How are the Mighty fallen

CHAPTER TEN

Saul had settled his family in the palace at Gibeah, which, in spite of its formidable walls and turrets, remained a place in which to live from day to day as well as take refuge from invaders; to mingle in the throne room where Saul delivered judgments and righted wrongs or to seek solitude in the upper chambers with only the mice for company. The marriage of David, slayer of Goliath, to Michal, the favorite daughter of the king, delighted a country wearily accustomed to war. Ahinoam, guiding Rizpah, arranged a wedding feast to shame a pharoah and then withdrew with her attendant, Naomi, to a vineyard and cottage beyond the town, a gift from Saul, in self-imposed exile. As for Michal, her beauty had bloomed like a rose of Sharon. The lithe young warrior maid had spent the days before her marriage at her loom to weave a wedding gown and, rapt in her dream of David, had scarcely noticed how much she owed to Abinoam’s careful instruction: its veil, its trim of Egyptian antelope fur, its embroidered design of swallows encircling a field of saffron grain.

David too had reason to rejoice. Had he not, a shepherd from little Bethlehem, accomplished a miraculous friendship and a royal marriage? But there was a locust in his manna. He had wounded Jonathan. The prince’s smile was frequent but forced, and his gaiety seemed to come from a skin of wine. When David and Michal walked in the garden, Jonathan fled from the palace to visit his mother. When David played his lyre before the king, Jonathan pleaded weariness and withdrew to his silent room on the second floor and communed with Mylas, the bear. Michal, though inexperienced, was a passionate and desirable bride. But David, the bridegroom, was more dutiful than desiring. To the man accustomed to gold, can silver suffice? Is water the equal of wine?

After a week of marriage, David was a thirsty man. He was also a troubled man when he surprised Jonathan leaving the palace as unobtrusively as a servant who has stolen a casket of gems.

“My mother is alone in her new house,” said Jonathan with a look of heartbroken resolution. He carried a leather bag and a bowl for feeding his bear. “I’m going to visit her.”

“But you visit her almost every day as it is. And Naomi sleeps there at night.”

“This time I’m going to stay. Besides, Naomi is deaf.‘

“When will I see you?” cried David.

“I'll come back for Mylas.”

That’s not what I mean.“

Jonathan said without reproach, “David, you chose.”

“But you knew how it would be. It’s only for a little while that we can’t be alone together. Hush now. Here’s Michal.”

She had not overheard them. “Jonathan, my dear, where are you going?”

David answered for him. “He is going to visit your mother and then go hunting for that lion the shepherds have been complaining about. It’s killed a hundred sheep. Dearest one, I would like to go with him. It isn’t fit than Ahinoam should be forgotten in our happiness or that Jonathan should risk his life without his brother beside him. Remember, I have much experience with lions.”

Michal sighed and enfolded David in a warm embrace.

“You’re right, my love. Men need other men for company at times. A man wearies if he lounges about a palace with the womenfolk. Visit my mother and then go on your hunt Jonathan misses your company. Next to me, he loves you best.”

Jonathan brightened like a child with his first goatcart and kissed his sister tenderly on the ear. “We shall bring you the skin to make a rug.”

Refusing armorbearers, they began their journey on foot before sunrise and walked in the rare communion of silence.

Finally Jonathan turned to him and smiled in the old gentle way. “Be patient with me, my brother. For a little while I was first. Second is not yet enough.”

“Michal is second,” said David without hesitation. “How she would grieve if she knew the truth! How much I like her, how little I love her. Every morning she looks at me as if I were going to battle and might not return. Once I mistook her for you and almost called your name.” “Do you think she guesses how it is with us?” “No,” said David. “If we were Philistines, perhaps. But in Israel it is almost unthinkable that a shepherd should prefer a prince to a princess. She takes us only for friends, and so do the people.”

Jonathan smiled with mischief and squeezed David’s hand. “It is fun to sin with you, David. After all, I am a Cretan drone, not an Israelite. How can I love against the custom of my race?” It was his one failure in conscience.

“We love as we must,” said David, pleased to have cured his friend of guilt.

They stripped to swim in a stream and lay on its banks to dry. Jonathan did not try to conceal his wings, small, golden, and perfect, like slender flames at his back. He resembled a fallen angel who did not lament the loss of the sky. Their fingers touched and passion flared between them.

“I don’t want to die,” David cried with a vehemence close to rage. “To to a shadow in Sheol-is it not a terrible thing?” “All men die, people like us first of all. The little folk sometimes hide in their hovels for many years. But death seeks out the palaces and the princes with cruel thoroughness. We have to go somewhere after death. My mother speaks of the Celestial Vineyard, but I was reared as an Israelite like you, and wherever you go I want to follow-or lead.”

David shuddered at the prospect of Sheol. “I expect we shall be poor company for each other. But shadows can meet even if they can’t speak.”

“I don’t like shadows,” said Jonathan. “I don’t like the night. Perhaps we can somehow climb to the Vineyard.”

“Your mother says it’s beyond the clouds and the stars and the reach of the Sky God. Do you think your poor little wings could lift you so high? And what about me who have none at all?”

They did not hear the approach of Philistine soldiers. Abruptly a voice said, more with amusement than threat:

“David, son of Jesse, and Jonathan, son of Saul. I see that it is Ashtoreth you serve now instead of Yahweh.”

The young men jumped to their feet. They were surrounded by soldiers who looked less ominous than curious. They pointed at Jonathan’s wings and one of them whispered to his mate, “From Caphtor, I warrant. A Siren’s son.”

A man of middle years, dressed in a purple tunic and a white sash, with a large amethyst ring on his middle finger, confronted them with a smile.

“Is it my Lord Achish of Gath I address?” Jonathan asked. They had met from a distance in battle but never crossed swords.

“It is he.”

Achish was seren of Gath, a man more renowned for his strategy than his sword, more at ease in a palace beside the sea than on a foreign battlefield. He looked like a bard and, in fact, was said to have written an epic about the earthquake which had sent his people on their wanderings to Crete and then to Philistia. It was impossible to guess his age. His hair was gray, but there were no lines to mar his shaved, sun-bronzed face. He smelled of myrrh; his blue tunic was unblemished and unwrinkled even on this hot and dusty day. He would have looked at home on the deck of a ship or ruling an island humped like a giant turtle and murmurous with Tritons. David liked him.

He stared at Jonathan’s wings with admiration. “I had guessed that the prince of Israel belonged to the Old Ones. His mother’s beauty, to say nothing of his own, is fabled even in Philistia, and my great-grandfather knew such beings — Sirens are you called? — on Caphtor. Sometimes we even glimpse them on the coast of Philistia.‘

“Are we your prisoners?” Jonathan asked. “If you wish to take me because I am, as you say, a Siren, I will yield to you. But I must beg you to release my friend. He need not suffer because of me.”

Achish smiled. “You have heard that in Philistia we keep the Old Ones in pools or cages and show them to the multitudes. It is one of the lies told about us in Israel. No, Jonathan, you and your friend are safe from us, and for other reasons as well. Philistia is not yet ready to resume her war with Israel. We do not like to fight. We will not fight until we know that we will win, and if we could find another homeland! — an island with neither earthquakes nor invaders- we would sail away from your bleak little country forever. But I have this to say to you, David and Jonathan. You serve an old, mad king who would kill the both of you-yes, you too, Jonathan-if he knew the nature of your love. In Philistia, however, the Goddess’ own son is the patron of male lovers. Come then and stay with us in our land. We will give you a walled city, Ziklag, and you shall help us to fight against the roving Amalekites who harass our borders and graze their camels among our vines. In peaceful times, you may visit the sea and inspect our ships and-who can say? — voyage to foreign lands in search of apes and ivory, frankincense and nard. We do not ask that you march against your own people when Philistia and Israel resume their war. Only that you do not fight with the Israelites against the Philistines.”

David studied this enemy who offered to be a friend. “You could have killed us while we talked. In spite of the reasons you give, you do not really need to offer us asylum.”

Achish smiled. “If I had killed you in each other’s arms, I would have angered the Goddess and her son, who have not been unkind to me in the past When I was young-how many lifetimes ago? — I had a friend like you. He died in a skirmish with Israelites, smitten, no doubt, by your forbidding Yahweh. But I have a long memory. My heart is a temple wherein I keep his image, perfect and immortal, like green marble. Could I murder my friend for a second time? Go now. We have killed the lion which was raiding your flocks. We heard about him from a shepherd boy and about the princes who hunted him, and I came hunting you. Invent a story for your bloodthirsty Saul. The beast had sprung at Jonathan’s throat and you, David, leapt on its back and broke its neck with your bare hands. You Israelites, so direct and practical in other ways, love such stories and never question their truth. Your famous Samson was a simple-minded rustic who lay with a painted whore. But your poets have changed him into a national hero who loved a woman with the face of a goddess. I ask only that you do not tell Saul about the Philistines wandering in his borders. Have I your word?“

“You have my word,” said David.

“And mine,” said Jonathan.

“Come then, both of you, and let us embrace as friends. The gray hair, the red and the gold.”

“The Goddess was truly with us,” David said, when the last Philistine was a stir of wind and the susurration of dust.

“I wish,” said Jonathan, “that we could have gone with him. We could still overtake him if we ran.”

“There would come a time when we might have to fight our own people, in spite of his promises. He speaks only for Gath. There are four other serens.”

“We could have seen the sea together.‘

But Samuel had mentioned a throne…

“Perhaps when our armies drive to the sea. Now we must return to Gibeah.”

– Before they returned to the palace, they visited Ahinoam’s cottage. She, the great queen, more beautiful than Ruth among the sheaves, was tending violets beside her door. She rose and smiled and held them in a single long embrace.

“Is it well with you, my sons?”

“We miss you, Mama. You must be lonely here.”

“Saul invited me to stay in the palace. I asked for this house because of Rizpah. Sometimes I pity her. She fears that Saul will return to me and I wished to set her at ease. Yes, it is well with me, if David and Jonathan are friends.”

“We are sometimes together,” said Jonathan, “but in the palace-”

“Ah, my son. The nights are long for the lover without his love. But you can endure the cold chaste stars if morning brings sun and David.”

“I could almost wish for war,‘ said Jonathan, the peaceable. ”Then we could share the same tent and fight as one.“

“No, my dear. The Goddess designs our lives. She helps us to grow our crops, to build our houses, to make of the forest a friend. Yahweh disrupts her plans with his petty wars and his jealous concern for one small nation. Do not tempt Sheol”

Rizpah smiled like a child and patted David’s cheek. Michal examined his arms for claw marks and marveled at how he had killed the lion and saved her brother.

“Samson from the wars!” she cried. “But I am a poor Delilah.”

“Better Michal without any shears!” Her scarlet robe was dyed with the dye of the insect called the kermes and she looked like a living flame. Her passion frightened him; he did not want to pretend at love.

“Play for me,” Saul commanded. “One of those tinkling melodies Ahinoam sings. The ones with lines which end with-what do you call it? — rhyme.” He did not speak of their absence. Had a mood possessed him and clouded his memory? He looked neither blank nor pained, but rich in years; battle-scarred, yes, but ruddier, healthier than David had ever seen him.

“He has been well since before the wedding,” Rizpah whispered.

The room was a savage place, with shields on the walls, spearstands on either side of the door, Goliath’s armor standing like a guardian god, the black emptiness in his helmet a single great eye. The floor was covered with reeds; one brazier fought a chilling draft. It was neither Philistine nor Egyptian, it was purely Israelite, and it signified Israel’s strength as well as her weakness, a poor people without time for the graces of life but indomitable in war and, at their infrequent best, unswervable in their ambition to unify the land and worship a single god.

David received his harp from a young attendant, a boy who looked at him as worshipfully as he had once looked at Saul, and began to play, not about battles, not in praise of Yahweh, but about a road to the sea. He addressed his song to Saul, who, hopefully, would not understand the secret allusions, but Jonathan understood them and smiled, and it was to him that David truly sang.

“ ‘I go,’ said the wind,

To a yonder-land

Where the dragon feeds

From a Dryad’s hand,

And the Centaur blows on a silver horn

To call the unicorn.‘

Wind,‘ I cried,

‘Like a vagabond

You drift and play

In the blue beyond

And dream your tale of a silver horn

Which calls to a unicorn.‘

But the wind, he laughed

In a secret way

And climbed the clouds,

And who shall say

If he hears the call of a silver horn

And the hooves of a unicorn?“

“Jonathan!”

The name crackled like the snap of a catapult. David dropped his lyre and the strings quivered with incongruous sweetness as he stared from Saul to Jonathan.

“Jonathan, son of a perverse, rebellious woman, you have chosen the son of Jesse above your own father. Get you from my court!”

Jonathan did not flinch from the accusations.

“You wrong me, Father, as you have wronged my mother in taking Rizpah to your bed. I have not betrayed you. I have only chosen a friend.”

Michal knelt at her father’s feet and clasped his hand. It is a lie you have heard, my father. David and Jonathan would serve you to the death. How can you even suspect them of treason?“.…„

He shook free of her. “And has he got you with child?

Or is he concerned with the mischief of Dagon and Defiant David met the king’s stare. MAt least I have fathered no children on concubines. Of what other sins do we stand accused, Jonathan and I?“ He must know the truth. He must know if Saul knew the truth.

“Of seeking my throne,” Saul muttered, his voice beginning to slur. “Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands.‘ Of alienating my son.”

“I have always been true to my lord,” he began. “I have-”

“David!”

It was Jonathan’s cry which saved his life. The spear grazed his arm and shuddered against the wall. He looked with disbelief at the “old, mad king” who could move with such menacing speed.

“Come, David,” said Jonathan, and hurried him from the room. Behind them, they heard the weeping of Rizpah, the pleas of Michal, the silence of the king as he tumbled into oblivion. Perhaps, awakening, he would forget his suspicions. Perhaps the madness had become the man.

No one pursued them. No one had witnessed the incident except the two women. The guards at the door of the palace had heard the outcry but, accustomed to royal moods, nodded with sympathy when Jonathan explained that his father had suffered another fit of madness and Michal and Rizpah were tending him.

At the edge of the town, Jonathan and David paused beneath a sacred terebinth tree whose branches fluttered with colored ribbands, offerings left by virgins who hoped to win handsome husbands and bear strong sons. At just such times, when the flat world seemed tilting into chaos, Jonathan’s gentleness became inflexible strength. Usually it was impossible to imagine him on the battlefield. Now he might have slain Goliath.

“You must hide for the night,” he said. “If my father acted through madness, he may forget and welcome you back to his court. But if he truly believes his accusations, you must leave the country. Go to Achish in Gath. He has promised you asylum.”

“Come with me, my brother. You too are in danger.”

“I must stay to soften my father’s heart. He will not kill me no matter what he believes. Or Achish believed.” (We could have followed him to the sea, thought David.) “Remember, he has no proof. I do not think that Rizpah has told him anything. Tomorrow I will go to the forest beyond Gibeah to practice with my bow. If the arrows fall to the right of my target, you will know that the king’s heart is hardened against you.”

“And we will meet in the forest?”

“Yes. While I send my little armorbearer to fetch the arrows, we can briefly talk.”

“My brother, I would risk Sheol rather than leave you here. Without you life is an empty gourd, a well which is stopped with sand.”

“But you are the heir to the throne! Samuel himself anointed you king.”

“But I never told you that!”

“Half of the country, including my father, knows. You are Yahweh’s chosen.”

“That vengeful desert god-”

“He has much power in these parts. And if he has chosen you even against your will, he is not to be denied. Hate him if you must Serve him for the sake of Israel. He never asked to be loved. Only to be obeyed.”

They embraced with the mute urgency of those about to die. At the last, there were no more words, only an empty gourd and a well which was filled with sand.