Thomas Swann - How are the Mighty fallen

David too had reason to rejoice. Had he not, a shepherd from little Bethlehem, accomplished a miraculous friendship and a royal marriage? But there was a locust in his manna. He had wounded Jonathan. The prince’s smile was frequent but forced, and his gaiety seemed to come from a skin of wine. When David and Michal walked in the garden, Jonathan fled from the palace to visit his mother. When David played his lyre before the king, Jonathan pleaded weariness and withdrew to his silent room on the second floor and communed with Mylas, the bear. Michal, though inexperienced, was a passionate and desirable bride. But David, the bridegroom, was more dutiful than desiring. To the man accustomed to gold, can silver suffice? Is water the equal of wine?

After a week of marriage, David was a thirsty man. He was also a troubled man when he surprised Jonathan leaving the palace as unobtrusively as a servant who has stolen a casket of gems.

“My mother is alone in her new house,” said Jonathan with a look of heartbroken resolution. He carried a leather bag and a bowl for feeding his bear. “I’m going to visit her.”

“But you visit her almost every day as it is. And Naomi sleeps there at night.”

“This time I’m going to stay. Besides, Naomi is deaf.‘

“When will I see you?” cried David.

“I'll come back for Mylas.”

That’s not what I mean.“

Jonathan said without reproach, “David, you chose.”

“But you knew how it would be. It’s only for a little while that we can’t be alone together. Hush now. Here’s Michal.”

She had not overheard them. “Jonathan, my dear, where are you going?”

David answered for him. “He is going to visit your mother and then go hunting for that lion the shepherds have been complaining about. It’s killed a hundred sheep. Dearest one, I would like to go with him. It isn’t fit than Ahinoam should be forgotten in our happiness or that Jonathan should risk his life without his brother beside him. Remember, I have much experience with lions.”

Michal sighed and enfolded David in a warm embrace.

“You’re right, my love. Men need other men for company at times. A man wearies if he lounges about a palace with the womenfolk. Visit my mother and then go on your hunt Jonathan misses your company. Next to me, he loves you best.”

Jonathan brightened like a child with his first goatcart and kissed his sister tenderly on the ear. “We shall bring you the skin to make a rug.”

Refusing armorbearers, they began their journey on foot before sunrise and walked in the rare communion of silence.

Finally Jonathan turned to him and smiled in the old gentle way. “Be patient with me, my brother. For a little while I was first. Second is not yet enough.”

“Michal is second,” said David without hesitation. “How she would grieve if she knew the truth! How much I like her, how little I love her. Every morning she looks at me as if I were going to battle and might not return. Once I mistook her for you and almost called your name.” “Do you think she guesses how it is with us?” “No,” said David. “If we were Philistines, perhaps. But in Israel it is almost unthinkable that a shepherd should prefer a prince to a princess. She takes us only for friends, and so do the people.”

Jonathan smiled with mischief and squeezed David’s hand. “It is fun to sin with you, David. After all, I am a Cretan drone, not an Israelite. How can I love against the custom of my race?” It was his one failure in conscience.

“We love as we must,” said David, pleased to have cured his friend of guilt.

They stripped to swim in a stream and lay on its banks to dry. Jonathan did not try to conceal his wings, small, golden, and perfect, like slender flames at his back. He resembled a fallen angel who did not lament the loss of the sky. Their fingers touched and passion flared between them.

“I don’t want to die,” David cried with a vehemence close to rage. “To to a shadow in Sheol-is it not a terrible thing?” “All men die, people like us first of all. The little folk sometimes hide in their hovels for many years. But death seeks out the palaces and the princes with cruel thoroughness. We have to go somewhere after death. My mother speaks of the Celestial Vineyard, but I was reared as an Israelite like you, and wherever you go I want to follow-or lead.”

David shuddered at the prospect of Sheol. “I expect we shall be poor company for each other. But shadows can meet even if they can’t speak.”

“I don’t like shadows,” said Jonathan. “I don’t like the night. Perhaps we can somehow climb to the Vineyard.”

“Your mother says it’s beyond the clouds and the stars and the reach of the Sky God. Do you think your poor little wings could lift you so high? And what about me who have none at all?”

They did not hear the approach of Philistine soldiers. Abruptly a voice said, more with amusement than threat:

“David, son of Jesse, and Jonathan, son of Saul. I see that it is Ashtoreth you serve now instead of Yahweh.”

The young men jumped to their feet. They were surrounded by soldiers who looked less ominous than curious. They pointed at Jonathan’s wings and one of them whispered to his mate, “From Caphtor, I warrant. A Siren’s son.”

A man of middle years, dressed in a purple tunic and a white sash, with a large amethyst ring on his middle finger, confronted them with a smile.

“Is it my Lord Achish of Gath I address?” Jonathan asked. They had met from a distance in battle but never crossed swords.

“It is he.”

Achish was seren of Gath, a man more renowned for his strategy than his sword, more at ease in a palace beside the sea than on a foreign battlefield. He looked like a bard and, in fact, was said to have written an epic about the earthquake which had sent his people on their wanderings to Crete and then to Philistia. It was impossible to guess his age. His hair was gray, but there were no lines to mar his shaved, sun-bronzed face. He smelled of myrrh; his blue tunic was unblemished and unwrinkled even on this hot and dusty day. He would have looked at home on the deck of a ship or ruling an island humped like a giant turtle and murmurous with Tritons. David liked him.

He stared at Jonathan’s wings with admiration. “I had guessed that the prince of Israel belonged to the Old Ones. His mother’s beauty, to say nothing of his own, is fabled even in Philistia, and my great-grandfather knew such beings — Sirens are you called? — on Caphtor. Sometimes we even glimpse them on the coast of Philistia.‘

“Are we your prisoners?” Jonathan asked. “If you wish to take me because I am, as you say, a Siren, I will yield to you. But I must beg you to release my friend. He need not suffer because of me.”

Achish smiled. “You have heard that in Philistia we keep the Old Ones in pools or cages and show them to the multitudes. It is one of the lies told about us in Israel. No, Jonathan, you and your friend are safe from us, and for other reasons as well. Philistia is not yet ready to resume her war with Israel. We do not like to fight. We will not fight until we know that we will win, and if we could find another homeland! — an island with neither earthquakes nor invaders- we would sail away from your bleak little country forever. But I have this to say to you, David and Jonathan. You serve an old, mad king who would kill the both of you-yes, you too, Jonathan-if he knew the nature of your love. In Philistia, however, the Goddess’ own son is the patron of male lovers. Come then and stay with us in our land. We will give you a walled city, Ziklag, and you shall help us to fight against the roving Amalekites who harass our borders and graze their camels among our vines. In peaceful times, you may visit the sea and inspect our ships and-who can say? — voyage to foreign lands in search of apes and ivory, frankincense and nard. We do not ask that you march against your own people when Philistia and Israel resume their war. Only that you do not fight with the Israelites against the Philistines.”