Free The Secret Chord: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks Page A

snatched up a round of the fresh bread and threw himself down heavily into the chair opposite me, gnawing on it. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand and fixed me with a glare of complete distaste. “I’ve never understood why my brother puts up with you,” he blurted. “The things you say to him. It’s a wonder he hasn’t put a spear right through you.”
    There was no answer to this, so I gave none. I carefully rolled up the skin I had been reading and drew out a blank one. Shammah snorted. “So you wrung my mother out like a filthy rag and now you propose to begin on me, to see what more dirt you can squeeze?”
    “Your brother . . .”
    “Ah, yes, my brother wants it. My holy, miraculous, mighty brother, beloved of all—men, women—even Yah. He wants it. And he gets what he wants, always. Well, now you know that wasn’t always how it was. Until that old man and his oil pitcher showed up here, that boy knew his place—and a dung-spattered, dusty place it was.” He grinned to himself, a mean, private mirth. “I can still see the look on Eliav’s face—and Avinadav’s, for that matter . . .” He gave a throaty laugh, and then winced, and put a hand to his temple. The previous night’s excess was claiming its usual price.
    “Well, none of us believed what the old man said. How could David, that worthless little turd—don’t look at me like that. It’s how we thought of him; I know she told you that. But I’ll bet she didn’t tell you that he well earned his reputation. No. I bet she told you he was her perfect darling. Well, he wasn’t perfect. He was a sly little shit. He’d learned to be. He knew how to keep an eye to the merest advantage and he did not scruple to take it, once it showed itself. He was like you in that way.” He scowled at me, malice in his face. His mouth twisted into a grin. “You forget. I was there that day he killed your father. I saw your wonderful piece of playacting. It was well done, I have to give you credit. I thought at the time, that boy’s got balls. How you came up with it—kingdom, crown, all that stuff—and had the front to put on that show with your father’s blood up to your ankles. It won you your life, and now look at you. The king’s prophet. A man to be reckoned with. Well, you might have suckered my brother but you don’t fool me. I thought you were a clever little fraud that day you saved your skin, and I think you’re a cunning charlatan now. But no one gives a shekel for what I think. I’m just the king’s old drunkard of a brother. So I keep my mouth shut and stay out of my son’s way so he can do what you’ve done, and be someone at court when Prince Amnon comes into his own.” He picked up the bread and gnawed at it.
    “I believe,” I said, “that we were discussing your brother at Wadi Elah. Not your opinion of me, or your ambitions for Yonadav.”
    He gave a dramatic sigh. “All right. Let’s get it done with, then.” He mimicked my haughty tone: “My brother at Wadi Elah. The mean little mamzer making his name. To be fair. He had reason to be the way he was. He had cause, ample cause, as a beaten mule has cause to be sour and malicious, just looking for the chance to land a kick. We—all of us—would’ve done anything to earn our father’s approval, and if he treated David like a mangy cur dog, then we would, too. We never showed that boy a cup of kindness. He had to use his wits to survive out there in the hills and he did, with no man’s hand to guide him. So when he came to the Wadi Elah, he swooped in like a buzzard, looking to feed himself on the misery of that battlefield. And what a ripe corpse he found there, and what a meal he made of it.”
    I scribbled furiously to get these words down, words as sour as the gall ink in which I wrote them. As frank as Nizevet had been, this was another kind of truth telling entirely. Shammah had been restless in his seat, shifting his great bulk, working the knot in