Thomas Swann - How are the Mighty fallen

David studied this enemy who offered to be a friend. “You could have killed us while we talked. In spite of the reasons you give, you do not really need to offer us asylum.”

Achish smiled. “If I had killed you in each other’s arms, I would have angered the Goddess and her son, who have not been unkind to me in the past When I was young-how many lifetimes ago? — I had a friend like you. He died in a skirmish with Israelites, smitten, no doubt, by your forbidding Yahweh. But I have a long memory. My heart is a temple wherein I keep his image, perfect and immortal, like green marble. Could I murder my friend for a second time? Go now. We have killed the lion which was raiding your flocks. We heard about him from a shepherd boy and about the princes who hunted him, and I came hunting you. Invent a story for your bloodthirsty Saul. The beast had sprung at Jonathan’s throat and you, David, leapt on its back and broke its neck with your bare hands. You Israelites, so direct and practical in other ways, love such stories and never question their truth. Your famous Samson was a simple-minded rustic who lay with a painted whore. But your poets have changed him into a national hero who loved a woman with the face of a goddess. I ask only that you do not tell Saul about the Philistines wandering in his borders. Have I your word?“

“You have my word,” said David.

“And mine,” said Jonathan.

“Come then, both of you, and let us embrace as friends. The gray hair, the red and the gold.”

“The Goddess was truly with us,” David said, when the last Philistine was a stir of wind and the susurration of dust.

“I wish,” said Jonathan, “that we could have gone with him. We could still overtake him if we ran.”

“There would come a time when we might have to fight our own people, in spite of his promises. He speaks only for Gath. There are four other serens.”

“We could have seen the sea together.‘

But Samuel had mentioned a throne…

“Perhaps when our armies drive to the sea. Now we must return to Gibeah.”

– Before they returned to the palace, they visited Ahinoam’s cottage. She, the great queen, more beautiful than Ruth among the sheaves, was tending violets beside her door. She rose and smiled and held them in a single long embrace.

“Is it well with you, my sons?”

“We miss you, Mama. You must be lonely here.”

“Saul invited me to stay in the palace. I asked for this house because of Rizpah. Sometimes I pity her. She fears that Saul will return to me and I wished to set her at ease. Yes, it is well with me, if David and Jonathan are friends.”

“We are sometimes together,” said Jonathan, “but in the palace-”

“Ah, my son. The nights are long for the lover without his love. But you can endure the cold chaste stars if morning brings sun and David.”

“I could almost wish for war,‘ said Jonathan, the peaceable. ”Then we could share the same tent and fight as one.“

“No, my dear. The Goddess designs our lives. She helps us to grow our crops, to build our houses, to make of the forest a friend. Yahweh disrupts her plans with his petty wars and his jealous concern for one small nation. Do not tempt Sheol”

Rizpah smiled like a child and patted David’s cheek. Michal examined his arms for claw marks and marveled at how he had killed the lion and saved her brother.

“Samson from the wars!” she cried. “But I am a poor Delilah.”

“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.