Queenmaker (11 page)
Authors: India Edghill
“Ten years is nothing to the heart. Come back to me, Michal. As I loved your father Saul and your brother Jonathan, so and more do I love you. Whatever you wish, that you shall have—you are my first wife, and I will put aside all others if you ask it. Come, and I will set a crown upon your head and you will walk first among all the women of Israel and Judah.”
I stood there in my linen sheet, the scented water drying from my skin. I looked on him, and listened to words like honey from the heart. David had always had a way with pretty words. But I had learned that love was not made of soft hands and pretty words.
“Ten years is much to a woman, David. Let me go back to my husband, who is a good man, and loves me.”
“And do you love him, Michal?”
“Yes,” I said.
“As you did me?” David came to me again, walking slowly around the bath of cooling water. I watched him come and could not move, even when he stood behind me and put his arms around me to hold me close against him. “Do you love this old man as you did me, when we both were young?”
I would not struggle against David as if I feared his touch had power over me still. “No,” I said. “I love him better. He took me in when no other would, and was kind. I loved you long ago, and you love many others now. Be content with them, and let me go home. You may be king of all the world with my good will, and I will tell all men so from the marketplace if you ask it.”
“I ask only you,” he said, and set his lips against my neck.
“No.” My skin chilled, burned. “No. It is too late, David.”
“How too late, when we both are here and your heart still beats hard for me? See here, under the skin, how your blood leaps to meet my hand—”
I knew I had no choice; it was my mind only that would deny him. The body and the heart are stronger.
“ … who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights … .”
—II Samuel 1:24
David was right; my body and my heart were still hot for him. But I was right too; it was too late for us. And when we came together, our bodies twining and clinging in the semblance of love, I knew it, even if he did not. He seemed pleased enough, after. But I had lain ten years with a husband whose caresses were for Michal; David’s hands and lips and body were for pleasing any woman.
And so afterwards, when we rested beside one another on the damp linen sheet and David asked again, sure of my answer, I still said no. That did not please him at all, though he tried to hide it, and laughed, and stroked my body anew to show me that I must bend soft to his touch.
“No, again? You do not mean that, my Michal, and it is unkind to torment me after so many years.”
I lay quiet under his hand; he could set my body alight, as he said, but he could no longer content Michal. On our wedding night David had taught me love; today he had taught me lust. Phaltiel had taught me to know the difference.
“The years were not my doing, and you have found many other consolations.”
“What, are you jealous? You need never be that; I have told you that you will be first, and only, if you ask it of me. You may have anything you desire, my queen, if only you will come to me and take it.”
I turned my head to look at him, and he smiled, and took up my hair to twine in his fingers. “Your hair is a skein of silk, it is wheat in the wind. See, the king is caught in its net. What jewels can he give that will not be lost in its glory?”
Once, long ago, I had been called a princess. Now, if I chose, I could be that again—more, I could be a queen. David offered all a man thinks a woman could desire; he was cleverer than most men, for he promised love, too.
But I knew better, now, than to cry after the moon, for David himself had shown me what the moon’s cold love was worth. I would happily thank David on my knees for the lesson if only I might then go home to my husband Phaltiel and never more look back.
“Come, do not be silent—you have only to speak and whatever you wish for will be granted.”
“Send me home. Send me home to my husband.”
David laughed again. “And would he take you back, after this?”
I thought of Phaltiel, and how he had looked at me when we said farewell. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he would take me back.”
“Even if all the land knew his wife had lain with the king?” The lion showed claws now, and fangs:
see what I could do, if I would.
see what I could do, if I would.
“Even so,” I said.
“Then he is a fool, and you are a greater one.” David’s voice wooed no longer; kings have no great store of patience with denial.
“Perhaps I am, but not such a fool as to think ten years can be wiped out with a word.”
“A king’s word,” David said. “A king’s wishes. Who are you to set yourself against the king?”
“A woman,” I said. “A woman with her rights under the Law. I am another man’s wife and I do not come to you willingly, nor does my husband set me aside. You have no right to keep me here. Even the king is not above the Law, David.”
“The king is the Law, Michal.”
“Did Yahweh tell you that?”
I thought he would be angry, but he only laughed. “No, it was Samuel and Saul between them who taught me that lesson.” David took up my hair again, smoothing it between his hands, and twined its length twice around my throat. “You must learn it too, Michal, and then we will be happy together.”
David was clever. I had always known that. But now he was cunning as well—and that I only learned when it was too late. And so when I would ask only to be sent back to Phaltiel, David did not rant, and rage, and swear I should do his will or have all my bones broken, as my father would have done. No, David was all soft smiles and sweet words and lavish gifts.
That day I was given rooms with cool tiled floors and walls painted with birds and flowers and monkeys in yellow and red and blue. The rooms were full of riches hoarded against my pleasure. Sandalwood and cedar chests held gowns of scarlet and purple. Ivory boxes held rings for my ears and fingers. Glass vials held gold dust for my hair.
Everywhere I looked I saw more wealth than I had ever heard of, save in harper’s tales. I remembered my father’s house, and how large and grand we had all thought it because it had two courtyards and a tower three rooms high.
I was still stretching my eyes wide at my rooms when David’s s wives came to me and gave me more to wonder at.
I heard them before I saw them; a noise like winter branches in the wind. Then half a dozen women burst upon me in a jangle of bells and bracelets and gold-fringed skirts. They stared at me as if David had never before brought home a woman.
I had more cause to stare than they. I had heard of them all, from one tale-teller or another. Abigail, Ahinoam, Eglah, Haggith,
Abital, Maachah—David’s wives; the mothers of his sons. Farmers’ daughters, merchants’ daughters—all save Maachah, daughter of the king of Geshur. These women had followed David through the wilderness, had kept his tents in the desert. To see them now, you would think them all Egyptian harlots.
Abital, Maachah—David’s wives; the mothers of his sons. Farmers’ daughters, merchants’ daughters—all save Maachah, daughter of the king of Geshur. These women had followed David through the wilderness, had kept his tents in the desert. To see them now, you would think them all Egyptian harlots.
Eyelids were painted green as beetle-wings; eyes were ringed dark and heavy with kohl; lips and fingers were stained with red henna. Wrists and ankles were heavy-laded with gold and silver. And they wore clothes my father’s women would have thought almost too fine for a king’s marriage-feast; stiff-pleated gowns bright with dye and heavy with gold fringe and tassels.
Gaudy as jays, they were. With the same manners, too, I thought then, and I never afterwards had cause to change my mind. Perhaps they had been good enough women when David was only a great warrior in the hills. But being a king’s women had spoiled them. They wanted now what they once could not even have dreamed existed.
“King David sent us to make you welcome,” one said at last—a comely enough woman, but no longer truly young. Discontent lined her face; this woman desired what she could not have.
“That is kind,” I said. “I am Michal, wife of Phaltiel of Gallim.”
They stared again; one laughed; one whispered to another. The woman who had spoken to me tossed her head, making her earrings dance hard against her cheeks. “I am Abigail, wife of King David—we are all David’s wives here—”
“—and Abigail does not speak for us!” snapped another.
“I have been longest married to King David, Eglah.” Abigail turned her shoulder to Eglah.
“Not so long as Michal.” That was the tall dark one; Maachah, I learned later.
“I am not married to King David,” I told them patiently. “I am the wife of Phaltiel, as I have said.”
“Oh, yes, we all know the tale,” said Abigail. Her red-dyed mouth was pinched at the corners, as if she had bitten too hard into an unripe quince.
“We all know many tales,” Maachah said, and looked hard at Abigail. “It is better not to tell them, lest another know even more.”
I did not know then what Maachah hinted at; I thought that she at least had no love for tale-bearing and gossip. So I smiled at Maachah, and would have spoken to her, but Abigail pushed herself forward again.
“Who has dressed you? That is no gown for King David’s queen—and where are your bracelets, your jewels?” Abigail frowned and clapped her hands. “Where are the maids? They are a flock of useless, lazy girls—you must not let them be idle, Queen Michal.” She spoke as if the words were dust thick enough to choke her.
“They dressed me as I bade them, and I sent them away. I am a farmer’s wife. I am not used to such fine things.”
Maachah laughed; she had fine teeth that gleamed white against her painted lips. “You will be. David has said--”
“King David,” Abigail corrected her.
“I can speak for myself, Abigail!” Maachah turned back to me. “David has said that you are to be called queen, and we are all to bow to you and do as you bid us. What is your bidding, O Queen?”
They all stared at me like angry cats. They were united at least in this—they hated me. I could not blame them. David should not have spoken so; it made them as nothing.
“Shall we deck you with gold and gems? Shall we comb your hair, or wash your feet?” Maachah now spoke for all of them in her hurt pride.
I shook my head and spoke calmly, as if I did not hear the vinegar in Maachah’s words. “I thank you for your welcome, but I need nothing—except perhaps some goose-fat for my hands.” I held my hands out, palms up. “You see how they are.”
“They will not be so long. Tell your maids to tend them.” Maachah tossed her head; her braids moved on her shoulders like dark snakes.
“Then your hands will be soft for King David,” Abigail snapped.
“I do not need soft hands for the king,” I said. “I need strong hands to do the work in my husband’s house. I am Phaltiel’s wife,
not David’s. Soon I will be gone again, and you may all live in peace without me.”
not David’s. Soon I will be gone again, and you may all live in peace without me.”
I could not say it plainer. But they did not believe me.
“If the queen does not need us, then she should give us leave to go,” said Maachah.
“I do not need you,” I said. “And I tell you again, I am no wife of David’s—and no queen.”
They turned their backs upon me then and went away, all stiff with malice and injured pride. David should not have shamed them to honor me. I stood in the doorway and watched them go rustling and chiming down the smooth-tiled hall.
It was plain that Abigail and Maachah fought for pride of place; only Eglah had tried to assert her own right to speak as well, and she had been quickly pushed aside. The other three—Ahinoam, Haggith, and Abital—had only whispered among themselves. But their eyes had been as flat against me as those of the ones who spoke. I would find no friends among David’s wives.
And I did not think they were friends to each other. Now that I had met David’s wives I knew why his king’s house was kept no better than a jackdaw’s nest. When he had been a rebel warrior, each wife had her own tent to queen it over; now there was only one king’s house. No wife could take its rule firmly into her own hands, nor would any grant her rights to another. They were all against each other, and for nothing else.
And now David had said that I was to come and be queen over them all. I watched as Abigail rounded the corner out of my sight. The thick gold fringe edging her skirts slid over the bright wall like clutching fingers.
I listened to the faint sounds of their passage echoing back along the empty tiled halls. I wondered if they knew that David had sworn to put them all aside, if only I asked it of him. I wondered, too, if he would do it, if I chose to ask.
But it did not matter, for I would not stay here to choose or to ask anything. My future did not lie here, in this house of kings
and quarreling women. I was going to go back to the little village of Gallim, to Phaltiel and to my home.
and quarreling women. I was going to go back to the little village of Gallim, to Phaltiel and to my home.
And nothing David gave or said could change my mind; I knew that in my bones and heart. And so I listened after David’s wives, and was sorry for them. And when I could hear them no longer, I went back into the queen’s rooms that had been given to me. I thought I would be left there in peace for a time. I was wrong again.
There was a sound from the doorway; soft, a ripple of water over white pebbles. A pretty sound. I looked, and saw a girl standing there, dark and beautiful as honey Her hair was not woven into braids, but fell in long curls to her hips; it flamed crimson as sunset, hot as the heart of fire. I had never seen such a color before.
When I looked she smiled and spread her hands; when she twisted her wrists her bracelets jingled once.
“O Queen, live forever—” she began. Her words were slurred; an accent I did not know.
“I am not the queen.” It seemed I had been saying the words endlessly.
She stretched her eyes wide. The bright-painted lids flashed like dragonflies in sunlight. Then she laughed. It seemed honest enough; I heard no malice in it, as I had in Abigail’s laughter.
“But whether I am queen or not, I will be glad of your company,” I told her, and smiled in my turn. “Will you come and talk with me?”
“Of course I will, O Queen—and those who are lazy as men and spineless as oysters may envy me all they please!” The girl came toward me. She took small steps, gliding over the smooth-tiled floor; her hips swayed as she walked, the long crimson curls of her hair did not. She was graceful as a palm tree rocked by wind. And she knew how to walk silent. Her gilded fringes did not clash, her jewelry did not clatter.
“Be welcome,” I said, and invited her to sit beside me on the padded bench. She seemed surprised, but pleased; she smiled again.
“You do me great honor, O Queen.” She sat beside me and folded her hands in her lap, where they lay quiet as fallen leaves.
Her hands too were painted; ruddy circles and rippling lines adorned their cream-smooth skin. Henna, I thought; henna on her hands—and on her hair, too.
Her hands too were painted; ruddy circles and rippling lines adorned their cream-smooth skin. Henna, I thought; henna on her hands—and on her hair, too.
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