The Shepherdess Read online

  “Are you not also God’s creation?”

  Her question brought me up short. I had not thought of myself in that way. “I suppose you have a point.” I lay down on the ground, using my cloak as a mat, and pulled the blanket to my ears. I did not wish to continue the conversation.

  Mica seemed to take the hint and followed my example.

  I did not sleep until I heard the soft snores of the other girls in the cave. Mica was wrong. I might be God’s creation, but I was not beautiful.

  3

  The palace court loomed before our small caravan, dwarfing us in its size, stunning us in its opulence. I had not expected this. But then, I had never traveled any distance from home until now. And I had certainly never seen such wealth.

  The camels lumbered beneath columned gates and came to rest on a tiled courtyard. Gleaming limestone steps led to a columned portico where wide double doors stood shut, and the face of a lion greeted each visitor from the carved wood above their heads. I turned, taking in every facet of the outer palace as my camel dutifully knelt at a command from one of the men. I was barely aware of his hand offered me in my dismount and did not realize my mouth gaped open until Mica touched my shoulder and whispered the knowledge in my ear. I clamped it shut.

  “It is not like anything I imagined,” I whispered back, seeing Mica’s own expression held the awe I felt.

  She nodded. “The gossips did not tell the whole tale.”

  They never did. But I did not say so. Instead, I followed the woman in charge of our care around the back of the palace to a door that she said led to the women’s quarters.

  “You will be given rooms here and beauty treatments for seven days,” she said once we were all settled within the compound. “At the end of the week, the queen will visit the group of you, and those she picks will receive a second interview. It would be in your best interest to try to please her.” She spun on her heel after that, and another group of female servants ushered us to separate rooms.

  The space I was given was bigger than the chamber I’d shared with my younger nieces back home, but it felt odd and strangely discomforting to be so alone. “Am I not to share the room with another?” I asked as a young girl laid fresh linens on a low table and poured water from a pitcher into a golden goblet. She handed it to me.

  “No, my lady. Each candidate has a place of her own. I am afraid it is small compared to the normal rooms of the king’s concubines, but most of you will not be staying.” She turned then and looked the room over, as if making sure she had not forgotten anything. “Are there any more questions you have for me?” she asked, facing me again. She smiled, showing slightly crooked teeth. She was pretty in an odd sort of way, though she was too young to know what beauty she would hold.

  “No. No more questions.” I grasped the water goblet between both hands, feeling the coolness of the water seep from the metal to my fingers. I nearly saw my reflection in the shining gold but did not let my gaze linger. I had plenty of questions, if the truth was known, but I watched the maid leave without voicing them. She had answered most of them when she’d said, “Most of you will not be staying.”

  The week passed so quickly, I had to stop several times a day to remind myself of my surroundings. Mornings were spent eating specially made foods and plenty of fresh water and fruit, then we would take baths in a mixture of goat’s milk and honey. Even our hair and faces were treated with milk and oils from the olive trees and the more rare oil from the coconut palm.

  By week’s end we stood before a eunuch named Kato, the man in charge of the king’s harem. He looked us over as though we were sheep to be sold at market, even forcing us to smile wide so he could inspect our teeth. I found the whole thing ridiculous and nearly choked on a laugh when he drew close enough to smell my breath.

  I did not expect him to ask me to follow him. When he did, I stole a glance at Mica, whose look said, “Didn’t I tell you?” Nissa, another girl from the area near Shunem, followed Kato, and two more I did not recognize. Mica was not chosen, much to my sadness.

  “You will wait here for the queen,” Kato said after he had ushered us down a long hall and into a room large enough to hold a small feast. There were no couches or chairs to sit on, but one glance around the room showed a variety of tapestries and painted objects, as though this was a small treasury. I was to learn much later that it was merely an antechamber to the audience hall.

  “Are you nervous?” Nissa asked after we had waited longer than we expected to.

  I nodded. “I suspect we are all wondering what awaits us in the unknown.” I could tell by the way Nissa held her arms that she could barely keep from shivering in fear. I did not want her to think I didn’t understand, but I truly did not feel as though my life were about to end. I was more interested in studying the painted urns and woven patterns in the tapestries. Such skill to create such beauty! Oh for the time and ability to learn these skills. I had spent too many days in the fields or tending to my sisters-in-laws’ needs and whims to learn the ways of artists. But my heart did not miss the song that seemed to move among the objects, from the paintings on the walls to the wooden stringed instruments standing on display.

  The door opened, catching me by surprise, but as I turned at the hush of the girls’ voices, I saw that we were no longer to be kept waiting. The queen, dressed in royal garments with a thin golden circlet about her thick dark hair, swept into the room with gentle grace.

  The girls quickly bowed before her, faces to the tiles, and I suddenly realized my mistake when I was the only one still standing, staring at her beauty. I sank to my knees and followed the example of the others, but not before catching the hint of a smile on the queen’s beautiful but aging face.

  “Rise, all of you,” the queen said, her voice commanding yet carrying a slight lilt.

  I rose slowly, keeping time with the others, and stood, hands clasped in front of me. I could not keep my gaze from searching hers, though I told myself I would surely be the first one sent away if I did not remember all I had been so quickly taught.

  “One of you will be chosen today, and as soon as your father or brother can be summoned, you will enter the private chambers of my husband to become his wife.” Her kind eyes did not match the tight lines that suddenly appeared around her mouth.

  She looked from one to the other, and when her gaze rested on mine, I gave a slight nod. So there was to be no second interview then. The king’s need for this wife—one of us—must be great for the queen to act in such haste. The thought troubled me.

  “Does this please you?” The queen’s question startled me, but I could smile and nod vigorously as Nissa did when the queen met her gaze. It would please me to serve our king. But it did not please me to wed a man old enough to be my father.

  Bathsheba asked us several more questions and seemed to find great interest in the silent study of our reactions, then one by one she took us to a side room and spoke to us privately. I waited while each of the others completed their interview then left by the door in which we had come.

  At last we were alone. “It seems there is no reason to pull you aside to the smaller room, Abishag.” Her voice had softened, and her tone once again carried the lilt of music, matching that of my heart. I liked her immediately then and offered her a true smile.

  “I am curious about you, Abishag,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. “You are not like the others.”

  I found a sudden need to look at my feet for a lengthy breath, then lifted my gaze once more to meet hers. “I suppose that has been true all of my life, my queen. I wonder, though, why the king needs another wife when he has you?” She smiled despite my audacity. I, on the other hand, covered my mouth, aghast at the words I had allowed to slip past. “I’m sorry,” I hastened to add. “I had no right to speak such words.”

  “On the contrary, my girl. This is precisely why I like you. I could sense honesty in you the moment I walked into the room and you forgot to bow.” She chuckled, bu
t I would not allow myself to do the same, though my heart fluttered at her comment.

  “Forgive me, my queen. This is all so new to me.” I swept my arm in an arc to encompass the room, though I knew she understood I meant the palace, the wealth, and all of Jerusalem.

  “And much more will become new in days to come.” She extended a hand toward me and briefly squeezed mine. “The king does not need another wife so much as he needs a nurse. He is ill, Abishag. And nothing I do or his servants can do will warm him as he once held warmth. In his rooms, braziers glow day and night, and I admit, my body cannot stand the added heat at this time of my life.” Her gaze held mine, and I nodded, though I did not fully understand. Batya had blown hot and cold from time to time. Perhaps that is what she meant.

  “So what exactly would I do as his nurse?” I felt the need to ask something, though I was not sure this question was the right one.

  She touched her chin with a delicate ringed hand as though contemplating her answer. “Whatever he needs, I suppose. Most of all, you will lie beside him as he sleeps and try to draw his ardor. Make him desire you, Abishag, that he might feel warmth once more.”

  Heat crept up my cheeks at her words. How was I to court his desire? Not even Kelila had spoken to me of the ways of men. I learned what little I knew from watching the rams and ewes mate. But I did not share my ignorance. Somehow I hoped the king would tell me.

  “Does the king . . . that is, can the king do the things he once did?” I meant walk and talk and go about his kingly duties, but by Bathsheba’s look, I think she assumed a different train of thought.

  She looked at me, her smile sad. “The king is not as he once was, Abishag. I do not know how many more days God will choose to give him. It may be that you will remain a wife, yet not a wife.” She studied her ringed fingers, and I sensed the subject a painful one. “But rest assured, you will be well provided for all of your days.”

  She bid me farewell then, until the morrow, and I returned to my chambers, where maids waited to whisk me off to yet another beauty treatment. I did not stop to consider the queen’s words or the intent behind them until sleep eluded me and the song faded from my heart.

  Interlude

  Looking back, I often wonder whatever happened to Mica or Nissa or the other girls who were not chosen. Yaron went on to marry my niece Lilach, not long after Dekel signed the agreement that wed me to King David. I will admit the news left an ache in my soul.

  I have never thought it wise to worry over the future or dwell too often on things beyond my control. Perhaps it was the music that I cherished above all. If I allowed grief over my losses or worry to wedge its way into my heart and stay there, the music slipped into shadow, and I lost the sense of beauty.

  For a time, before the seals had fully dried on the marriage ketubah, I moved as one living in a different realm, as though my body had been sent to Egypt or some other foreign land.

  But as I learned to serve the king, and once he promised to keep me a virgin for his son to inherit one day—I assumed he meant Solomon—I found new hope growing within me. This hope mimicked the psalms King David taught to me and the joy I found when Solomon came to visit.

  As the first year passed, I found that I loved King David as a father.

  But sometimes other sons would visit the king’s chambers, and one, Adonijah, carried himself as though he were the king’s intended heir. Tensions always rose in his presence, and I did not like the way he looked at me.

  I was finding this role of wife yet not a wife most troublesome.

  Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, “I will be king.” And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?” He was also a very handsome man, and he was born next after Absalom. He conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest. And they followed Adonijah and helped him. But Zadok the priest and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and Nathan the prophet and Shimei and Rei and David’s mighty men were not with Adonijah.

  Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fattened cattle by the Serpent’s Stone, which is beside En-rogel, and he invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the royal officials of Judah, but he did not invite Nathan the prophet or Benaiah or the mighty men or Solomon his brother.

  1 Kings 1:5–10

  4

  The sound of the door creaking caught my attention. No one allowed it to linger open for long lest the cool air from the outer hall suck the heat from the king’s chambers. I glanced up, and my heart gave the slightest kick at the sight of Solomon in his princely garb. He was alone, without his wife Naamah or their young son.

  My whole body grew warm as he strode into the room, and I knew it was not coming from the fire in the brazier. I tucked the blanket more securely about the king’s shoulders and added a piece of wood to the already blazing fire. Still the king shivered, despite my attempts to warm him.

  “How are you today, Father?” Solomon knelt on the plush wool rug beneath his father’s wrapped feet and kissed the hem of his robe, as careful as I not to disturb the piles of blankets surrounding the king.

  “I am well, my son. Better now that you have come.” King David extended his shaking ringed hand for Solomon to hold and briefly squeeze. Solomon did not kiss the king’s ring as I had seen Adonijah and David’s other sons do. But then Solomon seemed to hold a special bond with his father. The king smiled even as he pulled his hand beneath the covers once more.

  “Are you up to discussing the plans for the temple?” Solomon asked. It was then that I noticed the scroll he had tucked securely into his belt. He pulled it from its hold and held it up for the king to see.

  David nodded. “I would like nothing better.”

  I hurried to bring a small table to set between them so Solomon could spread the parchment before the king, then moved to stand along the wall to listen.

  I learned much in these times and found myself privy to information even some of the king’s own advisors did not know. I was the only wife who did not leave the king’s side unless Bathsheba came to stay with him. Even then, she often bid me remain. We were a strange family—the king and queen, Solomon, his wife and son, together with me, though I told myself I was not really part of this relation. The marriage was simply a formality to allow me to serve the king in such a personal way. He was neither my father nor my husband in the real sense, and Solomon was neither my brother nor my husband. I felt driven and tossed in an aimless sea. Especially when Adonijah came to sit among us.

  “I wondered about gathering more of the precious stones and wood and metals we will need to build this palatial structure, Father. Are you strong enough to call the elders together to request their participation?”

  I studied Solomon as I pondered his question. I barely heard the king’s response, but I knew it would be no different today than every other day that Solomon had asked. What Solomon really wanted to say had more to do with his coronation than gathering funds for the temple. For without the power, all the gold in Jerusalem would not allow him the means to command such a temple be built.

  I shook myself from my wayward thoughts as I noticed Solomon motion me to join them. He inclined his head toward his father, whose head now bobbed forward in sleep. The king often fell into unexpected naps, even when talking with his favorite son.

  I hurried to place another pillow to cradle the king’s head, tucked the blanket more securely about him, and backed slowly away. Solomon stood and bid me walk him to the door.

  “How are you today?” he asked once we were out of the king’s hearing.

  “I am well, thank you.” I smiled, hoping he did not notice the way my cheeks flamed at his nearness. “And you?”

  His shoulders sagged then, surprising me. “He does not see how ill he is.” He glanced toward the center of the room where the king snored softly. “If he does not name an heir soon, there will be war
over the right to wear the crown.”

  His words chilled me, despite the heated room. “Adonijah?” I need say no more.

  He nodded. “I have heard rumors,” he whispered. “I fear my older brother is gaining quite the following, not unlike Absalom.”

  I had heard the tales of Absalom’s treachery. And Adonijah was the next in line who cared to claim David’s crown. “What will you do?”

  He looked beyond me, and his chest lifted in a deep sigh. “I don’t know. I had hoped . . .” His voice trailed off a moment until he looked at me once more. “When I married Naamah, I had hoped my father would also name me co-regent with him. But he saw no need to rush things, in spite of my mother’s suggestions. Then he became ill.”

  “And now the chill drains his energy so that he thinks of little else.” I touched his arm in comfort before realizing what I had done, and quickly removed my hand.

  His smile unnerved me. “You know him well.”

  I studied my feet. “Only a little.”

  His fingers lifted my chin, causing my pulse to jump. “You have a good heart, Abishag.” He released his grip. “If I brought you parchment and ink, would you set down the words to your songs?” He knew I had created songs for his father, as his father had done himself since his youth.

  “I fear I do not know how to write. It is a skill the women of my village had no need to learn.”

  “But as the wife of a king, there is much you should now know,” he said. “I will send the parchment, along with a tutor. Whatever skill you wish to master, you may do so when my father sleeps.”

  His kindness unnerved me. “Thank you, my lord.” I bowed at the waist. I had never been given any training for the sheer pleasure of learning. “There is so much I long to understand.” I laughed softly and he joined me.

  “This is why I like you,” he said, bending closer to my ear. “You long for the things I long for. If only I had the time to seek them.”