The Secret Chord: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

way to us. He would greet each of them, offer them honey cakes or wine, and draw out their stories. He lent a sympathetic ear, and made them know that he thought them patriots, not traitors. Avigail would be there, too, always, serving the food, unnoticed by the strangers. But I noticed her, and I noticed she missed nothing.
    I was there one such evening, as she gathered the uneaten rinds and crusts from the meal David had shared with a man who had described himself as a trader from Shechem in the north, dealing in purple dye. As this was a risky trade, necessitating travel along the Derek Hayyam, the Way of the Sea, which passed through Plishtim territory, the man claimed also to be skilled with arms and had offered us his services as a fighter. When David asked why he had abandoned the dye trade, he said that the king’s steward had reneged on payments, a large sum. When he tried to bring the matter before Shaul in person, the king had refused to see him. On the steward’s word alone, the king banned him from doing further business with the court, which ruined him.
    It had been an amiable meal: the merchant was a good storyteller, and kept the company amused by tales from his journeys. But now that the man had retired, David reached an arm out and drew Avigail down to sit with him. “What did you think?” he asked her.
    “He had very white hands,” she said. “I suppose a dye merchant need not handle his own product, and yet . . .” She let her voice trail off.
    “What else?”
    She tilted her head, considering. “He seemed a bit confused, for a dye merchant, between tekelet and argaman.”
    “What?” said David. “Is there a difference, then?”
    “Oh, yes,” Avigail replied. “One is a blue purple, the other a warmer, reddish purple. It’s true, the distinction can be difficult to make”—she smiled—“though not if you’re canny—one is much cheaper, and no capable wife in purse to afford the dye in the first place would let herself be misled. And if it is your trade and livelihood . . . and you say you sell to a king . . .”
    She always fashioned her words in that way, opening a question rather than giving a certain answer, so that David might feel that he had come to the truth himself.
    “Anything more?”
    She paused. “Well, he said he traveled often by the Derek Hayyam, but it was clear when he spoke that he did not recall that the highway turns inland in the Carmel mountains to cross the plain of Yezreel at Megiddo.”
    David frowned. “Spy, do you think?”
    “Perhaps not. Perhaps Shaul’s spy would be more careful. More likely a brigand with a disreputable past, who does not want to own to it.”
    “In any case, I will send him on his way in the morning. I’ll not take a chance on him.”
    Had it gone the other way, had Avigail found the man’s tale convincing, he would have been embraced on her word. There would be a celebration to seal his joining the band—singing and dancing, the sharing of stories. Such nights were full of music and mirth and good feeling. That was how David drew men to him and made them his. He never forgot a man’s story and could recall the names of his kin and all those who were dear to him, wept with him in loss, celebrated with him in joy. He learned which man enjoyed a ribald jest and which of them disapproved of bawdiness, and tailored his words accordingly. It was not that he played false in this. He had both elements in his nature, both the coarse and the refined. He could be a predator at noonday and a poet by dusk. And he exercised uncommon tact with his men, meeting them where they stood, rather than demanding that they always be the ones accommodating themselves. I have learned over time that this quality is rare in any man, even more so in a leader.
    Those who knew or loved music found an instant bond with him. You cannot harmonize in song or play instruments together without listening one to the other, sensing when to be loud and when