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oxcart came through the open window.
    “He’s late.” Merab entered the room with regal grace, passing five serving girls bent over wooden kneading troughs.
    “Who’s late, Mother?” Michal picked up her skirts and hurried after Ahinoam, annoyance nipping at her. She was frustrated that Merab should know something she didn’t.
    “Adriel, the merchant,” Merab answered before Ahinoam could. “Really, Michal, you should pay more attention to overseeing the servants, otherwise things will get out of hand. In this case, the vegetables should have been here at dawn.”
    “Why? Did they have an appointment with someone?” Michal studied the turbaned merchant leading an uncooperative donkey up the stone walk.
    “Don’t be impertinent, Michal.” Ahinoam brushed past her daughter to meet Adriel at the door. Merab followed two paces behind.
    The burly guard Benaiah, who was left to protect the king’s household, had allowed Adriel access to the palace kitchens. There was nothing unusual about the sight before her. Benaiah and a handful of other guards were fixtures she encountered at every turn. And she’d seen Adriel bring food to her father’s table almost daily for over a year. With the men gone, getting here at dawn didn’t seem to make much difference.
    Michal lifted one hand to inspect the dark orange henna on her fingernails, then turned to where Adriel and her mother stood looking over a clay tablet checklist. Every now and then the man’s gaze drifted to Merab. Was that admiration in his eyes? Michal studied the quiet merchant a moment longer, gauging Merab’s demure reaction to him. Adriel was older, probably in his late twenties. Chances are he had a wife and a quiver of sons already. Still, some men took more than one wife.
    The stiff staccato of sandaled feet made Michal turn. Benaiah marched across the tiled floor to make his circle of the grounds. He was a dark, average-looking man, but larger than most, his size dwarfing Michal by comparison. He paused at the arch of the door and turned to scan the room. For a long moment he looked at her, then courted a hesitant smile and turned away. Michal studied his back, for the briefest instant warming to the power of her own physical appeal. She shook her head. He couldn’t possibly be interested in her. He was just a guard. Then again, he’d paused when he saw Merab too. Maybe Benaiah and Adriel were both attracted to her sister. Like David.
    A sick feeling settled over her. Would her sister’s beauty always outshine hers? Michal looked again at the merchant, and her thoughts pondered her father’s decree sent the day before. Merab would marry the slayer of the giant.
    If someone did kill the giant, Father would likely promote him, and he could end up someday as Jonathan’s right-hand man, like Abner was for Father. If Merab married him, she could be the second most powerful woman in the land next to Sarah. Suddenly irritated and cross, Michal slipped away from the kitchen and walked slowly out of the room toward her rooftop retreat. She clenched her hands into tight fists. She couldn’t let that happen.

    The air felt thick and still in the wide Valley of Elah, which separated the Philistine camp from the Israelites. Overhead a lone black hawk circled the sky. David stood, watching the carrion bird swoop low toward the Philistine ranks, then fly westward in the direction of Gath, then swing back toward the enemy army again. If God intended to send him a sign of his coming victory, the bird surely made it clear. Not that it mattered. Without a doubt, David knew the Most High had called him to this moment, and nothing anyone could do or say would shake his confidence in the Almighty.
    David rested his left hand on the pouch of stones at his side. His sling draped from his right hand. He walked to the top of the ridge, ever aware of the silent army of Israel at his back.
    On the opposite rise, Goliath stepped from the battle lines and followed his armor