Ahinoam restrained a protest. Understand! Why, the song was as clear as Goliath’s mirror-pool. Like most Israelite poets, David couched his language in metaphors from nature, but it was clear to her-and certainly to her son-that Jonathan was the ihis and that he had no need to confront the winds and rivers of war because David had come to protect him.
David seized Jonathan’s hand. “Why do you want to fight Goliath? You haven’t a chance against him! Probably nobody in Israel has. It would settle nothing anyway, even if you killed him. Goliath’s boast that he would let us depart is meaningless. He’s not a seren, just a hired mercenary. The Philistines pay him with gold and women to fight for them. We would still have to fight Philistia.”
“If I slew him, the Philistines might lose heart. Remember at Michmash how they panicked when Nathan and I pretended to be an army and took them by surprise in the night?”
“But you couldn’t slay him.”
“David, I have to fight Goliath. He’s always been evil and he threatens my mother.”
“You’re speaking of fever dreams,” said Ahinoam hastily, preferring that even David should not know the truths which she had told her son. “They are often lies.”
“I’m not talking about a dream,” said Jonathan, forgetting the reticence of half his life, forgetting the Israelite view of people with wings. “It’s what you-”
Fortunately, Saul and Abner interrupted Jonathan’s confession. Saul, though pale and gaunt, had temporarily mastered his demon and resumed control of the army.
‘I am pleased to see my son improving so rapidly,“ he said. ”Our young David here is good for him, it seems. And you, Ahinoam. You too have helped to make him well.“
“But not well enough to fight Goliath.”
“Has my queen become my general?” he asked with gentle irony. He knew that she was intimately familiar with all of his battles, and he sometimes resented the fact that a woman who looked like one of the old Cretan queens languishing in a garden of blue lotuses should have a warrior’s-indeed a general’s-knowledge of war. Still, he sometimes forgot his resentment and addressed her as an equal.
“Your queen is whatever you choose,” she said.
“The men are deserting by the hundred. They can face Philistines but not this hired horror.”
Ahinoam shuddered. “I know. Someone must fight him, and soon.”
“I will fight him,” said Abner. She liked the man; loved him, in fact, as one might love a father or an uncle. When Saul was mad, Abner commanded the army with quiet and self-effacing skill. When Saul was well, Abner advised him in such a way that every decision seemed to belong to the king. Israel could not afford to lose such a man.
“How many times must I forbid you from such a folly?” said Saul. “Israel loves you as a second king, and I-” confession did not come easily to him-“I depend on your counsel and love you more than my brothers.”
Jonathan pressed his father’s hand. “The demons of fever are no respecters of war. First Goliath, then me. But I am much, much better, Father. Soon I can face Goliath.”
‘The demons have blessed you,“ said Saul. ”Otherwise, not I nor all of my army could have kept you from battling that giant“
“You think I would lose?”
“He could lift you over his head with one hand and toss you across the stream. Even in my youth I doubt that I could have slain him. Do you want to join Nathan in Sheol?”
“At least I would have good company,‘ said Jonathan with surprising bitterness.
“Such words are not worthy of the man who will succeed me as king of Israel. You should turn your thoughts to the mountains and not the Underworld.”
“Forgive me, my father. The fever has left me with a sharp tongue. I am sorry that you and my friend David should hear-”
“He has gone,” said Ahinoam quietly.
“Where?” asked Saul with surprise. Musicians and armor-bearers did not as a rule leave his presence without permission.
“To meet Goliath, where else?”
Alone, in a ring of acacia trees, Ahinoam prayed to the Goddess:
“Lady of the Wild Things,
Harken to my prayer…
Send death to the deadly,
Love to the lovely and loveless.
I, Ahinoam, queen over Israel,
Though an exile from my husband’s tent,
An affront to your fecundity,
Offer to you
My youth,
My beauty,
My life.
I, Honey Hair,
Sometime queen of green magic,
Offer to you
My sweet and eternal hope
Of the Celestial Vineyard.“
CHAPTER SIX
When David left the tent, his intention was clear: to fight Goliath. His expectation was equally clear: he would die in the fight. But Jonathan was sick, Saul was weak, Abner was old and inexpendable, and none of the stalwarts of Israel, the victors of Michmash, had offered to meet the giant. It was not only his size; it was not only his savagery. It was his single balefully glaring eye which leagued him, in the Israelite mind, with Lilith, Night Stalkers, Walk-Behinders, and other supernatural being spewed out/ of Sheol by Yah-weh’s wrath. Such beings were not the figments of superstition; one of David’s friends from Bethlehem had met a Lilith in a mountain cave and fled before she could lure and vampirize him; a couple from Gibeah had found a dwarf with horns in their baby’s crib.
“Yahweh preserve me,” he whispered, since Yahweh, whatever his limitations, was the lord of battles. Expressly against the god’s commandments, he had sometimes worshipped the silver-tongued Ashtoreth, but perhaps the god would forget his apostasy and use him as a means to save his chosen people (and David’s chosen person) from the Philistines.
Like all good shepherds, he was used to danger. He had fought with bears and lions, storms and floods, marauding Midianites on camels and local thieves on foot. Invariably he was terrified at first, since he lacked the blind, brute courage of his older and less intelligent brothers, but fear worked a curious chemistry in his body. He was young and middling in height, but now he felt as tall as Goliath. Furthermore, even though logic told him that the giant was unconquerable, he remembered that high-walled cities like Jericho had fallen to a motley band of wanderers out of the desert. It was as if his veins ran lava instead of blood.
Terror, then courage, then a cool and logical assessment of the problems at hand: such was the pattern in David; such his skill as a fighter. How could a boy fight a being twice his height, with bronze armor and iron weapons and a single-minded lust to kill and dismember? David himself owned neither weapons nor armor. He wore a tunic given to him by Jonathan, figured with bears and foxes, and the garment would bring him luck in the fight and companion him. But he must companion the tunic with suitable weapons.
“David,” Ahinoam called. He paused to marvel at the speed and grace with which she overtook him. He had never seen sweat on her face. He had never seen dirt on her hands. She could survive the discomfort of a day-long ride on a donkey’s back and look as if she were dressed to undress for a fertility rite. The scent of her was like sea spray and ambergris. Where other Israelite women, including Rizpah, muffled themselves in woolens against the heat and the heat of men’s desire, she walked in silken transparencies like the wings of a dragonfly.
“You’ll need weapons. Jonathan is sending you his armor by Saul.”
“But how did he know-how did you know I meant to fight Goliath?”
“I saw it in your face. So did Jonathan. Surely you know by now that we can look into your heart. Jonathan wanted to stop you, but Saul prevented him and posted a guard outside his tent.”
“Do you want to stop me?”
In the shadow of a tamarisk tree, her eyes looked gray and sad and ten thousand years too old for her bountiful body. As if she had seen the coming of the Sea Kings to Crete. The building of the great pyramids. The Hyksos invasion of Egypt…
> She shook his hand. “David, David, you must see that Jonathan cannot fight. Or Saul. It has to be you. You have more power than you know.”
“You think I can kill Goliath?”
“The oracles are silent of bells. Even the gods, perhaps, are undecided. You see, my dear, you come from a land which worships Yahweh, but you fight a people who worship Ashtoreth. And I, even I, am sometimes divided between them, the Lady of the Wild Things and the Lord of the Mountain-tops. But I think that in all of Israel only you have a chance.”
“Why, my lady?”
“Because you are beautiful and the Great Mother deplores the broken bird, the drowned dolphin. Because you fight for Jonathan, who is dear to Israel, which is dear to Yahweh. Because, for what it is worth, I will fight with you in my heart.”
“The men say you brought green magic from Caphtor. The double magic of sea and forest.” (He started to add: “They also say that you once had wings.” But it would be like saying to one-armed Caspir, “They say that you once had another arm.”) “Is it true, my lady?”
“Magic is knowing the moods of the gods. Which to please and how. Perhaps I have magic with Ashtoreth. Her moods are like the tides or the phases of the moon. She is a goddess but also a woman; a woman but also a mother. Unpredictable but in the end compassionate. With Yahweh, who knows? Being a local god, he is readily offended. I will leave it to Saul to woo his favor.”
“Do you think he will listen?” Supported by Rizpah, Saul had overtaken them. “I have it from Samuel himself that Yahweh has gone from me.” He turned to address David. “My son, your music has brought me peace. I do not ask that you give your life as well.”
His great height and immensely broad shoulders bespoke a time when he had been king in truth, though fevers and madness had wracked him to a shell which even his robes could not conceal. He was old, proud, dying Jerusalem, gray of wall and tower, haggard from many winters, a ghost instead of a presence, but still defended by the Jebusites.
“For a long time I kept my father’s sheep,” said David. “Once a lion came after them and carried off a lamb. I went after him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth, and I caught him by the beard and slew him.”
Saul shook his head. “Your confidence is admirable, but Goliath could kill a dozen lions.”
“The Lord that delivered me out of the paws of the lion will deliver me from Goliath.” The words did not come easily to him; though born of that pious tribe, the Benjamites, he did not understand his god. But he wished to give Saul a reason to let him fight.
“Go then and the Lord be with you. But first we must find you some armor.” He signaled to the guard in front of Jonathan’s tent: “Bring my son’s armor and weapons. All of it so that David may take a choice.”
Sword, helmet of brass, and coat of mail: how could he bear such weight and wield such a weapon, he who had always fought with his hands or at most with a staff?
“They won’t fit him, Saul,” said Ahinoam. “Jonathan is taller and slimmer.”
“What do you know of such things?” Saul asked wearily.
“Was I not with you at Jabesh-Gilead?”
(She is robed in chrysanthemums. Daisies spring when she walks and caresses the earth. And yet she speaks like a warrior…)
Saul gave a little sigh. “Yes, Ahinoam. You were with me then, and now.” He moved as if to touch and perhaps embrace her but, remembering Rizpah, dropped his arms to his side.
(He is still in love with her, but Rizpah is comfortable, and the old need comfort more than passion. It is hard for advancing age to confront eternal youth.)
“I’ve never worn armor before,” said David. He lifted the sword and wished for a shepherd’s staff. (“When I am well, I will teach you to use a sword,” Jonathan had said. “When I am well…”). “No, my lord, I must fight him without armor.”
Saul spoke with puzzlement “But these things belong to Jonathan. The best in Israel next to mine.”
“I would feel as if I were walking on the bottom of the sea. Goliath would trample me into the ground and hang Jonathan’s armor, together with my head, on the walls of Beth-Shan.”
“What do you know about the sea?” The question was almost an accusation.. “Only what I have dreamed. I have never seen the sea.”
Ahinoam took Saul’s hand. “Dreams are often warnings. Trust him, my dear.” Saul removed his hand and pain, like a seagull’s shadow, fleetingly crossed her face. Thus did goddesses grieve beneath their masks.
Rizpah, standing apart from them, smiled her human and pathetic smile. “My father was once a shepherd. He was also a fearsome fighter. Let David do as he chooses, my lord.”
“How do you want to fight him?” Saul demanded.
“The only way I know.” He returned the armor to Saul. “Please tell Jonathan that he has honored me with his offer. I will bring him the head of Goliath.”
Ahinoam embraced him as if he were Jonathan. “My second son, come back to me in triumph.”
“I love your son,” he said. “It’s only for him and you that I can do this thing.”
“And for you, we say, ‘In the midst of battle, remember the sea.’”
Rizpah shyly patted his shoulder; her hand was plump and heavily jeweled with rings of gold and garnet; her robe a garish mingling of red and orange. Beside Ahinoam she looked like a painted and aging whore instead of a king’s concubine; pathetic and therefore lovable.
“My son, may Yahweh go with you,” said Saul, an old man remembering youth. “Now I must get my sling.”
– He went to look for his brothers and found them chatting with a young Philistine across the stream. After a month of waiting to join battle, a camaraderie had grown between the two armies, and, enjoying the benefits of a common language, Philistine chattered with Israelite about the respective merits of Yahweh and Ashtoreth; the hills and the sea coast; sleeping under the sky or under a tent.
“We worship Ashtoreth too,” Eliab was saying, “so long as Samuel isn’t around.”
“You don’t know how to worship her properly,” said a Philistine youth. “You keep your robes on.”
“We have heard that your priests and priestesses disrobe and couple before your very eyes,” Eliab said, with the look of a hungry man.
“And we participate. Men and women, men and men, women and women. Take your pick, so long as you lie with someone you truly love. Why do you think our fields are fertile in spite of the winds from the sea? Because we please Ashtoreth, that’s why.”
“We can’t even enjoy a woman in private-not even a wife — for three days before a battle. And as for a man lying with a man, why, Yahweh would smite them both with a thunderbolt or turn them to pillars of salt!”
The Philistine grinned and clapped a passing friend on the back. “He sounds nice a grouchy old god. He’d do a lot of smiting in Philistia. Sin and retribution and pride. We don’t think about such things. Yahweh says don’t. The Lady says do. I expect she will give us the victory, what with Goliath on our side.”
“He smells. Even across the stream.”
“And steals and rapes. But he sleeps a lot. And he’s better than a hundred chariots. And you without a champion to go up against him.”
“No,” said David quietly.
“David!” Eliab cried. They had not even met since David became the king’s armorbearer, and the big brother was no longer the big man of the family.
“No what?”
No. We’re no longer without a champion. I am going to fight Goliath.“
Eliab and Ozem and Nethanel-and the Philistine across the stream-looked at David as if they did not know whether to greet him as a hero or a fool. In Bethlehem, as the youngest member of the family, he had been a shepherd when his brothers went to war. Now, by the grace of Yahweh, he was the king’s armorbearer; and furthermore, in place of Jonathan, he was preparing to fight Goliath. David was tempted to swagger and play the hero, but a fight in behalf of Jonathan was not an occasion for pride.
“I’ve come for my sling,” he said.
The three brothers gaped at him as if they had not heard his request. Finally Eliab said:
“You may use my sword.” It was his one precious possession.
David shook his head. Then, impulsively, he hugged his brothers in turn and was deeply touched to find tears on Eliab’s face, and to hear Nethanel stifle a sob. None of Jesse’s sons could read or write except David; they were fighters and herdsmen, with neither learning nor wisdom nor wit But they were good young men, devout in their worship of Yahweh, and sometimes David envied their simplicity.
They stared after him and shook their heads as he walked toward Jonathan’s tent.
He found the prince on his couch, flushed with the remnants of fever and drenched with sweat. David sat beside him and pushed him gently onto his back. Jonathan had the body of a runner, not a wrestler; smooth and slim instead of knotted with muscles. His face showed lines of pain, but he was singularly beautiful even in his illness; inhumanly beautiful, like his mother.
“You’re going to fight him?‘
“Yes.”
“I should be the one.
“And so you will, Jonathan. You will fight through me.”
Quite unintentionally, and so quickly that Jonathan could neither respond nor refuse, he bent and kissed the fevered cheek. He rose and fled from the tent, without looking behind him till Jonathan called his name, once, softly.
“David.”
The word would be his armor.
When he returned to Saul and Ahinoam, he was still wearing Jonathan’s tunic, with two additions-a small sack suspended from his shoulder and a sling in his hand. The usual Israelite sling was no more than two narrow strips of leather sewn together at one end into a small pouch for holding a stone. One end the slinger held; the other he tied to his wrist; and he flung the stone with sufficient force to stop a bear or a lion but not a giant David wisely preferred an Assyrian sling, a gift from a cousin who had fought as a mercenary for the Wolves of the North. Both sturdier and deadlier than the Israelite sling, it was a single strip attached to a leather cup. He would hold the strip toward the middle, whirl the sling, and then, with a slight twist of the wrist, release the stone with the speed, force, and accuracy of long and intensive practice. Such a missile could not pierce armor, but it could strike the forehead, the forearm, the ankle below the greaves, and wound or even kill. In Assyria, so he was told, it was the usual practice to wound and then, with the foe either limping in pain or stretched on the ground, make the kill with a sword.
How are the Mighty fallen Page 8
