The Anointed by Michael Arditti (Arcadia £16.99)

The premise of The Anointed is simple: Michael Arditti has given voices to Michal, Abigail and Bathsheba, the three women closest to King David, who are seen in the Books of Samuel, but seldom heard. It is an extraordinary leap of imagination and empathy, which sheds a sidelight on the legendary king and the world he inhabited.

My knowledge of the original story mostly comes from the Bible stories read to me as a child, from sweet little books with Victorian illustrations. David is the plucky shepherd-boy with the catapult, who did for the giant Goliath with a single shot. Sometimes, as author of the Psalms, he is a saintly poet strumming a lyre.

I have always found it rather difficult to reconcile these versions of David with the sorry tale of Bathsheba and her poor husband, Uriah the Hittite --­­­and that’s not even the half of it.

Michal, a daughter of King Saul, first sees David when he comes to soothe the madness of Saul with his music. He crashes into her world like a rock star, young and beautiful, with gorgeous red hair, and she is instantly smitten.

So is her brother, Jonathan, who has his own reasons for wanting to keep David in the family. Michal is duly given to David, in exchange for two hundred Philistine foreskins (I don’t want to even try to imagine what these look like).

Arditti is not delicate about the brutality of life in ancient times — the smitings, the choppings, the casual killings of women and children. He has resisted any temptation, however, to impose “modern” values upon his three heroines. They are not feminists, but fully accepting of their lowly status.

Michal is overjoyed to be David’s wife, and cannot understand why the sex is so dreadful. She knows she must give him a son; in this world a woman is a walking womb. Arditti lets in a little contemporary consciousness when Michal catches David with her brother Jonathan -— theirs is the greatest love story in this book.

His second heroine, Abigail, is a stronger character; a rich widow, as smart as she is beautiful, and a prophet. “I see you wearing a crown,” she tells David. He marries her, and she briskly solves his begetting problem.

“Do I displease you, my lord?” she asks on her wedding night. “Did you expect Rachel only to discover Leah?’’

Abigail is disgusted when David kills her nephews and nieces, but knows her emotions count for nothing:

“I feel a germ of hatred for him in my heart and tear it out… He is the servant of the Lord and I am that servant’s servant.’’

Michael Arditti is one of the few writers able to convey the experience of being religious, without apology or explanation. In The Anointed, he sticks closely to the original story, but gives his famous characters voices that leap off the page, vivid and warm, and wonderfully believable.

Kate Saunders is a prize-winning author and reviewer