Bathsheba (29 page)

He moved through the gardens to the door adjoining hers, opened it slowly, and walked among the almond trees to the door of her apartment. The sound of soft singing made him pause and listen to the sweet beauty of her voice. All anger seeped from him, and when he entered the apartment without knocking, his gaze captured hers where she sat in her sitting room, the babe nursing in her arms. Her smile drove all confusion and frustration from his heart. In two strides he stood over her, looking down on their son.

“I should have come sooner.” He bent low to pull the soft linen from the babe’s dark hair, careful not to touch her during her uncleanness.

“I’m glad you’re here now.” Her smile again took his breath. How beautiful she was, even hours after giving birth! Not fragile like Abigail had been, or disheveled as Maacah or Ahinoam or most of his other wives. “Do you want to hold your son?” Her voice, soft like a caress, drew him to her, to accept the child into his arms.

“He’s beautiful, like his mother.” He gazed into the baby’s liquid eyes and kissed his downy head. “What will you name him?”

“I was hoping you would help me decide.” Her dark eyes were luminous, and for a brief moment a flicker of sadness swept through them.

David shifted the babe against his chest, but when he rooted, looking for milk, he chuckled and handed him back to his mother. “It is not me he wants.” He longed to touch her, to pull her close and restore what he had once had with her so briefly that first night. “We have until the eighth day to name him. There is no rush.”

Neither of them wanted to name the child Uriah. He could sense it in her look, in the melancholy that passed between them. “Perhaps Eliam, after my father.” She spoke with a certain resignation, and he sensed that pleasing her father was not as important to her as pleasing him.

“Eliam is a good name. Easier to say than Ahithophel.”

She laughed and he joined her, the music of the sound lifting his soul. “Don’t let my grandfather hear you say that.”

“I won’t.” Their gazes met and held, the silence between them bittersweet, and for the first time in many months he felt a stirring in his heart, a yearning for something more in a wife—something even more than he’d known with Michal in the early years or Abigail more recently. Could Bathsheba give it to him?

“If I do not think of a better name by the time of his circumcision, we will call him after my father. It will please him.” Her wistful look told him her father was not one she had easily pleased in the past. David vowed that he would never be so difficult to please in her future.

“I will give the name some thought as well.” He bent closer and lowered his hand to her hair, but thought better of it and pulled back, not wanting to break yet another law and add to his guilt. “Thank you for my son,” he whispered, knowing in that moment that he was more grateful for this child than any who had gone before, because of what his mother had gone through to bring him forth. “I will raise him up to sit at my right hand. I will always protect you and him, no matter what.” The promise grew in strength as he spoke the words, and he knew the future would prove how hard such a promise would be to keep. But he could not, would not, let court gossip ruin his son’s future or damage this woman, who was ever so slowly twining herself around the fabric of his heart.

“Thank you, David.” His name on her tongue sounded like a song.

The babe whimpered, making his presence known. David chuckled. “It seems you are needed elsewhere.” The aroma in the room quickly changed from sweet to acrid, a reminder of the ever-changing scents of an infant. He looked down on his new wife and son and smiled. “I must head to court. I will come again later.”

He touched the top of the child’s head, then turned and walked back the way he had come, feeling better than he had in a long time. Surely the pain of grief was past. Humming a tune, he entered his chambers, dressed in his royal robes, and headed to court.

David dismissed the last case before the midday meal and rose from his gilded throne. He’d quickly grown weary of listening to the complaints of others and was anxious to peek in on Bathsheba and his son once more. He walked to the side table, where his counselors sat, to invite Ahithophel to join him, to bless the child on his knee, but a commotion at the door to the audience chamber drew his attention back to court. He turned and took a few steps toward his throne again.

The prophet Nathan strode with purpose, back straight, eyes dark and clear as he came to stand in the place of the accuser, to the right side of the throne. David’s stomach did a wild flip at the sight of the Nazarite disciple of Samuel, the man who had brought the word of Adonai to him on more than one occasion.

Why had he come? Deep wariness swept through him as he met Nathan’s solemn gaze, those dark eyes probing, assessing, seeing things David did not wish to reveal. Did he know?

A shudder, uncontrolled and unwanted, rushed through him at the thought, and he almost staggered as Nathan closed the distance and bowed before him. The action, so familiar, suddenly felt uncomfortable.

“Nathan, my friend, how do you fare this fine day?” He spoke lightly, though his thoughts were heavy and sluggish.

“My lord king, there is a matter on which I would seek your judgment.”

David gave a slight nod, willing himself not to give vent to the relief such words evoked. He moved to the steps and sat back on his throne, facing Nathan. “I will hear it.”

Nathan dipped his head. “Thank you, my lord.” He paused, leaning heavily on his staff as though he needed the stick to give him strength, despite his vigor.

“There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.”

The room grew still, every ear attuned to the tale. David’s heart returned to a normal rhythm, and he relaxed against the chair.

“The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.”

His interest piqued, David leaned slightly forward, images of his own small flock, his favorite lambs, flicking through his thoughts.

“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.” Nathan paused, and David’s chest tightened, dreading the next words, his anger already flaring in anticipation.

“Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” Nathan’s look never wavered, his final words piercing, heightening David’s sense of justice.

“Murderer!” David leaned forward, pointing his scepter toward the place where the condemned usually stood. How dare the rich man do such a thing! Never mind that the victim was an animal, not a man. Rage exploded from a place deep within him where all of the bitterness and frustration of the past months dwelt. “As surely as Adonai lives,” he said, looking squarely at Nathan, “the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Nathan stood silent as murmurs of agreement with the king’s judgment filled the hall. His gaze seemed rooted to the tiles beneath his dusty feet as the sounds died away. David’s anger melted to dread, his breath heavy, anxious. Why did the prophet not speak?

Nathan’s chest lifted in an audible sigh, and he looked up once more, his eyes fixed solely on David, bold, unflinching, penetrating to the pit of David’s soul.

He lifted a finger and pointed to David. “You are the man!”

His voice rang in the room, the words a dagger to David’s heart. Bile rose in his gut, churning, nauseating him.

“This is what Adonai, El Yisrael, says.”

David sank deeper into the chair.

“ ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.’ ”

Oh, Adonai, what have I done?

“ ‘Why did you despise the word of Adonai by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ ”

Every word was a stinging arrow sinking deep, rending David’s heart open and laying it bare.

Adonai, forgive me!

“This is what Adonai says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ”

Strength drained from him, but David forced himself up on wobbly knees. He stumbled forward, down the steps from his throne—a throne he was no longer worthy to sit upon—and moved to the place of judgment where he, as the rich man, knew he deserved to stand. He removed the crown from his head and undid the gilded belt at his waist, letting the richly ornamented royal robe fall to the tiles. Bending low, he untied the jeweled sandals—another evidence of his wealth, of the blessing God had given that he had so easily despised—and slipped them from his feet.

Guilt so deep he could not dig it out, shame so profound he could not express it, heated his blood, his face, weakening him. He sank to the tiles and spread his hands out, palms open in front of him.

“I have sinned against Adonai.” He bowed his head, great sobs working through him, and he was powerless to stop them. Images of Uriah’s trusting face floated before him, and Bathsheba’s innocent grief.
Oh, Adonai, if it is possible, forgive Your servant’s guilt.
He could no longer bear the weight of it. He knew that now. Adonai’s hand had been on him from the first moment of his sin, wooing him through sleepless nights and a guilty conscience, and he had not listened.

What have I done? Please spare Bathsheba the fate Your law demands.
He deserved to die. He would bear her punishment. He deserved nothing less.

He heard Nathan’s footsteps and sensed the man kneeling at his side, felt a hand on his head. “Adonai has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.” His voice held compassion, and he drew David up again, to his knees.

David averted his gaze, ashamed to look on the prophet, a man who had once been his friend as Samuel had been. His heart rent again at the thought of Samuel and how deeply his sin would have disappointed the man. He could not look at his sons or his counselors or the servants who had so faithfully obeyed his every word. He studied the tiles instead.

“David.” Nathan’s tone changed, forcing David’s gaze upward. He braced himself for a blow. “Adonai has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of Adonai show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”

Oh, God . . . please, no!
He closed his eyes, reeling with the pronouncement. Was it mercy that he lived at his son’s expense?
Adonai, Adonai, take me instead!

The room, silent in the presence of Nathan’s proclamation, slowly grew to a low hum with the buzz of many voices. The secret he had worked so hard to keep, Adonai had laid bare in an instant. How could he have ever thought to keep anything from El Roi, the God Who Sees? And when had he become so proud, so arrogant, as to think he was incapable of falling from Adonai’s favor? He could not recall the last time he had read the law or penned a song of worship. Not since Abigail’s death. He had been walking in his own misery and self-serving pity ever since.

Nathan touched a hand to his shoulder, and David looked into the prophet’s kind gaze, feeling chastened, and yet somehow . . . loved. The prophet’s grief and regret were palpable, but there was no undoing what had been done.

He accepted Nathan’s hand and stood, surprised when Nathan bent forward and kissed both cheeks, as if he would restore him then and there. Nathan bent to retrieve David’s crown and placed it once more on his head.

Tears blurred David’s vision as Nathan turned to leave. David watched him go, then moved to the side door, head bowed, and walked slowly out of the room.