The King’s Daughter

by Tala Bar

Table of Contents
Synopsis
Chapter 7, part 2 appears
in this issue.

Chapter 7: Yonatan

part 3 of 3

* * *

Only the next day, when we were halfway to Giv’at Sha’ul, David told us what had happened that night. “The seer anointed me as King in the name of Yhwh,” he opened.

“What?” Astounded, Yonatan stopped on his way. “When? How?”

“Last night. The boy came and awakened me, took me to Shemu’el’s room. The seer took a jug of oil, poured some on my head, murmured some blessing or prayer and told me he was anointing me in the name of Yhwh.”

“But what does it mean? What is the significance of that action?”

David laughed suddenly, as if released from some internal tension. I wanted to laugh with him but could not. Yonatan said darkly, “I don’t think it’s funny.”

David became serious again, stretched his arm to embrace his friend. Yonatan submitted to the embrace. Then David stretched his other arm to me, and the three of us stood hugged together for a little while. When we separated, he said, “Listen, we’d better keep it a secret. At the moment, that action has no significance. Sha’ul is King of Israel, and I have no intention — nor any ability — to take his place. If the seer finds it necessary to demonstrate the greatness of Yhwh above Ashtoret, let him enjoy his ideas in secret. I have no doubt he does not mean to commit treason against the kingship, and I certainly don’t mean to do it. Don’t I have a young, lovely wife to look after?” he turned to me.

I fell into his arms and he kissed me on the lips. “Tonight we shall love properly, at last,” he whispered in my ear, tickling it with his tongue, making me convulse with laughter.

The tension evaporated, and Yonatan expressed his joy for our marriage.

We stayed the night on the way. The air was cold and clear, the sky dark, no moon in it but a myriad of sparkling stars. We wrapped ourselves in the blankets, and I could only pity my brother who slept alone. For my man kept me warm, occasionally hot, throughout the night, with no break for thoughts.

My usual place of habitation in Giv’at Sha’ul had been at the house intended for single women and older girls of the royal family. David used to sleep with the King’s servant when he had not joined this or that couch for the night. When we came back from Shiloh, Yonatan saw to a special room for me, saying I was old enough and deserved to keep my privacy. At first, David came to me only at night; but as people noticed he was coming out of my room every morning, the secret of our marriage was revealed. For a little while we were able to keep it from Sha’ul, whose mind was usually too absorbed to pay much attention.

At that period, my father had begun meditating on the prophecy he had heard from the Three Asses’ Oracle before his initial coronation. Again and again he would announce the Sybils’ words, shouting aloud one expression or the other, embarrassing his audience, who did not know what to make of it. Then he would sink into deep depression, ignoring his surroundings completely.

* * *

David resumed his playing for Sha’ul, causing him to recover for periods of lucidity, sometimes even getting him into a state of an unnatural joy. At one of these happy periods Yonatan decided to take a risk and reveal the secret of my marriage to his father. The reaction was astonishing, alarming in its force. The King at once went through a frightening change: all the hate and resentment that had accumulated in his heart, which had never been expressed to the full even at the height of his madness, gushed out like a fury out of hell.

Sha’ul had never known hate. He had resented the idea of his sacrifice, but while fearing the goddess who had demanded his death, he still loved and adored her. But hearing about my marriage to David, he actually saw the symbol of his own replacement in the golden figure of his unwanted son-in-law, as he had never seen in his own son. At that moment the King had turned into a mass of anger directed at David, wanting to kill him on the spot. Luckily, my husband was not near him at the time.

What could I do? I was torn between my two loves, for my father and for David, while the love for my brother acted as a mediator. Then I noticed that my brother was more loyal to his lover than to his father and King, and I began to mourn for Sha’ul even before his death.

* * *

A few days passed, when all three of us avoided seeing Sha’ul. One day, when we still saw no outlet for that impossible situation, we met by arrangement at the same place David and I used to meet before our marriage. We came there separately to avoid notice, and sat on boulders cleared from the field.

“The next sacrificial victim will have to be Sha’ul,” Yonatan said sadly, with his face down, as if talking to himself, “but I cannot insure its taking place.”

“Yonatan thinks we’ll have to get away for a while,” David turned to me.

I looked at him. His own eyes had a faraway look I had never seen before, as if he was gazing toward a hidden future. I turned to look at Yonatan. “Where should we go?”

You could stay for a while at Beit Lehem, I suppose.” His face had shrunk, full of pain, his blue eyes had assumed a sorrowful grey tint.

“But what about you?” I asked, worried.

“My place is here, by my father.”

We had come to no conclusion. At night I clung to my husband in a fervor of desire and despair. When he fell asleep, I lay awake for a long time, thinking about him and about my father. I did not know whether Sha’ul’s hate for David was spontaneous and unreasonable, a madman’s hate; or whether it was a jealous premonition for the man who was about to take his place. I wonder if he had a vision of the war which was going to ensue between the house of Sha’ul and the house of David, and the total annihilation of the former. It was clear, however, that the King was determined to get rid of the man whom he had envisaged as his greatest enemy.

* * *

Yonatan was right. A repeated demand came from the temple of Naaman for a true sacrifice, not a replacement. The victim this time could only be Sha’ul himself, before he grew too old and deformed, completely unfit to go on the altar. Seeing Yonatan standing by his undesirable friend, Sha’ul was even ready to sacrifice his last and favorite son from Re’uma; but the people ransomed Yonatan, regarding him as most suitable to be king after Sha’ul. That attitude must have added to the rift created between Sha’ul and Yonatan.

Sha’ul, of course, had other sons. One of them was Ritzpa’s little baby boy, who, as the son of a concubine, was not important enough to pacify Ashtoret’s worshipers as a scapegoat for the King; the other was my full brother Ishbaal, who was on the verge of maturity at the time.

But Ishbaal could never serve as a victim of the Goddess, because he was born an albino. More than anything else he was sacred to the Moon goddess, reflecting her essence in the bright white color of his skin and hair. As such, he was considered an invalid, either too unclean or too holy to go on the altar: sacrificing him would be as absurd as sacrificing the Goddess to herself.

When the people had ransomed Yonatan, Sha’ul wanted to sacrifice David. By seeing in him a suitable victim, the King acknowledged David as family; but at the same time he rejected David’s marriage to his youngest daughter, which granted him a right to the throne. In this attitude, the whole state of contradiction in Sha’ul’s heart was apparent.

What Sha’ul wanted was to eliminate the man he had regarded as his enemy. However, the moment the thought of making use of the sacred sacrifice for the purpose of eliminating an enemy had entered his heart, he at once initiated the possibility of using sacrifice as a means for political or personal murder.

* * *

In the end, when spring came and our marriage had completed a full year of existence, no wedding procession took place at all. Ahino’am arrived at Giv’at Sha’ul with all the usual paraphernalia, on a day which was particularly bad for Sha’ul.

His state of health had been worsening throughout that winter, and as the days grew longer, as the rains decreased and the weather warmed up, his fits of rage had increased and his outbursts had multiplied. The priestess tried to calm him down, touching his head, his face, his chest with her cool hands; but he pushed her away, crying out in bitterness and resentment. He was given a potion which he splashed in her face — I was present at the event and was stunned like everyone else at the sacrilege. Ahino’am did not say a word. The look in her eyes, I thought, as some of the mist in them cleared, was full of Deeply felt sadness. She stood there for a moment without wiping her wet face. Then she turned and left with her entourage, never to return to Giv’at Sha’ul again. A week later, Yonatan approached me while I was working in the field with the reapers of barley. “Where is David?” he asked.

“Went out hunting. Why? What’s happened?”

“You have to be ready; the King is planning something wicked.”

In the evening David returned, tired and bitter from a failed hunting trip. I came back from the field and tried to calm him down with a good meal and soft caresses, and then Yonatan appeared at the door. “Leave everything, you must get away,” he said very quietly. “The King is sending killers who may attack even tonight.”

“Leave everything? Where shall we go? David, I’m afraid!” I clung to my husband.

Absently, his arms encircled my waist, but his face was turned to Yonatan. “This is the moment? You know for sure?”

Yonatan seemed to me very calm, too calm for my liking. His face was pale, his eyes dim.

“The moment for what?” I asked, but no one bothered to answer. “David, where can we run to?”

At last, he turned to me. “Not we, I. You are staying here.”

“Staying here! I am not staying anywhere without you! You know I can’t live without you!” The tears flowed down my cheeks. I kissed his face, and he wiped the moisture off.

“I can’t take you with me, Mikhal. You must understand. Tell her, Yonatan.”

Yonatan scrutinized his friend and lover for a while before turning to me. “He is right, Mikhal, he can’t take you with him.” His voice was as dull as death.

My tears stopped, my heart died. With an effort, I removed myself from David, for the last time looked at the golden head, into the water-green enchanting eyes. For the last time I absorbed the look of his sturdy body, the golden down on his arms. What happiness have I experienced in the bosom of this body! The pain was excrutiating. I turned my gaze away.

At night, when the men knocked at the door, he had long gone. In his place, I had in my bed the image of Ashtoret, which I am now holding in my arms. “What do you want? Don’t wake the King’s son-in-law!” I cried out to them.

They took a look at the covered image and left. I was left alone.

David became a fugitive, with no home or shelter. Even his family at Beit Lehem preferred not to take him back, so as not to attract the attention of the King of Israel. His older brothers had never liked him; but his sister Tzeruya, many years his senior, and her three sons, who were only slightly younger than David, loved him dearly. These three became his constant companions in his flight, and led his army when he became King.

* * *

That year, as there was no celebration of the Sacred Marriage, there was also no point in celebrating the sacrifice of Naaman. As a result, as the Goddess’s followers saw it, bad luck took hold of the land, and nobody knew how to atone before Ashtoret. That was the beginning of the end of her rule over Israel.

David’s flight was no great help to Sha’ul. The King dedicated his last years to the failing attempts at capturing and destroying his son-in-law, completely forsaking the kingdom’s business. He was lucky that Yonatan could fill his place, acting in anything but name as a judge and king.

A distance formed between my half-brother and myself, the two abandoned lovers. In time of trouble, we were unable to comfort each other, to share our sorrow. It was Maakha, worried about my health, who intervened after a few months, calling Yonatan to her side.

“You must marry Mikhal off,” she told him with no ambiguous hesitations.

“But she is married to David!” He objected.

“David is not a husband, he is a homeless fugitive. Mikhal needs a man and a home of her own, so as not to be exploited as Sha’ul’s heiress.”

“I suppose you’ve already thought of a man, Grandmother,” Yonatan asked, sarcastically.

“Of course I have. Who but me thinks in this house? I want you to give her to Palti Ben Lyish.”

“Palti Ben Lyish? Is that what you call a man?”

“He is more a man, more a human being, than most of the people I know. And he has no pretense for the throne, she will be safe with him.”

“But he is much older than she!”

“It won’t do her any harm, only add to her safety and happiness.”

I heard about that conversation from Yonatan, when he came to announce the family’s decision to give me into the hands of a stranger, an older man whom I had never seen and hardly ever heard of. I knew he was a remote relative of Sha’ul’s family; but, as Maakha had said, he had no pretense for leadership, certainly not for kingship.

I accepted that decree — what else could I do? My fate had always been determined by others, and that time was no different; I had no say in the matter.

To be continued...