| have her servant Hephzibah prepare a bath on the roof-top. She would wait until after dark, however. Since the completion of the palace next door, the rooftop no longer afforded her privacy during daylight hours. |
| But for now, she must appear devastated. She intoned a low moan, careful not to strain her voiceor she would not be able to talk tomorrow. |
| "Come, wife!" Uriah's voice cracked with genuine sorrow. "We must go immediately to the palace. The king needs us." |
| Bathsheba descended the steps to the courtyard, wailing but not straining. Her husband's grief was obviously genuine. Not for Abigail, whom he scarcely knew, but for David, whom he loved. In fact, Bathsheba thought bitterly, he loved David more than her. |
| Uriah the Hittite, she discovered long ago, had three loves: war, the king and herself. In that order. His huge sword was always by his side, and he wore his helmet, breastplate, and greaves day and nightexcept to bed, fortunately, since she shared the bed with him. |
| As she approached her husband across the courtyard, she noted the red-rimmed eyes, the agonized facial expression, the voice already hoarse from expressing sorrow. Would he mourn that intensely for her if she died? Probably not. He would not miss her, as long as he followed his ambitious king into battle. |
| Bathsheba trailed meekly behind as Uriah led the way to the palace next door. The new palace. Built lovingly by the king for his favorite wife, Abigail. When the fever struck her last month in Hebron, she demanded to be moved to Jerusalem. She seemed to know the fever would murder her, and she wanted to die in her new home. |
| The palace was magnificent. As soon as the Tyrean builders began laying its foundation, Bathsheba had pressured her husband to claim the Jebusite house next door. |
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