Queenmaker by India Edghill Read Free Book Online Page A

what was to happen to me when my father Saul found out my husband was gone.
    David had needed my help; that was enough.

CHAPTER 3
    “And Saul said unto Michal, Why hast thou deceived me so … ?”
    —I Samuel 19:17
     
    It was not enough the next day, when men ran to my father crying that David had vanished from the guarded tower, leaving no trace. Eager to avoid blame, they told the tale I had hoped for, the tale that would absolve me also. For I knew some such tale would be needed, and so after much thought I had made a figure under the blankets, using a goat-hair pillow, and had feigned sleep beside it. When the men grew tired of waiting and came to take David, I pretended to wake, and be confused, and tried to shake the pillow awake. Then I screamed.
    I did not say it was sorcery. But I made my eyes wide, and trembled, and put my hand to my mouth as I stared at the pillow beside me. And as they took me to my father, I asked many times how any man could have slipped past the stairway guards unseen. I thought myself very clever. I planted the seeds; their own fears ripened those seeds to fruit.
    So when Saul roared his angry questions, his men stammered of demons and magic. He fell silent at that; his breath rasped loud, echoing from the cool brick walls, making the room itself seem a living thing. His face paled from its mottled crimson, paled until he looked old, and ill.
    The time stretched long before he spoke, and I knew that I had lost, for a man who defied prophets would not believe such a
tale. I should have thought of some lie; I should have said that David had threatened me, that I had been too afraid to say him nay. Now it was too late.
    “Witchcraft is it, you simpleminded fools? Well, I know where stands the witch.” His voice was very soft, as I had never heard it, and I trembled now in earnest. “A rope, eh, Michal? Yes, yes, it must have been—a rope you stole and hid, and used to help your father’s enemy escape from him? Now why should my daughter—my own little daughter, whom I loved as my own heart—do this thing?”
    He looked straight at me. I had never seen anything like his eyes. They were not my father’s eyes; if there were demons here, they lived in King Saul.
    I had thought I was clever; I had believed I was brave. Now I knew I was neither. I had planned to speak out and defy all the world for David. But David was gone and I was here alone to face King Saul’s wrath, and fear was so cold in my blood that I could not even answer my father to defend myself.
    Saul came to me, walking stiffly, like an old man. His hands fell heavy on my shoulders. “Michal, my little dove, do you know what you have done? No? Well, child, you have killed your father. Yes, yes, that is it—you have killed him as surely as if you used the spear.
    He stroked my hair, and stared at me, and I tried to speak. “Father—”
    “No, no. After this you are not my daughter.”
    I had expected anger, but he sounded only grieved. I would rather he had raged and beaten me until my bones broke.
    He patted my head, as he had done when I was small, and backed away. “I must think what is to be done with her. Yes, take her away, until I decide.”
    He stood there, swaying gently back and forth, as men came forward to put their unwilling hands on me and lead me away. I had not even the spirit to shrug them off and go out with my pride unbroken, as a princess should.
    Abner stopped my guards at the painted door. “Take her back to her bridal chamber,” he said. “Set a guard to the door.” His lean face showed nothing, but then, it rarely did. “And mind she has no ropes to her hand—magical) or otherwise.”
     
     
    I was kept close confined, as Abner had ordered. The door was barred, and a guard stood without; a bronze grille was bolted over the window. I had light, and air, but could not look out, save through the slits in the bronze. The woman who tended me I had never seen before; she was old, and afraid to