The records of David's life, as we have them in the Hebrew histories, are extremely vivid. Unfortunately, they are also fragmentary, disordered, and contradictory in detail, although the authenticity of their major features is beyond reasonable challenge.
Similarly, although, for convincing literary reasons, we may accept most, if not all, of the Psalms attributed to David and Asaph as their actual compositions (it is, at least, certain that they were written before the Adamic parable became a recognized part of the Hebrew scriptures, and therefore, by a reasonable presumption, before the date of the Babylonian exile), yet the text must be frequently corrupt, and may have, been deliberately perverted in some places, as in the addition of the final verse to the LI Psalm.
Dealing with such material, in an imaginative romance of this kind, it is impossible to avoid some controversial decisions: some representations of the religious life and thought of the period from which others may differ: some guesses, which are most probably wrong.
But I have endeavoured to avoid any presumption which is definitely inconsistent with the scripture records where they agree, or the balance of probabilities where they differ or are chronologically impossible. It is a common form of literary immorality to distort historic fact for purposes of romance, but it is normally indefensible, and would be particularly so in dealing with material of this kind; and the aim of this book has been no more than to give an imaginative construction of David's life from when he was a petty king in Hebron to the birth of Solomon.
This period includes the campaigns in which he captured Jerusalem, established the combined kingdom of Judah-Israel, repulsed at least two Philistine invasions, and conquered Edom, Moab, Ammon and Syria. I have placed these events in a possible, or even probable, coherent sequence, which they do not possess in the original narratives. I have deviated only from the doubtful and difficult tradition which places Geshur between Syria and Bashan, having regarded it as a city in Philistia, and so given David at least one Philistine wife. But there are a number of reasons which combine to make this immensely more probable than that he should have married the daughter of a distant Syrian king, while he was existing precariously as a brigand-chief, on the borders of the Philistine country.
S. FOWLER WRIGHT
CHAPTER I
THE children slept in the heat of the afternoon, and David's three wives, whose slumber was sooner done, yawned and stretched themselves in their cushioned ease, and talked of that which was in the minds of all of the King's house, and on their lips when they were sure that he would not hear.
He had other wives, as was fitting for so great a king as he now was, and younger children than theirs, but it was these three who had been with him from the Ziklag days, when he had been building his power. They sat apart from the newer wives, of whom they had little fear, for though the King would be fair, going in to each in her turn, and kind to all, as his way was, yet they knew that he cared little for those others. . . . Even for themselves, they could not say in their hearts that he cared overmuch, which was half the cause that they thought and talked as they now did. What would be the place of the new wife? Would she be over all, to which it seemed that she had some claim, if her right were urged?
This was something different from when Haggith or Abital had been added to David's harem, after he had come to Hebron, to be king of the southern tribes. That had been in the customed way, in the order of natural law. . . . They were alliances made with prudence, such as increased his power. They had been taught their places at once. . . . But this had the sound of a different thing; and in the hearts of two was a sharp fear, and in the third a fear of another kind for only Abigail thought for the King. . . .
Each of these three had brought strength to David in early days: each of them had some claim today to be first of all. There was Ahinoam, whose memories could go back ten years, to Adullam days. Her marriage had made strong friends for David in the Jezreel of the south. She was the mother of Amnon, his first-born son. Nothing ever could alter that.
There was Abigail, Nabal's widow, who had been the first wife by a few months, but whose eldest child was younger than Amnon, though it was but a matter of weeks. She had brought her husband the first substantial wealth he had known, and the alliance of the great Calebite tribe. . . . His power had grown from the day when she had come out to Adullam to wed him, from Nabal's Carmel home, bringing him the dead man's wealth.
Maachah, the Philistine, was the third. She had been given to David by her father, the King of Geshur, after he had been established in Ziklag: when he was already of some repute. But she had been wroth at first that she should be the third wife of a chief of the nomad tribes. She was no more than the daughter of a petty king, but she came of a higher race. The Philistines did not often wed with the Canaanites, nor with the children of Judah. They had other standards of life They remembered Crete.
She had despised David at first. She could not despise him now, though she might still have contempt for Yahweh, his god. . . . She might be no more than the third wife, but she knew herself to be of a different social order, a different beauty, a higher race. And of his children there was none that was like to hers. Nothing could alter that. When there are many sons, it is not always he who is first-born who will be king a the end. Absalom was the most beautiful child in the world! And his sister, Tamar, was next to him. Amnon might be a fine boy. There was no need to deny that. But rather stupid Rather slow. With his mother's sensuous eyes. Amnon king in David's place at the last? There would be many years in: which to think about that. Years in which to contrive: to shape events to her own ends. She had thoughts that she showed to none: which she would have supposed (though wrongly) that even David would never guess. . . . But she did not foresee which would come, as who does?
Ahinoam said: "She may have half a score of children by now. It is likely she has. Will she bring the brats here?" As she spoke, she stretched out from the gaily-coloured woollen blankets on which she lay, to the dish of Babylonian sweet-meats that she could not resist, though she knew that they increased her bulk. They had been brought to Damascus on camels' backs (thirty days it took by the desert route), and then south through Bashan. Israel and Judah had had two years of a dragging war, but the merchants were not much hindered by that.
Ahinoam was twice the weight she had been when she had come to David nearly ten years ago, counting herself, in some contempt of Abigail, as his first wife except for Michal, of whom she had scarcely thought until now. She had been well content to be wed, and had loved him in her own way. Passion had cooled as her bulk grew, but she knew that she could still give the King that which would content him well for the time, when his mood was alike to hers. . . . She had eyes that were large and-dark, and a nose that was somewhat large also, having Hittite blood on her mother's side. She had been fair enough in the slimness of youth, though not burdened with brains. She would have said that a woman had no need of those, if she knew her trade. She might have kept her youth, being one who would seldom fret, had she been less lazy, and less greedy of food. But even of that loss she gave little heed. Now she asked: "Will she bring the brats here?" but it was more in curiosity than as one who cares.
"Even that," Abigail said, "is not known. . . . There will be change. So I have told the King, but he will not heed."
"The King," Maachah said, "hath enough of his own. We lie close. Eglah says she is pregnant now. . . . That comes" - she turned to Abigail as she said this - "of giving your turn to her."
"Then it seems," Abigail replied, "that I did well." Maachah said nothing to that. She knew that there are those who have no sense, and who will not learn. . . .
David paced his own room. He should have rested before now, during the full heat of the day, which he had not done. He had said that he wished to be left alone. None would come till he called. He was alone with his thoughts, which went backward to early days.
. . . He scaled Shechem's walls in the night. He sought the girl he loved. His wife of a week. The first woman he had known. He was no fool, even in younger days, and in the ardour of love. He did not doubt that Saul's daughter was to be the bait by which her father sought to bring him to death. He had broken through the first share. The four hundred foreskins of the Philistines had been duly paid.
But in the week after that, he had had a hint that he was wary to heed. He had made excuses that he was needed at Ziklag. Then he came back in the night. He might be treading with care to the place of his own death. He was trusting a woman's love.
As to that, he had not trusted in vain. Michal had said to Saul: "Do not compass the house till it be an hour before dawn. I will have him sleeping by then, and will open the door in a quiet way. If you send too soon, and he look forth and be warned, there may be many deaths. He is a strong man of his hands, as you know well. He might break through. You might not take him at all. . . . Or he might slay me first, if he should think I had done him so great a wrong."
But it had been two hours before dawn when she had warned him that it was not safe to stay more. It had not been easy to part. They had kissed hard at the last, changing vows of love. . . . They did not think that it would be more than ten years before they should meet again.
But after that Saul had pressed him hard. He had been bolted like a coney from hole to hole. Saul had sent Michal north in a strong guard. He had married her to Phaltiel, the son of Laish. That was the price she had paid for her loyalty to the man she had wed for love, and for helping him to escape in the night. She had been married to Phaltiel for over nine years.
But David had not forgotten, nor had his purpose failed. Seven years he had been exiled in the wilderness, or in the land of his nation's foes. Two years he had been king in Hebron, and she had still been beyond his reach, far north in Israel, where Saul's son, Ishbosheth, ruled, with a strength against which he had not prevailed.
Not that Ishbosheth was a man of valour or subtle craft. It was Abner who was the strength of his throne. Abner, who had been Saul's general before: a man fit to rule in a peaceful land, and one who was bold and able in war.
Abner was the real ruler of Israel, and last week secret messengers had come to Hebron from him. They brought a tablet of clay, on which a message had been drawn in the Assyrian style, which was still used in the north, almost as much as ink and papyrus, which was Egypt's way. David could read both, having been well taught in his youth, and learnt more since, as a king should.
On the tablet he read: "Whose is the land? Make thy league with me, and, behold, all Israel shall be thine." That was plain enough, and the messengers had said more. David saw that Samuel's promise, and his life's dream, was to come true. He was to be king of all the Israelite tribes, and to unite them in the worship of Yahweh, making their borders strong. He would have been glad at heart about that, but his first thought had been of another kind.
He listened to what was said. He judged that Abner had the power to do what he would, for he had known him of old. Then, Abner had sat at Saul's side, a man of thirty years, able, of good repute, and much feared on the field of war. David had been no more than a boy then, Saul's harp-player and pettey page, and his shield-bearer in time of strife.
Now, David was of the age that Abner had been then, and Abner was a man of mature years, and his repute had not dimmed. David knew Ishbosheth also. He judged that his day was done.
Ten long years of fighting and toil, and here was the full harvest in sight at last. David did not think little of that, but there was another thing of which he thought more. He thought of a girl that his arms had held, and of kisses changed in the night. Kisses - and vows. Well, his vow should be kept now. He was of the kind that will not lightly change in their loves, though the years pass.
He had had other wives since that day, as had been natural, and as a chief must. They are the peaceful means by which he extends his power. Jezreel - Carmel - the rich sheep-farming families along the edge of that desert that he had held by the sword's point - and Geshur further westward toward the sea; his marriages had united them in a friendship which had been the foundation of greater strength. But for those three wives who now talked of Michal among themselves, he would have come to his crown in Hebron, if at all, by a longer road. And he had treated them well, and loved them well enough too.
He remembered the bitter anger and grief with which he had looked down on the still-smoking ruins of Ziklag, when he had returned from the Philistine camp to find that the Amalekites had come up from the south, while there had been few but women within its walls, and had burnt and plundered and carried off the wives and children and all else that the hold contained.
Six hundred had been his followers then, hardened by seven years of desert living and constant war, stirred by the same sorrow and wrath, who had set out in pursuit. But when they came to the brook Besor, running low in the summer heat, and had been able to drink at last, there had been but two men out of every three whose thought of wife or child would give him strength to rise again and continue the hurried march.
. . . It is hard to hasten, burdened with arms, hour by hour over the heated sand, without rest or slackening of pace, when the track is lost, and there is little hope in pursuit, and every step may be widening the distance from those that you seek to reach. . . . But there had been the slave in the desert, dying of thirst, whom they had revived, and who had pointed the way. Vividly he saw again the scattered camp in the evening light. The Amalekites carousing now that they had come to a safe place after a two days march.
They had stopped at last to divide the spoil: they had shared the women: they had let them each to his own tent, for the sport of the coming night. . . . Four hundred men, as many as the whole force that David led over the dunes, had reached their camels and fled; but they had been few to the number of those who died.
Abigail and Ahinoam had been among those who were captured then. He remembered Abigail's quiet and confident words when they had come back from the pursuit, with arms weary from the smiting of those they slew: "Lord, I knew you would be seen here. As they bound us, I saw their faces as of men who were already dead, though they did not know. . . ."
Yes. Those he had wed had no cause for complaint or grief. He had given them strong shelter: sufficient love. But Michal had an inner place in his heart, which was hers alone. . . . And she had waited for all these years, to learn at last that he did not change nor forget. He had sent Abner's answer at once:
"I will make a league with thee: but one thing I require first. Thou shalt not see my face except thou bring me Michal, Saul's daughter, when thou comest to see my face."
Abner had made no difficulty about that. It was a reckoning easy to pay. It cost him nothing at all. He had sent promise at once that Michal should follow without delay. By the next morning she might arrive. Later, Abner would come himself, and some also of the elders of Israel, to discuss the conditions by which David might be established on the throne of the northern kingdom. . . .
David paced the room's length, recalling Michal as he had known her in their equal youth. The tones of her voice, her tricks of speech, a little gesture that had been his, the very words she had used, they were with him still. He remembered the dark weight of her loosened hair: her dark eyes under heavy brows, which had had, even then, something of her father's sombre moods, when they had not been lightened by love. . . . And in a few hours he would have her again. The thought moved him to the making of song. . . .
CHAPTER II
WHEN he was content with the song he made, David sent for Abigail. He would know, not for the first time, that all would be well-prepared for the coming of her whom he most loved. Abigail ordered his house, as she had done from when she entered it first. She was far more capable than Ahinoam, who was, besides, too lazy to care.
Abigail told him with patience, though she had said it before, that all would be ordered well. Michal would have the place that it seemed in justice was hers, as his first wife. There had been adjustments made in the sleeping chambers, not without bitter words, that her place should be clearly shown. David wanted to know more than that. He wanted to feel that she would be received with kindness in her new home. He was sure of Abigail, but less of others, in that regard. Now she answered with careful words:
"Lord, if thy favour be hers, she will have no wrong."
Amazingly, he seemed contented by that reply. Abigail may have been the one who had most love for him in the world a this time, his mother having died. She thought him first of all that the world held, with a love that was half that of mother and half of wife, being ten years older than he, and having mothered Nabal before him, which was a harder task, and worse paid. But if she thought him the first of men, she thought him child too, in a hundred ways.
Did he think that the women's quarters can be so ruled that there will be none who spit, or who bite at the back? Michal might be hated or loved (which was less likely), she might be contemned or feared, but who could answer for that, when she had not yet come?
As to the conduct of lesser wives, if she should be hated by them, there was one way in which it could be controlled. That was the whip. A strong man would use it himself when the need came. A base one would order the other women to chastise her against whom his wrath rose. But David had never ruled his wives in a firm way. He would counsel peace. He would admonish and plead. There were times when he was wroth, which they all feared, though it might not be occasion for blows.
Mostly, he would not see, turning ever to the children, of whom he was fond beyond the custom of men.
Abigail loved David for all he was, and for all he had been to her. She saw him as a man splendid and young, as king and warrior, as musician and poet; as idealistic religious dreamer also, and as having given her Chileab, the son that she dearly loved. . . . It did not vex her that the boy was a few months younger than Amnon, for she had the clear sight that could judge what a crown is worth. So far as a mother could, which she knew was not much (but Chileab was a loving child), she would rule him to turn aside into quieter paths. Amnon and Absalom might make strife enough for a sombre prize - and there were others, too young as yet to show what they would be likely to be.
She knew that David sang and believed that he did all in the strength of Yahweh, his god. She did not say he was wrong in that, but in her secret heart she would have been slow to allow that Yahweh was greater than he. There were so many gods.
David said that Yahweh was the only one. Well, so it might be. But they all said that. And then, being prudent men, they would lay a gift at another shrine. But she knew that to be something that David would never do.
David said that Yahweh had made him all that he was: had blessed him with victory over all his foes. Well, when things went well, they all said that too. Her observation was that all gods were alike in giving their best help to those who would help themselves. . . . She was not of an irreligious mind. Few women are. And, of course David's god must be hers. There could be no doubt about that. And, if he changed, she would change too. There could be no doubt about that either. That was not how all women felt, as David's son was to learn to his grief at a later day.
The worship of Yahweh was extending and his people throve. But they had not done so at all times. There had been some when Moloch, and other gods, one by one, had seemed stronger than he, as Dagon might seem to some to be now. If David owed much to Yahweh, might it not be said with equal truth that Yahweh owed much to him? David made his god feared by his sword: he made him loved by his songs: he enforced his laws.
It was not only Abigail who thought this. Nathan, and all the priests, knew how much David had done for Abraham's god, and for the enforcement of Moses' law. They recognized this, though they might not have stated it quite in the same way. If David himself should defy the law, or set up some rival god on a war throne, as an insurance against mistake, as many kings of all faiths were inclined to do, it would be a hard position for them. But David was not of that kind. He was of a simple and loyal faith. More than that, he made the conception of Yahweh nobler in the minds of men by his songs.
It may be true that God made man in His own image. It is certain that men will make God in theirs. David's songs gave a new image of Yahweh which, if it were there at all, had not been so clearly shown in the older law. . . . He was of a confident faith, never less likely to turn aside than now, when the woman for whom he had prayed for ten years was coming back to his arms. . . .
Coming south, on the Bahurim road, a woman rode on an ass, being held in a hedge of spears. Horsemen closed her off either side, and behind and before. They moved slowly, at the ass's pace, but no less surely for that. Behind them, her husband had walked from Gallim, weeping aloud. At Bahurim Abner showed him a spear's point, and he turned, and was seen no more.
The woman did not weep. Her eyes were hard under sullen brows. She thought of babes that she should be tending then. She thought of a husband whom she had been learning to love. Beyond that, she had a great doubt.
She came to Hebron on the afternoon of the next day.
CHAPTER III
DAVID walked on the roof of his house. The sun rose over the hills that edged the wilderness of Judea, but the morning air was still cool. The sun came from the barren hills and from the bitter Sea of the Plain that was beyond them, but David came from a night that was as barren as they, nor could he leave it behind as the sun did, for its desolation was in himself. He had had his will, and was less content than when he had longed for it with little hope.
Yet he had no cause for complaint. So he told himself in a just mind. He went further than that. He doubted that he had done right, bringing her thus by force from the home that had been hers for so long.
Was she wroth or pleased? Even of that he was not sure. But he knew that she was a stranger to him. She had not kept him in mind during the years, as he had her. He was sure of that. Perhaps it had not been a fair thing to expect. He had had purpose and hope. She had no cause to be assured that he would seek her again. It had been her road to peace to put him out of her mind.
"Why," she had asked, but an hour ago, "did you not take me then?" It was a thought that had not entered his mind at that time. He fled by perilous ways. She had not offered to come. Yet was it not true that he failed her then? That he should have called her to follow? That there should have been two who fled through the night? "Why did you not take me then?"
Now he was to learn that you cannot put back the years. Nor can you turn them aside. Should he offer her that she could return to Phaltiel's arms, if she would? He could not guess what she would say. She was a stranger to him, with a guarded tongue. But he saw that it was a day too late even for that. She might go back with his child in her womb. A king must think in a king's way. The thought reminded him that she was Saul's daughter. To have her here again as his wife strengthened his power, especially with the tribe of Gad, which was now, it seemed, to fall to his rule. But he had not sought her for that. He had sought her for a dead dream, that would never be dreamed again. . . . He went down to tear the song which he had made so few hours ago.
After that, he turned his thoughts resolutely to the crisis which he had now to face. Abner was to come in a day's time bringing word from the chief men of the northern kingdom that he might make terms for a throne.
He had no to scruple in overthrowing the son of Saul, not only because he was one who made war upon him, however weakly, with feeble hate, but because he knew it to be the vital need of the land that it should be joined under one king. . . . Yet he would rather that success had come in a different way. He had no liking for treason, though he could plan and scheme himself, with a patient resolute mind, that saw far. He had known Abner as a man that Saul (as he thought) had done well to trust. Had Abner also changed with the years?
He had looked for this day, as he had longed for Michal, through ten difficult years. Would it also turn to desert dust in his mouth? He had better hope. He had Samuel's blessing in this. . . . Samuel, who's name was greater in death than it had been in his living days. . . . No, he would not fail here. He did Yahweh's work. Yet he saw that he must walk for a time on a narrow edge.
There were the Philistines to consider first. Geshur was sure. He had friends in Gath. But the cities of the coast - Ashdod, Askelon, Gaza - how would they take the news?
The Philistines were friendly enough now. While he was king in Hebron alone, he made order among the nomad tribes, he held Moab and Edom back, he checked Israel's power. While himself too weak to threaten the walled cities in which the Philistines dwelt, he was of sufficient strength to weaken the menace of other foes. On the desert-edge, the land he ruled stretched like a boundary wall, protecting the rich Philistine plain from the desert raiders that would come up from the south. They were not vexed by his great repute, while the men that he ruled were few.
It had been their obvious policy to strengthen him against Saul, and against his son. It was doubtless to assure his friendship, to divide him further from the northern Israelites, that the King of Geshur had given him Maachah to wife. But the union of Judah and Israel under his rule would be likely to be looked at with different eyes. Such a union would be unwelcome in itself, and doubly so under such a leader as he, for he knew that he had made a reputation which was, in itself, a threat. . . . Action must be secret and swift, if he were to become, in fact, the king of the double land, before the Philistines should be made aware.
His mind turned from that to consider how much might be in the power of Abner or the Elders to give. There was Transjordania, where Saul's strength had lain, the land of Reuben and Gad. There was the far north, beyond the Carmelite range, where the Philistine power had made no permanent penetration. But the long coastal plain, the fertile valleys of Samaria, even the central district of Mount Ephraim itself, lay under the fear of the Philistines, if not actually in their occupation; tributary to them, since the power of Saul had been broken on Mount Gilboa, and the mere fact that the Israelites might change their king would make little difference to that. The actual power that would come to his hands would be limited in another way. There were walled cities, some in the very centre of the land, which had never yielded to Israel, which had maintained their independence, more or less continuously, since the invasion of Canaan, four hundred years ago. Some of them still paid nominal allegiance to the weakened Egyptian power: some of them had acknowledged the Philistine supremacy: all would be stirred to an instinct of more active hostility at the news that the Israelite tribes were uniting under a single king.
David had the combination of cold judgment and far-leaping imagination which is the greatest asset of those who would control or shape the destinies of their time. The far north - the left bank of the Jordan, with its barren wilderness back-ground where the Philistines would be too prudent to follow - the timid friendship of many in the central uplands and the coastal plain - he saw these were the most that Abner could bring. It would be much in itself, and more or less beyond Philistine reach; but it would be his weakness, as well as his added strength, that he held Judah as well, for Judah was most open to their attacks. It was round their doors. Holding the cities they did, they might cut him off from the north.
He saw that the next war would not see the Philistine armies marching north by the coastal roads, to take the pass of Megiddo, and move up the Kishon valley (as they had done twice in the days of Saul), till they could face south, resting their rear on the walled strength of Beth-shean, and advance down the Jordan bank, forcing the Israelites to give battle from the Gilboa heights, or to be cut off from the eastern desert where their safety lay. . . . He saw the disciplined Philistine ranks, and the horsed chariots against which the Israelites were so loth to stand, and they came up the valley of Rephaim, up to Hebron's walls. Well, when the time came, he must face it as best he could. . . .
That was what the Israelite Elders could give. A new crown, and a new peril therewith. What would they ask as their price? There would be questions of tribute, of course. He would be moderate about that, but yet clear. Tribute must be paid. If they were too close of fist, he would send them back as they came. There was one road which could bring the land to a settled peace, and it was the road of war. An army cannot be paid alone by the spoil it takes. He would have greater charges than now. And the lands from which his wealth came would be the first that the Philistines might overrun.
But he knew that there would be another, and probably more difficult question to be discussed. The Israelites would not be ruled by a king in Hebron. It was not only that it would make Judah supreme, which their jealousy would be too great to allow. It was too far south. It was not a reasonable place for the king of the combined nations to choose. Yet it was around Hebron that his strength, his personal wealth, his settled friendships lay. To remove eastward to Gilead would be like the starting of a new life. It might actually decrease his power. It would certainly weaken his hold on those of the south, on whom he could most depend. . . . To make his capital in the far north would separate him still more completely. He looked northward from the high roof of his house. . . . He saw the low hills, and the northern road. . . . He saw further than that. He saw into future years. Twenty mile away. . . . He went down from the roof with a great dream in his heart. . . . Michal met him beneath the stair.
He left his dream to look into wrathful eyes. Lord," she asked, "I would know, am I first in this house? Or was I mocked when you said that?"
"I am not one to mock, as you know."
"Very well. It is soon to prove. I will have her whipped."
"Who will you have whipped?"
"Maachah."
"For what cause?"
"For - for the insolence of her speech, and the state she holds. I am a king's daughter, alike to her, and it may be more. Geshur is but a walled town."
"There are no women whipped in this house. Would you have me do that because your father was more than hers?"
"Then it is full time that there were. . . . It is for more than that. It is for insolent speech, and for withholding from me the best she has."
"Will you tell me what she has done in a clear way?"
Michal found that it was less than easy to do. . . .
David's house in Hebron at this time was the best that the city held, as it was likely to be. But Hebron was a very ancient place. Men called it the oldest town in the world, and none can say they were wrong. It was so called eight hundred years before this, when Abraham had bargained here to buy land for a grave. Now its streets were narrow, its houses small, its walls of a girth which had been thought great when they were built, but was small indeed for those who had been crowded in them since David came.
As a king must, he had gathered wives, for by them he would found his power. There were but two ways by which the strength of a king could grow. By marriage, or by the sword. By peaceful ways, or by blood. Love and war, by whatever names, through whatever customs, ruled the world, as they always will. David had used both, to one end, with an equal skill.
His harem had grown with his repute in the world. . . . He knew that the palaces of Egypt and Assyria had separate apartments for every wife. Even at smaller courts, at Tyre or Damascus, there would be provision for that. It was the way of peace. But the wives of the King of Hebron must be content with a smaller space.
Michal did not quarrel with that. She saw more of state here than she had known in her life before. The home of her father, Saul, had been no more than a farmhouse of the better kind. His courts had been held at a city gate, or under a grove of trees. . . . Here each wife had her separate room, but she had no privacy beyond that. The women's quarters seemed large, but that was the most they could provide. The children, even the concubines, were herded together. There were concubines who did not know clearly to which wife they belonged.
Each wife had her own room, which she had garnished her own way. There had been changing of rooms, and greater crowding among those of the lower sort, to make space for Michal, and to give her the best of all. They had changed their rooms, but they had not given up that which was theirs. In their rooms they expressed themselves. That of Abigail was of comfort enough, but without gauds. It was a restful room, to which David, being weary, was glad to come.
That of Ahinoam was of a gayer kind. All the brightest spoils that David brought from the wars, things which Abigail did not covet, and Maachah scorned, went to that room. Yet it might not be swept for a week. Ahinoam would say to the concubine whose duty it was: "Let it be for today. I would have you talk. It is true that Ashur was seen with Hilkiah's wife?" And on another day she would see dust, and smite the girl with a heavy hand, for, if the king's wives were not beaten, the concubines might have a worse fate.
Yet they did not cry out over-loudly about that, for their mistresses had too great a power. It was by a wife's will that her concubine might sometimes take her place with the king. For how else should a king's house be ruled in a seemly way, and with kindness to all? Were there to be other men allowed in the women's rooms? Were his wives to be without service for themselves and their children? Or were those who served them to be condemned to a childless life?
Maachah's room was of a different kind. Because she was the wife of a nomad king, she did not forget the civilization from which she came. It owed nothing to Babylon or Damascus, or to the spoils that were thrown from the camels' backs, when David rode in from a desert war. It was in the tradition of Crete.
The sheepskin-clad Israelite might look with envy at the brightly-dyed Babylonian blankets that the Canaanite wore, but, to her, sheepskin and blanket were of a kindred barbarity. For herself, there must be sea-borne silks. Her room was rich with beaten metalwork, and carved ivory from the Nile. The kings of Canaan might be content to eat from the red earthenware which their ancestors had used for five hundred years, and their wives the same, but there was Cretan pottery in Maachah's room. . . .
Michal had wished to know, in a sudden passion of wrath, why that room should be so much finer than hers. And Maachah had told her why, with a quiet scorn, and in words that were more true than polite.
David listened, and said: "You need not quarrel for that. You may buy all that you will. Your room may be like to hers. I will send to Gath, or beyond that."
"But it is not that. It is what she said."
David spoke in a harder way: "Yet you must still let it rest. There are matters of weight with which I am dealing now. We will talk at another time. . . . As for now, you will go back to the women's rooms."
Their eyes met, and she turned and went through a near door. She was in no better mood for that, nor for the scutter by which she knew that the King's words had been overheard, though she was too late to know by whom, as she opened the door.
Yet her mood, which would change from gloom to brightness at times, and to gloom again without open cause, as her father's had done in his later years, softened awhile as she talked with Abigail in a room apart at a later hour, when it had become too hot for the roof, which would otherwise have been the natural place for such words in that crowded house.
For Abigail had much to explain, and she offered that which was dear to her, being the rule of the house. Michal found a friend here whom she had done nothing to win. She learned much. She was told of how David was weak in some ways, and in others of an iron strength. How was generous without thought, and would sometimes give the same thing to more than one in a careless way: how he had no mercy on meanness, and contempt for guile, which he could yet use with skill, if the need were urgent against his foes.
She spoke also of his poetic passion for the religion of Yahweh; the energetic support which he gave the priests in the enforcement of the Mosaic law; and of his intolerance of all contending forms of religious faith. Michal frowned somewhat at that, having been taught in a more tolerant way, and with the bitter thought of Mount Gilboa, where Yahweh had failed her house.
As they talked they looked down through a window latticed from the sun's rays and the fear of intrusive eyes, upon a porch which was guarded by men who, in Michal's sight, were of a hated and foreign kind - men of Philistine arms and equipment, of David's Pelethite guard.
She saw their feathered headdresses, their gleaming breastplates, their white tunics and brazen greaves, and in her eyes they were the men whose disciplined ranks had conquered all the coastal plain, whose chariots and strange foreign fighting methods had driven Israelite and Canaanite together backward across the Jordan, or into the fastnesses of the wilder hills. "I wonder," she said, "that the King has dealings with such as they."
"They are men of Gath," Abigail replied, "where he has ever had friends." She told of how he had enlisted another troop of guards from the Cherethites - men of Geshur, the city of which Maachah's father was king. She said that there was no love between these two troops, but emulation only, which David used in his own way; for there were factions among the Philistines, and jealousies between their cities, which weakened their power.
These guards might be foreign, but they were faithful to him by whom they were hired, and indifferent to the bickerings and intrigues that disturbed those of David's followers who were of his own race.
They were useless for desert warfare, such as the expedition on which Joab was absent then. Probably few of them had ever mounted a camel's back. But they represented that tradition of disciplined professional warfare which the nomadic tribes had been loth to learn, and without which they would always be unequal to facing the Philistines on an open field. The presence of these men among his own more turbulent followers taught them to see the advantages of the order by which each man had a place in the ranks which he must not leave, while it also lessened by familiarity their fear of the Philistine weapons, and reduced to actuality the common myths of their giant size.
Abigail hinted, though she said less, that it would add nothing to David's popularity with his Cherethite guard, nor would it strengthen his friendship with Geshur's king, for it to be known that Maachah had been put to shame at the whim of a new wife, and she a daughter of Saul.
Michal's mood changed as they talked. She went to Maachah again, meaning to make peace at some cost to her own pride. She took with her a platter, which she had instructed one of her concubines to abstract for her use from Maachah's room with a courteous lie to cover the way by which it had come to her hands.
Maachah took it back in so careless a way that it slipped and fell, breaking against a bronze vase that stood on the floor.
"It is well," she said calmly, "I eat never from that which has been in another's use." Michal could not tell whether it fell by accident or intent nor whether the words were the insult they seemed to be, they were said in so toneless a way.
Maachah's children, Absalom and Tamar, were beside her a this time. She showed them to Michal, with a natural pride. She praised them as freely as though they could not hear. She said of Absalom: "Is he not fit for a king?" It was a question that might mean little or much. He a very beautiful child. None could deny that.
CHAPTER IV
IN the afternoon Abner came. He rode up to the North Gate with twenty horsemen around him, making a bold show, for there were few mounted men at this time either in the Israelite army, or among David's own followers.
Benaiah met him at the gate, with fifty footmen of the King's guard. He said that he had orders to conduct him to David's presence, in his own house. Joab (he explained) would doubtless have come, but he was away with the most part of the army of David, chastising a desert raid. Abner listened to that which he had known before, and about which he had no mind to grieve. It pleased him well that Joab should be absent at this time, as it may have pleased the King too, for Joab was his bitter foe since his brother Asahel had fallen to Abner's sword.
Among the troop that surrounded the Israelite general there was no man of rank from the northern lands. They were his followers only; a gesture to show his strength. There were elders of Israel whom he might have brought, but he had preferred to come alone, willing to make his own terms; he would have none present when he talked with the King.
He was received with courtesy, but with little state, for David kept no more than a rustic court at this time, though he had a great fame. Abner was served with water, and a garment of fine cloth into which to change after the dust of the day. David met him at meat, but that which was in both their minds must be delayed till they could come together more privately on the next day, he having planned that it should go thus. He asked many questions of the state of Israel during the meal, and he learned much. He talked freely also of the old days when they had met at Shechem, and elsewhere eating together at the table of Saul. He remembered Abner as he then was, a man solid and grave. He had been in the fullness of his strength, famed both for his own deeds on the field and as a leader of men. To the boy's eyes, he had seemed of greater age than he was.
David looked at him now, and saw signs of the passing of years. He was still upright and strong, but he had the gross aspect of one who ate too much, and drank more. Report said of him that he spent more time in the women's quarters than a warrior should. It was about a woman - one of Saul's concubines - that his quarrel with Ishbosheth had brought him to David's door.
Abner looked on a man who was half his age, but he could not hold him lightly for that. David at this time might be no more than a petty king, ruling little more than could be seen from a height on a clear day, except for desert wastes, and the thin pasture of limestone hills, but his deeds were more in the mouths of men than were those of any king beside, from beyond Lebanon to the Nile.
Hebron might be a small place, however strong in its own hills, beside the high-walled Philistine cities: Jerusalem or Beth-shean might close their gates, and laugh at the thought that the nomad king could disturb their peace, but it was from his very weakness that his fame was fed.
It was as a fugitive that he had been heard of first. One who lurked in Adullam's hold, in the forest of Hareth, in the wilderness of Ziph; who fled but was never found. And even while he fled his power grew. He found means to protect his own. He found occasions to do service to others. Everywhere he made friends. The kings of Philistine cities gave him shelter: his enemy's widow became his wife. Outlawed leader of a band of lawless and desperate men, he could rule them so that they did no wrong. He could inspire them, so that their deeds of valour were on every tongue. He had stirred the spirit of emulation among them, rewarding heroic deeds not with gold (of which he had not had much at that time), but with rank: by the order of the Thirty and the two Threes. Men sought ever to do some act of courage or strength which would give them claim to a place in that order of valour, when there should be a vacancy in its ranks, as there must be at times, as when Asahel died. So he had directed the spirit of lawless violence which had cast them out to the wilderness, that it might be spent to distress his foes.
Hebron might be a poor court, but it was the camp of a mobile force which would be hard to subdue, even by a king of much greater strength. For it could disappear if it would. It was trained in wilderness ways. Even to Hebron, David was only anchored in a loose way. He had, in fact, the only professional army that the whole land held. And its power lay in its capacity either to fight or flee at its own will. It was not held to the defence of walled cities or fertile fields. Where it might go would be the centre of David's power.
And with all this he was one of whom men spoke without dread. There were acts of impulsive magnanimity at which men wondered, but there were no tales of treachery, or of massacres in the night, nor even of unprovoked plunder joined to his name.
And he was a maker of many songs. They were of diverse themes, of love and war, of hopes and fears, of cold doubt in the night, and of new strength when the dawn comes, as the songs of men will for ever be, but for the most part they were about Yahweh, his god. Yahweh, on whose aid he relied, to whom he abased himself, confessing his faults, and of whom he made his boast as a supreme and very terrible god, who thundered among the hills.
So that with his own fame, had grown the fame of his god. It was in his name that he ruled the lawless troop that he led. It was Yahweh's laws that must be enforced. It was by his success that the name of Yahweh would yet grow more great in the land. . . . And the worship of Yahweh was the one link that bound together the tribes of Israel, scattered in a land which was of no certain rule, amidst cities which, for four hundred years, they had been too weak to subdue. . . .
The next morning Abner met the King in a closed room. David had with him the priest, Abiathar, and Benaiah, the captain of the guard. Abner would rather have talked alone, but he could not claim that. In particular, he could not see why Benaiah should be there. He was a man of brawn rather than brain: a mastiff beside the King. He supposed that David had him there as a demonstration of state. But David would not have done that. He cared little for the forms of rule, of the support of which he was not conscious of any need. His kingship was in himself not in a parade of surrounding strength. If he had seen cause, he would have sat for this meeting on a stone at the roadside.
But he had good reasons for what he did. Neither of those who were with him would talk in the wrong way, or into the wrong ears. Nor had he any care as to who might hear what he said, so long as it did not go to Ashdod by a hastened way.
He knew that Joab would question Benaiah as to what had passed in that room, and would have the truth from that source. So he meant it to be, and so, in fact, it was. Yet had David foreseen the event, he might not have troubled to have Benaiah there. But even kings cannot do that.
Abiathar was there with a greater cause, and a better right. He was a young man, younger than David, yet because he held the Ephod, and for other reasons, he might be called the first priest in the land. To those Israelites who held to their father's faith, he was the half of David's strength, if not more; and it would be hard to speak his name without recalling that for which devout men should be foes to the house of Saul. It was ten years ago that David, fleeing from the anger of Saul, had come to the sanctuary of Nob, where Ahimelech guarded the Ephod at that time, and had a college of younger priests under his care. David had few companions with him, and they had come without beasts of burden, or weapons, or even food. They were faint with hunger and haste. David lied, as he must. He said he was on an errand for the King, who had required him to leave in such haste that he had lacked time to make provision for the needs of the way. Ahimelech may have believed it, or not. He must have known of David's place before Saul, and how the King would favour him at one time, and chase him out when his mood changed, even with the throwing of spears. It did not sound a very probable tale.
David asked food, and the pr est excused himself with a lie which was as weak as his own. He said that he had none but the sacred bread which had lain before the altar of Yahweh, which it was not lawful to eat.
David replied that he would be content with the stale bread which had been removed, as was done when a fresh baking was made, and which might be said to have lost its holiness, and to have become common again.
Ahimelech can hardly have thought that this argument had much force, unless he were less instructed in the Mosaic law than a priest (and one who teaches others) should be expected to be. But he temporized weakly, asking if David and his companions were at least free from the contaminations of women.
David answered with sincerity about that. They had been on the road for three days! It was probably the first word of truth which had been spoken on either side. Yet they may have been no more than diplomatic lies, recognized on both sides for what they were.
Anyway, David got what he asked, as he most often did. There was food brought, and whether it had ever lain on the altar of Yahweh was known to Ahimelech, but not to us.
Having got the first thing he asked, David tried again. He had left, it seemed, in such haste, that he had forgotten his weapons - if Ahimelech could find a good sword, or even a spear - ?
It seemed that Nob was as destitute of weapons as it had been of food. A very singular place. But there was an exception, as there had been before. The sword of Goliath, the giant that David had killed the previous year, was wrapped up under the altar, preserved as a trophy of war, beside the sacred Ephod itself.
David said that it would do very well. He could think of no weapon he would rather have.
Remembering Goliath's reputed size, it seems a surprising choice. But his height may have been measured with the feathered head-dress that the Philistines wore. And David had used that sword once before in an effectual manner - to cut off its owner's head, after he had been stunned with a stone. He had increased himself since that day by a year's growth, and was of good stature and strength.
Anyway, so it had been. David had gone on with the giant's weapon girded against his thigh, and doubtless in better spirits than when he came, or would have done so had he not caught sight of Doeg, the Edomite, who was the chief herdsman of Saul, and wondered what tale he would take back, and what its consequences might be.
Had Joab been at his side, the event might have ended a different way, for Joab would not have been likely to let Doeg bear back any tales, bad or good. He believed that all dangers are better dead. But the sons of Zeruiah did not join David till the next week, when they had word that he was secure in the mountain caves.
So there had come a day when Doeg told Saul what he had seen, and Saul sent for Ahimelech, and charged him with giving aid to his foes. Ahimelech faced it as best he could. He protested that he was a true servant of Saul. Had not David married the King's daughter? Did he not stand at his right hand? How should he have guessed that he had done wrong?
Saul was not appeased by a defence which he did not believe. Besides, he had a worse fear. Was it not likely that Ahimelech had consulted the sacred Ephod on David's behalf, showing him the future, which was still hidden from Saul, though it was an increasing fear? Ahimelech denied this, with truth David had eaten, and had then been in haste to go. But he was not believed, any more than before.
Saul was not lacking in courage, but he had become suspicious of all men, and insanity drove intermittent clouds of darkness across his mind. He saw that it was not David the man, but Yahweh the god, who was his final foe. Well, even so, the battle might not be lost. A god was a poor thing with no priests to proclaim his power. He would slay Ahimelech, and all the priesthood of Nob. What would Yahweh do then? Ahimelech had given him an excuse, which he would not miss.
So he ordered, but no one moved. It was a deed to which no Israelite had the courage to lift his spear. Saul would not see that, as he defied Yahweh, the kingdom slipped from his hands, for it was that worship which united the tribes. Nor would he change his purpose when he saw that he had ordered more than his followers had the heart to do.
He said to Doeg: "You brought the tale: it shall be your duty to slay the priests." As to that, Doeg had no scruple at all, as no Edomite would. Yahweh was no god of his tribe. He gathered more of his own kind, and they fell upon the city of Nob. He came back to Saul saying that he had let none escape. Eighty-five priests, with the women and children that were theirs, they had all died by the herdsmen's swords. There had been no mercy for any. Even the oxen and sheep (he said) had been slaughtered in the same way. Saul accepted the last statement without dissent. He knew the etiquette of such massacres too well to probe the question of where the cattle would be likely to be after a troop of herdsmen had raided the town. He was well content, for if Yahweh was not able to protect the lives of his own priests, was it likely that he could do harm to a king who defied his power?
But Doeg's count had been one wrong when he said that he whole of the priests were slain. Ahimelech's son, Abiathar, had escaped to David, with the Ephod under his arm.
CHAPTER V
SO it was that Abiathar sat at David's right hand on this day. There had been no formal appointment of a chief priest since the massacre at Nob, and Samuel's subsequent death; but Abiathar was Ahimelech's son, he held the Ephod, he might be called the first priest in the land. Sitting at David's side, he supported temporal with spiritual power. Abner saw it, and knew that he was acting with wisdom to have come there, and not engaged in an act of folly springing from a wrathful mood.
Yet he sought to make good terms, as he felt he could.
"I would know," David asked, in that direct manner of speech which may be more potent than guile, "with what power you have come to treat? Do you speak for yourself alone, and for such men as are round your tents, or do you speak for the Elders of the tribes, who have the power to choose who the king shall be?"
Abner answered in the same way. "I speak for more than myself and my own men. The Elders know that I have come here. But I have no power to pledge them as yet. They must know what your terms will be, if you take the crown at their hands.
"Yet I can go this far: I know what will make accord. If you will content them in two things, they will be glad to give you the crown. As for Ishbosheth, you can put him out of your mind, and you will not forget much. He knows why come here, but what can he do? He is feared by none."
David asked: "What are the two things?"
"The first is that the tribute shall not be more than it is now. That can be promised with ease, and you can ask more on a later day, if the need rise."
"I will say no less than I mean to do."
"Then you must mean that. They will not pay more than they do now."
"What is the second thing they would have?"
"They must know where the King will dwell."
"You mean that it is too far south where I now am?"
"It is in Judah. They will not be content with that. This is a poor land, as you know. It is wrong that all Israel in the richer lands of the north should be ruled from here. There would always be discontent."
"Where would they have that I make a centre for the whole land? Is east of Jordan better than this?"
Abner felt the point of the thrust. Saul had tried to establish himself in Samaria, but the Philistines had always driven him out. He had made his headquarters beyond Jordan for three years out of four of his troubled reign. Ishbosheth did the same, with the difference that the west bank of the river had never seen him at all. Israel could make no boast about that.
"I know what you mean," Abner replied. "There is no need for words about that. But they hope that you will be a more fortunate king."
"Then they must be ready for war, for it cannot come without that. Where would they have me to make my home?"
"They are not agreed. Some would have Shechem, and some Geba, and some others - - "
"So I supposed. If I name a place, I shall please a few, and make many wroth.
"I will answer all in one word, for the things you ask cannot be looked at apart. If I were to come north at once, which I will not do, I should ask more tribute than is now paid, in which I should have no choice. But the tribute shall stay as it is, and I will come north when the land is clear of its foes, choosing my home then."
"That may have a good sound. But why shall I say that the tribute must be increased if you dwell in Israel now?"
"That is easy to see. Have you thought that there will be war as soon as this thing is known?"
"There must be war if we would free the land. It need not be till our time."
"When I am chosen king there will be war in a week, if it docs not start before that. The Philistines are not fools. They will not let Israel and Judah unite while they sit still. They may have Egypt's support. She may send gold, if not men. She will give them aid from her garrisoned towns. All that is easy to see.
"But we must look further than that. If I go north, I leave this land, which I have made mine, for them to make it a spoil. It is from this land, which I largely own, that my wealth comes. That is why I say that I must have larger tribute if I come north. An army, even such as I now have, is not held together without cost. And even then how would you rescue the land? Will you meet their chariots on the plain? Only chariots can do that. You know how many you have - or how few. I have none. We should be destroyed on the level land. At the best, we should have Gilboa again, when we must come down from the hills to fight for the Jordan fords."
"Have you a plan which will thwart that?"
"There is only one way. They must come to me at a place of my own choice, and there is only one cause for which they will do that; they must seek to hold us apart."
"How do you count that they will make such attempt?"
"That is sure, for there is but one way. They must draw to the Sorek valley, with all the force that they have, marching eastward to Bethlehem, and then south, to assail us here on our northern side, which is also the least strong."
"Will they come thus into the hills? And so far from a safe base?"
"The Jebusites are their friends. It is on Jerusalem they will rest their rear."
Abner considered this with a soldier's mind, and it seemed to him that it was a good plan, and one that the Philistines would be very likely to choose. It was not only good in itself. It was curiously like the strategy of the campaign which had ended at Mount Gilboa, with the Vale of Sorek for the valley of the northern Jezreel, and Jerusalem for Beth-shean. His doubt was that he could not see where it would fail. It seemed to him that if David saw the trap, it was a good reason that he should not await its jaws. He said:
"It has the sound of a likely thing. But if you see how it will be, why should you wait it here?"
David said: "I may have a plan. But it is not to be given words till the time is at hand. The Elders need not trouble for that. But I will ask all the aid they can give, both in money and men, when the time is with us to free the land, and to take a Philistine spoil. . . .. You can tell them that if the Philistines first make war, I will have no peace until the whole of Canaan even the walled cities, and the plain of Sharon are free, and the Philistines are confined to their own coasts. After that, I will choose a city beyond Judah, where I will make such court as a king should, and the laws of Yahweh shall rule in the land."
Abner said there would be no dispute about that. The worship of Yahweh was still general throughout Israel, though it was of uncertain ritual, and rivalled by other faiths. But the fall of Saul, after his massacre of the priests, and David's successes in Yahweh's name, were lessons which it had been easy to learn. He would go with speed, and bring the Elders of Israel to Hebron, that the ceremonies of accession might be performed before the Philistines would have time to stir. For himself he asked only - but he knew that it was not necessary even to ask - that he should be confirmed in the office he held, that of general of the armies of Israel? That was the price he required for the use of his influence with the Elders of Israel.
David recognised that it was not more than he could reasonably claim. It was no more than he already held, and it was an office which he was well fitted to fill. But he must be clear on one point. He had made Joab chief of the army of Judah, and that place must be still his.
Abner made no difficulty about that. He knew that Israel was far richer and more prosperous than Judah could ever be. When David had united the land, and the two kingdoms went out to war, there would be no doubt of which would be first.
He started back that afternoon, putting the urgency of the occasion before the ease of his body, as he had been accustomed to do more often in earlier days, and, as he rode out of the northern gate, the army that Joab led, brown with dust, laden with spoil, straggled in through the gate at the other end of the town.
CHAPTER VI
DAVID went to the roof of his house, as it was his frequent habit to do. In his more restless moods, he was irked by the narrow spaces of city life. He was of nomad blood. His natural roof was the sky. Now he was stirred by the thought of a great dream that was near the reach of his hands. He was in a mood for the making of songs.
He strode from wall to wall at the pace of his own thoughts. It had always been hard to wait when a plan had formed in his mind. Well, there would not be much waiting now.
He paused, looking out to the north, to the gate through which Abner had ridden less than an hour ago. But he did not look at the gate. His eyes were on the horizon hills. He thought of Jerusalem twenty miles away. The city that had no record of storm or sack, or of the changing of lords. The centuries moved like a slow shadow across the land, and men died and were born, and kingdoms flourished or fell. Cities changed ever from lord to lord, and strange tongues were talked in the streets, but the Jebusite city stood, impregnable, unafraid. The untakable city. It was the Jebusite boast that the lame and blind would be enough to defend its walls.
It was beyond his sight, for though Hebron also was on high - even higher - ground, it lay in a shallow depression among the hills. But David saw the great gate of Jerusalem in his mind, as he had done when in boyhood he had gone with Eliab, who bartered within its walls.
It was a wild dream! The men of Judah and Israel had never been good at the taking of cities, unless, as with Jericho, an earthquake had collapsed its walls. And Jerusalem might be called the strongest that the world held. It was a dream that he must keep to his own heart till the time came. But if he could! In the name of Yahweh, his invincible god. For he saw that he could unite the kingdoms there - perhaps only there. And as a centre of the faith in which he so passionately believed! Could he not make a place of worship there to which Israelite and Jew would be equally willing to gather at the times of the sacred feasts, and discourage the scattered shrines which changed so lightly from god to god?
But it must be secret to his own mind. None must guess till the hour came. There must be no whisper to warn its walls. There was scarcely one even of his own house to whom it could be spoken with safety, and who had a mind that would share his dreams. He was loved by thousands, who would have died at his word. The eyes of the veiled women followed him in the streets as though they looked at a god. There was no maiden in Hebron who would not have been his at a word, and few who would not have thought it a glad day. Yet it might be said with some truth that he was a friendless man. More than most, he had the loneliness which is ever the curse of kings. Well, he may have communed with Yahweh the more. And in his loneliness his songs came.
Now he looked to the south as he turned his walk on the roof, and he knew that Joab was back, and had not failed, as he seldom did. He could see the loads which the camels bore. Hebron lay, a long narrow city, upon the eastern slope of a shallow bowl of land which was in the sheltered height of the hills. Over the flat roofs of the white-walled houses, David could see the goats'-hair tents that were already rising on the open land, too poor for the plough, that lay westward beyond the wall. For, of the three thousand men that Joab had brought back, few would lodge in the city streets. They were men of tents: of a nomad blood.
David could understand that. He was of the blood of Boaz, but of Ruth also. Men of Judah had settled long on the land. Some of them had learnt the reluctant lesson of the comforts that follow a life of toil. They had settled homes. They gathered corn to their barns. But Moab still lay in tents.
Nomad and farmer despised each other, when they were not stirred to an active hate, but the blood of both was in David's veins. And even Judah was of the desert tradition, rather than that of the plough. Here at Hebron, four hundred years ago, Abraham, the father of all their race, had come in at times from the desert ways, to barter hides and wool and the living flock for the lamps and leather water-skins for which the workmen of Hebron had been famous from ancient times, and for a score of other things that the town made, or the merchants brought. Abraham had come and gone, and the townsmen had looked in wonder as the dust of his caravan receded over the far monotony of the desert plain. How could men, if they were better than beasts, be content to live with no settled home, in no safety of bolted gates? And the men of the desert breathed with fuller lungs as the city walls receded in desert haze, and the wide wilderness silence brought peace to their hearts again. They felt as men from whom a crushing weight had been lifted clear. The narrow streets, the low half-lighted rooms, the workmen held to long hours of unchanging toil, had been a vision of hell.
The life of Bethlehem had been of a more pastoral kind. It was that on which a large number of the Israelites had been engaged for so many years that it had become nature to them. The life of the farmhouse; of the byre and the plough. But, to the true nomad, it was little better than that of the city streets. Why should a man endure the dark prison of walls when he could have the free air of a tent? Why should he make his home, and even his wealth, of such kinds that they could not be moved if a danger came? Why should he buy the hazards of such a life with the toil that made his years that of a constant slave? He had no time for himself It was existence, rather than life. At such a cost, there was no comfort that would not be priced too high. He had no time for the stars.
David's part in the home life of Bethlehem had been that of the nomad kind. He had kept the sheep, leading them to green pastures and quiet waters among the hills. It had been a life in which one can have many dreams. He had done little, and thought much. A life as leisurely as the ways of Nature - of God. A life despised, even in his own home, as too nearly that of the desert tribes. But it had pleased him.
Its long monotonies had been broken at times when a bear had come from the mountain caves, or a lion from the wilderness of Judea, hanging on the skirts of the flock. . . . There were times when he would think of those days, in envy of the free creatures his hands had slain. He would pace the roof of his house as a wild beast turns in a cage. . . .
Joab would soon be here to report. It was a tale that would be told in a few words. His expedition had been less than serious warfare - of a merely punitive kind against a wandering Bedouin tribe who had raided some friendly villages in the debatable land between Moab and Edom, which either would be quicker to claim than to defend. Joab had not needed more than a third of the men he took - might, indeed, have done better with a smaller force, and with camels alone - but David knew that he must find occupation and movement for the restless troop that he was moulding into something more like a professional army than could be found in Eastern Asia at that time. He had kept back only a few of the "mighty men", and Benaiah with his foreign guards and such others as were sick, or had been married within the year. . . .
Joab might report in few words, but David knew that there would be more to be said. He could not tell how he would take the coming of Abner, but high words would be a likely result. Joab hated Abner, not without cause, and had sworn his death. It was to that end that he was always urging the prosecution of the war against Israel, which David had carried on with no heart, having a hatred of civil strife among those who had one tongue, and the same god. But Joab must give way now. He must see the greatness of the gain which Abner's friendship would bring. After all, David was king and not he. And a king must think in a large way, putting private hatreds aside for his country's good.
David hated the strife of words, but he was one to face all that came with a bold front. He went down from the roof to meet Joab in the hall below. Looking southward, he had not seen that two horsemen had ridden out in haste, taking Abner's track from the northern gate.
CHAPTER VII
JOAB came in at a quick pace, cursing aloud. He came as a man in a great wrath, and not fearing the King.
He did not trouble to report the way he had routed the Bedouin tribe, whom he had surprised in the night, putting them to the sword in a ruthless way which David would have been unlikely to do (but which might yet seem wise to one who looked far), and taking a great spoil. Nor did he wait for David to speak. He burst out at once:
"You have had Abner here, and have let him go!" Wonder battled with wrath in his tone.
David answered with equal heat."Am I king here, or are you? Will you call it folly before you hear?"
Joab said, in no abasement of mood: "It may be a king's folly, such as you have done before now. It is worse than that. You have betrayed your own blood."
David checked a reply which might have made such feud within those of his own house as would have altered the whole course of his future years. He reflected that Joab's anger was natural enough. He recalled also that every moment Abner would be riding further away. He must calm Joab with reasoned speech, as he had done before then. He asked, in a quieter tone: "Will you hear first, and then rail if you must?"
Joab controlled himself with a different thought. Abner would soon be on the way back. Meanwhile he would learn what he could.
He faced David, silent and sullen, a swarthy Ishmaelite, thickly made, very strong of arm, with black hair, short and curling, on head and chin. He was armed in leather, mounted with brass. The brass was polished: the leather worn. He wore, at his side, a short broad-bladed sword. A man of deeds, rather than show. He was David's nephew, though somewhat older than he. As boys, they had played together in Bethlehem streets. . . .
David had been the last of a long family: the child of an ageing man, as the world's greatest so often are. His half-sister, Zeruiah, had been twenty-five years older than he. As a child he had seen Jeshur, the Ishmaelite chieftain, ride in to Bethlehem, from the wilderness of Judea, and from much further than that. He told none of the place of his home, which was in the far Transjordanian desert. His young men were mounted on swift camels. They would be hard to follow: his home would be harder to find.
Jeshur had been too cautious to trust himself to the wrong side of a city gate. Even at the village of Bethlehem, he made a camp in the neighbouring hills, while he bartered the camel's hair and other goods that he brought - sometimes strange goods from the further east - for his needs of the coming year. Jesse played the merchant in this. His eldest son, Eliab, would load the asses, and the goods that were bought from Jeshur would be sold among the Jebusites, or at Beth-El, or held till the caravans came. Jeshur and Jesse were good friends as the years passed, each learning of the other that he was both honest and shrewd, and that he could bring out shekels of silver if he had the mind for a large deal. When Jeshur said "I would have Zeruiah to wife," it was a bargain that was soon made. When he said in a later year "I would have her sister, Abigail," it was settled in a short hour.
Zeruiah had had three children, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel The first two had their father's swarthy complexion, but Asahel had been as fair as his mother, tall and slender and very swift. The three had come to David at Adullam, having followed his fortune before at the court of Saul, when it had seemed that he would become one of the first in the land by the King's favour, and the quality which was in himself. At that time, Zeruiah was living at Bethlehem with Jeshur's consent, her health having become unfit for a wandering life. (But Abigail was with him at all times, having the hardihood of a man.) At the first quarrel with Saul, David had sent his parents, and any other members of the family who might have become victims of the King's uncertain violences, to the care of the King of Moab, to whom he could claim kinship through his great-grandmother, Ruth. But the three sons of Zeruiah being young men of his own age, remained with him at Adullam, and two of them were to follow his fortunes to the height of power.
David had made them members of the band of his "mighty men" - a form of knighthood carrying no office or rank in itself, but from which he would select those who might be most suitable for positions of authority or adventures of peril as occasions came. Joab had been conspicuous from the first for qualities which made him a natural leader among the turbulent elements which resorted to David's cave.
He was sagacious, moderate, ruthless when the occasion required, though always in an economical way, as one guided by reason rather than any violence of passion. He was courageous, but without recklessness. Bold in action, but cautious to plan. Entirely selfish, without chivalry or imagination, he would neither have conceived the audacious projects by which David advanced from a sheep-boy's dream to a great power and a greater fame, nor could he have inspired the personal devotion of those who served him, as David had been able to do. But he became known as a leader to trust, and a foe to fear. He might not be the man of the greatest repute among David's followers for deeds of personal valour on the field of war, but he was already known, in these Hebron days, as the one whom David would choose to lead any expedition of which he was not the personal head, and he would have been wroth indeed had any other been preferred before him as the general of the army of Judea. . . .
It was the year before that David, with a small band of his followers, had met Abner at Gibeon for a conference which might have been the parent either of peace or war between Israel and Judea. It was hard to say by what accident or design that which had been intended for an occasion of diplomacy broke into a sudden fury of hand-to-hand fighting, in which Abner's followers, though of numerical equality, were ill-matched with the band of once-lawless adventurers whom David had disciplined to his will. The men of Israel fled from the field, to be chased till nightfall to the outskirts of Giah, where Abner's protest to Joab: "Shall the sword devour for ever? Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end? How long shall it be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?" had caused him to order the pursuit to cease. When they had picked up the dead, they had counted twenty of Judah and three hundred and sixty of the men of Israel. It had not been an episode to encourage the northern kingdom to make active war upon its poorer, less populous but far hardier foe.
As Abner fled, he had found that Asahel followed persistently on his track. Though less strong, and less practised in arms, the boy was far fleeter than he. Panting in flight, Abner had called back to him to turn aside, either to right or left: "Art thou Asahel? . . . Turn thou aside. Wherefore should I smite thee to the ground? How then should I hold up my face to Joab, thy brother?" But Asahel would not turn. In his heart was the determination to raise his name among the Thirty by slaying the leader of the army of Israel. He knew that there were few who could run so swiftly as he. He kept to Abner's trail, thinking that he must turn at last. But Abner had not turned. When he heard the feet of Asahel but two yards behind, he had stopped abruptly, thrusting his spear backward beneath his arm. It was a fatal trick. Asahel, with the impetus of his eager speed, had transfixed himself on the bladed shaft. Abner, drawing out his weapon, wroth that he had been driven to such a deed, had seen the blood spout from the heart of a dying boy. So Asahel's body had been among the twenty when they had counted the dead.
It was the chance of battle, in a conflict which Abner had not sought - had, indeed, sought to avoid. But Joab did not forgive.
Now he faced David with the memory of this blood-feud stirring fiercely within him, and reinforced by a baser thought. Which was stronger, it might have been hard for himself to say. If David made accord with Abner, what would his own position be when the armies went out to war? He knew Abner too well to suppose that he would bring Israel to David's hand without making his own position secure. Was his brother's blood on his hands? And who could guess what treachery might be lurking in Abner's heart? Might he not think to make David a tool by which he might climb himself to the northern throne, after Ishbosheth were thrust aside? Was not David always too quick to trust? - to impute his own ways to those of a different kind? Had he not trusted Saul, after he had had his javelin pass within half a foot of his head? Joab stood without words, listening to David's explanations with a stubborn and very sceptical mind.
"I do not go to them," David said at the last. "The Elders are to come to me here. If there were any treacherous plot, would he have proposed that we should proceed thus?"
Joab said: "He may look further than that."
It was a possible thing. It may even have been true; but it is not probable. Abner appears as a man who was normally temperate, both in deed and speech. He had come to a time of life when many are disposed rather to consolidate that which they have than to stake all on a fresh throw. It is fair to judge that he sought a single treachery, and no more. And treachery may be too hard a word for the thing he did, being done in an open way. Ishbosheth might cast him out - if he could. But he had no power in his hands. He remained in his house at Mahanaim, waiting to hear what would be done by men of more resolute moods. Abner's action had demonstrated that which had been true from the first, that his power was greater than that of the son of Saul.
David declined to prolong a useless change of words. His decision was made, and Joab's anger was as water against a rock. He answered curtly: "Others may look ahead beside he." He turned his words to ask how the expedition had fared. He was careful to have the names of any who had been wounded, or killed. It was said that he knew every man of the three thousand or more of whom he had made a personal rather than a national army. But Joab answered shortly, excusing himself as one who was not yet cleansed from the dust and heat of the road.
David let him go. He would talk with him tomorrow, when they would both be in a cooler mood. Half his life was occupied at this time in controlling the jealousies and subduing the discords of his own followers, and in so influencing the troubled policies of contending kings that his own place was secure, and his power grew. He knew that he was surrounded by those who gave first place to their own passions, their own needs, though they might be loyal to him. They were concerned with their own lives.
So were the women too. Abigail was saying to Maachah at this time: "She has lost more than that. She has lost his
love."
Maachah came as near to lowering the veil by which she guarded her pride as she was ever likely to do. Her lips faintly shadowed a sneer. "Then she has lost that which we never had - as we all know."
Abigail's silence allowed the truth. After a pause she said: "David is kind to all. . . . Were we wedded to Achish, or Moab's king, or to others of whom we hear, who are worse than they - - ?"
Maachah answered: "There was no need to say that. Did I not know? . . . We are the wives of a great king."
CHAPTER VIII
ABNER had halted at the side of a desert well. It was a convenient place for a midday rest, and he would have more need to travel in haste when he was clear of Judea's hills. There was the shade of a grove of trees, and some pasture, on which the horses grazed, while their master dozed in the heat of the afternoon. He was roused to be told that two horsemen came from the south, riding in haste. He said: "Well, let them come if they will." There was no menace in two.
Abishai came down from the saddle, at Abner's side. He was a tired man, having ridden long in the earlier day, and left Hebron without rest or food, at his brother's desire, when they had heard that Abner had come and gone. But he had ridden with a good will, for it was a matter on which Joab and he were of one mind. He was the larger man of the two, but may have had a less brain. It was a fact that Joab could think for both, as he mostly did. "Get him back," he had said, "and leave me to deal."
"We would have ridden harder had we known that you had come to the King," Abishai said, with such courtesy as he could control. Abner could take that as he would. It was a truth with a double edge. He added another of a like kind: "Joab would talk with you beside the gate. His mind is that you cannot both serve the King while you are without common accord."
Abner stroked his beard, weighing a doubt. He knew Joab, and there were few-men whom he trusted less. He had been alert against treachery from the first, but he had a great confidence in the character of David, whose magnanimities were notorious, and not always praised. Also, he saw that he could be more useful alive than dead. So he had put himself with deliberate courage into the hands of the King of Judah, choosing a time when he had known that Joab would not be there. In fact, he had not thought it possible that Joab would have returned for some weeks, thinking him to be on the trail of those who could move faster than he, and not one to turn back with an empty tale.
Yet now Joab's message had a fair sound. He knew that, sooner or later, his relations with David's general were an issue which must be faced. Indeed, but for this obstacle, he would have abandoned Ishbosheth a year ago, seeing that his cause was doomed to decay. Now he was not asked to return to the city, where he would be hopelessly outnumbered, and could be detained or murdered if Joab's counsel could move the King to such ends. He was to meet with Joab outside the gate. He had a good horse, and all his escort were mounted men. If Joab should have a large force, or if there should be sight of armed men who came to meet them upon the road, there would be time to turn back. He said:
"It is well that we should meet. Will you thank Joab, saying that I would find a way of peace between my house and yours for the good of all? I will be a bowshot's length from the city gate in an hour from now."
He had counted the time so that his horses should not return at too fast a pace, that they might not be tired if there should be occasion to flee, and yet to be there and to have left again before sunset, which was less than three hours away. When Abishai receded from sight, he ordered his men to mount, and rode slowly back, sending two riders ahead, and two others far out on either side of the road, that he might not be outflanked or met in a sudden way. So he came to the gate, halting a full bowshot away, as was but prudent to do, and Joab came out with no more men than his own, they being on foot, and in a peaceful array.
Joab being on foot, Abner dismounted also. His men rode closely behind him, as he had charged them to do, so that they overheard what was said. Joab did not show that he saw that. He said, bluntly:
"Can there be peace between me and thee? Can I think nought of a brother's blood?"
This direct approach made it easier for Abner to say what was in his mind than would have been the case had Joab talked of other matters, leaving this sore unprobed. He answered in a frank way, and there was reason in what he said:
"As for Asahel's death, it may be held that he brought it upon himself, as I think you know. It was on a field of strife, for which no ransom is due, as the priests will say. Beyond that, I struck only when I must guard my own life, having asked him to turn aside. . . . Yet I will not hold to such pleas, making restitution to any sum that shall be named either by Zadok, or even Abiathar, though he be your own priest. Can I say more fairly than that?"
Joab answered, without showing his heart, which was wroth not only for that but another cause: "I see not well that you could. But for my part, I am not asking for gold. . . . Will you step somewhat aside, for I have more to say, which it is not well that your men should hear?"
Abner thought that Joab put away the matter of Asahel's death, meaning to bargain with him on that which might now seem of a greater weight, being their positions before the King. He went aside without fear.
Joab wasted no time in words. He wore a loose gown, under which was a sword, short and sharp, having a very broad blade. He took Abner by the beard, with his left hand, and as he would have struggled free, he felt the sword, that pushed upward to find his heart.
Joab wiped the blade on the clothes of a dying man. "The King must choose," he said, "as he will. It is the choice of living fried or a dead foe."
The twenty men whom Abner had brought turned their horses in the haste of a great fear when they saw that their master was dead. Abner's horse turned with them, and ran with a dangling rein.
The men rode with no pause till they came to the country of Benjamin, where their fear lessened with every mile. Slackening pace, they reached Mahanaim on the third day. Ishbosheth heard the news without sorrow, yet without much comfort therefrom. He was like a player who is dressed for a part that he has not learnt. He knew not what to do next. He went to the women's quarters, where he would ever spend more time than a king should.
Joab, having cleaned his sword on the skirts of a better man, went to his own house. But there were others who told the King.
CHAPTER IX
THE King sent for Joab within an hour, and he was not backward to answer the call. David was in a furious wrath, making it hard to control his words. Joab was of the same temper, though he said less. He took refuge in stubborn silence as his way was at such times.
He was not afraid of the King, let him rage as he would. In fact, he would have been more afraid of a smaller man, and might have had greater cause.
What, indeed, could David do? Joab had killed a man with whom he had a blood-feud, as was the way of the time, and had some support in the wording of the Mosaic law, though not much. He ad not done it at the time when Abner had been in Hebron, under the protection of David's word. Abner had come back to Joab's call at his own risk. And he had been an open foe, who might have been no better again. Was David to cast out one who was loyal to him in his own way, who had shared his fortunes through evil days, who was his sister's son, and the best general he had, for the sake of one who could not have been more than one of these things, or two at the most, and who was already dead?
David might rage as he would, but in their hearts they both knew that it would be but words in the end, though he was so wild in his wrath that he cursed Joab as he would seldom speak of even the settled foes of his house.
Abner's death came near to dishonouring his name, which he could not lightly endure. Beside that, it was an error of policy, which he could not lightly forgive. He saw it to be his first care that men should know that the assassination had not been contrived nor approved by him. He cursed Joab, with an added will, as he thought of that, not caring who might hear at the door.
He gave orders that Abner should be buried with such honours as were due to the rank he held. He praised him over his grave, with Joab standing sullenly at his side. For he had insisted that Joab should be there, about which, in fact, he had shown no reluctance, for with Abner's death his hatred had died. He did not really blame him for Asahel's death. Abner had had sufficient cause to kill him, and Joab had had cause to kill Abner in turn. It was by the rules of the game. But when he thought that Abner might have usurped his place at the King's side, he was very glad he was dead.
Now he had little doubt that he would soon be commanding the armies of a united land. For Abner dead might not be the same as Abner canvassing the elders of Israel, but it led to the same end. Who was there left who would head resistance to David in Ishbosheth's name? He could think of no one at all.
Nor did he fear that David would degrade him in rank, for he knew his angers to be such tempests as soon changed to a clearer sky. Yet he was half-wrong on that point, for David had resolved that he should not come to a greater power by the fact that Abner was dead. If he had killed him to avenge Asahel's death, he had done that which would be held by most men of that time to be natural, if not right. It was done now, and there was an end. But if he had struck in jealous fear of the repute of the older man - well, he would find he had gained nothing by that, though he might have lost. So David resolved; though at this time he had no plan of that which he would contrive at a later day. He gave no sign of his thought, which is saying no more than that he had learned the first lesson by which a king in those times might prolong his life and establish his throne. Outwardly, all went on as before.
The tale of how Abner had died spread through the land, and of David's wrath, and of the honours he had paid to one who had been his foe. Had he killed him with his own hand, there might have been few who would have greatly cared, or thought him less fit to be king from that cause, but, as it was they were more content, and his fame grew in the mouths of men. David was bringing new ideals, new standards of conduct, to the traditions of tribal monarchy. If Samuel had mad a mistake in his calling of Saul (which is less than proved - he had his use, and his time) he had made none in his second choice.
David did not know at once how the news would be taken in Israel. He was one who, for all his restless imagination, could control himself to wait when his judgment told him that it was best. For a few days, having buried Abner, he did nothing at all.
He talked to Michal, seeking her sympathy, which he did not get. He was as one who will not turn from a fruit of pleasant colour and shape, though he has found it once of a bitter taste. And it had been sweet before that.
She had her father's passionate love of music, and it was that which drew them nearly together again, as it had done at the first, when he had pleased her with harp and song while he idled in the household of Saul. They had met freely then, for Saul's women were not greatly secluded. Saul kept to the ways of the country life to which he had been bred, which had always differed from those of the town.
Recollections softened her mood. She asked him to play a song which had pleased her before. It was not much in itself, but he had given it a good tune. It was the first song he had made, as he had rested in a sycamore glade, having led his flock down from the barren hills. In a later year he would mould it to such a form that it would break all barriers of language and time and race, and give consolation and courage and joy to a hundred millions of men. But he could not guess that.
Now he sang it at her desire. In its first form, it had been no greater than this:
"If Yahweh is my shepherd, I
Not any want shall know.
He leadeth where, his flock to share,
The pleasant grasses grow.
He leadeth where, from uplands bare,
The quiet waters lie.
'Come past,' he saith, 'the Vale of Death,'
And not a fear have I."
It may not have been a great song, as he sang it then, but it had that in its core which would be potent to change the world. It may have been in Abraham's heart at the first, and in Moses' at a later day. But in them it is less easy to see. Moses sowed in a shallow and stubborn soil, and may have known best what it would bear. He gave Israel a god they could understand, though his vision may have been higher than that, when he watched the stars in the night.
It was the first song David had made. We may call it his, or say it came by the inspiration of God if we will, for where else shall we find the source of the aspirations of men? David only thought that he had made a good song, though it was much less than he would have liked it to be, and it was pleasant to hear its praise.
But he had done something greater than that. He had brought a new conception of God to the minds of men.
The shepherd was despised as much by the men of the plough as by those of the city streets. A lazy, loitering life, which was illpaid (unless a man owned the sheep he led, which he seldom did), as it surely deserved to be.
It was a bold metaphor to compare Yahweh to the plier of such a trade, which a priest might have blamed. But the shepherd had his own honour, his own code. He must not come back unscratched, leading a shortened flock. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
From the vision of a tribal god, whose nostrils were pleased with the scent of blood, who could be stirred to a baser than human rage (because from so great a height) by the follies and sins of men: a god jealous of the deities of surrounding tribes, who thundered his wrathful passions across the sky, there rose, like a flower from a heap of dung (showing that it too had been good in its own way) the vision of the shepherd who guards his sheep. The sins and follies of those he made were not to stir him merely to futile or vengeful wrath. They were dangers from which he must save his flock. It would be a thousand years before the idea would be developed in the teaching and demonstrated in the life of one who was of David's blood; but in his song there was the first light of a dawn which would change the hopes and fears of the western world.
The old ideas would persist. Their use was not yet done. David would still celebrate his victories in religious rituals which were foul with the stench of blood, but there would be times when he would draw nearer to God in the night. There would be times when he would see a better path of approach. There would be a mental agony when he would proclaim the truth in immortal words:
For thou desires not sacrifice, else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a brocken spirit: a brocken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
But that song died on a lower note, unless it were mauled by some later scribe, as it is easy to think.
David sang and talked of the older days, and it seemed that Michal's mood had become close to his own, but it changed when he spoke of Joab's crime, and the dishonour to Judah and Judah's king that he thought it to be. It was then that Michal's inward bitterness broke into speech, which she might regret at a later hour, when it would be too late to undo:
"Is it for Abner you vex your mind? Am I to start weeping for him? Do you forget that he would have sold my brother to shame? Do you think of nothing but your own dreams, or only care for your foes? I think you have more love for traitors than for those who are true. Had I seen Joab's sword drawn, I would have put my hand on the hilt to drive it with greater force. Abner had been foe to both sides in turn. Why will you not leave Ishbosheth alone? You are strong enough here. He has done you no wrong. Your fault is that you will not rest. You will break yourself in the end. It will be Moab or Edom next, or the Philistine power. As though we had not had enough trouble from them! I think you would quarrel with Egypt herself, if you could growl over no nearer bone. In the end, you will lose your throne, and your wives will be for the sport of another king, while you are dragged at a chariot's tail. You might have some thought for us! Why do you not rest, being as well placed as you are? Would you bring my brother to death, and ask me to cheer you on?"
David might have made some answer to that. He had not sought to bring Ishbosheth to death. He had been no foe to the house of Saul, though they had been foes to him, having some reason therefor. There was a son of Jonathan who was even now fed at his charge.
As to Ishbosheth, he had scarcely given him thought at all, which may have been what he was worth. He had greater thoughts than to take joy in the fall of so small a king, or that he should crawl at his feet for life, as some tyrants would be likely to do. The fact was that he saw a work waiting his hand which Ishbosheth lacked the imagination to conceive, or the ability to contrive. He was a dead weight to be lifted aside, with such gentleness as could be used to that end. But it was no use to say that. Michal should see that her loyalty should be to him first. If it was not so felt, it would be useless to say.
He recalled the song he had made in the hours when he was waiting before she came.
"Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayst make princes in all the earth."
Well, he had torn that song. He had dreamed, and then waked, facing a fact which he could not change. Michal was going on, her mood being stirred by her own words, as had been the weakness of Saul in his later years.
"I like not your ways nor those of Yahweh, your god. There are other gods beside him. And he may let you down at the last, as he did my father before. I should like to hear what you would say then."
David took her arm in a hard grip. "Listen, Michal. I will have no such words in my house. If you speak them again there will be a woman whipped in this room, as you have said that there ought to be."
Michal looked up at him with eyes in which anger was more than fear, though her arm would be black for a long day.
"You may try that if you will. You will have a knife in your heart. You will make no song about that."
David loosed her arm. He said: "You will find that I do not warn twice." He went out, leaving her no time to reply. He was always weak with women. He should have whipped her then. It was the one chance for those two.
CHAPTER X
MAHANAIM dozed in the heat. It was two hours after the noon of day, and Ishbosheth lay on a bed, as he often would at that time, and most others beside. He had heard that morning of the death of Abner, and was not yet sure whether he should be sorry or glad. Abner had gone to David to betray him, if he could get the price that he sought. Ishbosheth, being a fool, had no doubt that the price had seemed to David more than Abner was worth, and he had ordered his death. He had got what he deserved. Also, he would never want Rizpah again. Ishbosheth resolved that she should be fetched back to his own house. There was satisfaction to this point, but beyond that was a doubt. He might be able to hold Israel (or as much as the Philistines had left in his hands) without Abner's help but even he was not fool enough to think it a likely thing. He had been using such wits as he had to devise bribes which were to have brought Abner back to his own side. Now he felt as one who is in a boat when the rudder breaks. He could not tell what he should do.
But there was no need to lose his rest to decide that. For in Mahanaim he was safe, as Saul had been in his worst hour. Had he stayed there, he would not have died.
Mahanaim was a green gem in a naked land. It was a place of palms and a long pool, among barren hills where some sheep fed. It was twenty miles from Jordan gorge, on the east side, but the way to reach it was much longer than that, for the Jordan ran much of its course as a swift stream in a deep and narrow bed, and its fords were few.
Rocky hills rose behind, where it would be hard to follow those who fled by a known way. Beyond was the Syria desert, where the sand blew for five hundred miles. Few would follow him there. Certainly the Philistines would make no such attempt, nor would David be likely to come so far. If danger threatened, he could disappear by the wilderness ways, finding oases which his nomad followers knew, without which the desert was no better than a quick death. . . . Or he could go north, if he would, to the King of Bashan, who was his friend. Bashan was a rich land, where he would have comfort enough. It stretched far north to the Hermon heights. There was no need to disturb his mind overmuch, even though Abner was gone from his side, and the next year's tributes might not be paid.
He had no fear of surprise, for he had troops who patrolled the land to the west, even as far as the Jordan fords. They were led by two brothers, Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon, a Beerothite of the tribe of Benjamin. They would meet at times at a point where their watches joined. That morning Baanah had let Abner's flying escort pass, when they had told of his death, after which he rode to where he knew that his brother would be.
Now the two men talked awhile, and then turned their horses upon the homeward track, having given certain order to those they led, who rode separate ways.
It was after noon, in the worst heat of the day, when they rode through Mahanaim streets, where few stirred. At the door of the King's house, a guard dozed on a bench in the porch's shade, for what was there to fear?
They roused him, and talked awhile. Rechab had an empty sack over his arm. They said they had come for a measure of wheat, having run short of food. Wheat was scarce in the pasture country of Gad. The King kept the store that was bought for his servants' need in his own house. The guard did not care why they came. If they drew wheat before the appointed date, it was a matter for the King's chamberlain, not for him. He was not surprised when they came out' again in a short time, bearing a full sack.
But when they reached the quiet corridor of the inner house, they had not gone to the store, which was at the back; they had gone to a higher floor, by the women's stairs.
They entered the King's room with their swords drawn. He was half-asleep, and had no time to cry out. He raised himself with a sudden start, to ask "Who is there?" at the sound of footsteps behind his head.
The next moment a sword had entered beneath his heart and there was another across his throat. Few men have the good fortune to reach their end by a shorter road.
The assassins put the severed head in a sack, having first wrapped it in a woollen covering from the King's couch, which would both supply the bulk which the sack should show and avert the risk that blood should soak through. They went out as they came, changing a friendly word with those they passed, who were few. It was two hours before the King's body was found, and they would have been distant beyond reach had any thought to pursue, which none did. Men saw that it was the end of the house of Saul, and each thought for himself, and not much of the headless corpse over which Ishbosheth's women wailed in the customed way.
The sons of Rimmon rode hard on a downward path, meeting none till they came to the Jordan ford, for even to their own men they had given such orders that they were distant to left and right as the evening fell.
When they took the upward path from the western bank they' were faced by a setting sun, but they made no halting for that. They changed horses at a valley farm, not without menace of force if they could not get what they would, but they paid fairly enough, having no will for a wayside strife at that time. They had still eighty miles to go. They rode on through the night.
When they came in sight of Hebron it was the evening of the next day.
Rechab said: "We shall be first with the news. None can have come faster than we, even though the body were soon found. The King should do us much good. He should give us rule in Gad, if no more."
"So he should," Baanah agreed, "and I think he will. Yet I am not free from a little fear. It is hard to guess what a king may do, having little law but his own will. There is a tale of the Amalekite who brought him news of the death of Saul. It is an evil thought to come back to my mind this hour."
"You may call foolish a better word. We are not of an Amalekite blood, but of the Benjamin tribe. We are subjects of him whom we have well served on this day. Besides, it was said that the man lied, seeking reward for that which he had not done, Saul having died by his own hand. Any king would have slain him for that. . . . But if you fear, there is time to turn. I will go alone. There may be more reward for one than for two."
But Baanah would not do that. He said: "We will ask, while we are yet on the outside of the wall, if it be true that Abner died at the gate. If the King ordered that, we can be sure that he will reward a much greater thing."
And so, haying been shown the place where Abner's blood had sunk in the summer dust, they enquired for the King's house, which was easy to find, and when it was known that they had ridden from Mahanaim, bringing news of weight, there was short delay before they were standing in the King's sight, and the sack lay at their feet.
David sat in a chair which was straight-backed and high, and very finely carved. It was raised, so that he must have a footstool to rest his feet, which was the fashion of kings.
There was a group around him of his followers, who wore swords. There was a foreign guard at the door. That was the extent of the state he held at this time, and he was sometimes impatient of that, thinking more of the fact than the flaunt of power. He asked:
"Who are these men?"
Benaiah, who was responsible for those who came to the King's presence, answered, giving their names.
They had not seen David before. They looked up at a man whose face was sanguine and young, having brown-gold hair, and eyes that were very blue. It was a face that could change in a sudden way, as storms alter a summer sky. Now it showed them nothing at all, being set to the manner that kings must learn when they move among men, lest their thoughts be born while they are yet unfit to leave the womb of the mind.
Being raised as he was, he looked to be as large a man as most there, which was more than he would have done in a level place. He was comely and strong, in the confidence of a sanguine and very vigorous youth. There were times when his eyes were as cold as stones, when he could be as cruel as death, but he was one whom children would seldom fear.
Now he looked down on the two men without greeting, but his voice was quiet, and less distant than that of such a king would be likely to be. He was one who would treat all men as his friends till he found cause for another tone.
"You have ridden far. What does the sack hold?"
The question made an end of what they had meant to say. It brought them at once to that which they would have disclosed by a longer road.
Rechab answered, being the more confident of the two "Lord, we bring the head of thy greatest foe."
That had a good sound. Baanah looked more at ease.
The King said: "Then it was by no order of mine. Yet you may have done well. Let me see who he is."
His greatest foe! There were so many of them. He had a doubt as to who might claim that name with the best right. Then he had a whimsical thought in which his foes watched the mouth of the sack, each fearing that it must be his own head that it was about to show.
Baanah, fumbling at the cord, which had been well tied, saw that his lips smiled, and loosed it with a better heart than before.
There came out a mess of cloth, held together by clotted blood. Baanah pulled it apart, till Ishbosheth's head fell to the floor. David did not know it at first. He had not seen it for ten years, and then it had been younger, and had differed in other ways.
He asked: "Who is he?" But before they answered, he guessed. He added: "By whose hand did he die?"
"Lord, I stabbed him the while he slept."
"Lord, by mine. I cut off his head. He had cried out had he been stabbed before that."
They spoke as one, and then their boasts died, as the smile had done from the King's face.
"Now, by the life of Yahweh!" he said (which was a favourite oath with him when he was much moved), "by him who hath brought me through every storm to this throne where I now sit, know you that there was a man two years ago who came to Ziklag on running feet, saying that Saul was dead? He thought himself to be a bringer of good tidings, as you do today. I gave orders to a man near, that he slew him before me there. . . . Nay, Benaiah, not here. There is a fitter place." (For Benaiah's sword had come out, he being used to watch the King's face, and it being his part to deal with those whom David condemned, which was most often done in a sudden way.) "That was the reward I gave him. So what is fitting for you?"
Baanah answered to that, and as he spoke he trembled as one that an ague shook. "Lord, he was not as we. Who but Saul would let an Amalekite live?"
It was shrewdly thought. The Amalekite was considered less than a man or a clean beast. There were reasons for that, as for all else. It had been the cause of Samuel's worst quarrel with Saul that he had let an Amalekite live. It is significant of the quality of the Transjordanian levies that were defeated on Mount Gilboa that there should have been such a man in their ranks.
Rechab spoke with more courage. He thought that David's question was no more than a cruel jest, such as kings would try at times, to see how those to whom they spoke would endure their fear. It was a riddle, for them to find the answer while the shadow of death lay across their minds.
"Lord," he said, "I can guess that. It was because the man lied. It is a common tale that he did not kill Saul, who died in another way."
David did not regard the men or their words. He did not give them another glance. He answered Benaiah's look with the words: "Yes. But not here. Take them down to the sewer."
The men looked round to the door, but there was no hope in that. The Pelethites guarded it well. They had no hope to resist, for their weapons had been laid aside when they came to the King's sight, as was the common rule at that day. They would have begged, but they had no time. Each a them found, as the King spoke, that there was a man on either side grasping his arms, which were forced back so that wrists might be tied behind.
As they were dragged through the door, calling for mercy, and making such struggles as they yet could, being so bound, David's voice rose over the din:
"Benaiah, you shall cut them up well, and hang their limbs in a row. I will have men remember the thing I do."
Benaiah had no objection to that. When they came to the city sewer, which was without the gates, being a pool from which a stream ran down the hills, and away from the houses of men, he cut off their heads, and disjointed their limbs, having in the end twelve pieces of men which could be hanged in a row, and which would soon be no more than bones when the crows came, all that he did being watched by a good crowd.
If any had told the King that it was a barbarous order to give, he would have been a puzzled man. It did no hurt to those who were dead. A child could see that. It was an example by which the living might learn much. That should be the aim of a merciful king. He would not have understood that it may be right to put men to death behind a thick wall but not where they can be seen as they die.
The King's wives watched from the roof. They had heard much, though they had not been seen in the hall. There were five of them upon the roof, to watch the men being hauled away.
Abigail watched with satisfaction. She was always glad when David did the right thing in a firm way. She thought his weakness cam when he delayed, looking at all sides, by which resolution falters, and may betray.
Maachah had the same feeling, but her thought went further abroad. It went around and ahead, for she was born of a race of kings. Would this end in David getting a double crown? What would the Philistines do? What would Egypt say about that? Would Damascus stir? She put Bashan aside. Their king was known for an easy man who loved peace, who would be friendly with all. Besides, he would be ruled by that which Damascus did. . . . She saw that David played for a double realm. But suppose he should lose that which he had - should lose Absalom's crown? For so she thought of it in her secret heart. But she had good hope, for she had seen that David was a bold and fortunate king. And she saw the wisdom of putting those men to death in a public way. She was not concerned either for right or wrong. She thought in a cold blood, and in politic ways, which may be why David and she were not held in a closer bond. But she saw again that she was the wife of a great king - and the mother of the two best children he had. So she had made her boast to him, which he did not deny. What could you expect? She came of a higher race. The skins of her children were whiter and smoother than those of the Hebrew blood: their bodies more finely formed. Absalom's hair would reach to the ground if it were not cut. She thought that David grew more fond of him every week. . . . Well, if there must be war, she could make sure that Geshur would stand aside, and the Gittites were David's friends. She though of one who could spy for her in Askelon in a safe way, and bring news if there were arming of men. She was the only one of his wives who gave David active aid in the troubled politics of the time, thinking, it may be, of her children, rather than him as many women will do.
Michal looked down with a frown which did not change as the men went out of sight at the turn of the narrow street. She was glad that they were to die. But her thoughts were on a brother whom she knew that she loved now he was dead, though in life she had thought him a poor thing.
Abner dead. Ishbosheth dead. The last hopes of her house fell to the dust. And David stood apart, with his hands clean, to pick the fruit of their deaths. So it always was. Those who stood in his way came to their ends, and he slew those by whom they died. He sang dirges upon their graves, and took their clothes for his own back, and men praised him the more.
They said it was by the will of Yahweh, his god, that his foes fell. Well, if that were true, she hated Yahweh and him. Was not the path of life sombre enough for the sons of men, without a god laying nets for their feet that they could not miss?
Ahinoam looked down on the little group of those who dragged two to death, and her thoughts were of lower kind. She wished she could have gone to see this slaughter beside the sewer pool. But she was lazy, and David might not approve. It was a nuisance that you could never tell what he would say. It was higher sport to watch the slaughter of men than that of the bulls that the priests would kill in the sight of the congregation on Sabbath days, because the men knew the fate to which they were brought, which you could not be sure that the bulls did. . . . Anyway, she would let Amnon go. It was a shame that he should not have all the amusement he could. She looked round for a concubine who was not there. She was too lazy to move. Amnon went on with his own play in a lower room. It was of a kind that his mother would not have checked. He killed oxen to the glory of several gods. . . .
David ordered that the head of Ishbosheth should be buried with honour in Abner's grave. It was an act which men praised, increasing David's honour rather than that of the murdered king. It is undignified to be buried in two pieces, three days' journey apart. Someone quoted David's song over other members of Ishbosheth's family. "In their deaths they were not divided," and men smiled at the jest. It was a poor end to the dominion of Saul.
CHAPTER XI
THE Elders of Israel assembled in Hebron, having travelled quietly, by different roads, as it was most prudent to do