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 scattered 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
