Queenmaker Read Online Free PDF Page A

gave me hope and the courage to go on.
    “I shall soon be thirteen! And I would make you a good wife, David! I will learn to be meek, and biddable, and—and I love you well.”
    “As a sister loves her brother.” Soft words, rueful words. Gentle sorrow rippled under them, or regret.
    “No,” I said. I wished to say much more, to tell David all my heart felt for him, but I could not find the words. “No,” I said again. That was all.
    I waited then for his answer, but he did not make one. He put his fingers to his harp once more and looked out over the dusty hills. He seemed to be waiting, perhaps for Yahweh’s voice.
    “Saul promised you his daughter,” I added desperately, when it seemed David would not speak. “David—you would not want him to be forsworn?”
    A jangle of notes from the harp. David laughed, and set the harp aside. “You argue like a prophet! But what makes you think Saul will give me Michal if he refused me Merab?”
    His eyes were intent on mine, as if willing me to find the answer. And I did. “You will not ask him for me, David, I will!” Saul had many sons, but only two daughters; he was called overfond of Merab and me, for he could deny us little. “Merab does not love you, but I do—oh, David, I swear I would die for you—my father will surely give me to you, if I ask it!”
    David bent and took my face between his hands; strong hands, hardened by spear and harp. “To have you love me so, Michal—never did I dare dream of such good fortune. I had feared that to you I was a brother only.”
    I stared up into his eyes and was dazzled by the sun behind him. I closed my eyes against the burning light. David bent closer; a shadow-shift beyond my lashes. And then he kissed me upon the mouth.
    It was not a brother’s kiss, but a lover’s, sweet and deep and strange; the rooftop seemed to wheel about me, leaving me giddy and trembling. I thought I would die of joy.
    “Ask, then, daughter of Saul.” David smiled, and lightly kissed my forehead. “Ask your father to keep his promise and give me his daughter to wife.”
     
     
    I should have gone to my room and combed my hair and changed my gown, and asked if my father would see me. But all that would have meant waiting, and I could not wait. I ran to him as I was and burst into his presence unannounced.
    “Father, may I speak?”
    It was only then that I saw my father was not alone. Abner was with him—Abner, his war-chief. I wished then that I had come another time, for Abner made me nervous. He was a man all bone and thin muscle; like the prophet Samuel, I never felt Abner saw me truly, but saw only a stone in the path. But he was called the cleverest man with a raiding party in all the tribes of Israel and Judah both. Men admired Abner, but they did not like him.
    Now Abner frowned, but my father only laughed and opened his arms to me. I ran to him and he hugged me and rocked me back and forth. “So here you are—I have had half the women in the house complain of you today, little daughter! Well, well, what is it you want?”
    My father was a large man, broad and strong as a bear; when he hugged me, my bones creaked. I begged him to put me down, and even remembered to apologize for interrupting him. I spoke
properly, with great dignity; in my eyes, I was a woman now. I wondered that my father did not at once see the difference in me.
    “Yes, yes, that’s all very well, daughter, but I’m very busy, so out with it. That’s the best way, eh, Abner?”
    “As my lord king says,” Abner murmured, rolling his maps so that I could not see them.
    I had wished to speak to my father privately; my love for David was a sacred thing. But he was impatient to return to his work, and so I forgot the pretty plea I had rehearsed and blurted it out, bald as rock.
    “Father—you promised David should marry your daughter, but you have given Merab to Adriel. Give me to David instead.”
    He looked at me and his face turned slowly to a dull