“What princess?”
He voice lowered to a growl. “The one I love, and the one your husband aims to marry.”
Sweat broke across my brow, and a pincer of pain seized my heart. “What did you say?”
“David wants to marry my girl. Only you can stop him.”
“So David did not send you?”
It took a moment before he jerked aware, his eyes cleared from their reverie. “Eh? I’ve got to stop them. The crown is mine and so is the princess.”
He squeezed me tighter and urged his horse forward, his partner following close behind.
The man was probably a lunatic. Nothing he said made sense. Did my father have another daughter I didn’t know about? And what would David want with her? David had not sent him. He would have sent Ittai, and he would never have so cruelly separated me from my babies. I had to escape.
At nightfall my captor tied me to a tree. He sharpened his knife while his partner went to the river to fish.
My breasts leaking milk, I prayed, “Oh, dear God, I have not been good. But please, look on me with mercy and bring me back to my sons. And, God, give me another chance with Phalti.”
I woke with a start. A man’s breath over my face chilled the little hairs on the back of my neck. He pawed my aching breasts and bent over to suckle. I lifted my knee and struggled to sit, my hands fastened to the tree. It was the slim, sandy-haired man, the accomplice.
He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Don’t cry out. He’s asleep.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to look at you.” He ran his grubby fingers through my hair. “Will you kiss me?”
I glared at him. He didn’t appear muscular, but rather thin. If I could disarm him…
I smiled and licked my lips. “Come closer.”
He leaned toward me, and I kissed him, fighting the urge to retch. “Do you want me to touch you?”
He leered. “But you have to be quiet, promise?”
“Yes, yes. Now, cut my hands loose.” I wiggled my shoulders.
He cut my bonds and dropped the knife to the ground.
While he untied his breeches, I kicked his groin, grabbed the knife and ran. He fell back, moaning in pain, his breeches tangled around his ankles. The black-haired man sat up and rubbed his eyes near the campfire.
I tucked the knife in my robe and grabbed the reins to mount the black horse. The monster pawed the ground and snorted, shaking off my feeble jumps. The other horse whinnied and tossed his head, spooked by the rustling in the bushes.
Not waiting for the black-haired man to discover me, I tripped toward the woods. Twigs snapped, and brush crackled. My captor shouted to his partner. “Get her, she’s over there.”
Shivering and whimpering, I crawled up the bank and ducked behind a rock pile.
A mounted man dropped to the forest floor and charged the black-haired man. Grunts and shouts punched the moon-slivered night. I steadied myself with a branch and peered over the rock pile. The black-haired man struggled with a large, square-shouldered man who held him around the waist and wrestled him to the ground.
“Aghh!” the man screamed. I covered my ears and turned to run.
“Michal.” The strangled cry stopped me. Phalti?
I slid down the bank of rocks and sprinted toward them. The black-haired man squatted over Phalti and shook his neck. “Where is she?”
The knife in both hands, I sprang into the air and stabbed the black-haired man in the lower back. He lurched and swiped me with his elbow. I landed on my back. The man stepped toward me, his eye sockets hollow, his hands clutched in front of him. He reached to grab me, but crumpled and fell on his face. Blood spurted from the embedded knife, still quivering in his back.
Phalti’s eyes were open but pinpointed in shock. I slapped his face, still warm. Blood seeped through his robe. I peeled back his bloodied clothes and found a puncture wound right below the collar bone. His mule nuzzled but could not rouse him.
“Someone, help me,” I cried. “Phalti, don’t die.”
Emotions I didn’t know I possessed flooded over me. My hands ached where I touched him. My mouth ached where I piled kisses on his cooling face. My chest ached as I tried to cover his bleeding heart with mine.
A tentative poke on my back distracted me. “Mistress?” It was the younger man. “There’s a village close by. Shall I get a doctor?”
“Oh, yes, yes. Please go.”
“Will you have me arrested for kidnapping you?”
“No, no… just help me.”
He scrambled onto the mule and rode off.
Phalti’s pulse weakened, and he grew cold. I yanked the robe off the dead man and stuffed the cloth over his wound to stem the flow of blood. He reached for me, and I grabbed his hand.
“Don’t die. I love you, please don’t leave me.” A deluge of regret clouded my vision. I showered him with desperate kisses, tasting the sweet man who risked his life for me, the one who stood by me through my pregnancy, and took in all my children even as my husband had abandoned me.
I held Phalti’s head in my lap, cried and prayed, and wondered why he had come after me. Please, God, don’t let him die. He’s more noble and honorable than I. Caressing his clammy face, I waited for the young man to return.
The dawn arrived with the village physician, a cart and a horse. They stuffed wool in Phalti’s wound and lifted him on the cart.
My captor’s accomplice wrung his hands and tapped my shoulder. “Mistress, will you forgive me?”
“Yes. I thank you for your help. Now go.”
“I have nowhere to go.” In the light of the day, his youth was even more evident. His big brown eyes moistened like a puppy’s.
“What is your name?”
“Ammiel of Lo-debar. I was captured by that man and made a slave.” He nodded toward the man I had killed.
“Who was he?”
“He’s a Geshurite from the kingdom to the north. His brother is Talmai, the King of Geshur. They were on their way to deliver the princess Maacah to marry King David, but he decided to capture you instead. Then he’d get his brother killed in exchange for you. He told me you’re more valuable than the princess because you are the daughter of Saul.”
The loon was in love with his niece? Keeping control of my voice, I said, “You may come with us. I will ask my brother to restore you to your land.”
Tears blinding my eyes, I excused myself to go to the river. The doctor tended to Phalti, and the villagers stepped aside to let me pass. I splashed water on my face. David was marrying again, this time to a princess. The Geshurites would pinch us from the north. We were surrounded, completely surrounded. My wounded heart clenched and clenched and clenched. I tore my clothes and spread myself in the shallow water. David, David, why have you forgotten me? Why have you taken her and forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me?
* * *
Ammiel told the villagers I was King Ishbaal’s sister, and they gave me a clean set of clothes and food for the journey. The physician accompanied us. I held Phalti’s head in my lap as the cart lurched its way to Mahanaim.
His eyes closed, his skin clammy, he moaned and labored to breathe. “Michal, I go now.”
I smoothed his hair. “No, no, you can’t go. We have many more years together. We have the boys to raise and our grandchildren to play with. You can’t leave me now that I’ve found you. Phalti, stay with me. I do love you so much.”
Had he heard me, or understood what my heart told him? His head lolled, and his breathing steadied. I lay next to him. My prayers drifted into dreams—Phalti smiling at me, stroking my hair and kissing me.
I woke in a soft bed with my babies clinging to my breasts. Their tiny suckling sounds calmed my heart, lifted my gloom and worry. Rizpah, my father’s concubine, sat at my bedside.
“How’s Phalti?” The words croaked in my parched throat. I couldn’t recall how I ended up in the bed with my sons.
“He’s alive,”
she said. “I’ve missed you, can you believe that?” She wore widow’s garb and a mourning veil.
“How are you? And my two brothers?”
“They’re spunky little boys, always into mischief. Already friends with your boys. We caught them slinging stones into the well. You weren’t here to paddle them, so Ishby did the honors.” Her laughter trilled, melodious like a flute, and brought a smile to my face.
“Do you miss my father?”
“He’s in a better place,” she said. “He left me, you know?”
“He did? Where did he go?”
“Found an old lover. Someone he wished to marry but was forbidden to.”
“Who?” I sat up, balancing the two babies.
She laughed in her throat. “I don’t know. He took his gold and aimed to run away with her. Imagine my surprise when Abner told me he had died on Mt. Gilboa.”
“Along with my brothers…” A sob choked me at the memory.
She wiped a corner of her eye. “Let’s talk of happier things. Your husband most certainly loves you.”
“He does?” My thoughts wobbled toward David and his betrayal.
“Why, of course. Your maid has told me all about him. Dashing and devoted, he tried to rescue you. Didn’t I tell you he would be good to you?”
I looked down. “He’s hurt because of me. I must see him.”
“He’s resting, but hot. I sat with him last night. He’s very weak, and several times I thought he’d cross over. But I called him back. Here, let me take the babes when they’re done feeding.”
A crazy pang of resentment edged my gratitude. What was she doing sitting with Phalti? Did he see her in his delirium and dream of her? Milky white, blue-eyed beauty, she had bewitched my father and drove out my mother.
Phalti was asleep when I pulled a chair to his side. He labored to breathe, his face too pale. A sheen of sweat shimmered over his forehead hot with fever. I pulled his hands into mine.
Phalti tightened in my grip, and his eyes rolled. “Where am I?”
“You’re still alive. You’re with me.”
“Michal… you’re here?”
“Yes, I’ll never leave your side.”
“I thought I had died, and you were an angel.” His breathing shallow and his eyes wet, he tried to sit up. “I saw angels. I wanted to leave and go with them. So peaceful, no pain. Only joy.”
I rubbed his thick beard. “Rest, we’ll talk later.”
He closed his eyes. “But you said I couldn’t go. That it wasn’t time. That you needed me.”
I grimaced. And I bet the angel had blue eyes, too.
“I do need you,” I said.
“Yes, you told me there was no one else. That you’re left alone, your husband deserted you.” He babbled until he fell asleep. What else had Rizpah told him?
* * *
While he was feverish, Phalti basked in my care, a hazy smile on his face. But as he recovered and the fever left him, he became withdrawn and sullen. He watched me out of the side of his eye and avoided my direct gaze.
“Are you not happy with my care?” I broached the silence one warm evening.
He drew his mouth to a line and turned toward the wall. “You’re a princess, daughter of Saul. You don’t have to take care of me. There are maids.”
“What if I told you I wanted to care for you?”
“I’d think you lied, like you lied about other things.”
I straightened. “What other things?”
“Things you said when you thought I was dying. I wish you had let me die.” He covered his face with his large hand.
“You’re talking in riddles. A couple of days ago, you seemed happy to let me wipe your face, feed you and change your bed. Now you wish me gone?” I pulled his hand off his face and wiped his hair out of his eyes.
He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth so tightly his mouth twitched. “Ammiel said his master was taking you to David. If I hadn’t interfered, you’d be back with him and happy.”
My heart lurched at his words. I doubted I would have been happy to confront David at his wedding to the princess of Geshur. “Did Ammiel explain they kidnapped me, and I was trying to escape?”
Phalti didn’t reply. Ammiel had obviously left this part out to protect himself.
“You don’t believe me,” I said.
“Please, I don’t want to talk.” His voice stiffened. “Send a maid or Rizpah to sit with me.”
“No, I’m your wife, and it’s my duty to sit with you.”
Rizpah was the last person I wanted at his side. She had already shown too much interest in him.
“Then don’t talk to me.” He sounded like a stubborn boy refusing to go to bed.
“Fine. I wish you’d stop being a grouch.”
I tuned David’s harp and sang while Phalti sobbed into his pillow. After his breathing steadied into sleep, I put the harp down and held him. He shuddered with a residual sob but did not wake.
Tears slipped over my cheeks. I ached for answers. Phalti, why do you weep? Are you in love with Rizpah? And you can’t tell me?
A few days later, Phalti was strong enough to hobble to the garden with the help of two guards. I sat with him in a spot near the wall under a green bay tree, shaded and cool. I left him several times to tend to my babies and returned to find Rizpah holding his hand.
A surge of bile erupted from my stomach, and I marched over. She dropped his hand and left without speaking to me.
“What is she doing here?” I shook him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, she was listening, that’s all.”
“Listening about what? What is it that you can tell her and not me?”
“Michal, you’re not jealous, are you?” A boyish grin brightened his face.
“I’m not. I mean, she’s my stepmother.”
“Was. She’s a widow now.”
“Does that mean you’re courting her, are you?”
“Why, you are jealous. Come here.” He pulled me into a warm hug and kissed my temple.
Feeling suddenly tiny, I closed my eyes and whispered, “I don’t want to lose you.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
I hugged him tighter. “I do care. I meant every word.”
He kissed my forehead and stroked my hair. “Is it true you’re alone? That your husband deserted you?”
“Yes. He’s taken another wife, the princess of Geshur. Ammiel’s master wanted to use me to stop the wedding.”
“And you didn’t want to stop it?”
“No. All I thought about was you and my sons.”
“Do you still love him?”
Pain and regret tangled in my heart. My throat tightened. “He’s gotten over me. I cannot love a mirage.”
“And what about the other things you said? About needing me? I wanted it to be true. It kept me from slipping away.” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper.
“It’s all true,” I said. “Do you still care about me?”
“I’ve always cared. But I wanted you to want me, too.”
“Oh, Phalti, I do want you, very much.” Beads of sweat broke on his nose and forehead, and I wiped his face with my sleeve. A chuckle rumbled from my throat. “Another thing, did Ammiel ever return your mule?”
“No, he didn’t. But it was worth losing another mule to get you back.” A wide grin split his face.
“I’m glad to know I’m worth more than a mule.” I tapped his nose and kissed him. He returned my kisses lazily, swayed and almost swooned. The guards carried him back to our bedchamber.
I bathed him in cold water, savoring his sweet smile. The ugly scar on his chest quivered, jagged, hairless and pink as I passed the washcloth over it. “Phalti, the other day when I sang for you, why did you cry?”
“Because you sang of duty and not of love. You sounded so mournful, like part of your heart had died.”
“I’m that obvious?”
“Only to me. Michal, let
me show you how a man can love.” He stroked my hand and brought it to his face. “Let me heal your heart and care for you as you deserve.”
The intensity of his words and the fervor in his eyes shook me. “You’re still weak. I’ll dry you and help you to bed. Are you hungry?”
He climbed out and grabbed me around the waist, nudging me to the bed. Dripping wet, he propped himself over me. “I love you, Michal.”
A supreme sense of fulfillment overwhelmed me. Emotions danced in my heart. This man, this loving, kind man loved me, and I loved him, too. The blessed ray of sunlight pierced through the fog of despair. “I love you, oh, how I love you, Phalti, son of Laish.”
He cradled me in his arms and kissed me. His hot tongue left a path of fire everywhere he touched. My feelings blossomed to an entire new realm of happiness, a love not born of desperation, but of contentment and peace.
Phalti and I loved each other that day and for many more days and nights. As Abner sparred with David, we reveled in our love, our children, and the new life growing inside of me. The following year, I bore Phalti a daughter, Anna, a sweet, spritely, laughing baby, brown curls and hazel eyes. My life was perfect and complete.
Chapter 21
2nd Samuel 3:13 Thou shalt not see my face, except thou first bring Michal, Saul’s daughter, when thou comest to see my face.
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Anna, my little daughter, snuggled with her blanket on the stone floor, exhausted from her birthday celebration.
“Are you sure she should sleep here?” Phalti pulled a blanket over her shoulder.
I removed the blanket. “It’s hot and steamy inside. And her brothers are all sleeping out here.”
Phalti ran his fingers through my hair. “Three years old, can you believe it?”
“Oh, if we could only keep her this age.” I patted my baby girl. All charm and dimples, her little curls would bounce and she’d chatter with anyone who’d listen.
“You say this on each of her birthdays. One of these days she’ll be getting married. Then what would you do?”
I picked up the plates and toys strewn around the courtyard. “May that time never come.”
Michal's Window Page 21
