The Secret Chord: A Novel (35 page)

“I will go,” I said.

“When you do so,” said Maacah, “will you speak to him for me? Will you tell him the truth, that I neither knew of nor endorsed this thing. He listens to you. To both of you. That is why I asked you to come here. I’m not young anymore. I have nothing here in this city, without my children, without my husband’s regard. I want his good opinion, and I want my children. If anyone has sway with him, it is you two.” She looked down at her hands and dropped her voice. “I was not raised to beg. But I’m begging you.”

“Will you do it?” Yoav asked, as soon as we were in the street.

“Oh, yes. I will put her case to him, but I won’t counsel him regarding it.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I did, I would have to say that I think it better if Avshalom remains in Geshur.”

“What? You mean you don’t want him to be king?”

“What I want is not at issue. But since you ask, I believe he would make a very poor king.”

“Well, I think you’re wrong there. I think he’s decisive and strategic. Look at how he took this revenge. Two years, he waited. That shows a lack of impulsiveness. Then there’s the excellent planning, the flawless execution. Ruthless, yes. But sometimes a king needs to be ruthless in order to do what’s right for his people. Tamar was his to protect; his own honor was befouled. He acted like a man. It was necessary.”

How many times had I heard David justify killing with those same three words? The echo made me shiver. Yoav went on: “He’s less of a brute than Amnon was, and much more intelligent. In any case, we need him. He’s the right age, and he has the right mix of experience so that in a few more years . . . and we might only have a few, the way the king is.” He gave me a considering glance. “It’s Shlomo, isn’t it? You want to put your own little acolyte on the throne.” He snorted. “So pure you are, but in the end you’re after power, just like the rest of us.”

I waved a hand. It didn’t matter what motives he ascribed to me, and in any case, I could not explain it to him. “The succession is not for me to determine. In any case, the line of candidates is still very long, even without the two eldest, before we arrive at Shlomo. He’s still a boy, after all. He’s only twelve.”

“Well, so long as you see that. And I don’t stand against Shlomo, you shouldn’t think I do. He’s a bright one, there’s no doubt of that. I’ve known grown men—experienced fighters—with less strategic sense than that boy has. But he is, as you say, a boy still. If you are thinking to be a kingmaker in that direction, you’d better see to David. The way he’s been lately, he might not last till that whelp grows claws and teeth long enough to fight his way past his littermates.”

We were nearing the palace gate, and I needed to turn the subject before we were overheard discussing such delicate matters. So I raised an issue that had been puzzling me. “Where is your cousin, Shammah’s son Yonadav? I thought it odd that he knew so much about the killing. I gathered you also thought so.”

“That ass-licking little shit.” Yoav hawked up a gob of spittle and deposited it on the roadside. “This whole affair rests on his scrawny shoulders. It was Yonadav who pandered Tamar to Amnon like a trussed fowl. And then, when Avshalom did his little act with the olive branch, Yonadav saw how David liked it, and he thought Avshalom might be on the rise. So he switched sides. That’s another thing about Avshalom—he’ll take help where it’s offered. Doesn’t hold grudges. Can be a useful quality in a king. So Avshalom used Yonadav, that turncoat, to lure Amnon. Yonadav was party to the assassination, I’m certain of it. I had him roughed up a bit, but he’s tougher than he looks. Even Avishai couldn’t get him to confess to it.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s in Beit Lehem, at Shammah’s house. I told him I don’t want to see him in the city anymore.”

“What did Shammah say to that?”

Yoav laughed. “Quite a bit. All of it in cusswords, that foul-mouthed old graybeard. But I told him it was Beit Lehem for Yonadav, or the road to Geshur along with the other murderers, and that I couldn’t guarantee his safety on that road.” He smiled. I could tell he’d enjoyed putting Shammah in his place. But then his face turned grave. “Seriously, Natan, apart from all this business, I’m worried. The king’s not well and now the succession’s uncertain. While Avshalom’s in exile, Adoniyah is next in line, but I don’t think he’s up to it. Not sure he ever will be. He’s less wild than the older two, but I’ve seen no real substance there. If there’s any kind of threat to the king while all this is unresolved . . . well, I don’t like it. I’m going to Hevron myself, to make sure none of Shaul’s old faction is getting any notions. I hope you can do something for the king. I think you might be the only one who can.”

XXIII

C
an a man grow old like the turning of leaf, blazing bright one day, dried and dull the next? So it seemed with David. He received me in his private room, where we had met so often before. In all my recollections of such meetings, he was a blur of fervent energy, the keen center of every conversation, the source of generous gesture, insight, wit. Now he reclined on the low couch, a sheepskin cloak pulled over him even though the day was fine and still. There was a silver charger on the table by his couch. Grapes, apricots, figs. Bread, soft cheese, olives. None of it had been touched. His fast had sapped his vitality. His eyes, large in his shrunken face, always so expressive, now expressed nothing but pain. His face—his beautiful face—was sunken and scored with lines, the hollows beneath his cheekbones scooped out as if a sculptor had driven his thumbs too deeply into the clay.

“You can’t go on like this,” I said.

His face flickered into the shadow of a smile. “Is that my prophet speaking to me again, at long last?”

I shook my head. “That voice has been silenced, for now. But you don’t need a prophet to tell you to eat. I’m speaking as your subject, who cares for you. As, I hope, your friend. You can’t starve yourself.”

He gave a whispery laugh. “It’s remarkable, how very many things there are that a king may not do.”

“You are a man, also. Subject to a man’s needs. You should eat something.”

“I should eat something. I should do many things I have not done, and I should not have done many of the things that I have done. My heart, Natan, is as hollow as a gourd. If I am a man, as you say, then I deserve to be ranked with the lowest of men. Is not one of a man’s most basic duties to raise his children, keep them safe, bring them to an honorable manhood? What good, to forge a kingdom, to win wars, to build this city, and then to fail at this most basic task—a task the most wretched herdsman in his hut can manage to do. And what have I raised? What kind of a man must I be judged, who has brought forth rapists and murderers? What kind of man begets such sons?”

“You have many sons. Not just these two. You mourn Amnon. No one blames you for that. A man may mourn his fallen son. Even though death
was
the penalty for his act against his sister, had he been punished by your justice rather than by his brother’s hand, still you would have a right to mourn him. As for Avshalom, he is safe in his exile, under the protection of his grandfather. You should comfort yourself with that.”

“Should I? Should I so? How, when all I can think of is my longing for him, for my son Avshalom. Two years I had him by me in the hall of audience, and all that concerned me was that he hated his older brother. Now I know that he hated me also, because I didn’t act. . . . And now I have lost him . . .” His sunken eyes brimmed then, and he turned away from me. After a moment he raised a hand and gestured for me to leave.

Sunlight poured through the high windows and spilled across the floor. I pretended I had not seen his signal and walked to the tall doors that opened to his private terrace. I stepped out into the bright, still day. The stone of the balustrade was warm to the touch. I looked up, and saw what I had hoped to see . . . the she-eagle, hovering on some elusive current of air that my skin could not feel. I dropped my eyes and searched among the palms and olives in the lower garden. There he was, poised in concentration. He was wearing white, gleaming in the strong sunlight.

I went back inside and approached David’s couch. I laid a hand on his shoulder and felt bone. “Come outside with me,” I said. “I want to show you something.” At first, he made no sign that he had heard, but then—why, I don’t know—he gave a deep sigh and swung his legs to the floor. He took the arm I held out to him, and we walked together onto the terrace. I pointed up at the bird, and down to the garden. Just then Shlomo became aware of us and turned his head. His face broke into a smile just like his mother’s. He raised his hand in a salute, and David returned it. Then Shlomo gave a series of shrill whistles. The eagle drew into a stoop, but instead of returning to Shlomo’s wrist, she wheeled and came to us, landing on the balustrade before us in a brute beating of massive wings. She turned her indifferent eyes, bright gold, on David, and he returned her stare, transfixed.

“There is beauty and power there,” I said softly. “And I don’t speak only of the bird.” I gestured to the bright, intense face smiling up at us. “I speak of the boy—the young man—who has mastered this bird. I speak of your son. A son of whom you
can
be proud. Your sins have consequences, but the Name has not forsaken you, King.”

David turned to me, color returning to his face. “Send for the boy. Tell him I would eat with him. Send me my son.”

•   •   •

And so it began. Shlomo, at twelve, became a salve upon his father’s wounded heart, the beloved companion and the joy of his old age.

But affection was one thing, royal succession another. No one accounted a twelve-year-old in that reckoning. Adoniyah, next in age to Avshalom, seemed to be the presumed heir. But Adoniyah did not have Avshalom’s presence, intelligence or political skills. Nor did he have the same place in his father’s regard. David had always seen himself in Avshalom, and why wouldn’t he? Avshalom had the same quicksilver nature, the same physical gifts, the same ability to attract a following. It was not just David who lamented his exile. David made no move to name his heir, and it seemed his own mind remained unsettled on the subject.

As the months passed, memories of the murder faded. It became clear that a faction had emerged, ready to say that Avshalom had acted within his rights, and that he should be allowed to return from exile. I asked Muwat to probe the matter, and in a very short while he was able to confirm, through his network of Hittite servants, that the partisan faction centered on Maacah’s house, which did not surprise me, and that it was led by Yoav, which did.

When I confronted Yoav on the matter, he was forthright. “There’s unrest in Hevron,” he said. “We keep a firm fist on it, to be sure, but I think there’s a real risk from there, with no settled successor, if David were to die untimely—and let’s face it, at his age it wouldn’t even be that untimely. They resent us, Natan. They resent paying taxes to build this city, which flourishes, while Hevron has become a backwater. They don’t see the fruits of the taxes they pay, as we do. And outside the town, the farmers in Yudah are unhappy that their surplus food has to be sold at set prices to feed the standing army and the priests—who live and spend in this city, and marry from among its daughters, not their own. They know they can get more for their produce on the open market. The bald fact is the people have grown used to peace. They forget how it was, before. They don’t value what David has done for us as they once did. It’s not a good situation. I think Avshalom should come back, so that there’s a clear heir, a man with military experience, who could be king tomorrow, if it came to it. David won’t do it. He wants to. I know he does. But he bent the law to his own desires with regard to Uriah, as you were so quick to point out with your parables. He’s not in a rush to be seen doing it again. You, perhaps, are the only one who could convince him. Make up another fine parable or two.” He gave me an appraising look. “But you won’t.”

“No,” I repeated calmly. “I won’t.”

“And I can’t fathom you. Never could. Avshalom avenged a great wrong. Why do you hate him so?”

“I don’t hate him for what he did,” I said.
I hate him for what he will do, as will you, Yoav, in due season.
So I said in my heart. But I could not speak those words aloud. Yoav left in a foul mood, muttering about my intransigence.

A week later, I recalled that conversation when a widow from the town of Tekoa presented herself before David for a judgment. She was dressed in mourning clothes and had the spare, worn look of one who has grieved a long time. She prostrated herself, uttering words of thanks to the king for agreeing to hear her suit. David was clearly moved by her salutation, and waved for one of his servants to help her up and to bring her a chair, which was rare for a supplicant in the audience hall.

“What troubles you?” he asked kindly.

“My king, your maidservant had two sons. As brothers will do, they fell into an argument while tending the fields, and came to blows, with no one there to stop them. One of them struck the other and killed him, and then all the men of my clan insisted that I hand over the killer to be put to death.” She began to weep, but with great composure continued speaking through her tears. “My lord, I know the law ordains this, but my son did not mean to kill his brother. He’s all I have left. They would quench the last ember remaining to me, and leave my dead husband without name or remnant on the earth.” She buried her face in her hands.

The king was clearly moved. “Go home,” he said gently. “I will issue an order that your son be spared. If anyone says anything to you, have him brought to me and he will never trouble you again.”

She raised her wet face, blinking. “You will restrain the blood avenger, so that my son will not be killed?”

“As the Name lives, not a hair of your son will fall to the ground.” David gestured that the matter was closed, and a guard stepped forward to escort the widow out.

“Please let your maidservant say another word to my lord the king.”