“It’s now I know I must go.”
“This is no place for you.”
“We must part ways.”
“Must we?”
I grant him, “This is no place for either one of us—But I can’t take you with me, Jonathan. That would place you in even greater danger.”
“I know it.”
“Stay by your father’s side, but keep a safe distance from him.”
“Go in peace, then,” says Jonathan, “for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’”
Then I turn, and I walk away, never once looking back at him, nor at the palace. With each step I am listening to the clatter of hooves fading away as Jonathan rides back to that place, the place I used to call home.
The King of the Land
Chapter 19
Recently I have discovered that telling lies comes easily to me. Why? Because as a poet, my mind keeps searching for ways to embellish reality, and dress it up with fine, flowery words. By tilting it into fiction I can make a hidden, yet profound truth shine through, so you may see it. Of course, I would never use my God given talent, I mean, the talent of altering fact into fiction, merely to fool others—unless I am left with no other choice, which sadly is the case right now.
Having sent word to my band of outcasts to join me I must now plan to provide for them. The most urgent need is food, and I know it because hunger gnaws at me, it turns in my stomach with such a sharp edge as to drive any lesser man to insanity. I try, as best I can, to ignore it—but then, glancing at my reflection as I bend over a brook to drink, I see the wolfish glint in my eyes.
From there I go to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest, because men of God are supposed to feel some compassion for the needy, right? Before I can open my mouth to ask for a favor, he comes forward to face me. I cannot help chuckling, because he looks like a miniature version of our old prophet Samuel, which tells you a great deal, because Samuel himself is rather tiny, and shrunk like a dry prune.
Ahimelek comes forward trembling, which makes me wonder, is it his age—or else, fear? Perhaps he is alarmed to see the stubble on my chin and the tattered rags I wear for cloths, from which he detects the unmistaken scent of a fugitive.
No, I tell myself, that cannot be it. I am a musician, a poet whose words inspire the soul. How can he shudder at my sight? It must be something else, perhaps the fact that he spots one of Saul’s servants—Doeg the Edomite, the king’s chief shepherd—coming into the sanctuary at the same time as me.
Pretending to ignore him, the priest leans into me.
“Why are you alone?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. “Why is no one with you?”
Without missing a beat I invent that which has never happened. I say, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I’m sending you on.’ As for my men, I’ve told them to meet me at a secret place.”
“Oh,” says the priest.
For a minute our eyes meet, and he knows that I know that he is only pretending to be convinced.
“Now then,” I say, “what d’you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
He shakes his head, which is somewhat difficult to tell, because he is shaking all over.
“No,” he insists. “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand.”
“Really? No ordinary bread?”
Seeing the disappointment on my face, Ahimelek is quick to add, “There is, however, some consecrated bread here.”
I know instantly what he means, because in the priestly code, consecrated bread is described as twelve loaves baked from fine flour, arranged in two rows on an altar standing before the Lord. Right now I am hungrier than anyone, hungrier than God, even! I figure I can ask forgiveness for taking His bread as soon as I wolf it down.
So I say, “Quick! Give it to me!”
And the priest, who is charged with protecting what belongs to the Lord, and would not give it up just because someone else is famishing here, comes up with a new way to withhold his generosity. “I can give it to you and to your men—provided that they have kept themselves from women.”
Of course, purity is last thing to weigh on the minds and hearts of my bandits. So this time it is my turn to say, “Oh.” But I cannot bring myself to say it. Truly, it infuriates me that the priest expects me to swallow what he has said, and go away hungry. No one would believe that my men have kept themselves from women, so I ask myself, how about the opposite?
And I tell him, “Indeed women have been kept from us.”
“Really?”
“Sure! That’s usual, whenever we set out. The men’s bodies are holy, even on missions that aren’t holy!”
The priest cannot find anything to say to that. In spite of himself he reaches, ever so hesitantly, over the altar. He picks up the consecrated bread, and his fingers quiver a great deal as he hands it to me. He may be expecting a bolt of lightning to come down at me straight from heaven, any minute now.
I shove a piece of it into my mouth and ask Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because—believe it or not—the king’s mission was urgent.”
He says, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here.”
Knowing how heavy it is, I am slow to respond.
He takes a step back, into the sanctuary. “It’s right there,” he points. “Behind the ephod.”
He raises the flap of a linen garment, woven out of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet threads, and embroidered with fine skill in gold thread. Behind it I see the sword lying there, wrapped in a cloth like a corpse.
“If you want it,” says the priest, “take it. There is no sword here but that one.”
And I say, “There is none like it. Give it to me.”
*
Saul has a long reach. He can scare every one of his subjects into handing me over to him—but even he would be the first one to admit that there are limitations to his power, which now I must find. So I ask myself, what is the one area he would never dare to enter? What is the safest place of refuge for me? And to my amazement, the answer presents itself at once: the enemy stronghold.
The Philistine city of Gath.
The Philistines are one of the sea peoples who wandered here from some faraway islands beyond our shores. They settled along the coast around the same time our forefathers settled in the Judean highlands. In this promised land, which is mostly desert, resources such as fertile stretches of soil are severely limited, which explains the conflict between them and us to this very day. It is a long, bitter history of war, harking back to the old days of our Samson, their Delilah.
Is it that conflict—and my role in it, as the slayer of Goliath—that make my presence here quite unsettling to them? During my days in Saul’s army I used to watch the city from afar, and from time to time, attack it.
Gath is a flourishing place enclosed by a sturdy, thick brick wall. At the center of the city is a royal administration center consisting of palaces and temples, ruled by someone about whom I know very little: Achish king of Gath. His palace walls are unusually broad, much more than the other structures, so as to sustain our military assaults.
What surprises me—now that I find myself inside the city, walking its streets—is the smell of the sea, which comes sneaking around to pervade you, wrapped in a breeze.
And one more thing: the chatty sounds of this language, of which I know only a few words. It sounds lovely, coming out of the mouths of babes, and so intimate coming out of the lips of the large, voluptuous Philistine women. I wish I understood them. Perhaps they are trying to warn me.
I should have thought twice about coming to Achish’s court, but it is already too late. A servant opens the gate, and his eyes bulge upon seeing me. I tell myself that no, I am not all that famous�
��even though the possibility that I am is quite flattering. Perhaps my hair style annoys him, especially the hair on my chin, which can no longer be called a stubble. It must look a bit unkempt to him.
He says something which I take to mean, “What d’you want?”
“To pay tribute to Achish,” say I.
The servant points his finger out, as if to say, “Go away.”
And I shake my head, “No,” because really, where else can I go? I must come in, must gain the favor of his king, so that my stay here would be not only accepted—but also protected by him.
The servant nods, I smile. He shakes a fist, I shrug. He stamps a foot, I bow. He stomps away, I follow. He rolls his eyes and puffs his cheeks to show me that his patience is wearing out, I roll my eyes and blow my cheeks even puffier than his. Finally, unsure what to make of all this he lets me in—not before calling four guards to surround me. And so, escorted by them, in I go.
The servant demands to see my hands. “Any weapons?”
I spread them open before him. “I come in peace.”
The entrance leads to a large hall, partly covered with a roof supported on a row of columns. The first thing that catches my eye is a collection of fine Philistine pottery, decorated in shades of red and black on white slip. The second: a circular hearth in the center of the floor, paved with pebbles, with benches and podiums facing it from all directions. It is on these benches that Philistine advisers are idling about, waiting for something to happen.
As I enter the court, many of them exchange looks. A whisper spreads out, and it goes on spreading until tramped by the sound of a trumpet.
All rise! Achish is here.
He enters the court and without losing a beat, two of his closest advisers rush towards him. I can only guess at what they say, and I do so by watching their movements.
One of them stretches up to reach his ear, while pointing to me. “Look, your majesty! Isn’t this David?” He gestures mockingly at my head, at a crown of air around it. “Isn’t it him, the so-called king of the land?”
And a second one asks, “Isn’t he the one the Hebrews sing about, in their dances?” And with insult in his voice, which twists the original tune in a way that is entirely new to me, he starts humming.
He can barely speak Aramaic, yet he goes on to mangle the song even more by trying to get his tongue around the words, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands...”
Achish says nothing at first.
With deliberate movements, he mounts the throne. There, at the top of it there is an etching of Dagon, the fish-tailed icon of the Philistines. Now both king and god gaze at me, and they seem to do it with a mix of suspicion and dismay.
Meanwhile, both his advisers take turns jeering at me, flapping the wings of fat under their arms, and raising the pitch of their voices from one phrase to another. “Saul has slain his thousands—”
“And David—”
“And David—”
“Oh, yes, David! What about him?”
“Let’s sing his praise, let’s sing a hymn—”
“For the king of the land—”
“He’s so bad—”
“Let him reign—”
“It’s plain, he has slain—”
“With his own bloody hands—”
“Down there in the sands—”
“With barely a stain—”
“He has slain—”
“Thousands?”
“No, no! Don’t you know? He’s stronger than Saul!”
“Stronger than everyone, big and small!”
“He’s slain tens of thousands!”
“Our walls shake, shake and fall!”
This performance makes everyone burst into laughter. Some of them step forward from behind their podiums, others slide off their benches. One by one, they come down to the center of the floor, and start hopping all about, faster and faster around the circular hearth, and shout my name. The hall fills with echoes of the original tune, performed with a twist of mockery, which makes my blood boil.
More than that, I start to seethe with anger, because as jolly as this flattering song might sound to you, it puts me in trouble: first with Saul and now once again with Achish.
So I use my growing irritation to my advantage: I pretend to be insane. After all, I have learnt from the best, having worked such a long time in the court of a madman. Here I am, in the hands of these Philistines, so what choice do I have but to act like a lunatic?
With my fingernails I scratch at the walls, and make marks on the doors of the gate, all the while letting saliva run down my beard. They go on making fun of me, so I figure I might as well join their performance.
I break into their midst, hop onto the center of the hearth, and kick its pebbles till they fly out every which way. Then I sing with bold ecstasy at the utmost top of my voice, “David! David! David!” and point my fingers, glaring at everyone around me, and at Achish most of all.
And for a grand finale I roll my eyeballs around in their sockets, and let out a terrifying wail, which silences each and every one of them. Alas, it takes the wind out of me, so I fall to the floor, where I start convulsing, with just enough breath to let my lips twitch.
They cup their ears, bending over me to listen. One of them manages to guess at my words. I wheeze, “Slaying his tens of thousands... Thousands... Thousands…”
And with spasm, again I cry, “David! David! David!”
Achish glances at his advisers, and they bow their heads down, some in shame, others in confusion.
“Look at the man,” he points. “He’s insane! He’s stark raving mad! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”
It is then that the four guards close in on me. They take hold of my limbs and carry me—spread eagle—out of the palace, and throw me out into the street, where a large, voluptuous Philistine women helps me to my feet and dusts off my knees and my shoulders.
I smell the salt of the sea on her perfume, which is left in the air even after she has turned from me. Because of a moment of dizziness I cannot recall her face. The only impression left in me is the curve of her thigh, as she has swayed her big hips to walk away.
I wish I could speak her language. I wish I could tell her, before she disappears completely into the crowd, “I am no Samson—but like him, I find myself desperate, so desperate to touch you.”
Oh, how glad I would be to make my peace with you, city of Gath! I wish to bury my head in your soft, white sands, and listen to the breakers rolling in from the sea, and never once think of having to come back here one day to conquer you, because your children have humiliated me, my beautiful enemy, my Delilah.
But return to you I must. It is in my heart, and in my tired, aching limbs, because revenge never stops. It never ceases to spur all of us into spilling each other’s blood.
In the Wilderness
Chapter 20
I listen, perhaps too intently, to any signs of political upset. You may think nothing of such signs. They may be nothing but everyday words to you—but I find great significance in them, and why? Because I am desperate. My path to power has been blocked. Yet this I know: if the king’s throne topples, even a commoner can reach for the crown.
Waiting for my spy to come back, here I sit, under a tamarisk tree overlooking the barren hills.
I wonder, how can it withstand the dry, harsh conditions of the Negev desert? Perhaps by sucking up salt from deep ground water, accumulating it in its foliage, and letting drops of dew wash it down to the soil, where a ring of bitterness spreads around it, bitterness so intense that it becomes harmful to other plants. This way, the Tamarisk tree invades their space and depletes their water, so that none of them can take root next to it, which reminds me of Saul.
I wish I could stay here forever and lose myself in these thoughts, instead of being always on the lookout, always r
eady to spring to my feet, so I can lead my bandits to the next hiding place at a moment’s notice. If only I could close my eyes and listen, and hear the Jordan river flowing into the Dead Sea, and see the trees bending over it, with their green, floppy palms slapping each other with every gust of wind… That sound would have been the loveliest lullaby.
With a sudden swoosh, an arrow comes flying overhead.
I flatten myself to the ground, and watch it coming until it splits the highest branch of the tamarisk tree, which is when I hear a voice saying, “Better luck next time!”
“Wait,” says another voice, “let me try again—”
“Joav!” I call out. “Tell the men to go practice someplace else.”
Making his way to me, Joav deflects another arrow as it shrieks by his ear.
“Ha!” he cries back to them, gleefully. “That one was closer!”
And to me he says, “I swear, you’re going to be so proud of them! You look a bit pale. Are you all right? Would you like them to bring you some water?”
“No,” say I, hoping he cannot hear the tone of dismay in my voice. “Not that again.”
He turns to the others, shouting, “Keep it down, guys, you’re annoying him! No more shooting!”
The other day, while we stayed in the cave of Adullam, I made the mistake of admitting my thirst, because I had a sudden longing for the taste of home, I mean, the taste of water from a well near Bethlehem. And before I could finish the sentence, three of my mighty fighters sprang into action.
They forced their way past the Philistines, who occupy the town these days. Then, my men drew water from the well and brought it back to me. They were eager for a reward, or failing that, for simple word of praise, and even though I could just imagine the clear, sweet taste of that water, I had to teach them a lesson. I raised the cup high and poured it out, to discourage such feats, such reckless acts of courage, from happening on my behalf ever again.
Joav cups his ear in is hand.
Rise to Power (The David Chronicles) (Volume 1) Page 15
