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Daughter of the King

By Carlene Havel

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Chapter One
“But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Phaltiel the son of Laish, which was of Gallim.” I Samuel 25:44
“You're not taking my wife anywhere!" Phaltiel bellowed. He struggled to break free from the soldiers who restrained him.
"Then we will take your widow." The soldier tossed an unconcerned glance in Phaltiel’s direction. "It makes no difference to me." He turned back to the woman. "You will come with us."
"I should make preparations for a journey of how many days?” Michal struggled to keep her voice from trembling. The daughter of the king must not show fear.
"We will not waste time in preparations.” Captain Osh sat straight and tall on his horse. "We will leave as soon as--"
"There must be some mistake," Phaltiel's chief steward interrupted. "King Saul himself gave his daughter to my Lord Phaltiel."
"Saul the son of Kish no longer reigns." Osh glared at the steward. "He is as dead as you and I will be if we fail to deliver the woman Michal soon."
Michal addressed her handmaid, "Come, Tirzah, we will gather a few things quickly." She felt the stares of soldiers as she crossed the courtyard. She braced herself for the thrust of a spear in her back.
"We have endured two days of hard riding, Phaltiel," the authoritative ring of the Captain's voice filled the courtyard. "Feed my men and see to our animals.”
Michal breathed deeply to maintain her composure. Was it true her father, King Saul, was dead? What had happened? Was it possible her dear brother Jonathan was now king of Israel? Or had there been a rebellion? A foreign invasion? Were soldiers like those in the courtyard even now rounding up her sister Merab and her family? Michal knew an insurgent ruler could never risk her or her sister’s royal blood flowing into the veins of a legitimate heir. Michal forced down her fear as she walked toward the women’s living area. She prayed for courage as she concentrated on keeping her steps steady on the tamped earth of the courtyard.
The clapping of the chief steward's hands broke the tension. Servants grabbed water jars to fill the stone drinking trough for the military animals. Others stoked the kitchen fire and made preparations for the soldiers' meal. Lord Phaltiel's senior wife Bida stood watching the activity. Such excitement rarely intruded upon the mundane life of Gallim.
Michal quickened her steps to push against the crowd of Phaltiel's wives, children, and servants streaming into the courtyard. Once indoors, she fought to focus on which of her few possessions she should take. "Tirzah, fetch the coat. I'll carry it under my cloak. Look through my old robes in Bida's chest, and choose one which clearly identifies me as the king's married daughter. I'll take one additional change of clothing and my sewing box." She looked around her. "There is nothing else in this house I ever want to see again. You may keep everything else."
Tirzah's eyes widened in horror, "You will leave me behind?"
Michal clasped her servant's slender hand. " There is no reason to drag you into whatever awaits me. If my father is truly dead, these men may well be delivering me to an enemy. Maybe even the Philistines."
"Better to suffer with you than to stay in this Godless house alone." Tirzah's tears spilled onto her cheeks. "Please, my lady, I beg you on my mother’s bones, let me go with you."
Michal wavered. Tirzah had been her companion since the two of them were children. “All right. The Captain said it was a two-day ride to wherever they came from. Of course, that may not be true. Try to get us some food to take along. Some dates and goat cheese would be best." Tirzah brightened and brushed away her tears as Michal continued, "Anything you can learn from the soldiers or the other women may be useful. We need to know who has taken the King Saul's place and where we are going."
"Yes, my lady. I will do as you say."
Michal straightened. "While you do your duty, I will do mine."
With everyone else outside, their attention fastened on the soldiers in the courtyard, Michal swept quickly through the womens’ rooms. She gathered the many idols and teraphims, the superstitious god figurines that sat everywhere.
As a girl, she had participated in religious activities meant to convince the king’s subjects of the royal family's devotion to the living God. She had mindlessly gone through the motions of the familiar rituals, paying no attention to their deeper meaning. The devout faith of her husband David had made her more thoughtful. Yet it was only when she was thrust into a life of misery that Michal began to trust the one God of Israel.
Her family, alienated. Her husband, bargained away years ago. Michal could not let herself think of those things right now. This was no time to let grief overtake her. She would try to be grateful the soldiers had not murdered her in the sight of Phaltiel and his hateful wives. Perhaps these soldiers would kill her as soon as they were a little distance from Phaltiel's compound. Or someone could creep near in tonight's darkness and dispatch her and poor Tirzah in their sleep. Only the Captain and the nameless volunteer would then know the identity of the assassin.
Michal shivered at the thought of other possibilities. A quick death would be an answer to prayer, but the prospect of torture frightened her. Possibly some conqueror was planning a public execution of King Saul’s family. The ultimate humiliation of a forced marriage to an uncircumcised heathen could await her. She gathered her courage to bear whatever she must.
In the beginning of her exile Michal feared some stranger would bring the news King Saul had successfully tracked down and murdered her beloved husband David. When did she finally hear some news? Ah, yes. During her tenth month in Phaltiel’s household, a slave trader stopped to obtain water for his pack animals. From the traveler, Michal’s handmaid Sarah heard that David and his loyal followers still hid in wilderness areas, protecting isolated farms from thieves and marauders. Sarah reported to Michal how the man laughed, showing his fine white teeth, when recounting King Saul’s irrational fear of his own son-in-law.
Years passed with no new information. Then one day Tirzah was cleaning the hearth in the kitchen when the women from a band of wandering wool merchants came to warm themselves. Hearing familiar words, Tirzah realized the travelers were Judeans. Their weak little country, a rebellious splinter kingdom from the mighty nation of Israel, was now being ruled by David, they said. Everyone was prospering under his progressive benevolence. Yes, the women said, their king was that same legendary David who, armed only with a slingshot, had in his youth fought and killed the Philistine giant Goliath.
Michal was overjoyed to learn her husband had so far evaded the dark furies of her father, King Saul. She gave thanks that her personal sacrifice to save David had not been in vain. Was it possible he still survived to this day? If so, she suspected she had faded from her beloved’s memory, and some other woman occupied her place in his warm embrace.
A startling thought invaded Michal’s consciousness as she prepared to go with the soldiers. Perhaps protocol would perhaps demand the presence of King David of Judea at some festival given by the new ruler of Israel. Was it possible she might glimpse her adored husband’s face once more before her life ended? She must not break down before David's eyes even if some heathen ordered her torn to pieces by a wild animal.
Michal took the worthless gods she had collected and dumped them on her bed. The crude clay pieces shattered easily when she smacked them against each other. So much for Shapash. One slender figurine snapped in two when she laid it across her knee and applied the full strength of one hand to its head and the other to the feet. She took her sharpest knife and defaced the other two pieces of wood. The pagans of this house would soon see how powerless their stupid idols were.
The anger that had festered inside Michal for years boiled over as she took particular delight in carving away the ugly features of Bida’s favorite idol, Baal. Bida, Phaltiel's first wife, was a thin-haired woman who constantly criticized the other wives, shrewdly playing one against another to maintain her own advantage. Bida was particularly mean to Michal, often referring to her contemptuously as "Her Royal Lowness."
Michal thought back to the day she first came to this place in Gallim, as the fifth wife of Lord Phaltiel. Bida met her at the door of the women's quarters with crossed arms, spewing hostility from tiny eyes set almost comically wide apart in the wide expanse of her broad face. Michal was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted from her journey. Phaltiel had already given her a taste of his beastly nature. She had hoped to find some compassion among his women.
"What do you know about growing olives and pressing oil?" Bida demanded without a single word of welcome or greeting. "That is what we do here."
Michal kept her response humble, to show proper deference to the head wife, "I'm sorry, but I know nothing of those things. Perhaps you will be kind enough to teach me.”
Bida rolled her eyes towards the women of the household, who stood in a semi-circle around and behind her. "Just what we have been wishing for,” she said, “a wife who does not know how to work. No doubt, since you are the daughter of a king, you are accustomed to a life of leisure." Although the other women smirked and giggled, Michal sensed they were less amused than fearful of displeasing Bida. "And I see you have brought along two personal maids," Bida taunted. "Surely they make things easy for you."
The smell of flour cakes sweetened with honey made Michal aware of her gnawing hunger, but she could go without food. Thirst was another matter. Her dry mouth and parched throat begged for water. "We will do our best to contribute to the continued wealth of this household. I'm sure you will find some useful work Sarah, Tirzah, and I can do."
"You can count on it," Bida snorted. After a pause, she said bitterly, "I understand you have married our lord Phaltiel even though you have never been divorced by your husband, who is yet alive."
Michal drew herself to her full height and stared down at Bida for a long moment. Finally she spoke, "I have obeyed the command of my father the king in becoming our Lord Phaltiel's wife." Enough of this foolish game. "Thank you for your gracious welcome," she continued. "I shall not soon forget it." She looked into the faces of the other women. One by one they dropped their eyes.
Bida took everything of any value from Michal’s possessions. She kept the most desirable items for herself, and distributed the remainder among other wives and servants who happened to be in her favor at the moment. Even though Bida could not possibly have wedged her ample torso into the loosest of Michal’s robes and tunics, she kept all of them in her private storage trunk. Sarah and Tirzah were allowed to keep their worst clothing, anything stained, patched, or threadbare, which they shared with their mistress. Phaltiel’s women showed no interest in Michal’s fabric working tools. Bida handled them warily, but did not ask what they were. “Royal attendants wear such as this?” Bida tossed a shabby wool coat at Sarah. “Lord Phaltiel’s slaves would not dress themselves in this rag.”
Sarah had stared at the floor and meekly tucked her bottom lip under the top one. She rearranged the coat, neatly folding the patched side underneath the ripped back.
The thought of Sarah threatened to summon emotions Michal could not allow herself to release right now. The woman had been her wet nurse, taking the new-born Princess to her breast along with her own two-week old daughter Tirzah. How Michal wished she could slip out of the compound one last time, walk through the terraced rows of olive trees, and sit on the big rock that overlooked the spot where Sarah and the others were buried. Phaltiel was responsible for Sarah’s death, she thought, him and his nasty drunken brawls.
It had not taken Michal long to realize Phaltiel was ruled by the fruit of the vine. Tirzah had first tried to water down his cup when serving him, but Phaltiel loudly demanded stronger wine. Sarah then suggested going in the other direction and topping off his goblet at every opportunity. On a good night, their lord and master would drink himself into a stupor before he could summon an unfortunate wife or two to his bed.

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