Bathsheba (32 page)

She looked away, unable or unwilling—she wasn’t sure—to hold his tender gaze.

“Why are you here? Haven’t you done enough?” She wanted to fling the words at him as she had done that first night, but her voice would not rise above the whisper of her prayer. She raised a fist to push him away, choking back her emotion, afraid it would billow from her like a raging storm if she let it.

His gentle grip on her hand warmed the frozen places in her heart. “Bathsheba, please.” He spoke softly, as if to an injured child, and gently folded her into his arms. She did not stop him. “I’m sorry, beloved. I have done you great wrong, but don’t send me away. I want you . . . I need you.” His hushed words melted the last of her resolve. She didn’t want to send him away.

He rubbed slow circles over her back as her body grew limp against his chest. He pulled her up to sit beside him on the bench, his arm draped over her shoulders, her head resting against him. Birds chirped in the trees above them, and the wind sang a faint melody in accompaniment.

“We never even named him,” Bathsheba said after a lengthy silence. A soft tremor worked through her, but she would not cry. She had cried every tear she owned in the past months, and couldn’t bear to give in to such emotion yet again. She had no strength left for tears.

“God named him for us.” David’s confident tone brought her head up. She looked into the liquid darkness of his eyes, his gaze affectionate and sad.

“Why did God take him . . . when He should have taken us?” The question had burned in her mind, but she did not expect God to answer.

“Sometimes God allows a substitute to spare a man. The sacrifices are a continual reminder of that fact.”

“Our son was sacrificed on our behalf so we could live? I’d rather die.”

“Our son took our punishment, that is true, but God also did him a favor to spare him the future.” He stroked her cheek, his gaze filled with compassion. “He would not have fared well as a child of adultery. Everyone would have known of his beginnings, and once I am dead and could no longer protect him, men would not have been kind to him.”

“Or to me.” She looked away, but his hand gently drew her gaze back.

“Bathsheba, I cannot know the future. I am not in the place of God that I can say I will always live to protect you.” His jaw set, and a soft glint filled his gaze, as though he spoke with authority beyond his own. “But I promise you that when you bear me another son, that son will one day sit on my throne, and he will live to protect you always.”

Her breath caught. “A son born of my flesh will be king?”

He nodded and bent to kiss her, his lips carrying the salty taste of their mingled tears. “God has forgiven us, beloved. I don’t understand it, but He has.” He kissed her again but held back as though waiting for her to respond.

A sigh escaped and she lifted her mouth to return his kiss, a kiss born of sorrow and shared grief, a kiss to mend what was cracked and shattered.

“Let me comfort you, Bathsheba.” His broken words stirred her even as she questioned how she could long for his love when he had caused her so much grief. She sat immobile, fear and anger warring with longing and forgiveness.

His fingers drew circles on her palm, his gaze unguarded, beseeching, humble. She rose, clasping his hand, and pulled him to his feet. They stood, silence and birdsong whispers between them, their breath mingling again, his deepening kiss heating her blood. She returned it in full, then let him lead her into his chambers.

29

Bathsheba paused in her stitching and placed a protective hand over her extended middle, cradling the child moving inside. The pains had begun that morning after the king sat with her for the first meal and left for court. He’d been attentive in the past nine months, spending most evenings in her company, playing music on his lyre, singing songs of Adonai to her.

The miracle of another pregnancy so soon after the death of her first son still baffled her. Perhaps she had not been barren after all. That God would smile on her again, allowing her to conceive and soon bear the king another child, seemed beyond reason and far more than she deserved. But the truth lay growing within her and would soon take his place in the world.

She glanced at her protruding middle again and rubbed a hand over the hard surface. “Be brave, little one.” She struggled to stand and pace the spacious room, catching sight of her lyre resting against one edge of the couch, where she had left it after David had coaxed her to play along with him. He had given her all the privileges of first wife, requiring little of her, visiting her often. Besides a love of music and of Adonai, they shared something his other wives did not—a common failure, a common grace, and a humility born of sins forgiven.

Your son will one day sit on my throne, to protect you always.
David’s promised words accompanied another birth pang. She drew in a sharp breath and held it, then slowly released.

“Are they close together? How firm is the pain?” Tirzah looked up from her own stitching, making Bathsheba realize she could no longer keep the child’s coming to herself.

“They grow sharper. This is the fourth since the king left.” She glanced at the shadows and light trading shapes across the sheepskin rug. “You’d best send for the midwife.” Bathsheba looked toward the window to the beckoning light and the scents of the almond tree beneath it. “And see if Aunt Talia and Chava will come.”

Wistful longing accompanied the request. She had not seen her aunt or cousin since the babe’s funeral, since the attitudes at court had changed toward her. The king had sensed it too—the accusations, some subtle, some hostile in their expressions and their words, as though she alone were to blame for David’s fall. David did his best to quash the rejection, especially from his other wives and children, reminding them all that he was to blame. But his efforts did not accomplish what he had hoped.

“I will send word, mistress. If they . . . that is, if they won’t come . . . is there anyone else?” Tirzah dropped her mending into a basket on the floor and lifted her stout body with an agility that Bathsheba, in her condition, did not possess. Tirzah hurried to the door of Bathsheba’s chambers.

Bathsheba pressed both hands against the small of her back, counting her breaths. “If they will not come, there is no one else.” At least her maidservant had remained faithful when she could have requested her leave. “Thank you, Tirzah.”

The woman dipped her dark head as though the gratitude embarrassed her. She opened the door and stepped out, addressing the guard who stood watch there, barring entrance to anyone she did not wish to see. “Send word to Hannah to bring the midwife at once. Send a messenger to the house of Matthias the merchant to send his wife and mother-in-law for my mistress’s comfort. And tell the king his son is on the way.”

Tirzah’s commands were cryptic, insistent. She never minded using the authority she’d been given and didn’t mind giving her advice even to the king if he asked. Bathsheba smiled at the thought.

“Yes, mistress.” The guard’s words faded with his stomping feet, and Tirzah came back into the room and shut the door. She scurried to the garden and hefted the water jug brought by servants from the well that morning. Tirzah poured some into a golden cup and handed it to Bathsheba.

After taking a few short sips, Bathsheba set the cup on a low table and moved about the room, pausing at equal intervals to breathe, count, and let the breath slowly out. “This child is coming faster than the last time.”

“But there is still time?” Tirzah’s worried face made Bathsheba want to comfort her.

“We are in a palace with help all around us. You will not have to help me deliver him alone, my friend.” She puffed out heavy breaths as she walked to her bedchamber and glanced at the small table placed under a window, where the king had sat sipping watered wine and eating dates and cheese a few hours ago. The rooms David had portioned for her were spacious for one woman, but once the child came—and if there were more children after that—she would need larger quarters.

She touched her chin, waiting for another birth pang, remembering the gleam in David’s eye as he talked about building a bigger home for her. “I want to keep you close, beloved. Jerusalem has little open space as it is, and I don’t want to travel the length of the city to be with you.” He’d touched her hand in a fond gesture, and his smile had made her feel less like a bloated she-goat and more like the cherished woman he professed to love.

“Perhaps you can extend the palace to absorb the property that belonged to Uriah.” She watched his brows draw together, his look turn contemplative.

“You would not find the memories troubling?” He searched her gaze, squeezing her hand in a gentle embrace.

“I would not have to be the one to use those rooms. Perhaps the women’s quarters could be rearranged to extend my quarters here.” The thought of living away from him chilled her. She did not want to lose her privileged place. “If it please you, my lord, I would live in a hut to be near you. Don’t send your servant away.”

He averted his gaze, as though pierced by a memory of something she could not share. His handsome face softened when he looked at her at last. “I won’t send you away, beloved. Not ever.” He squeezed her hand and she watched his throat move as he swallowed hard.

Another pain, much stronger this time, jolted her from the memories. Voices came from her sitting room as servants accompanied by the midwife moved about, making the place into a birthing room.

Shadows darkened the room when Aunt Talia and Chava appeared at her door, in time for her son to burst forth from within her. His cry silenced the chattering women, the strength of it filling Bathsheba’s heart with wild joy.

“He’s perfect, Bathsheba. He looks like his father.” Chava touched Bathsheba’s shoulders, supporting her back as she expelled the afterbirth, while Aunt Talia helped the midwife clean and wrap the child.

“Thank you.” She glanced back at her cousin, exhausted. “I’ve missed you.”

Chava bit her lower lip and nodded. “As have I—missed you, I mean. Matthias thought it best that I stay away, especially after the things Grandfather said to him.” She put a hand to her mouth, and Bathsheba knew her cousin had said far more than she intended.

“I’m too tired to deal with Sabba’s bitterness right now.” She leaned back, allowing the midwife to pull the sheets from beneath her and bathe her with cloths. The scent of rose water and mint slowly masked the heavier scents of blood and sweat. “But soon we will talk, and you must tell me what he said.” She turned, catching Chava’s chagrined gaze.

“It will be as you say.” Her cousin seemed uncertain with her now that she was wife to the king. Whereas at first Chava had thought her somehow special to have gained the king’s attention, now she seemed unsure of how to act around her, as though she were too high and Chava too low to meet as friends.

Bathsheba sighed, wondering if things would ever be the same between them. She took her son from Aunt Talia’s outstretched hands.

“He’s a beautiful boy, dear one,” Aunt Talia said. “You have every reason to be proud. You have graced the king with a handsome son.”

“Perhaps, then,” a male voice said, startling her, “you could let the king bless his son on his knee.” She turned to see David still dressed in his kingly robes, standing in the arch of the door to her gardens.

Aunt Talia and Chava bowed low at his entrance, and Bathsheba’s heart swelled with love for him. If what Tirzah heard from the gossips was true, the king did not always visit a wife so soon after a birth or bless each child only moments after his entrance into the world. Sometimes he waited to give the blessing until the eighth day when the boy was circumcised. His presence here with her now spoke more than many words.