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Once when Michelle was five she sat high on her father's shoulders in a meadow and watched with him as a circle of butterflies descended from the heavens. They circled them both, never quite touching. Her father smiled and spun her around in the eye of the storm of butterflies and Michelle, whose favourite fairy tales were the Sabbath Queen and her father's heavenly coronation respectively, asked if it meant she would be King. "I would not want such a burden for you," her father said. "You will be a princess instead." When Michelle is twelve and the cancer diagnosis comes she is as unsurprised as any twelve year old girl can be about the onset of death; her father has always spoken to God and he never told her she would be meant for greatness.
When Michelle is sixteen she draws her last breath and prays that if God would just give her another she would give one back to him in kind. She draws another breath.
*
God has never spoken to David. Except, possibly, in the language of butterflies.
*
In Gath there are no luxuries for them; no great supplies of food or fine wines. She sleeps on rough sheets and dresses in plain clothes that stretch taunt across her middle. She does not care, though, because every day she gets up with her husband, breathes another breath she owes to her people, her son, and goes with David out into the street. They never sleep in the same place twice, always moving, but wherever they go David finds work he can help with and talks to anyone he will listen.
David might not believe that he can hear God, but that's only because Michelle thinks He's speaking through him. David tells people his story - how he was one man against a Goliath, a king, an army, and how close we came to peace before one man's greed stole it away. And when David has finished his story Michelle tells them hers; how she believes in David, how they're going to make things better, how peace at any cost is really no cost and how she is never going to raise her son - the rightful heir to the throne - to ever pick up a weapon, lest it be a pen.
Michelle loves the way David makes people look, how inspired they are and the strength of their loyalty. The people David leaves behind would walk through fire for him - they would all walk through fire for him, David has just never seen that - but Michelle knows that without direction their fury will just burn out in inaction. And Michelle has always been able to talk about her policies at a moment's notice, after all.
*
The people of Gath are like the people of Gilboa: they want an end to war, death and income taxes. Really when you know that the rest is just politics.
"It's all well and good for you to say you want an end to war, Bless'd Captain, but what are you going to do about the economy, eh?" a plump woman with a thick mane of curls and a small child of indeterminate gender clinging to her leg asks with a sharp poke to David's chest.
David backs up a step and holds out his hands placatingly. "I believe in saving the lives of our soldiers before we dedicate them to a new profession," he replies. It's a good answer, Michelle thinks. It's just not good enough.
"Hmph," the woman says. "You're like every other, you are. You want us to start some sort of uprising for you just so we can get you as our new boss so you can be same as the old. No, thank you."
The crowd around them once listening so intently to David's story of hand grenades and rocket launchers starts glancing from one to the other, like it was a game of tennis. David looks completely out of his depth, for once.
"Part of the reason Shiloh has flourished is that it had a dedicated banking institution employing upwards of 60 percent of the unskilled labour force. In short, we built things. The infrastructure of Gath has been devastated by years of war, just like Gilboa. The money we could save from buying weapons and keeping and exponentially increasing our standing armies would easily go into a similar fund, one based on more than one institution so the coup can never happen again. The health system has only ever been equipped to deal with military casualties, not long term health care of its citizens. With some of the money we will save on missiles, or a single one of your famous multimillion dollar Goliath tanks, we will hire doctors and nurses and make the quality of care that today only the rich can afford available to everyone."
The woman stares, as do many of the men surrounding them. David smiles at her and nods. "My wife knows what she's talking about. It was her health care reforms that saved Shiloh from a plague outbreak. Unlike Gath we lost less than a dozen people where without the death toll would have numbered in the thousands or tens of thousands."
"What would you have us do?" a man asked, towards the back. His tone was mocking but David answered him seriously.
"I would do nothing to risk your lives. I ask that you not send your sons and daughters to fight, that you begin to think of me and my people as brothers and sisters, not the enemy. With these things we will already be closer to becoming one people, united in peace."
*
David, like Silas, is a soldier. He led his men, was beloved as a comrade, and one day he will be king.
The night before they march he stands on the mountain top and shouts up to God. "Is this what you want? I have brought you an army. Tomorrow I march on your city and take it back in your name, and still you haven't spoken to me! How can I know Your will if you will not speak to me!?"
Michelle hears no answering roll of thunder, like there always was in her father's tales. There is no voice, has never been a voice, but she feels a rightness within her when she looks at their people and their hope. It says to her /I am well pleased/. She ignores it.
The sky is clear and bitterly cold. She tucks her coat around her tightly and goes to her husband.
"Does it matter if this is his plan, David?" she asks him. "God's will or not it's the right thing to do. You are freeing a people from tyranny and war. How can God not love you for doing such a thing?"
David bows his head and leans his forehead against hers in a movement she knows means she's right. He rests his hand on her belly, though he will be able to feel little through the thick wool of her coat.
"Sometimes I think I'm not God's chosen at all," he says, and kisses her without sadness.
*
David marches his army through Shiloh. Their army is nearly 700 thousand strong, and by their orders has not a weapon upon them. They head down the main road, where her father's procession once stopped for ice cream, and gather men, women and children in their wake. Michelle looks behind her and cannot see an end to her people.
The armed guards at the palace hold their formation as they approach and David steps forward. "Do you want to see what bullets can do against the will of God?" he asks, "or, more importantly, the will of the people?"
The sergeant in charge signals for them to put down their weapons and they continue past, guards joining them as they head towards the king and away from the crowd they leave behind, utterly silent.
*
King Silas is in his throne room. No one ever called it that, but that was its function. Instead of the brick and gold of old he had glass and steel and he stares out at it now.
"Have you come for my head, King David?" he asks, mockingly. Beside him Michelle's mother stands, ready to present a united image to the end. She would die beside him if asked, even if she hasn't really loved him since the moment he put on that crown; has hated him since what he did to her and Jack. Sometimes Michelle thinks her mother really was born to become queen.
"I am only here for your crown, Silas," David says. "You have betrayed all the promises you made to yourself, your people and God. You are corrupt and you can no longer rule."
Silas turns from his window and regards David and Michelle coldly. He takes in the obvious state of her, the ring on her hand that matches David's. Behind him the midday sun hits the skyscrapers, lighting windows up like fire. To Michelle her father, for once, looks almost otherworldly. "When you lay dying I surrendered this moment to save you," Silas says to her. "The Sabbath Queen said I would wish you had died in this moment."
Michelle chokes back tears. Her mother glances away from her but her father's eyes remain fixed. He always did only have eyes for her. It broke her brother's heart and nearly broke his kingdom but she has never doubted his love for her. She does not doubt it now. "She was wrong," Silas says. "I do not wish for your death; I could not." He steps forward and behind her five men shift the position of their guns. She waves them down.
"Do you remember when you were five?" he asks her.
She smiles, even though it makes tears fall from her eyes. "The butterflies?"
"The butterflies," he repeats. "All I wanted for you was happiness," he says. "For your brother I wanted this. Never you. I thanked God when those butterflies didn't touch your head. I offered him almost anything if only you never had to bear this burden. God never listens."
"I cannot be happy when my people suffer needlessly and die," Michelle says in a harsh, strong whisper. "I was never touched because you have to earn it. You have to keep earning it, which is what you forgot, Father. Because God loved you once does not mean you can commit any sin."
Silas nods, almost imperceptibly. "I yield to you," he says quietly. "Only to you." He holds out his hand for the Queen. They take a step forward, together, and bow before David and Michelle.
Michelle takes David's hand. He glances down at it in his before he speaks. "I cannot do what you would, Silas, and simply have you killed. But I have spent time in your prison and cannot wish that for you either. Instead I shall banish you from the kingdom of Gath and Gilboa forever. Your punishment shall be to never know the pleasures of the place you helped to build."
Silas nods again and the guards escort them out, heads held high. The room breathes a sigh of relief; David audibly. Michelle suspects this is not over; her father knows too many people in too many places to never not be a part of the politics of her kingdom, but that will be manageable. She will find a way.
David glances around. "So much to be done," he says. "We'll need to install another chair here, for you," he says. Then he smiles. "Or perhaps, for me."
"And a senate for the new ministers," Michelle adds. David nods. For a moment they survey their city; their country. Then after that moment has finished they walk together outside, hand in hand, and stand on the balcony on which her father once gave his opening address. They step up to the podium together, ready to talk of God, proportional representation, and peace.
"Today we have founded a new nation," David says and Michelle thinks his words would echo even without the microphone. She thinks she might never have loved him more. "This new nation will be the greatest nation on Earth not because we are God blessed, or anyone else is damned, but because we will work towards it, together. We shall have peace not just in our time, but for all time."
There is an almighty cheer as every voice in the city gives rise to their approval. The sound is almost defining and then from below as if carried on their voices a swarm of butterflies rises and settles on Michelle and David in a living, beating crown. It feels like blessing, not from God but from the people.
/Yes/ says the voice in Michelle's ear, and she smiles. She knows; she has much to do.