The King’s Daughter

by Tala Bar

Table of Contents
Synopsis
Part 2 appears
in this issue.

Chapter 3: Ahino’am

part 3 of 3

* * *

For three years after the first coronation, the allied people of Ashtoret and Yhwh offered babies as surrogate victims in the king’s place; but the Goddess’s patience for this belittling of her honor broke, and in the fourth year her worshipers revolted. “If the King will not sacrifice himself next year,” they announced, “he must at least offer someone close to him, someone he loves, preferably one of his sons. The King must suffer pain, in order to atone for the people’s suffering next year.”

Sha’ul was unable to withstand such demand. A lottery was used on his relatives, and Re’uma’s son Avinadav was chosen. He was her first-born, and she loved him best of all her children. Ashtoret’s worshipers in the family were happy for that choice, said suffering would be real and pain true, a proper sacrifice to the Goddess. And so it was; this choice had hurt Sha’ul very deeply.

* * *

Sha’ul worshipped Ashtoret, but also relied on Yhwh in many ways. Being king in the name of the Goddess had deepened the contradiction in his heart, creating a deep chasm in his soul. It was too natural and easy for him to identify himself with the victims, even when they were little babies barely known to him; the knowledge that it was he who was supposed to take their part strengthened his sense of guilt, while raising in his heart feelings of fear and resentment. When he heard that the choice this time had fallen on Avinadav, something inside him broke beyond repair.

He went to his son’s home to sit with the family in their difficult hour. All images of Ashtoret were absent in that house. As her first son, Re’uma had given Avinadav not only her best love but also her faith, and he would never think of taking a wife who worshipped any other god but Yhwh.

I was still too young to know my elder brother before he was put on the altar before a Goddess he had never believed in. Maakha told me Avinadav was a very simple man, neither clever nor handsome. It was his mother’s love, which had given him most of his virtues. In his simple way he did not fear death, but worried mostly about his family, his wife Efrat and their two children. Efrat and Re’uma, sisters in their faith in Yhwh, were the ones who expressed the greatest anger for his fate, kept whispering together, even tried unsuccessfully to stir some of their acquaintances into a protest.

Sha’ul sat silently among his estranged, angry family. He had no comfort to give them, the only comfort he himself was able to get was from his grandchildren, who climbed all over him, played with his beard, teased him with questions — in short, behaving in the way he loved children to behave with him.

“I only want Efrat and the children to be all right,” Avinadav said quietly to his father. “I don’t like the noise my wife and mother are making.”

“You don’t need to worry about Efrat and the kids, they will receive all their needs from the King’s house,” Sha’ul replied, turning to him his anxious eyes.

He did not dare asking his son what he felt, how he prepared himself to be sacrificed to a divinity he did not believe in. If only Re’uma could believe! If she could only take part in the ceremony with all her heart, to drink from the divine blood of her son, to bless his death in the name of the Goddess, the eternal life he would win in her bosom and the possibility of his rebirth! She might even have gone to consult his head at the temple of the Three Asses!

* * *

Indeed, it was her very strong faith in Yhwh which was the downfall of Re’uma and her relationships with Sha’ul. She never forgave him for the sacrifice of Avinadav, although it had not been his own decision; she saw her husband, in his very kingship, responsible for the existence Ashtoret’s cult in Israel. All Sha’ul’s love for Ahino’am did not succeed in removing Re’uma from his bed as did at once the death of her son on the altar; that was when she ceased in fact to be his wife.

Nothing hurt Sha’ul as Re’uma’s alienation. Although he never lacked women’s company for his bodily needs, and in the end he took Ritzpa as an official concubine, the break in his soul deepened with the estrangement of Re’uma to such an extent, that even Maakha could not help him. Re’uma had been Sha’ul’s right hand in every practical business, and when she ignored him after the death of Avinadav, he seemed to be cut off from the world.

For three more years after the sacrifice of Avinadav, the offering of babies was resumed; then, again, the Goddess’s people demanded a more meaningful victim. That demand might have stirred a greater agitation in the family, but, for various reasons, this was averted. Re’uma, who had been mourning for her whole family, expecting to lose them all one by one in that unnatural way, was too numb to express any objection.

But there was another reason for the quiet acceptance of fate in general; this time there was no need for lottery because Malkishua, Sha’ul’s second son, came up to his father as soon as the celebration of the sacred marriage was over. “Father,” he said, in his quiet, soft voice, “Sire, I want to be the victim this year.”

It is not difficult for me to imagine Sha’ul’s dismay and stupefaction at hearing these words. Malkishua was a special kind of person, a real anachronism. I still remember how he looked at the head of the procession leading to the Temple for the sacrificial ceremony; I was then at an age suitable to take part in it, although in years to come I avoided doing that.

That half-brother of mine was of medium hight, his body soft and feminine, his face round and smiling, like the face of the moon. The most impressive thing about him was his hair — it was of a burning copper color, falling in full waves on his shoulders. Malkishua was proud of his hair, letting it grow and looking after it well. Years later I saw similar behavior in Avshalem, David’s son, but that one was never a willing victim. Malkishua had chosen his fate and happily climbed the altar out of a deep love for the Goddess, with a genuine wish to atone for the people’s suffering.

* * *

Malkishua’s volunteering reawakened Sha’ul’s mixed feelings about the sacrifice; in spite of his son’s happiness in being a victim, the loss here was greater than that of Avinadav, as Malkishua had never married and had no issue to carry on his name.

Sha’ul did not quite understand his son’s motivation. My poor father! As long as his children were small, he loved them dearly, but as soon as they grew up, he was not much interested in them. Neither of these two sons of his, Avinadav and Malkishua, (in contrast to the youngest, Yonatan), had resembled him in any way, had followed in his ways; he had no particular connection with either of them, emotional or intellectual, as he had with Yonatan.

Malkishua, whose name means ‘Savior King’, identified himself completely with Naaman and loved the Goddess with all his heart, as if she was in fact his mother and his beloved. That might have been the reason he had never married an earthly woman, but found his outlet only at the Temple, with the company of the priestesses. From Ahino’am I heard that Malkishua’s offering was celebrated in the ideal classical way; being present at his sacrifice, I was astounded at the variegated mixture of joy and grief, beauty and horror, fear and hope which were expressed at the festival.

Malkishua had organized his own procession of coronation and death, which walked on that Midsummer Day towards Naaman’s temple. He himself had chosen his accompanying women — the young pretty dancers and the old, withered mourners; he guided the seamstresses in making his own and his attendants’ colorful clothes; he told the musicians which songs and dirges to play during the celebration.

* * *

At the Temple, they celebrated the symbolic wedding of the victim with the chief priestess, and his crowning of King of the Underworld with a garland of mauve thistle blooms; then the procession climbed to the altar at the top of the hill. Malkishua climbed onto the altar, and, without taking any intoxicating drink to numb his senses, he let his friends tie his hands and legs and was almost ready to kindle the fire himself. When the hand with the knife was raised to cut his throat, he looked upward with shining eyes. I have no doubt he saw the Goddess herself coming down to collect his soul to her bosom.

Somewhat over a year later, in the autumn, a boy was born in the family of Kish whom his mother called Yeshamelekh, which is the opposite name to Malkishua; when asked about the odd name, she told her friends that the newborn himself had whispered it in her ear. When Yeshamelekh was three years old, he claimed to be Malkishua who had been reborn; but by then Re’uma was no longer alive to be glad for the rebirth of her son.

* * *

Sha’ul had stayed back at the Giv’a and did not take part in the celebration of his second son’s sacrifice. Re’uma had fallen ill, with the sickness from which she would never recover; her sharp mind had clouded, and she had lost all her power of influence in the family when her opposition to the sacrifice of her sons was used as a sword against her by her relatives. Gradually, that tall, regal woman had lost her physical and spiritual strength, and the cancer which ate at her body affected with its poison also her mind, her temper, her behavior.

I attended Malkishua’s festival procession to Naaman’s temple in the company of my half-brother Yonatan; it was Maakha who had insisted on my going there, commanding Yonatan to accompany me as I was too young to go on my own. Until today, I am not sure whether he would have come willingly to watch his brother going on the altar; it was not actually necessary, as there were many other representatives of the house of Kish and he could have been spared the pain. It was lucky for me, though, because Yonatan was the only one of Re’uma’s family with whom I had any connection at all.

* * *

My life in Sha’ul’s house was strange. I was a free, wild child, spending most of my time outside the family courtyard, mainly joining the shepherds and workers in the fields, avoiding as much as possible the society of Re’uma and her daughter Merav.

Beside Re’uma’s daughter, Yonatan was closest to me in age of all my stepmother’s children. He was fair and handsome like his mother, but his body was as slim as Sha’ul’s, whom he also resembled in character. He was the only one of the family who showed any regard to me, being, in fact, my only brother; because my full brother Ishbaal revealed from a very young age an inclination toward evil, which increased with his age and alienated him from everyone.

The Festival of Sacrifice, which it was my fortune to watch in the company of my brother Yonatan, was the most beautiful and one of the most terrifying experiences of my life; it could never be completely wiped out from my memory, even after more terrible personal experiences. Even today, when I close my eyes, I can see the frank — though clearly symbolic — lovemaking of Malkishua and the old priestess; she was dressed in black and he wearing his crown of thorns on his fiery hair.

The mocking similarity to the Spring Wedding festival bestowed on it a sense of the grotesque. The songs and dances were saturated with melancholy, and only the victim-groom, appearing in his festive garments, looked full of life and happiness. Malkishua’s joy was the main thing that affected the festival with this odd, mixed atmosphere.

That sense of happiness did not evaporate even when we stood around the altar, the victim stretched on top of it, his neck stretched backward, his hair flowing downward, the black stone knife shining in the raised hand of the old priestess. Even today the shiver grasp my whole body with claws of ice, when in my imagination I feel on my face and see on my festive clothes the glowing, warm, red drops of blood. Even today awe fills my heart when I see in my mind-eyes the fire consuming my brother’s flesh. It was well that my hand was held by Yonatan’s, and at last I pulled him away, hurrying him down the slope toward the Temple’s building.

* * *

I have no doubt that it was this sight which had determined my stand against sacrifices, and my firm thought that Ashtoret never wanted any victims, human or otherwise. It was not my faith in the Goddess that had toppled, but the way I interpreted that faith. It is my firm feeling that faith should be a personal, private matter; all the events I had gone through later in my life have only strengthened that feeling in me.

At the time of Malkishua’s sacrifice I was, of course, still a young girl, unable to express my feelings in words, unable to utter such words aloud, unable to believe anyone would listen to them if I did. Even — or, especially — my mother Ahino’am, when I first met her in person.

As the Love priestess of Spring, Ahino’am did not take part in the Festival of Sacrifice. But when we went down, Yonatan and I, from the top of the hill, as if knowing of our approach, she came out and stood at the entrance to the Temple, waiting for us.

For me, Ahino’am had always been an eternal, never changing, woman. I saw her when I was a child, I saw her when I was a grown woman, I saw her when I was approaching old age — she always looked the same: a small, dark figure with a curveless body, a hooked nose, a red sensuous mouth and misty, mysterious eyes. Her straight, black hair falling to her waist when it was not tied in braids crowning her head. She had never been what is called ‘motherly’, never dripping with a suffocating affection; she was too strong and independent for that. But she had a deep attachment to her children, an inner connection, which had sprung from the eternal attachment between the Goddess and her creatures more than between a human mother and her issue.

Although she did not bring me up, I could never deny her as my mother. Even today I feel her cool, caressing hands on my skin, making my body shudder pleasantly. She always knew my thoughts and feelings, she always expressed her criticism in a soft quiet voice, even when the words were sharp.

* * *

On that occasion, having sniffed at my face and my hair, she thought it was right to remark on my wildness as a girl. “How similar you are to Sha’ul!” she exclaimed. I don’t know if I heard love in her voice because I wanted to hear it, or whether it was really there. “Discipline,” she said, “not others’ rule. Self-discipline is what you need. I hope you don’t get lost.”

It is difficult to say today, after all that had passed, whether Ahino’am’s continued presence in my life would have helped me not to get lost. In the end, I am what I am. Perhaps, if I had been more like Ahino’am than Sha’ul, I would be happier in my life. But perhaps not — who knows? Ashtoret? Yhwh?

“Go with Yonatan, he is a good boy,” she said to me, pushing me lightly toward him. He bent his head before her and put out his hand to me. As we walked away, I turned back again, waving goodbye. Then we found one or two of the boys left with the animals and went home with them, to Giv’at Sha’ul.

To be continued...