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.”
