The Secret Chord: A Novel (38 page)

David gave a sigh and smiled slightly. “Older.” But his face had softened. He glanced over his shoulder, to where I stood behind him. I gave a slight nod. Shlomo needed to do this; the common desire of any boy who feels his approaching manhood. Beyond that, he needed to do it so that the troops would remember he had fought. Since I knew his future, I also knew there could be no grave danger for him. David looked to me to confirm that.

“Go, then,” David said. “Go with Yoav. Assist his arms bearers. But see the armorer first. You’re not going to battle in a tunic.”

As Shlomo sprinted off to the armory, David signaled to me. “You know he will be safe.” It was not a question. “But go with him, in any case. It will ease my mind to know you are beside him.” As I strapped on my greaves, I was glad to find the leather oiled and pliant, and was thankful to Muwat, who had kept my gear in good repair through the years when I had happily had no need of it. I had not thought to go into battle again.

As the watchers sent word that Avshalom’s forces were nearing the Yarden, David called his generals together. After some stirring words of thanks for their loyalty and service, he looked down at his hands and gave a deep sigh. “What I am now going to say will not sit well with some of you.” He gave a sharp glance at Yoav and Avishai. “Nevertheless, I will speak my heart. Deal gently with my boy Avshalom, for my sake. Pass the word to your troops to take him alive.” Ittai kept his face impassive. Avishai scowled. But Yoav could barely contain himself. His face turned a mottled purple with the effort it cost him to contain his disgust.

The battle, when it came, took place in the forest of Efraim on the east bank of the Yarden. Anticipating this, Yoav had arranged for a force to close behind Avshalom’s army after it crossed the river so as to cut off a retreat and force them forward into the difficult terrain of the eastern shore. I would like to write that it was a masterpiece of strategy, in which Avshalom’s vainglorious folly was ended with little loss of life. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The battle was a bloodbath, notable for the confusion imposed by the dense forest, low scrub and rocky outcrops, which impeded movement and coordination—ours, as well as theirs. A great slaughter took place, of which they say that the forest devoured more troops than the sword. There were some terrible deaths. A brushfire, set to drive a unit out of the woods into open ground, got out of control when the winds changed direction unexpectedly. The ensuing blaze engulfed more than a hundred men—our soldiers among them. When we found the bodies they were blackened husks. Others, who fell wounded, were eaten alive where they lay by the lions and wild boars that inhabited the forest.

It was Yoav’s way to lead from the front, and so we moved with him through a day as bloody as any I had experienced. Shlomo fought proficiently, and with courage, but I saw none of his father’s warrior zeal, no zest for killing, no bloodlust. He demonstrated his courage when another young armor bearer fell wounded in open ground, exposed to the enemy archers. It was Shlomo who ran forward into the rain of arrows to drag the youth to safety.

As it sometimes happens, in midafternoon there came a lull in the fighting. I found myself in the tight knot of fighters around Yoav. He was bent over, hands on his knees, catching his breath, when one of his captains from a separate unit burst out of the underbrush, calling out that he had a message for the general.

Though I couldn’t recall his name, I knew him for one of Yoav’s chief captains. Sweat stained, bloody, he gasped out word that he’d just left Avshalom, hanging in a tree.

“How is this?” Yoav snapped.

“We prevailed against his bodyguard—hard fighting, many dead. When he saw that his best men had fallen—killed or injured, all—he fled for his life. He thought he’d give us the slip by driving his mule into a dense grove of elah trees. He was pushing his mount—booting it bloody. It was tossing its head and shying. He couldn’t bring it under control at all.” As he spoke I could feel the mule’s resistance to Avshalom’s cruel boots digging into her bruised sides, and his hard hand, wrenching the bit in her mouth. I felt the pounding of the beast’s generous heart, pressed beyond endurance. I was seeing as she saw, in great wide arcs on either side, but nothing at all straight in front of me. I felt her raw fear of the shifting light and shadow as she plunged forward into the trees. The assault of scent was overwhelming—the stink of blood, the fear stench coming from the man on my back. For a moment, I ceased to be Natan, standing in the clearing, but became the mule herself. Avshalom’s sharp heel once again bit into my side. I bucked. Avshalom leaned forward to clutch for my mane, but as he did so, I reared, throwing his head back, right into the twisted bough of the elah tree. The two halves of the branch had grown one over and around the other like crossed legs, formed over years in just such a way that one part gave way as the prince’s head cracked against it, opening just enough to entrap his neck, snapping back in a second to pin him in a timber noose, a living gallows. I shied sideways underneath him, freeing myself from his tormenting weight, then I plunged forward, leaving him dangling helplessly, suspended between heaven and earth. The vision ended. I saw and smelled once again as a man, through my own eyes and nostrils.

“Hanging?” barked Yoav. “Is the whoreson dead, then?”

“No, sir. He’s alive still, over yonder, caught up in the boughs of that high tree—you can just make out the crown of it from here,” he said, raising a quivering arm. I could see the tree he pointed to—wide, graceful, its oblate leaves quivering and shimmering in the slanting light.

Yoav grabbed up the bridle and slung his leg over his own mule. “You witnessed this, and you didn’t kill him? I’d have owed you ten shekels of silver and a belt.”

“Even for a thousand shekels, I wouldn’t raise my hand against the king’s son. We know the king’s orders. If I disobeyed them, would you have stood by me against his anger?”

Yoav gave no answer. He turned his mule toward one of his arms bearers and grabbed up three darts from the boy’s pouch. Then he urged his mule toward the thicket. Shlomo scrambled to his mount also and galloped after him. Yoav’s other attendants followed his lead.

Avshalom must have heard the crash of us, coming toward him through the trees. Yoav halted his mule and gazed up, his craggy, weathered features softening into a smirk of satisfaction. Shlomo drew up behind him, his face drawn. Avshalom’s eyes, bloodshot and bugging out of his breath-starved face, widened in fear. He tried to strangle out a cry but nothing issued from his purpling lips. He struggled anew to free himself, pulling at the boughs with all his strength, peeling his hands raw with the vain effort to pry the branches apart. But the pressure on his throat, starving him of air, soon depleted him. All he could do was use his failing strength to grip the boughs and support his weight, heaving himself up every moment or so to allow a shallow wisp of breath to reach his chest. His arms trembled with strain. His long hair enspooled itself in the twigs like yarn around a spindle.

Had Yoav waited—even a few minutes—Avshalom would surely have expired of suffocation. But as Avshalom had been impatient for power, so now Yoav was impatient for justice. He took the three darts, which he held in his left fist, and urged his mule forward. He took one dart in his right hand. “This,” he cried, plunging the dart into Avshalom’s chest, “is for betraying your father. This”—as he sank the second dart—“is for stealing his throne. And this,” he said, as he rammed home the last dart, “is for playing me for a fool.”

Avshalom’s body sagged, the handsome face transformed into a purpling grotesque, his swollen tongue hanging slack from his mouth. Yoav’s arms bearers, crying out in relief and bloodlust, swarmed forward and grabbed at the body, wrenching it out of the forked boughs, dragging it to the dirt. Half of Avshalom’s hair dangled from the branches, torn, the bloody shreds of scalp still attached. Only Shlomo stood back, his eyes blank and his lips compressed. When the youths stepped back from the corpse, only then did he move forward. He bent down and picked up a stone in each hand. For a moment it seemed he meant to further desecrate his brother’s body. Instead, he knelt, and placed the stones reverently. Then he rose and scanned the ground for more. The other youths looked to Yoav, confused. He lifted his chin and folded his arms. “Do it,” he said. “Help him.” Yoav turned away and rode back to the main part of his army, where he ordered the sounding of horns in the series of blasts that signaled victory. As the failing sun fingered through the treetops, the only other sound was the scuffling of feet in the leaves and the chink of stones settling upon Avshalom’s shattered body, as his cairn rose high around him. When it was done, Shlomo threw dirt on his hair and tore his tunic. But as he said the words of the prayer for the dead, his eyes were dry and his voice steady.

Shlomo and I turned back toward Mahanaim, to be with David. I knew that we could not outrun the news of Avshalom’s death, so we did not force our pace, resting the footsore, battle-weary mules that carried us. As we rode, the shofar calls carried from one unit to another, echoing all around us through the smoky air. As they heard the high, exultant blasts, Avshalom’s forces scattered and fled, knowing that their uprising had failed. Yoav sent out orders: Let them cross the river. There would be no more killings. No pursuit.

XXVI

W
ell before Shlomo and I reached the gates of Mahanaim, a sentry on the tower called down to David that he saw a man running, alone.

David sprang up. “If he is alone, he has tidings in his mouth.” He raised a hand to shade his eyes, scanning the distance for a sight of the messenger. As soon as he could make him out, he left his place at the gate and ran forward to meet him.

As he closed the distance between them, the messenger cried out, “All is well! Praised be the Name, who has delivered up the men who raised their hand against the king.”

“Is my boy Avshalom safe?” David cried out to him.

“Let my king know that the Name has vindicated you from all who rebelled against you!”

“Is my boy Avshalom safe?” David demanded again, his voice quavering.

Because he was a foreigner, perhaps, the messenger did not know how his next words would be received. His voice was joyful. “May the enemies of the king and all who rose against you to do you harm fare like that young man!”

The king turned away, blindly pushing off all who rushed to bring him comfort. He staggered back to the gateway, braying like a beaten donkey. It was Batsheva who told me all this, when I rode in with Shlomo. Her face lit for a moment when she saw Shlomo unharmed, but a hollow-eyed look of anguish and concern soon clouded her features. “He’s inconsolable,” she said. We walked to his rooms. He was prone on the couch in the inner chamber and would not admit us. Through the door, I could make out the rasping words, repeated over and over again: “My son, Avshalom. Oh, my son, my son Avshalom! If only I had died instead of you! Oh, Avshalom, my son, my son!”

On the other side of that door, I felt a great sigh shudder through me. David did not, could not know it, but with this last loss, his punishment, the fourfold retribution that he himself had decreed, was at last completed. The nameless infant. Tamar. Amnon. Avshalom. This would be the last great mourning of his long life, and the most bitter of them all.

Yet it came hard, to the battle-weary troops filing back into the city. They expected to be greeted with singing women and celebration. Instead, they had to creep into a town where a funereal silence prevailed.

When Yoav arrived to the mute palace, he became inflamed with rage. He barged into the antechamber where I sat with Shlomo and Batsheva, and pushed past the attendants who tried to bar his way. “I
will
see the king, for whom I have just won the victory.”

I did not try to hold him back, but followed him, and almost got hit in the face by the heavy door as he slammed it in his anger. I put out my boot at the last minute to wedge the door open, and sidled in behind him. The king lay with his face to the wall, a shawl cast over his head. Yoav stood over the king, his arms folded and his legs apart. Yoav’s face worked. He could hardly choke his words out, so intense was his anger:

“What sort of act is this?”

The king rolled onto his side, took the cover off his face for a moment, glanced up at Yoav with wet, blank eyes, and then threw himself back onto his face, moaning.

“Do you even know what you are doing?” Yoav’s voice rose. “You have humiliated all your followers. All of us who this day saved your life. And the lives of your sons, and the lives of your wives and concubines. You show love for those who hate you and hate for those who love you. For today you have made it clear that the officers and men mean nothing to you. If Avshalom were alive today and the rest of us dead, would you like that better? You would! Fool, you would prefer it!”

David didn’t move. Yoav kicked the pallet, hard.

“Get up! Come outside, and speak a kind word to your loyal followers! For I swear, if you don’t get up and get out there and give these men the love that is due to them, not a single one of us will be here in the morning.”

Slowly, the king raised a hand and drew the shawl off his haggard face. He fixed his gaze on Yoav. It was the blankest, coldest look I have ever seen. He got to his feet. Deliberately, he walked to the ewer, poured water into the bowl and splashed his face. When Batsheva came in, and moved to help him, he pushed her gently away. He dragged his hands through his damp hair and drew himself up to his full height. He took a breath, and without looking back at Yoav, he spoke in a low, dead voice. “I will do as you say, and set aside my mourning, even if I do not set aside my grief.” His voice caught for a moment on that last word, but he took another breath and composed himself. “Send word to Amasa. He is my flesh and blood just as much as you are. But you killed my son, and he served him. I will have him, therefore, to command my army. Not you. You”—he turned, and leveled a killing glare at Yoav—“are relieved.”