Read Online Unspoken by Francine Rivers - Free Book Online Page B

one of his most valued captains, the granddaughter of Ahithophel, a man he’d respected for years! He had enough trouble in the kingdom without turning friends into enemies!
    “Bring the maidservant to me.”
    He felt curious eyes upon him as he untied the string around the small papyrus. He read Bathsheba’s brief message, and his stomach dropped. Heat climbed up his neck and spread across his face. Three words, enough to shock him from his complacency and trumpet disaster:
    I am pregnant.
    He felt the accusation in those three words and heard Bathsheba’s desperate cry for help. He brushed his fingers lightly over the words and frowned. Guilt gripped him.
    Oh, Bathsheba . He remembered his promise and wondered how he could fulfill it. Her handmaiden stood in the doorway, waiting for his reply. He saw heads leaning toward one another, whispering. Speculation already! He could hear the soft buzz. Would it grow into screams for blood? His and hers? Disaster stretched ahead for both of them if word of their affair spread. He needed time to think, time to find a solution to this problem!
    Crumpling Bathsheba’s message in his hand, he leaned back indolently and smiled, beckoning forward the next person who had come to present a case before the king. He listened impatiently and made a decision he saw was ill received. What did he care about their petty differences when Bathsheba faced certain death? He had to find a way to rescue her from the dire situation she was in. If he didn’t find a way to cover their sin, there would be trouble in the ranks of his fighting men. They would lose faith in him, possibly rebel.
    “Enough!” He stood. He waved his servants away. “I need to be alone.”
    When he entered his chamber, he closed the door and put Bathsheba’s crumpled message in among the embers of burning incense, watching as it burned.
    He sat for an hour with his head in his hands before a plan came to him. He knew it would save them both from exposure and would even give cause for celebration among his closest friends. He smiled at his own cleverness as he summoned Joram.
    “Send a messenger to Rabbah and tell Joab to send me Uriah the Hittite.”
    Joram bowed and left.
    Strangely agitated, David removed his crown and tossed it on his bed. He raked his fingers back through his hair. Temptation gripped him to summon Bathsheba and explain his plan, but he squelched the impulse. Why take any more risks when, in less than a week’s time, there would be no cause for fear of reprisals? Uriah would return to Jerusalem, where his king would treat him with the respect of an emissary. David intended to find out what was happening at Rabbah.
    And then he would send the Hittite home to his wife.
    Bathsheba was the granddaughter of Ahithophel. Surely she would be quick to see the means of her salvation and fulfill her part in the plan. He would even send food and wine as reward for Uriah’s service. Any man who’d been gone as long as Uriah would be eager for his wife.
    David clenched a fist as jealousy gripped him. The plan was repugnant, but he could see no flaw in it. Whatever he felt now about Bathsheba’s lying with another man, the act would save her life as well as that of his child. The plan would also save him embarrassment. If all went accordingly, Uriah would never know he’d been betrayed by his wife and cuckolded by a friend. David found grudging satisfaction in knowing that this child of his loins would be brought up by an honorable man who had adopted the ways of Israel.
    He relaxed his fist and sighed heavily. He would allow the Hittite one night to get the deed done, and then he’d order him back to his duties at Rabbah. In a few weeks, Bathsheba could send word to her husband that she was with child, and Uriah could celebrate with his friends in the army while finishing the job of taking Rabbah.
    The matter thus resolved in his mind, David stretched out on his bed and slept for the rest of the