I have fled as fast as my legs could carry me, far out into the Judea Mountains, to hide from Saul—only to find out this new reality: I can no longer go unnoticed. I cannot disappear whenever I feel like being alone, because my new admirers are close behind me. They follow me everywhere, no matter how cleverly I try to evade them.
“Shoo!” I wave my hand at them. “Go, go away! Look, your footprints leave a trail right here, in the dust, and guess what? It leads to me. The king’s spies are sure to spot it, and then... Then comes Abner, his first in command. He’ll sniff me out. I don’t want to imagine what he’ll do to me.”
“But—”
“No, no But! You’re putting me in danger, really, you are. Go back, go sing your praises elsewhere, not to me—but to the king!”
In reply, my fans crowd around me even closer. My heart softens a bit as they start serenading me. “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands!”
“Enough already,” I say, but to no avail.
Boys and girls swarm all over the place, they come in droves, carrying bouquets of wildflowers, baskets loaded with fruit and baked goods, and bundles filled with dates, nuts, and raisins, in short, anything to help sustain me here, in the wilderness.
They lay these gifts at the mouth of my cave, and expect me to smile upon them with grace and gratitude. I do, even though I have no use anymore for what they bring, because I figure it would take years to consume all that food.
Worst of all are the laurel wreaths, which my admirers insist on hanging over my head and around my neck. Usually I enjoy attention, but now, this is ridiculous! It has become overbearing, at best! Already, all this attention is beginning to choke me.
And yet, I am afraid I can no longer live without it.
Last night I told them not to decorate Goliath’s sword—but did they listen? By the time I fell asleep, the damn thing was covered with vines and jasmine blossoms up to the hilt, to the point that no one could recognize it as a weapon.
To my dismay, the blade was completely lost from view... Not a hint of metal, from any direction! It had been transformed into an excuse, a mere prop for ornamentation.
Meanwhile, stories started spreading around the land, reinventing what happened in the Valley of Elah. Such is the way history writes itself, by modifying the truth and embellishing it into heroic fiction. Like Goliath’s sword, I too have become a prop for ornamentation. My admirers wanted to see me not as I was—but as a symbol.
I was no longer real. Instead, I became an icon of hope, of the chance for victory in an unmatched struggle, the struggle between the weak and the mighty.
A legend was being born. Me.
I wake up to what I imagine to be the usual annoyance. I make the mistake of thinking that the girls are crowning me with garlands, which would have explained this irritating tickling right here, over my forehead and under my ears.
Truth is I cannot stand dry leaves and twigs in my hair, because I hate being messed up. Yet, out of concern for the feelings of my fans, I make up my mind not to complain, and not to twitch my nose. Instead, I sneeze at them.
Which is when I open my eyes.
The girls are gone, the boys too. In their place stand forty burley soldiers. Between their shoulders I spot a burly man, decorated with numerous medals. A rope is slung over his shoulder.
Abner marches forward, and curls his lips in what could be described as a smile, but isn’t.
With a thud, he comes down on one knee next to me, and is raising my head from the dust to put it through a noose.
“Oh good!” I mutter. “I’m tired of garlands, and I can’t stand being crowned.”
“You must still be dreaming,” Abner says, while measuring his rope. “Get up! The king is waiting.”
“Really?” say I. “For me? What an honor!”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you...”
“Can I bring something with me? A trophy?”
“You mean, Goliath’s sword?”
“It isn’t here,” I lie, simply because I know no one can see it. The thing is hidden, completely hidden in plain view.
“What, then?”
“Something far better than that.”
“What can that be?”
“His head.”
With that, I wiggle out of the noose, and leap back to the depth of the cave, which is where I keep my souvenir. I have it facing the wall, simply to spare the feelings of my fans. Out of fright, none of them dares adorn it with garlands.
As I turn the thing to face Abner, and recite a few lines that came to me last night in a dream, “Lead me, Lord, in your righteousness, because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me. Not a word from their mouth can be trusted. Their heart is filled with malice, their throat is an open grave…”
He has no appreciation for my lovely lyrics, but I spot a sudden tremor running down his spine.
Being a poet I hate clichés, and would never use ‘he shakes like a leaf’ unless it happens to be absolutely true, which—trust me—it is. He tries, as best he can, to regain control over his shivering, which makes the medals on his chest clink and clank sharply against each other.
“So,” he says grinding his teeth, perhaps to keep his jaw from dropping in surprise. “Got it? You don’t need help with that, do you?”
“No, no way.”
The first in command ties the rope into a knot and hands it to one of his soldiers.
“Keep it handy,” he says, under his mustache, and then turns to me. “You ready?”
With great effort I lift the head of the Philistine.
“We,” I announce, “are ready. Let us come before the king.”
*
I have been bracing myself for a wild show of jealousy. Would Saul be possessed by a bad mood? Would he start speaking in tongues? Would he drool? I am fully prepared for all that, and perhaps he knows it. Perhaps I should brace myself for something completely different.
How could I expect that the next time I see him, the king would act calm, pretending not even to remember me? Incredibly, this is exactly what is happening, now that his soldiers have escorted me back here, to the royal court, with Goliath’s head cradled in my arms.
With one shove at my back I am forced to my knees before the throne. Quite a shameful position for someone like me, I mean, for a regular hero, whose praise is being sung loud and clear all over the land. The tune is quite catchy, it is on everyone’s lips—but at the moment I manage, somehow, to hold myself back from humming it. Trust me, this is not an easy thing for me, being an entertainer.
There sits the king, dark and moody as ever, seemingly frozen in thought except for his boots kicking, kicking in and out between the front legs of his throne, which are carved as lion paws.
I am waiting for him to pounce on me.
His general, Abner, stands by his side. Saul looks away from him, his eyes examining every golden stitch, every crimson fold in the velvet canopy over his throne.
Heavy silence hangs over both of them.
So I shift uneasily from one knee to another, trying to draw his attention.
“Your majesty, hear me, I beg you! Hear me out—”
My voice falls flatly at his feet. It is simply ignored. Why do I find it astonishing? I mean, what else could I expect, but this? Studying the entire length of his spear, one stretch at a time, as if a divine flash of wisdom can be gleaned out of the metal, Saul seems too focused to notice me.
All the same, he avoids looking at my hands. More precisely, it is the dismembered head lolling in them that makes him avert his eyes. Yet I know—and I think he knows that I know—that he has already caught a glimpse of it.
So I take hold of the leathery ears, and roll the head ever so slightly, so that the giant’s nose is pointed first at Abner, then at Saul. I try not to smirk as each one of them in turn starts gawking. They are transfixed, both of them, because of that third eye, that wound right there where my pebble has penetrated, in the ce
nter of the cracked forehead.
It a horrific sight to behold. So are the serpents of hair, glued with mud that has hardened around the cranium, and the tortuous blood streams that have dribbled under his chin, crisscrossing the sliced neck. Goliath seems to be gazing at everyone and at no one in particular, through a clouded, half translucent film that has formed over the dead eyes.
I turn Goliath from side to side, studying the effect upon my audience. This is my puppet show, and I am determined to make the most of it. What if this motion causes him, somehow, to bat an eyelid? What if he raises a bushy eyebrow? What if he drops his chin?
His gaze, I realize now, is my power. What I hold in my hands makes everyone around me shudder, and it forces them to recall how brave I can be.
I rise to my feet and at once, the soldiers around me take a squeaky step back. Sensing the respect they give me, the king bares his teeth, forcing himself to smile.
“Abner,” he hints, in a deliberately careless manner, pointing his finger more or less in my direction. “Whose son is this youth?”
The general attempts to play his part in this game. “As your soul lives, oh king,” he swears. “I... I don’t know.”
At which the king barks, “Really? Not the faintest idea?”
“No, not really,” shrugs the general, unsure what he is expected to say or do.
The king waves a hand at him in the manner of dismissal.
“Inquire, then, whose son the boy is,” he commands. “Go, go on, what are you waiting for?”
The soldiers shuffle their weight from one boot to another, heels drumming upon the stone floor, until the general has exited the court.
Then the king turns to me.
“Well?” he says. “Whose son are you, young man?”
I take a step forward, straining every muscle in my body to try, to raise the giant’s head up to the level of the throne, so it faces the king. “I am the son of your servant,” I announce, my voice reverberating around the court, and it has a strange, hollow quality, as if it came from the throat of the bloody thing, from its gaping jaws.
The king tilts back, a bit shaky on his throne.
“Who,” he stutters, “who did you say you are?”
As loudly as I possibly can, “I am,” I roar, “the son of Jesse of Bethlehem.”
At the sound of my voice, his two daughters enter the space. Merav comes in skipping on one foot through the stone arc at the far end, closely followed by her younger sister, Michal.
At once, the soldiers snap to attention.
With a rustle of taffeta, and with lustrous ruffles fluttering in the air, the princesses frolic around the court, flinging their skirts this way and that. For a minute they pause—perhaps to catch their breath—and bend over the shoulders of someone I have not noticed before: the frail court historian, hunched there, in his corner, over some object of interest.
To my surprise I recognize what it is: my lyre, the one that broke, because Saul flung over the edge on that fateful day, in the Valley of Elah. A vague urge to play it rises in my heart, but I must deny it, because I know that my hands are stained with blood. They are no longer the hands of a musician.
Will I ever touch a musical instrument again? God knows…
The historian has been studying my lyre carefully, counting and recounting the strings, plucking them with his knuckled finger, until—catching the trace of perfume in the air—he looks up at the girls.
They flutter their lashes and kiss his scrunched cheeks.
In turn he raises a trembling hand, perhaps to protect his ink well from tipping over, and his papyrus rolls from rolling off his knees.
“What’s he writing?” asks Michal.
“What we’re saying,” says Merav.
He spreads open the scroll, and offers obediently, “Here, read it.”
“Really? May I?” asks Merav, and she points her finger across the line, leaving a smudge that turns into long trail of ink. Slowly, she reads, “Princess Michal: What’s he writing? princess Merav: What we’re saying!”
“Ooh,” says Michal.
And Merav yawns, “How boring!”
They turn from him and weave their way in between the motionless soldiers. By their chuckles behind me I sense they are coming closer to where I stand. They giggle in thin, silvery notes—until, at last, they are close enough to touch me, and to spot the Philistine’s head held here, in my embrace.
At the sight of it, Michal lets out a scream. In shock, she clutches a hand at her chest, to let everyone know how her heart is pounding, and how her flesh is shaking—but all you can hear is the crisp sound of raw silk being crumpled, because she has no breasts to speak of.
“Careful dear, take a big breath,” Saul tells her.
By now it is already too late to exercise care. Michal has promptly fainted, with a big whoosh of fabric, right into the arms of the nearest soldier.
Merav claps a hand to her mouth. Her breast heaves. The cleavage is deliciously revealing, just the way I imagined it back there, in the Valley of Elah.
I bow before her.
She curtsies.
“What are you looking at?” grumbles her father.
With a blush, she backs away from me, climbs the stage and leans into the throne, puckering her lips to kiss the ring on his finger. At once, his face softens.
Saul casts a look at me, clears his throat, and says gruffly, “Here is my elder daughter, Merav.”
“Yes,” I nod my head, and somehow Goliath’s head nods too, as if we are one. “We’ve been introduced, I’m quite sure of that.”
Then, lo and behold, the king seems to recall who I am, as well as the promise he made to me last time we spoke. With a grandiose gesture, “I will give her to you for a wife,” he proposes.
I am so flabbergasted at this turn of events that I take a step back, a bit hastily. The head drops out of my hold and—bang!—hits the floor.
Michal opens her eyes for a second, only to collapse again, deeper into the arms of the soldier holding her. Meanwhile, a new expression forms on Merav’s face, but I can hardly tell if it is admiration for me—or disgust.
So I figure that I should take a few simple precautions, and make sure I look more presentable to my future wife. Behind my back I wipe my hands across my pants to get rid of any blood stains. Then I kick the Philistine away from me, right into the corner, where the historian is examining the string of my lyre.
He faints.
I figure, that’s not a bad thing. When he comes out of his daze, the historian would be glad to realize that there is no need to seek me out, to bother me with unnecessary questions about the battle. Instead he can proceed to examine the evidence at hand.
That third eye, the wound in the middle of that forehead, would give him definite proof of the cause of death. It was my pebble that caused the fall of the giant. No questions need be asked. None will be answered. There.
The carved lion legs are grating against the stage, as the king rises angrily from his throne.
“Do I have to repeat myself, young man?” he demands. “I said, I’ll give her to you for a wife.”
I say, “You will?”
And the princess says, “What?”
And the king says, “Yes, I think I will. Most definitely. She’ll be yours,” he confirms. “Only be valiant for me, and fight God’s battles.”
These words give me a clear warning, because when it comes to battles, who knows if God stands on this side or the other? Aren’t we all God’s creatures? Don’t we all deserve his compassion?
Being a little undecided about these question I make up my mind to get out of this deal, because it might be somewhat shady. I mean, I like Merav, I really do—but who knows what her father has in mind for me.
So I say to Saul, with a meek tone of voice, “Who am I, and who are my relatives, my father’s clan in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?”
“Nonsense,” he bares his teeth. “My daughter will be only
to happy to marry you.”
“I will?” Merav wonders aloud.
In place of an answer, he draws her to his side, hugging her by her shoulder, as if to relay some secret message by touch. I guess he is telling her, under his breath, “Hush, dear… It is us against him, us against the outsider.”
Then Saul does the most incredible thing: he hums a tune. in my opinion, it is quite a catchy one! Even so, I have never known him to be particularly musical. On his lips, the notes are bungled. Not only are they out of step with the way you expect to hear them—but they impart a flavor, the bitter flavor of jealousy.
The words sound vague, they are barely expressed—but everyone around us knows what is rattling in his throat.
“Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands...”
Is that a threat, glinting in his eyes? I tell myself it isn’t, it cannot be, and promptly forget all about it—until much later.
How Much for a Princess
Chapter 12
How do you explain the twists of his mind, the turns of his heart? Madness is not enough. I mean, it must have taken devious scheming on his part to dangle me on his rope this way and that, so I would wind up in a cloud of dust, uncertain about my future, uncertain about Merav.
If this is confusing to you, imagine how I feel!
Let me recapture what happened. First, when I asked for the hand of his elder daughter in marriage, he gave me his silent consent, which for a king is the same as giving his solemn word. Almost.
Then Saul pretended to forget who I was—only to remember me all of a sudden when I showed up in his palace with Goliath’s head, which made him change his mind on the spot, and propose that I marry her, on condition that I fight God’s battles.
Now that is a lovely term, meant simply to excite the troops by glorifying what happens in those bloody skirmishes. So, despite having a soft spot in my heart for her, I got cold feet. Who can blame me? The deal was up in the air, so to seal it the king slapped the title military commander on me, together with the title future son-in-law, and sent me out to yet another battlefield.
Rise to Power (The David Chronicles) (Volume 1) Page 9
