How are the Mighty fallen

by Thomas Burnett Swann

  “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.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The sunflowers stood as tall as a man, field after field of them, their faces like those of young golden gods; Jonathan’s face multiplied to infinity. When will he come? When will he come, bringing his own dear presence and Saul’s forgiveness? For three days David had lived in hiding, sheltered by night in a small summer house trellised with grapevines, amid a vineyard adjacent to the flowers. It had been a brief exile… It had seemed like forty years in the Wilderness.

  He heard their voices before he saw them, the low, soft accents of Jonathan, the high, piping voice of the Midianite lad, who had broken his leg on a raid and was left to die, till Jonathan found him and trained him to carry his bow.

  “I will shoot the arrows at yonder knoll,” said Jonathan.

  “When the last arrow is fired, fetch them for me, Pepi, and return to the palace. My father has asked me to inspect his vineyards for him.”

  The child sighed; he wanted to stay with his master. “May I inspect them with you? My father was a vintner before he became a raider.” (David, impatient, tore a vine from the wall and kneaded the green pulp in his hand.)

  “Not this time, Pepi.”

  “I’m always being sent somewhere,” the child protested. “You won’t even let me fight the Philistines with you. Or chase the rene-renegade David.”

  “David is an exile, not a renegade. You would love him if you knew him as I do.”

  “I do know him, and I don’t like him at all. You were always with him until he married the princess, and he never even noticed me.”

  “Do as I say. Now.” Jonathan’s authority was quiet but implacable.

  Twang, twang, twang, sang the bow, like a hoarse-throated lyre, as it sc
attered its arrows to the right of the knoll.

  “Ah, my aim is off today, Pepi.”

  “Perhaps my lord drank too freely at the Feast of the New Moon,” Pepi teased him.

  “Perhaps,” said Jonathan, and David imagined the kindly smile, the pat on the boy’s shoulder from one whose greatest intoxication had come from love.

  Jonathan approached the summer house with careful, measured steps, lifting a vine aside from the path, pausing as if to inspect a tumbling trellis. Pepi, though out of sight, could still hear Jonathan’s steps and he must not suspect his prince, who had “come to inspect a vineyard,” of racing across the fields to meet a renegade. Eons seemed to pass, the world was spun out of chaos; Adam too, and Eve from Adam’s rib; in the time which Jonathan took to join David.

  They had been separated for a mere three days, but they looked at each other as if some change, some diminishment of love, had been wrought by the separation; and then, reassured, embraced with a wild and tender yearning.

  “You have grown thinner, my brother,” said David. “Do you bring ill tidings?” Sunlight above the trellis dappled Jonathan’s hair. (Even the sun is jealous of his gold. It must summon shadows to dim the wonder.)

  “Your fears have come true,” said Jonathan. “My father wishes you dead. He has told me to kill you.”

  “Why?” asked David. “Why, Jonathan? I would have served him until I died!”

  “He is envious because the people love you and sing of your exploits when they meet at the wells. After you fled, he accused us again of plotting treason against him.” “And the other?”

  “He said nothing, though I think it was in his mind. I thought at first: His threat of treason is the jealousy of a madman, and his madness will pass. But the madness has indeed become the man. He supposed us allied against him with the Philistines. Why, he even hurled his spear at me! Fortunately his aim was poor. Ahinoam spoke to him then; she had come from her house in the country when she heard of his wrath against us. She reminded him of Michmash and how I had helped him to win, and how he had summoned you to sing for him from your father’s flocks. At first he called her a whore of Ashtoreth-he must have been thinking of Rizpah, who fluttered her hands in her usual helpless way. But she looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘You may call me a whore all you like. Yahweh knows, I’ve had reason to become one since you sent me from your couch. You may hurl your spears at me and wave your hands in rage. Nevertheless, I will swear at the cost of my life to the innocence of my son Jonathan and his friend David in any plots against your throne.’ Her anger quieted him. He slumped on the throne and muttered, ‘Go now and leave me in peace, all of you.’

  “For three days I tried to see him-in vain. I was always told by his guard, The king is sleeping,‘ or The king is taking his ease against the heat,’ or The king is planning his winter campaign against the Philistines. Today he sent this message: ‘Return to my court with David’s head on a stake.’” “It is a clever and persistent demon which haunts him,” said David. “Even you and Ahinoam are feeble exorcists in such a case. His madness allows him to do the things which his natural kindness forbids. He is very strong. But Samuel sapped his confidence and filled him with fear of Yahweh. Made him feel guilty when he was guiltless or show cruelty when he would have liked to be kind. And the demon flourishes. But what of Michal?”

  “She is shut in her quarters. Saul refuses to see her, because she took your part. I called to her window from the ground. She said: Tell David to send for me in the heat of day or the dead of night I will arise and follow him even to Sheol.”

  “If I had loved her better, perhaps it would not have gone so hard for her. At least she would have had a blither memory during my exile. I have not used her well, Jonathan.”

  “You were a kindly deceiver, David. She always believed that she was first with you. Would you have wanted to love her best?”

  “I would change nothing. I regret nothing except that we did not meet as boys. I chose a god above a mortal, and mortals must weep. It is the condition of life.” He looked into his heart and saw how little he loved the princess, how easily and guiltlessly fooled her; how many women he would love and forsake, if only because they loved him.

  “Are the gods exempt from tears?”

  “Divine tears are silent and dry. The cruellest tears of all.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Jonathan. “When the Lady created men, it is said that she wept because there was no man without his sorrow. She stood above the world, outspreading her wings like a cloak to enfold her creation. ‘My tears will fall like rain and water the parched and thirsting fields, and my people will know of my love,’ she thought But her tears were dry and she found and gave no solace. ‘I will give them the gift of laughter,’ she said, ‘a lantern to scatter their shadows.’ And only then she found peace.”

  “It is a lovely tale.”

  “It is also true, I believe.

  “Such things may have happened once. But the gods must have died or forgotten. Or why do they shake the world, hurling storm against town, sea against land, Philistine against Israelite; separating lover from lover?”

  “They nod, to be sure. Or wish to punish or test us. But this I know. Ashtoreth listens and sometimes she answers. Even in exile, David, speak her name and show her your heart.”

  “I will speak your name, Jonathan, for you will go with me. In Egypt, Israel is known as the Wide Wilderness, not as the Promised Land. Saul and his army will never find us among the scorpions. Remember that I was once a shepherd. I can live in a forest or on a desert. You have shown me how to strike water from rocks. My father showed me how our ancestors caught the resin of the tamarisk and called it manna. Follow me, Jonathan. Why should we part because of this vicious demon in Saul? One day you will be king, and Saul will find peace in Sheol.”

  “I ask only a garden in which to build elephants out of stone and a sea to sail or swim in, and David to be my friend. I will sit near your feet in the court. And we will hunt and fight together and our people will call us the Twin Archangels. But you, not I, will be king and your sons after you.”

  He argued vehemently against the truth. “Do you think that all this time I wanted a throne? Courted favor with Saul, married Michal?”

  “It is what you want and deserve. It is what I want for you. Protect my mother and sisters and brothers and I will serve you until I die.”

  “And your children as well.”

  “I will sire no children, I think.”

  “Yet you lay with the Witch of Endor.”

  “She will not beget. There is an herb she takes.”

  “You have my promise. But why do you talk as if we were never to meet again? You will surely come with me into the Wilderness. Without you, I am afraid.”

  “Why, you never feared anything, David! At first, perhaps. But not at the confrontation. Not even Goliath once you had loaded your sling. I’ve watched you enough in battle. I ought to know.”

  “I fear loneliness. You are to blame for that.”

  “Wherever you go you will find new friends.”

  “Friendship is love without wings. I have asked you to join me. You have given no answer. I beg you to join me.”

  “I can’t, David.”

  “You would have gone before, when Achish asked us,” he cried. He wanted to shake him or strike him for his obstinacy. “Do you mean to return to court, where Saul has tried to kill you?”

  “I have learned to anticipate his spears. There is a certain look he gets in his eye. Perhaps I can help him to fight his demon.”

  “He isn’t even your father.”

  “He is the only father I know. When I was a little boy he taught me to draw a bow and duel with a sword, and I was proud to make him proud of me. I still love what the demon has not destroyed. I still love the kindness hidden deep within him, like the water at the bottom of a well, under a weight of sand. But most of all I must see to the safety of my mother and Michal. Both of them hel
ped in your escape and earned his wrath.”

  David’s tears were dry and mute, and yet in that secret ark of the heart which has no name, unless it is called the Holy of Holies, he was strangely glad. It seemed to him that Ashtoreth, or the Mother behind the Mother, or whatever power decreed the fates of men, had offered him one perfection, like a jacinth with a hundred glittering facets impervious to time and change. He who had been a shepherd and then a prince must now become an exile, but he would carry the jacinth with him and neither thieves nor dust could corrupt its immortal fires. But the gem would flaw and yellow unless its match was possessed by the beloved. It was said by the elders of Israel that always there is one who embraces and one who opens his arms to receive the embrace. He did not want an unequal love.

  “Remember me,” he said. “Remember me when you take a wife and bear children and march against the Philistines.”

  “Once I was a little boy who slept under a warm coverlet with his toy animals. Then I was a youth who played at war with other youths in purple helmets. I was not happy, but I knew no other life. Then I met you. I have asked myself whether it was better before you came. The long hours of dreaming in my tent. The undemanding love I bore for Nathan, my armorbearer. There was loneliness, yes, like a dagger wound that nags and will not be healed. But not like this-this wound I think is almost mortal. Still, I do not want to be healed and I do not want to sleep.”

  “How will it be when both of us sleep? Even Samuel, they say, descended into Sheol. Will we meet as shadows in the land of shades? Or is Sheol barred to us by Yahweh?”

  “She was once our queen, your ancestress.”

  “In the Cretan palace where I was a little boy-so my mother says-there was a tall alabaster image of a lady with outspread wings. Sometimes the water lapped around her feet, but it never touched her gown.

  “‘She was once our queen, your ancestress,’ my mother said.

  “Her wings fascinated me. What did she do with them?‘ I asked. (For all of our people had lost their wings, except for the little stubs you have seen on my back.)