The pillars are grooved with dark patterns as the rain fills the sky, the land, the terrace Tamar stands and looks out upon. Back at the king's palace one last time, after every upheaval, back where once she was young. Now as the trills of light voices trail from the hall beyond her, the lines weigh deeper across her skin, the weathering and scars that reach so much further below.
A figure appears in the rain, darting to the archway leading back inside.
Tamar frowns. It's a young girl, the tight curls of her hair half falling from the headscarf and bodice pulled askew. Dark with the water splashing from them, almost as dusky as her skin, her skirts are clutched up as she slows upon entering the women's rooms.
Safe.
The thought is unbidden but Tamar knows instantly that it's true. Even as the girl -the Shunnamite, the one dragged here to fill the late king's eyes with beauty in his dotage- shrinks against the other wall, trying to move outside the eyes of the others in the softly-lit hall, Tamar glimpses through the rain two men, striding, swaggering with great, uncaring laughter. They stop just off the raised terrace, standing out of sight of the women inside, just beneath Tamar's screened window. They might think they're being quiet. Tamar almost laughs.
They've never known the fear which keeps every woman quiet, caged in some way.
They are the hunters, no matter how good they might be. What would they understand of the prey's manner?
"Abijah!" one of them cries with another laugh, to hushing and more laughter.
"It's true!" she hears the other, Abijah, the sibling younger than Absalom but older than herself. "The young ones... I suppose I have something for little girls."
Tamar takes a breath, letting every scar burn fresh. Tears sting in her eyes and she leans forward, palms against the cedarwood lattice.
The crash above their heads stuns the men out of moving, and Tamar claws her headscarf away, staring at Abijah, his face a handspan away from her own. "You have something for little girls, do you ?" Her smile lifts, teeth, feral. The tears scatter as she runs her thumbs against her eyelids and slides them towards the men. "So do I." She stretches tear-wet hands to their fingers. "I annihilate anyone who tries to hurt little girls." The tips of her fingers meet her brother's cheek and both men startle back to their senses, scrambling out of her reach.
Tamar watches them from the broken screen, watches as they peer back at her with nervous chuckles. "Mad!" the stranger cries. "Fallen," Abijah mouths.
Tamar nods, lifts a hand to the drops rolling off her chin, shakes them toward the men as she whispers the words Moses said to curse the unfaithful woman. It must do. There is no alternative for the misdeeds of man. Then she bows her head, backing away from the window and into the crowd that has gathered about her.
Yahweh, see.
Yahweh, hear.
Be merciful.
Bring justice.
Tamar slips through the whispers of the other woman, hunting for Abishag, and the carvings on the pillars catch her eye again.
Yes, Abijah, she thinks. This palm tree is fallen. But only the fallen palms can stand again, carven with beauty.