taken to a place of darkness where the voice of Alecto-he could not see her face-rang like a bell on a distant buoy.
“Lady of the Wild Things, Lady of Love,” Alecto whispered, “grieve for a grieving mother and a friend who was more than a brother. Make of their grief a monument to love and raise the spirit of Jonathan, prince of Israel, from the netherland which is Sheol.”
He had waited before a battle with fear upon him. He had waited before he met Goliath with a horror of timelessness, with the feeling that Joshua had stopped the sun and every water clock had ceased to drip. It was worse in this land with no name. He will not come. The old magic is dead. No more does Ahinoam swim in the Great Green Sea nor Alecto sit on the rocks and comb her labyrinthine hair, nor Jonathan ride the dolphins. No more does the terebinth tree enfold its house as if it were a nest against the storm. Like a plague of darkness, the time of the Cyclops has fallen upon the land, and where is Joshua to recover the sun?
Mephibosheth took his hand and said in a small, brave voice, “I came too, David.” He limped in a linen robe which fell to his feet, hiding his wounded knee, and each little foot thrust back and forth, back and forth, like the feelers of a snail. In his free hand, he carried a lamp like an opening chrysanthemum.
“Mama told you she would try to call my father. I heard her. I wasn’t asleep at all. I want to see him too.”
“But how can we find him, Mephibosheth?” David cried, clasping the child’s hand.
“I will call his name. Maybe he will hear us. Papa, it is I, Mephibosheth, and David, your friend. Help us to find you, for we have lost our way!”
In a place without stars, in a place without name, Jonathan came to them out of the white dusk, parting the mist as one parts the flaps to a tent. An arrow clutched at his chest and blood cobwebbed his face.
“Jonathan, my brother, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you, David, but I cannot see your face.
“Your son is with me. It was he who called to you.”
“Is it well with you, my son?”
“Yes, Papa, so long as you speak to me.”
“David is your father now. Look after him as if he were me. He is sometimes sad and you must be like a cricket on his hearth, singing a merry tune to make him laugh.”
“I will do that, Papa.”
“What is this place?” David asked.
“No-Land, wherever that may be. Yahweh has not forgiven my love for you. He has barred me from Sheol.”
David grasped for his hand and his fingers closed on air.
“Perhaps the Goddess will help you reach the Vineyard.”
Jonathan’s smile, ineffably sweet, unspeakably sad, was like a stone from a sling in David’s breast “My wings are memories. How shall they lift me out of this well of night? Even the air is a wet embrace.”
“Ashtoreth,” David pleaded, lifting his arms toward a sky which he could not see. “At least let us touch him, Mephibosheth and me!”
Momentarily the shadow held shape and substance, the dear configurations of the beloved, and David grasped his arm.
“David, David, I can see you at last and feel the warmth of your hand. And you, my son. My two blankets against the cold. David, it was a happy time we had together at Elan and Gibeah.”
“It was not enough,” shouted David. “What is a world without Jonathan?”
“The world must be ruled. Who but my friend, anointed by Samuel, shall rally the scattered armies of Israel?”
Form melted into mist, mist eddied into white and estranging dark.
“Jonathan, wait for me. How shall I find you again?”
“Recover my body and that of my father and brothers from the temple to Dagon at Beth-Shan and give us decent burial. Perhaps you will find a sign…”
– He sat on a couch between the two women, in the cramped room, in the cramped world. Mephibosheth lay in his bed looking at them with large green eyes.
“I saw him,” said Ahinoam. “He smiled and spoke and reached out his hand to me. But I could not even touch him. And you, David?”
“Mephibosheth was with me. Even Yahweh has no quarrel with a child. Both of us held him for a little moment. Alecto, can you raise him again?”
Sadly she shook her head. “It is not possible. Now you must let him rest. Sleep is the only blessing left to him.”
David embraced her and smelled the salt from the sea, “If Samuel’s prophecy should come to pass that the anointed should rule”-he could not bring himself to speak his own name-“then the witch and the sorcerer will once again be welcome in Israel.”
“He is in Sheol?” Ahinoam asked uncertainly. “I could not be sure.”
“He is in No-Land,” said David. “It is worse than Sheol. There aren’t even shadows to keep him company.”
“David, David, what shall we do?” The old eyes in the young face besought his answer. Her question deferred to his strength, but he felt like a lost and forsaken child. She, she should know every answer to every question. She was the queen, she was the Siren, immortal of beauty, powerful even in ruin.
“He told me to find Saul’s body and those of his sons and give them decent burial. They are in Beth- Shan.”
“Nailed to the walls of a temple.” She shuddered. “It is the Philistine way. But how can we enter an enemy town without an army?”
“The Philistines are drunk with their victory. No one will think to guard the bodies.”
“We cannot go alone. We cannot carry the bodies.”
“When he first became king, your husband defended the town of Jabesh-Gilead against the army of Nahash, the Ammonite. The people swore fealty to Saul and his descendants. They fought with him gallantly in his last battle, but some, no doubt, escaped and fled with Abner among the hills. They will doubtless retreat to their high- walled town. Let us go there now and ask their help.”
– The walk was long and difficult; a Night Stalker flew at Ahinoam out of a tamarisk tree and David beat him to death with his bare fists and cast him at her feet. All of the night and all of the following day they walked toward Jabesh-Gilead, the city as old as Cain; sometimes they hid in caves or hovels from the marauding Philistines. There was little to steal in the huts of the Israelites, and the beauty of Israelite women, dark and voluptuous, was not to the taste of the victors, but victory was wine to them and drunkenness made them cruel. Ahinoam hid her gold beneath a rustic’s robe, and David dyed his hair with the brown ocher from the banks of a stream. Sometimes the natives knew them by the way they walked, or the way David moved his arms, with rapid, sure motions, always the slinger, or the way Ahinoam never lowered her eyes, even to face the sun, and gave them provisions and water until they came at last to Jabesh-Gilead, which, like a grim but kindly spirit, guarded a fertile valley of vineyards and olive trees.“ The town was wracked by grief over Israel’s loss, but Ahinoam and David, though kingdom-less, were greeted like a queen and a prince.
“We bring danger with us,” David was prompt to confess. “The Philistines have turned against me because I would not fight with them against Israel, and they would like to lead Ahinoam in chains through Gaza and Askelon.”
The answer was unequivocal. “We have our walls. We remember Saul.”
Ahinoam smiled with the old artless witchery of her youth. “You do us honor, my faithful friends. Yet we have more to ask. Listen to David’s plan.”
“You owe me nothing,” said David. “After my wanderings in the desert, I served the Philistines for three years. I dined with Achish, the seren of Gath, and ruled in Ziklag.”
“You are not to blame. It was Saul who hounded you through the wilderness and into the arms of the foe.”
“Nor was he to blame. His demon drove him to madness. Will you help me recover his body and that of his sons from the walls of Beth-Shan?”
