The Secret Book of Kings: A Novel

by Yochi Brandes

  As if to help me convince myself that I really was meant for a simpler life, my meetings with the elders of Ephraim failed miserably. They nearly lost their minds when I told them about the new tax ordinances I had brought with me from Jerusalem. A few of them burst into tears, while others bellowed that the barrel was empty and that there was nothing left to scrape from the bottom. A few days passed before I dared tell them that Adoram was also demanding another three thousand of our young men for the forced labor tax.

  “Don’t say ‘our,’” the town elder of Bethel shouted at me with loathing. “You aren’t one of us. Your whistling sh sounds and the sighs of sorrow that come out of your mouth don’t change the fact that you’re collaborating with the devil.”

  “Would you rather that the commander of the tax army in this region be a tyrant from another tribe who treats you harshly?”

  “The burden is becoming harsher anyway.” The elders scoffed bitterly. “We’d rather have a Judean commissioner standing against us, like Ben Hur, than someone from Ephraim. At least we could stone Ben Hur without feeling guilty.”

  At one of our meetings, I was unable to conceal my tears when I heard the story of a young mother who had lost her husband and was forced to sell her children in order to pay her taxes. I wept right in front of the astonished elders. I didn’t care anymore if they saw that I was an emotional man.

  I didn’t dare make public the plan that was ripening inside me to alter the way that the tax burden was being divided, but I was eager to share it with someone close who would understand me. Without another thought, I set out on the road. My soldiers wanted to accompany me, but I informed them that I traveled to Zeredah alone.

  I reached the thicket at midnight, and less than a minute later I was standing at Elisheba’s bedside.

  Her frightened eyes shone at me through the dark. “What are you doing here?”

  “When we were children, I couldn’t fall asleep before telling you all about my day.”

  She said nothing.

  “I want you to hear me now as well.”

  I sat on the edge of her bed, pressing my hands tightly against the sheet so that they wouldn’t even think of slipping toward her body. She sat up and leaned her back against the wall, pulling the blanket up over her bent knees.

  I told her about the additional taxes Adoram was imposing on Ephraim and about the three thousand young men he was demanding for the construction work in Jerusalem. “Don’t be like the elders and ask me why I accepted this position,” I requested. “Right now, I’m only trying to figure out how to collect the taxes in the most just manner.”

  “That other question is more burning for me than it is for the elders. How can the great-grandson of King Saul possibly collaborate with the son of David? Why are you helping Solomon lay his yoke even more heavily upon the nation of Israel?”

  “One day I’ll tell you about the chain of events that brought me to the palace, and you’ll understand that I didn’t have a choice. In any event, what’s done is done.”

  “You need to become Solomon’s adversary.”

  “And then what will happen? He’ll replace me with a different commissioner who will tyrannize Ephraim. Ever since I came back here, all I’ve been thinking about is how to more justly divide the tax burden. The things you said to me described the situation perfectly: the poor peasants are forced to sell their ancestral lands, and only the large landowners are able to bear the burden. The idea I’ve developed would make things harder for the rich, but I believe that they will eventually come to see that we have no other choice. If we don’t make the change, there will barely be any farmers left in this region, and we’ll all starve to death.”

  “I belong to a rich family.” I could hear her smiling through the darkness. “Try to convince me why it’s in my interest to pay more taxes.”

  “Let’s start with the labor tax. Who are the ones sent to do forced labor in Jerusalem?”

  “The poor, of course,” she said with a sigh.

  “Those miserable people have to waste their strength on excruciating construction work far from home while their own families are desperate for an extra pair of hands. Is it too much to ask that families whose sons are sent as forced laborers for the king receive complete exemptions from taxes?”

  “Go on.”

  “The head tax isn’t just, either.”

  “But that’s the most common tax there is. All the kings in the world impose it on their people. Even Moses imposed a head tax during the time in the wilderness, and no leader ever had more compassion for the poor than he did.”

  “Moses imposed a tax of a half shekel, which was a symbolic amount that anyone could afford. The tax rate imposed by Adoram causes people to lose their lands. I’m not saying that the head tax should be eliminated, but it must be significantly lowered and made affordable for everyone.”

  “I don’t understand your plan. If you lower the personal tax and exempt the families of forced laborers from all taxes, you will be forced to increase the rate of tax on crops by a large margin.”

  “I want to change that, too.”

  “That’s the most just tax there is. Unlike the head tax, which is the same amount for every person, the tax on crops is set according to the yield actually produced by each person’s fields. Moses imposed a high rate for that tax as well.”

  “A tenth, Elisheba. Moses imposed a tax rate for crops of one tenth of the yield. Do you know what Solomon’s rate is?”

  “Four tenths,” she whispered.

  “And now Adoram has ordered me to raise it to five tenths.”

  “Half the yield?” Elisheba cried. “We really won’t have any farmers left.”

  “I need to set variable tax rates. The poor will pay a little, and the rich will pay much more.”

  “How much more?”

  “Seven tenths of their yield.”

  In spite of the scant light coming through the window, I could see her eyes widen with astonishment. “That’s almost three-quarters. Who could possibly bear a tax like that?”

  “In spite of the difficult situation, there are still wealthy landowners. We just have to convince them that it’s within their power to save Ephraim.”

  “I don’t believe they’ll be convinced. You’ll have to send your armed soldiers and collect the tax from them by force.”

  “I’m sure that Bilhah and Benaiah will be willing to give up three-quarters of their grapevines to the king in order to save their land.”

  “Our situation is different. I’m not familiar with any other family in Ephraim that receives regular monthly payments from Jerusalem. Besides”—her voice broke—“why do you call them by their names? Adoptive parents are still parents.”

  I felt my hand letting go of the sheet and sliding in her direction. “Only if I call them by their names can I have any hope that you’ll be mine.”

  She drew back from me. The vehemence of her response was discouraging, but I knew that whatever wasn’t said now might never be said.

  “I love you, Elisheba.”

  She paused for a moment. “I love you, too,” she said. “You’re my brother.”

  Her distant tone of voice tormented me more than the last part of what she’d said.

  “I’m not your brother, Elisheba. When you became a young woman, I tried to push you out of my thoughts and fantasies. I tried not to see the image of you at night. I banished you, Elisheba. I know you remember that. The vestiges of that banishment are still etched into your heart. You can’t forgive me for what I did to you. You begged me to be your brother the way I used to be, but I couldn’t be your brother, and I sent you away in tears.”

  I knew that revealing my feelings would turn me into a different person in her eyes, and I waited for her to say something to me, but she said nothing.

  “I’m not your brother, Elisheba,” I whispered. “I’m a man in love who is begging you to love him back.”

  She brought her lips close to me, her breath mak
ing my head spin, but before I could wrap my arms around her, she shoved me with a sudden sharp movement.

  “You’re my brother.” Her voice was metallic and cold. “I can offer you the love of a sister. That’s the only love I have for you.”

  Six

  After that night, I didn’t know what to believe. The words Elisheba had hurled at me were clear, but her tone and body had told me something else. I was faced with two irreconcilable realities.

  Only my professional accomplishments gave me air in the swamp of sorrow and confusion I’d sunken into. The elders fully supported the new tax plan I’d presented to them, but they used almost the exact same words Elisheba had and they advised me not to attend the meeting with the wealthy men of Ephraim without armed escorts. I told them that I was determined to make the plan work by appealing to the hearts of the people of Ephraim, and not with the help of my soldiers’ weapons.

  I had never spoken before a large audience before. The thought that I was standing before the most powerful people in Ephraim made me anxious, but strangely, that anxiety didn’t paralyze me. It actually loosened my tongue.

  When the wealthy men of Ephraim realized that I was talking about a comprehensive tax rate increase, they interrupted me with angry cries of “Who needs this Millo? Why should our best young men waste their strength filling the breaches in the walls of Jerusalem while our own cities lie in ruins? Why are we forbidden to build our temples, while more and more temples to other peoples’ gods are built in Jerusalem? Are Chemosh the abomination of Moab and Molek the abomination of Ammon better than the God of Israel? If Solomon wants to collect foreign women, let him build temples for them using Judean taxes. We aren’t willing to finance his whims any longer.”

  Instead of summoning my soldiers and ordering them to lock up the protestors, as Ben Hur used to do, I waited for the shouting to die down and declared in a loud voice that I agreed with every word they said.

  The effect on them was immediate. At first, there were still a few whispers of protest, but these soon died down. I told them that we were in the midst of a difficult period, that Israel had never before had a king who made his construction projects the supreme goal of the kingdom, that the small farmers were unable to meet the frightfully high tax rates of this builder king and were being forced to abandon their lands, that entire families—men, women, and children—were losing their homes. It was clear to me, I told them, that the wealthy were having a hard time, too, but they were the only ones who could save Ephraim, if only they would agree to shoulder higher tax rates and take the burden off the destitute. And then, when a new king takes the throne one day and declares a different set of priorities, they will be able to look their children and grandchildren in the eyes and tell them that it was thanks to them that Ephraim was not destroyed.

  When I finished my speech, no one got up. I tried to interpret their expressions, which fluctuated between solemnity and shock. The surprise came a moment later, and it was so great, so sensational, so earthshaking, that I had no choice but to agree with what Ithiel had said about the unique quality of my personality.

  The wealthy men of Ephraim got up on their feet and cheered.

  But there were a few witnesses to this festive occasion who were not as impressed by me. Though I’d arrived at the meeting without an armed escort, four soldiers came in during my speech and stood listening with stony expressions on their faces. After the wealthy of Ephraim had dispersed, one of the soldiers commented that I was walking a tightrope and that it was safe to assume that the king would not reward me for the names I was calling him. I realized I was dealing with Adoram’s spies and that I would have to convince them of my loyalty. Too much interest from Jerusalem could cost me dearly.

  “The king doesn’t care what I say,” I declared confidently. “He cares only about how much money I deliver. Why should he care what names I call him? The important thing is that the taxes be paid properly. What’s better, a Judean commissioner like Ben Hur, who turned the people of Ephraim against him and couldn’t meet the required quota for construction workers, or someone like me who is one of them, who understands their distress and is able to deliver the goods?”

  I was glad to find that my powers of persuasion worked on spies as well.

  * * *

  The problems actually came from the place I’d least expected. The tax exemption for the families of forced laborers presented me with a difficult challenge. Rather than having to order my soldiers to drag three thousand men out of bed in the middle of the night, as all the other tax commissioners in the kingdom had to do, I was flooded with some ten thousand volunteers from all corners of Ephraim. Almost no poor family failed to send me one of its boys. The strong young men filled the streets of Shechem and refused to return to their homes. “Take us,” they begged whenever I stepped out of the house of administration. “We want to build the Millo in Jerusalem.”

  I had no choice but to make another speech, this time to the masses. There were so many people that my strong voice wasn’t enough, and I had to use heralds. I stood on the steps of the house of administration and gave them my word of honor that my soldiers would inspect each volunteer individually and choose the strongest among them, the ones who could best withstand the exhausting work of construction.

  “And what if there are more than three thousand strong men?” came their cries.

  “Then we will take the poorest ones among them,” I said. “They need the tax exemption more than the others.”

  The heralds repeated my words throughout the streets of Shechem, but I only heard the gasps of the people standing right in front of me. I took advantage of the silence and explained my new tax plan in simple terms. I wanted to make sure that even the uneducated people who didn’t know arithmetic could understand it.

  I didn’t need to wait long for their response.

  “Shelomoam son of Benaiah!” cried the crowd. “You are our brother!”

  When I went back into the house of administration, I saw a few young men waiting for me by the gate. I recognized them at first sight. They fell upon me and crushed me in their muscled arms.

  “These are my friends from Shiloh,” I explained to my baffled soldiers. “The best friends I ever had in Ephraim.”

  A moment later we were sitting around the table together, eating and reminiscing.

  “We always knew you’d become a great man,” they said. “But you promised to take us to Jerusalem with you, and then you disappeared without saying goodbye.”

  I cast my eyes down and apologized for being so despicable, and I told them that they hadn’t been the only ones I’d hurt during those very bad years.

  “They weren’t so bad,” they said. “We made quite a gang, and we enjoyed every moment.”

  I asked each one of them what he was up to, and I was glad to hear that most of them had put wild living in the past and started families. But, like almost everyone else I’d met in Ephraim, even they were suffering great financial distress and were having a hard time finding work. A few even admitted that they still committed acts of thievery every once in a while when opportunities presented themselves. I immediately offered to renew our friendship and let them join my army of tax collectors. They hesitated, but I convinced them that the training we’d been through together was more than sufficient. “Besides,” I added, “I promise to keep training you.”

  “You are our king,” they said. “We’ll go through fire and flood for you. Just point us in the right direction.”

  “I already have your first orders.” I laughed. “Bring me Tirzah the midwife. I want to apologize to her, too.”

  Their expressions made my heart skip a beat.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  I tried to tell myself it was just something trivial. A simple illness, a small accident. Perhaps she had moved to a different city.

  “She died.”

  The room spun all around me. I grabbed the arms of my chair and shut my eyes.

  “A
fter you left, she took a new lover, and her husband caught her in the act. The neighbors heard her screaming all night long. In the morning, he hung the pieces of her body on the wall of his house. Israel hadn’t seen anything like it since the concubine in Gibeah.”

  It was a long time before I was able to utter a sound, but instead of the scream that had been strangling me, something strange came out of my mouth: “The story of the concubine in Gibeah is nothing but a fiction. The scribes of Judah made it up to besmirch the tribe of Benjamin.”

  “Fact or fiction, how can we possibly know?” They had trouble concealing their bafflement at my response. “We didn’t see the body of the concubine in Gibeah, but the body of Tirzah was seen by everyone in Shiloh. Her husband left her there as a warning for all to see until she started to rot.”

  I had to run to the washroom to throw up. When I returned, they apologized for their graphic descriptions, adding that they must have forgotten that I was excessively sensitive to bloodshed.

  “What was done to that villain?” I interrupted. “Was he hanged on a tree or burned at the stake in the town square?”

  “A husband can do as he pleases to his whore of a wife.”

  The word “whore” raked my skin with iron combs. I felt the air running out of my lungs and nearly passed out. My friends’ embarrassed looks attested to the hard time they were having digesting the turmoil I was in. One of them even tried to give expression to their confusion.

  “Listen,” he said. “You used to be so tough. What happened?”

  They wanted to stay with me until I calmed down, but I ordered my servants to bridle Aner. I felt an unbearable yearning for the soft caress of a woman, someone who could pull the iron combs from my body and massage my wounds with warm oil. I had no idea where I was riding. The crowds that still filled the streets of Shechem cheered and cleared a path for me. I was surrounded by love, but I felt as lonely as a dog. Elisheba didn’t want me, Bilhah was pulling away from me, and I couldn’t allow myself to go see Grandmother.