Bathsheba (30 page)

27

Bathsheba stirred from a light doze at the sound of her son’s soft whimper. She rose from the bed and lifted his perfect bundled body from the basket on the floor at her side. His face looked flushed in the filtered light coming through the latticed window, but his cries were not lusty enough to bring on the reddening of his skin. She placed a hand on his forehead, jerked it away, then felt his face and neck, unwrapping his swaddled body until every part of his heated skin was exposed.

Fear seized her, turning her insides cold. How was it possible that he was so feverish? He was healthy when she’d laid him down to nap. She’d only closed her eyes for a brief moment. Had she somehow neglected him? Swaddled him too tight?

Panicked, she darted quick glances about the room. “Tirzah!” She bent over the child, his pitiful chest rising and falling, his breaths coming swift, his cries weak. “Tirzah!”

“I’m here, mistress. What’s wrong?” The woman dropped a bundle of fresh linens on a chest beside the bed. “These were dry, I thought we might need them soon—oh, dear one, is he ill?”

“Send for the king. No, wait. Get some tepid water. We will dip the cloths in it and cover his body with them.”

“Yes, my lady.” Tirzah ran from the room, returning moments later carrying a large clay jug of water and more cloths tucked under her arm. “The physician has been called,” she said. She poured water into a bowl, dunked the cloth and wrung it out, and placed it over the baby’s feverish head.

Bathsheba dipped a second cloth into the water and placed it on the baby’s chest. But the child barely moved, and Bathsheba pulled him to her again, trying to get him to open his eyes, to persuade him to eat. Her milk came in a stream, and she coaxed his mouth open to accept the warm liquid, but only a few drops made it down his throat, the rest soaking her tunic.

Tears ran unbidden over her cheeks as servants rushed in and around her. Tirzah knelt at her side.

“What’s wrong with him, Tirzah?” She was crying unashamedly now. “He was well.” What had she done wrong?

The question brought her up short, stealing her breath, renewing the guilt she had carried throughout the months of her pregnancy. She looked at her maid, reading sorrow and a knowingness in the older woman’s concerned gaze.

“You might as well hear the truth, as you will know the extent of it soon enough.” Tirzah’s sturdy hands stroked the child’s gaunt cheek.

Bathsheba swallowed hard, choking back more tears. “What truth? Tell me!” Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep the rising panic from her voice.

“The prophet Nathan came to see the king.” Deep lines formed along Tirzah’s brow. “He knew all about the king’s . . . what the king had done. Adonai had told him, and Nathan said that because the king had killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and taken Uriah’s wife to be his own, he had done evil in the Lord’s eyes, and the child born to you would die.” Tirzah released a rushed breath as though the words were fire to be put out.

Bathsheba felt her insides melt. She dragged in air, every breath a struggle. “No . . .” The word barely escaped past the sobs crushing her throat. “He can’t do this! He wouldn’t . . .” The whispered words felt like shards against her tongue. Of course He could. She and her son should have died months ago beneath a heap of stones.

She pulled her son’s small body to her breast, patting his back, wanting to promise him all would be well. But he barely noticed her touch and made no indication that he was even aware of his surroundings.

Bathsheba shifted him to her lap, and Tirzah placed another cool, damp cloth over his forehead and a second over the rest of his feverish skin. Although Bathsheba stroked the fine hairs on his head, he did not move or look at her.

Please don’t take my baby!
But she knew God was not listening.

She closed her eyes, picturing Uriah’s smiling, handsome face. If David had not sent her husband to war . . . if David had not watched her bathing and called for her . . . if David had confessed his sin to her husband . . . everything could have been different. Even if Uriah had demanded justice, at least she would have died with her child.

Please, Adonai, have mercy.
But she knew there was no mercy. There had never been any mercy. David had shown the least mercy of all. Why should God be any different?

Unexpected, fierce anger rose within her, and she tasted bitter tears. Months of guilt and secrecy and sleepless nights and anguish, and now she would lose the one person she loved most in the world? She choked and coughed, ragged breaths turning to sobs, her anger turning to blame.

She could have said no to the king, could have walked away. He would not have forced her. She knew it in the deepest places in her heart.

So Nathan’s judgment, God’s judgment, was on her as well. David had many other sons. He didn’t need this one like she did. He had many other wives he could turn to when this horror had passed. He didn’t need her either. She was the one who would suffer the most for this.

She wished she could die and take her son’s place.

The scent of almond blossoms wafted through the open windows, and David moved through his chambers to his gardens. His knees nearly buckled as he reached the spot where he had seduced Bathsheba, the hand of guilt like a blow upon his back. He forced himself to keep walking until he reached Bathsheba’s adjacent gardens and let himself inside her adjoining rooms.

But the sobs he heard coming from her bedchamber chilled his blood. So soon? They’d had no time to get to know their son, to choose a name, to bless him on his father’s knee. He moved on leaden feet and came to stand in the arch of the door. Bathsheba’s maid stood over his wife, patting her shoulder, while Bathsheba sat on the edge of the bed, rocking their son back and forth, silent sobs shaking her.

He moved into the room, his heart constricting with her pain. He knelt at her side, placed a hand on his son. Heat from the child’s skin burned to the touch despite the many wet cloths they had placed on him. He met Tirzah’s gaze. “Have you sent for the physician?”

“Yes, my lord.” The woman nodded. “He has come, but there is nothing more we can do.”

David winced at the finality in her tone, the reproach in her gaze. He looked at his wife. “I’m so sorry, beloved.” He placed a hand on her knee, but she flinched, pulling away from him.

“Get away from me!” Her words were brittle, broken, her eyes glowing as though she were the one with the fever. “I should never have let you touch me! They told me what the prophet said.” She clutched the child closer to her, a great gulping cry surging from her. “He can’t die! He’s my only son! He cannot pay for what I have done, for what you did to me. I won’t let him.” She was screaming now, whether at him or at God, he couldn’t tell. But the sharpness of her pain ripped his heart in two.

He looked into her crazed eyes, then backed away, gazing down on the cloth-covered body of his son, so healthy this morning but so sick now, too sick to even wail or whimper.

“Get away from me!” she screamed again, sobbing, and he did not have the strength to fight against her. In another lifetime he would have pulled her close and crushed her sobs against his chest, stroked her back, and whispered comfort into her ear. But he could offer her no comfort now. His voice, impotent against her screams, was silent as he turned and walked from the room. He ducked beneath the arch, half expecting her to throw something at him, but all he heard was the shifting of the mat with the steady rocking of her body, and the hiccuping sobs coming from her ragged throat.

He pushed past Bathsheba’s aunt and cousin as they rushed into the room, and fled into the gardens, past the divider that separated his from hers. He fell onto the smooth stones of the small court where he had wooed her, where his sin had ruined her.

Hot tears bubbled from within him, convulsing him as he found a place beside the path where he could lay in the dirt from which he was made. He longed for death.
Take me instead.
His prayers felt unnatural, no longer the sweet communion he’d once had with Adonai.

He was a child again, deserving of the rod upon his back, a punishment his oldest brother was only too happy to give for his foolishness. The loss of the lamb was costly, and his father too old to teach him the lesson Eliab willingly gave in his place. What he wouldn’t give to feel the sting of that lash in full measure, in place of this loss—for once the child died, he would surely lose Bathsheba as well.

Adonai, have mercy on me!
The prayer nearly choked him. He did not deserve any sort of mercy. But as the hours passed and he lay all night on the ground, he could not help but plead for that which he did not deserve. If not for mercy, who could stand before the Lord? There was none righteous, not even one.

David dozed partway through the night, and when dawn came, he rose and stretched, checked on the child’s status, and returned to lay prostrate once more before the Lord. He paced and knelt and wept and lay facedown again, his prayers like breath.

By the third day, contrition grew to deeper repentance. He searched his heart, appalled at the pride and rebellion he found there. How arrogant he had become! How unlike the days when he was first anointed and sought Adonai with all his heart.

Against You and You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are proved right when You speak and justified when You judge. Save me from bloodguilt, O God. You do not delight in sacrifice or burnt offerings or I would bring it. A broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.