"Esther M. Friesner - Giants in the Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

as he spoke. Older and wiser, they had no intention of becoming collateral damage when King David
finally lost his temper and flattened the lad.
To their surprise, instead of a royal explosion, King David's reaction was merely to sigh deeply and
pinch the bridge of his nose. "Bugger," he said. "If he's drawn a crowd of Saul's old army buddies, I'll
have to fight him, whoever he is. People are watching. I'll bet drachmas to dromedaries that a whole mob
of our foreign trade community is out there too, waiting to see what I'll do. If I don't fight it'll be a
shonda for the goyim."
"A what?" Like many on the council, Eliezar had a hard time understanding his king when David lapsed
into the local dialect of his youth.
"Just fetch my armor, dummy. And will someone please clear away that concubine?"
***
All the good seats for the big rematch were taken. Tirzah tried to squirm her way through the press of
women hogging the few windows that had a decent view of the road where the giant awaited King
David's appearance, but was firmly rebuffed.
"We outrank you." Leah sniffed disdainfully. She was a skinny creature, relic of David's brief flirtation
with the philosophy that Less is More. He'd tired of her bony embraces, but not before she bore him a
son. "We are the royal mothers."
"I'll say you are," Tirzah grumbled.
"What was that?" Hulda asked sharply. She'd been a concubine-of-last-resort until she'd lucked out and
birthed a baby boy.
"I said that for all you know, I'll be a royal mother some day, too, so maybe you should be nicer to me."
Tirzah waggled her hips at the women. "I found an old Babylonian bedroom manual last week and it's
got plenty of sure-fire tricks to guaranteeтАФ"
"Ha!" Hulda was one of those annoying know-it-alls who was likewise a say-it-all. "If our lord David
loses this battleтАФwhich he won't, unthinkable, JHVH forbid, p'too-p'too-p'too, I never so much as
suggested the possibilityтАФyou'll be nothing. It takes two to make a royal baby. Or didn't your
Babylonian smut book mention that?"
Tirzah stared, horrified. The truth of Hulda's words was inescapable. If David fell to Goliath's spear, her
life was over too. What happened to concubines when their master died? Those with children of the
royal blood would be looked after by the next king, if only so he might keep tabs on potential rivals.
Those who were still virgins due to bureaucratic oversights might find employment elsewhere. For those
like Tirzah, neither maiden nor mother, the game was over.
Oh no! she thought wildly. What will become of me? Being a concubine is all I know how to do! That
and watching sheep, but I will see myself chopped up and served over cous-cous before I go back to
doing that again.
Memory conjured up the image of her mother on the day Tirzah announced that she was turning in her
shepherd girl's rod, staff, sling, and lambing kit in order to audition for the king's harem. "I want to smell
of myrrh, not manure," she explained. "Is that such a bad ambition?"
"Fine," Mother said in a way that made it obvious how very far from fine it all was. "Go. Be a
concubine. See if I care. Break a mother's heart. All I'm saying is that you could do better. This is an
honor, to share the bed of a man old enough to be your father without even he gives you an engagement

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 - Chapter 11


ring? And why should he? Why buy the sheep when you're getting the sex for free? But don't listen to
me. Go. Make from this filth a successful life. When I think of what I sacrificed for youтАФ"
She'd gone on in the same vein right up until the minute Tirzah left, which was not a moment too soon.
She'd been on the point of seeing whether she could turn her old sling into a suicide weapon rather than