slavering jaws; a worthy foe for a great hero; and ended by becoming so enthralled with his tale, which was both martial and bloodthirsty, that he failed to notice the small crowd which had gathered around him. When he finished his psalm-still unpolished, of course — there was uninhibited applause from a dozen listeners. Israelites loved music. They entered a battle to the blast of a ram’s horn; they had toppled the walls of Jericho with trumpet blasts; they danced ecstatic dances to flutes when the spirit of Yahweh descended upon them; and those who forgot their own religion often participated in the fertility rites of the Canaanites-the people who had ruled the country before the explosive arrival of the Israelites-and danced until the fever in their blood drove them to lie with strange women or, a particular abomination in Yahweh’s eyes, with beardless youths as pretty as girls.
The next man who approached David was entirely gray, but he did not seem any particular age, even to a youth of seventeen. He seemed somehow beyond age, disease, death. He stood as straight as a shepherd’s staff and his eyes were clear and blue and penetrating and his tunic was spotless and neatly spun of Egyptian flax. At first David mistook him for Saul, whom he had never seen close at hand (he never saw anybody important in Bethlehem).
Instinctively he fell to his knees. The man smiled; it was a kindly smile. There was a sadness about him, as if he had loved the wrong woman; David imagined him being scorned by a haughty Egyptian princess and sorrowing for her until he died. It did not occur to him that the man might simply be a farmer-turned-soldier like Saul who hated to kill.
“Stand up, boy. I’m not Saul, I’m Abner, the king’s cousin. But I’ve come from Saul, who would like to hear you play. He caught some snatches of your song-something about a lion, was it? — and he wished for more.”
“But I’m only a shepherd,” David cried. “How can I play for a king?”
“You are a shepherd, it may be, but you are also a musician with a rare gift. The king is-how shall I say? — troubled. You might ease his spirit.‘
David was, distinctly disappointed with Saul’s tent Somehow he had expected to find that the black sheepskin walls concealed the riches of an Egyptian palace, with naked temptresses languishing on marble couches, and a soft fountain spraying the air with myrrh, and trophies of battle, a human head on a stake, perhaps, beside the door. But it was, after all, only a warrior’s tent and one which was furnished with a sparseness amounting to asceticism. A tired old man, clad in a gray robe without adornments, reclined on a wooden couch with no cushions, and a woman, painted but not provocative, bovine in fact, lounged at his feet. Saul’s wife, of course, was neither in the camp nor in the tent Since Rizpah had replaced her in Saul’s affections, she had remained in the town of Gibeah, the capital, revered by her people even while she was rejected by her husband. At David’s entrance, Saul lifted his head and said, both lucidly and kindly, “You’re the young musician I heard. Will you play for me?” Then his head, with its sharp pointed beard, sank onto his chest and cobwebs seemed to pass over his eyes. He looked like a man exhausted with fever.
David looked at Abner. “What shall I play, my lord?”
“You may dispense with the ‘lord,’” Abner said. “Play something about Yahweh and his forgiveness. The king has great fear of his god.”
“Play something about Yahweh,” Rizpah echoed, with the look of a ruminating cow. “Saul feels he has disappointed his god. He has not been harsh enough toward the enemies of Israel.”
David and the entire country knew that when Saul was bidden by Samuel to smite the Amalekites and spare neither man nor woman nor child, he spared King Agag and it remained for Samuel to execute the Lord’s command.
Such a stupid woman, thought David. How could Saul choose her above Ahinoam? Once only had he seen the queen and thought her carven from gold, so still and perfect she seemed, and yet with the heart of a woman, for he had seen her weep. (A boy with his herds, he had seen a tall, beautiful lady walking in the hills near Bethlehem. He had taken her for a goddess and feared to show his face. It was after Saul had sent her from his bed.)
David played a psalm which he had learned in his childhood. He played well because he pitied the king:
“Like as a father pitieth his children,
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
For he knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.
As for man, his days are as grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;
And the place thereof shall know it no more…“
At first there was no response from anyone in the tent. He looked around him with sudden panic; he felt as if a lion, unseen but sensed, were poised to spring upon his flocks. How had a lowly shepherd from Bethlehem presumed to play for the king of Israel? It was then that Rizpah began to weep and Saul raised his head. The king stared fixedly at David through eyes no longer clouded; indeed, they had become judging, calculating, concluding. He was a basically simple man, David decided, forced by the duties of kingship into complexities which would baffle the wisest of pharaohs. He must lead an army; he must rule a court; he must pacify the Lord and try to placate Samuel. Now, thought David, humble beneath the cool appraising stare, he must even judge a shepherd’s performance with a lyre.
“You must play for me again,” said the king.
“I have to return to my father tomorrow,” said David. “He sent me here to bring some cakes and cheeses to my brothers.”
“Your father, you say? Jesse of Bethlehem, is he not? I know him well. A good and loyal subject who has sent me three of his sons. Can he not spare a fourth to please his king?”
David reconsidered the invitation. “I have four other brothers at home, and a sister to help my mother.” The chance to hurl a spear as well as play the lyre was irresistible. “It may be-”
“Consider it settled,” said the king. He smiled, and the perfect white teeth looked strangely young in the scarred and aging face. The pointed beard usually gave him a fearsome aspect, but now he appeared indulgent, Yahweh after he had fashioned the earth and taken his ease on the Seventh Day.
“He is too young to fight,” Abner said firmly.
“I have need of an armorbearer. Let him first learn his duties in the camp. Only then shall he go into battle. Meanwhile, he can play his lyre for me in the evenings.”
Rizpah smiled winningly-her mouth was large and her teeth were blackened from chewing betel nuts-and she offered David a tarnished silver bracelet which she stripped from her wrist. There were no coins in Israel; business transactions were made on the basis of produce, copper ingots called shekels, or bracelets of metal and stones. In short, she was paying him for a performance.
David shook his head. “I did not play for hire.”
Abner smiled and clapped him on the back. “Rizpah intended a gift, not a payment. But young boys, especially armorbearers to kings, need tunics and sandals more than bracelets.” He ushered him from the tent. “Later we will find you a corner to sleep in. And fresh garments. Go now and get your things. You have pleased the king greatly. But always remember. His moods are as changeable as the desert-and as dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid. Will I get to meet Jonathan?”
“Jonathan is often with his father. He will no doubt help to instruct you in your duties.”
“I would like that,” David said.
“Would you?” said Abner, musing. “Jonathan has need of friends.”
“But he can have any friend he chooses. He’s the hero of Israel!”
“It is very lonely to be a hero, especially at the age of twenty. He needs someone who will talk to him and not up to him.”
– Thus David became Saul’s armorbearer, but before he had learned to fight, the battle of Michmash was fought and won by Jonathan’s stratagem and Abner’s strength and only a lack of supply wagons and chariots prevented the Israelites from pursuing their foe to the sea. After the battle, David cleaned the iron-tipped spears of the king and his son. The metal was new to Israel, but the two spears had been captured from the Philistines.
“Enough of that,” said the king. “A child can clean a spear. Only David sings like Gabriel.”
He sang the psalm which he had written for Jonathan, and Saul seemed immensely pleased to hear his son applauded as the hero of such an adventure. Even as he sang, David attempted to further understand his king: You would rather be flailing wheat on your boyhood farm than ruling a court. It is neither pride nor vanity which drives
