As the throng made its way south on the Hevron road, others, deep in the conspiracy, fanned out north and west across the country, to every town and hamlet where Avshalom had done a favor or settled a suit to a plaintiff’s benefit. These spies and agents of Avshalom’s were charged with measuring his support as well as the depth of dissatisfaction with the king. In Hevron, he waited for their reports. Then he tallied his supporters and decided he had what he needed to make his move. At the feast of the sacrifice, when everyone was well fed and in good humor, when the wine had flowed just enough, but not too much, Avshalom stood up and made his claim. At first, some were confused, but the men of his cohort raised a loud cheer, and soon half the hillside had joined it. In the midst of the cries, Avshalom ordered that the shofars sound, proclaiming him king.
With the blowing of those horns, my long silence ended. At last, at long last, my tongue loosened. I was free to speak again. We were in the audience hall when I cried out to the king, telling him that the loyalty of the men of the Land had been stolen by his son.
It is something that, after all the time that had elapsed since I had offered vision or prophecy, he listened to me at once, even on a matter so grave. As I began to speak, he turned to me, his face full of wonder to hear that voice again. Then, as the meaning of my words came clear to him, there was a moment—very brief—when pain contorted his features. But he did not let himself dwell on betrayal by the son he loved so well. He put those emotions quickly away and began barking orders. If I was once again his prophet, then he was once again my king—decisive, determined—a leader to follow. He called for Yoav, Avishai and Benaiah, who commanded his personal bodyguard. I stopped Yoav and pulled him aside as he entered the audience hall. “How did you not know of this? What of Amasa?”
“Amasa is a traitor. I know that now.”
“The others? You said you had others.”
Yoav shook my hand off his wrist and pushed past me. “You’re asking me this?” he hissed. “You’re the prophet. Why did you not know?”
David’s first words showed how strategically he was thinking. “I can’t stay here,” he said. When Yoav made to interrupt, proclaiming that the city had the best defenses, he raised a hand and silenced him. “I will not have Avshalom put this city to the sword. It’s me he must kill, not the people of this city. He knows that. So, I will not stand my ground here, but lead him away. Let him think we’ve fled in fear. I will go like a humiliated penitent, barefoot and weeping. Let him think me weak. Let him pursue me to some place where we can set a trap and close it upon him.” He called for maps and soon had devised a plan. He sent runners ahead, secretly, to three of his staunchest supporters across the Yarden River, in the well-fortified town of Mahanaim. This stronghold was to be our secret destination and the staging point from which to spring our trap.
Although we went out dressed as mourners and penitents, David had weapons and armor hidden under straw bales in the wains that followed behind us. We would move fast and travel light, just as we had in the days when Shaul pursued us. As we were about to pass through the city gates, I noted that the barracks of the Plishtim mercenaries were abandoned. I saw David looking up at the blank windows, resignation on his face. “They’ve gone back to Gath,” he said. “I can’t blame them.” But as we passed through the gates, Yoav raised his hand and halted the column. There was an army of six hundred in ranks, armed and arrayed for battle. Ittai, the Gittite captain, stepped forward and saluted. David was visibly moved. “Why should your men join in this? The new king will pay for your services, I am certain of it. I have no call on you to ask you to follow me into this uncertain fight. Go back to your barracks. I release you from your service with honor.”
Ittai shook his head. “As my lord the king lives, wherever you are, there I will be, I and my men, whether for death or life.”
David reached out a hand to Ittai and clasped his forearm. His eyes were wet. “You are resolved in this? All of you?”
“All of us, my lord king.”
“Then march by,” David said. He was too overcome to say more.
We had crossed the Wadi Kidron when a messenger rode up the ranks, bringing the king word that Zadok and Aviathar were following with the ark in a long, doleful procession, with all their sons. David raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. “I don’t want this,” he said. “I need to move at speed, and I need Avshalom to think I leave a broken man, not a fighter with the ark as his rallying point.”
“You’ll have to send them back,” I said. He nodded, and halted the march until the priests could make their way forward to him. He spoke to them in the sorrowful, humble tones of a man unsure of his destiny. “Take the ark back to the city,” he said. “If I find favor with the Name, he will bring me back and let me see it in its rightful place. And if the Name should say ‘I no longer have use for you,’ then I am ready for that. But the ark belongs in the city, not in the wilderness. Those days are past. So go, with all your sons, and replace it in the tabernacle where it belongs.”
We marched on, barefoot and with covered heads, as David had directed, climbing the Mount of Olives until we paused to rest at the summit. Along the way, dozens of people came out of their homes, greeting us weeping. Many handed over dates and parched corn, whatever supplies they had in their stores, to sustain us on our journey. Only one—a member of Shaul’s clan—came running at the king, throwing stones and hurling insults. “Get out, get out, you criminal!” he yelled. “So you are requited for your crimes against Shaul!”
Avishai, always quick to anger, was at the king’s side in an instant, putting himself in the way of the stones, his sword drawn and his short knife in his other hand. “Why let that dead dog abuse you?” he snarled. “Let me go over and cut off his head!”
David laid a hand on Avishai, restraining him. “What has this to do with you? If my own son, my own issue, seeks to kill me, why wouldn’t Shaul’s kinsman do the same?” He turned and walked on, allowing the Benyaminite to follow beside him, flinging dirt and insults.
I smiled grimly to myself as I trudged beside him, feeling the sting as an occasional pebble missed its mark and bit into my flesh. I knew that David wanted word of this humiliation to get back to Avshalom. David knew he would take it as further evidence of his father’s defeated state of mind.
Finally we reached the shores of the Yarden, where David said we would rest for the night. As we set up a makeshift camp, an old man approached the pickets, asking to see the king. At first, I didn’t recognize him. Like us, he was wearing rent garments and ashes. It took me a moment to place him as Hushai, who had been part of Shaul’s court and had advised David when he first joined the royal retinue after the battle at Wadi Elah. He was a sage old man whose wisdom David valued. He had served in David’s court for a time, until he grew too old and retired to his lands on the western slope of the mountain. David greeted him warmly, and drew him aside for a private word. “I need to be frank with you, Hushai. I’m touched and honored that you come to me. But if you march on with us, you will be a burden, at your age. We need to move fast and rest little.”
Hushai’s face fell. David reached out a hand. “I do not say you may not serve me. I have a grave charge for you, if you are willing. Go to the city. Lay your services at the feet of Avshalom when he comes. Tell him you saw me, weak and broken, tell him that the Plishtim mercenaries have deserted and that I have only my core of seasoned fighters at my side. Say you stand ready to serve him, as you once served me. Then send word to Zadok and Aviathar of all you see and hear. They can dispatch their sons to bring me word of Avshalom’s plans. We will trap him, and put an end to this young man’s mad folly.”
Hushai embraced the king and set off willingly to the city. As it happened, he arrived just as Avshalom’s forces entered the gates, unopposed. Most of the citizens stayed indoors but many greeted him, cheering.
Hushai, summoning all his strength,
forced his way to the front of the column and presented himself to Avshalom, crying out, “Long live the king!”
Avshalom threw up a hand, halting his procession. “What’s this? Hushai? Is this your loyalty to your old friend my father?”
“Not at all!” Hushai cried. “I am for the one whom the Name and all the men of Israel have chosen, and I will stay with him. Whom should I serve, if not David’s son? As I was in your father’s service, so am I now in yours.”
Only a man as vain as Avshalom, perhaps, would have accepted this switch of allegiance so unthinkingly. But so he did, and so Hushai was at his side to send us word of what happened next. As soon as he entered the palace, Avshalom called for the chief eunuch.
“Bring Batsheva to me.”
“My lord, Batsheva and her sons left with David.”
Avshalom’s brow furrowed. He had not expected that. “Which of my father’s wives is here, then?”
The eunuch kept his eyes on the floor, his face beaded with sweat. “Your mother, my lord. None other. The king ordered all his wives—saving my lord’s mother—to take refuge outside the city. Only the concubines remain here.”
Avshalom’s face was cold and still. “How many?”
“My lord, I am not—”
“How many?”
The eunuch cleared his throat. “Ten, my lord.”
“Very well. Pitch a tent on the roof, leave the sides open. Bring the ten. I will lie with them tonight.”
“My lord? In the sight of the city? The king’s concubines?”
“As you say. The king’s concubines. And am I not the king?”
I do not know how many of those young women Avshalom raped that night. Hushai had too much decency to bear witness, and David never spoke of it. But even one would have been enough to make the point: what had been David’s was now his son’s.
Whatever the extent of Avshalom’s debauchery, as soon as he was done with it, he called his war council together. Amasa, his general, and Ahitophel, his chief counselor, advised a night march, to come upon David weary and unprepared. Hushai, wanting to win time for David to reach Mahanaim, shook his head and spoke up stridently. “The men who still follow your father are few, maybe, but they are courageous soldiers. The king will not be with them this night, be sure of it. He will have found some bolt hole to hide in, as broken as he is. If you send your men tonight, Yoav and his brother Avishai, those blood-soaked sons of Zeruiah, will have a trap to spring, be sure of it.” He turned to Amasa. “You know your cousins. You know how they can fight when cornered. And if you lose men—even a few—and yet don’t make an end to David, word of it will shake confidence in your uprising. Wait, gather your forces from Dan to Beersheva, call up a great army and lead it yourself. We’ll descend on him then as thick as the dew.”
Avshalom gazed from Hushai to Ahitophel, weighing the matter. “Hushai, I think, is right in this. Call the muster. We will wait, and march out in strength.” He gave an exaggerated yawn and raised his fist in a lewd gesture toward the roof terrace. “In any case, I’ve done enough to secure my kingdom for one night.”
Within an hour, Hushai had sent word to the high priests, who entrusted their sons Yonatan and Ahimaaz with the message for the king, disclosing Avshalom’s plans.
As they made their uncertain and dangerous way, eluding Avshalom’s forces and hiding from his supporters, David retired to his tent to attempt to get some rest. But within the hour, I knew that rest eluded him. I could hear harp music, and the sound of his voice, singing with something close to its old sweetness and power:
Many are saying of me,
“Yah will not deliver him.”
But you are a shield around me,
my glory, the one who lifts my head high.
I call out to Yah,
and he answers me from his holy mountain
I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because Yah sustains me. . . .
Fear and faith, but faith the stronger. The words washed over me, and I took comfort. He was still singing when I drifted into a restorative slumber.
Yonatan and Ahimaaz reached our camp just before daybreak. David, awake and alert, smiled grimly as he heard of Hushai’s success. Then we moved as we had when we were all much younger men—those outlaw years had taught us the meaning of nimbleness. By the time the sun was fully up, every man in the king’s army had safely crossed the Yarden. It was no easy thing. The water was swift and bracingly cold, born out of the snows of high Ha Hermon. When I had made my own difficult crossing, I stopped for a moment on the far shore to wring out my tunic and catch my breath. I looked back, and took heart from the sight. Foreigners and natives of the Land, working together as brothers, those who were strong swimmers supporting those who clung for dear life to the ropes we’d strung from bank to bank. David’s army—this polyglot, mongrel force, forged out of loyalty and love.
The leaders of Mahanaim, all devoted to David, sent wains to collect us, and an honor guard to bring David into the city, where sanctuary and supplies awaited us. The result: our army was well fed, rested and ready for combat by the time Avshalom’s forces set out in pursuit.
David divided his forces into three companies, one led by Yoav, one by Avishai and one by Ittai. Initially, he intended also to lead out a force of his own, but his generals prevailed on him. They pointed out that since his death was Avshalom’s chief object, once it became known which company he led, it would become the focus of all the fighting. David misliked this, but he saw the reason in their argument and agreed to stay back in the town and direct the fighting from there.
As the troops mustered outside the town walls, Shlomo came to his father and begged to be allowed to join the fighting. David placed his hands on Shlomo’s shoulders and looked down at his son’s bright, intense face. He smiled. “I did not take you for a warrior. Natan says that your interests do not lie in that direction.”
“This is different,” Shlomo said. “I want to fight for you, Father. I do know how. You can ask Avishai—”
David drew the boy into his arms and held him close for a moment. Shlomo had not yet grown into his full height—his father still stood a head taller.
“It is not fit that brother takes up arms against brother,” David said. “And in any case, you are just thirteen years old.”
Shlomo gently extricated himself and stepped backward. He fixed his father with a direct, unfaltering gaze. “And how old were you when you slew the giant of Gath?”
David gave a sigh and smiled slightly. “Older.” But his face had softened. He glanced over his shoulder, to where I stood behind him. I gave a slight nod. Shlomo needed to do this; the common desire of any boy who feels his approaching manhood. Beyond that, he needed to do it so that the troops would remember he had fought. Since I knew his future, I also knew there could be no grave danger for him. David looked to me to confirm that.
“Go, then,” David said. “Go with Yoav. Assist his arms bearers. But see the armorer first. You’re not going to battle in a tunic.”
As Shlomo sprinted off to the armory, David signaled to me. “You know he will be safe.” It was not a question. “But go with him, in any case. It will ease my mind to know you are beside him.” As I strapped on my greaves, I was glad to find the leather oiled and pliant, and was thankful to Muwat, who had kept my gear in good repair through the years when I had happily had no need of it. I had not thought to go into battle again.
As the watchers sent word that Avshalom’s forces were nearing the Yarden, David called his generals together. After some stirring words of thanks for their loyalty and service, he looked down at his hands and gave a deep sigh. “What I am now going to say will not sit well with some of you.” He gave a sharp glance at Yoav and Avishai. “Nevertheless, I will speak my heart. Deal gently with my boy Avshalom, for my sake. Pass the word to your troops to take him alive.” Itt
ai kept his face impassive. Avishai scowled. But Yoav could barely contain himself. His face turned a mottled purple with the effort it cost him to contain his disgust.
The battle, when it came, took place in the forest of Efraim on the east bank of the Yarden. Anticipating this, Yoav had arranged for a force to close behind Avshalom’s army after it crossed the river so as to cut off a retreat and force them forward into the difficult terrain of the eastern shore. I would like to write that it was a masterpiece of strategy, in which Avshalom’s vainglorious folly was ended with little loss of life. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The battle was a bloodbath, notable for the confusion imposed by the dense forest, low scrub and rocky outcrops, which impeded movement and coordination—ours, as well as theirs. A great slaughter took place, of which they say that the forest devoured more troops than the sword. There were some terrible deaths. A brushfire, set to drive a unit out of the woods into open ground, got out of control when the winds changed direction unexpectedly. The ensuing blaze engulfed more than a hundred men—our soldiers among them. When we found the bodies they were blackened husks. Others, who fell wounded, were eaten alive where they lay by the lions and wild boars that inhabited the forest.
It was Yoav’s way to lead from the front, and so we moved with him through a day as bloody as any I had experienced. Shlomo fought proficiently, and with courage, but I saw none of his father’s warrior zeal, no zest for killing, no bloodlust. He demonstrated his courage when another young armor bearer fell wounded in open ground, exposed to the enemy archers. It was Shlomo who ran forward into the rain of arrows to drag the youth to safety.