“The king’s ship has returned.”
“You saw it?”
“I heard, in the marketplace.”
“They left only last week.”
“It must have been a small battle.”
“That does not mean my husband is home.” My voice was sharper than I meant it to be.
“The king would not return home from battle without his Thirty.”
I shook my head, but a bird fluttered in my stomach.
I could not eat at dinner that night. After the other servants left, Abi leaned close to me and said, “Let mistress bathe on the roof this night. I will re-channel the water to the bath and bring spices . . .”
“Why is he not here, Abi?”
“When he comes, your husband will be desirous of your beauty,” Abi tittered. “So let mistress beautify herself.”
I nodded and went to the roof in a robe. I sank into the warm water and felt the minerals caress my skin. The sun set and stars appeared like diamonds sown in velvet. Closing my eyes, I remembered the first time the man who would become my husband had kissed me, and how the other suitors had felt the difference between us the next day and left one by one.
The door to the roof banged open. I turned and saw two of the royal guard, robed in red with crackling energy spears, standing at the entrance to the roof. Abi cowered behind them. One of them motioned with his spear. I suddenly felt very cold.
“Let me dress,” I stammered. “Wait downstairs.”
Neither of their masks moved.
I stood with my back to them and slipped into my robe. I shivered as I followed them down the stairs, through the bedroom I shared with my husband and out into the street where the stone bit my bare feet. I crossed my arms over my breasts and put my head down so I would not have to look at the people staring at me from inside their windows.
Through endless streets, I followed until I was led to a great, silver wall. One guard placed his palm on it and a door opened where I had seen only unbroken metal. We went through a garden of plants I had never seen before (and which I now know do not grow on our world). Then through corridor after corridor, silent and empty.
Finally, the guards stopped at a door. They touched their spears, and in their crackling radiance, a door opened into a dark chamber. One prodded me forward with the butt of his spear. The door closed behind me.
I stood in darkness.
A faint light shone and I saw a large bed. Then I felt his hands on me, pushing me toward the bed, pulling my robe from me, holding me down. I gasped when I saw the face I had seen on so many coins, the face of the man who sometimes spoke to the people from the palace, the face of the man my husband fought for.
I screamed, but the King put his hand over my mouth as he climbed on top of me.
***
Abi did not speak to me as she combed my hair the next evening, or the evening after that. On the third, she said in a low voice, “Mistress should eat something.”
I sat in front of my mirror and watched Abi’s quick movements and said nothing. When she left, I stared into the mirror at the face many had called beautiful. The face stared back as a tear slid down one cheek. I turned away and called Abi back into the room. She opened the door so quickly that she must have been waiting outside.
“The King has returned from battle,” I said.
“Yes, mistress.”
“The King would never leave his troops to war and death unless the battle was an easy one. The King would never do such a thing.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“Then let us prepare for the return of the master of this house.”
“Mistress . . . what happened?”
“We begin tomorrow, Abi.”
“Yes, mistress.” She bowed and shut the door.
I woke the next day before any of the household servants and banged on their doors to rouse them. Abi bought flowers from the market, roses and orchids and the shushanim which commoners call lilies, which are not native to the soil of Eretz. I commanded the spirit of the home to mix the color of the walls so they resembled the red and orange and green of my husband’s native world Hati. We restocked the wine cellar, spending more shekels than ever before on fine wine. As days stretched into weeks, I decorated and re-decorated. But still the ships did not return.
One evening, Abi was brushing my hair when I saw her eyes go to the bulge in my belly.
“Mistress should eat,” she said.
I got to my feet and closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. Then I went to my desk and placed my palm on the surface. A screen appeared in front of me, and the spirit inside smiled.
“Welcome, Daughter of Abundance,” it said.
“Please test for . . . please test . . .” I said, but could not finish. I flipped open the keyboard and typed in the request.
A thin line of light shone from the screen and played over my belly. A picture appeared on the screen of a tiny thing, like the seed of a plant which has just burst its shell.
“Warmest blessings to you and your young one,” the spirit in the machine said.
I turned to Abi, who was staring at me, wide-eyed.
“Mistress has”
“You know I would never do such a thing!”
“Then how?”
“The night the guards came . . .” I could not finish.
Abi’s eyes grew wider still. “Some courtier?”
I shook my head.
“The inner circle of counselors?” Abi asked.
“No.”
“Not the . . .”
I held my face in my hands and nodded.
“What will mistress do?”
I looked at Abi and clenched my fists. “You know servants from the royal palace. That is how you heard the king had returned.”
Abi nodded.
“Then let us tell the King his good fortune,” I said. “And let us see how the King will receive this wonderful news.” I pressed a button on the keyboard and a shimmering hologram of the picture on the screen fell into my hand.
“Give this to your contact in the palace, and make sure it reaches the King.”
***
The next night, I was looking through the skylight at the stars, silent and distant. One speck of light fell, growing larger and turning red as it entered the air of Eretz. I watched as the ship landed near the royal palace.
Abi returned from the market the next day with urgent eyes. We hurried to my bedroom without speaking to the other servants.
“The sub-retainer for the keeper of the vestments tells me a single soldier has been recalled from battle,” Abi whispered.
I grasped Abi by her shoulders. She nodded, and I embraced her and laughed. “Let us prepare a feast!” I helped the servants that night, and did not mind their strange looks and smiles at their mistress as she worked alongside them. But the door never opened and the food sat on the table until it was cold. Eventually, I waved my hand to the steward, who told the servants to eat. I stared at my plate until the servants finished and left me alone in the room.
The moon rose and shone through the window on my plate. With one finger, I traced paths through my food, blanched white with moonlight. I thought about the paths my husband had traveled across the stars, and why he did not take the shorter one to his own door.
A hard knock at the door sounded a week later. Two guards in red stood in the doorway. One unrolled a scroll which shimmered into life. A scarred face appeared in it and said in a rough voice, “The commander of the King’s army regrets to inform the household of Uriah of the planet Hati that Uriah has been killed in the most noble service of the throne. His body could not be recovered. All personal affects will be . . .”
The voice continued, but I did not hear it as the walls spun and the floor slammed against my head. Far away, a woman’s voice wailed. Hands lifted me and carried me to my room.
***
The next evening, a knock sounded on my bedroom door and Abi entered without waiting for me
to answer. She carried a plate of steaming food. I took one look at her face and mumbled, “Speak your news.”
Abi’s face looked as if it would crack. “Let mistress eat something.”
“Speak.”
Abi laid the plate on the desk and sat next to me on the bed and said nothing.
“I am broken, Abi. Your news cannot hurt me.”
Abi’s said in a hushed voice, “The sub-retainer told me the King gave your husband a feast twice, and twice told him to go to his own house. But your husband slept at the door of the royal palace the first night and among the King’s servants the next. And they say your husband spoke harsh words to the King, but the King did not show anger.”
I heard my voice say, “It is because my husband knew I was defiled with the seed of another, and he no longer loved me.” I turned away from her and closed my eyes. “Tell me, Abi, do you think my husband was glad when the beams of the enemy pierced his chest?”
“Mistress . . .” Abi’s voice trembled.
“Go.”
“But”
“There is no comfort. Go.”
Abi talked a while longer but I lay turned away from her and listened with only half an ear. Eventually, she shut the door behind her. I may have slept that night.
***
The next evening, Abi entered my bedroom with sheepish eyes, carrying the red dress. I think it was the kindest thing she ever did for me. I could tell she was unsure, and I may have smiled as she dressed me.
The dress slid over my skin like the blood it symbolized. Abi applied the rouge and eyeliner which would flicker whenever I moved my head, imitating tears. We walked to our home’s shrine. The priest was already waiting for us, but his eyes opened wide when he saw me.
“The Lady of the House should have worn black, for one who lies desolate in the pit.”
I walked to the center of the shrine and got on my knees on the stinging stone.
“Your husband was not murdered. He died in the noble service of the crown . . .”
“He wished to die,” I said. “I was told he was left in the midst of battle when the line of his companions fell back. How would they have done that to one of the King’s Thirty unless he had told them?”
The priest’s face became a locked door, and I knew he walked in high circles in the palace. The priest applied the unction to my forehead and eyelids as I knelt. At any other time, I would have gasped at the sight I saw when I opened my eyes. Through the square window, I could see the darkness for the abyss it truly was: the absence of light. In my newfound vision, a great emptiness yawned within me of a world empty and bereft.
“Cruel,” I whispered.
The priest handed me a scroll with strange letters which flowed in and out of each other.
“I cannot read this,” I said.
“It will read you.”
I put the scroll on the ground in front of me and waited as night deepened. After an hour or so, I looked at the scroll and saw shimmering patterns there. Unbidden, words came to my lips: “Man born of woman is short of days and full of trembling.”
“Weeping lasts the night, but joy meets the morning,” the priest said, and lit a candle. Incense clouded the room.
“Is my strength the strength of stones, or my flesh bronze? There is no help for me, when all resource is driven from me.”
“You have changed my mourning to dancing. You have freed me from sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”
“Remember that my life is a breath. My eye will not return to see good.”
And so on, pausing sometimes when the patterns blurred and waiting for the words to return. The priest walked back and forth behind me, as I Am is said to do sometimes in dreams.
Eventually the sun rose, such a sun as I have never seen, and never wish to see again. Even when I shaded my eyes, I could feel the world of fire that burned in my grief. My dress caught the yellow beams of light and swelled as if filled with wind. I was a bloody flower opening to the dawn.
The priest put his hands on my eyelids and wiped the unguent away. “Words have been given to your grief. Let it continue, in the mercy of I Am, until it leaves you.”
I tried to stand and stumbled. Abi helped me to my bedroom as the walls spun. When I lay down, Abi put a raisin cake in my hand. When I dropped it on the ground, Abi mumbled something about the child. I was too weak to refuse her.
When I finished it and had taken some wine, Abi said, “Mistress should grieve.”
“What do you think I was doing all night?”
“The priest’s anointing brings grief to the surface so it can be released. But your face was stone and your voice dead, even as you spoke what the scroll saw in you.”
“The priest knew what had happened. He was not trying to help me grieve. He was trying to silence me. Have you heard any news from the palace? What will the King do for his new son?”
“They say . . . they say a wedding is being prepared.”
Cold gripped me. If Abi said anything more, I did not hear her, for the next thing I remember, I was alone. A speeder appeared in front of my home the next day followed by a train of the royal guard on destriers. As Abi and I watched through our front window, I remember thinking at least I would not have to walk to the palace this time. I looked at Abi to tell her, but when I saw the grief on her face, I said nothing.
Abi handed me a satchel with trinkets from my home and other supplies, but I shook my head, and did not turn back to look at Abi as I walked to the speeder, even when I heard her weeping. The tinted door hissed shut and the speeder slid along its path to the palace in silence.
***
I remember little of that week or the fittings and beautifications and ceremonies which filled it. Of the wedding, I remember almost nothing except the tiny scroll I was given with my part to say. I said the words when the time came. The feast afterwards was such as I have never seen, as if all the people were laboring to outdo themselves in pomp and celebration. Servants and courtiers gave me furtive looks from time to time as they ate, but none spoke to me.
As the sun set and the fireworks were beginning, the chief steward led me through a maze of darkened corridors to a single huge door.
“Let her Glory the Queen place her palm on the door. Her bedroom will open only to her touch, and to the King’s.”
I did so and walked into a darkened room. A light turned on next to a huge bed, and I realized this was the room I had been taken to once before. I felt a rough hand slip into mine and a beard nuzzle my cheek. I let myself be led to the bed and closed my eyes and lay still beneath him and said nothing.
***
Months passed, my son, which I care little to remember. They do not greatly concern what I have to say to you in any case.
I remember the pain of your brother’s birth, which I bore proudly, as was my duty as a woman. I remember nursing him for the first time after the nurse cleaned him, and something small opened in me, like a single flower blossoming at midnight. But then they gave my son to the King to hold, and the flower wilted.
One day, an ecstatic, those called the nevi’im by the learned, came to the palace. He was dressed in sackcloth and his beard sprouted like uncut weeds. I was sitting near the front of the hall as the King held court. The ecstatic walked unchallenged in a straight line to the throne, past the guards and the wide-eyed courtiers. Then I saw the fire that burned in the man’s eyes. I was suddenly glad the prophet was not walking toward me.
The ecstatic, whose name was Given, stood before the King, leaning on his staff and breathing heavily. Keeping his eyes down, he said, “There was a certain poor man in your city, King, whose sole possession was a kivsah, born on another world and raised here on Eretz. The poor man loved it as a daughter, and taught it to walk upright and speak, and the two lived happily enough. But when a rich man, whose herds numbered many thousands of beasts from this world and others, wanted to entertain a guest, he slaughtered the poor man’s only treasure rather than lose one of his ow
n.” The ecstatic kept his eyes on the floor, his breath huffing like the wind.
“This is the throne which I Am has established for justice,” the King said. “Bring this rich man before me that justice may done upon him.”
“And what justice would you do, O most noble King?” the ecstatic asked.
“Death.” The king’s voice was the thrust of a knife.
The ecstatic looked at me. It seemed to me he looked for a long time, but I have been told by others who witnessed it that it was only a glance. (I will tell you later, O my son, what I saw in his eyes.) Then the prophet looked full upon the King, and although his voice was low, the breath coming from his mouth was like the breath of the four winds of the heavens, and the fire in his eyes the very burning of the sun.
The prophet said, “I Am, who made each star in the cosmos to shine like flowers blooming in a field, who rules over everything he has made, made you King, O Beloved. He spared you the years of herding sheep on the empty mountains and gave you a kingdom. He saved you from the King before you when madness consumed him and he sought your life. He gave you the entire land to rule, because as your name is, so you are, O King. You are Beloved, and so you are called David. And I Am would have added to you much more in his love for you.”
The King was sitting very still on his throne.
“You have learned from my cousins who serve in the Tent the nature of I Am’s dwelling in the world he has created. I Am, limited by nothing, binds himself in love for his people and dwells in the inner sanctum of his Tent. In a mystery, his might above is undivided; but if you were to walk unshielded into the inner sanctum, you would be undone before his uncreated light. And so the light of I Am shines among his people, and we live in peace. I have seen a little of that divine light, O King. Do you doubt it? It blinds you to all else.” I stared at the ecstatic, and saw that, although his eyes glowed, he stared to the King’s side, like one blind. “But I see something else in this room. You have brought darkness into the kingdom which I Am gave to you, O King. And so, even though you are still Beloved, darkness will follow you until the day you die. Even now it touches your son.”
A cold hand gripped my heart and I stood. Gasps sounded through the royal hall as the king descended to prostrate himself before the ecstatic. I ran from the hall without being dismissed.
I ran to the nursery with my feet tripping in my dress. Nurses were standing around the crib. I pushed past them and looked on my son. His breath was shallow and his skin cold to my touch.