I gave myself over in those two years to what shards of happiness I could unearth when I pushed dread of the future away. There were some golden days, when the work of making and mending went on, when music filled the king’s halls, and when the city seemed bathed in a kind of radiance.We made many new alliances at that time, and fought no wars. A few border skirmishes, merely, put down with little loss of life. Because of this, Shlomo was allowed to follow his own inclinations in a fashion that would not have been possible for the Hevron princes raised in time of war. Shlomo showed little interest in the business of killing. He was lithe and quick handed with a sword, accurate with a bow, and got through his necessary lessons with good grace and efficient dispatch, and did not seek to push his skills past a necessary level of proficiency.But if soldiering did not interest him, the soldiers themselves were another matter. He loved to sit with the men and draw out their firsthand stories of past campaigns.
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