“I thought about that quite a lot and, I must admit that I don’t know what he did or didn’t know, but I don’t believe that he really understood what happened. By the way, your book also doesn’t provide a clear answer to that.”
“And I hold that Uriah did know about your exploits. Moreover, my position is that you also suspected that he knew what his wife and you had done. If you allow me to elaborate, I will explain where this conclusion comes from. While you were trying to get him to return home, and when you asked him why he hadn’t done it yet, Uriah chose his words carefully. On the one hand, he was careful to call the war minister ‘my lord Yoav’ but, when he took an oath on the life of the king, he made do with the phrase ‘as thou liveth and as thy soul lives if I do that thing.’ In other words, whereas he calls the army chief ‘my lord,’ he does not call you ‘my sovereign king’ and, instead, suffices with the phrase ‘your life and your soul.’ The fact that this elite warrior forgot his manners and the obligatory protocol when addressing the king, along with his refusal to return home, leads me to determine that Uriah knew and was angry about his wife’s infidelity with you, or at least suspected it.”
The king remained numb as Yiftach continued without stopping. “And then, as we already know, you intentionally got him intoxicated, hoping he would return to his home, however this attempt also failed. And then Love—who caused you to reach this Valley of Death from the start—now led you to plot your final and fatal plan. With incomprehensible detachment, you placed a letter in Uriah’s hands, addressed to your war minister, Yoav, in which you ordered him to position Uriah in the first line of soldiers, that is, at the front line on the battlefield, and then to instruct all the other soldiers to retreat. Thus, you hoped that the enemy’s arrows would be aimed at Uriah alone and he would be killed. What a brilliant idea, King David. Your fatal plan indeed met with success. Uriah fell in battle and, after a period of ‘mourning,’ you married Bathsheba.” The king kept silent, not uttering a word.
“You know,” Yiftach remarked, “I always wondered whether you ever harbored even the slightest suspicion that Uriahunderstood what was happening and, if so, how did you trust him to deliver to Yoav the deathly order? After all, Uriah could have read the order and undermined your evil plan, laying bare your true character.” The king wanted to say something, but Yiftach chose to answer in his stead: “The answer is perfectly clear, Your Highness—Love blinded you and warped your thinking, incapacitating any logical reasoning on your part. Love caused you to ‘divorce’ common sense and, in fact, who among us hasn’t similarly succumbed?”
Yiftach looked at the audience with anger. “Love causes us to deviate from the path of reason and leads us to formulate and implement terrible ideas. Clearly, David, King of Israel, wouldn’t have acted so hastily, recklessly and immorally had he been of a clear mind.” The king nodded with a tormented look. “Just to complete the story,” Yiftach went on, “in that secret message to Yoav, you commanded him to lead his army to an encounter with the Rabbath-Ammon forces and then retreat all at once, without informing Uriah, thus leaving him alone to face the enemy’s swords. However, the war minister—who feared that the morale of his soldiers would be damaged when exposed to the contemptible betrayal of Uriah—changed the original instructions you had given him. Yoav understood that he could not carry out the betrayal of his outstanding soldier and, therefore, he intentionally led his forces into a bloody battle in which a great number of soldiers were killed, including Uriah the Hittite, as it is written: ‘And the men of the city went out, and fought with Yoav, and many of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.’ When the battle had ended, Yoav feared that upon hearing about the battle and the many fighters who had lost their lives, your anger would be great. He understood that he must apologize and provide you with satisfactory explanations regarding the high death toll of his elite soldiers. Therefore, he exploited Uriah’s death and sentan emissary to you who focused on the death of Uriah in order to obscure his failure on the battlefield. Do you recall what message you asked the emissary to deliver to Yoav in response to his report of the battle and the high loss of life?”
The king remained silent but, after a moment, replied: “No, but I have a feeling that you or your book are about to remind me.”
“With indifference, you said as follows: ‘Thus shalt thou say to Yoav: Let not this thing displease thee for the sword devours one as well as another. Make thy battle stronger.’ In simpler words, David, you weren’t angry about the outcome of the battle and you didn’t weep for your elite soldiers who fell in battle and would never return home again. All you felt was relief that one singular, outstanding, exceptionally devoted solder—Uriah the Hittite, of course—was no longer among the living. If other soldiers had to pay with their lives for you to achieve your objective—as far as you were concerned, then so be it, let them die.”
“You words are like a dagger in my heart!” the king burst out, “they are slashing my body like a sword!”
“And of course you know what swords are capable of…” Yiftach answered. “The sword devours one as well as another. So what do we have here?” He concluded with six words: “Tens of thousands killed. One love.” Highly agitated, he returned to his seat next to Melody, who patted his shoulder.
“Cross-examination?” Sabat inquired.
“I haven’t decided yet…” Heart’s response was surprising.
“Well, it’s now or never,” Judge Kedem said.
“What is the point in wasting precious judicial time?” the bearded gnome continued without giving an explanation.
“We are not sure what you mean,” Judge Golan added.
“I have read Chapter Eleven of the Book of Samuel II over and over again, and I haven’t found in it a single mention of the word ‘love’ in any form or derivative.”
“Speak clearly!” Yiftach said, annoyed. “What are you trying to tell us?”
And Heart, with alert eyes and a dormant conscience, answered: “I wish to tell you, my young friend, that you must be more careful in choosing the witnesses you plan to summon to this trial. What was said here is nothing but a cluster of words forming a compelling story, and the witness you summoned is one of the most fascinating in human history. However, we are not gathered here for a social get-together, but rather for a crucial and fateful trial, and your witness’s story has nothing to do with my client! I do not negate King David’s sexual passion towards the wife of Uriah the Hittite, but that is not what is on trial here, and who are we to confuse between carnal passion and human love? If you wish, bring Lust to trial. For it is Lust that caused this entire saga to unfold, as you related here, but to hold Love responsible for an imaginary tale in which King David fell in love with Bathsheba… c’mon… get real…”
“He’s got a point there,” the king said, and Heart immediately added: ‘Your Honors, I have decided. I will forgo cross-examination.”
Chapter Fourteen
“And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in
the river; and her maidens walked along by the river-side; and she saw the ark among the bulrushes
and sent her handmaid to fetch it”
Book of Exodus, 2:5
It was late in the evening. “I’m going out for a while,” Yiftach told his father.
“At this hour?” the old man asked. “Isn’t it a little late? Are you going out to meet a lady?” he asked, guessing what the answer would be. Yiftach humored him and told him that he was going to Melody’s house to borrow an important book from her. “You seem a little tense about this date,” his father said.
“No, Dad, it’s all in your head. I’m not tense and it’s not a date. Like I told you, I just need to borrow a book from her, I need it for the trial.”
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“Who?”
“Melody.”
“How is that relevant?” Yiftach responded.
