed soldiers. “Adonijah is a rebel!” they cried. “David, King of Israel, lives and breathes!”

  The people still remembered how David had taken revenge against anyone who had joined Absalom, and they began running for their lives. Joab and Abiathar tried to stop them, swearing that they had seen the king die with their own eyes and that his final words had been to reiterate his long-standing decision that the throne would pass to Adonijah son of Haggith. But no one listened. The people were convinced that David was still alive.

  Three days later, the heralds spread the bitter news of the king’s death and called the people to return to Jerusalem for the true coronation ceremony. Most people chose to remain at home this time and await updates there, but the few who did arrive stared in astonishment at the young boy sitting confidently upon the throne. Nathan the Prophet and Zadok the Priest stood before them, reading the king’s will aloud:

  “As surely as God lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, I will surely carry out this very day what I swore to you by the God of Israel: Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne in my place.”

  Those present didn’t know to which woman this vow had been directed, but they got their answer momentarily when Bathsheba climbed up to the stage and tearfully described the last moments of her husband’s life and the will he’d dictated to her with the last of his strength.

  Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon’s forehead, and Zadok the Priest placed the crown atop his head.

  “Long live Solomon son of David, King of Israel!” cried the heralds.

  The crowd repeated their cry in obvious confusion, then rushed home to tell their families that a child was now sitting on the throne in Jerusalem.

  “A child?” their families asked in shock.

  “A child!” they confirmed. “But they say he is the wisest of all men.”

  * * *

  Joab son of Zeruiah fled to the Tabernacle immediately after Solomon’s coronation and grabbed hold of one of the altar’s horns. He thought that no Israelite would dare slaughter a man in a holy place, but Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the new commander of the army, who had chased him there, explained at length that the order to kill him had been given directly by David, who had even made the effort to put it into writing in his will, and that even the altar could not frustrate the will of the king.

  Adonijah son of David realized he was next, and he tearfully took his leave from his beloved wife and from Ithiel, his baby boy. But Bathsheba placed him under her protection, and her writers quickly spread the uplifting news that instead of hanging the rebel by his hair and shooting him with three arrows, as had been done to Absalom, the king had decided to spare him.

  Shortly thereafter, the queen mother told her son that Adonijah had asked for her permission to marry Abishag the Shunamite. Bathsheba innocently believed that there was nothing at all wrong with this request, but Solomon, the wisest of all men, gave her a short lesson in palace intrigue and explained that anyone asking to marry the previous king’s widow is incriminating himself by revealing his desire to undermine the king.

  “Is that so?” Bathsheba asked, appalled. “Now we must kill Adonijah. What a pity.”

  Adonijah also fled to the Tabernacle and held on to the altar’s horns, and he was also killed by Benaiah son of Jehoiada. Thus, right there on the holy altar, the two people most dear to David met their deaths: the one, his nephew and army commander, who had devoted his life to him; and the other, his son and inheritor, who was the most worthy of sitting on his throne.

  So, Solomon sat on the throne of his father David, and his rule was firmly established.

  Twenty-One

  Rizpah had foreseen all of Bathsheba’s moves.
There was only one thing she hadn’t seen, hadn’t known, hadn’t expected.

  Our seven boys were taken to Gibeah at the start of the barley harvest, less than a year before Solomon took the throne. There was a gloomy atmosphere in the palace at the time. The king of Israel, David son of Jesse, was preparing for death. Nathan the Prophet and Zadok the Priest were spending long hours with him behind closed doors, all the servants and advisors having been ordered out. Even Hushai the Arkite, his master of secrets, wasn’t allowed inside. Everyone understood that the king was concerned about the hateful things being said about him among the tribes of Rachel, and that he wanted to ensure that the throne would pass to his son without turmoil, but no one knew what kind of advice they were giving him behind the closed doors.

  The servants didn’t know.

  The ministers didn’t know.

  The advisors didn’t know.

  Micah didn’t know.

  Rizpah didn’t know.

  And I didn’t know either.

  Had I known, I would have fallen at his feet, and I would have cried and begged and repeated the vow he’d made to Father and to me, and I would have told him that he owed his life to me, and I would have reminded him of my love.

  * * *

  Early that morning, the commander of the palace guard arrived at our home and announced that the king had decided before his death to allow our boys to leave the palace and visit Gibeah. I was moved by David’s gesture. I missed the city of my birth so much, having not seen it for thirty years. But the commander apologized and explained that it was a long journey that only the seven healthy boys could undertake, not the crippled son or the old mothers.

  We walked them to the chariot and kissed them good-bye.

  The king took the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she had borne to Saul,

  Armoni and Mephiel,

  Together with the five sons of Michal daughter of Saul,

  Whom Merab had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

  When we returned home, Micah told me with a mischievous grin that Rizpah had managed to sneak into the chariot. I was jealous. Only a tiny body like hers could squeeze itself under the seat.

  David took

  Armoni,

  Mephiel,

  Elhanan,

  Joel,

  Asahel

  Benjamin

  And my son, my only son, whom I love,

  Nebat,

  And handed them over to his emissaries, who took them to the land of Benjamin and led them up a mountain.

  Together.

  All seven of them.

  And the people didn’t know it, didn’t guess it, didn’t see it.

  But Rizpah saw it.

  Did she hear them scream? Did she try to protect them with her tiny body? Did she swear to avenge them?

  Rizpah saw how they hanged our sons at the top of the mountain, and she saw how they tacked their bodies to the pillories, and she saw the birds and the wild animals approaching, and she stayed with our sons’ bodies and protected them. She guarded them day and night, on that day and on the next. She didn’t leave them after a week, nor after a month. Day and night, night and day, Rizpah protected our dead boys, driving away the birds and the wild animals.

  Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth

  And spread it out for herself on a rock.

  From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies,

  She did not let the birds touch them by day

  Or the wild animals by night.

  The people of Gibeah heard about the bereaved mother standing alone on the mountaintop day and night—another day, another week, another month—driving away the birds and the wild animals from the bodies of her sons, and they climbed up the mountain and asked her to go home, promising to guard the bodies in her place. But she continued to drive away the birds and the wild animals from the bodies of her sons, not seeing, not hearing, not stopping.

  The news spread across the land, and the people of Israel flocked to Gibeah from all the tribal lands to climb the mountain and look at the mother guarding the bodies of her sons.

  And David sat in his palace in Jerusalem, hearing about the people gathering in Gibeah, thinking they would disperse on their own. Summer was about to start, and the sun would beat down upon their heads and drive them away, back to their shaded homes.

  But another day went by. and another week, and another month, and Rizpah continued to drive away the birds and the wild animals from the bodies of her sons, and people continued to gather around her and watch.

  And the cry rose up from Gibeah, rolled into Jerusalem, burst through the palace walls, and made its way to the king:

  Why?

  Why did you kill them?

  Why did you kill the sons of Saul?

  * * *

  David ordered his scribes to immediately compose stories to justify the deed, but even his talented scribes, who could resolve any problem with the help of an appropriate story, failed to compose a tale that could explain the murder of the sons of Saul. Even Seraiah couldn’t do it. The alarmed king summoned his advisors, prophets, and priests, but none of them could advise him. The spirit of rebellion was in the air, and the protests became ever more direct and aggressive:

  You killed the seven boys because you know that we long for our first king.

  You killed them because you realize that as long as we still have hope that one of Saul’s descendants might become king, your son’s reign would not be firmly established.

  You’ve taken away our last chance for a king from among the sons of Saul.

  That’s why you didn’t kill Micah. A cripple cannot become king.

  * * *

  David demanded that Nathan the Prophet and Zadok the Priest find a way to extricate him from the bind he was in. The two of them knew that the protest would die down only if the nation could be convinced that the boys had been murdered for its own good. They ordered the palace scribes to remind the people of Israel that the land had been plagued by a terrible drought every year for the past three years, and that all their pleading and praying and begging had done them no good. Left with no other choice, the prophets and the priests had decided to make a sacrifice—and not just any sacrifice, but the sacrifice of seven princes—so that God might be appeased and inundate the land with rain.

  The story drove the entire nation mad. The God of Israel despises human sacrifice! the people cried. And if David son of Jesse is so devoted to us, why doesn’t he sacrifice his own princes?

  Nathan and Zadok consulted with the granddaughter of the wisest advisor there ever was and managed to adjust the problematic explanation that had been rejected with such outrage. They sent the king’s scribes to tell the people that God does indeed despise human sacrifice, but that He also punishes sons for the sins of their fathers. King Saul had committed terrible sins that had brought the drought down upon us, and only the deaths of his sons could appease God’s wrath.

  What sins? the people cried. What did King Saul do to deserve such a punishment?

  The scribes reminded them that Saul had failed to wipe out the Amalekites and that he hadn’t waited for Samuel, as ordered, but instead had made the war sacrifice himself. But when the scribes saw that the people actually respected Saul for doing those things, they brought up the gravest sin of all: the massacre of the town of Nob. But almost every person in Israel personally knew refugees that had fled Nob and had heard from them more than once that the man who had destroyed that city of priests was Doeg the Edomite.

  Only then did the scribes inform the people of Saul’s massacre of the Gibeonites, the woodcutters and water carriers of Israel. How is it that we have not heard of this massacre before? the people asked, mocking the new tale, and the scribes explained that the cunning Saul had managed to conceal his act and that only now had God decided to publicly reveal it.

  But the people didn’t believe it, and the crowds went on flocking to Gibeah.<
br />
  * * *

  The king realized that there was only one thing left that he could do to calm the nation. His advisors warned him that it was a risky move that might well heighten the people’s longing for Saul, but David knew that their longing would make no difference anymore, for Saul had no descendants left. David sent out his heralds to call the people of Israel to a magnificent state funeral that would be conducted for the heroic King Saul son of Kish and his ten loved and admired sons.

  The bones of Saul and his three sons who had been killed in the battle of Mount Gilboa were dug out of their grave in Jabesh Gilead and brought to Gibeah, and the bodies of the seven boys were taken down from the pillories on the mountaintop.

  On the day of the funeral, furious rainstorms pounded the entire land without respite, but the people of Israel did not stop flocking to Gibeah. And when the bones and the bodies of the dead were lowered into the grave, and the king began to play a melody and sing a lament he’d composed for them himself, the cry rose up from the people, “We will not forgive! We will not forget!”

  * * *

  But they did forget. The nation has a short memory.

  * * *

  When the seven boys were lowered into their grave, the mother who had guarded them for half a year was not there. No one knew where she had gone. Some said she had fallen on her sword, just like Saul’s first widow. Others said she’d thrown herself into the Jordan River. And still others said she had returned to Jabesh Gilead.

  * * *

  The first mother had disappeared, but the second mother remained in the palace and lit seven candles, yelling and screaming and making strange noises all night long. She did the same thing the next day, and all that week, and the week after that, month after month, year after year. Night after night she lights her candles and screams from dusk until dawn. Her house is no longer called the House of Saul, but the Palace of Candles, and her name is no longer Michal, but the Mad Princess, and the nation has long forgotten who she is and how she came to be mad.