The Secret Chord (21 page)

“Shall I send her back to Palti?” I should not have asked. I knew it the minute the words were out. I should have just acted. But the words could not be unsaid.

“Never! She remains
my
wife. Mine.” He thumped his chest, but his hand was shaking. “I have given her every chance. For years I've put up with her coldness, spent time with her, even though there was nothing in it for me. Not a kind word or a soft look, much less the chance to make a child, even though she knew how much I wanted it, and she must have known it would be in her interest. She could have been mother of my heir. So be it. I'm done with her. But here she will stay until she dies. Have her put away in some dark corner, and warn her, upon her life, to keep out of my way.”

That encounter upon the stairs reverberated for many months following. In the midst of his triumph, in his moment of most intense joy, Mikhal had succeeded in rupturing his heart. She had torn an opening, and hatred flooded into it. Hatred and memory. Mikhal's insult recalled to him an earlier slight, delivered by her elder sister Merav. I do not think David had wasted an instant pining over Merav until that moment. Merav, who had objected when Shaul, in his first infatuation with David, had promised her to him in marriage. David
had preferred Mikhal—flattered by her affection, attracted by her resemblance to Yonatan. But now, in the base mood brought about by Mikhal, he chose to recall this older insult.

This bitterness spread like a stain on those golden months of making and building. He became obsessed with Merav, and sent to know how many sons she had with her husband Adriel. When he learned that there were five boys, he began to fret over it. The boys were young, even the eldest barely fighting age. But I could see him counting it over, figuring how long he might have before one of them could pose a plausible alternative, if elements of discontent in the Israelite north should ever coalesce and begin to cast about for a descendant of Shaul to raise up against him.

Of course, we had one such descendant with us, eating every day at the king's own table. David had kept faith with his promise to Yonatan, that he would be guardian of his house. Unfortunately—or, maybe, fortunately, since there could be no rivalry with the king's own sons—Yonatan's “house” consisted of just one living boy, a poor lad sorely afflicted with club feet, who could not walk unassisted. David was unfailingly kind to the boy. And why should he not be, since such a one could never pose the slightest threat to his kingship.

To Merav, he had made no oath and owed no kindness. Whenever he had too much to drink, he would fall to cursing both women, Mikhal and Merav. I would try to divert him, stating the plain fact that neither woman was anything to him. It was on such occasions that I missed Avigail. She, perhaps, might have found the way to convince David that such old and minor slights—a young girl's foolishness; a bitter woman's insult—were not worth the time of a powerful monarch, who should be attending to greater matters, such as his treaties and his borders. I tried to tell him this, and sometimes, for a time, it seemed he listened.

But my arguments came back to haunt me not long after, when a delegation of Givonites came to negotiate their treaty. With David and his clan, they said, they had no issue. But from Shaul's tribe, a
blood debt was outstanding. Shaul had tried to exterminate them, in violation of ancient oaths.

Somehow, by indirection, David led the Givonite delegation to think about Shaul's grandsons. I was at the audience, and I sensed his manipulation, but I did not at first grasp where it was leading. He pretended he had let slip the fact that the five boys lived and thrived on a thinly defended rural estate, and switched the subject to other matters. But later, at meat, he somehow brought the conversation back to blood debts, and their gravity, and the long tradition among our tribes that allows for satisfaction without reprisal. I saw the leader of the Givonite delegation exchange glances with his associates. I looked at the king. Fox, I thought. He will get the Givonites to do his work, and not for any blood debt. Merely a debt owed to his vanity and wounded pride. I will speak to him later, I thought. I will get him to make clear to these men that the family of Shaul is under his protection. But as I readied myself to confront him on the matter, I decided against it. It was not certain what the Givonites would do, with his tacit sanction or without it. And if these heirs were not removed, and they grew up and later became a threat, David would have to kill them himself, which would bring opprobrium. I decided to let the matter rest, and accept the outcome.

So the Givonites hunted down Merav's boys. They carried them off to Givon, where they executed them horribly, impaled side by side on a mountaintop.

When word came of the manner of the deaths, I felt ill, disgusted at myself for not acting to try to prevent these killings. David feigned dismay. When he did so in public, I let it pass. But when, in a private moment, he began to tell me how saddened he was, I could not let him go on.

“You can tell the world that,” I said quietly. “Indeed, you
must
tell
the world that,” I said. “But I know how you brought this to pass, and I know why you did—
all
the reasons, political and personal.” I stopped there. I was on unsteady ground. “I did not counsel you against it, and so I may not condemn you for it. Yet these youths were innocent. I think you would do well to make some public act that separates you from it.”

He took my advice; indeed, he embraced it, and made a great business of it. He dispatched a party to retrieve the boys' remains. At the same time, he sent an honor guard to Yavesh, to disinter the remains of Shaul and his sons. He had them all buried together, with great ceremony, in Shaul's father's tomb in the land of the Benyaminites. There, he wept once again, most sincerely, for the loss of Yonatan and the memory of Shaul as he had once been. On the outside, all of it seemed well done. But turn over the leaf, and a canker stained it. He did not send for Merav, nor did he send to her to offer condolences. The rot was there, for those who wished to see it. For myself, I fashioned it as one more necessary thing, done to secure the kingship and build the Land. But I never sent to inquire what became of Merav. I imagine her, blank-eyed like Mikhal, doing long, bitter penance for insulting a youth who became a king, living out her empty days in grief and loneliness.

My days, by contrast, were never empty. My life took its measure from the pace that David set, and in those years, it was a demanding one. I was busy in his service, high in his confidence. Over time, as I have said, we were less and less at war, and I was glad of that. In the lengthening intervals between campaigns, I served as counselor in his handpicked inner circle, and when I was not needed at his side, I spent my time in conversation with the delegates who came to us from other lands, trying to learn from them what I could, gleanings that might serve the king in the future in ways that were not yet clear.

And so we went on, until the skirmish with the Plishtim, about which I have written, when David faltered for a moment and Avishai stepped in to save his life. In fear and in love, the decision was made
that he should no longer lead the army in the field. Like all who cared for him, I was glad of it. But as I have set down, I was blind, and did not foresee either the evil or the good that this decision would beget. When I began to write this chronicle at that time, I knew it for a turning point in David's life. But I did not then know that we stood on the very brink of a crisis that would rend his soul and alter his destiny.

I will never forget the day—the stifling, drowsy day—when my eyes first opened to the truth.

I
'd often thought that if an enemy wanted to spy on David, it would be a simple business. One did not need to penetrate his secret councils or insinuate a man into his bodyguard. All one needed was a pair of ears and access to the royal precincts. Just to eavesdrop upon his singing was to develop an accurate idea of his state of mind. I have heard people say of a musician that he poured his heart and soul out. In most cases this is exaggeration. Not so in the case of David.

Since his reckless dalliance with the wife of Uriah, I had noticed a distinct brightening in the nature of his musical selections. When the choirs of singing men and women would come in, after meat, he would ask them for songs of celebration, or victory anthems. His own compositions of that time were mighty things that reflected the building of the city, constructed of solid, symmetrical sounds, perfect fifths stacked one atop the other like the confident edifices of a powerful and joyous king.

The year had advanced swiftly from the mild days of planting. The full heat of the ripening season was upon us like a millstone, crushing the juice out of everybody. In a gesture that had won him much love from the people, David had instructed the foremen to rest the laborers in the heat of the day. He said this edict was to honor the memory of our ancestors, who had toiled in the furnace heat of Mitzrayim. Those who could—the high officials, the more senior of the king's servants—also took advantage of the noonday hush and ceased their own work for an hour or two. A stillness would fall over the private quarters of the palace as the lucky ones took their rest.

Unlike the others, I welcomed the heat. It brought to mind the hot afternoons of my childhood in Ein Gedi. I liked to walk in the garden at that still hour, listening to the low buzz of the bees, enjoying the sharp scent of the dry, fallen cedar needles and the wild zatar that fingered its way between the cracks of the paving stones. From the king's rooms, the notes of the harp drifted. He was composing, playing through passages, repeating some measures, changing a note here and there. I sat on a bench and rested my back against the warm wall, closing my eyes and letting the music caress my ears. I must have fallen into a doze. I was in some vague, happy dream or reverie. But into that dream crept a note of unease. I shook off sleep, and became aware that the music had changed. David was working with strange intervals. I listened more closely. Not fifths now. Tritones. Uncanny sounds that robbed the music of its power to delight. I became aware of the stone at my back, its roughness. I shifted my weight to relieve the sting of a jutting edge of rock. The sun's glare stabbed my eyes, a blade of pain. My sight blurred. I raised my hands to my ears, trying to shut out the dissonance. And then I was on my feet.

As soon as he saw me in the doorway, his hands fell from the strings. He righted the harp and stood. With a gesture, he dismissed the courtiers who had been his audience. As they left the room, his eyes, haunted, scanned my face.

“So you know.” It was a statement, not a question. His voice was low. “I suppose you've always known. You warned me I would be found out. And now, as always, events prove you.”

He turned and paced, picking up an alabaster vase and turning it in his hands, examining it so that he would not have to meet my eye.

“How did you learn that the wife of Uriah is pregnant?” I demanded. “Have you seen her?”

“Of course not. I told you I would have nothing to do with her after that night, and I've kept to that. This morning, she sent her maidservant to the open audience. She was wearing the jewel I gave to her mistress, so I would know who she was. I contrived a word in
private. What can I do, Natan? It is as you said. This was not well done, to take a man's wife who fights for me—and bravely—while I sit here at home, at my leisure. The army will take it ill. I don't want an enemy in Uriah, especially not now, when the battle goes in our favor, and largely because of Uriah's own valor, and the discipline of his men.”

“There is your answer,” I said. I could see only one way out. Base and dishonorable, but the only way to protect the king. “Send for Uriah. Offer him leave, as a reward for his good service. She can't be far along with this child.” I counted it in my mind. “Not yet even two months? If he lies with her soon enough, then the child can be passed off as his own.” I did not add that the child would be a
mamzer
. Nothing could change that. And David, of all people, knew what this deception would mean.

“Think you so?” His brow creased, considering. “I suppose it might serve. You know, of course, that officers take an oath to be continent during a campaign. But if she were my wife, and I away for two months . . . Uriah won't be the first to break that oath. I told you she was beautiful. I'd give a lot to see her myself, what the bloom of a pregnancy might do to . . .”

I suppose he saw my look of censure for he did not complete the sentence. He strode to the door and told the servant waiting outside to fetch a royal messenger. When he turned back to me, the creases on his brow were gone.

Rabbah, in the hills across the Yarden, was no very great distance for a messenger well mounted, and Uriah presented himself in the audience hall four mornings later. David greeted him warmly. Even I, knowing what I knew, found it a flawless performance. He questioned Uriah about the disposition of troops and the battle tactics. Uriah's account did not offer much in the way of useful elaboration on the daily reports of the runners, who were fully briefed by Yoav. But David also offered Uriah commendations for his part in the suppression of the Ammonites, and made much of him in the hall. After a decent
interval, he dismissed him kindly. As Uriah saluted and turned, David added, as if as an afterthought: “Go down to your home and bathe your feet. You have had a long road, and a weary one.”

At my suggestion, he sent my Hittite servant Muwat after him, carrying delicacies from the royal larder. Uriah had many Hittites in his household staff and Muwat was friendly with some of them. I had instructed him to linger in the kitchen, on the pretext of waiting to return the royal dishes. It was a good chance to listen an ear to the kitchen gossip, and learn what the household had to say, if anything, about their mistress and her condition.

I was therefore taken aback to find Muwat waiting in my rooms as soon as I returned from the audience hall.

“What's this?” I said. “Why are you not at Uriah's house?”

“He didn't go there. He's in the officers' barracks. He distributed the king's food and wine to them. I think he means to sleep there . . .”

Of course, I thought to myself: the king
would
have to cuckold the only upright man in the army. Uriah intended to keep his vow. He wouldn't even risk laying eyes on his lovely wife. I turned on my heel and went back to the audience hall.

When I whispered the news to David, he cursed. He threw a light mantle over his shoulders and went himself to the barracks. I followed. He entered, and greeted the men with his usual soldierly banter. It was no uncommon thing for the king to be there, and although everyone stood as he entered, after an easy word they went back to their dice games and their wine cups as he made the rounds, speaking by name with this officer and then another until he came to Uriah, and feigned surprise to see him there. “You just came from a long journey—why didn't you go down to your house?”

Uriah stood to greet the king, smiling. He was a handsome man, tall and swarthy, with very fine white teeth and thick dark hair worn in Hittite braids. “The men of Yudah and the men of Israel are camped in the open on the hard ground. My general Yoav has no
comfort this night. How, then, can I go home and eat and drink and sleep with my wife?”

David had no choice but to compliment him on his fortitude. They shared a few pleasantries, then David said, “Take at least another day here, resting. Then I will send you back to your brothers in the field.”

The next night, David invited Uriah to a feast in his honor. He sat him on his own couch and plied him relentlessly with unwatered wine. I could see that Uriah was reluctant, at first, to drink so much, but he could scarcely refuse the king's many toasts. Soon enough, the quantity of drink played fool with his restraint, and he downed cup after cup until it was plain that he was inebriated. At a very late hour, he stumbled out, once again attended by Muwat. Once again, however, even drunk, he refused to walk down to his house, and passed out on a mat in the barracks.

In the morning, when he came to the audience hall to take his leave of the king, David showed no trace of his displeasure. He charged Uriah with orders for Yoav, and as he pressed the rolled, sealed hide into Uriah's hand, he covered it with his own, and embraced him. Then he raised his voice to the assembly: “For there is no man in my army in whom I have more trust. Truly, Uriah is the very model of a soldier—a man of duty, discipline, courage and loyalty. Go with my blessing, and bring us the victory!”

What is he going to do now, I asked myself as I fretted and paced, waiting for him to call for me, to ask for advice, to work out a new plan. I dreaded the call, because I had nothing to offer him. It would be a matter of weeks—a month, two at the most—and the pregnancy would be patent. Uriah would know the child was not his, and what then?

When David did call for me, others were present. I would wait impatiently through the discussion of minor suits and civic projects, expecting David to ask me to stay when the others were dismissed. But he gave no indication that he wanted me, even though I lingered
behind until it became conspicuous and, no sign having been given, I had to withdraw.

A week passed in this way. On the eighth day, I was sitting fretfully through morning audience when Yoav's messenger arrived to deliver the latest news from the front lines. The king called him forward as soon as he saw him, and commanded him to speak.

“My lord, the men of Rabbah sallied out against us into the open; we drove them back to the very gate of their city. But the archers on the wall were in range by then. Six officers fell.”

David struck the arms of his chair and jumped to his feet. “Six? What was Yoav thinking, to send them within range of the archers on the wall?”

“My lord, the sally threatened our positions. He had to drive them back.” The messenger paused a beat, and looked down at the floor. “Your general Yoav said to be sure to report that your brave servant Uriah the Hittite is among the fallen.”

David fell back on his great chair and covered his face with his hand. I had seen it done better. I thought then, as I stood there, of all the times I had witnessed him mourn over deaths of great benefit to him. The butchery of Shaul. The murders of Avner and Ish Boshet. The impaled sons of Merav. I had witnessed him rend his clothes even for deaths, like my father's, that he had done with his own hand. I had seen him tear his garment so many times it was a sudden wonder to me that he had an intact tunic to lay upon his back.

I recalled Uriah as I'd last seen him, here in this hall. I recalled a rolled, sealed hide. Uriah's hand, reaching to take it from the hand of the king. As the pain pierced my brow, I saw that same hide, unrolled on the rough-hewn log that served as a table in Yoav's tent at Rabbah. I saw Yoav's face in the candlelight, frowning as he strove to make out the writing. The hand was crude, not the work of a trained scribe. As Yoav grasped the meaning, his face registered shock, and then disgust. He crumpled the hide under his fist and swept it to the ground.

Place Uriah in the front line where the fighting is most fierce, then have the men fall back and leave him undefended
.

Words that the king could not entrust even to his loyal scribe, Seraiah. Not battle orders. A death warrant, written by the king himself, delivered by the hand of the convicted. And Yoav, alive on the king's sufferance since the murder of Avner, had no choice but to give the order. I see Uriah's face as it registers what is being asked of him. A questioning look crosses his creased brow. He repeats the order, to make sure Yoav is clear about what he has asked. Yoav, on edge, masks his self-disgust in a show of anger, and barks his commands tersely. Uriah bows his head, salutes, and exits the tent. An hour later, he is at the walls, his shield arm raised against the hail of arrows raining down upon him.

The vision faded. Through the thinning images I saw that David still sat as if stricken, his face covered. There were sighs and expressions of regret running in murmurs around the hall. Uriah was a well-liked man, an admired officer.

David rubbed his hands over his face and stood up. He walked toward the messenger, who flinched. One does not want to bring bad news to a king. But David laid his hands on the messenger's shoulders and held him in his gaze. “Take Yoav this message: Do not be distressed by this matter. The sword always takes its toll. Press your attack on the city and destroy it.” He looked around the hall and raised his voice. “So will these fine soldiers be avenged!”

Everyone in the hall gave a great cry then, and chants of victory filled their mouths. I did not join them. My mouth tasted of vomit.

Whatever it takes. What was necessary.
But this—the killing of Uriah, and the good men who fell beside him—these deaths had not been necessary to gain a kingdom or to secure it. These deaths had not
been necessary to anything other than David's own ungirt appetite. It was simple abuse of power.

I turned on my heel and left the audience hall. I did not stop at the cedar doors, or even at the courtyard gate. The guards there must have read my face, for they scrambled to open the way before me. I walked through the town, returning no greetings or salutes, and strode out through the Dung Gate, past the threshing floor, where women were at work tossing the ripe grain. The chaff blew into my eyes, stung my cheeks. I staggered on, unseeing, into the olive groves. When the trees concealed me, I raised my face to the burning sky. What had I done with my life, to give it into the service of this evil?