Bathsheba (27 page)

Joab took the scroll from Uriah’s outstretched hand. “How so?” Joab broke the seal and slowly unrolled it.

“He told me to go home and wash my feet. Seemed almost angry when I didn’t.” Uriah shook his head, watching Joab’s brow lift slightly, his face impassive, unreadable. “The king’s message—is something wrong, Commander?”

Joab’s head snapped up at the address, and he quickly rerolled the parchment. “Just some private concerns.” He met Uriah’s gaze and held it, his brows drawn low over his eyes. “What else did the king say to you?”

Uriah tipped his head back, glancing at the orange radiance of the sunset beyond. The colors were bright, their glow hot, as though the sun fought to keep from resting in the west. He looked back at Joab and ran a hand over his beard. “He told me to go home and wash my feet. He sent a gift after me, a roasted lamb. I was forced to choose between obeying the king’s suggestion or betraying the men in my command.” He broke eye contact, doubt suddenly niggling the back of his neck. Had he done the wrong thing? “So I spent the night at the guardhouse near the palace doors. The next day the king asked me why I didn’t go home. He seemed satisfied with my answer and invited me to dine with him that night.” Joab didn’t need to know he’d drunk too much and almost went home before the night air shook sense back into him.

Uriah watched Joab’s expression, but the man’s hardened look, the one that could scare most grown men, never wavered. The buzz of voices resumed around them, and Uriah wondered how much of his conversation had been overheard.

“Did you have something to say to me, my lord? Because if there is nothing further . . . it was a long journey.”

Joab waited a beat, then slowly nodded. “There is nothing further. Thank you, Uriah.” He cupped Uriah’s shoulder as Uriah turned to leave, surprising him. “You did the right thing.”

“Thank you, my lord. I wish the king had agreed with you.” He hadn’t realized until this moment the sense of betrayal he’d felt that the king should want him to break protocol, to in fact try so hard to get him to do so. Joab’s affirmation lessened the sting of the king’s misguided comments.

But as he walked toward his tent, the doubts returned. Something had flickered in Joab’s eyes for the slightest moment when he first read the message, before he caught himself. Had the king given Joab a bad report of Uriah? Would he lose his position among the Thirty because he had not gone home to his wife? The whole thing made no sense!

Irritated now, he kicked a stone in his path, ignoring the pain it inflicted on his toes. Reaching his own tent, he slipped inside the dark cocoon, the darkness matching the confusion in his heart.

25

David rose from another sleepless night, his body drenched in sweat, his limbs as weak as a newborn calf. He did not argue when his servants dressed him or coaxed him to eat, but despite their best efforts, he could not rouse himself to action or free himself from this endless stupor. He swallowed a brewed tea from some plant brought in on a foreign caravan meant to give him energy, and walked with slow strides to his audience chamber. The normal fanfare accompanied his entrance, his scribes sat at their tables ready to record his every word, and his courtiers waited in the side chambers to speak with him. Men from all twelve tribes formed lines outside the palace doors, waiting to be admitted for one judgment or another. David hoped he could concentrate to give them the justice they deserved.

How had his life come to this? He had been reduced to an indecisive worrier, worse than a weak-kneed woman. He straightened his spine at the thought, willing fortitude into his emotions. By now, Joab had received his missive and within the week this whole mess should be over, and his worries forgotten.

The day wore on, the sun a sluggard in its path across the heavens. He should welcome the day, since the nights were no friend of his, but even the light, with its work, its expectations of change, betrayed him. Every breath was labored as though a hand rested heavy on his chest.

“My lord king, a messenger from Joab has arrived.”

David’s spirits roused at the attendant’s words. “At last, something interesting.” He ignored the concerned looks of his counselors, gripped the scepter in one hand, and leaned forward as the man was admitted into his presence.

“May my lord King David live forever.” The messenger bowed low, but David quickly bid him rise.

“Tell me, how goes the battle?” A question he had asked Uriah only a week ago. But he was looking for only one answer to this question now.

“The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.” The man did not meet David’s eyes, which would not have surprised him under any other circumstance. Now he wondered if the servant knew more than he let on. He shook the thought aside. Joab would not have shared his confidence with anyone. Surely his nephew, of all people, could be trusted.

David looked at the man who was obviously waiting for his dismissal, much as Uriah had done that first day when David had all but begged him to go home.

Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.

It was done then. Bathsheba could now be his. The thought stirred him, awakening him, giving him more energy than he had felt in days, weeks, months even.

“Give Joab this message.” He waited a moment as the man angled his head toward him, obviously listening, though kept his gaze discreetly distant. “Tell the general, ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”

“Yes, my lord. It will be as you say.” The man took a step backward but did not continue without David’s dismissal.

“Has Uriah’s widow been told?” To say the words aloud brought such finality.

He caught the servant’s somber expression. “Yes, my lord. We traveled all night with the bodies. General Joab told us to bring them back to Jerusalem for burial. Considering Uriah’s depth of service to the king and to Israel, the general said it was the least he could do.”

Joab knew. David felt the blood draining away from his face even as the heat had darkened it moments before. Joab not only knew, he was sending a message that he would hold it over David, for whatever his purposes.

“Will that be all, my lord?”

The question jolted him. “Yes, thank you.” David dismissed the man and leaned heavily against his gilded chair. He summoned Benaiah.

“Yes, my lord, how may I help you?”

David stiffened his back, looking over Benaiah’s broad shoulder. “See to it that Uriah’s widow has everything she needs to bury her husband.”

Benaiah stood for a moment, and David looked at the man’s stoic expression, surprised to see he had not moved quickly to follow the command. Their gazes held for a space of a heartbeat until Benaiah looked away. “Will there be anything else? Since Uriah was one of the Thirty, will my lord the king attend his funeral?”

The question brought him up short, his stomach tightening in an unexpected knot. Joab sent Uriah’s body back for burial for this very purpose, and for what else? To somehow expose David? But he could hardly ignore such an event, especially if he wanted to marry the man’s widow.

His breath grew slower, shallow. He closed his eyes, then met Benaiah’s gaze. “Inform Ahithophel that I will attend.”

“It will be as you say, my lord.” He backed away and then turned to do David’s bidding.

Bathsheba wrapped both arms around herself, pulling her black cloak tight against her, but a chill settled deep within her despite the comfort of Aunt Talia’s arms. Her grandfather stood stoically beside her, and her father, who had accompanied Uriah’s body, kept company with a handful of warriors who had abandoned the battle to honor her husband.

The king’s entourage took up a third of the valley near the burial cave whose wide mouth yawned before them, waiting to accept Uriah’s broken, lifeless body. The bier rested on the shoulders of four men as the sounds of weeping mingled with the flutist’s dirge, assaulting the oppressive air around her. Bathsheba’s tears were thin coatings over her cheeks, long dried by the summer breeze, the taste of salt still on her tongue.

She glanced across the rocky expanse between where her family had gathered and the king stood silently in apparent grief. Her heart squeezed at the sight of him, knowing instinctively that Uriah was dead on their account. If she had never given herself to the king, would Uriah be alive to love her again? She choked on a sob at the thought and turned to gaze on the bier and Uriah’s wrapped body. She staggered forward, out of Aunt Talia’s embrace, and closed the short distance to the men holding the bier.

They lowered it at her approach, and the flutist fell silent, the weeping softened as she placed a hand on the arm that had once held her close, now covered in white linen. She moved closer. His head and face were coated in the same strips of linen so that nothing remained for her to gaze upon. His body, once so strong, so masculine, was now prone, lifeless, his once ardent kisses no longer able to make her knees weak. The memories nearly paralyzed her, and she stumbled as she had that first time he had kissed her, had drawn the strength from her, left her breathless. She sank to the earth beside his sealed body, no longer able to keep back the convulsing sobs.

Oh, Adonai, forgive me! Uriah, my husband, my love, what have I done to you? Where have you gone? I need you!

Her knees folded beneath her robe and she rocked back and forth, the wails coming from her throat, deep and painful. She felt strong arms come around her, saw her father’s tearstained face through her blurred vision, heard Aunt Talia’s whispers against her wet cheek.

“Come, Bathsheba. You can’t stay here.” Her father’s voice came to her like a gentle touch as he pulled her to her feet. She was unclean for having touched Uriah’s dead body, but her father’s arms around her told her he didn’t care. They would purify themselves later. For now, while her father remained unaware of the child in her womb, unaware of the shame she had caused him and of the part she had played in her husband’s death . . . for now, she was loved.

She clung to the thought even as she rejected it, knowing how short-lived her reprieve. The men holding her husband’s bier lifted it again and carried it into the tomb.

“We have lost a great man, a great warrior, today.” The king’s voice floated over the valley where Uriah’s tomb lay in the crevice of a hill. “Uriah was not one of us by birth, but he surely became an Israelite at heart. He obeyed the laws Moses handed down to us with utter devotion. Surely God has not abandoned his soul to the grave.”