The Secret Chord: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks Read Free Book Online

heavily on the arm of a young girl.
    “It’s all right, Shammah.” A voice with a quaver that betrayed age, yet a lilting, melodious voice. David’s voice, in female form. “If the king wants this, so be it. He must have reasons that seem good to him.”
    “Reasons? What reasons? Picking at old scars till they bleed—what good can possibly come of it? But you always favored him. Do what you will.”
    Shammah shrugged his immense shoulders and turned away. He lifted the heavy door bar as if it were a straw stalk, flung back the door and strode through, walking at an agitated pace down the hill toward the town. Nizevet raised her head and looked after him, until the boy who had taken my mule ran across the courtyard and drew the door closed. She turned her eyes on me then. They were the king’s eyes: the same luminous amber that seemed to entrap light and shadow. Though hers were swathed in folds of tired flesh, they were set wide and deep, like his, with strong brows defining them.
    “Forgive Shammah. He, too, has his reasons for his actions. And they seem good to him. You will know why, presently, I dare say.” She moved with some effort toward the table, and we sat, the blown blossoms falling upon us like snowflakes. There were bowls of hyacinths about our feet.
    The girl set a pillow behind Nizevet’s frail shoulders and poured watered wine, and then withdrew into the shadow of the portico. You couldn’t see her, but I could hear the scrape of her hand mill, the coarse basalt rider passing over the slab of the saddle, crushing the last season’s wheat. Perhaps Shammah had instructed her to stay close and lend an ear to what was said.
    I set out the reed pens and the phial of ink I had blended, and waited. When the old woman began to speak, her voice had a slight rattle, like a breeze through dry grass. She spoke in low tones, so that I had to strain to hear her.
    “‘Tell Natan everything.’ That was the king’s message. His order.” Her mouth thinned as she said this. There was an awkward silence between us.
    “The message did not please Shammah. It does not please you.”
    “Please me? How should it please me? I have lived very quiet all these years. The story of the king has never included me, and for good reason. I never thought he would want anyone to hear what I have buried so long in silence. You will have to be patient with me, therefore. These things that he suddenly bids told are not easy things. After all the good that has come to him, I cannot think why he wants to probe these old wounds. ‘Tell Natan,’ my son says. As if it were nothing. Well. Maybe it is, to him, now . . .”
    Her voice trailed off, and she looked away from me, her eyes welling. The girl was at her side in a moment, offering a bowl of rosewater and a cool cloth. Nizevet took it, and pressed it to her brow for a moment. Her face was scored all over with lines, but the skin was delicate and unblemished, and the bones beneath the aged flesh were very fine. I saw that there had been great beauty, once. I would have wagered a talent that beneath her linen headdress, the silver hair was still streaked through with fading tongues of fire. When she started to speak again her voice was low and full of emotion. I could see the strain in her face as she tried to command herself.
    “The name I gave him. Beloved. It was my act of defiance, you see. He was the only one of my sons I named. Their father had been quick to give names to all the others. But to this one, he would give nothing. Not even a glance. He hated the very sight of him. Had the infant died, Yishai would have rejoiced.”
    What she said shocked me so that I stopped writing and stared at her. She gazed back, a hint of amusement in her troubled eyes.
    “I see in your face that you doubt me. You will know why, presently. The older boys took their lead from their father. They treated their youngest brother as if he were an unwelcome stranger. Even Natanel—the