Queenmaker by India
Edghill, 2012, Fictional History, Excerpts
Future King David
wants to wed King Saul's daughter, Michal. King Saul sets the bride-price:
My bride-price was to be one
hundred foreskins taken from the Philistines. So my father said to David before
the priests and judges in the open court. David and Jonathan came to me with
the news, to tell me before others could. It was the first time I heard
Jonathan call our father mad. “But Jonathan—” I was so shocked that I could
think of nothing to say. How could anyone pay such a price? One hundred
Philistines! David was a great warrior, but even David could not hope to kill
one hundred men before I was too old to care whether I married or not. I would
not even think that the Philistines might kill David instead.
“He means that his youngest
daughter is of great worth in his eyes,” David said, and hugged me again. “And
I am but a poor man’s son—what else could he ask of me? Gold and spices? I am a
simple warrior, so he set a warrior’s price. I mean to do this, and I will come
back to pay Saul what he asks and claim his daughter as I have said.”
Six months later....
David stepped back and spread his
arms wide. “Look, King Saul—you set a price for your daughter’s marriage of one
hundred Philistine foreskins. I have brought two hundred. They were circumcised
by the prophet Samuel himself." Now his voice was raised to shout a
triumph. “A great victory for Yahweh.” My father grudged nothing for my
wedding-day—not the bride-clothes, nor the fatted lambs and calves for the
feast, nor the honors for my bridegroom. The wedding festival was to last for
seven days and seven nights. A king’s daughter did not wed a hero every day,
Saul said.
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