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January 27th 968 BC, Jerusalem
Aziraphale observed the king with a smile. Solomon really had been a very good choice for a prophet. The angel was sure Israel would blossom under Solomon’s reign.
Aziraphale thanked the servant who took his and Crawly’s plate. Crawly just nodded and as soon as the servant was out of earshot, he leaned toward Aziraphale and whispered: ‘Now that this feast is over, what do you think about going to a tavern in town? They’ve got wine there too and we don’t have to keep up our appearance here at court.’
‘Oh, but the really good part is yet to come’, Aziraphale said enthusiastically.
‘Is that so?’ Crawly raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes’, Aziraphale exclaimed and pointed in Solomon’s direction right to his left; ‘now Solomon will demonstrated his God given wisdom!’ Aziraphale was so excited, he found it hard to keep quiet enough so that Solomon, just two seats away, wouldn’t hear him. The king didn’t know yet that God was going to give him a chance to prove himself as wise and just to his people.
‘So he will be given a test by God now?’, Crawly asked.
‘Well, it will not be a test by God Herself, obviously. God gave us the job to prepare one’, Aziraphale explained, looking back to Solomon, who was luckily speaking with an adviser and therefore not paying attention to Aziraphale and Crawly.
‘Did you…?’, Crawly asked, leaving the end of the sentence open.
‘Oh, no’, Aziraphale answered quickly, ‘I wasn’t involved with the test, I would have told you! I am just here to observe Solomon passing it.’
Crawly let his gaze wander around the room, looking both bored and expectant. ‘And will the test happen soon?’, he asked.
Before Aziraphale could answer, one of the servants came running towards the king and whispered something in Solomon’s ear.
‘I think the test has arrived’, Aziraphale told Crawly with a big, excited grin.
Solomon rose from his seat to announce the end of the feast. ‘Two of my subjects have come here today, so that I will settle a challenging feud between them!’, Solomon declared.
Aziraphale had to admire the righteous and confident stance of the king and how his voice rang through the whole hall for everyone to understand.
‘A bit pretentious, isn’t he?’, Crawly said only for Aziraphale to hear, who turned with a scandalous face.
‘Well, he is the God chosen king. She Herself gave him wisdom. He is allowed to be a bit…’, Aziraphale shot Solomon a quick look, observing how he seated himself back on his throne, so his two subjects would be able to explain their feud before him and his court, ‘…dramatic.’
Crawly didn’t get the opportunity to respond, whereas two women entered with one servant accompanying them. Said servant was carrying crumbled up fabric. They all stopped a few feet before Solomon. One of the women stepped forward and started to speak: ‘My king, me and this woman are living in the same house and both of us have been with child. Beside us two there was not one there. I gave birth four days ago and yesterday she delivered her baby. This night her child died and, while I was sleeping, she switched our children. When I woke up this morning, I wanted to feed my child, but realised the child next to me was dead! After looking closer, though, I realised it was not my child lying dead next to me.’
While talking, tears had started to dwell in the woman’s eyes and after she has finished she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Aziraphale could feel pity for the woman rising in him. The poor mother must have had a big shock waking up to a dead baby, thinking (even for a moment) that it was hers. And the other mother must have been devastated and desperate to do something as drastically as switching babies.
Though Aziraphale wasn’t sure where the test was in this story.
Now the second woman stepped forward and cried out, with a slightly shaky voice: ‘That is not true! She is lying. She told the story the wrong way around, my king. It was her child that died tonight and it was her who took my son and switched it with hers!’
‘No!’ the first woman shouted, ‘It is my son that is alive! He is my son.’ She pointed towards the servant with the fabric in his arms and it was only then that Aziraphale realised it wasn’t just fabric, but a baby wrapped up in his blanket.
‘Oh’, Aziraphale said, now understanding what decision the king would have to make.
He wasn’t the only one. All over the room people started to whisper with each other, trying themselves to figure out who the real mother was. Anxious Aziraphale turned to the king two seats over. Solomon was furrowing his brows, clearly thinking what to do.
Crawly leaned towards Aziraphale, his back towards Solomon, and said: ‘If you ask me, they should just raise the child together. Splitting it.’
Aziraphale’s eyes widen slightly and Crawly asked: ‘What?’, turning around and also noticing that Solomon was observing (and probably overhearing) them.
Before either of them could react in any way, Solomon turned back to the women and declared: ‘Both of you claim that you are the mother of the living child and the other the mother of the dead one. So, one of my servants will bring me a sword and I will split the baby so both of you get a half.’
Aziraphale’s eyes widen even more. Crawly’s head whipped back to Aziraphale and even though Crawly was wearing something to hide his eyes, Aziraphale could see the shock in his face.
‘That is not what I meant!’, Crawly hissed, ‘I meant splitting the time with the child, not the child itself!’
If there hadn’t been a baby’s life on the line right now, Aziraphale would have teased Crawly about worrying about a child’s safety. In their current situation, Aziraphale could just nod, knowing deep down that Crawly would never want an innocent baby to die (remembering their conversation in front of Noah’s ark).
‘Do something!’, Crawly hissed.
‘What?’, Aziraphale asked.
‘A miracle. To safe the child! Isn’t that your whole deal as an angel? Saving innocents?’
‘I can’t’, Aziraphale said, ‘This is a test for Solomon. I would go against God’s plan.’
Crawly looked at him, stunned.
‘You do something’, Aziraphale whispered, ‘Going against God’s plan is your whole deal!’
‘You want me to safe a baby? Can you imagine how Hell would react to that? God’s plan or not’, Crawly said, turning back to the two women and Solomon. Despite his words, Crawly looked like he was actually considering doing a miracle.
One of the women clapped her hands in front of her face, fell onto her knees before Solomon and shouted: ‘No, my king! Give the living child to the other mother! Just please, do not kill him!’
The other woman, though, just shrugged and said: ‘We cannot proof who of us the real mother is, so we should both get a half. Divide it, my king.’
Solomon smiled and put his sword down. ‘Give the living child to the first woman!’, he declared, ‘She was ready to give it up as long as he got to live. She is the real mother.’
Aziraphale exhaled relieved.
‘Smart one’, Crawly remarked, also looking more relaxed with the child out of danger.
Aziraphale just nodded. Everyone else in the hall had started to whisper again and Aziraphale knew that this story soon would be spread out through Israel, praising Solomon’s wisdom.
‘Well, it was a good test. I’ll have to congratulate the angel who invented it’, Aziraphale said and picked his cup of wine of the table.
‘Whoever it was, they had to kill the other baby’, Crawly said, his expression had darkened again, ‘Sounds more like my side, doesn’t it?’
Aziraphale froze in his movement to take a sip of his wine. He hadn’t thought about it that way before.
‘Maybe it was his time to go’, Aziraphale said, knowing full well how unconvinced he sounded.
‘His time to go? The baby was a few hours old. His birth probably took longer than his life and it was already his time to go? Why did the mother even bother?’, Crawly shook his head, ‘You sure, She didn’t outsource the test invention to us again? Like with Job?’
‘I am very sure!’, Aziraphale said.
‘Well, what’s that saying about your side?’, Crawly asked with a somewhat mocking smirk.
Desperate to find a good reasoning to defend whoever invented this test, Aziraphale said: ‘Maybe the dead baby never existed! Maybe whoever was the test inventor just miracled the memories needed into the heads of these women and there was always only one child!’
‘You really think that?’, Crawly asked.
‘Yes!’, Aziraphale decided, which made Crawly turn away.
They reminded silent the next to each other, like they had done quite often in the last centuries, but this time it just felt uncomfortable.
‘You said something about going to a tavern? Now, that the test is over, we could go’, Aziraphale said, hopeful Crawly would take up the peace offering.
Crawly looked at him again and for a moment Aziraphale feared he would turn down the invitation, but he said: ‘sure, alright’, then emptied his wine cup and continued: ‘let’s go, angel.’
Together with many other people who would undoubtedly spread Solomon’s judgement, Aziraphale and Crawly quickly left the hall. This was really the most uncomfortable way they ever went to a meal together.