‘The king trusts no one,’ the servant says. ‘He accuses the prince of plotting with you to depose him.’
‘Why didn’t I kill him when I had the chance? If he harms one hair on Jonathan's head, I shall never forgive myself.’
‘He's overwrought,’ I say, perturbed by David's passion. ‘He wouldn’t raise his hand against his own son.’
‘He raised his spear against him. It was only the tremors of rage that sent it astray.’
Word of Saul's preparations animates the men who, after months of idling, are aching for a fight. Although encouraged by their resolve, David fears that they will betray their inexperience when confronted by a superior force led by an expert strategist such as Saul. They, meanwhile, express total faith in his ability to vanquish any enemy, no matter the odds. In the event, that faith remains untested since the Philistines advance into Ephraim, and Saul is once again obliged to deploy his troops against the invaders. David instructs Abiathar to cast the Urim and Thummim to divine how to proceed now that the immediate threat has been lifted, but the priest refuses, saying that the stones have already ordered him to journey to Philistia. David vacillates: anxious to obey the Lord, and yet to avoid a move that will outrage his fellow countrymen and leave him open to charges of treason.
‘Will the Lord still be with me if I leave the land?’ he asks me.
‘Of course. Wasn’t he with Abraham and Moses in Egypt? Didn’t he send plagues on the Philistine cities when they stole the sacred Ark?’
‘Yes, and how has Saul marked its return? By leaving it to moulder. No wonder that the Lord has rejected him! When I come back to the land – ’
‘When you ascend the throne.’
‘I mean to restore the Ark to its place of honour, so that the Lord has a home among us and our sons and grandsons forever.’
With that vision before him, David sets off once again to seek refuge with King Achish of Gath, although this time with his wits intact and six hundred followers. To judge by their bluster, rape, theft and murder are never far from the men's minds, and I pity the villagers whose fields we trample and storerooms we denude, our errant crew even more intimidating than Saul's army. After four days we reach Gath, more citadel than city, its walls as mighty as mountainsides, its turrets spiked by soldiers with spears. Stopping some fifty paces from its gates, David orders the entire troop to lay down its weapons and kneel. Sweat pools in the crease of my neck, which, as the soldiers raise their spears, is exposed. I have a cramp in my right leg and a mutinous urge to pass water. The silence feels as sinister as it did inside the cistern all those years ago. Without warning, the great gates scrape open to reveal a man so resplendent that I take him for the king. David disabuses me and bows to the palace steward, before charging Joab to fetch the Philistine sword, which he has brought as a peace offering. Even in Joab's brawny arms, it looks unwieldy and, when David holds it aloft like a priest's slaughter-knife, I suspect that rather than capturing it on the battlefield, he looted it from one of their temples. Instructing Ahinoam and me to accompany him and everyone else to wait, he walks into the city.
I feel as if I have entered a new world. The streets are unlike any that I’ve ever seen: wide, paved with stones, and lined not just with houses of two and even three floors, but stalls displaying richly embroidered cloths, red-and-black patterned pots, fruits as bright as jewels and vegetables with buds like flowers. The people are equally striking: men who shave their chins and gather their hair in knots; women who paint and parade their faces. Brooking no delay, the steward steers us towards the palace. David described Saul's house as little larger than Nabal's, but this is as vast as the sanctuary at Hebron. The king receives us not in the courtyard but in a chamber that seems to be set aside for the purpose. He sits on a golden throne, flanked by his wife and son, the picture of embellished indifference. I draw my veil across my face and wish that I’d thought to sprinkle myself with balsam. Awestruck, I gaze at the walls, as lavishly adorned as the people, with patterns of birds and fishes in the same colours as the pots. David walks slowly up to the king and lays the sword at his feet, which, paying obeisance so unexpected that I gasp, he kisses. He steps back as the king, barely lowering his gaze, orders a slave to hand him the sword. After examining it closely, he turns to us with an expression I cannot decipher and addresses us in a language I cannot comprehend. I pray that a smile is a fitting response to what may be a sentence of death.
David, who mastered the language during campaigns that it's wiser not to mention, replies, and the king continues the conversation, although it takes me a moment to realise that he's speaking heavily accented Israelite.
‘The general tells me that his women are unfamiliar with our tongue, so I shall speak in yours. I speak it perfectly.’
‘You do, indeed, my lord,’ I say, as Ahinoam simpers. ‘But will the queen understand?’
‘Her understanding is of no consequence.’ He looks at her with such benign condescension that I wonder whether she's deaf. ‘I trust that you have recovered your reason, General?’ he asks David, before turning back to me. ‘The last time he entreated our protection, he had lost it entirely.’
‘A temporary affliction, caused by King Saul's tyranny,’ David says.
‘Yes, we’ve heard how he banished you, sought your life and demeaned you by marrying your wife to an old man of no standing.’ I sense the strain behind David's fixed smile. ‘I regret that we were unable to assist you, but we have too many madmen in Gath already. My people believe that the gods favour them as beings halfway between our world and theirs.’
‘I understand, my lord. And I am once again fully of this world. So I come to you in friendship and homage, still cruelly persecuted by my king, to place the six hundred men and women I command at your service.’
‘Your women too?’ Achish asks, with a smile as dangerous as David's is deferential. ‘No need to be afraid,’ he says to Ahinoam and me, ‘I have women enough.’ He glances at the queen, who stares straight ahead like a child in a game of dare. ‘I prefer to take my pleasure elsewhere.’ He leans over and fondles the boy, who is patently not his son. ‘We know that you remain in conflict with Saul. Indeed, it's the absence of his greatest general that has prompted my brother kings of Gaza and Ekron to resume their attack on Judah.’ I refuse to look at David as he hears himself cited as the agent of his country's plight. ‘A general, moreover, who has inflicted such damage – such wanton savagery – on us in the past! But that is the past. We accept your homage and welcome you to our kingdom. We shall require – ’
His requirements are drowned in an uproar at the door. The largest man I have ever seen, his head grazing the lintel, his arms spanning the portal, pushes past the guards to enter. He prostrates himself before the king but, although his body is humble, his voice bristles with threat. After listening to a series of snarled interjections, Achish orders the slave to hand the man the newly restored sword, which, given his size and pugnacity, strikes me as reckless, but, far from brandishing it, he clasps it to his chest.
‘Your wife looks perplexed,’ Achish says to David. ‘Perhaps you’ll explain to her what's happening.’
‘This man – Lahmi – is the brother of the Philistine I killed,’ David says, turning to me with ill-suppressed irritation.
‘Which one?’ I blurt out, mindful of the many hundreds he is reputed to have killed in battle, not to mention Michal's bride-price.
‘You may well ask,’ Achish says, and I wish that I hadn’t as I catch David's glare.
‘His name was Goliath – a great warrior, who had been taunting our troops for days. I felled him with a single stone. It was a lucky shot.’ He directs the last remark to the king and, as ever, it's impossible to tell how much of what he says he believes and how much he shapes to suit his audience. I doubt that he knows himself.
‘Now Lahmi demands that I hand David over to him in retribution for his brother,’ Achish says, picking up the thread. ‘Blood for blood. It's a tempting
proposition.’ He appears to weigh it up. ‘But also unjust. After all, it was Goliath who issued the challenge. And David has returned his sword.’ Suddenly, its size makes sense.
‘I retrieved it from our sanctuary at Nob,’ David says, ‘and offer it to you, my lord, as a token of my loyalty and respect.’
‘And I accept it in like manner,’ Achish says. ‘We welcome you and your people to Gath.’ He speaks to the steward, who quits the chamber. ‘I’ve given orders that they be brought into the city. Any Philistine who harms a Judahite will be put to death. But I trust that you’ll understand if, as a precaution, I insist that you leave all your weapons at the gate.’
The king beckons another official for a private exchange. It is as if, in dismissing us from his mind, he has dismissed us from his presence. As we linger uneasily, I glance at Lahmi, who sneers and fingers the blade of his sword. The steward returns and escorts us out, explaining that, while the rest of the company are to be lodged in the gatehouse and the palace precincts, we are to stay in the palace itself, although not together. David and his chief men – Joab, Abishai and Abiathar – are to reside with the king, while Ahinoam and I are taken to a part of the palace reserved for women.
I’ve never heard of such an arrangement, which calls to mind male animals being kept apart for sin offerings in the sanctuary. But, when he shows us to our chamber, all my unease disappears. It leads off an inner courtyard, furnished with trees, a pond and flocks of birds – not the owls, doves, swallows and sparrows familiar from the woods near Carmel, but exotic birds with extended beaks and tails, shimmering plumage and pouting pouches, as if the Lord created them purely for our enchantment. Several women, closer to Ahinoam's age than mine, stand up at our approach. We have no common language other than signs and smiles, but it is enough for us to greet one another as friends.
The days pass slowly. The perfumed indolence almost makes me homesick for the foetid bustle of the camp. Only the queen enjoys the freedom of the palace; the other women are as confined as the birds with their clipped wings. At first it is hard to distinguish the wives from the concubines but, in time, I learn that twelve of them are married to the king, most having borne him children. Several, coming from the distant lands with which the Philistines trade, are as unintelligible to one another as they are to us. It seems odd that a man with a marked preference for his boy should have such a superfluity of wives, while David has only two; but the women express no resentment. They make up for his neglect by the tenderness they show each other: washing and plaiting each other's hair; painting each other's faces; dressing each other in elaborate robes. Although Ahinoam is charmed, I find their attentions intrusive and have to remind them that there are parts of my body that I prefer to soap myself. The queen alone remains aloof, less from pride than languor, for which she displays an extraordinary capacity. As her honoured guest, I sit beside her for hours, listening to the trilling and squawking of the birds, dabbling my feet in the pond, eating honeyed fruits and fretting about growing fat.
Although inside the palace all is calm, outside there is mounting discord. David has ordered us to respect Philistine customs while never forsaking our duty to the Lord. It is a delicate line to tread. Rather than offend my hosts, I eat meat red with blood, but I baulk at pork. Some of our men are less scrupulous and, urged by the local women, attend the temple of Dagon, even, it's rumoured, making offerings. But one custom they refuse to countenance, let alone respect, is that of two men sharing intimacies that are reserved for husband and wife. The king is not alone in his preferences. The Philistines sailed here from the land of Meshech and Tubal, where such intimacies are rife. At their feasts they sing of their ancestors who sent companies of loving couples into battle, believing that they would fight all the harder for each other's sake. In translating, David describes them as ‘brothers’, as if to shield Ahinoam and me from the full meaning, but Joab's grimace makes it clear.
‘I have known such brothers,’ David says.
‘Not among our own people,’ Joab replies darkly.
Despite sharing Joab's repugnance, I say nothing. Let their gods lead them astray! If the queen connives at Achish's fawning on his boy, who am I to condemn it? My countrymen are less indulgent and, when a Philistine lewdly accosts a young Judahite in the street, a brawl breaks out in which two of our men and three of theirs are killed. The elders, egged on by friends of Lahmi, exhort Achish to expel us. David, insisting that a king must never yield to pressure, is confident that he will allow us to stay. Unconvinced, I propose a solution that I hope will satisfy all parties
‘You admitted yourself that you’re marking time here,’ I say to David. ‘Your people are losing heart; they’re losing discipline and they’re losing the Lord. Achish trusts you. Why not ask him to set you and your men to work... send you to patrol the countryside or defend the borderlands?’
‘He’ll laugh in my face. It's one thing to grant me his protection, quite another to offer me a command.’
‘Surely it's worth trying?’
David moves away, mocking my ignorance of government. But the seed, once planted, is hard for him to uproot. He puts the scheme to Achish who, to his surprise (although not to mine), consents. That night, David reports their conversation, repeating my words to me as though he were showing me my face in a mirror. I have no objections. Since everything that I have – body, land and goods – belongs to him, why not my words?
Achish's next problem is where to send us. It is evident that his trust in David is qualified, since he names several towns that are near enough for him to keep us under scrutiny but not too near for six hundred armed men to descend on him unawares. After lengthy consultation with the king of Gaza, in whose territory it lies, he settles on Ziklag, an outlying garrison that has lain abandoned for several years. Lately, the region has been subject to regular raids from the neighbouring Simeonites. He orders David to drive them back and shore up the country's southern borders. We take abundant supplies of grain, oil and dried fruits, as well as sheep, goats and chickens, although, to Achish's amusement, David declines a drove of pigs. I bid farewell to the royal women, to whom I’ve grown as close as our foreign tongues permit, but I’m shrewd enough to realise that their tears are prompted as much by my liberty as my leaving. Our number is swelled by thirty or so Philistine women who, shunned by their own people for their relations with Judahite men, have little choice but to accompany us.
We set off at dusk and seem to travel through time itself, since the countryside is so barren that the only marker is the moon. Barely stopping to rest, we reach Ziklag by daybreak. The fortress exudes an eerie silence, broken by a sporadic hiss or screech. For all the dung and the debris and the foliage poking through the walls, the buildings are solid and, at David's request, I allocate chambers, first to families, then to couples, and finally to single men. Although space is scarce, I reserve a house for David. He has commanded camps, both of soldiers and rebels, but never before a town. One day he will rule a country, and his quarters must reflect that.
After two weeks spent restoring the garrison, we receive messengers from Achish reporting a Simeonite assault on the city of Avim and ordering David to retaliate. I fear that, in averting a conflict between our men and the Philistines, I have provoked a more serious one between David and Achish. The king knows that, if David attacks Judah, he will be reviled forever by his countrymen yet, if he holds back, he will forfeit Philistine protection. But David assures me that he has a plan. He will lead his men against the Geshurites and Gizrites, who threaten both Philistia and Judah, and claim that the booty he presents to Achish has been pillaged from the Judahites. To my relief, the plan succeeds and, month after month, he sends or delivers cattle and oxen, sheep and goats, cloth and pots, to Gath. Only once is he almost undone by the Gizrite markings on supposedly Judahite shields, but, quick as fire, he declares that the Judahites captured them first.
While pleased with the plunder, Achish is suspicious of the lack of slaves. David
alleges that the Judahites feel such shame at being taken prisoner that they prefer to kill themselves, their wives and their children. Achish, inclined to regard our people as savages, is easily persuaded. In fact, the only savagery is David's. I rein in my revulsion when he returns from forays against the enemy tribes with tales of having left no one – man, woman or child – alive. I understand the need for such wholesale slaughter, since a single survivor might alert Achish to David's deception, but I am disturbed to detect the same excitement in David as in Yimnah and Achim after a day's hunting.
Three seasons pass and, while buoyed by his successful stratagem, David is dejected at his deference to one so easily duped. He repeatedly enjoins Abiathar to cast the sacred stones in the hope that the Lord will instruct him to rebel but, no matter how the priest frames the question, the answer is the same: David must serve Achish and stay in Ziklag. Despite Abiathar's warning that he risks trying the Lord's patience, David persists in his demands, arguing that, since the Lord refuses to speak to him in person, as he did to Abraham and Moses, or in dreams and visions, as he did to Samuel, he has no other means to discern his will. Although we all – Abiathar, Joab, Abishai, myself, (even Ahinoam, who echoes my words) – do our best to reassure him, he remains wretched, fearing that Moses's jealous God would be better described as fickle, and that he will renounce him just as he did Saul. Trusting that his songs will prove more effective than his prayers, he withdraws to his chamber and opens his heart to the Lord; but for every song praising his mercy, glory, righteousness and grace, there are two asking why he has abandoned him and pleading to be restored to his favour.
The songs grow even bleaker with the news of the Philistine advance into Judah. After successive defeats, they have mustered their largest ever force, pitching camp in the plain of Sharon, and Saul has marched north to meet them. Achish orders David to bring his men and join him at the town of Aphek. David, more despondent than ever, no longer asks why the Lord has turned against him, but, in songs as pitiful as a midwife's wail, asserts that he has condemned him to a living death.
The Anointed Page 11
